Vantage Drilling International Ltd. (VTDRF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Vantage Drilling International Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce General Counsel, Douglas Stewart.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Vantage Drilling International Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. On the call today are also Ihab Toma, our CEO; and Rafael Blattner, our CFO. This morning, we released our earnings announcement for the quarter ended June 30, 2023. The earnings release is available on our website at vantagedrilling.com. Please also note that any comments we make today about our expectations of future events and projections are forward-looking statements pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. We have based forward-looking statements on management's current expectations and assumptions and not on historical facts. Examples of these statements include, but are not limited to: our expectations regarding future results, including expectations regarding our liquidity position; future costs and expenses related to upgrades and out-of-service work; as well as contract preparation costs and expenses. Forward-looking statements in today's call are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control and could cause actual results to differ materially from the projections made in today's conference call. We refer you to our earnings release and SEC filings available on our website. Vantage does not undertake the updating of any statement or risk factor that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. We have prerecorded our prepared remarks and are participating on the call remotely to manage the question-and-answer session segment of the call. In the event there are issues with sound quality or of a similar nature, please accept our apologies in advance, and thank you for your understanding. One quick item before I turn over the call to Ihab, we would like to provide some clarity regarding the recent change in executive roles. As you know, I served as the company's CFO and General Counsel starting in May 2020, soon after the COVID-19 pandemic began. We combined the 2 positions of CFO and General Counsel in accordance with our then corporate goal number 3, preserving cash, as we aimed at adapting our organizational costs to the tough situation the pandemic created. As the industry and our business have stabilized now, the Board decided it was appropriate to separate the 2 positions again. I will continue as the company's General Counsel and, as announced, Rafael Blattner is the company's new CFO. Now let me turn over the call to our CEO, Mr. Ihab Toma.

