Transocean Ltd (Switzerland)

Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's third quarter 2024 TransOcean earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing the star and 1 on your telephone keypad. You may withdraw yourself from the queue by pressing star and 2. Please note this call is being recorded and I will be standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Director of Investor Relations, Allison Johnson.

Thank you, Madison. Good morning and welcome to TransOcean's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. A copy of our press release covering financial results along with supporting statements and schedules, including reconciliations and disclosures regarding non-GAAP financial measures, are posted on our website at deepwater.com. Joining me on this morning's call are Jeremy Thigpen, Chief Executive Officer, Keelan Adamson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Sadh Veda, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Roddy McKenzie, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. During the course of this call, TransOcean management may make certain forward-looking statements regarding various matters related to our business and company that are not historical facts. Such statements are based upon current expectations and certain assumptions and therefore are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings for our forward-looking statements and for more information regarding certain risks and uncertainties that could impact our future results. Also, please note that the company undertakes no duty to update or revise forward-looking statements. Following Jeremy, Keelan and Sadh's prepared comments, we will conduct a question and answer session with our team. During this time, to give more participants an opportunity to speak, please limit yourself to one initial question and one follow-up. Thank you very much. I'll now turn the call over to Jeremy.

Thank you, Allison, and welcome to our employees, customers, investors and analysts participating on today's call. As reported in yesterday's arranged release, for the third quarter of 2024, TransOcean delivered adjusted EBITDA of $342 million on $948 million of contract drilling revenues, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 36%. During the quarter, our marketing team was once again exceptionally busy, securing new contracts and extensions across the fleet. With these new contracts, our current pipeline of opportunities, 2024 is shaping up to be a very strong contracting year for TransOcean, ensuring excellent fleet utilization for the coming 12 to 18 months. In the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, BP awarded the Deepwater Atlas a one-year contract at a rate of $635,000 per day with no additional services provided under the contract. The contract is expected to commence in the second quarter of 2028 and includes a one-year option at the same rate. And given our current understanding of the customer's program, we expect that this option will ultimately be exercised. Additionally, the Deepwater Invictus was awarded two contract extensions that are currently expected to keep the rig working into November of this year. With these extensions, our active fleet is now essentially fully contracted in 2024. Lastly, for the Gulf, the Deepwater Conqueror was awarded a one-year contract at a rate of $530,000 per day, including additional services. This program is expected to commence in October of 2025. In India, Reliant Industries awarded the KG-1 a six-well contract at a rate of $410,000 per day, excluding additional services. The program is expected to commence in the second quarter of 2026 and includes multiple options into 2029. Moving to the Harsh Environment Fleet. In Norway, Equinor exercised a three-well option on the Trans-Ocean Spitsbergen at a current rate of $483,000 per day. Assuming all remaining options are exercised, the current well schedule extends through the fourth quarter of 2027. Equinor also exercised three one-well options on the Trans-Ocean Enabler at a current rate of $438,000 per day. The estimated 105 to 150-day extension extends the firm term into the third quarter of 2026. In Australia, Woodside exercised two options for a total of six additional wells at a rate of $390,000 per day. The firm period now runs through August of 2026, and with the remaining options, the rig is expected to remain in Australia through at least October of 2026. As I mentioned, the Trans-Ocean Fleet is now solidly booked for the vast majority of 2025 and well into 2026. In fact, based on today's backlog, our active fleet utilization for 2025 exceeds 97% and remains at roughly 86% through the first half of 2026. Through our 23 fixtures awarded so far this year, we have steadily eliminated utilization concerns through next year, successfully avoiding the so-called white space issue that most of our competitors have discussed over the past several months. We believe that our unique position relative to our peer group results from the following. We own and operate the highest capability fleet in the industry. We consistently deliver safe, reliable, and efficient operations for our customers. And we have a comprehensive understanding of the global market and use this advantage to maximize value creation from our portfolio of high specification assets. On my last point, before I hand it over to Keelan, I'd like to spend some time on asset quality. We have gradually but continuously optimized our portfolio of assets since 2014, resulting in a fleet that is technologically differentiated from that of our peers. Through the cycles, owning and operating the highest specification rig fleet has consistently proven to be the winning strategy. As you're well aware, Trans-Ocean owns the only two eighth generation ultra deepwater drill ships in the world, Deepwater Atlas and the Deepwater Titan. These rigs are equipped with 1700 short ton hoisting capability and 20,000 PSI well control equipment. We also own eight of the twelve 1400 short ton drill ships. Of the remaining four, two are essentially permanently deployed in the Angolan market. One is committed to Shell for five years and one was just awarded a three year contract with Petrobras. The result of this is that in the medium term, we have the only marketable assets in this sought after class. As we discussed in previous calls, hook load is important to customers as it characterizes the rigs capability to run longer and heavier casing strings. This capability permits our customers to optimize their well designs, thereby reducing the number of days required to drill their wells. And if reservoir performance dynamics allow, facilitate greater well productivity due to the preservation of the well bore diameter. As evidenced by our one point three billion dollars in recent contract awards are now nine point three billion dollars in total backlog, which, by the way, represents a seven point five percent sequential increase from our July two thousand twenty four fleet status report and our two thousand twenty five contract coverage relative to our peer group. Our portfolio of high specification, ultra deep water and harsh environment rigs, all else being equal, seems to be clearly preferred by our customers, leading to higher full cycle utilization and enabling us to fix industry leading day rates. This has been demonstrated throughout the year by our market leading contracts across the fleet, including, for example, the recent award for the deep water conqueror. Although the commencement date for this specific program falls within a window during which the fleet utilization of each of our competitors is expected to be below 60 percent, the rigs still commanded a very strong day rate that even when adjusted for additional services is in excess of five hundred thousand dollars per day, a clear indicator that our customers recognize and appreciate the value of transitions, assets and services. Even in the context of low global float or fleet utilization, we have continually demonstrated that premium assets attract premium day rates as operators consistently elect to contract rigs that afford them the greatest well program efficiency and flexibility. In other words, operators will utilize the most value adding assets at every point in the cycle. With that, I'll now turn it over to Keelan.

