Vantage Drilling Intentl

Hello, and welcome to the Vantage Drilling Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand has been raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce General Counsel Douglas Stewart.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Vantage Drilling International third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. On the call today is also Ehab Thoma, our CEO, and Rafael Blatner, our CFO. This morning, we released our earnings announcement for the quarter ended September 30th. 2023. The earnings release is available on our website at VantageDrilling.com. Please also note that any comments we make today about our expectations of future events and projections are forward-looking statements pursuant to the private securities litigation reform act. We have based forward-looking statements on management's current expectations and assumptions and not on historical facts. Examples of these statements include but are not limited to our expectations regarding future results, including expectations regarding our liquidity position, future costs and expenses related to upgrades and out-of-service work, as well as contract preparation costs and expenses. Forward-looking statements in today's call are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control and could cause actual results to differ materially from the projections made in today's conference call. Vantage does not undertake the updating of any such statement or risk factor that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. We refer you to our earnings release and financials available on our website. We have prerecorded our prepared remarks and are participating on the call remotely to manage the question and answer session segment of the call. In the event there are issues with sound quality or of a similar nature, Please accept our apologies in advance, and thank you for your understanding. Now let me turn over the call to our CEO, Mr. Eham Toma.

Thank you, Douglas, and good morning and good afternoon, everyone. As I have stated during previous earnings calls, 2023 is the year where we have been focusing on recontracting our rigs at higher day rates and moving from legacy drilling contracts to more profitable ones. We have been especially successful in shallow water where the Suhana commenced its new 776-day contract with MEDCO in Indonesia at more than double the previous day rate, and the Topaz Driller relocated from Egypt and started the new contract with Eni Morocco with a strong mobilization fee and a day rate of $125,000 per day. In addition, we have now received a letter of award for the topaz driller for a two-year contract in southeast asia at healthy day rate mobilization fee and paid for upgrades the transition to more profitable contracts involves upfront investments in certain rig upgrades which at the same time enhances the marketability of our rigs and enable us to achieve higher future day rates as usual I will now guide you through our progress in relation to our latest corporate goals of one, maintaining stellar safety and operational performance, two, contracting the fleet at higher day rates, and three, achieving excellent stakeholders returns. And as I always do, I will begin with our corporate goal number one of maintaining stellar safety and operational performance, which is our license to operate as a company. In Q3, we remain focused on delivering our perfect day, everyday vision by consistently training, coaching, and mentoring our crews across our owned, managed, and supported fleets. During the quarter, we have continued with the reintroduction of the behavioral-based perfect day leadership training program across our worldwide operation with very positive feedback from all participants and overwhelming support from our clients. One notable accomplishment during the quarter was the Suhana achieving three years without a recordable incident, which was recognized by the International Association of Drilling Contractors through their new social media campaign on top performing rigs. Shifting to health, we are committed to managing traditional health hazards in our offshore facilities and have confidence in the comprehensive strategies we have put in place to protect the well-being of our offshore workforce. While there has been some uptick in COVID-19 cases in countries around the world and some new cases on board our rigs, the processes we adapted during the height of the pandemic continue to serve us well, keeping our crews safe and minimizing the disruption to operations. Finally, while we continue to implement our 2023 sustainability strategy, we are starting to look to the future in preparing our 2024 goals. Sustainability is at the heart of creating long-term value for our stakeholders by focusing on the three areas of environmental, social and governance. On the environmental side, we continue our focus on reducing our GHG emissions and fuel usage, better managing our waste and improving our water usage efficiencies. On the social side, we continue to focus on our industry-leading diversity, which is a core value for us that brings clear benefits to any business. Finally, and as always, we continue to maintain a strong governance focus and operate at the highest ethical standards in all regions where we operate through regular training on governance issues. Switching to operations, revenue efficiency for the fleet during the third quarter was 89%, where the deepwater fleet ended at 87.7% and the jackup fleet came in at 93.6%. The lower than usual revenue efficiency was mainly due to 11 days of mandatory special periodic survey and the dynamic positioning system sea trials for the tungsten explorer that needed to take place in the middle of the contract, in addition to planned repairs and maintenance to the Suhana and required upgrades to its accommodation. Now, I will walk you through our fleet status, which directly ties to