Page 35: of Marine News Magazine (October 2023)

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Feature

Offshore “It’s inevitable that some of these vessels are going to be operating outside of the normal parameters, but I think that’s just something we’re going to have to accept.” – Jonathan Lints, Clarksons

Clarksons

Many of these vessels simply aren’t So, what’s going to happen? “We order to bring ourselves up to speed, present in the U.S. market, or they’re know newbuilds are unlikely, or they we’re going to have to take large off- too expensive or lack incentive to piv- haven’t happened for a while—that’s shore support vessels (OSV) and [in- ot away from oil and gas and up to for sure,” Lints said. “I think we’ll stall] cranes, portable accommoda- the East Coast, Lints said. Why leave see an increase in [sale and purchase tion module (PAM) units, gangways, a healthy spot market in the Gulf of (S&P)] activity; we’re already seeing A-frames, winches, etc. for subsea.

Mexico for another up north that is that at the moment. The problem with I don’t see any other way it can be limited with less contingency and is that is these vessels are not coming done,” Lints said. “It’s inevitable that more costly to operate in? particularly cheap because the owners some of these vessels are going to be

In the North Sea, there are currently are seeing extremely good dayrates. operating outside of the normal pa- 87 vessels operating with 10- to 25-ton “What we’ll see is a lot of vessel rameters, but I think that’s just some- cranes that can be used for this type conversions and modi? cations. In thing we’re going to have to accept.” of support work (60 when excluding

SOVs), Lints said. The U.S. only has eight. And of the United States’ six vessels with 26- to 50-ton cranes, only two are active heave-compensated.

“The North Sea started the same way as here [in the U.S.], where we needed to convert vessels because sub- sea vessels were too expensive,” Lints said, noting that many of the Europe- an subsea vessels only transitioned to renewables as a result of the downturn in oil and gas. “We really are lagging at the moment in the U.S.” www.marinelink.com MN 35|