More and more offshore vessels are being sold, stacked or scrapped with offshore vessel owners aiming to cut costs amid the lack of demand caused by the low oil prices.
GulfMark offshore, for example, sold three older vessels during 2015, in order to “high-grade” their fleet.
Quintin Kneen, President and CEO, said: “We continued to high-grade our fleet with the sale of our last vessel that was more than 20 years old, and we used the proceeds to repurchase some of our bonds at a substantial discount, which further reduced our debt.”
The company, which posted a net loss of $16.6 million, said it was looking to trim fleet some more.
Kneen added: “ We are optimistic that we can sell as many vessels in 2016 as we did in 2015 by continuing our successful vessel disposition program.”
Apart from selling, there is also stacking, leaving the vessels in port, hoping to reactivate them when the market rebounds.
Half of fleet stacked
According to GulfMark’s quarterly report, the company has stacked half of its fleet.
The company has eight vessels currently stacked in the North Sea, seven in Southeast Asia, and 22 currently stacked in the Americas.
That not only older vessels are affected by the downturn speaks the fact that out of 22 stacked in the Americas, 16 are U.S. Flagged, DP2, highly sophisticated PSVs.
As of February 29, 2016, GulfMark’s total fleet consisted of 73 offshore vessels.
GulfMark’s 4Q revenue was $50.6 million, however, going forward the company said the situation is too uncertain to provide any revenue guidance for 2016.
“Due to the fluctuations in offshore spending by our customers and limited forward visibility, the Company will no longer provide revenue guidance,” the company said.
Offshore Energy Today Staff