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Transcript
OP
Operator
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Halliburton's Fourth Quarter 2011 Earnings Release Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host today, Kelly Youngblood, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Please begin.
KY
Kelly Youngblood
Analyst
Good morning, and welcome to the Halliburton Fourth Quarter 2011 Conference Call. Today's call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on Halliburton's website for 7 days. The press release announcing the fourth quarter results is available on the Halliburton website. Joining me today are Dave Lesar, CEO; Mark McCollum, CFO; and Tim Probert, President, Strategy and Corporate Development. I would like to remind our audience that some of today's comments may include forward-looking statements, reflecting Halliburton's views about future events and their potential impact on performance. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could impact operations and financial results and cause our actual results to materially differ from our forward-looking statements. These risks are discussed in Halliburton's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2011 and recent current reports on Form 8-K. Our comments include non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included in the press release, announcing the fourth quarter results, which, as I have mentioned, can be found on our website. We'll welcome questions after we complete our prepared remarks. Dave?
DL
David J. Lesar
Analyst
Thank you, Kelly, and good morning to everyone. Before discussing our fourth quarter results, let me begin with a few of our key accomplishments in 2011. First, I'm very proud to say that this was a record year for our company, with revenues of $24.8 billion, operating income of $4.7 billion and with growth, margins and returns that led our peer group. To put this in perspective, our business has nearly doubled in size over the last 5 years, primarily from organic growth. From a division perspective, we achieved record revenues in both our Completion and Production and Drilling and Evaluation divisions, and I want to thank all our employees for their help in making it happen. The cornerstones of our strategy remain unchanged and include maintaining leadership in unconventional plays, participating in the deepwater expansion and impacting the decline curve in mature fields. This year, we commercialized key technologies consistent with these growth themes, and Tim will discuss them later. As the industry leader in unconventional shale plays, we performed the first shale fracs in numerous countries around the globe, including Argentina, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Poland. We are now starting to invest more heavily in building out our pressure pumping footprint in the international marketplace. We are also continuing to invest in our deepwater business and have secured key contract wins in East Africa, Vietnam, Malaysia, Australia, China, Brazil and other markets and are building infrastructure to support this work. In addition, it's important to note that our service quality continues to be recognized by our customers, as Tim will also discuss. We believe this improving market position and service quality reputation will benefit us as new build deepwater rigs are scheduled to arrive in the coming years. Our customers are looking for deepwater alternatives that have…
MM
Mark A. McCollum
Analyst
Thanks, Dave, and good morning, everyone. Let me provide you with our fourth quarter financial highlights. Our revenue in the fourth quarter was $7.1 billion, up 8% sequentially from the third quarter. Total operating income for the fourth quarter was $1.4 billion, up 7% from the previous quarter. Our results in the fourth quarter included a $24 million charge in Corporate and Other related to an environmental matter. As a reminder, our third quarter results included an asset impairment charge of $25 million in the U.K. sector of the North Sea. Now going forward, I'll be comparing our fourth quarter results sequentially to the third quarter of 2011, excluding the impact of these charges. North America revenue grew 6%, while operating income declined 1% compared to the previous quarter. As Dave mentioned, the impact of seasonality, cost inflation and recent acquisitions negatively impacted our North America margins during the quarter. As a reminder, we historically see our first quarter results affected by weather-related seasonality in the Rockies and the Northeast U.S., where we have a high percentage of 24-hour crews, and it's typical to see a sequential revenue and margin decline in the first quarter. In addition, we're expecting some short-term inefficiencies as a result of rigs and equipment moving from natural gas to oil-directed basins. We're anticipating these issues will result in a sequential margin decline of approximately 100 basis points in the first quarter for North America. Internationally, revenue and operating income grew 11% and 37%, respectively, driven by activity improvements across all our regions and seasonal increases in softwares, completion tools and direct equipment sales at the end of the year. Our international margins improved to 15.2%. About half of the margin increase resulted from our seasonal increase in software and direct sales. The other half of…
