Boskalis post higher H1 profit as heavy transport fleet delivers
Royal Boskalis Westminster ended the first half of the year with strong financial results on the back of high utilisation of its large vessels. Compared to last year, Boskalis saw its revenue increase by 22 percent to €1.61 billion ($1.62 billion) with net profit reaching €116 million, up from €1.32 billion and €72 million, in 2021, respectively.
Boskalis Offshore Energy sector saw a revenue increase of 3 percent. A sharp decline in the contracting activities, partly due to a volume decline at Subsea Cables, was more than offset by a good half year at the services part of the division.
The utilisation of the heavy transport vessels in Marine Transport & Services was exceptionally high and also Subsea Services and Marine Survey had a very good operational half year. The strong demand from both the offshore wind market and the traditional oil and gas market was partly causing this. In the second quarter the new crane vessel Bokalift 2 was commissioned and has since been working on the sizeable Changfang & Xidao offshore wind project in Taiwan.
The order book remained virtually stable at €5.37 billion. This compares to €5.41 billion at the end of 2021. At Offshore Energy the workload rose sharply with the addition of €1 billion in new projects, the largest share of which is related to offshore wind.
Commenting on the results, Peter Berdowski, CEO Boskalis, said, “At Offshore Energy, we are reaping the benefits of our strategy of focusing on multi-purpose vessels and services with which we are able to serve both the traditional markets and the offshore wind market. With demand from both markets picking up, we achieved a very good result with subsea services and marine survey. In the past six months we also took the Bokalift 2 into service, one of the largest installation vessels in the industry. The vessel was commissioned with a visibility of almost three years of work in offshore wind in hand. Offshore Energy’s order book now consists of over 60% of offshore wind projects.
Given the strong results in the first half of the year and the magnitude and composition of the order book, going forward, Boskalis believes it is in good shape, assuming that COVID-19-related restrictive measures experienced over the past two years, particularly in the Far East, will not return.
At Offshore Energy, the second half of the year is also expected to be in line with the first half. In contracting, a number of large ongoing offshore wind projects such as Changfang & Xidao and Fécamp will be decisive.
