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Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 28, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Nabors Industries Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dennis Smith. Please go ahead.

Dennis Smith

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Nabors' earnings teleconference to review our third quarter results. Today we will follow our customary format with Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Tony Petrello, and William Restrepo, our Chief Financial Officer, providing our perspectives on the quarter's results along with some insight into what we are seeing in our markets and how we expect Nabors to perform in these markets. In support of these remarks, we have posted some slides to our website, which you can access to follow along with the presentation if you desire. They are accessible in two ways. One, if you are participating by webcast, they are available as a download within the webcast. Alternatively, you can download the slides from within the Investor Relations section of nabors.com under the Events Calendar submenu, where you will find them listed in Supporting Materials under the conference call listing. Instructions for the replay are posted on the website. With us today in addition to Tony, myself and William are Laura Doerre, our General Counsel; Siggi Meissner, our Head of Global Drilling; and Chris Papouras, our President of Nabors Drilling Solutions. Since much of our commentary today will concern our expectations for the future, they may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, as disclosed by Nabors from time to time in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result of these factors, our actual results may differ materially from those indicated or implied by such forward-looking statements. Also during the call we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA and adjusted income derived from operating activities or adjusted income. We have posted to the Investor Relations section of our website a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most recently comparable GAAP measures. Now I will turn the call over to Tony.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the call. We appreciate your participation as we review our results for the third quarter of 2015. As Denny mentioned, we have posted the accompanying presentation slides on our website. I will begin with a brief summary and then comment on our performance in the quarter. William will follow with a review of the quarter's financials. I will then wrap up and take some questions. The third quarter was challenging, particularly for the U.S. drilling industry. Nabors' results for the quarter demonstrate the value of our international operation in a difficult environment. In the U.S., our results declined along with industry activity of pricing. We also saw the impact of rig rates resetting to the current market. Margins were also impacted by a reduction in the number of rigs stacked on rate. Our international results were more resilient, both in rig years and in daily margin. Now I will provide a brief rundown of the quarter's results. Revenues of $847 million were down 2% sequentially. Worldwide rig activity declined to 242 rig years in the third quarter from 256 rig years in the previous quarter. Adjusted EBITDA totaled $248 million, down 14% sequentially. The primary driver of that decline was a 31% reduction in cash flow in our U.S. drilling operation. In light of the current market condition and our outlook, we impaired the value of several assets in the third quarter. The most significant of these was our investment in C&J Energy Services. William will discuss these items in more detail shortly. During the quarter we had several notable accomplishments. First, we completed the deployment of three previously announced high-specification rigs into Saudi Arabia. We built these rigs on time and on budget, and they are all drilling on multi-year contracts. Second, all six…

William Restrepo

Analyst

Thank you, Tony, and thanks, everybody, for joining us today. Net income from continuing operations for the third quarter was a loss of $250.9 million, or $0.86 per diluted share. Excluding exceptional items essentially related to the current market downturn, the net loss from continuing operations was $44.9 million, or $0.14 per diluted share. Included in the above loss was our share of C&J's earnings with a one-quarter lag; in effect, a loss of $35.1 million dollars, or $0.12 per diluted share. Our core drilling business delivered a loss of $0.02 per diluted share. For purposes of this discussion, we excluded from our earnings the following items. First, the current industry environment resulted in several charges, mainly from asset impairments, sale of assets at a loss, severance costs, and currency exchange losses for a total of $250.9 million before tax, which translated into $225.1 million after taxes, or $0.79 per diluted share. Included in these charges is a $180.6 million impairment on the value of our C&J shares. Second, we recorded several one-time items related to income taxes that resulted in a $19.1 million benefit to our third quarter earnings, or $0.07 per diluted share. The largest of these items reflected a reduction in our forecast annual effective tax rate used for the allocation of income taxes between quarters. This required a favorable adjustment in the third quarter to the tax expense we recorded for the first half of the year. Moving on to our results, revenue for the quarter of $848 million decreased by $16 million, or 2% sequentially. Revenue in our international segment increased sequentially by 13%, primarily due to the full-quarter effect of the Saudi JV consolidation, partial payment for the newbuild rig we're selling to a customer in Kazakhstan, and improved operating results in Venezuela. Our…

