Mike Jardon
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Please go ahead
Thank you Karen. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to share with you that Expro delivered robust operational performance and financial results that exceeded the guidance we provided for the just completed second quarter. We are experiencing increase customer activity levels across all segments of our business, bolstered by a backdrop of strengthening industry fundamentals. We believe this positive momentum will not only continue, but will also accelerate going into 2023 and beyond. Expro is poised to capitalize on an expected increase in customer spending and activity. Today Expro has a scope and financial profile required to compete and win in what we believe is the best outlook for energy services in at least a decade. Our results in the second quarter and our market outlook underscore the benefits of Expro's balanced portfolio of services and solutions with leading capabilities and a culture built around safety, service quality, organizational efficiency and risk management. In addition, we believe our through-cycle resilience is a significant advantage and competitive differentiator for Expro. Our current portfolio of services and solutions is paired with a global operating footprint with established positions in key growth markets and the combination provides Expro with good leverage to improving industry fundamentals and in particular to the rebound that is beginning to take place in the international and offshore markets. We have never been better positioned to capture cyclical recovery upside. We also continue to have a best-in-class innovation platform and technology portfolio that enables us to support our customer’s efficiency and emissions-related goals, grow market share and capitalize on longer term industry trends. Finally, our strong balance sheet and merger related synergies provide us with significant financial, operational and strategic flexibility that will allow us to accelerate growth and create long-term stakeholder value. On today's call I'll touch on three main topics. First, I'll walk you through our second quarter performance. Second, I'll give an update on our integration process. And finally, I'll provide some perspective on trends we are seeing in the broader industry environment. For the second quarter, we delivered revenue of $314 million and an adjusted EBITDA of $51 million. Second quarter revenue increased 12% sequentially and on a pro forma basis 10% year-over-year. Higher revenue during the quarter was driven by increased activity across the North and Latin America, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia Pacific regions. Adjusted EBITDA increased 39% sequentially and on a pro forma basis 33% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by a more favorable activity mix during the second quarter and faster than anticipated realization of merger related synergies. Well construction revenue was up 9% quarter-over-quarter and well management, which includes our well flow management subsea well access and well intervention integrity businesses was up 13% quarter-over-quarter. Second quarter results exceeded the prior guidance primarily as a result of increased well flow management and well construction revenue within North and Latin America. Our team continues to both capitalize on improving industry fundamentals and demonstrate the value of Expro's broad suite of cost effective innovative solutions to win new business and expand relationships with existing customers. During the quarter, we continued to secure contracts because of our exceptional service quality and technical delivery. We also continued the introduction of new technologies with both CoilHose and Octopoda achieving market adoption at pace. The current commodity price environment puts a premium on maximizing production from existing well stock. So there is a strong customer interest in well intervention integrity solutions such as CoilHose and Octopoda. The significant under investment in energy supply over the last decade, coupled with growing demand, is also resulting in FID approvals. Importantly for our company, nearly 60% of the new customer commitments are expected to be offshore. We achieved contract wins and extensions totaling approximately $300 million, which demonstrates the breadth and depth of our customer relationships and attraction that our solutions are gaining in the market. On a regional basis, in North and Latin America, our well construction team continues to demonstrate the position as the premier provider of casing and tubular running services with the award of contracts and successful operations delivered across the region. The team successfully completed a first casing running to a project in Brazil and carried out eight simultaneous TRS deepwater completions in the Gulf of Mexico where activity continues to pick up. We also deployed our industry-leading 22-inch BRUTE packers in Mexico for the first time and have seen growing demand for this well integrity technology as operators across the region seek to protect their assets during storm season. This technology allows for quick and rely the well suspension when operators need it most. We want to influence contract for a major operator in Brazil. And in Alaska, our team was awarded and performed a Well Test for a strategically important new customer further growing our presence in this region. Expro Guyana achieved Contractor of the Month from an international operator, demonstrating Expro's continued focus on delivering best-in-class safety, quality and customer service. In Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, we saw good progress in securing new business in the second quarter including the retention of the largest well flow management contract in the Norwegian continental shelf, for an initial four-year term, highlighting the strength and depth of our relationship with this international operator. A significant portion of this contract is directly linked to production optimization and enhancement as well as a demonstrable commitment to low carbon plan. The breadth of our portfolio including market-leading technologies acquired in our July 2019 acquisition of Quality Intervention directly assisted us in expanding a core Well Intervention contract with a major international operator in the UK. In addition, our service quality and portfolio of capabilities helped us secure an