Acting CEO Alasdair MacDonald said it was 'an excellent performance, especially in Brazil, that has been achieved against challenging trading conditions'.

Revenue was up 8.3% from £369.9m to a record £400.7m, including £14.6m (2008: £13.7m) from discontinued onshore operations.

The onshore business was sold to Prime Natural Resources in September for £19.6m, generating a profit on disposal of £5.0m.

Profits were impacted by generally lower margins in the Offshore business, as well as an increase in lower-margin installation revenue to £55.3m from £13.6m.

Offshore revenue grew by 8.4% to £386.1m from £356.2m, driven by continuing ramp-up of production in the Brazilian Niteroi facility and increased installation revenues, offset to some extent by a fall at the Newcastle facility.

A weaker product mix, primarily in the Newcastle facility, and a generally deflationary environment for input costs caused a reduction of 19% in the average revenue per normalised kilometre of offshore pipe.

Profit before tax excluding £5m of restructuring costs was £47.8m, down 38.3%. Diluted EPS fell 34.6% to 34.2p from 52.3p.

Cash from operations rose 26.7% to £62.7m from £49.5m. Net debt was reduced to £38.7m from £65.8m.

Chairman John Kennedy said the rapid fall in oil prices at the end of 2008 and the financial crisis in the first half of 2009 significantly interrupted the investment phase and pace of offshore developments outside Brazil.