Okay, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Subsea7 Q3 2025 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Katherine Tonks. Please go ahead.
Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us. With me on the call today are John Evans, our CEO; Mark Foley, our CFO; and Stuart Fitzgerald, CEO of Seaway7. The results press release is available to download on our website, along with the slides that we'll be using during today's call. Please note that some of the information discussed on the call today will include forward-looking statements that reflect our current views. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results or trends to differ materially from our forecast. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in our annual report or in today's quarterly press release. I'll now turn it over to John.
Thank you, Katherine, and good afternoon, everyone. I will start with a summary of the quarter before passing over to Mark for more details of the financial results. Turning to slide three, Subsea7 delivered third-quarter Adjusted EBITDA of $407 million, representing 27% growth year-on-year and a margin of 22%. The increase in our profitability reflects strong project execution, as well as the continued high grading of our backlog. As Mark will discuss, we now expect to exceed our prior guidance for 2025 and to deliver continued momentum into 2026. Order intake was high in the quarter at $3.8 billion, resulting in a book-to-bill of 2.1 times for the quarter and 1.4 times for the first nine months of the year. Our backlog reached a record high, close to $14 billion.
Slide four shows the backlogs of both Subsea and Conventional and Renewables, which continue to increase in quality as we completed work won before 2022 and shift our focus to contracts with more favorable terms. We have a combined backlog for execution in 2026 of $6 billion, giving us over 80% visibility on next year's revenue. I will now pass over to Mark to run through the financial results.
Thank you, John, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll provide selective commentary on GRIP, Subsea and Conventional, and Renewables' financial performance in the fourth quarter, before turning to the cash flow and financial guidance for 2025 and 2026. Slide five summarizes the GRIP's revenue and Adjusted EBITDA results for the fourth quarter, set in the context of recent quarterly performance. In the fourth quarter, revenue was $1.8 billion, in line with the high levels reported in the same quarter of the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA of $407 million increased by 27% compared with the prior year period, and margin expanded by 460 basis points to 22%. Net income was $109 million, following depreciation and amortization of $175 million. Net foreign exchange losses of $38 million, which were driven by non-cash embedded derivatives. Net finance costs of $12 million, and taxation of $73 million.
I'll cover the salient points concerning business unit performance in the next few slides. Slide six presents the key metrics for Subsea and Conventional. Revenue in the third quarter was $1.5 billion, representing growth of 6% year-on-year, as high activity levels continued in Brazil, Turkey, and Norway. Adjusted EBITDA was $368 million, equating to a margin of 24%, an increase of 680 basis points from the same quarter last year. The margin improvement was underpinned by strong execution performance and high vessel utilization, as well as the continued rebalancing of our portfolio towards projects with improved risk and reward characteristics. The results of Subsea and Conventional include an $11 million net income contribution from OneSubsea, in line with our expectations. Net operating income was $228 million, nearly 80% higher than the prior year period, equating to a net operating income margin of 15.1%.
Selected renewables performance metrics are shown in slide seven. Revenue in the third quarter was $302 million, a reduction of 19% when compared with the high levels reported in the prior year period, which were driven by elevated activity in Taiwan, while in line with the second quarter of 2025. Activity progressed during the quarter at Dogger Bank Sea and East Anglia THREE in the U.K., and at Revolution in the U.S. after a delayed stop. Adjusted EBITDA was $52 million, equating to a margin of 17%, up 70 basis points from the same quarter last year. Net operating income was $21 million, representing a margin of 7%. Slide eight shows the cash bridge for the third quarter. Net cash generated from operating activities was $283 million, which included an expected unfavorable movement in working capital of $82 million.
