Offshore Construction Demand: How the Oil & Gas project pipeline and geopolitics are shaping the market

From Covid to Hormuz: how energy crises affected offshore vessel demand, and what the 2026 FIDs require from OSV and subsea fleets

In just six years, offshore energy has absorbed three major shocks: Covid, the invasion of Ukraine, and now Hormuz. Each one hit the market differently, in scale, in reach, and in how it reshaped investment decisions and project timelines.

Understanding those differences matters now. With a new wave of FIDs coming through in 2026, the questions for vessel owners, operators and charterers are very concrete: which project types are driving demand, from tiebacks to FPSOs? How many OSV and subsea vessels will these projects need, and when? And is the current fleet, given its age, ready to deliver?

Drawing on its vessel data, Spinergie shares how fleets responded to each crisis and what the upcoming project pipeline means for OSV and subsea demand.

What we’ll discuss

• Three crises, three different impacts: how Covid, Ukraine and Hormuz differed in scale and reach, and how each changed investment decisions and project timelines.
• What Hormuz did to the fleet: what our vessel data reveals about where OSV and subsea fleets changed their patterns.
• Inside the 2026 FID wave: what the recent bump in FIDs involves, and how vessel demand varies by project type, from tiebacks to FPSOs.
• Can the fleet keep up? How many vessels the next wave of projects will require, and what fleet age means for meeting that demand.

What to expect?

A 1-hour session with Patrick Sanguily, VP Sales & Marketing, and Yvan Gelbart, Lead Offshore Analyst at Spinergie, focused on vessel data and practical takeaways for the market ahead. You will have the opportunity to participate in a live Q&A following the discussion.