Executives
Greg Rosenstein - VP, IR
David Dunlap – CEO
Analysts
Marshall Atkins – Raymond James
James West – Barclays Capital
Daniel Burke – Johnson Rice and Company
Robin Shoemaker – Citigroup
Joe Hill – Tudor, Pickering Holt and Company
John Daniel – Simmons and Company
Joe Gibney – Capital One Southcoast
Terese Fabian – Sidoti & Company
Jeff Spittel – Madison Williams & Company
William Conroy – Pritchard Capital
Michael Marino – Stephens Inc.
David Nierenberg – Nierenberg Investment Management
Superior Energy Services, Inc. (SPN) Q2 2010 Earnings Conference Call July 29, 2010 12:00 PM ET
Operator
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Superior Energy Services second quarter earnings conference call. During today’s presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be opened for questions. (Operator Instructions).
This conference is being recorded today, Thursday, July 29th, 2010.
I’d now like to turn the conference over to Greg Rosenstein. Please go ahead, sir.
Greg Rosenstein
Okay, thank you, Mitch, and thank you for joining today’s conference call. Joining me today are Superior’s CEO, David Dunlap; and Superior’s Chief Financial Officer, Robert Taylor.
Let me remind everyone that during this call, the management may make forward-looking statements regarding future expectations about the company’s business, management’s plans for future operations or similar matters. The company’s actual results could differ materially due to several important factors including those described in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Also, during the call, management will refer to EBITDA and adjusted income from operations both are non-GAAP financial measures. And in accordance with Regulation G, the company provides a reconciliation between net income and these items on its website.
With that, I’ll now turn the call over to David Dunlap.
David Dunlap
Well, good morning, everyone. Last night, we reported revenues of $424.9 million for the second quarter of 2010. Excluding the management transition expense mentioned in our earnings release, EBITDA was $121 million and our core earnings were $34.6 million or $0.43 per diluted share.
If you read the headline of our press release, you know that we’re making progress in expanding into the US land and international markets.
I am very pleased with the progress that the company is making and expanding our revenue and earnings from North American land. Our revenue in the second quarter in North American land was $120 million, that’s an increase of 29% sequentially and 61% year-over-year. The increase we experienced was primarily due to utilization gains, especially for coiled tubing and cased-hole wire line. Pricing for our services on land made moderate gains during the course of the quarter.
As an indication of where pricing stands, coiled tubing rates are about halfway between the trough of 2009 and the peak of 2008.
Our drilling products and services segment also continues to experience geographic expansion into the land market.
The company has now established a revenue base in drill pipe, specialty tubulars, accommodations, and stabilization equipment, and revenue from these product lines was 30% of our overall land revenue during the quarter.
International revenue was a $113 million, which is a 4% increase sequentially and a 60% increase year-over-year.
We continue to make progress in expanding our revenue base in Brazil mainly through rental tool sales. Hallin Marines revenue improved in the second quarter from the first, but results are still below our internal expectations as a result of continued weakness in Asia.
Gulf of Mexico revenue was a $192 million, which is an 18% increase sequentially and 11% decrease year-over-year. The sequential increase was due to seasonal factors as demand increased for plug and abandonment, well control, accommodations, coiled tubing, stabilization rentals, and liftboats.
With respect to the oil spill, I continue to be impressed with our product and service lines that have been working tirelessly in support of BP. Our subsidiary wild well control has assisted in developing and engineering many of BP’s containment options as they’ve been on the project since day one.
Other Superior assets have joined in the spill response efforts. In addition to engineering services, we’re providing liftboats for logistic support, accommodation units to house spill response workers, and environmental services used in the cleanup efforts.
I think the real storyline of the quarter was that our results in the US land market overcame the weakness in Hallin Marine. Work on the oil spill provided the margin of difference over First Call estimates of about $0.38.
One significant milestone to note is this marked the first quarter in which we had significantly reduced activity from the wreck removal project and we have effectively replaced it with work in other areas while increasing our profitability.
I’d now like to discuss our segment performance in detail. We’ll start with subsidy and well enhancement segment. In the subsidy and well enhancement segment, revenue was $284.4 million and adjusted income from operations was $43.9 million, which represents sequential increases of 22% and 85% respectively.
Revenue increase sequentially in all three major geographic regions. Domestic land increased 28% to $84 million, the Gulf of Mexico was up 27% to $129 million, and international increased 9% to $71 million. The product line showing the larger sequential increases were well control, plug and abandonment, coiled tubing, and cased-hole wire line services.
Coiled tubing revenue continues to demonstrate one of the strongest growth areas for the company. Revenue from the company’s 33 coiled tubing units on land in the US has increased 87% over the second quarter of 2009 and utilization continues to be strong in most of the US markets.
The 39% incremental margins we experienced in the subsidy and well enhancement segment over the first quarter were primarily a function of increased utilization, higher margin product mix, and slightly improved pricing in coiled tubing.
Coiled tubing rates increased by 5% to 10% in some districts and we ran some 24-hour jobs in places like the Marcellus and Eagle Ford.
