Hunting PLC (HTG) Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking time to be here today and for those online and listening through other mediums. So we appreciate your time and attention to our results and our progress on our strategic plan and the summary of what we're going to do. As I always do, I just want to start this presentation by a special thanks to the team at Hunting. I'm very fortunate. I say this all the time. I wake up every day, just very thankful for the people I get to work with, the brilliant minds in this organization. And today, we're going to highlight the accomplishments we made on our strategic path and the trail that we're going down right now and talk about the results that we delivered. So I'm very excited to say that today, I think we delivered excellent results for the first half of the year. The numbers there speak for themselves. Revenue up 7% year-over-year. EBITDA strong, up 16% year-over-year. But there were a lot of things that we were able to accomplish, and it wasn't done by accident. I want to remind everybody, and many of you in this room were at our strategic plan announcement when we rolled out Hunting 2030. And in that, we listed a number of things that we wanted to do, whether it was M&A, whether it was cost reduction, whether it was expanding the profile and the margin profile of the products we have with our IP as well as focusing on the cost within the organization, which is a never-ending exercise that we do daily. And so the results today that we've announced, I think, highlight a lot of this and the hard work that went into this from the group. I mean, first and foremost, we ended up -- again, I mentioned some of the financial results, but we were finally able -- I know many of you like, finally we've talked about acquisitions for a long time, but we delivered two acquisitions in the first half of the year, both of which are key to the future growth of the company and the expanded margin profile that we will have in the years ahead. And we'll talk some more about that later. Subsea orders continue to accelerate. I'm very proud of the fact that if you go back just 5 years ago, our Subsea footprint was very, very small. And strategically, as we laid out Hunting 2030 and how we wanted to grow, this was an area we want to put our cash to, and we did that. And you can see some of the results with the upside we've seen with orders with the titanium stress joints in the Gulf of America and Black Sea, continued deliveries in Guyana and upside in places like West Africa for the future. We continue to see a very strong performance in OCTG. Again, one of those things, number is quite different today than what they were 4 or 5 years ago. But our team in Asia Pac did an absolute amazing job delivering the final parts of the KOC contract. I'll remind people, it was the biggest contract in the company's history at over $230 million. We executed that flawlessly. And again, our team in Spring, Texas executing as well the titanium stress joint orders in Guyana. One of the things that I also want to highlight is, we do look at our portfolio of businesses constantly and how they're going to play into the longer game and story that we want to tell as an organization. Part of it, we talked about was the reduction of the footprint in Europe. Another recent announcement about further reducing that. Again, economic issues that are out of our control really driving why we're having to make those decisions. Again, there was also issues related to joint venture windups and things like that. But we've laid out a plan, and we're executing that now with significant cost savings for our company and to get that business performing better. The Rival Downhole divestment is one that's an interesting story. And just as a reminder of how we view things, and we look at all of our businesses like this, Rival was a business that we took our drilling tools business back in, I believe it was 2021, and we put it into a joint venture, because we saw a business that was commoditized. We saw a business that was an extensive cash with -- extensive cash requirement. It was one of those cases where the industry needed consolidation there. It was U.S. land-based only. We put it in this joint venture with Rival. We literally have saved over $40 million of CapEx in that time period that we would have spent had we kept that business on our own. And the fortunate thing was we were able to crystallize that investment here recently and put $13 million back in the company's coffers to be used in share buybacks, dividend expansion and M&A. So just some points on that. Again, on the 2030 strategy, we're fortunate that we had very strong activity in the industry. Because at the end of the day, like it or not, we are an oilfield service company. It is tied to what the commodity prices are. And those commodity prices have led to people spending a lot of money. Everybody has read the stories about what's going on in Guyana. It seems like the endless drilling that never finds a dry hole down there. We are so well placed down there, not only with the titanium stress joint orders where we talk about $143 million of product delivered. But that's also been a significant part of our OCTG story with the accessory work going on down there from our U.S. manufacturing group. KOC business, I recently talked about, but that tells you the scale and