Oceaneering International Inc (OII) 2005 Q3 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • Good morning. My name is Mary Ann, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Oceaneering International third quarter earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute, to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] In consideration of other participants, please limit questions to two or three per queue. Thank you.

  • Mr. Jurkoshek, you may begin your conference.

  • - Manager, IR

  • Good morning, everybody. This is Jack Jurkoshek. I'd like to thank you for joining us on our 2005 third quarter earnings conference call. And I'd like to particularly welcome those of you who may be participating in the webcast of this event.

  • Joining me this morning is John Huff, our Chairman and CEO, who will be leading the call, Marvin Migura, our Chief Financial Officer, and Bob [Nagoya], our Treasurer. Just as a reminder, remarks we make during the course of the call regarding our business strategy, plans for future operations, and industry conditions are forward-looking statements, made pursuant to the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

  • I'm now going to turn the call over to John.

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Good morning. And thanks for joining our call. Its certainly a pleasure to be with you here today.

  • Our record quarterly financial results were both above our guidance range and the consensus Street expectations. Earnings of $17.7 million were 38% better than the third quarter of '04, and 21% above our previous quarterly record reported in the second quarter this year. These results I think demonstrate the strength and sustainability of our technical niche market business strategy, which is focused on providing deep water services, and Subsea Products, the improvement in EPS over our second quarter results was attributable to improved profit performances in our ROV, our Subsea Projects, and Subsea Products operations.

  • Year-to-date we have already surpassed the net income and EPS results we reported for all of 2004. And are on-track to achieve 50% net income growth for this year. Consequently we have raised our EPS guidance for 2005 to a range of $2.25 to $2.30. We believe our sustainable business growth prospects for 2006 and beyond are excellent, due to our leverage to the secular expansion in deep water activity, which is currently underway. During the quarter, we have made several announcements regarding actions we took to position Oceaneering to achieve additional future earnings growth.

  • As a result of these actions plus current prospects for a large increase in Subsea Products profits, better ROV processing with a larger fleet size, and an expected increase of Subsea Projects profitability, due to hurricanes Katrina and Rita repair work, we raised our EPS for 2006 to a range of $2.70 to $2.85. This brings the bottom of our range up, to where the top of the range was at our second quarter conference call.

  • As we see much more of the hurricane repair work and see how much we're going to get, and how fast we can turn our products backlog into revenue, we may see additional opportunities for further increases in the top end of the range provided. As we have in the past, we will update you each quarter.

  • Let me kind of review our segments for you. Our ROV operations achieved an all-time high operating income during the quarter. This is attributed primarily to increased demand for ROV services, in both drilling and construction support. Furthermore we benefited during the quarter from an escalation in demand of performed underwater inspections services caused by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico.

  • Sequentially the operating profit contribution of ROVs increased by 37%, due to an increase in days on hire, a record 88% fleet utilization, up from 81 in the second quarter, year-over-year ROV operating income increased by 76%. This was attributable to the increase in our days-on-hire by 38%, and achieving higher pricing. Our fleet utilization in the third quarter of last year was 69%.

  • Year-to-date ROV operating income has listen $20 million over 2004. Approximately $10 million is attributable to an increase in days-on-hire, and $10 million is a result of an improvement in average pricing. To give you an update on our mix of business in the ROV segment, of our 178 systems available during the month of September; 164 worked, 113 in drill support, 51 in non-drill support, a 69/31 percent mix. This compares to a year ago when we had 160 vehicles, with 133 working, 100 engaged in drill support, and 33 in non-drill support activity, or a 75/25 mix. These are snapshot positions and should not be misinterpreted to indicate any permanent fleet mix.

  • During the quarter we announced we would be building 12 more systems, and we acquired 3 systems from MTQ. This brings our 2005 announced expansion program to 24 vehicles. We added 8 systems to our fleet during the quarter. Our quarter end-count was 178 systems. Of our announced ROV fleet expansion program, 15 systems remain to be put in service. 6 of these are expected to be working by year-end, and the remainder by mid-year 2006.

  • We anticipate ROV demand will continue growing through '06, and intend to add more systems through our fleet, as opportunities present themselves. Just a few weeks ago, we announced the largest ROV contract in Company history. Yet another indication of why we're so bullish on the future prospects for this business.

