Drilling Tools International Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
November 13, 2023

Key Takeaways

  • DTI’s rental‐repair model and tool‐recovery revenue support a sustainable fleet and generated Q3 revenues up 4.4% YoY, despite a 19% drop in U.S. rig count.
  • Q3 adjusted EBITDA was $12.7 M (-2.3% YoY) and 9M EBITDA rose 45.2% to $40.8 M, with full-year 2023 guidance of $150–158 M in revenue, $50–54 M in adj. EBITDA and $6–8 M in adj. free cash flow.
  • Debt-free balance sheet with ~$4 M cash on hand and an undrawn $60 M facility provides ample liquidity for operations and growth.
  • DTI plans strategic bolt-on acquisitions to double or triple its size, targeting tech‐enabled tools and international expansion, leveraging its public equity in M&A.
  • New proprietary products (Roto-Steer, SafeLoad, Drill N Ream) and the COMPASS fleet management system are expected to drive market share gains in drilling, geothermal and carbon capture markets.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Drilling Tools International Q3 2023
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Drilling Tools International's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star one one again. I would now like to hand the call over to Sioban Hickie, Investor Relations for Drilling Tools International. Please go ahead.

Sioban Hickie
Sioban Hickie
External Investor Relations at Drilling Tools International

Thank you, Latif, and welcome everyone to Drilling Tools International's third quarter conference call. I am joined today by Wayne Prejean, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and David Johnson, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we start, I would like to remind everyone that some of today's comments include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from any expectations we expressed in or are implied by these statements. Please refer to our latest Securities and Exchange Commission filings for risk factors and cautions regarding forward-looking statements. Our comments today also include non-GAAP financial measures. The underlying details and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures are included in our third quarter earnings press release, which can be found on our website.

Sioban Hickie
Sioban Hickie
External Investor Relations at Drilling Tools International

Lastly, as a reminder, today's call is being webcast, and a recorded version will be available for replay on the investor relations section of the company website shortly after the, shortly after the conclusion of this call. With that, I'll hand it over to Wayne Prejean, Chief Executive Officer.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

... Good morning, and thank you for joining our first earnings call as a public company. My name is Wayne Prejean, I'm Chief Executive of DTI. For those of you who are new to our company story, I will begin my remarks with an overview of Drilling Tools International, which is more commonly referred to in the industry as DTI. DTI is an industrial service company whose distinct business model combines tools, technology, and equipment rental, along with in-house manufacturing capabilities. We primarily serve the oil and gas upstream industry with downhole tools in the wellbore construction process. In addition, our tools also serve their emerging geothermal and carbon capture business. We employ a loyal and dedicated group of people who believe in our values and share our vision for the future.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

Our competitive advantage continues to be the people we employ, who drive the strength, innovation, and performance of our company. The reason DTI exists is because our customers, such as SLB, Baker Hughes, Exxon, Chevron, and Oxy, would not find it efficient to own and maintain their own fleet of downhole rental tools. There are just too many assorted configurations, hole sizes, geographies, and engineers' preferences that make it inefficient for customers to own their own rental tool fleet. Although David Johnson, our CFO, will explain results in more detail later, I will briefly describe how our business works. Our business model relies mostly on rental, repair, and recovery revenues. Our customers count on us to maintain a relevant and sustainable fleet of equipment. Our rental and repair income provides the basis for our rental model.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

The tool recovery revenue, also known as lost or damaged equipment charges, allows us to sustain our fleet, which enables us to not only remain relevant, but also generate positive, Adjusted Free Cash Flow throughout the energy industry cycles. These financial results provide DTI tremendous flexibility across a variety of business strategies. We are debt-free and have an enviable income stream from multiple product lines and numerous geographic locations, covering every significant oil and gas-producing region in North America. We also think we have some of the best professionals in the industry. In a steady state or non-growth environment, our business consistently delivers mid-30% Adjusted EBITDA margins and a high-teens percentage of Adjusted Free Cash Flow. I hope this overview was helpful in providing some context for the rest of the call.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

