IMA has just completed a detailed assessment of the floating production sector. The study examines the impact of the global economic downturn, assesses the underlying long term market drivers and forecasts production floater orders over the next five years. The market for new floating production systems has frozen as a result of the abrupt downturn in the global economy. Over the past quarter no orders have been placed for production floaters. This is the first time since 1996, when IMA began tracking the floating production sector, where no orders have been placed during a reporting quarter. As a result, order backlog for production floaters has dropped 30 percent from the same time last year. Several orders for production floaters have been delayed, including three FPSOs and a MinDoc.