Chief Financial Officer Svein Oskar Stoknes. They will go through the main developments for the quarter. I will now hand the stage to you.
For joining us here today. I'm happy to say that the third quarter was another period of strong execution. We will start with the main developments in the quarter. We have signed contracts in key markets such as Angola, Brazil, and China. This development shows that our strategic ambition of international, which more than double the same quarter last year. I will come back to these awards globally. To give you a flavor, at the Kaombo field in Angola, first oil was achieved. In Brazil, the fourth deepwater manifold for Petrobras was also installed, and with great customer feedback. In Norne for the Johan Castberg FPSO, global design was completed. The Johan Sverdrup hookup in Norne is also progressing as planned. We also contributed to the electrification project at the Johan Sverdrup, along with our partners.
The Njord project to produce the umbilicals for the Equinor's Johan Sverdrup, Utgard, and Bauge fields. An example arrived at Egersund in September. As you can see on the top right of our slide, the rig for the Yme field. We also see a good continued momentum on the second phase of our operation improvement program. EBITDA of NOK 463 million and EBITDA margin of 7.1% excluding. We had an order intake of NOK 5.9 billion, bringing the backlog to NOK 36.1 billion. To a year earlier. As I mentioned, the highlight for us in this quarter is that we have secured more international work. New orders included two contracts for Petrobras.
As you know, One of the Mero Field was perhaps the most important milestone in the third quarter. covering nine offshore platforms. In Angola, we have earned the trust of BP with a five-year brownfield service contract. China is another market of strategic importance where we are building our presence. Lingshui Gas Field from the same customer. The contract is valued at NOK 1.7 billion. Frame agreements are also important as we build close relationships with our clients. In this quarter, we signed a global frame agreement with Equinor. It's actually a two, five-year frame agreements for possible future delivery of subsea on the Norwegian Shelf.
Well, last but not least, we also saw good progress on our efforts with floating wind application to move forward with the first commercial scale project for floating offshore wind in the United States. The 150 MW floating offshore wind farm is planned to be located more than 30 kilometers. A lot of global momentum in the floating winds, but I wanted to be clear that we are part of a building a new industry. However, we are well-positioned with our technology and know-how. By the way, please check out our cool movie about floating wind in our site. Several FEEDs for tie-ins in the Norwegian Shelf. This year, we are seeing that the studies are, and FEEDs are for larger and more complex projects, including several outside the North Sea. In the quarter, nine months of the year.
I have said it before, but also worth repeating. Early involvement is a sign of activity to come, and it puts us in a strong position to secure more work. To market. Now I want to explain how strongly positioned we are in this market. The Brazilian licensing rounds. On September 28, Brazil sold all four areas on offer in the country's pre-salt 5th round. The pre-salt area is a dark blue shaded area on the map in our slide. In this round that when it happened in September, Chevron won the production sharing rights over the neighboring Tigre prospect. BP and Equinor and CNOOC took the promising Pau-Brasil area. You see that our key clients are moving into this important market, which is a good sign for us.
Even before the new fields are developed, there are many opportunities. Brazil pre-salt area achieved drilling rates globally, success rates. More, and we see that more than 100 trees are estimated to be awarded in Brazil from 2018 to 2022. Services and maintenance, the strong presence of Aker Solutions in Brazil give us a great advantage. We have been operating in Brazil for over 40 years. Today, we actually have more than 260 Christmas trees and over 100 subsea control modules installed subsea. In fact, we're the first company to qualify equipment for the Brazilian pre-salt back in 2011.
We have a solid relationship with Petrobras, and the recent contracts just mentioned today with Petrobras are clear indications that we are seen as a relevant partner in this market. In our facility at the São José dos Pinhais, we also started producing the 47 subsea control modules. Importantly, our safety achievements in Brazil are second to none. I'm proud to say that our Rio das Ostras service facility has recorded 17 years with no lost time incidents. Our new plant in São José dos Pinhais is celebrating three years with no lost time incidents. Quite impressive. It's still a period of uncertainty and caution in Brazil, but we are optimistic about that our key global clients are increasing their position in Brazil. To conclude, let's look ahead.
