Helmerich & Payne, Inc.

The journey to becoming an outcome and customer focused firm did not happen overnight or over a few quarters. This customer centric focus is truly embedded in everything we do every day. We continue to advance in both performance based agreements and in our technology journey. Both performance based agreements and technology aid in our ability to create customer value. Our digital applications, are now at all-time highs for adoption and value creation. We now have advanced applications and automation working on essentially every rig in the US Lower 48, with app count growing 20% year-over-year. The drive for additional efficiencies continues, along with lateral links and well complexity. Our customer-centric models, rig equipment, drilling expertise, technology portfolio, and our people continue to place us at the center of this continued evolution. In addition, our customers' drive for safety and performance improvements uniquely positions H&P and our approach for further share capture and customer value creation. An example of this can be seen in the Permian Basin. The Permian Basin is down 12% year-over-year in total rate count. And over that same period, our share position of the Permian Basin has grown over three percentage points. On the international and offshore solutions fronts, we continue to enhance relationships around the globe. We are now active and effectively all of the major basins outside of Russia and China. Our teams continue to find growth opportunities in international markets, highlighted by near-term growth in South America and other key markets. The need for capital efficiency is not unique to the US shale market. customers large and small all over the globe need the right partner to create long-term and sustainable growth. Our distinctive capabilities, along with our broad geographical footprint, put us in a great position to grow in the U.S. and global markets. I'll turn it back over to John Lindsay.

Thank you, Trey. As Trey mentioned, we are well positioned for growth around the globe. Our customer exposure and geographical footprint have never been this broad in our company's long history. While we are still absorbing some of the impact of the rig suspensions in Saudi, we are firmly committed to further growth in Saudi Arabia and in the Middle East. We believe that our foundation of the right rigs, relationships, people, and approach will lead to incremental activity gains. I'm also encouraged by the progress on our KCA integration. We've adopted a deliberate phased approach, streamlining corporate back office and operational support functions while maintaining an appropriate pace at the rig level to maintain strong safety performance and deliver exceptional results to our customers. The initial phase of integrating our corporate and back office functions is nearly three quarters of the way complete, with most of the work targeted for completion in the first quarter of 2026. This focus has already unlocked meaningful cost synergies across our corporate functions. In Saudi Arabia, where we once ran two separate businesses, the merger has generated significant financial and operational gains. Our acquisition thesis is coming to life. We're leveraging a broader operational footprint and expanded customer base and our combined capabilities to differentiate H&P on the global stage. Today we're operating over 200 land rigs globally across major oil and gas basins and another 30 or so offshore management contracts. And we continue to serve our customers through customer-centric performance contracts and advanced technology rigs backed by digital solutions that drive safety and reliability. Our financial profile remains robust, and Kevin will go into greater detail during his remarks. I would like to reference the last slide in our deck, slide 10, as that truly captures the H&P differentiated drilling business model. And to reinforce those points, we believe our global scale and innovative solutions are differentiating in the market. And those capabilities, along with our investment grade balance sheet, sharp focus on cost and debt reduction, and a longstanding sustainable dividend is a unique value proposition in our industry. This successful integration positions us to deliver superior values to to our customers, our teams, and our shareholders. And now I'll turn the call over to Kevin. Thanks, John.

