Operator
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the Transocean Q1 2015 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time I would like to turn the conference over to Thad Vayda. Please go ahead, sir. R. Thaddeus Vayda - Vice President-Investor Relations & Communications: Thank you, Alicia. Good day, and welcome to Transocean's first quarter 2015 earnings conference call. A copy of the press release covering our financial results along with supporting statements and schedules including reconciliations and disclosures regarding non-GAAP financial measures are posted on the company's web site at deepwater.com. Joining me on this morning's call are Jeremy Thigpen, President and Chief Executive Officer; Esa Ikäheimonen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Terry Bonno, Senior Vice President, Marketing. During the course of this call, participants may make certain forward-looking statements regarding various matters related to our business and company that are not historical facts. Such statements are based upon the current expectations and certain assumptions of management and are therefore, subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings for more information regarding our forward-looking statements including the risks and uncertainties that could impact our future results. Also please note that the company undertakes no duty to update or revise forward-looking statements. Finally, to give more people an opportunity to participate in this call, please limit your questions to one initial question and one follow-up. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Jeremy Thigpen. Jeremy? Jeremy D. Thigpen - President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Thad, and a warm welcome to our employees, customers, investors and analyst who may be participating on today's call. Before we discuss the quarter's results, I'd like to take a moment to thank the Board of Directors of Transocean for entrusting me with this incredible responsibility and Ian Strachan for his leadership as interim CEO. I'd also like to thank the employees and customers that I've met thus far for their unbelievably warm reception. I look forward to meeting more of you in the very near future as I embark on a tour of our operating hubs around the world. Albeit my 16th day on the job I can tell you that I am truly excited and honored to be here. As many of you may know I spent most of my career in various capacities at National Oilwell Varco. As Transocean was one of NOV's top customers, I had the privilege of seeing firsthand the company's commitment to safety innovation and operational excellence, which are values that I fully respect, embrace and support. Since arriving at Transocean I have been inspired by the talented, enthusiastic and dedicated team of employees that make up this great company and I'm delighted that I now have the opportunity to work side-by-side with the best people in the offshore drilling industry. I fully recognize that market conditions are challenging, however, I will work closely with our customers and the Transocean team to continue to differentiate the company by efficiently delivering superior customer service and best-in-class operating performance. Through a heightened focus in these areas we will reinforce and enhance Transocean's premiere position in the offshore drilling industry. Now to the results. As you saw from our earnings press release we reported another solid quarter with adjusted net income of $398 million or $1.10 per diluted share. Including asset impairments, some of which are related to the scrapping of non-core assets, net loss attributable to controlling interest was $483 million or $1.33 per diluted share. Our first quarter operational performance demonstrates the company's significant progress on revenue efficiency, optimization of out of service time and related expenses and our onshore and offshore cost reduction initiatives. Our fleet revenue efficiency was 95.9% and ultra-deepwater efficiency was an outstanding 97.2% the highest since mid-2009. This level of performance results from steps that the company has taken to improve maintenance and operations policies, procedures and processes, and the work that we've done with our supply partners to reduce equipment related downtime. The company's operations teams including our rig crews are to be commended for their persistence and dedication to minimizing downtime on our rigs which benefits our customers and our shareholders alike. In addition to recognizable improvements in revenue efficiency, we continue to manage our onshore and offshore costs through the optimization of overhead and maintenance expenses. As you would expect, we are actively consolidating and better aligning our shore-based infrastructure with our active fleet which is driving considerable costs out of our business. We're also doing a much better job of planning, organizing and executing our in-service maintenance as well as our shipyard repairs resulting in reductions in out of service time. And we're continuing to be extremely selective and disciplined when it comes to shipyard expenditures where we are rephasing and deferring nonessential shipyard projects. It is important to stress that while we will continue to be near fanatical in our approach