TP
Timothy J. Probert
Analyst
Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. I wanted to provide some additional detail on the accomplishments that Dave alluded to and some of the technologies which not only have made a substantial contribution to our success in 2011 but will, we believe, underpin our focus areas for growth in unconventional, deepwater and mature assets in 2012. In the North America unconventional market, we've made great progress in deploying elements of our frac-of-the-future strategic initiative. We're rolling out our first series of Q10 pumps that have demonstrated significant reliability and maintenance advantages in field testing over our current fleet, already generally considered to be the best in the industry. Aggressive deployment of SandCastle storage and advanced dry polymer blenders in 2011 is expected to also provide ongoing improvements in capital efficiency and environmental performance. We've been particularly pleased with the performance of our GEM wireline analysis tool, which offers rapid evaluation of complex petrophysical properties, called "Shale Expert." It's been widely used in unconventional fields in the U.S. and internationally. We introduced our new RapidFrac sliding sleeve system that provides our customers with a dramatic increase in efficiency for the completion of horizontal unconventional reservoirs. We were also the first to deliver a cemented version of this technology. We realized a 10% reduction in crew size this year, and we expect ongoing improvements as we increase remote job monitoring and complete the deployment of our field mobility program, which will deliver enhanced operations and logistics efficiency. So in total, we believe our frac-of-the-future initiative will make us the most cost-effective service provider in the industry. We expect it to be fully rolled out in North America by the end of 2012 and will serve as a platform for our investment in international unconventional growth too. We continue to feel positive about…
DL
David J. Lesar
Analyst
Thanks, Tim. So obviously, a lot of moving parts this quarter. Let me summarize what I think should be the takeaways. One, we do not believe that there will be a collapse in margins in pressure pumping in the U.S. Therefore, our revenues and operating income are expected to increase in 2012 in North America. We expect our revenue growth will be in excess of the rig count growth in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. We expect our deepwater revenue growth will be in excess of the deepwater rig count growth, while we continue to earn from our customers kudos for our distinctive service quality. And although it will have a short-term impact on our margins, we are proactively moving equipment from dry gas basins to liquids plays, and this equipment is immediately displacing competition. We expect our Eastern Hemisphere margins to return to the mid- to high teens by the end of 2012, as we gain traction on new projects and growing our revenue faster than rig count. And lastly, our positive view of the market supports a capital spending of $3.5 billion to $4 billion. But let me reiterate, pressure pumping horsepower additions are not expected to increase over 2011, and we believe more of those will go to the international markets. So let's turn it over to questions at this point.
OP
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from James West with Barclays Capital.
JD
James C. West - Barclays Capital, Research Division
Analyst
A quick question on -- so your North American margins, you mentioned another 100 basis points down in 1Q. Do you expect a -- further, I know you don't expect a collapse but a further deterioration as we go into 2Q, 3Q, or is that where we start to stabilize out? And I guess a follow-up to that is kind of what should normalized margins be in North America?
MM
Mark A. McCollum
Analyst
I think the answer is at this point, James, that it's too early to tell. Obviously, we said in our comments, we look at the gas market's changes right now with some level of concern. But for the time being, most of those rigs are shifting from dry gas to liquids-rich basins. And as long as the rigs continue to shift, then we should be able to shift equipment. And while there might be some temporary margin impact, we should be able to get back to some level of normalized margins once the cost blip passes. But right now, I think it's still a little bit too early to tell.
JD
James C. West - Barclays Capital, Research Division
Analyst
Okay. And then can you just, Mark, remind us what kind of contract coverage you have for the pressure pumping equipment you have in North America today and then for the incremental capacity you have coming in this year?
DL
David J. Lesar
Analyst
Yes, James, this is Dave. All of our equipment that we have out there today and all that we anticipate bringing out in 2012 is already allocated to a specific set of customers. So none of it will be sort of in the open speculative market.