Today I will review our fiscal third quarter 25 operating results, which includes a full quarter impact from our KCAD acquisition, provide guidance for the fiscal fourth quarter, update remaining full year 2025 guidance where an update is needed, and finally comment on our financial positions. Let me start with a few highlights. The company generated quarterly revenues of just over $1 billion for the second straight quarter. Total direct operating costs were $735 million, and general and administrative expenses were approximately $66 million for the quarter, which represents a reduction of $15 million from the second. I will provide some additional color on the trajectory of our cost structure and the progress we have made against our cost initiatives later in my comments. Gross capital expenditures for our second quarter were $97 million, which was down from the second quarter but in line with our expectations for the full year, and second quarter cash flow from operations was $122 million. Lastly, overall, the company generated $268 million in EBITDA versus $242 million last quarter. Turning to our three segments, beginning with North American Solutions, we averaged 147 contracted rigs during the quarter. which was down a couple of rigs as compared to the second, however, pretty much in line with our expectations and the guidance that we provided during our last earnings call. The exit rig count was 141, which declined late in the quarter due to some churn, but is in line with the broader North American market conditions and consistent with our guidance during the last call. Segment direct margin was 266 million, which was right in line with last quarter, but materially higher than our expectations. As Trey indicated, this outcome is a testament to our operations and sales team working side by side our customers and understanding the needed outcomes to help them achieve the results they desire. We recognize that there are factors that negatively weigh on overall market conditions, such as continued uncertainty around tariffs and the possibility of lower commodity prices. However, we remain steadfastly focused on partnering with our customers to achieve the mutually successful outcomes that are required for all of us to generate acceptable returns on our investments. Our international solutions activity ended the third fiscal quarter with 69 rigs working. As we stated in the press release, all eight unconventional flex rigs in Saudi Arabia have now commenced operations with margins continuing to improve as we further integrate operations with KCAD. As a whole, our international solutions business generated direct margins of $34 million which was up $7 million from the second quarter. Finally, to our offshore solution segment, which generated $23 million in direct margins. With the inclusion of the KCAD's offshore business, we have added significant scale and geographic expansion to this segment. The business requires very little capital and generates steady cash flows from a set of blue chip customers. We are extremely pleased with how this business is performing and the additional value being created by the team that came over with the acquisition. As we noted in the press release, we did record an impairment of a significant part of the goodwill that was recorded at the date of the closing of the acquisition. This write-down was largely driven by the drop in our equity price, which is obviously driven by several factors, including the market's interest and sentiment around the energy sector and the various subsectors within it. To be clear, we still believe that over the long term, The acquisition will provide the growth and shareholder value creation that was originally contemplated. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 for North American Solutions, we expect to average between 138 and 144 contracted rigs, or approximately flat to our exit rate. Again, we are focused on providing customer-centric solutions and believe direct margins in fiscal Q4 to range between 230 and 250 million. The NAS team continues to exceed expectations in any given market conditions. I want to thank them for continuing to bring these amazing results that are obviously industry leading. As we look toward the fourth quarter of fiscal 25 for international, we expect direct margins from our international solutions to be between 22 and 32 million. Further, we expect the average operating rig count to be between 62 and 66 contracted rigs. The guidance range includes the impact of the Saudi rig suspensions, but also includes the margin improvement from the flex rig business. Now turning to guidance for our offshore solution segment, we expect to generate between $22 and $30 million in direct margin in the fourth quarter, with average management contracts and contracted platform rigs to be around $30 to $35. Outside of our core operating segments, we do have some businesses that generate direct margin collectively. Those are expected to contribute between between zero and three million in the fourth quarter. Now let me update a few full year 25 guidance items. As I stated previously, our capex spend was weighted to the front half of the year, and we were fully expecting it to moderate for the balance of the year, which it has. However, we are slightly revising the full year capital spend to 380 to 395 million, therefore increasing the lower end of the guidance as the full year number crystallizes in the last couple months of the year. Although we are not ready to give 2026 capital guidance, the number will be coming down from the 2025 levels. With the current level of rig activity and the continued savings that Mike and his team are finding to drive our maintenance costs per rig down, we expect the absolute capital spend to moderate over the 2025 levels. As for depreciation, general and administrative, and research and development expenses, we are not changing our guidance numbers from those estimates we provided during the second quarter earnings call. For cash taxes paid, we are lowering the top end of our guidance to $220 million. We are still assessing the impact of the recently passed Big Beautiful bill, but we do expect that to be a material benefit for us going forward. Lastly, we are expecting $25 million in interest expense for the fourth quarter. As we stated last call, we have been aggressively seeking and capturing synergies post-close of the acquisition. We also engaged in a full analysis of the necessary cost structure to support the expanded H&P business in the future. As a result of the analysis, we set a goal to reduce G&A and R&D costs by $50 to $75 million, which was inclusive of both synergies and the absolute right-sizing of the organization to manage the business going forward. I am pleased to say that we have identified $50 million of cost savings so far for which we expect to see the full benefit of starting in 2026. Lastly, I just want to emphasize that we are now anticipating by the end of this calendar year, we will have paid $200 million on the $400 million term loan, which is an increase to our previous expectation. And with that, I'll turn it back to the operator to open it up for questions.