to cost management and waste elimination, under no circumstances will we allow these efforts to adversely impact the safe and environmentally responsible operations of our rigs. As a direct result of the company's improved revenue efficiency and cost management efforts, our first quarter operating margin, which excludes depreciation and G&A expense, ranks among the best in recent quarters at 47%, a 550 basis point sequential improvement. In addition to improving our operating performance we're also taking tough but sensible decisions to rapidly stack rigs for which we see no appropriate near-term opportunities, and responsibly scrapping rigs that we see as economically and commercially nonviable in a cyclical recovery. Consistent with our asset strategy, to date we've announced our intent to scrap 19 floaters and we will continue to evaluate the composition of our fleet as the market unfolds. So, while the near-term outlook, which Terry will address in a few moments, is certain challenging, I believe the company's first quarter results provide clear evidence of a Transocean team focused on improving those things within its control to best position the company for the eventual recovery. I'd like to thank our employees around the world for achieving this notable result. Before handing it over to Esa, I would like to remind shareholders of our annual general meeting to be held next Friday, May 15, in Cham, Switzerland. We recommend that shareholders vote affirmatively for each of the company's proposals. If you've not already done so, I encourage you to read our proxy and vote your shares. Esa will now provide you with additional comments on the company's financial performance, after which Terry will provide some further perspective on the market. We will open up to questions thereafter. Esa? Esa Ikäheimonen - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you, Jeremy, and good day to everyone. I will discuss the key elements for our Q1 results and then make some clarifications to our guidance. For the first quarter of 2015 we reported a net loss attributable to controlling interest of $483 million or $1.33 per diluted share. The loss includes $881 million or $2.43 per share in net unfavorable items, including a non-cash charge of $481 million for impairment of the deepwater floater asset class and, as previously announced, a further $393 million impairment of non-core floaters that we intend to scrap. Excluding these items our adjusted net income was $398 million or $1.10 per diluted share, a 16% improvement versus the prior quarter. Our first quarter results reflect our continued success in three areas of intense focus: utilization, revenue efficiency and cost management. Consolidated revenues decreased by $194 million sequentially to $2.04 billion due mostly to reduced activity associated with asset disposals and stacked and idle rigs. This was mitigated by increased utilization and improved operating performance. Fleet utilization was 79%, up from 73% in the prior quarter. Revenue efficiency was 95.9% in the period versus 95.3% in Q4. Early second quarter indications suggest that the operating performance of our rigs continues to be better than our 2015 guidance of 95%. First quarter operating and maintenance expenses decreased by $226 million or 17% to $1.08 billion, demonstrating a further acceleration of our cost management efforts, including the optimization of maintenance and out of service costs and continued success in reducing the cost of idle rigs as they are released from contracts. The quarter was also impacted by the disposal of non-core floaters. G&A decreased by $16 million to $46 million, primarily due to certain expenses associated with our cost management initiatives and some other items recorded in Q4 that were not repeated in this reporting period. As evidence of our success in managing our costs, we estimate that we have achieved on an annual basis in excess of approximately $900 million in structural improvements due to our efforts over the past couple of years. The first quarter annual effective tax rate was 25.8% versus the full-year 2014 annual effective tax rate of 18.7%. Recall that Transocean's annual effective tax rate will vary based on a number of factors, one of which is the overall level of pre-tax income. In other words, as pre-tax earnings decrease, our annual effective tax rate generally increases. We ended the quarter with approximately $2.7 billion in cash and cash equivalents, largely in line with Q4. Cash flow from operations declined by $40 million to $526 million. CapEx decreased by $117 million to $201 million due to lower project expenditure on the existing fleet, in line with our ongoing optimization of capital spending. I will now spend a few moments updating our 2015 outlook which reflects our confidence in continuing to achieve operational improvements and further reduce our costs. Given favorable fleet operating performance throughout 2014 and so far this year, we still anticipate achieving revenue efficiency of 95%. Other revenues which primarily include reimbursables are expected to be between $125 million and $140 million. We now anticipate that our full-year operating and maintenance expenses will be between $3.8 billion and $4.1 billion. This represents a substantial incremental