Odfjell Drilling Ltd

My name is James Crothers and I'm an Investor Relations Officer at the company.

I'm joined today by our Chief Executive Officer Kjetil Gjersdal and our Chief Financial Officer Orjan Lunde. Before we begin, your attention is brought to the important information slide of our presentation which we would encourage participants to read in full. Note that this presentation is only a summary of the quarter and a more comprehensive quarterly report should be read separately. Both that report and today's presentations are available on our website www.oddfjelldrilling.com Today's call will follow the traditional structure with Kjetil taking us through the key highlights before moving on to our operational review. Kjetil will then continue with an overview of the market as we see it today before handing over to Orjan who will go through our financial review. Kjetil will then summarize the presentation before we open up our Q&A session for analysts and investors. As always, the Q&A session will be conducted over both telephone lines and the webcast tools, and we will try to get through as many of the questions put to us as possible. However, if we don't get a chance to get through your question, I will endeavour to follow up with you directly after the call. We make an effort to answer all of the questions asked, so we do encourage you to use this feature. With that, I'll pass over to our CEO, Kjetil Gjersdal.

Thanks, James, and a very good afternoon, everybody. As I was quoted in our report, which was published earlier today, results emphasize the resilience and capability of our organization. Even though we've had one rig of fire from much of the quarter, we still have been able to return solid financial results, leverage our balance sheets, and we are continuing to return cash to our shareholders. From revenue of $251 million, we have recorded EBITDA of $162 million and achieved a net profit of $57 million. These numbers are positively impacted by the insurance proceeds from the Atlantic incidents. After write-off of lost equipment and expenses incurred related to the insurer's claim, there is a positive EBITDA effect of $32 million. Meanwhile, we have continued to deleverage, reducing our leverage ratio now to one point times net debt to EBITDA and our net debt to 862 million dollars. At the same time, we have announced the dividend for the quarter of 25 cents per share. And while we are still seeking to increase our dividend to a long term sustainable level, We believe that given the incident for this quarter, it was prudent to maintain our distribution level at 25 cents per share. I will touch more upon this later in the presentation. In addition, we have also added more backlog resulting in our own fleet now having firm contract backlog of 2.1 billion dollars. And of course, as many of you know, we have successfully brought Deep Sea Atlantic back on higher following the incident of the total fire of 106 days within the three to four months guidance, which we gave during our Q1 results presentation. And while the incident was a tough hit, I would say that, you know, the response Our organizations, our vendors, insurers, our clients, peers and the wider industry has just been exceptional. We did this the odd-fell way and it speaks volumes to all involved that we were able to bring the unit back into operations within 106 days and I would like to sincerely thank everybody who has been involved in making this happen. And on that topic, as we move on to the operational review, we wanted to make sure we provided an update on what's been going on with the Deep Sea Atlantic. Since the incident, the company has been working hard to bring the rig back on hire. This started by locating, cleaning out and recovering the BOP, which had been dropped to 1100 meters of water depth. This was not easy, but working with various suppliers, we were able to recover the BOP by using specialist equipment and by using the Deepsea Atlantic itself. Inspections of this dropped BOP suggest that it will be likely repaired and refurbished. Following this, the rig sailed to yard for repairs and to install a now upgraded BOP, which the company had in stock. The rig subsequently returned to site for testing and final acceptance in mid-July before going back on rate on August 2nd. The company has so far recognized $82 million worth of insurance proceeds related to recovery and repair following the incidents. As mentioned, the company has had a positive EBITDA effect of $32 million in Q2 related to the insurance proceeds and has had a positive EBIT effect of $4 million following an impairment loss of $28 million relating to the damaged equipment. As regards to cash, the estimated net impact from the incident, all effects taken into account, is negative approximately $35 million compared to what it would be if the incident had not happened. And I would like to add that over the past couple of months, we naturally have had a lot of people asking what the cause of the incident was. And while it's still a formal investigation ongoing, I think we can with confidence say that the cause of an incident was equipment errors and not operating errors. And then moving on to our backlog. and General Operations Performance. And despite the incident on the Atlantic, our units performed extremely well during the quarter. Notably, both the NIPSI Nordkapp and NIPSI Stavanger averaged the financial utilization of 99% during the period, above our 10-year average of 97%. Meanwhile, we also added another year of backlog to the DTC Nordkapp after Åke BP elected to exercise options to extend backlog for the unit for another year ahead of schedule. The day race for this contract will be defined by two independent rig workers before the end of this year. And with this extension, Deep Sea Nordkopf's firm contract backlog is now secure until at least 2028, and all of our units are now secure until at least late 2027. The Deep Sea Atlantic is the first unit with availability. However, Equinor still has priced options for the unit, which extends into early 2028. Our focus over the next couple of months will be on securing more backlog in a market that we believe will continue to strengthen going forward. And at that point, I think we can have a look at our view on the market. Starting with the supply side, the story really hasn't changed that much. The average age of harsh environment units continues to increase by limited new supplies being added. or is likely to materialize in the near future. New builds remain unlikely and the high spec unit market is increasingly tight. And when you look at the availability of tier one rigs in 27 and 28, it is notably low. We consider the utilization in our sector to currently be at around 90%. And if you consider historic trends, as utilization goes above 90%, Day rates tend to often follow. We believe that this tightening of the supply market is largely due to the strength of the Norwegian market, which we have been vocal about for some time now. Operators continue to reaffirm the strategy of drilling to arrest production decline, and they are looking to secure rig availability into the future. I think this is emphasized by recent contracts awards in our sector, such as for the trans-ocean CAT-Ds, as well as the Deep Sea Note Club. In addition to this, we continue to see good interests from overseas, notably Namibia, Suriname, Canada, and the UK. In addition to exploration work, Many of these areas are looking at development opportunities, which could mean further increased utilization of bricks in our sector. And ultimately, with these conditions, we believe that the market is likely to facilitate more strong day rates for future contracts. And I think we do certainly echo Commen's babel appears of a strengthening overall drilling market, and particularly for the harsh environment sector. And with that, that concludes my section and I will pass it on to my CFO, Orjan, to go through our financial review.