  • Our Subsea Products segment reported excellent improvement as we benefited from the Grayloc acquisition at the end of the second quarter, reduced our losses at the Panama City plant, and secured several key umbilical contract awards for our Brazilian umbilical plant. During the quarter we announced a $13 million steel tube job for the Panama City plant to be delivered in the second quarter of '06. A great beginning, to what we anticipate will be several more steel tube umbilical awards in the near future for this facility.

  • We also announced we would be expanding our umbilical manufacturing capability and efficiency at our Scotland plant, increasing our Subsea control valve production capacity in Norway, and adding 4 [IWOCs] to our rental fleet in the Gulf of Mexico. Plant expansions are expected to benefit our Subsea Products financial results by the end of '06. Products backlog at the end of the quarter surpassed $180 million, and we booked almost 135 million of new orders during the quarter. Both record-setting achievements.

  • We expect our backlog will continue to growth during the fourth quarter, based on our anticipation of winning several umbilical contract awards before year end. This backlog will set a solid foundation for a substantial increase in this segment's financial performance in 2006.

  • Our Mobile offshore production business continued to produce consistent results during the quarter. All three of our 100% owned units were under contract for the entire period, as they were last quarter, and last year at this same time. We expect them to remain so for at least the rest of this year and 2006.

  • The equity income contributions from our Medusa Spar investment was $1.9 million, down sequentially and year-over-year as production from the Spar was suspended in late August, due to the onset of Hurricane Katrina. Production from the Spar did not resume during the rest of the quarter, due to the platform and pipeline damage caused by the storm, and the subsequent arrival of Hurricane Rita.

  • Our Subsea Projects business had an extraordinary quarter, which demonstrated the operating leverage we have to the improving market demand for inspection maintenance repair services in the deep water Gulf of Mexico.

  • And in general to specific hurricane damage which was sustained during the quarter. Operating income for this quarter was more than we have reported in total for the last four out of five years. Sequentially the increase in profitability was attributed to an escalation in market demand for the IRM work in deep water Subsea infrastructure utilizing our larger vessels. This is what we had anticipated. And we also benefited both from the deep and shallow water inspection work during September, arising out of the arrival of Hurricane Katrina.

  • Year-over-year the profit improvement was due to improvement in contributions for both our diving and deep water vessel operations. During the quarter, we secured a 1 year contract for use of Oceaneering Intervention to perform deep water IRM work, and announced we are building a second saturation diving system to expand our diving capables. The [SES] system will enable us to expand our capacity to undertake repair work to damage caused by Hurricanes Ivan, Katrina and Rita, which we anticipate will last for the next few years. Our inspection segment reported very good results.

  • Sequentially we expect profitability to decline on lower revenues, due to the fact several large jobs in 2005 were completed in the first half. Year-over-year profitability improved as we are beginning, or benefiting from our efforts to secure more value-added service sales, and realizing cost savings as a result of actions taken last year to reduce our operating expenses.

  • Our [AdTech] non-oil field business had a decent quarter. Year-over-year and sequentially revenue gross margin and operating income declined, as we somewhat expected, due to a fluctuation in the timing of work. While the financial results of AdTech are not a big driver in our overall success, and will decline as a percentage of total results, as our oil field businesses continue to grow, these operations outside of the oil patch are consistent with our mechanical engineering expertise, and add to our use of future technologies.

  • We recently announced another contract with our largest non-oilfield customer, the U.S. Navy. Although my gut feeling is we'll begin to see delays in NASA and Navy work, as the Government tries to find every available dollar to fund rebuilding of New Orleans and other coastal communities, in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Where some giveth, others taketh away. Our unallocated expenses increased sequentially in year-over-year due to higher incentive plan expenses, attributable to expected growth in the Company's overall financial performance in '05, and a higher Oceaneering stock price.

  • In summary our third quarter was a record setting performance, higher than what we'd anticipated, as our ROV Subsea Products, and inspection and oil field business operations performed better, than we had envisioned at the beginning of the quarter. Our focus on providing products and services for deep water and subsea completions is a good is a good way to play an important and growing segment of the oil field services market. Offshore, and especially deep water, is definitely one of the best frontiers for the exploration and production companies to lower their finding and development costs.