Thanks, Jeremy, and good morning, everyone. Our confidence in the longevity of this upcycle is supported by our market studies and other third party analysis validated by recent contract awards and further confirmed by the discussions and negotiations with our customers. At just under five hundred billion dollars per year for the next several years, Wood McKenzie forecasts global upstream capex to remain relatively flat. However, and importantly, because the long term economics of our customers offshore projects are so compelling, the share of investment in deep water and ultra deep water is expected to grow from 12 percent of that five hundred billion in twenty twenty four to fifteen percent in twenty twenty six. In addition, per Rice Dead Energy's latest analysis, more than seventy five percent of new project sanctioning for each of the major operators is economically viable below sixty dollars a barrel. As such, it should come as no surprise that we are in advanced discussions with numerous customers for projects beginning in twenty twenty six and beyond. With minimal availability in our active fleet over the next 15 months, much of our focus has moved to the market in twenty twenty six. In the Gulf of Mexico, the Deepwater Proteus and Deepwater Asgard, both fourteen hundred ton hookload rigs will conclude their existing contracts in mid twenty twenty six. And as you might expect, we are actively engaged in direct negotiations with customers for work that would commence in immediate continuation of their current contracts. In Africa and the Mediterranean, we currently expect between 10 and 15 program, an average duration of about 12 months to commence in twenty twenty six. This demand is driven by development programs in Nigeria, Angola, Ivory Coast and Ghana. Each of these opportunities also have associated long term options. Moving into twenty twenty seven, we believe more units may be required in the region as programs in Mozambique and Namibia are expected to commence. In Brazil, Petrobras's Pool 3 tender results are expected imminently and we continue to believe they will award four rigs scheduled to begin operations between the end of twenty twenty five and early twenty twenty six. Additionally, the Sepia program is expected to be awarded by the end of the year for up to three rigs commencing early twenty twenty six. We also anticipate Petrobras will release another tender by year end. We think that these developments are well aligned with Petrobras's strategic plan, which requires 30 rigs through twenty thirty. Looking now at the high specification harsh environment market, the Norwegian market is currently sold out, but in balance. That said, we expect rig demand could outstrip local suppliers early as the fourth quarter of 2022. Accordingly, we are in the early stages of direct negotiations for our rigs that are scheduled to roll off contract in twenty twenty six and twenty twenty seven. Additionally, Equinor is currently out to tender for up to two incremental families commencing in this time frame. Moving to our operations, we continue to make significant progress with respect to operational discipline and the reliability of our fleet. In twenty twenty two, we started we started to implement critical operations authorization centers or COAs in Houston and in Stavanger. The COAs are staffed around the clock by teams of subject matter experts from our offshore workforce. These shore based teams provide additional verification and assurance as our offshore operations crews perform critical tasks, driving the required discipline to execute our operations safely, efficiently and correctly. Over the past several years, we have focused on and emphasized procedural discipline in the execution of our operation. Since we established our COA process and centers, we have delivered a 20 percent improvement in our operational reliability, benefiting both the customer and TransOcean. Simply said, we continue to identify, measure and improve upon those things which are solely within our control, striving to differentiate the service we provide our customers from our peers. Unfortunately, and notwithstanding this significant progress over the past several months, we have experienced some unique reliability issues related to our new 20,000 PSI BOPs. Given the revolutionary nature of this first issue equipment, such reliability issues are not unexpected. And as we have demonstrated many times before, when deploying new enabling technology, the technical strength and capability of TransOcean and our OEM partners will quickly resolve these issues. This is the primary driver for our uptime performance and revenue efficiency falling slightly year over year. We will continue to focus on all aspects of our operational execution to best serve our customers, the company and our shareholders. I'll now hand the call back to Jeremy.

