Halliburton Company (HAL) Q2 2017 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Halliburton Second Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Lance Loeffler. Please go ahead.

Good morning. And welcome to the Halliburton second quarter 2017 conference call. Today's call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on Halliburton's website for seven days. Joining me this morning is Dave Lesar, Executive Chairman. Jeff Miller, President and CEO; and Chris Weber, CFO. Before we begin, I'd like to point out that this will be Dave's last time to participate on our earnings call given his new role as Executive Chairman. As a reminder, some of our comments today may include forward-looking statements reflecting Halliburton's views about future events. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to materially differ from our forward-looking statements. These risks are discussed in Halliburton's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, Form 10- Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2017, recent current reports on Form 8-K, and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason. Our comments today also include non-GAAP financial measures, and unless otherwise noted, in our discussion today, we will be excluding the impact of the early extinguishment of debt and charges related to interest bearing promissory note that Halliburton intends to execute with its primary customer in Venezuela. Additional details and reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our second quarter press release, which can be found on our website. Finally, our after our prepared remarks, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and related follow-up during the Q&A period in order to allow more time for others who may be in the queue. Now, I'll turn the call over to Dave.

Thank you, Lance, and good morning to everyone. Our performance this quarter demonstrates that Halliburton is the execution company, and we are the leader in North America. Here are our few key highlights. Total North America revenue increased 24%, outpacing the average outpacing the average sequential US land rig count growth of 21%. North America margins grew into the double digits. And although our international operations continued to be challenged, the numbers came in about as expected. And we continue to tailor our business to the market as we wait for our recovery. And we outperformed our major peer in every single geo market, demonstrating once again that we continue to grow our market share globally. Since this is my last call, today I want to share with you my view of the evolution of the North America land market. Our customer base there and why I believe it will continue to surprise to the upside. Now for 25 years I have had fantastic front row seat to the development of US unconventional resources. We have become the largest service company in North America and that growth didn't by accident. First, it was due to the leadership of Jim Brown and his visionary management team. They saw the potential of unconventional resources in the region but the same time as a group of key early mover customers. As a result, we decided to work together using lots of trial and error to unlock this resource. We established enduring customer relationships and gained unparallel base and knowledge that still provides us a sustained advantage today. I think it's important to look at the North America unconventional ecosystem to understand our customers' behavior. And why their ability to so quickly increase production has expanded rapidly. Currently, there is strongly held view by energy investors that the US independent operators behave as a group. That view is wrong. When thousands of companies make discrete decisions about the same market, each day they do have tendency to swing the activity and production pendulum to far one way or the other. That is not group bank, is the impact of individuals trying to do the right thing for their investors. Our US customer base is not 10 or so countries like OPEC. It is made of thousands of companies from IOCs to individually owned businesses. When you look at them separately, you see thousands of entrepreneurial, smart and motivated risk takers. They readily adapt to the quality of their reservoirs, have almost unlimited access to capital, aggressively applying new technology and quickly mark their business model and structures to meet changing market conditions. And, yes, sometimes even take advantage of US restructuring laws. They are you are classic American entrepreneurs, and their success should recognized. In Silicon Valley, such a success would be greatly celebrated as another industry disruptor. The unconventional disruption is not widely celebrated beyond the energy space, but it should be. The development of US unconventional resources has been as disruptive to the global energy market as Amazon has been to Big Box Retailing or Uber to the taxi business. You don't leash to wave of cheap, reliable energy that is disrupted global geopolitical and energy dynamics. Made the US more energy independent caused OPEC to react and changed the fundamental economic of offshore production. And I believe it is created a hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value, added hundreds of millions of dollars to government tax coffers and provided untold savings for consumers. So unconventional is what I would call a disruptor, so let's celebrate that. I've heard energy investors say that today's customer behavior shows nothing was learned in the last downturn. That simply is not true. Our customers are smart and adoptive. And they do learn from the past. Their business DNA is to be survivors and they are. Look at the reaction in the past several weeks. Today, rig count growth is showing signs of plateauing and customers are tapping the brakes. This demonstrates that individual companies are making rational decision in the best interest of their shareholders. This tapping of the brakes is happening all over the place in North America. I can tell you the market will respond, it will rebalance and these companies will stay alive, survive and thrive because that's what they do. I said several quarters ago the customer and animal spirits back and they are with a vengeance and they are now running free to North America. Here is my last piece of wisdom for you. Do not bet against the animal spirits that our North America customers embody. I never have and I never will because that is the bet that you will lose. Now today is my last conference call. And I'd like to take a moment to thank our analysts and investors. It has been pleasure working with you and although we haven't always agreed, I've always enjoyed the spirited debate and intelligent conversations. I'd also like to thank the employees at Halliburton for their hard work throughout my career. We've been through many cycles, emerging stronger from each one and I am proud of what we've accomplished together. And even though I'll be absent from future calls, I look forward to the next 18 months serving Halliburton as Executive Chairman. I am happy to leave these calls in capable hands of Jeff, Chris and the other members of our experienced management team. I have not doubt they will continue to lead the company as a customer centric and returns focused business. And remember one thing, we are the execution company. With that I'll turn the call over to Jeff.

