Exploration business starts to see finances improve
Exploration business Getech has begun to see its finances turnaround after implementing a major restructure costing £500,000 but still reported an operating loss of £130,000 for its last financial year.
In the 12 months to 31 July 2017, the Leeds-based minerals and oil and gas exploration group enhanced its cash profitability and strengthened the commercial positioning. The firm says it has now stopped ‘nice to have’ activities so it can focus on its programme of core products and related services.
It has reported revenues of £7.7m for the year-end to 31 July, with an additional £800,000 sales closed relating to future deliverables. It experienced a 32% reduction in group cash costs but 11% expansion in product investment
Its cash balance stood at £1.7m, down from £2.8m the previous year, because if the £1m temporary cash timing effect and £500,000 redundancy costs. The firm also made £500,000 M & A payments for the ERCL Limited and Exprodat Consulting Limited acquisitions.
However, Getech reported an operating loss of £130,000 in the period (2016: £693,000 operating profit). This includes the cost of restructuring the business and a one-off accounting adjustment in 2016.
The firm said the start of the turnaround had been achieved by a new management team concentrating on cost control, customer engagement and the re-positioning of how it invests operating cash flow.
Getech has grown revenues in our core oil and gas markets and has continued to progress new opportunities their geoscience and geospatial skills can be added to new challenges in new sectors.
Dr Stuart Paton, non-executive chairman, said: “In the year to 31 July 2017, we worked for customers in the nuclear, water and transportation sectors. Although the revenue contribution of these activities is currently small, I am pleased to report that our delivery has won us follow-on work in each new sector.”
He added: “We continue to navigate what has been a fundamental rebasing of upstream exploration activity. We have repositioned or stopped activities that are ‘nice to haves’ for our customers, and focused our spending on an innovative programme of core products and related services. We see significant potential to broaden our activities and believe that key to unlocking this is the practical combination of our word-class geoscience and geospatial skills.
“Our goal is to build our activities within and beyond our core upstream oil and gas market to become a leading solutions provider to the wider natural resources industry; this being a 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. Harnessing these opportunities creates transformational potential for the Group.
“As we move through this exciting period of corporate change, I would like to thank Getech’s staff and my fellow Directors for their professionalism, hard work and dedication.”
