Rosemary ONUOHA

Caverton Offshore Support Group, a provider of marine, aviation and logistics services to local and international oil and gas companies in Nigeria, has won a two-year contract extension with Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited.

The feat is coming on the heels of its recent listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

The company is also expecting a brand new AW139 helicopter which will be devoted to its long-term contract with the Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC.

The company listed its 3.35 billion shares on the Nigerian bourse, making history as the first Nigerian oil services company to go public and increasing market capitalization by N31.8 billion.

It will be recalled that the Shell contract, valued at $648 million, is the biggest ever awarded to an indigenous company by the oil giant. The Shell contract opened the floodgate for Caverton, with more contracts pouring in from other oil majors such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total and Addax Petroleum.

In 2013, the company commenced its first international operation after it won the contract to provide passenger transfer and pipeline surveillance services to the Cameroon Oil Transport Company (COTCO), a subsidiary of ExxonMobil.

The expected aircraft was manufactured in Italy and is pre-equipped with the Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) camera, which allows airborne pipeline surveillance to be carried out and images streamed in real time to base stations. It also has thermal imaging systems which are used for surveillance and threat detection.

The Caverton team was at Agusta Westland’s factory early this month to inspect the aircraft and to ensure that it fully complies with the latest stringent requirements in terms of performance, safety and operational specifications. The aircraft is expected to commence operations before end of next month.

In addition to its listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Caverton Offshore Support Group announced its full year 2013 results which showed revenue increasing by 16% to N18.7 billion from N16.1 billion in the previous year, primarily driven by contributions from contracts from international oil companies. EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization) went up by 32% to N5.9 billion from N4.5 billion in Dec 2012 while the company’s net income rose by 40% to N1.9 billion from N1.4billion the previous year.