our second corporate goal of securing higher day rates. During the third quarter, the Topaz Driller completed its contract in Egypt for Petrobel under a bare boat charter with Addis Egypt. The rig has since mobilized to Morocco and commenced drilling operations with Eni Morocco, where the rig is expected to continue working there until early December. Upon completion of this contract, the rig will move directly to its next contract in Ivory Coast for Foxtrot. As mentioned in my opening remarks, the Topaz Driller has now received a letter of award for a two-year campaign in Southeast Asia with nine months of unpriced options. After concluding its campaign for Foxtrot in Ivory Coast during the first quarter of 2024, The rig will mobilize to Southeast Asia, where it will undergo a comprehensive shipyard stay, carrying out contractual upgrades and preparations for commencing operations in Q3 2024. We will announce the contract day rate, mobilization fee, and the value of the paid-for upgrades once the contract is signed. Also, as mentioned in my opening remarks, these upgrades will enable us to achieve higher future day rates as they bring the Topaz driller specifications to comparable levels to competitors' rigs that were built and delivered years later. The Suhana continues to be active in Indonesia under the latest MEDCO contract, which will keep it busy until late 2025. The rig recently returned to drilling operations after spending around a month in the shipyard carrying out maintenance and contractual upgrades. Moving to the Deepwater Fleet, the Platinum Explorer continues to work for ONGC in India under its firm two-year contract through the fourth quarter of 2023, subject to the well-in-progress provision which is expected to keep the rig working into early 2024. Upon the completion of this contract, the rig will enter into a period of planned out-of-service expected to take approximately three months. During this time, We will conduct scheduled maintenance, change thrusters, obtain equipment recertifications, and upgrade the BOP to a 6-RAM cavity BOP. By upgrading the rig's BOP to 6-RAMs, the Platinum Explorer will become eligible to participate in more future tenders where a 6-RAM BOP is a mandatory requirement. Indeed, the rig continues to be actively marketed and is currently participating in a number of tenders. The Tungsten Explorer successfully drilled a second complex well in Namibia in 10,400 feet of water during the quarter and has since commenced work on a third exploration well also in Namibia. I'm also pleased to confirm that Total Energies have exercised the second 110 days contractual option, which will keep the rig busy with the client until late Q2 or early Q3 2024. with additional optional duration still available to be exercised, potentially keeping the rig active in the region into 2025. Our backlog at the end of the second quarter was approximately $230 million. During the quarter, we secured additional backlog of $30 million with the execution of the above-mentioned Timestand Explorer second option. I will now turn to our managed services business. Takapella completed its first well in Indonesia with Eni under its term contract, shared with Mubadala and Harbor Energy. This well was drilled with managed pressure drilling and was a significant gas discovery for the client and for the country. The rig has now mobilized the first well with Mubadala and successfully commenced the drilling operation. Mobalala has exercised its first priced option, thereby securing the rig until the third quarter of 2024 with four additional options remaining, which, if exercised, could result in the rig remaining in Indonesia under Vantage Management well into 2025. The Polaris continues to work for ONGC in India, which is expected to conclude in 2024. after which we will safely hand the rig back to C-Drill at a mutually agreed time and place. This is expected to take place around the end of the year. We are proud of the excellent performance of our rigs, as are our clients. In a recent industry presentation by Reichstadt, where they mentioned the 11 most important wells being drilled in the world at that time, We noted that three of these wells were being drilled using Vantage operated rigs, the Topaz Driller, the Capella and the Tungsten Explorer. Moving to the market dynamics and despite the recently widely talked about utilization wide spaces in 2024, the industry still believes in a robust multi-year upcycle evident by the long lead and long-term tender opportunities underway and the ones expected to soon be launched. We are committed to our strategy and will remain resolute in pursuing accretive day rates while maintaining a high level of utilization for the benefit of our stakeholders. I will now move to our third corporate goal of achieving excellent stakeholders returns. as i mentioned earlier our rigs are moving from legacy contracts to contracts at higher day rates reflecting the improved market some of these new contracts involve upfront cash investments which will be covered to a large extent by client reimbursements post contract commencement as well as the increased day rates of the actual contracts in regard to our cash position We ended a quarter with a cash balance of $77.6 million, including $7.6 million in restricted cash and $13.2 million of managed services pre-funded cash. The decrease in cash from the previous quarter, exclusive of the managed services pre-funded cash, was approximately $1.1 million. This was primarily due to the delayed collection of approximately $9 million associated with the topaz driller mobilization fee to Morocco. In short, in the third quarter, we remained focused on our corporate objectives of outstanding safety performance and pursuing profitable long-term drilling contracts to deliver strong future returns to our stakeholders. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Rafael to take us through the numbers.

