Why are OSV orders so low? in International Shipping News 21/05/2026 In the summer of 2008, with oil above $100 a barrel and the offshore sector ordering at its most aggressive in a generation, OSV values reached their highest recorded levels. A 10YO AHTS Very Large was worth close to VV USD 50 mil, and a PSV Large was fetching similar numbers. Vessels of all ages were commanding strong prices, with buyers unable to afford to be selective given how tight supply had become across the fleet. When oil collapsed later that year, values followed sharply. They found a floor through the early 2010s as oil recovered and E&P spending remained healthy, but a heavy supply overhang prevented any meaningful upside. When oil fell again in 2014, the fleet was already oversupplied and the two pressures together sent values into freefall. By late 2019 both vessel types had lost more than c.90% of their peak value. Previous Market Recovery Scrapping peaked at 130 vessels in 2018, as operators cleared older tonnage at the bottom of the market. Since then, the trend has reversed entirely. Only three vessels have been removed so far in 2026, and with newbuild costs running well above what the current market can justify, vessels that might previously have been retired at 20 years of age are being dry-docked and kept working. The fleet is older than it has ever been, with the average PSV and AHTS now more than 20-years-old. Rather than replacing tonnage, owners are squeezing more life out of what they have, and for now the market is rewarding them for it. Today’s Orderbook The ordering booms of the past two decades were oil price events. As Brent climbed through the mid-2000s, owners ordered aggressively, and by early 2008 there were over 900 PSVs and AHTS on order, representing more than a third of the live fleet. The financial crisis broke the first peak but not the ordering habit, and owners continued placing vessels well into the recovery. By 2017 the fleet had swelled to nearly 5