A new report from GlobalData highlights how oil and gas contractors are increasingly becoming the force pushing the sector towards decarbonisation. “Contractors”, says the report, “have become central to the industry’s decarbonisation push, with their engineering decisions and technology portfolios now determining the speed and feasibility of low-carbon developments.”1 The report outlines how Technip Energies, Wood, McDermott, Saipem, SLB, and others, are developing and offering technologies for emissions reduction, and acting as intermediaries, translating corporate decarbonisation strategies into practical outcomes. GlobalData notes a trend in which contractors are expanding their portfolio offerings to include CCUS, energy recovery, flaring reduction, and methane monitoring.
This is happening against a backdrop of the fastest clean-energy take-up in history. Rystad Energy’s ‘Global Energy Scenarios (GES) 2025’ provides modelling that suggests we are now firmly in a “hybrid energy era”, where clean electricity is a structural force reshaping investment decisions.2 The report states that renewables are expanding faster than any previous energy technology, with total global wind and solar capacity additions for 2024 - 2025 set to exceed 700 GW. Rystad’s analysts therefore believe that a 1.9°C global warming trajectory by 2040 is becoming the more probable outcome, driven by the cumulative acceleration of renewables, electrification, and systems gradually bending toward lower-carbon configurations.
If this is the next energy era, then oil and gas contractors are certainly helping to build it, and their expanded portfolios are proof of the work already underway. The Rystad report outlines three tasks that the transformation of the global energy system requires: clean up and grow the power sector; electrify almost everything; and address residual emissions. Contractors pursuing CO2 pipeline transport and storage, repurposing pipeline assets, hydrogen blending, methane monitoring, and integrity upgrades, are an important part of the picture here.
Beyond technology and project delivery, contractors are also overhauling workforce systems in an effort to better enable their businesses for the future. CRC Evans is investing in skills that it hopes will service global future energy and infrastructure markets. Its recent decision to welcome 13 new apprentices across the UK and Brazil is a good example of how the sector is future-proofing its talent base. The company is training a new generation of welders and technicians to work across a far broader portfolio: from conventional oil and gas to renewables, nuclear and emerging CO2 transport infrastructure. Four-year apprenticeship frameworks, specialist academies, and hands-on learning at CRCE highlight something important: as the energy system hybridises, the contractors delivering the physical work are making sure their people have the skills and versatility to operate at the cutting edge.
Similarly, the Connected Competence programme – an industry-led initiative supported by the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) – provides a common, standardised way to check and maintain technical competence across the workforce.3 By using the same baseline tests and assessments across companies such as Worley, nexos, Wood, and Aker, contractors can move people between sites, and between sectors, far more easily. The programme makes workforce transitions smoother as the industry shifts between conventional and low-carbon projects.
These contractor developments echo the conversations we are hearing across the sector, especially as operators, consultancies, and EPCs prepare for a faster build-out of CO2 transport and storage infrastructure in 2026. They also align with the broader themes underpinning next year’s World Pipelines CCS Forum in London, where the interplay between operators, technology providers and contractors will be front and centre.4
