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Upbeat Mood at Boskalis AGM
01 Jun 2005
The world's largest dredging contractor, Royal Boskalis Westminster was in upbeat mood at its AGM in the Netherlands last month. CEO Rob van Gelder reported the company was off to a better start in 2005 than had been the case last year, with both turnover and the order book improved.
Although market prices continued to stagnate, the operating result was improved due to cost savings and a higher level of utilisation for the company's global fleet of trailing suction hopper dredgers.
With rapprochement ongoing between Singapore and Malaysia, Van Gelder saw steady progress towards resolving the long running dispute over sand winning rights which has halted massive land reclamation works in Singapore. However, the green light has yet to be given for new sand deliveries.
Van Gelder said, 'I am feeling positive, the first few months of the year were encouraging. There is a lot of work pending in the market, however, the timing itself remains uncertain.'
Given those uncertainties, Van Gelder was unable to make firm statements about the expected result for this year.
He repeated the previously stated expectation that Boskalis will achieve a higher turnover than in 2004, with better fleet utilisation generating a healthy cash flow.
MJInformation No: 20774
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