Subsea 7 Sees Progress on $1.8 Billion in Deepwater Gulf Projects

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Subsea 7 (Luxembourg City, Luxembourg), which performs engineering and other work for the global offshore drilling sector, has been racking up contract wins for topsides, pipelines, umbilicals and other crucial components for deepwater projects, with the U.S. accounting for a steady and reliable portion. Industrial Info is tracking more than $10 billion worth of active and proposed projects worldwide featuring Subsea 7's services, about $1.8 billion of which is attributed to projects in the U.S.

Click on the image at right for a graph detailing U.S. projects featuring Subsea 7's services, by offshore area in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a quarterly earnings-related conference call, John Evans, the chief executive officer of Subsea 7, said his company has about $600 million worth of contracted work in U.S. waters, which amounts to about 6% of its global backlog.

Subsea 7's U.S.-based work is concentrated in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (designated as the Gulf of America by the Trump administration), where its single largest project is for Shell plc (London, England): the $800 million Sparta Floating Production Unit (FPU) in the Garden Banks area of the North Platte Field, for which Subsea 7 is performing transportation and installation services. The 10,000-ton structure is designed to produce 100,000 barrels of oil-equivalent per day (BOE/d) from a reservoir that Shell estimates holds 244 million BOE.

Construction on the Sparta project began in early 2024, after Shell announced its final investment decision (FID) in December 2023, and it is not expected to be fully completed until third-quarter 2028 at the earliest. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Oil & Gas Production Project Database can learn more from a detailed project report, and read about Shell's FID in December 21, 2023, article - Shell Reaches FID for Sparta Development in the Gulf of Mexico.

Subsea 7 also is performing engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for two smaller Shell projects in the Gulf: the $30 million addition of a water-injection system for the Vito FPU in the Mississippi Canyon area in the Vito Field, and the $25 million addition of subsea infrastructure in the Silvertip Field, which is designed to boost production at Shell's roughly 75,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Perdido Spar Platform. Subscribers can read detailed reports on the Vito FPU and Silvertip Field projects, and read a detailed plant profile for the Perdido Spar Platform.

Farther east in the Shenandoah Field, Subsea 7 is putting the finishing touches on two projects for Beacon Offshore Energy LLC (Houston, Texas) for which it is performing EPC services: $300 million of subsea infrastructure and $150 million of subsea pipelines in the Walker Ridge area. Beacon said the four wellheads and 15 miles of pipeline will allow it to tap into estimated recoverable resources of between 100 million and 400 million barrels. The product will be transported to Beacon's $700 million floating production platform (FPP), also nearing completion, for processing and export.

Subscribers can read detailed reports on the subsea infrastructure, pipelines and FPP.

Evans said in the earnings call that his company has been preparing for possible costs related to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration: "At the moment, we're qualifying our newer bids. We have protections for changes in laws in most of our bids and contracts in place. So, for us at the moment, it's about evaluating it, working together with our clients to make sure that we address the tariffs correctly. And we'll move ahead from there."

Subscribers to Industrial Info's GMI Project and Plant databases can click here for a full list of detailed reports for projects mentioned in this article, and click here for a full list of related plant profiles.

Subscribers can click here for a full list of detailed project reports for active and proposed projects globally featuring Subsea 7's services, and click here for a list of reports for those in U.S. waters.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).