Daniel Rabun
Analyst · Raymond James
Thanks, Sean, and good morning, everyone. Before Jay takes us to the financial results, I will discuss 2010 highlights, our recent announcement to acquire Pride and the state of our markets. 2010 was a challenging year for our industry, and I'm extremely proud of our employees for their performance in facing these challenges. We started the year transitioning our global headquarters from Dallas to London, and a year later, I can tell you the relocation went very smoothly. The advantages of moving to London are even greater than we expected in terms of customer contact, management oversight and the benefits of the more competitive tax position, including greater flexibility in terms of completing M&A transactions. In April of last year, we announced a major increase to our regular quarterly cash dividend, given our strong financial position and favorable outlook for offshore drilling. The dividend increase was extremely well received by investors, and our board intends to maintain the $0.35 per share quarterly dividend on an ongoing basis following the close of the Pride acquisition. Our industry then faced the Macondo incident, and we have been confronting the fallout ever since. For Ensco, I believe the challenges for Macondo have highlighted the strength of our organization. We were the first to receive re-certification of our deepwater rigs by regulators. The strength of our deepwater drilling contracts became evident. Our jackups were the first to drill a new gas well and a new oil well after the moratorium was lifted. And we gained new deepwater customers for our rigs to sublets, including work for Telo and French Guiana. Our rig personnel, sure base marketing teams, other employees as well as our legal department and many others pulled together to make the best of a very difficult situation, and we are proud of their accomplishments. In July, we underscored our commitment to high grading or premium jackup fleet through our purchase of ENSCO 109. It was a precursor to new rigs being ordered months later by competitors. Ensco recently ordered two ultra-premium, harsh environment jackups, with options for two more. We also sold four jackups last year as part of our high-grading strategy. In August, ENSCO 8502 completed acceptance testing after having been delivered earlier in the year, and ENSCO 8503 was also delivered in 2010, bringing our active ultra-deepwater fleet to five rigs. The fleet is now the youngest in the industry. Recently, our first deepwater rig, ENSCO 7500, was awarded a multi-year contract in Brazil with Petrobras, a major new customer for our company. 2010 was also a good year in terms of safety. Previously, I've underscored the importance of safety and its strong ties to operational excellence, reliability and customer satisfaction. I'm extremely pleased that our rig crews and the entire workforce achieved an extremely low incident rate in 2010, consistent with our strong performance in 2009, and significantly better than the industry average. These are all major accomplishments that put us in an excellent position to announce our planned acquisition of Pride. Since we made the announcement just two weeks ago, I won't add much other than to say, our subsequent meetings with Pride confirm that we expect to achieve all the contemplated benefits from the proposed combination. Our two organizations fit together extremely well in terms of geographic scope, customers and fleet composition. And the combined company will be able to take advantage of many new opportunities. In terms of cost savings, we mentioned that we anticipate at least $50 million of cost savings. And let me remind everyone, that estimate is solely for the consolidation of the corporate staff departments. We have already announced that our Dallas office will be closed and transitioned to Houston. Now let me discuss the markets. Deepwater markets outside the U.S. Gulf of Mexico have ramped up with new business opportunities for work in 2011 and beyond. Work scopes range from a few wells to multiple years in West Africa, Brazil, Southeast Asia, Mexico and the Mediterranean. If all work is awarded, the ultra-deepwater floater market will see very good utilization in 2011. As a result, we feel good about contracting opportunities for ENSCO 8504 that will be delivered later this year as well as ENSCO 8505 and ENSCO 8506 that will be delivered next year. In U.S. Gulf of Mexico, despite the lifting of the deepwater drilling moratorium in October, the only permits that have been issued were for remedial work such as completions and P&As. ENSCO 8502 operated from Marubeni on a sublet under one of these permits for recompletion work. Only a few deepwater rigs are currently performing operations in the U.S. Gulf, and seven rigs have left to work in other locations. Some under existing contracts, others under temporary suspension or following contract termination. ENSCO 8503, for example, is mobilizing to French Guiana to work for Telo under a sublet agreement. The industry continues to work with operators and government regulators to provide solutions that might facilitate deepwater drilling permits being issued. Last week, a court in New Orleans ordered the BOEM to act on five pending permit applications submitted by Ensco customers no later than the middle of next month, and we hope this may help to restart permits being issued in the Gulf. On the Jackup side, in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, market-wide premium jackup utilization is 57%, including cold-stacked rigs as some operators continue to have challenges securing permits. Ensco now has nine jackups in the region following Ensco 81's return from Mexico. All of our marketed rigs in the Gulf are under contract, and five of them are contracted into midyear or beyond. In most cases, we have negotiated higher day rates. In Mexico, our four rigs are contracted to PEMEX with terms into 2012, so we are in a very good competitive position. PEMEX currently has several open tenders that call for multiple jackups. The contract terms vary from less than a year to two years, and this demand is positive for the overall market. Conversely, the Middle East continues to be a challenging region, and demand has been relatively flat. Recently though, Saudi Aramco issued 11 tenders, most of which are against any incumbent rigs. However, one is likely an incremental requirement, since it calls for a 10-K rig with a cantilever reach that exceeds the capabilities of current rigs working for Aramco. They may issue another tender for an ultra-high spec gas rig, and a few other tenders may be forthcoming from operators in the partition neutral zone. In India, there are a few short-term programs up for tender, which will likely be awarded to one stacked rigs in the region. The Southeast Asian market has continued to be active. Two long-term programs were tendered in Indonesia during the fourth quarter, and we anticipate a few more long-term and short-term tenders to be issued for commencing later in 2011. Malaysia also has several opportunities for long-term HPHT work in the latter half of 2011. Australia may require one or two jackups for work through 2012, and there may be even more demand for high-specification rigs in 2013 and beyond. While jackup utilization for Ensco in the North Sea will be lower in the first quarter due to some gaps between contracts, the market shows signs of recovery when the increase tendering activity for work beginning midyear, and we expect nearly full utilization for our jackups in the North Sea for the second half of 2011. Market forecasts are predicting demand increasing for heavy-duty units in the central North Sea in the second of the half of 2011, and there is significant interest and demand in the Southern North Sea for standard duty rigs with work commencing in the spring and summer months. In the Mediterranean, a few new inquiries currently exist for short-term programs, and we are actively working on two long-term opportunities although civil unrest in the region could create challenges for operators to move forward with their plans. In general, we anticipate that the market will continue to be over supplied in 2011. Now before I hand it over to Jay, let me make a few summary comments. The permitting situation in the U.S. Gulf and civil unrest in the Middle East and North Africa have added some variability to our outlook in the short term, but our employees have done an excellent job working to address these challenges. Since our last earnings call, we have signed contracts and extensions that added more than 21 years of rig time to our jackup backlog. The day rates increased from the previous rates in over half of these contracts. The deepwater market has seen a significant uptick in demand and overall, we see our deepwater and jackup rig utilization improving throughout the year. If we see oil prices trade in the recent range, we believe it will be very positive for rig utilization around the world. Now I will turn it over to Jay.