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Thank you, William. I want to conclude my remarks this morning by reiterating the four pillars that formed the foundation of our operational strategy. As this downturn progresses, we think they are increasingly critical. First, capitalize on the existing asset base. Nabors has a worldwide fleet of over 500 rigs. Our goal is to increase the returns on our existing assets. We are finding creative ways to use the equipment we already own. A prime example is our use of mass and substructures from idle high-horsepower rigs in the high-specification units we have built for the Middle East. Second, differentiate our service offering. We are adding additional services to our standard rig offering. These services clearly complement the rig itself, and in some cases we are replacing third parties. In addition, we are nearing completion of innovative new rig models and rig components. These developments should facilitate our vision of more intelligent drilling. Third, improve operational excellence. The metric I am most proud of is our safety record. With the improvement year-to-date, we are on the way to the safest year in the history of the company on the heels of the records achieved in the two previous years. Finally, enhance our financial flexibility. As mentioned earlier, we added a new term loan that allows us to effectively refinance the next maturity of debt. This is the latest in a series of steps we have taken over the past couple of years. We will focus on additional opportunities to increase the company's cash generation and meaningfully impact our financial flexibility. This concludes our remarks this morning. Thank you for the time. With that, I will take your questions.

Operator

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Byron Pope at Tudor, Pickering, Holt.

Byron Pope

Analyst

Good morning, guys.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Good morning.

Byron Pope

Analyst

Appreciate all the color. Really helpful. Tony, on the international side, you guys are pretty specific in terms of laying out how we should be thinking about Q4. Conceptually, as I think about sitting into 2016, what I heard from you, continued pricing pressure, maybe activity in some geomarkets continues to turn down. But I didn't hear anything that made me feel like we're looking at 2016 overall activity or revenues down dramatically for you guys, realizing it's a fairly limited visibility at this point. So I was just wondering if you could share your thoughts about international moving pieces as we head into 2016.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Sure. I think that's a pretty fair description of how we see it. And like we said, right now about a five-rig decline and some pressure on the day rate. And obviously international is a big basket of moving pieces. You got to understand that. So we got things moving in, things moving off. And obviously the big unknown is how long this oil pressure is going to stay with – particularly on the NOCs in these various countries. But as we sit here now, for the next six months we see that's kind of where the activity level should be right now.

Byron Pope

Analyst

Okay. And then just as a follow-up, I won't ask you to get into any details, but you did mention that you're all in advanced stages of new rig models and components, and just was wondering if you could give us a feel as to whether these are targeting more the North America unconventionals or international. I assume the answer might be both, but any incremental color there would be helpful.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Yeah. I think as you've seen from our last quarter on the X rig, we're trying to design rigs that are much more ubiquitous, applying to large opportunities. I think one of the advantages of the company and a strength is the fact that we operate in a diversified geographical market, and what we want to have is an asset base that could be optimized across the geographies. So that's going to be a key component of what we're trying to design in this new approach and that'll – so it will be something that applies to multiple markets.

Byron Pope

Analyst

Okay. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Yes.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from Marshall Adkins at Raymond James.

Marshall Adkins

Analyst

Good morning, Tony. You mentioned you're adding to your suite of services or trying to market more services around the rig. Can you give us some more detail on that? What exactly are you thinking or what services are you talking about?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Sure. As you know, within the Canrig operation, we already had some performance tools like ROCKit, which improves the drilling in the horizontal section of a well. We have a second product called REVIT, which is a product that improves for the operator stick slip. We have our new set of MWD tools which has downhole sensor information. And frankly, in the current market, except for the big boys, most of the GE tools don't have these sensors and we're going to be marketing the capability of additional control of the drilling process with these tools. That's what we're referring to, new control system. There's also some third-party services that are currently on a rig like BOP testing that we're providing, and there's some other third-party services that third parties provide today that we're also integrating back into our operation. So it's a suite of a bunch of things that are on a rig today, as well as some new things that we think are going to be performance enhancing.

Siegfried Meissner

Analyst

Exactly. It's performance enhancing. That's really the big driver here, right?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Yeah. And we have what we refer to as the new group, as we said, Nabors Drilling Solutions is focused on bringing these to market now.

