Precision Drilling Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Precision Drilling EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.76
• Consensus EPS: $1.40
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.64
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Precision Drilling Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Precision Drilling Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/12/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 13, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 1:00PM ET

Precision Drilling (NYSE:PDS), a drilling company, provides onshore drilling, completion, and production services to exploration and production companies in the oil and natural gas and geothermal industries in North America and the Middle East. The company operates through Contract Drilling Services and Completion and Production Services segments. The Contract Drilling Services segment offers onshore well drilling services to exploration and production companies in the geothermal, oil and natural gas industry. This segment offers services include land and turnkey drilling; and procurement and distribution of oilfield supplies, as well as manufacture and repair of drilling and service rig equipment. In addition, it operates land drilling rigs in Canada, the United States, and the Middle East, as well as operates AlphaAutomation, AlphaApps, and AlphaAnalytics data services. The company offers EverGreen suite of environmental solutions comprising EverGreenMonitoring, EverGreenEnergy, and EverGreen Fuel Cell. The Completion and Production Services segment provides service rigs for well completion, workover, abandonment, maintenance, and re-entry preparation services; equipment rentals; and camp and catering services to oil and natural gas exploration and production companies. This segment operates well completion and workover service rigs in Canada and the United States. Precision Drilling Corporation was founded in 1951 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

Precision Drilling Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Precision Drilling Corporation twenty twenty four Fourth Quarter and End of Year Results Conference Call and Webcast. I would now like to turn the conference over to Levon Zunonic, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Lavonne Zdunich, Vice President of Investor Relations at Precision Drilling]

Thank you, Kevin. Welcome to Precision Drilling's fourth quarter and year end conference call and webcast. Today, I'm joined by Kevin Nephew, Precision's President and CEO and Carrie Ford, our CFO. Yesterday, we reported our fourth quarter results, concluding another year of strong cash flow and profitability. In our news release, we revealed our 2025 strategic priorities that the whole Precision team is aligned with.

[Lavonne Zdunich, Vice President of Investor Relations at Precision Drilling]

Our twenty twenty five priorities remain focused on generating shareholder value by maximizing free cash flow through disciplined capital deployment and strict cost management, enhancing shareholder returns through further debt reduction and increased share repurchases and growing revenue in existing service lines. Before I turn the call over to Kevin and Kerry, I would like to remind our listeners that some comments today will refer to non IFRS financial measures and include forward looking statements, which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. For more information on financial measures, forward looking statements and risk factors, please refer to our news release and other regulatory filings available on SEDAR and EDGAR. As a reminder, we express our financial results in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. With that, I'll turn it over to Carey.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

Thanks, Levon, and good afternoon. Precision's twenty twenty four annual financial results demonstrated our resilient business model and ability to meet our financial commitments despite lower industry activity in certain core markets. Before detailing our 2024 financial results, I will recap Precision's twenty twenty four strategic priorities and our performance against each. Number one, concentrate organizational efforts on leveraging our scale and generating free cash flow. We generated cash provided by operations of $482,000,000 reached near full utilization on our Canadian Super Series rigs, increased year over year activity in international drilling, Canada drilling and well servicing by 37%, twelve % and twenty six % respectively.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

We also achieved full synergies in our CWC acquisition. Number two, reduce debt by $150,000,000 and $200,000,000 and allocate 25% to 35% of free cash flow before debt repayment to share repurchases. We've reached the midpoint of both of these targets and lowered our net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio. And number three, continue to deliver operational excellence and strengthen our competitive position and extend market penetration of our Alpha and Evergreen products. During the year, we nearly doubled our Evergreen revenue year over year and added two new major product offerings on our super single rigs, which would led LED mass lighting and hydrogen combustion catalyst systems.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