the size of tender activity that you see in big areas such as the Middle East, and we expect more of that to happen. Acquisitions, I'm going to keep on about that because I think they're great stories. But we took a lot of cash, we spent that. We were able to have the flexibility to go ahead and do that and put those in place. Two acquisitions that fit not only the product offering we're looking for, but also match the culture of the company, which is important, I know to me and to the long-term shareholders of the organization. You don't want to go down that road where I think many of you know a lot of mergers and acquisitions fail, and it's the cultural issues that cause those failures. And it's one thing that Hunting has been good about when we go down this path and make these new additions. Non-oil and gas sales, we continue to work on that. Dearborn business has been stronger than our electronics business. We did have some impacts because of strike issues at Pratt & Whitney here a few months ago. Those are behind us now. Very, very upbeat on the Dearborn business, because if you went back just a few years ago, that business was probably 70% oil and gas. It was higher than that even when we made that acquisition. That has totally flipped to non-oil and gas, primarily defense aviation. And one of the biggest new areas for us that we're seeing an uptick is in the nuclear side of the business. The order book in carbon capture and geothermal has been kind of steady on the geothermal side. Carbon capture, to be honest, has really not went anywhere as far as applications that fit around our product offering related to OCTG. And I think with the tax changes in the U.S., it's not going to be a great outlook for carbon capture. However, we're extremely bullish on the geothermal side, especially in international markets like Indonesia and the Philippines, where we are seeing orders and where we have the technology for the high-end products that go into that. Financial performance, again, we focus a lot on the cost savings, the closing of facilities in EMEA is unfortunately, I'd like to say the EMEA, the next time you see that might be a small "e" in EMEA. So it's just how we've had to downsize and look at that business for the macro issues in that marketplace. And then lastly, I think it's important to note that we plan to distribute $200 million of dividends by 2030. We're well on the way to doing that. We've looked at our forecast. We've looked at our cost base, the cost savings that we've had, the money and cash we needed for M&A and possibly future M&A, and we have the ability to, again, give more shareholder returns. One of the things we realize every day is when investors are looking to put their money in someplace, where are they going to get their return. And I'm almost -- you almost get tired of hearing about the magnificent 7 every day, but those are the companies that are drawing attention. And what we have to do is make sure there's going to be returns for the long run, for those investing in the company. And like I said, I'm looking for owners, not renters. And that's what the plan is to do this business. The strong financial performance, again, I think we did very, very well this first half of the year. I'd highlight the free cash flow improvement. Bruce will be talking in more detail about that later on in the presentation. The other thing was the working capital ratio, probably maybe the best in the company's history that I've seen as far as that relationship to revenue. Dividends, we've talked about the $58.2 million already returned since '22 and more on the way. And our EBITDA, I like that graph, lower left, upper right, it's all going in the right direction. International becomes a continued important part of our business. There, you'll see the breakdown on North America and international work. North America, a big part -- obviously, a big part of our operation just because of the product offerings that we have. But what we're definitely not and kind of separates us from some of our peers is the fact that we do have a strong international footprint that has delivered good returns for us, and that is one of the areas where we see a lot of growth going forward. I'm going to go over once again the key strategic initiatives in this period because again, none of this came from accidents. These are things that we laid out years and years ago and what we wanted to do. It wasn't something we woke up one morning and said, "Oh, we need to restructure this or we need to dispose of Rival. I mentioned about the Rival story. That's a story that basically 4, 4.5 years in process. I know $13 million might not seem by much. But again, when you look at the CapEx savings over the time, it was a big deal for us to get that going. The M&A, organic oil recovery is going to be a home run. It's going to be one of those things that enhances the margin profile of the company going forward. It's for conventionals. And if you look even in the U.S., you've got hundreds of thousands of conventional oil wells in the U.S. and Canada. This is a product that up until the acquisition, we were not allowed to talk or touch about in the Western Hemisphere. So now we've expanded our profile with that. We've upgraded our lab facility. We've hired new technologists in the area of microbiology. The results from the clients that we have seen in places like