Well, thanks, Dave, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased with our second quarter results. We continue to execute our strategy to maximize asset value for our customers and deliver differentiated technology and services that we believe will generate superior returns over the long term. Here are some highlights for the second quarter. Total company revenue was $5 billion, representing a 16% increase compared to the first quarter of this year. Total adjusted operating income was $408 million, primarily driven by continued strengthening of market conditions in North America, which were partially offset by pricing pressure internationally. Our North America revenue increased by 24% outperforming the average sequential U.S. land rig count growth of 21%. The Completion and Production division revenue increased 20% and operating margins improved by an impressive 700 basis points to approximately 13%, driven by the strength of our production enhancement, cementing and completion tools product service lines. Cash flow from operations delivered about $350 million. I'd like to a moment now to welcome some of the Summit ESP and its employees to the Halliburton family. We are pleased to announce this recent transaction and are excited about what it means for us as we continue to strengthen our artificial lift capabilities. Now I'd like to provide some regional commentary around our quarterly performance. I believe we found the bottom of the international rig count in the first quarter. However, I don't expect a near term rebound in the international markets for several reasons. First, the lengthy contracting cycles will mute any near-term pricing inflection. Second, our international customers need confidence and commodity prices in order to overcome the duration risk in their project. We continue to collaborate with our customers to lower the cost on these projects and while some are moving towards FID, it's important to remember that there is a significant time between planning FID and revenue generation for Halliburton. And finally, I've been consistently more conservative on the international market. And it's played out exactly how I called it. Today, I expect that there will be improvement and activity over the remainder of the year. But these improvements are not concentrated enough to offset the continued pricing pressure. As a result, the international markets will continue to move sideways. With all of this said, it's important to understand that we are now into the third sequential year of significant under spending in the international markets. This implies that the production decline outside of certain OPEC countries will begin to accelerate, particularly next year as the backlogs of new projects are completed and additional projects are not coming behind. In the meantime, we are actively managing cost while protecting our valuable international position for the eventual market recovery. With the current level of under investment internationally, production declines are a certainty and you know where that leads. Our Drilling and Evaluation division is driven in large part by our international footprint. And while we experienced a modest increase this quarter, largely driven by increased drilling activity in Latin America and the seasonal rebound in North Sea and Russia, the overall market continues to move side ways with continued pricing pressure. Now turning to North America. After the operation we gave in the first quarter, some of you were skeptical when we accelerated our equipment reactivation. But based on performance during the second quarter, there is no doubt we successfully executed our plan and that this decision was not only right but dead on target. Why is that? During the second quarter, we continue to see strong incremental demand for completion equipment from customers. The reactivated equipment we brought back with the market leading edge pricing and it has been accretive to overall margin and is expected to deliver acceptable returns that exceed our cost of capital. Our sand war room and logistic central structure allow us to manage the completions intensity our customer demand today. And we've been successful passing along supply cost increases to our customers. Our internal manufacturing capability is a proven differentiator in today's environment. It allows us to be flexible. And being able to build what we need, when we needed particularly in a rapidly changing market. Now today, we believe the current customer demand has outpaced the supply of completions equipment and this should create runway for a strong utilization through the second half of the year. We remain committed to generating industry leading returns and reactivating our equipment was the first step towards delivering the results you have come to expect from us. As some of you've heard me say before, customer urgency is the foundation for the path to normalize margin. Today, our customers remain urgent. And therefore, we believe our path to normalized margins is achievable. We get there through a combination of increasing leading pricing, improved legacy pricing, better utilization and continued cost control. Let me be clear. Our pressure pumping equipment is sold out in the third quarter. As we gauge the utilization of our equivalent on a 24x7 basis, we see a significant opportunity to improve and drive the downtime out of our calendar. In this environment, it's imperative to be aligned with the most efficient customers where we can create value for them while delivering the best returns for Halliburton. Filling our calendar with high proficient customers is an important part what allows us to achieve margin goal. Looking forward, it's too early to tell the impact of commodity prices on customer plans for 2018. However, as Dave said earlier in Halliburton we never underestimate our customers' ability to adapt to the environment. In the first quarter, we experienced significant inflation in sand prices and increased volumes. As we continue to pass through sand cost to our customers, we expect to see greater technology adoption making better wells through engineered solutions. For the first time in years, in the second quarter we experienced our first decline in average sand pump for well. Let me repeat that because I think this is important. We saw a decline in the average sand pump per well. And while this is only one data point, it's something we will be watching. We believe current sand price levels have encouraged operators to optimize their completion design using more science as opposed to simply maximizing sand and trade for increased production. We maximize returns on our technology investment by being the most effective in the market at lowering our customer's cost per BOE. Our strategy around technology development is to make returns for Halliburton. Very simply our decision process around technology can be summed up in a three questions. First, does it reduce cost? Second, does it produce more barrels? Or third, does it do both? As a result, we create cutting technology that sets new standards for service quality and performance while making better wells for our customers. For example, on a recent effort in the Permian basin we used our Trans and permeability modifiers to increase production by over 60% compared to previous completion methods. The Trans and permeability enhancer portfolio is our premier offering for flow enhancing technology. Using proprietary micro motion technology Trans and enhancer expand the reservoir contact area and improve fluid flow to increase the recovery factor for our customers. For unconventional matured fields, we developed the bare shield like fluid system. Tailored to reservoirs salt formation and low fracture pressure to reduce circulation loss and washout. This custom tailoring allows us to reduce muddle off, increase drilling efficiency and ensures zonal isolation for an efficient completion. In today's environment, it's crucial that technology be adaptable to customer demand and improves efficiency. During the second quarter, our industry leading cementing technology [Neosam] was used in over 350 wells per month. Including cementing the longest onshore lateral in history. A well that we are now completing. Neosam delivers high performance compressor strength, elasticity and share bond that lower density in conventional system saving time and providing improved performance. Now these three examples show the creativity of our chemistry based research and development teams. We have terrific engineers and scientists looking at every way we can create efficiencies, reduce cost and make more barrels. Internally, we have similar initiative of continuous improvement, including reducing the time for R&D projects to come to market like our very deep resistivity tool which went from design to field in only nine months. Our surface efficiency initiative of hydraulic fracturing that reduce the downtime between stages. We are always pushing to improving our processes and optimize the services that we bring in the market. Overall, I am confident about Halliburton's ability to grow North America margins and maintain a run rate for our international business for the remainder of the year. Our strategy is working well. And we intend to stay to course. We'll continue to drive superior execution and remain absolutely focused on delivering best in class returns. North America is clearly serving us as the world swing producer which means this is where the game will be played and Halliburton is the distinct leader in this market. Now I'd like to welcome Chris Weber to the Halliburton team as our new CFO. Throughout his career, he is working consulting operations and finance with significant international experiences. These combined traits will help Halliburton and may make him an excellent fit for our team. With that I'm going to turn the call over to Chris to provide some details around our financials. Chris?

