Precision Drilling (PDS) Earnings Call Transcript

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DATE

Thursday, October 23, 2025 at 1 p.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

Chief Executive Officer — Carey Ford

Chief Financial Officer — Dustin Honing

Chief Operating Officer — Jean Stahl

Vice President, Investor Relations & Corporate Development — Lavonne Zdunich

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TAKEAWAYS

Adjusted EBITDA -- $118 million adjusted EBITDA, or $129 million before share-based compensation, compared to $142 million in the prior year.

Canadian Drilling Activity -- Averaged 63 active rigs in Q3 2025, a decrease of 9 rigs from Q3 2023, due to deferrals into the winter season.

Canadian Daily Operating Margins -- $13,007 per day in Q3 2025, up from $12,877 per day in Q3 2023.

U.S. Drilling Activity -- Averaged 36 rigs in Q3 2025, an increase of 3 from the previous quarter, attributed to gas basin exposure.

U.S. Daily Operating Margins -- $8,700 per day in Q3 2025, compared to $9,026 per day in Q2 2025.

International Rig Activity -- Averaged 7 rigs, down from 8; day rates rose 14% to $53,811 in Q3 2025 compared to Q3 2024, reflecting fewer non-billable days.

Completion and Production Services (CMP) EBITDA -- $19.3 million in Q3 2025, versus $19.7 million in Q3 2024.

2025 Capital Expenditures Plan -- Increased to $260 million from $240 million; includes $151 million for sustaining and infrastructure and $109 million for upgrades and expansion as part of planned 2025 capital expenditures, driven by five additional contract-backed upgrades.

Contracted Backlog -- Added contract backlog "far exceeds" the capital plan increase, supporting financial returns and customer alignment.

Debt Reduction -- $101 million debt reduction achieved YTD, meeting the annual target.

Share Repurchases -- $54 million repurchased in the first nine months of 2025; 35%-45% of free cash flow allocated to buybacks (as of Q3 2025).

Q4 Canadian Rig Count Guidance -- Expected to match or slightly exceed the prior year's winter drilling season activity in Canada. Q4 2024 average should approximate 65 rigs.

Q4 Canadian Margin Guidance -- $14,000-$15,000 per day expected for Canada in Q4 2025.

Q4 U.S. Rig Count Guidance -- Upper 30s average rigs projected for Q4 2025.

Q4 U.S. Margin Guidance -- $8,000-$9,000 per day anticipated for U.S. daily operating margins in Q4 2025.

2025 Depreciation and Interest Expense Guidance -- Depreciation of ~$300 million and interest expense of ~$65 million for 2025, unchanged from prior estimates.

Tax Rate Guidance -- 2025 effective tax rate approximately 45%-50% due to U.S. deferred tax expense; effective tax rate forecast to return to 25% to 30% in 2026.

SG&A Expense Guidance -- $90-$95 million before share-based compensation for 2025.

Share-Based Compensation Guidance -- Range narrowed to $5-$30 million if share price is $60-$100 for 2025.

Net Debt Metrics -- Net debt to trailing 12-month EBITDA at 1.3x; average debt cost 6.6%.

Long-Term Capital Allocation Priority -- Target net debt to EBITDA below 1x and to increase the shareholder payout ratio toward 50% of free cash flow allocated directly to shareholders.

Technology Penetration -- 90% of active super triple rigs use Alpha technology as of Q3 2025; 93% of active rigs have Evergreen solutions installed.

Rig Upgrades in 2025 -- 27 major upgrades expected in 2025, all backed by customer contracts with upfront payments.

Leadership Transition -- Three leadership roles filled internally, including CEO, CFO, and COO, with continuity emphasized.

Performance-Based Contracts -- More prevalent in both Canada and the U.S; multiple contracts in place, with management anticipating future growth in this structure.

SUMMARY

Precision Drilling Corporation reported a year-over-year contraction in adjusted EBITDA for Q3 2025, with management attributing Canadian activity declines to deferred projects and U.S. rig growth to gas basin strength. Contracted customer upgrades led to a $20 million increase in planned 2025 capital expenditures and an uptick in contracted backlog, while liquidity remained robust above $400 million as of September 30. Capital allocation remains focused on debt reduction, shareholder returns, and maintaining disciplined capital deployment amid commodity market dependency and evolving customer demand for advanced technology.

