I.M. Skaugen - Annual Report 2006

GOALS FOR 2007

For the year 2007 I.M. Skaugen has defined a number of key objectives for maintaining the financial and operational impetus of all sides of the business.

Key strategic goals
We will aim to develop shareholder value by:

•	Ensuring we live up to our company descriptor of offering “innovative maritime solutions”;
•	Continuing our focus on driving our three principal business areas to increase our cash returns from operations;
•	Maintaining our tight control of costs and enhancing our efficiency programmes in order to sustain a lowest possible EBIT level that ensures we can weather any general business downturn if it were to come about;
•	Continually looking for opportunities for new projects within our core competence areas which can lead to future revenue streams;
•	Leveraging the advantage we have gained from our Chinese activities - including our gas transportation activities, our SMC newbuilding activities and own recruitment and training programmes - to enhance operations right across the Group;
•	Seeking to attract the best talent in the industry, as well as nurturing and training our own workforce;
•	Utilising available information and communications technology (ICT) that allows our business model to function and to enable simple and effective management of all parts of our business.

Key operational goals
Our main task for all of our operations is to build a culture among our employees that leads to the highest levels of service and quality for our customers. Our safety culture and our ‘can do’ attitude must be the cornerstone of day-to-day focus that ensures we are recognised as a cost and service leader among our industry peers.

Specifically we need to:

•	Build on the success of our new joint venture with ENGC to further develop our world class gas carrier operations;
•	Successfully develop SMC and integrate all our new vessels into the Norgas and SPT fleets in 2007. Ensure that our newbuilds programme - alongside our Chinese partnerships - remains on schedule and within budget;
•	Increase the scope of the training programmes at our Wuhan-Skaugen Training Center (WSTC) in order to attract further students and enhance our reputation within the seafaring community;
•	Integrate our new UK-based operation into our SPT business and use this as a springboard to extend the geographical scope of our SPT lightering operations;
•	Use the experience of our 20 years of oil lightering at SPT to become an industry leader in the growing field of LNG lightering services.

”Our ‘can do’ attitude must be the cornerstone of day-to-day focus that ensures we are recognised as a cost and service leader among our industry peers”