Capital expenditure was $47 million, mainly associated with maintenance on vessels and equipment. Net cash used in financing activities was $123 million, which included lease payments of $79 million. At the end of the quarter, cash and cash equivalents increased by $132 million to $546 million. Net debt was $505 million, including lease liabilities of $421 million, equating to a modest net debt to last 12 months' Adjusted EBITDA of 0.4 times. The group had liquidity of $1.1 billion on the 30th of September. On the 6th of November, the company paid the second and last of its 6.5 kroner per share dividends to shareholders. Shareholders' returns this year, represented solely by dividends, amounted to approximately $376 million. To conclude the financials, we turn to slide seven, sorry, slide nine. We have refined certain guidance metrics for 2025. I will highlight the following favorable notable revisions.
The upper and lower ends of revenue guidance have been narrowed by $100 million, as we now expect revenue to be between $6.9 billion and $7.1 billion in the full year 2025. Given strong results in the first nine months of the year, combined with high visibility and confidence in our execution performance, we have increased our guidance for Adjusted EBITDA margin in 2025 to be between 20% and 21%, from between 18% to 20%. We have also reduced our guidance for capital expenditure to a range from $300 million to $320 million. This reflects our continued focus on capital discipline, as well as a rephasing of some cash capital expenditure from this year into 2026. Today, as is customary for Subsea7 at the third quarter, we introduce initial guidance for next year. In 2026, we expect the GRIP to continue to deliver growth in revenue and Adjusted EBITDA.
We anticipate revenue to be within a range from $7 billion-$7.4 billion, with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 22%. Capital expenditure is forecast to be between $350 million and $380 million, which includes rephasing of some capital expenditure from 2025, as mentioned some moments ago. Our confidence in this guidance is underpinned by the quality of our backlog, which gives us over 80% visibility on revenue, as well as the continued high tendering activity and the attractiveness of the prospect pipeline. I will now pass you back to John.
Thank you, Mark. On the next two slides, we have a couple of highlights from our portfolio of technology-led solutions. On slide 10, we take a look at 4Insights developed by our Subsea business in Norway. 4Insights is software that combines real-time data from vessels and weather feeds and uses advanced algorithms to automate operating decisions on board. The result is an extension of the windows of operability of our vessels and increased performance in project delivery through a reduction in the cost and schedule risks associated with waiting on weather. By automating the decision-making process, 4Insights also enhances collaboration between marine and project crews and maximizes the efficiency of our operations. The software has been rolled out across part of our fleet and has received excellent feedback from our offshore and onshore teams.
In 2025 to date, it has added 35 days of operation to Seven Vega and uplift of over 10% compared to our standard planning assumptions. Our second highlight slide focuses on our unique bundle pipeline technology. Last quarter, we touched on this when we discussed our activity at Idrisill in Norway, which included the launch of a large bundle during the summer. By combining active heating, flow lines, and the control systems into one total bundle, we reduce the complexity of the subsea architecture and offer a cost-effective alternative to traditional models. The solution requires the use of our proprietary lining, as well as highly specialized welding from our team in Wick in Scotland. Subsea7 is the only contractor with a proven track record of delivering production system bundles with over 90 installations to date.
Repeat orders from clients, including Aker BP, Chevron, Equinor, and Shell, are a testament to the success of this unique solution, and more broadly, to the innovative solutions offered by Subsea7's advanced engineering and fabrication capabilities. Now, on to a review of our prospects on slide 12 and 13. Subsea tendering activities remain high across our key regions, with a combined prospect value of around $21 billion. Most of the projects on this map are long-cycle de-order developments with favorable economics. Many carry strategic significance to both the operators and the host nations. They will be sanctioned based on a view of commodity prices beyond the next five years, sheltering them from the change in spot price of oil and gas. Overall, we're confident in the long-term outlook of our subsea business, with demand for our technology-led solutions expected to remain at high levels.
On the next slide, we have a summary of the fixed offshore wind projects that could bid in the U.K.'s Allocation 7 round, AR7. Whilst the maximum strike price of GBP 113 per megawatt hour was well received, the recently announced budget for AR7 was lower than hoped for by the industry. As I said last quarter, the U.K. is the largest single market in the global offshore wind sector outside China, and with a number of other markets showing slower than anticipated growth, the ultimate outcome of the AR7 process will be a key driver for the medium-term momentum in the industry. Subsea7 continues to support a number of key clients to optimize their AR7 developments, whilst remaining selective in the contracts we pursue to safeguard our future profitability. To conclude, we'll turn to our final slide on page 14.
