TechnipFMC plc (FTI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right. Nice crowd. Welcome to day 2 of our 11th Annual Energy Conference at JPMorgan. Delighted to have TechnipFMC, Doug Pferdehirt, who's the CEO to present. I think we're discussing last night FMC has been at all 11 of our conferences. So thank you for your continued support of the conference.

Well, thank you, Arun. Thank you to JPMorgan for having us, and thank you to everybody in the room and those that are attending via the webcast.

Yes. Doug, before we begin, I was wondering if you could just give the generalists in the audience today, just a quick snapshot of the company and what you do within the energy services landscape.

I'll do my best Arun. It's hard to do it. And in short -- if you really look at the history, I think it'd make a great Netflix mini series 1 day. But in the shortest way possible we brought certainty back into offshore projects, which is giving our clients greater and greater confidence in moving forward in FID-ing investments in the offshore. We're doing this in a period, coupled with new technology that we're bringing as well as a new commercial model that we're bringing into the market, which is allowing us to drive down the breakevens offshore while breakevens are increasing in other areas where our clients could be making an investment. As a result of this, we see ever-increasing capital flows moving into the offshore domain, which is growing the market at a time that's very favorable to TechnipFMC given the uniqueness of our offering and the changes in the competitive landscape that are very favorable to our company.

Great. Doug, you mentioned a little bit about offshore being a bright spot within the global spending picture. We're seeing a lot of deepwater FID activity across the U.S. Gulf, Brazil, West Africa. How would you characterize the current offshore spending environment as we move through the year? And what is the setup as you think about the back half of the decade?

Sure. So look, the market has been growing for some period of time. If you just look at it over the last 2 years, we publish on a quarterly basis, the outlook for the offshore subsea developments those projects that are likely FID within the next 24 months. So it's a 2-year look ahead. That data set has grown 30% over the last 2 years. As we sit here today, we're actually seeing a further inflection in the growth rate 2027, beyond -- through and beyond the end of the decade. So I would call it robust today but growing.

Great. And could you highlight what you're seeing in some of the emerging basins beyond, call it, the golden triangle, places like Guyana, Serna, Namibia, Mozambiques and trying to paint the picture of the deepwater market, not just kind of concentrated in the Golden Triangle.

Sure. And it's an important question because earlier, you were asking about growth through the end of the decade. The growth that I've referenced thus far is really coming from the Golden Triangle or the traditional offshore oil and gas basins around the world. So it really hasn't been supported by the growth of some of those emerging basins on top of that. So as we look forward through the end of the decade and beyond, is really where we start to see the contribution in a meaningful way from some of those emerging markets as well. Keep in mind, we have seen progress in Suriname where Total Energy did sanction the first project there, Grand Margo, which we are performing for them under our iEPCI model with Subsea 2.0. So we're very excited about that. We do -- we are tendering in Namibia today. So we do anticipate the potential for an FID this year, certainly next year, if not this year. Guyana, I still think as an emerging base and even though what ExxonMobil there has done is exemplary. It's never been done before in a very short period of time in 1 decade, they took a country that was not producing to over 1 million barrels a day now on the pathway to 2 million barrels a day. It's just been astonishing. We're honored to be ExxonMobil's exclusive partner, and we performed all of the work for them in Guyana. So Mozambique, we're performing projects there for both E&I as well as for TotalEnergies. Mozambique is very interesting being it's a gas market and the access to the Asia Pacific market for the gas. So the emerging markets are contributing, but they'll contribute an even greater portion as we move towards the end of the decade. And there's a few we didn't even talk about beyond that list, and I think we'll start to hear about in 2030 and beyond.

Yes, maybe Indonesia is a place that we've been hearing some things about, correct?

Indonesia has been quite active. There will be other activity, I believe, in East Africa. There will be other activity in Asia, and there will be other activity in South America that we haven't even talked about.

Doug, we had one of the biggest supply shocks since the 1970s. You liaise with a lot of your customers, a lot of NOCs, a lot of large majors, independents, what has been the reaction from your customers? And how does this -- how do you think this influence deepwater activity?