  • Results for the third quarter continue to demonstrate the benefit of our technical niche market business strategy. When you add depreciation back to our operating income, we generated $47 million in cash flow in the quarter, up more than 20% sequentially, and nearly 35% year-over-year. At the end of September, we had $175 million in debt, and equity of $517 million. Our debt to cap percentage was 25%. We intend to use our strong cash flows and balance sheet strength to further grow Oceaneering's earnings. For the nine months, we spent more than $90 million, and are clearly on-pace to spend well over the $100 million target for this year, to grow future earnings.

  • As we said in the press release, based on our performance in the first nine months of this year, and our expectation for a good fourth quarter, we are raising our EPS outlook range for 2005 to $2.25 to $2.30. Earnings growth in 2005 of 50%, on top of our record 2004 results, appears to be well within our grasp. We are on-pace to achieve record annual earnings for the fourth time in the last five years. We believe this validates Oceaneering as a company that can deliver consistently better results year after year, in both growing and declining markets. We expect another strong earnings performance in the fourth quarter led by Subsea Products growth.

  • We finished the third quarter with 178 ROVs, and as I mentioned earlier, expect to put 6 new vehicles into service during the fourth quarter. We also intend to retire two older systems, and thus our current expect a year-end fleet size at 182 vehicles. We anticipate the quarterly profit contribution from our ROV business to decline modestly, due to the normal winter seasonality of this business. This may be mitigated somewhat this year by ROV demand in the Gulf of Mexico, to inspect and repair damage caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. To meet higher Gulf of Mexico demand we're mobilizing four systems from other parts of the world, that would otherwise have been temporarily idle.

  • Operating income from Subsea Products is expected to substantially improve on the strength of an improved overall contribution from our multiplex umbilical operation. Our Brazil plant is expected to do better as a result of the Petrograph contracts awards we announced in the third quarter. And our UK plant profitability is expected to increase on higher revenues due to the general increase in market demand currently taking place. Our Panama City plant is expected to make a positive contribution to operating income during the fourth quarter. Predominantly on the strength of Permaplastic umbilical sales. Work at the plant to install the equipment to make steel tube product is progressing on-time and on-budget.

  • It will be early 2006 before we commence our first production run with the new machinery, and expect to deliver steel tube umbilicals beginning in the second quarter of 2006. Our MOP segment results are forecast to be flat with the third quarter, as all three of our systems continue to work under the same contracts. The financial effect of our ownership in the Medusa Spar, is reported as equity earnings of unconsolidated affiliates. Murphy has not announced when the Spar will resume full production, and we have assumed minimal production from the Spar during the fourth quarter.

  • The near term market outlook from our Subsea Projects segment continues to remain strong, due to the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That being said, we're not expecting fourth quarter operating income to be as dramatic to the third quarter, due to the onset of the normally slow winter construction season in the Gulf of Mexico. We expect inspection operating income to decline in the fourth quarter on substantially lower revenues. This is due to the normal seasonal decline in demand for these services particularly in Europe. Our AdTech financial results for the fourth quarter are expected to be comparable to the third quarter.

  • Looking into 2006, we believe there is a trend for our customers to invest their enormous cash flows in offshore and Subsea Projects, and consequently our earnings next year are expected to be even better than 2005. At this time we're raising our EPS guidance range from $2.40 to $2.70, to $2.70 to $2.85, based on an estimated 27.5 million shares outstanding. 2006 EPS growth is anticipated to be driven by profit improvements from our Subsea Products, particularly our umbilical manufacturing operation, current prospects for higher ROV pricing and a larger fleet size, and an expected increase in Subsea Projects profitability, due to the hurricanes.

  • Our overall 2006 assessment is underpinned by the expectations that hydrocarbon commodity price declines will not break below the $40 level. Oceaneering is focused on promising niches associated with finding, developing and producing oil offshore, particularly in the deep water basins, and using advanced subsea technologies. Our expected 2006 EPS growth is closely tied to the deep water and Subsea services and products we offer.

  • These businesses offerings have significant operating leverage to the demand growth currently underway, and are anticipated to continue during the next several years. In the first nine months of this year, our ROV and Subsea Products segments contributed over half of our revenues, and are expected to be even higher in 2006 and beyond.

  • We think this quarter along with our forecast for '05 and '06, show what we can do in a good market, particularly with our focus on deep water and subsea activities. We have opportunities in each of our niches to invest our cash flows, and to continue growing earnings.