We also invested $52,000,000 into our fleet and grew market share year over year in Canada. I will now cover annual financial highlights, which include revenue of $1,900,000,000 essentially flat year over year, adjusted EBITDA of $521,000,000 15 percent decrease year over year, funds from operation of $463,000,000 a 13% decrease, and cash from operations of $482,000,000 similar to prior year. We achieved debt reduction of $176,000,000 and $75,000,000 of share repurchases, representing 4% of our outstanding shares and generated positive earnings per share every quarter during 2024 and for the past ten consecutive quarters. Moving on to fourth quarter results. Our fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA of $121,000,000 included a share based compensation charge of $15,000,000 and non recurring charges of $8,000,000 Non recurring charges included $4,000,000 of rig reactivations and $4,000,000 of severance inventory write downs and year end accrual cleanups.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

Absent these charges, adjusted EBITDA would have been $144,000,000 In The U. S. Drilling activity for Precision averaged 34 rigs in Q4, a decrease of one rig from Q3. Daily operating margins in the quarter absent impacts of IPC and Turnkey were USD 9,165, just shy of our guidance of USD $9,517.19 below Q3 levels. For Q1, we expect normalized margins to range between USD 8,500 and USD 9,000.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

The expected margin decrease is due to slightly lower day rates and higher overhead cost spread over fewer activity days compared to Q4. In Canada, drilling activity for Precision averaged 65 rigs, an increase of one rig from Q4 twenty twenty four. Daily operating margins in the quarter were $14,559 an increase of approximately $2,131 from Q3 twenty twenty four and slightly below our guidance of $15,000 per day. Q4 margins included approximately $4,000,000 or just over $500 per day in rig reactivation costs. Absent these costs margin performance would have exceeded guidance.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

For Q1, we expect margins to remain consistent with Q4 at $14,500 to $15,000 per day. Compared to Q1 twenty twenty four, margins are down approximately $1,000 per day and this is due to rig mix and planned rig reactivations versus zero rig reactivations last year. Internationally, precision drilling activity in the quarter averaged eight rigs and average day rates were USD 49,636 in line with the prior year. We expect 2025 activity to be consistent with 2024 levels. In our C and P segment, adjusted EBITDA this quarter was $16,000,000 a $4,000,000 increase from the prior year quarter.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

Adjusted EBITDA was positively impacted by a 6% increase in well service hours reflecting a full quarter with the CWC service rigs. We expect results to improve in Q1 with increased rates, activity and rental performance. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $59,000,000 and for the year they were $217,000,000 Due to timing of equipment deliveries, deliveries of our capital expenditures were slightly higher than our guidance of $210,000,000 Our 2025 capital plan of $225,000,000 is comprised of $175,000,000 for sustaining and infrastructure and $50,000,000 for upgrades and expansion. This plan will increase or decrease based on activity levels and contracted customer upgrades. Moving to our contract book, as of February 12, we had an average of 43 contracts in hand for the first quarter and an average of 37 contracts for the full year 2025.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

Based on customer conversations for Super Triple and upgraded Super Single rigs, we expect the number of Canadian contracts to increase over the coming quarters. Moving to the balance sheet. As of December 31, our long term debt position net of cash was $748,000,000 and our total liquidity position was approximately $600,000,000 excluding letters of credit. Our net debt to trailing twelve month EBITDA ratio is approximately 1.4 times and our average cost of debt is 6.9%. For 2025, it is clear that we are nearing our long term capital structure target of below one times leverage and we continue to balance our cash liquidity, debt maturities, total debt and leverage ratios while optimizing our cost of capital.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

This year, we plan to reduce debt by at least 100,000,000 and have increased our long term debt reduction goal from $600,000,000 to $700,000,000 between 2022 and 2027. As of 12/31/2024, we have reduced debt by $435,000,000 for this period and now have an additional $265,000,000 reduction over the next three years to achieve our goal. Moving on to guidance for 2025, we expect depreciation of $300,000,000 cash and interest expense of $65,000,000 effective tax rate of 25 to 30% with low cash taxes, SG and A before share based comp expense of $100,000,000 share based comp expense of $25,000,000 to $35,000,000 with a share price range of $80 to $100 assuming a one times multiplier. Please note that this is a preliminary estimate and we will provide updated guidance on our Q1 call following the settlement of past grants and issuance of new grants later this quarter. That concludes my prepared comments.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

