Rowan Companies Earnings Call INSIGHTS: EXL III Plan B, Divesture Opportunity

On Thursday, Rowan Companies PLC (NYSE:RDC) reported its second quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call. Take a look.

EXL III Plan B

Joe Hill – Tudor Pickering Holt: Obviously the contracts with McMoRan pretty much rolled off here in August, Davy Jones has been delayed, I think we all know that. What’s kind of the plan B for the EXL III in the Douglas, if that doesn’t work out?

A Closer Look: Rowan Earnings Cheat Sheet>>

W. Matt Ralls – President and CEO: The EXL III, NRG 21 is going to keep the EXL III until the well test on Davey Jones II, which is anticipated right now. You need to get the final start from McMoRan obviously, but we’re being told, first quarter of ’13, NRG 21 plans on keeping the rig until that point. As far as the Joe Douglas, we have some other contracts for the Joe Douglas here in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, that will either walk the rig to McMoRan, McMoRan’s commencement or an international contract, whichever occurs first.

Joe Hill – Tudor Pickering Holt: Matt, you’ve extended your drill ship option, you’ve got your first contract and I am just wondering whether or not it would take one or both of the other two drill ships before (it’s being on) before you consider exercising an option?

W. Matt Ralls – President and CEO: Not necessarily, Joe, we still view the ultra-deepwater drill ship market very favorably. We like the directions it’s going and the demand that we’re seeing, especially as I said in my comments for these very highly capable ships, but we’ve got more time to make that decision, so some time in the next month or so we’ll probably come to a conclusion one way or other about which way we’re going to go. We’re quite positive as I said on the drill ship market.

Divesture Opportunity

Collin Gerry – Raymond James: Congratulations on the big drill ship contract, I remember not too long ago, we were on the impression that you guys might have to take a discount for entering into the deepwater market, but that doesn’t appear to be the case at all.

W. Matt Ralls – President and CEO: We never thought that Collin.

Collin Gerry – Raymond James: As we think about the offshore community, obviously there is lot of people, your peers, yourself high grading their fleets. That includes adding new assets and in some cases divestible assets. The divestiture opportunity is that something that you’re considering, I am thinking some of the slot rate that you have in the Gulf and maybe some of the other legacy assets; it’s not a necessity but is that something that’s considered.

W. Matt Ralls – President and CEO: Collin, as you know we have two slot rigs that are stacked in the U.S. Gulf and we also have 116-C jack-up stacked in the Middle East, we are entertaining offers to those three stacked rig. Beyond that, we, we’re very happy with the fleet, everything is working and we see future demand for all the other rigs.

Collin Gerry – Raymond James: So it’s really the idle capacity that’s on the table now nothing beyond that?

William H. Wells – SVP, CFO and Treasurer: Nothing beyond that now. We continually assess that competitive position for some of our older rigs and over time we’ll above the try to take capital out of that into the business to redeploy and hiring jack-ups but as of right now everything as Kevin said working at good day rates on some attractive — with some attractive terms so right now we’re just continuing our status quo there.

Collin Gerry – Raymond James: Then the follow up from me is the first drill ship contract within West Africa and two questions that related to that, number one, are there contracting opportunities in West Africa versus Gulf of Mexico or Brazil, more appetizing or is this just a one off where the customers wanted is a not really worth reading in too much of regionality there and then also does that increase the likelihood of wining the contract subsequent drill ships into West Africa as well or is it wide open that you could go to Gulf of Mexico or Brazil or where?

Mark A. Keller – EVP, Business Development: Right now most of the tender activity that we’re seeing and demand that are clients are communicating to us currently is certainly coming out of West Africa and the U.S Gulf of Mexico, so that’s driving a lot of that, there are the some tenders in the frontier regions; Mozambique, Tanzania and areas like that, for Rowan, I think we’ve communicated before, Matt has and that if we were going to rank the regions just for – on a revenue basis for us, we think that our concentration certainly would be in Africa or the Gulf of Mexico and then probably, third if we ranked them, Brazil, but that’s not to say that we wouldn’t want to work for Petrobras by any means but, to your question we would probably rank those regions first.

W. Matt Ralls – President and CEO: Just to be clear there Collin, the currently anticipated work location is West Africa for the – probably the first or so of the contract.

Mark A. Keller – EVP, Business Development: 300 days to a year and then the balance of the contract Collin, would be in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.