Good morning. My name is Mellissa and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Noble Corporation’s First Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks there will be a question-and-answer period. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, Thursday, April 17, 2014. Thank you. I would now like to introduce Mr. Jeff Chastain, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Chastain, you may begin your conference.

Okay. Thank you, Mellissa and welcome everyone to Noble Corporation's first quarter 2014 earnings call. We appreciate your interest in the Company, a copy of Noble’s earnings report issued last evening, along with the supporting statements and schedules, can be found on the Noble Web site and that's noblecorp.com. Before I turn the call over to David Williams, I'd like to remind everyone that we may make statements about our operations, opportunities, plans, operational or financial performance, the drilling business or other matters that are not historical facts and are forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which are posted on our Web site, discuss the risks and uncertainties in our business and industry and the various factors that could keep outcomes of any forward-looking statements from being realized, including the price of oil and gas, customer demand, operational and other risks. Our actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements and Noble does not assume any obligation to update these statements. Also note that we may use non-GAAP financial measures in the call today. If we do, you will find the required supplemental disclosure for these measures, including the most directly comparable GAAP measure and an associated reconciliation on the Web site. With that, I'll now turn the call over to David Williams, Chairman, President and Chief Executive of Noble.

Thanks, Jeff. Good morning and welcome everyone. In addition to Jeff I am joined today by James MacLennan, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Simon Johnson, our Senior Vice President of Marketing and Contracts. Jeff and Simon are in Houston today while James and I are in London. I will open today with some summary comments on our strong results of the first quarter and quickly update you on our progress in shipyards which continued to be best-in-class and then I’ll turn the call over to James for a more detailed review of the quarterly results and some guidance for the remainder of 2014. Simon will follow with some brief thoughts on the offshore market and I will close with an update on the pending divestiture of Paragon Offshore and how Noble is strategically positioning itself for success in the next upswing in the offshore cycle. As we noted in mid-March, results for the first quarter were better than expected with earnings of $0.99 per share. We beat even the most aggressive estimates. We benefited from several positive outcomes in the quarter. Downtime in our fleet was lower than expected at around 4.5%. We maintained a firm handle on operating cost which were well below our guided level and we experienced higher bonus revenue recognition which is a nice reward for having achieved better rig performance especially on the rigs in Brazil. James will offer more details on the results in just a moment. Our company transformation remains on-track and is now in advanced stage. Shipyard execution remains among the best in the industry as evidenced by the additional on-time deliveries in the first quarter of the JU3000N jackups Noble Houston Colbert and Noble Sam Turner. The Colbert has completed its mobilization from Singapore to Argentina and…

Thank you, David and good morning to everyone on the call. In the bid of the departure from prior calls this morning I plan to scale back my prepared remarks regarding the quarter as the detailed press release and supporting statements and schedules were issued yesterday afternoon, address most of the significant developments that led to the favorable financial results. I plan to address in detail only those line items from the P&L that fell outside of the guided range offered on our last conference call held in January. This should allow more time for questions during the Q&A at which time we’ll be happy to address your questions providing clarity on certain items. And as always Jeff and his team will be available following the call. I’ll also devote sometime this morning to covering our guidance assumptions for the coming quarter and for the remainder of the year, an area we know to be of interest to you as we fine tune new models for Noble. I’ll also cover in some details, the anticipated costs we expect to see relative to the pending spin off of Paragon Offshore. Let me start by echoing David’s observation that Noble delivered a very solid performance in the first quarter of 2014. We’re seeing the benefits of new additions to the fleet which are contributing more fully to the revenue picture and also at an accelerated pace. I believe the facts show that we are getting much better at managing the rigs startup process, as can be seen by the full quarter contribution from the Noble Bob Douglas which experienced fewer than three hours of unpaid downtime in the quarter while continuing a drilling campaign in New Zealand. That rig is currently moving to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and we anticipate it…

Thank you, James, and good morning everyone. There should be no surprise about our limited news flow for this quarter after an extended period of year-on-year growth, the NICs and larger independents have been selected as to where and when they’re investing their capital, and this is influenced expectations for market participants to some degree. Increasing oil projects, both exploration and development, are subject to growing scrutiny. This is manifesting itself also in the divestment of prospects and projects to other operators with different cost structures and growth drivers. Ultimately, this is a necessary part of the long-term cycle and will be a positive development for our sector, but it will take some time for the trend sighting the material activity for drilling contractors. At the same time with some operators making adjustments to their existing portfolios and also adding to their holdings in key areas such as the U.S. Gulf of Mexico where the March lease sale resulted in excess of $870 million in high bids covering over 320 tracks. Similar lease and concession activity has been observed for another highly perspective areas around the globe. There is ultimate time gap between leasing and exploration drilling, but if anything sustained interest in lease sale today is a good indicator of baseline demand. As areas such as Mexico for example make opportunities available and the outer demand picture becomes even clearer. So on balance could we be looking at meaningful higher activity in 12 guided month time. We believe this is likely. So in the market generally we expect that the increase in customer inquires in recent months. And we anticipate that we’ll continue see improvements in contracting opportunities as the year progresses. In the near-term our marketing focus is on finding a limited number of floating rigs and outlays…