I'll now turn the call over to Kevin.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Thank you, Gary. So I will speak to our outlook for 2025 and I'll provide some additional perspectives on Precision's strategic priorities, which Levon outlined earlier. Let me start with our strategic priorities as this is core to how we execute the Precision. First, we believe this is key messaging for Precision's investors. We're laying out exactly what we intend to accomplish and that our investors can count on us to deliver against those commitments.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

We've been providing this guidance in meeting or exceeding our targets for over nine years. We believe this important messaging provides our investors with that clear line of sight as to how we'll continue to create value and what we can be held accountable for. Internally, the strategic priorities are essential driver of the precision culture. From these annual priorities, we build out the individual objectives for each leader in the organization. Those individual objectives are then cascaded down throughout the full organization in order that virtually every employee understands where they fit and how their work impacts shareholder value.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

This organization wide alignment model ensures that every element of our business that we can control is tightly monitored, measured and then controlled and that we can deliver every result we commit to. For most of the past decade, our primary strategy has been creating shareholder value by reducing debt and converting enterprise value from debt to equity. To support this strategy, we've crafted annual priorities intended to optimize the value of our services, seek returns on rig investments and ultimately maximize free cash flow. And for the past decade, this free cash flow has been primarily prioritized towards debt reduction. Using this strategic process, we retired over $1,400,000,000 in debt, plus back over $150,000,000 of stock.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

We fully commercialized our alpha automation suite. We introduced and commercialized our evergreen solutions. We've continued to invest in rig upgrades when supported by customer contracts. We have integrated two consolidating acquisitions and grown our Canadian drilling well service market share. We've reloaded our international business with long term contracts and steady predictable cash flow.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Our U. S. Segments have been a little more challenging. I'll come to that in a few moments. Now, Kerry mentioned that we're nearing our target long term capital structure.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

And with that, we've been slowly transitioning our strategy, first increasing the allocation of cash to share buybacks and now throttling down our pace of debt reduction. Embedded in this cash allocation shift is creating the financial flexibility to consider more growth focused investments such as additional fleet upgrades and exploring potential tuck in style acquisitions. Now with that, let me come back to our U. S. Drilling segment where I commented earlier, this has been a little more challenging for us.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

The U. S. Land market in general has been in the lading for the last twenty four months, led in 2023 with gas directed activities declining and in 2024 with drilling efficiencies among many other factors negatively impacting oil directed activity. When this release began, Precision's market share was underpinned by strong customer relationships and market positions in both the Haynesville and the Marcellus. We've reinforced that very favorable customer position over the past couple of years and very encouraged by the gas opportunities we see looking forward.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

I will go to the limb and predict the gas drilling activity will end 2025 at a higher level than we've seen in the last several quarters. But I believe Precision is well positioned to gain share and grow utilization in these areas. Oil activity on the other hand appears to remain constrained by operator capital discipline, commodity price volatility, operator consolidation and some continued efficiency impacts. I am not going up a limb to predict an increase in oil activity. On the contrary, flat feels like the right call in oil activity.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Now that said, rig efficiency continues to be an important competitive differentiator and this presents an opportunity for Precision. With this market backdrop, I believe that Precision has growth opportunities and to the end, we've made some adjustments within our U. S. Team. Late last year, we restructured our operations group to flatten up the management structure and to improve our focus on customer needs, specifically leveraging our success in the gas basins for the oil focused customers.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

We also enhanced our sales organization with additional sales and marketing expertise to better communicate the efficiencies we can deliver with our alpha automated super triple rigs and the cost savings our Evergreen products deliver along with the overall safety and efficiency our highly skilled crews provide. As noted in our capital plans, we've earmarked $30,000,000 for U. S. Rig upgrades, which I expect will largely be focused on long reach horizontal capability enhancements. We believe our intense focus on The U.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