So before the war, there was already this shift, as I referenced in my opening remarks, the shift was already underway. Certainly, as a result of this, there are several different dynamics at play here. the buyers or the consumer. So let's just be specific and say maybe the Asian countries, they themselves are looking for alternative supplies. When they're looking for alternative supplies to maybe not be so leveraged on any 1 particular region, they're typically going to other producing countries, most of which are producing from offshore. So clearly, when we speak to our clients, they're getting interest in contracts now from buyers, other countries for their commodity. So they're looking at potentially increasing their capital expenditures in their offshore projects to be able to feed that -- I'm going to call it an increased demand. It doesn't mean that the global demand is being increased. It means that the selection of that it's really diversifying their supply into other regions, which will largely be driven by offshore. The other thing that we're seeing is individual countries themselves, looking at their own oil and gas reserves. And what could they do to strengthen their independence, maybe not to be truly energy independent, but to be able to at least have a greater local supply within their own control. So when you speak of Indonesia earlier, clearly, we're seeing an increased demand in the country like Indonesia. So there's a few different dynamics at play. And then I would say just for our global customers, they're looking at their portfolios and they're looking at kind of risk tolerance for different regions for different activities. And perhaps that could also result in them diversifying some of their spend from one region to multiple regions as a result of what we've all just experienced.

Let's talk a little bit about Azule and on the company, the inbound order trends, FTI has consistently been delivering call it, $10 billion per annum of inbound Subsea orders. You mentioned that your Subsea opportunity list is up 30% or last couple of years or so. And perhaps there may be an inflection point in orders as we think about 2027. Could you maybe elaborate on what you're seeing on the inbound order front?

Well, you back me into the corner, Arun. I have no choice but to confirm that we would also expect to see an inflection in our order rate in 2027. Clearly, just given the strength of the market, the increasing size of the market, our position within the market, our unique offering and our forward visibility that is quite unique with our customers. Keep in mind, we are also the offshore architects. So we start at the architectural phase, then we go through the manufacturing, the delivery, the installation, the commissioning. And then we have a long life of field services contract, typically 20 to 30 years, OEM-type model. associated with the services over the life of field of that project. So if you add all that up, we're typically involved in the project for 30 to 40 years from inception all the way through the finalization of the economic production from that reservoir. So because of that, we have a seat at the table very, very early, and it gives us a great degree of visibility into likely FIDs and decisions that are being made. Because of the uniqueness of the offering which we call iEPCI or an integrated project, where we do everything from, again, architect to life of field services. Our ability to be able to do that also leads to a lot of direct awards, meaning awards that never go out to a competitive tender. That is a unique visibility that we have into the market and a high degree of certainty because we're working together with the clients to make those projects economical. So when you add all of that up and that visibility that direct awards and the unique positioning that we have along with the growth of the market and an ever-increasing competitive landscape, it puts us in a position where we can say with confidence that we expect an inflection in our inbound order rate in 2027, above the $10 billion run rate that we have reconfirmed for this year.

Doug, you mentioned something last night that I found interesting is that when you became CEO, you felt as though your biggest competitor was U.S. shale in terms of the cost curve. And can you talk about how Subsea projects were done 10 years ago versus the industrialization you've pushed into the segment and talk a little bit about your Subsea 2.0 offering.

