Doha-based Qatar Navigation (Milaha) reported a decline in net profit of 52.1 percent during the first nine months of the year.
In its latest report, Milaha informed its net profit dropped from 759 million Qatari riyals ($208.47 million) during the first nine months of 2016 to 363 million Qatari riyals ($99.7 million) during the corresponding term this year.
“The weakness in the shipping and offshore marine sectors continued to negatively impact our results,” Milaha’s chairman Sheikh Ali bin Jassim Al Thani said.
Commenting on the results he noted that the net profit improved quarter-on-quarter from the second quarter to the third quarter giving the company momentum going into the last quarter of the year.
“We are naturally taking concrete steps to manage our costs, however, we also feel encouraged to see a number of new growth opportunities in the short and medium across our portfolio of services, which will allow us to strengthen our market position,” Abdulrahman Essa Al-Mannai , Milaha’s president and CEO added.
Milaha, which owns a 30 percent stake in Qatar’s LNG shipping giant Nakilat, said its operating revenue for the period under review declined to 1.66 billion Qatari riyals from 1.99 billion Qatari riyals in 2016.
Milaha Gas & Petrochem’s net profit declined by 138 million Qatari riyals, mainly due to vessel oversupply and depressed rates that have impacted most of the tanker and gas carrier sectors in which Milaha operates, in addition to lower profits from its joint venture operations.
1 QAR = 0.274657 USD