Halliburton Company Q2 2026 Earnings Call | Offshore Drilling and International Demand Drive Cash

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the second quarter 2026 Halliburton Company earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question at this time, you need to press star one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. David Coleman, senior director of investor relations. Sir, please begin.

Hello and thank you for joining the Halliburton second quarter 2026 conference call. We will make the recording of today's webcast available for 7 days on Halliburton's website after this call. Joining me today are Jeff Miller, chairman, president and CEO, Shannon Sloum, executive vice president and COO, and Eric Caret, executive vice president and CFO. Some of today's comments may include forward-looking statements that reflect Halliburton's views about future events. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to materially differ from our forward-looking statements. These risks are discussed in Halliburton's form 10K for the year ended December 31st, 2025, form 10Q for the quarter ended March 31st, 2026, current reports on form 8K, and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason except as required by law. Our comments today also include non-GAAP financial measures. Additional details and reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our second quarter earnings release and in the quarterly results and presentation section of our website. Now I'll turn the call over to Jeff.

Thanks, Jeff. Before I get into our operational results, I want to thank each of our employees who work in more than 70 countries around the world for their focus on our customers, safety, performance, and execution. Let me start with international. Opportunities for Halliburton around the world are the strongest I've seen in many years. In the second quarter, Halliburton recorded international revenue of $3.4 billion and secured a number of significant awards. I'll start with the Middle East. I recently returned from the region where I met with our customers and our operations teams. Activity is recovering from the conflict lows, but the pace of recovery is still dependent on the day-to-day events in the region. Let me share a few observations from my visit. Land well construction activity was largely steady across the region in the second quarter with the exception of pockets of disruption in Iraq and Bahrain. When production comes back online, I expect a tailwind for artificial lift and intervention businesses. Offshore activity increased in the quarter, though it's not yet back to pre-conflict levels. The offshore situation remains particularly fluid with operators assessing reactivations alongside recent security conditions. Iraq deserves a specific mention. Yesterday, we announced a significant integrated field management service award. This is a foundational project that I expect will transform our business in country. It redefines our opportunity set and puts our latest digital and technology offerings to work at scale. While the conflict dominates the discussion today, I see a bright future for Halliburton in the Middle East. Our recent wins in onshore well construction, integrated projects offshore, and the resumption of our unconventional fracturing operation in the region all strengthen my view.

Next, let's turn to our business outside the Middle East where we expect year-over-year growth in the low double digits. Our growth engines, production services, drilling, unconventionals, and lift are key to delivering on the outlook. Here are a few recent developments. First, in production services, the commissioning phase began for our newest North Sea steam vessel. The first operations of its multi-year contract are expected at year end. This deployment strengthens our leading global steam business and importantly represents the first offshore implementation of Octave, our automated pumping control system. Second, in directional drilling, Sakal, our recent acquisition, is fully integrated with our Logix automation platform and together they deliver Halliburton's closed loop drilling solution. This integrated solution gives us a significant runway to scale on offshore rigs worldwide. Our system delivers more precise well placement, better reservoir contact, and faster drilling times. We saw this firsthand in Norway with back-to-back record wells for Aker BP this quarter. I am confident this technology and the opportunity to further deploy it will deliver meaningful profitable growth for Halliburton. Finally, in international unconventionals, we saw further progress in multiple regions. In Algeria, we secured Sonatrach's first unconventional award, a multi-well integrated drilling and completions program. We are off to a strong start and have already delivered the longest lateral drilled in country to date. This project highlights the breadth and depth of our entire unconventional portfolio in both drilling and completions and puts Halliburton in front of the next wave of development. In Argentina, our first Zeus fleet has been mobilized and is planned to start up in the fourth quarter. This deployment exemplifies Halliburton's unique capability to bring leading unconventional technology to international customers. I see a clear runway for Halliburton to build on this position in this growing market. Our international strategy is advancing. We differentiate on technology. We deliver on execution and we collaborate closely with our customers. When I look at our growth engines and the pipeline of opportunities ahead, I believe that our international business delivers meaningful profitable growth for Halliburton.

