Nabors Industries Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator

Good day, and welcome to the First Quarter twenty twenty five Nabors Industries Limited Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Please note that the event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to William Conroy, Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

William Conroy
William Conroy
Vice President of Corporate Development & Investor Relations at Nabors Industries

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Nabors' first quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call. Today, we will follow our customary format with Tony Petrello, our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer and William Restrepo, our Chief Financial Officer, providing their perspectives on the quarter's results, along with insights into our markets and how we expect Nabors to perform in these markets. In support of these remarks, the slide deck is available, both as a download within the webcast and in the Investor Relations section of nabors.com. Instructions for the replay of this call are posted on the website as well.

William Conroy
William Conroy
Vice President of Corporate Development & Investor Relations at Nabors Industries

With us today, in addition to Tony, William and me, are other members of the senior management team. Since much of our commentary today will include our forward expectations, they may constitute forward looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties as disclosed by Nabors from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result of these factors, our actual results may vary materially from those indicated or implied by such forward looking statements. Also, during the call, we may discuss certain non GAAP financial measures such as net debt, adjusted operating income, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow.

William Conroy
William Conroy
Vice President of Corporate Development & Investor Relations at Nabors Industries

All references to EBITDA made by either Tony or William during their presentations, whether qualified by the word adjusted or otherwise, mean adjusted EBITDA as that term is defined on our website and in our earnings release. Likewise, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, references to cash flow mean adjusted free cash flow, as that non GAAP measure is defined in our earnings release. We have posted to the Investor Relations section of our website a reconciliation of these non GAAP financial measures to the most recently comparable GAAP measures. With that, I will turn

William Conroy
William Conroy
Vice President of Corporate Development & Investor Relations at Nabors Industries

the call over to Tony to begin.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today as we review our first quarter results. We will also comment on our acquisition of Parker Welborn and on the current market environment. Let me start with a few remarks on the Parker acquisition.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

We completed the transaction on March 11. Thus far, the Parker operations have performed in line with our expectations. Our efforts to realize synergies are progressing. We are on track to achieve our $40,000,000 target for 2025. In summary, the integration is proceeding with the appropriate importance and speed.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Next, let me address the macro environment. Several factors currently weigh on the oil market, in particular, plans announced by OPEC plus to gradually unwind prior output reductions, the potential impact of higher tariffs on the global economy, and relatively high production from U. S. Shale facilitated by continued efficiency gains. On the positive side, natural gas activity in The U.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

S. Appears poised for some recovery over the upcoming quarters. We have already added a few rigs in gas focused basins. We are prepared to bring multiple rigs back in the event of an acceleration in natural gas activity. Our results for the quarter include Nabors legacy business plus the contribution of twenty days from Parker post closing.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

The international drilling business performed well, especially our SANAD joint venture in Saudi Arabia. We received a partial payment on our receivable in Mexico. Nonetheless, we continue to be extremely focused on this issue and expect further progress in the second quarter. Free cash flow in the quarter benefited from lower than expected CapEx on the Senate new bills, offsetting the normal heavy seasonal payments at the beginning of the year. In The U.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

S. Lower 48, although our revenue per day held up well, our daily margin fell short. During the quarter, we experienced relatively high level of churn that caused inefficiencies and increased our operational expenses. The activity churn also affected our NDS business. Total adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter was $2.00 $6,000,000 The Lower 48 market average quarterly rig count essentially remained at the levels of the prior quarters.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Our own rig count varied through the quarter. We entered the quarter at 64 rigs. For a brief time, our count touched 58. We finished the quarter at 62. Now it stands at 63.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Next, I'll discuss the international markets. In Russia, the recent expansion of U. S. Sanctions led us to suspend operations there. At this point, we do not expect to restart our activities in that market.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

In addition, the financial performance of the three rigs have become increasingly marginal. Continuing to support the business was becoming challenging. In other markets, we reached the end of our contracts on two rigs, in Papua New Guinea and The UAE. We started up the tenth new build in Saudi Arabia on its initial six year term contract. We also reactivated a rig in Colombia.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

However, we received notices to release two rigs by the end of the second quarter. We are working on re contracting both of these rigs. Over the remaining three quarters of twenty twenty five, we expect to add 10 rigs. In April, we have already deployed two of those, another new build in Saudi Arabia and one of the rigs in Kuwait. Notwithstanding worldwide rig count volatility, current tendering activity continues in several countries across The Middle East and in Latin America.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

We are focused on opportunities in key geographies that meet our financial thresholds while minimizing our capital requirements. Now let me comment on The U. S. Market. The Baker Hughes weekly Lower 48 rig count was remarkably stable during the quarter.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

We have noted a shift in this market. Smaller operators have added rigs, while larger ones have reduced their activity. This aggregate performance outstanding churn in the quarter affected downward pressure on our own rig count. Daily margin for our lower 48 rigs was $14,276 per day. Our expenses in this market increased in the first quarter, driven by the inefficiencies I mentioned earlier.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

