Petrofac shares slump after ex-exec pleads guilty to bribery

By Iain Withers and Kirstin Ridley

LONDON (Reuters) - Shares in British oil services firm Petrofac slumped almost 30 percent on Thursday after a former senior executive pleaded guilty to 11 counts of bribery in relation to oil deals in Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office said David Lufkin, a former global head of sales for Petrofac, was convicted over what the prosecutor called corrupt attempts by Petrofac to secure deals, via agents, worth more than $730 million (566 million pounds) in Iraq and more than $3.5 billion in Saudi Arabia.

The 51-year-old Briton will be sentenced at a later date. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Petrofac said a number of Petrofac individuals and entities were alleged to have acted "with the individual concerned", although no current board member of Petrofac Ltd was alleged to have been involved and there had been no further charges.

"The SFO has chosen to bring charges against a former employee of a subsidiary company," Petrofac Chairman René Médori said in a statement.

"It has deliberately not chosen to charge any group company or any other officer or employee. In the absence of any charge or credible evidence, Petrofac intends as a matter of policy to stand by its employees."

Petrofac's shares pared some of their losses to stand 27.64 percent down by 1430 GMT, their lowest level in around 12 months. The shares earlier posted their steepest daily fall since May 2017.

The SFO said it was continuing its investigation into Petrofac's use of agents in jurisdictions including Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

The projects named in the SFO statement in relation to Petrofac payments to agents include engineering contracts for the Petro Rabigh petrochemical plant, partly owned by Saudi Aramco, and Aramco's Jazan refinery in 2012.

Another contract named by the SFO was a 2015 project awarded by state-run Aramco to Petrofac for work at its Fadhili gas plant.

Contracts mentioned by the SFO in Iraq relate to the Badra oilfield, which Russia's Gazprom Neft is developing, and the Fao Terminal in 2012.

Neither Aramco, Petro Rabigh nor Gazprom Neft are accused of any wrongdoing.

Aramco declined to comment. Petro Rabigh, Iraq's state oil marketer Somo, the Iraqi Oil Ministry and Gazprom Neft made no immediate comment.

The SFO first said it had begun an investigation into Petrofac in 2017 as part of a wider probe into Monaco-based oil and gas consultancy Unaoil.

In February 2018, Petrofac said it expected its top management to be interviewed as part of the SFO probe.

(Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla, Rania El Gamal, Olesya Astakhova, John Davison; Editing by Rachel Armstrong, Alexander Smith and Dale Hudson)