Crisis - Time to Invest!
Chairman MacDonald (left) welcomes everybody to the second specialist conference focussing on the offshore survey industry, especially in this economic difficult time. While keynote speaker John Westwood (right) outlines the prospects for the global ocean industry business it's so quiet you can hear a pin drop.
Technical conference Offshore Survey 09 has started this morning at the National Oceanography Centre in Southamptom (UK), with some seventy men and our Hydro International's editor-in-chief attending. While MacDonald (see interview) mentions he has experienced quite a few recessions in his 40 year career in the business, Westwood of Douglas-Westwood feeds that by showing a diagram proving that on average there is a recession every five year, mostly lasting about 18 months (e.g. 20 in past century). The relative unbroken prosperity of the last 25 years is unprecedented. Westwood raises his finger by saying that he never saw a five years' business plan that had build in a recession period. This recession is a very serious one, but after recession oil demands builds up again. While the developed world has reduced its oil consumption, the developing world will increase.
Besides oil, Westwood provides an analysis to the audience on natural gas, offshore wind, wave & tidal developing sectors and the offshore renewable industry. On the longer term (4 to 10 years) Westwood predicts the recession to end, an increase of the economic activity and global trade, an increase of oil demands and rise of prices. With that he expects an increase of demands for surveys, outperforming of well positioned equipment and services companies, and again there will be a scramble of hardware and people. He ends by saying 2009 could be a great time to invest.