OP
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Brad Handler with Crédit Suisse.
Brad Handler - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: I guess I'll stick with North America as well, please. If the -- is there -- and ultimately that sense of where margins can go, if you're positioning assets more in liquids markets, what does -- what implications does that have on 24/7 operations once they're -- once you're doing what you think they should be doing? And maybe just conceptually then, if you have more pricing leverage than you've had in the last 6 months, just talk to us a little bit about where you think sort of the margins can -- let's strip out a couple of things, if you will, but can margins get back to above levels were you saw, say, in the third quarter?
DL
David J. Lesar
Analyst
Well, I think, obviously, as we -- as they shift into the oil basins, the opportunity to go toward 24-hour operations improves. Right now, activity is still fairly robust in those markets, and there's a clear shortage of people and equipment, as well as some of the supply chain issues that we find. And based on all the reports that we get from our guys in the field, we're continuing to get some pricing improvements in those oil- or liquids-rich basins. The problem, I think, that we face as we look forward is what will inflation do? As Dave commented, we're going to have continued challenges with logistics, with the supply chain moving proppants and gels and other things into those basins because they're in short supply. And we're fighting back inflation as hard as we can. Most of the price increases that I think that we're being able to achieve right now are serving to basically offset that inflation. We're going to have to work hard, as Dave commented, to really push back and see if we can get some relief from some of our suppliers as things soften in the gas basins. But we'll have to continue to work to make sure that we can get all of that passed through with the price increases that we get. So I think, as I've said, it's a little early to comment as to how much we can move pricing on a net basis, nor -- I just can't speculate at this point whether we'll be able to go back and get them back above those levels that we had in Q3 or even higher.
Brad Handler - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Understood, and I appreciate the color. As a follow-up, related -- coming back to pricing but maybe touching on a couple of things slightly differently, can you comment on price -- your pricing realizations recently in natural -- in dry gas basins? And then actually, can you give us some color on nonfrac-ing pricing in the U.S. as well?
TP
Timothy J. Probert
Analyst
This is Tim. Clearly, in the dry gas basins, there has been significantly more pressure than there has in liquids basins. I think that one of the things I tried to sort of outline for you here just on the call is a few of the key technologies, which are giving us an opportunity to extract some pricing realization pretty much across the board from drilling evaluation through to -- Drilling and Evaluation through to Completion. So there's leverage, I think, in North America to do that. That's the technology side. And as Dave and others have alluded to, we're also working hard on the cost efficiency side, investing substantially into an effort to lower our cost of delivery. So I think we've got a couple of tools in our chest here to -- in our war chest here to ensure that we minimize the impact of the transfer from dry gas to liquids basins, and then once there, have the tools to make sure that we get value for what we're delivering.
Brad Handler - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Fair enough. But absent the -- and I'll let others go. Absent the technology opportunity set, in nonfrac-ing-related activity, say, in -- also in liquids-rich basins, for example, are you seeing -- whether it is in coiled tubing or whether it's in your drilling suite, are you seeing pricing opportunities like-for-like products today?
TP
Timothy J. Probert
Analyst
There are some pricing opportunities. I think completions would be a bright spot. Obviously, with the introduction of RapidFrac, I would say that. And to use a negative example, obviously, as you move out of some of the deeper, hotter dry gas basins like the Haynesville, where high-temperature, high-pressure tools have been under great demand, there's less demand for those in liquids-rich basins. So there's a couple of pluses and minuses for you.
OP
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Jim Crandell with Dahlman Rose.
James D. Crandell - Dahlman Rose & Company, LLC, Research Division: Another question on North America. David, seems like one of the reasons for your success in North America is that you've been able to get your customers to take at least 4 other product lines for new frac spreads when you contract with them for frac equipment. Your competition says this will change when things come back into balance. Do you see it changing? Or do you think this can be a somewhat permanent feature of the business?