Thanks, Keelan. Our high quality backlog and a limited near term availability of our active fleet are the direct result of our understanding of the market, unique quality of our assets and our reputation for operational excellence. We are proud to be recognized as the leader in offshore drilling and are grateful for the trust our customers place in us. As we consistently stated, our immediate focus is on the efficient conversion of our approximately $9.3 billion of backlog to revenue and then that revenue to cash. With new build capex largely behind us, we can deploy more free cash to organically deliver the balance sheet and enhance our financial stability. In fact, based on current internal forecasts, we believe we will approach a debt level sufficient to consider shareholder distributions approaching the end of 2026. In summary, the outlook for our assets and services remain strong. We have successfully insulated ourselves from near term utilization concerns as our contracting this year bridged us to the mid 2026 time frame when the market is expected to continue its upward trajectory for our high specification rigs. We are continually encouraged by conversations with our customers for programs well into the future as these discussions reinforce our confidence that we continue to participate in a sustained upcycle. And as you are aware, our current backlog provides clear visibility to future free cash flows to be used to meaningfully deliver the balance sheet. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Thad to review our financial results.

Thank you, Jeremy. And good day to everyone. During today's call, I will briefly recap our third quarter results, provide guidance for the fourth quarter and conclude with our preliminary expectations for the full year five. As is our practice, we will provide updated and more specific guidance when we report our 2024 results in February of next year. As disclosed in our press release for the third quarter, we reported a net loss attributable to controlling interest of four hundred and ninety four million dollars or a net loss of fifty eight cents per diluted share. During the quarter, we generated adjusted EBITDA of three hundred and forty two million dollars and cash flow from operations of approximately one hundred and ninety four million dollars. Positive unlevered free cash flow of one hundred and thirty six million dollars reflects the one hundred and ninety four million operating cash flow net of fifty eight million of capital expenditures. Capital expenditures for the quarter included thirty two million dollars related to the new bill, the Deepwater Aquila, with a balance associated with various other projects across the fleet. During the third quarter, we delivered contract drilling revenues of nine hundred and forty eight million dollars at an average daily revenue of approximately four hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars. Contract drilling revenues are slightly above our guidance, mainly due to extended operations of the Deepwater Invictus and shorter out of service durations for the Deepwater Atlas and the Petrobras 10,000. These factors were offset by lower than expected fleet revenue efficiency, due largely to downtime caused by the reliability challenges on our new 20 KPSI blowout preventers, as Keelan just highlighted. Operating and maintenance expense in the third quarter was five hundred and sixty three dollars. This is below our guidance, primarily due to the delay of noncritical in service maintenance activities in the active fleet and the favorable resolution of old contingencies. DNA expense in the third quarter was forty seven million dollars. This is slightly below our guidance, mainly due to delays in the provision of professional and IT related services, which are currently expected to occur in the fourth quarter. We ended the third quarter with total liquidity of approximately one point four dollars. This includes unrestricted cash and cash equivalents of four hundred and thirty five million dollars, about three hundred and sixty five million dollars of restricted cash, the majority of which is reserved for debt service and five hundred and seventy six million dollars of capacity from our undrawn revolving credit facility. I will now provide guidance ranges for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four and preliminary guidance ranges for the full year twenty twenty five. As always, our guidance excludes speculative reactivations and upgrades. For the fourth quarter, we expect contract drilling revenues to be between nine hundred and fifty million, nine hundred and seventy million dollars based upon an average fleet wide midpoint revenue efficiency of ninety six point five percent, which, as you know, can vary based upon uptime performance, weather and other factors, and the including equipment challenges similar to those I mentioned a moment ago. This estimate also includes between fifty five million and sixty million dollars of additional service. Please recall that the additional services and customer reimbursables generally carry low single digit margins. We expect fourth quarter O&M expense to be within a range of approximately five hundred and eighty five million, hundred and five million dollars. This quarter over quarter increase is primarily due to an increase of in-service maintenance costs due to activity deferred from earlier in the year and a net increase in out of service costs, including those related to contract preparation for the deep water and the transition barrens. These are partially offset by lower costs for the Petrobras ten thousand, which completed its special periodic survey in the third quarter. We expect G&A expense for the fourth quarter to fall within a range of approximately fifty million dollars. This quarter over quarter increase is primarily related to the aforementioned delay and professional and IT related services that are now expected in the fourth quarter. Net interest expenses forecast to be approximately one hundred and forty four million dollars for the fourth quarter, comprising interest expense and interest income of about one hundred and fifty three million and nine million dollars, respectively. Capital expenditures and cash taxes are expected to be approximately thirty five million dollars, respectively. Finally, we currently estimate that we should end the year with liquidity in the one point three five billion dollar area, including the approximately five hundred and seventy six million dollar capacity of our undrawn revolving credit facility. Moving to the full year, twenty twenty five, we currently forecast contract drilling revenue to be between three point eight five billion and four billion dollars. The range primarily reflects potential variances in revenue efficiency, assuming approximately ninety six point five percent revenue efficiency at the midpoint and the limited availability of our active fleet. Our guidance includes between two hundred and twenty million and two hundred and thirty million of additional services and reimbursable expenses. We expect our full year O&M expense to be between two point three billion and two point four five billion dollars, and we currently anticipate G&A cost to be between one hundred and ninety million and two hundred million dollars. Our preliminary projected liquidity at year end twenty twenty five is between one point. Dollars reflecting our revenue and cost guidance and including our undrawn revolving credit facility and restricted cash of approximately four hundred and forty million dollars, most of which is reserved for debt service. This liquidity forecast includes twenty twenty five capex expectations of approximately one hundred and thirty million dollars, of which approximately sixty million is related to customer acquired capital upgrades for upcoming projects and capital spares and approximately seventy million dollars of sustaining capital investment. As a reminder, for the terms of our credit agreement, the capacity of our revolving credit facility defined to five hundred and ten million dollars from five hundred and seventy six million dollars effective late June twenty five. And again, this is preliminary guidance. We expect to provide updated estimates when we report our year end twenty twenty five results. Finally, based upon our debt maturity schedule, we expect to reduce debt by a minimum of approximately seven hundred and fifteen million dollars in twenty twenty five, ending the year with gross debt of approximately six point two billion dollars. As we have discussed previously, we will deploy all excess cash to debt repayment in pursuit of reducing our net debt to EBITDA metric to less than three point five times a prerequisite for us to contemplate distributions to shareholders based upon our existing backlog and our visibility to future demand. Currently expect this threshold to be met in late twenty twenty six, as Jeremy highlighted in his remarks. However, to support and potentially accelerate this initial to leveraging objective, we will remain focused on operational execution and prudent cost control to ensure that we maximize the conversion of backlog to cash. This concludes my prepared remarks and I'll now turn the call back to Allison for Q&A.

