New York-listed offshore operator Tidewater continued incremental rates improvement in the second quarter while missing consensus analyst estimates on both earnings and revenue.
Tidewater reported net income of $22.6m or $0.43 per share, flipping the $25.6m loss, or $0.61 per share, seen in the first three months of 2022.
However, this trailed the analyst consensus bet for net income of $0.65 per share. Revenue of $215m trailed consensus of $2.19m.
The performance did continue Tidewater’s progress in a recovering offshore energy sector, as average day rates for the quarter of $16,042 were $1,418 higher than the seasonally weak first quarter.
Net income was up $12m from the prior quarter, while adjusted Ebitda of $72m rose $12.9m.
Quintin Kneen, Tidewater’s President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “The second quarter continued the trend of new quarterly cyclical revenue and global average day rate high-water marks,” said Quintin Kneen, Tidewater’s president and chief executive.
“Consolidated global average day rates improved approximately $1,400 per day sequentially, approaching a $5,500 per day increase since the end of 2021. The pace of our day rate improvement picked up from the prior quarter as commercial and tendering activity remained robust and an improvement in seasonal factors helped drive shorter-term day rate realisation.
“The momentum in day rates is being driven by a global supply shortage of large and small offshore vessels, and as a result, each of our five segments realised meaningful day rate expansions during the second quarter.”
Tidewater said utilisation declined to 79.4% from 80.6% in the prior quarter.
“Utilization was down modestly during the second quarter as we withheld capacity and repositioned the fleet to maximize long-term day rates on a global basis, which resulted in more days of frictional unemployment as we targeted higher margin geographies for our vessels. The opportunity cost of this strategy to maximize day rates was approximately $8.0 million in the second quarter,” Kneen said.
Tidewater also completed the acquisition of 37 platform supply vessels from Solstad Offshore in early July.
