The expenditure for global downstream asset maintenance is set to hit $322 billion between 2015 and 2019, up 12 per cent when compared to the previous five-year period, said a report.

In 2014, the spend totalled $63 billion for the world’s global downstream population of approximately 13,000 facilities, stated Douglas-Westwood, a leading energy business research firm in its forecast.
 
Over the next five years we expect a 4.8 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) with spend reaching almost $71 billion in 2019, it added.

“A minor drop in expenditure is expected in 2015, due to industry-wide price deflation of equipment and services and budget tightening from integrated operators across their upstream and downstream operations,” explained the World Downstream Asset Maintenance Market Forecast report author, Kathryn Symes.

"However, the reduction in expenditure is expected to be short lived as the aging existing asset population as well as a number of new installations drive the overall growth," she noted.

According to the report, North America will remain the largest market, accounting for 35 per cent of global expenditure between 2015 and 2019.

The region’s large, ageing downstream population requires a high level of maintenance, particularly as the level of regulation is relatively high, further driving the amount of maintenance services required to ensure downstream plants meet standards, it stated.

“The majority of forecast expenditure will be attributable to asset services, accounting for 72 per cent, with the remaining 28 per cent consisting of asset integrity services," said Symes.

"Of this, integrity services and electrical and instrumentation services dominate across all regional markets,” she added.-TradeArabia News Service