Thanks Jeff. And good morning, everyone. Let's start with the summary of our second quarter results compared sequentially to our first quarter results. Total company revenue for the quarter was $5 billion, representing an increase of 16%, while operating income doubled to $408 million. These results were primarily driven by the improved activity in pricing in our completion and production division in our North America. Now let me compare our divisional results to the first quarter of 2017. In our Completion and Production division, second quarter revenue increased by 20% while operating income increased 170% primarily driven by increased activity in pricing in our U.S. land pressure pumping business. We also experienced well completion activity primarily in the Gulf of Mexico, North Sea and Russia, partially offset by pricing pressure in the Middle East. Turning to our Drilling and Evaluation division, revenue and operating income increased by 9% and 2% respectively, primarily due to increased US drilling activity. In United States, our drilling and evaluation revenue grew in line with rig count. On the international side, revenue was up due to increased drilling activity in Latin America, North Sea and Russia, partially offset by price pressure across the international markets. Now let me take a minute to compare our geographic results. In North America, revenue increased 24% sequentially, primarily driven by continued improvement in pricing and activity in our US land business, particularly our pressure pumping and well construction product service lines, as well as higher completion tool sales in the Gulf of Mexico. In Latin America, we saw revenue increase by 10%, primarily driven by increased drilling activity in Mexico, Venezuela and Columbia, as well as higher stimulation activity in Argentina. Turning to Europe-Africa-CIS, revenue increased 12%, primarily due to a seasonal rebound in the North Sea and Russia resulting in higher drilling, well completions and pipeline and process service activity. For Middle East-Asia, revenue increased 2% primarily as a result of increased fluid services in Asia-Pac and higher wire line and well completion activity in the Middle East, partially offsetting these increases were pricing pressure throughout the region, as well as declines in fluids and stimulation services in the Middle East. Our Corporate and Other expense totaled $114 million in the second quarter, which was higher than originally anticipated, primarily due to approximately $42 million in litigation settlement and one time executive compensation expense during the quarter. Of which $29 million in a loss contingency in connection with an understanding with the SEC staff to settle the previously disclosed investigation of certain past matters related to our operations in Angola and Iraq. The settlement is pending approval by the commissioners of the SEC. Separately; the DOJ has advised this but has completed its investigation of these matters and will not be taking any action. We anticipate that our corporate expenses will be approximately $70 million for the third quarter of 2017. During the quarter, we also recognized a pretax charge of $262 million for a fair market adjustment which is required by accounting rule related to an expected exchange of $375 million of our Venezuela receivables for an interest bearing promissory note of that same value. This note is with our long standing primary customer in Venezuela similar to the Venezuela notes exchange we did in the second quarter of 2016; this new instrument will provide a defined payment schedule while generating a return. We intend to hold the notes to maturity and expect to collect 100% of the principal. It's important to note that to date, we've received all payments required by the 2016 notes. At a function of reduced debt balance, we reported a $121 million in net interest expense for the quarter. Looking ahead, we expect net interest expense for the third quarter to remain at a similar level. Our effective tax rate for the second quarter came in lower than expected at approximately 23%, due to certain discrete items related to prior year audits. For the remainder of 2017, we still expect the effective tax rate to be approximately 29% to 30%. Cash flow from operations during the second quarter was approximately $350 million and we ended the quarter with approximately $2.1 billion in cash and equivalents. These results were largely driven by improvement in day sales outstanding. Historically, our annual cash flow is backend loaded for the year and we don't believe that 2017 will be any difference. Continued improvement in our earnings in a number of working capital initiatives should strengthen our cash generated from operations as the year progresses. Now I'd like to provide some color on our near-term operational outlook. The Macro micro dynamics make forecasting a challenge but this is how we see the third quarter playing out. For our Completion and Production division, we expect that our North America sequential revenue will outperform average US land rig count, while international revenue will remain flat. In addition, we expect margins for the division to increase by 225 to 325 basis points. In our Drilling and Evaluation division, we are anticipating North America revenue will grow in line with the average US land rig count, while the international market will remain flat to slightly down. We expect margins for this division to remain relatively flat sequentially. Now I'll turn the call back over to Jeff for a few closing comments. Jeff?