Ford said, "We expect to be at 100% utilization on the super triples this winter drilling season," highlighting robust demand for that rig class.

Honig stated U.S. rig count rose from a Q1 2025 low of 27 to 40 currently, indicating strong customer recognition of field performance and ongoing sales efforts.

Company described a unique five-rig contract in Canada requiring asset mobilization and rig upgrades, with returns secured by contract structure.

Ford acknowledged customer-funded rig upgrades as the company's "highest return opportunity," aided by proprietary tech centers in Canada and Houston.

Stahl said rig upgrades generally require one week to four months, depending on project scope and rig type.

Management sees organic growth, rather than M&A, as the current focus, supported by high utilization, pricing, and technology-driven advancements.

The company expects customer conversations on 2026 work to continue, but confirmed booked contract visibility is limited for next year.

No new service lines are under consideration, and there are no new geographies to report at this time, with Middle Eastern growth contingent on improved capital returns.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

Super Triple Rig: High-specification land drilling rig with advanced automation and high horsepower, capable of drilling complex, long-reach horizontal wells.

Alpha Technology/AlphaAutomation: Precision Drilling’s digital platform integrating advanced automation and optimization software to improve drilling efficiency and consistency.

Evergreen Solutions: Platform of technologies deployed by Precision Drilling to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions on active drilling rigs.

Pad Rig: Rig designed for multi-well pad drilling, allowing drilling of several wells from a single location, increasing efficiency and minimizing rig moves.

Top Drive: Mechanized system on a drilling rig used to rotate the drill string, enabling longer and more complex drilling operations.

SAGD: Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage, a thermal recovery method for extracting heavy oil and bitumen, utilized especially in the Canadian market.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Dustin Honing: Thank you, Lavonne, and good morning or good afternoon, depending on where you're calling today. Our Q3 results demonstrate Precision's commitment to delivering on our strategic priorities in positioning the business for long-term success. We recorded an adjusted EBITDA of $118 million, which equates to $129 million before share-based compensation expense, compared with prior year EBITDA of $142 million. In Canada, drilling activity averaged 63 active rigs, a decrease of 9 rigs from Q3 2023, resulting from customer projects being deferred to the upcoming winter season. Our reported Q3 daily operating margins were $13,007 a day, compared to $12,877 a day in the third quarter of 2023, well within our prior guidance range.

In the U.S., we averaged 36 rigs, an increase of 3 rigs from the previous quarter, primarily due to Precision's strength in gas-weighted basins. In Q3, daily operating margins for the quarter were steady at U.S. $8,700 a day, compared to U.S. $9,026 per day in the second quarter, also within our prior guidance range. With favorable positioning in the U.S. natural gas market, we continued to add to our U.S. rig count, which has increased from a low of 27 rigs in Q1 to a high of 40 rigs today, a reflection of strong field performance recognized by our customers and the efforts of our sales team.

While contract churn continues to challenge activity levels, we are encouraged by the quantity and quality of conversations tied to future opportunities in all basins. Internationally, Precision's drilling activity averaged 7 rigs, down from 8 rigs in prior year Q3. International day rates averaged U.S. $53,811 a day, an increase of 14% from prior year Q3 due to rigs recertification with non-billable days recognized in 2023. In our CMP segment, adjusted EBITDA was $19.3 million, which compares to $19.7 million from prior year Q3.

Our strong presence in Canada's heavy oil and unconventional natural gas markets, combined with our favorable positioning in the U.S., has provided us the ability to capitalize on rig upgrade opportunities, underpinned by firm customer contract commitments. During the quarter, we increased our planned 2025 capital expenditures from $240 million to $260 million, comprised of $151 million for sustaining and infrastructure and $109 million for upgrade and expansion. The plan is inclusive of five additional contract-backed upgrades added this quarter. Our added contracted backlog in the third quarter far exceeds the increase in our 2025 capital plan, ensuring strong financial returns as we strengthen both the marketability of our rig fleet and customer alignment in key regions.

