PDS

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Precision Drilling Corporation 2026 Q1 results conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are on a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session where we will take questions from research analysts. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to speaker today, Lavonne Zdunich, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Welcome, and thank you everyone for joining Precision Drilling's Q1 conference call and webcast. Today, I'm joined by Carey Ford, our President and CEO, and Dustin Honing, our CFO. Please note that some comments today will refer to non-IFRS financial measures and include forward-looking statements which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. For more information on financial measures, forward-looking statements and risk factors, please refer to our news release, MD&A, and financial statements, which are now available on SEDAR and EDGAR. Before I pass the call over, I would like to highlight a couple points from our news release. First, utilization improved meaningful in the quarter compared to Q1 of 2025. It increased 7% in Canada and 24% in the U.S., even as industry rig counts declined 7% in both markets.

This performance underscores the value customers continue to see in our high performance, high value strategy. Second, we delivered strong progress on our 2026 priorities, growing revenue year-over-year, generating CAD 63 million in operating cash flow, and returning capital to shareholders through debt reduction and share repurchases. In the Q1, Precision had 123 rigs operating globally and remained the second most active driller in North America. With that, I'll pass it over to Dustin.

Thank you, Lavonne, and good morning, good afternoon for those calling from different locations. Before we cover our 2026 Q1 financial results and outlook, I'll briefly comment on our capital allocation strategy. As you're likely aware, Precision has a long-standing reputation for publishing clear and transparent strategic priorities, aligned with enhancing the competitive positioning of the business and driving enhanced shareholder returns. Over the last decade, Precision's free cash flow generating abilities have allowed us to outpace expected timelines for delivering on major strategic initiatives, positioning the business with rapidly increasing financial flexibility. We remain committed to our shareholder return targets while responsibly investing back into the business with a returns-based mandate. These investments are paying dividends as we anticipate record Q2 activity levels in Canada and a notably strengthened utilization and customer mix in the U.S. evolving. Maximizing strong free cash flow remains central to our strategy.

Moving on to Q1 results. Despite a recurring and expected heavy Q1 working capital build, Precision generated CAD 63 million of cash from operations. Capital expenditures were CAD 65 million, comprised of CAD 35 million for sustaining and infrastructure and CAD 30 million for rig upgrades. These investments were made in step with our shareholder return commitments, reducing debt by CAD 25 million and allocating CAD 4 million towards share buybacks. We recorded adjusted EBITDA of CAD 124 million, which equates to CAD 143 million before share-based compensation expense, compared with prior year Q1 EBITDA of CAD 137 million, CAD 140 million before share-based compensation expense. Although operating results exceeded prior year, this was offset by a larger stock-based compensation accrual resulting from our share price appreciating 39% during the quarter. Net earnings were CAD 18 million, compared to CAD 35 million in Q1 of 2025.

In Canada, drilling activity averaged 79 active rigs, an increase of five rigs from Q1 2025. Our reported Q1 daily operating margins were CAD 14,282 compared to CAD 14,780 in the Q1 of 2025, falling within our prior guidance range. During the Q1, Precision's operating margins were slightly impacted by rig mix, with stronger demand requiring a higher proportion of Super Single and doubles working through the winter. In the U.S., we averaged 37 active rigs, in line sequentially from Q4 and an increase of seven rigs from prior year Q1. Our daily operating margins for the quarter were $9,291 compared to $8,754 sequentially from Q4, slightly exceeding our prior guidance range.

Internationally, Precision averaged seven active rigs, down eight rigs from prior-year Q1. International day rates averaged $51,596, an increase of 4% from prior-year, all due to rig move revenues. During the quarter, rig margins were unfavorably impacted by one Kuwait rig coming down, offset by one reactivated rig in Saudi Arabia. We incurred $2 million of one-time charges associated with this reactivation and in addition, recognized added logistics costs tied to the Middle East conflict. In our CMP segment, adjusted EBITDA was CAD 18 million, in line with prior-year Q1. Increased well servicing demand in Canada more than offset the impacts of winding down our U.S. operations back in the Q2 of 2025.

