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Magnus Vaaler

Thank you, Patrick. Total operating revenues increased by $21.5 million primarily due to a $22.7 million increase in day rate revenue compared to the third quarter. The increase in day rate revenue includes a $5.1 million net increase related to the Arabia II comprised of $8.5 million increase in deferred mobilization revenue offset by a $3.54 million decrease in direct revenue. Both as a result of the termination of its contract with Aramco.
Rig operating and maintenance expenses were in line with the previous quarter. However, it's worth mentioning that the total cost for the quarter includes $2.3 million acceleration or amortization and mob and compact prep costs related to Arabia II
Depreciation increased by $3.9 million and led to total operating expenses increasing by $3.8 million compared to the third quarter.
Other movements below the operating income line that's worth mentioning are total financial expenses increased by $5.7 million, primarily due to interest on the additional $175 million bond issued in November 2024, as well as the $150 million bond cap in August 2024 that were both were issued to finance the delivery of our two last news.
The income tax expense decreased by $5.9 million from Q3 and is mainly due to a one-off release of a evaluation allowance during Q4. Net income for the fourth quarter was $26.3 million, an increase of $16.6 million, resulting in earnings per share of $0.11.
And just to leave it up for the fourth quarter was $136.7 million, an increase of $21.2 million or 18%. Compared to the 3rd quarter. Our free cash position at the end of Q4 of $61.6 million. In addition, we had a $150 million unrawn under our RCS facility, resulting in total available liquidity of $211.6 million.
Cash decreased by $124.1 million in comparison to the prior quarter due to the following. Net cash used in operating activities was $14.8 million, which includes $93.4 million of cash interest paid and $15.5 million of income taxes paid.
Net cash used in investing activities was $189.9 million, which includes the delivery installment for the last new build, the VAR of $159.9 million. In addition, we spent $11.2 million on activation costs for renewable rigs and $18.7 million on other maintenance CapEx, primarily special periodic surveys and long-term maintenance costs.
Net cash from financing activities was $80.6 million and is comprised of $175 million from the issuance of additional senior secure notes to finance the bar.
We also paid down $70.8 million of our debt under the regular semiannual amortization of the bonds. Additionally, we used$19.9 million to repurchase the company's shares and $4.7 million for the payment of cash distributions to shareholders.
Following quarter end, we announced an agreement with our major Mexican customer to receive payment settlement for approximately $125 million related to our outstanding receivables in February. So far, we have collected $105 million of these, and the remaining $20 million have been released by Pemex and is expected to be received by us shortly.
We are also due to receive $44 million in mobilization payments upon commencement of the contracts for Arabia One and Bali in the first half of 2025. From a liquidity perspective going forward, as Patrick pointed out, we have concluded our growth CapEx program with our final new build delivered last year. For 2025 we expect regular maintenance CapEx to be below $50 million.
With this, I will pass the word over to Bruno.