Even with this increase in capital, we remain firmly committed to our strategic priorities. As of September 30, we've met our annual debt reduction target, reducing our debt by $101 million, and are well on our way to allocating between 35% and 45% of our free cash flow to share buybacks. We have repurchased $54 million worth of shares during the first nine months of the year. Moving on to forward guidance, I will begin with our expectations for the fourth quarter. While our outlook for the remainder of the year remains positive, it will continue to be commodity price dependent.

In Canada, we are expecting activity for this year's winter drilling season to meet or slightly exceed last year's winter activity. Q4 rig counts should be similar to Q4 2024, which averaged 65 rigs. Keep in mind this includes the seasonal slowdown for Christmas holidays. Our operating margins in Canada are expected to range between $14,000 and $15,000 per day. In the U.S., we expect to sustain the momentum we have experienced in the last two quarters, with an average active rig count in Q4 within the upper 30s. For the fourth quarter, we expect our margins to remain stable, ranging between U.S. $8,000 and U.S. $9,000 per day.

Moving to guidance for the full year, we expect depreciation of approximately $300 million and cash interest expense of approximately $65 million, remaining unchanged from prior guidance. Our effective tax rate will be approximately 45% to 50% due to increased deferred income tax expense related to the momentum of our U.S. operations. Cash taxes are expected to remain low in 2025, and looking to 2026, we expect to return to our traditional effective tax range within 25% to 30%, with cash taxes again remaining low. For 2025, we expect SG&A of approximately $90 to $95 million before share-based compensation expense.

We have refined our share-based compensation guidance for the year and now expect to range in between $5 and $30 million, assuming a share price of $60 to $100. Our long-term target to achieve net debt to adjusted EBITDA of less than one times remains firmly in place, as does our plan to increase our free cash flow allocated directly to shareholders towards 50%. Our net debt to trailing 12-month EBITDA ratio is approximately 1.3 times, with an average cost of debt of 6.6%, and we have over $400 million in total liquidity today. With that, I will pass it over to Carey.

Carey Ford: Thank you, Dustin, and good morning and good afternoon. First, I would also like to acknowledge Kevin for his accomplishments and contributions to Precision over his 18 years as CEO. His commitment to high performance and ability to grow the business while navigating industry cycles has certainly left a mark on the company. We wish him well in retirement. Precision is today the leading land driller in Canada, a leader in drilling technology, a high-performance driller in the Middle East, a leading driller in the U.S., and the largest and highest performing well service provider in Canada. The company has a multi-year track record of generating sizable cash flows and now has a strong balance sheet approaching one-time's leverage.

In short, Precision is well positioned for its next phase of growth. Precision is undoubtedly one of the truly exceptional companies in the energy industry. What sets us apart is our culture, shared passion, commitment to supporting the field, enthusiasm for serving customers, and deep desire to be the best. Precision's culture, core values, and people will continue to be the foundation for our success. For our investors, the Precision team will remain excellent stewards of capital and will follow through with our commitments, which include our plans for long-term debt reduction and increasing direct returns to shareholders.

We will continue to be agile and run lean, and we'll be prepared for whatever challenges the commodity market has in store for us. For our customers, we are committed to safety, consistency, reliability, and technology that drives performance, reduces costs, and delivers the highest quality well bores. For our employees, Precision will continue to be a fantastic place to work, develop your career, and call home. Case in point, Precision just completed a leadership transition in which the company filled three key positions, all with internal candidates, and our leadership team will not skip a beat.

Jean, Shuja, Veronica, Tom, Darren, and I have been working together on the leadership team for nearly a decade, and I look forward to the success this team will accomplish over the next stretch. I am pleased to welcome Dustin to the executive leadership team as he steps into the Chief Financial Officer role. Some on the call will remember Dustin when he oversaw our investor relations and corporate development efforts over the 2018 to 2020 period. Over the past five years, Dustin has been a key driver of our financial performance, working hand in hand with the sales and operations teams in both our contract drilling and completion and production services segments.