expanded contract to meet client needs for a nine Well Plugging and Abandonment campaign in the UK Continental Shelf where we also added Well Test and Well Intervention to an existing large board subsea services contract. As I noted earlier, CoilHose and Octopoda are gaining traction in the market to support clients' intervention and integrity needs. Octopoda is a truly unique service offering, which for the first time in our industry allows direct access to well annualized, in which we can ensure well integrity and production assurance. Octopoda was recently deployed in the Congo, the first deployment of this technology in Sub-Saharan Africa and it continues to generate customer interest with its unique ability to investigate and remediate sustained casing pressure and other well annulus problems. Additionally our CoilHose Light Well Circulation system is an innovative development providing a lower cost more efficient alternative to traditional coiled tubing systems. This broadening of our portfolio and our depth of experience, combined with the ability to quickly mobilize assets and personnel to meet client requirements helped us secure a UK contract for well testing and exploration and appraisal services in support of a new offshore drilling campaign. Expro’s superior quality and service performance as strong client partnerships led to the securing of multiple contract wins including for our subsea team in the Ivory Coast and in Turkey where we won Well Testing and CoilHose Intervention Work for a nine well project on offshore gas storage project. In the second quarter, we also introduced Drill Stem Testing into Angola further broadening our comprehensive portfolio in this country and positioning us to take advantage of the increasing activity in deepwater operations in Angola. We have successfully started operations in Cabinda for a major operator, which will be our first deployment of hammering services as part of an Angolan Well Construction Service package. In May, we were also recognized as the Safest Service Provider in Mozambique. Based on our recent performance, we are in discussions with the client regarding further expansion of our services, including the introduction of new technologies. In Chad, our work with the client is core to ensuring that our operations are conducted in an environmentally responsible way. Our expertise and technologies are focused on having no environmental impact with testing and analysis carried out to ensure the appropriate purity of the regional freshwater system, underlining our status as a leading provider of on-site chemistry services with a strong environmental focus. In Norway, we completed our first operational campaign with our iTong Well Construction Technology, which provides a step change in safety and well construction operations. Operational performance exceeded client expectations, delivering significant rig efficiency improvements and cost savings to the customer overall. In the Middle East and North Africa, our well construction team has expanded into new territory to secure their first TRS contract in Algeria which is planned to commence later this month. This opportunity reflects one of the many revenue synergies created by our October merger. We leverage expert relationships and well flow management to secure this new TRS award. In addition, the regional team was awarded two [indiscernible] contracts with Middle East drilling contractors reflecting our market-leading capabilities and reputation in the market. In Egypt, our service offering and ability to deliver contributed to Expro being awarded significant well test contracts. In the Asia Pacific region, our well construction team in Brunei secured a major five-year contract for TRS, our outstanding track record of reliable performance in HSC and service quality were strong criteria for the contract award. In Thailand, the team secured additional TRS work covering 200 wells and in Malaysia and in offshore China, we were awarded three-year TRS contract extensions spanning development and exploration wells. Our subsea team's technical capability played a key part in securing a contract with a major international operator in Malaysia for the provision of our new vessel deployed light well intervention package, with the team also securing significant additional work in Australia. Like CoilHose and Octopoda, Expro's LWI capabilities are the result of investments we have made over the last several years, which should allow the company to offer differentiated production optimization solutions and thereby grow our top line faster than the overall market, while also improving profitability. Expro is strategically committed to continuing to invest in transforming our business portfolio and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In April, we published our inaugural environmental social and governance review, with a stated aim of achieving net-zero by 2050, with a 50% reduction in carbon intensity by 2030. As the energy industry embraces transition and the need to make real and visible headway towards a lower carbon world, we appreciate the key enablers to change will be those who can truly differentiate themselves as solutions providers. As recognized global well experts and a trusted partner, we believe Expro is well positioned to play an important role in enabling our clients to achieve their carbon reduction goals in support of the energy transition. Expro remains committed to allocating roughly 50% of our research and development budget to carbon reduction initiatives. In doing so, we are developing and advancing solutions that will play a critical role in enabling our customers to achieve their own emission reduction goals, while also allowing experts to achieve its goals. Expro's well expertise and range of well intervention, well integrity and well flow management technologies and skills help operators cost-effectively develop oil and gas resources, while minimizing both emissions and the required operating footprint. As our industry speaks to address tomorrow's challenges, we believe many of these technologies and skills are transferable. As a good example of adopting technologies to achieve more sustainable energy solutions, Expro's supported geothermal well service projects since 1986. Most notably in the second quarter, we were awarded our first integrated services geothermal contract to support a high-profile geothermal plant in Germany. The second topic I'd like