Thank you, Kjetil. I'll start with a summary of the income statement. Our operating revenue continues to benefit from higher day rates, while it was negatively impacted by the off-hire time on DC Atlantic in Q2. Operating revenue in Q2 2026 was $251 million compared to $219 million in Q2 2025. Operating revenue from our own fleet was $221 million, while the external fleet generated a revenue of $29 million. The reduction in revenue from the own fleet compared to Q1 is explained mainly by off-hire time related to the incident on Deep Sea Atlantic. Q2 EBITDA for the owned fleet segment was $160 million, representing a margin of 72%. The EBITDA and margin has been impacted by recognition of insurance proceeds, write-off of lost equipment and expenses incurred related to the insurance claim, resulting in a positive EBITDA effect of 32 million. Following an impairment loss of $28 million relating to damaged equipment, the EBIT was positively impacted by recognition of an insurance proceeds by $4 million. The EBITDA for the external fleet segment was $5 million, which is a margin of 16%. Less corporate overhead and other adjustments, the group EBITDA was $162 million. And as was stated in the highlight section of our reports, excluding insurance proceeds and other accounting impacts related to the insurance claim, the EBITDA for the quarter would have been $129 million. The company delivered a net profit of $57 million in Q2. Onto our balance sheet development and status, which remains solid. Our net debt is decreasing. Following the increase in debt level in Q4 2025 related to the acquisition of Deepsea Bergen, we have, during the first half of 26, reduced our net debt to $863 million, which corresponds to a leverage ratio of 1.5. The equity ratio is largely flat at 55% out of total assets of approximately $2.6 billion. The available liquidity is $308 million, including undrawn RCF of $248 million. Details of the cash flow for Q2 follows on the next slide. In Q2 2026, we generated $128 million in cash from operations. The impact from insurance proceeds, as discussed in our P&L, is the main explanation of the negative change in working capital of $35 million for the quarter, as insurance proceeds remained fully unpaid to the company per quarter date. The interest paid was $6 million on facilities and leases, while tax paid was also $6 million. Cash flow from investing activities was minus $20 million Where of 3 million was related to the deep sea Atlantic incident and 9 million was related to periodic maintenance. The remaining 8 million was client specific upgrades that has or will be fully covered by our customers. Net cash from financing activities was 44 million including minor FX adjustments. We paid 14 million dollars in scheduled installments on our bank facilities and leases. In addition, we made net repayments of $30 million on the revolving credit facilities during the quarter, increasing the available amount under the RCFs to $248 million. Dividends paid in Q2 were $60 million and was related to Q1 results. And then finally, despite a strong operational performance from the rest of the fleet, We are conscious that off-fire time related to Deep Sea Atlantic has impacted our business. While we maintain our view that we want to continue to increase our dividend to a point that we believe is sustainable in the long term, we believe that it would be financially prudent to maintain our quarterly dividend at 25 cents per share for Q2. Today's dividend translates to a total dividend payment of 60 million for the quarter and corresponds to an annualized yield of 10% based on yesterday's close. The shares will trade ex-dividends on the 3rd of September and payment will be made on or around the 17th of September 2026. I'll pass back to you Kjetil who will summarize our presentation.

