Quinn P. Fanning
Analyst · Jon Donnel with Howard Weil
Thank you, Jeff. Good morning, everyone. First, I'll call your attention to the earnings press release again that we put out this morning prior to market's opening. I'll also note that we expect to file our quarterly report on Form 10-Q through the EDGAR filing service sometime before the close of business today. Turning to financial results as of and for the 3-month period ended September 30, 2012. As usual, I will provide a recap of the quarter just completed, offer a few perspectives on what's driving financial results and then provide our near to intermediate term outlook. I'll conclude my remarks with a review of capital commitments and available liquidity. As Jeff noted in his introductory remarks, we reported diluted earnings per common share of $0.83 in the September quarter versus diluted earnings per common share of $0.65 in the June quarter. I believe that the consensus of analysts' estimates for the September quarter for Thomson First Call was $0.74. For your period-to-period comparisons, I'll highlight just a few items from the September quarter. Vessel revenue for the September quarter was about $310 million versus about $290 million for the June quarter. As noted in our press release, September vessel revenue includes approximately $7.4 million of revenue associated with retroactive rate increases that were agreed to in the September quarter but related to the period January 1 to June 30, 2012. While revenue recognition in regards to retroactive portion of these rate increases is out of period, I'm not sure I'd consider this revenue to be "unusual" in the conventional sense. Nonetheless, the diluted EPS impact of the out-of-period revenue, net of associated out-of-period costs, was plus $0.10. Relative to guidance provided in early August, vessel revenue, as reported, was at the high end of the range that was provided as guidance. On adjusted basis, vessel revenue for the September quarter was in the lower half of the vessel revenue range that I provided on August 8. For the deepwater class of vessels, which represented about 48% of consolidated second quarter vessel revenue, vessel revenue was up about 9% quarter-over-quarter, after adjusting for the out-of-period revenue. Again, after adjusting for the out-of-period revenue, average deepwater day rates at about $26,800 a day were up approximately $2,400 a day or about 10% quarter-over-quarter. Utilization was off a couple of percentage points due to the drag on vessel revenue associated with vessels in dry dock and off hire time between charters, which I plan to address in a few minutes. As was the case last quarter, the vessel revenue trend generally reflects vessels rolling on to charters at current market day rates, which are generally higher than the charters that those vessels most recently completed. For the towing supply and supply class of equipment, which was about 43% of consolidated vessel revenue in the September quarter, adjusted vessel revenue was essentially flat quarter-over-quarter. Following very good progression from the March quarter to the June quarter, utilization of the active towing supply and supply vessels was off very modestly quarter-over-quarter, but still solid at 86.9%. For the towing supply and supply class of equipment, adjusted average day rates in the September quarter were up approximately $150 or about 1% quarter-over-quarter. Vessel revenue for the September quarter also reflects about $5.5 million of incremental revenue from the delivery of 4 new vessels that were added to the fleet in the September quarter and 3 additional new vessels that were delivered in the June quarter. Offsetting the contribution from new vessels was lost revenue of about $3 million from vessels that were stacked in the June or September quarters but that were revenue generating in the first quarter and the sale of 2 older vessels that were part of the active fleet during the September quarter. To complete a bridge of the June and September quarter's vessel revenue, note that the September quarter was a 92-day quarter, so we had 1 additional day in the quarter. That's a couple of million dollar benefit. Lost revenue due to vessels in dry dock during the September quarter was down about $1 million quarter-over-quarter, and foreign exchange movements were not really material to vessel revenue or vessel operating margin. Consistent with prior guidance, vessel operating costs for the September quarter was about $177 million versus about $166 million in the June quarter. Crew costs were up about $3.5 million quarter-over-quarter, largely consistent with average vessel count. Repair and maintenance expense was up about $5.5 million quarter-over-quarter, which was also consistent with guidance. I'll note, however, the September quarter was burdened both by unscheduled repairs and a couple of instances of higher-than-expected repair costs. Offsetting these higher costs was the unrelated deferral of a number of dry docks to the December quarter. This will create a bit of a pig in a pipe dynamic that I'll -- that we'll need to work through as a company most likely in the December quarter. Fuel and supplies cost was also higher quarter-over-quarter due to mobilizations and off hire fuel costs, but was generally consistent with our expectations. Offsetting higher crew costs, repair and maintenance costs and fuel costs was lower insurance and claim costs, largely reflecting positive development in case-based reserves and other insurance costs. Overall, vessel level cash operating margins for the September quarter was $133 million or about 43% of vessel revenue and was up about $9 million quarter-over-quarter. Looking at the geographic spread of our operations, the Americas, Asia Pacific, MENA and the Sub-Saharan Africa regions, respectively, contributed 27%, 