  • In summary, our record results for the third quarter continue to demonstrate our ability to generate excellent earnings. 2005 after only nine months is already our best year ever, and we expect 2006 to be even better. Our cash flow is strong, and our investment opportunities are good. Our niche market business strategy is clear, and is working very well. We have operating leverage to take advantage of the upturn in deep water drilling and subsea completion activity, which is currently underway. Broader, deeper, longer, any way you describe the current oil field services market environment, we think we're in one of the sweet spots of the up cycle.

  • The long term market outlook for our deep water and subsea service and product offerings has never been more promising, and finally, we believe it would be worth your time to take a deeper look at Oceaneering. I appreciate your interest, and we look forward to your questions and comments.

  • Operator

  • [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster.

  • Your first question comes from Philip Dodge.

  • - Analyst

  • Good morning, everybody. John, I would be interested if you could give us an idea, you're expanding your work class ROV fleet. What do you see going on globally, as far as expansion?

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Well, I think we're clearly at the cutting edge of it. I think that, you know, the two, it was really only one major third-party competitor to us, and they are a division of a large construction company. And -- well, actually there's two, I'm sorry.

  • One of them is a division of a large construction company, and the other one is a division of a subsea construction company. Neither of them -- one of them is a little more aggressive than the other one. One of them we tried to buy. We backed away from the deal. And it didn't come together for the third-party services. I'm not seeing a lot of aggression on their part.

  • I mean, I think that part of that issue for them is that their focus is on the use of that equipment is for their in-house construction capability, and it is a critical success factor for them in their project work. So I don't think the third-party market is as important for them. It would be difficult for them to provide construction support, for instance, for competitors, where we don't have that conflict of interest that they do. And a lot of this for us has been some construction and production field work, where we've had 1 and 2 systems on various vessels.

  • It's not entirely a growth in the drilling business. Although most of the drilling rigs have now come back to work, and we've got, let's see, we've got 100, versus 100 and some odd this year. So we've got more on drilling rigs than we used to have.

  • That's a long answer to really a short answer. And that is, I think we seem to be more aggressive in doing that. We became aggressive about five years ago, and whether that means that people think that we're the market leader, and we're first, I don't know what it means. But we certainly got a good reputation with our end user customers though.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay. And I'm going to take the other question that I'm allowed. You said you expected some umbilical awards in the fourth quarter. And I'm interested in whether those look like they Thermoplastic or Steel, and also which plants they might go to?

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • It is both, Phil, both of them. Both. And it would be split probably mostly between Scotland and Panama City. I know, as soon as it came out of my mouth, I thought, you know, I shouldn't be saying stuff like that. But it really is an increase in orders for Panama City and Scotland. I think Brazil is going to be.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Probably building some components, but it's going to be pretty busy with the Petrobras orders it has got.

  • - Analyst

  • Yes. Okay. Thanks very much.

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Okay.

  • Operator

  • Your next question comes from Andrew O'Connor.

  • - Analyst

  • Good morning. Congratulations on your quarter, John.

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Thank you.

  • - Analyst

  • You know, can you guys speak as to how you see things trending in your non-oilfield businesses, and what your priorities are in non-oilfield activities for the next year? Thanks so much.

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Yes. Well, the priorities for us are clearly NASA and US Navy work. The Navy work is stuff that is affiliated with our underwater activities, and things such as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, our ability to handle load systems, offshore. The Navy has now got a new class system that they're looking at how they're going to wage warfare in the 21st century, and we're part of helping them figure out how you deploy certain equipment.

  • That was the big contract that we got just a few months ago, a few weeks ago. So everything that we do has something to do with mechanical engineering expertise, and materials technology, especially the materials technology that we can reimport back into the oilfield.

  • And so NASA is in a little bit of a state of flux. But, you know, we're hoping that in this go-round, since we're a little bigger company and we think we can compete, for instance, on the next generation of robotics products, whether that's going to be the next crew vehicle, or whether that's going to be exploration in the distance space, such as the Mars exploration initiative, back to the moon initiatives. So what we're focused on, is the thing that will help us generate technology spin-offs for our offshore oil and gas business.

