Helmerich & Payne, Inc.

Welcome everyone to Hamilton Payne's conference call and webcast for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended 2021. With us today are John Lindsay, President and CEO, Mark and Mark Smith, Senior Vice President and CFO, and John Bell, Senior Vice President, International and Offshore Operations. John Lindsay and Mark will be sharing some comments with us, after which we'll open the call for questions. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I'll remind everyone that this call will include forward-looking statements as defined under the securities laws. Such statements are based upon current information and management's expectations as of this date and are not guarantees of future performance. Forward-looking statements involve certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict. As such, our outcomes and results could differ materially. You can learn more about these risks in our annual report on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and our other SEC filings. You should not place any undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements. We will also be making reference to certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as segment operating income and other operating statistics. You'll find the GAAP reconciliation comments and calculations in yesterday's press release. With that said, I'll turn the call over to John Lindsay.

Thank you, Dave. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm excited to be in Abu Dhabi this week, having just participated in the ADAPAC Conference, which has provided a unique occasion to meet face-to-face with colleagues, customers, and, of course, our strong partner, ADNOC Drilling. Also joining Mark and me today in Abu Dhabi is John Bell, Senior Vice President, International and Offshore Operations, and he'll be available for international and ADNOC-specific questions. Before getting into our traditional discussion topics, I wanted to first mention that ADAPEC, which is a global energy conference in Abu Dhabi, And this week, there was over 150,000 attendees, 33 energy ministers, and representatives from over 50 energy companies. I've been impressed with the focus on ESG and especially the discussions of the impacts on energy security for the globe. In addition to industry leaders sharing their focus on sustainability and ESG, There were also leaders of countries from around the globe that were present to give their perspectives on the energy transition and the importance of ongoing investments to ensure a smooth transition. Dr. Sultan Al-Jaber, the ADNOT Group CEO and UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, gave a very compelling speech at ADAPEC's opening ceremony. He started with a reminder that energy transitions take multiple decades. And I quote, rewiring the energy system is a multi-trillion dollar business opportunity that is good for humanity and good for economic growth. He also had a call to action stating what the world really needs is to hold back emissions, not progress. Let us together drive that progress. Let us always keep in mind our industry must play a pivotal role in the energy transition. We have the knowledge, the skills, and the people to make a difference in our world. Now that statement really resonates with me. Working with our customers to reduce emissions and our collective environmental footprint is a major area of focus for us here at H&P. The strategic alliance we signed with ADNOC is a great opportunity to deliver rig technology through the sale of eight high-spec H&P FlexRigs, as well as to make a significant $100 million investment in their initial public offering. ADNOC has a 2030 oil production target of 5 million barrels per day and a goal to achieve natural gas independence. We believe H&P can make significant contributions towards helping ADNOC achieve those goals through this new partnership, while also providing additional opportunities for us to expand in this pivotal and growing energy region. We're delighted with the reception H&P has received this week and we want to thank the ADNOC team for their hospitality. Looking at the rest of our international activity, historically we've experienced a lag compared to the US, so we are expecting activity to improve in these markets in the coming quarters. A recent example is a couple of new agreements with YPF, as we will put four rigs back to work under term contracts in Argentina during fiscal 2022. We continue to pursue other international opportunities and look forward to improving activity. Shifting to North America's solutions, it is hard to believe that a year ago, H&P had only 80 active rigs running, and today we have 141 active flex rigs. The response of our people and their leadership through the pandemic has been nothing short of amazing. Particularly impressive is their service attitude in responding to customers as rig demand has been recovering. Our folks are resilient and deliver on safety, efficiency, and reliability for our customers each and every day. We expected that the rig activity increases would be more measured during our fourth fiscal quarter as we realized more rapid rig churn among customers who are sticking to their disciplined spending plans. Given that, we were pleased with the 5% incremental rig count increase experienced during the quarter and are even more optimistic as we look ahead to the fourth calendar quarter, where we expect to see our rig count increase sequentially and at a higher pace as E&Ps reset their annual capital budgets. We believe our customers will remain disciplined, and similar to 2021, the budgets for 2022 will be adhered to, but the new budgets will be reset at higher levels based on a higher commodity price environment meaning more active rigs in 2022. As evidenced by our rig count growth to date, we expect the rig count will have a significant increase in calendar Q4 of 21 and Q1 of 2022. As mentioned, our U.S. land rig count stands at 141 rigs today, up from 127 at September 30, our fiscal year end. And we expect to add roughly another 10 to 15 rigs by year end of calendar 2021. To summarize North America solutions, during calendar fourth quarter, we expect to add 25 to 30 rigs. To put that in perspective, this is approximately the same number of rigs we added in the preceding nine months. Further, we are also readying several more rigs during the first fiscal quarter that we expect to commence work in the first half of January. This activity increase is exciting as our customers are investing in their calendar 2022 budgets. It does, however, cause near-term margin compression due to the one-time expenses incurred for reactivation. Mark will discuss the details more in a moment, and I'll add that we are pleased with the future cash generation these rigs will have post-reactivation as we return to greater scale operations, driving both pricing higher and leveraging our fixed costs. Given the well-publicized challenges in what we hope is finally a post-pandemic environment, It's not surprising to see rig reactivation and field labor costs increasing. All of the SuperSpec rigs that are available to work today have been idle for well over a year, which equates to higher startup costs. Competition for quality people is also escalating, and we will be increasing field labor wages accordingly. And as a reminder, those cost increases are passed through to the customer. The tightening supply of readily available rigs, coupled with these cost increases, have already begun to move contract pricing upward in the market. Based upon what we are experiencing today, we expect price increases will become even more pronounced in the coming months as rig demand picks up heading into 2022. Mark will talk about our strong balance sheet in his remarks, but I wanted to mention one of our goals was to generate free cash flow And we are encouraged that we believe that is achievable in the back half of 2022 with the rig count and revenue expectations we have. These market conditions demonstrate further potential for H&P's new commercial models and digital technology solutions. Our digital technology solutions deliver value through improved efficiencies, reliability, lower costs, and better overall outcomes. Today, approximately 35% of our FlexRigs are on performance contracts, and several customers are experiencing the powerful synergies a combination of performance contracts and digital technology can deliver. Adoption continues to improve and is driving economic returns higher, not only for our customers, but for ourselves as well. In closing, we are encouraged heading into 2022. and fully expect that the demand for H&P's drilling solutions will continue. E&P capital discipline, rising commodity prices, and a collective vision to play our crucial role in a smooth energy transition will strengthen the industry. There are still many challenges, but I'm confident that our people and solutions have the company well positioned to deliver value for customers and shareholders in this improving environment. And now I'll turn the call over to Mark.

