All right. Good afternoon, next up, I'm very pleased to introduce Mr. Anton Dibowitz, President and CEO of Valaris in September of 2021. Previously, he served as CEO of Seadrill from 2017 to 2020, following various roles at Seadrill 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 time for Q&A. Anton, thanks for joining us today. Thanks, Eddie. You made me sound old, being in this business for a long time. I actually feel really old because I just moved my younger daughter into college this weekend, so I'm an empty nester. You just added to my angst, but great to be here. I have a couple of slides that I'll show, and then we can do some Q&A. Let me see if I can get the clicker right. Forward-looking statements. I think you all know the story, forward-looking projections, how we see the market. Let me tell you a little bit about Valaris. Valaris is the industry-leading driller. We have the largest fleet on water, with 53 rigs, comprising 18 high-spec floaters, which we're very proud of, and 35 jackups. That fleet ranks highly in all the third-party rankings. Twelve of our thirteen ships are seventh generation, and it's important as a driller to have scale and to have a high-quality fleet. But what also matters as a driller in the center is to be able to deliver excellent operations with that fleet. Valaris has delivered more than 96% revenue efficiency for the last three years based on having that fleet. And we've done that at a time that we have reactivated six drill ships into the market, including two this year. All right? We've delivered 98% revenue efficiency this year, with two reactivations coming into the market. That leads to strong, deep, broad customer relationships, which is really important for us to be able to execute on our commercial strategy. We've added backlog to our fleet for seven successive quarters, standing at $4.3 billion right now. And that backlog and that earnings power is going to allow us to generate significant cash and earnings increases as we go forward and deliver that cash to shareholders. So let's look at our floater fleet, an example for where we sit. We're very focused on having critical mass and significant presence at the three corners of the Golden Triangle. So Brazil, West Africa, and the Gulf of Mexico. Together, those three markets will deliver around 70% of demand between now and 2027. Having a number of rigs clustered in a market allows you to access local expertise. It allows you to spread support costs over a number of rigs, and it gives you long-term presence in markets that will continue to have work. Beyond that, we have a niche position in Southeast Asia with a couple of floaters in Australia. We have three of the highest-spec drill ships available on the market, the DS-11, the DS-13, DS-14, for organic growth in this market. These are the highest-spec rigs on the market because they all have two BOPs. They're our rigs. We built them, we maintained them all the way through the bottom of the cycle, and we'll wait for the right opportunities to put them back into the market in what is a structural upcycle that we're in the midst of. Similar position with jackups. We have a diversified fleet. Our two big focus areas are the Middle East and Saudi Arabia, where we have a JV with Saudi Aramco, operating nine rigs that are owned and nine rigs that are leased into the JV. The largest customer in the world, a JV with the largest customer in the world, in the largest market in the world, and a harsh environment fleet focused in, you know, North Sea ex- Norway right now, where around 60% of demand for the period between now and 2027 is gonna come from. Beyond that, we have strong niche presences in Trinidad and Australia. These are two particular markets where customers require high-spec rigs, and we can get premium day rates and premium durations on our rigs. And you can see between the floaters and the jackup space, we have a really excellent customer base because of the operations we deliver. We hold customer relationships with all of the major IOCs and the NOCs, and a lot of independents in these markets. So let's take a step back and look at the macro. It may be really important because we'll see what's happening in the market this morning. All right? Why are we positive about the outlook for our business? The supply stack today, which is the bar on the left, is around 102 million barrels of hydrocarbons. But the world continues to need secure, affordable energy. So by 2030, despite all the predictions over the last few years, demand for hydrocarbons continues to grow, you know, up to 113 million barrels by, by these numbers. Different people have different estimates. In order to get there, when we consider the depletion that is happening on existing fields, 36 million barrels of new supply need to be brought to the market. And a significant portion of that, where the significant growth is gonna come, is gonna come from offshore. The biggest growth component of that is from deep water. Why? Because it's affordable. The economics for offshore fields, deep water offshore fields with this scale, are highly attractive... and although we don't talk about it that much at conferences anymore, the emissions intensity of those barrels are important to our customers. So total in offshore, between where we are now and where we're gonna be at the end of the decade, offshore becomes increasingly important for the world to meet its energy needs. I know we'll have some discussion about day rates, and we thought we'd put this into perspective. Similar story in the jackup fleet, but we'll look at the floater fleet here. Drillship day rates are well below. There is significant headroom from where we are right now to where we were at the top of the last peak. So these are inflation-adjusted numbers. You