Tuesday preview: Petrofac to see if steady rise can continue

17th Dec 2012 16:40

With the Christmas holidays getting closer, corporate results and updates are a little thin on the ground this week, though Petrofac is scheduled to report on fourth-quarter trading on Tuesday morning.Shares in the oil and gas engineering company have risen steadily recently - the stock is up 13% over the past six months - as the group has reiterated its target of achieving net profit growth of at least 15% this year.Investors will be looking to see how Petrofac's bullish backlog forecast given in October has fared towards the end of the year.Chief Executive Ayman Asfari said in the third-quarter statement that the company was "currently experiencing high levels of bidding activity, particularly in the Middle East, North Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Given this bidding activity and our competitive positioning, we expect to grow group backlog over the coming months."The backlog had risen to $9.4bn by the end of the third quarter (September 30th), up from $8.9bn at June 30th. For the year to December 31st, Investec is forecasting revenues of $6,600m, up from $5,801m in 2011, and a normalised profit before tax of $837m, up from $684m the year before.INTERIMS OSJC Center for Cargo Container Traffic Transcontainer GDR (Reg S), Park Group INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS ABC Consumer Confidence (US) (22:00) Balance of Payments (US) (13:30) Current Account (US) (13:30) Q3 OSJC Center for Cargo Container Traffic Transcontainer GDR (Reg S) FINALS Hiwave Technologies ANNUAL REPORT Finsbury Growth & Income Trust EGMS Datang International Power Generation Co Ltd., INA-Industrija Nafte D.D. GDR (Reg S), Lukoil 'B' GDR (Reg S) AGMS DotDigital Group, Henderson Far East Income Ltd., Paragon Entertainment Ltd (DI), Standard Life Equity Income Trust TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS Keller Group, Petrofac Ltd. UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Consumer Price Index (09:30) Producer Price Index (09:30) Retail Price Index (09:30)