15%, 10% and 48% of vessel revenue. Focusing on the active fleet, the vessel operating margin in the September quarter for the Americas and Asia Pacific regions was relatively weaker than margins that we realized in the MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa regions, primarily reflecting lower utilization, particularly in Brazil, and the impact of certain rebillable costs in Asia Pac for which we do not earn operating margin. I'll return to Brazil when I provide our near-term outlook. G&A for the September quarter at about $42 million was up about $1 million quarter-over-quarter, but a bit below our quarterly run rate expectations. Gains on dispositions net at about $2 million remained below our historical run rate of $4 million to $5 million per quarter. In regards to vessel sales, we, of course, continue to actively evaluate opportunities to sell and/or scrap older vessels, and thus far the market for secondhand vessels outside of the oil and gas business remains relatively active. In recent quarters, however, we are tending to scrap and/or consider scrapping the more marginal stacked vessels in order to reduce OpEx and to more quickly work our way out of the stacked fleet. As a result, our go-forward expectations for gains and asset dispositions net is more modest, say, in the $2 million to $3 million per quarter area. That said, it's nearly impossible to predict actual gains or losses on future dispositions, so I will not try to do so today. The effective tax rate for fiscal 2013 that was reflected in the September results is 24.5%, which is up 50 basis points relative to the guidance that I provided in August. As a result, tax expense in the September quarter was about $0.5 million higher, including the catch-up expense for the June quarter. In regards to overall fleet count, day rate and utilization trends, our active fleet averaged 259 vessels in the September quarter, which is down 2 vessels quarter-over-quarter. Average active new vessels is up 2 vessels quarter-over-quarter to 218 vessels. Average active older vessels were down 4 vessels quarter-over-quarter to 41 vessels in the September quarter. At September 30, the average age of the 221 then-active new vessels was 5.6 years, and the average age of the 39 active older vessels was 27.5 years. Overall, the average age of the 260 vessels that were active at quarter end was 8.8 years. As to relative financial contribution, 92% of vessel revenue and 95% of vessel level operating margin was generated by vessels added to the Tidewater fleet since we began our fleet renewal and expansion program in fiscal 2000. At September 30, the stacked fleet totaled 61 vessels and was down 5 vessels quarter-over-quarter, reflecting 1 vessel being stacked in the quarter, 1 stacked vessel returning to active service in the September quarter and 5 vessel dispositions from the previously stacked fleet. As previously noted, we also sold 2 vessels out of the active fleet, so a total of 7 vessels were disposed of in the September quarter. Overall, reported day rates at $15,384 a day were up about $1,100 a day quarter-over-quarter. Adjusting for the previously noted out-of-period revenue, overall day rates at about $15,000 a day were up about $750 or about 5% quarter-over-quarter. Reported utilization for the fleet of 67.8%, which includes the drag associated with stacked vessels, was off modestly quarter-over-quarter. Utilization of the active fleet, i.e., excluding stacked vessels, was a healthy 84.5% for the September quarter and was off about 1 percentage point quarter-over-quarter. As noted at the top of my remarks, deepwater day rates, again, adjusted for the previously referenced out-of-period revenue, were up about $2,400 per day quarter-over-quarter. Utilization of active deepwater vessels, however, was down 3.5 percentage points quarter-over-quarter to about 83%. Within the deepwater vessel class, utilization for our 11 newer plus 10,000 brake horsepower AHTS vessels was down about 14 percentage points quarter-over-quarter to about 80%, again, largely related to Brazil, which I'll cover in a minute. Utilization of an average of 57 new deepwater PSVs was about 85% in the September quarter, which was down about 1.5 percentage points quarter-over-quarter. Adjusted average day rates for the deepwater AHTS vessels at $29,300 a day in the second quarter was up a couple of hundred dollars quarter-over-quarter. Day rates for the deepwater PSVs at about $27,000 a day were up about $3,000 a day quarter-over-quarter. For the non-deepwater towing supply and supply class, as previously noted, adjusted average day rates were up modestly quarter-over-quarter, and reported utilization was flat quarter-over-quarter at about 60%. Excluding stacked vessels, utilization in the September quarter for the towing supply and supply class was also pretty flat at about 87% after a very nice upward movement in the June quarter relative to the March quarter. Turning to our outlook. We continue to expect that the newer vessels within both the deepwater and the towing supply and supply class of equipment will continue to experience high utilization. Average day rates, particularly for the deepwater PSVs, continue to trend positive as vessels roll to charters reflecting current market conditions. Noting that Tidewater's average day rates for the deepwater PSVs in the September quarter, again, adjusting for the out-of-period revenue, are up about $6,300 a day over the last 4 quarters, leading edge day rates are generally stable, but we still see upside in average day rates due to vessels continuing to roll to new charters at current market rates. As many of you know, we don't have significant exposure in the deepwater anchor handling class, but demand, and therefore, utilization is expected to be reasonably good prospectively, even if day rates