Earnings Labs

Transocean Ltd. (RIG)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, May 5, 2016

$6.84

+0.66%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the First Quarter 2016 Earnings Call for Transocean Limited. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Bradley Alexander, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Bradley Alexander - Vice President, Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Lauren. Good day and welcome to Transocean's first quarter 2016 earnings conference call. A copy of the press release covering our financial results along with supporting statements and schedules including reconciliations and disclosures regarding non-GAAP financial measures are posted on the company's website at deepwater.com. Joining me on this morning's call are Jeremy Thigpen, President and Chief Executive Officer; Mark Mey, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Terry Bonno, Senior Vice President, Marketing. During the course of this call, participants 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 the current expectations and certain assumptions of management and are therefore subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings for more information regarding our forward-looking statements, including the 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. Finally, once we begin our question-and-answer portion of the call, to give more participants an opportunity to speak on this call, please limit your questions to one initial question and one follow-up. Thank you very much. And now I'll turn the call over to Jeremy. Jeremy D. Thigpen - President & Chief Executive Officer: And welcome to our employees, customers, investors and analysts participating in today's call. Joining me today are Mark Mey, Chief Financial Officer, who will later provide the financial overview, and Terry Bonno, Senior Vice President of Marketing who will then provide an overview of the market. As reported in yesterday's earnings release, the company generated adjusted net income of $254 million in the first quarter or $0.69 per diluted share on $1.3 billion…

Terry B. Bonno - Senior Vice President, Marketing

Management

Thanks, Mark, and good day to everyone. As you all know, the market remains very challenging. Despite the recent increase in oil prices from the multi-year lows experienced early in the year, operators remain hesitant to commit to long-term projects that require significant levels of capital. However, as Jeremy mentioned, we continue to have meaningful dialogue with our customers. And they remain firmly committed to their deepwater assets as they view these as a necessary source of future reserves. The real question is around the velocity with which these customers will ultimately add rigs in response to declines in reserve replacement and production. Even more so than in past cycles, our customers realize that the reduction in offshore drilling is not sustainable, especially considering the fact that the global demand for energy continues to increase. In the meantime, as we await the eventual recovery, we will continue to position our fleet to take advantage of opportunities in the market. As stated in previous conference calls, our teams continue to battle for every opportunity in this highly competitive market, looking at ways that we can best align with our customers' well plans and business objectives. This approach has once again proven to be successful, as we signed several new contracts resulting in the addition of $138 million of contract backlog since the last earnings call, bringing our 2016 total to $184 million. In our ultra-deepwater fleet, we extended the duration on the Deepwater Invictus by adding a two well contract at $350,000 a day in Trinidad with additional bonus opportunity. This contract award highlights our stellar operational performance for BHP and our willingness to work with the customer to best meet their project priorities. We've also secured a six month contract on the KG2, returning her to work after being idle.…