Subsea7 finished the third quarter of 2025 with a record backlog of firm orders valued at nearly $14 billion. We have increased our guidance for 2025, and our guidance for continued growth in 2026 demonstrates our confidence in the outlook. Looking further ahead, we have a high conviction in the resilience of the deep-water subsea market, and combined with a differentiated offering and a strong track record of delivery, this positions Subsea7 for success. We will be happy to take your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one, one on your telephone, and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one, one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. We will take our first question, and the question comes from the line of Sebastian Erkstein from Rothschild & Co. Redburn. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, good afternoon, team. Congratulations on the results today, and great to see the backlog at a record level. I'd like to just follow up on the renewables business. I guess we can expect a seasonal uplift in renewables margins in Q4, which is consistent with the new guide. How should we think about the original kind of 14%-16% EBITDA margin guidance into 2026? I guess linked to this, I mean, you mentioned it in the prepared remarks, could you provide an update on the timelines associated with Allocation Round 7, as there appears to have been some stalling progress? It would be great to get your thinking on that. Thank you.
I'll ask you to answer both those questions for you.
Yep. Sorry, can I answer on the guidance first? Are we maintaining that guidance going forward into 2026 also? Worthwhile to comment that this backlog position in terms of visibility through 2026 and into 2027 is particularly strong. Onto the Allocation Round 7. Submissions from the developers in terms of the different projects that they have put into the Allocation Round have been happening over the last week. That milestone is essentially complete as we understand it, and the results of that are to be announced around mid-January. The next key milestone in the timeline here is a mid-January announcement of outcomes, but the submissions, to the best of our knowledge, are now made.
I appreciate that, Stuart. Just if I can put another question, and I appreciate the difficult one on the merger. We've seen the admission of kind of several interested third parties into the Brazilian antitrust process. Can you give us an update on that process and when we might expect to hear some ruling from CADE if you're able to shed any light on that, and any other updates on the kind of geographies that you're submitting to? That would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, I'll take those. As we've said many times on these calls, we won't be giving a sort of blow-by-blow account here, but let's stand back. When we announced the merger, initially with signing the MOU at the end of February, we targeted the second half of 2026 for completion. The CADE process is following the steps that we had expected it to follow. We make our submissions. Interested parties then identify themselves as interested parties. There is also a wider market consultation, including suppliers, our peers, and our clients, and that process is underway. We will then have an opportunity to discuss with CADE our responses to the different topics that are raised, and then CADE will go into their review process next year.
We continue to believe that the timeline for the merger and the critical path is through CADE and Brazil, should allow us to complete by the second half of 2026.
Really appreciate the coverage, John. I'll hand it back now. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Victoria McCulloch from RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Morning. Thanks very much for your time this morning. Starting as well on renewables, can you just talk a bit about the contribution for 2026? I appreciate you do not give it specifically, but on the basis of Stuart's commentary, should we then see the driver for the growth coming from the Subsea and Conventional business? John, maybe a bit sort of larger sort of picture views. Can you give us a bit of color about how you have seen the tendering pipeline and engagement with your customers over the last three months? It remains a fairly unpredictable macro environment, but it would be interesting to hear the conversations you are having with the engagement you have with customers. Thanks very much.
Yeah, just to take the renewables, Stuart was clear that we are comfortable with a guidance range of 14%-16% EBITDA on renewables in 2026. As he says, he has a high coverage of work already on the books. I do not think we will give any further information on that, Victoria, but we are comfortable that we have a good position in renewables in 2026, and as Stuart alluded to, also going into 2027. For us, it is more about what is in 2028 and 2029, and AR7 will be part of understanding that in the first quarter of next year. Coming to client interactions, I was down in Brazil at Rio OTC about three weeks ago. We have had a number of client discussions, which, as you would expect, continue. We are seeing very little change in our clients' views.