In terms of well control, we managed two pressure control incidents in Pennsylvania and West Virginia during the quarter. Our customers’ response in that region has been extremely positive and I would anticipate that we may play a larger role in the well control market in the Marcellus Basin going forward.
Internationally, the revenue increase was driven primarily by a full quarter contribution from Hallin Marine. While Hallin experienced some seasonal improvements, they are still operating in a challenging vessel market over in Southeast Asia. Hallin has seen a steady flow of bids, but rates remain highly competitive.
We are aggressively seeking opportunities outside of that market. One of Hallin’s vessels, the Ullswater, did perform its first project in the West African market during the second quarter, and we are developing a strategy to address that market in a bigger way. Hallin also took delivery of its newest vessel the Windermere in early July and the vessel is currently working in Malaysia.
Moving onto the drilling and products and services segment, this segment realized revenue of a $121.3 million and adjusted income from operations was $25 million, which represents a 6% sequential increase in revenue and a 5% sequential increase in operating income.
Revenue increased 33% sequentially to $36 million in the domestic land market, but fell 3% to $46 million in the Gulf of Mexico, and was flat at $39 million internationally. The 13% increase in the domestic land rig count drove higher demand for accommodations, stabilization equipment, and drill pipe. Stabilizer demands also driven by directional and horizontal drilling, which was up 17% over the first quarter.
Gulf of Mexico revenue was lower as we saw the early effects of the moratorium and we had a sale of pipe that occurred in the first quarter which did not repeat.
Internationally, increased revenue from the North Sea, Brazil and Trinidad was offset by declines in Africa, Columbia and Venezuela. The slightly lower incremental operating margin was a function of business mix. We had a higher percentage of revenue from accommodation units, which tend to have lower margins than tubular rentals.
Moving onto the marine segment; in the marine segment our revenue is $19.2 million and adjusted loss from operations was $4.4 million, which represents a 10% sequential increase in revenue, but our operating loss increased by about $400,000.
Liftboat utilization increased to 62%, up from 47% in the first quarter, primarily due to a seasonal pickup in demand in the shallow water Gulf of Mexico. The liftboat revenue generated per day per vessel decreased by 15% from the first quarter. Revenue on our 250-foot class liftboats was impacted by regular US Coast Guard inspections and repairs, which had the vessels down for a total of 82 days during the quarter.
These are some of our best margin producing vessels in the field and their absence from the market for 82 days impacted our overall profitability in the marine segment. Both vessels have returned to service and are experiencing high utilization so far in the third quarter. Day rates were 6% to 8% higher in three of the five liftboat classes.
Let me talk a little about a couple of the special projects that we have going on. First off, the BP wreck removal project. We’re about 99% complete with the wreck removal project at this point. We did very little work on the project in the second quarter since most of the work is already been completed.
We did collect a $124.5 million in cash in the second quarter, so the remaining cash collection is $154 million. We expect to collect another $10 million during the third quarter and the remaining cash early in the fourth quarter.
The other special project I’d like to talk about is Bullwinkle. Production from the Marathon Droshky has started flowing through the Bullwinkle platform. We’ll be processing about 25,000 barrels a day by the end of July. Marathon should have production up to 50,000 barrels a day by mid August. The first two wells are online and completion fluid is being flushed from the remaining two wells. There was a slight delay due to weather conditions during the latter part of July.
We’ll begin P&A work in the third quarter and I think consistent with what we talked about in our last conference call, we intend to have eight plug and abandonments that we carry out on the Bullwinkle platform in the second half of the year.
We’ll talk a little bit about our balance sheet. At the end of the third quarter the face value of our debt exclusive of discounts was approximately $853 million, down from $937 million at the end of the first quarter.
Debt to EBITDA at the end of the second quarter was 2.8 times and debt to total cap was 41%. At quarter end we had $140 million drawn on our revolver. As we announced last week we’ve amended our credit facility. The facility has been increased from $325 million to $400 million with a maturity in July of 2014.
Our liquidity position is excellent and we’ll continue to improve throughout the year. We intend to pay down the revolver with the remaining cash from the wreck removal project.
Capital expenditures during the second quarter were $71 million. We spent $33 million in drilling products and services segment primarily for drill pipe and specialty tubulars on land and internationally and $30 million in the subsidy and well enhancement segment with about half of that going toward equipment for Wild Well Control.
Year to date our CapEx is $148 million with about 36% of that amount going toward the international markets. We expect our CapEx in the third quarter to be in the range of $115 million to $120 million. About one third or third quarter CapEx is for drilling products and services primarily directed to US land and international. We also have a $22 million progress payment on construction of the compact semi submersible.
The compact semi submersible, which is a unique subsea operated vessel based on a semi submersible design; constructions cost will be $110 million of which we spent $46 million in 2010. Delivery is expected in mid 2012. The vessel represents a lower cost alternative to current subsea vessels and can be used for subsea construction or like well intervention.
For 2010 we anticipate our CapEx to be about $370 million with our CapEx funded by operating cash flow.