Sure. Often, we get I'm very competitive. Our company is very competitive. And often you get focused on another company, and you lose sight of what's really meaningful. What's really meaningful as the capital flows and the confidence in the offshore market. And we had lost that over a decade ago, the performance of our company as well as all the other companies in the sectors was poor if we're just being very blunt and very honest. Poor meaning we typically delivered projects 1 year late. Not 1 day, not 1 month, not 1 quarter, 1 yearly, which would destroy the project economics for our customers. This was offset by a very high commodity price, but it also meant that the breakevens offshore were approaching $80 a barrel. $80 a barrel. At that point in time, Arun, we reflected within our company and realized that this was not a sustainable path. An ever increasing commodity price is not a good strategy for our company. So we decided we need to focus on what really was wrong with the industry, what we could humbly do to try to influence a different outcome and build a very different company as a result of that. So that started on the innovation side, where we looked at the way that we were delivering projects over a decade ago. And our customers were telling us what to build, exactly what to build. So they were giving us specifications that were unique on every single project. So we never had a repeat order even from the same client. So from client Project A to their same client project B, they would have a completely different set of specifications. This led to -- or this leads to a very inefficient process and a very fragmented supply chain. These things would ultimately end up in waste, rework, cost overruns, delays on projects and would affect the overall project economics. So at that point, we sat back and we said, "how could we do this differently?" And we didn't come up with it on our own. We just looked at other industries. And the industry that you would think is far away from what we do for a living, but we were quite enamored by the way that they were working their process was the automotive industry. So we started working closely with Toyota in the Lean Institute and started to try to figure out how did they take a process that was engineered to order or the specifications were unique and differentiated to something that was incredibly efficient. And the answer was we needed to move from an ETO world, engineered to order to a CTO world, configured to order. So today, when you go on and you order your automobile from whomever you prefer, you don't get to tell them how to make the engine. You don't get to tell them what alloy to use in the frame. This is what our customers were doing. It wasn't adding any value, but this is how they were approaching the market. And we were -- it was the way the industry operated. It wasn't our client's fault. We enabled this. So what the automotive industry does now is you have a set of drop-down menus. In the end, they deliver you an automobile. It feels like they made that automobile just for you. In reality, they've made 1,000 or 10,000 of that configuration. But more importantly, when you hit order, they don't have to do any engineering. There's no first article. It goes straight into assembly and test. So if you put that into the context of our business, where we have come up with what we call Subsea 2.0 which is this configurable architecture on the seabed, our customers now work from an iPad. They work from an app. Within the app, there's a set of drop-down menus. Instead of saying 2 doors or 4 doors or automatic or manual transmission, it says 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000 psi, 250, 300, 350 or 400 degrees fahrenheit. But it puts those functional requirements that they need, which then go into a configurator and outcomes, the type of equipment that they need. At the moment they order that equipment, it goes straight into our assembly and test which reduces 9 to 12 months of detailed engineering because if you change 1 spec, if you just want to change 1 thing by -- phase it by 12 degrees different than the last piece of equipment it's 9 to 12 months of engineering because you have to go back through every single line item before you can start the machining or the manufacturing of the equipment. So this has really allowed us to shrink the cycle time which is critically important to improving the offshore project economics and bringing greater certainty to the outcome. So that's really what Subsea 2.0 is all about. It's been hugely successful. The market has embraced Subsea 2.0 in a meaningful way, and it continues to provide great value to our customers through reduction of cycle time and great value through us through greater efficiencies within our organization.

Doug, can you talk a little bit about -- so that's the subsea or the equipment piece, what are you doing in terms of providing solutions when you give an integrated project or your iEPCI kind of framework?