Thank you, Douglas, and good morning and good afternoon, everyone. The second quarter of 2023 marked a turning point for us. For the first time since the start of the downturn, all 4 of our owned rigs along with all 5 managed and supported rigs were under contract, resulting in positive earnings without exceptional items. On the fleet performance front, I'm proud to report that the Emerald Driller achieved an entire year without a recordable incident and the Sapphire Driller received the prestigious Annual HSC Award from the IADC Southern Arabian Peninsula Chapter for having the Best Recordable Incident Rate in the region. As usual, I will now take you through our performance against our refreshed corporate goals of, one, maintaining stellar safety and operational performance; two, contracting the fleet at higher day rates; and three, achieving excellent stakeholders' returns. And as I always do, I will begin with our corporate goal number one, which is to maintain our stellar safety and operational performance. In Q2, we continued our excellent safety performance with minimal incidents. We also continued to strive for incident-free operations and cultivating our Perfect Day Every Day vision through our ongoing efforts to train, coach and mentor our crews. With the ramp-up in activity post-COVID, our offshore working man-hours went from as low as 600,000 annualized man-hours to close to 2 million in Q2, with a lot of new people joining Vantage or coming back from a long leave. As such, we commenced the reimplementation of our Perfect Day Leadership training course across our global operations. The investment in this program is critical to our safety performance and has been met with excellent support from the rig teams, and we look forward to continuing this worthy initiative throughout the latter stages of 2023. As mentioned in my introduction, there were a number of remarkable safety highlights in Q2. These are impressive milestones that were achieved with the backing of very supportive clients and rig teams that are committed to the implementation of the Vantage Perfect Day Leadership program. I'm proud of our offshore crews for the overall safety performance in Q2 despite all the challenges and complexities our teams have faced. Shifting to health. While COVID-19-related risks are starting to subside, we are still seeing cases on board our rigs. However, they are of low severity and are not causing any major issues to employees' health or operations. In addition to managing the COVID-19-related risks, we also continue to focus our attention on managing the more traditional offshore workplace health risks such as fatigue, chemical exposure and hazardous material management, and are confident that the comprehensive plans that we have put in place are more than suitable to ensure the health of our offshore workforce. Finally, we continue to develop and implement our 2023 sustainability strategy, which from the environmental side has a strong focus on reducing our GHG emissions, better managing our waste and improving our water usage efficiencies. In summary, we are pleased with our safety performance in Q2, which has always been the primary reason why clients choose to work with Vantage. And our increased focus on sustainability strategy will ensure these relationships continue and prosper. Moving to operations. Revenue efficiency for the fleet during the second quarter was 94%, where the deepwater fleet ended at 94% and the jack-up fleet came in at 94.3%. The lower-than-usual revenue efficiency was mainly due to wellhead equipment issues at the start of the Tungsten Explorer campaign in Namibia, as this was the first time some equipment were being exposed to 10,000 feet of water depth. These were minor issues that required simple remedies, but any BOP pull at this depth would inherently consume significant number of hours. The other matter was a top drive issue encountered on the Soehanah during the quarter. However, it is worth noting that both issues have since been fully resolved. Now I will guide you through our fleet status, which directly relates to our second corporate goal: focusing on increasing day rates and taking full advantage of the improved market dynamics. During the second quarter, the Topaz Driller was actively operating in Egypt for Petrobel under our bareboat charter structure with ADES. Effective April 2, this contract was extended on a higher rate for an additional 4 wells that took place through Q2 and into Q3. Having completed this work in July, the rig is now en route to Morocco for the campaign with Eni Morocco, and will later move to Foxtrot Ivory Coast, ensuring its continuous engagement into the first quarter of 2024. These jobs each comes with a day rate of $125,000 a day and a combined mobilization and demobilization fees of nearly $20 million. Looking ahead, we are actively marketing the Topaz Driller for longer-term contracts to follow the Ivory Coast campaign. The Soehanah continued to be active in Indonesia under the current Medco contract, which just concluded, and the rig has now moved to the new contract day rate. As per our latest [ rate fitness ] report, we are delighted to confirm the new contract for the Soehanah for 766 days with Medco that has just started. The contract day rate is $119,900 per day in addition to a mobilization revenue of $2 million. I would like to bring to your attention that after the new program's first well, the rig will come inshore and will undergo some upgrade and maintenance work, estimated to take approximately 4 weeks to complete before returning to drilling operations. Moving to the deepwater fleet. The Platinum Explorer continues to work for ONGC in India under its firm 2-year contract through the fourth quarter of 2023, subject to the well in progress close. The Platinum Explorer was recently L2, or second lowest bidder, for the ongoing ONGC tender for 2 deepwater rigs capable of operations in 3,000 meter for 21 months each. The scope was reduced late in the tender evaluation process to a single rig requirement with a firm duration of only 12 months. Our bid rates for the Platinum Explorer in this tender was $390,000 per day plus a mobilization fee, showing our seriousness and focus on achieving the higher day rates available in this improved market. The client's decision on this tender is yet to be finalized and the work is yet to be awarded. Given the late reduction in scope from the original one, we expect additional tenders to be issued in India in the coming months to cover the original requirement that have faced delays and were removed from the scope of this tender. The rigs is also being actively marketed outside of India and Southeast Asia and elsewhere for other opportunities in 2024 after the 2-month shipyard stay planned post the current contract. Shifting to the Tungsten Explorer. The drillship successfully completed the first complex well in Namibia during the quarter and has already commenced work on the second well at even deeper water depth than the first one. The rig is firmly booked until the second quarter of 2024, and TotalEnergies has the option to extend this contract through 2 additional options, potentially keeping the rigs active in the region until early 2025. In terms of backlog, our backlog at the end of the second quarter was $269.2 million. During the quarter, we secured additional backlog of $112.7 million, of which $95 million are from the Medco contract for Soehanah and $15 million from the Foxtrot contract, plus the additional work attained with Petrobel for the Topaz. Regarding the Managed Services business, the Capella completed a 1-well contract in Mozambique and started mobilization to Indonesia during the second quarter. The rig has since commenced operations in Indonesia under a term contract in which the rig is shared amongst Eni, Mubadala and Harbour Energy. The first price option has been exercised by the client, securing the rig until the third quarter of 2024. Furthermore, if the customers choose to exercise some or all of the remaining options, the rig may remain managed by Vantage in Indonesia into 2025. The Polaris continues to work for ONGC in India into the fourth quarter of 2023, subject to the well in progress close. The Polaris was recently L3 or third lowest bidder for the aforementioned ONGC tender, and our bid rate for the Polaris in this tender was $395,000 per day plus a mobilization fee. Lastly, during the second quarter, Vantage continued to manage Aquarius, and we successfully handed over the rig to Seadrill in early July at its starting rotation in Norway. From a market standpoint, we are consistently seeing high-quality long-term tenders and constructive direct negotiations with clients seeking to secure rigs with relatively long lead times. Day rate trends remain healthy despite some recent competitive pricing actions that may appear inconsistent with the current market strength. I would like again to stress that rig availability is the main concern for our client and not a rig's bells and whistles. We will stay the course and we will continue to focus on obtaining the kind of day rates achievable in this market for the long-term benefit of the company and our shareholders. Now moving to our third corporate goal of achieving excellent stakeholders' returns. As mentioned in my opening remarks, Vantage has achieved the first positive earnings result since the inception of the successor company with no exceptional items such as gain on the sale of rigs or the settlement of the arbitration case. This success can be attributed to our dedication to our original corporate goals, leading to all rigs being operational under a well-managed cost structure. Additionally, our refreshed capital structure, thanks to the refinancing of the debt, has played a significant role in this accomplishment. In regards to our cash position, we ended the quarter with a cash balance of $82.4 million, including $2.7 million in restricted cash and $16.9 million of Managed Services prefunded cash. The net Vantage Drilling International cash balance was relatively consistent with the beginning of the quarter, ending the quarter slightly above $66 million. During the quarter, we generated positive rig level cash flow inclusive of corporate G&A of approximately $7.1 million. This financial turning point, combined with the increased demand for our rigs and the implementation of a strong safety culture, enhances our confidence in the business. As we look ahead, I'm excited about the opportunities that await us. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Rafael to take us through the numbers.