Marshall Adkins

Analyst

And along those lines, does that mean you're maybe in the running for Sperry, since a lot of those products would be similar, and/or with C&J and everything that's going on there with their balance sheet, is there a chance you're willing to put more money into that one looking down the road?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Well, acquisitions, I'll just refer back to my opening remarks which is we do look at everything. And as of now, we haven't seen something that meets the hurdles that we like. But I won't comment on any specific acquisition. But obviously the space is something that we're in right now in terms of directional. And in fact, I think we've previously talked about our – we have in development a rotary steerable tool which we think will be a real viable tool in the North American market and competitive with the best of the best that's out there. That's probably a year away from being fully commercial. So that's to me something that we do see the possibility of getting to our performance suite. In terms of C&J, I think we're still happy with the current structure and very happy with the response Josh is making to this incredibly difficult market. I think it's a testament to what they've done over there. And if you look today at the number of frac spreads they're working, I think he has as many frac spreads as anybody in the whole sector including Halliburton on the payroll right now and is doing better than some of the other big boys as well. And obviously there's a lot of stress and – but I think we're doing the right thing. I think we'll – what we'll look to do is to kind of optimize the best of what we both have. We'll try to – we haven't yet really scratched the surface on optimizing international stuff with him yet. But that's something on the game plan. We have drilled, though, at least one project in the U.S. jointly for an operator to see if there's some ways we can bring value to an operator. That's something that we may also put more energy into. But so far that's where we see things.

Marshall Adkins

Analyst

Thanks, Tony. Appreciate the color.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Sure.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Angie Sedita at UBS.

Angie M. Sedita

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning, guys.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Good morning.

Angie M. Sedita

Analyst

Tony, could you give us a little further color on leading-edge day rates? You mentioned it briefly at the top of the call. But a little bit more color on what you're seeing for leading edge for both PACE-X and SDRs because there's not a lot of rigs thing renewed, but any color that you can share. And then it sounds by your comments, it does sound as if competition is becoming a little bit more heated versus the discipline we've seen earlier.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Sure. Do I really have to?

Angie M. Sedita

Analyst

Sorry.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

As I mentioned, pricing is down significantly. But to figure out what a real price is, there's so much variation between customers and their specific requirements that it's really hard to have a normalized price. Generally, I would say that the ultra-premium and 1500 horsepower and premium AC rigs in the high teens, and then the lesser, the 1000 horsepower class AC rigs in the mid-teens is kind of where the market is today. But that really doesn't take into account a lot of things because there's so many different configurations now of what goes in a basket. And frankly, our mission today is to try to add more content into the package to change the economics and create a better value proposition. But that's where we see things right now.

Angie M. Sedita

Analyst

And then are you seeing sharper price declines for the day for the high-spec rigs or is it – previously it was SDR and has that moved now to the higher-spec rigs as far as the sharper declines?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

In the ultra-high, what we refer to as the PACE-X style, we haven't seen further big pricing declines. But clearly there's pressure going on and as the whole market grows, that pressure I expect to increase. I expect the spreads to narrow, more like it happened in general in all rig markets. Even in the jack-ups you can see when utilization goes down, the ultra-spec and the lower-commodity rigs kind of move in a narrower spread. So I think there's that possibility as more rigs come off term in spot, unless there's some change in the underlying demand for drilling given where we are in the supply situation.

Angie M. Sedita

Analyst

Okay. That's very helpful. And then I guess it's fair to assume that this pressure is going to continue as long as the rig count is under pressure, so throughout Q4 and into Q1.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Well, the only thing – I have no crystal ball compared to anybody else and there's so many [indiscernible] about people guessing where things are going to end up. I can give you a sense – I did a survey of 10 customers, and the 10 customers, which account for a large chunk of U.S. drilling. And of the 10 customers, only 2 of the 10 refer to any possibility of an uptick in rig count over the next six months. Six were flat and 2 were down and 3 of the 10 had some rigs on contract they were trying to farm out. So that gives you a sense where we think we are. And I think that's a sense of 10 of the real players in the marketplace.

Angie M. Sedita

Analyst

Great. That's very helpful. I'll turn it over. Thanks, Tony.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Sean Meakim at JPMorgan. Our next question is from Ole Slorer at Morgan Stanley. And I'm sorry for mispronouncing that.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

No. That's very good actually. Thank you very much. So could you give us a little bit more color on what you actually see at the moment? I mean, everything is clearly very opaque. But based on what you last saw and see to the fourth quarter, you suggest your rig count down 15%. Am I understanding that correctly? And if so, is that in line with how you see the overall rig count down or do you think you're slightly better than your overall rig count because of contract backlog or other reasons?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Ole, no, I think we haven't said international will fall by 15%. It fell by 5% in the third quarter.