Thanks, John. Today I will review our fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2021 operating results, provide guidance for the first quarter and full fiscal year 2022 as appropriate, and comment on our financial position. Let me start with highlights for the recently completed fourth quarter and fiscal year ended September 30, 2021. The company generated quarterly revenues of $344 million versus $332 million in the previous quarter. The increase in revenue corresponds to a modest increase in our recount during the quarter. Correspondingly, total direct operating costs incurred were $269 million for the fourth quarter versus $257 million for the previous quarter. During the fourth quarter, we closed on two transactions with Ad Knock Drilling. First, H&P sold eight flex rig land rigs, including two already in Abu Dhabi and six from the United States for delivery during 2022. Consideration received for this sale was $86.5 million, and any gains above book values together with required investments to prepare and deliver the rigs will be recognized as each rig is delivered. Second, H&P made a $100 million investment in Ad Knock during drilling in conjunction with its initial public offering in early October. General and administrative expenses totaled $52 million for the fourth quarter, higher than our previous guidance due primarily to professional services fees associated with the ad-hoc transactions and our ongoing cost management efforts, as well as increases to the short-term incentive bonus plan accrual to reflect full fiscal year operating results. On September 27th, we issued $550 million in unsecured senior note bonds to refinance our $487 million outstanding bonds that were due in May 2025. Our new issuance came at a coupon of 2.9% and a 10-year tenor maturing in September 2031. The additional debt of about $63 million funded the make-hold provision and accrued interest for the call of the existing bonds, as well as an associated transaction cost. This made the transaction and subsequent debt extinguishment in October liquidity neutral. Also, note that the makeable premium in accrued interest will be recognized in the first fiscal quarter 2022 concurrently with the October 27 redemption. Our key for effective tax rate was approximately 24% in line with our previous guidance. To summarize fourth quarter's results, H&P incurred a loss of $0.74 per diluted share versus a loss of $0.52 in the previous quarter. Earnings per share were negatively impacted by a net $0.12 per share loss of select items, which are primarily made up of noncash impairments for fair market value adjustments to equipment that is held for sale, as highlighted in our press release. Absent these select items, adjusted diluted loss per share was $0.62 in the fourth fiscal quarter compared with an adjusted $0.57 loss during the third fiscal quarter. For fiscal 2021 as a whole, we incurred a loss of $3.04 per diluted share. Again, this was driven largely by the noncash impairments to fair value for decommissioned raking equipment, the majority of which were previously impaired and are held for sale. Collectively, these select items constituted a loss of $0.44 per diluted share. Absent these items, fiscal 2021 adjusted losses were $2.60 per diluted share. Capital expenditures for fiscal 2021 totaled $82 million below our previous guidance due to the timing of supply chain spending that crossed into fiscal 2022. Relative to our original guidance range of $85 to $105 million, The variance was primarily driven by a delay in the start of planned IT infrastructure spending that we have previously discussed. Most of that planned IT spend will now be incurred in fiscal 22. H&P generated $136 million in operating cash flow during fiscal 2021. Considering the pro forma impact of our recent debt refinancing, the collective cash and short-term investments balances decreased minimally by $7 million year over year due in part to working capital improvements achieved during fiscal 2021, as well as asset sales. I will discuss in more detail later in my prepared remarks. Turning to our three segments, beginning with the North America Solutions segment. We averaged 124 contracted rigs during the fourth quarter, up from an average of 119 rigs in fiscal Q3. We exited the fourth fiscal quarter with 127 contracted rigs. Revenues were sequentially higher by $12 million due to the aforementioned activity increase. North America Solutions operating expenses increased $18 million sequentially in the fourth quarter, primarily due to the addition of six rigs, as well as a higher material and supplies expense. Throughout fiscal 2021, we prudently managed our expenses and inventory levels using previously expensed consumable inventory harvested during stacking activities in calendar 2020, rather than utilizing fully costed inventory or purchasing new inventory. As reactivity increased, our level of previously expensed inventory, or what we have been referring to internally as quote unquote penny stock, has been exhausted, resulting in the issuance of higher cost inventory, and the purchasing of additional inventory to replenish stock levels. Replenishments go on the balance sheet. Through fiscal 2021, we did not experience inflation in our costs. However, we are anticipating inflationary pressures moving forward, which I will touch on in a moment. Additionally, as I will expand on later, we put six rigs to work in the first half of October. the first fiscal quarter of 2022, but the