Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Halliburton’s Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to David Coleman, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, and welcome to the Halliburton second quarter 2022 conference call. As a reminder, today’s call is being webcast, and a recorded version will be available on Halliburton’s website following the conclusion of this call. Joining me today are Jeff Miller, Chairman, President, and CEO; and Eric Carre, CFO. 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, 2021, Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2022, 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. Additional details and reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our second quarter earnings release and can also be found in the Quarterly Results and Presentation section of our website. After our prepared remarks, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one related follow-up during the Q&A period in order to allow time for others who may be in the queue. Now, I’ll turn the call over to Jeff.

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. This was an excellent quarter. Our financial performance shows that our strategy is working and driving value. Let's get right to the highlights. Total company revenue increased 18% sequentially as both North America and international activity continued to improve in unison. Adjusted operating income grew 35% with strong margin performance in both divisions. Our Completion and Production division revenue increased 24% driven by robust completions activity in North America and international markets. C&P delivered operating margin of 17% in the second quarter, the first time it reached this level since 2014. Our Drilling and Evaluation division revenue grew 12%. Operating margin of 13% was down sequentially as expected due to the seasonal drop-off in software sales but increased 270 basis points year-on-year. This gives us confidence in the strengthening margin profile of our D&E business. North America revenue grew 26% as both drilling and completions activity marched higher throughout the second quarter. Strong net pricing gains across all product service lines supported sequential margin expansion. International revenue grew 12% sequentially with activity accelerating in all international regions, particularly Latin America and the Middle East. Finally, we recorded a historic best operational performance as measured by nonproductive time for the first six months of this year. I am pleased with the strong performance Halliburton delivered in the first half of this year, and I thank all Halliburton employees for their hard work, contribution to these outstanding results and dedication to superior service quality. Before we discuss our execution in the international and North America markets, let me address recent market volatility. In the second quarter, central banks took actions and an attempt to control inflation, raising concerns about a potential economic slowdown. Despite this near-term volatility, I believe the oil and gas market fundamentals…

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning. Let me begin with a summary of our second quarter results, compared to the first quarter of 2022. Total company revenue for the quarter was $5.1 billion and adjusted operating income was $718 million, an increase of 18% and 35%, respectively. Higher equipment utilization and net pricing gains supported these strong results. In the second quarter, we recorded a pre-tax charge of $344 million as a result of our decision to exit Russia due to sanctions. Now let me take a moment to discuss our division results in more details. Starting with our Completion and Production division, revenue was $2.9 billion, an increase of 24% while operating income was $499 million, an increase of 69%. These results were driven by increased pressure pumping services in the Western Hemisphere; higher completion tool sales globally, increased artificial lift activity in North America land and Kuwait, and improved cementing activity in the Eastern Hemisphere. These improvements were partially offset by lower stimulation activity in Oman and decreased artificial lift activity in Latin America. In our Drilling and Evaluation division, revenue was $2.2 billion, a 12% increase, while operating income was $286 million, a decrease of 3%. This revenue increase was due to higher fluid services and wireline activity globally, increased project management activity in Latin America and the Middle East, and increased drilling services in Latin America. Operating income decrease was driven by seasonally lower software sales globally and decreased drilling services in Brazil. Moving on to our geographic results. In North America, revenue grew 26%, primarily driven by increased pressure pumping services and artificial lift activity in North America land, increased fluid services, wireline activity, well intervention services and higher completion tool sales across the region and increased cementing activity in the Gulf of Mexico. These…

Thanks, Eric. To summarize our discussion today, we are still in the early innings of a multiyear upcycle. The oil supply and demand fundamentals remain constructive for both international and North America markets. The steps we took to improve operating leverage, lower capital intensity and strengthen our balance sheet set Halliburton up to outperform under any market conditions. Internationally, Halliburton is a much stronger competitor, and we expect to benefit more from this multiyear upcycle than ever before. This aligns perfectly with our strategy to deliver profitable international growth. In North America, I expect Halliburton to uniquely maximize value in the strong, steadily growing and all but sold out market. We will continue to execute on our strategic priorities and remain committed to driving profitable growth, margin expansion, strong free cash flow and returns for our shareholders as this multiyear upcycle unfolds. And now let's open it up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question coming from James West from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, Jeff. Good morning, Eric.

