Q2 Bunker Volumes up 9% for Aegean, but Net Income Still in the Doldrums

Jonathan Mcilroy was appointment President of Aegean in June. Image Credit: Aegean

Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc. [NYSE: ANW] (Aegean) today released its 2Q 2017 financials, showing a very similar picture to 1Q with growing bunker volumes and a major reduction in net income.

They were the first results since a management shake up in response to a 1Q 2017 result that saw net income fall 88.1 percent to $1.4 million, or $0.03 per share.

Today, for the three months ended June 30, 2017, Aegean reported net income had fallen 87.4% year-on-year to $1.7 million or $0.04 basic and diluted earnings per share, compared to a net income of $13.5 million or $0.27 basic and diluted earnings per share in the period last year.

CNBC notes an average estimate calculated by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $0.11 per share.

Bunker sales volumes for the period were 4,474,494 metric tonnes (mt), an increase of 9.3% over the 4,092,789 mt sold in the period last year, and a gain of 0.5% sequentially.

Aegean's recently appointed President, Jonathan Mcilroy, called it a "solid performance" given the circumstances.

"During the second quarter of 2017, we continued to see challenging market conditions across the shipping and marine fuel space. While demand for marine fuel remains high, sales margins remain under pressure by a combination of low oil prices, depressed commercial shipping freight rates and fierce competition on the supply side.

"The new leadership team appointed in July 2017 focuses on four main objectives. To rationalize our global platform delivering on asset optimization; to execute on the cost saving initiative; to capitalize on key business development projects and to generate new revenue streams that leverage our global platform and built-in capacity.

"In this context, and within the challenging market conditions I described, Aegean achieved a solid performance in the second quarter of 2017. Compared to Q1 2017, the Company achieved higher sales volume with improved profit margins. Furthermore, we reduced operational expenses and improved our profitability. While more work remains to be done in the cost reduction area, we are on our way to executing on specific initiatives positioning us well to benefit from any market up turns.

"Executing on asset optimization, we are moving assets out of congested areas where they are underutilized and move them to other areas within our network where they can be better utilized and with higher margins. At the same time, we are selling or leasing assets to third parties."

Aegean will hold its Second Quarter 2017 Conference Call and Webcast tomorrow, Friday August 11th, 2017 at 8:30 A.M. Eastern Time.