Helmerich & Payne Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 14, 2024

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Please stand by. Your program is about to Good day and welcome to Helmerich and Payne's fiscal 4th quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. Please note today's call will be recorded And I'll be standing by if you should need any assistance.

Operator

It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Dave Wilson. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Todd, and welcome everyone to Hemmer Capane's conference call and webcast for the Q4 and full fiscal year of 2024. With us today are John Lindsay, President and CEO and Kevin Vann, Senior Vice President and CFO. Both John and Kevin will be sharing comments with us, after which we'll open the call for questions. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I will remind everyone that this call will include forward looking statements as defined under the securities laws. Such statements are based on current information and management's expectations as of this date and are not guarantees of future performance.

Speaker 1

Forward looking statements involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. As such, our actual outcomes and results could differ materially. You can learn more about these risks in our annual report on Form 10 ks, our quarterly reports on Form 10 Q and our other SEC filings. You should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update these forward looking statements. We will also make reference to certain non GAAP financial measures such as segment operating income, direct margin and other operating statistics.

Speaker 1

You'll find the GAAP reconciliation comments and calculations in yesterday's press release. Finally, as you will hear probably a couple of times on this call, unless expressly identified otherwise, statements made during this call relate to H and P on a stand alone basis and do not include any amounts or guidance related to KCA JoyTag or on a combined enterprise basis resulting from the pending KCA acquisition. With that said, I'll turn the call over to John Lindsay.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Dave. Good morning, everyone, and we appreciate you joining us today. The company delivered another strong year in fiscal 2024. I'm extremely pleased. We continue to lead the industry in safety, customer satisfaction and margin generation.

Speaker 2

Looking back on our expectations and how we executed on our strategies in a challenging market, three elements stand out in my mind as being noteworthy and will continue to be pivotal for the company going forward. First, our focus on achieving the best customer outcomes by executing strategies that deliver safety, operational expertise and technology solutions continue to generate superior contract economics and industry leading rig performance and margin generation. 2nd, our teams swiftly adapted to a market where customer consolidation and commodity price volatility was driving a lot of rig churn in the U. S. In tandem, these two factors drove the U.

Speaker 2

S. Industry rig count down about 5% year over year, while the H and P North America Solutions rig count experienced a slight increase. Under those conditions, our teams delivered solid performance, generated healthy margins and grew market share to approximately 28%. The third element is the progress we made in our international solutions growth strategy. We've delivered 5 of 8 FlexRigs in Saudi Arabia and the first rig has commenced operations for Aramco.

Speaker 2

Additionally, we're executing on the transformational acquisition of KCA Deutsche Tag, which will position us as a global drilling leader and we expect to close that transaction in December or January depending upon regulatory approvals. Looking at the 4th fiscal quarter results, our North America Solutions rig activity trended as we expected, up a handful of rigs from the previous quarter and exiting at 151 rigs. Along with the increased rig count, the North America Solutions segment was also able to sustain healthy direct margins, which again is a testament to our ability to deliver value to our customers through our drilling solutions approach. Heading into the 1st fiscal quarter of 2025, we expect our rig count to remain relatively flat as incremental demand for rigs is matched with rigs rolling off of existing commitments. Similarly, we expect North America Solutions direct margins to remain relatively flat during the quarter.

Speaker 2

From a big picture perspective, the rig count in the U. S. Has been choppy over the past year. Between customer consolidation, low natural gas prices and overall performance improvements, the industry's super spec rig count is down approximately 30 rigs from the high in 2024. Given that H and P increased activity in 2024, we've demonstrated that safety, efficiency and value creation delivered with leading technology and performance based contracts lead to profitable growth.

Speaker 2

During the year, we have seen we have also seen private E and Ps activity increase for the FlexRig fleet and our teams continue to work closely with a broad array of customers across our industry. Our increase in market share and margins throughout the year were directly in line with our delivery of more value as we assist customers by drilling longer laterals, reducing cycle times and well costs and improving overall well performance. We strive to deliver the best outcomes to our customers in a safe and predictable manner. The customer centric approach allows us to align and execute in a manner that has all parties working together toward a common goal. Our performance contracts continue to drive alignment on operations and utilize our cutting edge performance technologies.

Speaker 2

The industry super spec rig count continues to grow market share in the U. S. Unconventional market and makes up approximately 76% of the active fleet. We believe that longer laterals, more complex well designs and greater focus on well placement and reliability will remain the key factors that drive higher utilization and the adoption of digital technology and automation on the FlexGrid fleet. Looking ahead for 2025, we believe the rig count will tend to be flat to slightly up during the first half of twenty twenty five and will trend down through the year similar to 2024.

