Transocean Q3 2025 Earnings Report

Transocean EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.06
• Consensus EPS: $0.04
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.02
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Transocean Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: ($1.89) billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.01 billion
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$2.91 billion
• YoY Revenue Growth: +8.40%

Transocean Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2025
• Date: 10/29/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, October 30, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

Transocean (NYSE:RIG) (NYSE:RIG) is an international offshore contract drilling company that provides drilling services to oil and gas companies. Its primary business is operating mobile offshore drilling units under contracts that support exploration, development and production activities in offshore oil and natural gas fields.

The company’s fleet is focused primarily on ultra-deepwater and harsh-environment drilling units, including drillships and semisubmersible rigs. Transocean provides rig operations, drilling personnel, equipment and related services intended to help customers safely construct and complete offshore wells.

Transocean serves energy companies in major offshore drilling regions around the world. The company traces its history to offshore drilling operations established in the early 20th century and has expanded through acquisitions and industry consolidation. Transocean is headquartered in Steinhausen, Switzerland, and is led by President and Chief Executive Officer Jeremy D. Thigpen.

Transocean Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Management reduced gross debt by approximately $1.2 billion versus scheduled maturities of $714 million, converted secured to unsecured debt (releasing the Deepwater Poseidon) and cut annualized interest expense by about $87 million, and expects to meet remaining maturities with operating cash flow.
• Positive Sentiment: Announced retirement/disposal of nine older rigs (including four drillships and one harsh‑environment semi) to be completed by mid‑2026, concentrating the fleet to 24 contracted high‑spec floaters plus three cold‑stacked 7th‑gen units.
• Positive Sentiment: Secured material backlog extensions as BP exercised the Deepwater Atlas one‑year option at $635,000/day (adding roughly $232 million of backlog through Q2 2030), and Petrobras exercised an option extending Deepwater Mykonos into early 2026.
• Neutral Sentiment: Management expects floater contract coverage to grow ~10% in the next 18 months and projects drillship/harsh‑semi utilization above 95% / near 100% in 2027, but cautioned that near‑term demand is muted as operators prioritize free cash flow and defer near‑term investment.
• Neutral Sentiment: Q4 guidance is $1.03–$1.05 billion in contract drilling revenue with year‑end liquidity slightly above $1.4 billion; preliminary 2026 guidance calls for $3.8–$3.95 billion revenue and year‑end liquidity of $1.6–$1.7 billion, with savings earmarked for further debt reduction.

Presentation

[Operator]

Welcome to the third quarter 2025 Transocean earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. You may register to ask a question over the phone at any time by pressing the star and one on your telephone. Please keep in mind today's call will be recorded, and we will be standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn today's conference over to your Director of Investor Relations, Alison Johnson.

[Alison Johnson, Director of IR at Transocean]

Thank you, David. Good morning and welcome to Transocean's third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. A copy of our press release covering financial results, along with supporting statements and schedules, including reconciliations and disclosures regarding non-GAAP financial measures, are posted on our website at deepwater.com. Joining me on this morning's call are Keelan Adamson, President and Chief Executive Officer; Thad Vayda, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Roddie Mackenzie, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. During the course of this call, Transocean management may make certain forward-looking statements regarding various matters related to our business and company that are not historical facts. Such statements are based upon current expectations and certain assumptions and therefore are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual results to differ materially.

[Alison Johnson, Director of IR at Transocean]

Please refer to our SEC filings for our forward-looking statements and for more information regarding certain risks and uncertainties that could impact our future results. Also, please note that the company undertakes no duty to update or revise forward-looking statements. Following Keelan and Thad's prepared comments, we will conduct a question and answer session with our team. During this time, to give more participants an opportunity to speak, please limit yourself to one initial question and one follow-up. Thank you very much. I'll now turn the call over to Keelan.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Thanks Alison and welcome everyone to our third quarter conference call. We posted a strong third quarter, demonstrating our collective focus on delivering superior operational performance to our customers. I extend my sincere thanks to all of our crews offshore and our operation teams onshore, without whom these excellent results would not be possible. Additionally, we have made notable progress in recent months reducing our operating costs, as evidenced by our strong free cash flow generation in the period and our simplified and improved capital structure. We completed several important capital markets transactions that advanced our deleveraging efforts and further reduced interest expense to better position the company for the long-term benefit of our shareholders. Thad will provide more detail, but as the result of our ongoing cost control initiatives and these transactions, we have achieved several important results.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