William Restrepo

Analyst

And five more rigs, we're saying, in the fourth quarter.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Yeah.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

Sorry. I meant domestic Lower 48.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Okay. So I don't think we gave specific numbers, I guess, but we're going to expect to lose some more rigs in the fourth quarter.

William Restrepo

Analyst

Yeah.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

I think you suggested mid-70s, right?

William Restrepo

Analyst

Mid-70s, yeah.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

Is that 15% down?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

We have 81 rigs today, so...

William Restrepo

Analyst

Yeah.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

Okay, on average for the quarter. So does it mean that you believe you're doing better than the industry as a whole?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Not necessarily. I think certainly some of our competitors that have a higher proportion of contracted day rates, I think, are more sticky on their rig count than we've been because we have had more expirations of contracts. But compared to everybody else I think there we should be doing as well as everybody else.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

And then I just want to...

William Restrepo

Analyst

We're also in line with market in terms of volume, and I think we're holding our own on day rates given the quality of the rigs that are – the majority of our rigs operating there are PACE-X's and those are higher-priced rigs. So in that sense, we're doing much better than the average.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Yeah. And the utilization on the PACE-X rigs are still close to 90%.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

Have you repriced any PACE-X's lately? And can you give any kind of indication of the spread that the customer is willing to pay on recent data points?

Siegfried Meissner

Analyst

Toeing the line is what you said.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Yeah, we have at the price indication that I said, which is in the near-20 number.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

Okay. So that's still remarkably robust compared to the carnage that's going on in the mid-tier segment?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Yeah. I said that's the case. I would tell you also that – I mean one of the things I always want to emphasize on the PACE-X rig is it was designed for mostly pad moves. And as I said in my remarks, we originally thought those faulty pads, the rigs would stay there a long time. So it wasn't really designed for move-to-move pads, move-to-move between pads. And some of the competition has been marketing against us that they can move a rig faster pad to pad. But with some process changes we've now come up with, we have figured out how to move a PACE-X rig in three, three and a half days, which makes the rig very competitive on a move basis with the other alternatives. But when it's on a pad, there's no comparison for any rig in the marketplace today PACE-X outsells everybody on a pad. So that's part of the strategy right now, and that's one of the things we're selling to the customer.

Siegfried Meissner

Analyst

And then the additional we see in certain areas we see more wells per pad.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Yeah.

Christopher Papouras

Analyst

Which enhances this content as well.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Yeah.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

Yeah. Thanks for that. The second question on the Middle East, there's been some contract awards in Kuwait lately. There seems to be a pretty tight market at least on the supply side for the largest 3000 horsepower rigs. Can you give us a little bit of what you're seeing when it comes to Iraq, where the rig count has gone from 100 rigs to 40 rigs, or Kuwait and Saudi, Oman or other areas? There seems to be a little bit more of a robust outlook.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Yeah. Well, I think the outlook in those areas you talked to, mainly Oman, Kuwait and Saudi, in terms of gas, and Algeria as well, still can be a viable market. Iraq, for us, we're down to one rig...

Siegfried Meissner

Analyst

And the plan is to move rig out. So in Iraq, I mean, we have only one rig at the moment. And we had – it's been our exit strategy for a while to get out of it. And then, Oman, we continue steady, it's just pricing pressure. And what other countries did you mention?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Kuwait.

Siegfried Meissner

Analyst

Kuwait is one of the areas where we had a couple of tenders. And as you note, other people have been awarded. We had been awarded and we're trying to pick the ones with the high returns. I think that's really what we're saying. And there's more opportunities to come.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

So are you able to reallocate existing idle assets to those contracts or are the rigs different?

Siegfried Meissner

Analyst

So in Kuwait we relocated one rig from Bahrain into Kuwait. It's going to start in Q1. So it's not a newbuild and we have plans for the rigs that are coming off in other countries as well. They have spots potentially in other areas where they can fit.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

Just finally, do see any light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq or is it a company-specific reason to take the rigs out or is it that you just that you take a very dim view on the entire market?

