Singapore: The opening day at the NHST-organised Offshore Marine Asia looked at opportunities in the market both from a geographic and ship type point of view.
The brokers panel came with views from Brazil, Norway and Singapore. The takeaways from this session showed Brazil has huge potential but delays a plenty. Yards there are struggling to build on time and labour costs are high with chronic shortages. Norway’s high end PSVs were deemed overbuilt creating a strain on spot rates. Asia is doing well, the brokers concurred, with utilisation increasing to healthy levels and rates starting to rise. Subsea, everyone agreed, is the hot sector globally.
When it came to the next big thing from a ship type perspective delegates were told the 6,000 bhp 80-tonne bollard pull boat was thought to be the next commodity now that the 5150 bhp vessel has reached market saturation with more than 300 built. The 6 x 80 with very little extra cost adds much more specs for little extra cost in terms of deadweight, deck space, safety, DP2 and anti-pollution.
The conference continues today. [31/10/12]
