TechnipFMC at TD Cowen Energy Conference: Strategic Offshore Focus

On Tuesday, 18 November 2025, TechnipFMC (NYSE:FTI) presented at the TD Cowen 2nd Annual Energy Conference, outlining its strategic focus on integrated Engineering Procurement Construction Installation (iEPCI) and Subsea 2.0 architecture. The company aims to reduce cycle times and improve project returns for offshore developments, with a focus on integration over consolidation. While expressing optimism about future growth, TechnipFMC also highlighted challenges in navigating new market dynamics.

Key Takeaways

• TechnipFMC emphasizes integration over consolidation, focusing on reducing cycle time for offshore projects.
• Over 50% of orders are based on the Subsea 2.0 architecture, highlighting its success.
• The company anticipates continued margin growth and has provided 2026 guidance.
• Significant growth opportunities are seen in offshore markets like Guyana, Suriname, Namibia, and Mozambique.
• A $2 billion stock buyback program reflects confidence in the company's future performance.

Financial Results

• TechnipFMC has delivered incremental margins by focusing on client and project returns.
• 50% of inbound orders in 2024 are iEPCI projects.
• The company expects 2026 financials to mirror 2025, with revenues around $10 billion.
• Continued margin growth is expected as more projects convert to iEPCI and Subsea 2.0.

Operational Updates

• TechnipFMC's strategy involves intimate collaboration with clients from the design phase, resulting in an 80% direct award rate for projects.
• The company leverages lean principles to improve efficiency and reduce cycle times.
• Subsea 2.0, launched in 2017, has been pivotal in ensuring project delivery as promised.

Future Outlook

• TechnipFMC is optimistic about offshore market growth, particularly in emerging regions like Guyana, Suriname, Namibia, and Mozambique.
• The company sees potential in other areas such as East Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, southern Africa beyond Namibia, and Indonesia.
• Large gas reserves offshore Colombia present additional opportunities.

Capital Allocation

• A reauthorized $2 billion buyback program is viewed as the best way to return cash to shareholders, emphasizing confidence in the company's metrics.
• This buyback represents a significant portion of the company's outstanding shares.

Q&A Highlights

• CEO Doug Pferdehirt emphasized the importance of focusing on client success and creating economic value through reduced cycle times.
• He noted that while the company is uncertain about future margins, there is no concern about them decreasing.
• The substantial buyback program is highlighted as a sign of confidence in the company's future.

For a detailed understanding, readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - TD Cowen 2nd Annual Energy Conference:

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: Hey, everyone. I'm Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst here at TD Cowen. We're excited to be joined by Doug Pferdehirt from TechnipFMC, Chairman and CEO of TechnipFMC. Thanks, Doug, for being here. I guess maybe not everybody's as familiar with what you guys do, so maybe give us like a minute and a half on what you do just to get us going.

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: Mark, I don't think I've ever given an overview in a minute and a half, so that's a challenge. Let me first start, Mark, by thanking you for allowing us to be here and for the quality research that you do. Also, to TD Cowen, to everybody here in attendance, and for those joining via the webcast, thank you for your interest in our company. It's very humbling. Look, we looked at the industry back in 2012 to 2014, and we made a decision that we felt there needed to be a material change in the way that business was done offshore in order to ensure that our customers would have confidence again and that the capital flow would go from the U.S. unconventionals, which at the time was attracting a significant portion and a growing portion of the total capital expenditure, back to offshore.

That was about bringing certainty back to these offshore developments. The challenge was always the certainty and the delivery of these very large and complex projects. We knew we had a role to play, that we had to materially change the way that we operated as a company. That led to us developing a configurable technology, a configurable architecture. Much like the auto industry, moving to where there were subcomponents that were pre-engineered, pre-designed, and were configurable based upon the customer need. The customer experience was still, "I'm getting something built for me," as when you place your order for an automobile, but in reality, they're not, and we're not doing any engineering specific to your requirements. That's all been done upfront.