reactivation costs were primarily incurred in fiscal 2021. The one-time reactivation expenses associated with all of those regs was $6.6 million in fiscal Q4. Now looking ahead to the first quarter of fiscal 2022 for North America Solutions. As expected, recount growth was moderate during the fourth fiscal quarter. Publicly traded customers continue to operate within their calendar year budget plans, which are currently being reset for calendar 2022, in an oil and gas commodity environment that is significantly more robust than this time last year. Accordingly, we expect to see sizable spending increases, especially with our public company customers, during the first fiscal quarter of 2022. As of today's call, we have 141 rigs contracted, and we expect to end our first fiscal quarter with between 152 and 157 working rigs, with current line of sight for a few additional rigs turning to the right in early January. In the North America Solutions segment, we expect gross margins to range between $75 to $85 million, inclusive of the effect of about $15 million in reactivation costs. As I mentioned last quarter, there is a positive correlation between the length of time a rig has been idle, and the cost required to reactivate it. Most of the costs we are reactivating, most of the rigs we are reactivating in the first quarter have been idle for 18 plus months. Reactivation costs are mostly incurred in the quarter of startups, so the absence of such cost in future quarters is margin accretive. As John mentioned, we are expecting to achieve higher pricing in light of higher demand and tight, ready-to-work super spec supply. I will now pause to comment on inflationary considerations ahead for fiscal 2022. We have seen increases in commodity pricing, such as for steel. Products reflecting upward pricing due to this pressure include capital items such as drill pipe. Note that our upcoming capital expenditure guidance is inclusive of such pricing increases. For margin-related expenditures, I will touch on two items. First, maintenance and supplies pricing is increasing across some categories, such as oil-based products like lubricants and steel-based products like fluid ends. Second, as John discussed, we are increasing field labor rates to respond to market conditions and assist in talent retention and attraction. Further, our contracts are structured to pass through labor price increases over a 5% threshold. Therefore, significant labor increases are margin neutral due to contractual protections. Our margin guidance is inclusive of our expectations for inflation in the first fiscal quarter. As it relates to supply chain access to parts and materials to run our business, we are in constant communication with our suppliers and have placed advanced orders for certain higher-risk categories. Our proactive approach to inventory planning, coupled with our scale and healthy vendor-partner relationships, provides reasonable assurance that supply chain issues as we see them today will not materially impact our business. We will continue to engage our suppliers and partners to stay ready to adjust as developments unfold. Subsequent to September 30, 2021, we sold two peripheral service lines, which provided rig move trucking and casing running tool services to a portion of our North America segment customers. These business lines were largely margin neutral to H&P, having collective revenues in the fourth quarter and full fiscal year of 2021 of $10 million and $34 million, respectively. To conclude comments on the North America segment, our current revenue backlog from our North America solutions fleet is roughly $430 million. Regarding our international solutions segment, international business activity increased by one rig in Argentina to six active rigs during the fourth fiscal quarter. As we look to the First fiscal quarter of 2022 for International, activity in Bahrain is holding steady with the three rigs working, and we expect to go from three to four rigs working in Argentina, as well as get the contracted Columbia rig turning to the right. Note that three of the YPF rigs John mentioned earlier will commence work in subsequent FY22 quarters in Argentina. Turning to our offshore Gulf of Mexico segment, we continue to have four of our seven offshore platform rigs contracted, Offshore generated a gross margin of $8 million during this quarter, which was within our guided range. As we look to the first quarter of fiscal 2022 for offshore, we expect that the segment will generate between 6 to 8 million of operating gross margin. Now, let me look forward to the first fiscal quarter and full fiscal year 2022 for certain consolidated and corporate items. As we increase our recount, capital expenditures for the full fiscal 2022 year are expected to range between $250 to $270 million. This capital outlay is comprised of three buckets similar to fiscal 2021. First, maintenance capex to support our active rig fleet will be approximately 50% of the total FY22 capex. In fiscal 2019, we had bulk purchases in capex to scale up rotating componentry for a then 200-plus working superspec flex rate count In addition, we harvested components from previously impaired and decommissioned rigs to conserve capital. As such, we were able to utilize resources on hand and preserve capital in 2021. But now we have reached the end of those inventories and we are needing to recommence a regular cadence of component equipment overhauls and drill pipe purchases. This, coupled with the sharp