Offshore Support Vessel Market: Market Leaders

The growth of the offshore support vessel market has been influenced by various stakeholders such as offshore support vessel equipment manufacturers, offshore drilling service companies, national oil companies, state & national regulatory authorities, and government & research associations, environment research institutes, and investment banks.

The increase in demand for offshore support vessel market is driven by rising demand for energy, which is mainly derived from fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas. This, coupled with increase in consumption from the transportation sector, which is expected to account for approximately 57% of the total energy consumption by 2020, is expected to drive the growth of offshore support vessels in the future. The growth of the market is expected to increase gradually as the oil price moves upward. Most of the growth opportunities are expected to come from offshore well exploration & production activities and discoveries of new deepwater & ultra-deepwater oilfields in the offshore regions of the world.

Leading companies of the offshore support vessel market focus on contracts, new product developments to broaden their product portfolio, and to adapt to the changing demands of the end users. Among the above approaches, contracts and agreements appeared to be a trend that was followed by major industry players as their growth strategy.

The offshore support vessel market was dominated by Tidewater (U.S.), Edison Chouest Offshore (U.S.), Bourbon SA (France), Hornbeck Offshore (U.S.), Swire Pacific Ltd. (U.K.), Farstad Shipping ASA (Norway), and Seacor MarineLLC.(U.S.) among others, in 2014. These market players have also been active in the competitive developments of the offshore support vessel market. Other players include Havila Shipping ASA(Norway), the Maersk Group (Denmark), REM Maritime ASA (Norway), Siem Offshore Inc. (Norway), Solstad Offshore ASA(Norway), and Vroon Group (the Netherlands). With the environment optimum for business expansions, major offshore vessel service owners such as Edison Chouest Offshore (U.S.), Bourbon SA (France), have adopted this business strategy.

The key market players include Farstad Shipping ASA (Norway) and Vroon Group (the Netherlands), who lead the market in contracts & agreements and new product/service/technology launch respectively. Farstad Shipping ASA (Norway) bagged the most number of contracts among the profiled companies between 2012 and 2015, whereas Vroon Group (the Netherlands) launched the most number of new products/services/technologies. Moreover, other leading offshore support vessel companies are developing