Thank you, Magnus. I'll begin with our recent contracts and rig movements before covering global and regional market trends. In 2024, or drilling secured $795 million in backlog at an average rate of $177,000 per day, which we believe is market leading.
This achievement is particularly notable given the year's challenges and underscored the quality of our assets and operations that enable us to achieve strong contracting performance. Since our last quarter, we secured new commitments for 4 of our rigs.
The Norva has secured a contract with Valco for 320 days commencing in July '25 and extending through April '26. We're pleased to see the rig recontracted by Valco following a successful campaign delivered to the customer earlier in 2022.
The tour has secured a contract with an undisclosed customer in Southeast Asia and is expected to return to the active fleet by May 25. While this is a short-term commitment, we are currently in discussions with other customers in the region for further work that could see the recontracted for a significant portion of the year.
The GERD has secured a binding letter of award from undisclosed customer in West Africa for a 100 day program starting in June 2025 following its ENI contract. Even the strong jack up demand in West Africa will remain optimistic about securing follow-on work for this rig into 2026.
And lastly, the grower has had its less available option exercised by Qatar Energy and is now firmly contracted until April 26th. Regarding fleet movements, the Valley and Arabia One have completed the mobilizations and are undergoing acceptance for long-term contracts with Melita and Petrobras.
Both rigs are expected to begin operations in March, strengthening our revenue stream and enabling us to collect meaningful mobilization payments as highlighted by Magnus. On a global basis, checkup utilization levels have remained steady since last quarter. Modern market utilization stands at 93% and just under 90% if adjusted for the netaramco suspensions.
While utilization levels remain relatively flat in the last couple of months, it is positive to note that 12 of the rigs previously under contract suspensions with Aramco have now been recontracted elsewhere, which includes our Arabia one.
Looking at regional dynamics, in Southeast Asia, demand is expected to rise slightly, with increased activity in Vietnam and Indonesia offsetting reductions in Malaysia due to the Petros dispute. As a resolution to dispute nears, demand could increase more substantially in 2026.
While we anticipate that this market will remain competitive, our fleet capabilities, performance, and well established local alliances positioned well for upcoming contracts, although intermittent idle periods are likely. In the Middle East, we're encouraged to see some of the anticipated multi-rig multi-ear tenders finally coming to the market.
KJO, the joint operated zone between Saudi and Kuwait, has launched a four rig, three-year tender for work commencing throughout 2026. This tender combined with other requirements from the same customers as we understand could represent an incremental demand of up to six rigs for long-term contracts.
Similarly, we anticipate another multi-re multi-year tender to be launched by KLC in the coming months. These programs combined have a potential to absorb a significant portion of the regional supply overhang resulting from the wrong suspensions.
In West Africa, strong demand persists with multiple short and long-term prospects across the region from Angola to Ivory Coast. We believe our fleet is well positioned to capture the incremental demand, bolstering our backlog for '25 and '26.
In Mexico, overall activity levels have been impacted by PME temporary suspensions that started in Q4 '24. including our 3 suspended rigs in January, we estimate that approximately 12 rigs, or 45% of FEMA contracted fleet is currently suspended.
This reduction in activity has quickly affected the country's production, which has dropped below 1.7 million barrels per day in December, down over 120,000 barrels per day from September. Positively The government and PMEs continue to reaffirm commitments to stabilize underpayments and restore production to 1.85 million barrels per day.
We remain optimistic that such commitments will result in a strong rebound during the second half of 25 and pave the way for long-term extensions for our rigging country. At this time, we anticipate that our 3 weeks suspended in Mexico will gradually return to work during the 2nd quarter.
In 2024, the headwinds resulting from a roco change in production target and broader market uncertainties resulted in a significant contraction in rig fixtures, particularly in the first half of the year. However, H2 saw a gradual recovery, especially for modern rigs.
With the increasing number of open tenders, we see early signs of strengthening contract activity in 2025, primarily for programs commencing the latter part of the year in 2026. While near-term volatility is expected to persist, the long-term fundamentals of the jack up market remain strong.
Entering 2025, we had strong contract coverage at leading rates, providing us with a solid foundation. As opportunities expand, we now turn our focus to reducing idle periods in the year and strengthening our backlog feasibility into 2026.
With that I'd like to go back over to Patrick.

Patrick Schorn

Thank you, Bruno. So in conclusion, The business we have built is quite resilient. We have dealt with numerous headwinds in 2024 and still delivered the year within the original guidance given to the market.
Successful execution in a quite volatile environment. In 2025, we have had a good contract coverage to get us through the year, not only from a coverage perspective, but also considering the quality of the revenue in the backlog. We have some open capacity to deal with an opportunity to get the contract coverage further up, which will be our focus going forward.
The collections in Mexico have given renewed confidence in PAMEX and the Mexican government to put the country's oil and gas industry on a dependable long-term trajectory from a collection perspective. Given the decline in the production volumes, it is clear that drilling activity will have to be restarted.
Despite these short-term headwinds, the global jack up market fundamentals remain strong, with 30% of the global fleet over 35 years old and no new rig orders in the past decade, retirements are expected to tighten supply, creating a vaporable market for our premium rigs going forward. With that, we can now move to the Q&A.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

Thank you, sir. [Operator Instructions]
We are now going to proceed with our first question. The questions come from the line of Eddie Kim from Barclays. Please ask a question. Your line is opened.

Hi, good morning. Just wanted to ask about, leading edge day rates. Could you remind us where leading edge day rates for for benign market jackups have been, kind of over the past 6 or 12 months or so, and in your prepared remarks you highlighted some market uncertainty this year.
So in light of that, do you expect to see some day rate pressure kind of industry-wide in the jack up market this year before rebounding perhaps in 2026 just your overall thoughts on kind of the day rate trajectory from here be great.

