OPT shrinks 2017 loss

 
US-based wave energy company Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) has reported a 27% decrease in net loss for the fiscal year 2017 as compared to the figures from year before.

The net loss for fiscal year ended April 30, 2017, was at $9.5 million for OPT, which is a decrease of $3.6 million, compared to the net loss of $13.1 million recorded in 2016.

OPT said the decrease in net loss reflected lower product development expense, decline in the fair market value of the warrants liability, as well as lower general expenses and income tax benefit.

The revenue in 2017 was at $843,000 for OPT, as compared to the revenue of $705,000 for fiscal year 2016, representing an increase of almost 20%.

OPT attributed the increase to higher revenue from its contracts with Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding (MES) and Department of Defense Office of Naval Research (ONR).

For the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2017, OPT reported revenue of $250,000 as compared to revenue of $100,000 for the same period a year earlier.

Also, the net loss for the quarter was $2.6 million, in contrast with a net loss of $4.0 million for the same period in 2016 – a decrease in loss of 35%.

George Kirby, President and CEO of OPT, said: “We continue to be excited by our commercial progress and the strong positive market feedback we have been receiving about the need for persistent offshore power and communications.

“We are continuing to discuss new opportunities with potential customers as part of our business development and commercialization efforts. We are encouraged by the opportunities in our target markets, which we believe can derive significant benefits from our PB3 PowerBuoy power and real-time communications solutions.”

To remind, OPT’s first commercial PowerBuoy, the PB3, has been deployed off Japan earlier this year as part of the lease with MES.

In June 2017, OPT informed the device is meeting all of its performance requirements after eight weeks of deployment off Japan.