At this time, if you would like to ask a question please press the star and 1 on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star 2. Once again, to ask a question, that is star 1. Our first question comes from Doug Becker with Capital One. Your line is open.

Thank you. John, you mentioned you're committed to further growth in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East more broadly. You have a full quarter of the KCA assets under your belt. laser focused on growth. Just curious if you could provide some more color in how H&P might start to grow the international business from the fiscal fourth quarter level that's been laid out.

Sure, Doug. Hey, before I answer that, I also wanted to mention that during the opening remarks, Todd had made reference to Mike Lennox and Trey Adams being here. Many of you have met them, but Just to be clear, they're members of my team. They're really in the trenches every day, you know, dealing with Mike's got responsibility for North America Solutions and South America. Trey's got everything commercially, globally. They've been on the road a couple of times with Kevin and I, but so many of you have met them, but not everybody has. So I just wanted to put that context. As far as growth in Saudi, You know, there continues to be opportunities. There's a tender that will be coming out. I guess it may be actually out now. There's other opportunities for growth in Saudi. I think all of that is going to be a 2026 type timing. I don't see anything necessarily, you know, going back in 2025. But I do think there's great opportunities for 2026. And I think when you consider, with our prepared remarks, talking about the value proposition that we provide and that desire from NOCs around the world and IOCs around the world for a different operating model and being able to perform at a different level.

Trey, do you have anything you want to say? Carry on there john just share that absolutely we're tracking a lot of opportunities coming through the region in the Middle East. what's different in the from to from where we were six, seven, eight months ago to where we are today is, we have the right people right assets on the ground to participate in those tenders meaningfully. And what john just described, you know getting the eight flex rigs into Saudi was a big win for us we're going to continue to advance relationships across the region more broadly. And those conversations are deeper than what we've ever had because of the right fit rigs, right people, and the scalable operation that we have on the ground. So we're tracking quite a bit of activity. It's premature to get into some of the details associated with those tenders, but we're very active in them and we feel very confident that our value proposition will be shown through.

That definitely sounds encouraging. Are you able to say if there's any ongoing conversations about when the suspended rigs might go back to work or is that still up in the air?

You know, Doug, what I continue to hear is that the worst is behind us. There's, you know, we just don't know what the timing is. And I think it's really more of a budgeting issue than anything at this point. And so we don't have anything additional to share. Again, I think the easiest thing for us to just get our minds wrapped around is that it's a 2026 timeframe is what we would be looking at is probably the best way to approach it. And again, hopefully there's some opportunities along the way. We've got people on the ground and a lot of good things going on. But until we, I think we're just going to need a little bit more time to pass.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Grant Hines with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, Dean.

Morning. Morning. So you talked about performance contracts making up about 50% kind of active rigs and, you know, obviously driving out performance in the quarter. But could you maybe highlight what types of customers have been sort of the primary adopters of this contracting and maybe where the next leg of adoption might be?

Yeah, Grant, this is Mike. I'll start with it and then maybe hand it over to Trey. On the performance contracts, really it's all types. And so you've got your small privates, your mids, and then your large majors. And we're participating with them in all ways. But really it starts with getting in, understanding what outcomes they're looking to achieve, and then aligning on those. And so we've had great success doing that and continue to see that as a tool that we'll use going forward.

Yeah, and the only comment I would make, this is Trey, in addition to what Mike just shared, is you've probably seen our performance contract percentages stay around 50% for, it's probably been eight quarters now, and it's been relatively range bound. But I don't think that that's totally encompassing what we're providing at a larger scale and across what I would consider the vast majority of our customer conversations today. So as Mike pointed out, every conversation we have with a customer is attributable to a goal or an outcome that they're looking to achieve. Half of those today were being remunerated on delivering of that outcome. There's the other vast majority of those that were coming in and were creating differentiated value and getting compensated differentially for that value creation. So, you know, I think that number, is a bit misleading because it doesn't fully encompass the conversations that we're having every day with customers and the value that they're seeing with working and partnering with H&P.

Gotcha. And maybe just as a follow-up, I mean, are there any pockets internationally where you're having, you know, conversations with customers about these types of contracting models, just as obviously has been successful in North America?

