A large part of the offshore service vessel market these days comprises those that service offshore wind farms. How long that remains the case, of course, remains to be seen following the lengthy calms experienced off north-western Europe recently. They have forced a re-think with cost-benefit analyses of offshore wind projects becoming more rigorous and, hopefully, more realistic.
Amusingly and ironically, the recent opening of the very expensive Norway to UK electricity interconnector almost precisely coincided with the above-mentioned calms and a serious drought that affected Norway's hydro-electricity generators. Hopefully, too, the planned Denmark-UK interconnector will have been better planned.
Meanwhile, despite the confected drama and hype of COP26 in Glasgow, the offshore oil and gas sector continues to recover with the gradual global realisation that people cannot live, or power their homes, on dreams or promises. Reliable base-load power supply remains imperative and no amount of irrational subsidy will guarantee it. So, that recovery in the OSV market seems likely to continue indefinitely with an ongoing need for support vessels of every kind.
Heavy-duty cable layers capable of laying high voltage electricity cables are, of course, required to transmit electricity among wind turbines and from wind farm to shore. This is much more demanding work than that involved with laying fibre-optic telephone cables. This week we present two of the latest and greatest, or so their builders tell us, of that breed.
We have also seen vessels designed to install the complex junction boxes that offshore wind farms necessitate.
As always with Baird Maritime, the vessels we present in our vessel week features are globally sourced and represent every imaginable size and type to service the sector that we focus on.
Many of the vessels are multi-purpose and some of the Chinese OSVs are actually owned by the PLA Navy. Interestingly, the US Navy has converted some OSVs, actually crew/supply boats, to use as unmanned missile boats. They seem ideal for that purpose and are readily and cheaply converted.
OSVs, of course, whether originally designed for oil and gas or wind, are readily converted to other purposes from missile and patrol boats to fishing boats and yachts and everything else imaginable. This makes investment in them a little less risky. It will not be long, either, for a substantial market to develop, practically globally, in rig, wind turbine, cable, junction box and pipeline removal. That will be very interesting.
It appears that we may actually have started to recover from the nadir of the OSV market globally. Let's hope so!
– "Offshore wind shows every sign of being as speculative and volatile as the offshore oil and gas sector it is supposed to replace."
– by Hieronymus Bosch, anonymous commentator and Baird Maritime's insider in the world of offshore oil and gas operations
– "There are few saints in the offshore industry, but several companies are at least clambering out of hellish situations in Singapore."
– by Hieronymus Bosch, anonymous commentator and Baird Maritime's insider in the world of offshore oil and gas operations
– "Fossil fuels can be green and carbon neutral, if you believe the claims of some of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world."
– by Hieronymus Bosch, anonymous commentator and Baird Maritime's insider in the world of offshore oil and gas operations
Any news or views about the global offshore industry? Send it through to editor@bairdmaritime.com ASAP (between now and November 12), so we can add it to this current edition of Offshore Week!
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