Hyundai Heavy Swings to Black in Q1

South Korea's shipbuilding major Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) has made an unexpected turnaround by posting 28.1 billion won (US$24.1 million) in operating profit on a consolidated basis in the first quarter of 2019.

Net profit reached 17.3 billion won ($14.8 million) in the January-March period on a consolidated basis, compared with a loss of 132 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a stock exchange annoucement.

HHI attributed the operating profit due to decrease in provisions for new orders, improvement in profitability of Special & Naval Shipbuilding. Turned an operating profit due to reversal of previously accrued warranty charges from Gorgon LNG project, and cost savings of NASR2 offshore work, it said.

Sales climbed 7.4 percent on-year to reach 3.27 trillion won over the cited period, it added.

A report in Business Korea quoted the company sources saying that: “Although uncertainty still exists in the shipbuilding market, expectations for a recovery are rising as environmental regulations have been tightened recently and large-scale LNG projects have been launched. We will focus our capacity on LNG carriers in the future.”