Thanks for the question.
I'll probably not walk you to region by region because I think our views on the market is part of our commercial strategy, but in line with what we've discussed earlier, we've seen a few markets that suffered a bit more with the competitive pressure, and I think it's fair to say that Asia has been one of those markets. \
We've seen some of the competitive features, fixtures, coming close or just. Under $100,000 a day, but leading edge rates staying kind of in a 130, 120, 130 range. Conversely, if you go into markets that suffered less with competitive pressure as in West Africa, we've seen numbers that still hover and often above the kind of 150 range, so we do have a fair spread here.
We see now going forward a, increasing number of tenders, and I think that alone would help the industry and help the peer group and reducing a little bit of the competitive pressure.
In addition to that, some of the players that have been more aggressively chasing work seem to have achieved now full utilization or pre-calls to full utilization, which should take a little bit of the edge as well from this competitive pressure.
Now, I think that the dynamic will remain. Some markets that are a bit more benign will be subject to higher competition and they will keep the rates of it, compressed. Other markets where it takes a lot of history, a lot of competency to kind of penetrate will be a bit more insulated. So, I don't see.
For now, as an area where the rates fall off the bottom, I think we have, we are in a range that activity level roughing should start to stabilize or potentially go up as the months come by.

Understood, that's helpful. And then just by follow up is on is on Mexico, a lot of good color there. So you have three rigs of PAMEX that are currently temporarily suspended and two, that are contracted through year end. I believe I heard that the 3 that are temporarily suspended, you expect those rigs to return to work in the second quarter.
Did I hear that correctly and I guess what's your confidence level around that and if that's the case, I mean it seems like you're fairly confident that your other two jack ups that are currently still contracted will continue to work until the end of their contracts later this year. So just, I guess if you could confirm that for me that'd be great.

Patrick Schorn

Yeah, I think that the numbers that you have are correct. We do indeed expect these rigs to go back to work in the second quarter, but quite frankly, we don't know exactly when in the quarter that is going to be. That is at the moment a working assumption. And the main reason for that is that we have seen that there is a lot of actions that have taken place in PAMEX if you.
Think about the last few months since the new administration is in place, the amount of work that has been done in getting people paid and now an aggressive plan on how activity needs to be restarted, we're still having a very strong commitment on getting production up. I think that based on the production data as We see it and the strong decline that otherwise you would see in Mexico.
I would assume that there is going to be a significant focus in getting rig back to work, particularly the ones that already are contracted. So that is our working assumption obviously the future here will have to tell, but those are kind of the guidelines that we have and the reasoning for us to be fairly positive about the business environment there.

Got it. Great. Thank you very much. I'll turn it back.

Operator

Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from the line of Doug Becker from Capital One. Please ask your question.

Thank you. I was maybe hoping you could expand on the latest in Saudi Arabia. Just looking at some industry data. It did seem like one of the suspended rigs actually did return to work with Aramco, a competitor rig, but just the latest you're seeing in Saudi Arabia.

All right, thanks, Doug. And yes, indeed there was some reports earlier about Rick returning to work. I'm not sure if that was a true story. I think that was actually a rig swap done by one of our competitors.
The situation in Saudi remains steady state at the moment where we see quite a bit of focus on their end is in relation to the offshore gas work. Aramco has been quite vocal on the companies on the countries focus on expanding on the gas side, and that's where some of the conversations are taking place at the moment.
In addition to that, the, I think interesting to note is in the last couple of months now, there's been an increased talk about Aramco awarding large EPC contracts for projects like Zulu or Sahania that were originally planned to be put on hold, right, as that Progresses Increases our level of confidence that a pipeline starts to form in Saudi Aramco.
Now, the other interesting discussion that we see in country is a revamped interest from Aramco talking to service companies about lump sum turnkey or integrated projects offshore. This has been something that they looked in the past and I think they see that as a Good way to improve efficiency and the overall ability of the country to deliver well.
Those conversations seem to be resuming at the moment. I think it's going to take some time, but combined with the EPC awards and the pipeline gives us some hope that as the year progresses, the pipeline from Aramco should start to fill up. At the moment I think the situation is steady state.

No, that's encouraging. And then, it looks like the 4 did get some incremental work for the 2nd quarter, just any color you could provide around that. Are there potential extensions related to that or is this more of a one off?

Yeah, no, and we, the rig came off contract back end of last year. Obviously we've been working hard to see it going back to work. Reality is that in Asia, a lot of the programs that we see at the moment, not exclusively, but a lot of the programs we see are short term in Asia.
So the challenge that we have is obviously to put the rig back to work and string a sequence of programs that will maintain the rig working. So that's obviously something that we're working, the team is working quite hard to deliver. It is a short-term program.
We'll see the rig working. We have, accepted that commitment on the back of visibility of other programs, so we'll have to work through it. I do believe, as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, that there is a good chance that we will be contracted for the remainder of the year or a large portion of the year.

Got it thank you. My pleasure.

Operator

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from the line of Frederic Steen from Clarksons Securities. Please ask a question.