Thank you. So in summary, second quarter showed for sure the capability of our organization. I believe that our company had a solid response and recovery from the deep sea Atlantic incident, while the rest of the fleet continued to perform very well. Putting this incident behind us, we are very excited about what's ahead of us. We continue to deliver while strengthening our balance sheets. With increased liquidity. Our market is strong now, and I think it's likely to become even stronger in the months ahead. And finally, putting the Atlantic incident behind us, we are excited about a strong backlog and the cash generation that we have ahead of us. So thank you very much for listening and James, please take over.

Yeah, thank you very much, Kjetil and Orjan. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, you can do so either by the telephone line controls, for which our operator Sergej is in control of that. So Sergej, if you could open the telephone lines, we'd be very thankful.

Sure. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask a question over the phone, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. You may also submit your questions via the webcast. Again, if you still want to ask a question over the phone. We'll now take our first question from Fredrik Stene from Clarksons Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi Kjetil, Orjan, James. Hope you are well. And congratulations on handling the Atlantic incident after what I had in my model. So I had to revise that. That's good, but that's not my question. I wanted to talk a bit about the market first. You're clearly painting a picture here about the stronger forest environment market going forward and I would also argue that one can read into the Nordkapp extension for example. I think the last one before this extension was agreed in November last year and now they're Adding that in July, even before they know what the rate will be, even though that is the same for you, it clearly shows to me at least that operators are also willing to contract new capacity further out in time than before. So with that backdrop, how should we think about potential new contract announcements on the Atlantic and even on the Bergen they still have one year plus left on their current contracts but if the market is tight and E&Ps want high spec rigs can we see contract announcements already this year you think or do we have to wait until 2027?

No, I think... Hi, Fredrik. I think we can definitely see something happening this year. We do have good dialogues. We do have very exciting conversations and talks. So, as you pointed out, the Atlantic still has priced options in there, which are valid. Probably see something happening around that. and also on the Dipsy Bergen. It's a great opportunity. The rig is free of options now and we have good interest in that rig and I think the likelihood of us being able to do something around that rig beyond the year of option that Equinor choose not to exercise. I think that's a fairly good chance for that.

Thank you. Next one maybe for Orjan. There's a cash impact of 35 million dollars from the incident and apologies if I didn't catch it but can you confirm if that includes loss of hire during the downtime or is that an additional cash impact just for clarity?

Yeah, thank you, Fredrik. Obviously not surprised by that question on this webcast, but I can confirm that that's also taken into account loss of hire. That's really the main effect is the loss of hire during the period. But in addition to that, insurance also covers costs incurred during recovery period. and incremental rig and equipment repair costs in addition to lost and damaged equipment. So that's how we calculated the net effect is really to compare what could have been if the incident hadn't happened and that leads us to an estimate of 35 million and the distribution then 7 million to Q2 and the remainder in the following quarters.

All right now that's very helpful and then just a final one if I may you kept your dividends flat this quarter to be prudent about your balance sheet but clearly you can see potential for that to grow further in the future now that these five rigs are on contract again you know it's a fair costume that you'll kind of resume the growth pace already from the next quarter or should we expect this being steady a bit before you potentially add to the payments?

Well eventually it's up to the board to decide the level of dividend going forward but I think you know we were vocal about it in both our presentation in the report that that we have a long-term vision of continuing to increase dividends to find that right long-term sustainable level and we certainly see that there's capacity in the company to do that. But you won't get any promises from me here now, Fredrik.

I tried. Thank you all for answering my questions. That is from me.

No worries. Thank you, Fredrik, as always.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question over the phone, please say no by pressing star one. I will pause for just a brief moment to allow you to signal. There are currently no further questions over the phone, but I'd like to hand the call back over to James for any webcast questions. Over to you, James. Sure.

Thank you very much. Thank you so much for the questions submitted so far. Again, we'll try to get through as many of these as we can. We may run out of time before we can answer them all, however. One question, can you talk about the dynamics around new builds? Given the global supply and demand situation and the ageing global fleet, when does the time come for the industry to make a new build order?