the U.K. have been very, very positive. And I just think this is a home run. And we're nurturing that and expect big things in the future. Flexible Engineered Solutions, a fantastic business. What we looked at in that -- and again, I want to tell everybody why haven't done an acquisition. We literally started that process in September of last year, and that's how long it takes. And when you're buying and dealing with private companies, it's a whole different world than going public to public. So Hunting goes in, we're very efficient and very thorough on our due diligence. We go into some guys that are private operators. They don't run their business that way. And so it's just the time involved to get these deals done and executed. But the two owners that we bought the business from, amazing gentlemen. It is a business that is actually pretty capital light, but very, very heavy on IP. So they're the guys people go to for bespoke products on things like FPSOs. And what we wanted to do was expand our reach into the FPSO market. And if you look at recent data from Rystad and others, there's something like 40 to 45 FPSOs supposed to be coming online or being built over the next 5 years. And now with the product offering from FES, along with our titanium stress joint business or even the steel riser business, we have now greatly increased the potential marketplace on every FPSO in the world out there. So very, very excited about that. And even with that area, there is some upside on the wind side of the business. It's not material today. It has been business in the past. It probably won't matter in the U.S. considering the current tax issues, but it's, again, a tool in our tool chest that we can use. Restructuring, I talked about. One of the areas -- we'll talk a little bit more about this later. We're talking a lot about the U.K. business, the business in Holland, the closure of those facilities. But we continue to look at cost cutting throughout the group. We mentioned here with the slowdown in capital equipment purchases in electronics, for example, we've had headcount reductions, unfortunately, there. We've adjusted our workforce in Asia Pac for the completion of the KOC orders. We continue to actively like we've done for more than a decade, work on a continuous improvement program throughout the organization. And every day, we look for ways in which we can do things quicker, faster and better. Annualized savings, again, we talk about the Titan one. I think that graph on the bottom is an amazing outcome compared to where we were. And I want to take my hat off to the Titan team and to Adam Dyess in specifically for the performance that they've had over this year. And it's really been focusing on the cost reduction, focusing on the customers that are worth chasing. There is a thing in the business of good clients and bad clients. And I think sometimes in the past, worrying about volumes, we chase some bad clients. So if you go through one of the common threads of the company today is focusing on business where people value our technology. If you look at EMEA, again, it is -- I don't read PowerPoint presentations, but we talk about the closure of sites, two in Holland, one in the U.K., one in Norway, very, very small footprint. Are we abandoning the U.K.? The answer is no. We've picked up significant business in this half of the year from EnPro, and that works on decommissioning. We still have our well intervention product line that will be active in the U.K. And again, OOR is right now very focused on the U.K. as well. Again, balance sheet efficiency right there. That's a graph where it -- I think, actions speak louder than words, and there's what you have right now. It's a 34% on the cash conversion cycle to revenue, down from not great numbers at the COVID time back in 2020 -- 2000, I'm sorry, but progress being made. I give Bruce and his team all the credit for that. Return on capital, we're up to 10.5%, 11%. We got to get to 15%. How are we going to do that? We're still planning to do that through things like M&A on product lines that are accretive to the goal of enhancing that. But if you look at the portfolio today, the businesses in Subsea, our OCTG margins are record highs in my career right now. You'll see an increase in things like, more activity that we're picking up in areas in advanced manufacturing, improvements in Titan, which we're already seeing going in the right direction and then the continued focus on cost reduction, which is a never-ending story. But all things going in the right direction. Capital allocation, something new this time, obviously, is our share buyback. We look at our forecast. It's not something that we just we take [indiscernible] It's like what do we need to do? Where is the cash going to go? We wanted to make sure that we had the capital available to do M&A. So we did that. We bought -- spent $80-some million on two acquisitions, but we're looking at a breakdown of what we're at right now. I, like Bruce and everybody at Hunting thinks our shares are very, very cheap and undervalued right now. Long story short, we announced a $40 million share buyback, which is starting today. And we've also announced that we're accelerating the growth in our dividend. And again, it's cash back to shareholders and trying to make an investment case for the long term. And with that, I'll turn it over to Bruce.

