Aban Offshore sees surge in receivables from Iran after sanctions eased out

Company receives $51 million in Q1 as against equivalent money in 2015-16

As the sanctions are easing out against Iran, Aban Offshore has said that it started receiving payments from the country.

S Srinivasan, senior vice-president, Aban Offshore Ltd said that the last whole year of 2015-2016, the company received about $51 million from Iran whereas in the first quarter itself the company has received around $51 million.

"But still we have about $260-270 million as of July 31 to receive from Iran," he said during an analyst call recently.

Queried whether the company is expecting the entire receivables to come down to normal situation, he responded saying: "It may not happen in four to five months, but we hope the trend will continue."

He added, the company is taking the help of all agencies to collect the receivables.

Earlier, the company also said that it started talking with the Iran government to get more contacts so that it can deploy its rigs in Iran waters, which is one of the oil rich countries in the World.

It has been in talks with companies in Iran are as far as contract deployment is concerned including several subsidiaries of National Iranian Oil Company, who are the company's client. That is even the rig Deep Driller 2 and Deep Driller 4, after they have finished their previous contract there was no job, which is available but after the recent negotiations the company got them redeployed.

Earlier the company said that if the lifting of sanctions on Iran, the largest market for jack-up rigs, will make it possible for the Company to deploy rigs profitably as well as optimising the insurance premia.

Around 35 per cent of the company's revenue comes from the five rigs deployed in Iran. The suspension of the sanction would help the company to improve its working capital situation.

The insurance cost, which is around nine per cent of the operating expense would reduce, which would help the company to increase its profit. The removal of sanction is also expected to increase the demand of jack-up rigs globally, said an analyst earlier.

On the first quarter performances, C P Gopalkrishnan, deputy managing director & chief financial officer, Aban Offshore said that it was one of the very tough quarters the company had faced and while the company had only four rigs in Singapore system working, this resulted in a loss of Rs 181.5 crore for the quarter on a lower revenue of Rs 481 crore.

The company has got a two year deployment for Aban Abraham on effective rate of $117,000 and it is likely to work for ONGC by October quarter.