Delivering excellence in the deepwater dark is the modus operandi for the subsea industry. It is back on the beach where deliveries get challenging, where questions of cost and efficiency gains demand answers and where innovation does battle with standardization. The lower- for-longer market of the past two years has been brutal for the offshore sector and for the subsea industry.

But a new day is dawning, and the subsea industry finds itself to be a little bit busier.

By continuing to advance the technologies that make subsea possible, marginal fields shine brighter on the list of possible development candidates. With Big Data and the analytic acrobatic algorithms to decipher bringing greater insight into the remote operating environment, the global subsea market finds itself on the cusp of a full recovery.

It’s always darkest before the dawn. But working in the dark is where subsea excels.

Read each of April E&P's cover stories:

Can technology save the UK sector?

Subsea gets analytical

Global subsea market: entering an age of recovery

Subsea boosting offers field development solutions

Offshore