S. Will improve our positioning in oil while ensuring we continue to capture the new rig opportunities, which seem to be emerging in gas. To close the loop on our strategic priorities, this U. S. Focused initiative is captured in our third priority to grow existing revenue and existing service lines through contracted upgrades, optimized pricing, utilization and opportunistic tuck in acquisitions.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

To touch on the acquisition topic for a moment, we believe the drive to efficiency across the drilling industry is a technology and scale based exercise. We believe this will marginalize the rigs that don't have the technology or the scale to deliver the operating and cost efficiency of the oil and gas operators demand. We believe that industry consolidation is an opportunity and we'll have the financial capability to pursue tuck in deals, which is important to us, but only if we're going to achieve the appropriate value in these transactions. Turning to Canada, the outlook remains very good indeed. Now there has been some short term concern mainly focused on the potential of U.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

S. Tariffs on Canadian energy. The more recent clarity around potentially reduced tariffs for energy versus other Canadian exports has moderated that concern. And the delay in implementation of the tariffs also seems to encourage further Canadian to U. S.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Negotiations aimed at exempting energy entirely, which I believe benefits everyone. Looking back at the fourth quarter, Canadian drilling activity tailed off more than we expected for the traditional Christmas break and we believe this was due primarily to bunch of exhaustion. We were encouraged by how quickly customers activated our rigs immediately following Christmas as we rebounded to 98 rigs by January sorry, I'll repeat that. We rebounded to 79 rigs by January 8, then to 81 just a few days later. And this level has held firm through today.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Breakup will be weather driven, not budget constrained. We have good customer indications that activity during breakup will exceed last year's record level and should have grown 50 rigs operating straight through the spring breakup period. Second half activity should also benefit from increased customer demand once LNG Canada fully starts up. It is likely that we'll be upgrading more super singles to pad systems as the efficiency gains these rigs deliver allow us to capture a larger portion of the value we create. As Kerry noted in his comments, we activated three rigs in December and we are activating another super single during the first quarter that should be studied for a customer in May.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

In our Canadian Well Servicing segment, we also experienced a steeper than expected slowdown over Christmas. The winter activation ramp up was also slower than we experienced in our drilling segment. It seems that some of the tariff uncertainty slowed down customer decision making for workovers and abandonments. We have noticed an improvement in customer urgency and demand once the lower potential tariffs were clarified. Our active service rig count today is now hovering in the mid-90s similar to the activity level this time last year.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

As a side note, during the fourth quarter, we entered a joint venture with two First Nations groups of British Columbia. They invested along with Precision in several fully recertified service rigs rigs. Since the inception of this JV, the available rigs have been essentially fully utilized by Montney Operators looking to support First Nations communities. I'm excited about this opportunity for both Precision and our First Nations business partners and anxious to see this expand and perhaps more include more First Nations groups and additional assets. For those customers looking to support the local First Nations communities, this is an excellent avenue for all stakeholders.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Turning to our international business, oil activity looks to remain flat for the balance of 2025. We have not received any suspension requests in Saudi Arabia, but we do not believe we will. Now remember that we're relatively slow player in our market. Our grade operations should remain firm for this year and into next year with long term contracts in place. Now we have seen an influx of unconventional gas inquiries for multiple rigs in three different regions.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Most of these are looking to utilize North American style bad rigs and technology to pursue shale gas developments. I will intentionally remain very vague about this project as these projects as other drillers and some perhaps listening to this call will also be pursuing these inquiries. Now it's unlikely that any of these rigs would spud before year end as contract negotiations, equipment certifications and mobilization times preclude a rapid deployment. So I'll wrap up my comments by reaffirming that Precision's entire organization is aligned to deliver our strategic objectives, which are all aimed at increasing shareholder value. There should be no doubt that we believe we are turning the corner on nearly a decade of debt reduction as we're increasing our allocation of cash to shareholders and we are looking to invest in our business for targeted growth.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

I want to thank all Precision stakeholders to their patience through the volatility this industry experiences. I want to thank the employees of Precision for delivering on our 2024 commitments.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

And I know we are all looking forward

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

to repeating this again in 2025. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions.