Thank you, Ihab. Good morning, and welcome, everyone. As Ihab noted, this represents the company's first profitable quarter, not counting extraordinary items, following the downturn. In the second quarter, we achieved approximately $1.5 million net income attributed to shareholders or $0.11 per diluted share. I will now turn to the company's performance during the quarter. Total backlog at the end of the quarter totaled approximately $269.2 million, which includes $31.1 million related to the Polaris as Vantage entered into a drilling contract directly with ONGC in variable charters of rig from our Managed Services customer. The company ended the quarter with approximately $82.4 million of cash, including $2.7 million restricted cash, compared to $78.8 million at the previous quarter, inclusive of $8.9 million in restricted cash. At June 30, 2023, Vantage maintained $16.9 million of cash prefunded by our Managed Services customer to address the near-term obligations associated with the operations of their rigs. Working capital for the quarter ended at approximately $126.8 million compared to $116 million in the previous quarter. For the quarter, we achieved revenues of approximately $107.8 million compared to $72.2 million for the second quarter of 2022. The increase was due to higher day rates for the Tungsten Explorer and revenue generated by the Polaris operations during the current quarter, offset by lower revenue in the shallow water business as we operated 3 fewer rigs with the sale of EDC when compared to the comparable quarter of 2022. Total revenues for the quarter compared favorably to $77.1 million reported in the first quarter of 2023. This was primarily due to the full utilization of the Tungsten Explorer throughout the second quarter, in contrast to the first quarter of 2023 when the Tungsten Explorer was mobilized and placed in operations with TotalEnergies in Namibia. For the quarter, our deepwater fleet achieved 94% revenue efficiency and our jack-up fleet achieved 94.3% revenue efficiency. Operating costs for the second quarter of 2023 totaled $74.4 million and were unfavorable to $55.4 million in the comparable quarter of 2022 due to increased activity in the Managed Services segment, driven primarily by the Polaris operating activity, partially offset by lower cost in the shallow water business as we owned fewer rigs as a result of the EDC sale in the second quarter of 2022. General and administrative expenses for the second quarter of 2023 totaled approximately $5.2 million as compared to $6.9 million for the comparable quarter in 2022. The decrease is mainly due to the lower compensation expenses of $1.1 million as a result of bonuses paid in the comparable quarter that did not recur in the current quarter and lower professional fees. Interest expense for the quarter was approximately $5.3 million compared to $8.5 million in the comparable quarter of 2022. The decrease was due to lower outstanding debt as a result of the paydown of the 9.25% notes during fourth quarter of 2022, offset by the refinancing of the remaining balance within 9.5% notes during the first quarter of 2023. I would like to highlight that in the second quarter of 2023, we achieved positive EBITDA of $28.3 million, favorable to the $6.3 million in the comparable quarter of 2022. The net result was net income attributable to shareholders of $1.5 million for the quarter or $0.11 per diluted share. Please note that we'll file our 10-Q later today. And with that, I'll now turn the call back over to the operator to begin the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Fredrik Stene with Clarkson Securities.