Now, I'll take a few minutes to discuss a little bit about our company history, market conditions, how we are executing, a review of the quarter, and our outlook for the remainder of 2023, before opening the line for questions. So let's get started. DTI was founded in 1984 as Directional Rentals in Lafayette, Louisiana. After 28 years of Gulf Coast success and expanding from one to three locations, the company was sold in 2012 to private equity firm Hicks Equity Partners. Oilfield services is an industry where experience and relationships matter. A dedicated group of employees, led by experienced management, is the key to sustainable success. This means the strength of our management team is important. In 2013, the company recruited and hired additional senior management to execute a long-range growth plan and soon after rebranded Drilling Tools International.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

The senior leadership team in place today has worked together for over 10 years. We have decades of industry experience between us and have successfully managed the business through numerous industry cycles. Over the last decade, DTI has grown from a small regional tool supplier, primarily servicing independent directional drilling clients, to a well-established oilfield services company, supplying the top-tier oil and gas service companies worldwide, providing downhole tools for both the land and offshore drilling markets. Our primary focus is tools and technology used in drilling, completion, and workover operations. We have a fleet of mission-critical tools that include bottomhole assembly components such as subs, stabilizers, drill collars, premium drill pipe and drill pipe accessories, tubing, pressure control equipment, reamers, borehole enlargement tools, and production desanders.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

We also offer some proprietary wellbore optimization products, such as the patented Drill-N-Ream wellbore conditioning tool, SafeFlow, a patented downhole pressure control valve, and our new patented RotoSteer technology. All of these provide value-added solutions to the evolving challenges in the drilling industry. DTI operates from our headquarters in Houston, Texas, and from 20 service locations across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Many of these locations have machining, inspection, and repair capabilities that enable us to efficiently service our equipment, which results in improved customer satisfaction, reliability, and efficient utilization of our assets. We also have full manufacturing capabilities, which allows us to control the cost and delivery of many of our rental tool items. Our customers' drilling tool needs are ever-changing and evolving.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

To support and manage a complex fleet of assets, you must have a best-in-class quality system with a reliable maintenance process to meet the needs of the industry. To meet these needs, DTI created and deployed a customized state-of-the-art fleet management software system called COMPASS. COMPASS is an acronym for Customer Order Management Portal and Support System. This software system simplifies the complex task of managing a large inventory of tools spread out over numerous geographic locations, with tools of various geometry and customer specifications. But most importantly, this system provides valuable performance data to assist the management team with capital allocation priorities. For example, we've seen asset performance, as defined by utilization rates, increase almost 10% since implementing the system in 2021, and it continues to improve.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

While most investors do not yet know us, it is worth noting that we are well-known within the industry and to our customers. We service a wide customer base, including blue-chip companies such as Chevron, Exxon, BP, Oxy, Pioneer, ConocoPhillips, EOG, SLB, Baker Hughes, and Phoenix Energy Services. In addition, we serve several independent E&P operators such as Mewbourne, Endeavor, and Continental, and as well as many others. We are proud of our progress and track record thus far. In fact, since 2013, the company has been EBITDA positive every single year during the last 10 years, including 2020 during the depths of COVID. Although we prefer a market that is steady state or upward, we view downturns as opportunities to strengthen our business, and we have done so each cycle.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

It is noteworthy that Hicks Equity Partners has been the majority owner of DTI since 2012 and remains so today. The Hicks team has invested in the energy industry for over 40 years, and we are proud of our strong and enduring working relationship. Turning now to the market outlook and effect on our business. In Q4 of 2022, the forecasts across the industry and for 2023 began, with rig counts expected to be flat to upward throughout the year. Unfortunately, near the end of the first quarter of 2023, natural gas markets softened, and shortly after, bank contagion fears created macro concerns of a major worldwide recession. This triggered a softer oil and gas market and resulted in rig count declines in many areas.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

While U.S. rig activity has declined approximately 19% from December of 2022 to September of 2023, the company continues to execute on plan, with a revenue decrease of less than the linear market decline. Essentially, we have outperformed the market. We will elaborate on this later in the call. Looking forward, management believes that the North American rig count has bottomed and will begin to move upwards in 2024. Longer term demand trends remain robust, with projections from agencies such as the EIA expecting oil demand to continue to grow through 2050 and gas demand to increase materially in the next few years as in-process LNG plants come on stream. It is well documented that the industry has underinvested in recent years, and to meet future demand, additional drilling, completion, and production of oil and gas wells will be required worldwide.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