Thanks, Dad. Madison, we're now ready to take questions. And as a reminder to the participants, please limit yourself to one initial question and one follow up question.

Thank you. And at this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and one on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star and two. And we will pause for a moment to allow questions to queue. And we will take our first question from Eddie Kim with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Morning, Eddie. Just wanted to ask about just good morning. Just wanted to ask about your expectations on the trajectory of day rates for next year. Leading edge has been in that kind of high four hundreds range for about twelve, eighteen months now. Some exceptions above five hundred, but for the most part in the high four hundreds. Just given the utilization headwinds that your peers are faced with next year, not you guys, you expect leading edge could maybe drift lower into the mid four hundreds maybe before ramping up again in twenty six. Just how are you thinking about the day rate progression from here?

Hey, Eddie, this is Rodney McKenzie here. Hey, OK, so just our average fixture for our fourteen hundred ton class and above in twenty four has been like five twenty. So we're firmly in the five hundreds for that class of asset. Our view on where things are, if there's a little bit of soft spot here and there, what we've witnessed is that a lot of these programs that the rigs are on just now, they run a little bit longer. We also know there's a lot of direct negotiations that take place that are perhaps not out in the public domain. So like we use the example of the Invictus this year for us. So, you know, we think about we didn't really have a contract passed April of this year, but yet the rig is still working right now. And then, of course, we had the announcement with the long term BP contract. So I think there's a lot of stuff that you perhaps don't see. And my view also is that in terms of day rates for, you know, instead of the seventh gen premium units that we've got, maybe the seventh gen commodity units, there's no reason why they should dip substantially. I think if some of the sixth generation or tier two assets are to go idle, then I think there's a very strong possibility many of them will be sidelined. In fact, that's probably time for them to kind of retire. So I actually don't think the active utilization is going to be impacted too much when you think about the right assets. So I think for a lot of those seven gen WOP rigs, there shouldn't be a substantial differential in day rate. Yeah, Eddie, just to add to that, it doesn't impact us. It doesn't impact us at all. If you think 1250 ton rigs, ours are all on long term contracts for the most part. And so we're not going to be really bidding them for 2026. And of course, the 1400 ton and 1700 ton rigs have proven even through the depths of the downturn that we've just emerged from, that they can secure contracts at premium day rates. And so we're not really too concerned about what happens here over the course of the next several months in terms of contracting for work in 2025. But, you know, we are certainly keeping a close eye on our competitors. And it'll be interesting to see which ones favor utilization over maximizing day rates. We have no idea how that's out. But as Roddy said, I think this could be a great opportunity for the industry to kind of purge some of the lower spec assets as they roll out contracted by the technical to secure new ones.

Got it. Got it. That makes sense. But my follow up is just on the the sideline 7G drill ship capacity. There are about 10 that most consider to be viable 7G rigs between Colt Stack and the new builds of which you have three of those 10. Thus far, only only one of those 10 has secured a contract. Most recently that the title action. I think if you ask most people earlier this year, they would have expected a little more than that. So just I guess looking ahead to next year, just given the white space concerns that the industry faces and just based on kind of the demand that you're seeing, how many of the nine remaining sideline rigs would you expect to announce a contract sometime next year? Are we talking maybe two announcements or does that even seem a little too optimistic just based on what you're what you're saying?