First, by the end of 2025, we will have reduced our debt by approximately $1.2 billion versus our scheduled maturities of $714 million. We believe that a stronger and more flexible balance sheet is essential to improving total shareholder return, making accelerated deleveraging one of our key objectives. Second, these transactions allowed us to convert one tranche of secured debt to unsecured debt, reducing restricted cash balances that are now being used more efficiently and releasing the Deepwater Poseidon, which is among our highest specification and most capable rigs, from the collateral pool. Third, our annualized interest expense will now be reduced by approximately $87 million versus 2025, with these savings expected to be used for further opportunistic debt reduction. Lastly, we have significantly improved our debt maturity profile and materially reduced our 2027 obligations. Today, we currently expect to meet our remaining scheduled maturities with cash flow from operations.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

We will include a slide in our corporate presentation that illustrates this improvement. We are pleased with the significant progress we have made on our balance sheet so far this year and there is more work to be done. I will remind our listeners that in addition to providing industry-leading offshore drilling services to our customers, these actions and outcomes are consistent with our previously articulated objectives of reducing debt, reducing interest expense, and simplifying our capital structure. Turning to asset strategy, we continue to refine the composition of our fleet. After a fulsome analysis of the option value of our cold stack assets, we announced our intention to dispose of four drillships and one harsh environment semi-submersible from our stacked fleet. Overall, we will retire nine rigs, including the four announced last quarter, a process that should be complete by mid-2026.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Our fleet now consists of 24 contracted ultra-deepwater drillships and high-specification harsh environment semi-submersibles, as well as three higher specification seventh gen ultra-deepwater drillships currently cold stacked in Greece. We have been deliberate in the rationalization of our fleet to maintain a portfolio of the highest specification, most marketable, and competitive assets in the industry. The decision to retire these older assets better aligns the company with evolving costs and customer needs while supporting a more balanced industry supply-demand dynamic with respect to rig contracting. As we expected, our customers exercised some priced options in the U.S. Gulf. Following the announcement of its final investment decision on the Tiber-Guadalupe development, BP exercised its one-year $635,000 per day priced option for the Deepwater Atlas. The program is expected to contribute approximately $232 million in backlog and will keep the rig operating with BP through the second quarter of 2030.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

We are grateful for the continued confidence BP places in us to execute its Paleogene programs. In Brazil, Petrobras exercised the first of its two options for the Deepwater Mykonos. The program extends the rig's firm term into early 2026. Moving now to the broader market environment, given global macro uncertainties and its impact on commodity prices, our customers continue to exhibit capital discipline, prioritizing free cash flow for debt reduction, returning capital to shareholders, and taking a measured approach to the amount of capital that they commit to exploration and development activities. They have also been reducing costs by restructuring their organizations and have largely been sustaining reserves and production levels through acquisitions and consolidation. This has resulted in deferred near-term demand for drilling services and, as expected, a slower pace of contracting.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