DL
David J. Lesar
Analyst
No, I think it's a -- I think it's more of a permanent feature of where we see the market. We were able to use the leverage of the frac fleet and still continue to use the leverage of the frac fleet -- don't get us wrong that we lost it, it's still there -- to bring some of our other product lines along. What we've been able to do is prove to our customers that by integrating those products together, with a frac, either through an integrated completion or integrated drilling, that there's actually a benefit to doing that. And therefore, our customer gets a well down faster, cheaper, more efficiently or more quickly. So I don't see the world going back to that because I think we've been at this long enough to prove the benefit of that strategy out.
James D. Crandell - Dahlman Rose & Company, LLC, Research Division: And my follow-up is an international question. And in your opinion, will increased demand alone start to be the catalyst that gets pricing to improve on large tenders? Or will it take a change in mindset by at least one of the major companies in the business?
MM
Mark A. McCollum
Analyst
I guess our planning assumption at this point is it's going to take an increase in demand overall. I mean, I think that, clearly, there are situations where service quality and technology can come to bear, that might help us in pricing. But our planning assumption is that the competition -- our competition is continuing to price very, very aggressively to prop up their share positions. And so we're continuing to battle hard on that front, and that means that it's in our -- it's our responsibility to execute well and to continue to roll out technologies to make sure that we can improve our margins and improve our returns over time, at least for the foreseeable future.
James D. Crandell - Dahlman Rose & Company, LLC, Research Division: Got it. Okay, Mark, just one more quick one. Your international contracts, if you have a-year-or-2 contracts for your frac equipment, do they have a clause which allows the customers to suggest a lower price to you or to ask for a lower price and you then consider it?
MM
Mark A. McCollum
Analyst
No. They typically don't have a clause that allows them to consider a lower price. A number of them have clauses that allow them to step away from the contractual arrangement after some period of time, and there are usually some penalties and make-wholes that are associated with that. What we're seeing in a number -- as Dave alluded to, when they begin to shift equipment, there also is a discussion of them shifting the arrangements to continue to work with them as the rigs move to the liquids-rich basins.
OP
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Bill Herbert with Simmons & Company.
William A. Herbert - Simmons & Company International, Research Division: With regard to your Eastern Hemisphere margins or international in general, if we're looking at a $0.10 hit quarter-on-quarter Q1, due to reasons that you mentioned, which are largely seasonal, are we looking then for the balance of the year in order to hit your mid-teens target on the Eastern Hemisphere front for the year up 200 or 300 basis points per quarter as 2012 unfolds at least?
MM
Mark A. McCollum
Analyst
I don't want to set specific expectations on that, but yes, I mean, I think when you do the math, that's generally how it's going to need to work.
William A. Herbert - Simmons & Company International, Research Division: Okay. And then with regard to your deployment of pressure pumping internationally and that's going to outpace the deployment of the domestic -- of assets -- of frac-ing assets in North America, is there -- or so is that international deployment, is it at this juncture trying to capture growth option value? Or is it specifically correlated with project ramps, which you've been contracted for or you're in sort of a specific dialogue with customers?
DL
David J. Lesar
Analyst
No, I think, Bill, it's really the latter. I think the -- if you look at the spaces that we enumerated, where we've done shale fracs last year, those -- you got to think of those as really exploration plays still. But we are having enough discussions with enough customers in those geographies to indicate to us that the demand will be there for that equipment. And similar to what we saw in the U.S., the demand for additional horsepower to do these shale fracs is there. So typically, where the investment is going is to augment the horsepower that we already have in place in these countries to basically take advantage of and have adequate horsepower on standby to be able to do the larger shale fracs versus maybe conventional work we've done there in the past.
MM
Mark A. McCollum
Analyst
Hi, Bill. This is Mark. I want to just make sure we correct a statement that you said. We weren't saying in our comments that we're sending more horsepower to international than we are into North America in 2012. We're just sending more than we -- to international than we sent in 2011. Higher percentage, okay?
