Nabors Industries Ltd Earnings Call Insights: Expectations for Debt Repayment and Internal Consolidation

Nabors Industries Ltd (NYSE:NBR) recently reported its fourth quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call.

Expectations for Debt Repayment

Jim Rollyson – Raymond James & Associates: Kind of going back to your last statement just on free cash flow, you guys did a really good job last year of working on taking cash and repaying your debt level. And I’m kind of curious what your kind of today target is of raising cash from operations and divestitures and what have you in terms of what are you expecting to repay for debt when you look at 2013?

Anthony G. Petrello – Chairman, President and CEO: I think the target is about $400 million without asset sales.

Jim Rollyson – Raymond James & Associates: Okay. Prospects for asset sales still (is it kind of a) drag on E&P?

Anthony G. Petrello – Chairman, President and CEO: Yeah, we have those three E&P properties out there and they’re all with People and we’re working in part to get those put to bed, so that focus continues. There remains a high focus because it’s part of the concept of reducing the noise in the company and focusing our energy on things that benefit us in the long-term. So we’re really committed to do that.

Jim Rollyson – Raymond James & Associates: Okay. Your offshore segment you mentioned things maybe looking a little bit better heading into ’13, kind of your outlook for maybe timeframe of returning to profitability, because it sounds like the new platform you mentioned doesn’t come until very late in the year. Just kind of curious how you think about that progression through the year?