Thanks, Jim. Good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to present our strong set of financial results for the first half. Just focusing on the order book. That's obviously run down slightly as we've gone through our KOC -- large KOC order through the first half of the year. But behind that, I'd like to talk about the tender pipeline. We've got $1 billion behind that actual order book. Predominantly, the tender pipeline is related to the OCDG and Subsea business. So we've got some large tenders coming up through quarter 3 and quarter 4, which is good, gives us confidence in the outlook for '26 and '27. As Jim mentioned, revenue is up 7% year-on-year. That's really led by OCG performance. That was 51% of our sales relate to OCDG. So that's the -- like the KOC order, we saw booked throughout the first half, but also a really good performance by the Connection Group in North America, really sort of bucking the trend there in terms of the growth on the longer laterals across there. Dropping through to the EPS, up 26% year-on-year. And in terms of really happy with the consistent free cash flow we're getting now. We're at $66 million compared to $2 million this time last year. We've got a working capital inflow of $25 million, which is good to see as we get that working capital efficiency through as well. And that lets us do the things we want to do in terms of capital allocation. Just some other highlights. EBITDA margin, 13%, making progression towards the 15%. If you think about EMEA, that was a drag, that was a negative 5% as we go through that whole restructure and disruption, the blended margin is getting to where we want to be. But it does help the fact that OCG and Subsea, that's where a lot of the sales are coming from, and that is why we've pivoted there. That's with a higher margin. It's over 30% gross margins. It's over 15% EBITDA margins as well. Still managed to hold the non-oil and gas despite things slowing down with things like carbon capture. We're flat at $37 million. We're building on that with the order book coming through the AMG Group. I think a really good step change has been the Perforating Systems. It's still quite a small number in terms of the turnaround, the top line has come off as the onshore U.S. has been slower, but the changes made by Adam and his group in terms of the cost structure, focusing on the higher-margin products. Our international business has probably doubled the margins. So again, that's been a big focus on the Middle East, Argentina and Mexico as well. And as Jim mentioned, operational efficiencies, restructuring continues. We're always looking at taking costs out where we can and addressing that cost base and rightsizing the business. So in total, over the last 18 months, that's around about $20 million of annualized savings that we'll benefit from the 1st of January '26. EBITDA up 16%, which is good to see in quite a tough market, up to $70 million. Dividend increasing up 13% to 6.2% interim. And return on cap, a key measure for us, now up at 10.5%, so around about our WACC and a good progression from our H1 figures there, up 3 points. Again, a graphical form just in terms of revenue and EBITDA. You see the blue chart, the blue bar graph there, that's our OCG, the 51%. We take that plus Subsea, that's over 2/3 of our revenue. Again, that's where our good earnings are coming from the quality earnings, margins, EBITDA margins coming through, and that's helped build that EBITDA breakdown there. So that's what's driving that. That pivot we talked about at the Capital Markets Day about going towards the international offshore Subsea space, that's starting to pay dividends now. In terms of our income statement, we look at the increase in terms of our revenue at 7% with a $37 million of non-oil and gas. Gross profit, again, progression, good progression from H1 up 1 point to 28%. You're seeing things like even the perforating systems, up from 19% up to 23%. So that 4-point difference in a tough market is good to see, driven again by Subsea and OCG leading the way, U.S. connections and the U.S. onshore, and some great margins coming through there as well. And the cost restructure is starting to play through there as well. EBITDA, up 13% year-on-year. In terms of the effective tax rate around 30% just based on the regional mix of profit. EPS at 19.6%, a nice improvement there, 26% year-on-year and the interim dividend of 6.2%, talking to that 13% increase. That good cash generation allows us to not just do the share buyback, but also look at increasing dividends as well. A little bit more detail in terms of the segmental results. You see the Hunting Titan there. Second half of the year, we actually lost $1.4 million EBITDA. That's improved to $5.9 million on a lower top line. So those improvements we're talking about, focus International starting to come through there. Strong North America despite the rig count down 8%. So that's that onshore business we're talking about the lower -- the longer laterals, also good completion work into the offshore Guyana as well. Subsea, a little bit softer. We've seen the -- we expected the number of subsea trees in '25, right side, we're projecting about 290. That's going to be about 170. So it has been about a softer market. That