Speaker 2

That of course could change if commodity prices move either up or down dramatically. Our rig count has been range bound between 144156 rigs for 18 months in North America And all indications with current commodity pricing is that is going to be the outlook. In our International Solutions segment, a milestone event for H and P occurred in Saudi Arabia. Our first FlexRig spudded in a Saudi unconventional field and the next 4 FlexRigs are in various stages of moving and rigging it. These results are a culmination of over 5 years of hard work by the H and P team.

Speaker 2

I'm pleased with the current progress and excited about delivering returns on our investments and our team's focus on safety and reliability. Another significant achievement during fiscal 2024 was the announcement of the acquisition of KCA Doitek. This acquisition is a transformative event for the company and establishes H and P as not only the leader in the U. S. Land industry, but also a global leader in onshore drilling and significantly accelerates our Middle East expansion.

Speaker 2

I'm especially pleased that as we've been able to spend more time with the KCA Doitag team since the acquisition announcement as we plan for integration, it's been confirming that commitment to providing exceptional performance and and a commitment to providing exceptional performance and value for customers. There are many reasons to remain excited about the KCA Doitag acquisition, but since our announcement in July, there

Speaker 3

have been several notifications in Saudi of

Speaker 2

multiple provider of rigs in Saudi Arabia, As a provider of rigs in Saudi Arabia, KCA announced in September they had received 8 contract suspensions of their rigs for a period of up to 12 months. Having rigs suspended is not without precedent in this cyclical industry. Despite these near term headwinds, the strategic rationale and reasoning for this acquisition remain firmly in place. First, it accelerates our international growth strategy. Secondly, it enhances our presence in the Middle East conventional rig market, specifically in Saudi, Oman and Kuwait.

Speaker 2

3rd, it increases the company's global scale and revenue diversification, not just geographically, but also by adding a sizable asset light offshore management business. 4th, in addition of a world class the addition of a world class manufacturing and energy services capability and finally, strengthening and diversifying the company's long term return on capital and cash flow profile. Kevin will provide some additional facts during his remarks regarding the acquisition and will also provide some additional clarity regarding our cash position, our strategy and ability to delever the balance sheet. We have every confidence that the KCA Doitag acquisition will strengthen H and P's overall cash flow profile with a more diversified and durable revenue stream in the long term. Going forward, we will continue to execute on our growing portfolio of strategic objectives.

Speaker 2

First, we will build on and increase the durability of our free cash flow and continued success in our North America Solutions business. Along with that, we will be focused on successfully integrating H and P and KCA Doite tag, delevering our balance sheet and seeking opportunities to export the FlexRig's unconventional successes we're achieving in the U. S. To a now larger footprint of international unconventional markets. We'll also maintain our focus on delivering superior returns for our shareholders as we expect to maintain our peer leading base dividend and to maintain our strong focus on disciplined capital allocation.

Speaker 2

In closing, during fiscal 2024, our teams remained steadfast in our operating, a robust business aimed at achieving the best outcomes for our customers, employees and shareholders. We successfully improved our sustainability profile by reducing potential safety incidents by approximately 17% year over year and decreasing normalized GHG emissions over 10%. By having a customer centric approach, we improved our cost per lateral foot, drilled and enhanced well consistency. We've also strategically deployed our technology and adjusted our commercial approach to help customers achieve their objectives. Another key element in our 2024 success was a focus on our people.

Speaker 2

We prioritized improving quality of life on the rig and invested in career development, creating a strong foundation for growth across the company. Our world class employees known for their adaptability and drive have always been at the heart of our achievements. Looking ahead, the H and P team is committed to delivering even greater results for our shareholders in 2025 by leveraging our distinctive capabilities. And now I'll turn the call over to Kevin. Thanks, John.

Speaker 2

Today, I will review our fiscal Q4

Speaker 4

and full year 2024 operating results and provide operational guidance for the 1st fiscal quarter of 2025. Additionally, I also want to spend some time to address our annual fiscal 2025 projections, our financial position and provide an update on our strategic and transformative acquisition of KCA Doitag and our focused efforts to lower our leverage position resulting from it. Let me start with highlights for the recently completed Q4 fiscal year ended September 30, 2024. In general, the Q4 looks very similar to the Q3 of this year. I'm pleased to say that we did not miss the fairway on any of our guided metrics.

