Seadrill Limited (NYSE:SDRL) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Simon Johnson: Hey, Fredrik, it’s Simon. Look, it’s a little bit of both. As we said in the prepared remarks, we’ve had a lot of interest. Frankly, we had strong expectations about how the jack-up market will continue to develop through time. And the opposite in front of us is to simply match those expectations. So it takes time to get deals done. We know that. The market for jack-up assets has lots of upside, we believe. And as we said, we’re not in a hurry. We’re not going to sell for a stale price. So we’re not in hurry and we believe that market will continue to develop through time. So it’s an informal process we’re running. And we’ll continue to review offers as we receive them.

Fredrik Stene: All right. Thanks. Turning to some of your comments about T&C’s in the contracts that day rates are one thing, but clearly, total economics and whatever gets you the most cash is what should matter the most, even though the stock market might look more on headline rates than anything else. You also said that Q4 would be impacted by higher personnel costs. So I was wondering, first, are you able to give any indications on how you see costs for people and equipment developing over the next year and maybe even two years? And as you’re working on these other T&C’s that relates to pass-through mechanisms for escalation mechanisms for costs. How much do you think you’re able to pass on to your customers of that?

Leif Nelson: Yeah. Fredrik, this is Leif. I’ll take one of your questions regarding the people and cost of services. I’ll pass over to Samir on the T&C’s. I mean, generally speaking, globally, we’re seeing inflationary pressures on the labor side in the high single digits, driven predominantly across Brazil, Angola, US, Gulf of Mexico. Some of the pressure is coming from the ramp-up and activity in our own industry, but also heavy industry elsewhere is attracting people to their services. And that’s putting inflationary pressures to retain and maintain our workforce. I think with that, I’ll pass over to Samir on the other T&C’s.

Samir Ali: Yes. So on inflationary pressures, our goal is always to do 100% pass-through. I’m going to go with that’s a goal, and that’s the most desirable outcome. But where we land varies clients-to-clients and kind of their understanding, but it also varies market-to-market. So for us, it’s also looking at the contract duration and our ability to reprice and pass some of those cost is something for us, we want to make sure we’re maintaining that margin that we signed up for when we originally signed that contract.

Fredrik Stene: Perfect. Thanks. Final one for me, just a clarification on the Neptune contract. I think you said in the fleet status report that there’s been some variations to the well schedule on the existing term. And I’m sorry if I missed this initially, but are you able to give any indication how long this is — sorry, the extension is, or if the rate on the extension is comparable to what you’re earning on the current contract, because initially it seemed to be a bit lower on what I had to work there?

Samir Ali: The extension was approximately six months.

Fredrik Stene: Perfect. Thanks. That’s all for me.

Samir Ali: Thanks Fredrik.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Hamed Khorsand from BWS Financial. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Vahid Khorsand: Good morning. This is actually Vahid calling in for Hamed. A question on the contract extension and if that’s going to have any impact on the SPS time line?

Simon Johnson: So which rig — you know what, that’s a good question, and I don’t have an answer to that. I’m just asking the question for halves. No, I don’t think it will have an effect on the SPS schedule.

Grant Creed: We had some discretion as to when we conduct these SPSs ahead. So typically, there’s a window within which we must perform it. We do have the opportunity to get a dispensation from our classification society in certain cases to extend that. The same applies with regulatory work that we have to do to some extent. So we try to do it to minimize the inconvenience and our operators work programs and also obviously to opportunistically — opportunistically schedule it in relation to what else we have going on within the organization. So they shouldn’t be seen as like firm anniversary dates, there’s some flexibility there isn’t there left.

Simon Johnson: Yes. Agreed. There’s — we have windows that work with and the flexibility to work within the well scheduled and contract in dates.

Vahid Khorsand: That was the question. Thank you. And thanks for the flexibility and not making me look stupid that know which rig to ask for. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Truls Olsen from Fearnley Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Truls Olsen: Thank you. Hi, Simon and hi, team. Thank you for taking my call. You’ve added comments on a couple of rigs. Let me just throw one additional rig in there, and that’s the West Phoenix now coming off contract, I think is in August next year, SPS and some projects-related costs, probably bid that into the net in deep I think it’s called. It’s been a bit back and forth around that projects and probably other things going around that. Any upstate relating to that rig and what’s the plan? Thanks.

Simon Johnson: Sure. So we’re not going to speak to any specific tenders. But what I will say is, she does roll off contract later next year. We do have some SPS and some upgrades to do to that rig. And we’re actively marketing her for opportunities in Norway and other markets as well, and we remain cautiously optimistic.

Truls Olsen: Okay. Thank you.

Simon Johnson: Thanks, Truls.

Operator: We have no further questions. This will conclude today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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