KUALA LUMPUR (May 17): Perdana Petroleum Bhd’s net loss narrowed to RM8.26 million in the first quarter ended March 31, 2023 (1QFY2023), from RM14 million a year ago. Losses per share was reduced to 0.37 sen from 0.63 sen.

This was mainly due to lower operating costs, lower depreciation charges of RM12.8 million in the current quarter, as well as lower finance costs, according to the offshore support vessel (OSV) operator in a filing with Bursa Malaysia.

Revenue rose 2.84% to RM29.63 million from RM28.82 million, driven by better daily charter rates (DCR) with an upsurge in demand for OSVs due to  higher offshore upstream activities.

But compared with the previous quarter of 4QFY2022 when it made a net profit of RM20.51 million, the group has fallen back into the red after two consecutive profitable quarters as revenue fell 46.33% from RM55.2 million.

"The monsoon season during the first quarter of this year leads to a much lower vessel utilisation rate, which was at 31% as compared to the 60% utilisation rate in the last quarter of the previous year. This led to a lower revenue for the quarter under review, although better DCR due an upsurge in demand for OSVs helped to reduce the negative impact of the lower utilisation rate to some extent," the group said.

On prospects, the group said even though there was a clear momentum in the recovery of the OSV market — which gave rise to higher utilisation and charter rates for the offshore chartering segment of the oil and gas industry in 2022 — and the group remains cautiously optimistic, despite the outlook uncertainty due to the current geopolitical dynamics, rising inflation and interest rates.

“Moving forward, we will leverage our strengths and improved efficiency to remain sustainable and relevant in the long term,” it said.

Perdana Petroleum shares closed unchanged at 17 sen on Wednesday (May 17), giving the group a market capitalisation of RM366 million.