William A. Herbert - Simmons & Company International, Research Division: Yes, good. And then one more for me. Mark, I'm not sure if you addressed this with regard to your guidance, but corporate expense for 2012, how should we think about that?
MM
Mark A. McCollum
Analyst
Well, we should run probably in total about $95 million to $105 million per quarter. And we did say in the first quarter, yes, there's going to be $0.02 to $0.03 of -- on an after-tax basis of cost that will be for these corporate initiatives, and that it probably will run in about the $0.02 range for the remainder of the year on an individual quarter. So that's a large part of why the corporate expenses have stepped up on a year-over-year basis.
OP
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Waqar Syed with Goldman Sachs.
WD
Waqar Syed - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Analyst · Goldman Sachs.
I just want to follow up on the international shales as well. A year ago, when I've asked you a question about how many rigs may be working in international shale, I think at that time, the number was maybe in the 10 to 15 kind of range. How has that number changed now in the last 12 months? And where do you expect that number to go in the coming 12 months?
TP
Timothy J. Probert
Analyst · Goldman Sachs.
Waqar, this is Tim, and I'll use an example to sort of maybe help with that, Latin America, which has got quite a lot of opportunities in the combination of Mexico, Colombia and Argentina. And it seems to us that the opportunity continues to grow. In 2012, it sort of feels to us like there's somewhere between 75 and 100 wells which will be drilled for shale activities in Latin America. And just if we put that in perspective with respect to a Haynesville, for example, which is just sort of about 99 rigs or thereabouts at the moment, I mean, clearly, if you divide that -- or multiply that 99 rigs by 3 or, let's say, 4 to 6 wells per year, we're dealing with a significantly smaller opportunity today. But the opportunity is growing and, as David alluded to, we're in the sort of primarily exploration appraisal phase, low horsepower requirements, primarily vertical, now shifting to horizontal, where horsepower requirements are doubling, as well as an increase in activity. So we think 2012 is a pretty good transition year for unconventionals, and we'll see the most significant uptake in '13 and '14.
WD
Waqar Syed - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Analyst · Goldman Sachs.
Okay. And now this is just Latin America. How about some of the other markets, Europe or Asia?
TP
Timothy J. Probert
Analyst · Goldman Sachs.
Well, yes, obviously, similar pictures there, too. We're just using Latin America as an example for you, and there are emerging opportunities around the globe. As I alluded to earlier, we’ve had the opportunity to do some basin evaluation work of some 60 basins in detail, and those evaluations are not escaping our customers either. So we're going to see a very positive trend here.
WD
Waqar Syed - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Analyst · Goldman Sachs.
Okay. Now would it be fair to say that when pressure pumping trucks were traditionally being employed internationally for, let's say, cementing and maybe acidization [ph] jobs, as they shift to fracturing, the revenue potential per crew could increase maybe 10 to 15x, is that fair to say? Or 10x or so?
TP
Timothy J. Probert
Analyst · Goldman Sachs.
It's not math that I've necessarily done, Waqar. I don’t know that we could say right now. There clearly is a substantial revenue pop. I mean, the difference normally in a horizontal well in the U.S. that's frac-ed versus a conventional well’s almost 2x. So yes, you think about the entire revenue opportunity, it's going to step up quite dramatically if that becomes the norm outside the U.S. as well.
OP
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Angie Sedita with UBS.
AD
Angeline M. Sedita - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division
Analyst · UBS.
Dave or Tim, in the liquid basins on pressure pumping, can you give us an idea today of what you're seeing in wait time for frac crews today versus 3 months ago, versus 6 months ago?
TP
Timothy J. Probert
Analyst · UBS.