We are focused on reducing these costs and aligning with the current environment. Our Drilling Solutions and Rig Technologies businesses combined generated EBITDA of more than $46,000,000 Together, the growth in the previous quarter was due to the addition of Parker. The Parker operations make an immediate impact on our strategy to grow the contribution from our NDS business. Now I will make some comments on the key drivers of our results. I'll start with our international drilling business.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

The international markets continue to provide opportunities to deploy additional rigs. Several markets appear to be growing and increasingly require our advanced technology. Even in this environment, we see prospects to reactivate a number of currently idle rigs. Next, I'll summarize the developments in our international drilling business. In the first quarter, we reactivated a recently added rig in Colombia.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

We were able to rapidly place the rig with a different client, further diversifying our customer base there. We are working to place the two recently added rigs as well. In Kuwait, the first rig of the previously announced award spud earlier this month. The second and third rigs are scheduled to commence operations in the second quarter. Kuwait is an important market for our high performance drilling capabilities.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

We expect the rigs to materially contribute to our earnings and cash flow over the life of the contracts. Across international markets, we see a number of opportunities. Most of them are concentrated in the Eastern Hemisphere and a limited number are in Latin America. When evaluating tenders, our paramount concerns are cash payout and capital expenditures. We believe that any incremental demand in those markets should help support pricing.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

In Saudi Arabia, our SANAD drilling joint venture started up its tenth new build during the first quarter. Number 11 started early in the second quarter. '3 more are scheduled for 2025. Another one is slated to start early twenty twenty six. That will bring the total number of working new builds to 15 in addition to the 40 legacy rigs currently active.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

On top of these 15 deployments, SANA and its customer are in discussions on the next five new builds. We expect this process to be concluded over the next couple of quarters. Construction would start after the rigs are awarded. In Saudi Arabia, a number of land rigs have been suspended over the past year. Approximately three quarters of those rigs were supporting conventional oil development.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Over the same time period, in addition to the five new builds, a number of rigs have been added in the unconventional natural gas market. I would note that approximately 75% of Saturn's fleet works in natural gas. Virtually all of our fleet is capable of operating in the more demanding gas basins. Before I move to our U. S.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Business, I would like to make some additional comments on In March, we published materials illustrating the value potential for Sanid. This year, Sanid forecasts it will earn adjusted EBITDA of over $200,000,000 At this level, the business already has scale. On top of that, we project the new build additions at a cadence of five per year will drive annual adjusted EBITDA successfully higher. This combination of material scale and strong embedded growth along with attractive valuations in the region comprise the formula for significant potential value creation over the next few years. Our goal is to realize our share of that value with substantial benefits to Nabors shareholders.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Now I'll discuss our performance in The U. S. Daily rig margins in our Lower 48 rig fleet declined more than expected, driven by increased costs. In this market, we continue to experience elevated levels of volatility as our customer mix shifted. This created challenges for our operating efficiencies and margins.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

The current rig pricing environment has to date remained relatively disciplined. It is true, however, that we have seen a slight downward trend in leading edge pricing. We believe this will have some impact on our average margins over the next few quarters. Industry utilization for high spec rigs has been in a narrow range for some time. About twothree of the industry's high spec rigs in the Lower 48 are currently working.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

At these levels, there is some pressure on day rates. We are working to mitigate this pressure, taking out costs where possible and ensuring the field support structure is appropriate for the working fleet. Next, let me discuss our technology and innovation. In the first quarter, our Drilling Solutions business did experience some leakage from the churn in The U. S.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

However, Drilling Solutions remained a significant contributor to consolidated results. NDS' quarterly performance also benefited from the addition of Partners Operations after the acquisition closed in March. The segment's combined gross profit margin was approximately 53%. In the first quarter, NDS' revenue from international markets, excluding the impact of Parker business, comprised almost half of the segment's revenue. NDS is clearly benefiting from its geographic diversity as the international growth continues to compensate for sluggishness in The U.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

S. Next, let me make some comments on our capital structure. Our highest priority remains the reduction of our debt. Early in the second quarter, we took advantage of the market and repurchased $11,400,000 face value of notes at a significant discount. We expect to generate free cash in 2025 to reduce debt despite material cash consumption incentive.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Next, I will discuss the global unit outlook, starting with our quarterly survey. At the end of the first quarter, we collected the activity plans for the largest Lower 48 industry clients. Our survey covers 14 operators. These clients account for approximately 43 of the Lower 48 industries working rig count at the end of the quarter. From the latest survey, this group expects to reduce its rig count by approximately 4% from the end of the first quarter through the end of twenty twenty five.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

This decline is spread across slightly more than half of the operators. With this outlook, a segment of mainly large bulk operators is now indicating a total reduction of 7% from the beginning of twenty twenty five through the end of the year. Over the last couple of months, we have seen the impact of these customer plans, but we have managed to replace this drop in activity with a number of contracts. We expect this trend to continue. In the international markets, to date, the environment remains positive, Including the rigs recently deployed in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, we have 10 rigs expected to commence work during the remaining three quarters of twenty twenty five.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

