KUALA LUMPUR: Alam Maritim Resources Bhd is aiming for an order book of RM1 billion by year-end through a combination of international and domestic projects.

Group chief executive officer Datuk Azmi Ahmad said the company’s current order book stood at RM753 million and RM1.3 billion contracts tendered.

He said the contracts tendered were largely for underwater inspection, repair and maintenance (IRM), offshore support vessels (OSVs) and the execution and management of offshore installation and construction (OIC) projects.

“We are looking more towards IRM projects rather than OSVs, as the latter has quite a saturated market,” he told reporters after the company’s extraordinary general meeting (EGM) here today.

Azmi said most of Alam Maritim’s income was derived from Petronas-related projects, but the company also planned to tender for IRM projects in Thailand and Vietnam.

Alam Maritim had been incurring losses for the past several years and for the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2018, the company’s net loss widened to RM21.39 million from a net loss of RM10.76 million in the previous corresponding period. 

Meanwhile, four resolutions were passed at the EGM, namely the issuance of bonus shares, issuance of redeemable convertible notes (RCN), termination of the existing employees’ share option scheme (ESOS) and allocation of new ESOS options to the directors. 

The RCN issuance is aimed at raising RM160 million to be utilised for the company’s fleet renewal programme (RM80 million), maintenance and dry-docking (RM50 million) and working capital (RM30 million).   

“The fundraising exercise is timely for us, especially in this demanding environment as we want to have liquefied natural gas-powered vessels, as these are preferred by clients. We also plan to reduce our fleet size from 39 vessels to 25 and focus on specialised new vessels,” Azmi said.

Moving forward, he said the company would be looking at improving the vessel utilisation rate to over 55 per cent in 2019.

“However, the company will remain in the red as income churned from new contracts will only be reflected into next year’s accounts,” Azmi added. - Bernama