Moving on to forward guidance, I will begin with our expectations for the Q2 of 2026. Starting in Canada, as I previously alluded to, our strong presence in Canada's unconventional natural gas and heavy oil markets is expected to generate record activity levels this quarter. Our ability to capitalize is largely due to growing demand, coupled with our prior year rig upgrades, expanding the pad drilling capabilities of our fleet and allowing these assets to work through the traditional seasonal constraints of spring breakup. For the full quarter, we expect the average active rig counts to be approximately 60 rigs, a 20% increase from the 50 average rigs working in prior year Q2. We expect the end of the quarter to be at the mid-70s, up a similar percentage from prior year.

As a result of more Super Single working, our operating margins in Canada are expected to range between CAD 12,000 and CAD 13,000 per day, slightly lower than normalized prior year Q2, all due to rig mix. Keep in mind that prior year quarter operating margins were materially impacted by one-time customer upfront payments for rig upgrades. Our expectation is that pricing levels will remain firm within our Super Single and Super Triple fleet. In the U.S., we expect to sustain the momentum we've built in the last year. Early in Q2, we experienced increased contract churn with multiple rigs falling idle between jobs. This will correct over the next month or so with our rig count increasing to 35 rigs by next week, exiting the quarter at our annual high within the high 30s.

Beyond that level, we expect further Precision rig count increases related to higher oil prices and our upgrade program. For the Q2, we expect our operating margins to range between US $7,500 and US $8,500 a day due to increased reactivation costs tied to rig deployments through Q2 and into Q3. Given increased market demand for drilling rigs and Precision Super Triple, we are in the process of implementing price increases, which will flow through the back half of the year 2026. Internationally, we expect to run seven rigs. However, operating margins will be lower than prior year due to one higher margin Kuwait rig coming down in Q1, offset by recently reactivated lower margin rig in Saudi Arabia.

For Q2, we expect to incur additional operating costs in response to ongoing tensions in the Middle East. Our CMP business continues to generate strong free cash flow driven by our well servicing and surface rentals business lines. For Q2, we expect EBITDA to remain in line with prior year levels. Moving on to forward guidance for the full year, we've increased our capital expenditures budget to CAD 265 million, up from prior guidance of CAD 245 million, which is now comprised of CAD 168 million for sustaining and infrastructure and CAD 97 million for upgrades. This increase includes two Canadian Super Triple rig upgrades underpinned by multi-year contract commitments, plus various oil-weighted upgrade opportunities in both Canada and the U.S.

Of note, we anticipate Q2 capital expenditures to be disproportionately high this quarter due to timing of bulk deliveries and scheduled maintenance capital projects, leveling out through the back half of the year. Full year depreciation is expected to be CAD 310 million, and cash interest expense from debt is expected to be approximately CAD 45 million. Our effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 25%-30%, with cash taxes remaining low in 2026. For 2026, we expect SG&A to stay flat at approximately CAD 95 million before share-based compensation expense. As previously communicated, share-based compensation guidance for the full year would range between CAD 25 million and CAD 45 million, assuming a share price of CAD 100-CAD 140 and a 1x multiplier.

Our long-term target to achieve a net debt to adjusted EBITDA of less than 1x remains firmly in place. In 2026, we plan to reduce debt levels by at least CAD 100 million while allocating up to 50% of free cash flow to share repurchases. Today, we have an average cost of debt of 6.6% and over CAD 433 million in total liquidity. With that, I'll pass it over to Carey.