activity increase we are experiencing, is driving our fiscal 2022 maintenance capex back into our historical range of between $750,000 to $1 million per active rig per annum in the North America Solutions segment. Second, skidding to walking capability conversions will approximate 35% of the fiscal 2022 capex. Although our peers have walking rigs available in the market, Select customers prefer certain rig design elements and commit to a conversion. For customers that need walking rigs, we will invest to convert certain rigs from skidding to walking pad capability in exchange for a term contract that will enable the new investment, which we currently estimate is $6.5 to $7.5 million per conversion. Third, corporate capital investments will be about 15% of fiscal 2022 capbacks. Over half of this bucket is comprised of modernization for data-centered data and analytics platforms and enterprise IT systems, most of which has moved from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2022, and will improve our infrastructure and cybersecurity posture. Portions of the balance of this corporate capital investment are for power solutions capital associated with ESG research and development efforts, and for certain real estate matters. As part of the ADNOC sale transaction mentioned earlier, we will deliver the eight rigs to ADNOC throughout the year of 2022. The sale proceeds of 86.5 million were received in September 2021 and are included in accrued liabilities on our balance sheet. In addition to the capital expenditures just described above, we will spend approximately $25 million in cash to prepare and deliver the rigs to ADNOC. When we incur these expenses, they, together with the net book values, which, among other assets, are classified in assets held for sale, will collectively represent the accounting basis in the rigs for the purpose of determining gains to be recognized in the upcoming quarters upon each delivery. Depreciation for fiscal 2022 is expected to be approximately $405 million. Our general and administrative expenses for the full 2022 year are expected to be approximately $170 million, which is roughly consistent with the year just completed. Fiscal 2022 SG&A will be partly front-loaded in the first fiscal quarter due to short-term incentive compensation payments for fiscal year 2021 results and the timing of certain professional services fees. Specifically, we expect $45 to $85 million in Q1, with the remainder spread proportionally over the final three quarters. Our investment in research and development is largely focused on autonomous drilling, wellbore quality, and ESG initiatives, and we anticipate these innovation efforts to yield further enhancements and solutions offerings on our technology roadmap. We anticipate R&D expenditures to be approximately $25 million in fiscal 2022. We are expecting an effective income tax rate range of 18% to 24% for fiscal 2022. In addition to the US statutory rate of 21%, incremental state and foreign income taxes also impact our provision. Based upon estimated fiscal 2022 operating results and CapEx, we are forecasting another decrease to our deferred tax liability. Additionally, we are expecting cash tax in the range of $5 to $20 million. Now looking at our financial position. Humber Campaign had cash and short-term investments of approximately $1.1 billion in September 30, 2021. When considering the aforementioned 2025 bond repayment and make-hold premium that occurred in October, the pro forma cash and short-term equivalents of September 30, 2021 were $570 million, sequentially compared to $558 million at June 30, 2021. including availability under our revolving credit facility, but excluding the $546 million 2025 bond extinguishment amount. Our liquidity was approximately $1.3 billion, commensurate to the prior quarter. Our debt-to-capital at quarter end was temporarily at 26%, given the debt overlap at the September 30 balance sheet date. Accounting for the repayment of the 2025 bond, however, per form of debt-to-capital adjusts down to 16%. Our working capital stewardship since the March 2020 downturn resulted in cash accretion. As we look forward towards the end of fiscal 22, we do expect to consume a modest amount of cash given the one-time recommissioning expenses together with net working capital increase as our rig activity climbs. Fiscal Q1 will experience lower cash flow from operations in the following quarters due to the rig ramp-up and the seasonal cash expenditures for incentive compensation, property taxes, et cetera. We do expect to end the fiscal year with between $475 to $525 million of cash on hand and $25 to $75 million of net debt. In summary, we are expecting to generate free cash flow that, when combined with the modest uses of cash on hand early in the fiscal year, will cover our capital expenditure plan, debt service cost, and dividends in fiscal 22. The growth in rig count early in the fiscal year provides a platform for cash generation in the second half of the year that, pointing forward, fully covers our cash uses, including our dividend, and sets the stage for further cash accretion. Our balance sheet strength, liquidity level, and term contract backlog provide H&P the flexibility to adapt to market conditions, take advantage of attractive opportunities, and maintain our long practice of returning capital to shareholders. That concludes our prepared comments for the fourth fiscal quarter. Let me now turn the call back over to Brittany for questions.

