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Revenues at Harland & Wolff Group up 65 Per Cent, but Shipyard Owner Takes £16m Half-Year Loss

11th September 2023
The owners of the iconic Belfast shipyard, Harland & Wolff Group has published its interim financial report, which recorded a rise in revenues in the first half of 2023, but losses still came in at around £16m.
The owners of the iconic Belfast shipyard, Harland & Wolff Group has published its interim financial report, which recorded a rise in revenues in the first half of 2023, but losses still came in at around £16m. Credit: Belfast Harbour-facebook

Shipyard business Harland & Wolff Group Holdings has announced a 65% rise in revenues for the first half of 2023, however the Belfast based owner at Queen’s Island, still registered a loss of almost £16 million in the six month period.

According to Harland & Wolff’s interim financial results, for the six months ending June 30 2023, the London-listed company with an address at 10 Lower Thames Street, reported revenues of £25.53m. In comparison for the same six months of last year, the figure was £15.41m.

The interim report published by H&W also showed when it came to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), the group with four sites, had made a loss of £15.92m.

The loss cites H&W was mainly due to its investment in headcount in preparation for delivery of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) £1.6 billion contract for three fleet solid support contract (FSS) ships to serve the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA). In addition to losses related to other separate contracts.

The MoD’s contract for the trio of FSS newbuilds has been awarded to Spain’s Navantia, which is part the consortium Team Resolute which includes BMT, which won the contract to build the vessels.

H&W will be a sub-contractor in the FSS newbuild project from which it said to expect to earn between £700m and £800m from the deal.

The Irish News has more on the MoD contract and other developments.

Published in Shipyards
Jehan Ashmore

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Jehan Ashmore

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Jehan Ashmore is a marine correspondent, researcher and photographer, specialising in Irish ports, shipping and the ferry sector serving the UK and directly to mainland Europe. Jehan also occasionally writes a column, 'Maritime' Dalkey for the (Dalkey Community Council Newsletter) in addition to contributing to UK marine periodicals. 

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Shipyards

Afloat will be focusing on news and developments of shipyards with newbuilds taking shape on either slipways and building halls.

The common practice of shipbuilding using modular construction, requires several yards make specific block sections that are towed to a single designated yard and joined together to complete the ship before been launched or floated out.

In addition, outfitting quays is where internal work on electrical and passenger facilities is installed (or upgraded if the ship is already in service). This work may involve newbuilds towed to another specialist yard, before the newbuild is completed as a new ship or of the same class, designed from the shipyard 'in-house' or from a naval architect consultancy. Shipyards also carry out repair and maintenance, overhaul, refit, survey, and conversion, for example, the addition or removal of cabins within a superstructure. All this requires ships to enter graving /dry-docks or floating drydocks, to enable access to the entire vessel out of the water.

Asides from shipbuilding, marine engineering projects such as offshore installations take place and others have diversified in the construction of offshore renewable projects, from wind-turbines and related tower structures. When ships are decommissioned and need to be disposed of, some yards have recycling facilities to segregate materials, though other vessels are run ashore, i.e. 'beached' and broken up there on site. The scrapped metal can be sold and made into other items.