Semco Maritime maintained a relatively high level of activity in 2019, securing a strong order intake, which created the foundation for a more balanced distribution of the Group’s activities between the two business areas, Renewables and Oil & Gas. The Group’s positive development continued in markets, which, as expected, were extremely competitive while offering a very strong potential.
Group revenue was DKK 1,905 million in 2019 compared to DKK 2,041 million in 2018 after lower activity in the first half of 2019 within the servicing of rigs at the Group’s own yard facilities and deferred project start-up with respect to production and supply of an offshore substation for the large Vineyard Wind project in the USA. Efforts to strengthen the Renewables activities secured a de-facto breakthrough in offshore wind in the USA where Semco Maritime won key offshore substation contracts during 2019 and at the beginning of 2020 in the Vineyard Wind and Mayflower Wind projects in Massachusetts. The positive development contributed to ensuring a historically strong order book of DKK 2 billion at the end of February 2020.
”We are proud to have been awarded these large contracts and consider it a recognition of our decades of experience and strong capabilities which are to land us a solid position in the growing market for offshore wind power in the USA in the coming years. We are also witnessing strong offshore wind trends elsewhere outside Europe with notably a number of Asian countries set to attract large-scale investment and offer attractive opportunities for Semco Maritime,” says CEO Steen Brødbæk.
Even though earnings were affected by lower revenue and higher staff costs resulting from the high level of activity and efforts to win major strategic orders in the Renewables business area, Semco Maritime maintained earnings (EBITDA) before special items of DKK 53 million corresponding to a moderately higher margin of 2.8%.
”In the upcoming period, we will also need to ensure a solid order intake and effective execution in both business areas amid increasingly intensive competition across projects in the offshore wind and oil and gas sectors. Furthermore, we need to sharpen our focus on safety in all parts of the business and scale up our innovation initiatives. Safe and innovative project completion will be paramount to ensure that Semco Maritime becomes the clear first choice among customers and employees, who want to seize opportunities in the green transition and contribute to ensuring responsible fossil fuel extraction processes, as this will continue to play a major role in the world’s energy supply for the next many years,” says Steen Brødbæk.
Semco Maritime’s historically strong order book and sharp focus on efficiency and innovative solutions form the foundation for a high activity level and improved revenues and earnings for Semco Maritime in the coming years. 2020 is characterised by significant uncertainty, though, due to the ongoing outbreak of coronavirus, which affects the Group’s markets and oil prices.