Good afternoon. Next up, we've got Mr. Anton Dibowitz, President and CEO of Valaris since September of 2021. Previously served as CEO of Seadrill from 2017 to 2020, following various roles since 2013, and has over 20 years of drilling industry experience. Anton has a number of slides to present, after which we'll have some Q&A. Anton, thanks for joining us today. Thanks, Eddie. I just said to Eddie, my deck, as I looked at it, is 28 slides. And I wanna leave plenty of time for Q&A, so this may be a little bit whistle stop, not cover everything in detail. But there's a lot of interesting stuff to talk about, so... forward-looking statement, you can download it from the presentation or website. We'll be talking about the forecast and stuff going forward, so appreciate that. Presentation is in three parts. First, I'm gonna talk about Valaris and why we are the leading offshore driller. I'm gonna talk about industry fundamentals, strong supportive market that we continue to see improvement in, and why we're excited about where we're heading. And lastly, about the earnings and growth story that we see playing out, especially for us, over the next little period. So starting with the first part. Valaris is the largest driller with high-spec fleets. We have the largest fleet and the highest spec fleet on water. 11 drillships, average age nine years, five semi-submersibles. four of these can operate DP, two both in moored and DP mode. 12 ultra harsh and harsh jackups. Think about North Sea, Norway, U.K., Netherlands, for those. 21 high-spec jackups. When we think about those, Southeast Asia, Middle East work, and then two legacy jackups, which are, you know, a little less young than the rest of the fleet, primarily doing P&A work in the UK and generating some nice cash. So not only the largest fleet, but the highest spec fleet on water. So more than 50% of our fleet is ranked in the top quartile, and these aren't our rankings, this is an independent third party. So look at that bar in each of those, on the left there, kind of that dark gray color. More than 80% of our fleet is in the top half of the global fleet. For us, sustainability and being able to work through the cycle, high-spec rigs are preferred by customers. They work through the bottom of the cycle, and they get an advantage at the top of the cycle. Strong customer relationships. Beyond having a great fleet of high-spec assets, having strong customer relationships is important. We have a diversified fleet. We operate both floaters and jackups. This gives us scale, it gives us a portfolio approach, increases our revenue potential, through the cycle. Customers, especially IOCs, want a service provider who can provide them a rig in various geographies and also at various water depths. You can see with a number of our major customers on the left side, we operate across water depths and geographies, both in jackups and floaters, and on the right-hand side is the more selected of the customers. We've been very focused in putting our rigs to work and focusing on those basins that are going to drive overwhelmingly demand for rigs over the next, you know, five plus years. On the floater side of the business, we focus our efforts on the Golden Triangle, U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, West Africa. We have four rigs in or going to Brazil, four in West Africa, now with the recent announcement of the DS-7, and we have two ships in the Gulf of Mexico, plus a semi that's operating there now. So this is the overwhelming driver of demand in the floater market going forward. On the jackup side, overwhelmingly concentrated in the North Sea and also in the Middle East, which is gonna drive more than 50% of jackup demand over the next five years. We also have a nice position in Australia, where we operate two floaters, one jackup right now, and another jackup that we're relocating from the North Sea to Australia. I'm gonna talk about that, the reasons for that a little bit further down the presentation. Beyond our own fleet, we also have a strategic asset in our ARO Drilling joint venture. This is a joint venture with Saudi Aramco, the largest user of jackups in the world. It's also the place which many will say will drill the last offshore well. ARO provides us with stable earnings, guaranteed contracts. You can see, you know, $1.5 billion of backlog in the entity right now. We have a 20 newbuild program. These are 20 newbuilds that will be backed on average by 16 years of contract for each newbuild. The first eight-year contract, giving a guaranteed EBITDA payback on the construction cost in the first six years of that eight-year contract. So there's a significant growth story that's playing out in ARO as we continue to build these rigs. First one's gonna be delivered, we should have the rig naming later this month. Second one at the end of the year, going into service early next year. And then we'll commit to rigs three and four beyond that. Beyond our 50% equity interest in ARO, we have a $400 million, north of $443 million shareholder note. And from the Valaris side, we lease nine rigs into ARO that provide stable, consistent, high utilization earnings to Valaris based on the bareboat charters. We just issued our 2022 sustainability report earlier this year. Our focus when it comes to sustainability and emissions in particular, is about obviously reducing the core, our own, and also working with our partners. This is a great business opportunity as we see going forward. We set a target between 10% and 20% to reduce our own emissions. We believe this is credible. We have a roadmap. The technology is available to do this today. You know, fully expect that additional technology is gonna arrive in market. We