November 16 (SeeNews) - Romanian freight forwarding group Transport Trade Services grew its net profit to 136.5 million lei ($29 million/ 28 million euro) in the first nine months of 2022, from 57.3 million lei in the like period of 2021, parent company Transport Trade Services SA [BSE:TTS] said.
TTS Group's turnover rose by an annual 47.3% to 664.3 million lei during January-September, TTS SA said in a statement filed with the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB, on Tuesday.
The total volume of goods transported by the group by river and handled in ports in the first nine months of the year rose by an annual 9.4% to 10.7 million tonnes, influenced by prolonged drought, the reconfiguration of logistics flows as a result of the war in Ukraine, and the unexpectedly low level of Romanian agricultural goods entering the market in the third quarter.
The volume was also affected by the exit from the market of two important flows of minerals with a cumulative value of 1.25 million tonnes – steel raw materials on the Ismail-Galati routeр and bauxite for the alumina plant in Tulcea. These flows, however, took place over short distances with little added value, TTS noted.
Market conditions remained favoкrable and stabilized in the third quarter, both in terms of river transport services on the Danube and in terms of port operation services in Constanta, determining good individual and consolidated results for TTS. The main factor that determined this evolution was the entry into the markets of the massive flows of grain exported by Ukraine, against the background of the service offer limited by the existing capacities, both at the level of the fleets on the Danube and in the port of Constanta, the company said.
Anticipating the lack of available capacity, TTS Group operationalized two buoy terminals in the inner lane of the port of Constanta in July and September.
At individual level, TTS SA booked a net profit of 60.6 million lei in the first nine months of 2022, up by an annual 127.8%, while turnover rose 56.8% year-on-year to 465.3 million lei.
TTS Group consists of 16 companies, of which eleven registered in Romania, three registered in Hungary and one each in Moldova and Austria, and operates on the entire navigable course of the Danube, from Kelheim to Constanta and to Ismail/Reni in Ukraine. The group owns the largest river fleet in the Danube basin, with a capacity of almost 800 thousand tons, eight floating cranes, as well as port terminals in Constanta and in seven Danube river ports in Romania and Hungary.
TTS SA, founded in 1997, is the parent company of TTS Group, a provider of integrated logistics services on the Danube.
As at 1355 CET on Wednesday, TTS SA shares traded 2.73% higher at 11.3 lei on the BVB.
(1 euro=4.9209 lei)