Now, to North America, where Halliburton delivered second quarter revenue of $2.3 billion. Second quarter activity built on the momentum we saw in the first quarter with stronger activity, modest pricing gains, and further technology adoption. Drilling activity was strong. Our Drilling division grew 9% year-over-year in completions. Our focus remains on returns, not share, and our option to redeploy equipment to international markets sets a high bar for any North America fleet reactivation. Halliburton's maximized value strategy in North America leads with technology. Automation, electrification, and real-time subsurface data give our customers the tools to maximize recovery in their assets. Let me give you a proof point. This quarter we deployed the latest version of Zeus IQ. This release has near well and crosswell subsurface measurements, expands data inputs, and gives customers well-by-well treatment control and small frac operations. In plain terms, better fracture placement means more value for our customers. Let me close on North America with this. The market is in a recovery and I am encouraged by the shift in trajectory. Activity is up, pricing is improving, and our playbook works. I expect continued progress throughout the year. Our priorities are clear. We focus on returns for Halliburton and we deploy technology that improves performance and recovery for our customers. Big picture, I like Halliburton's strength globally with a balanced portfolio that spans international and North America, onshore and offshore, mature and new plays. I am excited about our contract awards and our opportunity pipeline. I am confident these will translate into revenue growth and margin expansion. With that, I will turn the call over to Eric to provide more details on our financial results. Eric, over to you.

Thank you, Shannon, and good morning. Our Q2 reported net income per diluted share was 64 cents. Adjusted net income per diluted share was 55 cents. Total company revenue for Q2 2026 was $5.7 billion, an increase of 6% when compared to Q1 2026. Adjusted operating income was $683 million and adjusted operating margin was 12%. Our Q2 cash flow from operations was $824 million and free cash flow was $668 million. During Q2, we repurchased approximately $200 million of our common stock. Now turning to the segments' results. Beginning with our completion and production division, revenue in Q2 was $3.2 billion, an increase of 6% when compared to Q1. Operating income was $474 million, an increase of 8% when compared to Q1. Operating income margin was 15%. These results were primarily driven by increased stimulation activity in the western hemisphere and improved well intervention services in Asia. Partially offsetting these increases were lower specialty chemical activity in North America resulting from the sale of our chemical business, decreased cementing activity in Latin America, and lower activity across multiple product service lines in the Middle East. In our drilling and evaluation division, revenue in Q2 was $2.5 billion, an increase of 5% when compared to Q1. Operating income was $338 million, a decrease of 4% when compared to Q1. Operating income margin was 13%. Revenue improvements were primarily driven by increased drilling related services and higher wireline activity in North America and Europe Africa. Partially offsetting these increases were lower software sales globally, decreased project management activity in Latin America, and lower wireline activity in the Middle East. Operating income decreased due to the seasonal rolloff of software sales.

Now let's move on to geographic results. Our Q2 international revenue increased 5% sequentially. Europe Africa revenue in Q2 was $1 billion, an increase of 19% sequentially. These results were primarily driven by improved activity across multiple product service lines in the North Sea, increased well construction activity in Namibia and Egypt, higher completion tool sales in the East Med, and increased project management activity in Angola. Middle East Asia revenue in Q2 was $1.3 billion, a decrease of 2% sequentially. These results were primarily driven by lower activity across multiple product service lines in Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar due to the conflict in the Middle East. Latin America revenue in Q2 was $1.1 billion, a 3% increase sequentially. These results were primarily driven by increased stimulation activity in Argentina and Mexico and improved completion tool sales in Mexico. In North America, Q2 revenue was $2.3 billion, a 7% increase sequentially. This increase was primarily driven by higher stimulation and well construction activity in US land and higher fluids activity in the Gulf of America. Moving on to other items, in Q2, our corporate and other expense was $83 million. We expect our Q3 corporate expenses to be about $80 million. In Q2, we spent $46 million on SAP S4 migration, which is included in our results. For Q3, we expect SAP expenses to be about $45 million. Net interest expense for the quarter was $83 million. For Q3, we expect net interest expense to increase about $5 million. Other net expense in Q2 was $31 million. We expect Q3 expense to be about $35 million. Our normalized effective tax rate for Q2 was 18.3%. Based on our anticipated geographic earnings mix, we expect our Q3 effective tax rate to be approximately 19%. Capital expenditure for Q2 were $235 million. For the full year 2026, we expect capital expenditures to be about $1.1 billion.