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and 1 on your touchtone phone. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing the pound key. Once again, that is star and 1 if you would like to ask a question, and we will take our first question from our room J-Home with JPMorgan Chase.

Yeah, good morning. I wanted to get a little bit more color around the fiscal year 22 CapEx program. It looks like you're spending around $90 million or so on the walking system upgrades. You mentioned $6.5 to $7.5 million type upgrades. Could you give us a sense, firstly, of the 95 idle rigs at H&P? How many of those have walking systems on them? And for the next batch of reactivations that you expect to do, how many more upgrades do you anticipate? And secondly, can you comment on the amount of reimbursements of and above your day work margins? What kind of reimbursements you're getting for those investments in the walking systems?

Arun, on the investments, I think we're, Dave, correct me if I'm wrong, I think we've got one a month. Is that right on the walking rate?

That's correct. Yeah, that is right. We're planning about, John, we're planning one a month currently based on line of sight with customers. And that will adjust potentially up or down based on customer demand. But getting back, I think, to come back to the pricing and term we're getting, I'll just let John maybe start us off with a little bit of the commentary on why customers are asking us to convert.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, Aaron, because there's about 214 idle super spec rigs in the U.S., And 124 of those are walking rigs. And so we've got significant demand, and all of our walking rigs are active. And so we have significant demand for walking. So it's clear that there's more demand than just for walking. There's obviously a demand for what H&P provides in terms of overall performance. So that's a key component. I think that's a key element. We are getting, you know, I think the last contract, we probably had an 18-month term contract.

And I think it's $25,000 a day, actually. So specifically to your point, Aaron, we're getting term, we're shooting for two. The typical payback on these is three years and commanding a premium price for doing so.

Great. I wanted to clarify something, though, Arun. I thought I heard you. Maybe I misheard. You said $190 million on the walking rig upgrades. No, I said $90 million. Okay. Yeah, I thought it was, yeah, $84 to $90. But I thought you said $190.

I misheard. Yeah. Okay, yeah, it was $90 million. And just my follow-up would be on the ADNOC rigs, Mark, $86.5 million of proceeds from that. Obviously, you also get the $100 million investment. But can you comment on the CapEx required in fiscal year 22 to get those rigs in a condition to be sold?

Well, as I mentioned, it's about $24 million, $25 million, I think, in the prepared remarks. And it's a couple of things. There's some specific technical components that our partner wanted, one, two. we're going to be recertifying everything so that, for example, the BOP leaves with a five-year certification and the top drive leaves with seven years, et cetera, et cetera. But there's also the transit costs, so the shipping or mobilization costs to get those rigs across the water. What I have not commented on is the net book value by rig. Obviously, the eight have different different values and two are already in Abu Dhabi, the six in the US, two of the six were super spec as we've previously stated.

Great. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And we will take our next question from Derek Podhazer with Barclays. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Wanted to talk more about the AdNoc deal. Obviously, the news just came out. We saw they just announced a pretty significant tender just to support the growth of the 5 million barrels per day. You talked about expanding into the region. Can you just maybe expand to us a little bit more about what you're talking about? Are these going to be more HPO and rigs going in there? I think you talked about consultancy work. Just any more color you can give us on how you see yourself growing with ADNOC in this new partnership.

Yeah, Derek, this is John. I'll start and I'm going to hand it over to John Bell to give additional color. But I think in general, you know, the strategic partnership with ADNOC is very important. But, you know, our hope is that we can continue to, you know, to expand internationally both, you know, with ADNOC drilling as well as, you know, there's some areas that make sense that, you know, that the H&P operation would be there. But go ahead, John.

Yeah, John, as you said, we have, by now we're focused on just getting the rigs ready and getting the people on board to start up the rigs, but also support the work in the process of fine-tuning a rig and then a framework agreement that will give us the structure we need to provide ADNOT with support in areas like maintenance, supply chain, operational efficiency, and so forth. And that's really what we're focused on. We have had discussions with them about different ways we might approach certain countries and customers in the region, and we're open to looking at that, but there's nothing that we've firmed up at this point. Does that help? Okay.

Yeah, I think there's a real opportunity, though, on the partnership. I mean, I think this week has been a great example. We've had excellent meetings with AdNoc Drilling, and they're very excited about the future. You know, there are some obviously different service contracts and technology opportunities that that we have to explore. And again, you saw the announcement, 5 million barrels, and they have a goal of getting to natural gas independence. A lot of that work is unconventional, and that really is a sweet spot, obviously, for H&P. And so our hope is to be able to work closely with them you know, to help them to achieve those goals. So it's a really exciting opportunity.

That's great. So switching over to the North America side, the contract coverage has stepped up pretty significantly quarter over quarter. Maybe could you just talk to us about the confidence from your side and the willingness from the customer side to start locking in that pricing in term instead of keeping contracts on short term? looks like you're now extending that out and getting more contract coverage across your total fleet. So maybe just spend some time walking us through that.

