Page 29: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2023)

ANCHOR HANDLERS conditions in the core oil and gas sector; • High bollard pull, anchor han- the OSV segment post 2014. only six large anchor handlers have been dlining frame and a large AHC crane Many owners experienced ? nancial delivered in the last ? ve years. New- • Large back deck dif? culties and were unable to pay down building prices for ? ve of these large an- • Multiple large winch drums debts accumulated during newbuild chor handlers were around $80-85 mil- • Large chain lockers expansion programs initiated between lion at the time ordering—price levels • Work class ROVs 2008 and 2013, while many of the tra- that are not likely to be achieved in to- • Flexibility to support different ditional shipping banks that funded the day’s building market. Since then, there tensioning options newbuilding boom took signi? cant im- has been limited activity to guide price • Low or zero emissions opera- pairments, which have left them cautious estimates, but we have seen costs rise for tions, battery energy storage systems, etc. about lending to OSV projects. Many vessel types across the board. A capital • Embedded digitalization private equity vehicles suffered heavy cost estimate of at least $100 million for We anticipate such vessels to cost sig- losses from OSV investments. Finance is a similar vessel seems reasonable. ni? cantly more than existing large an- still available from new market entrants

Subsea construction vessel supply is chor handler designs, with reported esti- and alternative capital providers. How- also likely to be stretched by high de- mates in the range of $175-200 million. ever, the appetite for ? nancing new ves- mand from oil and gas projects. Such investment requires high day rates sels comes with many restrictions.

As a result of market conditions, our and long-term charter commitments, One thing is certain: shipbuilders will forecast identi? es a shortage of large which are generally not available today. need answers (and commitments) soon- anchor handler and subsea construction And then there are questions about er rather than later if the ? oating wind vessels toward the end of the decade. economics as developers face increas- industry hopes to minimize the severity

As demand in ? oating wind continues to ing pressure to keep rising project costs of projected vessel shortages.

grow, available supply is expected to be at bay. Many of the builders capable of

Intelatus Global Partners has recently published a ? oating wind installation vessel reduced further as activity continues to producing high-spec anchor handlers— forecast report, available here: https://intela- pick up in deepwater oil and gas—a sec- including yards in China, Norway and tus.com/Business/FloatingWindInstallation- tor that drives demand for large anchor Singapore—and their ? nancial partners

Vessels. For more information or to inquire handlers and subsea construction vessels. continue to deal with the damage of low about the report, contact Philip Lewis at [email protected].

So, what do shipbuilders and their utilization and newbuilding activity in supporting partners need to plan for?

With around 100 ? oating wind design concepts at varied levels of technical maturity, multiple anchor types to ac- commodate and three principle mooring line materials (chain, wire, and synthetic rope), there is no one single immediate dominant project solution, which drives the safest the need for ? exible installation vessels.

Our analysis indicates that the most route ef? cient installation vessels for ? oat- to compliance ing wind projects will not necessarily be classic large anchor handler or subsea construction vessels, but rather hybrid

UV Ballast Water Treatment anchor handlers capable of providing 3

Up to 2100 m /h flowrate ? exible solutions to developers and

First class marine project engineers who have a variety of components

Easy to install, use and ? oating wind technologies, anchors and maintain mooring line concepts to consider.

Worldwide service

Several market players are known

Available in SKID or modular version to be developing ? oating wind speci? c vessel concepts that are evolutions of the more traditional designs. Based on our analysis of ? oating wind project re- more information quirements, we expect the next genera- www.ballast-water-treatment.com tion anchor handlers to feature: www.marinelink.com 29

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