can see, kind of going through, kind of late 2020, early 2021, day rates were around $200,000 a day for a drillship. We were putting rigs back to work, seeing the upcycle coming at those rates. Today, leading-edge rates in the, you know, high $400,000s into the $500,000s for particular rigs, and we have about 91% utilization. The peak, in the last cycle, was 99% utilization, where, you know, on an inflation-adjusted basis, today, you'd have to be contracting around $800,000 a day, and it would take about 10 rigs working for us to get back to around a 99% utilization. Based on the programs that we see, tracking 30 programs, yes, a large majority of those are starting in late 2025 and into 2026. We see potential for additional cold and sideline capacity, including some of the three stacked ships that we have on the sidelines, and an increase in a tighter market. There is still headroom for day rates to keep moving as this cycle continues and the market continues to tighten. Commercial execution against that backdrop is important. We have added backlog to our fleet successively in each of the last seven quarters, $4.3 billion today. That backlog, and the fact that we are cycling rigs that we started early in the cycle into market, significantly higher day rates, is gonna lead to a significant step-up in earnings and cash flow as we get into 2025 and beyond. Our expected 2024 EBITDA is around three and a half times what we were in 2023. We expect another step up as we go into 2025, and that will get us to the position now that we've reactivated a number of our ships, where we can return capital to shareholders. We have a value-driven approach to capital allocation. It starts on the left. This is a cyclical business. There is volatility in it. We can see it this morning, right? There is white space, and I'm sure you will ask me about it, Eddie, you know, late 2024, going into 2025. So maintaining low levels of leverage and having powder available is important to be a driller in this market. So we will maintain a conservative balance sheet. We will, of course, pursue accretive investments that make sense for our shareholders. We have the three highest-spec ships available on the sidelines for a market that is tightening, and reactivating those would be a good use of capital at the right time for the right opportunity. We talk about corporate M&A. Yes, if it makes sense. We already have the largest fleet on water. We already have scale, but we will absolutely take part in that if it makes sense for our shareholders. But our clear aim, as we head into 2025 and beyond, is generating significant cash flow, generating significantly increased earnings, and returning that cash to shareholders, unless there's clearly a more value-accretive use for it. So in summary, we're well positioned. We've got a great fleet, we have great customer relationships, and we deliver great operations for our customers, which we don't talk about enough, but is really, really important for executing in this business, and we have the scale that we need. There is a positive market backdrop for what we're doing, and we expect the contracting as we go forward to allow us to generate significant earnings and cash flow, and we intend to return it to shareholders. Great. Thanks, Anton, for that overview. I have a few questions for you here, and then maybe we'll close out the session, pulling some questions from the audience here. Let's just start with valuations for all offshore drillers are down materially over the past month and a half on a combination of macro concerns, maybe uncertainty about the oil price, as well as white space between contracts, maybe through mid-next year. Could you just update us on recent conversations you're having with your customers? Are they concerned, and are they pushing out programs because of uncertainty about next year? Just if you could give us a flavor of your conversations recently. We have deep customer relationships, and we obviously talk to them a lot. I would say that short term or even medium term, you know, macro concerns are not a driver to the white space that we're seeing right now. They are not concerned about what happens with oil price, you know, on a day-to-day basis or in the short to medium term. Our customers look more at where forward prices are. If you look at, you know, that bar chart I showed about, you know, needing to find 36 million barrels of oil, they're focused on, yes, the economics and the need for those resources. They're looking more at where the five-year forward on Brent is. You know, it's still at $70 a barrel. You know, 90% of resources are highly attractive to them, you know, fields that are available for development. You know, at an oil price of $60, you know, you're still around 80%... right? There are attractive economics, even with some pressure on oil prices for what they need to do. You know, the pushback of some programs from 2024 into 2025, say, I mean, there are a number of factors. It's a function of they don't have the infrastructure to produce the oil. You know, FPSOs are delayed. They are being quite disciplined anymore in this industry. They're all being quite disciplined with their balance sheet. They've made commitments to shareholders about how much CapEx they're gonna spend, what dividends they're gonna pay. Some things are more expensive, and they're spending more in part of the business, so they're pushing some programs. And there are a lot of partners involved in these programs. So you have one operator who wants to drill, and another one says, "Oh, I don't wanna prove that program. I'd rather wait until next year to do it." So there are a lot of logistics, infrastructure, kind of supply chain reasons why things are moving, but, you know, the macro, the short-term macro view is