Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

John Lindsay: Hi, Scott.

Scott Gruber: Good morning. One question just on the guidance just so I understand it a bit better. You mentioned the potential for a 7% to 15% improvement in daily margin. Kind of what drives the high-end versus the low-end? Is the high-end does that align with seeing the 188 rigs go to work? Do you just have more rigs at that more elevated spot rate versus the lower end or are there other factors that kind of drive the delta?

John Lindsay: Scott thanks for the question. But our margin accretion is just — is the continual. We’ve talked about it just a question a minute ago, the moving up of the term rollover through time and that pricing spot continuing is not at leading edge either. We’re very — we have relationships with our customers. We don’t just increase week-to-week. It’s pad-to-pad or quarter-to-quarter some sort of periodicity. So we still have upward momentum in the spot towards leading edge as well. It’s just that continual repricing all the while managing our expenses very closely so that we get the full pull, so that we get the full benefit to the bottom line of that pricing increase. And we’re back up to what 42% I think of the fleet on performance contracts which helps to drive that revenue per day over headline day rates as well.

Scott Gruber: Got you. Yes. I just didn’t know — I mean I know that there’s a momentum to the margin expansion. I’m just trying to think about kind of what would drive the high-end versus the low-end. So maybe turning to the last point you made on the performance contracts. There does seem to be more appetite to kind of go along on rig contracts. Is that certainly in a sense late last year? Do you feel like there’s good continued momentum or maybe even great momentum today on performance type contracts or is that evolution still pretty stay quarter-to-quarter?

John Lindsay: I think there is. I mean we’re working very closely with the customer to deliver better outcomes at the end of the day. And the way you do that is work very closely with the customer, you look at the technologies that you have. You combine that with the types of wells that are being drilled, the challenges that they might be having in a particular area. You combine all that together and at the end of the day if we can deliver better performance versus whatever the benchmark is, then we share — essentially we share in those savings. And so, it’s a real win-win for the customer. Why wouldn’t the customer want to pay us more when they’re getting wells that are delivered more efficiently, more reliably and place better in the zone. So it’s a huge win-win. And again, we have customers continue to adopt and our technology and automation solutions are really helping us to achieve that.

Scott Gruber: Got it. Thank you.

John Lindsay: All right, Scott. Thank you.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Don Crist with Johnson Rice. Please go ahead.

Don Crist: Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for allowing me to ask question.