Yes. Thank you for asking. So first, we needed to address the architecture, which was Subsea 2.0. After we did that, we sat back and we said, is this enough? And it was meaningful, and it was certainly going to improve the economics. But what we realized was at the time customers would have somebody build the equipment and somebody do the installation and the connection of the equipment. So the equipment sits on the seabed. It's typically -- it could go back to shore, but it's typically connected up to something that's floating on the top of the water, most likely -- or most of the time, it's called an FPSO. But it's something that is floating on the top of the water. But everything on the seabed needs to be connected back up to that object through the water column, which keep in mind, could be hundreds of feet to 2 miles deep in the water column. We work really, really deep on the bottom of the ocean. So that has to be connected with pipes for the fluid to flow through. It has to be provided electricity through cables. It has to have telemetry through fiber optics, down lines or chemical injection lines. It's a very complicated system to support that equipment on the seabed. Remember how deep we are on the seabed. This is all with advanced electronics. This is designed for a 20- to 30-year life. So you're putting high-end automation and control and robotics on the sea floor in a saline environment, to work for 20 to 30 years. This is really high-end automation and control technology that we have within -- and competency that we have within our company. So when we did -- when we looked at it, we realized that if we brought those 2 together, -- and our customers no longer bid those as separate work packages, there were things we could do to integrate those connections, again, fiber optics power cables, chemical downlines, flow lines to connect to that equipment back up to the surface as well as the way that we would install all of that onto the seabed and into the water column. That led to the concept of the iEPCI or the integrated offering that led to the merger of FMC Technologies with Technip creating TechnipFMC to remove the redundancy to remove those unnecessary interfaces. On an average project, if you do it in an integrated way, you will remove 30% of the hardware required by removing unnecessary interfaces. We don't have time to get into all that, but it's a meaningful number. We're putting massive amounts of equipment on the seabed to be able to remove 30% of that, and to be able to do that in a much more efficient way is why our customers are also embracing the iEPCI. So if you put the combination of the integrated offering, which is unique to our company, with the architecture, the Subsea 2.0, which is unique to our company, it's why we've had the tremendous success and customer acceptance that we've had in the market. And how do you quantify that? 80%, 8-0, 80% of our business is direct awarded to our company. It never goes out to a competitive tender because our customers see the value, and we are in a situation where our customers win while we can win. We're not in the typical relationship where there's a winner and a loser, either the customer or the supplier based on supply and demand. We have a very different way that we treat our customers. We ensure that our customers are winning every day, and that's through the relentless pursuit of reduction of cycle time. Every hour, every day, every month that we save on cycle time and accelerate time to first oil, dramatically improves their offshore project returns. And we deliver these projects with 100% certainty, 100% certainty on time, on budget every time. Meanwhile, we're able to benefit because, again, we're getting those greater internal efficiencies. We're reducing that 9 to 12 months of required engineering and we're able to drive much greater operating performance within our company. In a typical Subsea 2.0 versus a typical 1.0, we can move 2 to 2.5x the volume through the same roof line in a 2.0 world than in a 1.0 world. We're not stopping and starting, building something for the first time. We really now have achieved flow. We're not done because I know that sounds like we've accomplished a lot, and perhaps we're at the end of the story. It's important to recognize we're not done. What we have done so far is only about 1/3 of the overall equipment and the overall installation activity that we do as a combined [ IECI ] project. So think about everything we've just said and the benefits that we've received from that differentiation, we're only 1/3 of the way done. We have 2/3 left to do, which we're actively working on today to get an overall system that will be even shorter cycle time than what we can do today.

Yes. Could you maybe elaborate? Because we've highlighted as the next big catalyst for the stock is the industrialization of, call it, the installation process. We've -- I think the market is calling it SURF 2.0 and maybe give us a sense and maybe give some breadcrumbs on how that process is going?

Sure. So this nomenclature Surf, which is subsea umbilical risers and flow lines, it's kind of old nomenclature the way the industry used to look at the equipment on the sea floor was considered SPS, subsea production systems. The water column and the installation or the vessels was considered surfer Subsea umbilical risers and flow lines. We destroyed that by putting it together and calling it iEPCI, right? But it's fair that the industry still sometimes thinks about SPS and serve. Everything that I talked about in terms of the Subsea 2.0, the industrialization or the configure to order the automotive model, we've only applied to the seafloor so far. So as part of the merger, we got the capability of the water column umbilical riser flow lines, flexible pipe as well as the installation capability. That's what we're working on now. That's the remaining 2/3. We have done -- we have made tremendous progress going through a very disciplined approach, learning from how we performed on the Subsea 2.0 C floor to look at the rest of this 2/3 and what we can do differently. I will tell you, it is dramatic. It will be game changing, not only for ourselves but for the industry. But I'm going to stop there. Arun, I'd like to go further, but we are deep, deep, deep into the concept select. We are deep into really proving out some of these concepts and the impact that some of these concepts will have I will personally though, I will tell you, I am extremely motivated and extremely excited and believe the impact of what we have left to do will be greater than what we've done so far. More importantly, our customers believe that, and our customers want that. And that's what's going to continue to drive down the breakeven in the offshore, continue to make it more and more attractive and continue to drive more capital flows offshore.

