Earnings Labs

Seadrill Limited (SDRL)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 26, 2014

$49.63

-0.32%

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Transcript

John Roche

Management

Thank you, Ann. Good afternoon to everyone on the call today. Welcome to Seadrill Limited’s Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. With me today I have Per Wullf, our Chief Executive Officer; and Rune Magnus Lundetrae, our CFO. Before we do get started, I’d like to remind everyone that much of the discussion today will not be based on historical fact, but rather consist of forward-looking statements and are subject to uncertainty. We articulate some of the new items on Page 2 of the presentation. For additional information, please visit our website at www.seadrill.com. To begin the discussion today, Per is going to take us through some of the third quarter highlights and some of the more recent developments in the offshore drilling market. Per is also going to discuss a number of Seadrill’s recent contract wins and the overall market outlook. Rune will then address our financial highlights and take us through the rationale behind our dividend suspension and also Seadrill’s funding requirements going forward. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to our CEO, Mr. Per Wullf.

Per Wullf

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, John, and good afternoon, everybody. The Seadrill group has had another strong quarter and has grown EBITDA by 27% year-over-year. I’m pleased with this impressive growth rate and the amount of value we have generated for shareholders by operating a best-in-class fleet with a best-in-class organization. We continue to focus our effort on running a safe and efficient operation by always keeping customer satisfaction on the top of our mind. Seadrill’s value generation can be attributed to our industry-leading newbuild program and an innovative financing strategy, which has been in place since our inception and remain in place today. Of course, in a cyclical business, there will be many smaller cycles within a long-term uptrend and that is what we are facing today. Since our last call we reported in August, the oil price has dropped by 23%, $24 a barrel. It remains to be seen how long the current market condition will persist and during this period, short to medium-term visibility will be reduced. We have also seen day rates falling materially and contract cancellations in addition to further subletting activity. Most of all, however, has been the lack of visibility created by these events. At the management team, our focus has shifted to making responsible decisions and preparations for again making opportunistic ones. However, the company believes the long-term fundamentals of our industry remain intact driven by the fact that the days of easy, low cost oil are over and reserves required to meet long-term demand growth are still to be found in the deep and ultra-deepwater regions. As mentioned by a number of major oil companies, these reserves are well positioned on the cost of supply curves and can be expected to be produced even at today’s oil prices. It remains to be seen how…

Rune Magnus Lundetrae

CFO

Thank you very much, Per, and welcome everyone to our call this afternoon and this morning in the U.S. I’ll start off by addressing the decision to suspend the dividend. Seadrill’s dividend policy is based on a number of factors that affect the company capacity and desire to pay dividend. First is our order backlog and the margin we expect to earn, second is the drilling market outlook. Although, we may be able to sustain a certain dividend level based on the visibility provided by our backlog, if the net to a market becomes challenging enough it might be wise to retain capital for structural opportunities. The third factor is the condition of the financing market. Seadrill utilizes the capital market to bring forward future earnings and pay dividends, amortize debt and fund capital expenditure for our growth. If the capital markets are unattractive, it may decrease the company’s desire to distribute the dividends. Finally, our distribution relies on operations, which drives our earnings. Seadrill much earn every dollar of backlog every day by keeping its rigs operating. Since the last quarterly report in August, a number of developments have affected the factors that dictate our dividend distributions. In our view, the most significant impact has been the uncertainty in the macro environment. We view the deterioration in all prices as an indicator of more than broad demand growth concerns and much approach the current macro environment with an element of caution. This taken into account with the near-term oversupply of drilling units makes it all the more important to build a strong balance sheet. In addition, the financing market has become incrementally worse and although Seadrill still has significant access to funding, some markets have become unattractive. In light of these changes that have taken place since our last…

John Roche

Management

Thanks, Rune. If we could begin to assemble the queue for questions. Before we do begin, I’d just like to ask everyone to limit their questions to one question plus one follow up. We do have a large number of callers on the line today. So, Ann, if we could go ahead and assemble the queue, that would be great.

Operator

Operator

Certainly. [Operator Instructions]. We will now take our first question from Ole Slorer from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Ole Slorer

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thank you very much and well done in securing the contracts in Brazil. But against the backdrop of having filled in substantially all of your availability near term, could you address how you have revised your macro outlook over the past few months in light of the cuts in the dividend?

Per Wullf

Chief Executive Officer

Just the last part, Ole, you were cutting out. Can you just repeat your question again, the last part of it please?

Ole Slorer

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yes, just basically wanting an update on how you see the, say, the 2016 environment given that you have locked up all of your 2015 exposure by and large and in light of the decision to suspend the dividend?

Per Wullf

Chief Executive Officer

As you have noted, our contractors’ backlog is that we have the $20 billion in contract as we speak and we have fantastic cover in 2015 and actually also very well covered in 2016 and that looks very good. But we can’t look further out in 2016. We are guessing when we are out in 2017 to be honest, so I can’t really comment on that. But you know us well as I do, you have seen the presentation, we have a fantastic coverage 2015 and '16, so I can’t really comment more on it than that. But we can maintain our $20 billion contract backlog and that is important to us.

