Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Publicly-listed oil exploration firm PT Elnusa Tbk said on Thursday its net profit in the first half of 2010 plunged 94.2 percent to Rp27.096 billion from the same period last year.

The drop resulted from the low use of equipment because of suspended projects from the geodata seismic land (GDL) segment and changed pattern of geoscience business in line with the company`s entry into offshore (seismic marine-transition zone) segment under a joint operation scheme, Elnusa President Director Suharyanto said in a press statement.

The postponement also had led to a change in cost structure in the geosciences, seismic marine-transition zone projects, he said.

"With the development of this offshore working area`s competency, we expect there will be better upstream oil and gas market in the future. The profit performance will be getting better as a result of the maturity of one of the company`s core compentencies," he said.

Meanwhile, the company posted Rp2.27 trillion in operating income in the first semester of 2010, up 40 percent from the same period last year.

Nearly 58 percent of the operating income came from integrated upstream oil and gas services as the company`s core business, while downstream oil and gas services and upstream oil and gas supporting services contributed Rp951.74 billion and Rp86.47 billion respectively to the operating income. (*)