To give you a little update on the M&A front, earlier this month we announced our intent to acquire $55 million from Baker Hughes the Gulf of Mexico Marine Stimulation and sand control completion tools businesses that Baker is required to divest as part of its settlement with the Department of Justice. That transaction is expected to close in the third quarter as the DOJ works through the details of the deal.
We view this as a unique and attractive opportunity to acquire high technology businesses that add significant global growth potential.
In addition to a variety of tools and screen products we will be getting a best in class manufacturing facility, intellectual property and international licenses.
Most importantly, this acquisition includes an experience and industry recognized group of employees that will be instrumental in growing this business into geographic market outside of the Gulf of Mexico.
Today these are just Gulf of Mexico based businesses and given the current state of the Gulf we expect these assets will have a slight downward tug on earnings in 2010. The range of our earnings guidance should be wide enough to cover this but we will have a better idea of what it means to 2010 once the transaction closes.
Let me talk a little bit about outlook. Our press release provided a 2010 earnings guidance range of $1.35 to $1.55. Let me speak to some of the assumptions that lead us to this guidance range. First, we continue to feel very good about the domestic land markets where the rig count exit rate is about 6% higher than the second quarter average. I think that activity will maintain an upward pull and utilization continued to improve as our US customers continue to exploit oil and liquid rich gas objectives.
Second, we see areas of continued international growth especially in Brazil. We’re positioning more assets in the international markets and beginning to build our management team. Where our earnings land within the guidance is based on some slight uncertainty revolving around the Gulf of Mexico.
First, our guidance assumes a moratorium net impact of about $0.20 which is what we announced in June. Obviously, the Gulf of Mexico remains the big wild card as to how the remainder of 2010 plays out.
We are not assuming any resumption of deep water drilling for the remainder of the year. Most of our shallow water activity is focused on production related work or end of life projects like plug and abandonment and decommissioning and we see that work continuing.
We do have some exposure to shallow water drilling and our guidance assumes a slow ramp up in new drilling permits.
Shell permits have been slow coming and a pace at which those permits are issued will largely dictate within the guidance range where we land.
Second, as I mentioned earlier this range should capture the contributions from the Baker Hughes assets. A couple of unknowns are the time to close the transaction and once it closes the pace at which those Shell permits get issued.
Third, we’ve dialed back our short-term expectations for Hallin Marine given the challenges they see in the vessel market in Asia.
Fourth, our 260 foot class liftboats which have been in the shipyard for repair since late last year will not return to service until mid fourth quarter. We originally expected them back in August or early September and I think that was included in the guidance that we gave to you last quarter.
For the third quarter modeling purposes we think G&A should be in the range of $77 million to $79 million and D&A should be in the range of $56 million to $58 million.
Our balance sheet is in excellent shape and we continue to generate strong cash flows that will support our geographic expansion strategy.
Finally, my first 90 days with the company have been a real whirlwind. I have spent time learning our operations, visiting our facilities and meeting with managers, employees and customers. I am impressed across the board with what I’ve encountered and I’m very excited about our prospects for the future. I think now we’ll open the line up for questions.
Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Marshall Atkins with Raymond James.
Marshall Atkins – Raymond James
Good morning Dave. Could you spend a little time detailing what the BJ Sand control business means to you and kind of help us understand ex the moratorium, ex the slowdown, what you get for the $55 million?
David Dunlap
The BJ business is one that is exciting to us mainly as a result of the completion tools product line. This is a world class completion tools product line. It’s one that originated in BJ from the Osca (ph) acquisition and was built on over the eight years since that Osca acquisition both from a product line standpoint, from a facility standpoint, from an overall technology standpoint.
What I’m most excited about with this is it gives the company exposure to a segment where we have no exposure today and that’s in the completions area, an area that is high on the value chain with our customers. It gives us a technology, which is very exportable into the international markets. The same people that are involved in this business today are people that were successful in exploiting the product line with BJ to international markets. So it’s just a great addition for us from that standpoint and I think it will help us to further this international expansion strategy.
I also like where this technology fits in the value chain with our customers. I mean I’m not sure that there is anything else that this company does outside of perhaps what we do in Wild Well Control that gets the customer’s attention in such an important way early in the process and so we’re delighted to have this as part of our portfolio.
Marshall Atkins – Raymond James
Can you give me a sense of EBITDA potential from that business or maybe a better way to look at it, what were they doing, run rate prior to the spill?
David Dunlap
Prior to the spill. I’m not dodging this question, this is a difficult one to answer. This is not a fully existing business that we’re buying inside of Baker Hughes or BJ, it’s made up of components from Baker Hughes. So the tool business is coming from BJ, one of the vessels is coming from BJ and one of the vessels is coming from Baker Hughes.
There’s not really a P&L, which you can look at that describes those assets. During management presentations I made a representation but it’s strictly based on a Gulf of Mexico business and it’s kind of hard to read between the tea leaves and see exactly what that is.