Bradley Alexander - Vice President, Investor Relations

Operator

Thanks, Terry. Lauren, we are now ready to take questions. And as a reminder to all of our call participants, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from Greg Lewis with Credit Suisse. Gregory Lewis - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Yes, hi. Good morning. Jeremy D. Thigpen - President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning. Gregory Lewis - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Jeremy, or I guess Terry can answer this question, so as we progress through 2015, we've started to see a pickup in contract terminations not only for Transocean but across the industry. And then it seems like it's accelerated again in the early part of 2016. Are we at a point now where generally customers that were going to cancel contracts are sort of have that behind them? Or is this something that we think is going to continue to plague the industry over the next six to 12 months? Well Greg, good morning. I think that what we have to look at is from our own conversations with our customers, it's really hard for us, difficult for us to project what will happen to our competitors. But for those folks that are suffering for the lower commodity prices, I think we will see some more contract terminations, or probably a little bit more contract renegotiation. But from our fleet and our perspective, we are not hearing those conversation as of today. In fact, we are in conversations with some extensions of our fleet. So we believe that with our strong backlog, that our conversations perhaps are going be a little bit different than our competitors. Jeremy D. Thigpen - President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, I think that's the point. Almost 80% of our backlog is with the supermajors and 90% is with investment-grade companies. So we feel really good about the strength of the backing and being able to convert that into future earnings and cash flow. Never say never though. It depends on what happens in the market obviously. But right now, the conversations, we're not having those conversations with our customers. Gregory Lewis - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Okay. Great. And then Mark just for you on the, I saw that in April you bought back some debt. Any thought, I'm just trying to sort of gauge why April. Why not earlier this year? And then any color on which of the bonds were actually repurchased? Mey Lovell Mark-Anthony - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah sure, Greg. We focus mainly as I've mentioned to you guys in the past, focus mainly on the near-debted maturities. So we have been buying back the 2016, 2017, 2018s mainly with some focus on the 2020s to 2022s. It just so worked out the previous quarter that our opportunity to actually attract bonds based upon availability was later in March.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ian Macpherson with Simmons. Ian Macpherson - Simmons & Company International: Hey, thanks. Good morning. I guess my first question was I wanted to get your updated thoughts on the equity market as an option for your financial strategy given the pretty strong support that Ensco got on theirs. Mey Lovell Mark-Anthony - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Morning, Ian. I think I've been very clear in the past that we have substantial liquidity. We have a industry leading backlog, and I think we have a debt maturity profile that allows us to avoid the equity market. I think we'll be optimistic with regard to adding and refinancing our maturities with secured debt options in the event that we're able to achieve that. But at this stage, we do not feel that equity's the right solution for Transocean. Ian Macpherson - Simmons & Company International: Very clear. Thanks Mark. I have a follow-up also for you, if you don't mind. I'm looking at your fifth gen rigs that are stacked. It looks like 14 fifth generation rigs that are mainly stacked, a couple of them idle or maybe almost stacked. Can you comment on the carrying value of those, and what the impairment test framework looks like for those rigs going forward and whether we should think about a vulnerability there going forward? Mey Lovell Mark-Anthony - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, and as you all know, that the impairment test is based on the remaining life of the assets. And these assets were predominantly delivered around 2000. So you're looking at assets that would last through 2020. So given the fact that we have a significant tail on average about 15 years or so over the remaining life on these assets, I think it's fair to say that we feel very strongly that given the way we have approached our stacking on these assets, they have been cold stacked with the intention of reactivating these rigs very quickly and cost effectively. So as the market does recover in 2018 and 2019 as Jeremy has mentioned in the past, we believe these rigs will come back to the market and will be able to earn sufficient cash flows to offset their carrying value over that remaining period.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Angie Sedita with UBS.

Angie M. Sedita - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS

Thanks. Good morning, guys. As a follow-up to the prior question, I guess another way to think about it, or ask the question is, talk about what are the parameters leading you to scrap additional rigs and what are your considerations? You have a lot of rigs that are stacked, and how you think that through. Jeremy D. Thigpen - President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, Angie. I think we've taken a pretty thoughtful view of the entire, the global fleet and positioned our rigs against that. And as we look at our fifth generation rigs, not all of them, but the vast majority of them, we see them being highly competitive when the market turns around. I mean other than really the Gulf of Mexico and pre-salt Brazil, these are excellent assets that have proven to be very valuable for us and our customers. So we feel good about our asset strategy, and we'll be a part of that asset strategy.

Angie M. Sedita - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS

Okay. Okay. And then, yeah, good to see that you're paying down some of this debt. And I guess a little bit further looking out, going into late 2016 and going into 2017, if you don't secure that secured financing on the Shell newbuilds, is it fair to assume that cash is going to be drawn down or would you tap into the revolver? Or how are you thinking about cash versus your revolver on those debt maturities? Mey Lovell Mark-Anthony - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well Angie, we typically look at our liquidity as fungible, so cash and revolver. So we fully expect to be able to use a combination of both to retire the 2016s. The potential secured debt is opportunistic on our part. We don't feel that it's necessary to raise that debt to retire the 2016s or the 2017s for that matter. So anything we get in addition to our covered liquidity in the form of secured debt would be over and above what we have planned to manage through the cycle.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ole Slorer with Morgan Stanley. Ole H. Slorer - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Yeah, thank you very much. I thought I ask a little bit about your high level thought around Transocean Partners, and the flexibility that they potentially offers you? How you are thinking about utilizing that, both maybe for assets or for maybe buying debt, discounted debt in Transocean? Mey Lovell Mark-Anthony - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning, Ole. This is Mark. Look, I've been very clear that in the past on these calls that currently the value arbitrage that we enjoyed when we listed Transocean Partners for the first time has reversed. So it's not economic for us to be able to use Transocean Partners in the capacity in which it was envisioned initially. That is still our intention if and when the market does recover for both the offshore drilling industry and for yield-based vehicles. So the intention there would be to nurture Transocean Partners as best we can and recognize the window of opportunity it provides itself, we would utilize the vehicle in the capacity in which we intended. Ole H. Slorer - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay, very clear. The follow-up question would be your thoughts on Brazil. It strikes me that getting some of your international clients to become operators in pre-salt Brazil is probably the only thing that can bring the ultra-deepwater market back in balance again at any reasonable timeframe. So have you had any thoughts? You have a very strong relationship in particular with one international client that recently made a very big bet on Brazil. Yeah, it's a good question. So we believe that the interest with, certainly with the majors is very high in Brazil and we think that at some point, and, of course, I can't tell you when that time is going to happen, but the customers that have bet big on Brazil are very focused on developing those opportunities. So when the time comes, I think that we will be participating in a meaningful way. And, again, I think as we wait for Petrobras to take another look at their fleet and continue to high grade, I think that they're going be able to extend some of these contracts, and we've been speaking with them a lot too. So, again, we've been having a lot of conversations about Brazil.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Sean Meakim with JPMorgan.

