Gulf International Services (GIS) — a holding company of Gulf Drilling International (GDI), Gulf Helicopters, Al Koot and Amwaj — has reported a net profit of QR8.7mn in the first quarter (Q1) of this year.
Revenues were up 16% year-on-year to QR832mn in January-March 2020 on strong growth across the business segments following the group’s aggressive business strategy.
During Q1 2020, GIS continued its path of repositioning the core oil and gas services segments by minimising cost base, maximising asset utilisation, and worked on unlocking further growth opportunities in order to enhance its market share.
“This strategy has particularly helped all the segments to contribute to the group’s performance, which translated into improved group revenues. However, the bottom line was impacted by market volatilities affecting the investment portfolio amid unprecedented dual headwinds of Covid-19 and oil price decline,” said Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa al-Thani, GIS chairman.
GIS’ net profit was down 65% as it was “severely impacted by the insurance segment, owing to significant unrealised losses reported within its investment portfolio due to the current market volatilities.”
The group’s finance cost declined 15% to QR51mn in Q1 2020, on the back of the drop in Libor (London Interbank Offered Rates).
Total assets stood at QR11bn at the end of March 2020. On the liquidity front, the closing cash, including short-term investments, was QR1bn. The total debt at group level was QR4.8bn. GDI made a remarkable QR13mn and QR6mn savings on direct and finance costs respectively, thus helping it narrow net losses by 98% to QR0.4mn. Its revenues were up 2% to QR290mn.
Qatar’s North Filed East Project or NFE has embarked on the drilling campaign, where the first of 80 NFE development wells was spudded on March 29, 2020, by the jack-up rig “GulfDrill Lovanda” (a rig owned by GulfDrill – a Qatar Financial Centre registered joint venture between GDI and Sea Drill), which is managed and operated by GDI.
This project would provide many opportunities, going forward, for the group to capture significant market share in domestic oil and gas services sector, thus driving future gains at GIS.
Al Koot’s revenue rose 21% to QR231mn, while it saw a net loss of QR45mn.
“Going forward, the insurance segment would continue its efforts to enhance its market share and to re-price its current contracts in medical business, to better manage the claims and rationalise the claim exposure to enhance the overall segment profitability,” it said.
The aviation revenues were up 32% to QR185mn, translating as a 63% growth in net earnings to QR58mn.
“Going forward, the aviation segment will continue to focus on key international markets, which provides opportunities in oil and gas aviation services sector,” it said.
Amwaj saw 19% growth in revenues to QR135mn due to successful expansion of the core industrial catering and manpower contracting services, and higher occupancy level at Mesaieed and Dukhan camps. This led to an almost doubling of profits to QR8mn in Q1 2020.
