Robert Eifler: Yes. Thanks for the question. I guess I’ll jump right on the back of your last statement in that we do see some signs of increased activity increased dialogue. I think most of those for Norway are more 2025-related than 2024. We do believe the next demand goes to us. The CJ70s are the most well-suited to compete in the competition zone there in Norway. There’s also the potential upside of incremental production that could come from infill drilling, if there was any sort of gas shortage, whether that’s a regional event or a global event. So, there’s a little bit of upside, I don’t think there’s firm demand yet to declare 2025. It’s going to explode there in Norway from a demand perspective. But the dialogue is encouraging.
In the non-Norway space, a little bit more positive in terms of the nature of the conversations that we’re having with our customers there. And of course, we’ve got the Intrepid that will be locked up all of next year. So the capacity is really limited for 2024 to the Interceptor now. And we’d like the capability of the rig, if that demand comes to pass or if unexpected demand comes to the market.
Pelle Bibow: Great. That’s really answers my questions here. Thank you guys for taking the call and have a great day.
Robert Eifler: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from David Smith with Pickering Energy Partners. Your line is open.
David Smith: Hey thanks. Can you hear me okay?
Robert Eifler: Yes we can hear you. Sorry. There were some technical issues there.
David Smith: Good deal. Kudos on the quarter and especially the dividend increase. That’s just great leadership on the shareholder return front. I did want to revisit your comments about the sidelined ultra-deep water capacity. You referenced the number of rigs added over the past year, whether reactivations or previously stranded new builds and we’ve seen they can make very solid returns with term duration at rates below leading edge. But I wanted to ask your thoughts about the remaining sidelined capacity, maybe how many high-spec drillships you think might still be brought out at rates in the low 400s?
Robert Eifler: Yes I mean, I think look, there’s a small handful. It’s four to six that kind of range. From there, you start to have I think some concessions on marketability and you start to get into it’s all a fighting scale here, but you start to get in our opinion a little bit closer to 6th generation territory, where the rigs might be missing one of the critical components defining a 7th generation. In certain instances, of course, we don’t really know. Not many of them or most of them are not our rigs, but could perhaps have some higher reactivation costs from their stacking status et cetera.
David Smith: Great. We were coming up with five rigs so really happy to hear your answer. Just a little bit of a housekeeping question. I think you’re still managing the former Lloyd Noble and just wanted to ask if so maybe how much that contributed to Q3 costs and really how much longer do you expect Noble to manage that rig?
Robert Eifler: Yes, Dave. I think that was part of the beat from a top-line perspective in Q3. We are continuing to manage the CJ70 in North Sea. I think our expectation is that that will continue through mid-part of this quarter. But you’re right as well. If you strip that out I think from a cost perspective I think it was a very nice beat in Q3. I also think as you look at the operational performance in Q3 and the uptime I think that that was obviously a big, big component of the beat as well.
David Smith: Good deal. I appreciate that. If I can get greedy and sneak one more in I recognize your semis aren’t harsh environment but they’re certainly very high-spec. I wanted to ask if there’s any reason they wouldn’t be competitive for some of the regions we’ve seen the Norwegian semis pulled to right outside of the North Sea specifically Namibia?
Robert Eifler: Yes, look those are some of the most capable semis in the world. As you said they’re not harsh environments so they’re not going to go to the extreme cold-weather environments. But in regions where they can — where semis is preferred generally they compete very well. They can get — I guess, I would offer they are generally because they’re more to NDP they can compete down into relatively shallower waters. Many semis compete a little bit less favorably in the deeper water you get because upwards in 10,000-foot kind of range you start to have some weight limitations that are specific to semisubmersibles and less so to drillships. So look — like we’ve said before those rigs when they’re operating in their specific niches are going to compete very much on a 7th generation level.
And when up against an alternative in a drillship or for whatever other reason they may have some concession on their operation. They’re going to compete more like a 6th-generation rig.
David Smith: Perfect. Thank you so much.
Robert Eifler: Thank you.
Operator: And there are no further questions at this time. Ian Macpherson, I will turn the call back over to you for closing remarks.
Ian Macpherson: Thank you everyone for sticking with us through the technical difficulty there. And thanks for dialing in today. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Have a great day.
Operator: And this concludes today’s conference. You may now disconnect.