That in itself removes 9-12 months of detailed engineering, and it also removes a great degree of uncertainty and allows us to ensure the delivery of this very complex architecture as promised. Beyond that, we said, "Okay, this is good. This is important, but is there more that we could do?" We are not a company that focuses on consolidation. We are a company that focuses on integration. What can we do in the adjacent space that will create greater value towards our singular purpose, which is the relentless pursuit of the reduction of cycle time, again, making offshore projects more economical and with greater certainty of the outcome of the delivery of those projects? That led to a merger between FMC Technologies and Technip on the 17th of January, 2017, a long time ago, almost a decade ago.

Here we are today to where the market has largely, we call that iEPCI, Integrated Engineering Procurement Construction Installation. On those projects where the architect, we are the builder, and we provide the life of field services contract. We are literally engaged with the customer anywhere from 20 to 30 years. It is a very intimate, long-term relationship that we build with our customers.

The success of these two things, moving the business to being integrated, which it was never in the past, so it used to be up to 14 different contracts, now a single contract with a single company, and the Subsea 2.0 architecture, both unique to our company, have led us to where we are today, to where our customers are rewarding us by recognizing that value because we're creating the value for them by the relentless pursuit of reduction of cycle time, improving their project returns, and they're recognizing that and rewarding us with now 80%, 8-0, 80% of the business being direct awarded to our company in a market that's growing. It's a humbling and exciting position to be in, Mark.

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: Good overview, Doug. I think this sort of plays into one of the ability to lower the costs and make offshore more competitive than it was a decade ago. I think you have this view that we're not really going to be necessarily in cycles anymore because really the marginal barrel or the lowest cost barrel is offshore, enabled in part by you. Can you just talk about maybe your worldview of some of the other sources of supply and why you think offshore is really going to get the majority of the capital as we go forward?

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: No, that's a fair question. I will also acknowledge that the lowest cost barrel is in the Middle East. You have to have economics, and you have to have access. The lowest cost barrel is in the Middle East, but there is very limited access in terms of capital flows by other than the national oil companies involved into those regions or into those countries or kingdoms. As a result of that, they have to go to the next best economics that has access, and that's offshore. It is really as fundamental as that. We saw this coming back in the third quarter of 2021, we started talking about this. At the time, it seemed a little far-fetched, but you could see how that was setting up because at the same time, the economics in the U.S. unconventional were deteriorating.

Plenty of access, but deteriorating economics. We knew with what we had done with Subsea 2.0 product, configurable product platform, we knew that what we did with the iEPCI and having this integrated model and all of this capability in-house, that we could drive that cost curve down. We had our own internal ambitions, and by doing so, we realized that we could improve the economics offshore again. What we had to deliver at the end of the day was certainty. That was the variable because our customers were still hesitant. Yes, we get it, we see it, we believe it, but you have got to deliver it. I will tell you, we have yet to deliver an iEPCI 2.0 project that was not followed up by a direct award of subsequent projects. That is how successful it has been. It has given our customers the confidence back.

There are prolific reservoirs offshore. These are prolific reservoirs offshore. No fracking, no artificial lift. They flow naturally, very low decline rates, 4-6% per annum versus the unconventionals, 30+% over the first couple of years. A very different setup in terms of the size of the reserves, the ability to be able to, the recoverable rates are much higher, and the decline rates are much lower. Very favorable economics. It's just about making sure that the business is done the way that it was intended to be done, meaning on time, on schedule, and that's what we're delivering today.

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: It is unique what you're doing, but another competitor is attempting to replicate what you're doing, but they're a ways behind. Maybe just talk about the lead that you think you have.

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: Of those two components, let's break it down into the product architecture and the integrated model. In terms of the product architecture, this was an extensive engineering effort. We started this in 2013. We announced it in 2017 and started taking orders in 2019. I mean, that's a huge body of work. There is no one else trying to do that today. There are companies talking about standardization, but standardization is not configurable. I do not think configuration is a word. There is a very distinct difference because we started focusing on standardization too. Standardization is simple, buy my piece of equipment. A customer, just like you, it would be like the auto industry saying, "Buy my car. It is the only one I am going to make, and this is what I want you to buy." No, you want to have choices. You want to have color choices.