Speaker 4

We were right down the middle. The company generated quarterly revenues of $694,000,000 versus $698,000,000 in the previous quarter. Correspondingly, total direct operating costs incurred were $409,000,000 for the 4th quarter versus $418,000,000 for the previous quarter. General and administrative expenses totaled $67,000,000 for the 4th quarter $245,000,000 for fiscal 2024, which is in line with our expectations.

Speaker 2

The fiscal

Speaker 4

2024 effective tax rate was approximately 28.5%, which is at the high end of the previously guided range due to some acquisition costs that could not be expensed for tax purposes. To summarize 4th quarter results, we are reporting net income of $0.76 per diluted share versus $0.88 in the previous quarter. Earnings per share for the full year of $3.43 per share was negatively impacted by some unusual non cash items and absent those items would have been $3.50 per share. Capital expenditures for the Q4 were $106,000,000 with full year 2024 totaling $495,000,000 which was in line with our expectations

Speaker 5

from the July earnings call.

Speaker 4

H and P generated $169,000,000 in operating cash flow in the Q4 and a total of $685,000,000 during the full year. Our cash flow generation helped fund $495,000,000 in CapEx, dollars168,000,000 in base and supplemental dividends and $51,000,000 in share repurchases. Now turning to our 3 segments, beginning with the North American Solutions, we averaged 151 contracted rigs during the 4th quarter, which was almost flat with the 3rd and we exited the Q4 with the same number we averaged during the quarter of 151 rigs, which was consistent again with our expectations going into the quarter. Segment direct margin for North American Solutions was $275,000,000 which was above the midpoint of our July guidance range. Total segment per day revenues decreased slightly to 39,100 during the Q4 from 39,840 per day in the 3rd quarter.

Speaker 4

Direct margins for the quarter were 19,800 per day versus 20,300 per day during the Q3. Looking ahead to the Q1 of fiscal 20 25 for North American Solutions, as of today's call, we have 149 contracted rigs working. As we have stated, we expect our rig count to remain relatively flat as all market sentiment continues to point to such. That said, we expect to end our 1st fiscal quarter with between 147 153 rigs working and our current revenue backlog from our North American Solutions fleet is roughly $700,000,000 for rigs under term contract, down from $800,000,000 in the previous quarter. As of today, approximately 57% of the U.

Speaker 4

S. Active fleet is on a term contract. Additionally, as our performance contracts continued to drive alignment with our customers, we currently have roughly 50 percent of our rigs on them. In the North American Solutions segment, we expect direct margins in our Q1 to range between $260,000,000 to $280,000,000 as we don't see a material change in the expected margins based on our current contractual structure. Expectations around operating cost and rig count expected to be roughly flat compared to the fiscal year Q4.

Speaker 4

Regarding our International Solutions segment, we had approximately 16 rigs at September 30, which is a little higher than the Q3 as rigs under contract have been delivered to Saudi and are being prepped for startup. Note these rigs will not generate revenue until they spud. Hence, there is not the corresponding change in expected direct margin in the 1st fiscal quarter of 2025. Accordingly, aside from any foreign exchange impacts, we expect our direct margins to be roughly flat for the Q1 of fiscal year 2025 when compared to our Q4. Turning to our offshore Gulf of Mexico segment, we generated a direct margin of approximately $7,000,000 during the quarter, which was within our guided range.

Speaker 4

As we look toward the Q1 of fiscal 2025 for this segment, we expect that it will generate again between $7,000,000 to $9,000,000 of direct margin. Now I'd like to transition to the Q1 and full year 2025 for certain consolidated and corporate items. First, I want to be very clear that any guidance that I have given up to this point and for the remainder of this call is for standalone H and P and does not include the impact of combining KCA Doitag into our expected results. In 2025, our strategy to maintain our strong balance sheet together with investment grade credit metrics will not change. We continue to invest in maintaining our market leading North American solutions fleet and to deploy capital prudently to international growth opportunities.

Speaker 4

Fiscal 2025 gross capital expenditures are expected to be approximately $290,000,000 to $325,000,000 with around 85 percent of it expected for North American Solutions, including maintenance per active rig of approximately $1,000,000 which is more in line with historical levels, planned rig related equipment upgrades and 6 planned walking conversions. The international bucket represents the balance of CapEx and is primarily for rig maintenance and the remaining spend on the 7 rig tender award with Saudi Aramco.

