August 28, 2012

Muscat: Oman Cables Industry, a leading power cable producer in the Gulf region, said that it has received letter of intents (LOI) from large EPC contractors to supply power cables valued at approximately $32 million. The end consumers are renowned oil companies in the region, said the company in a stock market filing.

The cables are to be delivered over a period of next twelve months. This underscores OCI's successful approach of diversifying its marketing effort into non-traditional sectors, while retaining its core markets and channels. The income from these orders is in line with OCI's normal operations.

Shares shoot up
Oman Cable's shares shot up 6.35 per cent to 888 baisas amid 124,886 shares changing hand on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM). 

The company earlier said that the net profit of OCI (parent company) for the first half of 2012 was RO4.6 million compared to RO3 million during the same period in 2011, an increase of 53.1 per cent.

Other income of RO0.9 million includes a reversal of precautionary provision of RO0.7 million made for duty on certain exports in earlier years. 

Sales of OCI for the half year ending June, 2012 was RO112.1 million a decrease of 16.1 per cent over the same period last year. The fall in sales was mainly on account of a decline in the copper price.

The decreasing trend of sales witnessed during the end of 2011, continued in the first half of 2012, due to the slowdown in off-take related to the utility segment as well as delays on infrastructure project executions.

This affected plant utilisation on certain product lines during the period under review. However, there was a positive shift in product mix and healthy orders were captured from major EPC customers that enhanced profitability.

Oman Cables Industry has committed RO7 million towards capital expansion and up gradation programme for 2012 including a new manufacturing facility for a broader range of products to complete OCI's full range of low voltage power cables. The construction of the factory building will commence shortly and will be completed by the end of this year.

A further investment in a world class product reliability test centre facility in Rusayl to facilitate enhanced testing capabilities in line with the best International test methods, being first of its kind in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Middle East and North Africa (Mena), will be completed in the fourth quarter.

© Times of Oman 2012