[Operator]

Thank

[Operator]

Our first question comes from Aaron McNeal with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

[Aaron MacNeil, Director, Equity Research Analyst at TD Securities]

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Kevin, one of your competitors is guiding to lower U. S. Activity in Q1 and slightly lower margins.

[Aaron MacNeil, Director, Equity Research Analyst at TD Securities]

I know you mentioned that you've got 34 rigs earning revenue in The U. S. And 30 marked as active on the website. So I don't think I'm making a huge leap to assume here that there's a couple idle but contracted rigs in The U. S.

[Aaron MacNeil, Director, Equity Research Analyst at TD Securities]

And so I was just hoping you could speak to contract duration for those rigs and if you think you can sort of backfill that activity with new work.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Aaron, thanks for the question. Really key question kind of on our U. S. Strategy right now. So there's been an awful lot of churn in The U.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

S. And a lot of that in oil, a lot of these are very short term, well to well pad to pad type contracts. And that's going to continue through the next couple of quarters in The U. S. So I think there is downside risk.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Now I didn't talk about the changes we put in place to try and leverage our capabilities better in the oil based basins. I wouldn't tell you that I'm really thinking about the first couple of quarters of this year as being flat. But I think that we have we'll get traction both in gas and with some of our actions that should help us later in the year. But it's going to take a while. And there's I think there's downside risk.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

I don't think our contract book covers us in the first couple of quarters. But we've managed that churn pretty well over the past few months and expect us to manage it well going forward.

[Aaron MacNeil, Director, Equity Research Analyst at TD Securities]

Got you. Makes sense. I know I'm probably being too acute here, but at a recent energy conference, a few Haynesville Producers suggest that they wanted to see significantly higher gas prices before they put new rigs to work. And I can appreciate that the Haynesville isn't the only area where you might see an uptick in gas focus activity, but what assumptions are you sort of making that give you comfort that you'll see that activity growth in the back half of the year?

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Yes, Aaron, so I think I put the same narrative you've heard in that price range that customers are comfortable with ranges from kind of high 3s to mid 4s for non ex gas. We understand that. We've had a number of conversations with customers, both in the Marcellus and in the Haynesville. We'll have some churn in this quarter, but expect their rent counts in those areas will stay pretty firm, maybe move up a little bit. And I think we see opportunities right now that haven't been committed to yet, but could emerge in Q2 and Q3.

[Aaron MacNeil, Director, Equity Research Analyst at TD Securities]

Okay, great. Thanks, Kevin. I'll turn it back.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Kurt Hallead with Benchmark. Your line is open.

[Kurt Hallead, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

Hey, good morning, everybody. Thanks for the color and insights as always. I guess I just want to maybe kick off the Q and A on the Canadian front. So Kevin, you referenced still a very constructive outlook with respect to activity levels. However, coming back to Carey's comment about margins in the first quarter being down on a year on year basis.

[Kurt Hallead, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

How do we think that progresses throughout the course of the year? Is the first quarter going to be at a low point? Have you got some momentum there? What are some of the headwinds? Maybe kind of flush that out a little bit more for us or help us?

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Jerry, go ahead. Yes. Sure.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

Hey, Kurt. So I would say that on the margin forecast for Q1, it's a combination of two things. One, we have some rig reactivations that are negatively impacting margins just like we had in Q4. And we also have a little bit of rig mix that's slightly shallower than what we had last year in Q1. And that's kind of a result of the strength of the super single market.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

So the heavy oil market remains really strong. If we look at day rates by rig class and margin by rig class, we have not seen any degradation in pricing or margins. It's just that rig mix has been shifted a little bit more towards the super singles, which is causing that just a little bit of pressure on margins.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

I'd add to that and say that, Carl, I'd say that certainly on the non contracted rigs that will churn during the year in Canada, but I think stays really constant in activity. Our sales team is really focused on ensuring that we capture our fair share of the value. So I do expect there'll be some pricing traction as the year progresses. We certainly have an expectation that LNG Canada will increase rig demand, especially on fripples and that will add more pricing intention and give us more opportunity. So I think we're pretty optimistic on margins trending throughout the year.