Sean C. Meakim - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan

Hey, good morning. Jeremy D. Thigpen - President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Sean.

Sean C. Meakim - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan

Just had a little follow-up on your OpEx, just wondering if there's any incremental OpEx in the quarter from the de-mob on the Deep Seas or the Millennium. And I'm asking that just as I'm trying to get a sense of quarter-over-quarter, how you're same-rig OpEx is tracking as you guys are looking to bring those costs down. Mey Lovell Mark-Anthony - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, Sean, I think I was very clear in my prepared comments with regard to what onetime costs we saw in the first quarter with regard to the reactivation costs on the Goodrich. The mobilization which we recognized in the quarter has some severance costs, but obviously the trend is Q1 will be higher. Q4 will be the lowest for the year, because as you model out our operating activity with the number of rigs, they'll decline throughout the year. That being said, we have to factor in the additional, the Thalassa, the Proteus and obviously the reactor based on the Goodrich, which will go in the other direction. But in general, you're going to see a significant reduction in operating costs. In addition, as you know, with the first quarter's contract cancellations, we've announced that those rigs are going to be cold stacked. But there are certainly costs associated with cold stacking a unit, which is expensed in the first 30 to 60 days. So, you'll see that flow through in the February, March and some of it in April timeframe as well.

Sean C. Meakim - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan

Great. Thank you, Mark. And then just as we think about blend-and-extend opportunities, just thinking about the Discoverer India, some of these other – as you think about the opportunity to spread some contracts across certain rigs, just curious to get an update on how you guys see the world there? I think that there's going be a few opportunities, more opportunities for blend-and-extend. We did something a little bit different than our competitors have done. And we did a, actually with BHP in Trinidad, we actually inserted a contract and then moved all of our terms to the right in Trinidad to help better align that program with BHP's objectives. So you might see a bit more of that where we are able to do that, and certainly remain focused on our cash flow. But as far as true blend and extends, we are in discussions with few customers. And again, I think we will see a few more.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Darren Gacicia with KLR Group.

Darren Gacicia - KLR Group LLC

Analyst · KLR Group

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Jeremy D. Thigpen - President & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, Darren.

Darren Gacicia - KLR Group LLC

Analyst · KLR Group

I wanted to, this may be more for Terry. In your prepared comments, you talked about the commodity would have to stay higher with kind of a positive view going into budgeting cycles maybe to change the trajectory where demand has been. Is there a chance that you may not get enough momentum in the end of your budgeting cycle to have things uptick meaningful in 2017? Or may the budgeting cycle be much more fluid going on. And I ask this question also with respect to kind of lead times to get rigs to get back into operation. And just how customers and how your view on that is, given the fact that the commodity market seems to be a little bit more accommodating. Jeremy D. Thigpen - President & Chief Executive Officer: Darren, I think that was three or four questions in one. I'll try to go through them all again. I think we've been pretty clear. To your first question of when do you, do we see the uptick in the oil price and the sustainability of it early enough for customers to build it into their budgets for next year. We're not sure, and we said publicly we don't know the answer. We said publicly we expect 2016 and 2017 to be challenging. So I think it would be a pleasant surprise if oil prices continued to move up and to the right and customers got confident ahead of their budgeting cycle where we could see meaningful improvement in activity for next year. But we're not building the business on that right now. So that was one piece of it. I think the second piece of it in terms of how quickly can we respond, it's going depend on the rig, right, and the condition of the rig. We have a team that is both responsible for the stacking of the rig and also that same team is responsible for reactivating the rig. So we're doing everything that we possibly can to ensure that we're preserving this equipment and we're preserving these rigs in a way that we can reactivate them cost-effectively and quickly. But it's going depend on the rig. Some of them may take 60 days. Some of them may take 120 days, but that's kind of the range of reactivation that we're looking at across the fleet right now.