Now, let me provide you with comments on our Q3 expectations. In our completion and production division, we anticipate sequential revenue to be flat to down 2% and margins to improve 125 to 75 basis points. In our drilling and evaluation division, we expect sequential revenue to be down 3 to 5% and margins to improve 25 to 75 basis points. I will now turn the call back to Jeff.

Yes, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or comment at this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star 1 again. Again, if you have a question or comment at this time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.

Our first question or comment comes from the line of Steve Richardson from Evercore. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Jeff, last quarter, I think you showed quite a bit of foresight by talking about the end of white space and the pickup of inbounds in North American completion specifically. I was wondering if you could talk about how that evolved during the quarter, price costs, and how much of that is feeding into the margin outlook you have in the second half of the year, particularly in CMP.

That's great. Appreciate that. And then I was also wondering if you could just follow up on last quarter you all were talking about itemized the impact of what we're seeing in the Middle East and talked about a 7 to 9 cent headwind. Can you maybe just mark us to market on what you saw in the business and how you've thought about the dislocations as it pertains to the second half?

Yeah, Shannon here. Steve, I'll have Eric provide a little further on the guide. I guess let me just talk about activity in general. In the Middle East, it's been really high, highly fluid. Customers are thinking about their long-term view. They're looking at capacity, they're looking at risk, and really understand how quickly they can bring that back. In Q2, we saw a positive progression in the Middle East of what was going on. And then when we got here over the last week or so, obviously we've seen a little bit of step back of escalations. So we've kind of had a little bit of starting up and then a bit of pulling back. But I think it's important to maybe emphasize the bigger picture here as far as we think about what's going on in the Middle East. Regardless of the pace of when it comes back, Halliburton will be ready. We have the operational footprint intact and also important to note is the business that we are winning in the Middle East which is work that is absolutely going to get done. We talked about going back to work in Jafura and unconventional, the integrated work we won in re-entry, the integrated work we've won offshore, and also a really exciting project in Iraq with IFMS. So the pace is highly dependent and fluid but we're winning work that will mean something for Halliburton in the future.

Yes, David, it's Eric. Regarding what's built in the guide, so our assumptions are for a steady activity compared to where we are today. So we haven't put in our guidance any recovery to pre-war level. Neither have we built in any major disruption. So it's basically steady from where we are. It's just very difficult to forecast as you understand.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of David Anderson from Barclays. Mr. Anderson, your line is now open.

Thank you and good morning. So you had a number of really nice wins in offshore this quarter. Europe Africa outperformed as well. I was wondering if you could talk about your offshore business and how you see that performing over the next 12 to 18 months. Should we start to see an inflection here by the fourth quarter and what are the key drivers? You're talking about technology a lot as an enabler here. So maybe if you could expand a little bit more on how that's driving growth going forward. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks David. I guess first, really love our position. Maybe just an industry comment and then maybe a little bit more about Halliburton on the inflection point. Big markets around the world, deep water markets like in the Caribbean, the revitalization of tieback work, deep water, Gulf of America, Brazil, West Africa, as you mentioned, Norway and East Med are all really busy markets for us. And while we're seeing a tightening of rigs being tendered for those spaces, we're seeing a tightening of FPSOs in that market. Don't see that as a Q4 event. What I see as more of a 2027 event, probably later half of 2027, but I think really important here is to emphasize the bigger picture: we were winning in all those markets. I just announced a really sizable win with TotalEnergies in Suriname. So have a great footprint with Guyana there. West Africa, Namibia, Nigeria and even Ivory Coast have a good footprint there. We're winning there and obviously North Norway, North Sea has been a big market for us moving forward. So really like the direction we're going offshore and I think again more importantly is that we're winning in that space. And maybe a comment technically to follow that up. I think a lot of those wins, most of that winning that you're seeing us do is on the back of two things: our value proposition to collaborate and engineer solutions to maximize asset value for our customers, and technology advances that we've made over just the last few years with closed loop geosteering. For example, you saw us acquire Sakal. That's an important step towards better uptake of that technology. It broadens our ability to implement that technology on more rigs than before. So very positive technically around what we're doing and again how we're working with our customers is delivering real results.

Appreciate the comments. Jeff, maybe if we could shift over to the international side. International unconventionals are becoming a bigger part of your portfolio. Bakamorita is clearly in growth mode. You talked about Algeria. I think you're also in UAE and Jafura. I was wondering if you could put all this together and walk us through those various opportunities and your strategy. And I'm also wondering about the impact on the CMP margins. Is the ramp up kind of weighing down margins to a certain extent as you're building up in these different countries and you're not quite at the scale you want to be. Thank you.

