According to Intermodal’s offshore broker, Mr. Goerge Vitsos, “the North Sea spot market experienced contrasting trends last year. Although the AHTS fleet is still generating great earnings, taking advantage of a market that remains strong since last summer, the PSV market was weaker than expected during the hot months of the year, with day-rates keep dropping by each month to follow, causing a lot of frustration on the PSV investors, which previously counted on the region’s booming market. Several departures of Rigs from the area, either for scrapping or relocating, left the PSVs with less opportunities to engage. To support that, recent reports also indicate that the Rig count in the North Sea has declined by over 50% in the last 10 years”.
He added that “West Africa, is presently where the OSV shipowners enjoy great hires, as this is the region where a mid-sized AHTS can get up to US$ 21k pd on Spot and US$ 17k pd on long-term charters with max duration up to 3-years. But this is not the best part. Con-tracts in WAF do not have any age limitations for the OSVs – meaning that even a well maintained 20-year-old mid-sized AHTS, can generate earnings over double its current value on a 3-year contract”.
Meanwhile, “the Persian Gulf is generally a healthy market for OSV vessels – but since last month, it has started experiencing a cooling down and although there is still some profit to be made, margins are much tighter in comparison with the West African region, due to higher crew and maintenance costs, in order to meet the demanding requirements of the majors. Besides PG, the Indian mar-ket presently provides good opportunities, as ONGC is still on the market for OSVs that can easily relocate from the Persian Gulf and make a fair profit”, Mr. Vitsos said.
“Finally, although there is good S&P activity in the Far East, the TC demand has been tapering off the last months and presently sits at its lowest levels, as couple of months ago, a mid-spec 80tbp AHTS would get approx. US$ 9kpd – a hire that has now dropped to around US$ 6,5-6,8k pd. Main reason is that the number of projects requiring such vessels has been tailing off and while the Chinese market is closed with few opportunities of entry, the most projects are emerging from either Indonesia or Malaysia. A grow-ing appetite has also been observed from various Owners, mainly from Singapore, which went on a selling spree last year of their oldest assets, in order to secure adequate funds to invest on the Subsea segment”, Intermodal’s analyst concluded.
Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide
