Gas and oil industry service company Petrofac which works with energy giants including Perenco and Centrica in the southern North Sea has seen its sales and profits grow today.

It's Great Yarmouth base - which employs 160 staff - is the service operator for UK offshore assets owned by Tullow Oil.

The company said it had seen good progress on its portfolio of projects during the first half of the year including first oil from the El Merk project in Algeria expected during the second half of the year and the South Yoloten gas plant in Turkmenistan and the Asab oil field development in Abu Dhabi are both on schedule for completion during 2013.

Ayman Asfari, Petrofac chief executive, said: 'We have delivered good operational and financial performance in the first half of the year and remain on course to deliver net profit growth in 2012 of at least 15pc.

He said: 'Our strategy for future growth is based on three key drivers: geographical expansion; broadening our offshore engineering, procurement and construction capability; and implementing our Integrated Energy Services strategy. As previously indicated, over the past few months we have seen delays in certain contract tender processes with a number of anticipated awards moving from 2012 into 2013. Whilst these delays impact the expected level of 2012 new orders for Onshore Engineering & Construction, we continue to expect our strategy to deliver earnings growth in 2013 and beyond.

'As a result, we remain confident of achieving our target of more than doubling our recurrng Group 2010 earnings by 2015.'

The company saw its revenue increase 20pc to �2bn ($3.2bn) and net profit up 32pc to �208m.