(Bloomberg) – Shares of TechnipFMC PLC, one of the world’s biggest makers of offshore oil gear, surged to the highest in a decade on signs of a robust outlook that underscores the industry’s optimism over production at sea.
The contractor expects to generate a total of roughly $10 billion or more in subsea orders this year, it said Thursday in a statement announcing quarterly results. Executives also forecast a similar trajectory for 2026 during a call with analysts. Shares rose as much as 12% and touched the highest intraday level since November 2014.
The results underscore a divergence taking place in US drilling. While growth is slowing in the shale patch, offshore oil development is proving resilient. Producers in the Gulf of Mexico are bringing online major, longer-term projects at a time when weaker oil prices have made shale production more challenging.
In the second quarter, orders of $2.6 billion for subsea gear, which helps explorers produce oil from wells under more than two miles of water, came in higher than the $2.2 billion expected by Citigroup Inc. TechnipFMC also reported adjusted earnings before some items that beat the average analyst estimate.
“We view the results as positive given the strong order beat, the strong Ebitda beat and robust buybacks,” Scott Gruber, an analyst at Citi, said Thursday in a note.
Nearly half of the orders were tied to greenfield projects, or those on undeveloped sites, Chief Executive Officer Douglas Pferdehirt said during the call Thursday. Pferdehirt noted that subsea services were at one of the highest quarterly levels ever for the company.