Darren Gacicia - KLR Group LLC

Analyst · KLR Group

Sure. And if I could follow up with a much simpler second question. In terms of the dispatch rigs going back in the market, I think most people would assume the best high-spec, rigs go to work first. Do you think there's enough spread of work where maybe your reactivations are [working] to come back as you spread across down into some of the midwater rigs as well? Jeremy D. Thigpen - President & Chief Executive Officer: There was a little bit of static in the line. I'm not sure I got the question. Can you ask again, Darren?

Darren Gacicia - KLR Group LLC

Analyst · KLR Group

Sorry. I was basically saying everybody would assume the best rigs go to work first. Maybe the incremental uptick in work but into some of the 5G, 4G, maybe even 3G rigs in a recovery. Mey Lovell Mark-Anthony - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, Darren, this is Mark. I think it's fair to assume that you're going to have dollars spent across the board, right. You're looking at dollars being spent onshore, shallow offshore, harsh environment, deepwater Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere. So I think what's going to be an interesting driver of the recovery is the makeup and potential viability and strength of our customer base. So as we look around the world and we look at the basins and the main customers in those areas, that's going drive how they return back to the market. I think Jeremy made a comment in his prepared statements around Venezuela, for example. If you don't have any funds available, you're not going to be able to attract service companies or E&P companies to be able to restart your production. So I think we have to think about that as well in the context of what's going to be first, second and what's going to be most viable on a prospective basis.

Operator

Operator

Our final question comes from Jud Bailey with Wells Fargo.

Judson E. Bailey - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Thank you. Good morning. And I actually partly wanted to follow-up on some of your commentary there, Mark, on thinking about a recovery. If we look back at prior offshore cycles, typically jackups and midwater tend to react first because those customers will tend to spend cash flow first. In your mind, is there a case to be made that ultra-deepwater activity could recover as fast as some of those other markets, maybe faster than they have historically because some of the majors have cut back so severely? I'd just be curious from the what you're hearing from customers if you think that's a possibility? Mey Lovell Mark-Anthony - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, Jud, I'd love just answer the question, but Terry speaks to customers a lot more than I do. So I'm going to refer it to her. As you look historically, you're right, because it's easy to plug and play on the jackups in the midwater fleet, and we certainly expect the UK and Norway to react pretty quickly. The ultra-deepwater space, we do have the independents who are telling us that at $50 looks really great, and they could do some plug and play. So I think we'll see that happen, as long as we have some sustained momentum certainly with the commodity price. But as far as the majors, I mean they've got to get a little bit more stability. It takes a while to do their feas studies. So I think we're going to see a pause until they get more comfort and they are able to push their programs forward.

Judson E. Bailey - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Okay. Appreciate that. And then my follow-up is thinking about the reactivation of fifth gens, whenever that time does come, is there a way to help us think about the cost associated, given how you're maintaining the rigs as they're stacked. Are we looking at something I would assume greater than what it just cost you to reactivate the Goodrich? Or help us think about reactivation costs whenever you do start unstacking some of the fifth gens. Jeremy D. Thigpen - President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes. It's going to be a range. It's going to depend on the asset itself. But we've kind of had a range on, if you go through the different classes of rigs, I mean the ultra-deepwater might be somewhere between $20 million and $100 million. And I know that's a big range, but that's kind of where we are. And then as you go into some of the lower classes of rigs, that high end comes down obviously, maybe into the $70 million and $60 million range. But until we do it, we're not going to know. We've got pretty good plans in place. We've got good ideas of what it's going to cost us, but until we actually execute, we're not going to know, Jud.

Operator

Operator

That concludes today's question-and-answer session. Mr. Alexander, at this time I'll turn the conference back to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Bradley Alexander - Vice President, Investor Relations

Operator

Thank you to everyone for your participation and questions on our call today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me. We will look forward to talking with you again when we report our second quarter 2016 results. Have a good day.