They are clear that they've got a number of large subsea projects out there for bid or to be bid. The dialogue is all around timing of their bids, timing of their projects, what early commitments do they need to make, vessels availability. It's the traditional questions that we get in a busy market, Victoria. In Brazil, discussions with Petrobras. We expect to see the Petrobras five-year plan announced in the next week or so. Continued focus on subsea projects being the main engine and the main driver for Petrobras. Their conversations are clear. A lot of other clients are about some big opportunities that they see. We're bidding work in Namibia. We're bidding work in Mozambique. These were countries that weren't on our radar screen a couple of years ago. Down in Turkey in the first week in December.
That's about our ships are going in to do phase II. As you're aware, we picked up phase three, but there are other phases of Sakarya to come as well. We continue to work with Equinor as planned on their developments of Visund and Bay du Nord, their two big developments, one in the north of Norway, one in Canada. They're quietly going on exactly as we had planned with Equinor that we'd be working with them, looking at multiple different scenarios. Long story short, we're not seeing a real change. The other thing that we touched on in the last quarter was the pleasant surprise to see a number of new projects coming into Norway. The project with ConocoPhillips, which you expect to get sanctioned here at the end of the year.
There are very creative projects out there with a number of clients, and we remain confident. The only geography where that is not the case is the U.K., but I think everybody's clear that unless something changes in next month's budget, probably the U.K. is a bit out of sorts with the rest of the world.
Thanks very much. Maybe just a follow-up on that. It was interesting to hear, obviously, that you've shown us lots about the pipeline bundles that you've done for Idrisill, for Aker BP, and how that's optimizing the CapEx and OpEx for your customer. I guess how much, I guess, new ideas in AI are customers looking for and sort of new wins from that? Because I guess AI is such a massive theme globally, but how much of that is part of conversations in terms of they're trying to get economics better because of AI?
Yeah, our clients are always interested. Idrisill is an interesting example that we're using every single technology Subsea7 has got in that huge greenfield development. We've got bundles in there. We've got traditional relay in there. We've got heated pipelines. We've got cooled pipelines in the system. We've got everything in there. That is why the customers come to us is that we have a full toolkit, a full technology capability. If we come on to 4Insights, 4Insights is a form of AI technology that uses real-time data, analyzes huge volumes of data to give our offshore crews a clarity as to what's going to happen in the next 24 hours and how they should think about whether we continue into the good weather or do we stop, do we start, and such like. Historically, that's all been done in a very static mode.
Before we go offshore, we plan different scenarios. We take the scenarios out there. We have a book which tells us what we can and can't do. If we're inside the parameters, we can work. If we're outside the parameters, what 4Insights has been is say, "Let's take the actual parameters we've got here and the actual parameters forecast and what you've had in the last 24 hours and exactly which way the weather is hitting the ship directionally and such like, and can we continue pipeline?" As I said in my prepared remarks, we are finding some significant improvements. It is a combination of the portfolio of technologies we've got, a real proactivity to also just challenge the norms. We're also doing quite a bit of work with some of the regulators and some of the certifying authorities on how we run our DP vessels.
Dynamic position rules were written in the 1980s when fuel was free. Nobody worried about emissions. Therefore, today, we are now finding different ways to run these ships, but we need the codes to change to do that. That allows us to improve our fuel efficiency, which our clients pay for, also reduces our emissions. We need the codes to change to reflect that what was good in the 1980s does not necessarily have to follow in the 2025 era that we are in. There are a lot of great things happening, Victoria, a lot of great engagement with our clients and with every client on those types of technologies. It is a good place that the industry is in. As we know, deep water subsea is one of the lowest costs per barrels lifted of any form of oil or gas out there.
I think we're in the right place at the right time.
Super, John. Thanks very much for those additional comments.
Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from the line of Kevin Roger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the time. The first one is maybe in two ways because when I look at the backlog execution for 2026, you are telling us that roughly your visibility is up by 13%, but the top-line guidance implies only 3% growth in 2026 versus 2025. Can you give us a bit of color on that? Why the backlog for execution is up 13%, but the top-line guidance is up by 3%? Is it related to the fleet utilization rate that is at the end already fully booked? Just to understand the rationale around the top line. The second one, John, you roughly mentioned it, Bay du Nord big project from Equinor for 2026. There has been some noise notably this morning saying that Equinor is currently hitting the market for fabrication tools.
Just to understand on your side, would it be a kind of full scope or then it would be phase by phase, meaning that for 2026, it will be more than $1 billion as you have identified the project in the pipeline or a smaller phase because that is going to be done in different phases? Thanks a lot.
Yeah, the backlog in 2026, I guess, would just reflect the fact that we're in a very busy market and clients have committed to us earlier. We have a finite capacity, which is why the revenue doesn't grow as much. We would expect, of course, next year to have 100% backlog by the end of the year. It is more of a timing question, Kevin. A lot of our clients have engaged with us earlier. That's been going for a number of years now, making commitments to make sure that they have capacity available as they go into 2026 and 2027. It is just a timing disconnect more than anything, not a fundamental issue. This quarter, we're running at 87% utilization. We're getting towards the highest end of what we can do, and we've discussed that a number of times on this call.
The key to us is post-merger is to reduce the amount of transits between projects and such like. That's one of the real attractions for a number of our clients is that there are more days available if you don't move these assets around. At the moment, we've got the fleet that we've got. We know very well where they're going to be placed next year. I don't see it as a disconnect. The revenue will be the revenue and the range that we've given. The backlog is just higher than we would normally expect. Equally, in my memory, when the market gets busy, people secure their assets earlier. Taking your second question, Bay du Nord is a project that for us is done seasonally over multiple seasons, and we won't be offshore until later on this decade, and that's always been the case.
Because of the weather conditions out there, we can do about 100 days per year. It is a multi-year project. Next year, we will continue to be in this work mode that we are in, which is working with Equinor on the field layouts and allowing them to go through their different decision gates, DG2 and DG3, that they need to go through. For us, Bay du Nord is continued working with them in the mode that we have been in for a couple of years. They will make their key decisions, I suspect, in 2027 when they have all their information about their fabrication, their local content, as well as the SURF packages.
What I would say, I think there's been good work between the SIA and Equinor over a couple of years, and there's been some very interesting thinking about how to phase the project and how it comes together. Coming back to your initial question, Kevin, it was always a phased project because the weather conditions out there and the remoteness of that part of the Atlantic offshore Canada means that you have to do 100-day slots per year out there. It's just how you sequence it and how you develop the wells and the reservoir that goes with it is the key to probably unlocking the economics in that field.
Okay. Thanks a lot. Have a nice day.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Guilherme Levy from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. First one, thinking about your guidance, how much would you say the lower figure this year is driven by activity that might have slipped into 2026? If you can perhaps share with us what sort of activity that is. Thinking about 2026, is this a reasonable level for us to think about your capital needs over the long term? Is there any non-recurring factor in the 2026 figures that we have? Second one, thinking about Brazil, earlier this year, there was a headline saying that Petrobras was keen to do a long-term lease of a vessel to do the installation of rigid pipes in the presalt itself. Do you feel like this is a live discussion? Are they actively looking to do that?
Or do you feel like that was just a headline that did not really evolve over the course of the year? Thank you.
I guess the question, the first question you're asking about the sort of guidance between this year and next year on revenue and such like. You're very familiar with our projects. They work on a percentage of completeness at the end, a completion at the end of each year. It varies. Big projects, a couple of percentage have quite a large influence on dollars. There's nothing to be concerned about. It's just how the different sequences of our projects are coming into play. In terms of 2026, as I answered Kevin previously, we're reasonably clear on how it'll fit together. We've given you a range of revenues that we are comfortable with giving the market here. A high level of visibility is to how that fits. Even the work that isn't in the backlog yet, we're pretty clear in our minds how that will sort of come together.