DTI's base business is competitively positioned in North America Land and in the US offshore business as well. Our customers have requested we expand to serve them on a more global scale. We recently expanded our fleet to the North Sea Europe market, and we have made steady progress expanding into the Middle East. DTI continually works to provide tools, technology, and services to meet our customers' changing needs in markets throughout the world. And now, some discussion on growth, mergers and acquisitions, and industry consolidation. Given how highly fragmented the oilfield services industry is today, we believe there are meaningful consolidation opportunities which exist in the sector, and we have identified a substantial pipeline of accretive growth opportunities within our core competencies. To pursue those opportunities, DTI became a public company in June of 2023 to gain public equity, as well as other funding methods to execute transactions....

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

Our targets include opportunities that would strengthen our technological capabilities, capture competitive positions or bolt-on assets, and expand our reach internationally. As has always been the case, we seek to execute on transactions which are aligned with our long-term portfolio strategy and increase shareholder value. It is our goal to make strategic acquisitions that double or triple the size of the company in relatively short order, and we spend a substantial part of our time each day driving towards this goal. We believe DTI has a proven track record of successfully deploying capital in a disciplined manner for select accretive acquisitions. DTI has executed six acquisitions since 2013, which have included companies, strategic asset purchases, and distribution agreements with technology advantages. Today, DTI has a fortress balance sheet, zero leverage, an undrawn $60 million ABL credit facility, public equity, which provide ample financial liquidity.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

We are poised for accretive growth in numerous areas of our business, have an excellent management team, and continue to execute well, generating strong Adjusted Free Cash Flow. With that, I will turn it over to our CFO, David Johnson, for a review of our financial results. David?

David Johnson
David Johnson
CFO at Drilling Tools International

Thanks, Wayne, and thank you everyone for joining us today. DTI generated total consolidated revenue of $38.1 million in the third quarter of 2023, an increase of 4.4% compared to the third quarter of 2022. For the nine months ended September 2023, total consolidated revenue was $116.8 million, 25.8% higher compared to the first nine months of 2022. The revenue contribution from our tool rental segment in the third quarter was $29.4 million, which was 9.4% higher compared to the third quarter of 2022. The improvement was primarily driven by increased market activity and customer pricing across all product lines, with the strongest contributions coming from our directional tool rentals and the wellbore optimization tools product lines.

David Johnson
David Johnson
CFO at Drilling Tools International

For the nine-month period ending September 2023, the tool rental segment generated $90.6 million of revenue, which was 29% higher compared to the same nine-month period in 2022. Revenue generated by the product sales segment in the third quarter of 2023 was $8.8 million, which was 9.6% lower compared to the third quarter of 2022, primarily due to higher than average tool recovery revenue in the third quarter of 2022. For the nine months ended September 2023, the product sales segment generated revenue of $26.2 million, an increase of 15.9% compared to 2022. DTI's operating costs and expenses in the third quarter of 2023 were $31 million, which was 8.9% higher compared to the third quarter of 2022. This was primarily driven by higher personnel expenses, depreciation, insurance expense, and other public company costs.

David Johnson
David Johnson
CFO at Drilling Tools International

For the nine-month period ended September of 2023, operating costs and expenses were $93.5 million, an increase of 23.7% compared to the same nine-month period in 2022. It is worth highlighting that for the nine-month period ending September of 2023, our operating expenses increased at a lower rate than our revenue increased, illustrating our ability to gain operating leverage as activity and pricing improved over the prior year, even with the impact of increased costs associated with becoming a public company. The company posted net income of $4.3 million, or $0.14 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2023, compared to net income of $7 million or $0.36 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2022.