'6 of those rigs are in the second quarter. We should end the quarter with 87 international rigs working compared to 85 at the end of twenty twenty four. After that, in the second half of the year, we have four more rigs scheduled to deploy, two newbuilds in Saudi Arabia, One in Argentina and one in India. Before turning the call over to William, I'll wrap up with a few remarks on Parker. As I mentioned, we have already made considerable progress toward our goal of achieving $40,000,000 in cost synergies during 2025.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

I want to recognize the outstanding efforts of both teams to make this happen. Their collaboration and dedication fuel my confidence in reaching our target. Now let me turn the call over to William, who will discuss our financial results.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Thank you, Tony. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I would like to make an initial comment on the Parker Wilbur acquisition, which closed on March 11. Our first quarter financial statements included twenty days for the acquired business. The partner numbers are reflected across our segments.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

The financial results I will provide include the partner contribution, but I will also provide details on the acquired business. During the first quarter, we experienced significant disarray in the equity and debt markets, and we expect more of the same in the second quarter as the current administration continues with its new approach to foreign trade. Given the current financial market volatility, I will provide some comments on the current state of the drilling market. Up to now, we have not seen reductions in drilling activity in The U. S.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Nor in our international markets as a result of the tariff uncertainty. We are experiencing decreased activity in certain international markets, but we believe these reductions, which started last year, are unrelated to the current recession fears. In Saudi Arabia, we continue to see an acceleration in the shift from oil to gas drilling. And in Mexico, our customer continued to cut spending, a process that started after the elections at the end of last year. Activity in Colombia has been affected for some time by the policies of the current government.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

It is entirely possible that the current political situation could have an impact on our current rig count going forward. Elsewhere, we have managed to add several rigs in our Lower 48 market since our rig count troughed during the first quarter, and we continue to deploy rigs in other international markets. Consequently, Nabors' results for the first quarter landed close to our expectations. Sequentially, as we expected, we experienced reduced activity. This was driven essentially by a five rig reduction in our Lower 48 business, Higher turnover and contracts with multiple rigs moving between customers resulted in idle periods for our working fleet during the quarter.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

I would also highlight that our rig count today of 63 rigs has recovered to the levels we reached at the December. We do expect a further slight increase in rig count during the second quarter from where we currently stand. NDS activity was also affected by our lower rig count in the Lower 48. International NDS activity held up relatively well during the quarter as we continue to see strength in several markets. Internationally, rig count was stable.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

We added one new build in Saudi Arabia, but this was offset by a reduction of one rig in our average rig count in Russia. In the month of March, we suspended activity in our three rigs in response to the recently expanded Russian sanctions. We don't expect our activity in this market to resume in the near term. I would point out though that our EBITDA for Russia, given the current operational challenges, has been basically breakeven. Two other rigs, one in Papua New Guinea and the second one in The United Arab Emirates, reached the end of the contracts at the end of the first quarter.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Given the timing, basically the end of the quarter, these rigs had limited impact on our Q1 rig count. On the plus side, we added a rig in Colombia at the end of Q1. However, we do expect future rig count reductions in that market. Looking forward to the second quarter, we expect a slight increase in our average rig count. In the quarter, we expect to deploy two newbuilds in Saudi Arabia as well as three rigs in Kuwait, adding 3.5 average rigs for the quarter.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

We also expect the Lower 48 to add another three average rigs, predominantly in the Eagle Ford and Haynesville areas and mainly for natural gas activity. These increases will be offset by the previously mentioned drop off in Russia, PNG, The UAE and Colombia, with a combined impact of five average rigs. Now I'll detail our financial performance for the first quarter, provide some updates on key strategic initiatives and share our outlook for the second quarter. Revenue from operations for the first quarter was $736,000,000 compared to $730,000,000 in the prior quarter, an increase of $6,000,000 or 1%. Incremental revenue from our international segment and our Parker acquisition compensated for a decline in LORE-forty eight activity.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

U. S. Drilling revenue at $231,000,000 declined by $11,000,000 sequentially or 4.5%. Included in these numbers, Parker revenue was $5,300,000 Our rig count in the Lower 48 averaged 61, a five rig decrease from the fourth quarter. As mentioned, this reduction was partially related to idle time from rigs moving between contracts.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

We exited Q1 with 62 rigs operating in the Lower 48, and we are running 63 rigs today. Our average daily revenue improved sequentially. Daily revenue in the Lower 48 came in at $34,546 which is $11.50 dollars higher than the fourth quarter. Although we have encountered some market driven pressure on base day rates in certain regions, this was more than offset by performance based bonuses, by an uptick in ancillary services provided to clients, and by revenue related to reimbursable moves. On our latest contracts, revenue per day is now in the $30,000 range, with some exceptions still around the mid-thirty thousand dollars level.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

