Maryann T. Seaman
Analyst · Simmons & Company
Thanks, John. As was noted, Subsea Technologies operating profit was $75 million in the quarter with a margin of 8.4%. In the quarter, subsea operating profit was negatively impacted primarily by higher estimated costs for the CLOV project. These increased costs primarily related to labor hours will ensure our ability to achieve our current schedule. As expected, we also experienced higher labor expenses associated with investment in our expanding workforce to support subsea growth. Subsea Technologies inbound for the quarter was $1.4 billion, the majority of this attributable to the Petrobras pre-salt award in Brazil. The investments we have made in both facilities and talent in Brazil were key considerations for this Petrobras award. Surface Technologies operating profit for the quarter was $78 million, a 52% increase from the prior year quarter and a 2% increase from the fourth quarter. Fluid control activity was strong in the first quarter, and again, helped to produce strong earnings and margins within the segment. On the surface wellhead side, we continue to see the benefit of our expanded service offerings in North America as rig count remains at a healthy level and our investments in deployable frac assets has improved our ability to serve our customers. Our international operations continue to improve as we expect their contribution to the overall segment results to grow during this year. Orders for Surface Technologies for the quarter were $425 million as fluid control activity levels remained strong and surface wellhead had its best quarter on record. Backlog exiting this quarter stands at $628 million for this segment. As John noted, we believe that the horsepower expansion that has occurred over the last 2 years in the North America pressure pumping market is slowing. With approximately half of our fluid control sales over the last few quarters resulting from this expansion, we have some market risk. At this time, we have had cancellations of only a few orders along with some order delays. However, we believe we will be able to offset much of this exposure with field replacement and repair sales, which are expected to remain strong. Margins in the first quarter were 20.7%. While these were above our annual guidance, we anticipate that the surface wellhead business will become a larger piece of the overall segment going forward. This combined with some decline in our fluid control revenue supports maintaining our previously guided margin range of 18% to 20%. Energy Infrastructure operating income for the first quarter was $9 million, double the amount from the first quarter of 2011, but half the amount we recorded in the fourth quarter. Our year-over-year increase came largely from improved results in both measurement solutions and material handling. The sequential decline was in line with our expectations as our fourth quarter is typically our strongest. Now for the corporate items. Corporate expense in the quarter was $8.4 million. We expect this number to average approximately $12 million per quarter in 2012. Other revenue expense net reflects expense of $20.9 million. This was above our guided range as we experienced some unfavorable foreign currency fluctuations. We expect this amount to range between $13 million and $15 million per quarter in 2012, again, subject to foreign currency fluctuations. Our first quarter tax rate was 23.7%. We anticipate our 2012 tax rate to range between 24% and 25% for the full year. Capital spending this quarter was $92 million, primarily directed towards Subsea Technologies' expansion initiative. We expect capital spending in 2012 to be approximately $350 million. This does not include any spending for acquisitions. Expansion projects for Subsea Technologies are continuing in Brazil, Asia-Pacific and West Africa. These expansions further support our optimism for subsea growth over the next several years. In Surface Technologies, we have substantially completed our fluid control expansion. We are also nearing completion for additions of frac rental equipment related to surface wellhead business. We continue to evaluate the demand for deployable frac rental equipment to meet anticipated market demand. At the end of the first quarter, we had net debt of $380 million. It was comprised of $362 million of cash and $742 million of debt. We averaged 241.3 million diluted shares outstanding in the quarter. Our first quarter Subsea Technologies revenue was in line with our expectations of finishing 2012 with approximately $4 billion of revenue. While we have identified some higher costs to deliver a few subsea projects in our backlog, we remain confident that these are isolated to issues resulting from our rapid subsea ramp-up in the Eastern Region and expect to see the benefit of our workforce additions in the coming quarters. These projects, which are experiencing higher estimated costs to complete, will cause our full year subsea margin performance to be dampened given their revenue contribution expected in 2012. However, we continue to expect to meet our current delivery schedules for these projects. As a result, we now believe we are likely to come in at the lower end of our full year margin guidance range, which was 11.5% to 12.5%. As we stated last quarter, we still expect the second half of 2012 to be markedly improved over the first half. Regarding the Surface Technologies segment, we are maintaining our margin guidance in the range of 18% to 20% for the full year. However, if the North American market suffers a severe slowdown, we could fall below this range. In our Energy Infrastructure segment, sales of $137 million was 33% above prior year. Margins, while slightly lower for the first quarter, are expected to average 8% to 9% for the full year. So in summary, as John stated, we are maintaining our full year guidance in a range of $2.10 to $2.25 per share. We are optimistic that pricing for new subsea awards will improve once industry backlogs are filled. This, combined with our improved execution, should improve margins in 2013 and beyond. We are confident our investments in subsea capacity and people will provide us the capability to deliver this growth. Operator, you may now open the call for questions.