Thank you, Dustin, good morning and good afternoon to everyone. For my prepared remarks, I plan to cover four areas. First, an update on our Middle East operations. Second, how we are growing revenue aligned with our 1st strategic priority. Third, our North American market outlook. Fourth, a returns-focused mindset that is foundational to Precision Drilling. For an update on our Middle East operations, I want to recognize Precision's leadership and crews for their performance over the past few months amid a dynamic regional environment and persistent uncertainty about where the conflict may lead next. In the face of these challenges, our team continues to focus on personnel safety and with all seven rigs delivering excellent results for our customers. We are all extremely proud of this team. Moving on to progress on our 1st strategic priority, growing revenue and deepening customer relationships.

We are succeeding on several fronts. I will focus on three: field performance, our upgrade program, and international optionality. There are many ways we measure field performance. In general, field performance is almost perfectly correlated with customer satisfaction, which is also almost perfectly correlated with the drilling contractor's ability to grow revenue. Forgive me as I will briefly get into the weeds talking about a key field performance metric, which is mechanical downtime. This is the % of time a rig is down in the field due to a mechanical issue when it should be making hole for a customer. In short, unplanned downtime is bad and customers don't like it. We do everything we can to minimize it. For Precision, in Q1, mechanical downtime in the U.S. was 0.59%. In Canada it was 0.48%.

These figures are the best on record for Precision in each market, and we believe they are industry-leading. In Canada, they were achieved in the highest activity Q1 we have had in over a decade. Why else is this metric important enough to highlight? The performance results from our business acting on real-time data flows from the rig, our scale digital twin initiative, data-driven sourcing of supply chain components, rig crews, and maintenance practicing supporting a data-driven approach. It is a true team effort with technology at the core. Furthermore, low downtime numbers are indicative of predictable, repeatable performance, which supports safe operations and faster drill times.

For those of you on the call who attended our Analyst and Investor Day in Houston one month ago, you saw firsthand how our digital platform is integrated and scaled into our operations in every operational support function, making these results possible and repeatable. There are multiple performance metrics demonstrating Precision's progress in the field and a number of customer records set in the quarter. I will stop short of covering those in detail and state that our rigs and crews are performing exceptionally well. Our customer satisfaction is high, and we are growing revenue, but we still have more improvements. For upgrades, we continue to execute our plan and are even expanding our growth investments to include two contracted Canadian Super Triple rig upgrades for delivery later this year.

In the Q1, Precision delivered year-over-year growth in activity and revenue in a declining market, the success of our upgrade program is a key driver. As Dustin pointed out, we expect growth to continue into the Q2 with a record Q2 in Canada and the U.S. rig count exiting June at the year's highest level. I'll remind the listeners that our upgrade program succeeds because of our vertical integration, the capital-light nature of many upgrades, and our ability to source opportunities in the two most active regions in Canada and the four most active regions in the U.S., all improving our delivery and return on capital. More on return on capital in a moment. I'd also like to cover international growth, where we, along with our partner, have actively engaged with all major Argentine operators and have outstanding bids on multiple rigs.

We remain excited about the opportunity in Argentina for Precision Drilling and are pursuing those opportunities thoroughly. In the Middle East, we have two idle rigs in Kuwait, and if we have more clarity in the outlook for the region, we expect to secure a contract for one of the rigs within the next few months. I mentioned on the last conference call that we had deployed an AlphaAutomation system on one rig in Kuwait and are driving performance on that rig through our Alpha remote operation center in Houston. I am pleased to report that the rig is now delivering significant reductions in drilling times for the customer, and we expect to broaden our technology footprint in the region over the course of the year, presenting another opportunity for performance differentiation and revenue growth. Moving on to our North American outlook.

While WTI prices have been over $80 for two months, our U.S. customers have not immediately reacted by adding rigs. In fact, the U.S. land rig count is down slightly year-to-date. This makes sense to us, as our customers have approved budgets, capital commitments to investors, and they likely want to have some time to assess the staying power of the oil price run-up. In addition, there is a lag time between the time a customer contracts a rig and the time that rig goes to work. Over the past few weeks, we have become increasingly confident of the U.S. market hitting an inflection point this summer with both private and public companies adding rigs and are confident of further rig adds for Precision in Q3 and Q4.

