Eugene M. Isenberg
Analyst · Ole Slorer with Morgan Stanley
Thanks. Again, welcome, everybody, to the conference call for the third quarter of 2011. I want to thank everybody for participating again. Thank you again for participating this morning. As usual, we have posted to the Nabors' website a series of slides that contain details about the performance of the various segments of the company, and you may care to peruse through that as you listen to the call. Nabors had a very solid third quarter driven primarily by very good results in almost every one of our business units. Land Drilling in U.S. and Canada, Well-Servicing operations, Pressure Pumping, almost everything, Canrig, everything was performing on all 12 cylinders. These results more than offset the seasonal decline in Alaska and less than stellar performance in our International operations. The largest sequential increase in operating income came from the seasonal rebound in our Canadian operations, which improved by approximately $24 million. This was particularly noteworthy since the quarter got off to a slow start due to weather-related issues. This should serve as a good indicator of the performance we expect as we enter the winter drilling season. Results in our Pressure Pumping operations were up by more than $20-odd million in the quarter as weather issues and delays in equipment arrival and also gearing up with manpower to work the equipment before the cash flow actually incurred have more or less been incorporated in or behind us. We also are beginning to realize the impact of the increased capacity we have been deploying ever since this unit was acquired. Our financial position remains strong, and our access to low-cost capital remains good, as evidenced by the mid-quarter placement of $700 million in 10-year notes at just a little over 4.6%. The proceeds from this placement were applied to the money we had pulled down on our revolver. We are decommissioning a number of rigs which we have deemed to be no longer functional or economically viable for current market operations. All these, I think, are noise, and therefore, I wouldn't consider the economic impact as anything significant. However, we're putting down, retiring 100-odd rigs in the U.S. Half of this have really not even worked in recent memory, and only 7 of these were SCR rigs. In Well-Servicing, we are retiring 84 rigs and 60-odd trucks, some of which were never actively -- very actively marketing recently. Another 13 rigs are being retired in Nabors International, including one rig mat-supported jackup. The impact of all these is about $100 million of write-downs, which I suggest, again, we ignore. Which these write-downs were partially offset by about $40-plus million worth of noncash asset gains that accounting requires from acquisitions. Before I turn to the units, let me give you my overall thoughts on the big picture as it affects our sector, and in particular, our stock. While we recognize there is a risk of slowdown in customer spending, in other words, we can't control the macro-situation, even in spite of that, I remain very, very comfortable and confident even in the short term. This confidence stems from a number of term contracts we have in our U.S. Land Drilling fleet and term contracts in our Pressure Pumping operations and the fact that 75% of our current income stems from oil, which is deeper and less likely to be volatile for the foreseeable future. Let me turn to the business units. In the U.S.A., reporting operating income of $100 million, up from approximately $99 million in the previous quarter. I guess we're at a point where $100 million is really the new power for the quarter, and I know that's very good. And we're continually getting requests for built-for-purpose rigs, and we expect we will have a considerable number of new builds over the next 12 months. And the order flow is continual as we speak. Today, we have, I guess, 216 rigs working. And demand, as I suggested earlier, seems to be unabated for built-for-purpose rigs. Margins for the quarter were de facto up about $370 million a day, which is good and is a reflection of good cost control and robust market conditions. Going forward, we expect continued income growth fueled by these new deployments and also by frankly an increase in margins, which has continued. Some of the rigs that we put out earlier on terms were a little lower than in retrospect they needed to be. And as these contracts expire, they're being replaced at higher-margin contracts. The stellar performance of our new build rigs continues to impact favorably on our ability to grow this business. Superior Well Services results of $65 million, and our Pressure Pumping operations are up approximately $20-odd million over the prior quarter. And they're approaching the level, frankly, that we had expected after we acquired this unit. The timing, I think, in retrospect was pretty good, and our business there pretty good and continuing strong although it's pretty clear that we have continued to have 1-year payouts on new investment for various arms on this. We're trying to make hay while the sun shines and do what we can to convert into multiyear contracts, term contracts. Our third quarter results were primarily driven by increase in stage processes on Well-Servicing and by deployment of additional spreads. By the end of the quarter, we had 19 crews, large crews running, which has just under 700,000 of fracking hydraulic horsepower. We also have 13 term contracts in hand, which traditionally has been unusual in this business. And frankly, we expect to increase that number. We still have 6 or more spreads to deploy, the impact of which will provide significant sequential improvements during the next 3 quarters. And I think that will mitigate the effect of almost universal increase in supply because of the high margins and short payouts. Nabors Well-Servicing posted $23 million in operating figure, a significant sequential increase over -- just under $17 million we posted in the prior quarter. The performance was largely attributable to a significant increase in truck hours, rig hours and rig rates, essentially everything, although a substantial portion of the increase was observed by wage increases, particularly in Canada. But net-net, the bottom line improved. We are beginning to see the impact of incremental capacity in this unit. In the last 9 months, we deployed 1,000 new frac tanks, which we'll continue to deploy, most of which 90% of which are on term contracts. And we have brought into play 150 tanker terminations, which aren't on