Much of the world's most demanding construction happens where you can't see it: below the waterline, beneath the seabed, or tens of metres under a city block. Marine works, oil and gas facilities, and deep foundations are usually treated as separate markets. In practice they share the same engineering problems, the same fleets of specialist plant and increasingly the same contractors. Following the latest construction news across these three sectors shows how capital moves through the industry, and why so much of it is spent before a single structure rises above ground or water.
Oil and Gas Construction Investment Is Shifting, Not Shrinking
Headlines about the energy transition can hide how much capital still goes into hydrocarbon infrastructure. The International Energy Agency's World Energy Investment 2026 puts total global energy investment at about US$3.4 trillion this year, up roughly 5%.[1] Within that total the mix is changing. Investment in oil supply is expected to fall below US$500 billion, its third straight annual decline. Spending on natural gas is expected to rise by more than 10% to about US$330 billion, its highest level in a decade, led largely by LNG export projects.[2]
Where the money goes matters as much as how much there is. Supply-security concerns, including disruption to tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, are pushing producers and importers to diversify. Upstream investment in the Middle East is forecast to dip slightly, while Africa and Central and South America are expected to see growth above 10%.[2] For contractors, the pipeline of liquefaction trains, gas processing plants, export terminals and pipelines is moving to new places rather than drying up.
Offshore Field Development and Subsea Construction
Offshore is where oil and gas construction and marine engineering meet most directly. Energy consultancy Westwood reported a 90% year-on-year rise in offshore project sanctions in the first half of 2026: about US$66.4 billion of committed capital expenditure across 38 projects.[3] Floating production systems accounted for US$12.9 billion of EPC contract awards in that period, and subsea EPC awards reached US$5.6 billion. Awards were spread across Brazil, Angola, Malaysia, Cyprus, Côte d'Ivoire, Indonesia and North America.[3]
The full-year subsea forecast shows the physical scale behind those figures: about 283 subsea trees, roughly 4,000 kilometres of umbilicals, risers and flowlines, and around 2,600 kilometres of export lines.[3] Each of these packages needs pipelay vessels, trenching and rock-placement equipment, offshore cranes and a large onshore supply chain. That supply chain covers fabrication yards, spool bases, marine logistics bases and the heavy equipment that moves modules weighing thousands of tonnes from quayside to vessel.
Marine Construction: Breakwaters, Caissons and Port Expansion
Ports are the other half of the marine story. Larger container ships, LNG carriers and offshore-energy supply vessels all need deeper berths, longer quays and better wave protection. The new breakwater at the Port of Genoa is a leading example. The contractor has placed about 4.2 million tonnes of material and installed more than 51,000 gravel columns and 3,870 drains to strengthen the seabed. Reinforced-concrete caissons, each comparable in size to an eleven-storey building, are then floated out and sunk onto the prepared bed. The finished structure is designed to handle ships up to 400 metres long.[4]
Projects like this show the typical marine construction sequence:
- Dredging and seabed preparation to reach design depth and remove unsuitable sediment.
- Ground improvement, using stone or gravel columns and vertical drains, so the seabed can carry heavy loads without excessive settlement.
- Caisson fabrication and float-out, often cast in floating docks or on dedicated casting yards.
- Placement, ballasting and superstructure works, followed by armour layers or wave-dissipating crown walls.
Each stage relies on a different class of plant: cutter-suction and trailing-suction hopper dredgers, jack-up barges, crawler cranes working from pontoons, and long-reach excavators on the land side.
Offshore Wind Foundations and Heavy-Lift Marine Operations
Offshore wind has become a major customer for the same marine fleets that serve oil and gas. The 1.1 GW Inch Cape project off the east coast of Scotland shows how foundation work at sea is organised. It combines 54 monopile positions with 18 jacket foundations to support 72 turbines of 15 MW each.[5] The monopile foundation units, each around 8.3 metres in diameter and about 700 tonnes, were carried six at a time by the heavy-lift vessel Seaway Alfa Lift. The next phase uses a pre-piling template to drive 54 pin piles before the jackets are set.[5]
Monopiles, jackets, suction buckets and gravity bases now compete on cost and seabed suitability. As foundations get heavier, vessel capacity, crane reach and deck space are becoming the real constraints on project schedules. That is why installation vessel availability is watched as closely as the steel price.
Deep Foundation Engineering: Piles, Barrettes and Diaphragm Walls
On land, the same geotechnical discipline supports towers, refineries, LNG tanks and bridges. Deep foundations, meaning bored piles, driven piles, barrettes and diaphragm walls, carry loads down to competent strata when surface soils cannot. Records keep being pushed further. The barrettes beneath the Petronas Twin Towers reached depths of about 125 metres. Bored piles for the Jeddah tower project were drilled to about 109 metres. Newer foundations in Kuala Lumpur's KLCC district were expected to go as deep as 150 metres.[6]
These depths need rotary drilling rigs with long Kelly bars, hydraulic grabs and trench cutters for diaphragm walls, bentonite or polymer slurry plants, and heavy crawler cranes for handling reinforcement cages. Industrial jobs follow the same pattern. Gas processing plants, storage tanks and compressor stations need piled foundations sized for heavy static loads and vibrating machinery. Coastal refineries and terminals also have to deal with reclaimed ground, soft marine clays and aggressive groundwater.
How These Sectors Connect to Property and Equipment Markets
The links between these sectors are commercial as much as technical. New LNG terminals and deepwater ports create industrial zones, logistics parks and worker housing, which is why port expansion often shows up later in property market data. Waterfront real estate, especially reclaimed land, depends on the same dredging, ground improvement and piling methods used for breakwaters and industrial plants.
Equipment demand works the same way. When offshore sanctions rise and port programmes speed up, demand for piling rigs, crawler cranes, marine excavators and heavy-haul transport tightens across the whole region, not just on the flagship project. Contractors bidding on foundation packages for a coastal tower are often competing for the same rigs and operators as an energy terminal down the coast.
Outlook for Marine, Energy and Foundation Contractors
Several trends are likely to shape the next few years:
- Gas over oil: LNG and gas processing projects keep drawing more capital than conventional oil developments.
- Geographic diversification: growth in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia opens markets for contractors with marine and foundation capability.
- Heavier foundations: offshore wind and deepwater production push up the weight and size of structures, and with them the demand for specialist vessels.
- Ground engineering as a critical path: seabed preparation and deep piling are often the stages that decide whether a project finishes on schedule.
For a running view of these developments, the Construction News Review homepage tracks project, tender and machinery activity. The construction industry blog covers the engineering and market analysis behind the headlines.
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