PGS ASA

OSE:PGS

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Bard Stenberg, Vice President of IR & Corporate Communication]

Good morning, and welcome to this audiocast presenting PGS' First Quarter 2021 Results. My name is Bard Stenberg, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications in PGS. With us from management today are President and CEO, Rune Olav Pedersen; and CFO Gottfred Langseth.Before we start, I would like to give some practical information. Participants on this audiocast can submit their questions via the audiocast platform.We'd also like to draw your attention to the cautionary statement in today's earnings release and presentation and the risk factors disclosed in our 2020 annual report and the Q1 2021 earnings release. So with that, it's my pleasure to give the word to Rune Olav.

[Rune Olav Pedersen, President & CEO]

Thank you, Bard, and good morning, everyone. During the first quarter, we experienced encouraging MultiClient sales, and we saw improving vessel utilization. Our solid MultiClient performance was driven by late sales of $49.2 million and strong client commitments for new projects, leading to strong prefunding in the quarter. We also saw a positive order book development, which was based on general demand increase we are currently seeing and the fact that deferred 2020 work is coming back to the market. We reactivated Ramform Vanguard in the quarter, and we are currently planning for her to operate in Q2 and Q3. We also established PGS New Energy in the quarter. This unit, which I will come back to in more detail, will be headed by Berit Osnes.And as most of you know, we completed our refinancing with a deferral of debt maturities and amortizations in the quarter. So moving to the financial summary, and I will, as normal, be brief and only mention a few of the numbers, as Gottfred will get back to this in more detail later.So what I will say is that the segment EBITDA of $84 million and the segment EBIT of negative $14 million, both are improvements versus the first quarter of '19 and the first quarter of 2020. So we're seeing -- if you look on the first quarters, we're seeing a sequential improvement into also the first quarter of 2021 when you look at EBIT and EBITDA, which is obviously positive. The other numbers, as I said, Gottfred will get back to you. So I will move to the order book. We saw a good improvement of the order book in the quarter. As of 31st of March '21, the order book stood at $237 million, which is obviously a sequential increase from approximately $200 million we had in Q4 -- at the end of Q4. $72 million of the order book is related to MultiClient. And I can also say that we have added further bookings through the order book after quarter end. So we're seeing a decent trend currently.The order book is also higher than the order book in Q1 2020 and at par with the order book we saw in Q1 2019, which is also encouraging for the trend we are currently seeing.Vessel booking was also good. We are more or less fully booked for the second and third quarter with 17 vessel months booked in the second quarter and 15 vessel months booked in the third quarter. We have 4 vessel months booked in the fourth quarter. And I am confident that we will shortly fill the remaining time in Q2 and Q3. And currently, the main focus in PGS is on the period Q4 and Q1 next year, which is also, of course, good to see that we can already at this stage focus on next winter.And with that, I give the word to you, Gottfred, to go into the financials.

[Gottfred Langseth, CFO & Executive VP]