Obviously, we're dealing specifically with the liquids-rich basins here just to sort of to -- obviously, dry gas is different. But I think that we can -- based on the reports from our field guys, we're still very heavily booked through Q1, which is pretty much as far as we ever look out. So that, to us, is a good indication.
AD
Angeline M. Sedita - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division
Analyst · UBS.
Okay. And then given that you're mobilizing equipment from your gas basins into the liquid basins, I assume others are doing the same. Could we reach a balanced market in the liquids basins earlier than originally expected?
TP
Timothy J. Probert
Analyst · UBS.
I think, as Dave alluded to, we continue to expect to see an increase in rig count. And as you have noted yourself, probably our customer base is striving to balance their dry gas and liquids-rich exposure, and we're seeing a significant shift, if you like, from their dry gas element of their portfolio to the liquids element of their portfolio. So it's not just a function of individual customers stopping activity. It's the transference of activity. And also, we tend to get higher service intensity in liquids-rich basins, which, obviously, is beneficial in terms of the overall revenue picture.
AD
Angeline M. Sedita - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division
Analyst · UBS.
Very, very helpful. And finally, just you talked about mobilization and you were talking -- speaking earlier about the cost and logistic issues, and it seems like you're still getting your head around will that continue through Q1 and into Q2 and the time horizon. But at least on the mobilizing of 8 crews from the gassy plays to the liquid plays, when will that be completed by? And from what regions are you moving equipment from? And what regions are you moving it to?
TP
Timothy J. Probert
Analyst · UBS.
Well, that will be completed this quarter.
AD
Angeline M. Sedita - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division
Analyst · UBS.
Okay. And then to what region?
DL
David J. Lesar
Analyst · UBS.
Into the -- primarily into the Rockies, the Niobrara, the Bakken, the liquids part of the Marcellus and a couple of other areas that maybe haven't hit the radar screen yet.
OP
Operator
Operator
Our final question comes from David Anderson with JPMorgan.
John David Anderson - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Can I just get a little clarity on your capacity additions in North America on pressure pumping? You're just growing at a slower pace in '12, is that -- or is it going to be flat versus '11?
DL
David J. Lesar
Analyst
Well, the amount of horsepower that we will be producing is going to be flat on a year-over-year basis. There'll be more going into international than we did in 2011, which then means that there will be a fewer amount of horsepower going into North America. The numbers go up on a year-over-year basis because of the manufacturing of the Q10 pump, which is in full production as we speak, and then as well as the addition of other kit to go along with that, the replacement of blenders and the SandCastle and other equipment, that's part and parcel to our frac-of-the-future strategy.
John David Anderson - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Now should we interpret this as your views that the market is getting closer to being in balance? Or is this just -- or is this somewhat of a reaction to what's happening in natural gas? How should we interpret that?
TP
Timothy J. Probert
Analyst
I think one of the things that we should respond to there is the fact that, particularly with the Q10 pump and some of our other capital investments that Mark mentioned here, the SandCastle's ADP blenders, et cetera, much more efficient set of assets. And the Q10 pump, in particular, is going to be very substantially more efficient than the current fleet. So we just -- we'll not need to put as many assets into the marketplace to cover the same territory.
John David Anderson - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. And I guess one last question. People have been asking about artificial lift for the last 5 years, and you finally do an acquisition on Global Oilfield Services. Can you talk a little bit about it? Does this fully address your needs in artificial lift? And can you talk a little bit about kind of the strengths of this business and where you think you need to build out more?
TP
Timothy J. Probert
Analyst
We certainly have talked about artificial lift for a long time, specifically ESPs. And Global is an opportunity for us to enter that segment, for us to extract knowledge and continue to build that business. It's a relatively small business today and one which we have a long horizon on to build its capability and expand it into other areas of artificial lift, but pleased to have it under our belt.
KY
Kelly Youngblood
Analyst
Okay. Thanks, everybody, for your participation. And Sean, you can go ahead and close out the call.
OP
Operator
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the conference. You may now disconnect. Good day.