to cover is to provide an update on our integration efforts. During the quarter, we continued to make progress in bringing the legacy businesses together to capture the full potential of our combined platform. I am pleased to report that nine months into our integration, we have identified an action more than 100% of the $55 million in annualized cost savings that we established with our target within the first 12 months following the closing of the merger. This comes a full quarter earlier than we had initially anticipated. As outlined previously, we are targeting cost and revenue synergies between $80 million to $100 million within 24 to 36 months post-merger. We remain confident that we will achieve $70 million in projected cost synergies during this time frame, if not earlier. Cost savings are primarily driven by the rationalization of support costs, consolidation of facilities and supply chain savings. In the second quarter, we consolidated additional facilities, including locations in Baku, Azerbaijan; St. John's, Canada; Labuan, Malaysia; Mumbai, India; Corpus Christi and Midland, Texas. While revenue synergies are more difficult to demonstrate, my sense is that our previous estimate of an incremental $10 million to $30 million in EBITDA for revenue synergies through our expanded customer relationships and operating footprint, increased time on rig and greater exposure to the full life of the field, will likely prove to be conservative. I'd like to sincerely thank the entire expert team for their hard work and numerous contributions towards helping us realize our integration goals ahead of schedule. Without a doubt, we have a winning team that has proven to build and to deliver on our commitments. Before I turn the call over to Quinn, I want to provide some perspective on trends we are observing in the market. The positive signs of a recovery we saw in Q1 continued to build, underpinned by a favorable supply-demand dynamic. As I noted earlier, this is largely a result of limited upstream investment in recent years and a need for additional capacity to meet projected demand growth. With the more recent heightened focus on energy security, diversification of supply and the need to replace at least a portion of Russian oil and gas supply is expected to fully magnify what was already set up to be a favorable multi-year macro backdrop for OFS activity. Longer term, we believe the service sector will need to play an important role in facilitating the energy transition. So despite ongoing volatility in commodity prices, the fundamental backdrop for the energy services sector is quite constructive. In particular, after a strong recovery in the US onshore market, we are seeing increasing demand for our services and solutions, with international and offshore activity expected to accelerate through the second half of 2022 and into 2023, as operators look to increase production from existing assets and develop new fields. Notwithstanding near-term concerns of an economic slowdown, there seems to be a consensus that energy demand will trend back toward, if not through, 100 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2023. We expect that increasing demand for energy services and capacity constraints in key service offerings, including high-end well construction equipment and subsea test trees should provide scope for improvement in net pricing beginning in late 2022 into early 2023. In Expro's view, expected growth will be broad-based geographically, span all phases of oil and gas development and include all operating environments. Geographically, we see strong potential in North and Latin America, the Middle East North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa as well as Asia. And while many of our customers continue to focus on brownfield enhancement programs to maximize previous investments, we are also starting to see growth in exploration and development activity driven primarily by North and South America with further activity expected in Norway, India and Sub-Saharan Africa. The brownfield focus will support steady growth in our well intervention and integrity business as well as elements of our well flow management business collectively which represent about 35% of our business. The remaining circa 65% of our business is generally levered to drilling, well construction and well completions activity which we believe is points for strong growth across several geographies and within which we generally capture very good faster on incremental revenue. Overall the outlook for the remainder of 2022 and into 2023 remains positive, with sustained increases in E&P expenditures. After rather dramatic recovery in the North America onshore market, customer dialogue and tendering activity indicates to us that the outlook for offshore activity is strengthening. This should support sustained growth for Expro given our leading and differentiated portfolio capabilities and subsea well access services, complex well construction services and production optimization. This is particularly important as approximately 70% of our revenue today is generated from offshore activity. Before I close, I'm pleased to share that, during the quarter our board approved a new stock repurchase program under which the company is authorized to acquire up to $50 million of its outstanding common stock, up to the November 2023 timeframe. We view the repurchase of our shares as an attractive and prudent use of our capital that it is in the best interest of our shareholders. With a debt-free balance sheet, ample available liquidity and strong construction of an industry recovery buybacks allow us to opportunistically increase shareholder value, while maintaining sufficient cash resources to fund our business needs. In the second quarter, we repurchased $13 million in Expro's stock, representing approximately 1% of our shares outstanding. From an operational standpoint, Expro is well positioned in the markets that we expect will continue to benefit from strengthening industry fundamentals. In particular, Expro has significant leverage to strengthen the international and offshore markets where experience expertise and service quality can be in Expro's case are positive points of differentiation. Execution is a traditional strength of Expro and when we plan to continue to deliver on, both for our customers and our shareholders. With that, I will hand the call over to Quinn, to discuss our financial results.