I wanted to touch a bit on your fleet here. And I think naturally, I'm going to touch on the Platinum Explorer first. You said, Ihab, that ONGC might come to market at a later stage now with a new tender since they have removed 2/3, almost 3/4 of the original requirement. So based on kind of the information that you have available, what do you think the timing or commencement of such a tender would mean? And how would you deem your own chances in such a tender?

Thanks, Fredrik. So yes, I mean let me maybe clarify a little bit. I cannot talk too much on behalf of my clients here. But what I can tell you is that the original scope was to cover work in the West Coast of India, and that work is delayed. And because of that, basically, that work is yet to come back to the table. And the delay has nothing to do with anything but normal process of planning wells. And once you plan the wells, then you go and order equipment for it and deem ready for drilling the wells. So I cannot really speculate more than that on behalf of my client. But just simply to say that the scope that is being awarded right now is not the original scope. The original scope is simply yet to come to the table. And what gets awarded right now is still on the cards. The client has not made decisions yet and has not paid an award yet on the current tender. I hope I answered...

Okay. Yes, it's good color. You also mentioned that you might need this rig elsewhere. And I understand that you can't get too specific, but would that mean other regions like maybe other places in Southeast Asia, West Africa, Brazil? Are you doing -- bidding it globally or trying to keep it more local?

Yes. I mean of course, the way you asked the question, Fredrik, is like we are going to start bidding it just now because we are no longer the lowest bidder of this tender. Of course, we have been bidding it. As long as a rig does not have a firm contract, a rig is being bid. And more importantly, the rig is being part of direct conversations with clients. So this has been taking place, will continue to take place. And maybe we'll have more, I would say, interest on your part and the part of everybody on the call, and everybody in -- that is following Vantage now because of the news from India, but this has not stopped. And yes, the rig is being tendered and directly being discussed with clients in India, in Southeast Asia and in elsewhere where we have work. You mentioned Brazil. I would not include Brazil in that answer, but everywhere we have work, absolutely. With every client we have worked for, absolutely. Look, I mean let me just be very clear. I mentioned it in the prepared remarks, but I'm going to repeat it here again. Today, in the current market, our focus is on maximizing day rates and obtaining the kind of day rates we are capable of obtaining in this current market dynamics. This is where we have changed our corporate goal number 2. It used to be just keep the fleet working, make sure the fleet is not stacked. We have updated that now in the current market dynamics. We are focused on day rates. This is the best way to maximize the returns for our shareholders. This is not a short-term, next-3-months concern. This is short, mid and long term strategy for making sure we're going to maximize the returns to our shareholders by having the higher day rates. And today, the clients' concern, main concern is rig availability. If your rig can drill my well, if you can show up on time when I want to drill my well, name your price. This is the kind of conversation that takes place in the current market, not people talking about 6 gen and 7 gen and so on. The difference between the 6 gen and 7 gen is 10% faster drilling. If you -- if a client has to wait 1 year or 9 months for a rig because it can drill 10% faster, that client will not keep the job for too long. So yes, it's all about rig availability and the current market dynamic is exactly that. And these are the kind of conversations we are having with clients.

That's a good and detailed answer. Quickly on the Tungsten before I hand it back. Given your progress here starting on the second [indiscernible], if I heard correctly, do you think it's likely that Total is going to exercise their remaining options as well, at least how you see it today?

I mean look, again, I cannot speculate and I cannot speak on behalf of my client. But we just bid $390,000 a day for the Platinum in India, which is one of the cheapest places to operate. That TotalEnergies have very, very interesting day rate on those options. As you know, it is public and they have a lot of drilling to do. And that triggered very capable rigs which exactly meets their needs. So yes, I'm not going to close with an answer to your question, but I think I gave enough color here.

And I think we have kind of the same mark. At least I think I understand what you're saying, in a way. And I agree, it's a good option price. All right.

Thank you, Fredrik.

[Operator Instructions] And I'm showing no further questions. So with that, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.