In closing, there are few things I want to highlight. Our second quarter results clearly demonstrated the strength of our franchise in North America and our ability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. If you believe in energy, you should be invested in North America. Halliburton's relative performance for the balance of the year will remain strong. As a result of our ability to grow our North America margins and continues to maintain revenue and margins in our international business. Our strategy is working well and we intend to stay the course. We'll continue to drive superior execution and remain focused on delivering best-in-class returns. I want to take a moment to thank Dave for his leadership at Halliburton during the 17 years as CEO. He created an amazing legacy and our employees, customers and shareholders have benefited greatly from his management of our company. I have had the pleasure of working with Dave for almost 30 years. He is an important mentor to me. Together, we developed the strategy and leadership team for our company and I look forward to working with him over the next 18 months. Before we open the call up for question, I'll go ahead and ask the first one myself because I know it's on everyone's mind. What are we doing around new build equipment? The simple answer is that we are first and foremost a returns focused organization. We have the ability to make a series of discrete decisions around equipment and will only bring it out under certain conditions. First, that it is backed by customer commitment. Second, that it captures leading edge pricing which is accretive to our margins. And finally, it generates acceptable return on investment. So let me remind everyone, that we have not invested in our legacy fleet in two and half years, prudently managing the health of our fleet is important to maintain the type of service quality and reliability that our customers have come to expect. Therefore, some replacement of equipment will be necessary over time. Our manufacturing center in Duncan is a powerful, competitive differentiator for our organization. It allows us to be nimble and build equipment is needed with short lead times. This flexibility allows us to control the rate at which we manufacture, building as little as 2,000 horsepower at a time if need be. We delivered what we said we would on the reactivation plan. When we build additional equipment, we will do it with same discipline around returns. Halliburton is the execution company and you have to trust me to do the right thing. Run the business in the right way and make the right decisions. That answers it. Now let's open it up for other questions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Jud Bailey of Wells Fargo.

