Westwood Insight – Offshore vessel fleets tighten amid sustained supply discipline in International Shipping News 23/05/2026 Across offshore energy markets, vessel fundamentals are entering a more nuanced phase of recovery. While macroeconomic and geopolitical forces continue to weigh on oil prices and capital allocation, utilisation trends across offshore support, wind and service fleets point to a tightening supply-demand balance through 2026 and beyond. Fleet ageing, constrained reactivation, and selective newbuild ordering are increasingly shaping utilisation outcomes rather than demand growth alone. Offshore support vessels: Maturing fleet, improving balance The global offshore support vessel (OSV) market posted modest but meaningful improvement in 2025. Demand days increased by 2% year-on-year, lifting marketed utilisation to an average of 76%. Westwood’s MarineLogix data underscores a steadily tightening market, particularly when viewed against the backdrop of a maturing fleet. More than half of the operational OSV fleet is now over 15 years old. Nevertheless, the operational fleet expanded slightly in late 2025 to 3,209 units due to newbuild deliveries, while the laid-up fleet declined marginally. The net reactivation of only two vessels highlights a key theme: utilisation is improving not because of aggressive reactivation or scrapping cycles, but because accessible and commercially viable supply is increasingly limited. Regionally, demand remains concentrated in the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia, together accounting for close to half of global OSV demand days. Operational fleet movements have been uneven. South Asia and West Africa recorded net inflows of active tonnage, while the North Sea saw the largest outflow, reflecting both regulatory pressure and continued redeployment. The laid-up fleet has fallen sharply from more than 1,500 vessels during the COVID-19 downturn to fewer than 400 units by 4Q 2025. However, demolition activity remai