Hey Patrick and team, hope you are well. So I wanted to circle a bit back to Mexico, at least, with the discussions that I'm having with my clients, the situation there, even though you've been able to collect a good chunk of the $125 million already, I think, getting proper confidence for future payments is still, bit hard and one of the risks that is currently weighing onto the stock, so. And as a side note, being a bit low on the dividend, while kind of itself it's.
Not necessarily what investors want. I think it was what investors wanted in this case just to make sure that you're prudent with the balance sheets. But on the Mexico situation, have they given any signals on, how future, payment schedules can look at, or should we expect that, from time to time you have to renegotiate similar kind of receivable deals that have been done now, I guess some sort of regularity or frequency to these payments would be.
Great in terms of its ability. So anything you can share on that front would be super helpful. Thanks.

Patrick Schorn

Oh Fred, thank you, and I mean I think it is clear that if it were to be clockwork, yes, it would be easier to run our business. You're absolutely right. I think though that given where we have come from with the business in Mexico, the way it has grown.
And also the way that we have always been paid, I think we have to give a bit of credit to the management team that is now in place and the government of what they have been able to pull off in what is essentially 4 months, so I think that.
Tremendous efforts are being made to get suppliers paid. It was immediately seen as one of the key priorities which in the past maybe wasn't as prevalent, but looking at the overall picture, I would say it's a market that has a decent rig rate.
It is a market where we have ultimately always been paid. We have a strong set up and a very good local partner to work through ultimately for Pemex. So would I like it to be all more clockwork like? Absolutely. Is that realistic? I don't think so. Now there are a few things that are changing the market in Mexico, and I would definitely point towards.
The increased private investments that we are likely to see going offshore, which therefore means that we are in essence are going to have a different counter party, a counterparty that is having a different cash flow than let's call it Pemex had in the past.
So I'm quite encouraged by that and I think that the mechanism that is set up for that where the private investor is going to be the direct beneficiary of the commercialization of the oil that they produce and therefore in a position to deal, let's call it differently with their suppliers, I think is a very positive sign. Is that all going to be in place here next month? No, that will take a bit of time, but I can't say that I see far more positive movements in the Mexican business than I would see negative movements.

That that's a really comprehensive, answer, Patrick. Thank you. And just to follow up on that. I'm sorry if I missed it, but I had a bit of a choppy line here.
Bruno, did you say anything about your thinking around extending the rigs, the fire rigs that are currently with PAMEX and, how would be like that could eventually look like, and again ultimately, I guess it depends on you guys having enough confidence that you'll get paid if you extend, but. Securing those rigs for longer would be, meaningful trend of your 2026 and beyond coverage fix already.

Most definitely, Fred. I mean, Mexico is a key component to our business. It's something that we're looking quite closely, but picking up from where Petrick left, we do see tremendous amount of effort being put by the government to stabilize the situation in Mexico, and that includes.
Reinforce commitment to maintain production level and as you can clearly see from the current amount or from the current levels, or the current data, it is dropping. So we do anticipate that these reduced activity levels can have to be reversed and very soon. And not only that, they will have to do some catch-up work to get back to where they were a few months back.
So that is kind of where my comment came from in the earlier notes that we think that that's going to strengthen activity levels in, as we kind of move to the second half of the year and I think very likely create a venue for us to extend these rigs further in the future.

Super. Thank you very much. That's all for me. Have a good day.

Operator

Thank you We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from the Truls Olsen from Fernley Securities. Please ask a question.

Afternoon guys. A couple of questions for me, firstly, Bruno I think probably for you. What's the Dialogue like with your clients at the moment. I mean what sort of call it the pressing points if you will in terms of getting things done or is it just that takes time.

Fair truths, and we normally work with kind of a leading period of four to six months ahead of contracts, right? So obviously, what we see now is obviously a lot of customers or quite a few customers organizing themselves for further working 2025 and 2026.
We have a variety of constructive discussions with customers at the moment. I think it's fair to say that the larger names like the NOCs have a bit more flexibility in their schedules and maybe sometimes a bit more leeway in delaying programs and things of that nature. Well, we see a variety of NOCs in general, quite committed to certain schedules, quite committed to.
Using the opportunity where there is capacity in the market to drill some of these companies when coming to the market a year ago or so had limitations on finding access to rigs and they seem to be keen on coming to the market. Now, what I think is quite interesting is that the customers, particularly the customers with programs that are not.
Multi-year in nature, they obviously understand very clearly the importance of having a high performing contractor, right? When you have a smaller campaign, you cannot really afford delays or issues with the program and then quite a few of these customers seem to be very keen to engage with us and discuss and understand how they can benefit from the proven performance of our rigs and it's very beneficial in that sense. But so that, that's kind of where we are in terms of the discussion rules.
We do see pipeline increasing. It's fair to say that it's obviously focused on the second half of the year because as you said, it takes time for some of these programs to get going, but we do see a increasing number of opportunities now building up in the pipeline. I hope I address your question.