Ole Slorer

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Okay. So 26% of your floaters you highlighted were available in 2016. Could you comment a little bit about your four newbuildings for delivery and the type of flexibility that you might have on the delivery schedules there, particularly in light of what you did with the Sevan Developer? Do you have similar opportunities to suspend delivery?

Per Wullf

Chief Executive Officer

I can. Let’s take the Seadrill’s four deepwater units to start with. Being part of the Fredriksen Group, we have a fantastic advantage in Seadrill and we have a very good relationship with the yards where we are building our rigs up [ph] and we always sit in close dialogue with the. You will probably notice that our four newbuildings, they are sliding into 2016 as we speak but it is a thing that is happening together with the yard in question we are dealing with them. And here we are talking with both DSME and Samsung. So this is a close diagram [ph] of where it’s going and they will go and come in second and third quarter '16 as it looks now, but time will show. When we talk about the developer, there is a typical example of how the recent agreement together with the yard in question, this case here it is COSCO, we have agreed – or Sevan have agreed not to take delivery of this unit. We have a year to make up our mind whether we will go and take delivery and we will only go and take delivery of that unit if we obtain a contract that justifies it. We can actually also terminate this agreement after a year should we not find work for this rig. On top of that we’ll actually also get the installation costs back. So that is typical the way we sit and negotiate closely together with the yards in order to make sure that we both win on individual situations.

Ole Slorer

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Okay. Thanks, Per. I’ll hand it back.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question from Anders Bergland from Platou Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Anders Bergland

Analyst · Platou Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yes. Good evening, gentlemen. Just one comment on the dividend. I think it’s prudent that given the bleak outlook and the challenge that we are facing here, so we’ll just have to – so you’re in a good position to weather through this downturn. I had some question on the contract structure. We saw that the Sevan Louisiana had a renegotiation of its day rate. How does this – any read through to your other contracts on the Sevan portfolio that we could see some renegotiations, contract cancellation? There has been some cases out there recently?

Per Wullf

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I can. When we look at our drilling contract and the [indiscernible], we don’t have any contracts where we just can cancellate the term or the contracts unless there is a payback of typical standby rate times remaining days. When we take – the Sevan Louisiana is a specific case. When we came in control of Sevan, this was a contract we inherited. It was not a contract done by Seadrill. And we knew that there was a calculated risk there and it is the only contract I’m aware of in Seadrill and the Seadrill group where there was this possibility of actually could terminate a contract prior to the fixed term without any penalties obviously. And then the position we’re taking to continue with the rate that was announced at $350,000 a day rather than going idle with the units. But it is a one unit specific case. As far as I am concerned, we don’t have it on any of our existing contracts.

Anders Bergland

Analyst · Platou Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Okay. And then just one follow up. You secured some contracts with Petrobras. What is in your view the roadmap for more contract extensions with Petrobras for, let’s say, the remainder of 2015, '16?

Per Wullf

Chief Executive Officer

We have worked in Brazil the past six years. We are extremely pleased working down there and our relationship with Petrobras is just becoming better and better and better day after day and we consider them a strategic partner. That’s number one. Number two is, we have extended the existing units down there another three years. We have got a cover of drillships in three years. And just recently they have also released a couple of tenders. And strategically it is an extremely important area for us and we have units that suit and we are ready to go in actually on all of our – a couple of our existing newbuild deepwater units to Petrobras here going forward. So we will of course take actual part in that tender process. And please also think about how important Petrobras is to us. We have three rigs coming on a later state where we are building together with [indiscernible] and we have a 30% stakeholder and three ultra-deepwater units going down there working 15 years for Petrobras. So, Petrobras is an extremely important strategic partner for us and it looks good for us actually.

Anders Bergland

Analyst · Platou Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Okay. Thank you very much. That’s all from me.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question from Mike Urban from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Michael Urban

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thanks. Good afternoon. So you’ve stated your commitment to the Rosneft contracts for the time being and to see how the geopolitical situation plays out. But in the meantime, are you looking for opportunities for those rigs elsewhere or marketing them elsewhere in the event that you’re not able to move forward on this contract?

Per Wullf

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, of course we do. Like we have said, we have – with Rosneft we have until May next year where both of us can actually leave this or move away from this agreement because of sanctions within Rosneft. And we are talking about two rigs in question. We are talking about West Navigator and we are talking about West Rigel. West Navigator is working up in Norway as we speak, Rigel is coming into service fourth quarter next year. In West Navigator we are not just marketing these in Norway, we’re actually marketing that rig worldwide because of course we try to secure interim employment for this rig until we have the Rosneft deal in place. The same counts for Rigel. The plan was that she will start up in Vietnam [indiscernible]. We are also marketing her worldwide until we know our follow-up plan with Rosneft. And that is the two rigs we are talking about in 2015.

Michael Urban

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Right. And given again the sanctions in Russia and Statoil cutting in Norway, again in the event that the rigs are not able to work for Rosneft, would you say it’s more likely they’d have to compete globally or outside of the harsh environment market?