David Johnson
David Johnson
CFO at Drilling Tools International

For the nine-month period ending September 2023, net income was $10.9 million or $0.46 per diluted share, compared to net income of $14.3 million or $0.72 per diluted share. The lower result in the nine-month period was impacted by one-time transaction-related expenses of $6 million and one-time related stock option expenses of $1.7 million. We also had ERC benefits of $4.3 million in the third quarter of 2022 that were not repeated in the third quarter of 2023. Third quarter Adjusted EBITDA was $12.7 million, which was 2.3% lower compared to the third quarter of 2022. The decrease was primarily driven by higher personnel expenses and other public company costs in the current quarter and higher than average tool recovery revenue that occurred in the third quarter of 2022.

David Johnson
David Johnson
CFO at Drilling Tools International

For the nine months ended September 2023, Adjusted EBITDA was $40.8 million, which was 45.2% higher compared to the nine months ended September 2022. DTI ended the third quarter with strong financial flexibility, with approximately $4 million of cash on hand and an undrawn $60 million credit facility. Before moving on to guidance for the fourth quarter, I want to take a moment to discuss our capital expenditures and recovery of costs for lost or damaged tools, since we regularly receive questions on this topic and it is not well understood. As a downhole rental tool company, our maintenance capital is funded by tool recovery revenue. The customer is responsible for all lost or damaged tools while the tools are in their care, custody, or control. This tool recovery component of our rental business model keeps our rental tool fleet relevant and sustainable....

David Johnson
David Johnson
CFO at Drilling Tools International

For the three and nine-month periods ending September 2023, maintenance capital was approximately 14% of total consolidated revenue for these periods. This self-funding portion of our capital investments has remained relatively consistent over the past couple of years. Now, I would like to turn our attention to guidance for the full year 2023. As of September 2023, U.S. rig activity has declined by approximately 19% compared with December of 2022. However, despite the challenging environment, DTI continues to execute well, with a monthly revenue decrease of only 5% from December of 2022 to September of 2023, outperforming the market. Management anticipates the rig count will remain relatively flat in Q4, and we are maintaining our previous projections for the full year 2023, which I will review now.

David Johnson
David Johnson
CFO at Drilling Tools International

We expect revenue to be in the range of $150 million-$158 million for the full year 2023. We expect Adjusted EBITDA to be within the range of $50 million-$54 million. Gross capital expenditures are expected to be between $44 million-$46 million. Net income for the full year is expected to be between $12 million-$19 million, and finally, we expect Adjusted Free Cash Flow to be in the range of $6 million-$8 million for the year. That concludes the financial review section. Let me now turn it back over to Wayne to provide some summary comments before Q and A.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

Thank you, David. So everyone, to recap a few key items before opening up the line for Q and A. As I stated earlier, DTI is currently unknown to the investment community, but we are well known and respected in the industry. We are an established company with seasoned management team that has interests aligned with its shareholders. We have an employee base that is loyal, dedicated, and skilled in supporting our operation. This team is cohesive, collaborative, and has worked together for a number of years. We are the market leader in numerous categories and have an enviable facility footprint. We have an outstanding roster of customers and large sales force covering numerous geographic locations. We have proven operational performance and can boast an impressive delivery of steady-state Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Free Cash Flow margins.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

We have a proven track record of successfully executing acquisitions, and we believe consolidation opportunities exist in oilfield services. We have a pipeline of attractive acquisition and organic growth initiatives already in motion. We have a strong balance sheet, zero leverage, an undrawn $60 million credit facility, and equity capital. DTI is well positioned to achieve our strategic portfolio objectives. And to be blunt, at our current stock price, we believe we're at an attractive entry point versus our peers. We have a very bright future as a publicly traded company, and we look forward to getting to know you and for you to get to know DTI. With that, I will turn the call back over to our operator, who can open the line for questions. Thank you.

Operator

As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Donovan Schafer of Northland Capital Markets.

Donovan Schafer
Donovan Schafer
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Hey, guys, thanks for taking the questions. I wanna start off by asking about—so and, and forgive me if I missed some of the details on this, but, you know, the 5% decrease in revenue, despite the rig count being down really almost 20%, did—could you give us, can you talk through the specific dynamics there, what it is that you think resulted in you doing—performing better than market? I mean, as a starting point, you know, just to clarify, are there any sort of timing delays, or if not, you know, was it the customer mix being more sort of skewed towards tier one? I've heard about there sort of being a flight to quality and service providers, so, so perhaps that's part of it.