[Kurt Hallead, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

All right, great. And then maybe on a follow-up, this question might be easy for you to punt Kevin, but we're all kind of flying blind here. So let's fly blind together. On the tariff front, right, you guys referenced that you made some purchases of drill pipe going into the fourth quarter in anticipation of some tariff dynamics. When you look at the potential business risk and business exposure, whether it be broader context of is this going to impact oil exports into The U.

[Kurt Hallead, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

S, is it going to impact any of the Canadian E and Ps, how they kind of approach the market? Again, you referenced buying some drill pipe in the 4Q. Did you buy enough drill pipe to last you through the full year? Again, let's flag line together on this, Kevin.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Yes. I think, Kirk, this is something we spent a lot of time on. We did a detailed deep dive for our board a few days ago to make sure they understand kind of what the levers are that we have. First thing I'd tell you is that, when the tariff discussion was kind of dropped from 25% down to 10%, there's kind of a huge side relief among the Canadian operating companies. So I think what that means is that the tariffs are far less impactful than large swings in WTI or large swings to Canadian exchange rate.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

And so far, what we've seen is that the tariff has actually caused the Canadian exchange rate to be more unfavorable to Canadian dollar, which is more favorable to our customers, so I mean product and oil. So a little bit of that tariff impact has been marginalized up by the exchange rate change. I still worry more about the larger macro impacts. We don't know what's going to happen with Russia. We don't know what's going to happen in The Middle East right now.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

A lot of uncertainty there. And I think those macro events could have more impact on activity than the tariff issue. But I think we'll have a little bit of friction in some of our costs if the maximum tariffs are exercised. We've got a very diverse supply chain and we've got, I think, ways to manage around the tariffs, internal manufacturing, bypassing some of the areas that are tariff stricken. So I mean, our conclusion with the board is that the macro risk that we always face every day in this business is still there and the tariff risk has been mitigated by the lower tariff levels are being brought forward.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

I'm not sure if that answers your question, but we're feeling pretty comfortable about things right now.

[Kurt Hallead, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

No, no. Everything is a moving target these days, but so I appreciate your insight. Thanks.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Sean Mitchell with Daniel Energy Partners. Your line is open.

[Sean Mitchell, Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

Hi guys. Good morning or good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to kind of poke around on the activity front. We've heard rumblings of some of the private guys starting to pick up rigs again more recently.

[Sean Mitchell, Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

And I think we understand, obviously, there's been a lot of M and A in the market on the larger E and Ps and some of those assets that get bought take a while to kind of figure out what they're going to sell, but you're starting to see some of that. Do you guys see any of that in the customer mix or in the conversations with some of the private guys on the E and P front looking to put stuff back to work? And is that offset by more public companies laying stuff down? Or kind of how should we think about it? Because I know I think the market is basically and you're in line with it is saying flat activity, especially for the oil market in 'twenty five.

[Sean Mitchell, Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

But I got to think at some point some of these private guys put rigs back to work and I'm just trying to see if you have any commentary on that.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Yes, Sean, if you follow the public data on Precision, you'll find that we have two rigs right now for the new private equity startup. So the short answer is yes, we do see some capital coming back into the E and P space. That's a good sign. I'm also encouraged by the recent IPO is a bad oil service IPO and LNG IPO, both performed quite well. So So it does seem like there's capital coming back in.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Private capital is usually kind of leading edge. IPO is kind of follow that. All of those seems to be a bit encouraging. There's no question talking to investors over the past, I'd say forty five days really since January, since the election actually, but in first part of this year. And our investors seem to feel better about investing in this political environment in The U.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

S. Than they did a year ago. So I think we're going to have a lot more people looking closer at energy, looking at closer to oil and gas, looking closer to oil and gas services. Certainly we're seeing it in just the investor mix we're getting at conferences. But going back to your original question, yes, private equity is coming into the space early and small and slow, but it's good indicator.

