Aker Tulcea tries to get back into the black

Aker Tulcea shipyard, part of Norway’s Aker Kvaerner group, anticipates it will end this year into the black, after having reported losses during the last two years.
The shipyard has been swamped with orders in recent years, but has not managed to derive profit because of the domestic currency’s appreciation against the euro and of rising prices for sheet metal, the raw material weighing the most in production costs.
In 2005, the company logged losses standing at 4.5 million euros, while in 2004 losses amounted to 4.6 million euros.
“We hope to make profit this year, given the insignificant sheet metal price variations, and the RON’s increased stability against last year,” Dumitru Ivanov, Aker Tulcea general manager, told ZF.
The company has also resorted to a series of measures meant to protect it against foreign currency risks, buying euro forward contracts.
“We have euro forward contracts until 2008, worth some 65 million euros. Thus, irrespective of the trend of the RON/EUR exchange rate, we have secured an exchange rate we are comfortable with. Moreover, we have changed the financing policy, being financed through the Norwegian parent company, at much lower costs than those on the Romanian market,” specified Ivanov.
Aker Tulcea this year expects to derive turnover revolving around 98 million euros, slightly lower compared with last year, when the company’s turnover reached 102 million euros. For 2007, though, the company estimates turnover growth by around 15-20%, amid rising metal quantities processed by the shipyard.
The orders the shipyard has at present cover the entire production capacity by the middle of 2009.
Aker Tulcea is going to deliver 14 ships next year, with a further 17 slated for delivery in 2008. For this year, 22 ships were due to be delivered, of which 15 have also reached their beneficiaries, according to information provided on the company’s website.
Ivanov says the number of orders will stay high until 2010, as ship owners are modernising their fleets to meet the new safety requirements set internationally, with demand expected to slip slightly afterwards.
Aker Tulcea is part of Aker Yards Norwegian group, which also owns the majority stake in Braila shipyard. Since the beginning of this year, Aker Yards group has signed eight contracts for the shipyards it owns in Romania, related to the construction of 12 ships.
The total value of contracts amounts to nearly 320 million euros. The Romanian shipyards will collect only part of this sum, since most contracts stipulate that only the bodies of the ships are going to be built in Romania, with the ships to be equipped in Brevik, another branch of the Norwegian group.