Offshore and dredging contractor Boskalis finally seems to have found its way up again after the oil prices fell in 2014. Both revenue and the order book grew substantially last year.
At the end of last year, the work in hand amounted to 4.7 billion euros, more than the company had ever held in its portfolio. In its annual report, the company signals a ‘gradually more positive picture’ in the offshore market.
The drying up of revenue from this sector caused Boskalis to go into the red over the past few years and resulted in the company having to write off huge amounts of equipment, including parts of its heavy-lift fleet.
Nevertheless, CEO Peter Berdowski feels it is still too early to make a profit forecast for the current year. The expectations are still too uncertain and depend too much on the ‘project-based character’ of the work of the maritime contractor from Papendrecht.
Contractual disputes
The group’s turnover rose by almost three per cent last year to 2.6 billion euros, while gross operating profit (ebitda) rose to 376 million euros. This figure was reduced by one hundred million as Boskalis had to set aside money for claims related to contractual disputes, including in the offshore wind sector.
This article first appeared (in Dutch) on Nieuwsblad Transport, a sister publication of SWZ|Maritime.
Picture by Boskalis.
