Slump in offshore industry to continue into 2010

Operators of offshore support vessels are facing another difficult year in 2010, although there should be some recovery over this year’s market. This claim was made by Christian Loken, senior vice-president of the Norwegian-based Pareto, a leading provider of offshore rig brokering.

He said that an OSV newbuilding orderbook of around 30% of the existing fleet of 2,200 vessels was yet to be delivered, although there had been very few new orders this year.

For the global anchor handling tug supply vessel fleet there were 450 new vessels on order, equivalent to 33% of the existing fleet, many of which were contracted speculatively. Loken said next year would be tough for AHTS, with some improvement being seen in 2011 and 2012.

The situation was seen as slightly better for platform supply vessels, with a global fleet of 920 and 220 under construction, or 22% of the existing fleet. Loken said 2010 would be tough for PSVs but not as difficult as this year.

Swire Pacific Offshore general manager George Horsington said the boom of 2006-2008 had been a temporary situation and what was being seen now was a correction and a return to a much more normal market. “The days of easy money are over for the short term,” he said.

Otto Marine chief executive Lee Kok Wah added that the market was now in more normalized times and yards were no longer able to build vessels speculatively and sell them to the highest bidder on completion. Otto Marine owns and operates PT Batamec shipyard in Indonesia, which builds offshore support vessels.

The hope is that stable oil prices will start encouraging more exploration and production by oil companies, which in turn drives up demand for offshore support vessels.