Absolutely. We're having those conversations. They're going on today. We're putting our toe in the water in several markets today where we have those type of agreements taking shape. We have early stages of an agreement in the Middle East today that's arranged similar to what we have in the United States. And so we're seeing a lot of interest. Obviously, the IOC clients that have global scale are looking to translate what's happening in the U.S. shale abroad. And then conversations with NOCs and other smaller customers across the globe. They're very interested and want to better understand how we can partner and align. So yes, early days, but absolutely ongoing.

Great. Thanks. We'll turn it back.

Our next question comes from Eddie Kim with Barclays. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. So you got into an average recount in the lower 48, about 141 rigs at the midpoint, or about a 4% sequential decline, which is below the industry-wide recount decline and a little less severe than what some of your peers have been telegraphing. Any thoughts you can provide on that relative outperformance in your recount on your expectations for the fiscal 4Q? I know you highlighted some market share gains But is it that, is it maybe the mix or your customer mix? Any thoughts there?

Yeah, I'll start and then again hand it over to Trey. But we've got a great customer mix. And again, we're aligning to their outcomes. We've made investments for the last several years to drill these more complex, longer lateral wells. And so that's really where it's shifting to. And so we're very well positioned. And I think we've had resilience with our rig count and our margins, everything that we're doing as a result of those investments that we've made in previous years.

Got it. Great. My follow-up is just on just your thoughts on oil basins versus gas basins in the lower 48. I mean, your rig count has been fairly steady so far this year. Does that make up maybe change what we've seen some oil rigs come off, but about equally offset by gas rigs coming on? And just your thoughts on gas activity for the remainder of this calendar year. We've seen a steady ramp up in gas rigs just industry-wide. Do you expect that to continue based on the conversations you're having? Is the next move up in gas rigs really going to take place maybe in early 2026? Just your thoughts there would be great.

Yeah, no, I think you're spot on, right? We've had a pullback, slight pullback in the old plays. We've seen a slight uptick in the natural gas plays, specifically the Hainesville, Marcellus. That is somewhat offset. I mean, just to acknowledge it, we've had a few rigs. move from the only plays over to the gas plays so those rigs are hot rigs that are staying working there may be a slight uh continuation of that going forward i don't think it's it's it's a drastic jump i think it's a smaller in rig count but we we expect that to continue i think there this is john i think there's also just obviously a global trend toward natural gas and there's a lot of opportunities in the middle east and and so i think

being able to leverage our experience, whether it's performance, whether it's leveraging our technologies, there's huge opportunities for us as more gas is being drilled internationally.

Great. Thank you. I'll turn it back.

Our next question comes from Derek Podheiser with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning guys. Just just stick it on the North America guide. The range of 138 to 144, like Kevin mentioned in the prepared remarks is flat with the exit rate. Maybe can you just help us understand what brings you down to the lower end of the range versus the higher end of the range as we start thinking about next quarter? Is that a gas versus oil, commodity price driven, basin driven, customer driven? Just maybe some more color around the top end and bottom end of that range.

Yeah, some of it, I mean, obviously we're going to, you know, it fluctuates down. We expect to bring some out as potential high grading opportunities arise, which we do expect that to play out.

Yeah, I mean, I would layer in and just say, I mean, the largest impact to us is that there's a big commodity price shift or move, and you see some private E&P pullback, but with what we have in front of us right now, We feel pretty comfortable and confident, even if there was a large consolidation that occurred in the next. Few months, we wouldn't see the impact of that towards until towards our 1st, fiscal period or or beyond. So. I think we're pretty comfortable absent of a big commodity move.

Okay, fair enough. Let me switch it over to just. John, you mentioned the tenders, you know, obviously a 2026 event. But how should we think about incremental activity for H&P? I mean, would this be a pull for the legacy flex rigs? It's great to see that all eight are working now. I think you had one KCA rig working in the Jafora. I'm not sure. But how do we think about the interplay between what would be more of the pull? Would it be some of the suspended KCA rigs being able to move into Jafora? Or would this be a pull of the legacy HP flex rig that you have right now? Just trying to think about the opportunities to where you would pull that from specifically in Jafura.

