French orders to foreign shipyards

78
Pride Africa,
DP drillship,
blt 1999 by
Hyundai Mipo,
owned by Pride
International,
and employed
by Elf Angola
on Girassol field
Support vessels: Platform supply vessels
(PSV) and Anchor handling tug supplies
(AHTS)
The low level of offshore activity was further aggravated
by the arrival on the market of numerous new ships -
high-powered AHTS and very high-deadweight PSV
(about fourty units in the North Sea).
Offshore operations in the North Sea are currently stricken.
The combined effects of the arrival of new ships and
relets phenomenon in long-term contracts have deflated
this market. Charter rates for AHTS with bollard pull of
more than 150 tonnes and for 6,000 bhp PSV included
spot rates of around $6,000/day in November and
December 1999. A large number of vessels remained on
the spot market in Aberdeen and Stavanger throughout
1999, and at the end of the year many ships were laid up.
We observed that new supply ships were ordered during
the final quarter of 1999, and we trust that these new
arrivals to the market will not keep rates at very low and
unprofitable levels for shipowners.
Two rays of hope appeared at the end of 1999. First, the
restoration of satisfactory utilisation rates to the US Gulf
market with a simultaneous improvement in charter rates
for supply ships - only some thirty new ships were delivered
to American shipowners through domestic shipyards. The
second positive factor was the launching of deepwater
exploration and production projects off the West African
coast and in the US Gulf.
Drilling
The merger tendency grew more pronounced. Schlumberger’s
approval of the merger between Transocean and its subsidiary
Sedco-Forex seems to indicate the company’s distancing
from the drilling oil sector, in order to reorganise itself around
high value added services. The new group, named Transocean
Sedco, has 75 offshore mobile drilling units, or 16% of the
total world fleet, and is now the largest world operator
in the sector.