When you’re in the business of making oil rigs, the renewables industry might seem the answer to your problems. The oil slump that began in 2014 knocked prices from their lofty $100-a-barrel perch for a long time to come. That led to capital expenditure budgets being slashed across the board, with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of projects indefinitely delayed.
That has proven acutely painful for Lamprell and its peers. Its shares have slumped from 178p to 68p. Part of its masterplan was to diversify its business, putting its yard in Abu Dhabi to use by making kit for wind farms while it waited for the oil market to pick up.
In a profit warning yesterday, Lamprell said the “learning curve had proven to