KUCHING: Bintulu Port Holdings Bhd (Bintulu Port), through its port services and operations subsidiary, saw higher vessel calls despite registering a slight decline in its financial results for the year ended December 31 last year.
OPTIMISTIC: Dr Abdul Aziz (right) and Mior Ahmad respond to reporters after concluding Bintulu Port’s AGM for the year ended Dec 31 2009. Both agree that amidst challenges seen last year, the group still demonstrates a reasonable stability and resiliency in its operations.
Vessel calls for its Bintulu Port Sdn Bhd (BPSB) grew to 7,514 calls last year from 7,015 calls in 2008. Meanwhile, the group’s bulking installation and storage provision unit Biport Bulkers Sdn Bhd (BBSB) recorded an increase in cargo throughput of 17.86 per cent to about 1,860,891 metric tonnes versus 1,528,436 metric tonnes in 2008.
Bintulu Port’s chairman Tan Sri Dr Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Abdullah stated this to reporters after the group’s annual general meeting (AGM) cum the release of its annual report for the year ended Dec 31 2009, held at a hotel here yesterday.
However, he pointed out that the group’s results also reflected the volatility seen in the global economic slowdown.
“BPSB posted a reduction in its cargo throughput to 38.44 million tonnes last year, from 40.47 million tonnes the year before. Containers handled also dropped to 248,390 TEUs (twenty-feet equivalent units) from the previous 290,167 TEUs. The higher vessel calls, which was mainly for non-carrying cargo vessels, could not cushion the impact of the overall drop.
“For BBSB, we saw profit-before-tax (PBT) had reduced to RM0.06 million in 2009 from RM2.73 million in 2008. This was resulting from inter-company financing costs. Still, turnover for 2009 had signified an increase of 21 per cent to RM17.19 million versus the previous year’s RM14.2 million,” he explained.
On the group’s performance for the period, total revenue was down to RM439.05 million from RM448.77 million the previous year, while PBT fell by 15.7 per cent to RM173.52 million from RM205.88 million. Total shareholder’s fund was not spared from the downward trend either, registering the sum of RM844.79 million last year against RM881.03 million in 2008.
Elaborating further, Bintulu Port’s chief executive officer Mior Ahmad Baiti Mior Lub Ahmad said, “Last year, definitely there was a slight drop in total volume. Adding to this, there were some different expenditures that occurred last year, mainly on the maintenance dredging of the port. That took quite a big portion of our expenditure, about RM12.5 million.
“Since 2008, we’ve been practising the maintenance dredging on a two-year basis, hence the big expenditure. This year, it won’t be reflected in our financial reporting.”
On the positive side, Mior Ahmad noted that amidst such setback, the group still demonstrated a reasonable stability and resilience during this period.
“We noted higher vessel calls in BPSB, mainly from the activities of offshore supply vessels during the period. The increase in cargo throughput for BBSB was benefitting from the full utilisation of the bulking facilities by two major refineries namely Bintulu Edible Oils Sdn Bhd and Kirana Palm Oil Refinery Sdn Bhd,” he added.
On its dividend payout, Bintulu Port’s board of directors recommended a final single-tier dividend and special single-tier dividend of 7.5 sen per share each. With this proposal, total dividend for the year under review would be RM150 million or 37.5 sen per share.