Bourbon to Stack Up to 35 Vessels as Loss Widens

French vessel owner and provider of marine and subsea services, Bourbon, will pull out up to 35 supply vessels from operation as it tries to adapt to challenging market conditions and maintain its focus on cost control.

The company informed in its 1H 2015 financial report it will continue to temporarily stack certain vessels which have no anticipated activity for 3 months and currently expects that there will be up to 35 supply vessels stacked during the 2nd half of 2015.

Bourbon has seen its group share’s net loss in the first half of 2015 widen by some 300 per cent, compared to the corresponding period in 2014.

Despite year-on-year revenue growth of approximately 9 per cent, Bourbon’s net loss for the first-half of 2015 widened to €19.2 million ($21.5 million) or 0.27 euros per share from €4.8 million or 0.07 euros per share same time last year.

As mentioned above, revenues for the period grew to €701.3 million from €642.6 million in a year-ago period.

The Paris-based company said that due to high uncertainties in the offshore market and the impact of foreign exchange on its performances, it won’t change its full year objectives and is still anticipating a stable or slight decrease in adjusted revenues for 2015 and a slight decrease in the margin of adjusted EBITDAR/revenues.

EBITDA, excluding capital gains, was up by some 8 per cent, amounting to €189.4 million, versus last year’s €175.6 million. Additionally, operating income (EBIT) rose to €44.8 million from €40.7 million in the previous year.

“The drop in the oil price and the uncertainty of the price recovery will continue to affect the development of new deepwater fields and the level of activity in shallow water fields,” the company said in a statement.