Recovery in the global economy and macroeconomic environment will have a positive impact on Gulf International Services said, Chairman of Gulf International Services, Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Thani. He was addressing the shareholders during the virtual Annual General Assembly Meeting held yesterday.
“With our more sustainable business models along with the recent contracts won in 2019 and 2020, and given the oil and gas market conditions recovering supported by the increased demand globally, we hope that an improved macroeconomic environment would have a more positive impact on our segments, especially the drilling segment,” said Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Thani.
“Going forward, our group companies will continue their efforts in ensuring leaner cost base to be more competitive, while maintaining our current market share, improve asset utilization and built resilient future financial performance to create long term shareholder value,” he added.
The Chairman said that relentless efforts are being placed to ensure efficient and effective debt structure for the Group, which is a key ingredient of our corporate strategy, and to support the company and all the stakeholders in repayment with more convenient terms.
“We hope that bank lenders would support these efforts to benefit GIS and its shareholders. The restructuring would make the group more resilient, enabling it to address market challenges and capture suitable investment opportunities to improve its operational and financial performance,” he added.
The Chairman said that in order to offset the unprecedented dual macroeconomic headwinds, GIS further emphasised on the optimization drive across all the segments and implemented new measures, as an additional layer of defense, in addition to the existing optimization programs.
Addressing the shareholders, Mohammed Jaber Al Sulaiti, Manager Privatized Companies Affairs Dept, Qatar Petroleum, said that despite the severe macro pressures, the Group’s base-case business strategy revolved around its core objectives of increasing its market share in Qatar, while entering into new international markets.
“The Group’s top priority was to reposition its core oil and gas services business, by minimizing costs and maximizing asset utilization, in order to become more efficient and better leverage its domestic and international strengths,” he said.
“However, despite the challenging macroeconomic conditions, which remains out of the Group’s control, all the Group companies placed efforts to withstand these momentous challenges in order to mitigate the business and operational risks and made continuous efforts to optimize cost in all possible areas of business, to provide financial flexibility, while ensuring the safety and performance standards are not compromised,” he added.
He said that 2020 was one of the most challenging year for the Group since inception, and witnessed the worst plunge in the oil prices coupled with global economic downturn amid COVID-19 outbreak, which led to severe cuts in oil and gas exploration, production and maintenance activities across the globe.