Yeah, again, we would take that and you think about the three that we have sideline, we're in no rush to bring them to market. In fact, if we look at some of the numbers that were kind of kicked around, Jeremy had mentioned like there's 500 billion dollars essentially going to be spent every year going forward on upstream investment. If you think about that specifically in deep water, the current levels of the sanctioning are around about 50 billion dollars per year at the moment. But in 26 and 27, that's actually expected to double according to the latest rise that projection. So I just don't think there's any need to push those rigs out right now. I think it would actually be far smarter to wait and target the 26 and 27 time frame when basically there's twice as many projects are going to be sanctioned as there is now. Yeah. And having said that, though, I mean, these assets are going to take a year plus to bring out a cold stack. So, you know, you could see decisions made sometime in 2025 for a contract that started in late 26 or 27. But I wouldn't. I mean, you said maybe maybe one, two, maybe three. I think that would be probably about it for 2025 in terms of contracting of cold stacked assets.

Got it. Got it. OK, that makes sense. Great. Thank you both for all that color. I'll turn it back.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from A. Ranjyaram with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hey, Jeremy and team, I wanted to get your broader thoughts on just the overall industry structure that you see at the premium end of the market. And obviously, there's been some press reports on a consolidation transaction, potentially between TransOcean and CEDARS. I was wondering if you could maybe just comment broadly around your thoughts on industry consolidation and if you care to comment on some of the press reports that we're reading.

Well, you know, we're not going to comment on press reports that are out there that are based on speculation. I mean, I find that the media and the press do such a wonderful job of really getting the facts before they print a story. But regardless, I said, I think we have been very consistent in our approach to consolidation. We think it is healthy for our piece of the industry. We've helped lead that consolidation. Some of our competitors have certainly done that as well. We are in a much, much healthier piece of the industry now than we were if you go back to 2014. Far fewer players in the market, far fewer assets in the market. The industry structure has been much improved over the course of the last eight, nine years, ten years. And so I think we're in a good place as an industry. We still think there's room for a bit more consolidation in space and think that would be healthy. There are all kinds of all kinds of incremental benefit, all kinds of value that can be created through a transaction and a combination. I mean, you know, we could take on 10, 15 additional rigs with very little increase to our base support for those rigs. A lot of a lot of synergies that can be realized. So, you know, we're still always looking. But for us, it's going to be around asset quality. It's going to have to be the right value. And so, you know, I think it's I think it's tough to match everything up and get deals done in the current environment where everybody thinks that we're up and to the right for the foreseeable future. They have a little bit of a pause here over the next several months. But I think I think consolidation is still a good thing. But but even if there isn't any consolidation, I think the industry is in a much healthier place today than it was when we started the downturn back in 2014.

Yeah, great. Just my follow up on the on the BOP kind of teething issues, could you maybe just elaborate on that? Is this is this just kind of normal type of, you know, kind of conditioning work you do on a new piece of equipment?

Yeah, and it's Kielan here. Is it normal? Yeah, I guess it's not. Nothing's really normal when you're talking about. That the aspects that have an infant mortality that we're

experiencing in some of these components, pretty standard sort of expectations, stuff that are the very nature of the technology that we're using, the tolerances reduce significantly. And and some of the aspects of that can be tested in qualification and then from then don't really appear until you get into actual operation and see how things work at that time. So we're going back through some qualification testing to amend some components to be able to deliver a much more robust reliability from the units going forward. So not not necessarily surprised. We experienced some of this before with some of the higher spec 15 K BOPs we delivered in the last in the last cycle. And

we're very confident that working with our partners going forward, we'll resolve these 20 K ones very, very quickly.

Yeah, I mean, candidly, given given the the nature of this technology, the fact that we went an entire year without really any issues at all. And then we had some some piece of the equipment fail a little sooner than we would have hoped. But honestly, it's been a it's been a pretty good run given given the first issue first issue equipment. Yeah, that's

right. Jim, thanks, gentlemen.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from Scott Gruber with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. That was one of the underlying cost inflation is embedded in the 25 cost guide. We're just hearing some inflation commentary coming out of Brazil and West Africa. So just trying to get a sense of where inflation is running these days.

So it's a good question. And it varies based upon jurisdiction, asset activity, to be sure. I mean, what we've observed, I think, in 2024 was inflation that on average comprised somewhere between five and six percent. But it really depends upon what it was rig floor. Think of that nature labor. We've assumed that there is a bit of inflation going forward, typically in the sort of three percentage range on average. And we're pretty comfortable that that's kind of where we're going to end up. That's for 2025 and beyond.

Got it. I appreciate that, Teller. And then just to add to

that, it's important to note that in our longer term contract, we build that into the contract and we pass it through the majority of that inflation through to the customer.

Got it. Yeah, no, it's good to know. Thank you. And then just thinking about the incremental demand that could show up in 26, Namibia is going to be a big area of focus. What type of rig are customers discussing, utilizing on the development projects offshore in Namibia?

Yes, I think it's a combination of drill ship and semi, but I'll let Tealon elaborate on that.

Yeah, I think it really depends on the aspect of the area of Namibia and the opportunity that the customers are working to in that area. In some cases, a harsh environment semi is preferred for the environmental conditions that can be quite extreme down there. And in other areas, actually, drill ships can survive that weather adequately. As you get closer to the South African border, you tend to get into the more harsh environment areas. So I would say it's a solution that's based on the location of the prospects and also the type of work. If you're in drilling mode, you probably have a lot more tolerance than perhaps in running completion. So later on, a development rig like a semi submersible for the completion phase of a project would probably be more desired.

