After what we would argue has been an incredibly eventful 2024 with massive deals, tremendous dayrate developments, further charterer backlog build, and the first series of newbuild orders in years, now comes the time when we turn our gaze towards 2025. What are some of the main trends we expect for next year, and how do we see the continuation of today’s developments impact the year to come. Overall, we find continued strides for the better in the offshore support market although we foresee an industry that will not fire on all cylinders, at least not quite yet.
From a global perspective, we forecast the overall demand for OSVs will continue to increase in 2025, continuing the clear trend since the market trough in 2017 less the impact of COVID in 2020 and 2021. Yet again do we find vessel demand at its highest level since the previous peak 10 years earlier as demand derived from oil & gas activities are estimated to grow by almost 4% on top of a relatively strong 2024. Furthermore, when applying a broad definition of offshore support and including the vessel demand derived from the offshore wind industry, 2025 is set for the highest vessel activity level ever!
That having been said, this is not equally true for all regions. While the usual…