Borr Drilling Limited (NYSE:BORR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Fredrik Stene: Very helpful commentary. Thank you. And just a follow-up to this fast track or potential fast-track delivery. In that case, I guess you would also have approximately one year less of holding costs. So in a way, you’d have better cash flow in ’25 if you’re able to bring it forward. Is that the right way to understand it (ph).

Patrick Schorn: Yeah. Absolutely, right. Yeah. So there is a cost for us to have them delivered later. So there is also there a benefit of doing it faster. Now obviously, you would have to trade that off if there’s any cost related to acceleration. But clearly, we are looking in making sure that this from an economics point of view, there is a good benefit to it.

Fredrik Stene: Yeah. No, certainly. Final one before I hand it back, just touching upon the market. You guys have been pushing, I think, leading-edge everything in all regions that you operate. And now we’re in this upper half of $150,000 to $200,000 and typically, the data points that companies announced, they are dated in a way, they’re based on discussions that took place a while ago. So are you — if you’re able to comment on it, are you currently discussing opportunities that would cross to $200,000 per day barrier in some way?

Patrick Schorn: Without giving our whole commercial framework away, we’re not quite there yet, but I can — but we’ll continue to move. And like Bruno was mentioning that there’s contracts where there is not enough bidders to actually complete the tendering process, all of this is leading to ever increasing day rates. So I don’t think we have seen anything with the two in front yet, and we haven’t bid anything, but a two in front of it yet. But it is getting closer and closer. And we are certainly getting in ranges where we are past the 175, if you look at the latest stuff that is being put in front of people. And I would hope that, that leads to contracts, hopefully concluded here in the next three, four, five months, right?

So as you say that these things are somewhat dated, but you see it continued to move. And I think that there is an understanding for many of the customers that if you want the premium equipment, then that is what they need to pay. And if you don’t pay it, your neighbor pays it. So I think it is the whole question of are we playing fair to our customers. I think it’s very much — not so much that we increased prices unreasonably. It’s really if customer A doesn’t pay for it, customer B is willing to pay that price. And that’s why it ratchets up the way it does at this moment.

Fredrik Stene: Great. Thank you so much everyone for the commentary. I’ll hand it back. Have a good day.

Patrick Schorn: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Thank you. I’m showing no further phone questions at this time. I will now hand the call back over for any webcast questions.

Unidentified Company Representative: Thank you. We have two questions from the web. I’ll start with the first one. Are you still looking to actively refinance debt? And do you think Borr is likely to begin dividend payments in 2024, if refinancing is successful by the end of the year.

Patrick Schorn: So as I said in the comments and what I commented on, particularly on the conclusion slide, is that the refinancing of our debt is a key priority. And we are encouraged by the recent refinancing in our industries and the strength in the credit market. We are very keen to refinance at the earliest opportunity. And as we have indicated, this is for us the way to be able to return cash to investors in the form of dividends. I would expect that we are in a position to make the first steps towards this refinancing within this year and we are preparing ourselves accordingly. So I do think that this is going to get traction during this year already. And as we have said, we expect to be in a position at that time to then also start to look at dividend and getting some of that cash returned to our investors.