Per Wullf

Chief Executive Officer

I think it just proves how correct it was for us to enter into an agreement with Rosneft. Think about if we had been sitting just with Statoil, it would be horrible. So the thing that we are moving our units in a border area, not just Norway for our harsh environment units is the correct thing for us. That is one thing. But also Navigator can be used in this harsh environment areas until such time that we find the right timing to enter Russia with Navigator. So we definitely did the right thing looking elsewhere than working for an operator controlling 80% of the Norwegian North Sea.

Michael Urban

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Right. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question from Lukas Daul from ABG. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Lukas Daul

Analyst · ABG. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thank you. Good evening, guys. I had a question on the Petrobras deal. Can you say what the clean rates are for the contracts excluding [indiscernible] and contract specific CapEx? And can you also say – you are getting the same revenue for two older rigs and two brand new drillships? Can you sort of talk a little bit about the process how you got there?

Per Wullf

Chief Executive Officer

No, I cannot clearly. When we disclosed these things, we always talk about contract values and we have indicated that and we have explained exactly what that is, so we talk about total revenue and we talk about churn. And I cannot really go any further. And if there’s more to explain there, I’ll ask you to contact John Roche and he can talk more detail if he wants to talk in more detail on it.

Lukas Daul

Analyst · ABG. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Okay. And then on the West Eclipse, which is working in Angola, I thought there was with an option on that rig lasting throughout 2016. Can you say what happened there with the contract becoming sort of shorter and what’s the plan for Eclipse?

Per Wullf

Chief Executive Officer

Well, there was an option to secure it for a longer time than we have right now. That option lapsed but we extended the contract with [indiscernible] I think it is June as I recall it and that was agreed on with Total. I can tell you that we are in close dialogue with another operator around that rig to take it in directly continuation but now that’s as far as it can go. So we don’t expect to see that rig idle in 2015.

Lukas Daul

Analyst · ABG. Please go ahead. Your line is open

All right. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question from J.B. Lowe from Cowen and Co. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

J.B. Lowe

Analyst · Cowen and Co. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Hi. Good afternoon, guys. I just had a question that given the 2 billion of excess capital that you’re going to have every year because you’re cutting the dividend, how much of that – and given that that’s going to be used to shore up the balance sheet more or less, how much of that can you actually use for, a, the share buyback that you authorized, or b, any sort of other opportunities?

Rune Magnus Lundetrae

CFO

So we a Board approval now to buy up to 10% of the outstanding shares. That’s one part of it. We also have a bond that matures next October, $350 million. And I think with the current bond market, I think it would be prudent to use some of that capital to take out that bond and not issue a new one unless the bond market improves on the back of this suspension. I think we also have some RCFs that we can drawdown on and save interest unless we find other things we want to use that capital for.

J.B. Lowe

Analyst · Cowen and Co. Please go ahead. Your line is open

I guess another way of asking it is, besides all of the debt work that you could do what amount of that 2 billion would you be willing to spend on other things?

Rune Magnus Lundetrae

CFO

I don’t think we should guide on that exact split right now but what I do know is that we have plenty of securities and debt out there than we can look at.

J.B. Lowe

Analyst · Cowen and Co. Please go ahead. Your line is open

All right. And just a quick follow up. Did you guys expect the share price reaction to the dividend cut and would you be buying – would you be using some of that buyback authorization today?

Rune Magnus Lundetrae

CFO

What I can say is that the share price has been quite volatile also since we announced the dollar in August, so the volatility does not surprise us but I can’t really comment on the share price level and whether or not that surprises us.

J.B. Lowe

Analyst · Cowen and Co. Please go ahead. Your line is open

All right. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question from Harald Øyen from SEB. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Harald Hornes Øyen: Hi, guys. Thanks. Good evening. Just a short question. You guys talk about 2 billion in dividend cuts. Does that mean your base case is sort of a year to spend the dividend or could you share some thoughts on the duration of the suspension please?

Per Wullf

Chief Executive Officer

No, we’re not going to guide on the duration and I think that’s the challenge here, because beyond 18 to 24 months it’s difficult to have a clear visibility on the market. I think we will resume the dividend as soon as see or that we’re comfortable that the cycle has turned. And now that we have been prudent and responsible and cut it relatively early that also means that we can resume early in our view because we are straightening the balance sheet and we’ll also deleverage over the next quarters. So you shouldn’t read that as being necessary a one year suspension. What we said is that we will release $2 billion when we are suspending it. Harald Hornes Øyen: Great. Thanks. That’s all from me.

John Roche

Management

Operator, we have time for one further question.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our final question from Darren Gacicia from Guggenheim. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Darren Gacicia

Analyst · Guggenheim. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Hey, good morning. Wanted to ask…

Operator

Operator

Caller, please go ahead, your line is open. It appears the caller may have stepped away, so I would like to hand the call back to the host for any closing remarks.

John Roche

Management

Thanks. It looks like the blizzard back in New York got the better of Darren there. I’d like to thank everyone for joining our third quarter conference call. This concludes the call. Thanks, everyone.