Insituform Technologies Inc.(T&TI, July, p14) has posted its third quarter results for 2005 with the news that the tunnelling segment of its business has continued to incur operating losses due to negative margins on certain projects.
Overall, compared to last year, the company has reported an increase in gross profit of 2.5% to US$26.6M, but the tunnel business saw revenues decrease 0.7% to US$35.7M compared to 3Q 2004. The situation is US$1M worse than last year as the tunnelling business stream posted an operating loss of US1.3M for this financial report.
Insituform said the 2005 tunnelling results were favourably affected by the recognition of US$2M in net claims compared to US$1.5M recognised in the same quarter 2004. It said it would continue to “aggressively pursue a number of claims against third parties, which had a gross face value of approximately US$17M as of 30 September 2005”. Approximately US$4.9M in claims receivable was outstanding at the end of September.
The company’s tunnel contract backlog has decreased by 39.3% compared to September last year due to the “focus on completion of existing jobs and improved, more selective bidding practices that are designed to obtain profitable work in alignment with tunnelling’s core mining competency”.
