Chairman of the Board..........Russell Palmer
President ..........................Michael J. Osenga
Senior Vice President ....Michael J. Brezonick
Oil Prices Fuel
FPSO Growth
Publisher & Editor........................Mark McNeely
Managing Editor......................Michael J. Mercer
Senior Editor..............................Joseph M. Kane
Senior Editor ......................Michael J. Brezonick
Regional Manager/Editor ..........Roberto Chellini
Regional Manager/Editor................Ian Cameron
Regional Manager/Editor ............Roberta Prandi
Field Editor/Business Manager ..........Bo Svensson
Feature Editor ........................ D. Phillip Burnside
Associate Editor ........................Brent D. Haight
Copy Editor ..........................Melissa C. McNulty
If you look back two months to the
cover of the April issue of Diesel & Gas
Turbine Worldwide you will find that it
features an FPSO. We weren’t the only
ones that had a thought about covering
the rapidly ascending market for these
oil and gas vessels. Practically every
marine or oil production oriented
trade journal in the April timeframe
has some coverage of FPSOs. No
doubt the timing was in part to coincide with the start of the Offshore
Technology Conference (OTC) in
Houston on April 30.
Reports by a couple of the maritime
industry’s consultancies place the installation of floating production systems at anywhere from 120 to around
150 units over the next five years. (It is
estimated that 81 units have been
installed over the past five years.)
These numbers consist primarily of
FPSOs, but also include TLPs, spars
and production barges. FPSOs and
other production equipment are currently producing off the coasts of West
Africa, Northern Europe, the U.S. Gulf
Coast, Latin America, Southeast Asia,
China and Australia/New Zealand.
According to the author of one
report, over the next five years five operators are to account for nearly 40% of
the FPS installations and 50% of the
capital expenditures forecast worldwide
for the period of 2007-2011. Petrobras,
with 13 installations forecast, is expected to be the biggest spender, followed
by Total, Chevron, Shell and BP.
One of the prime movers in this
building boom is deep-water drilling,
which is the result of having to tap
into oilfields that are less and less
accessible. At OTC, Petrobras discussed its investments made in the
Espirito Santo Basin, where the company has been innovating heavy oil
production in deep waters. Petrobras
has also become the world’s first operator to be approved by American regulatory agencies to use an FPSO in the
Gulf of Mexico.
This current floating production
system construction boom also coincides with the gas industry’s rapid construction of LNG carriers as the world
continues its embrace of cleaner burning natural gas.
The fundamentals driving the vessel-based oil and gas industries have never
been stronger, so from a machinery
standpoint, we’ll be riding this wave
for some time into the foreseeable
future. As I have stated many times in
recent columns, the oil and gas industries continue to be very, very good to
the manufacturers of large engines, as
well as their suppliers. A
Sincerely,
Mark McNeely
mmcneely@dieselpub.com
Advertising Manager..............Lynne Diefenbach
Production Manager..............Christa L. Johnson
Graphic Artist ..........................Marisa J. Roberts
Graphic Artist ............................Brenda L. Bopp
Graphic Artist ............................ Carla D. Lemke
Graphic Artist................................Amanda Ryan
Circulation Manager ......................Sheila Lizdas
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