The proportion of owners expecting a downturn in profitability has leapt to 42% from just 8% last year.

And the percentage of owners expecting profits to rise has fallen to 35% from 72% last year.

Top line expections are also declining with Norwegian owners expecting turnover to only increase by 2.3% in 2015 down from the 6% reported in last year’s outlook survey.

Owners in the offshore sector expect turnover to fall by 4.2% in 2015, the first fall in turnover for this sector since 2002.

“Shipowners’ expectations are now dominated by lower expectations for profitability” warns Sturla Henriksen, chief executive of the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association in an introduction to a state of the industry report ‘Maritime outlook 2015 - Navigating in a new climate.’

The report highlights both positive and negative developments with Henriksen noting that the shipowning had for the first time contributed more than NOK 100bn ($12.3bn)  in ‘value creation’ and the entire maritime sector some NOK 175m.

The report says that Norway with the sixth biggest deep sea fleet is positioned for further growth with a solid order book of ships scheduled for delivery into 2017.

Growth in the deep sea shipping sector is put at 3.2% in 2014 by the report. For 2015 blue water shipowners anticipate an increase in turnover of 5.1%.

The report notes that times are changing for Norway as a flag state.

A decade ago nearly 57% of the Norwegian controlled fleet was sailing under either the Norwegian Ordinary Ship Register (NOR) or in the Norwegian International Ship Register (NIS). At the beginning of 2015, this had been reduced to 42% or in deadweight terms 46%.

There were 522 ships registered in the NIS, at the start of 2015 down from 692 in 2005. This represents a fall of nearly 170 ships, or 25% over the ten-year period. Since 2010 there has been a dramatic decrease, with more than 60 ships, or 11%, leaving the registry.

The number of ships in the Norwegian fleet sailing under foreign flags has grown from 697 in 2005, to 1036 in 2015, an increase of nearly 50%.

Norwegian international shipowners had a total of 176 ships on order as of 1 January 2015 an increase of 20% on the previous year.