You want to have engine size choices, whatever it may be. You want to have some choices. That's what we mean by configurable. It is just a different approach. Clearly, I think the market's adoption of the configurable platform is indisputable, and we have a significant advantage. Now we are well over 50% of our orders are coming in with this 2.0 architecture. There will always be space for this kind of bespoke, one-off kind of building, and our competitor is kind of filling that void, but it is not somewhere where we aspire to participate. If you look at the integration side, look, there is a fork in the road from when you come to a strategic decisions in terms of making M&A type transactions. You can focus on consolidation, or you can focus on integration.

I will tell you, consolidation, the outcome is more certain because you're just buying somebody who does what you do and then cutting cost and trying to get benefit from it through synergies, cost synergies. That's a well-known playbook. Integration is often less traveled of the two paths, and in our case, it had never been done before. Look, it was not obvious. We chose that path, and our competitor has now chosen the path of consolidation. I would say we're actually heading in two very different directions, and our clients see that, and our clients recognize that. There is space for both of us, but we have different strategies, and we're proud of what we've delivered.

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay. You've said this, and we've had a few sessions together over the last couple of days, the relentless pursuit and reduction of cycle time. I think I've got it down now. Talk to us about how far along you are on that journey and what it means for the business. What does it mean for margins? What does it mean for capacity? What kind of advantage do you think it gives you?

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: I've always been on the service side of the table. I started delivering newspapers before school and then many other service jobs throughout my career. Let me start with what's most important, which was what is the benefit to our customer? That's all that matters. That's the thing. You have to focus on your client. You have to focus on creating success for your client. The relentless pursuit of reduction of cycle time translated for our customer means higher project returns. Not only higher project returns, but higher project returns with certainty of the outcome, which is why they're spending more capital offshore, why they're exploring offshore again, why this is the big focus for them in their portfolio now that maybe it wasn't over the last 15, 20 years because of other distractions that had occurred in the global energy mix.

That's most important to me and keeps me aligned with my customer's interests. Now, we benefit as well. How do we benefit? By focusing on the relentless pursuit of cycle time and having the 2.0 and the iEPCI where the competition doesn't, it creates just greater differentiation for us and aligns our outcome with the outcome of our clients. People often use win-win. This truly is win-win. Our clients are winning because they're getting improved project returns with greater certainty, and we're winning because they're willing to give us a greater portion of the economic value that we create. That's only fair. Both sides are feeling good about it, and both sides are winning. Whereas if you're in a commodity business and you're just trying to increase day rates or you're trying to increase pricing, that's obviously counterproductive to your client relationship.

Our client relationship is aligned. I mentioned earlier that we're the architect as well as the builder. We are sitting there at the table working with them intimately to design the architecture to meet their economical hurdle rates two to three years in advance of that project actually moving into the execution phase. We are aligned from the beginning, and this is why they have the confidence in us to, again, honor us by giving us 80% of their, honor us by us receiving 80% of our business as a direct award, never going out to a competitive tender. It was all about getting those aligned. Now, maybe to further answer your question, Mark, is it over? Have we achieved what we're, have we achieved that outcome? Yes, but only partially because we're only about a third of the way through this journey.

We still have significant areas that we are convinced that we can reduce cycle time and improve the certainty of the outcome, hence improving clients' project returns offshore, which will lead to greater value to us and to our shareholders at the same time.

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: I'm sure this is a question on everybody's mind: how do we translate that opportunity into margin upside or business throughput or something that I can put in a spreadsheet? What do I do with that?

