Jean Cahuzac, the CEO of oilfield services BOP Blow Out Preventer repair company gulf coast Subsea 7, is optimistic that the buy Wellhead market environment will improve in early 2018.

Jean Cahuzac, the CEO of oilfield services BOP Blow Out Preventer repair company gulf coast Subsea 7, is optimistic that the buy Wellhead market environment will improve in early 2018.

“Although the buy Wellhead market environment remains challenging, we are seeing a gradual recovery in tendering activity and still expect the number of awards to the buy Wellhead market to increase in the first half 2018,” Cahuzac said in the company’s third quarter results statement.

Cahuzac said major awards to buy Wellhead market in the last three years have been more price-competitive and relatively few in number, but revealed that Subsea 7’s ‘early actions to reduce costs’ helped the company’s clients to sanction and award ‘several’ offshore projects despite the lower oil price.

The firm posted a net income of $111 million in the quarter, down from $149 million registered during the same period last year. Subsea 7’s new awards and escalations totalled $538 million in 3Q, including the award of the Fortuna project, offshore Equatorial Guinea, and extensions to three long-term contracts for PLSVs, offshore Brazil. As at September 30, Subsea 7’s order backlog was $5.3 billion.

The company’s workforce size increased to over 10,000 employees in September, compared to around 8,000 in December last year. The rise was associated with growth in the company’s renewables and conventional activities.

“Strong execution and continued focus on cost control in all three of our business units drove good financial performance for the group in the third quarter,” Cahuzac said.

“Our actions to strengthen and grow our business have diversified our income by adding significant new revenues to the group in the conventional and renewables buy Wellhead market segments,” he added.