TacticScale

What Tidewater Does & How It Makes Money (TDW)

Updated October 2026 · reflects Tidewater's latest reported financials

Offshore vessel operator supporting oil, gas and wind projects. It charters its vessels and crews to offshore energy companies, drilling contractors and wind developers, and earns fees for vessel time and marine support services across five regional segments.

Tidewater's story, moat and numbers — in a 3-minute visual book.

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How Tidewater makes money

It charters its vessels and crews to offshore energy companies, drilling contractors and wind developers, and earns fees for vessel time and marine support services across five regional segments.

What Tidewater does

Tidewater Inc., founded in 1956 and based in Houston, Texas, operates one of the offshore energy industry's worldwide fleets of marine service vessels. Its fleet includes anchor handling towing supply vessels, platform supply vessels, crew boats, utility vessels, offshore tugs and other specialty ships. The company reports five regional segments: Americas, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Europe/Mediterranean and West Africa. Its vessels support every stage of an offshore field, from exploration and development through production, maintenance, abandonment and decommissioning. Work includes towing and anchoring drilling rigs, moving supplies and personnel, and supporting construction, seismic, subsea, pipe-laying and cable-laying projects. Customers include major and independent oil producers, state-owned oil companies, drilling contractors and offshore wind developers, so the business depends heavily on offshore energy activity.

Products & services

What is Tidewater worth?

On an owner-earnings DCF, Tidewater's most-likely value is about $49 versus a recent price near $85 (42% above fair value). But TacticScale only calls a stock undervalued when the price sits below its conservative no-growth floor (~$35) with a margin of safety — so the honest verdict here is “Fairly priced — no edge.” Fair value earns its keep only at the extremes, not in the wide middle.

Verdict: Fairly priced — no edge
Owner-earnings fair value · recent price ≈ $85
Fair value (most likely)
$49
Range
$39–$73
No-growth floor
$35
Price
~$85

Price sits in the normal range — fair value isn't actionable here; it earns its keep only when price drops below the no-growth floor, or runs to roughly double the optimistic case.

Analysis, not advice. Fair value is a margin-of-safety estimate from a deterministic owner-earnings DCF, not a price target or recommendation. See the full breakdown →

Sector Energy Industry Oil & Gas Equipment & Services HQ United States Ticker TDW Official site

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