Thank you. I will start with the key financial figures.The segment revenues in the first quarter, $132 million, that's approximately 20% lower than Q1 2020. Despite that, EBITDA, $84.1 million is slightly up compared to Q1 last year and segment EBIT negative $13.9 million, also slightly up compared to -- or slightly better compared to Q1 2020. So that were the main segment reporting numbers. Quickly on IFRS or as reported, where we had revenues and other income of $165.7 million, which is approximately $33 million more than the segment numbers, and this is all relating to timing, as you all know. Net financial items. Net cost of $33.6 million. This includes net charges of $6.2 million relating to various effects of implementing the agreements to amend our debt and also accounting for the derivative element of the convertible bond. I will not go into -- or I do not have any slides to go into the detail of this in this presentation. It is fairly technical, and we refer to the detailed disclosures in the earnings release. And for those, who wants to more than that study this in detail, both Bard and I are available to discuss that during the course of the day.Moving then to Q1 operational highlights. Contract revenues of $25.5 million. We had 38% of our active time used for contract acquisition in the quarter. This contract time includes Ramform Sovereign used as a source vessel on a dual-vessel contract project in the quarter with lower revenues and also lower cost than the vessel generally would generate in 3D operations.MultiClient revenues, $95.5 million. We achieved a prefunding of 107% of capitalized cash investments in the library, and we had late sales of $49.2 million. The regional distribution of MultiClient revenues, West Africa and Middle East, main contributors to the prefunding revenues in the quarter, while 2 other regions, Europe and Asia Pacific, were the main contributors to our late sales.Vessel utilization. We had high utilization in the quarter, 89% active vessel time, 5 vessels, with, as mentioned, Ramform Sovereign, as source vessel in the quarter and included in contract. For the coming quarter, second quarter, we will have an overweight of contract work. There will be significant vessel relocations or steaming, and we will operate 6 3D vessels.Moving to costs. Gross cash cost of $92 million in the first quarter. That is a sequential increase from the $80 million we had in Q4, driven by a higher activity or higher utilization of the fleet. And we will see some further increase now in the coming second quarter as we operate 1 additional 3D vessel.Balance sheet. Cash and cash equivalents of $143.9 million at quarter end. MultiClient library, a book value under IFRS of $578 million and on a segment basis $533 million. With the completion of the debt rescheduling process, all interest-bearing debt has now been reclassified to long term. Then cash flow. We had lower cash from operations compared to Q1 last year, driven by lower sales in the preceding quarter, which drives a bit of collection in preceding Q4, partly offset by our lower cost base. And also, we had a relatively less release of working capital as some receipts have been delayed into second quarter. The net payments of $18.4 million in the cash flow statement related to debt amendments that represents the fees and expenses paid offset by the cash proceeds from a portion of the convertible bond issue.Then a couple of quick comments on the next few slides on our debt rescheduling. We have covered the topic on the recent presentations already. So just shortly completed the transaction to reschedule our maturities and amortization during the quarter. And with that, we have deferred all scheduled maturities and amortization to September 2022 and beyond. As part of the transaction, we issued a convertible bond NOK 116 million, so relatively small, primarily issued against conversion of TLB loans from our lenders.On accounting for this, I should just quickly mention that derivative financial instruments relating to the equity conversion option is reported as a liability, in other current liabilities, at fair value at any balance sheet date with the change in that fair value recorded as gain or loss in the P&L. Ultimately, upon conversion, the fair value will then be reported as a contribution to equity. There has been some conversions already, NOK 21 million by -- a few days back.On the next slide, main terms of the transaction. I will be relatively short. Just state that RCF, that we had, has now become part of the TLB. And the combined TLB has its first maturity in September 2022, $135 million. There is an excess liquidity sweep for liquidity above $200 million. And lastly, the financial maintenance covenants have been reset. Most importantly, the leverage ratio requirement has been reset to start at 4.5x and then taper off over time. We are way below the current requirement, and we are at a leverage ratio of 2.75x at end Q1.Then I believe, this is my last slide. It illustrates the result of the debt rescheduling, and you'll see that there are nothing scheduled for the three first elements of the graph to the right with the first maturities or installments in the second half of 2022.I will just leave you with the visuals of this slide and then give the word back to Rune Olav.

[Rune Olav Pedersen, President & CEO]

