Page 31: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2013)

www.marinelink.com 31these vessels will be the most highly utilized as the market develops.Market Forecast Due to the uncertainties in the industry and the slow growth experienced historically, Douglas-Westwood take a conservative view when undertaking its market modeling, with particular sensitivity placed on the more speculative projects. However, there is a positive upward trend, with signiÞ cant expenditure expected, which has attracted many of the largest industrial players from those that are already involved in the onshore wind industry to new entrants.We forecast activity both by country and by a multitude of category areas such as wind turbines and installation vessel requirements. Several highlights from the report are picked out below: Telieve that due to the strong long-term drivers for new sources of power generation, Capex will be maintained at or exceeding 2016 levels.Conclusions The future growth of offshore wind is highly linked to achieving meaningful cost reduction, which would in turn unlock investment from both project Þ nanciers and the sup-ply chain. Unfortunately, there is no single answer to cost reduction, and it will only be achieved through a combina-tion of approaches including increased competition in the supply chain, higher reliability levels, new maintenance strategies and optimized wind turbine designs.There is evidence of new approaches in areas such as con-tracting strategy and risk sharing between project develop-ers. Several major industrial players including Samsung and Areva are also in varying stages of development of new offshore wind turbines. This development should bring in- creased competition to an area currently dominated by a single player. Leveraging experience from the established offshore oil and gas sector is another promising develop- ment especially in areas such as offshore construction and maintenance activities.MR #8 (26-33).indd 31MR #8 (26-33).indd 318/1/2013 9:28:47 AM8/1/2013 9:28:47 AM