will recover '26 and beyond back towards over the 300 mark. So that's good to see as well. But it has been a little bit softer. The product mix hasn't been the higher-margin stress joints, et cetera. That is coming back. That's part of the tender pipeline. So we do expect a stronger H2. EMEA has been tough, closing five facilities going to one disruption, headcount reductions, a tough market. So we expect that second half performance to improve back to a more neutral position there as well. We've seen a brilliant Asia Pac in terms of completing on the KOC order. That was really well received by the customer, thousands of joints delivered on time, and that has been a real big part of the first half story that we can see there. What we've tried to do, and that was part of the Capital Markets Day was just explain the business more clearly in terms of the segments, but also the product lines as well, our five main product lines. OCG, again, above our target, I see a 19% EBITDA margins. Perforating Systems improving back to 7%. So that's a really good step change. We see that improving over the second half of the year. The one I'll just pick up on there is Advanced Manufacturing, 5%. We have seen that industrial action from one of the key customers. We have seen less CapEx in terms of some of the oil and gas majors, some of the complicated MWD. So that has been a bit softer, but will pick up in H2 as well. In terms of the regions along the top, EMEA, again, is the one area that has suffered in terms of the reduction in EBITDA. The actions we are taking, we're confident we'll get back to a neutral position, and we'll kick on to a double-digit EBITDA margin next year. In terms of free cash flow, it's a good story. We're looking at sort of the working capital movements there. Inflows, nice to report, $26 million inflow. We've got the -- some spend in terms of CapEx. We've got the new Dubai facility of $4.2 million and D365, it's a new ERP system. We'll get efficiencies from there, but that's contributed to $20 million of CapEx and intangible assets. And in terms of that's all flowing through to our free cash flow of $66 million, which compares favorably to $2 million from last year. We have -- we represent the two acquisitions there, $61 million for FES and $80 million for our OOR flowing through to a $25 million outflow. That gives us a strong balance sheet despite the $80 million of CapEx on acquisition, sorry, that's given us over $80 million of cash on the balance sheet. We're now representing the goodwill and intangible assets of the new acquisitions coming through. Working capital coming down. We'll talk about that in a little bit more detail, but that's down 10% as well. So again, working hard on that working capital efficiencies. That figure being well over $400 million in the past, but we have tied up that capital base. We no longer have the North Sea in terms of pipe, Canada in terms of pipe. So that again gives us that lower capital base, and that flows through to our improvements in return on capital at 10.5%. The metrics we're talking about, we're now targeting that between 30% and 35%. It was 35% by the end of 2025 at our Capital Markets Day, so we're on target to achieve that. Again, a little bit more on working capital. But again, we're working that in terms of inventories, we're now down to $262 million. I remember that being well over $400 million in the past. So again, more efficient, lighter inventory base. Asia Pac, despite all those revenues, they've got $20 million of inventory. So that virtual mill is really working, light capital, high return, and that's driving that return on capital coming through as well. So again, working hard on that, self-help. The Titan inventory is down from $140 million down to $110 million, and we're going to move that further down as well. So that's helping our metrics in terms of working capital revenue. In terms of the order book, just a little bit more on that. We are at $451 million. The timing of that, you've got 2/3 of that will be recognized in '25. It doesn't include Titan. The story there is that it's -- you've got OCG, Subsea and AMG making up the bulk of that. It doesn't include Titan. The order book from the AMG point of view, it's good to see over $100 million of non-oil and gas within that as we try and diversify in a measured way into the non-oil and gas. I finish the slide just on guidance. There's an element of volatility, uncertainty over the second half, but we've done the modeling. We're comfortable in maintaining our guidance at the $135 million to $145 million EBITDA. We have a contribution of $4 million to $5 million in there for FES over the back half of the year. We're maintaining the EBITDA margins at 12%, 13%, effective tax rates up there as well. CapEx, we think, is going to be around about $35 million to $40 million. That's the run rate just now. Free cash flow, still, we're targeting 50%. I think we can be slightly better than that. And a cash figure at the end of the year, that's pre-share buyback of $65 million to $75 million. After the share buyback, we're probably targeting around that $40 million mark. Okay? So still a very strong balance sheet, strong cash position and strong growth on year-on-year. And with that, I'll hand back to Jim.