The International Drilling segment generated revenue of $382,000,000 an increase of $10,300,000 or 3% from the prior quarter, driven by activity increases in key markets. Parker contributed $3,800,000 to this increase. Rig count increased from 84.8 to 85 rigs during the quarter. The slight increase came from the twenty day impact of Parker's two operating rigs in Kazakhstan. Drilling Solutions revenue was $93,200,000 an increase of $17,200,000 or 22.6%.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Parker revenue for the quarter was $21,700,000 more than offsetting the $4,500,000 or 6% reduction in our legacy NES business. Our Rig Technologies segment generated revenue of $44,200,000 a $12,000,000 decline sequentially, driven primarily by lower capital equipment deliveries in The Middle East and a decrease in part sales and repairs in The U. S. Total adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $206,300,000 compared to $220,500,000 in the fourth quarter. The $14,000,000 sequential decline mainly reflected lower rig count and higher operational expenses in Lower 48 drilling.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Decreased EBITDA in Rig Technologies and our NDS legacy business also contributed to the sequential reduction. These negatives were partially offset by improved international results and the $7,800,000 contribution by Parker to our first quarter EBITDA. U. S. Running EBITDA of $92,700,000 was down by $13,000,000 or 12.3% sequentially.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

This deterioration reflected a five rig reduction, roughly 8%, and some erosion in daily margins in our Lower 48 drilling business. Average daily rig margins came in just under $14,300 which is down $660 or 4% from the fourth quarter. This deterioration was essentially related to the increased churn in our rig count, which made it challenging to align compensation costs with activity levels. We are actively focused on rightsizing expenses to our activity level and expect our rig operational expenses to fall back somewhat. For the second quarter, we forecast Lower 48 daily margins of approximately 14,100.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

We expect some decline in average daily revenue, largely mitigated by cost reductions. We anticipate our average rig count in this market to be between sixty three and sixty four rigs. On a combined basis, Alaska and The U. S. Offshore businesses generated EBITDA of $20,500,000 in the first quarter.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Parker Wellbore contributed approximately $800,000 to this total. Second quarter EBITDA from these businesses should be approximately $26,000,000 including an expected $5,300,000 contribution from Parker. Rig count is expected to increase to nine rigs, including the contribution from the Parker acquisition. EBITDA from our International segment at 115,500,000 increased by 3,500,000.0 or 3.1% sequentially. This improvement was in a slightly higher average rig count of 85, including twenty days of contribution from Parker Rigs.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

The increase reflected an additional deployment in Saudi Arabia and strong results in other international markets. Daily gross margin was approximately $17,400 a $734 increase. Broad operational improvement drove this result. For the second quarter, we expect improved EBITDA driven by deployments in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The eleventh Saudi Arabia newbuild rig commenced operations earlier this month, and the twelfth newbuild is expected to start later this quarter.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

In Kuwait, Three rigs are returning to service and are forecast to be progressively deployed during the quarter. As mentioned before, Russia, UAE, PNG and Colombia will decrease their rig count by a combined five rigs on the average. We forecast average daily gross margin to increase to $17,700 in the second quarter. Average rig count should range between eighty five and eighty six rigs, including two Parker rigs in Kazakhstan. Drilling Solutions delivered EBITDA of $40,900,000 in the first quarter, up 7,000,000 These results include a $9,600,000 contribution from Parker Wellborn.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Without Parker, our NDS business fell by 7.7%, mainly driven by a decreased rig count in the Lower 48. Our NDS segment comprised 16% of the total EBITDA from operations. Gross margin for this segment continues to be strong, coming in at a healthy 53% this quarter, including the contribution from Parker. For the second quarter, we expect NDS EBITDA of approximately $75,000,000 supported by an increased Lower 48 rig count and by expansion in international markets. We expect continued international growth in our performance software, rig cloud and managed pressure drilling offerings, as well as casing running profitability improvement in The U.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

S. Additionally, the Parker Wellbore acquisition will contribute a full quarter of EBITDA, or about 43,000,000 to our NDS results. RIG Technologies delivered EBITDA of $5,600,000 in the first quarter, down sequentially from 9 point two million Second quarter EBITDA for RIPTIC should be similar to the first quarter. As a result of the large annual payments that normally fall in the first quarter and a heavier interest payment, the beginning of the year normally consumes cash. Nonetheless, our adjusted free cash flow for the first quarter was somewhat better than the 80,000,000 to $90,000,000 free cash consumption we expected.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Our Nabors business, excluding Parker, consumed approximately $61,000,000 in free cash flow. Planet cash balances fell by only $2,000,000 as some of the newbuild CapEx milestones were delayed into the second quarter. Planet did pay roughly $47,500,000 in newbuild CapEx during the first quarter. Excluding Parker, CapEx for the quarter was some $70,000,000 below expectations, but collections were $32,000,000 below our forecast. Although we collected $20,000,000 in Mexico during the quarter, we're still $20,000,000 below our target.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

