Marine Industries Global Market Analysis - Marine Institute

MARINE INDUSTRIES GLOBAL MARKET ANALYSIS
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Major advances of the past decade have included the almost universal use of
multibeam sonars as the primary tool for data gathering, differential global positioning
(DGPS) as the primary navigation tool and use of advanced sonar data processing.
Ocean survey technology is probably more likely to move forward in a process of
incremental developments rather than by major breakthroughs. Examples of the
former include the commercial application of synthetic array sonar (itself an old
concept increasingly enabled by the improvements in underwater positioning) and the
application of increasing amounts of processing power.
In our view, major potential lies in the application of autonomous underwater vehicles
(AUVs) to ocean survey. Long a tool of academia, outstanding results have been
obtained in deepwater commercial operations in the Gulf of Mexico, off West Africa
and the North Sea. However, the major challenge and indeed opportunity lies in
applying the technology to increase survey efficiency in lesser water depths and attack
the commercial dominance of the survey vessel as the conventional survey platform.
11.6 THE LONG-TERM – 2010 ONWARDS
Ongoing survey of the sea and oceans is a fundamental need for the establishment
of governance mechanisms, continuance of world trade and the extraction of
ocean resources.
Increased awareness of the importance of the oceans to the overall environment is
likely to increase spending on ocean survey.
Much of the work carried out by countries’ hydrographic offices for the production
of navigational charts is based on data gathered by naval survey vessels, a practice
which is difficult to economically justify in a situation where such services can be
bought more cheaply from commercial contractors. However, we expect that the
economic argument will increasingly prevail.
The growth ambitions of the main commercial contractors together with the fall-out
resulting from business cycles has meant that rationalisation and consolidation
activities have been extensive in the S&P market with one truly global player
emerging (Fugro, Netherlands) and two mid size ones (C&C, US and Gardline, UK)
together with a number of small, mainly national players.