Seadrill Ltd

NYSE:SDRL

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Operator]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Seadrill Q3 2022 Results Call. My name is Emily, and I'll be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions]

I will now turn the call over to our host, David Warwick, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, David.

[David Warwick, executive]

Good afternoon, everyone, and good morning to our participants in the Americas. My name is David Warwick, and I'm delighted to welcome you to today's earnings call for Q3 2022. I would like to start by introducing you to the Seadrill team on today's conference call, Simon Johnson, President and Chief Executive Officer; Grant Creed, EVP and Chief Financial Officer; Leif Nelson, EVP and Chief Operating and Technology Officer; and Samir Ali, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer.

I will shortly hand you over to Simon, who will present the Q3 highlights as well as the commercial and operational progress over the quarter. Grant will then take you through our financial performance in Q3 and an update on 2022 guidance before handing back to Simon for some closing remarks. Following this, we will be inviting questions from industry and sell-side analysts.

To participate in the Q&A session, we ask that you join the session via the conference call line. For those of you not tuning in via the webcast link, you will be able to access a copy of this presentation via the Investor Relations section of the Seadrill website. Please note that this conference call is being recorded and a webcast replay of the call will be made available on our website in due course.

Before we commence, I would like to notify you of the disclaimer statements made on Slide 2. Simply put, we will be referring to forward-looking statements related to the business and company that are not historical facts. Such statements and assumptions are based upon current expectations and are, therefore, subject to certain risks and uncertainties. There are many factors which could cause actual performance and results to differ materially. In addition, please note that we will be referring to non-GAAP figures on our call today. For further information, please take the time after the call to read this disclaimer and refer to the Q3 earnings report released earlier this morning.

On that note, I will hand you over to Simon.

[Simon Johnson, executive]

Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining our virtual presentation today to discuss our Q3 2022 results. To start off, I'd like to summarize a few top line figures of the quarter, which Grant will cover in more detail later in the presentation. The Q3 total adjusted EBITDA was $71 million, while on the liquidity front, cash and cash equivalents, including restricted cash, was $349 million.

In September, Seadrill announced a transformative deal with the sale of 7 jackups to ADES in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This transaction closed in October 18 after the quarter end. The sale allowed us to delever our balance sheet and retire expensive debt over the course of October and November. What's more, this deal allowed us to eliminate considerable future capital expenditure that will assume liquidity in the coming quarters.

The results associated with these rigs have being reclassified as a discontinued operation in our financial statements for both the current and comparative periods. I would like to thank all of the shorebase and rig teams associated with the handover to ADES. We've had a long and successful history operating in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and will continue to support ADES to ensure a smooth transition.

We currently have 10 owned rigs in operation with an additional 2 rigs undergoing contract preparation to work in Brazil, both of which are expected to start up this quarter. Among the operating units are the West Saturn and West Carina, which both recently commenced operations for the long-term campaigns in Brazil with Equinor and Petrobras, respectively. Additionally, we manage further 7 rigs, 2 7th generation drillships working in Angola on behalf of our Sonadrill joint venture, plus 5 jackups on the contract in Mexico on behalf of SeaMex. As discussed in previous quarters, we've seen a reduction in our fleet size of late due to the Saudi jack-up sale and the redelivery of certain managed units to their respective owners.

In light of this in recent months, we have taken steps to rightsize our organization, including onshore headcount rationalization. Furthermore, we've taken the decision to close our Dubai office in 2023 based on the geographic footprint of our asset base. We are and will continue to be very focused on our bottom line and will actively manage our cost base in line with the scale of our fleet.

Finally, during the third quarter, we maintained our strong year-to-date operational performance with high utilization across the fleet. Our technical utilization was recorded at 98%, while economic utilization stood at 97%. On the topic of operational excellence, I wanted to highlight an initiative at Seadrill called start-safe, and I'm particularly proud of. This program was designed to drive consistent application of our plan, identify, manage, execute and debrief task process in order to achieve safe, reliable and efficient operations. Around 2,000 personnel or 90% of our offshore team have been through the program and is already paying dividends with improvements in safety and operational efficiency. It also signals our intent to remain focused on the critical building blocks of safety and performance culture at a time when industry activity is picking up markedly.