  • And as far as my maybe somewhat frivolous comment about the Government, you know, has promised and I've heard all sorts of numbers, but it's certainly mega billions of dollars in aid to the coastal communities that have been, you know, devastated by these two hurricanes. You know, somebody has got to pay for that. And it's my guess that the Federal governments are going to start to be squeezed, and there's going to be a lot of things that are going to get taken out of the budgets, as you move forward.

  • - Analyst

  • Yes.

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • In fact, that's really the comment. I didn't mean to be a smart-aleck about it. But on one side of it, you know, Katrina was good for our business, on the other side it is not going to be good.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay. Thanks for the color. You know, anything that's near-term, evolving out of this work that represents a commercialization opportunity, again, near term on the oil field side?

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • No. I tell you, near-term for these guys is not tomorrow, for sure. But, you know, we have gotten a lot of interesting stuff. Particularly in stuff that we do with some of our survey partners that have come out of this work, you know, bathymetric surveys, I think our AUV technology will largely come out of that over the next several years. And that stuff, it's really way outside of these earnings kind of calls. I mean, it's way down the road.

  • - Analyst

  • Great quarter. Thanks very much.

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Thank you.

  • Operator

  • [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] Your next question comes from Waqar Syed.

  • - Analyst

  • Great quarter, gentlemen. Two questions here. One, when would you know that the Panama City plant is working according to plans, do you think by the end of the year, or when you start to deliver the product around second quarter that you'll find out?

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Yes. Let me revisit that issue. I think, you know, we've tried to keep investors fully apprised of what's happened to us at Panama City. I think we're starting to kind of miss the target on that. Let me reemphasize for everybody that the Panama City plant is up and operating. I mean, it is working. We will deliver more thermoplastic product from Panama City this year than we ever delivered from our Houston plant, and the primary reason to move to Panama City was that it was an excellent facility, and had deep water access, and it gave us a lot of advantages over the Port of Houston.

  • The second aspect of it was that we wanted to be able to build steel tube umbilicals which for the ultra-deep water, and by that I mean 5,000 or more feet, that the operators tended to prefer the steel tube umbilicals, we had to equip the plant with some special cabling machines, that would twist and turn and wrap these steel tubes into a bundle. Now that was the only thing wrong with the plant in Panama City, was the cabling machine did not work. That was the problem. Now that is a big [expletive] problem.

  • And so, it kind of became known collectively as the 'Panama City problem.' And the fact is that I'm very pleased to tell you that we're making thermoplastic product. We are part of the expansion in Scotland. We're also going to, I think, put some braiding machines, I know in Brazil, and some in Panama City.

  • Thermoplastic product is an excellent product. It is less expensive and it is a growing, it is just not growing as fast as the steel tube product is growing. So, you know, we're up and running. We're making product. We've got a big plant. We're pulling a lot of fixed costs. I'm pleased to say. It is only -- in one respect I can say to you that -- that this quarter, in the fourth quarter of '05, will be the quarter that we can say this is a successful operation, because we will, you know, be in the black. We'll be positively profitable at Panama City.

  • As for the finality of that, I'm going to say as soon as we start cabling product, and that product is delivered in the second quarter of '06, then that's sort of the final piece that's missing for us. So, you know, things are working right now when we churn this profit in Panama City, you know, we're going to declare initial success, but I'm not going to declare a final success until we're making the steel tube product. I think it's important that we've got some steel tube orders now. So clearly, the problem that we had a year ago, while unfortunate, you know, we have made amends with the marketplace. And that's a big issue for us.

  • - Analyst

  • Now -- so the start of the cabling machine, that part, that problem, so that has been delayed now from -- ?

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Delayed about a year. The -- the --

  • - Analyst

  • No, no, from late December to second quarter because after you had the problem initially in the first quarter you said that late '05 --

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • We said initially it would be the first quarter of '05.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • And now it's the first quarter of '06 when the cabling machine will be able to cable product, and then we expect to deliver that product in the second quarter.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay. Okay. So and initial indications about whether the cabling machine works, should probably be starting to become visible in the first quarter then?

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Exactly.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay. Now second, in your written comments in the press release you mentioned that next year the non-oilfield business could be down. Could you quantify that? In your guidance, what kind of downside do you see for the non-oilfield business for next year?

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • I think we're down about a million-and-a-half this quarter and, you know, I would expect that to be sort of the running rate for us.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Between 2 and $3 million a quarter, as opposed to sort of 3 to $4 million a quarter.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay. That sounds great. Thank you very much.