Siegfried Meissner

Analyst

So I think first of all it's very dark and we don't see anything. And I think it has been very difficult to operate there for us. And I'm talking about Southern Iraq. So we basically decided to move out.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Yeah. You'll recall, I think we went in thinking we would have the best team there. We worked for Exxon and Shell and we partnered with Haliburton on a project, and we thought with that kind of team we can navigate Iraq. And I think it's fair to say everybody had their clock handed to them, and we've decided that that's not where we want to play. We are up in Kurdistan, which is a different environment. But in Southern Iraq it's just been a problem.

Ole Slorer

Analyst

Okay. Well, thanks for that clarification and color, and I'll hand it back.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Thank you.

William Restrepo

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Waqar Syed at Goldman Sachs.

Waqar Mustafa Syed

Analyst

Thank you for taking my question. Tony, you had decent share buyback in the quarter. Should we expect that to continue or this was kind of one time in the quarter that you initiated that?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Well, this is the second buyback we've done in a year. And as I've said before, we always try to figure out what the best use of our capital is. There was an element of opportunistic here. It's an interesting aspect to this particular buyback. If you look at the spread on the interest rate versus our dividend, we actually had a positive free cash flow on the trade, which is interesting given that we were borrowing at 117 basis points and the dividend is at 2.5%, 117 over LIBOR versus 2.5%, so we actually had a positive impact in cash flow. I think our main priority still has to be obviously in this kind of market to be careful about the balance sheet and our investment-grade rating. And in my dreams, I would like to buy back some of our debt and be able to do that at a discount, but that really hasn't occurred, that opportunity. But we will constantly reevaluate whether that opportunity against what our other uses of capital are, and you'll see we'll execute it. And what we do, you'll see the numbers. But right now, that's the way we see it. So that's the priorities.

Waqar Mustafa Syed

Analyst

Okay. And then on the additional services that you're offering on the drilling rig and that you plan to additionally provide in the future, is this just a domestic strategy or do you plan to offer such services in the international market as well?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

International as well. Absolutely.

Waqar Mustafa Syed

Analyst

And are you offering any of those services right now internationally?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

We're in discussions with a couple of NOCs right now. We have proposals in front of them right now.

Waqar Mustafa Syed

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Scott Gruber, Citigroup.

Scott Gruber

Analyst

Yes. Good morning, gentlemen.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Good morning.

Scott Gruber

Analyst

I may have missed this in the prepared remarks, but were there any early termination payments that benefited the international segment during the quarter?

William Restrepo

Analyst

No. Not this quarter, no.

Scott Gruber

Analyst

Even better performance then. And William, you highlighted that the international rig count to be down as much as 4%. But given the mix shift, how do you think about the revenue trajectory in light of the activity decline?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Obviously there is a huge negative mix potential depending on which countries go down. There are high-performance rigs in certain countries. So for example the Southern Indonesia that was working for Papua New Guinea, excuse me – working for Exxon was very high-performance rigs which – we're looking for a home for those kind of rigs. We have two Saudi jackups that are subject to renewal that are going to come up and there's pricing risk on those renewals obviously in this market. So, yes, it depends which – so it's hard. That's why we've been trying to be very careful. I think we have the outside exposure here and it's very difficult to predict which country is this going to occur given the mix and the effects of mix.

William Restrepo

Analyst

The only thing we know is that in the fourth quarter we have full-quarter impact of Saudi deployments and some rigs we deployed in Columbia and those are reasonable contracts with good returns. We also have predicted or planned some reductions in other places that we feel are lower-margin than those particular contracts. However, as Tony pointed out, we do have some exposures in higher-margin-type activities and those contracts may either not be renewed or we may have some pricing movement on those as well. So at this point what we've been saying is that we expect the fourth quarter to be somewhat less and not as stable as we saw in the third quarter.

Scott Gruber

Analyst

Net-net, it sounds like the revenue trajectory should be biased a little bit more negative than the activity, if activity is down 3%, 4%, revenue is doing a little bit worse on that. Is that fair?

William Restrepo

Analyst

We think activity and revenue should stay pretty close to each other and it's probably a 4%, like you said, reduction.

Scott Gruber

Analyst

Okay. And then you walked through the outlook for the Middle East in response to Ole's question. Could you provide some color on the LatAm market? Should demand onshore stabilize there around the year exit point or is there risk for further deterioration across LatAm?

Siegfried Meissner

Analyst

Yeah, I think it was in line with what Tony said that some of these NOCs are very stressed for funds and so I think the market is very challenged in Latin America.

Christopher Papouras

Analyst

I mean Colombia has been a bright spot for us.

