Last quarter saw no new production floater orders placed
Guntis Moritis
OGJ Production Editor
HOUSTON, Apr. 7 -- The market for floating production systems has frozen as a result of the abrupt downturn in the global economy with no orders for production floaters placed in the last quarter, according to International Maritime Associates Inc., Washington, DC.
IMA says this is the first time since 1996 when it began tracking floating production units (FPUs) that no companies have placed orders during a reporting quarter. As a result, order backlog for production floaters has dropped 30% from the same time last year, it says.
Its latest report notes that companies have delayed several orders for production floaters including three floating production, storage, and offloading vessels and a MinDoc, which is a deep-draft floating production unit for supporting dry-tree completions in deepwater.
IMA said one FPSO operator has filed for bankruptcy and a second has sold its interest in an FPSO under construction. At least one other FPSO operator looks in tenuous condition, IMA added.
On the other hand, its long-term outlook for FPUs remains strong because of the number of development projects at various stages of planning that will need floating production or storage systems.
In its latest report, IMA identifies more than 155 projects that will require floating production systems. About one third of these are at an advanced stage of bidding or final design, IMA said.
Because of these projects and an anticipated recovery in the oil price, it forecasts that companies will order 93-141 production floaters in the next 5 years.
Contact Guntis Moritis at [email protected].