We currently expect another large payment from our customer during the quarter. Collections in The US were also sluggish. In the first quarter, we incurred approximately $14,000,000 in costs related to the Parker transaction, including legal fees and severance costs. We have made significant progress on capturing our planned synergies from the acquisition. The Parker business consumed free cash of about $10,000,000 post closing.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

This mainly included $5,000,000 in accrued interest that was prepaid on the redemption of the Parker terminal and $6,000,000 in capital expenditures. CapEx for the first quarter was $144,000,000 excluding Parker, compared to $241,000,000 in the prior quarter. This includes $47,500,000 for the San program. Excluding Parker, we maintain our target for twenty twenty five capital expenditures in a range between $710,000,000 and $720,000,000 including San Anubro CapEx of approximately $360,000,000 In addition to these legacy expenditures, we expect Parker CapEx of $60,000,000 For the second quarter, we are currently targeting capital expenditures of approximately $230,000,000 including Parker Wilbur CapEx of $35,000,000 At closing, we took on Parker's gross debt of 178,000,000 We have since retired that high interest rate obligation by drawing on our revolving credit facility, resulting in immediate interest savings. Our plan is to refinance this debt with a new term loan.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

We have launched this transaction and have received positive feedback from several participating banks. At this point, we maintain our annual guidance for both our Nabors legacy business and for the newly acquired Parker portfolio. We expect Parker to generate approximately $150,000,000 of EBITDA during the full year of 2025. About $130,000,000 of this EBITDA will be part of Nabors' consolidated results for 2025, as $20,000,000 was realized before closing. In addition, we expect to capture approximately $40,000,000 of synergy gains in Nabors twenty twenty five consolidated results.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Our targeted synergy savings in the fourth quarter are approximately $15,000,000 which translates into at least $60,000,000 in synergy savings for 2026. With that, I will turn

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

the call to Tony for his concluding remarks.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Thank you, William. I will finish this morning with a few points. On our last earnings call, I concluded with remarks on industry volatility. I mentioned our objective is to execute through short term disruptions while keeping neighbors poised to thrive in the future.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

We have constructed a strong portfolio of diversified businesses reaching major energy markets around the globe. This structure enables us to capitalize on opportunities across markets. Our international rig additions already in hand inform our outlook. With those, we have the capability to offset challenges in other markets. I believe we have the right strategy in place, both for today's environment and for the future.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

I look forward to reporting our progress. Thank you for your time this morning. We'll now take your questions.

Operator

We'll now begin the question and answer session. The first question is from Waqar Syed with ATB Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Waqar Syed
MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets

Thank you for taking my question.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Good morning.

Waqar Syed
MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets

The question is on Sanath. Have you started accruing any debt in that JV right now? No, not yet?

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

No, and we don't plan to for now, Waqar. There's no need.

Waqar Syed
MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets

Okay. And secondly, do you know if Saudi Aramco is finished with the releases or you expect there's still some more to come this quarter?

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

So let's back up a little bit. So in terms of what's happened and let me give you just a thumbnail where we are right now. So you had last year, you had on the offshore, you had 32 rigs suspended and one in this quarter on offshore. And on land, last year you had 31 and this quarter you had eight. So that's 39 total.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Now, you also have to bear in mind that on the offshore, there were some additions, only three. But on land, last year there were 21 additions and seven additions in the first quarter, that's 28. So the net result of delta change was 11 rigs on land. And obviously, all this activities on the oil in terms of the reductions. And I think what's underappreciated is that is the amount of condensate Aramco is generating on their gas production.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

And that's driving some of this reassessment things in terms of the numbers in addition to the sort of global oil demand issues. So that's where it sits now. And obviously, in this environment, there's everyone has contingency plans, obviously, Rankinville has contingency plans. If things drop, there will be more suspensions, but they haven't called on them yet, given where things are still. So everybody's in a wait and see attitude.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

And as we said, with respect to Sanit ourselves, we think we're well positioned because number one, our existing rigs are basically in the gas play, super majority of that, and all our rigs are gas capable. So that's a real benefit we have compared to other people.

Waqar Syed
MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets

Great. Yes, that's a great answer. Then I see in your presentation you expect a restart of a rig in Mexico. Do you have an indication from Pemex that that's going to happen, or is that just your expectation?

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Yes, Pemex is keen to get that rig restarted. And obviously, as William talked about, we continue to have the dialogue with the customer about payment issues, so that remains an issue. But yes, their plans are still to restart that rig.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Well, currently it's in their schedule, and we believe it's gonna start because it's in their plan already. We obviously need to continue. We had some positive news in the first quarter. We did manage to collect roughly the same amount we invoiced, so we stayed in place. But we are working on another transaction now to get a larger payment in the second quarter.

Waqar Syed
MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets

Great. And Williams, you provide some good guidance on the tariffs. Which business segment gets hit the most with the tariffs? Is it rig technology or also drilling with the drill pipe and others items?

