Energy equip. & services (AO) | Key elements on SUBC/SPM merger in the CADE document

Research evidence excerpt

Energy equip. & services (AO) | Key elements on SUBC/SPM merger in the CADE document

News comment

Release date: 25 June 2026

Kevin Roger

Head of Energy Equipment and Services

+33 1 53 65 36 74

Energy equip. & services kroger@keplercheuvreux.com

Europe

Key elements on SUBC/SPM merger in the CADE document

Key points:

The CADE fully validated yesterday the merger between Saipem and Subsea 7, without any remedies.

We analysed the c.90 pages document, and CADE's views/analysis of both the IRM and SURF markets.

At the end, the outcome from the CADE is in line with our expectations, as we were not expecting any significant remedies. In our

view, Oil & Gas companies are more trying to extract "vessel times" from SUBC/SPM. However, the arguments presented by the

CADE are not at all the ones we were expecting and are relatively surprising to us, as the CADE implicitly mentions a market in

oversupply for the coming years, with 20 vessels available and "only" c.13 vessels needed. This is not really what we see in the

market today, especially in complex deepwater projects. Subsea 7 and Saipem have their respective vessels fully booked for

2026-27 and already largely for 2028E for example.

In that sense, the CADE has probably taken the market definition that is the most positive for SUBC/SPM for its market review.

Market definition

The CADE first of all argues that the merger needed to be considered on two markets: the IRM (inspection, maintenance and

repair) and the SURF (Subsea Umbilical Riser and Flowlines).

One of the key questions around the merger antitrust process was especially related to the SURF market definition. And the CADE

decided that "the relevant market should be defined to include all agents that effectively exert competitive pressure on the SURF