Aker Solutions has accepted a 336 million kroner ($49 million) net loss for the fourth quarter of 2008, down almost a billion kroner ($140 million) on rig-building cost overruns and the accounting result of a re-negotiated decommissioning job with Total.

The loss was incurred despite fourth-quarter operating revenues of 15.45 billion kroner ($2.25 billion), up four percent year-on-year.

Revenues for the year were up slightly to 58.25 billion kroner ($8.49 billion), although profit for the year fell 38 percent to 1.5 billion kroner ($218 million). “The negative result in fourth quarter is isolated to the Frigg and H-6e (rig) projects,” said chief exec Simen Lieungh, adding, “Apart from this, we are pleased with the performance, the second best in our company's history.”

Lieungh pointed to the company’s subsea results, which showed quarterly earnings were up by about a third over the same-span a year and had reached 376 million kroner. Revenues were up by a quarter over the same span to 1.23 billion kroner.

Aker Solutions said it had acquired “short term predictability based on” its order backlog of 58 billion kroner ($8.46 billion), although the intake of orders in the final three months fell away by some 770 million kroner ($112 million) year-on-year.

Tags: Aker Solutions