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

I don't think drill pipe is the biggest hit on our drilling business. It's more like spares, pumps, things like that, that over the years we have started to acquire from China, but we have alternate vendors. So the number you saw there is 10,000,000 to $20,000,000 That's a mitigated number. That's a number that we feel we can get down to if we get alternate vendors and we also change our logistics a little bit. Today, we're very centralized.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

A lot of the stuff coming even from China comes to The US First and then is distributed across our operations for efficiency reasons. That obviously would change in the scenario that we put in place, which was 145% tariffs for China. Both of the scenarios, the range of those scenarios that we said 10 to 20, assume 145% tariffs in China. Were that to change, that number will fall dramatically, course, because most of that tariff impact is coming from China.

Operator

The next question is from David Smith with Pickering. Please go ahead.

David Smith
Director at Pickering Energy Partners

Hey, good morning and thank you for taking my question.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Good morning.

David Smith
Director at Pickering Energy Partners

Agree that Synad stands out as a rare high return investment in the land rig space with exceptional long term visibility. And just given your deleveraging priorities, how do you think about the potential to accelerate the value realization from SanAd potentially via an IPO? And should we view that as one of the potential levers you could pull of market conditions deteriorate in the next year or two?

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

I think you can assume that that's paramount on both Aramco and our agenda item. It's the obvious path. When you look at valuations in The Middle East in particular, you notice there how the reward for the drillers is radically different than what it is here in terms of multiples. We think Seneca is the most attractive company in region. It could be in such a scenario.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Obviously, we have some preparatory work to be done in the meantime, And both parties are looking at that as an option, obviously. So it's pretty clear that that is one path to realize value and create enormous shareholder value. If you look at our last investor call slide deck, we put a pro form a valuation of neighbors in it. And in it there, do some of the parts analysis that you see there, an analysis for Sanid, assuming you can extract that kind of multiple and the uplift, of course, is enormous. And that of course is one of the long range potentials in the stock over the next two years to the extent that we can pull that off.

David Smith
Director at Pickering Energy Partners

Perfect, appreciate it. And the follow-up if I may. William, thank you for the detailed comments on the synergies expected from the Parker acquisition, including the $15,000,000 run rate for Q4. Can you give any color on what these additional synergy opportunities that you're seeing are in excess of the $35,000,000 that was originally guided when the acquisition was announced?

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

So obviously, when we gave the guidance initially, we did not have our hands on the company yet and a lot of the information was in a clean room, so we didn't have some of the data that later came when we assumed control of the company indicated that corporate cost reductions would be a bit higher and we had more overlap in particular areas of overhead costs that could be taken out as we integrate our operations. So that's where that mostly is coming from. There's other improvements in terms of real estate and other particular contracts that we also can get out of, and now we have more certainty of that. So those are the main components.

David Smith
Director at Pickering Energy Partners

Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question is from Arun Jayaram with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Arun Jayaram
Arun Jayaram
Analyst at JPMorgan Chase

Good morning. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Good morning. Really appreciate the deck that you put out in mid March, which you highlighted the inner workings around Sana. So that was really, really helpful.

Arun Jayaram
Arun Jayaram
Analyst at JPMorgan Chase

Tony, I want to get your perspective. You have obviously 15 new builds thus far under the 50 rig award, which have been either in the field or under construction. What's your sense on the timing of the next five new build origin? I just wanted to confirm that you're still on track for over $300,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA from Sun on for 2025.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Yes. There's been no change in schedule. And as we've said in the prepared remarks, the next group is working its way through the system right now. So right now, we haven't seen any rethinking or backtracking on the new build program at all. Aramco has been pretty clear about it.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

And obviously, we're following their lead. And I can never say never, but as far as we know right now, there's been no change in schedule at all.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

So initially, Arun, just to give a little bit more color, we have discussions with Aramco on what their needs are, which are heavily oriented towards natural gas right now. And once that is determined, then we order the rig from the local provider based on an award. So the award comes first and then we order to make appeal for the rig and then we start building the rig. So that's how it works. If you look at the last year and a half, where Tony was talking about the suspensions and additions, we have had three rigs suspended and mainly oil type rigs and smaller rigs.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

And we've added six newbuilds for Sanat. So Nay versus net plus three over that period.

Arun Jayaram
Arun Jayaram
Analyst at JPMorgan Chase

Understood. Great. And my follow-up is a bit of a housekeeping question. In the slide deck, you guys highlighted how and this is on Slide 25 just for reference. You gave us pretty detailed EBITDA outlook for 2Q by segment.

Arun Jayaram
Arun Jayaram
Analyst at JPMorgan Chase

Could you give us a sense of what the corporate line item could look like in 2Q with the full quarter of contribution from Parker. I believe the previous guide was that you had in the March deck was about $40,000,000 40 8 million dollars in annual corporate cost for Parker, but I know there's some synergy capture. Just trying to get what a good corporate run rate would be for the second quarter.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

I think for the second quarter, of course, we will not have captured the full synergies so that the Parker contribution should increase throughout the remainder of the year. I think we've given sufficient guidance to construct what the EBITDA would be. And obviously, it'll be a very large increase given the Parker full quarter contribution, but we also think the legacy business will increase somewhat as well. And I think the Parker contribution as a whole for the company, though, we gave you some components, but I think the EBITDA for Parker alone should be in the mid-40s for the Okay.