Sure, Derek. Yeah, there are additional legacy KCA rigs that are working in Jafura, and we think there's additional opportunities there. Just in general, the rigs that more than likely will be going back to work are going to be gas focused. I mentioned that earlier. And so whether it's in Jafura or whether it's in more conventional gas basins, we've got a great fleet to approach those opportunities with. But I don't see any at this stage necessarily being flex rigs. It will all be the legacy KCA fleet.

Got it. Okay. That's helpful.

Appreciate the color. I'll turn it back. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Ati Modak with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, team. John, can you give us a sense of the direction we should think about in terms of the margins in North America in the context of all the conversations you're having with the customers, whether it's oil versus gas, the performance-based contracts as well, versus the trajectory of the rig count, say, into 26?

Yeah, I'm going to let Mike jump on that.

Yeah, Augie, I think there's resilience in those margins for a few reasons. One on the revenue side, we mentioned the performance contracts. We think, again, that's a great tool that aligns with our customers. So when they see value, we receive value as well. Our digital solutions, our technology is continuing to grow and expand on our rigs, which is helping aid in the success we've seen in drilling longer, more complex laterals. I mentioned earlier, but we've made in previous years investments in our rig fleet and specifically in automation, our engine power solutions that we have and tubulars that will continue to have upside with that revenue. And then on the expense side, we've been having a lot of focus, as Kevin had mentioned, just on the cost efficiency efforts. And so we're starting to bear some of those fruits now. And we're leveraging our scale, our scale domestically, our scale as a global organization. We're going to continue to do that. So I think there's staying power within those margins for North American solutions.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And then on the free cash flow cadence, increase the pay down targets also assuming that most of that is free cash flow is there any asset sale back into that and what's a reasonable way to expect uh the capex and free cash flow cadence or conversion here going forward and say into the next year i know it's early but any directional comments you can provide yeah the additional um term loan uh

extinguishment that we're expecting by the end of the year you know raising that from 175 to 200 that's just coming from organic operational cash flows no asset sales in there that's just our base business generating as Mike mentioned you know as we as we focus you know not only on the revenue side but we're focused on the cost side we're going to be able to generate a little a little higher cash flows that we're going to obviously as we stated before our primary Objective at this point is to not only create customer value, but it's to get the balance sheet back down to about a turn of leverage. When you think about, again, we're not giving guidance for 2026, but when you think about where we're going to end this year, we've got a clear line of sight of paying off the additional $200 million on that term loan, call it by the third calendar year of next year. And then we've got another, you know, our first tranche of bonds will be due in December of 2027. You know, we won't sit around long. We've already got that in sight. And so, again, the long-term goal is to get our overall leverage down to about a turn. And so, you know, one of the drivers, and I said it in my prepared remarks, but one of the drivers is just our CapEx spends coming down, you know, without giving, you know, clear articulation into what 2026 is going to look like from a capital spend. I know from the maintenance side, you know, we came down this year, we're getting down to levels that I think were kind of the pre-COVID levels, and I could let Mike elaborate a little bit more on this, but, you know, just the overall kind of necessary capital spend and the level of rig activity that we're anticipating for next year, you know, our overall capital spend is going to moderate quite a bit next year.

Thank you. Appreciate that.

Our next question comes from Jeff LeBlanc with TPH. Your line is open.

Good morning, John and team. Thank you for taking my question. I just want to see if you could provide some color on the rate churn in the North American market. And specifically, the public data would suggest that you have been able to add a couple of rigs to new customers on a go-forward basis and just trying to speak to that success. And if you think those opportunities should continue over the balance of the year. Thank you.

Sure. Well, that's why I've got these guys here to talk more about that because there is a lot of churn. Teams are doing great work in keeping rigs working. Do you have any thoughts?

Yeah, on the churn front, I mean, we're seeing it really from all, but I would primarily categorize it as with the privates, but the good thing is we've been able to find those homes, a lot of those RIDs homes, with either privates or others that are looking to high grade.

Yeah, this is Trey. I'll just comment and say our teams do a fantastic job of stringing together programs. There's a lot of short-term duration programs that are out there that are well-timed, but you have to have the conversation and relationship and rapport with those clients to to be well positioned in the front of the queue to grab that opportunity. Our teams stay in front of those and do a great job. And then as you think about new clients and customers in the in the US or 48, many of those relationships have been formed up over the last 1020 years. There's a lot of new companies and but there's a relatively constrained EMP community and so we keep a good feed and our teams stay very focused on maintaining those key relationships so. We don't expect that to change, and we think there will be continued churn, and we feel like we're well-suited to manage it.