We have been planning to increase activity in the U.S. since the beginning of the year and are ready to meet the upcoming demand. In the Canadian market, we are seeing a more immediate impact of higher oil prices with increased demand for Super Single rigs operating in heavy oil basins. We also expect our Super Triple fleet to return to near full utilization later this summer, supported by constructive liquids prices and recent market developments that support the FID of LNG Canada Phase Two. In both markets, the expected tightness in rig supply is pulling forward some rig contracting discussions by a quarter or two for both gas and oil customers.

In our CMP division, coming off a year of activity increases in Q1, we are seeing increased request for production work from private companies while our larger customers are firming up plans that point to increased activity in the H2 of the year. Following the market demand increase, we are expecting the market to tighten for both personnel and equipment in the H2 of the year. The final topic I want to cover is Precision's commitment to generating financial returns. Dustin covered this topic in his opening comments, and I would like to go a bit deeper. We've been talking about cash flow and return of capital for a decade, and over that time, we have demonstrated success and ingrained in our culture the need to generate returns for our investors.

Our leadership in sales, operations, and operations support understands the focus and need to incorporate returns into all decisions. Although we are talking more about growth and appear to be entering into a growth market, the focus on returns will not diminish. In fact, it will be central to prioritizing capital employment and, more importantly, critical to maintaining our established reputation with investors for acting as good stewards of their capital. I would like to conclude by thanking the Precision crews, field leadership, and all Precision employees for their commitment to safety, customer service, and dedication to Precision. With that, I will hand the call back to the operator for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star one one on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press star one one again. We will pause for a moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Tim Monachello with ATB Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning and afternoon to everybody.

Hey, Tim.

First question, just on your expectations for, I guess, U.S. pricing improvement.

Mm-hmm

Given that the pricing sort of stagnated over the last few years. How much do you expect pricing to move higher in the back half of the year? With that, maybe talk about where you expect margins to go in the U.S. in the back half from where they were in Q1.

Tim, I understand your question, and I understand why you're asking it. We typically give margin guidance one quarter forward, so I'll stop short of giving guidance for Q3 and Q4. We said in our comments that we are having pricing increase discussions with customers and that those will start to be reflected in the H2 of the year. It will have a meaningful impact on our day rates and margins in the H2 of the year. I would just say that the U.S. market, a misconception about the market is that there are a large number of rigs ready to go, when customers want them.

I think if we see an increase in rig demand in, you know, maybe it's 30 or 40 or 50 rigs, there's a lot of rigs that are not ready to go back to work that will require capital and time to get the rigs back to work, including crewing up the rigs. There's gonna be more tightness in the market to stimulate day rate growth than I think the numbers would suggest. I would also say that, although we think that the pricing increases will be broad, we can't really quantify them yet because, as I mentioned, we've really just started here in the past few weeks implementing price increases.

Okay, got it. The rigs that I guess are churning or in between contracts right now, are those going on to new higher rate contracts?

Some of them are. We attempted to distinguish between our rig increases in the Q2 and our rig increases beyond the Q2. Most of the rig increases in the Q2 are just replacing the churn. Most of them are actually in gas basins and aren't really reflective of a market change in demand. Where we see the demand increase from oil-based customers is really gonna be in Q3 and Q4. That has a follow-on effect in the gas basin customers recognizing that the market is gonna be a bit tighter due to oil demand, which is pulling forward some of those rig add conversations in the gas basins.

That's helpful. Are you seeing any change in demand from gas basins? Gas prices are pretty weak, and I would imagine there's gonna be some incremental supply of associated gas coming out of oil basins. Is that market dynamic changing at all, or is that still pretty strong for you?

I'll make a couple comments there on the gas basin. I think that most of the customers now with the outlook for LNG growth and the outlook for gas-fired data center power demand, there's some fundamental drivers there that are impacting activity more than the spot price, and the spot price is weaker than it has been. I think that our customers are less reactive to the spot price than they would have been a couple of years ago. I will say that we are adding rigs in both the Marcellus and the Haynesville, and some of them are high grading, where we're replacing incumbents for the customer.

