Royal Boskalis Westminster on target

Dredging and maritime infrastructure group Royal Boskalis Westminster is on target to close the year in line with its expectations, with a net profit of €230 to €250 million, it claimed after reporting its third quarter results.

It said its revenue in the third quarter was slightly higher than in the first two quarters of the year. Its order book stood at €3 billion at the end of the third quarter, which it described as stable compared to mid-2011.

It pointed out that the order book figure did not include recently contracted work such as a Lelydorp I, Suriname, project and the redevelopment of the waterfront in the Dutch city of Harderwijk.

The dredging and earthmoving segment achieved a good result in the third quarter, it said. While operating margins fell slightly, the use of the hopper fleet increased in the third quarter. In the second half of the year, Boskalis added fairly sizeable variation orders and new projects in Australasia and South America to its broadly-spread order book. Overall the order book rose slightly compared to mid-2011.

Boskalis said its financial position remained strong and the net debt position had declined further since mid-2011.

It added that in several regions of the world, clients in various market segments were developing initiatives for new and, in many cases, large maritime infrastructure projects. It said this applied in particular to energy and commodity-related projects in South America, West Africa and Australia.

The company said demand for this infrastructure would not be affected by the current macroeconomic unrest, but the possibility of some of these projects suffering delays could not be ruled out. For the time being the expectation remains that these projects will come onto the market in the next few years.