Okay. Thanks, Bruce. I've got a few more comments to make and talk some more about the business here. Talking about FES, just some more details about that. Again, a great business that we like the technology. We like the people, lots of upside. The key, again, was expanding our addressable market in the FPSO space. And with this acquisition, the integration has gone seamlessly so far from within our systems, the people, the attitude, the engineering. We've already picked up synergies on the sales side in places like Brazil and the Gulf of America. So I think, we're very well placed to add this to a greater offering that I think customers are going to appreciate. And I believe this will do very, very well. As Bruce mentioned, it is kind of a capital-light operation. It's more on the IP side and on the test and assembly side. The Newcastle area, there's quite a few manufacturers in that area we use. And so it's not going to be a big use of capital tied up in that. But very, very excited about this, and it fits into what we laid out in 2030. This map here kind of shows you the places around the world where it's wet and where we have these operations at right now. So you can see, again, it's South America, Gulf of America. We're seeing more improvement in interest in Africa and West Africa. I think that future license deals in the Gulf of America are important. As you all know, we basically had 4 years with nothing happening in that Gulf region because of the administration -- the prior administration's preference not to drill. The current administration has announced 30 lease rounds that will happen between now and the next 4 years. And while that doesn't immediately start drilling operations, at least it's going to open up a lot of acreage in an area that's got prime opportunities for further oil and gas development. Organic Oil Recovery, the thing that is, is having it in our control. We have been limited in the past at times on just the speed to market, because of the way the agreement was set up with the previous owners. So we're trying to accelerate this quickly. We will have an international lab in place in '26 because you got to be able to get back to your customers on a timely basis. And like Bruce had mentioned, we're kind of -- we're getting all the IP. The IP is all in place, but it's that knowledge that we need to make sure we keep throughout the organization. And I think we're well on the way to having this being a major success. We continue to see a focus from the areas like EMEA to the Middle East. The Middle East is going to be a growing important marketplace for us. A lot of what we do in the Middle East and in our Dubai location is really to support sales globally. For example, all the work with KOC actually comes out of our Asia Pac operation, but we have people and boots on the ground that are there in that time zone and can be there on rig sites and things like that. But what we do see is the improvement we will have in efficiencies with our well testing business, with our accessory business in Saudi Arabia, there's great upside there. And today, if you're an oilfield service company, you have to be in the Middle East and find a way to grow your footprint there, and that's what we're doing with the new facility. The Indian joint venture, I haven't talked about that much to date, but that thing has been just a massive home run for us. And I always give Daniel Tan credit for bringing this to us a couple of years ago. Bruce and I will be back in India here in October, right, Bruce, yes, we'll be back there. It's been just a great success. We have boots on the ground there. The joint venture has worked extremely well. We have a great partner and everything that we do there is staying in India. So the demand for energy is amazing over there, growing by leaps and bounds, and we're a key player with the only premium connections being manufactured in India right now. The growth in the International markets, we talked about a little bit earlier, but South America is such an important part of our business right now. If you look at -- and there's one of our titanium stress joints on a truck getting ready to head out of our location at Spring. But you just look at the amount of investment that's going into those regions, whether it's Guyana, definitely, Brazil is a 900-pound gorilla. We opened up an office there last year. We're already seeing upsides on the FES work there, on the titanium opportunities there, as well as Organic Oil Recovery. We talk about the work in new areas like Suriname, that's going to be coming online. In Trinidad, many of you probably saw the announcement that Exxon got new deepwater licenses. They may spend up to $10 billion there over the next 5 years. And that's the same. It fits right into the FPSO market that we're now a key player in providing components to. And then lastly, there are two other areas in South America that are important. One is the completion accessory business that falls under OCTG, and that is heavily involved in working with a couple of our major service company clients, but it's all the completion work that goes on for these wells down in Guyana and Brazil. And also, what's important is the unconventional play in Argentina, and that has been a significant part of the Titan business. I think the production is up to 600,000 or 700,000 barrels a day right now in Argentina. That's going to grow, and we think we're well placed with the acceptance of our products down there. OCTG market, as I talked about earlier, I think that Travis Kelley and the team in our connection business as well as Daniel Tan for Asia Pac, they've done an amazing job with the product line in all areas. But this highlights in North America, where if you look at the graph on the bottom, we've definitely bucked the trend on rig count. And I get asked all the time, well, how are they doing this with a rig count that's falling down, down, down. And it really comes down to one thing, it's our virtual mill concept. So I'm not tied to any specific mill. And there are some of our competitors, our connections are going on their pipe to clients. Because we rely on the distribution network in Canada and in the U.S. where we don't have the risk of tariffs. We don't have the risk of the cost of inventory for those products and just charge them a service. The other thing is the technology is speaking loudly right now. When you look in the Permian Basin, something like 35% of all wells drilled in the Permian now have laterals greater than 2 miles. And you really can't afford to have a problem 2 miles down, and you really need to make sure these casing streams can stay together. And the new clients we've picked up, the market share gains have just been, I think, excellent and again, really buck the trend of what you saw with the rig count and what we would have normally seen. Energy transition, we talk a little bit about there. I mean, one of the reasons I'm so optimistic going forward is going to be in natural gas demand. And we don't talk a lot about this. I haven't talked a lot about this to date. But when you look at the amount of money being poured into data centers for AI and the growth that, that's going to have in places like, for example, my home state of Pennsylvania, they just announced something like $25 billion in AI and data center construction going on. The key is that today, those aren't using any power, because they're being built. And people need to step back for a second and when does that happen. So '26, '27, as those things come online, they have to have dependable supplies of energy. They're not going to get it from wind and solar. Natural gas will be the driver for that. And if it's a North America data center using natural gas or nuclear, but specifically natural gas, it's going to be unconventional. And that plays into Titan and plays into future growth in areas like the Marcellus and the Utica, where we're the #1 supplier of product there. So I'm very, very bullish on natural gas. It's going to be unconventional. It's going to be great for our OCTG business as well. On the other energy transition things, again, I'm not too bullish on carbon capture, but I do think geothermal has a place. They're getting the cost structure down on geothermal. And it's an area where, especially in the area of premium connections, our team is working hard qualifying product. And even in things like the Forge project in Utah, our Titan people have been supplying product out there. So that will be a decent market. It's going to be, I think, stronger internationally. So again, outlook, we think we've got a challenging period ahead of us. I don't know what the fourth quarter is going to bring. I think that's the big uncertainty in North America right now, because nobody does know. And it's going to depend on what's the macro. And to a degree, we're always held kind of hostage to that. But what I do know is things that I talked about as far as the outlook longer term for natural gas, the unconventional plays, the fact that Subsea business has a very, very strong pathway ahead of it. As Bruce talked about earlier, we did see a dip in Subsea Tree Awards this year that was really not expected. I think it's just kind of a timing issue. But we're looking at more than 300 trees being awarded from '26 through 2030. And that's an indication of the health of that Subsea market and why we're so bullish on it. And if you look at adding another 40 or 50 FPSOs around the world, the addressable market for Hunting is now huge. So our outlook for the full year remains unchanged. We're going to work hard to keep focus on our cost basis to make sure that we're good stewards of the company's money and continue to find ways to grow the business, both organically and inorganically. But I think the outlook is brilliant. So with that, I think my presentation is done, and thank you all, and we'll open it up for questions.