do need collaboration from our customers when we talk about things like availability of biofuels, but that 10%-20% target can be achieved with technology that's available today and with our customers. As technology improves, you know, you may see us move these targets over time, as we have more technology. The second part is to partner with our customers on their transition efforts. Having a diversified fleet, jackups, and floaters. Most of the CCS wells, or pretty much all the CCS wells that are being drilled today, are close to infrastructure, right? That's the natural place for it to be. We've drilled CCS in the U.K. We're relocating a rig to Australia to drill a CCS well, and we have upcoming programs in the Gulf of Mexico. This is an important growing part of our business and something that we see, you know, as we head forward into the future, becoming a more significant part of our business that we can access by having a high-spec jackup fleet and having these relationships with these, with these large customers. Strong balance sheet. We refinanced our exit financing earlier this year, $700 million note to 2030. We recently did an add-on intended to fund the purchase of the DS-13 and DS-14. Provides us with additional flexibility, added a $375 million revolver. Gives us liquidity to execute our business and capital allocation flexibility as we go forward. So turning now to the market. Starting in the top left, the world's need for energy continues to grow. It's recovering to pre-COVID levels this year and kind of as we speak, and is expected to grow beyond that. Brent forward prices were above $90 today, right? The forward curve, five years in the $69-$76 range. And if you look at that curve on the right, the overwhelming majority of undeveloped reserves are profitable at these levels, and a huge portion of those are right, right to the left of those bar charts, below the kind of $40-$45 dollar level. So this is attractive business. The world needs this energy, and it's attractive business for our customers. That leads down to offshore upstream CapEx and project sanctioning, both of which are set to have, you know, good compound annual growth rates over the next few years. These are numbers from Rystad, showing a 16% increase going into this year and another 4% next year. Project sanctioning, similarly. Our customers' confidence in where the market's going and that they're gonna need these reserves is driving increased spending. That increased spending then drives demand for the services that we provide. Again, numbers from Rystad going forward. Floater demand over the next several years with a compound annual growth rate of 7%. We saw a huge jump in demand for jackups as a number of jackups were taken into Saudi over the last year, but again, a stable business. I think what's really interesting in this slide, if you take a look, is that blue bar, the blue block right at the bottom of the bar. Yeah, here it's called wildcat. This is exploration drilling, right? This was something that two to three years ago, some prognosticators said, "We don't need to explore for any more oil. Just develop what we have and the world will be good. Transition will take care of the rest." The fact that our customers are allocating on those 2024, 2025, 2026, 25%-30% of what they're going to do on exploration, some of it's near field, some of it is rank exploration, wildcat, is an important driver of where this market's going. Because that exploration then leads to development programs from those finds down the road. Turning to the supply side. So right at the back, the light gray. Rationalization, you know, the supply-demand balance is largely, up until a couple of years ago, being handled by drillers rationalizing their fleets, taking older, you know, less technically proficient rigs out of the market. So on the floater side, 44% of the floater market was retired through the down cycle. Jackup side, a little less so, around 8%. All right? So on the floater side, the majority of assets are relatively high-spec, what's left. On the jackup side, there's been less fleet rationalization from the supply side. It's just easier to stack a jackup. The option cost is significantly less. As I will point out in the slide, a number of these rigs are old and not really competitive. So that leads to utilizations. In the drillship, the high-spec jack, drillship market, six and seven gens. We're talking, you know, numbers well north 90% and have been there for quite a period of time. Same in the benign jackup market. The high-spec semi market lags behind a little bit because customers generally prefer ships if they can, right now, because they're available. But this is something I think we could see change as the available supply of drillships continues to dwindle, and our customers become more, you know, horses for courses as they select rigs for their programs. So very solid market. So, you know, let's kind of wrap it up and say: where does that leave us with supply/demand? The available capacity is shrinking. 