K Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. posted more than double the operating profit from a year earlier in the first half of this year, boosted by higher tanker sales.
K Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. said on the 13th that it recorded 114.314 billion won in operating profit on a consolidation basis for the first half of this year. That is up about 171.8% from the same period last year. First-half revenue was 683.462 billion won, up 15.4% from a year earlier. Net profit came to 110.663 billion won, 4.7 times the 23.13 billion won a year earlier.
K Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. is a mid-sized shipbuilder that mainly builds medium-range tankers (oil tankers). The first-half earnings improvement is seen as the result of increased revenue recognition as the progress rate of shipbuilding rose.
Among K Shipbuilding Co., Ltd.'s shipbuilding contracts that account for 5% or more of revenue, the progress rates of vessels scheduled for delivery by the first half of this year rose sharply in the first half compared with the same period a year earlier.
According to last year's semiannual report, there were eight construction contracts scheduled for delivery by the first half of this year, and at the time, the average progress rate of those contracts was only 23%. As of the first half of this year, the progress rates of those vessels are 100% except for two ships, while the remaining vessels are at 61% and 42%.
A K Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. official said, "The significant rise in the production progress of medium-range petrochemical tankers, our main ship type, had a positive impact on earnings," and added, "As production has stabilized, results have been on an upward trend since last year."
Other comprehensive loss was 110.581 billion won, up about 4.8 times from 23.035 billion won a year earlier. On this, a K Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. official said, "It reflects the expectation that severance pay for shipbuilding production workers will increase in the future."