Donovan Schafer
Donovan Schafer
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Or if it's more geographic focus, having to do with which basins you're in. Any sort of color there would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

Okay, great. This is Wayne. Thanks for that question. So we believe because of the structure of our business and our customer base and the broad geography we have, along with many of our products having contractual links to them, we were able to have a more sustainable activity level than a linear equation, where you don't have a one-to-one equation of lost rigs, lost jobs. Having the stickiness to work for tier one operators with large programs enabled us to have a higher sustainability factor. So there are not only is our activity a little less, more cushioned from the direct, you know, reduction in activity, but our pricing also was less volatile, meaning it provided us more runway throughout these down cycles, and we believe that's one of our advantages in strategic positioning.

Donovan Schafer
Donovan Schafer
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Okay, that's helpful. And then I know it's a bit early to talk about 2024, but, I mean, you guys did talk about thinking, you know, having your own internal view or internal expectations of the rig count would be roughly flat in 2024. So, But, you know, I know you haven't issued 2024 guidance, but my question, just at a higher kind of conceptual level and kind of thinking about your business model, if it's a flat rig count in 2024, you know, does it follow, or does that imply a relatively flat level of revenue for you guys, maybe taking kind of the run rate from this quarter?

Donovan Schafer
Donovan Schafer
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Or is it something where, you know, if sort of excluding M&A for the time being, just with the current businesses that you have, you see yourself sort of taking share or certain contracts, you know, anything happening underneath the hood, if you will, from just a rig count standpoint, where revenue would be up, down, or kind of consistent with the rig count?

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

So, this is Wayne again, answering. We view, you know, our current rig count—U.S. rig count as a 600-ish, you know, with ebb and flow, depending on who you're, you know, what week you're looking at it. It is likely that the rig count will increase in 2024. It's less likely it'll be flat to down. Our view is there will be more rigs in 2024 than there were at the end of 2023, working in 2024. When and how that happens and how it ramps up, in which quarter, whether it's, you know, front-loaded for customers to start building their budgets early or organically move it up the food chain as the year progresses, it's hard to determine.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

It's possible it could be more than 50 rigs, but I'm gonna say I have to take the under on 50 rigs increase. So we see an uptick in the U.S. activity. That's our view. We believe our business will grow with that uptick, and we also have some new products that we think will gain market share to help, you know, help provide more revenue and income for us in a tiered basis over and above, you know, an existing linear market trend. So I think we have some opportunities to see our business, our revenues and earnings move upward in 2024. And our guidance will be soon, as we forecast that in later meetings. But that's. We think it's gonna be upwards.

Donovan Schafer
Donovan Schafer
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Okay. And actually, you anticipated my next question about the new product launches. So, is this the same-- I think in the deck, you refer to them as sort of emerging products, those RotoSteer and DrillSave. Are those the two products that you can see layering in incremental revenue next year, or are there additional products, you know, behind that? And then if you can give us any kind of, you know, real... It can be pretty rough, but just, is that a potential upside revenue in the single-digit percentages? You know, low single-digit, high single-digit, you know, double-digit percentage impact on revenue new to the upside, and what kind of a margin that would have if it would be above kind of what your corporate average is right now for margins or below?

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

So number one, I'm reluctant to give specific guidance on those new products contributions, because they're still, you know, we're developing our commercial forecast models on how they will what results we can achieve. But I will say this, that we fully expect them to be at or above our, the performance of our current product lines, because everything we do going forward, we believe, has to be equally or more accretive than our current business model. And to give you some scale, I know you'd love to have a percentage amount, single, double, triple digits again, but I would probably be reluctant to give too much scale guidance at this point. But it, you know, it will help us, you know, grow our business, you know, more than we have been before.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

I think, once we give that guidance forthcoming, there'll be more clarity on that in the coming few weeks, we hope.

