Seadrill Limited

Good morning and welcome to CDRIL's third quarter 2023 earnings call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. To ask a question, you'll need to press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Benjamin Wiseman, Corporate Finance Manager in Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Welcome to CDRIL's third quarter 2023 earnings call. With me today are Simon Johnson, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Grant Creed, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Sameer Ali, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, and Leith Nelson, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating and Technology Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of today's comments are forward-looking statements within the meaning of securities laws. They involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. No one should assume these forward-looking statements remain valid later in the quarter or year. For a more detailed discussion of the major risk factors affecting our business, please refer to our latest Forms 20F and 6K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Our comments also include non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations to the nearest corresponding GAAP measures are in the earnings release available on our website. Later in the call, following our prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up to permit more participation. Now, let me turn the call over to Simon.

Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. I'll begin with some opening comments about the third quarter results, followed by a few corporate updates before Samir covers our recent commercial activity and the market outlook. Grant will then provide a financial overview before opening up for Q&A. For the third quarter of 2023, CEDRAL reported adjusted EBITDA of $151 million on $414 million of revenues, resulting in a margin of 36.5%, which screens favourably across our peer group. Adjusted EBITDA was robust and therefore we have increased our full year 2023 guidance with the range now $485 to $505 million. Moving to shareholder returns, we initiated a $250 million buyback program in mid-September and as of last week's close it executed 85% of the total facility at an average of $42.76 per share. By our estimation, this was highly accretive for shareholders, and we are pleased with the progress to date. Given the success of the existing program, the company's robust financial position, and our constructive view on the market outlook, we're delighted to announce today that CETL's Board of Directors has increased our share repurchase authorization by a further $250 million, taking the aggregate authorization to an industry-leading $500 million. Now I'd like to touch on the potential sale of our cutter jack-up fleet and related joint venture interest. There's been a strong level of interest in these assets, but we've not concluded a sale at this time. Put simply, we intend to transact at a level that reflects our beliefs as to jack-up asset values and the underlying day rate environment, both of which continue to develop positively. We firmly believe that these are attractive drilling rigs in arguably the most prospective jack-up market on the planet right now. Although we remain focused on our strategy of exiting non-core asset categories and simplifying our company's value proposition, we're in no rush to sell these non-operated rigs and we will do so only if a buyer meets our pricing expectations. On the topic of our ongoing initiatives to simplify and realise cost efficiencies, we can announce today that we've decided to close our London office and consolidate our corporate headquarters in Houston, Texas. We anticipate this will occur before the end of the first quarter in 2024. First and foremost, I'd like to take this opportunity to personally thank the dedicated and talented team in London. The London office has been the hub of entrepreneurship and excellence, and everyone who's been a part of that can be justifiably proud of what has been achieved, especially in the past two years. In addition to the executive team, only a modest number of staff will transition to Houston. Nevertheless, looking ahead, the management team and I are excited about the opportunities for improved collaboration and for cost efficiencies that we anticipate will result from centralising our executive, operational and functional leadership under one roof in much closer proximity to key customers, suppliers and target markets. In our view, fundamentals remain robust. We believe in the length and durability of this cycle and also, crucially, Sigel's advantageous positioning relative to most of our trade rivals. Looking forward to 2025 and 2026, we expect a reduction in the impact of SPSs, boosting our revenues and cash flow profile, and we anticipate a significant uptick in earnings, particularly as the West Carina, West Jupiter and West Talos roll off existing legacy contracts. We're very positive about the outlook for South America, and last week's five-year plan from Petrobras only confirmed this view, with total EMP spending up 14%, and notably, exploration up 25% compared to the prior plan. Now I hand the line over to Samir to take us through the commercials in more detail. Over to you, Samir.