Milaha Reports Halved Nine-Month Net Profit

Qatar Navigation’s (Milaha) net profit for the nine months of this year ended September 30 has reached QR 363 million (USD 99.7 million) considerably down when compared to QR 759 million for the same period in 2016.

The company’s operating revenues came at QR 1.66 billion for the nine-month period, against QR 1.99 billion reported in the corresponding period from last year.

“The weakness in the shipping and offshore marine sectors continued to negatively impact our results, however, I’m pleased to say that net profit improved significantly quarter-on-quarter from Q2 and Q3. We believe we have good momentum going into Q4,” said Ali bin Jassim Al Thani, Chairman of Milaha’s Board of Directors.

“We are naturally taking concrete steps to manage our costs, however, we also feel encouraged to see a number of new growth opportunities in the short and medium across our portfolio of services, which will allow us to strengthen our market position,” said Abdulrahman Essa Al-Mannai, Milaha’s President and CEO.

Milaha Maritime & Logistics’ net profit declined by QR 13 million year-to-date. However, an increase in net profit was marked quarter-on-quarter, from QR 5 million in Q2 2017 to QR 70 million in Q3 2017, driven mainly by volume increases in container shipping and port services.

Vessel oversupply and depressed rates that have impacted most of the tanker and gas carrier sectors in which Milaha operates, pushed Milaha Gas & Petrochem’s net profit down by QR 138 million.

The pressure from oversupply and lower demand was felt by Milaha’s offshore business which booked a lower net profit by QAR 126 million, including one-time impairments of QR 57 million.

Milaha Trading’s net profit declined by QR 5 million due to lower sales volumes of marine fuels and lubricants, while Milaha Capital saw a dip in net profit by QR 115 million due to lower held-for-trading investment returns and an available-for-sale investment impairment from the first quarter of 2017, the company said.

As disclosed earlier in an interview with World Maritime News, Milaha is evaluating tonnage acquisitions across several sectors at the moment.

Speaking of the strategic investment plans in vessels, taking into account the attractive tonnage pricing of both second-hand ships and newbuildings at the moment, Milaha’s CEO said he hopes to be able to announce some of these tonnage acquisitions before the end of the year.