KUALA LUMPUR: Offshore support outfit Icon Offshore Bhd expects to chart a better financial performance for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2022 (FY22) on the back of higher demand for its services as well as the uptick in the daily charter rate (DCR).

       Managing director Datuk Seri Hadian Hashim said the company has also improved the utilisation rate of its offshore support vessels (OSVs) and jack-up drilling rig to 90% last year from 72% in 2019.

       “The OSVs are making money, the rig is performing very well and there is no downtime since we started operating the rig from the end of the first quarter to the beginning of the second quarter.

       “We also have made a lot of changes by looking at staff numbers, cost and how we could do better.

       “We have done rationalisation of vendors and also streamlined a lot of things,” he told Bernama.

       Hadian took the helm of Icon Offshore in September 2019 with the task of turning around the group.

       Prior to Hadian’s appointment at Icon Offshore, the group did not have a CEO for two years after the departure of Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan in 2017.

       “The company has done reasonably well in the last three years. I am happy that the company has gone the way it has, primarily because there is no external talent in that sense, except for me and I didn’t come with an entourage.

       “What it means is that there are good talents in the company and you need to open up and be more engaging.

       “The first day I came to the company, I did a town hall and declared to the employees that this is what we need to do,” he pointed out.

       Hadian said Icon Offshore’s order book was at a healthy level of RM743mil, comprising a majority of RM677mil in the OSV segment in Malaysia and Brunei – enough to keep the company busy for 2？ years while the remaining was in its drilling segment.

       Its tender book currently stands at RM1.4bil, consisting of RM930mil in the OSV space with the remaining in drilling operations.

       Currently, 40% of Icon Offshore’s revenue is contributed by its OSV business in Malaysia followed by OSV operations in Brunei (30%) and its drilling segment contributes the remaining 30%.

       The group has completed its drilling business acquisition in February 2021 which was fully operational in the second quarter of 2021.