Arun Jayaram
Arun Jayaram
Analyst at JPMorgan Chase

Great. Thanks a lot, William.

Operator

The next question is from Keith Mackey with RBC. Please go ahead.

Keith Mackey
Keith Mackey
Director - Global Equity Research, Oil & Gas Services at RBC Capital Markets

Hey, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Hey, Hey, Hey, just wanted to start out on the survey that you talked about of your 14 or 14 customers with the rig count going down 4% through the end of the year. Just curious if on the timing on that, was that after the impact of the was that after the tariff announcements or during or before? And so therefore, do you think that that impact would be reflected in that 4%? Or is there likely some additional thinking that needs to be done based on that announcement on April 2?

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Yes, it was after. So was after. So question is, does any of that get rethought? If the things reverse itself, obviously, it is one outstanding issue. Or the other way, if things get worse, then does it get reassessed even more given that it happened right after the announcement, but it was after.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

So that was taken into account by people, which I think that in part reflects in the numbers that you heard about. The interesting thing for us is that if you look at our mix of customer, in the first quarter, we had a shift in activity. We entered the I think we entered the quarter at the year end at 60 4, and then we hit lower 58, and then we exited at 62. And that mix was a mix where we shifted part of our customer base from the large public and basically to privates a little bit. But even with that mix, if you look at our mix of customers, say, I think even relative to competitors, we're have a we're dominated by the large customers in basic mix, which I think does give us a little stability going forward because they tend to stick with it.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Although you can't make generalizations because some large independents in this market have aggressively moved to respond to things. So it's hard to get one generalization, but I would note we had a little bit of shift in the customer mix to privates, even with that, we're still dominated by the large publics.

Keith Mackey
Keith Mackey
Director - Global Equity Research, Oil & Gas Services at RBC Capital Markets

Makes sense. Thanks for the color. And just on the international side, guiding to margins well above 17 ks per day.

Keith Mackey
Keith Mackey
Director - Global Equity Research, Oil & Gas Services at RBC Capital Markets

Can you just talk to us

Keith Mackey
Keith Mackey
Director - Global Equity Research, Oil & Gas Services at RBC Capital Markets

a little bit more about the mix of the rigs you're adding in international versus the rigs that are going down in international? And are all of the, say, rigs you'd be adding accretive to your average margin, not just the San Ed rigs? Or maybe help us think through that a little bit so we can get a better sense of where the margin could ultimately go through

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

the year would be appreciated. I think directionally, there's no question that it should be accretive in the sense that the set of new builds obviously are much higher day rate margins than our average today. And even the Kuwait rigs, of course, are also higher. So in second quarter, for example, five of those rigs are decided newbuilds and three are Kuwait. So that right there, that should all be directionally accretive.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

In Latin America, it's somewhat accretive. I think it depends exactly on the type of rig. Rigs redeployed from The U. S. Down there are typically also going to be accretive.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

So the ones that are going down are Russia, basically were negative cash flow and zero EBITDA kind of so that's certainly going to be good for margins going forward on an average basis. Of the ones that are going down, the one that was meaningful was the one in Papua New Guinea. But on the other hand, we also have a Mexico rig coming up, is also high margin. So I think all in all, high margins for the rigs coming on and low margin for most of the rigs that are going down.

Keith Mackey
Keith Mackey
Director - Global Equity Research, Oil & Gas Services at RBC Capital Markets

Got it. And one more if I could sneak it in just on the Sanad new build timing from say award to delivery or award to when they start drilling. What roughly is that timing now? Like how long would it take if you got an award say today to a rig built in in the field?

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

About one year from award to delivery.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

And by the way, we think over the next couple months, we'll hit the POs, the awards and consequently order the rigs.

Keith Mackey
Keith Mackey
Director - Global Equity Research, Oil & Gas Services at RBC Capital Markets

Got it. Okay. Thanks very much.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

I'll just qualify that though. It takes one year from award to delivery. But obviously, we do order the rigs for deliveries that are a little bit phased. So we don't have all five rigs arriving on the same day. That would be not manageable in terms of bringing five rigs up at the same time.

Operator

The next question is from Jeff LeBlanc with TPH. Please go ahead.

Jeff LeBlanc
Director - Equity Research at TPH&Co

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

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Sure.

Jeff LeBlanc
Director - Equity Research at TPH&Co

could talk about Quail's exposure to steel tariffs and how any tariffs are considered in the outlook for Quail and then Parker more broadly. Thank you.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Yeah. I think there's going to be some impact, but we think the impact with logistics, as we refer to in terms of our sourcing capabilities, as well as customer negotiations, it should be a limited impact on quail. And know NOV's comments about the tariffs in terms of their ability to deal with it. So they're obviously one supplier, not our only one. And some of the stuff has already been preplanned.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

So I think all in all, we think between customer responses and the other logistics aspects, can handle it pretty well.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

By the way, the majority is not coming from China. We also are getting some deliveries from Europe and some from The US. The part that's from China needs to be mitigated and obviously conversations with clients will be very important in getting that part mitigated.

