Additionally, it is becoming increasingly common for high dayrate drilling vessels to employ extra ROV units for redundancy purposes - the latest generation rigs are beginning to see dayrates of over $600,000 per day - therefore any time lost due to ROV failure can be economically disastrous.
Offshore construction growing
dayrates to increase by as much as 50% in the last year.
Strong growth in ROV work-class operations
Offshore construction activity is another key driver of ROV demand and increasing numbers of construction vessels are coming into the market. These newbuilds tend to disproportionately boost ROV demand as they are mainly focused at the deepwater end of the market which is dependent upon high-capability ROVs with large specialised work packages such as pipeline connection systems. In many cases these ROVs and their associated operational expertise is marketed alongside major companies' offshore construction vessels.
Maintenance, modifications and operations
The growth in offshore activity driven by the demand factors mentioned previously has lead to an increase in expenditure on ROV operations (Opex), a trend which is forecast to continue into the near future. While Western Europe and North America are forecast to remain the largest regions by expenditure, Africa and Latin America are expected to experience the biggest growths during the 2008-2012 period. Opex in Eastern Europe & FSU and the Middle East, while remaining relatively small compared to other regions, is expected to double during the next five years.
More ROVs needed
Work-class ROVs are often used for the repair and maintenance of any subsea structures and are particularly involved in the installation of seabed equipment. As the number of subsea wells is expected to increase to over 6,000 by 2012, this will lead to a rise in operations associated with the maintenance of these wells, known as workover operations. In addition, ROVs are used for the external inspection of seabed pipelines, subsea wells and other production hardware, together with inspection of offshore platforms.
Subsea processing
Over the next decade subsea processing, particularly subsea boosting and separation, is expected to become another major growth area for ROV operations as many oil companies now see seabed processing rather than surface processing as the most practical development solution for fields in deepwater or with long platform tie-backs.
Utilization and dayrates
DWL estimates that, over the next five years, a mammoth 655 oil & gas work-class units will be required to keep up with increased demand and attrition of the current fleet. This compares to some 411 units constructed in the previous five years. DWL forecast total work-class ROV capital expenditure (Capex) will increase from $1 billion in 2003-7 to $2.1 billion in the years 2008-12. The continued growth in the offshore industry will increase the amount of ROV operations during the 20082012 period as the high levels of drilling activity and increasing installations of subsea wells, pipelines, control cables and other seabed hardware, all require the use of work-class ROVs. Moreover, this is increasingly happening in great water depths beyond the economic reach of manned intervention. This all manifests itself in the building of new ROVs in order to meet this growing demand and an increase in dayrates for those units that are currently available.
The Authors
Offshore utilisation and work-class ROV dayrates have increased dramatically over the past five years and now stand at an all time high. Africa, Middle East and the Caspian region have recently overtaken Norway as the most expensive regions and have seen their dayrates increase by 42% in the past year. DWL considers this to be a function of the massive increase in offshore spending in these areas particularly in deepwater offshore West Africa and in gas field developments in the Persian Gulf. Shortage of skilled operators has also caused personnel
www.seadiscovery.com
Douglas-Westwood has a considerable background in the ROV sector. The firm's chairman John Westwood was a founder of the North Sea's first commercially successful ROV operating company and DWL were the first analysts to produce published independent business forecasts of the industry. It has acted as advisors to the major players and investors in the sector providing independent market forecasts and has conducted commercial due diligence on many of the companies that have been bought and sold since 1990. Most recently these include Perry Slingsby's acquisition by the Triton Group, Rovtech's acquisition by Fugro and SMD's acquisition by Inflection Private Equity.
Marine Technology Reporter 25
You don't have Macromedia Flash Player installed.
This content requires the Macromedia Flash Player.
Get Flash
www.marinelink.com