The Bermuda company that owns the Oleander said yesterday it expects revenue to be down for the first half of the year. This follows a fall off in the amount of cargo shipped to Bermuda owing to a slow down in the construction boom.

In a statement issued through the Bermuda Stock Exchange, the shipping company Bermuda Container Line Ltd. said that the amount of non-containerised cargo had dropped year over year.

And this fact would be reflected in the financial statements for the first six months of 2003 which will be made public at the end of September, the release added.

In a letter to shareholders that accompanied a recent dividend payment BCL president, Geoffrey Frith, said: "The interim report for the first six months of 2003 will be available during the last week of September but we can report that revenue will be down from the first half of 2002.

"This downturn has been caused by a decline in cargo volume. Both the BCL and SISL services had increased eastbound container volume but there was a significant fall-off in non-containerised cargo.

The decline in non-containerised cargo is primarily due to the fact that there are few major building projects on the go compared to the last few years."

Last year BCL reported net earnings for the year ended December 31 2002 were $4.35 million, a drop of nearly 4 percent, which was blamed on lower freight rates after the company cut the cost of shipping in January 2002.

But cargo volumes in 2002 were up slightly from those in 2001.

For the first six months of 2002 BCL reported a 3 percent increase in net earnings in spite of the reduced freight rates at the beginning of the year.

During the first six months of 2002 BCL earned $2.36 million for the six months to June 30, up three percent from the $2.29 million earned in 2001.

BCL, which was set up in 1979, provides an ocean freight service linking Bermuda with the world.

It operates a weekly service between Port Elizabeth, New Jersey and Hamilton with the Oleander.

It has an associate company, Somers Isles Shipping Ltd, which operates a three time per month service between Fernandia Beach Florida and Hamilton.