Revenues rise across the board at Bourbon

The group's total revenues jumped 8.6% to EUR332.4 ($448.9m) as 21 vessels were added to the fleet, and average daily rates rose 3.7% to $19,573 per day.

Utilisation across the fleet dropped by 0.5% to 90% as a greater number of vessels were relocating during the last quarter.

The most significant increase in revenues came from the subsea services sector, where the addition of two Bourbon 800 vessels since last year helped raise revenues 26.7% to EUR58.9m from EUR64.5. Subsea also benefited from an increase in utilisation rates from 85.2% to 93.6%, and a rise in rates from $38,991 per day to $41,331 per day.

Compared to the third quarter of 2012, revenues for the group's deepwater fleet increased 8% last quarter to EUR100.6m, a near 10% increase in average daily rates from $20,702 per day to $22,683 per day offsetting a drop in utilisation from 92.1% to 88.8%.

For the shallow water fleet, average rates dropped from $14,308 to $13,728, but an increase in the fleet of 16 vessels, bringing the total to 117, helped to raise revenues to EUR93m from EUR91.7m in the same period last year.

Continuing the plan started with the sale of nine vessels to ICBC Leasing in September, Bourbon sale and charter-back programme will see continued reductions in its owned fleet, explained Christian Lefèvre, ceo of Bourbon, "Bourbon will continue to implement the reduction of its debt as per the Asset Smart portion of the 'Transforming for Beyond' action plan with the sale of the next 15 vessels during the coming weeks and the remaining 27 vessels in batches as they are delivered and before the end of June 2014, for a total of $1.5bn, including the nine vessels sold in early September."

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