Speaker 6

Our

Speaker 4

fiscal 2025 budget CapEx represents a $190,000,000 or 40% decrease to our 2024 actuals. As such, this frees up a substantial amount of cash that will be allocated towards debt reduction in the future. Depreciation for fiscal 2025 is expected to be approximately $400,000,000 Our sales, general and administrative expenses for the full fiscal 'twenty for full fiscal 'twenty five year are expected to be approximately $235,000,000 which is slightly down from 2024 actuals. Our investment in research and development remains largely focused on solutions for our customers such as drilling automation, wellbore quality and power management. We anticipate R and D expenditures to be roughly $32,000,000 in 2025.

Speaker 4

Based upon estimated fiscal 2025 operating results and CapEx, we are projecting a consolidated cash tax range of $140,000,000 to $190,000,000 Now looking at our financial position. We had cash and short term investments of approximately $510,000,000 on September 30, 2024. Including the availability under our revolving credit facility, our total liquidity is approximately $1,500,000,000 Included in the short term investments balance are the shares of ADNOC Drilling for which we sold after September 30 through a private placement that yielded proceeds of $197,000,000 This amount was substantially more than what we had originally anticipated when we announced our debt reduction plans associated with the KCA Dewey Tag acquisition. We also have $1,200,000,000 in restricted cash as a result of the bond deal we did in September. These funds along with an unfunded $400,000,000 term loan are earmarked for the financing of the KCA Doitek acquisition.

Speaker 4

The bonds have staggered maturities of 3, 5 10 years with an average interest rate of roughly 5%. As John indicated, we continue to work through the customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals for the acquisition and are expected to close it around sorry, expected to close prior to December 31 or roughly right thereafter. Regarding cash returns to shareholders and as a reminder, we plan to maintain our long standing base dividend of approximately $100,000,000 in 2025. Also as part of our deleveraging efforts, we have suspended the supplemental dividend, which again was roughly $68,000,000 in fiscal 2024. That amount along with share repurchases of $51,000,000 last year and the reduction in planned CapEx of $190,000,000 resulted in over $300,000,000 of available free cash to reduce debt.

Speaker 4

Inclusive of the funds raised by the ADNOC drilling equity sale together with the rates achieved on bond financing, our outlook to reduce our debt level during 20252026 is still right on track. With that, that concludes our prepared comments for the quarter. And we'll now turn it back over to Todd for questions.

Operator

Thank you. Our first question will come from Arun Jayaram with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Yes. Good morning, gentlemen. Hi, Mike. I wanted to get your thoughts on what you view as the potential run rate for KCA Doitek. John, you mentioned some of the 1 year rig suspensions.

Speaker 7

I know at the time of the acquisition, you'd highlighted around $340,000,000 of run rate EBITDA plus $25,000,000 of synergies. But if we're going to incorporate some of the suspensions, what would you give us in terms of a range of EBITDA on a run rate basis for KCA thinking about 2025?

Speaker 2

Have we given any we haven't really given any other additional guidance?

Speaker 1

Yes, Rudy, we can't you can't really quantify right now what because they say it for up to 12 months and that's it could be 6 months, it could be 12 months, it could be 2 months. So it's too much of a big of a range there to really give you anything with clarity.

Speaker 7

Okay. Fair enough. I wanted to talk about your outlook, John, that you highlighted for North American Solutions. You mentioned that you expected maybe the rig count to be flat to up in the first half of the year and maybe have a similar profile as this year maybe with some seasonality maybe the back half trends down a little bit. How would you expect HP to your activity to kind of trend in this kind of outlook if I characterize that correctly?

Speaker 2

No, you did, Arun. And I think we'll perform well as I had mentioned in my prepared remarks. We have focused really hard in delivering value to customers and maintaining pricing really trying to generate that 50% gross margin target that we've been talking about now for several years. But during that process even in a declining market we've been able to pick up a little bit of share that really hasn't been our focus. But I think when you look at the wells that are being drilled, the complexity of the wells, you hear more and more about 3 mile laterals, 4 mile laterals.

Speaker 2

There's various complexities related to the wells that we're drilling. And so super spec capacity rigs, technology, having a good digital technology platform is really helping us deliver greater value for customers. And so I think it's a great opportunity for us to continue to pick up share while defending pricing, again, just based on this 50% gross margin target that we have. Of course, there's a lot that we don't know in terms of nat gas prices. I think if natural gas prices were to improve then I think there's an opportunity to put some additional rigs back to work.

Speaker 2

But based on what we're seeing right now, I think it's a very similar trend to what we saw in 2024 and I think in that environment we'll perform pretty well.