Well, there's several factors. One is, which has been talked about on reactivations, I mean, we want to make certain that when we're reactivating a rig and, you know, these are $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 reactivation and we want to make certain that we're either getting some lump sum or we're getting some term coverage to cover that cost. But I think in general, you know, customers are willing to lock in. And I think part of the reason why they are is because of the efficiencies and the startups that our people are able to provide. I mean, you know, it's not unusual to see, you know, historically rigged startup and really struggle for several months. And our team's We're doing a great job just starting right off the bat. In some cases, even drilling record wells right out of the box. So there's a lot of reason why customers are willing and entering into these term contracts. Again, we're going to continue to push on pricing. It's a really tight market as it relates to super spec availability in terms of anything being ready to go. I mean, there's really nothing ready to go right now. Everything's been idle for well over a year. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, very helpful. I appreciate it, guys. Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

And we will take our next question from Ian McPherson with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Hi, thank you. Hello, John and Mark. How are you? I am good. Good, how are you? Great, thanks. I wanted to ask if we could peek a little bit past fiscal Q1. uh towards the trajectory of your your margins in u.s because we see with the more expensive reactivations it looks like your average reactivation cost per rig day is more than doubling in in this quarter but that should improve with time with better absorption and a deceleration of those costs and then you have your rates being pulled up especially by the premiums you're getting on expensive upgrades for walking rigs so i would imagine those dynamics should point us towards a pretty good inflection in your average daily margins. I just want to get more comfortable that you see that happening in fiscal Q2, or do you see cost pressures or other dynamics maybe pushing that out into a later point in the year?

Well, I appreciate the question, Ian. You know, I think if I remember right, looking at consensus estimates, you know, had us adding 10 rigs in this quarter that we're giving guidance on, but we're going to be adding three times that. And so there's a directional factor of the sheer volume of reactivation expenses with that really heavy increase in activity. To your point, coupled with the fact that, as I mentioned in prepared remarks, we're also getting ready this quarter several rigs that will actually commence work, right after the turn of the calendar year. So that's kind of loading in some extra. So on a per-rig basis, I think we'll be pretty consistent at the end of the day. And as we look forward, we do expect the absence of that to be accretive. It just depends on how you do the math, but you could see anywhere from 500 to 1,000 at least per day accretion from the absence of that. So that's, you know, directionally it's looking good for potential cash accretion, but there's going to be a question mark there, and that is we still expect more rig accretion in the first calendar quarter. It's just too early to have clear line of sight through to March 31, what that volume will be. But then we expect that our customers, especially public company customers, will hold the line pretty steady and maintain these new budgets from April through September of next year.

Yeah, that's very helpful, Mark. That's all I have. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you.

And we will take our next question from Neil Mehta with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Yeah, thanks, team. And I appreciate the visibility on 22 capital spending. And I know 2023 is a really far way away, and it's hard to get visibility. But it just how was we think about that capex budget which was a little higher than consensus how much of that is one-time ish in nature and as you look at 23 do you get more to a maintenance type of program at which every cash flow comes through in a more powerful way does that make sense and any any color that you can provide on the long term as opposed to just next year thanks Neil great question there's several things to consider when you when you when you consider the question

I think we're back into that, you know, as I mentioned, historical $750,000 to a million per active rig range. Where that might go through time, who knows for certain. But I hope it's a little bit more muted through time. We're experiencing the obvious inflation that we're including in guidance for this year related to steel costs, et cetera. Plus, we had really, if you will, taken a holiday from operating our FlexRig Machinery Center in the last calendar year, and we're having to get back in business recertifying top drives, BOPs especially, et cetera. So kind of a crank-up of work there that might normalize a bit through time as well. And then the big question mark is what do our customers want to do related to walking rigs, as John and I went through a few moments ago. We've had, interestingly, in the churn of rigs this year, even though rig counts stayed pretty steady and modestly increased in calendar Qs 2 and 3, we had some customers that picked up skidding rigs and actually exited walking rigs, while other customers quickly absorbed those walking rigs. And as has been evidenced by commitments, we're still seeing customers want our design of a walking rig and commit to those, despite the availability of them in the broader market. So it's really just going to depend. As we move towards better term and better pricing for those commitments to get the right return on capital and the new investment, those can be easy decisions to make. So it's just going to depend. Neil, is that helpful? Well, I will add one thing. Let me just add one footnote. That corporate capex will come down. Once we get these IT projects done that shifted from year to year, they're done. And some of these – the real estate matters will be done as well.

Yeah, that is helpful as we are all trying to figure out what normalized free cash flow power is. That's good clarity. On the positive side, I want to talk about market share. And your market share level is, I think it's up to 26% now, which is above historical level. Can you just provide us your perspective on your ability to continue to maintain that market share? What are the key competitive threats that you're monitoring? And what confidence you can give to the market around your ability to sustain these type of levels?

Well, Ann, fortunately, we've had a track record coming out of downturns where we capture market share. So we fully expect that at least, you know, the management team is The company in general felt like we had the opportunity to do that. You know, it's interesting. Over the last year, there's been about 235 net ads to the market rig-wise, and 180 of those were from private companies. So 75% of the ads were private companies. Now, we're the largest. We still have the largest market share of the private company, and I think we're up to 16% of that share. But, you know, the public companies, of course, have only had 25% of that. We think it's probably going to go the other direction, at least through Q4 and Q1, where we're going to see, at least based on the commitments that we have, about 60% of our commitments are public companies. So there's a little bit of shift there. And we've got about 31% of the public company market share. So our hope is that we can continue to gain share. And you say, well, why is that and how can you continue to do that? Well, I think a lot of it is part of what I've already touched on is the ability to start up safely and efficiently and being able to really hit the ground running and You know, we haven't talked about performance contracts this morning with the exception of prepared remarks, but we have a lot of customers that are really interested in entering into win-win contracts. They see, just like we do, that the day rate contract really isn't structured to drive, you know, outperformance. And so, fortunately, we've had customers that are willing to enter into those new types of contracts. So I think that's a driver. And I look at all the work that we've put in over the last four or five years organizationally and just continuing to invest in our people and our systems and processes. We're utilizing data today better than we ever have. And that helps us in terms of driving better performance. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what our customers want, is they want better performance. They want, obviously, efficiency and reliability. And then there's an ESG component. And, again, the data set that we have today and our ability, we believe, to be able to manage ESG at a better level than what our peers are going to be able to do. So, again, I think those are some things that are ahead that hopefully we can continue to take advantage of.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Thanks, Neil.