  • Operator

  • Your next question comes from Tom Escott.

  • - Analyst

  • Good morning, fellows.

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Good morning.

  • - Analyst

  • On the subject of share repo, I know you've done a good bit of that in the past. And up to $40 a share or so, that was accretive to your earnings to buy back stock at those prices, and stock was, I guess, at $30 at that time. So with the stock now at 50, are share repos now probably not economic to you, or with the excess cash would you still consider doing that?

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Good question, Tom. And that's on our radar screen. Right now what we're doing is we're finding on the margin some really nice places to invest what we think are going to be high rate of return investments in each of our niches, not, the niche that's missing, clearly is our MOPS niche. And if we can get, and you've been around a while, and you know what our criteria is. It is a tough criteria to meet. It is, you know, high rate of return, with a high percentage of payout. So that's the one niche that we haven't been able to, you know, invest money in. But we've invested money in some technology and the inspection business. We've continued to evolve our ROV fleet, with some higher horsepower vehicles, some electric vehicles, some, you know, additional technology there.

  • We are rapidly growing our subsea tooling inventory. And in that whole business, which is integrated to the product side, we're growing the specialty niches in the Gulf with the workover and control system, because of all of the trees that are being installed. We're looking at a lot of scenarios in our Projects business. We just ordered, or are building, we ordered the components and are building a saturation diving system, and that's specifically to take advantage of the hurricane work.

  • And so I think the answer to your question is, that I would rather grow the earnings capacity of the Company rather than to shrink the Company and increase EPS. Now, if we run out of these opportunities, and we'll be in the market place, you know, buying our stock. We have done that from time to time. And we certainly are going to continue looking at that.

  • - Analyst

  • And then an unrelated thing, but last time I asked this question it was too early and you didn't have a good feel. But at this point, how long would you anticipate it would take to do all of the repair rebuilding work to the Gulf of Mexico infrastructure, both in pipeline, and in platform, and logistic facilities there in the Gulf, I mean, is this something that can be done in six months, or does this take at least throughout all of 2006 to get that accomplished?

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • Yes. I've been asked that question by lots of government officials. And my, and you gave me a great way to answer it, incidentally. I can promise you, it is not six months. I can definitely tell you that it is not going to be by the end of '06. There is going to be some stuff that will just be permanently shut-in.

  • There will be some places and really what's happening, and a good example of that is when you go to start putting product into a pipeline, you start finding all the places that that pipeline, even though you've done extensive inspection work, you start finding where the [expletive] thing is leaking. You know, you checked the top side at the production facility, you checked the pipeline for any kind of leaks, and then you introduce product into it, and you find out it is leaking at the riser, the riser is an intermediate transfer from underwater to the platform, and it is a clamp that is broken off, or something that you could not visually see. I think there's just going to be a lot of that kind of work. You know, it's been pretty well written up about the damage to the drilling rigs.

  • I've never seen this much damage in one storm myself. You know, I've been in this business 38 years, 18 years in the drilling business. And so I've never seen anything that compares with what happened in Rita in the jackup drilling business.

  • I think there's going to be some enormous changes. Personally I think there's going to be some big, big issues in the Gulf of Mexico, that are going to come out, in terms of design criteria, and what's going to be required. What's going to be done. We've gone through an evolution like that in the North Sea. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of that come out in the Gulf of Mexico. So I think it's going to be some time before we get it. Now it's not going to be a frenzy.

  • Let me put that in a financial perspective for you. I mean, we had a frenzy in the month of September, I mean an absolute frenzy, and if you had a row boat with two paddles in it, you could have made money. But that frenzy, you know, won't be like that for several years, but there's going to be some long term work, a lot of brace repairs, there could be some modifications. You know, it is here for a year or so.

  • - Analyst

  • Well, that's great color. I appreciate it, John. You've got to be pretty happy. Tech wins a big one on Saturday, and then Oceaneering posts these record numbers this week. It is a great week overall.

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • It is a great week. Any time you can beat Clemson, is a great week.

  • Operator

  • [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. At this time, there are no further questions. Gentlemen, are there any closing remarks?

  • - Chairman, CEO

  • No. We appreciate everybody coming to the conference call. And you following the Company. And we'll look forward to listening to you in the future. Thanks.

  • Operator

  • Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.