Getech reduces losses and cuts workforce

Getech has seen volatile times in oil markets

The Leeds-based group made a loss of £380,000 in the six months to January 31, down from a loss of £700,000 the previous year.

The group said it embarked on a programme of wide-ranging corporate change over the six month period.

Under the leadership of new CEO, Dr Jonathan Copus, the senior management team has changed and costs have been significantly lowered.

Non-executive chairman Dr Stuart Paton said: "Our goal is to build out from our core upstream oil and gas market to become a leading solutions provider to the wider natural resources industry.

"We are targeting an expanded customer base that invests billions of dollars each year making decisions that are geographic in nature and which require specialised analytical skills and tools, to solve problems that involve highly complex spatial data.

"We believe that key to unlocking this potential is the use of our world-class expertise within geographic information systems (GIS) and our relationships in this sector."

The firm said it now has a new organisational structure, with the customer at the heart of its decision making.

"As we work to diversify Getech's profits, our earnings today originate largely from oil and gas and exploration," said Dr Paton.

"Within this market, we have observed that greater crude oil price stability and lower costs have opened a margin against which companies are becoming increasingly confident to invest.

"The first beneficiary of this trend is production and development. As such, although our customer conversations are positive, exploration budgets remain depressed. Industry redundancies have also made the geoscience consulting market more crowded."

The group said software subscription renewals are strong and its customer list now totals 39 companies.

Getech worked for the governments of Lebanon, Mozambique, Namibia, Pakistan and Sierra Leone over the six month period. Closer to home, it won a mandate to deliver a multi-faceted spatial data strategy for the UK Oil and Gas Authority.

The firm said that revenues from the mining and nuclear sectors are diversifying its earnings away from oil and gas and it is also working with Transport for London and Scottish Water.

First half revenues rose 23 per cent to £4.1m.

The group said that service activities bore the brunt of the job losses and the full cash benefit of these steps will not be realised until the second half of the financial year.