not really what's driving our customers' decisions. Got it. White space. So you lowered full year guidance on the most recent earnings call, primarily due to more tempered outlook on the DS-10 and DPS-5 in the second half of this year. You mentioned you're looking for short-term opportunities for those rigs commencing in the fourth quarter. The white space on the DS-10 is especially surprising because it's seventh gen, one of the highest quality drillships, in the global fleet. What would you say is the main reason we're seeing white space even for high-quality rigs like that? You might have sort of answered your- No, it goes a little bit back to the question you just had about their ability to execute programs because of internal resource. I mean, the DS-10's been drilling in Nigeria since 2018. It's drilled lights out, you know. The customer's very happy with the rig. It's got a fantastic crew. Nigeria is actually a place where we expect to see incremental demand coming to market over the next couple of years. But the customer is taking a pause in country, you know, so they don't have work for the rig to continue with. But it has a great reputation, so we need to find some short-term work for it until there's a long-term program in the second half of 2024, 2025. Between that and, you know, the DS-12, you know, which is rolling off next year, there are some short-term dislocations in the market, and it's, you know, it's not great. We were in a similar position with the twelve and the five last year. We've got a great commercial team. They managed to cobble together some programs and keep the rigs working almost continuously. I mean, I can't sit here and say that we're necessarily gonna be able to replicate that, you know, this year. We had some great programs we were chasing on the five and the ten in our first quarter call, and I felt, you know, if you ask me personally, I felt really good about them. You know, one got pushed into 2025, one got a sublet, and the program was bifurcated. So right now, we're more chasing work in the fourth quarter, for these rigs, and that led us to, you know, adjust where we see the guidance flow for this year. Got it. Just in the near term, in terms of day rate progression, I think I have your sense of what the longer-term progression looks like, but just in the near term, maybe through middle of next year, one of your competitor, one of your peers have said, you know, day rates may be remaining here in the high $400s, low $500s until mid next year. Is that how you see the day rates? Yeah. I mean, you go back and replay what I said last year or two years before. I don't think we've ever been advocating that there's gonna be a hockey stick in day rates. You know, this is a structural upcycle, and rates are gonna continue to grind higher as we go through the cycle. Mm-hmm. And that doesn't mean that every contract is gonna be higher than the last. You know, if you look at six months, over six months, second half of 2023 versus 2024, average day rates and floaters are $480 versus $450. You know, we've had half a dozen prints above $500 halfway through the year, where we only had a couple all of last year. So on average, and that's what's really telling me, on average, the rates continue to grind higher, and I expect that they will continue to grind higher over time. What we're probably gonna see, maybe is how you count your averages, is we may see more variability in rates, you know, in this kind of late 2024, 2025 period, because we are looking for gap fill, and keeping the crew together and keeping the rig working is important. So we may see more flex and more, you know, bigger band in the day rates, but I think over time, even over the next year, for the right rig and the right place, customers are willing to pay for that asset. I mean, we have a customer willing to essentially pay, you know, a substantial portion of the day rate to have a rig sitting, waiting for up to six months because they want that rig to drill their program, you know, next year. And you can't argue with the economics. Increasing contract durations, increasing day rates, you know. Yeah. That's the fact of where this market's going. Got it. I asked this question last session, I'll ask the same to you. Two scenarios. Yeah. We're sitting here two years from now, September 2026. Will we have seen contract in a leading edge, you know, deep water contracts at the same level as they are today, kind of high four hundreds, low five hundreds, or more likely in the mid to five, mid to high five hundreds, I'll say? And I think I know your answer already, so maybe - No, I don't- Probability, is it fifty/fifty, or is it a, you know, thirty/seventy? Look, I've never been accused of being overly, you know, frothy on the market somehow. I try to be realistic and tell you what I really, really see happening. I think a year from now, so you're gonna be talking about contracts that are now being 2026, 2027 based, right? Given thirty opportunities that we, you know see in the market, incremental demand in West Africa, potentially a call on sideline capacity, given the number of contracts that are gonna be happening over the next year, there is a higher likelihood of increased day rates sitting here this time next year. I do think we have a period to manage through, and I'll be very open about that in 2024 and 2025. I think sitting a year from now, looking forward, we're gonna have a tighter market, potentially with some sideline capacity in progress of coming back to market and day rates that are solid to up from where we are now. Yeah. That slide was very interesting about the inflation-adjusted kind of day rate peak back in 2011 and 2014. I think it was around $800,000. Do you think that that is achievable, like, five years from now? Or, or we