Thank you. Good morning. Great and first let me say it, Dave, congratulation on a great career, CEO of Halliburton. I enjoyed working with you last several years. Okay, thanks. First question, I wanted to just circle back on the impact of reactivation in 2Q and how to think about any impact on our third quarter. It was talked about in terms of impacting, negative impacting margins on your first quarter call. You still had incrementals in CMP close to 50%. Could you maybe walk us through how you are able to offset some of the reactivation costs? And then to what extent will reactivation cost impact the third quarter? And do you intend to reactive any more equipment or is it more refers or new build at this point?

Look, Jud. Thanks. Bottom line is the costs were lower than expected in Q2. And that's because we got there faster and cheaper than we thought. Our Duncan manufacturing team just simply way out performed both by speed and bringing down the cost of everything. The other thing that happened is our people went back to work faster and that's principally because of all of the demand that we saw for our equipment. I supposed one other thing as we were successful in bringing back a large quantity of former Halliburton employees which is something we always wanted to do, but that also mean to say go back to work more quickly with substantially less training. As we look ahead to Q3, obviously there will be new challenges to deal with. For example our employees. Our employees haven't had raises in three years. So we plan to for example provide our employees with raises. But I would like to do is to listen Chris' guidance on completion and production. We said we outperformed the rig count growth on revenue and continue to improve margin. So that's truly how we see that.

Okay. And I just as my follow up just to kind of think about the progress on or just to CMP for now. One of the scenarios that talked about if oil prices stay between 45 and 50 that we continue to step up in terms of completion activity next couple of quarters then maybe level off. Is getting to normalized margins are realistic scenario in your mind? And if so, do we hit those by the fourth quarter or can we -- would it be reasonable to anticipate being at normalized margins in next year if activity were to kind of level off at 4Q levels?

Look, we are not backing off our expectation on normalized margins. As I said it and I won't give you a date but I don't have a crystal ball but I'd suspect it would be into 2018. But it starts with customer urgency as I've described. And that really means having targets, to meet targets and that's where we absolutely shine it on. That's what our value proposition does. And we still see supply and demand tightness. I mean our calendar is full as we look out. And so I don't see any change in my outlook.

Thank you. And our next question comes from James West of Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, gentlemen. And Dave my congrats as well on one hell of a run at Halliburton. Jeff, I know you answered my question already to a certain extent at the end of your prepared comments there. But as we think about new builds in the market, you laid out your three criteria for new build. Are we at those criteria yet and are you contemplating new builds kind of as we speak besides replacement of increment and new builds?

Yes, look, I am going to go back to what I said on this, James. And I'd be crazy to lay out our market strategy in detail here. But I laid out the conditions which is committed client contracts or commitments from clients, leading edge pricing and then the ability to generate adequate return. Short answer is we haven't built anything so far this quarter. But I'd say if the opportunity above does present itself then we have the ability and the capability to quickly meet that demand with Duncan.

Okay, fair enough. And then Jeff as my follow up here, we have seen some additions by smaller companies that are most of the ones that either IPO or tried IPO need to show some growth to do that. But as you look at your major competitors and look across the pressure pumping marketplace, do you see much additional or incremental horsepower being added outside of kind of what's probably the natural attrition in the market?

No. I mean our view had always been that there would be attrition. We see that and today our view that market is in fact sold out. That's part of the reason we see ducks building and other thing, and we really got the same amount of horsepower that's been in the market, changed hands in a couple of instances but with respect to the headline amount of horsepower that was there in 2014, we are well short off that today.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Bill Herbert of Simmons.

Thank you. Good morning. Jeff, a quick question here for you. Just given the absence of reactivation friction or at least not as much as in the third quarter, a sort of pricing that you are gleaning given the under supply nature of the frac market and the sense of urgency that you talked about, and a leveling off the supply chain inflation. And, yes, so that mentioned some wage inflation but why one incrementals in the third quarter for CMP be better than what they were in the second quarter because your guidance implies assuming a low double digit rate of revenue extension somewhere kind of in the 40% to 45% kind of margin range and strikes me as conservative based upon the fact as you have laid them out.