Marshall Atkins – Raymond James
Maybe let me ask it in a different way. Looking at let’s say the Gulf’s back to doing stuff, is this a $10 million year EBITDA business or could it be more?
David Dunlap
It’s more.
Marshall Atkins – Raymond James
Okay, that’s helpful.
David Dunlap
I don’t mean to be elusive on this.
Marshall Atkins – Raymond James
That’s fine.
David Dunlap
I think when we’ve got the acquisition closed and understand a little bit better with the management team that’s there about timing as far as international expansion and I think what we’ll try and do is give you guys a better understanding of how we expect that EBITDA to build over time.
Marshall Atkins – Raymond James
Bullwinkle, you went through some numbers. Can you give me a little more sense on this quarter of what it added to this quarter, maybe you did hit it but you were going pretty quick.
David Dunlap
You’re talking about from an overall earnings standpoint?
Marshall Atkins – Raymond James
Either way, earnings, revenue whatever.
David Dunlap
Our overall revenue derived from Bullwinkle was just under $15 million. Most of that is oil and gas production and there’s some production handling revenue. I think we mentioned in a prior call there were about 13,000 barrels a day of production handling revenue that occurred when we took possession of Bullwinkle. That of course is building up as we get to Marathon Droshky production on.
Marshall Atkins – Raymond James
Yes, it sounds like that’s going to double, is that fair?
David Dunlap
It’s more than that. At 50,000 barrels a day that’s coming online ultimately from Droshky.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of James West with Barclays Capital.
James West – Barclays Capital
How should we think about earnings progression in the back half of this year assuming North America land remains robust, you still have some well control or some work in the Gulf of Mexico? Is it safe to say 3Q is kind of flattish from the second quarter and then we go down in the fourth quarter? How do you see that progressing?
David Dunlap
No, I don’t think so. I mean, of course, you understand some of the unknowns that are out there relative to this well controlled work that we’re on with BP. It’s a bit difficult to predict exactly when that work’s going to come to an end. I think it’s been pretty well publicized what the plans are for the plugging of this well or capping of this well and relief efforts but timing of it is a bit difficult to predict.
It’s certainly been of benefit for us. And of course it’s difficult as well to predict the timing of the assets that we have out there related to the spill cleanup. There have been some pretty positive reports out in the press in the last few days about what the area in the Gulf of Mexico looks like but it’s difficult for us to know how long those liftboats and accommodations are going to be on rental related to this. So some of that’s a bit of an unknown.
I think overall what we are expecting though is, you asked about Q4 a bit better earnings in Q4 than what we saw in Q3 and what we’re seeing in Q3, I think some of that is just a result of getting back up to speed and Shell drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. I also mentioned during our comments that we’ve got the 265 liftboats that would be coming out during Q4 and so we’ll get a Q4 bump from that as well.
James West – Barclays Capital
On Hallin Marine, I know it’s not performing up to, I guess, your expectations. Outside of just Southeast Asia being a tough market for them, what are you guys doing to kind of get the returns up in that business?
David Dunlap
I mean their main issue is getting access to markets outside of Southeast Asia. So I did mention that we have the Ullswater working in West Africa for part of the third quarter, that’s a big step out and moving their vessels outside of the Southeast Asia market. And really our marketing strategies relative to these Hallin Marine vessels are related to stepping out into some new waters. Australia is another target and right now one of the vessels is working in Spain for Repsol.
So it’s stepping outside of that Southeast Asia market is what we need to do. So we’ve got our marketing guys with Hallin as well as some of the other superior sales and marketing team that really have this as a primary initiative to expand our market presence with them.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Burke with Johnson Rice and Company.
Daniel Burke – Johnson Rice and Company
You have talked about moving some of the equipment you have on deep water rigs either internationally or into the US land market? How far have you proceeded in that initiative and how much farther do you expect to proceed versus sort of a waiting resumption activity?
David Dunlap
We have already started to relocate some of those assets, not all of them but some of those assets, some of them aren’t perfectly deployable into the land markets but some of the pipe is similar to what is being required in the US land markets as well as in Brazil. So I characterize what we’ve been doing so far and kind of continue to do in Q3 as relocating some of those assets and getting them to work. I’m not sure here in July that we’re seeing the earnings benefit of that but it takes a little bit of time to actually get those assets relocated.
Daniel Burke – Johnson Rice and Company
You mentioned that Hallin was better I think or the Hallin results were better in Q2. Was Hallin profitable or less negative?
David Dunlap
Yes, Hallin overall for the quarter in Q2 is about breakeven.
Daniel Burke – Johnson Rice and Company
Is that kind of where you have redialed expectations to then for the second half of the year?
David Dunlap
Basically so. I mean I think immediately after acquisition the company had higher expectations for Hallin for the full fiscal year and at this point we’ve kind of dialed those expectations back to what our experience has been in the last quarter.
Daniel Burke – Johnson Rice and Company
The G&A step-up, is that related to the revenue growth level we’re seeing the ability to drop through the business at this point?
David Dunlap
The G&A level is impacted somewhat by the business growth but you also have to keep in mind there are $3 million in expenses in the third quarter related to management transition cost.
