Tidal Energy to Benefit from Oil and Gas Turbulence

Despite the lower prices of hydrocarbons, lower drilling activity in the North Sea could benefit marine renewables.

The drop in the drilling activities in UK’s North Sea caused the reduction in day rates for the offshore contractors, as well as under-employment in the sector, Proactiveinvestors reports.

As the same vessels are used for offshore drilling and for installation of cables and tidal turbines, the marine renewables could improve CAPEX savings by 15-20 per cent.

One of these projects set to take advantage of these events is MeyGen tidal project developed by Atlantis, located off the northern coast of Scotland.

“Nobody wants to see a downturn in any industry, but our industry sees direct benefits derived from low oil prices. First of all, one of our largest CAPEX costs is construction vessels, we use vessels to install our turbines and our cables and they’re exactly the same vessels used by the offshore oil and gas industry.

“There has been a significant reduction in day rates, and also a huge increase in the available fleet. So that it obviously a very big positive, in terms of the financials for our project.

“Secondly there is a huge pool of talent now, obviously as we continue to expand our project delivery team we’re seeing the pool of talent and the quality is incredible. So we’ll benefit on both the capex and opex side,” Tim Cornelius, CEO of Atlantis Resources was quoted as saying by Proactiveinvestors.

In Phase 1A of the project, four submerged turbines generating 6 MW will be installed in the Inner Pentland Firth just north of Caithness, with first power expected to be delivered in 2016.

OffshoreWIND staff; Image: Atlantis