It's a little bit tougher to draw a read on the, on the broader market, but we do see our rig counts moving up in the next two months in the gas basins.

Got it. For incremental rig adds that you might see through the back half of the year in 2027.

Mm-hmm

Can you talk about, I guess, the availability of fleet, of idle fleet that you have, and, you know, would those rigs need to be upgraded before they go to work? I guess what's the scope of that idle capacity?

I would say that in our, I'll just say in our capital plan, we have room to move up and reactivate, you know, 15 or so rigs that, maybe a little bit more than that, where we don't have to increase our capital plan. We are ready. We have long leads. We have been preparing for an activity increase, as I mentioned, since the beginning of the year, even when the market expectation was flat. We'll be able to meet that demand. We are staffing up. We are carrying some extra crews, and we'll be carrying some extra crews through the Q2 to make sure that we're able to meet the staffing demand. I think for Precision, we're gonna be good.

I can't really comment on the rest of the industry, but I'll go back to what I said earlier, that there's likely a lot more friction in the system than what the numbers may indicate.

All right. Appreciate it. I'll turn it back.

Yeah, thank you.

Our next question comes from Derek Podolsky with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I guess sticking on the U.S. land theme, Carey, I'm just curious, just given your conversation with customers, and obviously a lot of moving pieces between the oil demand or expected oil demand, gas demand, which you've talked about, privates versus public. Rig count, like you said, we've been stuck in this 530 level for quite some time now. I guess, what are your expectations when you think about going through Q2 into the H2 of the year, where the industry rig count could potentially go to, and maybe come at it from a private versus public and maybe a basin perspective as well?

I think I'll in terms of the broad industry rig adds, you know, we're about 7% or 8% of the U.S. market, so we've got a read on our activity increases, and it's a little bit harder to read the entire industry. I think there's enough people out there that are making bets on that. You know, an industry rig add increase of 40 or 50 rigs does not seem unreasonable to us. Where we see the increases from a basin perspective, minor increases on average in the Marcellus and the Haynesville, and we've got large market positions in both of that. I think our read-through is probably pretty decent there.

where we're having customers with, customer conversations about rig adds in the H2 of the year, it's the Permian and the Rockies. That's, you know, thankfully where we have a lot of our idle capacity that's ready to go. I think we'll be really well positioned to meet that demand.

Great.

In terms of privates versus publics, certainly the privates got on the phone a little bit quicker, asking about rig availability, but we're starting to see more conversations or having more conversations with public companies about rig adds.

Got it. No, that's really helpful color. I guess on Canada, I'm just curious, maybe if you can help us with a bit more color as far as some of the mix shift that you're seeing between the Super Single and the Super Triple. I'm just curious if this is a structural change. Just any more color on how you see this developing over time. Is this something secular? Just how should we think about the mix of the singles versus the triples and how to think about that, as we move forward over the next, you know, six to 18 months or so?

Yeah, sure. I'll start out and then ask Dustin to kind of fill in some of the numbers. I would say the demand for our Super Triple, the 32 Super Triple we have in Canada remains strong. We always see a little bit of spotty activity in Q2 during spring breakup. From what we're seeing in the 2nd half of the year, demand is not really changing for the Super Triple. On the Super Single, which are driving heavy oil activity, we're seeing increasing demand on that rig class, based on our position in the marketplace. We are not seeing the Canadian rig count grow, we are seeing our rig count grow, we think it kind of speaks to the performance differentiation and value proposition for our customers.

That is the change that we've noticed, but I don't think it's a read-through for the rest of the industry. Dustin, can you talk a little bit maybe about pricing dynamics for what we're seeing on both those rig classes in the, in the doubles?