Daniel Burke – Johnson Rice and Company
So those costs are going to continue going forward, I didn’t recognize that, okay.
David Dunlap
They continue in the third quarter and they’ll also be in the fourth quarter as well and important enough they’re non-cash.
Daniel Burke – Johnson Rice and Company
Those are non-cash and included in the fore guidance?
David Dunlap
That’s correct, included in the guidance.
Operator
Thank you and our next question comes from the line of Robin Shoemaker with Citigroup.
Robin Shoemaker – Citigroup
Wanted to ask you about Hallin again. They have a quite a few leased vessels as I understand. So is there any consideration, I mean given in terms of how to restructure their fleet as between owned and leased vessels are getting – how much longer are they leased vessels committed to?
David Dunlap
I don’t know off the top of my head when the leases expire, we will two leased vessels now and two that we own outright. And I will tell you where we are with this effort, we are trying to determine whether in the short-term we are going to be able to get these vessels into some of these other markets that I have mentioned, West Africa, Europe, Australia, kind of the short-term targets we have been looking at and had a project for a short time in India. Traditionally these are places that Hallin Marine has not been extremely active. Our first drive is to see if we can get those vessels exposed to those markets. If we are not making progress on that front, then we will have to look at what we can do in order to minimize cost of that capacity. But right now the push is on to finding markets for those vessels at work.
Robin Shoemaker – Citigroup
So Hallin also, I believe, manufactures ROVs and saturation diving systems in addition to offshore construction support and so forth. So is that business line strong or weaker than you expected?
David Dunlap
I can’t say that we are seeing a lot of sales of ROVs or sat diving systems. I think there are a couple of those opportunities the company is working on but they are really kind of, when they do come up, they are kind of insignificant overall in nature. I mean I think more importantly we have been looking for contracts for ROVs and had some success in certain areas on recent contract awards ROVs and of course, the same is true for the sat diving systems. There is not so much necessarily an equipment sales strategy I guess, it really is going to drive their performance. It’s putting those assets to work on contracts.
Robin Shoemaker – Citigroup
My last question is regarding the Wild Well Control, strong contribution in the second quarter tied to the Hallin. Is that now on the downward slope, the activity is just that Wild Well Control is involved in relating to McCondo (ph), is it a – I mean obviously continued in July but is August, September then kind of wrapping that up?
David Dunlap
Yes, that’s absolutely the case. We really don’t think that there is anything out there that is going to generate the overall effort that Wild Well Control had during the second quarter, they were quite busy with this project and still are quite busy with the project but we think the bulk of revenue to be generated from Wild Well Control is behind us now.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Joe Hill with Tudor, Pickering Holt and Company.
Joe Hill – Tudor, Pickering Holt and Company
In terms of what changed relative to kind of the look at Hallin at the time of the deal and I know you probably don’t have the context necessary to give a lot of color on it, but in Southeast Asia, what’s different about the market there then without going into the deal?
David Dunlap
I don’t know that it’s just a Southeast Asia market problem but it is for Hallin because that’s traditionally where they are vessel base revenue and most of revenue has been derived. I think in general these markets have been a bit weak as a result of capacity additions, which have come in over the course of the last couple of years and if you look at some of those statics for capacity additions, there have been a tremendous number of vessels that have come in into the market. So a lot of this is just competition related, more competition than as existed there, prior to the acquisition of Hallin. I think the well there has been a bit less overall spending from some of the E&P companies in this area during the course of the last 12 months that’s particularly the case today, but it’s a little bit tightness in the market and it’s a little bit tightness in kind of supply demand with the additional vessels that have come on board. And then of course, you also have this Gulf of Mexico impact. So you have vessels that have been working in the Gulf of Mexico that are also now out speaking to other contracts as the Gulf of Mexico particularly deepwater areas not offering (inaudible) very much right now. I think it’s kind of combination of all those things that led to some tightness in that market since the acquisition.
Joe Hill – Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company
Is your biggest competitor in Southeast Asia for that business going to be can of the SapuraCrest?
David Dunlap
You got me on that one, to tell you the truth, I am not very sure who the biggest competitor is.
Joe Hill – Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company
No worries, I will circle back later. With regards to the improvement in cased-hole, is it simply from market uplift or are you doing anything specific there with warrior to go after business?
David Dunlap
I think it’s mostly market uplift. I mean we have – they did some work in moving assets around during the first quarter to make sure we had assets in those markets that were in highest demand and I think we are seeing some of the benefit of that. The real big benefit that we have seen in that business has been coiled tubing. The coiled tubing revenue growth which I mentioned earlier has been tremendous since about January of this, it’s really ramped up, utilization has increased.
As I look at utilization for coiled tubing, we are running somewhere around 50% to 60% utilization on coiled tubing, which is up quite nicely from where we were late last year and certainly from the first quarter of this year. But I guess just having to moving assets to the right places where market demand is the highest.
Joe Hill – Tudor, Pickering, Holt and Company
What was utilization in coil at the peak?
