Noble Corporation CEO on strategy post-Maersk Drilling merger and the demand for offshore rigs

Well, thanks for having me. It's an honor to be here.

We are, and 100 years. We're not the only company that's 100 years old, but it is quite a distinction. And it's actually a belated birthday because we turned 100 kind of at the height of COVID, so we actually just turned 103 earlier this month. So we're finally celebrating, but very proud of our heritage.

It's a great question. The merger, when we announced it, we said from the beginning it's a very transformative opportunity for both companies. We basically doubled the size of both companies in the merger, and we've spent the last year and a half working extremely hard preparing for the closing date and then of course affecting the integration. We've just last quarter said that we're more or less closing the books on the integration phase and moving more into optimization, continuing our journey to be the leading offshore drilling company. So from here, I think we could do a number of different things. We have the scale today to simply optimize and continue in this journey of trying to be the very best, but we have also always said that if there were an opportunity for growth that made sense for the shareholders, of course we're going to look at everything.

It's been a really remarkable few years. I mentioned earlier our actual 100th birthday fell kind of in the very depths of the COVID environment, and at that point demand for our services was quite low. Since then it's been a really remarkable recovery, and we have seen our customers' budgets increase year on year, and with that of course the pricing for our service has gone up as well. So from here, I think part of what drove that was underinvestment through the COVID years and a few years prior to that for offshore drilling, so there's a little bit of catch-up. But from here, if you look at all the forward indicators for our business, they're all positive. Our customers' budgets are going up, but even long-term budgeting plans which we call FIDs in industry jargon are all positive and seemingly increasing going forward. So I'm extremely optimistic about where we're headed from here, and Noble, as one of the leading companies in the space, intends to continue on our journey and to support our customers as they expand their drilling plans globally.

Backlog is one of the most important indicators in our business. We've guided this year to a little over $2.5 billion of revenue, so that's almost two years of revenue in backlog. That helps us plan for our internal business, but it also helps our investors understand where the company is going. We have really good earnings visibility in this business; it's one of the things that attracts investors to the space. Not every company has the backlog that Noble has, but it really is a good barometer for how our customers view us and the earnings power of the business in the near term.

It's a great question. It's the essence of our business. This is a service business; we're in offshore oilfield services and we support our customers, which are oil companies. So we want to be the first choice for our customers. We want to provide a consistent and efficient service for them. This can be a risky business in an offshore environment, so we want to be seen as managing their risk better than our competition. We do a whole lot, in fact we probably spend most of our time trying to optimize our operations and improve our operation for our customers in relation to efficiency and safety as well. To do that, we have some of the best assets on earth that we own at Noble, and that's one of our defining characteristics. But day in and day out, it's the people, the employees of the company, that run those assets and make the decisions that ultimately guide our results, in particular the safety of our operation. So I feel very strongly that we need to be the first choice for customers when they're looking to contract for drilling services, and one of the ways to get there is to be the first choice for employees so we can attract the very best people. The entire 103-year legacy of our company has been central to our core values — having the very best people. We have lore that goes right back to 1921 and '22 that always made us an employee-centric company. And if we're first choice for our customers and for our employees, then I think investors will take note.

Thanks for joining me on Floor Talk. It's great to be here. I really appreciate it.