While the outlook for our field services remains competitive, there are continuous signs stabilizing at higher level, and supply and demand is moving closer to balancing. Of course, we are seeing more projects being sanctioned. Tending activity remains high in our main markets, and we are currently bidding for contracts totaling about NOK 45 billion. About two-thirds of this We believe that Aker Solutions is well-positioned for an upturn in the market. Longer term, we are optimistic because demand for energy in whatever form will increase globally. It is where our push for sustainable energy solutions. Just to recap the main points of my presentation. We closed the third quarter with a strong order intake, high activity signs of a market recovery. Our awards outside the North Sea in the third quarter proves that we.
Thank you, Luis. Good morning. I will now take you through the key financial highlights of the third quarter, our divisional performance, and run through our financial guidance before we move on to the Q&A session. As always, all numbers mentioned are in Norwegian kroner. As usual, let's start with the income statement. Overall operating revenue for the third quarter was NOK 6.5 billion, which was up 21% year-on-year. Field Design and subsea increased the revenue from the same period last year. Overall, projects was up 25% year-on-year. Our services segment was up 10% year-on-year, reflecting our strategy to grow our world-class services business. This was primarily driven by the PAS sub-segment or Production Asset Services. Items related to optimization of our U.K. footprint and services in Norway.
For your reference, we have, as usual, set out a table in the appendix that further specifies the special items. Excluding these special items, EBITDA equal to an underlying margin of 7.5% compared to 7.8% in the same period last year. Newly awarded work, one in a very competitive market. It is a clear evidence of our continued strong execution and good momentum on our continuous efficiency improvement program. Continue to expect underlying depreciation to be around NOK 750 million-NOK 800 million per year. Our reported third quarter EBIT or operating profit increased year on year to NOK 282 million. Up from 4.5% last year. Excluding a minor unrealized hedging loss of financial income.
Following a debt settlement in Brazil, last quarter, we now see our net financial items on an annual basis around NOK 60 million per quarter going forward, as compared to between NOK 60 million-NOK 70 million previously. 4% in the quarter, we continue to expect our average P&L tax rates to be in the low to mid 30% range going from last year. Now moving to our balance sheet and our cash flow performance. Our net current operating assets or working capital increased by about NOK 400 million from the second quarter. Still under execution, ongoing initiatives to optimize our cash flows and timing of some milestone payments. Working capital is likely to fluctuate around large project work, and we expect the level to gradually trend toward 2%-4% of increase of working capital.
Our Net Debt to EBITDA under the quarter at a very solid 0.3x . As previously communicated, we still expect to be somewhat closer to our targeted level of Net Debt to EBITDA 2018. Our financial position remains strong at the end of the quarter, with it five times Net Debt to EBITDA. Our solid financial position continues to give us flexibility and good financial headroom going forward. Our cash flow from operations in the third quarter was a negative NOK 44 million, primarily reflecting our outflow of working capital. Our investing cash flows total a net negative. We still expect to see overall CapEx and R&D at roughly 2% of revenue going forward with flexibility. Cash flow from financing was positive NOK 108 million in the quarter, reflecting a minor change in our external borrowings i n year, with growth in both Field Design and in Subsea.
We ended the quarter with an underlying projects EBITDA margin of 7.2% versus 7.7% last year. The EBIT margin, excluding special items, was operational performance. As we are increasingly ramping up execution of newly awarded work, we continue to realize significant benefits from improvement programs in our projects portfolio. Order intake in projects was NOK 3.8 billion in the quarter, up from NOK 1.8 billion a year earlier, with book-to-bill at NOK 0.7 billion. This is equal to about 16 months of projects revenue. Let's take a look at the key figures for Subsea and Field Design within this reporting segment. Revenue from Subsea projects increased 15%, up 33% year-on-year, mainly driven by recent order intake and several ongoing North Sea modification and hookup jobs.
