FPSO'S

[Stay the Course]

Not sure what you guys are smoking on this page. Have you read this regarding the times ahead in the FPSO market:-

Another disquieting sign in our industry is the current status of the world’s FPSO fleet and the number of FPSOs without contracts. I count 183 FPSOs in the world, either existing or being built or converted in a shipyard, with 83 of these owned by oil companies and the rest of them, 99, being owned by contractors and leased to oil companies. I count 8 FPSOs building on speculation, still without work commitments and then there are 9 more FPSOs currently idle and off location. So there’s 8+9 out of 99 that are out of work: 17%, that’s huge. It’s never been that high a proportion before. And this is not allowing for any FPSOs known to be coming idle very soon but that has not been announced.

This large an idle fleet harkens back to the 1990s with drilling rigs and the years of adjusting and consolidating in the industry. But FPSOs are not the same as drilling rigs. Each oilfield is different and each FPSO may need more modification and more investment for the next assignment than typically happens with a drillship or a semi. At today’s shipyard prces it may be economic to build an FPSO conversion rather than adapt one of these idle FPSOs – that’s part of the economic predicament for owners of these idle FPSOs.

Simultaneous with all that equipment being without work, oil company inquiries for FPSOs have slowed way down - other than the amazing world of Petrobras. So tomorrow does not look too
good in today’s FPSO world. It conjures up what the Vince Lombardi the American football coach said about “when the going gets tough the tough get going”. Hey, with FPSOs, the going
is getting tough.

Link is: http://www.lovie.org/fpso_congress09.php