Donovan Schafer
Donovan Schafer
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Okay. And then I do have a couple more, but I wanna be respectful to other folks. So just if I can check in with the operator real quick. Operator, are there any other people in the question queue right now?

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

Please proceed with your question, sir.

Donovan Schafer
Donovan Schafer
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Okay, thank you. If I can step back and look at a longer kind of time horizon. You know, as I understand it, you guys have grown very significantly in the last 10 years. I wanna say, I think it's something like six or times times on a revenue basis. And of course, you know, that's not all organic. There have been some fairly meaningful acquisitions over the course of that time. But it would be good to get your take, you know, between the two of you guys, what your sense of, like, a normalized growth expectation for your business is? You know, maybe, I guess excluding M&-- You know, I guess, however you think about it.

Donovan Schafer
Donovan Schafer
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

If you think about it, if your mental framework tends to include the M&A, then you can include that, if your mental framework tends not to. But I'm just trying to orient myself with respect to what your own views are, for growth rates, over, like, a 10-year, like, normalized, you know, excluding cycles, talking about, like, a 10-year type growth rate.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

So, you know, realizing that the U.S. and North America market is, it's gonna ebb and flow, you know, over the next few years... we always feel like we're gonna—we are very, very, solidly positioned to take full advantage of, you know, the activity that exists. We have strong positions in all of our product lines. We're gonna have some new product lines, like I said earlier, that'll help us, achieve growth in that area. You know, I think modestly, it, you, you know, you can expect in a steady state, we'll probably achieve more of in a, you know, flat, revenue line. But our opportunity is, is going to exclude—even excluding M&A, our opportunity is to grow in other markets, and we can push some of our existing tool portfolio into other markets with our distribution partners.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

And then if you layer on that, some strategic acquisitions we already have in motion that we're in discussions with and have on our strategy profile, you know, we should see some, you know, better penetration in those markets as we make those acquisitions. So, you know, it, it's all gonna depend on, you know, the volatility of the North American market. I think that's on everyone's concern list right now, whether or not the long-term M&A of your Exxons and Pioneers and Chevrons and Hesses, those types of things, will, you know, what kind of rig activity and well count will we see as a result of these changes in the macro components of our North American market? So we are well positioned with that.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

We tend to, we tend to benefit from those more than it has an adverse impact on our business, because we're, we're working for the acquirers, so that's always a good thing.

David Johnson
David Johnson
CFO at Drilling Tools International

Great. Wayne, Wayne, let me just add on, echo, echo your comments, and Donovan, for your benefit. I mean, I think, it's important to recognize that DTI is entering a new chapter, as a public company. So we're, we're able—we're gonna be able to do things we didn't do over the last 10 years, even though we built a solid foundation, for our business over that 10-year period. But we're now going into a period of where that growth through acquisitions is our, is our strategy, and we'll be able to do more than we have been historically because, you know, we have that public currency to, to kinda add to our, our tool belt. So we are kinda entering that new chapter.

Donovan Schafer
Donovan Schafer
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Okay, that's helpful. And then I guess, just my last question would be on the international opportunities, and it looks like, you know, I think you talked about more recently, the U.K. and, your deck shows footprint in Germany or something. I'm assuming that's mostly around the North Sea. Correct me if I'm wrong on that, but I'm not. You know, the North Sea was such a big deal in the eighties and nineties. I'm not as up to speed on the current state of the North Sea opportunity, but certainly with the Nord Stream gas pipeline, you know, Russia invading Ukraine, last winter in Europe, all the kinda chaos and turmoil around there, do you see the North Sea as a potential important driver going forward?

Donovan Schafer
Donovan Schafer
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

You, you've historically done, I think it was, you know, you've historically done well with offshore in Gulf of Mexico, I believe, at various times. So is that something you would, you, you see yourselves trying to replicate in the North Sea, or meaningful opportunity there?