Good morning, James.

Good morning, James.

So Jeff, as you think about the cycle from here, we're clearly setting up for a pretty strong and healthy upcycle where the operating leverage is really in the early days of showing up. But how do you think about the next several quarters, maybe several years if you want to take it that far, playing out in terms of the cycle, there seems to be a growing -- at least from what I can tell, growing urgency from the customer base to bring production or accelerate activity levels from here. And so we could be in a position where you see growth that moves much higher than kind of the steady growth we've seen so far, but could be at a tipping point.

James, yes, agree in terms of the outlook. In fact, what I see is a lot of duration in this cycle. I mean, obviously, it's been moving up, and I expect it continues to move up. But the reality is if operators can be busy, particularly international, they are. And the tightness around oil supply is not something that's resolved quickly after seven, eight years of underinvestment. And so while I'm excited about the inflection and the improvement in the upcycle that we see, I have to say I'm equally excited about the duration. This is multiples of years, I was a decade in the making. It's many years in the undoing in terms of producing. And so I think this is a fantastic time for operators and an even better time for Halliburton.

Right. Right. Okay. That makes sense. And then from a competitive standpoint, are you seeing the discipline that maybe we hadn't seen in prior years from your competitors, but it seems now like everybody kind of is on the same page as its returns, its margin. And so are you seeing the same kind of pricing discipline that I know you guys are exhibiting the market?

Look, pricing is improving around the world. And it's a rational -- it's the allocation of assets and it's moving them to the highest returning opportunities. And that's not unique to Halliburton in terms of expectation of return. I mean, we clearly want to improve our returns and plan to do so. But that's part of this different cycle, different market dynamics in the sense that returns and return of cash matter to our shareholders. And the best way to do that is to not just improve utilization, but improved returns on every asset. And clearly, the approach we're taking and our whole strategy internationally is built around profitable growth, which is, I think, precisely what you saw this quarter and what you'll continue to see from Halliburton in the future.

All right. Okay. Got it. Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you. One moment for our question. And our next question coming from the line of David Anderson from Barclays. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks. Good morning, Jeff.

Good morning, David.

Good morning. So nice increase in the North America top line this quarter, well above the rig count, wondering if you could put this into context for us in terms of the customer base that was sort of the incremental driver here? Was it the privates or the public, I guess, is sort of the core question. Along those same lines, I was just wondering, if you could talk about your customer mix and how you're thinking about it. On the one hand, with all the equipment shortages, I would think you could push pricing further with the private. But on the other hand, of course, you get the – the more visibility, the larger E&P program. So I was just wondering if you could maybe talk about that optimal customer mix today? And does a potential for any recession come into consideration in terms of that mix.

Yeah. Let me start with the first part of that question. The activity was really in both camps. We saw a lot of activity. Obviously, a lot of the interruptions in the first quarter were out of the way. And so we had a full utilization quarter, which was certainly a positive from an activity perspective, and that applied equally to privates and publics. Really from a pricing standpoint, important that, we're iteratively moving on pricing and I would argue that's again, consistent in both groups. And from a visibility standpoint, I think it's important to note, I mean, A, we love our customer mix today. I want to be clear. And it maybe slightly weighted towards publics, but that is really – the privates we work for are big privates. And there are some privates that are bigger than public out there in the marketplace and work for them. And they have terrific visibility as well. So I mean the privates, just like the publics, fully understand, A, that OPEC spare capacity is not there or they would be meeting their quotas. They have great visibility of the supply and demand for oil in our business. And that dialogue has been about 2023 capacity for Halliburton to provide either more equipment or more services, not recession. I can promise you that it's not the discussion, the discussion and what we see in our business is activity demand moving up. We see a tighter 2023 than we see in 2022. So all of these signals and in our business are extremely positive.