Alright, thank you Simon, as most of you have already concluded as -- that Simon’s comments support 2014 has started out as a challenging period for the industry, especially for the floating rig segment relative to the offshore activity that we’ve enjoyed over the past four years or so. However as we said last quarter, it’s easy to become focused on near-term events and data and miss what remains a very fundamentally sound an opportunity rich business as we move through forward for 2014 and 2015. Although the market presents its own set of challenges today we are positioning Noble for a success in the inevitable cyclical upturn. As I mentioned earlier, the addition of 15 premium ultra-deepwater drillships and high specification jackups continues to go exceptionally well. One other significant step in our transformation is the divestiture of Paragon Offshore and we continue to make progress with this strategic initiative. Our management team is now largely in place including Randy Steely as President and Chief Executive Officer who was named in February. An amended Form S-1 was filed in early March under the name Paragon Offshore Limited and we expect to file another amendment in the coming weeks. Although we continue to work through certain internal restructuring steps we currently believe and as James mentioned earlier we will be in a position to launch initial public offering of about 20% of the company or up to 20% of the company over the summer and spend the remaining 80% of the shares to Noble shareholders following the traditional six month lockup period. We continue to be asked if there are any circumstances that would compel us to postpone or cancel this divestiture and the answer remains no. Once the divestiture of Paragon is complete, Noble will have one of the…

Okay, David. Thank you. Mellissa, we’re ready to begin the question-and-answer segment of the call. I’d like to once again remind everyone to please follow the one question, one follow-up rule, so that we can get to as many questions as possible. Mellissa, go ahead with the first question.

and:

Your first question comes from the line of Todd Scholl of Wunderlich Securities. Your line is open.

Good morning guys. Great quarter. Wunderlich Securities: Good morning guys. Great quarter.

Morning. Thank you.

My first question is really about the market in general and what the creation of companies like Paragon and Shell kind of mean for because I think they are part of the supply demand balance that you are talking about and when you say that you believe that the all new builds that are currently in the order book are going to be needed probably means that you are expecting some retirements of older rigs. But doesn’t the creation of companies like Paragon and Shell potentially just prolongs the older rigs staying in the market and doesn’t that potentially create a longer down cycle? Wunderlich Securities: My first question is really about the market in general and what the creation of companies like Paragon and Shell kind of mean for because I think they are part of the supply demand balance that you are talking about and when you say that you believe that the all new builds that are currently in the order book are going to be needed probably means that you are expecting some retirements of older rigs. But doesn’t the creation of companies like Paragon and Shell potentially just prolongs the older rigs staying in the market and doesn’t that potentially create a longer down cycle?

I appreciate the question, no I don’t think so. I think if you look at and let’s just take the jackup fleet for instance if you take the jackup fleet and consider the condition of the vast number of rigs that are standard specification rigs, the beauty of the Noble fleet which is going to become the Paragon fleet going forward is these rigs were, even though they are 30 years old or older in the some cases they were bought and refurbished in midlife. And so these rigs are really kept in very good condition and upgraded to basically the highest technical limits that those all will support. And they are in good shape and if there is a decent multiple it might work. We think the product price environment and what our customers tell us about them, about work going forward that there will be opportunities for these rigs. And so I think what you will see is some retirements that you need to see is some separation of quality of the older assets. There are a lot of older assets out there that need to be retired. The Paragon fleet is not part of those, so we think those rigs will find work and we think they will prosper. We think there are a number of other rigs out there that can work with them. The fact of the matter is that even though we have built as an industry a number of new rigs over the last couple of years or several years, we haven’t really built enough to satisfy the total range of operator demand around the world. And so there is still going to be work for some of these older high quality rigs going forward. We think a lot of these rigs will continue life going forward, so we think it’s the right thing to do. We think that timing is good for us and we’re committed to the strategy.

