Gulf Marine Services, a company providing self-propelled jack-up support vessels serving the offshore oil, gas, and renewables industries, said Wednesday it had secured three new contracts for its rigs, with a combined duration of 31 months.
The contracts include a 23‐month contract for an E Class vessel in Qatar, starting early 2022, and two K Class vessel contracts totaling eight months starting August 2021.
"Combined these contract awards brings secured utilization to 86% for 2021 and 50% for 2022 and orderbook (including options) increases to US $215m," GMS said.
Mansour Al Alami GMS Executive Chairman said: "These contract awards mean that all 13 vessels in our fleet are all under a contract which is something we haven't seen since 2016 and is a very good indicator of an improving market.
"The 23‐month contract award for the E‐Class vessel was at rates significantly higher than we have seen in recent times and we would expect improvement in day rates to continue as the supply/demand dynamics improve in our favor."
"The company has seen a solid first half to the year and is well placed to see further improvement in the second half, which gives the Board added confidence that GMS remains on track to see a significant improvement in EBITDA going forward, with the bottom line turning positive after many years of continued losses."
He said that GMS' performance was underpinned by positive market conditions, supporting utilization, contracted activity, the pipeline of opportunities, and day rates.