Jamie Franklin from Jefferies. So I just wanted to touch on Subsea margins, please. Obviously, a bit of a step down on the first half. So what is your kind of confidence that they can get back to the 20% plus that you saw in 1H '24? And then it looks like you've got about 90 million backlog for the Subsea business. How much of that is for the second half? And is there much high-margin stress joints within that?

Okay. In terms of the margin, I think there's a couple of things there that we think -- one is volume. So it's volume driven in terms of once those volumes return, we're talking about the Subsea trees coming back. That is driving -- we know the order book is there for the stress joints, which will be recognized more in '26. But we also got FES coming on board as well, which again is high-margin contribution. The product mix for the first half, we saw, and that's why it was 13% was more about the stab plates. So they tend to be lower product mix and lower contribution. Once we get back to more normalized product mix, we've got FES contribution on there. We definitely see this as a 20% EBITDA margin product line. And the volumes coming back when we talk about FPSOs, in terms of the general market, that is also going to help us get to that range as well.

Okay. Great. And then just on Titan business, what are you seeing in terms of behavior of your peers in terms of pricing?

I think pricing -- I'm not seeing really any changes from 6 months ago. I think everybody needs to make money. I think there's pressures from clients. That's a daily thing on all product lines if you're talking about U.S. land. But I think the good thing from our side is we've held our ground. We're not cutting prices. We think that the leaders in the business are doing the same. And so it's pretty stable right now. And when you look at some of the components like the steel components and that, most of us are buying the same type of material. So there's not really any difference there either. So we're trying to let the technology speak loud and clear when we're out there with our clients and focus on that.

Richard Dawson from Berenberg. So just picking back up on OCTG. So KOC one is now complete, very strong margins within that contract. So we've had a couple of tenders from KOC sort of across this year, which has gone to competitors. So when you look forward to tenders that are out there, is your bidding strategy changing at all? Are you potentially looking to sacrifice a bit of margin to make sure you win that?

Well, I'm not going to tell you I'm going to sacrifice margin on a tender process, whenever that comes. All I would say is that I think that our entrance into Kuwait kind of stirs some things up as far as our competitors go, and it is what it is. And it's a competitive process. The key was, first and foremost, being qualified on the connections. So you couldn't even get in the door until you did all that testing. We accomplished all that. Our team in Houston did a brilliant job on that. And then we executed flawlessly. Because we're a virtual mill, a lot of it is going to come down to how competitive also our mill partners are going to be. So I think it's one of those cases we'll evaluate that on the grades and sizes when it's specified and comes out, and we'll put our best foot forward and make sure that whatever sales price it is, it benefits us as a company from a margin perspective.

Okay. And maybe one for Bruce as well, just on the KOC, because there's also a working capital benefit that came through from sort of how KOC was structured. When you look into H2, what's sort of your outlook for working capital on that ratio? Do you see that sort of saying flat?

In terms of the KOC order was very good for us in terms of the discounting on the LCs, in terms of bank acceptance bonds. So with no KOC in H2, we're at 34% just now. So I see that being consistent in H2. I think hopefully, we're successful with a portion of the tender. And when we get to actually recognize that revenue and deal in the working capital, that gives us more scope to probably improve that figure, probably closer to the 30% mark.

It's Mick Pickup here from Barclays. A couple of questions, if I may. Just on the Titan business and unconventionals, I know you mentioned it in the text. Can you talk about opportunities in Saudi and maybe even in Abu Dhabi on the unconventional side for that? And the second question on nuclear. It's not something you've talked about much in the past.

