Petrobras has cancelled a tender for two newbuild offshore support vessels more than 18 months after originally launching the exercise, the latest in a series of contracting setbacks that have tested the patience of vessel owners and operators who had been banking on Brazil as one of the most active OSV markets in the world.
The cancellation follows a pattern that has become familiar to the international offshore vessel community. In February 2025, Petrobras scrapped a tender for an FPSO for the Barracuda-Caratinga revitalisation project after a single bid deemed too expensive was the only response to a process that had been running since the summer of 2023. That tender suffered multiple postponements and a lack of interest from floater owners before eventually drawing just one submission. It was a scenario that left operators and brokers questioning whether Petrobras’s contracting terms and formats were fit for the market it was trying to attract.
The broader context is important. Petrobras set out an ambitious OSV strategy in 2024, estimating it would charter approximately 200 offshore support vessels by 2028 to replace expiring contracts and increase the fleet supporting its growing deepwater pre-salt production programme. Of that total, up to 38 newbuilds were expected to represent genuine opportunities for vessel owners willing to commit capital to purpose-built tonnage.
Some of that activity has materialised. DOF Group has been the standout winner, securing a near $2 billion award in May 2026 for four newbuild ROV support vessels on 12-year charter and services contracts, with construction to be carried out at Navship in Brazil and first deliveries expected from 2030. Each vessel will be a DP2 unit of approximately 98 metres, equipped with subsea cranes, dual work-class ROV systems and accommodation for up to 58 personnel, with hybrid propulsion combining diesel, ethanol and battery systems. DOF has also secured multiple shorter-term contract extensions for existing vessels in its Brazilian fleet, including a combined $200 million award for Skandi Chieftain and Skandi Olympia on four-year terms starting October 2026.
But alongside those awards, cancellations and postponements have continued to disrupt planning across the sector. The latest newbuild OSV tender cancellation removes capacity that the market had been counting on, arriving at a moment when OSV owners globally have been holding back from ordering new vessels despite a strong operating environment. Data from Veson Nautical shows only 179 OSVs on order worldwide as of mid-2026, dominated by mid-range PSVs and small anchor handling tug supply vessels from Chinese yards, with no high-specification AHTS above 12,000 brake horsepower on order anywhere in the global fleet.
The reluctance to order is rational given the history of the market, but it creates a structural tension. Petrobras needs new vessels. Vessel owners are unwilling to commit to newbuilds without long-term charter certainty. And when Petrobras cancels tenders that appeared to offer that certainty, it reinforces the caution that has kept the order book thin.
WSB Advisors, the Rio de Janeiro-based offshore brokerage that tracks the Brazilian OSV market closely, has noted on several occasions that Petrobras’s tendency to use contracting formats with limited public disclosure and relatively inflexible commercial terms has made it harder to attract the full range of potential participants in its tenders. The result is processes that either attract too few bidders, produce bids that fall outside Petrobras’s budget expectations, or drag on long enough to become commercially unworkable for the vessel owners involved.
For the international offshore vessel community, Brazil remains one of the few markets large enough to justify newbuild investment at scale. Petrobras’s pre-salt programme continues to grow, with production from the Santos Basin and Campos Basin setting records and a pipeline of FPSOs, subsea infrastructure and drilling campaigns that will require sustained OSV support through the 2030s. The commercial potential has not diminished. The contracting processes that connect that demand to the market continue to frustrate.
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