Speaker 4

And just to circle back on to your question about projections in relationship to the rig suspensions. Obviously as Dave said, it's almost impossible to really model that out and we're limited in terms of what we can and can't do and what we can and can't talk about just because of the fact that the deal has not closed. But if you look at it through my lens and you look at the things that I do have clarity on versus the way we had originally modeled them whenever we signed the deal back in July, some things have definitely come in positive in our favor. Number 1, if you look at just the amount of CapEx reduction that we've got on our side going to help us to reach the kind of the leverage goals that we had stated by the end of 20252026 coupled with the original purchase for our sales price associated with the ADNOC drilling shares, that was $60,000,000 or $70,000,000 higher than what we had originally modeled whenever we were thinking about our deleveraging plans. In addition to that, the interest rates that we achieved on the bonds, that came in significantly lower than they originally planned upon financing.

Speaker 4

So the items for which we've got clarity on puts us really on track to what we had originally anticipated, which was being below a turn of leverage by the end of 2026. So actually halfway between 2025 and 2026, we look based upon the projections that we had at the time in which we did the deal, we're still right on track to get back to that level.

Speaker 7

All right. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Eddie Kim with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hi, good morning. I just wanted to circle back on the commentary on the forecast for the U. S. Land rig count next year. Flat to slightly up in the first half before trending down in the second half.

Speaker 3

Does that second half trajectory trending down, does that reflect just normal seasonality? Or is there something more to it than that? I think there was an expectation in the market that potentially some gas rigs or gas activity could increase in the second half of the year. Should we read into your commentary that you don't believe that that is going to take place that might get pushed out sometime into 2026? How should we kind of read into the commentary about the trending down in the second half?

Speaker 2

Yes, that's a good point. And it's we've actually seen this over the last couple of years and again I think we had mentioned we've been in this range of rig activity of 144 to 156 rigs over the last 18 months or more. And that trending down in the second half of the year is not anticipating an improvement in gas prices. Obviously, we're hopeful that there will be an improvement in gas prices, but that isn't what we're expecting right now. I think the downward trend is historically related to budgets, related to performance.

Speaker 2

In our case, we've been successful in being able to high grade what the additional share that we have picked up has really been a function of high grading. And so that's been beneficial for us. But you know how hard it is to predict these rig counts. It seemed to us logical that without anything changing in terms of the commodity deck that we would see this same trend that we saw last year where we're seeing a little bit of increase in Q4 calendar Q4 and then calendar Q1 and then it peaks and then starts declining slightly. Again, it's about a 30 rig differentiation from the peak of activity in that March, April timeframe to where we are today.

Speaker 3

Got it. That's very clear. Thank you. My follow-up is just on your free cash flow expectations for next year for standalone HP excluding KC Doitech. You did about $190,000,000 of free cash flow this fiscal year.

Speaker 3

For next year, you guided CapEx to decline by almost $200,000,000 year over year. Just doing simple math, I mean, is there any reason we shouldn't expect free cash flow to potentially be up close to that $200,000,000 level for next year? Or what if any offsets should we be thinking about as it relates to your free cash flow expectation?

Speaker 4

No, you're exactly right. I think you should the math is pretty simple when you're cutting $200,000,000 of CapEx out of 2025 projections, just because of you should see some of the capital efficiency start to come into play as a result of just the expected earnings and free cash flow to be generated in 2025. But again, margins being consistently what we're anticipating with margins being consistent in 2025 versus 2024, you can your simple math is right on.

Speaker 3

Okay. Got it. Great. Thank you for that color. I'll turn it back.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Doug Beka with Capital One. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Just to start off on the U. S. Guidance for margins to be flat heading into the fiscal Q1. Is there any shift in terms of that revenue per day or costs?

Speaker 8

Just trying to think about if pricing is stable and we're still in that $19,000 to $19,500 a day on the cost side going forward?

Speaker 2

I think that's what we're modeling is a similar both revenue and cost side of the equation.

Speaker 4

I think what you've seen over the last couple of quarters is kind of consistent with our expectations going into 2025, which around that 2019 to 20 per day.

Speaker 8

Yes, that's really encouraging in the current environment. And then shifting to international, continue to hear rumblings about potential for additional suspensions in Saudi Arabia. Just from your market intelligence, do you have any context? Is it something you think is likely or we shouldn't read too much into that?

Speaker 2

I think we all see the same rumors and commentary and it's obviously we're not in a position to comment on it. There was a question earlier about the suspensions and there was an announcement by KCA back earlier a month or so ago about a suspension of the 8 rigs. As we've stressed, we're still 2 separate companies until closing. So it really isn't appropriate for us to comment. They actually had a public announcement on this.

