Page 13: of Offshore Energy Reporter Magazine (January 2015)

Over the next fve years $122 billion is projected to be spent on global subsea vessel operations – an increase of 64% compared to the previous fve year period. his growth will be driven not only by volumes of uncertainty in Europe is currently threatening the viability work but also by the growing usage of higher-end of high profle trunklines such as Gazprom’s South Stream

T vessels able to cope with increasingly harsh operat- project which could impact anticipated demand for both ing conditions and evolving customer requirements with dedicated pipe layers and support vessels.

regards to safety and operational effciency. Subsea well intervention is the smallest market segment

Field development activities, including SURF instal- covered in DW’s defnition of subsea vessel services, account- lation and light/medium construction, will account for ing for just 5% of forecast spend. Aimed at providing a cost 40% of forecast expenditure. Given the prevalence of high competitive means of improving productivity from ageing value assets such as Reel-lay, Flex-lay and larger MSVs this subsea wells, this had previously been seen as a game changer segment is the most cost-intensive in the subsea vessel in- for the subsea market but a hesitance to adopt new technol- dustry; accounting for just 35% of anticipated vessel days ogy by operators has seen subsea well intervention fall out over the next fve years. The feld development market will of focus in recent years, a fact compounded by Total’s recent enjoy the fastest growth profle driven primarily by con- cancellation of a contract with Aker Oilfeld Services in June tinued pre-salt developments in Brazil, revitalized activity 2014. A glance at activity globally. in the Gulf of Guinea and the emergence of East Africa, with these regions accounting for 48% of projected global

Africa spend. Longer term, pre-salt potential in the Gulf of Mex-

Africa will remain a strong contributor towards subsea vessel ico, signaled by PEMEX’s recent Vasto prospect, could see demand, accounting for 16% of the global vessel operations the region become a major buyer of subsea vessel services.

expenditure at $19.8bn over the 2015-2019 period.

The installation, repair & maintenance (IRM) of ex- isting infrastructure will account for 42% of total vessel

Asia operational day requirements, the largest of all market The majority of subsea developments in Asia are located in segments. However, a tendency to use smaller vessels and shallow waters but this is expected to move continuously long-term contracting leads to only 39% of projected towards water depths beyond 1,000m over the next fve spend. Unlike feld development the IRM market is less years. associated with deepwater/subsea and is driven by conven- tional, shallow water infrastructure. Asia and North Amer-

Australasia ica will dominate global IRM requirements accounting for 46% of projected expenditure. The former in particular Subsea vessel demand in the region will be largely driven by shallow water LNG developments in Western Australia is becoming an increasingly attractive market to interna- tional contractors as local operators turn to more modern from felds in the Bonaporte, Browse and Canarvon ba- sins. Vessel requirement is also anticipated to increase by

DSV/MSV assets to improve operational effciency.

Construction of export pipelines and international 54% as compared to the 2010-2014 period. trunklines, including supporting DSV and MSV activity,

Eastern Europe & FSU will account for 19% of projected spend over the period.

Total volumes of activity are expected to be sustained at The majority of EE&FSU regional developments are shal- low water-focused with increasing deepwater projects com- around current levels with the Middle East and Asia re- taining a combined 66% share of the market. Geopolitical ing online through the forecast period in the Caspian Sea. (Continued on page 34) www.worldenergynews.com

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