[Sean Mitchell, Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

Yes. And then maybe one more follow on on that front, just the activity as we think about '25 being kind of flattish, maybe there's some gas rig activity in the back of the year. But as you roll into '26, I guess my bigger, larger question would be, we've had 500 and I don't know, 65 rigs running in The U. S. Essentially for a while now.

[Sean Mitchell, Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

It seems like it's kind of flattish through this year, maybe up a little, maybe down a little. But if you roll into '26 and things, there's actually a call on rigs and crews. How do you think the industry will respond? Are some of the people that have been laid off, are they coming back? Or like will we have kind of a labor problem getting people back to work, I guess,

[Sean Mitchell, Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

is what I would say?

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Yes. So a couple of parts to your question there. First of all, I would tell you that if the rig count stays flat this year, I think the technology advanced drillers, there's probably four or five of us that fall in the bucket, probably have more rigs running and the less technology advanced or less scale based drillers probably have fewer rigs running. So I think there'll be a market share shift in a flat environment because our customers still want efficiency and want more and more efficiency.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

And you need alpha automation, you need large pad rigs that can drill multi well pads with sequential drilling. You need all of that to get the maximum efficiency. So I think that trend is going to continue throughout 2025. I would tell you that over the last, over this last cycle kind of post COVID, we've been quite surprised by the, bracity of our recruiting programs and how well that's worked for us. So we haven't seen a problem recruiting.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

It's tight labor market. We're getting lots of inquiries for jobs. We process lots of resumes and lots of applications. We sort through them, find the right guys and hire them. I don't think we'll be labor constrained.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

If there's a call on the rigs and the rig count goes up, I think that the larger scale based strollers will benefit the most because efficiency will matter in everybody's mind going forward.

[Sean Mitchell, Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

Got it. Thanks guys. Appreciate it.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Thank you.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Thanks, Sean.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Keith Mackey with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

[Keith Mackey, Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Hey, good morning, good afternoon. Just wanted to start on The U. S. Business. I know the market has been flat to down for a while and certainly with your rig mix being a little bit more gas weighted, you've kind of felt a bit more of a brunt of that.

[Keith Mackey, Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

But can you just talk a little bit more about what you're thinking on the tuck in front? I know certainly there's been challenges historically to getting deals done with looking at value per rig and things like that and there being a wide bid ask spread there. But has anything changed on that front as far as how you might think about how to evaluate tuck in or the rig I guess the market share mix of some of these private companies as it does feel like some of the public companies have been saying, here's our rig rate, you can take it or leave it and some of the private they've been going to the private companies who have been taking it. And so can we just talk a little bit more about how you're thinking around that end of the market?

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

Yes, Keith, I would say that the market for consolidation is still there. There are a number of potential targets that have been either softly marketed or formally marketed over the past few years. We think that most of those targets believe in the benefits of consolidation. And I think the highlight here from Kevin's prepared comments are really that our capital structure and balance sheet is in shape right now to where we can pursue a few more growth opportunities. We think we're in a pretty good position to effect one of those transactions.

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

But the challenge does remain the valuation. And I think we are hypersensitive on price if we were going to pursue consolidation has to be at the right price. And that's been, I think, the biggest impediment for some of the smaller drillers combining with the large drillers. But we do think that that would benefit the industry because as Kevin said that scale continues to be an important competitive advantage for the larger drillers.

[Keith Mackey, Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Yes, got it. And just on the $30,000,000 of upgrade CapEx that you're contemplating for this year, roughly how many rigs would that cover? And would you expect all of those to go to work in 2025? Or is this on a we'll spend it as needed basis?