Thank you, Ihab. Good morning and welcome, everyone. In the third quarter, we achieved near break-even net income attributed to shareholders, which I explained during my prepared remarks. The company finished the quarter with a contract backlog of approximately $230 million, which incorporates roughly $30 million resulting from the exercise of Total Energy's second option on the Tungsten Explorer contract. The company ended the quarter with approximately $77.6 million of cash, including $7.6 million in restricted cash, compared to $82.4 million at the previous quarter, inclusive of $2.7 million in restricted cash. At September 30, 2023, Vantage maintained $13.2 million of cash pre-funded by our managed services customer to address near-term obligations associated with the operations of their rigs. The decrease in cash was primarily due to the delay in collecting $9 million in mobilization fees for the Endi Morocco campaign, which was subsequently received in the fourth quarter. Working capital for the quarter ended at approximately $127.6 million compared to $126.8 million in the previous quarter. For the quarter, we achieved revenues of approximately $103.7 million compared to $71 million for the third quarter of 2022. The increase was primarily due to higher day rates and higher amortization of mobilization fees on the tungsten and towpaths, and increased activity, including reimbursables associated with the managed services business. Total revenues for the quarter compared unfavorably to $107.8 million reported in the second quarter of 2023 due to lower managed services revenue, including reimbursables, primarily due to the Aquarius handover procedural, offset by higher amortization of mobilization fees and higher day rates for the tungsten and topaz. For the quarter, our deepwater fleet achieved 87.7% revenue efficiency, and our direct-up fleet achieved revenue efficiency of 93.6%. In the third quarter of 2023, operating costs amounted to $74 million, which were higher compared to $66.4 million in the same quarter of 2022. This increase was primarily due to higher activity in the managed services segment, increased amortization of mobilization costs on the tungsten partially offset by lower expenses on the Topaz Driller resulting from the Baraboo Charter structure with Addis earlier in the quarter and the subsequent mobilization to Morocco. General and administrative expenses for the third quarter of 2023 total approximately $5.6 million as compared to $4.3 million for the comparable quarter in 2022. The increase is mainly due to higher compensation expense of $1.1 million, which includes approximately $600,000 of severance costs accrued in the current quarter as we transition several positions from Houston to Dubai in higher professional fees. Interest expense for the quarter was approximately $5.3 million compared to $8.5 million in the comparable quarter of 2022. The decrease was due to lower outstanding debt as the result of the pay down of the nine and a quarter notes during the fourth quarter of 2022 offset by the refinancing of the remaining balance with the nine and a half notes during the first quarter of 2023. Earnings before tax depreciation and amortization of $24.3 million for the quarter compared favorably to $877,000 in the comparable quarter in 2022. The net result for the quarter was near break-keeping that income attributed to shareholders. Please note that we'll post our third quarter 2023 quarterly report later today to our website. With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator to begin Q&A.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Once again, to ask a question.

Andrew, let me just jump in and say something here. It seems that I skipped and said that Polaris end of contract is expected to be in December 2024. I wish this was true. I think everybody knows it's December 2023. So sorry about that. Going back to the question now.

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Adam Cantor with Nighthead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking a quick question. I joined a couple minutes late, so apologies if it was already addressed, but working capital has been a pretty material use of cash over the last few quarters. Can you help us understand exactly what's driving that and if there's any expectation for that to reverse in the future?

Good morning, Adam. This is Rafael. The primary decrease in cash was the fact that we did not collect on the mobilization from anti-Morocco. And there's also approximately $10 million that remains uncollected from the Topaz drilling campaign in Egypt. And we're currently in discussions with Addis. about collecting the remaining on that particular contract.

Okay. Can you help me understand? You said $10 million for Addis in Egypt and mobilization with Enies. How much?

Nine, which have been already collected in the fourth quarter. So we still have an AR of $10 million that remains uncollected related to the Topaz Driller campaign in Egypt. through a variable charter for ATIS. All right, thank you.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1. Now I'm shown no further questions.

So with that, I'll hand the call back over to CEO Ehab Thoma for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Andrew. Thanks, everybody, for participating to the call. Thanks, Adam, for the good question. It has been a while. And yeah, looking forward to some good Q4 and 2024. Thanks, everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating. This concludes today's program, and you may now disconnect.