Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (NYSE:HP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

And then, as John said, then we’ll move forward and develop the fiscal 2024 budget, which would reassess forward fiscal year cash generation above CapEx at that time and above the established base dividend to work with the board to figure out the 2024 capital allocation plan.

David Smith: I do appreciate all that color. And I will jump back in the queue.

John Lindsay: All right, David. Thank you.

Operator: We will take our next question from Luke Lemoine with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Luke Lemoine: Hey, good morning.

John Lindsay: Good morning, Luke.

Luke Lemoine: John, if we look at your 16 reactivations this fiscal year. I imagine there’s a few things going on with incremental activity, some operators upgrading to super-spec rigs, and maybe some market share gains as well from other super-spec rig providers. Can you talk about these buckets a little more? And maybe which of these you see as the main driver?

John Lindsay: Luke, I think, there’s €“ as we said, there’s several drivers, I think, you’ve heard us the 16 that the ones that we have committed are mostly large public companies, which was really has been our expectation. I think most people’s expectations as the private companies have contributed a lot of rigs, active rigs to the fleet over the last couple of years. So, we think most of that will be directed towards the larger players. We think most of that will also be in the Permian, but not all. I mean, we do have Haynesville, I think there might be an Eagle Ford. There’s some North Dakota opportunities, I think, we may even have an Oklahoma rig in there. But I think the majority of it is focused in the Permian. But going back to our discussion earlier, so much of the demand out there is being provided through this, at least in our fleet, and I have to suspect other companies are the same.

It is really a function of the churn that we’re seeing quarter-over-quarter, and so a lot of that demand is satisfied there. So, as an example, if what we found is on the 16 there was more churn than expected. It could be that we wouldn’t put all 16 of those rigs out into the market, because we’re satisfying that demand through other means. So, does that answer your question?

Luke Lemoine: Well, I guess €“ yes, partly. But maybe you talked about churn a lot, and now just to, do you think maybe it’s some of the churn in other people’s fleets that you’re gaining some market share? Or do you think these are purely incremental rigs in the large public players?

John Lindsay: Yeah, that’s a good point. It’s a mix, we’ve had €“ some of these rigs are incremental, some of these rigs are replacement. But as you know, we replace another peers rig that rig then moves over and satisfies demand somewhere else, as you just start thinking about these points of demand in the market. Those are going to be satisfied in many cases from other rigs that are rolling off of one to the other. I think, two-thirds are incremental, and then the other third are replacement for what we have committed right now.

Luke Lemoine: Okay. Got it. And then maybe just kind of on the overall market outlook with two-thirds of those being incremental, you have about a quarter of the overall market share. Do you think that’s kind of indicative of overall market growth or hard to say?