Ocean Power Technologies stock surges on contract win

Shares of Ocean Power Technologies (NASDAQ: OPTT) skyrocketed over 180% on Wednesday after the ocean energy solutions company announced that it has inked a contract with a leading oil and gas exploration firm.

As part of the contract, the Pennington, New Jersey-based company would undertake a 12-week paid feasibility study on the effect of its services and products in monitoring subsea wells during decommissioning activities.

The stock has declined 37% in the trailing 52 weeks but has gained 89% in the year-to-date period, thanks to the current rally.

The company, which provides power generation devices, services, and related equipment for the extraction of energy from ocean waves, said it would also study other technical issues including customer equipment power demands, as well as power generation during continuous and intermittent operations.

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CEO George Kirby said, “This study will evaluate the use of our PowerBuoys in monitoring multiple customer wells during oil field decommissioning activities in the very deep and challenging waters of the Gulf of Mexico.  We believe our solutions will reduce the cost of our customer’s operations and will also increase safety and improve operational flexibility by providing an unmanned, autonomous power and communications platform.”

On March 11, the company had reported a wider third-quarter net loss, mainly due to higher upfront spending and material costs on new customer contracts, besides the costs associated with the development of new products.

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Revenues were $0.3 million in the three months ended January 31, 2019, which was comprised of the new contracts initiated with Eni S.p.A. and Premier Oil.

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