Moving on to our backlog position. Total contract backlog stands at $2.4 billion as of November 30. Seadrill's backlog continues to be industry-leading relative to our fleet size. We are well contracted in 2023 with the ability to reprice into an improving market in 2024 and beyond. I'll now outline the key backlog additions and adjustments since August 31. The Sevan Louisiana is now expected to be on contract with Talos until December 2023 due to an updated well schedule, adding approximately $50 million in backlog since our last quarterly results.

In November, we announced that the Sonadrill joint venture secured a 12-well extension for the 7th generation drillship Libongos in Angola. The clean day rate is one of the highest fixtures so far in this cycle in West Africa, which we see as an important milestone. Our Sonadrill joint venture now has 3 rigs under contract all managed by Seadrill. With this leading-edge day rate for Libongos and the West Gemini recently moved into a higher day rate, we expect the JV to start to generate solid free cash flow that will ultimately be distributed to Seadrill and our JV partner Sonangol.

In the harsh environment segment, it's now expected that West Phoenix will remain busy on its current contract until March 2024, adding $39 million in backlog during the third quarter. Lastly, as a consequence of the Saudi jack-up divestment, there was a negative adjustment to our order backlog of $711 million.

From a market perspective, we continue to be encouraged by developments in the energy sector and offshore drilling more specifically. Fundamentals for offshore drilling remained favorable despite global recessionary concerns and geopolitical tensions. Sustained underinvestment from E&P companies over many years has meant that reserves have been depleted, production hasn't been replaced, and the overall supply balance is insufficient to meet forecast energy consumption.

As a result, E&P spending is expected to be robust in the coming years. What's more, oil prices are likely to remain much higher than the breakeven points of most undeveloped projects in the long run. This comes at a time when drillers are low and focused on capital allocation and the bottom line, and we believe that this represents a very constructive set of dynamics for offshore drilling.

Taking a closer look at the benign ultra-deepwater floater segment now, market conditions have vastly improved over the last year with market utilization of drillships already above 90% and leading-edge day rates in the mid-400s. Demand in the Golden Triangle is the highest it's been since 2018 and coupled with prevailing supply constraints, there is currently a very encouraging demand supply mix for drillers. Moreover, incremental demand in key geographies is pulling idle rigs from markets that have been slower to recover. Markets and operators who don't react to this tightening market are likely to find themselves short of rigs as both contract term and contract lead times have increased.

The U.S. Gulf of Mexico continues to lead the way in the ultra-deepwater market as its utilization tracks at almost 100% as reflected in its leading-edge day rates. The region has been one of the main drivers of rig demand in 2022, along with West Africa. It's expected that ENI and TotalEnergies will soon tender for 2 incremental rigs offshore Angola, and Total is also considering work of Mozambique that would squeeze supply in Africa and be an important catalyst for further tightening the drillship market globally.

We recently saw the results of the multi-rig Petrobras tender, and we continue to be positive about the outlook for Brazil as a whole. The terms range between 3 and 4 years with all but one of the successful units already located in the region. Petrobras' recent tenders for BMS-11 and Buzios are expected to be awarded over the course of the next 2 quarters, taking up to an additional 5 rigs.

We believe at least some of the demand will need to be met by rigs currently outside the region, further reducing available supply in the benign floater market globally. The Brazilian offshore market will be increasingly important in coming years. We expect Petrobras to be at the forefront of rig demand, as has typically happened in previous up cycles, and additional tenders are expected from IOCs and independents for work commencing in 2024 and 2025.

Seadrill is well positioned for recontracting activity given our 4 7th generation drillships in the region, making us the leading international driller in this important market. We are buoyed by the fact that some of our largest peers have shown the depth of their confidence in the high-specification ultra-deepwater drillship market by locking up some of the stranded rig supply. These units as well as some idle rigs could affect supply-demand dynamics. However, supply chain and labor tightness are lengthening lead times, reactivations and contract-specific upgrades, which we expect will act as a barrier to certain rigs being reactivated or operating on maiden contracts in the next 12 to 24 months.