Of course, as we've done consistently, if things change, we will give the market an update on each quarter as we see changes. Lastly, Petrobras are talking to the market about potentially the long-term lease of a rigid pipeline ship. Interestingly enough, we had a contract many years ago in 2012 to 2017 to do exactly the same, which was called Hybrid Steel, which was a contract that Subsea7 had with Petrobras. I'm old enough to know what one of those looks like, and we've done it before. Again, when Petrobras comes to the market, we will respond, and we'd be interested in that. You just need to remember that the timescale is probably four or five major projects that need a pipeline each. If they go down this path, and I do understand, we've spoken to them.
This is about the timing of the arrivals of the FPSO and the challenges of how you run different projects with different timescales with different arrivals of FPSOs. Maybe the hang-offs of the riser with a vessel more akin to a PLSV, which is more of a day rate contract where they can control it that way. I understand fully the logic. It makes a lot of sense. We will certainly be interested in the opportunity such as that comes to the market next year.
Thank you. The first one, sorry, I was actually just referring to your new CapEx guidance. Yeah, just thinking about your 2026 CapEx guidance, is there any reason why 2027 should be materially different from that?
It really is a function of the vessels that have to go through their obligatory dry docking. As you know, depending on where they are in the cycle, their CapEx increases and decreases. The majority of their CapEx is directed towards vessels and equipment. I think we've provided updated guidance for this year, slightly lower, driven by really strict capital discipline within the organization, as well as a reflate phasing, a displacement of certain cash capital expenditure into 2026, and then an amount that we've guided to for next year. It will vary year on year depending upon the requirements of the vessels, as well as the opportunities that we see in terms of growth, capital expenditure, around minor modifications, around supplementary additions to equipment, etc. Hopefully that provides some additional color.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Alejandro Magaña from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. On your Subsea and Conventional margin strains, can you give us a sense of how much of the uplift reflects execution outperformance versus the roll-off of older lower margin projects and how much reflects structurally better commercial terms or pricing power on more recent awards? As the 2026 backlog converts, how do these contracts differ commercially from the ones you've executed this year?
Okay. I won't go into the margin mix. As I said in my prepared remarks, there's a bit of everything. We are taking less projects taken before 2022 into the portfolio this year, and there are none of those as we get into next year. As we've discussed very openly on this market, each project is bid individually, and therefore then there is a mixture of margins in each of the different projects. Sometimes some projects suit us because the availability of equipment, timing of clients' decision-making, potential delays in other projects. There is quite a complex mix in that. Lastly, as we've discussed, we've had very good execution throughout this year, and I'm very pleased with the execution that we've got. When all these things come together, we get a very good margin in the business, but we won't discuss the segregation of those items.
As we go into 2026, again, it's about the stack of projects that we've got in there. There is nothing pre-2022 in the mix. It is the packages of work that we brought in over the last three years at the various stages that give us the margin that we expect to see next year. We have given you clarity through the guidance as to what revenue range, and we expect to be at around 22% next year at a bit down on the portfolio that we've got. Just to close out on that, we're reasonably confident in that because we've got over 80% of that margin already in the books. As I touched on earlier, I'm reasonably sure I know how the remaining 20% will fit.
The remaining 20% part of that is elements such as call-off agreements we have with a number of clients where we're already under contract. We know what the margin is, but we haven't received the call-offs yet. Confidence level pretty high here. We'll just get into 2026 and let it run and see how it goes from there.
Very clear. Thank you. On the new Brazil PLSV contracts, can you give us a sense of how the new rates compare with prior agreements? Do you expect a step up in PLSV earnings over the next few years?
