Offshore vessels supplier and marine support services company Tidewater Inc. (TDW) reported Tuesday a lower profit for the third quarter ended December 31 mainly due to a significantly lower revenues from its towing-supply or supply vessels, reflecting a lower offshore exploration activity. Both earnings per share and revenues came in below analysts expectations.
New Orleans, Louisiana-based Tidewater's third quarter net earnings more than halved to $59.89 million or $1.16 per share from $116.96 million or $2.28 per share in the prior year period. On average, 12 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $1.20 per share for the quarter.
Quarterly revenues declined to $286.50 million from $362.33 million in the same period last year. Eight analysts had estimated revenues of $287.71 million for the quarter.
Operating income fell by more than 50% to $66.49 million from $130.59 million in the year earlier period.
On the basis of vessel class, worldwide revenues from towing-supply/supply class vessel dropped to $155.65 million from $219.94 million a year-ago and offshore tugs revenues came down to $8.60 million from $15.47 million in the year earlier period. The decline revenues from both offshore tugs and towing-supply/supply class vessel indicates lower offshore exploration activity. Crew/utility vessel revenues came down to $20.25 million from $30.00 million last year.
On the other hand, worldwide revenues from deep-water vessels rose to $90.01 million from $82.11 million a year earlier.
Total worldwide feet utilization for the third quarter came down to 63.8% from 74.4% last year. While worldwide average vessel day rates came down slightly to $12.38 thousand from $12.43 million a year-ago, U.S-based fleet average vessel day rates rose to $14.37 thousand from $13.52 thousand last year. The increase in average vessel day rates in U.S-based fleet is mainly due to the rise in average vessel day rates of deep-water vessels to $26.68 million from $23.96 million last year.
For the nine month period, net earnings came down to $202.56 million or $3.93 per share from $297.17 million or $5.76 per share in the same period last year. Total revenues for the period declined to $908.64 million from $1.05 billion for the year earlier period.
TDW is currently trading at $46.57, down $2.11 or 4.33% on a volume of 1.14 million shares on the NYSE.
For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com