I mean, simply, the alternative water drill ship is a more efficient drilling machine, but you may have more waiting on weather in certain areas of Namibia. And so a harsh environment semi submersible could stay on location longer. And so that's where our customers have to wait.

Yeah. Gotcha. You have this wonder whether, you know, what kind of which direction they were leaning, appreciate the color. I'll turn it back.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from David Smith with Pickering Energy Partners.

Hey, congratulations on your successful contracting and premium asset strategy that has insulated you from the white space concerns that your peers are dealing with. Roddy asked me to say that, David. Nobody asked me to say it. Thank you. It's impressive. Thank you. And I recognize that you're not making the decision of whether or not to stack rigs next year, but given your historically strong leadership and reducing excess capacity and task cycle, I just thought it would be valuable to get your perspective on the decision process of whether or not to stack a rig.

Yeah, David, we, you know, we read the review this on. I would say quarterly, but it's more frequent than quarterly. But I mean, you've seen over the years we have, I don't know, what is it? 60 plus floaters that we have that we have retired or scrapped or sold into other purposes over the course of the last decade. And so I think we've demonstrated that if we see that, you know, the long term future of a particular asset is not looking very bright, why incur the cost on it? Let's take the rig out of the supply. I think it'll be interesting to see, I'll speak for the industry and then a little bit for TransOcean for us. As we said earlier on the call, the 1700 ton rig, the 8th gen rigs and the 1400 ton rigs, which we call 7G premium, I guess, will certainly continue to work. You may see small gaps just if customer programs don't line perfectly, but for the most part, those rigs will continue to work. Our other 1250 ton rigs that are currently active are on longer term contracts for the most part, or in Brazil where we expect them, hope for they to be re-contracted. Once you get to Brazil, you have a pretty good incumbent position. And so it's not really a concern for us at the moment. But as we start to look around our peer group, obviously a lot of rigs rolling off the contract amongst our peers, all of 1250 ton or even below, some of them are 6G rigs. And you've got to wonder about the demand for some of the lower specification assets. We would create an ideal time to the extent that they don't secure contracts immediately following these contracts, that their existing contracts, that those rigs get sidelined and maybe even scrapped. But that's for our customers to decide. Our approach has always been, hey, what's the next nearest opportunity for this asset? What do we think that day rate will be? And if it's a prolonged period of time and it's uncertain, we make the decision pretty quickly to scrap the asset. Yeah, I think I would add to that. I think the strategy for a lot of our competitors on the lower spec assets has been really to wring out everything they possibly can in terms of value from those assets. Now, you run them to the end of the contracts, minimal spend on OpEx and CapEx as they go. And then when the time comes, you immediately reduce all of your expense and go idle or probably quickly move them to retirement without the opportunities. But it's kind of interesting as you go down that track and that's what happens. Then not only do you save the cash of not preserving the rigs or paying stacking fees, but by retiring, you actually high grade your fleet as well and high grade the overall. So I think everyone benefits from that kind of action.

I appreciate it. I think you have a great point. Sorry.

No, no, just like, you know, this gets to industry structure. A question that was asked earlier on. You know, I just want to emphasize that it is truly, I wouldn't call it a cage fight, but it's pretty close when we sit around and we have these discussions about assets that are available. You know, we trade off optionality, near term optionality, long term optionality. But at the end of the day, scarcity of drilling rigs in general is better for the stability of the industry through the cycles.

Yeah, absolutely. I think you have a great playbook. I think the industry will be stronger if your competitors borrow some pages from that playbook. If I could do a quick follow up, I thought the opening remark, that commentary about maybe being in a position to return cash to shareholders by late 26. That was interesting. I wanted to ask if there are any specific metrics that you're targeting before getting comfortable shifting some of that cash flow to shareholders versus debt reduction?

Well, I think the key metric is the one that I mentioned in our credit facility, which was negotiated a couple of years ago. There are some very specific criteria for a point at which. Come in the form of cash or share of purchases and the key one where we are able to actually begin to consider is three point five turns net debt to EBITDA. So in a hard cold reality, that is the metric that we hope to achieve as quickly as possible so that we can begin that deliberation. Beyond that, of course, paying down debt, you know, and we do very much have, if you will, the discipline of that, unlike many of our competitors. It's just the consequence of not restructuring during the downturn. But I think it's leading to a lot of very fruitful conversations internally about costs and things of that nature. There is a price for having assets as highly utilized as ours are. The high specification component and it's all of the, if you will, bells and whistles and things that improve the efficiency and essentially demand for them by our by our customers. But it does provide us with, you know, on the positive side, the basis for a very good conversation about where every dollar of cash is deployed. The benefits, of course, of paying down debt will include, you know, better credit ratings and so forth. And we've always talked about those as sort of an interim measure for achieving that double level, which comes about the same time as the two point five terms. I

appreciate the color.

That's it for me.

