Offshore Market Outlook – the Rise and Rise of Deepwater

March 12, 2026

The deepwater market is showing strong signs of momentum, with robust drilling & subsea activity, a solid pipeline of new projects, and significant investment expected over the next five or so years. But projects are moving into deeper waters, presenting increasing development complexity and execution challenges for key operators like Petrobras, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies, all of whom have big spend plans. And consolidation is not just a theme for E&Ps, but it’s also underway across the service sector. In the longer term, there is growing opportunity for companies in the abandonment space – at the same time, over a decade of limited exploration means the inventory of new projects will soon start to become stretched. The need for a pickup in exploration is clear.