Thank you, Gottfred. I will start with the fleet activity as normal. And as you can see from the slide, Ramform Titan and Ramform Atlas are currently now done with their programs in Brazil and Angola, respectively, and are steaming to Canada for a full season in Canada. Ramform Hyperion and Ramform Vanguard has started their seasons in the North Sea. And you see Ramform Tethys and Ramform Sovereign on this large contract job, where Sovereign is serving as a source vessel to Tethys, it's a large and combined job. And when they are done there in mid-May, you'll see Sovereign steaming up to the North Sea and Tethys likely steaming down to West Africa.So PGS New Energy. I mentioned that we have created a new unit in PGS during the first quarter, which is led by Berit Osnes. It will develop energy transition business opportunities, building obviously on our expertise and assets, both the vessels and our MultiClient library. Also, of course, our expertise in imaging.Activities for this can include activities related to carbon capture and storage, marine minerals, geothermal, site surveying, near-surface geo-hazards for wind farms. All of these activities will, to a large or lesser degree, require some form of seismic. And we will see whether we can or not develop a business, which delivers seismics in various forms to these activities.We have seen revenues related to, in particular, carbon capture and storage already, but this is obviously early days. We believe we have a particularly strong position in the carbon capture and storage space as we have our main strength in the North Sea, where, we are compared to our peers, have the biggest library, and we have the best library as it has -- with respect to quality as it has been. We have been shooting with geo streamers there since 2007. And as you know, the North Sea has also taken a pole position worldwide in carbon capture and storage. So we believe we are well positioned to build something in the carbon capture and storage space and take advantage of both the position of the North Sea and our position in the North Sea.Further, obviously, carbon capture and storage will also require 4D monitoring activity, where we are, as you know -- all know, very strong. So we look forward to see what we can develop in this area going forward.I can also mention that Berit Osnes will have has -- her only job, this will be focusing on developing New Energy, and we will build a small organization around her that will focus on this solely.So then back to our current core business and the demand side of the market. What we have seen during the quarter is an improvement in the contract leads and bids. And most of you listening in will probably know that the dark blue line is the dollar value of all the bids we have in-house at present, while the lighter blue line is the dark blue line plus the dollar value of the leads we have recorded internally. And as you can see, they both point upwards during this quarter, pointing to a general demand increase.You have to read this in conjunction with the backlog. Obviously, when something moves into the backlog, it moves out of the contract bid curve that you are currently looking at. And when we are, as we are in this quarter, seeing both the backlog and the contract bids and lead curves pointing upwards, it is a fairly good leading indicator of increasing demand. And most of the contract bids we are currently seeing are bids related to EAME and South America, but we're also seeing bids coming out of Latin America and Asia Pacific. With that, I'll move to the supply side. The supply side is at its lowest quarterly level since the mid-'90s. We were below 190 active streamers in the first quarter 2021, which is dramatically down from -- you can see first quarter '13, we had about 600. So we're at 1/3 of that now. We do expect a moderate capacity increase for the summer season of 2021, obviously, because we have brought back Ramform Vanguard, and we see one of our competitors has also brought back a vessel or 2.The main message here is that the seismic industry has been able to adjust its supply to the demand we are seeing in the market. And as I explained on the previous page, we see increased demand from here on.Then guidance. Not much change, but we have slightly upped our guidance on the group cash cost, which we are now guiding to approximately $400 million from below $400 million as we had in -- at the end of the fourth quarter. This is obviously due to the reactivation of Ramform Vanguard for operations in Q2 and Q3.MultiClient cash investments still guided at approximately $150 million, and we expect to use approximately 45% of active 3D vessel time in MultiClient operations. CapEx is unchanged at approximately $40 million.So in summary, in the first quarter, we saw solid MultiClient performance. We reactivated Ramform Vanguard to take advantage of higher summer activity and general demand increase. We have established PGS New Energy. And we expect 2021 to show revenue improvement versus 2020 on a lower cost base. We are saying this because we see a positive order book development. We see increasing contract bids and leads. We are experiencing a higher and rather stable oil price, higher than what we had expected. And there is currently a fairly low industry supply of vessels. So all of this leaves us, what should I say, cautiously optimistic with respect to 2021.And with that, I give the word back to you, Bard.

[Bard Stenberg, Vice President of IR & Corporate Communication]

Thank you, Rune. We have some questions already from the audience. First question is from Jørgen Lande in Danske Bank. For Q2, it seems that you plan for 28 days of yard stay. And you're right in your report that you expect significant vessel relocations. Can you comment on Q2 vessel utilization and cost development?

[Gottfred Langseth, CFO & Executive VP]

The cost development I touched upon in the presentation, we expect some further increase as we increase the 3D vessel operations from 5 to 6 vessels. We will have somewhat lower or less active time in the second quarter on those 6 vessels compared to what we had in Q1, but I won't yet quantify the steaming. I think the steaming portion, you'll find the historical second quarters fairly indicative in a way we are moving 2 vessels again to Canada, which we have done for over recent years and then part of the fleet to the North Sea. So the vessel steaming is probably relatively similar to what we have seen in earlier years. And you're right with respect to yard time, which will account to a bit over 20 days.

[Rune Olav Pedersen, President & CEO]

But primary there is classing of Ramform Atlas.

[Bard Stenberg, Vice President of IR & Corporate Communication]

Then we have a next question from Øystein Vaagen in Fearnley Securities. Do you have any expectations on the revenue contributions from New Energy, in example, some percentage of total revenues?

[Rune Olav Pedersen, President & CEO]

No. We haven't given that, and we've done that on purpose. I mean the development of these industries, if I can call on that in the energy -- as part of the energy transition is uncertain in itself. And it is, of course, uncertain how much we will be able to take out of that or our market share in it. We or I expect carbon capture and storage to be a big part of the energy transition. And that cannot be done without a significant part of seismic. So we see a fairly large business potential, in particular, currently in the carbon capture and storage area. When we will see that materialize depends on the speed of which -- the entire industry can realize these projects, but we are fairly optimistic that this could be a meaningful part of PGS in a few years.

[Bard Stenberg, Vice President of IR & Corporate Communication]

Very good. And we have our next question from Kim André Uggedal in SEB. Are the dayrates you are seeing in the market, including what is in your backlog, at a sufficient level to repay second half 2022 debt maturities, also keeping in mind the minimum liquidity covenant? Or do you have an alternative plan for the debt maturities?