Siegfried Meissner

Analyst

Except Colombia.

Christopher Papouras

Analyst

Except for Colombia. Pemex in Mexico continues to be problematic, and Argentina there's a lot of stress going on there. There's not much going on in Ecuador. And Venezuela, we've been fortunate that our mix of customer base has changed away from PDVSA to the joint-venture companies, which accounts for the reference to the improvement there.

Scott Gruber

Analyst

Well, the execution certainly has improved on the international fronts. So congrats.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Thank you. Thank you.

Scott Gruber

Analyst

That's all for me.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Siggi, good job, mostly.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Jud Bailey, Wells Fargo.

Judson Bailey

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. Question on margin per rig day in the Lower 48. Given your rig count is declining as you think probably into the first quarter. You're expecting about $1,000 a day of decline in 4Q. Help us think about early 2016. Do the declines in the margin per rig day start to soften as more of your rigs are under term contract? And I apologize, have you given any color on your term contract coverage for 4Q or for 2016 in the Lower 48?

William Restrepo

Analyst

Jud, I think, as we mentioned I think in the remarks, the third quarter was slightly penalized. I mean, the market gave us a bit of a pump fake. We thought we'd have 10 rigs more than we do today. And in fact the clients backed out. So we did adjust our direct costs pretty quickly after we realized those rigs would disappear. So in September we did see a little bit better margin per day than we saw at the average of the quarter. But some things are going to continue happening. We see more rigs are going to be rolling into lower day rates as contracts expire. More of our rigs stacked on rates, which tend to be a little bit more high-margin and, in fact, have a mix impact on the cost as well because those have very minimal costs. So those are going to be rolling off. So that's where the $1,000 per day are going to be coming from. You are right, though, that a lot of the steadier work and the more continuous work that we have now is composed by PACE-X's that are performing better than the average. So that helps temper a little bit the downtrend on our daily margins. As Tony mentioned, we think the impact could be as much as $1,000 per day. But again, it all depends on which rigs go down during the fourth quarter.

Judson Bailey

Analyst

And just to clarify, though, for maybe digging up the first quarter of 2016, we should not expect a similar amount of decline. Maybe I would assume something maybe half that or so. Or how should we think about that?

William Restrepo

Analyst

I didn't get the question specifically. You said 2016? Oh, in the first quarter in 2016.

Judson Bailey

Analyst

The first quarter of 2016, yeah.

William Restrepo

Analyst

Well, I think we could see a little bit more. Denny has always had his rule of thumb, daily margin. He says in a downturn at the bottom, we get to $7,000. Not there yet and we don't expect to be there in the fourth quarter. So is there possibility for more, for a further downturn? Yes, there is.

Judson Bailey

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. And my follow-up is just to follow up on the international pricing environment. It sounds like spot rates or new contract opportunities, there's a lot of pricing pressure. Is there any discussion on another round of renegotiation of existing contracts? Is it that weak, or do you think what you have under contract is good for now?

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

I think what we have right now is good.

Judson Bailey

Analyst

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Robin Shoemaker at KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Robin Shoemaker

Analyst

Thank you. I wanted to – did you mention in your comments that in the U.S. rig business that you've had a labor increase was in the third quarter or...

William Restrepo

Analyst

No. What we did say was that, in the third quarter, we did not cut as sharply early in the quarter as maybe we would have done because we had verbal requests from customers to provide incremental rigs. Now, as you all know, when the commodity price headed back down towards $40, those incremental requests disappeared. So in fact, we had a few extra heads per rig – a couple of extra heads per rig during the early part of the third quarter. That was corrected in September, though.

Robin Shoemaker

Analyst

Okay. So it sounds like your kind of current run rate for the third quarter was like two-thirds term and one-thirds spot. You had 60 on term. Is that correct?

William Restrepo

Analyst

Yeah.

Robin Shoemaker

Analyst

Yeah. So when we get closer to all-on spot or if we get to that point, is that where Denny's $7,000 a day margin kicks in or is that a negative impact?

William Restrepo

Analyst

Dennis, can you comment?

Dennis Smith

Analyst

Well, it depends upon how long the duration is, right? Price always lags utilization, right? The last time it was two quarters later. So if the rig count continues to dribble down, you'll probably still going to see more pricing pressure. If it flattens out, the pricing will still probably overshoot it a little bit after a couple of quarters and then you really need a rising market to pull the prices back up.

