Page 22: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Aug/Sep 2015)

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DEEPWATER INTERVENTION

Challenges and opportunities:

In advance of 2015 Deepwater

Intervention Forum held in

Deepwater

Galveston, Texas, OE’s Managing

Editor Audrey Leon discusses the intervention market in the wake

Intervention of the downturn, and speaks with several forum board members ahead of the show on 11-13 August.

development will make for a fairly quick recovery and also long-term healthy growth rate within the subsea well interven- tion market.

Alex Lawler, drilling & comple-

OE: Despite the current downturn in oil prices, forecasts for the subsea intervention market over the next ? ve years tions engineer, LLOG are very positive. What is your take on the current market? Both the near- and

Exploration: long-term forecasts for the subsea

Colin Johnston, director, intervention market are promising. In The classic assumption is the near term, the focus will be on

SeaNation: that intervention will increase during building a successful work history and periods of downturn since operators demonstrating the capability to execute shift focus to existing production. In projects in harsh environ- reality, however, while well service ments. Longer term, the prices reduce to make intervention industry will focus on increasing vessel and equipment more attractive, as service companies inventory to maintain pace with increasing demand, chase work, the same happens with while continuing to increase the applications of intervention supply companies. intervention equipment.

Primarily as competitors in the market place increase due to rig availability growing as a result of lack of exploration and production opportunities. All participants in the subsea well

Helix Energy Solution’s Q5000 at its fabrication yard intervention supply segment suffer in an overall market in Singapore, waiting to be towed to the US Gulf of

Mexico where it is due to arrive in early August. downturn such as we are seeing.

Photo by Neil M. Johnston, who is working on the , which is Terasea Osprey

With that said, however, the subsea market is a high-cost towing the Q5000.

project environment and can only be entered into with long- term project planning, cost and management, remaining relatively robust in light of commodity price challenges. In addition, the projected growth of the subsea market provides signi? cant cause for optimism, this growth includes efforts within the subsea industry to improve ? eld recovery, with corresponding technology development to achieve this being a boon to the well intervention business. Finally, and most importantly, the overall age of subsea well assets is increasing and this compounds the growth expected in both well numbers and the need for intervention.

Consequently, the current market suffers a similar down- turn to that which others see in the deepwater market but the combination of aging asset and increasing subsea technology 24

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