Fixed facilities stand and deliver.

In an industry dominated by discussions about frontier areas, deepwater regions and the pushing of the technology envelope in subsea and floating production systems it is often forgotten that there is still a significant business in onventional fixed platform facilities. As a market, fixed facilities may appear as a staid sector but in many regions of the world there is still a considerable number of opportunities in this ‘boring’ market and while the headlines may be less or non-existent, every facility still needs a vast array of equipment.

In unit terms, a comparison of the period 2000-04 (1190) and the forecast 2005-09 (1182) installed fixed facilities shows a slight decrease but this belies the changing nature of this
sector.

While mature basins are forecast to continue to see a decline in overall activity, Africa and Asia are expected to see increases in both numbers and expenditure over the next five
years. In Africa, Nigeria is by far the most highoctane driver of growth with shallow water activity resurgent after many years of
structural change and a new breed of indigenous operator.

In contrast Asian activity is spread throughout the region with an interesting trend of increased numbers of larger facilities and multi-platform developments.

In value terms the fixed platform market is still a hugely significant one with annual expenditure in 2004 of $6.7 billion, much of which related to local fabrication, an area expected to see growth. Within the Gulf of Guinea there has been an expansion in local construction facilities over the past few years and, more importantly, local capabilities allowing local players to fulfil a greater proportion of opportunities, not dissimilar to the historical picture of current mature basins.

Although very large facilities are less frequent since the heyday of European developments of the past few decades, mid-size facilities are forecast to continue to grow in number and expenditure with the 2000t-3999t range a key aspect particularly reflective of the increasing ability of local facilities to fabricate and construct platforms of this size.

Even with an increase in the mid-size facilities, however, the ratio of manned to unmanned facilities has stayed fairly constant over the past five years and is forecast to continue in much the same vein over the next with a unit ratio of 80:20. When looking at the mix of products being processed we again see a fairly consistent picture of an almost even ratio of liquids and gas production complimented by small numbers of specialist facilities such as water injection and power platforms.

Piled platforms continue to represent the bulk of activity accounting for close to 90% of value whilst across all platform types we see a movement of expenditure from the <50m water
depth range to the 50-99 although some of this movement is a reflection of geographical variations.

Source: Global Perspectives Fixed Platforms Market Update 2005/09

This article is reproduced from the OTC05 Thursday 05/05/2005 Show Daily with kind permission of the Offshore Engineer.

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