Offshore staff
LONDON -- Capital expenditure for the global floating production market will exceed $34 billion over the next five years, an increase of 25% over the previous five years, according to Infield forecasts.
In a report unveiled at PennWell's Offshore Asia Conference and Exhibit ongoing in Kuala Lumpur, 2007 was seen as a year of consolidation, but during 2008 expenditure will reach similar record levels seen in 2006 and is expected to exceed the $6 billion record in 2009, Infield said. Going forward, the company forecasts that the year on year growth will be 4.3%. It is the deep and ultra deepwater sector that will command a significant percentage of this total.
At the end of 2007 there were 264 operational floating production systems (FPS) of which 135 were brought on line from 2003-2007, Infield says. Over the next five years a further 175 units are expected to be brought in to operation, including the "speculative" units which are currently in yards, but without assigned projects.
"We expect activity in Africa to continue to dominate both numbers and expenditure in floating production as deepwater and, increasingly, shallow water activities are expected to accelerate," Infield says. "Future activity in Asia should establish this region as the second largest region in FPS market sector.
"Activity in the FPS sector is one of the key indices of the health of the offshore industry and as a result increasing levels of investment and innovation indicate that the offshore industry will be able to extract resources from the most challenging regions."
Infield expects that as the global fleet continues to grow, opportunities for consolidation and alternative strategies for ownership and development will present themselves and the industry could see further structural change in the floating production sector.
03/17/2008