Yeah, thanks. I guess, and I could follow up to that, I mean, I guess there's nothing really much moving in terms of the TNCs on the contract. It's more about, I mean, it's not about really the economics of things. It's more about timing of things general activity level.

Obviously 2024 was a year that we have been very focused on increasing our backlog, elevating the quality of backlog, and I think we've achieved a lot as we go now into 2025, we don't necessarily shift the focus. I think we have an extremely competent commercial group that does a great job maximizing the commercial value of these negotiations and discussions.
Certainly, customers will use leverage that they have at the moment to try to claw back some of the [Ts and Cs] in the contract, that's part of the natural flow as the cycle progresses. But, at the moment our focus is really making sure that we don't leave idle time on rigs unnecessarily and we increase our backlog visibility to 2026 for sure.

Thanks, and lastly, I'm sorry if I missed this, but '25 guidance.

Patrick Schorn

Yeah, no, that is, that's a good point, Truls, and obviously I would have been quite keen to give you more visibility on that, but I think that the point is that today visibility is somewhat limited during in part the re suspensions in Mexico, the lingering impact of the Saudi suspensions. And there is just too wide a range of outcomes currently with many moving pieces.
The only thing I can tell you is that as soon as there is more clarity in the market and some of these suspension impacts are resolved and in visibility then improved. We will update you at that time, but for right now the best thing we can do is give you an idea of contract coverage and then give you an idea on the EBITDA when it's really when we're in a position to give you some credible data points, otherwise we'd be just making everybody more confused.

Fair enough. Thank you guys.

Operator

Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from the line of Nikki Batt from JP Morgan. Please ask a question.

Hi, thank you for taking my question. I have two, if you don't mind, for 2025 right now, in your free status report, you see that there are three available rigs including your the new build.
Can you please update us on the sort of current discussions you're having with clients about these rigs and especially, the new build in terms of which sort of region are you looking to contract this out to and the second question is more about how should we think about your financial policy going forward given that, both is expected to generate significant free cash flow this year. Would you be looking to prioritize some debt repayment, in the near term?

Very good, Nikhil. I'll take the first part of the question, and I'll hand it over to Magnus for your second part. Thinking about the fleet, you're right, we have three weeks currently available, one in Mexico that recently finished the contract, one in the Middle East that has been suspended by Romco and subsequently terminated in December, and the new build.
At the moment we do have these rigs offered in a variety of tenders around the globe. As I said earlier, generally speaking, we're looking at a lead time for these contracts that are somewhere between four or six months at the short end, so it's fair to indicate that the likelihood of these rigs returning to work is definitely towards the second half of the year, right? And Regional deployment where they go to work. I think we're considering opportunities available at the moment.
We do see, we do have one rig in America, we do see a set of opportunities for the rig in the region. I don't think we're constrained to that. West Africa continues to be a market showing some potential. Sides and at some point in time could support the inflow of rigs and the similar thing goes to the Arabia too that just finished contract with Aramco. It's warm and ready so that rig could be deployed, including for some opportunities that we now see in the Middle East coming up in 2025.
In relation to the new build, it's fair to say that I think we were quite optimistic. During 2024 to have it working in the early part of 2025. Obviously without us now having the Arabia II as an additional rig available in our toolbox here to deploy near to that has less of a focus, that rig is in Singapore will continue to market a rig, but I think at the moment the immediate priority is to see if we can find homes for the run, and they are to. I might be able turn up to Magnus for second question.

Magnus Vaaler

Yeah, thanks. So. I think for this quarter the board has continued the dividend of 22 sets, but the focus is very much now given the short term, uncertainties to build a strengthening balance sheet, conserve cash. And then we'll see, during the year and closer to later in the year what would be most beneficial for the company, whether that is to buy back debt, depending on debt levels, or whether it is to apply.
Our share buyback program or pay out, I think it's important also to emphasize again that our bonds they do already amortize by $135 million per year, so we are already very much focused on the deleveraging of the company as a function of the of how the bonds are structured so I think right about now the board has so it was prudent to continue to build the balance sheet and focus on preserving the cash to see what's most beneficial going.

Patrick Schorn

Thank you. So I think that we have come to our last question if I understood it correctly.

Operator

Yes, that's right. This concludes the question-and-answer session, so I'll hand back to you for closing remarks.

Patrick Schorn

No further closing remarks.

Operator

So this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.