April 22, 2015 [Royal Vopak] - Total revenues increased by EUR 31.5 million (10%) to EUR 349.5 million (Q1 2014: EUR 318.0 million), including a positive currency translation effect of EUR 19.5 million. This increase in revenues was primarily caused by a higher average occupancy rate due to the current positive sentiments in the markets for oil products and due to an increased average capacity.
Storage demand for chemicals is steady and remains challenging for biofuels. The average occupancy rate at subsidiaries increased from 88% for the first quarter of 2014 to 91% for the first quarter of 2015.
Eelco Hoekstra, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Royal Vopak:
“In Q1 2015, we delivered improved financial results compared to the same period last year. This improvement was mainly driven by higher demand in the oil market, growth of our storage capacity and favorable currency effects.
We were able to increase the overall occupancy rates while expanding our worldwide storage capacity to 34.0 million cbm. The higher occupancy rate in Europe was partially offset by lower occupancy rates in Asia and Americas due to the slowdown of economic growth and due to a dynamic and volatile spot market in Asia.
Despite an overall increased demand for our storage and handling services in our well-positioned global network, the competitive and dynamic business environment in certain product-market combinations remained. In order to sustain and further strengthen our leading position as storage infrastructure provider in the major ports around the world, our undiminished focus on safety and services remains key to continue delivering value to our customers. Going forward, we will continue with the disciplined execution of our strategy and we will maintain our long-term focus on delivering stable returns and on free cash flow generation from our infrastructure portfolio.
In line with our previous outlook and based on current market insights, we expect to realize an EBITDA -excluding exceptional items- in excess of EUR 768 million in 2015. This outlook takes into account factors such as our competitive and dynamic business environment, the potential decrease in EBITDA due to realization of earlier announced divestments and the implications of a phased introduction of new storage capacity expansions, including initial contributions from (to be) completed new projects.”
Storage capacity developments
During Q1 2015, Vopak commissioned phase 1C (capacity 413,000 cbm) of Pengerang Independent Terminals (Malaysia) and finalized the divestment of the three terminals in the United States (300,700 cbm). These, and some other smaller movements, resulted in a total storage capacity of 34.0 million cbm at the end of Q1 2015.
All projects currently under development are expected to add 5.8 million cbm of storage capacity to our global network (on a 100% basis) in the period up to and including 2019.