Thanks, Dave. And just as my follow-up is kind of unrelated and it might be more directed for Simon that did you offer -- you guys are planning to sell that, it got canceled now it’s available in Mexico. How are the prospects there I mean is there going to be really one customer so do you expect that rig to back to work for Pemex or if they change that rig either get stacked or possibly mobilize to the U.S. Gulf for opportunities? Wunderlich Securities: Thanks, Dave. And just as my follow-up is kind of unrelated and it might be more directed for Simon that did you offer -- you guys are planning to sell that, it got canceled now it’s available in Mexico. How are the prospects there I mean is there going to be really one customer so do you expect that rig to back to work for Pemex or if they change that rig either get stacked or possibly mobilize to the U.S. Gulf for opportunities?

No, we are expecting the rigs will continue to work with Pemex.

Okay. Any thoughts on when a new contract might be forth coming? Wunderlich Securities: Okay. Any thoughts on when a new contract might be forth coming?

Not at this time. We’re in discussions with, -- just expect the rig to go back to work for the much less required Pemex there in the near time.

Great. Thank you, Simon. Wunderlich Securities: Great. Thank you, Simon.

Your next question comes from the line of Ian Macpherson of Simmons. Your line is open.

Thanks. Simon, do you have a clear sort of fleet-wide strategy with regard to optimizing your utilization for Noble’s benefit versus defending pricing, is it more rig specific? You mentioned you have four deepwater rigs that have some market exposure right now or throughout this year. We know there are finite opportunities in the market relative to the available floater capacity, so is there a best strategy or are you more opportunistic rig-by-rig with regard to the utilization for this rig? Simmons & Company International: Thanks. Simon, do you have a clear sort of fleet-wide strategy with regard to optimizing your utilization for Noble’s benefit versus defending pricing, is it more rig specific? You mentioned you have four deepwater rigs that have some market exposure right now or throughout this year. We know there are finite opportunities in the market relative to the available floater capacity, so is there a best strategy or are you more opportunistic rig-by-rig with regard to the utilization for this rig?

What I would say is that geography is an important component in how we’re responding to opportunities. It is a very dynamic market at the moment and we’re tracing every opportunity for every week, well so I’ll say that geography is an important component we’re fighting with our competitors to secure wherever we can. So, it’s really so much more than that at this time.

You were at ODF pickup on your reported bid on the driller to Pemex. It was a long-term contract. Your reported day rate was -- it wasn’t until the mid-water day rate to be sure. Is that indicative of, I mean you talked demand improvement within the couple of years, but given that does it still make sense to bid fortune rigs on the long-term contracts at mid-water day rates? Simmons & Company International: You were at ODF pickup on your reported bid on the driller to Pemex. It was a long-term contract. Your reported day rate was -- it wasn’t until the mid-water day rate to be sure. Is that indicative of, I mean you talked demand improvement within the couple of years, but given that does it still make sense to bid fortune rigs on the long-term contracts at mid-water day rates?

Well I think some of them were complicated than that, material is one of the better rigs that’s fit for that work. We’ve opportunity to expanding the tender but it’s an active tender, so there isn’t much more color that we can add that to right now, but I think that anticipation that bid is indicative necessarily of the a general thing, so for fourth generation equipment rigs going forward. It’s one of several opportunities for that rig right now.

Okay, thanks. Can I just squeeze in one more question regarding Paragon have you sort of finalized your thinking on capital structure there, the IPO and with regard to how much debt you think is reasonable for the company at the outset, David? Simmons & Company International: Okay, thanks. Can I just squeeze in one more question regarding Paragon have you sort of finalized your thinking on capital structure there, the IPO and with regard to how much debt you think is reasonable for the company at the outset, David?

All we can do is refer you to the S-1 on that, we can’t really say anything beyond what’s in the hands of the SEC right now.

Got it, alright. Thank you. Good quarter. Simmons & Company International: Got it, alright. Thank you. Good quarter.

Sure.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Gregory Lewis of Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

Yes, thank you. Good afternoon and good morning guys. So I guess my first question is regarding some of your prepared remarks, David. You talked about 2014 and potentially ’15 being better for the Florida market. You left out the jackup market. As you think about the how the jackup market evolves over the next 12 to 18 months, are you starting to be less constructive on the jackup market? Credit Suisse: Yes, thank you. Good afternoon and good morning guys. So I guess my first question is regarding some of your prepared remarks, David. You talked about 2014 and potentially ’15 being better for the Florida market. You left out the jackup market. As you think about the how the jackup market evolves over the next 12 to 18 months, are you starting to be less constructive on the jackup market?