I'm excited about Dustin's performance-driven mindset and his future contributions to Precision in his new role. I also want to extend my congratulations to Jean Stahl on his new role as Chief Operating Officer. This is a well-deserved recognition of Jean's excellent leadership of Precision in the field, with customers, and within the industry. I'm truly honored to have the opportunity to lead such an outstanding team. As we dive into Precision's third quarter performance, I want to make sure for the listener that I link together how our competitive strategy, execution, and capital deployment not only support the financial results which we publish, but also position Precision Drilling for future success.

Three pillars of our strategy that underpin our performance are leveraging our scale, utilizing technology to drive rig performance, and customer focus. I'll start with leveraging our scale. Precision is running 115 drilling rigs and 80 well service rigs today, with rig support systems and over 5,000 employees serving customers across North America and the Middle East. Our scale enables us to seize opportunities and secure attractive returns for our investors. For instance, during the quarter, we mobilized two super triple rigs from the U.S. to Canada and performed major upgrades to prepare the rigs for the winter drilling programs. One of the rigs is already drilling, and the second rig should leave our NISTU yard next week.

These rig mobilizations were part of a larger multi-year customer contract where we repositioned and reactivated five rigs in total. The creative contract structure, mobilization of assets, and quality and speed of the upgrades could not have been possible without Precision's scale and vertically integrated support functions. We also demonstrated the benefits of scale and geographic positioning in the U.S. market, where our strength in gas basins positioned us to capitalize on attractive contracted upgrade opportunities for long-reach drilling applications for customers. These rig upgrades added to our contract book, our customer list, and rig capabilities.

During the quarter, and because of recent rig upgrades and the quality of our crews, we drilled the longest well for a large customer in the Marcellus and the second longest well for a large customer in the Haynesville, with both wells approaching 30,000 feet. We also set footage per day records for separate customers in both the Marcellus and Eagle Ford. Higher activity and scale in the U.S. are supporting operating margins as well. Those of you who have listened to previous calls have heard me discuss the strategic rationale for committing to our geographic breadth in the U.S. market, understanding that we experience some margin pressure in the short term to cover higher fixed costs.

In the past two quarters, we have capitalized on several opportunities across the U.S. and are minimizing the fixed cost burden as our rig count has moved from the high 20s earlier this year to 40 rigs active today. As we communicated in our guide for the fourth quarter, our margins are now stabilized. My final point on leveraging our scale addresses the performance of our completion and production services segment. The differentiated size and capabilities of our well service fleet, which we have scaled through consolidation over the past three years, combined with our Precision rentals fleet, delivered a year-over-year revenue growth in a market that generally saw lower drilling and well service activity.

The second pillar I'll discuss is that technology continues to be a key driver of success, not only with our Alpha and Evergreen platforms, but also with real-time monitoring technology further supporting rig performance. We now have 90% of our active super triple rigs running Alpha technology and 93% of all active rigs with at least one Evergreen solution, reducing fuel consumption and emissions for our customers. Our automated robotics rig working for a major in the Montney continues to deliver faster tripping and drilling times for our customer, and interest in the robotics offering is broadening across our customer base.

Our Clarity platform and digital twin initiatives deliver real-time monitoring of equipment and well performance, resulting in lower downtime, longer equipment lives, faster drilling speeds, and more collaborative and enduring customer relationships. Technology applications are ubiquitous within Precision's operations and are clearly driving results for all our customers. Finally, I cannot overstate how important customer focus is to our business. The success we have had with the upgrade program in 2025 is a direct result of our customer focus. We work hand in hand with our customers to deliver rig equipment and technology packages that we mutually agree will deliver the optimal results.

This year, we expect to complete 27 major upgrades, and these upgrades are backed by customer contracts for upfront payments. Our strategic initiatives clearly supported our financial performance in the third quarter and will continue to drive results for Precision in the future. I'm personally excited about Precision's trajectory as we near the end of 2025, with our demonstrated ability to deliver on our shareholder capital return commitments while gaining market share, completing significant investments across our drilling fleet, building our contract book, and sustaining strong field margin. The future for Precision Drilling is promising. That concludes my prepared remarks, and I will now turn the call back to the operator.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press *11 on your telephone. If your question has been answered or you remove yourself from the queue, please press *11 again. We'll pause for a moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Derek Vatheiser with Fibre Channel. Your line is open.