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: Look, let's just look at what's happened so far. I think the numbers speak for themselves. You've seen that incremental margins that we've been able to deliver. Again, I shy away from talking about it because it's more important for me to focus on my clients' returns and my clients' project returns. Yes, we benefit from it as well. This isn't something that, this isn't a concept that I'm trying to convince you of here today. This is the way we've been operating. Remember, January 17, 2017, we created TechnipFMC. November of 2017, we launched Subsea 2.0. This has been going on for a while. 50% of our inbound in 2024 has been IEPCI or these integrated projects. We've said this year Subsea 2.0 is well over 50% of our inbound. This is happening today.

Our customers are realizing we have delivered iEPCI 2.0 projects multiple times for our customers today. So they're experiencing it already, and they're seeing that benefit. You see what we've been able to deliver. We've already given 2026 guidance, which I think is probably unusual for most companies. We've already done it. We're a backlog company. We have significant visibility. Yes, it included more revenue and more margin. I think you're seeing it build out. We believe that as we continue to convert more of our backlog to this higher value backlog, iEPCI and 2.0, both for our clients and for ourselves, we'll continue to be able to grow margin as a result of more of that flowing through our execution. You're building that sustainability that is not necessarily driven by external factors.

It's because of the difficult decisions we made almost 10 years ago and realizing the benefit of those now in our results.

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: I think someone had asked the question recently about where can margins go? I think you gave a really interesting answer, like, well, I do not want to have a target, and I do not want to give targets to my people because we get some other benefit from them thinking through how to do that. Maybe you could just talk a little bit more about that because there are some interesting organizational things that you guys are doing that I do not think comes out as often as it could.

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: Sure. I knew I was not going to get away with the prior answer, Mark, so I knew you were going to follow up, and that is a fair question. Look, we get asked that question a lot because there is obviously interest. What I have said, and I appreciate you saying it was an acceptable answer. In some ways, I could understand it. People may not be satisfied with it, but it is the truth, which is I do not know where the margins are going to go. That does not mean I am worried about them going down. Let us be clear. I do not know where they are going to go because, again, this is a new experience for us as well.

What I do know is that we have real tangible evidence that the cadence and the flow rate and our ability to be able to deliver these complex projects in shorter and shorter cycle times. We're not shaving days. We're shaving months and years off of a project on a consistent basis. We know, as I said earlier, we're only in the early innings or early, I'm a hockey player, so we're only in the first period of a three-period match here. I mean, there's a lot left to be done. Look, me setting a target in this environment, I do think would be counterproductive because the organization where we have gone as an organization is dramatically different than where we were just five years ago.

Everybody talks about transformations and I get it, but would love for you to come and see how we operate today. It is a very different company. I had to change my behavior significantly. As a result of that, you have truly empowered 22,000 women and men. The output from that is just tremendous. Everybody is looking to shave a minute, an hour, a day in everything that they are doing. This is really lean. I mean, we have tried to model a lot after Toyota, who has been hugely successful in this area. They have been very supportive in the Lean Institute in helping us through this journey. A lot of companies get lean through their manufacturing, and then they stop.

We've taken this through the entire organization, every function, every person, including myself, has had to transform their behavior in the way that they work to where we're all focused on the same thing, which is the output, which is relentless pursuit of reduction of cycle time, i.e., improving our clients' results. Our clients see that. This is all about the clients being successful, and then we're successful as a result of that. The cultural change within the company is dramatic. Yeah, maybe I'll pause there, but what I do know is that there's certainly more fuel in the tank. We have a higher quality backlog than what we're executing today because of what we're putting into it. More iEPCI, more 2.0, higher quality. All that will need to be executed.

Today, it's another third, not to be confused with the prior third, but only about a third of our manufacturing capacity is actually executing Subsea 2.0 work today, yet 50% of the inbound is coming into 2.0. By definition, as that flows through manufacturing, that will go to 50%. We should see a benefit from that. Again, I just want to keep repeating this because this is the key. It's not about our margin going up. It's about our clients' project returns improving, and as a result of that, our margins going up. That's how you keep the relationship with your customers.