However, industry projections continue to suggest that upstream investment in offshore will increase, particularly in the deepwater segment. Indeed, a number of independent organizations recently observed that the significant decline in operators' reserve to production ratios resulting from their capital discipline is not sustainable, a view with which we agree. We believe that their efforts to improve this metric will lead to meaningful increases in offshore drilling activity. Notably, and perhaps to the greatest extent we have heard over the past decade, many customers are now indicating a necessity to increase their exploration activity to address this emerging supply imbalance. Multiple third parties project that demand for deepwater rigs will significantly increase in the coming years, and we are encouraged by recent conversations with customers and anticipate contract awards for more programs later this quarter and into 2026.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Based upon known tenders, programs, and contract options, we expect the number of contracted floaters to grow by approximately 10% in the next 18 months. Looking regionally, in the U.S. Gulf activity is stable as operators continue to extend utilization of rigs they already have on contract. Additionally, three short-term programs with independent operators are expected to be awarded in the fourth quarter, with one more tender to be released before year end. In Brazil, we anticipate the Petrobras Búzios Mero tenders and Shell's and Gato do Mato tender will be publicly awarded in the coming weeks for a total of 23 years of firm work requiring six rigs. We believe that these programs will mostly be satisfied with rigs currently in country. In Africa, we still anticipate demand could increase the working rig count by at least three rigs through 2027.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

In Nigeria, the Exxon and Chevron tenders for multi-year developments are well underway, and Total's new tender is expected to be released in the coming months. In the Ivory Coast, we believe Eni's release of its tender for the multi-year Baleine phase III development commencing early 2027 is imminent. In Angola, the rig count is expected to remain relatively stable. Azule Energy recently released an expression of interest for two rigs commencing late 2026, and Shell will go back to the country after many years out by starting a new exploration campaign in 2027. We now expect there will be five drillships and one semi-submersible working in country by 2027. In Namibia, most of the operators that are currently active will continue to drill exploration and appraisal wells in 2026 through 2027. We expect the first major development program will be tendered for two rigs to begin in 2028.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Finally, in Mozambique, Eni's tender is progressing with Exxon and Total's tenders anticipated to be released soon. I also note that Total recently lifted force majeure from their $20 billion LNG project there, a decidedly positive development for Mozambique's economic development and for investor confidence as the country continues to develop its energy resources. In the Mediterranean, current opportunities could require up to two incremental rigs in the next two years with programs from a number of the major operators as well as local independent energy. Moving further east to India, the ONGC tender for one drillship with a mid-2026 commencement is in progress and elsewhere in Asia there are a number of market inquiries including two in Indonesia for multi-year programs starting in 2027. In Australia, Chevron's Gorgon phase III tender is progressing toward award, which we currently expect in the first quarter of next year.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

We anticipate there will be one drillship and two semi-submersibles working in country in 2027. In Norway, utilization of the high-specification harsh environment semi-submersible fleet is expected to remain robust through 2027 as the award for Equinor's rig tender is expected imminently. This and other projects have commencements in 2027, many of which will utilize contract extensions on the current fleet based upon current planned programs. In 2027, the drillship and harsh environment semi-submersible markets are projected to reach active utilization of above 95% and close to 100%, respectively. Operationally, we continue to deliver strong safety and reliability performance for our customers. Indeed, in September we posted revenue efficiency of 100% and delivered 97.5% for the entire third quarter.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Responsible for these achievements is a uniquely qualified and high-performing team that is focused on delivering the professional and disciplined experience to which our customers have grown accustomed through rigorous procedural discipline. We have built an operational framework that enables us to deliver the same standard of performance on every Transocean rig regardless of where it is operating. I am also very proud that we continue to set industry firsts. We recently ran the heaviest casing string on record at a hook load of approximately 2.85 million lbs using our 8th generation drillship, the Deepwater Titan. This achievement showcases what can be delivered with this highly capable generation of asset, unlocking significant well construction and production efficiencies for our customer. In conclusion, we remain focused on optimizing the value of our assets and services while maintaining a disciplined approach to deploying our high specification fleet.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Our priority is to best serve our customers and continue to generate strong cash flow, supporting our ongoing efforts to strengthen the balance sheet and increase the value of our equity. We will continue to take steps to optimize our capital structure and financial flexibility. I'll now turn it over to Thad for further discussion on our transactions, our results and guidance. Thad.

[Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO at Transocean]

Thank you, Keelan.

[Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO at Transocean]

Good day to everyone. During today's call I will briefly recap our third quarter results, provide guidance for the fourth quarter, and conclude with our preliminary expectations for full year 2026. As is our practice, we will provide updated guidance for 2026 when we report our full year 2025 results in February. During the third quarter, we delivered contract drilling revenues of $1.03 billion with an average daily revenue of approximately $462,000. Contract drilling revenues are slightly above our guidance range due primarily to the Deepwater Skyros, which continued to operate throughout the quarter. Operating and maintenance expense in the third quarter was $584 million.

[Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO at Transocean]

This is below our guidance range primarily due to deferred maintenance cost across the fleet and the release of a $10 million provision resulting from the anticipated favorable outcome of a legal dispute, partially offset by severance costs associated with the company's shore-based support reorganization undertaken in August. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $11 million, also below our guidance range of $25 million-$30 million, primarily due to the timing of payments. G&A expense was $46 million, below expectations due also to timing, but with respect to professional and legal services. We ended the third quarter with total liquidity of approximately $1.8 billion. This includes unrestricted cash and cash equivalents of $833 million, about $417 million of restricted cash, the majority of which is reserved for debt service, and $510 million of capacity from our undrawn revolving credit facility.

[Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO at Transocean]

All of the proceeds from the recent equity and debt capital markets transactions have since been deployed to reduce and refinance certain debt obligations. Adjusting for these proceeds, our quarter-end liquidity would have been approximately $1.2 billion. I will now provide guidance for the fourth quarter of 2025 and preliminary guidance for the full year 2026. For the fourth quarter, we expect contract drilling revenues to be between $1.03 billion and $1.05 billion based upon an average fleet-wide midpoint revenue efficiency of 96.5%, which, as you know, can vary based upon uptime, performance, weather, and other factors. This guidance includes between $60 million and $70 million of additional services and reimbursable expenses.

[Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO at Transocean]

The slight sequential increase in revenue is mainly due to higher activity on the Deepwater Conqueror, which started its new contract on the 1st of October, partially offset by lower activity on the Deepwater Skyros as it has concluded its work in Angola and is mobilizing to Ivory Coast for its next contract, which starts in December. We expect fourth quarter O&M expense to be within a range of approximately $595 million-$615 million. This quarter-over-quarter increase is primarily due to the release of the previously mentioned anticipated favorable resolution of a legal dispute, which is not repeated in the fourth quarter, and higher in-service and out-of-service maintenance across the fleet, partially offset from the shore-based reorganization implemented in August. We expect G&A expense for the fourth quarter to fall within a range of approximately $45 million-$50 million.

[Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO at Transocean]

Net cash interest expense is projected to be approximately $122 million for the fourth quarter, comprising interest expense and interest income of about $131 million and $9 million, respectively. Capital expenditures and cash taxes are expected to be approximately $25 million-$30 million and $18 million, respectively. Finally, we currently estimate that we should end the year with total liquidity of slightly more than $1.4 billion, including the $510 million capacity of our undrawn credit facility versus our prior guidance of $1.45 billion-$1.55 billion. Our year-end liquidity reflects the use of approximately $106 million of cash in excess of that provided by the recent transactions to reduce our debt balances. We expect that at year-end the remaining debt and capital lease balance will be approximately $5.9 billion, which is net of $80 million of remaining scheduled payments and maturities to be settled with cash for 2026.

[Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO at Transocean]

We currently forecast contract drilling revenue to be between $3.8 billion and $3.95 billion. Approximately 89% of our forecasted revenue is associated with firm contracts, and the range assumes revenue efficiency of approximately 96.5% at the midpoint. Our guidance includes between $230 million and $270 million of additional services and reimbursable expenses. We expect our full year O&M expense to be between $2.275 billion and $2.4 billion, and we currently anticipate G&A cost to be between $170 million and $180 million. We forecast 2026 cash interest expense to be about $480 million. Our preliminary projected liquidity at year end 2026 is between $1.6 billion and $1.7 billion, reflecting our revenue and cost guidance, which incorporates the net effect of our ongoing cost savings initiative and includes our $510 million revolving credit facility, which we expect to remain undrawn, and anticipated restricted cash of approximately $380 million.

[Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO at Transocean]

This liquidity forecast also includes CapEx expectations of approximately $125 million-$135 million. I re-emphasize our continued focus on strengthening the company's financial position through disciplined management of our capital structure. In utilizing a combination of equity and debt in our recent capital markets transactions, we were able to reduce our gross debt by approximately $1.2 billion versus scheduled maturities of $714 million, an incremental debt retirement of over $500 million. This is accompanied by a substantial reduction in annualized interest expense of about $87 million. The sequence of the capital markets transactions also allowed us to achieve the best possible rate, 7.875%, on the new five-year $500 million senior priority guaranteed notes due 2029, below that of the now retired 8% notes that matured in 2027.

[Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO at Transocean]

Additionally, with the retirement of the 2027 notes secured by the Deepwater Poseidon, we were able to utilize cash that would otherwise have been held in our restricted cash accounts in a more productive manner. Finally, the tender offer for our discounted 2041 and certain 2028 maturities contributed about $105 million of debt reduction to the total $1.2 billion, with associated annual interest expense savings of about $9 million. In conclusion, we remain committed to a thoughtful, measured approach to liability management. With strong backlog conversion generating incremental free cash flow, we anticipate being able to continue accelerating debt reduction in excess of scheduled maturities. I'll now turn the call back to Alison to launch the Q&A session.

[Alison Johnson, Director of IR at Transocean]

Thanks, Thad.

[Alison Johnson, Director of IR at Transocean]

David, we're now ready to take questions. As a reminder to the participants, please limit yourself to one initial question and one follow up question.

[Operator]

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question today, please press the star and one keys on your telephone keypad. Keep in mind if your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star and two. Again, it is star and one to ask a question today. We'll take our first question from Eddie Kim with Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Eddie Kim, VP of Equity Research in U.S. Oilfield Services at Barclays]

Hi, good morning. Just a bigger picture question on your confidence level and the increase in deepwater utilization. I think you mentioned 95% or even 100%. I believe that's exiting 2026 and into 2027. If you could clarify the timing there. We've seen a few day rates now below $400,000 a day, and there's some investor concern around some more negative day rate prints here in the next couple months. First, do you think those are coming? Second, how does that impact your view on this activity inflection higher in the back part of next year?

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Yeah, good morning, Eddie. Good question. I think the way I would probably approach, I think the two-part question was one on utilization and the second part was more on rates and how that pressure will exert itself. I would say our view remains the same, Eddie. We believe that as we turn from the end of 2026 into 2027, the utilization of the ultra-deepwater fleet will bridge over 90%. Based on the conversations we're having with our customers, the programs, the tenders that we know are out there with the long-term fundamentals with respect to the upstream CapEx, we expect to start moving towards offshore. 2025 was a low FID year and we expect the number of FIDs to increase as we go forward here into next year and the need for oil companies to start exploring to a greater extent.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

From my conversations with the heads of wells and indeed some CEOs in the last quarter, that sort of period looks like 2027, 2028. They're going to start releasing some capital to address those supply concerns. We are very constructive on the longer term. Certainly from 2027 out, yes, there is some utilization available in 2026, but those rigs that are on the water, there's quite a few opportunities for those to capture some work. The question on rate, obviously as the utilization builds from where we are at the moment, which we would consider to be at the bottom of the trough, and I'm sure Roddie will add a few more thoughts on this after I'm finished, we certainly believe that as that capacity is absorbed into the awards that are coming, the rates will be competitive.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

It's a competitive environment right now as the drilling sector starts trying to build their utilization. For the timing of our assets rolling towards the second half of next year, we expect a lot of that activity to be absorbed. We consider it a really good opportunity for us to roll some of our rigs that are coming available at the end of the second half of next year and going into 2027 and 2028 prospects. As you know, utilization, when it bridges 90%, that's when the upward pressure starts exerting on rate. We are very constructive on both utilization and our ability to create value from our assets as we move from 2027 out. With that, perhaps Roddie has a few more comments to make.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