We will take our next question from Scott Grover with Citibank. Your line is open.

Yes, good morning.

Morning, Scott.

Good evening. Good point. How are you doing, Scott? Doing well, doing well. Quick follow-up on AdNoc. What's the vintage of the rigs being sold? It's just the restart CapEx and recertification can be somewhat deceiving when you're moving the rigs abroad. And then do you think there's an opportunity to sell more rigs to AdNoc down the road?

Go ahead, John. Scott, we take vintage. Are you asking about rig type?

Well, rig type is the main question, but if you want to throw out a build year as well.

So, Scott, I'll jump in. On the rig, the vintage, it varies across the eight, and there's less sort of recertification work that we're going to be doing for some of the componentry, and there's more sort of some of the technical spec work. Remember, two of the eight are super specs, though. You know, a lot of this is really the cost to get some of the six to Houston and get them across the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the final destination. So,

Yeah, that's the majority, really, of the expenses, just getting them ready for international and just getting them over there. But in terms of selling more rigs, we don't have plans to sell more rigs, but we do have – we're going to continue to put rigs to work our normal way, but we currently don't have any plans to sell them more.

I got you. So it's only two that are super-spec. Sorry, I thought I – I think I heard that wrong. I was thinking it was two that were not super-spec, but it's only two that are super-spec?

Correct. The two that are here are not super spec, and then we're sending two over, and then the rest will be non-super spec.

Understood, understood. Okay, that makes sense. And then with respect to the rest of the international portfolio, just to confirm, are the four rigs going to work with YPF? Those will be incremental in Argentina?

Yes, there's one that's going to work this quarter. that has been planned for a bit, and then there'll be one, I think, in Q, fiscal Q2, and two in fiscal Q3 at this stage. That timing could be subject to change, but all the remaining three after this quarter are planned for this fiscal year. So starting to get a little bit of scale back in the block of operations there, so that's some exciting news for the Argentina team.

Oh, definitely. And just thoughts on potential incremental demand, you know, beyond what's contracted to go back to work in Argentina and Colombia, because just after those go back, you still have a fair bit of spare capacity on the international side. So, you know, any color on additional rig ads over the course of 2022?

I'll let John comment further on customer specifics, but we don't have anything definitive. However, I will tell you that we are participating in bidding activity in both Colombia and Argentina today. John?

Yeah, that's right. We've seen interest pick up in both Argentina and Colombia. We've seen the big rig work in particular be of interest in Colombia. And then, of course, if I can work with the gas plan that they recently put in place, it's interesting. resulting in some rigs going back to work in the black and white. Excellent.

I'll leave it there. Appreciate the caller.

Thank you.

Thanks, Scott.

And we will take our next question from Taylor Zucker with Tudor Pickering. Your line is open.

Hey, John and Mark. Thanks for taking my questions. My first one, I just wanted to circle back on cost in the lower 48. I mean, clearly... Some element of the cost increases is transitory with elevated reactivation costs, but a piece of that's going to stick with you on the inflationary side. So I was hoping you could help us understand if we just look on a per-rig basis where normalized costs are on a per-rig basis after some of these reactivation costs temper down a bit in the back half of the year. I mean, are we at $15,000, $16,000 a day or a different range on a per-rig basis?

Taylor, thanks for the question. There's a lot of moving parts in here. Besides reactivation costs, there's several things to consider. There's labor cost increases that we alluded to, which will be margin neutral. We have customer protection provisions and contracts. We also have... As we've moved away from our previously harvested inventory, the quote-unquote penny stock we've talked about in prior quarters, and we're having to pull out of fully-costed inventory, there are adjustments there. I will say, though, that I don't anticipate a lot of working capital lockup for that sort of thing. as we have implemented a lot of processes, policies, and systems improvements so that our warehouses are live in Oracle and people across the United States can see all the warehouses. And we've put in place min-max programs to manage the amount of buying that we do. So, you know, nonetheless, we will still see a little bit of maintenance costs go up. But maintenance is not the largest component of OPEX, as you know, labor is. So I would say a guess is probably closer to 14,000 after all those moving parts, but we still have some time to go until we settle to the final number, I believe.