Speaker 2

So there hasn't been any additional updates on that. We have seen in the various publications that there's around 50 rigs overall in the industry that have been suspended, some onshore, some offshore, but that's really about all that we can speak to. It's really the same thing that everybody else sees at this point.

Speaker 8

And fair and I appreciate you can't speak to KCA, Deutsche Bank, but certainly it doesn't sound like your conversations for the rigs that you're bringing in, those conversations there's nothing that suggests?

Speaker 2

Correct. We have the 5 rigs in country. The one has spud and the others are in various positions in terms of getting ready to spud. And so no, we have not had any notifications of suspensions of the FlexRigs.

Speaker 8

Got it. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Scott Gruber with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Yes, good morning. The resiliency of your domestic margins has been really impressive and it looks to continue here. So I'm curious, in light of the performance based contract model that you guys pushed over the last 2 years, as we decompose the stable margins, are you seeing basically kind of flat base day rates on the rig and a relatively flattish bonus contribution? Or is the size and the breadth of the bonus contribution increase offsetting some modest erosion in base rates. How would you kind of describe the impact of the bonuses on the stability of your domestic margins?

Speaker 1

Yes. Scott, on that with regards to the performance contracts, historically we see an uplift of $1,000 to $3,000 a day on the margins relative to what they would get under a straight day rate contract. So these last couple of quarters, that's trended to the higher side. And that's something that we've worked really hard to do. And hopefully, in the future, I could change that range to something even higher.

Speaker 1

But right now, we're still not kind of $1,000 to $2,000 a day. But the last couple of quarters, it's been towards the top end of that range. I think

Speaker 2

the other thing to stress here, Scott, is that in this performance contract, it's a win win. And so when we're doing better, if we're doing better, our customer is also doing better because they're getting wells delivered at a faster pace and at lower cost. So that's the beauty of the performance based contract when constructed properly is that both parties win. And as Dave said, we had a great quarter last quarter and that also means that our customers are doing better as well.

Speaker 9

No, it's great to hear. Great to see the model really providing benefit in capturing some of the efficiency gains that you guys are helping to deliver. And as you think about 2025, are you able to push the model any further in terms of penetration rate across the customer base? Are you having success, say pushing it into privates? And generally with these efficiency gains that the industry is achieving, how do the benchmarks change in terms of capturing the next round of bonus awards?

Speaker 2

Well, I think performance based contracts are like anything. There's an adoption period and we've had some great adoption. We've also had some churn with rigs. But I do think we'll have some additional customers adopt performance base. If you look at it today, it's really across the board.

Speaker 2

I mean we have both super majors, large independents and we have private companies that also are investing in the performance based contracts as well. So I think there's a lot of upside opportunity there. It's a great opportunity for us to deploy our technologies, our digital technologies. There's a lot of advantages associated with that. The adoption curve in general on technology is increasing both on performance based and non performance based contracts.

Speaker 2

We see both of those as being very positive for the organization and quite frankly really positive for the industry because it drives greater reliability. There's also a safety aspect to it that's very important. So again, I feel good about the direction that it's trending and feel like we'll continue to have adoption in the coming year.

Speaker 9

Appreciate the color. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Jeff LeBlanc with TPH. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Good morning, John and team. Thank you for taking my question.

Speaker 9

Good morning. I

Speaker 10

wanted to ask as offshore companies continue to highlight drilling efficiency gains, how should we think about the stickiness of HP's share of their fleet as these gains get incorporated into the forward outlook? And then additionally, how should we think about the opportunity for M and A really at high grades it appears that operators have been slower than we initially thought to migrate legacy programs to the preferred drilling contractor? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes, I think I don't know of anyone in the industry that isn't interested in higher levels of performance. And number 1, and I think even greater than that is the reliability. We continue to get that feedback from customers, Drilling a record well, that's great. But what they really want is reliably drilling wells at whatever level of performance that they're targeting. And doing that consistently day in and day out.

Speaker 2

I don't see in most cases, I don't see well complexity being less going forward. I think well complexity continues to increase. We see more 3 mile laterals going to 4 mile laterals. You've seen some of the U-turn configurations. It seems like there's going to be more of that sort of drilling.

Speaker 2

And so when you consider that, that means that companies like H and P with the best rigs, best people and the best technology are going to grow share. So I think there's a great opportunity there. And then the other and maybe you asked this, but as I just think about it logically Tier 1 and then shifting more to Tier 2 acreage. And I know I don't have a real clear definition for myself Tier 1, Tier 2, but what I do know is that typically speaking customers are going to drill their best wells first and then there's going to have additional acreage that so we call it Tier 2. That's going to again I think drive a push towards greater efficiencies.