term. But when the frac tanks are on term, these are essentially tied to that term. This brings the frac tank fleet to approximately 3,800 units with 500 more on order and with options for additional units, and we're marketing these full speed ahead. We have added or will soon add 2,400 horsepower rigs in California, 4 already deployed. Six more will be deployed by year end and the rest in the first quarter or early next year. The fluid hauling truck fleet now stands at 835 units. New additions are, among other things, bringing the average age down to a little over 4 years. The outlook for this unit is, I'd say, excellent. The impact of the new capacity ramped up in the Bakken Shale. And today, it had a little of conventional and unconventional oil drilling that should result in essentially continual improvement in results. We're also seeing an increased amount of P&A work, and the current volume of oil drilling should presumably[ph] the mechanical pump market long term, which also obviously worked well for our business. Turning to Canada. We are experiencing an exceptionally strong recovery in Canada after the traditionally seasonal weak second quarter with operating income increasing to almost $22 million for a loss of $2.5 million in the preceding quarter. The outlook continues to be good despite July's being -- rig count being weak due to weather. The average rig count in the first quarter almost doubled, increasing from 22.5 rig years to 42 rig years. Case rig count stands at 46 rigs. The continuing increase in this unit's drilling rig count combined with an increase in work over rig hours should fuel strong third and fourth quarter results as we get into the peak winter seasons. There are no signs of slowdown in this market. In contrary, we are processing increase or additional rigs, a significant number of which will be directed to our rapidly developing Cardium field, which is increasingly a year-round play in Canada. We are also seeing surprisingly robust activities in the British Columbia shales. I guess in terms of -- there's been a project already announced in terms of [Indiscernible] conversion from gas to oil, as well as potential exploits of LNG, et cetera. But in any event, people are moving ahead with drilling and developing, making the reserves available there, which is a pleasant surprise. Nabors Offshore. Our U.S. operations rebounded from a $1.3 million loss in the second quarter to a little bit modest profit in the first quarter. But essentially, when we start drilling there, we'll do pretty well we're with more or less the figure around $40 million if we operate for a full year there. And if they permit drilling again in, let's say, just a half year, it will be half of that $20 million for the year, et cetera. In other words, $10 million a quarter that we operate there, approximately. We are also managing a significant deepwater project there, and we'll have number of progress payments. So we'll be showing profit there. And also, we will be developing a project that we will -- that project we'll sell and operate. By the operating revenue, there's an additional project we were working on which we will own and operate. Alaska. This unit posted modest results, $3 million, down seasonally from $8 million -- $5 million in the prior quarter. We expect the fourth quarter would be very similar although these results are obscure but promises to be fairly robust increase in the first quarter of 2012 as activity picks up during the winter exploration season. Nabors has already received commitments on total to drill approximately 85% of the season's exploratory and delineation wells which speaks pretty well to our market position and performance. Long term, this area offers, I think, really significant volumetric promise in terms of the lower end of how this proves[ph] that are available and kind of a superabundance in Alaska. International results in this unit were $29 million, down from $35.5 million in the prior quarter and below our previous forecast. Those results would be flat. This is largely attributable to ongoing delays, in Iraq particularly, and the delayed restarting of 2 jackups. Repairs of which required unexpected amounts of incremental steel. Other Operating Segments. This unit was up significantly, primarily to the growth in Canrig, which continues to do outstanding bottom line delivery work. The outlook for this is particularly good. Canrig [indiscernible] combines with very lucrative, or at least attractive, third-party equipment sales that's driving this unit. Our top drives in particularly are being well received in the market. Forward results should be posted by improving market share by Ryan and Peak ramp-up for yet another robust Alaskan season. Oil and Gas. We're doing extremely well. We don't report this really on our operating income basis. We develope Oil and Gas, and whether we produce the Oil and Gas or sell it is something we look at as -- we're indifferent -- which ever provides the highest return we'll go with. Traditionally, we have been selling this stuff. So it is an operating income, but it's essentially recurring, nonrecurring income. Non-recurring accountable wise, but from a pragmatic viewpoint, it's continuing and will continue to do well here. I guess we'll be 6 or 8 months away from another significant sale there. Well, I'm obviously aware that there are macro-circumstances that could adversely impact us particularly here at commodity prices, which are not easy to predict. Global drop in G&P. I think we're less vulnerable now than we have been for a long time. For example, prior to the market slowdown in 2008, annual operating income internationally was $500 million at an annual rate, and maturing contracts were set for renewal and some didn't renew. Today, it's essentially the other way around. We're at the lower end of the things, and the potential changes are very likely to be for the upside, particularly since International is largely oil driven and the oil market is stronger, it's longer, it's deeper, it's hedgible, et cetera. Actually, in 2008, 85% of the U.S. and Canada drilling was driven by gas. Today, surprisingly, over 2/3 is derived from drilling for oil and oil content. We also have a surprisingly significant degree of contract coverage, protecting U.S. land income projections, and also surprisingly, recently, for our Pressure Pumping operations. I feel pretty good about the factors that are essentially within our control, and my best guess is that the macro-circumstances won't interfere with our achieving our own objectives, but that's my comments.