Yeah, for sure. I would actually add on the heavy oil market, one benefit of our upgrade program is we've really been chewing through that seasonality constraint in Q2. A lot of the pad-capable rigs, we have now 18 going on 19 pad-capable Super Single, which really adds additional capacity into our business model. Just makes that rig class so much more attractive. On a pricing front, I would say that pricing on our Super Single and our triples, it's very firm. We do see some competitive pressures out there, but we intend to sustain our position as a price leader in Canada, and it's really driven by our differentiation. I mean, we've got rig spec, it's our technology offering, and I would say on the people front, recruiting and retaining, it's a core competency, and it really sets us apart.

We feel really good about capturing that value premium that we're delivering for our customers. In the doubles market, it's a little bit different. It's oversupplied, highly competitive. We do participate. It's not a core part of our business, but we are not immune to the pricing pressures there. We do see a bit more pricing challenges in the doubles market.

Just to, just to wrap up that pricing conversation, you know, as Dustin said, we expect to have 20% more rigs running in Q2 than we did last year. All of those rigs are gonna be singles and doubles. They're gonna be lower margin rigs than their Super Triple, which impacts the overall margins.

Right. That all makes sense. Great color, guys. Really appreciate it. I'll turn it back.

Thank you, Derek.

Thanks, Derek.

Our next question comes from Aaron MacNeil with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. By my math, you've deployed, call it, just over CAD 160 million of upgrade capital over the last two years. Maybe another CAD 70 or CAD 80 million expected this year. I wanted to zero in on the U.S. market specifically and sort of understand how much capital and the number of rigs that you've upgraded in the U.S. market over the last couple of years, how many you expect to upgrade this year. Then just give us a bit of an update on how you're thinking about returns on that capital, given that we just haven't really seen a durable improvement in margins and, you know, utilization's been a bit better, but we continue to see a lot of churn in the contract book.

Yeah, I think first of all, we had a 24% increase year-over-year in activity relative to a market that went down 7% year-over-year. I think top line on activity, that's definitely improved. We've had revenue growth year-over-year, that's improved. We've addressed some reasons for margin guidance in Q2. We're expecting a pretty significant activity ramp, not just in the quarter, but preparing for Q3 and Q4. That's rig reactivations. I mentioned we're gonna carry a few more crews to make sure that all of those startups that we have planned are executed very well. I think I don't think it's fair to say that we're not seeing results from the upgrade program. We certainly are.

If you look at the top-line revenue number, it is flat. We're kind of guiding flat on day rates, so day rates are firm. On the, on the upgrade capital, we haven't split out the upgrades between Canada and the U.S., but I would say that, you know, in the U.S. market, in the Canadian market, we're typically doing two types of upgrades. We're doing a pad conversion for a Super Single, and then we're doing an upgrade on a Super Triple. Pad conversions will typically be CAD 3 million-CAD 5 million in spend. On, on the Super Triple, it could be anywhere from kind of CAD 4 million-CAD 4 million to high single digits on the upgrade, depending on the term of the contract and the return.

When we're executing these upgrades, we are almost always getting full return of the capital spend within the term of the contract. For the lower dollar upgrade can get paid back in a shorter term contract. The U.S. market has been a spot market, and we've commented on this many times over the past couple of years. Most of the contracts are six months or pad to pad. Sometimes we're getting one-year contracts if we're spending more capital. It does introduce some variability after the contract has been signed and the capital has been returned. Because of the nature of the short-term work, we do have some pockets like we're experiencing right now in April, where there's gonna be a little bit of white space.

I think for the full look back, I think we need to get to the end of the year on the capital spend with a lot of these rigs that are gonna be delivered later in this year, and we fully expect to see revenue and EBITDA growth in our business year-over-year.

Gotcha. Okay, fair enough. Maybe to build on one of Tim's many questions, just given that the U.S. contract durations are shorter, with most rolling off by the end of this year, you know, in the context of your comments around pricing increases, you know, do you think that'll translate directly into margin? Or do you think sort of we'll continue to see this churn over the next couple of quarters that might, you know, offset some of those pricing gains in the near term?