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

So, good question. So we believe that despite the, you know, attitudes towards fossil fuel development in the North Sea and European area, I think that logic will prevail, and there will be some, you know, reliable activity, likely upward activity in the entire North Sea sector over time. I don't think it's gonna boom, where there's, you know, hundreds of rigs, but there'll be a steady state of activity, number one. Number two, being based in the Aberdeen market for offshore, also many of the West Africa and operations that are, you know, coming back on stream originate from Aberdeen. And so, you know, being positioned there gives you more opportunities in that West Africa offshore market.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

Then, our presence in the European land market, particularly in the south of Germany, with our partner there, is we're participating in a lot of the geothermal activity, which we're pretty excited about. And we're having requests for more and more tools as those projects become more reliable and understood. So, there seems to be a significant amount of interest in the geothermal market, as well as carbon capture. There's wells being drilled, sequestration wells for carbon capture that, you know, we provide tools on. So we're participating in all those different segments, and we see that as an opportunity. Being positioned there gives you those opportunities.

Donovan Schafer
Donovan Schafer
Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Okay, great. Thank you. That's helpful. I'll take the rest of my questions offline. Thanks, guys.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

Thank you.

David Johnson
David Johnson
CFO at Drilling Tools International

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Bill Austin of Daniel Energy Partners.

Bill Austin
Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners

Hey, guys, congrats on the first call, and thanks for taking my questions.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

Yeah, sure.

Bill Austin
Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners

So really just, main question is, I know you guys talked a lot about, M&A on the call. Can you guys speak to which products or even just geographic regions that are most appealing to you guys from an M&A perspective?

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

... Sure. This is Wayne again. You know, the first part of that answer is prioritization, right? So, you know, we have to put priorities in three buckets, and they have to, number one, we have to, we need to see some geographic expansion, which we want to achieve, but they also have to provide accretive value. And thirdly, and probably equally important in all of the balance, is technology, some sort of differentiating technology. We're remaining in our core competencies of drilling and, you know, all the way through casing installation. I call it the wellbore construction, initial wellbore construction process phase. Eventually, we might move into more completion and production-type products, but initially, we're still focusing on bolt-on, more moat building, but expanding our differentiating product lines technologically and geographically.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

But all of those must meet that smell test of accretive value and the ability to grow and expand, you know, our, our income stream. So that would, that would be how I describe the, the priorities of M&A.

Bill Austin
Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners

Okay. Well, thanks, and then I know you touched on this with a question from the last caller, but R&D efforts, you know, on the new products, are you going to see those come to fruition in 2024, or is that a little longer term than what we talked about?

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

We fully expect to see some positive exposure in 2024 from, you know, two or three that are already in motion, and then a couple of acquisition targets that we are contemplating would have immediate value going into 2024. And building momentum through 2024, which have put a great story in motion for 2025 as well. So 2024, some, 2025, more.

Bill Austin
Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners

And then, how do you guys think about R&D as a, you know, kind of a percentage of, you know, kind of going forward as a percentage of your revenue, or how do you guys think about your R&D budget?

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

We, we do have a budget for R&D within our own business lines as we speak. You know, as a percentage, I'm, I kind of have to look back into what we've spent in R&D. We do have a budget for it. Going forward, well, some of the targets that we have in mind bring more engineering, R&D, and what we call extension. So this is all baked into our cost, and it's historically significant, so insignificant. So it's historically insignificant thus far, but we, we baked it into our cost thus far, so.

Bill Austin
Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners

Well, thank you. That's all from me.

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

Okay. Thank you, Bill.

Operator

Thank you. Again, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. Again, that's star one one on your telephone to ask a question. Again, that's star one one to ask a question. As there appear to be no further questions in queue, I would now like to turn the conference back to Wayne Prejean for closing remarks. Sir?

Wayne Prejean
Wayne Prejean
President and CEO at Drilling Tools International

Well, thank you. Well, thanks for joining us, everybody. We look forward to sharing additional information with all of you in the coming quarters. Please don't hesitate to reach out with additional comments or questions. We're always here to answer your questions and inquiries. We look forward to the future, and have a great day.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • David Johnson
      David Johnson
      CFO
    • Sioban Hickie
      Sioban Hickie
      External Investor Relations
    • Wayne Prejean
      Wayne Prejean
      President and CEO
Analysts
    • Bill Austin
      Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners
    • Donovan Schafer
      Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Northland Capital Markets
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