Top Drive Systems Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product Type, By Application, Regional Outlook, Competitive Strategies, And Segment Forecasts, 2019 To 2025

The global top drive systems market is expected to witness a significant growth over the forecast period owing to growing energy consumption and increasing demand for oil rigs. They are used in drilling rigs due to their assistance in vertical movement of the derricks. It is used to facilitate the drilling process of borehole as it provides torque to the drill string, along with making the drilling process easy. Top drive systems are of two types, namely hydraulic and electric. Electric top drive system market owns majority share of the total market on account of better safety and reliability characteristics. The factors driving the top drive system market are increasing exploration and production activities, technological developments, rising energy need from emerging economies and safety concerns coupled with commercial & technical benefits offered by them.

The top drive systems market is expected to further witness high growth owing to substitution of rotary table as a result of longer drilling sections. While a rotary table equipped rig can normally drill 30 ft. sections, a top drive system equipped rig can drill 60 to 90 ft. of a drill pipe, depending on the type of drilling rig. It minimizes the chances of drill pipe making connections with the wellbore by providing longer sections. Time efficiency is another advantage associated with it. While rotary table rigs required withdrawal of entire string from the well bore, top drive system doesn’t need such functioning. Its mechanism allows significant time reduction, hence making it more preferred resulting in wider adoption.

Top drive systems market can be segmented on the basis of product type depending on the components used including electric and hydraulic. The hydraulic market owns comparatively lesser share than electric systems. This is on account of zero harmful gas emissions owing to no application of hydraulic fluids. On the basis of application, the top drive system market can be segmented into two types including offshore and onshore drilling. Onshore drilling dominated the global top drive system market due to the large number of onshore fields as compared to offshore projects. The offshore rigs require advanced and precise facilities making it more capital intensive. Moreover, these rigs are inclusive of considerable complexities and service requirement, as compared to onshore rigs. The offshore drilling market share is expected to rise over the forecast period owing to more number of reserves emerging in the high seas.

On the basis of geography, top drive systems market can be segmented into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. North America held the largest share in the top drive system market as a result of more number of production fields in regions of U.S. and Mexico. Europe followed North America on account of Russia being a major driller for crude oil and gas, holding a major share of the European market. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran were major countries driving the top drive system market growth in the Middle East owing to the large number of onshore production facilities in the region. Whereas, in Africa, Nigeria is a key country owing to presence of drilling facilities similarly, in Latin America, Venezuela holds majority of the exploration projects. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Brunei owns majority share in the Asia Pacific region. However, China is expected to emerge as significant market over the forecast period, owing to potential oil reserves being identified in South China Sea.

Key players involved in the top drive systems market include U.S. based National Oilwell Varco, Cameron International Corporation, Canrig Drilling Technology Limited, Axon Energy Products and Tesco Corporation. Other players include Canada based Warrior Manufacturing Service Limited and Foremost Group; Norwegian company Aker Solutions AS, German company Bentec GMBH Drilling & Oilfield Systems, and Chinese company Honghua Group Ltd.

Among these, National Oilwell Varco is a multinational corporation based in Houston, Texas, which caters to both onshore and offshore top drive system needs. Whereas, Honghua Group Ltd., headquartered in Chengdu, Sichua, has expertise in both onshore and offshore drilling rigs and is involved in designing and manufacturing of top drive systems. Foremost Group manufactures top drive systems under mobile equipments business segment. The company offers basic power swivel and complete drive systems in the market. The hydraulic and electric top drive systems designed and manufactured by Foremost are suitable for 100, 150 and 300 tons of rated capacities.