UPDATE 3-SBM Offshore H1 net up 12 pct, sees new orders

* H1 net profit $95.5 million, vs $98 million forecast

* Sees 2009 net profit in line with 2008's $228 million

* Order backlog down 13.7 percent to $8.2 billion

* Sees opportunities for new orders in H2

* Shares up 4 percent, above index (Adds detail on new projects, updates shares)

By Greg Roumeliotis

AMSTERDAM, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Dutch maritime engineering group SBM Offshore reported a 12 percent rise in first-half net profit on stronger margins and said it was expecting new contracts to boost its shrinking order book.

"Despite low order intake, bid activity has been high and there are serious opportunities for securing new orders in the second half of the year," Chief Executive Tony Mace said in a statement on Wednesday.

The group, which builds and operates floating production, storage and offloading platforms (FPSOs) for oil companies, said net profit rose to $95.5 million, compared with an average forecast for $98 million in a Reuters poll in which estimates ranged from $95-$118 million.

SBM repeated its forecast for net profit in the range of the 2008 result of $228 million, and that it was targeting two new major orders in the second half of 2009.

SBM's competitors include Italy's Saipem, Tokyo-based Modec and Norway's Prosafe.

Analysts at Petercam warned in a note that FPSO firms are very eager to win contracts in the current market, and this could have an impact on their bidding discipline.

NEW PROJECTS

Among the contracts the company is targeting in the next twelve months are an FPSO project in Angola for BP Plc under a "sell" structure and another FPSO project for Noble Energy in Equatorial Guinea under a lease.

SBM will also bid for the full construction and commissioning contract in the Gazprom-led floating production unit project for the Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea with Aker Solutions and Technip, with which it has already won a front-end engineering study contract for the project.

Other schemes that SBM is bidding for are a mooring system and FSO unit for ExxonMobil in Indonesia and FPSO projects of Petrobras in Brazil.

The company also said it expected demand to pick up in the mid- to long-term as new oil and gas reservoirs are developed.

As the availability of project finance becomes scarcer, SBM will look to export credit funds and the capital markets for alternatives, the company said.

SBM's shares were up 4 percent at 13.94 euros at 1336 GMT, outperforming the Amsterdam blue chip index which was down 1.05 percent.

"We are at a turning point for the business of SMB Offshore," said SNS Securities analyst Danny van Doesburg. "We have had more than a year of negatives but with the oil price higher and the economy improving we see offshore activity picking up."

SBM said its order book stood at $8.2 billion at the end of June, down 13.7 percent from a year earlier. Revenue fell 4.1 percent to $1.43 billion in the first half. The firm expects revenue for 2009 to come in at $2.9 billion.

Due to its reliance on the banking market for its project finance operations, the company saw its net financing costs in the first half swell to $30.5 million from $23 million a year earlier as loan margins increased. It said its 2009 net interest charge is expected to be 50 percent higher than in 2008.

The company has 17 lease FPSOs and 70 percent of its cashflow is generated from long-term leases, Van Doesburg noted. (Editing by Jon Loades-Carter and Rupert Winchester)