probably won't get there, but we'll probably a little less than that. What? Look, if you look at the economics of new builds, and I heard as I walked in, Robert was talking about, you know, kind of new build parity. We're not going there. So in one way, you know, the sky's the limit. Not the sky's the limit, but, you know, there's plenty of headroom for day rates. We're certainly not hearing from our customers that the reason why programs are being pushed or the economics of fields are being degraded by the day rates that we have. Will we get to eight hundred? I don't know. I don't think we need to. When you're generating, you know, an order of $100 million of EBITDA on a rig in the high four hundreds, low five hundreds- Yeah You know, we could be in a worse position as an industry and as a company than having 13 ships work and making $100 million of EBITDA, you know, a few years down the road. But I think there is some, definitely some headroom for day rates, given the economics of these programs. I guess, let's not get too greedy. You guys are making, you in the industry, making sufficient free cash flow, even at day rates where they are today. Just shifting gears to your sideline capacity, the DS-11, DS-13, DS-14, you've been the most active in reactivating cold-stacked rigs, and you have potentially three others left. Just based on your, the conversations you're having, what's the likely cadence of when we could expect these rigs to actually start working? Is it, you know, maybe one by year-end next year, another a year after that, and another year-end, kind of 2027, like 2025, 2026, 2027? Just- I think that's a fair look. I'm not going to sit here and predict. I mean- Yeah ... what I will say is, we have a job to do, right? We had four ships working three years ago. We needed to get this high-quality fleet on water and work. We've got 10 ships working now. We have the three best assets sitting on the sidelines, dual BOP, you know, seventh-generation rigs. We have been in customer discussions with people who are interested in these rigs. We haven't liked the economics of the deals that are available. We're very focused on keeping our active fleet highly utilized. And given the supply-demand dynamics that we see, we believe there'll be the right economics to bring these rigs back to market, and they will be increasingly there, you know. So we've done a job of our reactivations. I think, you know, one a year over three years is probably a fair assumption. You know, not a single one of the rigs that we've brought back to market has taken a job. We are not trying to displace incumbents. These rigs have come back to market for incremental demand, and we see incremental demand coming to the market, you know, late 2025, 2026, which is gonna give us opportunities with these quality of assets in our operations and a demonstrated track record of bringing them back to market and being able to deliver operations with them to bring them back for the right opportunity. So we've walked away from opportunities we didn't quite like, and we will be patient and wait to deploy them on the right opportunity. Got it. That's as good a guess as any. That's, that's very clear. Just shifting gears to your jackup fleet, particularly in the Middle East. So on the second quarter call, you mentioned that ARO had received suspension notices on two of your leased rigs, the 147, 148. But there were still discussions around potentially having other rigs serve the suspensions or and the timing of suspension. Could you update us on those conversations? And separately, recently, we heard reports of Aramco requesting pricing concessions from the drilling contractors and maybe even some service companies. Any update there on if you've received that kind of request? Sure. Let me take the second part first. We have not received a request for a pricing reduction on our fleet. I know some drillers have, and it's been pretty broad-based, but we have not received one at ARO. To the first question. You know, we did have some discussions with ARO, you know, and also in Aramco. The 147 and 148 will be the rigs that will be, you know, serving the suspensions. I will say, you know, more broadly, we saw 22 rigs being released earlier this year. You know, about half of those can compete internationally. We've seen, as we thought was gonna happen, an orderly transition of those rigs into the market. You know, leading-edge day rates in the jackup market are still in the 150 range. You know, we see good opportunities for jackups internationally. Of course, you know, we operate also in Trinidad and Australia, where we get premium rates for super high-spec jackups. So, you know, this is, you know, it's not great for the market to have rigs released in Saudi and have to relocate those that can. Some are just gonna stay there, but I think this is just a period that we need to work through. And with, you know, utilization north of 90% and leading edge rates at $150, this is a manageable transition. Mm-hmm. The one fifty leading edge for jackups? Is that just in the Middle East? Because there have been some contracts closer to, even your own, some of your own, that have been in the $170-$180, that- But no, John, I mean, it depends. So that's why I talk about Trinidad and Australia. Mm. So Australia, I mean, it is a little bit of a high-cost, you know, area, so there's a little bit of cost in there. But for the right rig in the right place, sometimes we're drilling CCUS. You know, people are paying, you know, the ability to, to drill those programs. So we have had in the, in the high hundreds. And look, I think you're gonna see a variation. Some people are trying to, you know, relocate rigs and bid a little bit lower to get market entry, right? That's why we're gonna be patient and diligent