Some potentially good news for offshore helicopter operators: the offshore drilling market is poised for a rebound, according to a report from the consultancy Future Market Insights (FMI). The firm made the conclusion after evaluating increasing demand in the offshore drilling riser market, concluding that it will increase more than 20 percent, to $4.9 billion, over the next 10 years. A riser is a large pipe that acts as a conduit between an offshore platform/rig and a well.
FMI said the overall market has grown over the last five years due to an increasing number of offshore projects, the rising production of shale gas, an uptick in North Sea activity, and stabilizing oil prices. The result: “a significant surge in the investments for multiple offshore projects has been prominent for the last five years.” Those projects include Shell PLC’s deepwater discovery in a region near the Gulf of Mexico in December 2021; new deepwater wells offshore near Brunei in March 2021; and recent large oil and gas discoveries off Namibia, Nigeria, and in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
The CEO of helicopter services company Bristow Group views these developments as net positives. Late last year, Christopher Bradshaw told stock analysts, “The strengthening fundamentals in the offshore oil and gas market support our view that we are in the early innings of a multiyear growth cycle.” He added that third-party analysts support “the outlook for a significant increase in upstream oil and gas spending over the next few years and a tightening market for offshore equipment, including helicopters.”