Yeah, let me comment on some of the activities and ask Eric to give a little bit more of the guidance here. But as you said, we're really excited about the scale converting at scale in Argentina with YPF, a big win multi-year multi-billion with Zeus. Going back to Aramco in Jafura and if you look at the big markets out there, Argentina starting there, it's a growing market. Really Argentina, Algeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, we have frac spreads in all of those locations today doing unconventional work. What I think is important across what we're doing in unconventional, this has been a deliberate focus of ours: to continue to use our scale with a real emphasis on returns, as Jeff said, but also putting technology at play globally and competing on technology, not on horsepower. So I think that has been the recipe for us to scale globally.

Let me take the last bit of that as well in terms of margin. As you think about those businesses around the world, yes, there's some mobilization that goes on around that. But it's part of our growth engines and we know that with that scale comes margin expansion.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Arun Jar from JP Morgan. Mr. Jar, your line is now open.

Good morning, team. Jeff, I was wondering if you could comment on, and Shannon, on clearly it appears that Halliburton is taking market share in international markets as just highlighted by a number of awards in the Middle East, LATAM, etc. I wondered if you could maybe break down what you think is driving some of those share gains. Shannon did mention that he would expect these new opportunities to be margin accretive and maybe you could just touch upon that as we think about framing second half of the year and into 2027.

Yeah, I guess the short answer is yes, these wins that we're talking about, we do see them as future work that will be accretive for the business. I think a couple things have been driving it. One, the market is tight. Nobody has really overbuilt in that market, and that's a good thing. Opportunity for expansion of margins for us and we think that macro outlook for what we're seeing will continue. But I think going back to...

Got it. Got it. And then maybe just to follow up on North America, one of the things that caught our attention is your intention to continue to perhaps mobilize equipment out of North America to meet some of these international opportunities. Is that just a reflection as you see better margin opportunities for unconventional now outside of NAM?

Great. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of S from Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Hi. Good morning, Jeff, Shannon, and Eric. Yes, sir. Eric, maybe I'll start with a quick clarification question for you. I want to make sure I heard it right. I think the revenue guidance Eric for the third quarter calls for both segments. I think CNP flat to down 2%, D&E down 3 to 5%, and I think within that in response to one of the initial questions you were thinking Middle East is steady, right, so flat call it on a run rate basis. Can you maybe talk to how should we think about the 2Q to 3Q revenue decline? Where is that coming from? Is it timing? Is it I know the chemical business sale happened in May of this year. Is it part that? Maybe just talk to that a little bit, Eric, just to give us some color.

Yeah, so I'll give you some color on the guide. So starting with the D&E division, revenue is primarily affected by a drop in revenue in our drilling fluid and testing business. The drilling fluid in the Gulf of America and Europe testing across most international regions, and there's really nothing structural. It's simply rig moves and programs, etc. Part of that is offset by the seasonal pickup of our software business in Q3. So that's kind of on the revenue side. On the margin side, the improvement is due to mix. We had a, I mean drilling fluid was a very large contributor to Q2. In Q3 we're going to see less drilling fluids, more software sales which are running at structurally higher margins, which explains the guidance. On the CNP side, pipeline revenue, you mentioned it, we have sold our chemical business so we're not going to have any revenue coming from that in Q3. We're going to be slightly down in Latin America and Europe Africa which had a fantastic Q2 of 19%, and some of that is going to be offset by the recovery of our Middle East business. On the margin side, the main drivers of the improvements in our margins is the North America land frack business which is going to see improved margins, the lift business as well. Recovery of completion tool delivery in the Gulf of America and also the Middle East recovery as in D&E. So these are the main elements of our Q3 guidance.

I got it, Eric, that's very helpful. And then Jeff, maybe this one is for you. I want to touch on your landmark business a little bit. I know digital and software doesn't come up too much here in the Q&A for you guys, but you've had a strong business. Landmark has been a strong business for you, especially in drilling logics decision space. I think you've had a lot of success in that. And then like you had in your prepared remarks, you acquired Silka last quarter and today in your press release you had the acquisition of Informatic. Maybe just talk to the landmark business a little bit. It seems like that's making a lot of positive progress, but maybe just talk to what you're doing there and maybe the opportunities over the next few years.