Speaker 2

I'd mentioned in my prepared remarks that the super spec fleet today makes up 76 percent of the working fleet. I don't remember the exact numbers, but probably 5 years ago it was 50% or maybe even less. So super spec capability requirements, better rigs are going to be what customers are going to want. And again, so that puts H and P in a great place here in the unconventional place here in the U. S.

Speaker 2

And really I think globally as well.

Speaker 10

Thank you very much for the color. I'll hand the call back to the operator. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Kurt Hallead with Benchmark. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hey, good morning everybody.

Speaker 9

Hi Kurt.

Speaker 6

Hey, I always appreciate the color. I'm really curious, right John that maybe there's been a significant improvement in drilling efficiency, well efficiency. You've talked about it quite a bit, not just on this call, but over the past few and how it's benefited HP, right? So I'm kind of thinking along lines of what you're seeing right now, what do you think this means in terms of the potential for rig attrition in the U. S, right?

Speaker 6

So the 76% of the total rig fleet go into 100% and these other rigs essentially just kind of either dying off the vine. And then in conjunction to that, right, just high level thought process for HP, right, does it mean that there's a possibility that you can cannibalize some of your existing assets and the rig count basically remains flat? Just high level thoughts from you.

Speaker 2

Well, I don't think there's any doubt that well efficiencies are going to continue to improve for a lot of reasons. The rig and the downhole technology, the technologies that we're bringing to bear, all those things are going to drive greater efficiencies. And I think as you what ends up driving additional rigs is a stronger commodity price environment. I do think, I mean, again, you just look at how many rigs have been retired over the last 15, 10, 15 years in the U. S.

Speaker 2

And so I think that's there'll be much less of that going forward now I think. But I do think that that's something that the industry will continue to watch very closely. I feel good about where we are in terms of positioning and the fleet that we have. Most recently, the most we had 100 and what, 191 rigs out of last year. Yes.

Speaker 2

And then we have another 10, 15 rigs past that that we could put to work. So feel good about our positioning there. Anything you guys would add?

Speaker 1

Kurt, the only thing I'd add, you talked about rig efficiency, yes, around that. You look at our rig count in West Texas 2 years ago, we're within 1 or 2 rigs of that count today. So obviously, there's been efficiencies gained in the markets in the past 2 years, but yet the H and P rig count in West Texas has remained pretty resilient. So I think that as John said, that speaks to the value proposition that we bring, the performance that we bring to customers and when they see that they want more of it, not less.

Speaker 6

That's great. Appreciate that color. Maybe just to follow-up then in the context of your opportunity set in the Middle East as it relates to not only your existing contracts that you have and then in the case of Goitech. I guess my question is along the lines, right? So you got a bit of a mix shift taking place in Saudi and they've kind of shifted their spend a little bit off of the oil front and on to the unconventional natural gas front, which have to be placed to your spec rigs.

Speaker 6

But do you ultimately see that there is the prospect for absolute displacement of unconventional rigs in Saudi going forward?

Speaker 2

I think when you think about I think it's early times of course on the unconventional side in Saudi and I'm not an expert on the types of rigs that are drilling in the unconventional place. But my sense is that there's rigs that are doing both conventional and unconventional work that are of the same rig category, if that makes sense. And the FlexRig is going into Saudi to do nothing but conventional or pardon me, unconventional drilling, which is what we're doing in Argentina, which is what we're doing in Australia. I think we even have I think we may be doing some unconventional work in another country too, probably hesitate to mention at this stage. But in general, we think that there are opportunities to do that.

Speaker 2

And I think just logically the more the conventional rig fleet will continue to drill conventional oil and conventional gas. I don't know if that answers your question or not.

Speaker 6

Yes. Generally, again, I'm just looking back at what's transpired here in the U. S, right? And we've gone from mechanical to 80 2 rigs and maybe in some ways we've gone from conventional well drilling to unconventional, right? So I was just curious if there's a similar trend we should be looking at starting to evolve in the Middle East.

Speaker 6

So yes, it's all incremental, John.

Speaker 2

Yes. I think there's a dramatic difference in the types of wells, conventional wells that we drill or that are being drilled in the Middle East compared to the conventional work that oil wells that are drilled in the U. S. There's just there's a night and day difference in the types of wells and the complexity with those conventional wells, the depth, the casing size, the pressure, 10,000, 15 ks pressure rating. So there's a lot to be said.