That's a very good question. I'll try to answer that. But as for now, I mean, we just cannot see it happening. There is no contract or market out there that supports a new build close to the billion dollar The price of a new build would be so high, you would need a long-term contract with day rates way beyond what we're seeing today. So there's just no basic support for that happening. And even if you come to a point where somebody could find a yard that's willing to take that on, you're looking at totally different payment terms. You are looking at at least, I would think, a four-year lead time. So new builds for us is just totally out of the question for short to medium term to discuss it. So I think it's much more likely that you will see life enhancement projects around existing fleet before we see any new builds coming in. And certainly with the way we operate our unit, as I say to my organization, we need to take good care of them because we're going to have them for a long time.

and we also do that take that into account in our maintenance philosophy and so on so yeah don't see new builds happening cannot see it happening at all great thank you similarly then I believe this is a following question what about your own fleet a couple of them are 15 years old plus so what sort of lifespan do you forecast for your own fleet units

Well, the last rig that we scrapped, I believe it was Diepseberg in 21, was 37 years. It was operating all the way to the end. So I can easily see our rigs at least operating up to 35 years. So I think, you know, if you dive into life's extensions program and so on, you can probably see it work even longer. So we're going to live We're going to drill for many, many years with the rigs that we have in our fleet today.

Thank you. Again, we've had a few questions on M&A, as we always do. So I suppose the question is, what's our thoughts on M&A? Are we still considering it or are we too busy with the BOP incident, as one person has asked?

No, no, no. We can handle more than one thing, but I think, you know, We did the Dibsebergen deal here before Christmas. I think that sort of represents a deal that we are interested in looking into. Should we do something more? It needs to be a good quality asset. It needs to come with a good contract with a reputable client. And it needs something to sort of fit both the fleet structure that we have and the company profile. So we're always keeping an eye out. They have a very good overview of what's out there. There are rigs in our management fleet that we know very well and they are good rigs. We continue to follow their situation and opportunities out there and I won't rule out anything. We are definitely open to expand our own fleet even more, given the right circumstances.

Thank you. With net debt continuing to decrease and the balance sheet strengthening, How do you currently prioritise capital allocation between higher dividends, buybacks and investments in additional rigged capacity over the next couple of years? Orjan, do you want to talk about that?

I think we already covered a few of the aspects that's in that question. As Kjetil mentioned, the level of dividend is up to the board and we are In a capacity development that we could still increase to find a sustainable level for our business. But also considering potential M&A opportunities I feel that the Deepsea Bergen acquisition was a good proof of what we can do as our balance sheet is continuing to strengthen through deleveraging. We were able to do that acquisition based on our own balance sheets and that could be a potential for the future as well.

Okay, thank you very much. We've got a follow-on question about the new builds. So there are no new build orders happening in the next two to three years. What is your expectation of day rates and how high could they get for the next periods?

Well, as I said, you know, we are around, I believe, around 90% utilization now for the rigs in our sector now, especially the tier one rigs in our sector. All history shows that as market tightens up, day rates have a tendency to follow. To speculate on a day rate level, I won't do that. But I think we have an average day rate for our fleet now of around 475, 480, 427 and 428. I think that sort of gives a level that we believe at least that we will stay on for a period and it might be that as market tightens up further that they will continue to increase.

Great. So we've got a question here. Once the DTC Norcat day rates are disclosed, should investors expect earnings per rig from 20 onwards to increase, decrease or remain broadly in line with current levels? We struggle to give guidance. We don't really give guidance as a standard. Maybe we want to talk just generally about how the DTC Nordcap contract is structured such that we have to agree the day rates. The two independent brokers have to agree day rates.

Yeah, so the two independent brokers, they set the rate based on, and this is important, it's not only about sort of the recent day rates that fixtures that's made in the market, but it's also about Asset quality and capability of the certain assets. And I think, you know, the Ipsen World Cup is one of the absolute best ones out there. So they will take all of these measures into account and eventually come up with a day rate. So I think it should indicate when that rate is set, I think it'd be around probably around November. It sort of gives an indication of both what the markets are now and how we can think about things going forward.

Great. We'll take one more question here. Which geographies are the tenders coming from for development work? Is Odd Field participating in any current development tenders? Again, we don't comment specifically on any tenders that we're operating in, but maybe you want to give a more general view of where we see opportunities coming from, which geographies we're looking at.

Absolutely. So we do have development work. Coming up in Canada, quite substantial actually, with various operators. There's work in Namibia, I think that's very well known, that things are progressing down there. There's also things happening in the UK, believe it or not. So all of those sectors are currently in the market for development work.

Okay, I think we'll, given the time, we'll Close the call there. Thank you all for joining the conference call. Our next Capital Markets event will be on the 3rd of November and we look forward to speaking to you then. Thank you all so much.