MOL back in black, sales up 33pc, quarterly profit at US$235 million

JAPAN's Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) is back in the black, declaring a fiscal first quarter profit of JPY20.8 billion (US$235.3 million) after last year's quarterly loss of JYP13 billion.

This year's April 1 to June 30 first quarter profit was drawn on revenues of JPY396.9 billion against last year's quarterly sales of JPY297.4 billion, an increase of 33 per cent. Revenue from containerships stood at JPY146.8 billion, thus contributing JPY8.5 billion to overall profits.

"In the global economy during the first quarter of the fiscal year, while developed countries embarked on a recovery trend, albeit modest, China and other emerging countries continued their strong growth," said a MOL statement accompanying the results.

"In the US, despite restrictions caused by high jobless rates and attrition in residential property values, the economic recovery slowly marched ahead thanks to the Obama Administration's export expansion policy," the statement said.

"Europe's exports recovered, benefiting from a re-emergence of the external economy and the depreciation of the euro, however internally the a budget problem manifested itself along with instability in the financial sector that resulted in low growth, the statement said.

"Regarding containerships, we have optimised the fleet size by returning chartered ships and laying up or scrapping surplus ships from the previous fiscal year along with various measures such as a reduction in fuel costs by slow steaming and the optimisation of our organisation and staff both in Japan and overseas to enhance our cost competitiveness.

"In the first quarter we not only reduced cost through such measures, but also revised and expanded our routes resulting in a profit buttressed by vast improvement in cargo trade and freight rate market conditions on the heels of the global economic recovery," the MOL statement said.
(Source:www.schednet.com)