Okay. Thanks for the caller. I'll hand the call back to the operator. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Keith Mackey with RBC. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Jumping around a little bit between calls, so apologies if this has been answered, but The guidance of up to 144 rigs for fiscal Q4 obviously implies that you could potentially add some rigs on average. So if this were to be the case, would that be more a result of better churn management or do you think you'd actually be adding net new rigs in the lower 48?

Yeah, I'll take that one. I think it's a combination, right? We're going to obviously have to manage churn really, really well in the near term to hit the upper end of that guide. In addition to that, right, we have opportunities out there that we're chasing and we're continuing to stay close to. So there's some incremental ads that we've baked into that higher number. Obviously, if the commodity price range holds firm, we feel comfortable that we'll be able to continue to accrete, you know, But that's where that number comes from. It comes from great churn management and the addition of a handful of rigs that we're having conversations currently with.

Okay, understood. And can you just talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the competitive landscape in the lower 48? We've been hearing rig rates still in that low to mid-30 range, although there's lots of variation within that range and around that range. Just talk about what you're seeing as far as, are you being asked to compete on price more than you normally would based on competitive bids and things like that? Or what does the landscape really look like in this environment?

Yeah, I'll start. We're not immune to the industry-wide pricing pressures. But again, we're pricing our rigs based on the value that we're delivering for our customers. And so we can align with commercial performance-based contracts to align to those. And that rewards us when we perform above our peers.

And the other nugget I'll share is the market for super spec and top end rig performance remains pretty constrained. And if you look at and you filter inactive rigs, inactive super specs for the last year, The super spec utilization rate is still above 80%. And if you go basin to basin, that super spec utilization rate even climbs further from there. In addition to that, you know, 70% of those inactive rigs are in the hands of four primary drilling providers in the U.S. Lord 48. So we feel like what we provide, and going back to Mike's comment, is differentiated. We aligned a value. And we're focused on our customer through every part of the conversation and equation.

And this has been a result of many, many years of our strategy and focusing on delivering better outcomes, leveraging technology, leveraging digital solutions. You know, there's a there's a huge safety component and element here and the things that we're working on. So it's really a function of just the overall teams and our people being able to continue to deliver for customers. It's been fun to be a part of.

Understood. Thanks very much. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Blake McLean with Daniel Energy Partners. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, y'all. Good morning. Hey, Blake. So look, a lot of good color. Appreciate that. A lot of good detailed questions have been asked. So maybe I'll just, here in the back of the queue, maybe I'll just ask you guys kind of a bigger picture question. And specifically on crude, we talked about natural gas and things, people feeling better there, both domestically and internationally. I was hoping maybe you could just riff a little bit on customer mindset on the crude side. A ton of moving parts and volatility over the last kind of quarter or so. I was just hoping you could share, do you feel like folks are generally more comfortable kind of oil outlook back half of this year into next year than they were say a quarter ago? Just anything you would share on customer conversations and how they're thinking about crude.

Yeah, I'll start and then others can lean in. I think it differs from conversation with customer to customer, right? many of our large customers that are looking through cycles and planning through cycles, identifying the right partners who they know will be there and be foundational elements to their value creation over time. And so those customers and conversations are looking beyond the end of calendar 2025 and much further out. Obviously with privates, those conversations are a little bit more sensitive in terms of what crude outlook you have. But the longer that crude continues to remain relatively stable and range bound, it gives those customers comfort to keep their programs going and to bring rigs online. So I think it's varied dramatically from customer architect to customer architect.

And I think also if you look at where the 26 curve is trading versus where it was trading, where the spot price was three months ago when we had our second quarter earnings call. I mean, again, you know, I think everyone's still, you know, sitting and waiting, thinking about their 26 budgets. You know, we still have some time that will pass between now and once they formalize them. But I think, you know, just overall, it's a much more constructive environment, you know, and having one set on the E&P side, you know, you feel a whole lot better when crude's trading in the, you know, mid to high 60s than you did, I think, three months ago when we were sub-60s.

