Tidewater results bolstered by tight AHTS market, as yet unaffected by war

Announcing Q1 2026 results, Mr Kneen said the company performed well “across all key financial and operational measures, with revenue, gross margin, day rate and utilization all outperforming.”

Revenue for the quarter came in at US$326.2M and the company generated a gross margin of 48.8%, a slight improvement over the fourth quarter of 2025. Tidewater announced revenue for the three months ended 31 March 2026 of US$326.2M compared with US$333.4M for the three months ended 31 March 2025. Tidewater’s net income for the three month period was US$6.1M, compared with net income of US$42.7M a year earlier.

“We continued to benefit from stronger than anticipated vessel up-time, which is testament to our company-wide focus on operational excellence and a product of the significant investments we’ve made over the last few years into the fleet,” Mr Kneen said. “Day rates increased nicely in the first quarter, bolstered by a particularly tight AHTS market in the North Sea.”

Mr Kneen said this was notable as the first quarter is typically the slowest quarter of the year due to seasonality, with activity typically picking up in the second and third quarter, particularly in regions like the North Sea. “We view this dynamic as indicative of a market that has

tightened earlier than normal as rigs mobilize to pursue new projects and tightening offshore vessel supply,” he said. “Further, term contract fixtures appear to have reached an inflection point in the first quarter with our weighted average term contract day rate increasing for the first time since the second quarter of 2025.”

Mr Kneen said the company has not yet experienced significant impacts from the war in Iran, despite the fact that the Middle East is one of its principal operating regions. “To date, we have not experienced any disruption in activity due to the conflict,” he said, “in fact we experienced higher than anticipated utilization in Q1, although late in the quarter – after the conflict commenced – we did experience higher than anticipated costs associated with the conflict, particularly as it relates to insurance and the costs of our crews in the region. We anticipate that this elevated level of operating expense to persist until such time the conflict is resolved.”

Adding a note of caution, Mr Kneen said, “As pleased as we are with the strong start to the year, uncertainty remains at a macro level as to how the conflict in the Middle East is ultimately resolved. However, we believe that the outlook for offshore vessel activity has fundamentally improved over the past quarter. 

“In addition to expectations of offshore demand building into the back half of 2026 and into 2027, the global energy equation is being reshaped through the conflict in the Middle East, which is likely to have long-term implications. We anticipate that energy security, particularly access to localized sources of energy, along with the need to replace existing production and depleted inventories, should drive incremental activity beyond what was anticipated prior to the conflict, and it is clear that commodity prices will likely remain at a more constructive level to provide support for this activity.”