We fully expect to see benefits from pricing increases, more activity, more activity covering overhead, and we expect to see a stronger contract book at the H2 of the year. I won't give guidance on margins for Q3 and Q4, but we think there's a lot of positive drivers for margin in the H2 of the year. The only thing that I would say that might offset that is if we get more activity on the CWC rigs that we purchased in the Powder River, and if there's more activity in our 1,200 horsepower rigs, which have slightly lower margins than our 1,500 horsepower rigs.

I think the uplift on margins and contracts on the 1,500 class rigs are definitely gonna be going up.

Okay. Makes sense. Thanks, everyone. I'll turn it back.

Thanks, Aaron.

Our next question comes from Keith Mackey with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. Just maybe starting out on the international side, can you just give us a bit more color on the disruptions you faced in Q1 and the reactivation costs you faced in Q1, maybe quantify those as much as you can for Q1 as well as heading into Q2? More broadly, Carey, how do you think about the international business now? You know, given everything that's happened over there, do you place a higher risk premium on deploying assets there? Just how do you think about that, you know, where that business fits within Precision over the longer term?

All fair questions. I'll kind of go one by one there, if I can remember them. On the rig reactivation cost, it was $2 million U.S. is what it cost us to reactivate the one rig in Saudi. It was higher than what we expected. The rig had been, it was part of all of the rig suspensions in the kingdom. When we reactivated the rig, the requirements by the customer to get the rig up to spec were just much greater than what we thought, and it was higher cost. Plus mobilizing the crews back in the country, it was just more than, more than we thought. That was a one-time cost.

What we're seeing right now in terms of disruption, it's getting crews in and out of each country because of flight schedules and airport closures, and, you know, I'm sure you've read about plenty of the travel disruptions that this war has caused in the region. There's also some relatively minor. Well, I would say for us, it's relatively minor. I think some of our, what is called broader oilfield service industry peers, have reported lots of disruption related to supply chain in the region. For us, it's, you know, having to get parts from, you know, one part of the country that's far away or fuel from one part of the country that's far away from where we're drilling when we used to get it very close to where we're drilling.

There's some logistical challenges. It's tough to quantify right now what that cost is gonna be. I think it's gonna be low single-digits impact on profitability on those disruptions. It's a dynamic market. There's a lot of changes. I'll stop short of, you know, giving you an exact number of what those disruptions might be. Then, in terms of longer term, we said we wanna grow the business, but we're not gonna grow it in spite of returns. We really wanna get the good returns on our capital. Your question about a discount rate or the required returns given the, you know, perceived increased risk level, it's a, it's a question for the broader market.

I don't know that I'm the best person or Precision's the best company to comment on that. The environment has changed a bit, and there will be new variables in the models that come before deploying capital. We certainly think about that. You know, for the business, it's not optimal size from a scale standpoint, but seven rigs or eight rigs, as I mentioned, we would likely have sometime later this year or early next year. It's enough for us to generate, you know, meaningful EBITDA and meaningful cash flow. Although it's not optimal size, I think we've got some optionality on whether to grow the business or, you know, plan to do something else strategic with it.

No, thanks for that color, Carey. Appreciate it. Maybe just quickly on the two upgrades in Canada. Can you just give us some more color on where those rigs are coming from, potentially when they expect to go to work and just the scope of the upgrade required and whether you think that, you know, there's significantly more of these upgrades that you could potentially do or likely do, just given kinda where the Canadian market is well. Some comments around that would be helpful.

These rigs are going into multi-year contracts. The capital that we are spending on the rigs will be fully recouped within the term of the contract through either the day rate or an upfront payment from customers. On the financial side, they're very attractive for us. I think for our customers, the performance of these rigs, we're really excited about. I think we create a lot of value for our customers. What we're doing is taking an ST-1200. We're increasing the capacity pretty much all over the rig from hook load capacity, right, fracking capacity, pumping capacity.