Jeff LeBlanc
Director - Equity Research at TPH&Co

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

Operator

And the final question is from John Daniel with Daniel Energy Partners. Please go ahead.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Good morning,

John Daniel
Founder & CEO at Daniel Energy Partners

Good morning, guys. Thanks for including me. I just have two quick ones. First, Tony, if the tariff conundrum persists, would you expect to see any pushback from international operators on US service providers?

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

No. Okay.

John Daniel
Founder & CEO at Daniel Energy Partners

Does that end it?

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

I mean, I think the yeah, I think the of multi directional transfers of stuff, I think mitigates everything in the international And

John Daniel
Founder & CEO at Daniel Energy Partners

then when you all did this survey

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

It's me and John that we're gonna have a negative change for US providers because the clients are upset at The US or did you mean cost wise?

John Daniel
Founder & CEO at Daniel Energy Partners

I'm just saying that they're pissed off at our policies and they wanna push back on our industry, that's all.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

No, I don't think so. We have a lot of other problems in the thing for people to push back on. I don't think translating that one problem to all the other jurisdictions is something that is happening right now.

John Daniel
Founder & CEO at Daniel Energy Partners

Fair enough, I was just curious. The second one, when you all did the survey this quarter, would you read positively or negatively surprised by the responses?

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

I was actually positively surprised in the sense that with all the negativity out there, I was looking to see numbers, especially given the timing that was going be falling off the cliff,

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

it would be falling off

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

the cliff, but it wasn't, which that's why I gave you some comments about our customer base as well. But yeah, I think from my own personal point of view, I don't know what speaking to

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

the other operating guys, what they all thought,

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

but from my own personal point of view, I was more pleasantly surprised because I thought given what happened right after we did this thing that panic would have been set in, but it had not happened yet. So whether that, again, it's a delayed reaction at work, I can't tell you. Obviously, we're breaching $60 today. Say it's not the kind of call day I want to have this kind of conference call on. But, know, leaving those things aside, I think I

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

was positively impacted. And by the way, you know, I was even more positively impressed by the fact that our customer base tends to be a little bit skewed. We have a lot of majors and big guys, which are some of the guys have been cutting because of the consolidation. And that number seems really mitigated. But more impressive to me is what the team has done.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Because in the first quarter, we saw a lot of that as well, right? But they have managed to replace the rigs with other clients that are not necessarily in our survey. And there's been some growth in other clients that have not been traditional clients for us over the past year or so. And we've gained some ground with those clients to the point that our rig count went up quite a bit from our trough in the first quarter to where we're standing today.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

And we are at 64 today.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

So we just got an email.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Yeah, so we just hit 64.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

But like I said, all in the context of what's happening in the world today. So, there's absolutely no guarantees about rig count, given what's happening in the world, that's for sure.

John Daniel
Founder & CEO at Daniel Energy Partners

Yeah, totally get it. Right, hey guys, thanks for including me.

Anthony Petrello
Anthony Petrello
Chairman, President & CEO at Nabors Industries

Thank you, John.

William Restrepo
William Restrepo
Chief Financial Officer at Nabors Industries

Thanks, John.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Conroy for any closing remarks.

William Conroy
William Conroy
Vice President of Corporate Development & Investor Relations at Nabors Industries

Thank you everyone for joining us today. If you care to follow-up, please reach out to us. Galen, with that, we will conclude the call.

Operator

Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • William Conroy
      William Conroy
      Vice President of Corporate Development & Investor Relations
    • Anthony Petrello
      Anthony Petrello
      Chairman, President & CEO
    • William Restrepo
      William Restrepo
      Chief Financial Officer
Analysts

Key Takeaways

  • The Parker Wellborn acquisition closed on March 11, with integration progressing to capture $40 million of 2025 cost synergies and a Q4 run-rate of $15 million.
  • Q1 consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $206.3 million, down 6.5% sequentially, reflecting high churn and inefficiencies in the US Lower 48 fleet that eroded daily margins despite steady revenue per day.
  • International drilling outperformed, led by SANAD’s 10th new-build rig start-up in Saudi Arabia and plans to deploy 10 additional rigs across the Middle East and Latin America through the rest of 2025.
  • Operations in Russia were suspended due to US sanctions and marginal returns, and rigs in Papua New Guinea and the UAE exited after contract completion, partially offset by reactivations in Colombia and new work in Kuwait.
  • For Q2, Nabors forecasts adding two Saudi Arabia and three Kuwait rigs, growing its Lower 48 average rig count to 63–64 with daily margins of ~$14,100, while investing ~$230 million in capital expenditures.
A.I. generated. May contain errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Nabors Industries Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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