[Rune Olav Pedersen, President & CEO]

I think it's -- with respect to the revenues we're currently seeing, obviously, the revenues in -- the contract revenues in the first quarter were fairly muted as we were -- we sold that capacity in Q3 last year. But it is important to bear in mind, and as we have said a few times that Sovereign was actually a source vessel, and that is 50% of the contract activity as the source vessel in the quarter with lower revenues and costs. So you cannot calculate the dayrates by just taking active time and contract and revenues. That would lead you to a too pessimistic market view currently.So we are seeing rates increasing into the summer season and into the second half of the year, and we expect that increase to continue gradually, not something -- in our planning, not a very large and rapid increase, but a gradual increase. And our plans with that will be more than sufficient to repay our debt or resume maturities in the second half of 2022 from cash flows. And that is the current plan.

[Bard Stenberg, Vice President of IR & Corporate Communication]

Next question is from Baptiste Lebacq, somewhat related to the question asked earlier regarding the PGS Energy division. Do you have a target in terms of contribution midterm, which has been answered. Then he continues on with what kind of CapEx do you need for the New Energy transition project? Do you need new productions or equipment to develop this division?

[Rune Olav Pedersen, President & CEO]

Not in the near term, that's clear. Whether we will and how we will develop this as it becomes a little bit more mature, we may see a need for, obviously, new equipment as well. But currently, we have our MultiClient data, which is very useful in carbon capture. We have full capability to do 4D surveys, which will be prerequisite when you start pumping CO2 down into a reservoir, you need to monitor what's going on, and we obviously already have that capability.So this is more adding, let's say, competence and -- adding competence to the already existing competence, selling maybe in a different way, maybe changing our business models, but based on our core competence already. And I don't foresee a large CapEx need in the near term, or I don't foresee any meaningful CapEx need, I should say, in the near term on this basis.

[Bard Stenberg, Vice President of IR & Corporate Communication]

Very good. Next question comes from Trygve Bruland in Cosimo. It's somewhat related to the question asked by Uggedal earlier. Do you expect to repay second half 2022 debt maturities with your own cash flow, not needing new external financing before 2023?

[Rune Olav Pedersen, President & CEO]

Yes.

[Bard Stenberg, Vice President of IR & Corporate Communication]

Then we have next question from Christopher Møllerløkken in Carnegie. How do you expect working capital to develop in Q2 2021? Any specific reasons why some payments were deferred to Q2 2021?

[Gottfred Langseth, CFO & Executive VP]

Yes, in a way we are likely to see -- it is difficult to pinpoint this to specific quarters, but I expect that we will see a reduction in working capital over second and third quarter. In a way, it lies a bit in what said earlier that we expect on the -- we expect higher revenues in the remaining quarters of the year than the first quarter. So in a way, this is down to -- this is mostly volume-driven. And so we had a DSO, if you calculate that, of 110 days, at -- in Q1. That is -- this will fluctuate, but that is higher than where we normally -- so we are at that measuring point higher. We expect the DSO to come down. There are a handful of drivers for the higher working capital than average in the first quarter, in part relating to timing of payment of government grants. That is a smaller part. And secondly, a couple of projects where the payment milestones have turned out a bit less than ideal and negatively impacting Q1 working capital.

[Bard Stenberg, Vice President of IR & Corporate Communication]

Next question comes from [ David Hergestellt ], a private investor, I believe. Will PGS New Energy be a separated company? Or will it flag under the PGS ticker?

[Rune Olav Pedersen, President & CEO]

It will currently be part of PGS. That's clear. How that -- how we will -- what we will do with that business if it develops into a significant part of PGS in the years to come or even earlier, it's too early to say. We can live -- we will live every opportunity open here. It may be part of PGS, if that is the best home for it. It may be spun out as a separate company, if we believe that is the best for PGS New Energy. We will see, as we develop these opportunities, what is the natural and best home for this business unit.

[Bard Stenberg, Vice President of IR & Corporate Communication]

Thank you, Rune. We don't have any further questions at this time. If the audience have any further questions, please type them in, and we will address them. We will pause for a moment to allow you to type in your question. Yes, we have another question from Christopher Møllerløkken in Carnegie. You received U.S. government grants in Q1 '21. Is this something you expect also going forward?

[Gottfred Langseth, CFO & Executive VP]

No, we -- that is not the expectation. The funds were actually received during last year in 2020. And in a way, we come to the threshold on where we can sort out which portion we can expect to keep as a grant.

[Bard Stenberg, Vice President of IR & Corporate Communication]

Okay. We don't have any further questions from the audience. So with that, I think we concluded the presentation. So thank you all for participating, and have a nice day.