Vessel owners have reason to believe the second half of 2011 will be a better period for the OSV market in the Middle East, with a number of tenders expected to follow some massive offshore development projects that are coming on stream. This is not to say the first half has been too unfavourable to vessels operating in the region, as some companies even managed to post increased profits during the first half of the year, securing more contracts than the first six months of 2010. Saudi Arabia, the biggest economy in the Gulf Arab world, and Sharjah, the third largest emirate in the United Arab Emirates, are now seeing gas field programmes being developed in their offshore territories; there are also those that are being developed in the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia neutral zone. This means that gas production in the Middle East is no longer concentrated in Qatar and Iran, although the bulk of the region's current projects are still dedicated to developing new oil fields and sustaining crude oil production in existing fields. The good news here is that there are significant projects to keep the OSV market busy.
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