Sure, Eddie, let me add just a couple of notes to that. As we think about where we are in the cycle, essentially we were kind of at a low point.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

Contract awards in the first quarter.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

This year with only about 12 rig years awarded. The second quarter was a bit better at 14 rig years. The third quarter was 18 rig years. We see this steady increase. As Keelan had alluded to, in the fourth quarter in Brazil alone, we expect to get 23 rig years awarded. If we think about the other regions, we think Q4 is going to be a very strong contracting quarter and that continues into 2026. If you think about that in terms of actual utilization, we've already gone through the dip in contracting. Therefore, the increase in utilization is already booked. This utilization is going to happen. It's kind of in the books at the moment and we think it basically accelerates from there. There was one other thing I was just going to mention real quickly on utilization.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

As we entered the year 2025, we did have some white space on certain assets. It's just a phenomenon of our business that on the active rigs, typically the programs will run longer rather than run shorter. That's for a variety of reasons, whether they're well related or more often, once an operator has an active rig working, it's very cost effective to add additional wells to that program. We saw that kind of several times for us. It's one of the reasons why our results in the third quarter are so good that we contracted beyond.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

The.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

The timeline that we had stated in the Fleet Status Report, I think on that side utilization is looking only on the way up from this point forward, which is great. To Keelan's point again about the rate, certainly for near term stuff we're seeing more competitive numbers. What's interesting is the timeframe in which we are rolling over the rigs is going to allow us to continue our very disciplined approach and making sure that we get value for those rigs. To be honest, having the highest specification rigs available at a moment when we're transitioning into the busiest time I think is a really good position to be in. If I look at the Fearnley's charts and other charts, 2027 looks, if all of the probable items come through, then we're pretty close to 100% utilization and potentially above it if there's a big.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

Release of.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

We have to wait and see how that pans out. Certainly, utilization and day rates are looking pretty solid from this point forward.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Yeah, maybe one more comment, Eddie. I think when we talk about rates and we look at what's been fixed and what's been announced, I think the 7th gen units, there's been a lot of resilience at around $400,000 today. You know, the competitive environment that's available, that's present right now, is going to also attract some of the lower spec 6th gen units, which is where you will see some more competitive pricing as the drillers start building more utilization on those assets. We've been pleased with the resilience that the seventh generation assets have shown when it comes to day rate. Maybe another follow up on 2026. We're still looking to see what our customers are going to release from a budget point of view for next year.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

I'll be interested to see what that looks like and how that can be transferred over to the drilling market in 2026.

[Eddie Kim, VP of Equity Research in U.S. Oilfield Services at Barclays]

Great, that's great to hear and all very helpful color. Thank you for that. Just my follow up is on your rigs coming off contract soon. You have four drillships set to come off contract around early to mid next year: the Skyros, Mykonos, KG2, and the Proteus. Just based on conversations you're having now for these rigs, would it be prudent at this point to assume maybe 1/4 of idle time after coming off contract? How should we think about the follow on opportunity for these rigs and the timing around when that next contract is likely to commence?

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

Yeah, I'll take that one. We are in discussions on all those rigs in various different manners at the moment. We don't want to tip our hat to that, but we think certainly there's not going to be idle time in all of those rigs. There's a possibility that it could be on one or two, but as I said before, a lot of these programs, especially around finishing up wells, are going a little bit longer. We do have active prospects on every one of them, so that's pretty promising. I think something that is obviously not readily apparent to everybody in the industry except for those that are actually bidding for the work is the number of conversations for work. It hasn't been this active and busy for our marketing team for a couple of years.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