Okay, thanks for that. And just a quick follow-up on some of the smaller divestments you made in U.S. land, the partnership with Parker around and it sounds like you've also exited the trucking business. Can you just talk a little bit about what the benefits to HP are in terms of why you decided to ultimately exit those businesses? I know they're not core to the lower 48 business, but do you add some additional revenue margin per day to your rig business? So just curious if you could help us think about why you're exiting those businesses and what the benefits are to HP.

I'll start with a couple of the numbers things and let John expand otherwise. You know, as we look at these, we have approximate proceeds initially that are modest of $67 million, which you'll be seeing coming out in our 10K later today, plus the potential for more revenue sharing through time. You know, these are very much margin neutral, so there's not a lot of accretion to... to our day margin. And if you think about it, they are very capital intensive businesses. So as we focus on our capital spend through time, that was one of our considerations. And then there's a bit of, you know, just the time and attention that such margin neutral businesses can bring for the management team. John?

Yeah, Taylor, it's a great question. We've had both of those services for a long, long time. And at the end of the day, if you get right down to it, we could not grow those to significant scale. We just continued to believe year after year that we would get the scale from our customer base. And I think it's just probably a function of the competitive nature out there for those particular services. But I think probably the biggest thing for us is it simplifies what we're doing. It removes some complication, you know, as you just think about it. I mean, trucking, running trucking is very complex and as Mark said, it's capital intensive and there's a lot of training and risk that's different than rigs and really kind of the same way with casing. So it just really didn't fit, just didn't really fit our model. And so, you know, we hated their great, both the trucking and the casing are best in class. There's no doubt about it. But again, it was very hard to grow it to the extent that we needed to.

Yeah, I understood. Thanks for the answers, guys.

Thank you.

And we will take our next question from Laker Saeed with ATP Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Thank you for taking my question. John, in terms of the contracted day rates comparing this quarter, Q3 calendar to Q2, as you've added in your new rig contracts, Has the contracted day rates gone up or, you know, if you look at maybe the forward calendar Q4, has the contracted day rate gone up sequentially or is it still declined?

Well, Wakar, as you know, we're working really hard to get out of the day rate business, and obviously we can back into it. If you were to look at it on a day rate basis and you pull out the term contracts that were entered into at an earlier date at much higher rates, then yes, the quarter over quarter, it is increasing. I don't know the amounts, Dave. That may be something that you can mention if you have that information. But if you combine them all together because of the rigs that are rolling off of earlier term contracts that were at much higher rates, that has a negative impact on the overall margin or overall margin and revenue.

So and it's just one other on the same topic. How does the contracted day rate for the 82 or so rigs that are in a contract compared to the spot day rate right now?

Oh, that's a great question, Lakhar. And just, you know, let me see. Hang on. But as we consider what John just said about about some rigs rolling off that are signed on term in a better market than even our increasing day rate market that we have today. I think, you know, as we just alluded to with a marquee price of $25,000 per day for a walking rig conversion, that we're getting back to some better pricing levels. In fact, we've had For existing term contracts and the standing spot customers, we've been passing through rate increases. Those don't all take effect at the same time, and we're still in negotiations with some customers about what that exact rate increase will be and when it will be. But suffice it to say that we are pushing the pricing, and more of that's going to be to come. Dave, any specifics on any numbers?

Yeah, just to add, Wakara, on the pricing, it's very region-specific. There's a couple regions where the difference between the spot and the term isn't that great, but then there's other regions, like in the West, where you're seeing still a disparity between the two of a couple thousand per day or something like that.

Okay. John, just one last question, if I may ask you. You know, if we go back like different cycles, H&P has always had a premium margin over its competitors. However, that seems to have gone away, and depending on how you treat the H&P technology contribution, it doesn't feel as if right now there is a premium embedded in the numbers. Do you think that as the cycle, you know, as we continue into next year that you regain that margin premium, or is it going to be kind of more in line with where the competition is?

Yeah, I think if you look at individual contracts that we win, we're winning at a premium. But obviously, these costs that we have, the reactivation costs and other costs that we're incurring have caused some challenges. I think if you go back to the 2017, 2018, 2019 market, we did have a premium margin at that time. So, yes, I fully expect that we'll continue to have premium margins over our peers. You mentioned technology. No doubt technology is going to play a larger role. And, you know, we're continuing to have adoption from customers. And, again, we're continuing to work very hard on executing on new commercial models, performance-based and KPI. We have customers that love the model, and they're willing to pay for a lot of the value that we provide. So more to come.

We can talk about it all day. We just have to demonstrate it, right? And I would just footnote with CAR that we're getting with these upticks that we're guiding to and talking about in rig activity, we're starting to get back to absorption rates with our scale, which will help with that margin accretion and historical industry-leading margin.

Okay. Great. Thank you very much.

Look forward to that. Thank you. Thank you, Akar. We are too. Brittany, I think that was our last question.

That was our last question for today. I will turn the program back over to John Lindsay for any additional or closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you, Brittany. Appreciate it. Thanks again, everybody, for joining us today. And as mentioned, we're very optimistic about the future. We think, obviously, our H&P FlexRigs, our digital solutions, and our best-in-class people. So we're looking forward to the future, and we'll talk to you next quarter. Thank you.