Nautronix, the marine technology arm of oil tycoon Ian Suttie's business empire, has landed a £44m contract for its NasDrill deep-water positioning system.
Nautronix, the marine technology arm of oil tycoon Ian Suttie's business empire, has landed a £44m contract for its NasDrill deep-water positioning system.
Mark Patterson, managing director, said it was a "major order out of Norway" for two deep-water drilling rigs. He said the order book was healthy and would help maintain the momentum of a business which has refocused on the oil and gas industry in the past two years since the sale of its defence division.
He was commenting on the 2007 accounts just published, which show the effect of the disposal, slicing revenue from £25.6m to £8.9m, and pre-tax profit from £15.7m to £2.3m. Shareholder funds however increased by £2.5m to £14.3m.
Patterson said the business had grown pre-tax profit by a third to over £3m in the 2008 financial year just ended, and was in a strong cash position. The defence sale booked a net profit of £16.9m in June 2006.
The year saw the first commercial deployment of the NasNet acoustic tracking technology, and earlier this year it reported successful operations with SubSea 7 and a slew of orders which marked a milestone for the business.
Nautronix has invested over £12m in the past seven years in developing NasNet, including £1m in the last year. The system is expected to have added some £5m to turnover already, rising to £15m over the next two years.
Patterson commented: "Significant growth is coming through from this year in orders already placed. Nasnet is making some fantastic inroads, and we are very excited about where that can take us in the future."
Nautronix is moving to a rental model, where it sees huge potential for deep-water oil and gas rig deployment because of the savings it offers - ironically because of soaring fuel costs.
"Vessel costs are at a premium of $600,000 a day," Patterson said. "If NasNet can save a few days by turning on a black box, the savings can be huge."
He added: "Our investment in technology is significant in getting us to where we are - not many small companies are doing that."
