Augean to protect North Sea arm from fall in price of oil

Finance director Richard Laker said: “The North Sea Services business had a stonking year. It grew EBITDA by 50 per cent. It’s an extremely strong performance that has continued despite the prevailing macro-economic headwinds.”

The Wetherby-based group is in the process of “multi-skilling” workers – training up skilled offshore workers to take on a wider scope of work.

Group revenue rose 26 per cent to £55m in the year to December 31 and pre-tax profits increased 22 per cent to £5.4m.

Augean’s CEO Stewart Davies said 80 per cent of its top 20 customers are now tied to the company on a contract or framework basis

The company said it has made significant progress in switching revenues from short-term to long-term contracts, which has provided increased visibility for the order book.

“We’ve seen a very strong start to 2015 and the North Sea is mitigated to a large extent,” said Dr Davies.

“This is the new strategy we announced this time last year. The five businesses are all growing strongly – both revenue and profit. This is what we promised. We’ve delivered and there’s a lot more to come.”

The group announced a dividend of 0.5p per share, an increase of 43 per cent.