10 competitive, warm or cold stacked high-spec ships available, held by three contractors. There are eight newbuild ships left in the South Korean yards, and those are the ones we really consider to be competitive. Two to four of those are already slated for programs. We have the DS-13 and DS-14. That leaves two to three rigs, you know, available left at the yards.... And I'll be clear, given the expected cost to build another drillship, we have zero expectation that there will be another build cycle in the floater side of the market. Jackup, as I said, is a little different. Number of rigs were stacked rather than retired. But if you look at the numbers there, of the 95 rigs that are sitting on the sidelines, 60 of them over 30 years. Number of them in stack for more than three years, you know, lower spec rigs in the global fleet rankings, a number of these rigs will not come back to market, or it'll have to be a significantly improved market to see them come back. Beyond the 20 rigs that we're building in ARO, nobody is going to be building rigs. There are about 20 rigs left in yards in China, newbuild jackups. But, you know, 13 of these, 20 newbuilds at the yards, 13 in China. Those are likely to go into the local Chinese market. So the result of all of this is a significant increase in day rates. Floater rates have more than doubled over the last couple of years. Jackup rates have almost doubled, and we talked about the, the utilization numbers before. That's the second part. Third part. So what does that mean for us, right? We expect to see significant earnings and cash flow growth from our business over the next couple of years, based on three things. The first is recontracting legacy contracts into market day rates. The second is the impact of, attractive reactivation contracts that we've signed over the last year coming to market. And the third is having the availability for operating leverage, the DS-10, and then the two options that we recently said we intend to exercise on the 13 and 14. So what does that look like on a page? Up at the top, you see the 17, the eight, and the seven. These are all contracts that are done at contract day rates north of $400,000 a day, that will be coming to market before the middle of next year. 17 is about to go on contract, and then the eight and the seven, coming to contract at these day rates, you know, before the middle of next year. The 10, the 15, and the four are rigs that were contracted at the beginning of the cycle. You know, day rates, yes, in the low- to mid-$200s, $227 on average there, that will be rolling onto market day rates before the middle of next year, plus another rig by the end of this year. So as we reprice all these rigs into the market, you'll see a significant increase in our, in our earnings and also our cash flow. We've been very clear about how we were gonna approach the market when it comes to reactivations. That we would not return rigs to the market unless the initial contract provided attractive returns under the initial firm term of the contract. I mean, said simply, if the world came to an end on the last day of the initial contract, it was the right decision for us to take. That's the approach we've taken from the beginning, and we will take. The DS-7 that we signed, based on a bid earlier this year, is a clear example of that. This is a rig that will generate $95 million-$100 million of EBITDA on an annualized basis. The payback on the reactivation of $100 million, when you consider that we're getting some upfront cash, will be paid back in significantly less than a year. We have a proven track record of reactivating rigs. Let me take a step back for a second. You know, when we emerged, relisted in May 2021, I came on the board about a month later. Valaris had 11 drillships. Four of them were working, and we had $160 million of backlog on that fleet. You know, between then and now, we have reactivated six drillships back into the market. Backlog has increased more than tenfold. You know, a couple of minutes ago, I talked about the fact that we're gonna be repricing these contracts into an even more attractive market. Beyond the DS-7 that I just talked about, two more examples of the most recent reactivations we've done. The DS-17 in Brazil. Effective day rate on that contract, which was contracted a year ago, north of $600,000, when you consider the upfront costs. The DS-8 in Brazil, this was the eighth rig out of an eight-rig tender selected, i.e., it was the highest price that was bid under that tender. And we have additional operating leverage. Stated on our recent earnings call that we intend to take the options on the DS-13, 14. That's based on, one, the price that we can take those assets and steal, and two, our contracting success, and third, how we see the forward market. So talk to a broker, the clearing price for a new drillship. These are the highest spec rigs available in the yard right now. We built them. We've had our people on them since day one. Broker estimates are north of $300 million for a rig, especially when you consider that both of these rigs have a second BOP, which would be an extra $50 million cost for other rigs that are sitting at the yard that only have one BOP. The fact that we can buy them at $119 million and $218 million, respectively, is a 30%-60% discount off steel. We will take the same approach about reactivating these rigs as we have with any other rig, and it's not truly a reactivation, but you can think of a reactivation-type expense in a year to get these rigs ready to drill. We will only return these rigs to market for a contract that provides a meaningful return under its initial contract. We're taking the decision, and we will take the decision to take these towards the end of the year, give us additional operating leverage, and then we will find the right contract to bring them to market. Given the size of our fleet and the specs of our fleet, we have significant earnings potential. As we ramp down our reactivation activities and get into kind of normal cycle business, you can see some illustrative utilizations-... You know, day rates, I'd say we're pretty much in a column B or better market right now, other than maybe harsh environment jackups, which are lagging behind as it's been disappointing, and we see some recovery, but probably, you know, beyond 2024. Capital allocation approach. First, maintain a strong