Rising oil price not bad news to everyone

The fuel consumer bleeds, but ship repair and marine industrial could benefit

Despite predictions that the price of refined oil, and possibly also crude oil prices, are on a steady increase, a local ship repair stakeholder yesterday said it might just be too early for total optimism in the long term. In the short term however, work on smaller projects is expected to flow in again for the ship repair and marine industrial sector.
Walvis Bay’s ship repair- and marine industries remains strained as business from the West African oil markets are slow. Ship owners and rig owners heavily cut down on ship repairs and maintenance budgets.
Equally, Angola’s economy also took a hard hit some years ago on plummeting oil prices. As long as oil prices are low, spending by Angolans on the Namibian economy will remain limited.
“The problem is it takes time to mobilise large capital projects. The most important component is confidence. As long as there is no consistency in the global oil price’s upward curve, investors will shun large projects”, explained a key local stakeholder yesterday.
Adding if the oil price continues its up-ward trend and even prove prediction correct that it can break into the three digit market price barrier, smaller projects will be getting the green light and could benefit the local industries.