“Performance this year has clearly been unacceptable and the company is working to address all underlying issues toward improving the group’s financial position, while preserving our capacity to serve the CSG market in what has become a very difficult year for contracting in the sector,” WDS chairman Jim McDonald said.

“Despite these disappointing developments there is some positive news. The mining division continues to perform very strongly and negotiations are continuing with major customers for early work opportunities in the CSG sector, with some of these already at an advanced stage.”

Flooding in the Cooper and Surat basins and delays in the award of CSG construction work continued to have an impact on WDS’s bottom line.

Results were also affected by the costs of a $3 million restructure, $1.7 million in underperforming contracts in micro-tunnelling and $3.5 million in close-out of commercial positions on contracts.

WDS is part of the way through its business review and will make immediate changes to restructure its oil and gas, and infrastructure and services divisions into one single construction division; address underperforming business streams; and implement tighter financial controls.

WDS shares were trading this morning at 77.5c.