Organisers said just more than 68,000 people attended the show at NRG Park, a 28% drop from the nearly 95,000 that came last year.
It was reportedly the lowest attendance level since 2009, after hitting an all-time high of 108,300 in 2014.
Nevertheless, Upstream was there publishing show dailies and covering as much news as we could handle.
All of Upstream's coverage can be seen here, but here are some highlights from the week:
- Chevron confirmed long-time rumours that it is bringing more and more engineering in-house and will run a "design assurance" programme, at least through pre-FEED.
- SBM Offshore said it is "in the final decision-making process" to sign a pact with a major shipyard to be its builder of choice for VLCC hulls to be used for newbuild floating production, storage and offloading vessels, as it tries to drive down construction times.
- BP maintains that Mad Dog 2 in the Gulf of Mexico can be one of the most lucrative projects in its portfolio, but it has a lot of work to do to bring down costs. It does not, however, plan to add assets in the US Gulf.
- Anticipation for Mexico's upcoming deep-water bid round is heating up, as players got a glimpse of a treasure trove of previously unseen seismic data.
- Explorers of the complex Lower Tertiary trend in the US Gulf can learn a lot from shale companies.
