Introduction

One of the most thriving businesses of the moment is the offshore access industry. This industry is characterized by rapid growth and innovations. The companies acting in the offshore access industry receive more and more orders every year from the market that consists of the offshore oil & gas industry and the offshore wind sector. Therefore, it might be a wise move to invest in the companies providing offshore access. However, many people seem to wonder which geographical segment of the offshore access industry has the most potential. Because of this, I have made a ranking based on three criteria that assess the potential profitability of the geographical segments.

Investment Attractiveness Ranking

The first and most important criteria that will be used in this ranking are the presence of offshore wind parks or oil platforms. Without these, the company is workless. This will be expressed in, respectively, the number of MW wind power and oil barrels. Furthermore it was taken into account that the offshore oil segment is more lucrative to operate in than the offshore wind part of the market. This factor is purely based on a qualitative assessment, and therefore has less weight than the first criterion. Lastly the environment is considered, since operation is dependent on roughness of conditions. Some seas are easier to operate in than others. This criterion is based on common knowledge and has the least importance of all factors. All in all this has resulted in the following ranking:

Most attractive countries:

1. Brazil
2. United Kingdom
3. Germany
4. The Netherlands
5. Australia

As you can see, Brazil tops the rankings. This is mainly due to the fact that the greatest oil discovery of the last thirty years has been made here recently according to BBC (2010). Brazil was already one of the biggest producers of offshore oil, but this will only increase in the future. On the second place we find the United Kingdom. This country is the world’s leading offshore wind market, with 1341.2 MW operational offshore wind farms as calculated by BWEA (2010). Germany is a good third, since Chancellor Angela Merkel has huge plans to replace the nuclear plants of her country to more sustainable forms of energy generation. “We want to end the use of nuclear energy and reach the age of renewable energy as fast as possible,” Merkel said. Furthermore Germany has planned 960 MW offshore wind parks to be built in the near future according to Treehugger.com (2011). The North Sea segment is also tempting to offshore transport companies. The last country of the ranking, Australia, enjoys a good wind environment. Research of Science Alert (2008) shows that, winds of change blow relatively long and strong in Western Australia, which makes it very suitable for offshore wind parks.

Least attractive countries:

1. African continent
2. Switzerland
3. Russia
4. Eastern Europe
5. Argentina

Especially Africa is unattractive for companies like Ampelmann and Offshore Solutions. The country has no real potential for both offshore wind farms and oil platforms. Moreover there are still pirates active near the coast of Africa. Switzerland was picked as example of a company that does not lie at a sea, and therefore has no attractiveness for companies operating in the offshore industry. The seas surrounding Russia are relatively cold and this increases the chance of defects in the offshore access system. However, it has to be noted that there are lots of cheap qualified engineers in Russia, and therefore it might be a good move to begin offshore hiring here. Eastern Europe just like Africa has no great potential for offshore wind nor offshore oil and gas. Last of the list, Argentina, is known to have a rough coast. This will reduce the possible operating time of the system.

The rankings are primarily based on quantitative data such as the amount of oil barrels or MW wind power. Therefore the comparison between countries in each market segment itself is relatively reliable. However it remains very hard to estimate how much more importance has to be allocated to offshore oil than offshore wind. It is not really possible to compare the value of the amount of oil barrels to the number of MW wind power countries have.  Therefore it is concluded that the ranked countries are relatively reliable, however the specific ranking should be observed with a grain of salt.