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: Yep. On the topic of lean, I think this is what you were alluding to on the earnings call where there is sort of an opportunity to start to leverage lean maybe further downstream into some of the development. Is there anything more you can say about that? If there is a plan to say more in the future, when should we be expecting to hear more from you about that?

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: Okay. Let's just go back quickly through the history of it. In 2013, we launched this concept of configurable architecture, started working with the Lean Institute on this. We were FMC Technologies at the time. Our scope was the seabed. FMC Technologies was everything that sat on the seabed, which, by the way, everybody talks about a subsea tree. It's far greater than a subsea tree. Everything's big, the size of this room, and it's a small city down there. A lot of things are on the seabed, but the seabed needs to be reconnected to the surface. That led to some smart people in the company saying, maybe we should do an integrated approach, not do a consolidation, but do an integration. That's the area that Technip played in, if you will, in the water column. That's called umbilical risers and flowlines.

We brought that into the portfolio. We created the iEPCI, the integrated commercial model that we've talked about, again, about shortening cycle time, removing redundancy. We've never really taken the opportunity yet to take all of those products and fully move those to be configurable, okay? Just because it takes a while. As I mentioned, 2013 and 2017 as we went public with the seabed. You should expect that now that's the benefit of becoming one company. We couldn't have done that in a joint venture or an alliance because your interests are not aligned enough. That's why we did the merger. Now we're looking at all of that other architecture, which there's a significant amount in the water column.

Remember, when we talk about water column and subsea, and this stuff just gets me super excited, and I know it might not get everyone excited, but we're talking one to two miles deep, one to two miles of water before you get to the seabed. This stuff is pretty amazing. Down there where no man has ever been, all remote automation and control robotics. We have robots on the seabed working on stuff. You just can't go down there. Now we have the opportunity to take 2.0 and apply it to all of that other part of the architecture. We've been working on that, and we're making good progress, but that's an upside, and that's what I was referring to.

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay. Great. Maybe to talk a little bit about kind of the current market state, the outlook. You have guided to and have been delivering on $10 billion of orders in subsea per year. From an outsider, that is a remarkably consistent number. Is there something that drives that? There is a certain amount of sales capacity to work through projects with customers. Maybe there is the customer's capacity. Is there any reason that 10 is a magical number, or is it just maybe coincidence that we have seen 10 for three years?

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: I'm just going to have a little fun, right? Better than nine, right? Let's go back to how the 10 came to be because I think that's important. 2021, wouldn't have been as many people in the room and probably wouldn't have been as many people on the line. 2021 was a very different setup. There was a lot of skepticism. We're out there saying projects are there. We're talking to our clients. Capital is going to flow to the offshore again and a whole lot of doubt and a whole lot of skepticism. In 2021, we put out a three-year target. The target was over the next three years, we would achieve $30 billion.

Now, we did that with a lot of science behind it, but we gave a $30 billion target over three years, never intending that it was going to be 10, 10, 10. And by the way, it has not been. It has been $9.7 billion, $10.3 billion, but we were not expecting it to be as consistent as it was because some of the projects we do are billion, billion and a half dollar projects, and they could fall on December 31 or they could fall on January 2, and you do not control the timing of that. Really hard to do on an annual basis. It has just so happened to have been actually quite linear beyond what I would have expected. We set a three-year target of $30 billion, which is how I think it is important to go back and realize that.

We weren't saying it's going to be 10 million. Did I say million?

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: Billion.

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: We did not say it was going to be $10 billion per year every year for the next three years. We just said it was going to get to $30 billion. Now, we said for 2026, we have already said we expect it to look like 2025, which will be the $10 billion range. We do expect that again next year. The market size is growing. We have talked about that because of the capital flows going offshore again. We see exploration happening. That is going to drive more capital flows and more projects. That market is going to grow. Is there the capacity to grow? Yes. I think we are in a good spot right now with revenue growing, EBITDA growing, solid inbound, meaning backlog continuing to grow, which I think is a good place to be.