reduction versus our full-year 2014 O&M costs and our initial expectations for this year, again, clearly highlighting the success of our cost management efforts across the company. The decrease in expected 2015 O&M costs is partly due to scrapping of non-core assets and a material reduction in expenses associated with stacked floaters. We will continue to scrap non-core rigs that we conclude are no longer economically viable over the longer term as well as quickly move rigs to stacked condition as soon as it becomes clear that they have limited options for near-term follow-on work. To the latter point we continue to optimize the cost of stacking ultra-deepwater rigs and have made significant progress in this regard. Indeed cost-effective stacking of these highly capable ultra-deepwater rigs is a key near-term issue for the industry. We will also maintain a disciplined approach to shipyard expenditures, deferring discretionary projects associated with rigs that do not have firm backlog. As Jeremy already mentioned, we are performing an increasing amount of project work scope while rigs are in service reducing the frequency of shipyards and other planned out of service time. A very good example of this is the recent five-year SBS on the Discoverer Luanda, which was completed in an industry-leading out of service time of nine days avoiding up to several weeks of additional out of service time. We expect that cost management initiatives and lower activity levels will each contribute approximately 50% to the estimated total year-over-year reduction in O&M costs and will continue to improve profitability and underlying cash flows, all else equal. Due to seasonality as well as the number of planned shipyard days as noted in our recent fleet status report, we continue to expect O&M costs in the first half of 2015 to comprise up to 55% of the total for the year. Regarding 2016, the company is currently committed to only 48 days of planned out of service time. We remain focused on a reduced cost structure that aligns with lower anticipated activity levels. We expect depreciation expense to be between $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion, a slight increase in the low end of our prior expectation that reflects a reduction in the salvage value of certain drilling rigs. We forecast our G&A expenses in 2015 to decline to between $175 million and $195 million, a further reduction of some 12% compared with our earlier guidance, this reflects our continuous focus on overheads across organization to align with the smaller fleet. We expect interest expense net of interest income and capitalized interest to be between $430 million and $450 million. Capitalized interest and interest income are expected to be approximately $130 million and $20 million, respectively. Our 2015 annual effective tax rate from continuing operations is expected to be within the range of 23% to 27%. This expectation reflects an updated forecast for each of our rigs as well as includes known changes in legislation. As a further reminder, as pre-tax income decreases the annual effective tax rate will generally increase. We now expect our 2015 capital expenditures to be slightly lower, at about $1.7 billion including $1.3 billion associated with our new build program. There's no change in our long-term objective of reducing gross spend levels to below $9 billion. We will, however take steps as and when necessary to ensure appropriate liquidity and balance sheet flexibility for an uncertain market. Our targeted liquidity range of $3.25 billion to $4.25 billion is unchanged and includes our undrawn $3 billion revolving credit facility. At the end of the first quarter our total liquidity was approximately $5.7 billion. We're also taking incremental measures to optimize our medium-term capital obligations. As you know, our Board of Directors proposed a significantly reduced dividend of $0.60 per share for shareholder consideration at the upcoming AGM. Additionally, we have further deferred the delivery of our five newbuild high-specification jackups by 18 to 20 months each. This is in addition to the six-month delay announced previously. This rephasing reduces our 2016 and 2017 capital obligations by approximately $210 million and $360 million respectively. And as I already said, we will take more steps as necessary to ensure that we retain adequate balance sheet flexibility. Transocean Partners remains an important component of Transocean's financial structure and balance sheet flexibility. However, as you know, the value of the company's units have, along with those of other similar companies, declined with oil prices. This, in conjunction with an increase in the cost of debt capital presents obvious, albeit likely short-term, challenges to the execution of drops that enhance the value of both Transocean and Partners. We will keep you up-to-date on our plans in this regard. To conclude, we're very pleased with our recent successes around mitigating the reduced activity. Even so, you should expect us to continue to aggressively manage our costs, improve our operating performance, and optimize our capital expenditures to increase our free cash flow. This finally concludes my comments, and I will now hand over to Terry to provide you with an update on market conditions. Terry?