Turning to the North Sea. Recent headwinds have softened the harsh environment jack-up market, with sublets and idle time being discussed and government policy discouraging investment by our customers. However, the longer-term outlook is more promising, supported by energy security concerns in Europe.

On the floaters front, Equinor recently announced the postponement to its final investment decision on the Wisting project, which truth being told is definitely a setback for the Barents Sea. Despite this, we do expect the harsh floater segment to pick up in the medium term in both Norway and the U.K. Modern harsh environment units should continue to demand higher day rates. However, it's likely in the near term, we could see a large spread in rates between long term and gapfill work given the current market backdrop.

To conclude, there's a clear need for affordable and reliable energy globally, which has been acutely felt this year. As we advance in the energy transition, renewables will become increasingly important. Nevertheless, the IEA recently published forecast showing that hydrocarbons are expected to still be around 70% of the global energy supply in 2030 under current policies with oil and gas comprising a significant portion of this. What's more, even under scenarios with more ambitious energy pledges, hydrocarbons will remain highly relevant and an important source of energy beyond 2030.

The current environment suggests that we're at the beginning of sustained upcycle in offshore drilling, and we believe that Seadrill is well positioned to capitalize on the improving market. I'd now like to hand over to Grant to talk you through the Q3 financial results in more detail. Over to you, Grant.

[Grant Creed, executive]

Thank you, Simon, and welcome again to all of you joining us today. Before diving into headline figures, I'd like to reiterate Simon's earlier comments with regard to the presentation of the Saudi jack-up business in our financial statements. U.S. GAAP requires us to present the results associated with these rigs as discontinued operations and as held for sale for both current and comparative periods on the face of our income statement and balance sheet, respectively.

Now starting with the revenue line. Operating revenues for the quarter, excluding the Saudi jackups, stood at $269 million, an increase quarter-on-quarter, driven by higher day rates from the West Tellus and Sevan Louisiana, plus an entire court of operations for the West Hercules Offshore Canada. This was partially offset by fewer operating days for the West Saturn, which completed its contract with ExxonMobil in April, plus the one-off core-related reimbursement from Sonadrill received in Q2.

Another point worth highlighting is that West Gemini was folded into the Sonadrill joint venture effective July 1. Seadrill leases the rig to the JV for a nominal amount and receives management fee revenue and dividends in return. This means P&L geography has shifted West Gemini related contract revenues to management contract revenues and vessel operating expenses to management contract expenses.

Moving on to EBITDA. During the third quarter, we generated $71 million of total adjusted EBITDA, which is more or less in line with the $75 million we reported in Q2. Note these non-GAAP EBITDA amounts include the Saudi jack-up business for better understanding and comparison to prior periods and full year guidance. So all in all, operating revenues and earnings were in line with management's expectations and guidance.

Moving on to the balance sheet. I'll outline our financial position as well as some notable events since June 30. Our unrestricted cash position decreased during the quarter to $224 million, largely as the result of capital expenditure on reactivations and upgrade projects as we prepared 4 drillships for new contracts in Brazil commencing in Q4 and 3 jackups for work in Saudi Arabia that were sold in October.

There was a considerable shift in balance sheet geography related to the sale of the Saudi business. Drilling rig assets related to that business were reclassified from noncurrent to current in the held for sale category. Management fee receivables increased due to a full quarter of 3 rigs on contract in the Sonadrill joint venture, and there was an increase in deferred mobilization and contract preparation expenditures related to the Brazilian drillships.

Switching to developments and our liabilities. Current liabilities were higher at the end of the quarter, mainly due to increased accruals on reactivation and upgrade projects. And our noncurrent liabilities were more or less consistent with last quarter.

Focusing on our capital structure. Coming out of Chapter 11 in February this year, we reduced gross debt by 80%. At September 30, gross debt was $938 million, excluding exit fees. You'll have noted from our press release today that we made 2 significant repayments of the second lien facility. First, we made a mandatory repayment of $192 million at closing of the jack-up sale in October and then followed with a voluntary repayment of $250 million in November.

