Nakilat, the shipping arm of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, plans to pursue aggressive developments and growth strategies in the long term through acquisition of new business opportunities in the marine sector.
“Nakilat will exploit future opportunities to acquire new business opportunities, serving the international marine sector, and to increase the utilization rate for the shipyard facilities at Erhama Bin Jaber Al Jalahma Shipyard,” the company said.
In light of this intention, the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Qatar Development Bank (QDB) agreeing to collaborate in areas including marine export, credit insurance and financing. The company said that this, ultimately, assists small to medium enterprises in entering the maritime industry by working together in order to provide services for Nakilat.
The company said this while reporting its financial results for the year ended December 31st, 2015.
Nakilat recorded an underlying net profit of QR 984 million (USD 270 million) compared to QR 895 million achieved for the year 2014, which is 10% higher than the previous year.
The higher profitability was attributed to growing business streams through the addition of three new LNG vessels to Nakilat’s LNG fleet during 2015, full operation of vessels acquired during 2014, optimization of operating expenses and leveraging lower finance costs.
In addition, Nakilat transferred four LNG and four LPG vessels into ship management under Nakilat Shipping Qatar Limited (NSQL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nakilat.
In light of the strong performance, the Board recommended distributing a cash dividend to the shareholders equal to 12.5% of the nominal value of its capital, which is equivalent to QR 1.25 per share.
“Even in the midst of the unstable oil and gas sector, Nakilat has continually performed well whilst being minimally impacted over the oil price fluctuations. The company’s strong bank relationships evident by the financing obtained from domestic and regional banks and from capital markets at low rates in conjunction with its strong link to the State of Qatar as the country’s premier marine company are key elements to Nakilat’s strong financial performance, ” Nakilat said.