Robin Shoemaker

Analyst

Yeah. Okay. So you – but your percentage of rigs on spot, I mean, is just going to continually grow through next year. I think Jud asked a question is what is the average number of rigs on term. But you didn't answer it. Do you have that figure for 2016, I mean?

William Restrepo

Analyst

We do. We have – we think the – our exit is 20, 20 rigs on contract by year-end, 40 at the beginning of the year in 2016. Now that may change. At some point, clients may start wanting to get some term and that's always a discussion we can have down the road. But based on today's contracts, those are the numbers.

Dennis Smith

Analyst

Robin, those are how many rigs are contracted through 2016 currently. So we're constantly signing new ones for a six-month term and things like that, so then we'll be able to do more than 20, but that's what's in force right now.

Robin Shoemaker

Analyst

Okay. And some of those are the legacy contracts that were signed at the peak of the market I assume?

Dennis Smith

Analyst

Yeah.

Robin Shoemaker

Analyst

Okay.

Dennis Smith

Analyst

Just about all of them probably.

Robin Shoemaker

Analyst

Yeah. Right. Thank you.

Dennis Smith

Analyst

Operator, I think we're bumping up against our hour here, so if we just take one more question, please.

Operator

Operator

Okay. The last question is from Kurt Hallead at RBC Capital Markets.

Kurt Hallead

Analyst

Hey. Hey, guys. Good morning. A couple of questions here. What is your outlook on Alaska and in Canada? Typically there's at least a seasonal uptick in Canada and this year probably going to be a lot more muted than it's been in the past. But if you could provide some perspectives on that, that would be great.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Should we have Joe Bruce do it? Joe, you on the call?

Joe Bruce

Analyst

Yes. I would think that Q4 is probably muted. Similar to Q3, we are negotiating some contracts at this time that will lead through into Q1 but not a positive outlook at this point.

Kurt Hallead

Analyst

Yeah. And then follow-up on the cash flow, kind of getting back to cash flow neutral or whatever the terminology was. Is that more dominated by reduction in CapEx or increase – or reduction in net working capital? Can you give us a little more color on how you guys kind of see getting to that point?

William Restrepo

Analyst

So the way we see it, we try to keep a fairly generous cushion between our EBITDA and our CapEx to allow us to meet our other obligations like interest rates, dividends and taxes. So, yes, one of the levers has been CapEx and we're comfortable that we can control CapEx and the numbers we've given you through year-end. And we're also comfortable that we have another lever to pull their next year. And as Tony mentioned, we could see $700 million or even below $700 million CapEx next year. So that's part of the equation but it's not the only part. A big one of course has been the overhead, which I think we have cut around 30% of our SG&A; in terms of field support, those cuts have been even larger. So all the overhead in the organization has been compressed and we still have some room to work on that if need be. And then finally, we did address our supply chain with the consolidation of the company, the one drilling organization under Siggi. It has been much easier to implement all the supply chain initiatives that we have put in place. And that should give us another we expect $100 million-plus reduction in costs over the year to come. So there's a lot of levers. We're going to be very focused on making sure first that as the activity goes down, we do keep our direct costs in line. That's the first step. But all the other initiatives that are in place today are incremental to that. So we're comfortable that next year we won't require increasing our debt levels to fund our operations and our CapEx and so forth. And we also believe that if the environment is even worse than we envisage it today, and we think we're one of the more bearish companies out there, but even if it's worse than we envisage we are ready to take some more action if need be to avoid increasing our debt levels. And certainly we've done everything we can to avoid going to the capital markets in this environment. That's what the revolver extension and expansion was about. That's what the term loan was about. It's to make sure that whatever happens in this environment, even if it's twice as worse as we think it's going to be, we don't really have to go to the capital markets. But we are pretty self-sustaining throughout this downturn.

Kurt Hallead

Analyst

Thanks. That's great.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

And the other thing that I'd add is on the working capital management, it's harder because we give the business units as EBITDA less their CapEx, working capital management. What we squeeze out of that is actually our benefit on top of that. So in other words the target of positive free cash flow is before what we're able to squeeze out on working capital management.

Kurt Hallead

Analyst

Okay, that's great, thank you.

Anthony Petrello

Analyst

Okay. Operator, that will wind up our call, if you could close out the call, please?

Operator

Operator

Certainly. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. And you may now disconnect.