Absolutely, I agree. And also I think also noteworthy how your margins are now back to 2014 levels. That's really impressive, I would say. A separate question, Jeff, on the Middle East, you highlighted a 14% increase in revenue this quarter a bunch of contracts are starting up. You mentioned project management that Kuwait ESP project is moving well. It sounds like there's more tenders to come. Question, are we already starting to see the ramp-up in the Middle East? Maybe you could just, kind of, give us your sense of what's going on in the ground in terms of mobilization and the pace of activity. I think you highlighted kind of service discipline over there in terms of pricing. So hopefully, that's looking pretty good. But maybe just tell us what's happening on the ground today? I know we've been waiting for this for a while.

Look, I think we're still early innings of Middle East. And so more activity, yes; activity underway, yes. But in terms of supply chain or let's just think more broadly around equipment, rigs, et cetera, those don't come back to work instantaneously. And so I -- my view is there's a lot more demand for services in the Middle East certainly than we're seeing today. So I would say as equipment can be mobilized as projects get underway, I think there's a lot more of that to come.

Good to hear. Thanks Jeff.

Yeah. Thank you.

Next question please.

Our next question coming from the line of Arun Jayaram from JPMorgan Chase. Your line is open.

Good morning Jeff.

Good morning.

Jeff, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how is contracting philosophy in North America this cycle. Is it consistent with typical cycles, but I want to get your thoughts on that. You've been essentially sold out for some time now, and we're just trying to gauge the velocity of pricing gains, which could manifest in the second half of this year versus 2023 when a lot of your customers are armed with new budgets?

Yeah. Look, I'd be crazy to get into all of those details on a call. But philosophically, I mean, our -- in practical -- in practice, I mean, prices are moving iteratively. And I think that's an important component of what we're seeing when market's tight like this. We ratably look at the best opportunity for assets and what that drives this approach to pricing, which is one that we've seen until now. And so as we look out into the future, in a market like this, we maintain optionality, but we also have very good customers with deep relationships. And because of that, there's a premium on equipment that is working and efficient, particularly in a market that looks like this. And so, look, our customers understand that a vibrant service industry is a critical component of their ability to deliver what they have to deliver. And so I think that as we look out through this year and really into next year, we ought to continue to see improvement in pricing.

Fair enough, Jeff. I wanted to talk a little bit about specialty chemicals and artificial lift. You've highlighted how this provides some unique growth opportunities for how the cycle -- I was wondering if you could maybe help us think about just at a high level, what are some revenue or growth opportunities for how -- from these two segments. Again, we're just trying to estimate what this could mean for your full cycle earnings power?

Yes. I want to -- I'm going to -- it's a meaningful opportunity. I mean I think if you go look at total available market for artificial lift, for example, we have a leading position. Actually, some it's number one in the US today and we are just beginning internationally. We've got talked about the growth we've seen, but it is a drop in the bucket compared to what that total available market is out there for lift internationally. And of course, we're super pleased with the technology at Summit, and it's just a matter of growing that business internationally, which the examples I've given you are examples of us doing that. But I would say this is the -- there is the beginnings on what's possible.

Yes. Fair enough. Thanks a lot, Jeff.

Thank you. Next question.

One moment for our next question. And our next question coming from the line of Chase Mulvehill with Bank of America. Your line is open. One moment.

Yes. Good morning. Real quick, just kind of a follow-up on the 2Q guide and maybe we'll just chalk it up to conservatism. But if we think about the top line, I think if you kind of blend things together from your segment guidance, it kind of implies a 4% or 5% sequential growth in top line. But if we kind of step back and think about expectations for North America and International, I would have expected both North America and international revenues to actually outpace that 4% to 5%. So just kind of help us connect the dots and maybe Russia is a little bit of a drag in 3Q, but just kind of help us connect the dots between North America and international relative to your guidance.