Well, first of all, I won't lay all of that out and when we think about what Dave said in terms of tapping the brakes. And so we see some tapping of the brake which in my view better described as let's going from 80 miles an hour to 70 miles an hour. But it hasn't limited the ability to push on price. And our guys absolutely doing that everyday. And as I said, we still see the customer urgency. So we are losing on price all of the time but I think that if we go back to Chris' guidance, I mean that's solid progress and particularly as I described kind of the macro environment that we -- I guess all have talked about.

Okay. With regard to the cadence of reactivation during the second quarter. Would you describe those as having been relatively evenly distributed over the course of Q2, front end loaded or backend loaded?

I think ratable sort of Q1, Q2. There was no particularly weighting one way or the other.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Ange Sedita of UBS. Your line is now open.

Thanks. Good morning. Certainly an impressive quarter to be your last one, Dave. And you'll certainly be missed and we wish you well in your new role. So on the question, for Jeff or Dave is on the completion of frac intensity. Is it fair to say that you haven't seen that year peak, and if so when you think about North American revenues going into 2018 in a flat rig market, should we still see revenues starting to flatten out as well or could you see still some growth in that revenue cadence with the completion intensity so thoughts on 2018 and its flattening rig market.

Well, Ange, it's too early to call on 2018. What I would say the pace that we see, we see a solid ramp in terms of ability to execute and deliver on the things that we talked about with respect to normalized margins. We do see currently ducks Building, there is back and waiting to activity. And quite frankly the science continues to drive the business. And so I think in terms of peak, the peak is going to be probably more science based in the future and maybe less volume driven.

All right. Fair enough. And then on pricing and pressure pumping. Thoughts on the outlook for pricing as we go into the back half of 2017 and even into 2018. Have you started to see deceleration in recent weeks? And going back to those flat rig market thoughts on pricing in a flat rig market.

So as I said, Ange, I am not going to layout our pricing strategy here on this call by any means. What I would go back to -- we push price all time, our guys, what we do is in high demand. And particularly in a market like we are in now where urgency matters, delivering targets matters to our customers. And that's where high proficiency and the technology that we bring are so valuable. And so I am confident that we are continuing to work. We talked about the leverage that we have in terms of leading edge priced, legacy fleet and then obviously cost and efficiency. So we work on all of those all the time.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Sean Meakim of JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. So, Jeff, you made a point and emphasis around sand demand perhaps starting to get smarter. But is it fair to say that service intensity likely continues to increase on average well basis going forward? And how would characterize the rate of change on overall service intensity?

Yes that the intensity continues to increase both rate and numbers of stages and those sorts of things. So I think it's more of - I'll bring it up simply because I've always believe that sand, a, is not infinite and it's not free. And so as we started to put constraints on sand in terms of availability cost, it's actually had a very rational impact driving thought around where it goes and how much in terms of total volume. But I'd say in terms of how it gets placed, I talked about it a couple technology examples in my prepared remarks. So those kinds of things the equipment work just as hard but it is how it is applied. So that's I bring that up today. We haven't seen that before really gosh in five years, six years and so it's one data point but it's one that I am certainly going to watch.

Absolutely. And then just I wanted to also touch --based on the acquisition on Summit. Could you give us maybe a little more detail on the expansion strategy for that new business and just as you bring about M&A, is there other tuck-in need that keep filling up that lift portfolio or can you build also Summit here to really get where you think you need to go?

Yes, thanks, Sean. I mean the Summit deal is fantastic fit and fantastic people, is what I can say about that. I mean it was a great add for our artificial lift business. When we put our business together with Summit, it creates solid number two position and US, ESP, other technology and really loves their value proposition. I mean they are so dialed into how they respond to customers and they build the plumbing around that to do it very, very well. And so the strategy going forward is to use our footprint to create even more value which we know we can do. Starting here in the US but also internationally. We've talked about M&A before and I don't see -- we continue to be interested in growing our production group which includes all forms of lift. Happy with what we've done two on ESP today and then I've also talked about chemicals being probably more organic and less M&A but nevertheless there will be some M&A in that.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Jim Wicklund of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open.

Good morning, guys. And Dave it's been a fabulous almost two decades. But you are not going yet so we'll see other than on the conference call but congratulation on a great run.

You are right. I am not gone yet.

