Sales of offshore support vessels topped $2.8bn in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 50%, according to figures compiled by VesselsValue.
While the value of deals was higher, the number of OSVs sold last year was 16% lower than the 323 vessels sold in 2022, reflecting the rising asset prices.
There was an increase in the value of OSVs sold, but overall sales in the offshore vessel sector, including construction of vessels and drilling rigs, saw a 26% year-on-year decline to $5.2bn, according to VesselsValue.
Sales of offshore construction vessels fell 35% year on year in 2023 to $777m, while sales for drilling rigs declined nearly 60% to $1.6bn.
The US was the top market for offshore vessel sales, with local owners spending almost $1bn on 58 vessels. The United Arab Emirates was in second place with $662.7m spent on 38 offshore vessels.
China rounds out the top three spenders by nationality with a total of $556.2m spent on 10 vessels. The UK came fourth and Norway fifth, spending $359.9m and $315.5m, respectively.
US operator Tidewater Marine was the top buyer after acquiring 38 offshore vessels worth $596.7m, and Chinese-Norwegian outfit COSL was in second, spending $449.4m on five units.
Tidewater completed one of the largest OSV sale-and-purchase deals last year when it acquired 37 vessels from Solstad Offshore for $577m.
Norwegian shipowners were the biggest sellers of offshore vessels by value last year, offloading a total of 62 vessels in deals worth a total of $963.2m.
Dutch shipowners were the second largest sellers of tonnage with 43 vessels worth $413.1m sold in the secondhand market.
China and the UK were the third and fourth biggest sellers of offshore vessels — separated by just $300,000 – with total sales of $379.7 and $379.4m, respectively.
Norway’s Solstad Offshore was the top seller last year offloading 40 vessels worth a total of $596.1m, while Vroon was second having sold 33 vessels worth a total of $315.8m.
Older OSV vessels saw the biggest year-on-year increases in secondhand values across both anchor-handling tug supply units and platform supply vessels.
Fifteen-year-old PSVs saw the largest gains with values up nearly 60% between the beginning and end of 2023 across large, medium and small sizes, while 10-year-old ships averaged gains of about 45% during the year.
For AHTS units, 15-year-old vessels saw increases in value of about 45% across the board except for the small sizes where the increases were about 23% year on year.