Well, and you, you know, different reports you see on the outlook for crude production in the U.S. and it, you know, does it continue to increase? Does it begin to flatten out and decline? And there's some prediction that the production begins to decline. So a lot of variables out there.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. A lot of moving parts. But it does feel, I mean, we, It does feel like people are a bit more comfortable now than they were certainly the last time you guys reported. Anyway, thank you guys very much for the time. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Mark Bianchi with TV Cowan. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks for squeezing me in, guys. I was curious about the North America margin performance. It's been really good versus your guidance the last couple quarters. And you talked about some execution and some performance contracts driving that, I think. But, you know, maybe you could talk to us a little bit about kind of how you put the outlook together. Is there sort of a base case assumption? And then, you know, it's been a lot of performance, surprising performance contract stuff, or do you just take a a more conservative view on performance. And if you can beat that, that's great. Just maybe help us understand kind of the base case going into fiscal 4Q and the variables that could cause it to be above or below.

I'll start and then hand it over. But really, I want to start with thanking our employees. They have been executing. We set goals and they have far exceeded those goals. And so really proud of our teams that are out there. um and and i mentioned some cost efficiency efforts um we continue to see some of those will hang around and some of them won't maybe they're they're on a timing uh seasonal timing is the way i'd maybe describe that uh but but really proud of how they're executing and so i'll turn it over to somebody else maybe get more in the details on how we form it up yeah i think the key there is you know we do start from a bottoms up bottoms up approach you know there

We have firm contracts. We've been into conversations with our customers. As Trey mentioned, we're sitting, you know, on the same side of the table as they are trying to figure out what the desired outcomes are. And so when you think about the overall market sentiment, obviously, as we were just talking about, it's improved since the last quarter. I mean, there's still some, you know, some headwinds that we're facing. And so the slight guide down is a reflection of of the overall value proposition that we're providing. Some of that may have shifted from a day rate to a performance bonus incentive. When we're estimating those performance bonus incentives, we can't count on achieving the top end of that bonus range every single time. Again, we think that if you were to do the math and look at the average margin, what we're anticipating for the fourth quarter. We think it's reasonable, but anytime you throw a target out to Mike and his team, they seem to always find a way to beat it. We can't always count on that, but quarter after quarter after quarter, his team continues to deliver.

Great to see. On the international side, one really simplistic question, then I have another broader one, but Just on the rig count guide for the fiscal 4Q, what is the exit rate there, just so we can kind of understand what's happening with, you know, maybe the KCA rigs that are dropping off, and then what else is happening within the portfolio?

I think 62. Yeah, 62 is the exit rate.

Scott DeRue, City of Boulder, got it I can touch on on just some general activity right so obviously there's a lot going on right now, and if you think broadly across our international fleet. Scott DeRue, City of Boulder, You know, we continue to see a good amount of tender activity and opportunities in the Middle East over over the near term you'll see increased and improved activity and. and some of our other focused areas and markets, right? We have some activity increases planned in South America. As we sit here today, we're going to have another rig going into Australia. We're looking at growth in regions outside of the Middle East right now. I mean, we're having great conversations with IOCs outside of the Middle East as well. So, you know, there's where some of that fluctuation variability comes in that guide. But what I'll reinforce is that the difference of H&P today where we were six, eight months ago is that we're a truly global company and have a lot of opportunities that we're tracking across geographies. And so we're going to continue to see movement and wins in some geographies that may not hit the headline like US or the Middle East, but we're continuing to chase and find ways to create activity.

Yeah, and I think if you think about The number of rigs that were operating during the third quarter, it didn't include the additional nine rigs that we announced that were suspended back in early June. Those went off work in July. I call it July 1st. And to Trey's point, the guidance isn't a complete one-for-one down as a result of those suspensions. We're actually seeing some really positive kind of work and wins coming out of all the various countries that Trey just mentioned. Some really good stuff going down in Argentina. Mike and his team are leading those efforts, and I think the conversations are really good with customers down there.

Yeah, absolutely. Maybe to expand on Argentina, we have nine rigs operating today in Argentina. Lots of conversation, as some of y'all know, as they build out the infrastructure to get the gas out of the Vaca Morta there. We're positioned, we have four rigs down there, very well-suited flex rigs that can go to work. So we're in a good position. And I'd say we're early innings down there as they're adopting technology and continue to start using that down there. I think we'll have some good wind behind ourselves.