Fantastic note, Jeff, that's very helpful. Thank you. Back.

Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of James West from Melius Research. Your line is now open.

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Morning. Jeff, you guys have stuck your knitting in North America. The only integrated service provider, a fully integrated service provider that is really left in the market. But you've also used it as a cash flow harvesting machine, and that's led to I think some of the significant growth that you're now seeing in the international markets as you deploy capital to those markets, as you deploy capital into technologies, and are increasingly taking share or at least holding your own as others have failed there. Could you talk about that strategy, how you see the evolution of that strategy in those international regions which are now coming to you? The just the amount of awards you've announced in the last two weeks has been highly impressive. So just wanted to touch on kind of where are we in that, I don't know if I want to call it a pivot, but just the deliberate strategy.

Okay, got it. That makes perfect sense. And then as we think about moving equipment abroad, how should we think about the kind of margin opportunity set? I mean, I know Eric already gave us some guidance for just next quarter, which is margin pretty significant margin improvement sequentially, but how should we think about the competitive landscape internationally? When you do move equipment, you have two things. You have one, it's going to be better pricing, but also two, you're not going to need to put as much capital into the market because you've already got the deal already ready to go.

Yeah, James, I guess kind of a short answer on how we think about when we move things around. You know, the country it's moving to, what are the efficiencies and logistics challenges around that, what's the scope of work, how long does it last, everything from volumes being pumped to stages and access to sand and water. But really, it's a pretty straightforward answer after you get through all that: do we have firm and do we make better margins if we put it in XYZ country? And we make those decisions every quarter when we're looking at that, as if we have an opportunity to move it somewhere in the world. And it's really, there's different levels of maturity around unconventionals around the world. Those are mature obviously, and ones we probably want to move as quickly as we can to. Others we look and say, okay, is it a well or is it a long-term program? And we base our decisions around that.

Got it. Great. Take this.

Thank you very much. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Derek Podhazer from Piper Sandler. Mr. Podhazer, your line is now open.

Hey, good morning everyone. So, you mentioned North America land. You know, that's helping improve the C&P margins. I think the guide at the midpoint was 150 basis points. Topline seems to be impacted by the chemical business sale. Talked about Latin America, Europe, Africa, which had a stellar quarter, but maybe some more color on what you're seeing activity-wise impacting your US land frack revenue. 2Q the theme was absorbing the white space. Are you still seeing that full calendar in 3Q as well? Any indication on pricing will be there to help even reactivate some sideline equipment or you mentioned maybe that international unconventional market is more attractive to deploy that idled equipment. Just some more color on US land frack specifically impacting C&P.

Yeah, sure. This is Shannon here, Derek. Yeah, hey, we're seeing a positive margin trajectory. C&P and certainly D&E as well. White space in Q2 was taken up. Q3, we're seeing the same thing in Q3. And I think an important point is we're also seeing pretty significant rig adds here. Over 30 plus rigs being added to North America. And not only is that a real positive for the D&E business, but kind of raises the bar, if you will, of activity sets moving in the future. So it makes us feel really good. And, you know, there's not very little capacity at all in the market on gas substitution, zero at all on electric. And so, as we start seeing some of these smaller and medium-sized players moving a little quicker, you know, nobody's doing less out here. So I think that's an environment. It doesn't happen overnight. It's a steady march and something as Jeff mentioned, we look across our entire fleet, not just one fleet, of raising the tide up on each the entire scope of work we do.

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then maybe moving over to Jafora, you won an award there deploying a frack fleet for the basin. Obviously, there's a play over there. You won majority of the committed work. Is this the uncommitted work? You know, is there upside to the fleet that you're deploying over there? Maybe talk about some of the technology you could add into the Jafora basin as it continues to scale over time. Just an exciting word. So maybe a little more color there.

Great, appreciate all the color. I'll turn it back.

Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Neil Meta from Goldman Sachs. Mr. Meta, your line is now open.

Yeah, thank you so much team. Jeff, Shannon, maybe you can unpack a little bit about the opportunity set in Iraq. We've seen some of your large customers really lean into it and some big announcements last week. So as we think about the margin, the profitability associated with the opportunity set, but also how you're thinking about some of the moving pieces around the geopolitics and the above ground concerns that the market historically has had in that region.