We did.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from Kurt Hullied with Benchmark. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everybody. Hey, Kurt. Hey, great update. Really appreciate it. So, just maybe got one observation, which basically given your contract coverage and everything you said about pricing and how your customers are looking at opportunities out beyond 2025, I'm not really sure why your stock's down 35 percent year to date. But clearly investors are thinking the end of cycle has already come. But nonetheless, I'll get off that soapbox and get a little bit smarter. We're good. But smarter. Get a little bit smarter about what's going on in the business. So I think obviously the biggest issue that investors have right now is a concern about what's going to transpire with respect to oil supply demand out beyond 2025. And in that context, already, if you will, placing bets that oil companies will be scaling back their investment in these deep water programs. So you referenced very early on that you've done extensive conversations with your customer base. And that's what you kind of predicated your outlook on, as we would expect that to be. So what is it that we are missing on this side of the table that you guys are picking up on in your conversations? And maybe is there a way that you can help express the conviction that your customers have in the outlook that they are willing to contract a rig for $600,000 a day starting in 2028?

Yeah, Kurt, that was a long question.

Well, I know. Any insights you have?

It's a good question. I certainly get the point. And I understand the concern in the broader market about future demand and supply challenges. What I would say is I don't spend a lot of time thinking about that. I pay attention to what our customers are telling us and how they are behaving, how they are acting. And I would say that everything that we are seeing from them demonstrates that they are committed for the long term. These are long term projects. It's not a land opportunity. These are longer cycle projects. You've got to remember now that the break even cost for our customers in deep waters is around $40 a barrel. And so even if oil prices drop a bit, they are still making some pretty nice returns internally. We've had several customers show us presentations that at $50 a barrel, they are making a 20% IRR. So they are doing very well at the moment. And I think they are committed to their future program. They do replace reserves. The best way to do that is through offshore. What the street doesn't see is what we see every day. You guys see tenders. And maybe you catch wind of some direct negotiations. The fact that our assets are so unique, the 1,700 ton assets, the 1,400 ton assets, why go out to tender? I mean, they are going to come to us. And so those are the conversations we are having with customers. And we are deep in conversations, deep in negotiations on several fronts for multiple years out from now. And so all of that gives us confidence. Again, you can't see that. The street can't see that. And that's probably part of what's weighing on the stock. But I believe we have come through with everything that we have said. Maybe it didn't occur on the timing that we necessarily wanted. Maybe it stretched out a quarter or two. But we continue to sign contracts at leading edge day rates and continue to keep utilization at near 100% for our active fleet. And because we believe in these conversations that we are having with our customers. And with that, I will turn it over to Roddy, who is involved in this every day. So what I would say is, as Jeremy described, the oil price is obviously important. But let's be honest. We move up and down as a stock with the commodity. But there is really a threshold by which it would not negatively impact our business. So our customers, as Jeremy mentioned, are very comfortable moving forward with these developments. And specifically, we are looking at harsh environment and deep water. So the true differential in spend is actually continuing to skew towards deep water because these are much more economical and viable projects. They just take a longer period of time. So that is actually a positive for us, again, from the view of your question was, why do you think things are going to be good in 2026 and 2027? Well, as we look at our fleet, in 2027, we already have half of the active fleet booked. So at this point in the cycle, we are well ahead of the game. And these rigs are booked on projects that will kind of transcend the near term up and down of oil because they were sanctioned at $35, $40 a barrel. So I think that's a really important concept for everybody to understand is that the nature of deep water drilling is long term. The value that is unlocked through the deep water drilling is significantly higher than practically any other place you could invest in energy, whether it be renewables or other forms of oil and gas. We represent the best IRR. It just so happens to take a longer period of time. But yeah, so I think those are the key elements of why this is not just a long cycle, but it kind of, you would have to see a sustained downturn in economic policies and commodity that crashes rather than ebbs and flows. And the last thing I'll point out as we think about where the commodity is today, we're talking about oil prices are a little soft. It's exactly what it was one year ago, which is exactly what it was one year prior to that. So we've kind of had this three year stretch that there's been highly constructive oil prices, even in the dips.

And maybe one more thing, Kurt, on

that. The other area to look at is

the amount of

FIDs in deep water that are being approved,

the consumable equipment that's being ordered, the trees

and the well heads. That's all long lead. That all needs to go well in front. And we see that data and that supports the decisions that are being made. But also add, we're seeing an uptake in exploration activity from where we were a few years ago to what our customers are placing our rigs on as a whole going forward. And that increase obviously supports potential future developments as well. So long answer, I guess. No,

no. Thanks for all that call. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from Frederickstein with Clarkson Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, Jeremy and team, hope you are all well and thank you for taking my question. So I wanted to circle back a bit to the M&A questions that were asked previously. And obviously I'm taught to understand it. You can't comment specifically on everything that's running around in the press. But in your prepared remarks, you did spend quite a lot on the comment around your fleet quality and your ability to use that quality and the specifications of your rigs to demand higher rates. So I was really wondering, should we, if you were to participate in M&A at some point, how much should we think about fleet quality to look at potential matches for trans-ocean? Or would just the benefit of being larger outweigh that? So any thinking you can give around that would be very helpful for me. Thank you.

