KUALA LUMPUR (May 21): Perdana Petroleum Bhd narrowed its losses in the first quarter ended March 31, 2019 (1QFY19) to RM32.94 million from RM66.66 million year ago, thanks to higher utilisation rate of its vessels and a foreign exchange (forex) gain, compared with forex losses in 1QFY18.
Average utilisation rate rose to 36% from 27% last year, Perdana Petroleum said in a bourse filing today. It also booked a forex gain of RM1.1 million compared with forex losses of RM28.5 million in the prior year.
As such, Perdana Petroleum's quarterly losses per share narrowed to 4.23 sen from 8.56 sen in 1QFY18.
Meanwhile, the higher utilisation rate year-on-year also helped Perdana Petroleum's quarterly revenue rise 53.2% to RM25.7 million from RM16.78 million a year ago.
It is worth noting, however, that the result put an end to Perdana Petroleum's run of three consecutive profitable quarters since 2QFY18.
"While Perdana Petroleum reported losses for the first quarter of 2019, this came as no surprise as our chartering business is typically negatively affected by the inclement weather at the beginning of the year.
"Nevertheless, we are encouraged by the year-on-year improvement in our financial performance in the first quarter of 2019 which has seen a marked reduction in the losses," said Perdana Petroleum in the filing.
"Going by the work schedule for our major shareholder Dayang group, which is also our key client, we expect a robust activity level to be sustained for the remaining of 2019 which will result in higher demand for our vessels, thanks to the high number of vessels that have been earmarked for Dayang's offshore maintenance and hook-up contracts with various oil majors.
"We believe 2019 will be an inflection point for Perdana to turn around its business after weathering various challenges over the past few years. We believe that our streamlined operations and the synergistic collaboration with Dayang group will help us to emerge stronger going forward," it added.
Shares of Perdana Petroleum fell 3.5 sen or 10.1% to close at 31 sen, giving it a market capitalisation of RM241.33 million.