BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept.23
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
The seismic fleet’s hibernation is now over, as vessel utilization has recovered to pre-Covid-19 levels in the third quarter of 2021, Trend reports with reference to Rystad Energy.
About 68 percent of the fleet, or just over two-thirds of the vessels are now surveying or under way, while only one-third remain inactive, according to the company’s estimates.
“The fleet’s comeback is significant as it matches the utilization levels of the first quarter of 2020, before the seismic industry was hit by the pandemic-induced slowdown. The worst time for the fleet was from the third quarter of 2020 through March 2021, when 46 percent of the global fleet was inactive (either standby in port or stacked). In fact, in August 2021 we monitored the lowest monthly percentage of inactive vessels in almost two years, with only 29 percent of the fleet inactive. The last time the seismic fleet was so active was in October 2019, when only one-quarter of the fleet was standby or stacked,” said Rystad Energy.
Rystad Energy monitors the activity of 106 seismic vessels, which represents about three-quarters of the global fleet, including most major service providers and vendors that offer vessels for seismic jobs. The selection is representative of the seismic market conditions and acts as a good indicator of global seismic vessel utilization, among other metrics. The vessels that are excluded belong to smaller companies and are located in regions with low data reliability for safe market trend projections.
“The current increase in seismic vessel utilization is partly driven by exploration, with a focus on proven basins. We also see that many seismic companies have repositioned themselves for the energy transition and are taking up contracts in other energy services such as carbon capture and storage, geothermal, offshore wind and deepsea mining,” says Binny Bagga, energy service research Vice President at Rystad Energy.
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