Monday, May 23, 2011

Cosco

Cosco -3% to $1.97 after Sevan Marine revealed that it was hit by setbacks with 2 of its trademark cylindrical FPSO vessels, which might delay the award of 2 floaters worth US$525m each. Cosco signed a LOI with Sevan Drilling for 2 semi-submersibles in Mar this yr.

Sevan is facing rising cost of upgrading Sevan Voyageur, which has escalated from US$90m to US$135m while Sevan Piranema is plagued by commercial uptime due to continued problems with the vessel’s compressor systems & may require improvements costing US$25m. Both of these FPSOs were built at Yantai Raffles (hull) & Keppel Verolme (topside integration).

Adding to the bad financial tidings, Sevan incurred a US$48m loss in 1Q & has some liquidity issues with debts of US$900m & is looking to carry out a rights issue to stabilize its balance sheet. This follows the recent spin-off of Sevan Drilling at the low end of its targeted offer price due to lacklustre investor interest. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of exploration & drilling activity, which could support the rig business.

Separately, Xinhua news agency reports that audits have found irregularities in financial statements of 17 Chinese SOEs including CNOOC, Chalco, Cosco & China Unicom for FY09. By Mar this yr, 735 cases of irregularities have been corrected & 65 people responsible for the irregularities or violations have been punished.

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