Great. We have ExxonMobil, who's going to follow you. So that's a big customer as well.

A customer, we're honored to be partner with.

Great. Let's shift a little bit to financials a little bit. You've guided to $9.4 billion of Subsea revenue, 21.5% EBITDA margins, not going to ask you about the quarter, but just generally how are things kind of progressing from an execution standpoint and your belief in terms of continuation of margin growth as the cycle continues?

So speaking of the -- so the Subsea guidance for 2026, as is being referenced by Arun, I'll just be brief. We're going to deliver. As we look forward beyond 2026, already back in February, February of 2026, we already made the statement, I'll reaffirm it today with an even greater level of confidence. We're going to deliver growth in inbound. We're going to deliver growth in revenue. We're going to -- and deliver growth in EBITDA in 2027. So we're a backlog company. We have great visibility. We have an ever-improving quality in our backlog. And I can say with a high degree of confidence, we will continue to grow into 2027 as well.

Great. Doug, one of the favorable things about the business model is you spit off a lot of free cash flow from the business. You have a net cash position at $540 million, your EBITDA, the free cash flow conversion has been very, very strong, I think, 65% or so. How do you think about the right level of cash to manage your business. We're a bank. We don't want you to get too much cash to start competing with us, but how are you thinking about the right balance sheet leverage of the company? And maybe comment a little bit on your cash return framework.

Sure. And look, thank you for asking. It's starting to be somewhat taken for granted. But if you look at the work that we have done to improve the balance sheet and liquidity of the company, at the same time as all these other innovative things that we're talking about, mergers, et cetera, we're super proud of where we are. We are financially extremely strong. As you mentioned, we're in a net cash position. We don't have any debt really coming due until quite a few years out, and we have obviously the capacity to take that out. It's a small amount of debt. So in a very strong position. We continue -- like everything we do at the company to look for ways to optimize the performance of the company. That includes cash generation, and that also includes the way that we use that cash. What's really important when you think about the cash generation of the company from everything that we just said, growing inbound, growing backlog, growing revenue, growing EBITDA margin and EBITDA is obviously going to generate more and more cash. The question is, are we going to be good stewards of that. And I hope we've demonstrated that. And I sit here today and can reconfirm that. We are not a conglomerate. We are a pure play. We don't just buy things for the sake of size or bolt-on acquisitions. We are very focused in what we do. Our M&A landscape has no white space. We've done the big strategic moves that were required. We continue to invest in technology, particularly around material sciences and automation and control, and we will continue to do so. But nothing that is going to be a huge generator or a huge use of that cash. And internally, we're growing the company at a level of CapEx that only requires about 3.5% to 4.5% of revenue, and we're typically on the low end of that and growing the company. How are we able to do that? We're able to do that through this drive this relentless pursuit of reduction of cycle time. We talk about how it helps our customers. That's most important to us. But it also helps us because if I take 9 to 12 months off of the engineering required on a project, I have 9 to 12 months more capacity in engineering to do other things. If I can do 2.5x through the throughput of my manufacturing facility, I don't have to spend any additional capital to grow the company to build more manufacturing. And it's this way of thinking differently, which is not the way things have traditionally been done in our industry. Traditionally, if you were in growth mode, you spend capital, you spend, spend, spend, then you overspend, then maybe you don't have the level of activity and there goes your returns. We are a returns-focused company. We're very proud of what we've been able to do. Our ROIC is achieving levels that have not been achieved historically, and we have a pathway to continue to drive those even higher being very good stewards of the way that we use the cash within the company. And finally, because I just -- the clock just hit 0, 0, 0. It's important to understand with the cash that goes beyond that, we are delighted to return to our shareholders and we have done that in a meaningful way. Over 70% of that free cash flow generated.

Great. Doug, we're out of time. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you all.