These repayments have reduced gross debt by almost 50% to approximately $500 million, which in today's world of increasing borrowing cost is extremely valuable. All told, the reduction in debt translates into interest savings are approximately $75 million per annum. Furthermore, the quarterly amortization payments commencing in Q1 next year have reduced from $10 million to $5 million, further enhancing the company's free cash flow generation.

As we move forward into the new year, we will continually review options available to us with regards to optimizing the capital structure, including further voluntary repayments or a broader refinancing.

On the next slide, you'll find our full year guidance for 2022, which we've updated since our last quarterly earnings release. To be clear, these amounts include results related to the Saudi jack-up business up to the date of sale, in other words, January 1 through October 18. The total revenue guidance is $1.15 billion to $1.125 billion. Total adjusted EBITDA is $245 million to $265 million and CapEx and LTM range is $280 million to $300 million.

Adding some color to these updates. Full year EBITDA guidance is within the range previously disclosed despite the loss of approximately $9 million of earnings associated with the Saudi jackups post October 18. Whilst on EBITDA, you will notice that next quarter will be lower than the 2022 run rate thus far, which I'll explain further in a moment. CapEx guidance has decreased due to the sale of jackups. We highlighted last quarter that approximately $120 million was included in our initial guidance in relation to the reactivation and upgrading of the West Leda, West Cressida and West Ariel.

CapEx that have been incurred by Seadrill in relation to these rigs prior to the completion of the jack-up sale on October 18 is included in the 2022 CapEx number and was reimbursed by ADES' part of the sale consideration. However, the remaining portion of the $120 million will be incurred by ADES post October 18 and therefore been removed from Seadrill CapEx guidance.

Returning to my earlier points in relation to Q4 EBITDA, in line with management's expectations, EBITDA will be lower in Q4 compared with previous quarters this year. This is primarily related to 3 events. First, and as mentioned earlier, there will be a negative impact in relation to the Saudi jack-up sale as 4 other rigs were operating throughout the first 3 quarters.

Next, the West Hercules finished its Canadian operations in October and will demobilize to Norway for redelivery to the rig owner. So we expect a twofold impact here in terms of fewer operating days compared to Q3 and elevated operating expenses during the demobilization itself. Note that we will receive a demobilization fee from Equinor, but this revenue was recognized and spread over the entire contracted period.

And finally, in Brazil, the West Tellus will have fewer operating days and higher operating expenses ahead of its contract commencement in December, while the West Jupiter will have higher operating expenses as it ramps up for its contract commencement. This being said, we do expect EBITDA to rebound in Q1 2023 as all 4 drillships will be on contract for their long-term campaigns in Brazil and as the West Hercules is handed back to the rig owner. We look forward to providing full guidance for 2023 early next year.

With that, I'll now hand back to Simon to take you through the final slide before we open the line for Q&A.

[Simon Johnson, executive]

Thanks, Grant. To conclude, we want to highlight and summarize the journey we've been on year-to-date in an effort to drive value for our shareholders whilst making Seadrill a simpler, more streamlined business to understand for investors. Focusing on our reentry to public markets, in April, we listed the company on the Euronext Expand and Oslo ahead of our intended uplisting to the main Oslo Bors, which we achieved in recent weeks.

Furthermore, in October, we successfully relisted on the New York Stock Exchange in New York. This was a crucial step for us, and we're delighted to return to a dual listing on the main exchanges in both Norway and the U.S. This gives us breadth and depth of access in multiple markets and opens up a broad investor community for us to interact with.

In terms of transactions at the start of September, we announced the transformative sale of 7 jackups to ADES in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This was highly accretive for our shareholders with the sales price on a ready-to-drill basis, significantly higher than rig values implied by our share price. However, not only did the transaction crystallize very attractive values, but it also allowed us to significantly deleverage our balance sheet during a period of rising interest costs.

In October, we announced the sale of our stake in Paratus Energy Services Limited, which is the holding company through its interest in SeaMex, Seabras Sapura and Archer Limited are held. Put simply, we have the opportunity to both monetize a nonstrategic asset and simplify our organizational structure, which we've taken together as compelling.