Yeah. They were bid a year ago. That is information where if you go through the press releases that we've released and our competitors' releases, all public information, you know that each contract's roughly 1,000 days. They were better than we had for certain, and all four PLSVs are now on the new contracts. Just last week, the fourth of our PLSVs went on their new agreements. Next year, part of the uplift in our margin is around the fact that the mix of work that we've got next year, as we discussed earlier, is a better mix. The PLSVs are public domain information. If you go back and dig through those, you can work the figures out from where we were and where we are now.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one, one on your telephone. Your next question comes from the line of Erik Aspen Fosså from SB1 Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hello, guys. I have two questions at least. First for you, John. I think the understanding I'm not seeing for the understanding so far has been that we should expect a slight increase in activity from 2025 to 2026. I'm just wondering how we should think about this into 2027 on a standalone basis for Subsea7. Is there still room for further increases, for example, through fleet optimization and other such things, or are we kind of plateauing now in terms of how much you can do with the fleet that you have?
Okay, Eric. I think what's interesting for us is that we have a very strong backlog for 2027. If you just look at the prepared data, we've got $3.8 billion of backlog for 2027, which is a very good place for us to be looking this far ahead. There are some changes that we're doing next year. It's also about how we upgrade the margins in our projects. There has been some work that we've been doing, for example, on some Jones Act work that we won't continue next year. We'll return those chartered vessels to the owners because we can't get the margins that we expect. We've returned the Champion in the Middle East.
For us, it's also about just being very, very selective about which assets we deploy, how we deploy them, and the returns that we get and the risks that we take to earn those returns. There is room for improvement. There is always room. Now it's about taking the asset base that we've got, as Mark said, being pretty brutal about what it's doing, where it's working, what it's returning for us. You will see some changes in the fleet next year, some actually reductions in the size of the fleet next year. Also, we're increasing the revenue. That's our task at the moment, is to maximize what we have in these cycles that we work in, Eric.
I think you also sort of started on my second question, and that was on the lease costs that increased slightly now this quarter. I am just wondering how we should view that into 2026. Yeah. Should it come down because of what you actually just explained now, John?
Yes, Eric. We will see a directional downward movement in lease liability cash impact in 2026 as a result of releasing some of the lease vessels that we have in the portfolio today. As you know, out of the 41 vessels, we have 11 lease vessels, and some of those will be going back in the end of their chartered period to the owners.
Was that just Jones Act vessels or are there any other?
are other vessels too. Yeah. As I discussed, the Champion was leased, and that was in the Middle East. That has already gone back. There will be a couple of Jones Act vessels gone back, and there will be at least one further one going back, but we are not ready to include that at the moment. That is the direction of travel, as Mark is saying, that we are working our way through making sure that if we bring additional tonnage in, first of all, is it added value in the portfolio? What we are trying to do here is to grow the revenue, but also make sure we maintain the margin. That is what this fine-tuning that we are doing is about, but it also brings our lease obligation line down, which, again, I know has a high focus in the market as well.
Just lastly, could you give some sort of indication on kind of the level that we could think about next year on the lease payments?
It will be notably lower than we have incurred so far this year, Eric. I think we've spoken about it every quarter. We'll probably just be under $300 million cash out this year, principal plus interest. We've given a flavor of the vessels that all other things being equal, will leave the fleet. I'll allow you to apply your assumptions in terms of what that means around the impact, favorable impact to cash.
Yep. Very clear. Thank you very much, guys.
Cheers, Eric. Thank you.
This concludes today's question and answer session. I'll now hand back to John Evans for closing remarks.
Thank you very much for joining us. We have an interesting story to tell, and we appreciate your continued support and the questions that you ask and the papers that you publish about Subsea7. We have a very good year ahead of us, I believe, in 2026. We have tried to frame that for you and try to give you information to allow you to model it and look ahead. We continue to be in some very positive discussions. Stuart has also been very open about the opportunity sets in renewables in 2028 and 2029 will become clearer in Q1 next year. Hopefully, when we meet with our Q4 results at the end of February, early March time, we will be able to give you more updates on how we see AR7 and what that means for Seaway7.
Thank you very much for your support and your questions, and we shall see you again soon. Thank you. Goodbye.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.