We're pretty confident we'll be putting on some backlog on a number of those rigs.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Yeah, maybe a little bit more color from my side. Eddie, you mentioned a few rig names. Rigs have reputations and the rigs that we have rolling have very strong reputation. Skyros, for example, Transocean and Total multiple year winner of Rig of the Year. I mean the rig has performed outstanding on that Total contract for 10 years, even performed 10 years without an LTI in its safety performance. The reputation of that rig is outstanding and there are several inbounds that we get concerning its availability. If you think about the Proteus you mentioned in the Gulf of America, the Proteus is one of the highest spec units in the world, has performed outstanding as well for its Shell campaign. We have a variety of rigs that are rolling. Some are more 6th gen nature and some are much more higher spec.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

What you will see from us is certainly looking to build utilization on our lower spec units. When it comes to the higher spec units like Proteus, that's an opportunity for us to remain disciplined. I think we've demonstrated that in the past as the market ran up before this particular mid cycle lull. I would say we will be very disciplined in how we approach the Proteus and the sort of work and the term that we put on her. Obviously we want to keep her busy, but if we don't like particularly the economics that are associated at that time, we'll take shorter stint work and then of course that provides opportunity for small amounts of white space. That is the consequence of a commercially strategic bidding discipline that we employ, especially with our harsh environment with our high spec units.

[Eddie Kim, VP of Equity Research in U.S. Oilfield Services at Barclays]

Understood. Great, thank you very much. I'll turn it back.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Doug Becker with Capital One. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Doug Becker, Co-founder and Partner at Capital Group]

Thank you.

[Doug Becker, Co-founder and Partner at Capital Group]

Some industry reports suggest Petrobras recently had one-on-one meetings with drilling contractors just to discuss ways to reduce costs. Just wanted to get confirmation. Did Transocean have such a meeting, and if so, what was the outcome?

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Yeah, good morning Doug. I'll offer some commentary and I'm sure Roddie will add some color as well. Yes, we've been engaged with Petrobras on this topic for a while. I would reiterate our belief that we do not believe that this cost reduction exercise on Petrobras' part is going to materially change the activity that they have in country. We have a lot of experience across our operations of driving cost efficiencies into the operation. On behalf of our customers and with respect to Petrobras, we are engaged with the lessons we've learned across our fleet and with various different customers on how to reduce that cost structure. Typically, it's built around things like the number of people on board the rig and simple things like that. Petrobras are keen to engage with the drillers on this matter.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

There are efficiencies to be gained and it's very encouraging to see Petrobras open to having these discussions, looking for more efficiencies and allowing drilling contractors to bring their experience to bear in this environment. Roddie, do you want to add anything?

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

Yeah, just add. That's exactly the point. This is actually a welcome effort. To recap on that, basically they're looking to take about 7% or 8% out of their cost basis, and they're doing that in a manner, as Keelan said. There are certain things in the Petrobras contracts.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

That.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

Have expense to the contractors that are perhaps nice to haves, maybe not essential to the contract. If we're able to take some of those out and pass on those savings to Petrobras, that makes their wells more competitive, that stimulates more work. We think that's a positive effort and of course we're very interested in that. I think it's off the back of news like give the approval for the drilling exploration campaign in Foz do Amazonas, which is the north coast of Brazil. That's very encouraging for future activity. Yes, I think their statement is they very much are looking to keep all the rigs they have on contract and just seeing where they can be more cost effective on certain demands that they have. Of course we're all over that. I think that's quite positive.

[Doug Becker, Co-founder and Partner at Capital Group]

Is it fair to say the discussions were much more about those cost reduction efforts outside of rate, or is there a desire for some type of concession on price or blend and extend?

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

Yeah, obviously we can't talk about specific negotiations that we have with them, but the first focus is on the existing contracted rigs and what they can do to reduce the cost basis. If there is opportunity to add term to some of those, then that's an avenue that I'm sure many will be happy to explore.

[Doug Becker, Co-founder and Partner at Capital Group]

That makes sense. Thad, maybe one for you. A lot of steps to reduce debt during the third quarter. What would you highlight as the next few steps going forward? Maybe in particular just the potential for another equity raise down the road.

[Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO at Transocean]

Thanks for the question, Doug. The short answer is, as Keelan had indicated, we anticipate that we're going to meet all of our obligations out of cash flow from operations. A couple of things I'd like to say on the equity raise. Clearly, it is never an easy decision for management to go to the market, and frankly, there's probably never a particularly good price at which one should issue equity. That said, I think that the company has had a pretty good track record of treating shareholders as well as it can, particularly with respect to those things that are within our control. We didn't restructure. With that comes this survivor's curse. When you look at the things that are in conferences to our share price, it's two, it's frankly the market and the pace and day rates of contracts.

[Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO at Transocean]

Second, depending upon the day of the week, it's the leverage. It's sort of the survivor's curse. We took this exercise to heart. We did a lot of analysis and we did our best to ensure that this is something that we really wouldn't have to do in the future. Our expectation now is with our liquidity profile, our debt maturity schedule, the market conditions, that we'll be able to meet our obligations at a cash flow. You should expect to see us deploy any excess cash generated by the cash flow savings that we've talked about, the $250 million or so that we anticipate aggregate achieving in 2026, to reduce our debt balance.

[Doug Becker, Co-founder and Partner at Capital Group]

Sounds good. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

We'll take our last question today from Noel Parks with Tuohy Brothers. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Noel Parks, Managing Director of Energy Research at Tuohy Brothers]

Hi, good morning. I was wondering, you were talking about there just from discussions that you could see exploratory drilling maybe picking up in that 2027, 2028 time frame. I just wonder if you sort of think about lead time and customers' internal capital discussions, do you have any sense as to when they might, you know, how far in advance they might start looking at trying to commit to rigs on some of those?

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Yeah, no, it's a good question. As you know, a lot of the activity that we perform on contracted rigs is largely focused on development. Our customers also squeeze in exploration wells that they have approved in their budgets into the program should the timelines align. I think the difference that we're seeing now is a real conversation in the world about the need to increase the supply of hydrocarbons. If I cite the IEA report that was recently published, they speak about over $500 billion of the upstream investment, 90% of that is used every year to just simply replace the reserves that are being produced. That's not taking into account any of the growth that is anticipated for the world.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

As our customers are noticing that the decline rates in their conventional and also in their nonconventional, which is an accelerated decline rate, there is more conversation now about how do we produce that supply that's going to be required. As we think about the commodity prices, the macro environment, I think our customers are going to continue to find opportunities in their programs at contracted rigs in 2026 to put a few exploration wells in. The conversations are now changing to a major customer talking about building an entire rig line around exploration in 2027 and 2028. There are more and more of those major customers starting to talk about that. That's what's giving us an awful lot of encouragement with respect to what we think that will transfer to in rig activity in the out years from 2027 on.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

That's kind of the subtle difference that we're hearing in the conversations I'm having certainly with our customers. Roddie, do you have anything to add on that?

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

No, I think that nails it exactly. It's been a while since we've had this exploration discussion, and I think the broader macro commentary really helps that. We are seeing that directly with the discussions that we're having.

[Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Transocean]

With some of our customers.

[Noel Parks, Managing Director of Energy Research at Tuohy Brothers]

Great, thanks a lot.

[Keelan Adamson, President and CEO at Transocean]

Thanks Noel.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the program back to Alison Johnson for any additional or closing remarks.

[Alison Johnson, Director of IR at Transocean]

Thank you, David. Thank you everyone for your participation on today's call. We look forward to speaking with you again when we report our fourth quarter 2025 results. Have a good day.

[Operator]

This does conclude the Transocean earnings call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Roddie Mackenzie, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer
• Alison Johnson, Director of IR
• Keelan Adamson, President and CEO
• Thad Vayda, EVP and CFO

Analysts

• Noel Parks, Managing Director of Energy Research at Tuohy Brothers
• Eddie Kim, VP of Equity Research in U.S. Oilfield Services at Barclays
• Doug Becker, Co-founder and Partner at Capital Group