And finally, in today's results, and as Grant mentioned just now, due to the strategic transactions we executed, we have made $442 million of principal debt prepayments of the second lien facility. This represents a substantial deleveraging of our balance sheet and saves approximately $75 million per annum of interest expense, which further enhances the company's free cash flow outlook.

We firmly believe these key events in 2022 demonstrate our proactive and agile approach as an organization. We are prepared to capitalize on market opportunities as they arise and most importantly, we'll do so if we deem them to be accretive to our shareholders. With this reformed capital structure, alongside the positive developments in the energy sector more broadly, we're very encouraged by the company's outlook, and we'll continue to deliver value for our shareholders.

Operator, that concludes our presentation. I will hand back to you to open up for Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Fredrik Stene with Clarksons Securities.

[Fredrik Stene, analyst]

I have 2 questions, I think, for your teams. And the first one I wanted to touch a bit on is your fleet and the contract here, some extension on the Louisiana, for example, this time. But as you say, you're going to have some recontracting opportunities for some rigs in '23 and even more so in '24. And with that as a backdrop, and also maybe with particular focus on the Eclipse and Prospero, respect rigs, I think in the report you write that these are being actively marketed and that you're looking at the opportunities or we only look at opportunities that give proper capital return. So are you able to share a bit of color on the discussions that you're having for '23, '24 work, both on your warm fleet and on these 2 stacked assets?

[Simon Johnson, executive]

Yes, certainly, Fredrik. So at the moment, we're pretty well contracted for the immediate future. And as you know, the Gulf of Mexico has been the pace setter in terms of market rate development. So at the moment, I think we're going to take a little bit of a break from the market. And we're just going to watch it, continue to develop. We think that the industry fundamentals are strong, and we expect to see rates continue to approach that crucial 500 a day barrier.

So we're not in a rush to fix those rigs, 2 of the units that are available in the near term. So we'll just see how things develop and see what opportunities come to the fore. In relation to the Eclipse and the Prospero, those units are both long-term cold stacked. We've been deploying a lot of capital in the last 2 years, reactivating the rigs that are going down to Brazil in particular. So at the moment, I think our [indiscernible] card is full in terms of rig reactivations.

We have been, nonetheless, advertising them in tenders, but we're also contemplating our approaches that we've had for the sale of those units. So at the moment, I don't think we should anticipate that we're necessarily committed to reactivating them and putting them to work. We may also avail ourselves of an opportunity to sell them if a good enough price is presented to us.

[Fredrik Stene, analyst]

Okay. That's very helpful. And just on the second theme, you have gotten a lot of cash this quarter. And as you said in the report, you put part of that cash to good use by paying down the second lien. But you're still -- even with those paydowns, you're building your cash position quite meaningful here. And then you're saying that you could pay down more debt. Do you use it as a part of a broader refinancing, et cetera? Are you looking at other options with that cash? And as to some question to the potential debt repay down or further debt repay down, would it be so that if you were to pay down more debt, you would have to go for the first lien now? Have you kind of exhausted the second lien pockets on the voluntary side?

[Simon Johnson, executive]

Yes. As you say, Fredrik, I mean we're nearly net debt neutral now, but we could benefit from paying a bit more down on the second lien. As you know, that's got the higher coupon on it. So it's the most attractive for us to deal with in the near term. But we want to have an efficient balance sheet as well. But let me pass to Grant because he's actively engaged in looking at these options right now.

[Grant Creed, executive]

Yes. And look, there's nothing definitive we can say right now. We are reviewing all of our options and you touched on whether the further voluntary repayments will be applied to the first lien. There are certain restrictions in the loan documents, which govern which facility gets paid down. It depends on variables or circumstances at the time of making that payment. So we can't say definitively right now. But that is something that we do consider. But then equally, the alternative options are just a broader refinancing and taking out either the second lien or the first and second, we're considering all of the above.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] At this time, we have no questions in the queue. [Operator Instructions] At this time, we have no further questions, so this concludes our call. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. You may now disconnect your lines.