Shipyard business Harland & Wolff Group Holdings has announced a 65% rise in revenues for the first half of 2023, however the Belfast based owner at Queen’s Island, still registered a loss of almost £16 million in the six month period.

According to Harland & Wolff’s interim financial results, for the six months ending June 30 2023, the London-listed company with an address at 10 Lower Thames Street, reported revenues of £25.53m. In comparison for the same six months of last year, the figure was £15.41m.

The interim report published by H&W also showed when it came to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), the group with four sites, had made a loss of £15.92m.

The loss cites H&W was mainly due to its investment in headcount in preparation for delivery of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) £1.6 billion contract for three fleet solid support contract (FSS) ships to serve the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA). In addition to losses related to other separate contracts.

The MoD’s contract for the trio of FSS newbuilds has been awarded to Spain’s Navantia, which is part the consortium Team Resolute which includes BMT, which won the contract to build the vessels.

H&W will be a sub-contractor in the FSS newbuild project from which it said to expect to earn between £700m and £800m from the deal.

The Irish News has more on the MoD contract and other developments.