Well, I think the first half outperformed. It's a strong year. So I still see us eclipsing 35%. That means more than 35%. The international outlook for us includes Russia dropping out in Q3. So the guide that we have given in the 3% to 5% and that range overcomes Russia, which is exactly what we thought would happen. We thought there would be outsized spending outside of Russia likely to compensate for that, and that's precisely what we're seeing. North America, I'd describe it as steadily growing. And I think that's what steadily growing looks pretty strong on the first half, and it continues to grow. I think that the market is very positive. We got to put a number on it, but it's certainly been strong until now, and this continued to really outperform consistently, so --

Okay. Makes sense.

This is clearly not -- this is not a step back. This is a step forward in both hemispheres, both US and international.

Yes, makes sense. I mean, you've got a history of beating expectations, so we'll just kind of leave it there. The follow-up here, if we think about leverage ratios, obviously, they're falling pretty quickly. Your outlook remains robust. It looks like maybe early next year, you might hit 1 times on a leverage ratio. So it puts you in a position to really kind of focus more on returning cash to shareholders really over the next, call it, 6 to 12 months. So could you talk to this a little bit and how you're thinking about buybacks versus dividends and just kind of overall frame kind of the shareholder -- the cash return to shareholder framework.

Yes. Let me take that one, Chase. It's Eric here. So I'll start by saying that the most important point here is that our priorities as a company have not changed. So maybe let me summarize how we think about this. So first, to your point, we'd like to continue to pay down more debt. Then we would like to continue to return more cash to shareholders. From that perspective, our buyers right now is toward increasing the base dividends but would like at some point in time to address dilution as well. And if you look at the progress that we've made, we've made significant progress actually towards these objectives since the beginning of 2020. We've retired $1.8 billion worth of debt, $600 million this year. If you look at what's ahead of us, we have about $1 billion coming up between 2023 and 2025. Once that is retired, we basically have a clean slate until 2030, which is going to give us great flexibility. The other point I would make is that in Q1 of this year, we did both. So we did retire that and we increased dividend about triple -- pretty close to triple the dividend. So these things don't necessarily need to be done sequentially. We can do them at the same time. And finally, I would say that we fully expect to continue to grow shareholder distribution as the upcycle accelerates. Yes.

Okay. Perfect. I’ll turn it back over. Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Jeff.

Thank you. Next question, please.

Our next question coming from the line of Neil Mehta with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Yes. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, team. First question is just the 400 basis point margin improvement target, clearly making progress towards it. Maybe just talk about your views on when you think you can get there and whether there's some upside skew given the commodity macro.

Thank you. Look, our -- my long-term outlook is unchanged except that it's biased upwards. In fact, I'm more bullish than I was before. I want to be careful and not get in the business of trying to update that every quarter. But our outlook, my outlook on sort of the trajectory of the market today, the macro in terms of supply shortage, short oil in the world. And I think really importantly, not only is the price of the commodity, always important. Energy security has moved back central -- front and center for a lot of countries and continents. And so that's going to just put further support under my outlook in terms of being busy, the type of activity I described in terms of more wellbores. That's a really important point, meaning that making more barrels is going to look like a lot more development work, a lot more tie back kind of work, and I've described sort of a lot of that spend or right in areas where Halliburton leads, whether it's drilling fluids, cementing and completion tools and then the progress we've made in other parts of our business, I think sets up very well. So without trying to update that outlook, hopefully, I'll give you enough color that we feel really good about it.

Yes. That's good color. And then the follow-up is on working capital and free cash flow, to your point. Free cash flow did come a little softer than we were expecting, but a lot of that is working capital, which is consistent with an upcycle. So just talk about the back half progression in free cash flow as you see it and anything that would need to keep them up.

Yeah. Good morning, Neil. It's Eric. So the headline is expect free cash flow to follow the typical upcycle profile. So, basically, very heavily loaded towards the second half of the year. And we feel very good about the outlook of the business. The working capital built in Q2 was really to support our growth. So our revenues went up 18%, about $800 million Q2 over Q1. But what was really good is that the efficiency of our working capital improved versus the prior cycle. So – and we have to do that while managing inflation, managing longer lead time in the supply chain. So we're very pleased with how our organization has managed the situation and the overall progress we're making. So as we get into H2, I think the situation will evolve, and we fully expect to deliver on the free cash flow targets despite the working capital headwinds we had in H1.