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: Maybe we just got a few minutes left, and I have a couple I want to ask on cash flow before we get there. Just in terms of the frontier market opportunities that you're talking to customers about. I think we all know, all right, Suriname, Namibia, there's maybe West Africa starts to come back. Maybe there's equatorial margin in Brazil. What are the next? We know the subsea opportunity slide. What's the next stuff? When we update the subsea opportunity slide a year from now, two years from now, what's going to be on there that isn't on there now? Geographically wise, not customer wise or anything like that.

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: I know we're going to run out of time, but I got to step back for a minute. Imagine what Mark just said. What he just said was four countries that were not on the map before from offshore production or from production period. In my career, there has never been a period of time where in a couple of years you have added four. It is just profound. I just want to be careful. Oh, Suriname, Guyana, Namibia, Mozambique. Holy heck. This is amazing. This is truly amazing. I think we are taking it for granted, not you, Mark, but I just want to make sure that we realize this is significant. The growth in Guyana, where we are honored and humbled to be partnered with ExxonMobil and have provided 100% of their infrastructure in the country.

Suriname, we will do the first project there, the Grand Morgue project for TotalEnergies. We're very grateful for that. iEPCI 2.0, Mozambique. We're working for Eni in Mozambique today. It's profound. I mean, don't understate equatorial margin you even threw in there. Equatorial margin is potentially another massive development. Now, this is in Brazil, which is already a large country, a large oil producing country, but this could be another massive growth opportunity within Brazil. The Paleogene in the Gulf of Mexico. This is the 20,000 PSI deeper horizon in the Gulf of, I'm sorry, Gulf, in the U.S. Gulf. I mean, this is dramatic. This is dramatic. And these are providing significant growth to the offshore that even without what are all those other countries that are potentially going to come online, just focus on those. Those are real. Those are material.

Those are going to drive activity well beyond the end of the decade. Now, to answer your question, I get interested in other countries in East Africa. I won't be specific, but there's other areas in East Africa that could potentially share the same geological feature as Mozambique. I get excited about the Eastern Mediterranean. I think both the activities from Israel to Egypt, but now in between, that could also come on. You could add two to three new countries producing in the Eastern Med. I get interested in the southern part of Africa beyond Namibia, which is obviously very exciting, but beyond Namibia. We didn't mention Indonesia. Yes, it's been a long-term producing energy country, but now with the gas projects in Indonesia, that is growing quite rapidly. There's other areas that are probably further out. There's large gas reserves offshore Colombia.

It's very deep water, but it's certainly something technically we could accomplish for our customers. Yeah, there's a lot more to be excited about, but realize what the setup that's there already is significant and material.

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: Excellent. All right. I'm going to squeeze one more in, and we're probably going to go over. You just had a buyback reauthorization. You've been consistently buying back a lot of stock. I think your message before had been we're really focused on buying back the stock rather than raising the dividend. As something that occurs to me, it could be a signal to send to the market about the stability of the business if you raise the dividend. How do you think about the decision process between buyback and dividend?

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: No, no, it's a fair question. Look, it is one that we discuss often with our board and certainly last quarter before we announced the increase of the buyback program. Let me be very clear. What we announced was a $2 billion buyback. That's a large portion of the outstanding shares of the company. The reason I'm emphasizing that is I think that exudes confidence, right? It's not that a dividend would exude more confidence than a $2 billion buyback on top of what previously had been a much smaller buyback program. Look, we think it's a great investment. Just look at the numbers. Just look at the fundamental metrics of the company. It looks like it should be trading at a much higher multiple.

If you do a blind test and put those numbers against any industrial company, you're going to get a very different result. We believe that. We believe the investment community is recognizing and acknowledging that. Therefore, we believe that's the best place to return the cash to our shareholders. We are honored to be able to do so.

Mark Bianchi, U.S. Oilfield Services Analyst, TD Cowen: Awesome. We'll leave it there, Doug. Thanks a lot.

Doug Pferdehirt, Chairman and CEO, TechnipFMC: Thank you all.

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