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Pandemic pulls down Akva’s Q2 land-based revenues

The global COVID-19 pandemic stymied the growth of Akva’s land-based operations, according to the latest financial report from the aquaculture equipment supplier.

Akva said its land-based technology division lost US$2.3 million during the second quarter of 2020. The division also saw its revenues shrink from $10.6 million in 2019 to $7.8 million this year.

The company said contract cancellations and postponements due to the pandemic were to blame for the downturn.

“The low activity and negative margins are due to impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak with cancellation and postponement of projects, which lead to restructuring costs and due to closing of old projects and start-up of a new generation of projects,” the report said.”AKVA group has remained focused on the implemented measures started after the COVID-19 outbreak in March to ensure the health and safety of our employees and customers, to monitor and optimize the overall liquidity in the company, to maintain the security of supply during the crisis and a steady order intake to ensure work for all in AKVA group.”

However, the company stressed that AKVA’s “pipeline of projects continues to be strong.”

Order intake for the land-based division for the second quarter was $26.4 million compared to $8.6 million for the same period last year.

The division’s backlog of orders for 2020 Q2 was placed at $86.3 million compared to 68.4 million for the same quarter in 2019

“AKVA group maintains focus on full grow out recirculating aquaculture system facilities, and in June 2020 AKVA group signed a non-binding Term Sheet with the Norwegian company AquaCon AS for a potential supply of equipment, engineering and design to a new land-based grow-out facility and has a potential value for AKVA group of $130 million,” the company said.