Yeah. Thanks. And then the follow-up is here for Eric is just around share repurchase and buybacks. And one thing that has been a constant of 2026 is volatility, including your share price which has done well but consolidated from peaks. And so, you know, how do you think about the buyback? Do we keep the $200 million run rate or is there an opportunity to be opportunistic with shares trading at a discount potentially at least relative to where we were a couple months ago?

Yeah, look, we haven't really changed our philosophy around buyback, Neil. We were a bit more conservative at the beginning of the year as we indicated on the Q4 call because the macro situation was very different at that time. Now our thinking is to reestablish pretty much the run rate that we've been on for the last couple of years. So you can expect buybacks to pick up, but we are going to continue to do this on a continuous basis rather than jump in the market.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Doug Becker from Capital One. Mr. Becker, your line is now open.

Thank you. It really seems like we're seeing evidence of the international growth engines revving up. Back in January of last year, you mentioned the international growth engines could add two and a half to three billion of annual revenue in three to five years. Is that still a reasonable target or is there some upside there? And could we get a sense how each of the four engines is progressing relative to your expectations?

That certainly sounds encouraging. Eric, I did want to just parse the second quarter C&P margin a little bit more. The guidance was for 50 to 100 basis points of sequential margin improvement, a little bit less than that, and just trying to get a sense how much of that was related to the chemical business versus say lower Middle East activity. Just want to understand that a little bit better.

Yeah, I think in both divisions we were a little higher than guidance on revenue. We were on the lower end of margin overall for both divisions as well. There's not a lot to read into it. If you take the C&P margins for example, we had higher maintenance cost and mobilization of equipment that hit the numbers. We had delays in the Gulf of Mexico which is structurally a high margin business, and it was essentially a product line mix as well that drove the same results in the D&E guidance.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Scott Gruber from Citigroup. Mr. Gruber, your line is now open.

Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Actually wanted to stay on the near-term margin guide. Eric, you mentioned mobilization impact. I think it was C&P. Just broadly, given the pace of growth for you guys, which is pretty impressive, and the new contract wins, are mobilization and startup costs a significant weight on margins today? And are those completely fading in 3Q or are they still impacting? Just some more color on the mobilization startup cost and the trend towards normalizing.

Yeah, I mean I can't give you an exact number in terms of the impact of mobilization because you have mobilization happening, movements of equipment happening at all times in our business as we try to optimize where we put assets to work. The contract wins that we have had have elevated that number a little bit. So we have some headwinds related to that. I just can't quantify it exactly.

Yeah, that's where I wanted to go to next is on the medium and longer term outlook for improvement. And I heard you guys mentioned that the new work is coming in and that's going to be margin accretive. I'm just curious on how to dimension that as we think about the go forward. You know, we normally think about incrementals for Halliburton in that 30-35% range. But a lot of the new contract wins seem to be propelled by new technologies, and those mobilization and startup costs should settle down in the years ahead, and then hopefully we have normalization of activity in the Middle East. As you kind of think through the potential path for margins given those factors, should we be thinking about a couple years of above normal incrementals for Halliburton in '27 and '28? Is that possible?

Well, can we do better than normal on incrementals? I guess that's the question, kind of given all those factors around technology and the Middle East coming back?

Okay. Appreciate the call, Jeff. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Mark Bianke from TD Cowan. Mr. Bianke, your line is now open.

Hey, thank you. I was curious if you could share the impact of the Middle East on the business in the second quarter.

It pretty much landed where we thought it would land. Now it's difficult because it's difficult to say, you know, if there had been no conflict, the activity would mean that much, and then compare it to the actual result is something you just can't do. But in terms of how we were thinking the path would evolve and the results that the Middle East delivered, it's pretty much where we thought it would be broadly speaking.

Okay. Okay. Thank you, Eric. And then on the comment that the international business ex Middle East will grow low double digits. I'm curious what do you think the broader market is doing? And where I'm going with this is, can we maybe infer some sort of growth above whatever the broader market's doing because of all these contracts that you've announced here in the last few quarters?

Would Jeff, would you say that the broader market without this benefit would be up something like mid-single digits?

Yep. All right. Thanks very much. I'll turn it back.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our Q&A session. At this time, I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a wonderful day. Speaker, stand by.