We're taking what we would call the rigs at, from a spec standpoint, that would be at the lowest end of our Super Triple 1200 class in Canada and upgrading them to where they would be at the leading edge of our fleet. These are opportunistic for our customers. They're core customers of ours. They're important customers in the region. We think that these are specific for their drilling programs. There may be more demand for these rigs, and we would happily meet that demand with these return metrics. Don't expect to have, you know, a one-a-month type cadence. I think this is, you know, maybe a few a year over the next couple years, might be a good way to think about it. Now, Dustin, anything to add?

Yeah. No, I would, I would just say more broadly speaking, Keith, like we really like the fact that customers are showing a lot of enthusiasm around upfront payments to really take a little bit of the strain of the cash flow in the current year. These would include a portion of that. From a return standpoint, we're very, very happy with it and the margin increases that we'll see. As Carey mentioned, they're incredibly strategic, as far as the location and the core customers, they're deep in our relationship. You know, as it, as it makes our operating capabilities better, you know, I made that comment earlier in an earlier question about how we've been able to sustain our presence as a price leader in Canada and to further differentiate our offer will be a core way we sustain that going forward.

One other point I'd make, these upgrades would be delivered, one in Q3 and one would be delivered later in the year in Q4. For the financial pull-through, you would see portions of that in 2026.

Understood. Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Thanks, Keith.

Our next question comes from John Daniel with Daniel Energy Partners.

Carey, Dustin team. Carey, have you had any customers start asking you about 2027 yet?

Some of the rig contract discussions that we're having that we are having are one year or more, so they're going into 2027. I can't give you concrete examples, but it's possible.

No, It's okay. I just didn't know what they're telling you in terms of potential needs next year versus where they are today. I'm guessing the answer is no.

I don't know an answer. Like I said, these customer conversations.

Okay.

They've really ramped up here in the last two or three weeks. In the past couple of days, we may have had some conversations that I'm not aware of.

Yeah. That's cool. Just so I get the numbers straight here, your U.S. count is it 35 today?

That'll be 35 next week. 32 today.

35 next week. Where did you say you're gonna exit the quarter, the expected number?

High, high thirties. 38 or 39 rigs.

38, 39.

John.

16

Just, yeah, just to make sure we're you heard our comments. That's really just kind of the normal churn. That's not really commodity price driven?

Sure.

Okay.

No, that's right. Yeah, yeah. I'm just getting old, Carey. It's hard to follow the numbers. You got 15 or so rigs that could come back to work. Would it be unreasonable for someone to assume that you could be adding three to four rigs a quarter through the end of the year?

I think it's probably reasonable to assume that we're gonna be adding more than that, more per quarter.

More than.

Yeah. I mean, Yeah.

More per quarter. That's fine. Okay. Times are good. Okay. All right, guys. Thanks a lot.

Okay. Thanks, John.

Our next question comes from John Gibson with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Morning or afternoon, wherever you are. Just had one. You talked a lot about U.S. pricing. Wanted to talk about pricing in Canada. You kind of alluded to that the doubles market is still oversupplied, but it seems like there's incremental demand. I'm just wondering, are we nearing an inflection for pricing on maybe some of the lower class rigs, or is that, is that a little ways out? Do you see that, you know, being possible based on the commodity pricing environment and demand from customers?

Yeah, I would say historically, we have seen in higher commodity price environment that all rig class pricing goes up. I would say at the field level in the customer conversations, we are not seeing any, an indication that that rig class is moving up in price today.

Got it. Appreciate the responses. I'll turn it back.

Thanks, John.

I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to Lavonne for any further remarks.

Thank you. As a reminder, our Q1 financial statements and MD&A are now available on our website. Thanks to our research analysts for their questions. Should other participants have a question, please reach out to either myself or Patrick Tang in the Investor Relations Department. Thank you very much and have a good day.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's presentation. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.