Gulf Marine Services upgrades outlook again and raises prospect of a dividend as oil sector booms
Oil field service provider Gulf Marine Services (GMS) has posted a strong set of final results in which net profit, revenue and margins were all up and its debt burden down.
Oil field service provider Gulf Marine Services (GMS) has posted a strong set of end-of-year results, with net profit, revenue, and margins all up and its debt burden coming down.
After a rocky 2022 and difficult pandemic period, the firm, which operates self-propelled and elevating support vessels for the oil sector out of the United Arab Emirates, saw its net profit jump 66 per cent last year to $42.1m (£33.2m).
Revenue also grew dramatically over the course of 2023, up 14 per cent to $151.5m (£119.5m), which bosses attributed to higher day rates and the improved popularity of its E-class and K-class barges.
Higher demand for the two classes helped the company increase fleet use by six percentage points, allowing it to raise average day rates from $27.5k to $30.3k last year.
It also cut its administrative cost base as a percentage of revenue in 2023 but saw its finance expenses rise dramatically from $7.8m (£6.2m) to $33.4m (£26.4m), a spike it put down to higher LIBOR and interest rates.
Mansour Al Alami, Executive Chairman at Gulf Marine Services, said: “In 2023 our business thrived amid industry tailwinds, showcasing year-over-year growth in revenues, utilisation and day rates.”
The chairman, who joined the GMS board in 2020, also opened the door to the prospect of a dividend in future results, which had been proscribed in recent years because of the company’s debts.
He said: “We continue our deleveraging journey, as we spare no efforts to continue to increase shareholder value.”
The outlook for Gulf Marine Services, which last month signed a highly profitable two-phase deal that took its backlog to $463m (£365.6m), looks strong. It has a target capacity of 95 per cent, of which it claims 83 per cent is already confirmed.
The vast majority of the firm’s fleet was used for oil and gas exploration in 2023, with just nine per cent of its revenue coming from wind projects.
