The buoyant subsea oil and gas industry is about to enter a new period of growth with global revenue estimated to rise by a third from $35billion a year to $45billion by 2012.

These findings are in a new report commissioned by the Scottish Enterprise energy team from Douglas-Westwood and unveiled on the eve of Subsea 08 – Europe’s biggest event for the subsea oil and gas sector.

The report finds that the sector has grown by 90 per cent over the past five years and will continue to expand steadily in future.

“Scotland is leading the world in subsea technology and our talented people and companies are now active in more than 40 countries. In fact, our expertise and innovations are so prevalent that virtually every subsea development worldwide has Scottish technology at its core,” said director of the energy team at Scottish Enterprise, Scotland’s enterprise, innovation and investment agency, Brian Nixon.

“As offshore production in the world’s mature basins declines, attention has been increasingly focussed on deepwater and subsea production. The technical and commercial challenges that lie ahead are huge, but the opportunities for Scotland's subsea companies have never been better and the teams at Scottish Enterprise are here to work with businesses to help them expand into new markets and develop new products and ways of working,” he added.

The Subsea Market Report 2003-2012 is one of a series of reports commissioned by Scottish Enterprise’s Energy Team from energy business analysts Douglas-Westwood.

“We expect that increasing global energy demand coupled with high oil price and the move to deeper waters will drive subsea activity to new levels in the years ahead. Key regions within the market are Africa, Latin America, North America and the North Sea. Together these regions accounted for over 70 per cent of the global subsea market in 2007,” said analyst at Douglas-Westwood Thom Payne.

The energy team hopes the research can be used by Scottish subsea businesses to keep one step ahead in the global market and target their activities to where there are huge opportunities on offer.

Issues which can be barriers to business, such as security, corruption, culture, language and market access are also looked at in the report.

It breaks down the potential value of business from 2008 to 2012 in all mature and developing fields – into subsea production and pipelines – and gives figures from the last five years for comparison purposes. It also gives examples of significant projects in each geographical area. – TradeArabia News Service