SHARES IN Irish engineering group, Kentz, traded up yesterday after the company announced a new €22 million deal with a long-standing customer in Abu Dhabi.
Kentz specialises in providing engineering, instrumentation and other services to oil, gas and pharmaceutical industries.
The Tipperary-based company announced yesterday that it had won a $30 million (€22 million) contract with Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd (Gasco) to replace the existing emergency shut down systems in two of its plants in Habshan in the emirate.
The news prompted some investor interest in the stock. It closed 4.5 pence, or 1.1 per cent, up at 403 pence on London’s Alternative Investment Market yesterday. Some tranches of its shares were bought at 403.5.
The contract will start this month and the work is expected to take two-and-a-half years and be completed through two shut downs this year and next.
Kentz has been operating in Abu Dhabi for almost 30 years and has worked on a number of major projects for Gasco.
The company’s chief executive, Dr Hugh O’Donnell, welcomed the award of the contract yesterday.
Gasco is 68 per cent owned by Abu Dhabi’s national oil company with the balance held by multi-national groups Shell and Total.
It has a large gas processing and distribution facility at Habshan in the south west of the emirate. The facility is a key part of the country’s infrastructure.
Midway through last year, it awarded $9 billion worth of contracts associated with an expansion of the facility.
Kentz floated on London’s AIM in early 2007. The company had profits of $44.5 million in 2009. It is due to release preliminary results for 2010 on March 28th.
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