David Dunlap
You have to get back with me on that one. I am not sure we had all those coil assets out there during the peak. A lot of our coil assets were delivered in 2008 and I am not sure this company has ever really realized the benefit of what coiled tubing was at the peak. So it’s not a good benchmark that we have. I think we are –
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Daniel with Simmons and Company.
John Daniel – Simmons and Company
I just want to follow Joe’s questions on coiled tubing. It’s pretty clear that we got lot of land rigs being built and lots of talk now about pressure pumping capacity. What are you seeing on the coiled tubing front, with the returns that you are talking about and what others are saying, one would think that we should start seeing a surge there. Any thoughts?
David Dunlap
I think as time goes on, we will see some additional coiled units coming into the market. I don’t know that that coiled manufacturers have seen the flood of new orders that you have seen in fracturing and it may be that some of the North American line providers are little bit more focused on moving fracturing assets (inaudible) coiled assets. Something we are looking at quite closely is to see what we want to – we want to do as far as coil tubing capacity going forward. I think there will be opportunities for us to grow in this business. I think one of the things that we want to do is to improve our overall technology and applications engineering in coiled tubing and starting to maybe separate ourselves a bit from some of the other competitors in this business. And quite frankly, I also think that the acquisition that we are doing of the (inaudible) divestiture is going to bring us some people that have some knowledge in down hole tools, may convert to a knowledge of our coal tubing tools.
I hope that all those things together are going to give us the opportunity to maybe look at the expansion of coal tubing assets on land in the U.S. (inaudible) opportunities in the international markets.
John Daniel – Simmons and Company
Do you have anything on order now from the coiled tubing side?
David Dunlap
No.
John Daniel – Simmons and Company
With respect to pricing on coil tubing, I think you said it’s about halfway between where it troughed and where it peaked?
David Dunlap
That’s a great way to think about it, John. That’s what I have seen, is about half way between peak and trough prices.
John Daniel – Simmons and Company
Would you be willing to give us some guidance as to where it goes from here?
David Dunlap
Yes, I mean I think that’s going to kind of fit in with (inaudible) thoughts about North America. I think most of the pricing improvement that we saw in coil tubing was really between Q1 and Q2. That’s where we really saw the movement in utilization. We saw utilization start to increase kind of mid to late February, was pretty robust towards the end of March and then has been good for the full quarter. So we have kind of seen most of that price improvement. I think what we are going to see now is kind of local opportunities I guess in certain of the U.S. basins where we get a bid out of rack from a supply demand standpoint that causes more of a general tug on pricing than a dramatic movement. I think general tug can feel pretty good.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Joe Gibney with Capital One Southcoast.
Joe Gibney – Capital One Southcoast
Could you talk a little bit on the (inaudible) deployment domestically, maybe where you are underexposed, whether it’s the Bakken or the Rockies, where else you might be shifting some coiled assets around where you are on rental would be helpful.
David Dunlap
Sure, I mean the places that we are looking close is that now I think we may be a bit underexposed include South Texas. Demand in the Rockies has continued to move quite nicely and I think we are still a bit light overall on capacity, for services as well as for rental tools and the Rockies. And I think we are bit underexposed in Permian Basin. And so, I think as talk to our guys about land opportunities, kind of South Texas, Permian Basin, Rockies seems to be the focal points. We still have some opportunities with rental tools in the Marcellus and overtime there may be additional services opportunities, I am talking about coiled tubing, wireline, (inaudible) services in the Northeast.
Joe Gibney – Capital One Southcoast
I have to take a different attack at Hallin here and say congratulations for breaking even on a pretty tough offshore construction market, that’s on a relative basis, you faired pretty well just breaking even. Do you have what the revenue number was for Hallin? I understand the bottom line was break even, do you know what the revenue number was for the quarter?
David Dunlap
Just north of $30 million.
Joe Gibney – Capital One Southcoast
Anything new on lubricated development and maybe when we might be able to seeing possible some well intervention deployment for some of these vessels?
David Dunlap
Yes, the large lubricator system is still in the works and we still expect to have that out in the marketplace before the end of the year and kind of late this quarter I think is what our current timeline shows. So I mean don’t expect to be in the market (inaudible) development is scheduled to be completed late in the quarter so kind of deployment. You know, Q4, Q1 2011 kind of that timeframe is when I think you’ll start to see that out in the market place generating revenue.
Joe Gibney – Capital One Southcoast
You talked about Brazil and the opportunity there. Just curious as you think about International growth, help give a little color here. Where is the focus and the emphasis? Is it on ramping sort of the breadth of the product line there? Is it more on the rental side? Just help us as you sort of staged this growth process and to take Brazil as an example as it would it be helpful for your International growth thought process moving forward?
David Dunlap
I’ve expressed this before. One of the big benefits that we have with this breath of product line is it gives us lots of opportunities to open up in some of these new markets and to do it in such a way that would minimize our startup loss. So I can’t say that there’s any one particular product area that’s going to fit first for every country that we go to.
