According to Pieter van Oord, CEP of Dutch marine contractor Van Oord, demand in the offshore wind business expanded tremendously in 2022.
Van Oord’s Offshore Wind business unit had “a busy year,” according to the company’s financial report for 2022, earning sales of EUR 599 million, up 72.6% over the EUR 347 million revenue recorded in 2021. The company reported that the utilization of offshore wind vessels was high throughout the year.
The company’s participation in the building of the Saint-Brieuc wind farm in France, Greater Changhua in Taiwan, and Hollandse Kust Noord in the Netherlands was largely responsible for this year’s revenue.
Van Oord was successful in controlling two challenging projects in 2022. The Saint Brieuc project is back on track and should be finished in 2023. Also, the business succeeded in completing the Greater Changhua project in Taiwan.
Van Oord added that the company’s flexible fallpipe vessels are now seeing the fastest growth in the Subsea Rock Installation for offshore wind farms market under its Offshore business.
Despite a large growth in revenue in the Offshore Wind business unit in 2022, Van Oord has urged for a greater balance between risk and reward for contractors within the industry since the returns were termed as “unsatisfactory”.
In comparison to 2021, when the company received EUR 962 million, the amount of offshore wind bids awarded to Van Oord in 2022 totaled EUR 339 million.
The company’s overall order book, which was valued at EUR 4.3 billion at year’s end 2022 but was EUR 4.353 billion in 2021, stayed consistent and was in part influenced by the selection of the Ocean Wind (US) offshore wind project in the USA.