Yes. So on the business in Saudi Arabia, as I think a lot of you know, there's been a pause over there. So the last 2 months or so, it's been very, very quiet in Saudi from some operational issues. All I'm going to say, Mick, without being saying too much is competitive, we feel we're very, very well placed to see that business do dramatic things for us. So we have a good reputation, a great track record over there, great clients that we work through on the wireline side. So I'm very optimistic on that. On nuclear, there's been some new business captured out of our Dearborn operation for some fusion work going on as well as traditional new nuclear. One of the things about -- and even when we made the acquisition of Dearborn, they had like zero nuclear business, because of just how that died for decades. But in the early days of that operation, they were very involved in the nuclear power plant construction side of the business with different components. And it's one of those type of things, whether it's Hitachi or whoever we're working with, it's kind of good to have already been spec-ed in there and have your CV in place that you do this. So I think nuclear is one of those things that I can't put my finger on how big the scale of it is yet because, again, when are they going to build this, when are they going to get the okay, but it could definitely be a significant growth area for the Dearborn operation.

And do you have anything on the OCTG side for nuclear? I know some of the other OCTG names got rid of the nuclear businesses 4 or 5 years ago, just because it's small volumes, very high tech connections needed and very high spec pipe.

Yes. No, we don't have anything OCTG-wise related to nuclear.

It's Alex Brooks, Canaccord. Can I ask a bit on FES because that's quite a different business to what you have historically and you tend to be much more a manufacturing operation, and this is very much kind of pull-through. Can you kind of talk a bit about what the vision is there? Is it that it's pulling through primarily EmPro and -- how does that fit in with that...

So the real vision, if you look at that picture up on the screen, those red things that you see are the patented connections that they make, the diverless stiff bell connections or whatever are used for the umbilicals under the turret and all. And each of those -- they're significantly priced with very good margins on that business. So it really depends on the design of the turret. But there's a feasibility -- there's a probability, I'm sorry. I mean, you could have a potential market of like $50 million for every FPSO that goes out there. When you look at the titanium stress joints as well as the FES product line, depending on the turret configuration and what they decide to do. What we said, and a lot of this was going to go in my closing remarks. We don't look at this as like, oh, what's the offshore business or that doing this quarter. We look at the trends and listen to our customers, whether it's at FMC or Exxon. What are you thinking about for the next 5 to 10 years? And honestly, it's going to be FPSO land. I mean that is where the big reserves are. That's where the lowest -- low cost per barrel are over a long period of time, and that is not going to slow down. And so how do we touch that FPSO market? As I've mentioned in the past, not every FPSO is going to use a titanium stress joint depending on water depth, whatever. There's a big part of it that will. But now with FES, every FPSO is a marketplace regardless of water depth for us. So the cross-selling and how we view that we can go into these clients, it's always better to have -- more is better. It gives you more leverage, gives you more size. And the people in FES, a lot -- there's a lot of bespoke engineering, that clients around the world know they go to these guys and there's never a problem. And another highlight that I didn't mention is one of the good things about FES, they're not -- business isn't contingent on the U.K. market. So most of it is outside of Europe, right? It's Brazil, it's Gulf of America. There's some in Norway. It's very, very international, Australia. And so I'm -- just to throw that out there, I'm not concerned about the U.K. business environment for the FES acquisition. But that's kind of the story, just more products to sell and bundling of that kind.

Victoria McCulloch, RBC. Just on EMEA, we're up to $11 million of cost savings you're expecting there. When are you expecting that number to come through? And are the costs associated with delivering that within the number? And then linked to FES, what proportion does that make up within your $1.1 billion tender pipeline?

On the FES, it's quite a small portion at the moment, but it's up towards $100 million mark. There's some really good tenders, quality tenders we're working on there. In terms of the $11 million, we've been working on the cost reductions for the last 12, 18 months for EMEA. There's a lot of work being done in H2. There'll be some more going through in H1 in terms of just the timing it takes to restructure some of the facilities. But the majority of that $11 million in terms of coming through '26, I would say it's $9 million or $10 million. So we'll get the benefit of those cost savings coming through next year.

And just as a follow-up, OOR. It feels that it's awaiting the results of the recent work ongoing. How do you accelerate that market? Is there results to show clients when you go to pitch the opportunity? You talked about $100 million revenue by 2030. Is there a way to accelerate that? Is there -- could that market be bigger?