balance sheet. As my CFO tells me on a regular basis, you know, a business that has high operating leverage doesn't need also to have high financial leverage. So I think we've all learned lessons as an industry over the last decade, and we will maintain strong, conservative balance sheets to be a sustainable business. Second, in the near term, pursue accretive investment opportunities. For us, up until now, and it will continue to be for a little while, that's about getting our high-spec rigs back to work into an attractive market. Beyond that, it's return cash to shareholders. I think we've been very clear on our intentions. We can see the inflection point coming as we recontract and bring these rigs to work, and that is return cash to shareholders. You know, we've increased our share repurchase authorization to $300 million. We set a target this year to buy back 200 million shares, and we're already at $120 million. So to close up, to leave a couple of minutes for questions, we are well positioned to deliver to our shareholders. We are the leading driller. We have the largest high-spec fleet on water with strong customer relationships. We're in the basins that are gonna drive the overwhelming amount of demand going forward. There are very strong industry fundamentals in our market. Supply has dwindled, demand continues to increase, and it's a very supportive commodity environment for us to thrive over the next few years as we go forward. Lastly, we can expect to see significant earnings and cash flow growth over the next few years as we re-rate our contracts and bring some of these attractive reactivations to market. Yes, there will be some additional opportunities if we find them, to reactivate the 11, which is our only stacked rig left, plus the options on the 13 and the 14. But beyond that, our intentions are absolutely clear. We will return cash to shareholders unless there is a clear, better use for it. I'll close, and you'll probably ask me in a second, but that's not building rigs. All right? Thank you. Let's hope not. Thanks, Anton. My first question is just on kind of reactivation economics. You highlighted on your slide the economics for the DS-7, less than a one-year payback on the reactivation costs. Hard to argue with that. You've been the most active in bringing back cold stacked rigs to work. Is there something different about the way that Valaris initially stacked the rigs, or you're reactivating the rigs that perhaps it makes the economics unique to you versus one of your peers? There, there's a little bit of both. I mean, different drillers took different strategies through the bottom of the cycle. I'll say, you know, the previous Valaris management team, you know, took the decision to stack rigs at the bottom of the cycle rather than burn cash, which ultimately was the right thing for the creditors. All right? But that means that we started, as I said, with four rigs working out of a fleet of 11, and it was imperative for us to get our rigs back to work. But they were stacked the right way. You know, they were thoughtfully stacked. You know, you take fluids out of the equipment. You're very thoughtful about how you do it, which means... We've had people on those rigs since day one, and we have a, you know, a very good idea, had a good idea, and now a demonstrated track record of what it takes to reactivate a rig. So we've been very clear on the budgets that we said we'd reactivate. You know, this industry is replete with disasters of people reactivating rigs and budgets being, you know, 1x, 2x, what they planned. We've largely hit our budgets on timing and cost to reactivate our rigs, and that's the reason why we've reactivated six, and our largest peers, in combination, have reactivated eight. I think there is something about having the project teams available, and then it's about finding the right opportunity for those rigs to go back to work. I mean, you know, the DS-7 contract is a clear example of that. Having the track record of doing it, demonstrating it, gives customers the confidence to take a stacked rig or even a newbuild back into the market. So- Yeah. Not all rigs were stacked equally, and I think, you know, some, you know, there have been some mergers, there have been some legacy companies. You know, I think it depends who stacked the rig, how thoughtful were they, what was their position when they stacked it? But we're confident that we can reactivate, you know, the rig that we have under reactivation at the budgets. I think we said around $100 million right now. I think the 11 would be in about the same price range, and I think, you know, to get the 13 or the 14 to work today, beyond the steel price, would be about a similar timeframe and a similar cost. You have one remaining cold stacked rig, the DS-11. You set a high bar for yourself on the DS-7. Is that the type of payback that you're anticipating on the eleven, or would you be willing to, you know, take a two-year payback on that reactivation investment, or how are you thinking about that? So I think we also need to remember, you know, the DS-7 was contract. We bid on that contract at the beginning of this year. That was a January bid. You know, as we have added rigs to the market, the market continues to improve. We have increased the hurdle rates on our reactivation. So no, I think we would be, we would be more opportunistic, you know? Now we have 10 out of 11 rigs working, plus two options. We see, you know, supply dwindling. We're confident in the market is going, we're gonna be quite thoughtful and increase our hurdle rates as we reactivate rigs, rather than the other way around. Got it. Just kind of a bigger picture question on where leading-edge day rates could