Sometimes it’s going to be rental tools, sometimes it may be in coiled tubing services, sometimes it may be something related to subsea. We’re carrying on this expansion right now in Brazil and the tip of the sphere is rental tools, which is great. The next market where we’d begin to make a big push could be something different. That’s part of the beauty of the breath of product line is that you’re not locked into any one particular area. You can kind of look at what the market has to give and then something in your portfolio is going to fit your market entry point.
Now obviously over time you want to try and get exposure for everything but there’s a point I make with that is that you have the ability to step into these markets when the timing is right and when you can do it in such a way that you minimize start up losses.
In addition to Brazil, we’ve got a big landscape to fill. There are elements of West Africa that I think are going to work very well for us. Despite the slowness that Hallin’s experiencing in Asia, the overall drilling market in Asia is not bad right now. So I certainly like Malaysia, I like India. I think over time we’re going to see some opportunities in Saudi Arabia which we’ve been working on here recently and Australia is another area.
So I mean we’ve got several targets out there and once again we can kind of pick those product lines that offer the best opportunity for entry into any of those markets.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Terese Fabian with Sidoti & Company.
Terese Fabian – Sidoti & Company
On decommissioning and C&A work. There’s been a lot of talk, maybe speculation about a picking up with the new government agency in place. What are you seeing and what are some of the technical and political considerations that you think come into play here?
David Dunlap
This is something that certainly makes sense to us. We think that there are some pretty good reasons to believe why the P&A and decommissioning businesses perhaps are going to see a bit of acceleration. I can’t say that we’ve seen evidence of that just yet. I think part of the reason for that is that our new bureau of Ocean Energy Management has been quite focused on getting shelf drilling permits out, which is a good thing.
I think you don’t have to stretch very hard to believe that in a bit more regulated environment that we’re bound to see in the Gulf of Mexico going forward that these end of life activities are going to be brought forward from a timing standpoint. So we really hadn’t seen movement in that business as yet; it’s been good. I mean we had a good quarter with P&A as well as decommissioning work, expect that to continue but I think at some point in time we’re going to see a bit of acceleration in this market. I don’t know when. I don’t know if that’s a second half of 2000 year impact or it’s something that we look forward to in 2011-2012 but when we start to see evidence of it we will certainly be communicating that.
Terese Fabian – Sidoti & Company
What are the safety considerations on not doing that work for an end-of-life well?
David Dunlap
Well, it depends on the well. It depends on whether it’s a platform well or it’s a single satellite well. The single satellite wells tend to offer a more of a target I guess as far as vessel accidents go. We’re dealing with one right now in South Louisiana in Barataria Bay where a barge struck a satellite single well head and the well is currently out of control.
So the single satellite wells probably offer the biggest potential hazard from a safety standpoint, platform wells a little lesser.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Spittel with Madison Williams & Company.
Jeff Spittel – Madison Williams & Company
Just curious to get your thoughts about the current climate in the tubulars market, how pricing is feeling and where we are in terms of inventories right now.
David Dunlap
It’s a tight market quite frankly. I mean I think that the increase in horizontal well drilling on US land has put a bit of pressure on that market and I know as I kind of pointed out in my commentary we’ve been devoting a bit of our CapEx here recently towards satisfying some of that demand. So I mean my feeling is that it’s pretty tight. I don’t know that we’ve seen that translate into big price increases and I don’t know if we will I mean that’s a market where supply can fairly quickly resolve any issues relative to demand but I mean pricing is strong and demand still seems to be good and I think as long as we are continuing to see kind of that slight upward tug in directional and horizontal wells being drilled on land and the US we’re going to continue see nice opportunities there.
Jeff Spittel – Madison Williams & Company
Okay, fair to say most of the CapEx that you’re deploying in that market is headed toward the higher strength stuff, the high utensil strength pipe?
David Dunlap
That’s a fair comment.
Jeff Spittel – Madison Williams & Company
Okay. And then kind of thinking long-term in addition to P&A, could you potentially see some benefit from the more stringent safety climate in the US for the well control business either in the form of more training opportunities or something along those lines?
David Dunlap
I think definitely so. I think we’ve already seen a bit of an increase in at least request for training from our wild well control guys. They’ve been a bit busy with BP but I think as that activity begins to wind down I think that’s exactly what you’ll see is more training opportunities there; wild well has traditionally been involved in department protocols and I’m sure that that will be a bit enhanced as a result of this increased regulatory environment.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of William Conroy with Pritchard Capital Partners.
William Conroy – Pritchard Capital
Have you given any thought at this point how you think about the Gulf of Mexico and really the deep water side, maybe longer term in a post moratorium world; too early for that?
David Dunlap
No, I don’t think so I mean I think that this deep water market is one that we will see come back. The moratorium is going to be lifted at some point in time. I think initially what we can probably look forward to is at least development drinking in the deep water and somewhere around two thirds of the rigs that were drilling in the deep water prior to the accident were development really. Our customers are anxious get back for those and I think as soon as the moratorium is lifted we’ll see development really.
