Norwegian owner Boa OCV has said the offshore construction vessel (OCV) market is improving as the oil price rises.
The medium to long-term outlook is better for the company, which is also due to continued lowered hurdle rates for new field developments for oil companies, and increased volume of actual and estimated pending sanctioned offshore field development projects, it added.
"The latter is expected to further improve in 2019 and 2020, which again will lay basis for higher offshore activity from 2020 onwards," it said.
"Despite modest improvements, the short-term picture remains challenging as demand is recovering from a very low level and needs to catch up with a significant overcapacity of vessels in many offshore segments."
The company, part of Boa Offshore, cut its loss in the first quarter to NOK 49.37m ($5.63m), from NOK 50.36m in 2018.
Its two OCVs brought in revenue of NOK 37.9m, versus NOK 29.1m a year ago.
One vessel is currently idle in the North Sea after finishing a short/medium-term contract in the offshore wind market.
But it will shortly mobilise for a new medium term deal in West Africa, keeping the vessel occupied until at least late 2019.
The second is working in the North Sea offshore wind sector.
In the third quarter, it will move to Asia for a new medium-term contract in Asia, with firm commitment most likely into the first quarter of 2020.
The number of opportunities for new work in 2020 has improved "somewhat", Boa said, but "competition for these contracts is still relatively tough and still quite few contracts are of longer-term duration."