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

For sure, we'll spend it as needed and we'll make sure we have direct line of sight to customer contracts like we always do. Depending on the scope of the upgrades, it's probably somewhere in the six to 10 rig range, looking at long reach horizontal, four mile lateral and the hook load capacity for that and the mud pump capacity for that. Keith, I'll expand a little bit though. I will say that when we built on our fleet of Super Triple rigs, we built these rigs with extended capabilities in mind. For us, equipping a rig to go from call it 750,000 pound bookload to 1,000,000 pound bookload is a modification to the rig.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

It's not a replacement of the mast. And we think that's a real spending advantage and capital advantage when it comes to increased capacity. On the mud pumps, going to a larger capacity mud pump is slide the old mud pump out, put the new mud pump and drive system in. Everything else in the rig stays as is. So the modular style of our rigs allows us to make these upgrades without affecting the entire rig, just effectively bolt on the change and move forward.

[Keith Mackey, Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Perfect. Thanks very much.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Thank you,

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Makar Siedh with ATB Capital Markets. Your line is open.

[Waqar Syed, MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets]

Thanks for taking my question. Kevin, on the international side, you have eight rigs working, but I think contract on one of the rigs expires in the second half. Is that a rig in Saudi or Kuwait? Could you enlighten that? And then what I know that you mentioned that you expect flattish eight rigs working through the year, but what's your confidence level that it stays at that eight level?

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Yes, I'm pretty confident it stays at eight level. We'll seek an extension, which is pretty common. And in the absence of extension, there are active bids right now that will be bid into. I'm quite confident that that high technology rig stays operating at a similar return in Kuwait.

[Waqar Syed, MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets]

Okay. And then closer to home in The U. S, you typically see some seasonality in rigs come down in the Rockies during the winter months. Have you seen that this year as well? And if so, how many rigs have been affected?

[Waqar Syed, MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets]

And when do you expect them to come back up again?

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Yes, we've kind of run between three and five rigs in the Northern Rockies and Wyoming that came into precision through the CWC acquisition primarily. And those are quite seasonal rigs and despite the fact that winterize, the operators only drill seasonally. So I expect some of those rigs come back in the spring once we get past the winter season.

[Waqar Syed, MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets]

So right now, just to clarify, are those three to five rigs all down or they are still some of them are working?

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Yes, two are down right now and those two likely come up when we get into spring.

[Waqar Syed, MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets]

Okay, great. And then is there a way to quantify the impact of FX change or inflation on your CapEx budget versus everything else in terms of more work?

[Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer at Precision Drilling]

So, Ocar, I think this year it was about $8,000,000 was the difference between kind of if you look at the maintenance capital year over year, a big cause of the increase has been the weaker Canadian dollar.

[Waqar Syed, MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets]

Okay, great. Well, thank you very much. That's all I have.

[Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Precision Drilling]

Thanks, Makar.

[Operator]

And I'm not showing any further questions at this time.

[Operator]

I'd like

[Operator]

to turn the call back over to Levon.

[Lavonne Zdunich, Vice President of Investor Relations at Precision Drilling]

Thanks, everyone, for attending Precision's conference

[Lavonne Zdunich, Vice President of Investor Relations at Precision Drilling]

call

[Lavonne Zdunich, Vice President of Investor Relations at Precision Drilling]

and webcast today. If you have further questions, you can reach out to myself in the Investor Relations department. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.

Participants

Executives

• Lavonne Zdunich, Vice President of Investor Relations
• Carey Ford, Chief Financial Officer
• Kevin Neveu, President and Chief Executive Officer

Analysts

• Aaron MacNeil, Director, Equity Research Analyst at TD Securities
• Kurt Hallead, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC
• Sean Mitchell, Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners
• Keith Mackey, Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets
• Waqar Syed, MD & Head of Research at ATB Capital Markets