remain well below levels achieved in the prior peak. While utilization has improved markedly in the last few quarters, day rate traction in the towing supply and supply class equipment remains relatively limited. Like many on this call, however, we see positive trends in jack-up utilization, which we expect at some point to positively impact day rates in the non-deepwater OSV market. As to fleet count, we took delivery of 4 new vessels in the September quarter. Based on commitments as of September 30, we expect to take delivery of about -- of 1/2 dozen or so new vessels in the remaining quarters of fiscal 2013. In sum, the combination of steadily increasing new vessel fleet count, solid demand across geographies and asset classes and a constructive day rate environment provides us with a reasonably clear path to a positive vessel revenue trend at least in the immediate term. Our December quarter, however, will be negatively impacted by a couple of items that are worth highlighting. First, returning to my earlier pig in the pipe comment, we expect to have an unusually large number of deepwater and non-deepwater vessels and dry dock in the December quarter, which will negatively impact near-term vessel revenue and cause both repair and maintenance expense and fuel cost to temporarily spike. Our current expectation is that the impact of the heavy dry dock schedule will be most pronounced in the December quarter. Second, as some of you may be aware, with recent management changes, Petrobras has recently instituted a new layer of contract review, which has resulted in substantial delays in vessels going on charter in Brazil. Our sense is, like the federal permitting process in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, operators and Petrobras are slowly sorting through this new contract approval process and efficiencies will come in due time. For now, we understand that, industry wide, startup for about 40 vessel charters with Petrobras have been delayed for weeks, if not months. For Tidewater, this has resulted in, and for at least the near term will continue to result in, lower vessel utilization, lower vessel revenue and a degree of margin compression. To the extent that there is good news here, charter rates in Brazil have moved in the right direction over the last couple of quarters. And from Tidewater's perspective, contrary to the view that we have expressed in recent years, we think this is pretty good business to win. Third, as previously reported, we will take an approximate $4.4 million SERP settlement charge in the December quarter in connection with Dean Taylor's retirement. Otherwise, we expect crew costs will trend higher in the second half of fiscal 2013 as we continue to add new vessels to the Tidewater fleet. We and other vessel operators are also experiencing some wage pressure. This is most pronounced for Tidewater in places like the U.S., Brazil and Australia. Recruiting certain technical positions, such as DP operators, has also become more expensive. Absent movement in case-based reserves, insurance costs would be expected to return to a $5 million to $6 million range per quarter on a prospective basis. Within this context, our internal estimates currently peg the December quarter's vessel revenue somewhere between $295 million and $305 million. Based on what we know today, OpEx for the December quarter should fall within a range of $190 million and $195 million. Based on our guidance ranges in regards to vessel revenue and vessel OpEx, vessel operating margin for the December quarter should be somewhere between 34% and 38%. We currently expect that the March quarter will show reasonably significant rebound from the December quarter, with vessel revenue at or above $320 million and vessel OpEx returning to some -- retreating to something below $185 million. With these assumptions, vessel operating margin should again exceed 42% in the March quarter. A reasonable estimate for general and administrative expenses for the December quarter, excluding the previously referenced SERP settlement charge, is $43 million or $44 million. As previously noted, our estimated effective tax rate for fiscal 2013, excluding discrete items, is currently 24.5%. As always, the geographic mix of pretax earnings and margin trends cause the tax rate to be volatile on a quarter-to-quarter basis. Turning to the balance sheet, capital commitments and available liquidity. Cash flow from operations for the first 6 months of the fiscal year was about $146 million versus about -- excuse me, versus about $87 million for the same period in fiscal 2012. CapEx and proceeds from asset dispositions for the first 6 months of fiscal 2013 were about $190 million and about $10 million, respectively. New vessel commitments made in the September quarter totaled $166 million. We have 2 new construction programs at international shipyards that are included in this total. The first involves 4 higher spec towing supply vessels. The second involves 2 mid-sized PSVs. In addition, we committed to purchase 2 deepwater PSVs in the September quarter, one of which was delivered into the Tidewater fleet prior to 9/30, the second vessel was delivered in October. In total, unfunded vessel commitments at September 30 approximated $486 million, including 28 vessel construction projects and 2 vessel purchase commitments. Total debt at September 30 was $890 million, and cash at 9/30 was about $137 million. As a result, net debt at quarter end was about $753 million, and net debt to net book capital at 9/30 was about 23%. As to funding needs, CapEx in the December quarter was expected to be about $107 million based on the September 30 commitments. Total liquidity at 9/30, including availability under committed bank facilities, was a bit shy of $600 million. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Jeff.