There has been a lot of recent news in the oil market as companies look for initiatives to reshape their business model to become energy companies and not just oil and gas companies. The most notable of these is BP with its ambition of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.  Just in the last two weeks, they announced the purchase of a 50% stake in two wind farm developments from Equinor. The development of renewable energy sources including wind farms, both on and offshore, will have a significant impact JOO’s current core business of supporting the offshore oil and gas industry. However, it will also present opportunities and the belief that renewables will soon displace the demand for oil and gas are entirely overblown.

Though offshore wind in the U.S. is still a young industry, it is already showing signs of evolving. Just a few years ago, wind farm operators were focused on building specialized vessels for marine support. While there will likely be a few of these purpose-built vessels constructed, it is looking more and more like there will be a fleet of converted PSVs to do part of this work. We have done some preliminary analysis on what it would take to convert one of our PSVs to provide this service and we are engaging with our clients to get valuable insight into what the ideal vessel conversion looks like. It is important JOO continue working to participate in this market as the opportunities presents themselves.

As we keep our eyes on the offshore wind industry, we remain focused on the offshore oil and gas industry as it will remain robust for years to come. Renewable energy sources are taking the market share of energy needs globally, however, renewables are far from being as efficient and cost effective to take enough of a share of the energy demand – particularly in the US Gulf of Mexico. The reality is that traditional hydrocarbon sources of energy will remain in demand for ours and our children’s lifetimes before renewable energy sources can even come close to fulfilling global energy demand. And more specific JOO, the deepwater Gulf of Mexico remains one of the most economic oil and gas basins in the world.