8th May 2026
Gulf Marine Services PLC
('Gulf Marine Services', 'GMS', 'the Company' or 'the Group')
Highlights of unaudited results for Q1 2026, Operations Update and Guidance
GMS, a leading provider of advanced self-propelled, self-elevating support vessels serving the offshore oil, gas and renewables industries, is pleased to announce highlights of its unaudited operational results for the three months period ended 31 March 2026 (Q1 2026).
Overview
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|
Q1 2026 |
Q1 2025 |
%Change |
|
Revenue (US$'m) |
38.0 |
42.3 |
-10% |
|
EBITDA (US$'m) |
19.5 |
25.6 |
-24% |
|
EBITDA Margin |
51.3% |
60.5% |
-15% |
|
Net bank debt (US$'m) |
193.1 |
187.4 |
+3% |
|
Net leverage ratio |
1.81:1 |
1.79:1 |
+1% |
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Utilisation of vessels |
74% |
89% |
-15% |
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Average day rates (US$'k) |
37.0 |
34.2 |
+8% |
|
Backlog as of last day of the period (US$'m) |
660 |
570 |
+16% |
Highlights:
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· |
The results reflect the impact of the war in the Gulf, as at 31 March 2026. As announced in early March, we were instructed to evacuate the Company's four vessels in one of the GCC countries as a precautionary measure. These developments halted the Group's operations in that country and reduced our average utilisation to 74% in Q1 (Q1 2025: 89%). Utilisation was also affected by the preparation of a vessel ahead of its contract commencing in Europe. As a result, both revenue and adjusted EBITDA were lower compared to Q1 2025. While we remain in discussions with the client on how to address the situation, no revenue from those evacuated vessels was recognized in March.
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· |
GMS acquired a brand-new mid-class vessel in January, bringing the total fleet being operated by the Company to 15 vessels. The acquisition is in-line with the Company's ambition to double 2024 EBITDA by 2030. The acquisition has been partially financed through a US$ 37.4 million bridge loan currently in the process of being merged into the existing bank facilities.
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Net leverage ratio at 31 March was 1.81x (Q1 2025: 1.79x), below the 2.0x long-term target. The increase reflected the financing for the vessel acquisition.
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The Board has deferred the decision to declare a distribution at this time pending further assessment of the geopolitical situation, while reaffirming the capital allocation policy. |
Outlook:
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· |
As of early April, GMS's crew started to get back on board all the evacuated vessels. The client joined on 2 vessels a few days later. This is a welcomed positive development.
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· |
A vessel has been redeployed to Europe and started operations in April 2026. This enhances our presence in the renewables sector, while further diversifying our geographical footprint, which was primarily concentrated in the Middle East during 2025.
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We recently announced that our newly acquired vessel is heading to Latin America as it secured a contract there. We also announced that we entered into an agreement to manage and operate a third party vessel in Africa.
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Our adjusted EBITDA guidance between US$ 105 million to US$ 115 million for 2026 is maintained.
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Our backlog, which provides future earnings visibility, further increased to US$ 666 million as of May 4th, 2026. We also anticipate continued improvement on average day rates as the legacy contracts are being renewed at higher day rates. |
Alex Aclimandos, Chief Financial Officer at GMS said:
"We are encouraged that the actions taken over the past few years have strengthened our resilience and agility, enabling us to absorb recent shocks and positioning us well to capture the anticipated post-war growth in demand, in the GCC region. While the war in the Gulf has disrupted and delayed some of our plans, we had anticipated that Q1 would be a transitional quarter, with one of our larger vessels relocating to Europe, another transitioning between contracts, a third undergoing major refurbishment, and the addition of a newly acquired mid-class vessel."
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Enquiries: Mansour Al Alami Executive Chairman Alex Aclimandos Chief Financial Officer
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Tel: +44 (0)20 7603 1515 |
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Celicourt Communications Mark Antelme Philip Dennis Kristine Qevani |
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7770 6424 |
Notes to Editors:
Gulf Marine Services PLC, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange, was founded in Abu Dhabi in 1977 and has become a world-leading provider of advanced self-propelled self-elevating support vessels (SESVs). The fleet serves the offshore energy industries from its offices in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The Group's assets are capable of serving clients' requirements across the globe, including those in the Middle East, South East Asia, West Africa, North America, the Gulf of Mexico, and Europe.
The GMS fleet of 15 SESVs is amongst the youngest in the industry. The vessels support GMS's clients in a broad range of offshore platform refurbishment and maintenance activities, well intervention work, and offshore wind turbine maintenance work (which are opex-led activities), as well as offshore platform installation and decommissioning and offshore wind turbine installation (which are capex-led activities).
The SESVs are categorised by size - K-Class (Small), S-Class (Mid), and E-Class (Large) - with these capable of operating in water depths of 45m to 80m depending on leg length. The vessels are four-legged and are self-propelled, which means they do not require tugs or similar support vessels for moves between locations in the field; this makes them significantly more cost-effective and time-efficient than conventional offshore support vessels without self-propulsion. They have a large deck space, crane capacity, and accommodation facilities (for up to 300 people) that can be adapted to the requirements of the Group's clients.
Gulf Marine Services PLC's Legal Entity Identifier is 213800IGS2QE89SAJF77
www.gmsplc.com
Disclaimer
The content of the Gulf Marine Services PLC website should not be considered to form a part of or be incorporated into this announcement.
Cautionary Statement
This announcement includes statements that are forward-looking in nature. All statements other than statements of historical fact are capable of interpretation as forward-looking statements. These statements may generally, but not always, be identified by the use of words such as 'will', 'should', 'could', 'estimate', 'goals', 'outlook', 'probably', 'project', 'risks', 'schedule', 'seek', 'target', 'expects', 'is expected to', 'aims', 'may', 'objective', 'is likely to', 'intends', 'believes', 'anticipates', 'plans', 'we see' or similar expressions. By their nature these forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, as they relate to events and depend on circumstances that might occur in the future.
Accordingly, the actual results, operations, performance or achievements of the Company and its subsidiaries may be materially different from any future results, operations, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, due to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Neither Gulf Marine Services PLC nor any of its subsidiaries undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or other information. No part of this announcement constitutes, or shall be taken to constitute, an invitation or inducement to invest the Company or any other entity and must not be relied upon in any way in connection with any investment decision. All written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or to persons acting on the Company's behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements referred to above.
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