March 19 2004 News Release

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News Release

March 19, 2004

GROWTH CONTINUES IN FLOATING
PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

IMA has just completed an in-depth assessment of the floating production sector. Its new study, published in mid-March, identifies more than 80 offshore projects in the planning stage that potentially require floating production solutions. The study also contains a detailed breakdown of the current floater inventory, provides IMA’s forecast of production floater orders through mid-2009 and examines issues related to FPSO redeployment.

Current status — 156 floating production systems are currently in operation or available. This is an almost 250% increase in number of systems over the past ten years. Another 37 production floaters are on order — including 26 FPSOs, 2 TLPs, 4 production semis and 5 production spars. There are also 5 floating storage units on order.

Growth in Production Floaters

Forecast of new orders — IMA forecasts an additional 60 to 77 production floaters will be ordered over the next five years. In addition, 16 to 20 existing units will be modified and redeployed from current fields. Capital expenditures associated with these orders are expected to total $19 to 25 billion over the five year period.

Future FPSO redeployments — 13 FPSOs and 1 production semi have been redeployed since 1998. While the issues associated with reuse are complicated, IMA expects redeployments to increase by 33 to 67% over the next five years as units increasingly come off depleting fields.

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International Maritime Associates (IMA) was formed in 1973 to provide strategic planning support to clients in the offshore oil and gas, maritime and technology sectors. We perform the research needed to size the available market, analyze customer requirements, assess competitor strengths/ vulnerabilities and evaluate options for optimizing market position.

For additional information, please contact:

Jim McCaul

Tel: 202-333-8501

Email: imaassoc@msn.com