Hi, Frederick. Yeah, thank you for the question. There's no acquisition we could make that would be accretive to the quality of our fleet. I mean, that's just true. No one has eight generation rigs. No one has eight 1,400 ton rigs. And so there's nothing we could add that would be necessarily accretive to our fleet. For us, there's value, obviously. You can immediately grow into your balance sheet and solve some issues there. You can acquire some very good marketable assets that are currently hot and some rolling off contract and ready to be repriced and what we think is a favorable with our $9.3 billion backlog and our marketing expertise around the globe. We would have the expertise and the patience to place those rigs on the best possible contracts to earn the highest possible return. And so we think there is some value in all of that. Obviously, there are synergies with respect to FG&A reductions, purchasing power. I mean, and I think just improving the overall quality and consistency of service that we can provide to our customers. There are all kinds of potential benefits from a transaction. But from a fleet quality standpoint itself, there's nothing we could acquire that would actually improve the quality of our fleet. We have the highest specification assets. It's not debatable. But getting hot assets that are good marketable, 1250-ton assets that are ready to go on to the next contract is certainly a plus. Because, I mean, for us to add capacity would require a reactivation of a cold-stacked asset, which we have told is somewhere between $75 and $125 million potentially and takes at least 12 months to do. So it would enable us to quickly grow and expand our presence and create some

real value for our customers and our shareholders. Thank you. That's very helpful.

Second question, you announced the sale of the Development Driller 3 and the Discover inspiration earlier this fall. I think the transaction was supposed to be completed in the third quarter. And then if those rigs are sold, and particularly if they're sold for auto-drilling work, I think that would be great, great prices, etc. So are you able to give us some updates on the process around those two rigs? And also, you know, if you believe they will still continue to drill or if they will be used for other purposes?

So the assets were sold without restriction on use once they were sold. However, the specification, the unique new assets gives us a good deal that probability of us competing against them in the future is relatively low. With respect to the timing of the transaction, we're just working with the prospective buyer right now. We've given, you know, we indicated in our filing that we expect the transaction to close by the end of the year. It has to do with the financing elements and things of that nature, but that's all we have as far as updates right now.

Okay, thank you very much. I'll thank the guys for taking more questions. Have a good day.

Thanks, Roger. You too.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from Greg Lewis with BTIG. Please go ahead.

Hey, thank you and good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in. A lot's been covered, so I'll try to keep it brief. I did want to talk a little bit about Brazil. You did mention, you know, the four-spec, the high-spec tender that's, you know, I guess going to be announced shortly and SEPIA. You kind of alluded to a third one, you know, less familiar with that one in terms of maybe when that starts up. And then just as I think about that, Jeremy, I think you did talk about direct negotiations, you know, as we look and we don't need to talk specifically about the MECA notes, but as we look at rigs in Brazil rolling off contract in 25, the numbers don't match and it looks like there's going to be a couple rigs that are idle. You know, I guess two questions there. One is, you know, in the past, I believe Petrobras has done direct negotiations with rigs that were already on contract and just extending those. Is that something that is still ongoing, happening? And then I guess if an international contracting rig was idle in Brazil, you know, it doesn't seem like idle rigs stick around Brazil too long. Realistically, how much white space could an international contractor have rigged being in Brazil before it would move out?

Yeah, hey, this is Roddy. I'll take that one. Yeah, so you've got, you know, the Ronquador tender has already been decided and then you've got like the SEPIA and the Pol III tender. Yeah, there is quite a lot of anticipation about there being additional tenders to come. So I think that was the first comment that you had. The second piece is, you know, direct negotiations is open to Petrobras, particularly on develop, you know, they have a different ownership pattern or like a wider partner base, if you would. So there's a couple of those that could result in direct negotiations for extensions. And again, the concept being it's far more efficient from the operator's point of view to extend a rig rather than to bring in a new one. So even to, you know, stop a contract, have a pause and then start up again, there's a lot of frictional losses there, not only for the contractor potential, but also for the operator. So like picking up services, laying down services, you know, going through inspections, all that kind of stuff. So we do expect that there's going to be a little bit of that going on in terms of direct negotiations. We also think there's going to be some additional tendered work coming out. So I think the incumbent fleet in Brazil is going to look pretty good for the most part. And then your last piece about, you know, how long would you hang around in Brazil? You know, typically, there used to be a rule that you had to remove the rig from Brazil. If you were not on the contract, that is no longer a rule. So you can actually hang out in Brazil for a while. So I think that probably depends a lot on, you know, the rigs that have some white space, it's not until, you know, six, nine months from now, maybe longer. So they're probably going to wait and see what these additional tenders look like before making a decision on that. And I would imagine they would wait as long as they possibly could. But I think you'll see over the next few months, the anticipation for the other tenders, the possibility of some direct negotiations. And you'll probably see that play out, you know, kind of by the end of the year or first quarter next year.

Super helpful. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And it appears that we have reached our allotted time for questions. I will now turn the program back to Alison Johnson. Alison,

thank you, Madison, and thank you everyone for your participation. We look forward to speaking with you again when we report our fourth quarter 2024 results. Have a good day.

This does conclude today's presentation. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.