OFFSHORE
OFFSHORE:
HOPE IS IN THE WIND By Nick Blenkey, Web Editor
T
he future of U.S. offshore services and offshore service vessel construction clearly lies in the offshore wind sector. In its just published, members-only U.S. Offshore Wind Market Report & Insights 2020, the Business Network for Offshore Wind notes that the 2020s, “are sure to be a booming decade for American offshore wind,” and paints a picture of an industry currently constrained only by the necessary length of various permitting processes. The Business Network report say that, in the next four to six years, U.S. developers expect to manufacture, construct and install over 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind.
20 Marine Log // April 2020
That, of course, is a fraction of the offshore wind power generated in European countries that have been committed to offshore wind for decades, with the U.K.’s massive Hornsea Wind Farm alone expected to have a total capacity of over 6,000 megawatts. But it’s still a massive advance for a U.S. industry whose first operational offshore wind farm, Block Island, started operation just three years ago off of Rhode Island. All this is in stark contrast to the traditional offshore oil and gas sector, where the going looks as though its can only get tougher.
COVID-19 and the Oil Market In the last few weeks, the entire oil and gas
sector has been hit with the double whammy of the coronavirus outbreak going worldwide and Saudi Arabia disrupting the oil market and sending oil prices plunging. The world is now so awash with petroleum that more and more production is going straight into storage. In the U.S., the Trump administration announced last month that it would purchase 77 million barrels of American-produced crude oil and fill the salt caverns of the National Strategic Petroleum Reserve to capacity. “The Department of Energy is moving quickly to support U.S. oil producers facing potentially catastrophic losses from the impacts of COVID-19 and the intentional disruption to world oil markets by foreign
Photo Credit: ABB
As controversy continues over Jones Act requirements for U.S. offshore wind farm development, ABB is supplying advanced power systems for a giant Japanese wind turbine installation vessel that will have a 2,500-ton crane capable of a maximum lift height of 518 feet.