go. I asked this on the last session as well, but I mean, demand, very constructive. It's amazing, you know, what a difference 12-18 months can make, and at the same time, the supply is limited. So, is $600,000 a day something in play for the end of next year, or is that getting a little too ahead of ourselves? Well, where can I go? I didn't hear what Robert said, but we've had this debate a couple of times this morning. And yeah, absolutely. You know, where could high spec floater day rates go? You know, newbuild parity, right? Ultimately, is where your limiting point is in, you know, kind of from one basis. And, you know, to build a rig today would be north of $1 billion, and the day rates would be astronomical. So yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, are we gonna get there? There are a couple of reasons I think we may not. But where are they gonna go over the next, you know, less available rigs in the market, right? So I would say two to three stranded assets really left, you know, kind of 10, you know, rigs that, that are controlled by three drilling contractors to come back to market. And 12-15 opportunities over the next couple of years that either need a rig to be reactivated for, that we're tracking, or need a rig to be relocated into the market, you know, is going to put a significant amount of pressure on day rates once that remaining drillship capacity comes back to market. Now, a couple of other things can happen. You know, we have the DPS -3 and DPS-6, stacked semis. What you may see happening is customers becoming a little more, a little more horses for courses in selecting rigs. You know, right now, you take a drillship because it's available. So we could see better opportunities for kind of high-spec semis, you know, recovering and as a little bit of a balance to that day rate. Got it. But let's be clear, right? You know, kind of $450,000, $550,000, $600,000 day rates and $150,000, you know, of OpEx, you know. None of this is bad business. They're very attractive economics there. In your prepared remarks, you said, you know, zero expectation of a newbuild cycle? Yes. Ever or- I think ever. We did the math, and I kind of alluded to it in the last question, but if, you know, if you do the rough math, what do you have to believe? You know, you have to believe that you can build. And remember, you know, in the only place we would build a rig would be in Korea. You know, there are no slots available. You're probably talking a build cost north of $1 billion, all in. Which means you have to believe that starting four years from now, you're gonna get, for a mid-teens return, a day rate close to $900,000 a day and 90% utilization for 30 years. I just don't see that. I just don't see that happening, so. Got it. That's, that's great to hear. Question on free cash flow and the return of free cash flow. You said you intend to return all free cash flow to shareholders, unless you see a more value accretive use for it. In the near term, you have, you know, the DS-11 reactivation and then the DS-13 and 14. After you get those on attractive contracts and back to work, do you have more ambitions to grow the size of your fleet, or do you think that that's enough and we're gonna return cash to shareholders after those three rigs? Yeah, look, you always have to have a slight caveat because otherwise my general counsel gets on me, but we intend to return cash to shareholders. You know, in the near term, yes, we have attractive opportunities to return rigs to work like the DS-7, that generate meaningful returns. Beyond that, we're not building, right? Yes, there's gonna be some fleet investment. There's, you know, may want to buy some technology, but barring a clearly more attractive use of that cash, we're gonna give it back to shareholders and be 100% clear about that. You know, M&A, you know, might there be... We still have operating leverage with the 13, 14 and the 11. You know, we already have a significant fleet, a portfolio that we can play in this market. You know, we have looked at M&A opportunities. We will. Those need to be justified based on not diluting our fleet quality, which we're very clear on. You know, operating a high-spec fleet is the business that we're in. It's more sustainable through the cycle. If there's an M&A opportunity that can be justified based on, you know, G&A and overlap and shore bases, you know, and it's value accretive, we will look at that. But I think those are largely gonna be, you know, equity deals, not, not, not cash deals. I mean, we want to maintain a conservative balance sheet. You know, we want to, you know, but we will return cash to shareholders. Got it. Be crystal clear on that. Very last question for you. We're almost out of time. The contracted floater rig count today stands at about 125-130 rigs. Yep. About the same level as last year, surprisingly. Looking ahead, what do you think we could be by the end of next year? By the end of next year, I think we'll be well on our way, as we see the numbers right now in the forecast. The remaining high-spec, you know, attractive, stacked and newbuild rigs are most, if not all, needed to be in this market. I think we will be on our way to there. I'm not sure if we're 100% be there. You know, there's lead times, you know? It takes a year to reactivate a rig. You know, people are planning on programs. It's not just our rig that they need, you know, well goods, infrastructure, FPSOs. I mean, there's a lot of other stuff that goes into, you know, doing a development and doing a program, but I think we'll be well on our way to an even tighter market. Got it. Great. That's all the time we have. Anton Dibowitz, CEO of Valaris. Thank you very much. Thanks, Eddie.