Are you asking drill, I’ll take it and see if Simon has anything to add. There are a lot of jackups under construction. Our jackup utilization has been very good. We continue to see good opportunities. We still as you know got two uncommitted new builds and we’re focused on those. We’ve got opportunities for those. I guess our exposure is even in the jackups is probably a little bit less than most, but we still see good opportunities in those rigs. So, I think as we move through ’14 and ’15, we believe that we will see more clarity and better opportunities. It’s going to take a little while we think for this cycle and of course, of course nobody knows for sure how’s it’s going to play out. But we’re watching it very close product prices and we’re watching it very close the body language and the attitudes and the way our customers are behaving. And we continue to believe that we’ll see better clarity as move through his year and next year. The jackup market may see some pressure, and again we’re not, I don’t think as exposed to as others are, Simon do you have anything to add to that?

No well I will add is that I think people are being continuously surprised by the capacity of the jackup sector to absorb demand this has been an ongoing concern over many years, and the market has responded on this supply and demand side. So I do think that there still remain a couple of key geographic markets that continue to be strong in terms of demand and that’s in North Sea and the Middle East. So it’s not a great concern at this point.

Okay great and then just following-up Simon. You mentioned earlier that the Tom Prosser and the Sam Hartley are in multiple discussions for potential work, when we think about the types of contracts that these should sort of be getting in terms of a duration, is it safe to say that these will probably be in terms of -- is it more along the lines of six to 12 months or more along the lines of let’s call it 24 months? Credit Suisse: Okay great and then just following-up Simon. You mentioned earlier that the Tom Prosser and the Sam Hartley are in multiple discussions for potential work, when we think about the types of contracts that these should sort of be getting in terms of a duration, is it safe to say that these will probably be in terms of -- is it more along the lines of six to 12 months or more along the lines of let’s call it 24 months?

I mean those rigs have a particular specification that’s suited to the more challenging work that’s out there in the marketplace today. So duration of work it might be anything from 12 months to 24 months, something of that range, I would suggest.

Okay, so there is still it seems like duration for high-end jackups is really still hanging in there? Credit Suisse: Okay, so there is still it seems like duration for high-end jackups is really still hanging in there?

Well what I’m saying is that some of the opportunities that utilize the high, the special capacities of those rigs. There is still demand out there and that’s the kind of turned duration you could anticipate.

Okay, perfect, thank you guys for the time. Credit Suisse: Okay, perfect, thank you guys for the time.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of J.B. Lowe of Cowen & Company. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning and good afternoon guys. Great quarter. I was just wondering about the timing of the Paul Wolff and when do you guys could make a decision on whether you’re going to put in the investment into that rig? Cowen & Company: Hey, good morning and good afternoon guys. Great quarter. I was just wondering about the timing of the Paul Wolff and when do you guys could make a decision on whether you’re going to put in the investment into that rig?

We’re still in Brazil finishing up operations there. We will move the rig to the Far East and evaluate the condition and the scope of the work and what our forward plans are on the rig at that time. We’re looking at the market to see whether or not we want to spend money on the rig or not, but we need to get out of Brazil and we should go forward to fully access it. So J.B. there is going to be awhile.

Okay, got you. And then just on the cost, the good cost that you guys had in the quarter was that something that was just a matter of timing in terms of the maintenance and repairs there or is that something that you guys have put in some processes in place that could be repeated as we go forward? Cowen & Company: Okay, got you. And then just on the cost, the good cost that you guys had in the quarter was that something that was just a matter of timing in terms of the maintenance and repairs there or is that something that you guys have put in some processes in place that could be repeated as we go forward?

J.B. this is James. It’s kind of all of the above. There have been processes and improvements made in systems and other things which are definitely sustainable. There was a timing issue where some project seemed to be slow to get off the ground run at the beginning of the year and then the pace quickens later in the year. We do have several new builds to be added to the fleet as we go through the year. That obviously adds risk. So it’s worth pointing out that we noted one of the reasons for beating the expected costs in the first quarter was because of lower than expected downtime, which brought down our transportation, shipping costs and other related costs. So some of that could be repeated we did have a very good year.

Okay, thanks so much, that’s all I had. Cowen & Company: Okay, thanks so much, that’s all I had.

Okay Mellissa, we have worked through the queue, so we’re going to conclude the call. Thank you for your participation on today’s call and your interest in Noble. Make a note please, that our second quarter ’14 results are scheduled for reporting on the 30th of July with a call to follow on the morning of the 31st and we’ll confirm those dates as we get closer. Mellissa thank you for coordinating the call and good day everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.