Now we got to bring that that up, make sure everybody understands he is hanging around for 18 more months. Jeff, you made an excellent point on the pricing of international saying that while overall activity is quick going down there is not enough bulk of activity in several markets to really get pricing improvement. Where do you expect to see internationally that the first level of activity getting high enough that we are not giving away price any more and a beginning of recovery?

Jim, it's going to be some spot whether as a discovery or there is enough sort of base load of activity to move quickly. If I had to guess there is probably some places in Latin America that might fill that bill. But as far as broad region that's really part of the issue, Jim, it's like peanut butter being spread around the world and gets enough traction in a particular spot. So that's why what makes it tough is simply because it will be very concentrated place when we start to see that. Now, the other side of that, that's one of the reasons we do protect our international franchise. We think that the investment we made over the last several years is valuable and will be more valuable in the future when that time comes but it's not -- yes, I think we are moving side wise for a while.

And in drilling and evaluation, you note that you had a $150 million increase in revenue but only a $3 million increase in income. And that clearly points to price issues. I am just wondering that you had a seasonal recovery in the North Sea and in Russia and those are two places we normally don't associate with Halliburton being leading edge. Were those two of your better markets or your worse markets? Can you talk about just on the drilling and evaluation side? Where those two markets fit?

Yes. I mean on a relative basis relatively smaller but quite frankly very good markets for us. And once I really want to give kudos to Joe Rainey and their team who have absolutely executed and build those businesses. So those are businesses that are in my view gaining traction in the DNA part of our business. Better alignment around customers, I think closer alignment with customers particularly in Russia today and very encouraging.

Thank you. And our next question comes from David Anderson of Barclays. Your line is now open.

Great. So, Dave, all the time on the road I think you've earned your downtime. Good luck on your next venture there. So, Jeff, I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about the pricing -- slightly different way, you talked about getting leading edge pricing on your reactivated equipment. But I am curious for your legacy fleets out there. I think that's been one area you have been trying to keep that, you want to keep those relationships there. What's that spread now and the pricing between the legacy and kind of new equipment go on the market and when do you think that's start to close? Is that a year end? Is that kind of 12 months it takes to close that gap? What are your thoughts there?

Look, that's something that is closing I'd say sort of everyday as we work it. But let's go back to why there is a spread there. And it's because we are aligning with very good customers, they are very efficient and so we want to be part of their business. And we believe we can do a lot to help drive down sort of their overall cost and lower their cost per BOE. And so that's why we never had -- we abandoned half the market to go move somewhere else. We absolutely want to support all of our customers. So I am not going to give that spread. But I'll tell you it's something like I said in Q1 that we would be closing in on that over four quarters. So look for some time early in 2018 to have that done.

Great. Thanks. And then on -- in terms of your fleet now, what percentage of your rough fleet has your modern Q10 pump out there? And I was wondering if you could extend a little bit upon on that pump and how that changes in terms of the useful life of your equipment versus what's out there in the market? You touched on it before about the attrition out there. But just trying to get kind of senses as to kind of how your equipment is different in the market than other equipment out there and why we should we think about that differently?

Yes. So I mean I'd say we are probably in the 60% range or so for the following reactivation. The important thing about that equipment is that it is build for total cost of ownership. I mean we don't sell this equipment in the market. Our guys at Duncan are absolutely motivated by one thing. What is the most resilient, the efficient piece of equipment? And I go out and check to make sure that it's competitively priced which it is, but more important thing is cost is what it does for our guys in the field. And the way that it is integrated. So it runs a higher rate, it uses all the available horsepower, it's more efficient by still about a 20% efficiency compared to what we see in the market. So when I think about how do we make the best returns in the marketplace, we always think about how do we drive capital off of location and first thing to do is have more efficient pumps on location.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Kurt Hallead from RBC. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning. And Dave congratulation and all the best. So, hey, Jeff, you run up very interesting comment little bit earlier about seeing first quarter here where sand used per well has declined. So wondering if you might be able to elaborate on that a little bit more? Do you sense that as you mentioned that it is truly purely an economic decision? Do you think it's an anomaly? Do you think there is shortage of sand that's driving it? Just kind of get trying to look for little bit more color on what you may be seeing?