Okay, that's great. Maybe just to follow on to that real quick. On the margin side, so, you know, there's a lot of moving pieces with, I thought, the Saudi KCA rigs were pretty good margin and those are dropping off, but you've got these other rigs that are picking up. And then we've got the flex rigs in Saudi where there was some startup costs and it seems like that's maybe gone away or in the process of going away. Should we view this sort of September quarter margin in international as a low point and it has a good chance of getting better from here? Or how does that dynamic look as we roll through the next few quarters?

yeah this is Kevin and I do think I wouldn't you know I hate to call it a low point but I definitely feel like we're at an inflection point in terms of just the amount of gross margin that can be generated out of that international business obviously with the with the rig suspensions and there's all the work that Trey mentioned earlier that you know we're currently chasing across the whole Middle East but really chasing across the globe we do have we do see a line of sight and improving the margins that we're realizing on our flex rig business in Saudi. And so there's just, it seems like there's a lot of positive momentum outside of just, you know, absolute number of rigs working over there, but there's, um, you know, just the work that we're doing and improving, um, as we continue to integrate, you know, all the operations, uh, in, in, in Saudi, we're, we're seeing a lot of pretty good improvement. It might take a few more quarters. to get it up to like the full, you know, what's the expected ongoing run rate. But those teams, you know, across the historical legacy KCAD employees and then the FlexRig startup employees that we had been working on getting those margins, you know, going, getting that business started, it just continues to improve quarter after quarter.

Great. Thanks so much. I'll turn it back.

Our next question comes from David Smith with Pickering Energy Partners. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning and thank you for taking my question.

Good morning, Dave.

Starting with a housekeeping question and wanted to make sure I understood correctly that fiscal year CapEx guidance is 380 to 395 and $362 million Was spent in the 1st, 9 months of fiscal 25, but. Kind of implies a step down to, like, 25 or 26Million. At the mid point for fiscal Q4, which makes me feel like I'm missing something obvious.

No, no, you're not. We were the, the for 2025 was heavily, heavily weighted to the 1st, 2 or 3 quarters. You know, we won't be spending much in terms of really on the North American side. during the fourth quarter and what rolls through the fourth quarter will primarily be related to some stuff that we've got going on international you know it's not dollar for dollar uh commensurate decline as these rigs are being you know in terms of level of and rig activity there was some money that was being spent that's still coming through associated with the rig activity that we had prior to these suspensions but it's coming to a um you know a pretty quick um halt and decline during the fourth quarter so no you're not missing anything But it is, you know, we do feel comfortable about the guidance.

I appreciate that. I want to extrapolate that through 26, even though you said 26 is coming down. I also wanted to circle back on the cost reduction targets for 50 to 75 million. Your Q3, fiscal Q3 SG&A was basically in line with the trailing four-quarter average before the merger closed. it was 15 million lower than last quarter with the merger closing in mid-January. I just wanted to clarify how we should think about that 50 to, you know, maybe get into 75 million of identified cost savings relative to what's actually been achieved in the fiscal Q3 performance.

Yeah, the fiscal Q3 performance, obviously, we had a We had some severance costs and other costs that we recorded as restructuring costs. And so you'll see those separate in another line item on the income statement. But that run rate of 66 million is obviously a reflection of not only some of the reductions that we've already had, the synergies that we've already captured, but it also, I think, speaks to what the possibility is for 2026, which again, we've clearly identified 50 million of run rate savings that we will implement and have effectively executed all the decisions that we need in order to start 10-1 with a $50 million run rate. There's still more meat on that bone. We still have some more work to do, some more analysis to do. I think that will be a combination of synergies and just overall cost reductions as we think about what's the right necessary corporate structures to support the business going forward. But I can't know i'm claiming victory on the 50 million i don't want to claim victory on anything above 75 million but i think you know somewhere in between 50 and 75 is is is pretty achievable um as what we're given what we're thinking now very much appreciate it i'll turn it back thank you it appears we have no further questions at this time i'll turn the call back to john lindsay for closing remarks thank you raisa thank you again for joining us today

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