The solid order intake in projects was mainly driven by Field Design, with a book-to-bill of 0.9x for the quarter. The Subsea order intake increased to NOK 1.1 billion from NOK 0.5 billion a year earlier, with book-to-bill ending around NOK 40 billion of work overall in projects, with the majority in Subsea. Our Production Asset Services subsegment. Underlying EBITDA was NOK 190 million, with a margin of 14.9%, an increase from 13.5% in the same quarter last year. EBIT was NOK 148 million with a margin of 11.6%, up from 10.2% a year ago. The higher margins were due to increased activity levels rest on the back of strong performance.
Third quarter order intake in Services was strong at NOK 2.1 billion, up from NOK 0.7 billion a year earlier, resulting in a strong third quarter book-to-bill of 1.6x , mainly related to international awards. I would like to remind you that a part of Services order intake is short cycled or NOK 35 billion of services work globally. Now over to the order intake and backlog performance for the group awards secured during the quarter. We saw a good combination of greenfield, brownfield, services and growth on existing contracts and frame agreements. The order intake was equivalent to a book-to-bill of 0.9x , and year to date, we have a solid book-to-bill of 1.1x . Our backlog totaled NOK 36 billion at the end of the third quarter. Somewhat uneven, caused by large contracts.
As mentioned earlier, tendering activity is still good, with several key projects likely to be sanctioned over the next 6-12 months. We're currently engaged in tenders with an estimated sales value of around on existing contracts. Finally, over to our guidance. As Luis mentioned, we see an uptick in activity levels, and we continue to see our overall top line up close to 10%. Subsegments. We will continue to leverage our differentiating front-end capabilities to capture opportunities for the group overall to remain around year-to-date levels, with Q4 one-offs likely in the same range as in the third quarter. On the back of our strong order intake year to date and continued high tendering activity around the 2018 level. To defend our margins moving into 2019, a continued relentless focus on quality execution and operational efficiency improvements are needed.
As activity levels pick up, it will be important to harvest scale effects from our very fit and streamlined organization s olid financial position. This continues to give us increased flexibility and financial headroom to position Aker Solutions to underlying financial performance, and by securing solid international order intake that further improves our visibility.
Okay. I think, we'll start. We have two microphones, so, please start asking questions. The gent now. Yeah.
It's high activity level, it's a solid execution, it's a good activity mix, and it is also driven by some incentives that we're awarded in that quarter.
It looks like you'll have a very strong end to the year, based on the backlog you have in place. Should we then expect margins to benefit from the same economies of scale as you saw this quarter?
As I indicated, we see our margins continuing around the level underlying year to date. I think, if you do the math, that will give you what Q4 would look like. For next year, as I'm saying, still a little bit early to be more specific on the top line. We see a good reason to expect growth, be able to continue to deliver margins around the level we are delivering in 2018, which is quite an achievement.
Final question, could you just comment on the value of phase two and how much has been booked in terms of options for phase I?
Phase II for us. Of course, we also have the responsibility for being the engineer integrator. A transition between phase I and phase II is also part of the scope in phase I.
We shouldn't expect a big, announcement in terms of slide to phase II. It's more gradual increases in scope or?
Correct. I think what is value, what's still to be awarded is hookups for the next two platforms. You know, we're doing hookup of one platform competitively for another one. There are two more to be awarded that's not included on the orders today. That's what we see there.
I think.
Yeah, Haakon Amundsen from ABG. just digging a little bit more into your 19 margins. if you can give some more color on the different moving parts. I mean, current level, is it worse pricing on average in the X 19 backlog for execution than in 18 or?
I think it's pretty new backlog, which are tendered in a very different competitive landscape than the outgoing backlog. Despite that, we're indicating that we should be able to maintain our margins. In order to do so, we need flawless execution, and we need to continuous focus on our operation efficiency improvement program.
All right. Thanks.
Okay. Any more questions? Okay, I think we say thank you, and we have time some, for some interviews after. Thank you for coming.
Unless Jim wants one more question. We have plenty of time now since the others have no waking up or just too clear the presentation, I guess.