Thank you, guys.

Next question.

One moment for our next question. And our next question is coming from the line of Stephen Gengaro with Stifel. Your line is open.

Thanks, and good morning, gentlemen. Two things for me. I think the first is, when you look at the domestic frac business, and you obviously, you talked about consolidation you guys have stuck to your plans on CapEx. Are you seeing much out there as far as the new builds in the industry? And maybe talk a little bit about lead times for new equipment at this point?

Yeah. Thanks. The – A, the lead times are still quite long. I mean – and so I think probably a year to meaningfully do anything. But the market has changed. And so A, we haven't had any meaningful additions into this business at all in six years. So that's a long time. And if I think about our business, I mean, we're always replacing the aging part of our fleet. That's not adding capacity. That's just simply retiring equipment or equipment that's unable to operate or gets damaged in the process of working, which that happens, too. And so at some level, addressing attrition at the bottom end of the fleet is important. And that's one of the reasons – we do that. That's one of the reasons we have Halliburton one of the healthiest fleets in the industry. The other broad thing that's happening, I would say, is this conversion to lower emission, which again is not adding capacity, but I would see it as a conversion. But the supply chain issues I started with are very real. And I think given the consolidation in the industry, the sort of lack of capital broadly to invest, I think what you'll see – I think -- I'm just going to guess others view the fleet the way that I do. And I think that what that means is that, we won't see capacity adds.

Thank you. And then when we think about – you mentioned the pricing dynamics that you've seen, obviously, things are strong. Has there been any pushback from the E&P side? I mean, I know they're always not trying to take a lot higher prices, but have you seen any material pushback, or just because it's so tight, it's been fairly easy discussions.

It's always a discussion, respectfully. But I also think what underpins this is how important service industry is to delivering on what our operators need to do. And I think there's clearly a recognition of that. And so always a discussion, always some back and forth, but realistically, our operators require quality services, and that means fleets that are well-maintained, fleets that are -- attrition is dealt with. And better efficiency in our case, better technology. All of that's appreciated and realized that that has to make solid returns for it to remain vibrant. And I think that's what underpins those conversations.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question.

One moment for your next question. Our next question coming from the line of Marc Bianchi with Cowen. Your line is open.

Thank you. Jeff, you mentioned you had been speaking to some customers about 2023. What kind of increases are they talking about for North America and International?

Look, I think it's consistent with making returns, but up. So let's start with surety of supply. Internationally, it's probably more around ability to supply. I think that operators, particularly in the US, understand returns and shareholder returns, and so do we. And so I think we see a steady march up, but a healthy march up in the sense that as we described, a lot of duration to this cycle, which I think is much welcome by us and I think by our shareholders are going to benefit from that meaningfully because of the duration. So the -- you look at how we've improved the capital intensity of our business, our clients view it the same way. And I think that -- so what we're going to see is more activity, no question, because there's going to be demand for the commodity. But it's -- so it's more around could you add one or do you have an extra one and really a lot of that dialogue given lead times and commitments around our own capital. And I think broadly, the industry's commitment around capital as it comes down to what's the highest returning opportunity for that equipment is more of what that discussion goes like.

Okay. Thanks. And on D&E, do you think you can get back to first quarter margins this year?

Yes. I mean the D&E -- the short answer, yes. Longer answer is that I'm really pleased with the progression and the progress we've seen with D&E margins. If we -- I've always said take a long view of D&E margins and I expect them every year to be higher than last year and next year to be higher than this year. There is some seasonality in that D&E business, both where we work in the world and some of the components that comprise D&E. But the target, and clearly, the expectation by me is that we are just layering on that seasonality a step up every single year, and that's what we've seen.

Great. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Next question.

Thank you. I’m sorry, that concludes our question-and-answer session for today. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Jeff Miller for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you, Olivia. Before we close out the call, let me just reiterate, Halliburton's performance during the strong quarter demonstrates that we're executing on the right strategy in the international and North America markets to drive value for shareholders throughout this multiyear upcycle. I look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Please close out the call.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.