Speaker 2

It's an entirely different market, at least the way I look at it in the Middle East than what we have in the U. S. Or than we've ever had in the U. S. Quite frankly.

Speaker 9

That's exactly what I was looking for.

Speaker 6

Thank you. Really appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. Our last question will come from Thomas Curran with Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Good morning, guys. Sean, I wanted to shift gears to technology and return specifically to the data point you shared in your opening remarks about having reduced GHG emissions by 10%. Could you expand upon what contributed to that with what the main drivers were? And then update us on your strategy for powering the fleet sort of over the long term, what kind of fuel mix would you like to move towards for the U. S.

Speaker 5

Land drilling rig fleet?

Speaker 1

Tom, do you want me

Speaker 3

to go ahead?

Speaker 2

No, go ahead.

Speaker 1

Tom, part of that is just the efficiency of our fleet getting better, drilling more feet per day in less time. Another part of that is having more rigs on Highline Power. And really, it's a collaborative effort with the customers. So going forward, we want to be able to provide the power solutions that they want and they need. And so that's really kind of working hand in hand with our customers and providing that whatever technology they choose, whether that's all diesel, high line, natural gas or combination of that or using battery, we've explored all kinds and we're willing to work with customers on whatever makes sense for them.

Speaker 2

The other thing I would add is that we do have automation associated with our on off powering of our engines. And so the beauty there is that the engine load is going to be adjusted based upon the amount of load that we're actually undergoing depending on whether you're drilling ahead or whether you're running casing as an example. And so with a higher load, you're going to have 3 or 4 engines running with a lesser load, you're going to have 1 or 2 engines running. The beauty is, is you don't have to send a person down to turn off or turn on an engine, it does it autonomously, it does it automatically. So that's one of the advantages.

Speaker 2

I think what Dave said at the end of the day, we're not paying for the energy on the location. So whether it's diesel or whether it's highline power, natural gas, we're going to do and support what our customer wants to do. But we're definitely trending in the right direction and continuing to lower our emissions as we move forward.

Speaker 5

Got it. Could you give us an idea of how many rigs within the current active fleet are on Highline Power or being fueled by natural

Speaker 2

gas? I think the Highline Power number last time I saw was between 1520 rigs. The natural gas, I don't remember what our count is, but it's a real for us, it's a relatively small number of natural gas engines. Again, it's just shifting from a diesel power to a natural gas is quite expensive, but there are some fuel mix, there is some hybrid ways that we're going to be looking at that. We'll be talking more about that next year.

Speaker 5

Got it. We'll stay tuned for that. Last one for me. As you guys have shifted the focus of your strategy, solving for your international growth goals via the pending acquisition of ACAD. Are you seeing any of your peers, who own the remainder of the idle super spec inventory in the U.

Speaker 5

S, maybe step it up and either start to market some of their available inventory into foreign markets, start to bid on tenders or if they're already doing that, become more aggressive because they think of the big dog with the lion's share of that inventory who had been taking that approach is now pivoting and therefore creating a bit of an opportunity. I'm just wondering if you're seeing any of your competitors change their behavior when it comes to exploring and pursuing international opportunities for their idle super spec rigs?

Speaker 2

There have been a few examples where some of our peers in the U. S. Are moving some of their assets. I think some assets that were idle, some assets that over time had been active, but they weren't as successful in a particular base and decided to send them to international markets. I do think that that is possible.

Speaker 2

With our larger footprint with KCA Doitek, we definitely feel like we've got exposure to countries that we didn't have exposure to before with FlexRigs fleet. So our ability like we did in Saudi, the ability to mobilize additional FlexRigs out of the U. S. To international markets, I think present a great opportunity. And so I'm sure others are looking at that as well.

Speaker 6

Makes

Speaker 5

sense. Thanks for squeezing me in and taking all my questions. Those are helpful.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to John for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 2

All right. Thank you, Todd. In closing today, the company is going to continue to strive to execute with a customer centric approach and a safety focus. That's really ingrained in our company culture. As we've said, we look forward to closing the acquisition with KCA Doitag and taking advantage of the additional opportunities that that acquisition will provide us and the opportunities that will come up in the coming quarters.

Speaker 2

I really appreciate our people's efforts on the integration front. We have a lot going on. At the same time, we've got pre close integration ongoing, continuing to focus on delivering value for our customers and doing it the H and P way and as always keeping safety at the forefront of everything we do. So thank you again for joining us and we'll talk to you later. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes the Hellmerich and Payne fiscal 4th quarter earnings call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.

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Earnings Conference Call
Helmerich & Payne Q4 2024
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