ABSTRACT
Within a short time period, Ulstein has experienced a dramatic change to its previous core market segment-offshore oil & gas related support vessels. In the period 2014 through 2017, Ulstein core market segments worldwide, did reduced from almost 400 newbuilding orders entered into per year, to 15 in 2017, of which Ulstein has earned a market share, like many of our competitors, varying from 2 to 5 percent depending upon the
ship type and segment. Under no circumstances, could this setback be compensated by increased market shares and hence, an almost stop in production, in several business areas, was experienced. A dramatic and disruptive change, eliminating in practical terms, the complete basis for our existing operation. In some cases, our traditional customers have stopped ordering new vessels and many of them have consolidated into larger outfits with major fleet overcapacity following and little propensity to realize ship newbuilding. Making the
situation worse, is the fact that this disruptiveness has happened pretty much to all ship segments in the world, with a few exceptions. Formerly, such crises were more often confined to their industry segment or geography of origin. This time the situation is different, spreading among all sectors of the maritime industry. Figure 1 shows this market dramatics, when it comes new building contracting activity levels in the period 1996 through 2017.