Look, I think it's really is part of the science of frac and that is if not the only thing it's not the customers are running from the economics but they are making very thoughtful economic decisions and as the availability or the actually the applicability of science so the better they understand, we collectively understand how to make more barrels. That gives put to work with clearly an economic backdrop. And I think that back to Dave's earlier comments on our customers. I mean this is an incredibly adaptive group of customers that I think it demonstrated through tougher cycle in our history and ability to consume science, consume lesson learned and move the cost per BOE down almost in the face of anything. And so I think what you are seeing is really the nature evolution of, okay as inputs move up for better ways to get more barrels and in some cases we are seeing that. This is not across the board but on overall basis that was the data point we saw.

Okay, thank you. And just maybe on the international front. I know you mentioned-- use the spreading the peanut butter analogy, but it seems like there is more concentrated increased activity levels going on in Latin America in a number of different countries. Do you feel like you could get pricing power moving in right direction in Latin America before some other region?

Well, again I am not going to get our strategy around price anywhere but what I'd say Latin America is not too different in terms of the contract cycle terms of -- length of contracts typically have a muting impact. There is plenty of -- quite a bit of equipment in the world today and so certainly look forward to that but I'd not -- it's not enough to change the overall trajectory.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Waqar Syed of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Thank you. And Dave congratulation again and you'll be certainly missed and your comments would be missed greatly on the calls. My question relates to the Permian sand that's been recently got FERC's, a new capacity additions have been announced and there is good chance that prices are going to fall quietly sharply in the Permian for EMP companies there. What impact does that have for pressure pumping companies as sand prices fall in the Permian? Is it neutral or is it negative or positive? And then also how do you think about your own investment in Trans loading and rail transportation? Would that change if most of the sand is regionally sourced?

Look, that's great for us. It's good for our customers. It's good for us in terms of lowering cost per BOE. I've been very vocal about why we don't own mines and that's -- this is an example of why not bring it from Halliburton standpoint, why we wouldn't want to be invested and tied, was not cost to places, technology moves a different direction. Trans load infrastructure that we have is valuable. I'd say probably the toughest part to get to realistically is the Permian basin and local sand in my view opens up a whole new avenue of what is lower cost. And some of the things that we are doing around delivering sand. We are always looking at how do we get sand delivered at a lower cost point and I think our containerized solutions that we are implementing are right, right in the sweet spot of that kind of development.

Okay. And you don't see -- are there any long -term negative implications of -- cost implications for railcars or other things that you may have leased? Or the industry may have leased?

No. I mean that's the stuff works all over the country and that's fairly localized solution. So I like what we are invested in. And we've always been careful. Again, we target about 50% of our capacities manage internally. And we do that so that we can flex with the market. And that's how I see this.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Ole Slorer of Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Thank you very much. And again, Dave, congratulation for the very solid runs at Halliburton. Jeff, question to you again regarding kind of the sand logistics and the changes in completion again. I mean before you highlighted that at Halliburton doesn't really have any interest in owning sand but once the fork is on the logistics because of the changing nature of the type of proppants, that's preferred. So could you talk a little bit about the kind of capacity thing added at the moment in West Texas is kind of 100 mesh largely some 470 and address that in context of other proppants, how you see the mix evolving? And how that impacts Halliburton?

Well, look, we are in large part agnostic to the type of sand, the reality is we study sand closely to understand how to better design chemistry to make better frac. Cost is always a component of that. But we've seen other media sort of go into vogue and out of vogue and we've got mark risk out which is an NO style solution or micro style solution. So I think that obviously what's being talked about today is consistent with what I hear from customers. And what is being consumed today. But again that the drive for better science is always going on and that's one of the reasons our labs are constantly looking at, how to take what's available and make it better and how to either or to substitute with things that are better. So I think just the answer [Multiple Speakers] is inappropriate.

So the reduction that you saw on a per well basis. Was that a function of shortages and sand pricing and therefore forcing industry to adopt different methods or do you see this trend continuing even it's kind of sand gets the bottlenecked?

Well, it's one data point so I will clearly be watching that. Since that I get this more around design and what is the most -- our clients are dead focused on lowest cost per BOE, making more barrels and at a lower cost. And so designing things that can consume less sand but deliver more barrels or as many barrels is clearly what they want to do.

Thank you. And that concludes our question-and-answer session for today. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Jeff Miller for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Candice. Before we close, there are a couple points I'd like to highlight. First, our second quarter performance demonstrates strength of our North American franchise and our ability to adapt to rapidly changing environment. Second, Halliburton's relative performance for the balance of this year will remain strong as a result of our ability to grow North America margins and maintain revenue and margins internationally. Look forward to talking with you next quarter. Candice, you may now close out the call.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program. And you may all disconnect. Have a great day everyone.