Derek John Podhaizer: Hey, good morning, Carey. Congratulations to you and Kevin. Great to see you in the seat.

Carey Ford: Thanks, Derek. Just maybe a question around some of the comments you made for 2026, the limited visibility of the first part of the year. Obviously, you have some contract term, short-term duration contracts. When can we start seeing those extend a little bit here and get some term back into your contracts? I'm just thinking about the interplay of a lot of the customer-funded upgrades that you've talked about and how that can then lead into extending the terms as we move through 2026. I think if I was going to go around North America on customer contracts, we are seeing a bit more commitment to longer-term contracts in the Montney.

I'd say that would be where our longest duration contracts are. We're seeing some longer-term contracts in heavy oil, but not quite to the degree that we're seeing in the Montney. In the U.S., we're certainly seeing longer-term contracts in the Marcellus. We have a couple two-year contracts that we've signed this year, a lot of one-year contracts, and then some shorter-term contracts. I think the contract duration is going to be the shortest in the oil basins, as there's been a bit more volatility in that commodity. In the Haynesville, we're seeing some short-term and some slightly longer-term, maybe one year to 18-month contracts.

Derek John Podhaizer: Okay, got it. That makes a lot of sense.

Carey Ford: Yeah. I'll just add, I think it's Dustin who made a comment here about some of the conversations we're having with customers. We don't have, I think we have one contract in our book that we've booked that starts in 2026, but we are having a number of constructive conversations with customers for both oil and gas targets in the U.S. for work starting in 2026, but it's kind of yet to be seen how long those contract commitments are going to be.

Derek John Podhaizer: Okay. That's helpful color. Just on the rig upgrades, obviously, you've done a lot here in 2025. I think the number is almost 30. As you start thinking about 2026, and as you start thinking about your budget around for CapEx and what that means for free cash flow, how much more rig upgrades do you expect to do? I guess, what's the population that you have of your rigs going that are available to be upgraded? Just want to start contextually thinking about what rig upgrades can look like for next year and what it means for CapEx.

Carey Ford: Yeah. I think we, I would just start with the capital commitments that we made to investors on debt pay down and share repurchases. We will start with commitments, maybe similar levels next year. Hopefully, we raise the commitment to deliver returns directly to shareholders. We'll start with that. Then we'll have our regular maintenance, which has been trending kind of in the $150 million a year range at this activity level. Beyond that, frankly, I hope we have a lot of upgrades. This is an excellent opportunity to generate a significant financial return for our customers. It's certainly the highest return opportunity we have out of all of our options.

We have an embedded advantage on completing the upgrades with a 40-acre tech center in NISTU and a 20-acre tech center in Houston that are fully staffed with experts on completing these upgrades. We have a cost advantage. It usually comes with, or I would say almost always comes with a contract that locks in the return. I hope we have more. I think as we continue to see longer reach horizontals in the U.S., that will drive demand from our customers for upgrades. We expect to see more pad configuration upgrades in the heavy oil in Canada. I think it'll be more, it'll be much more than zero.

I don't know if we'll hit the same level that we do this year, but I don't think that these upgrade requests are going to stop.

Derek John Podhaizer: Okay. Great. Thanks, Carey. Congrats again. I'll turn it back.

Carey Ford: Yes, thank you, Derek.

Operator: Our next question comes from Keith MacKey with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Keith MacKey: Hi. Thanks for taking my question and certainly echo Derek's comments on congrats to you, Carey, Dustin, and Jean. I think maybe, Carey, if we could just kind of start out with, and you did discuss it in your prepared remarks, but you know I'm not at this point expecting wholesale strategy change from Precision, but certainly some tweaks from how you might see the business to how Kevin might have seen it. Can you just talk about some of those factors and sort of how your priorities will stand going forward as you take on the CEO role?

