MIDDLE EAST • QATAR An audience with Milaha
Hamad Port, continued population growth, and the ongoing preparations for World Cup 2022 and its related projects. These factors offer lucrative opportunities for maritime and logistics companies to capitalise on in the medium term.
Q The company posted
encouraging financial figures for 2016 in a year that was particularly challenging for the industry. What were the major factors that helped you achieve this?
Abdulrahman Essa Al-Mannai, president and ceo of Milaha
The following is an exclusive interview that Seatrade conducted with Abdulrahman Essa Al-Mannai, president and ceo of Milaha.
Q
How would you reflect on Milaha’s performance over the past 12 months? What have been the major challenges you have faced?
We had a relatively good year financially, earning a net profit of QAR 711m in 2016 under extremely challenging market conditions. We continued, however, to expand our operations with the launch of our Singapore office and the agreement to create QTerminals to manage the first phase of Hamad Port, just to name a few milestones.
Q
How would you describe industry conditions currently?
The business environment is challenging to say the least in light of continued vessel oversupply, subdued demand, and rate pressure in most marine and offshore sectors. However, in the case of Qatar, there are some factors that help mitigate the impact of at least some of the global headwinds, such as the launch of operations at
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We knew that 2016 was going to be a tough year and proactively focused on managing our costs and strengthening our relationships with key partners. These measures contributed to our continued profitability, which many of our peers struggled to achieve in 2016. We simultaneously pressed on with our multi-year strategy to execute key long-term projects such as the expansion of our operations into Asia, the co-establishment of QTerminals, and our foray into the offshore brownfield services sector.
We will see the rewards from these investments in the coming years. If we go back a few years, the effort and investment that went into building strong port management capabilities, through managing the old Doha Port along with our partner, Mwani Qatar, helped us immensely in making the step up to play a part in managing the larger, more complex Hamad Port. This is a proud achievement for all of us at Milaha.
Similarly, we are investing in new capabilities, for example in the offshore well services sector, and expanding our footprint in a careful and prudent manner to enable stronger growth going forward.
Q
Are there any future plans you would particularly like
to highlight?
We are always looking for ways to grow our portfolio and service
offering in order to serve our clients more effectively and efficiently. In that vein, we recently launched the first direct common carrier feeder service between Saudi Arabia and India. This weekly service will facilitate and boost trade between importers and exporters in Saudi Arabia, especially in Dammam and Jubail, and India, particularly the state of Gujarat.
Additionally, we made significant investments in state-of-the-art warehouses and logistic facilities in Qatar, and we expect to start seeing the positive impact of these investments this year.
More broadly at the group level, our medium and long term strategy ensures that we continue investing for the future across a number of our activities, both at home and abroad.
Q
How have Milaha’s joint ventures performed over the
last 12 months?
In addition to our fully-owned and operated fleet, we own 50% of 4 VLGCs, and 15-30% share of 7 LNG carriers with other global players. The overall profit of these joint ventures declined moderately in 2016 compared to 2015, but that decline was partially offset by stronger results from the 7 LNG joint ventures.
Q
What are your overall goals for Milaha over the next 12 months and beyond?
Our goal is, as ever, to consistently deliver reliable services by focusing on safety, quality and our customers. To achieve this, we will continue to foster stronger relationships with our clients and provide more compelling service offerings that meet and exceed their expectations. At the same time, we need to continue optimising our costs and remaining vigilant to when the right opportunities arise to grow our business and market share.
Seatrade Maritime Review • Quarterly Issue 2 • June 2017
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