The exploratory drilling, a bit of an unknown, but one thing about it, you’re really not talking about a tremendous number of rigs in a tremendous market for exploratory drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. I’m sure it’s impact to those deep water drilling contractors but our revenue on a deep water rig is primarily derived from rental tools.
It’s kind of a small base of business for us and so if we rent an environment where we only had development rigs drilling in the gulf then it’s really not much of a revenue impact on us. I think that’s what we can look forward to. Long term it’s really a bit hard to say I mean whether or not it is more difficult to get permits or what happened to lead sales in the deep water area.
I think we’ll start to get better ideas of that after we’re back to development drilling in this moratorium is lifted on development.
William Conroy – Pritchard Capital
Changing gears following on this theme of increased regulatory environment increased focus on safety etc., have you given any thought to what that may mean for your hydraulic work over business?
David Dunlap
Yes, I mean the hydraulic work over business I think is going to continue to see – going to continue to see good so opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico in general. I mean we haven’t really seen that activity for hydraulic work over drop. We had a period of time back in June for, you know, two or three weeks where the BOEM, maybe you can call it MMS back in June, I don’t know but where they were bit slow and issuing permits for anything in a course with the hydraulic work over you do have a BOP. So there was a period where we were trying to understand and where MMS was trying to understand what the regulation is going to be on those BOPs but they seemed to have worked through that and we’ve seen hydraulic work over business kind of return back to preschool levels.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Michael Marino with Stephens Inc.
Michael Marino – Stephens Inc.
On Bullwinkle, has your approach to Bullwinkle changed at all in light of the spill? Are you going to P&A more of the wells, maybe recomplete less? Is your appetite for growth in this kind of business changed at all?
David Dunlap
As far as Bullwinkle goes I don’t know that anything has changed in our strategy or expectations for Bullwinkle as a result of the spill. What we said about this and believe about this from a strategy standpoint, it’s a great asset, it’s a world quality asset. It’s an end of life. Most of our opportunities there are related to the plug and abandonment and decommissioning and we’ll start with that plug and abandonment work in the second half of the year and have eight of those. And then as time goes on we’ll get some production logs run or dynamic we’ll have some production logs run our partner and see what the kind of intervention opportunities are there. I don’t know if anything is related to the spill at this point is really changed our thinking and quite frankly if there were other opportunities like this one I think we’d still be very interested. I mean it’s a unique ability that this company has to be trusted by an operator with an asset like that and to deploy our expertise in carrying out the end of life services related to assets like this.
Michael Marino – Stephens Inc.
As a follow-up, have you all had any issue getting permits for any of the work at Bullwinkle in the back half of the year?
David Dunlap
Not at this point, no.
Operator
Our final question comes from the line of David Nierenberg with Nierenberg Investment Management.
David Nierenberg – Nierenberg Investment Management
There’s been so much questioning this morning about the near term performance of Hallin that I fear that people maybe forgetting that Hallin is only one piece of the company’s mid to deepwater strategy and I think they may also be potentially forgetting that this was part of a multi-year strategy to build a multi-hundred billion dollar business, perhaps the biggest business that we have. So, if I am the last questioner, would you like to spend a few minutes talking about whether this is shaking your belief in the opportunity for the mid to deepwater strategy and what you think it could become in the years to come for the company?
David Dunlap
Thank you David. Yes I’d be delighted to talk about that and I know – listen everybody’s a little bit disappointed about what’s going on in this market short term but it is short term and in these types of situations happen and virtually every product and service line that you see out there. Long term our strategy is still the same in subsea and its one that we are very excited about.
We believe that the acquisition of Hallin Marine is bringing to us an important component that was missing from (inaudible) subsea approach. We think that long term we are going to be in a great position to be a very unique company in the subsea arena that brings to the market the types of vessels and the types of well intervention and pressure controlled expertise that will be needed to provide deep water light well intervention services and I think that is pretty unique. It’s not a market that is real robust today but I don’t think you have to stretch very hard to believe that as time goes on those light well intervention options for an operator working off of a low cost floating platform are going to be very attractive.
Operators I’m certain are going to want to optimize the amount of recovery they get from their deep water reservoirs and their subsea assets and clearly light well intervention is now and always has been a very important part of optimizing return from these investments to our customers so I’m very bullish long term about that opportunity for the company. It’s been the strategy from the start and there’s certainly no change in my thought about the strategy in the short term based on what we’re seeing from Hallin Marine.
Operator
Thank you. I’d now like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing statements.
David Dunlap
No, I think that’s it. Thanks for joining us and we’ll talk to you again soon.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen this concludes the Superior Energy Services second quarter earnings conference call. You may now disconnect and thank you for using ACT teleconferencing.
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Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of Seeking Alpha. However, we view them as an important resource for bloggers and journalists, and are excited to contribute to the democratization of financial information on the Internet. (Until now investors have had to pay thousands of dollars in subscription fees for transcripts.) So our reproduction policy is as follows: You may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to Seeking Alpha and either link to the original transcript or to www.SeekingAlpha.com. All other use is prohibited.
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