and, you know, redeploying the 143 from earlier this year, and I'd say the same thing about the 147, 148. We don't feel, you know, desperation to jam it into the market. We believe in the market. We can see the incremental demand. We'll wait for the right opportunity. Got it. One last question from me before we pull the audience, so we can get the mic going around. M&A. We recently had a large corporate M&A transaction, Noble acquiring Diamond, set to close tomorrow. Several industry participants have suggested that there's maybe one more large corporate M&A to be had. Do you see Valaris as a potential acquirer in one more large corporate M&A, or do you see your current fleet size as being sufficient, especially after you put the DS-11, DS-13, and DS-14 to work? I mean, we're in a great position as a start-off. We already have the largest fleet on water. So what do you need to be a driller? You got to deliver great operations. You have to have a scaled fleet so you can invest in technology and process, and you need to, you know, already have the customer relationships. I think we're different, and we already have the highest-spec fleet on water. So we already have the scale we need, and we have organic growth capacity on it with the eleven, the thirteen, and fourteen. I mean, we're absolutely a proponent of consolidation. I mean, we're the product of consolidation. We will look, we have and we will continue to look at strategic, you know, combinations on the basis of value, you know, intrinsic value, relative value if you're using equity. You know, what does it do for our fleet profile? You know, and does it, you know, making sure that it doesn't compromise our balance sheet. But it's a good position for us to be in, where we have the... We don't need to go and buy in order to have a growth story. We have an organic growth story. If it makes sense and it's accretive for our shareholders, we'll absolutely engage in it, and we're very much for it, but we, you know, we don't feel compelled to have M&A to be a player and a leading player in this business. Got it. Makes sense. We'll take maybe two or three questions from the audience. One question up here. With your relationship with all the operators, are you seeing any changes at all, you know, from near-field exploration to exploration? You know, as you pointed out in that slide, I've seen some tables showing that the IOCs, their reserves, you know, are starting to dip below the, call it the six, seven, eight-year mark. And now that the world has realized that hydrocarbons are gonna be part of the picture, the boards are more less susceptible to public pressure. So just thinking kind of broadly, you know, three to five years out, where are you seeing any changes in the where rigs are being used and- We are. Yeah, we are. It's a good question. I mean, obviously, the first place is you step out from an existing field, kind of easy expansions of where you are or in the same basin. But you can see what's happening in Namibia right now. It's incredibly complex technical work, and people are looking, you know, frontier work in Namibia and how they're gonna make that work. We were drilling Bacalhau with Equinor in Brazil, and that program is slightly behind, and Equinor took the rig, and we just went and drilled a wildcat exploration well in Argentina. So is it everywhere? But I think our customers recognize that to, you know, to be their part of that 36 million barrels, that needs to, you know, come to replace a lack of exploration. You know, there's a pipeline of developments they can do, but they need to find more oil in order to hit that 113 million barrels at, you know, at the end of the decade, so exploration's going to need to be a part of it, and I think that's a really, you know, a really positive sign for where this market's going, that they're out there, you know, doing rank exploration, frontier exploration work. Other time for one more question, if there is any. Oh, there we go. Thanks. Anton, just a question on buybacks. I think you've got $400 million still capacity of the $600 million that you've got approved. Yep. I mean, I guess the cycle, the industry will go through cycles, and the share market will be dislocated at times from fundamentals. How should we think about your share buyback program? Is it a case of just steady state? Like you say, you need ample liquidity to take advantage of, you know, perhaps prolonged white space or, you know, you've got potentially three reactivations coming at some point under the right conditions. But for your buyback program, you know, where we do get periods of severe dislocation, and I'm not suggesting we have one now, but They're good suggestions. When we do, you know, will you tend to be more aggressive in taking advantage of those opportunities, or is it just a steady state over a year? No, yes, yes, the former. I mean, we put, we increased the share buyback authorization. We say we're gonna be opportunistic. I mean, we have just finished two reactivations, so right now we're turning to cash flow generation, you know, 2024 going, you know, significantly into 2025. But we are cognizant of the fact of managing our balance sheet, and we are buying shares off the balance sheet essentially right now. That being said, we're confident in where the market's going. So, you know, we're going to be opportunistic when we see those opportunities to do that right now. As we get to this, this growth and steady state, sustained earnings and cash flow, you know, then I think you can see us getting into a more steady state, regular buyback program, and until then, it's gonna be opportunistic, taking advantage of the opportunities in the market. Great. That's about all the time we have. Anton, thanks so much for your time. Thanks, Eddie. Thanks, Barclays.