European offshore wind industry will see a sharp decline in new grid-connected capacity at the beginning of 2016, which will affect all levels of the offshore wind supply chain, according to the Norway-based law company Wikborg Rein.
The short-term outlook is challening due to recent slump in global oil prices, which has led to an oversupply of vessels across both sectors, resulting in highly competitive rates in the offshore wind industry, particularly on less technically challenging projects such as accommodation support, wind turbine commissioning and substation hook-up and commissioning, the company said in its report Global Offshore Projects .
However, the report shows a more positive mid- to long-term outlook, with demand being expected to pick up in the European offshore wind sector in late 2016 or early 2017 with approximately 20 GW of capacity expected to be added between now and 2020, which could bolster demand for vessels in the European sector and restore some equilibrium to vessel rates.
Furthermore, Wikborg Rein said that many planned projects will seek to utilise the new generation of larger 6-8MW turbines, with correspondingly larger foundations, as a result of the pressure both from governments and the industry itself to cut the capital costs of offshore wind farm installation, which has led to developers increasingly seeking efficiencies of scale.
The scale of these new projects will therefore rule out many of the multipurpose vessels in the existing fleet of offshore wind support vessels, which are often designed to perform both oil and gas maintenance and offshore wind installation work, and a new generation of purpose-build offshore wind farm installation vessels will therefore be required to meet the demand, according to Wikborg Rein. The newly delivered Seajacks Scylla is one such example, since its lift capacity of over 1500 tonnes perfectly places it to install the new larger turbines and foundations, the law firm said.
Whether other vessel owners will follow suit and place orders for vessels with a similar lift capacity is yet to be seen, but with the world’s shipyards being desperate to increase their contract backlog, there may not be a better time to place an order, Wikborg Rein concluded.
Source: Wikborg Rein