The contractor was pleased to post its second consecutive year of revenue in excess of $1 billion with this year’s figure up 6.6%.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation were down 5.5% to $272.7 million, while earnings before interest and tax were down 13.5% to $149 million.

Profit before tax dropped 28.2% to $109.5 million, while profit after tax was down 19.4% to $90.4 million.

Ausdrill managing director Ron Sayers said it had been a tough year for commodity prices.

“This has resulted in many mining companies cancelling or significantly reducing spend on exploration and capital expenditure programs, revising production schedules for ore and waste volumes and deferring all non-essential expenditure as much as possible,” he said.

“Ausdrill has in turn experienced lower profitability due to lower profits from the exploration and equipment sales, hire and parts businesses, which accounted for 19.5% of group revenues.

“Ausdrill’s focus on the production phase of the mining cycle provided a solid base for the business in 2013.”

The company said it expected the volume of work at certain projects would change over the coming months but would stabilise in the medium term.

It added that there were good opportunities to secure new work in the near term.

Ausdrill declared a final dividend of 5.5c per share, taking the total dividend for the year to 12c.