Carey Ford: Yeah, sure. I think that's a fair question, Keith, and certainly early days, but I have been with the company for 15 years. I would say that the strategy that we've been working with over my tenure as CFO, so the past 10 years, I was heavily involved in developing it, particularly around cost control, capital allocation, returns to shareholders, and kind of hand in hand on how we look at operating the business and dealing with customers. Where I think the initial focus will be on supporting field operations the best we can and proving to our field that we're delivering the best support we can.

Also with customers, doing, I would say, a more thorough job of proving to customers that we are delivering the best performance in the industry. We've got lots of new tools to do that and a commitment by our sales and operations and technology teams to follow through on that. Beyond that, I would just say that there's a lot of things that are working for Precision Drilling right now. I'm not looking to change the things that are working.

You look at kind of the laundry list that I closed my comments with about our contract book and market share, and I think we had a revenue decline of 3% year over year this quarter, which I think you would be hard-pressed to find a service provider with a similar geographic footprint to us that had a similar resiliency in revenue. There are a lot of things that are working, but I think there's a few areas where we can sharpen our focus.

Keith MacKey: Okay. Appreciate the comments. Just one on the margin per day guidance, specifically speaking to any mobilization or activation costs. Looks like in the U.S., you had about $502 a day of impact in Q3. Can you just talk about what that might look like in Canada and the U.S. for Q4, please?

Dustin Honing: Keith, this is Dustin here. In Canada, we'll have a little bit tied to the rigs we've mobilized out, but I wouldn't view it as substantial as one of those rigs has already been delivered. When you look in the U.S., we've kind of seen a little bit of a constant run rate with some of the reactivation following the momentum of staging all of these incremental rigs from Q1 into Q3. I think that's a reasonable run rate you can expect kind of with the contract churn that we've been absorbing so far in the short term.

Keith MacKey: Okay, that's it for me. Thanks a lot.

Dustin Honing: Yeah, thank you, Keith.

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

Aaron MacNeil: Hey, morning all, and congrats to everyone. I would certainly echo that and looking forward to seeing where you guys take things. Maybe I'll build on Keith's question, Carey. I was just hoping you could comment on a few specific items like performance-based contracts, your comfort with the operating regions or business lines, and your approach to M&A, and if those sort of factors differ from your predecessor.

Carey Ford: Okay. I would say with regards to M&A, no change. I was involved in every kind of M&A discussion we've had probably over the last 15 years. I think there's nothing strategic that we see on the M&A front. I think there are some transactions we could complete if the price was right, but there's not a transaction out there that we would view as strategic that we would need to pay up for. No change on that.

The other thing I would say on M&A would be we're proving, in this year in particular, that there are ways to grow our business organically without M&A, and we're doing that through high utilization of assets, improved pricing, rig upgrades, technology add-ons, Evergreen add-ons. I think there's a bit more runway on that growth avenue. With regard to performance-based contracts, I might have a slightly different view on that, but it's not much different. I think there are good opportunities for performance-based contracts. The industry is certainly, it's more prevalent in the industry than it would have been two or three years ago.

We're seeing more unique applications to insert performance clauses into our contracts in both the Canadian market and the U.S. market. We're not opposed to them. We have several performance-based contracts, and they're working well on delivering financial returns as well as driving performance for our rigs. I don't think you're going to see a step change in how we look at performance-based contracts, but I would be surprised if we didn't see more of them in the future.

Aaron MacNeil: Okay. Sorry, the last piece of the first question was just, you know, presumably, you're comfortable with the operating regions and business lines you're currently in?

Carey Ford: Correct. I think we're not looking to add any service lines onto our current business lines. When we look at expanding internationally, we've said it before, and I agree with it today, that the markets that we're in, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, are very good markets in the Middle East. It has been difficult to grow outside of those markets because the return profile of deploying new capital has been unattractive. If we can make that change or find opportunities where that does change, we could grow in that region in the Middle East. Maybe there's another region or two that we grow in the future, but nothing to report or telegraph at this point.

Aaron MacNeil: Okay. For the follow-up, I'm sure you guys gave this a lot of thought before moving additional rigs to Canada, but how did you sort of wrap your head around the downside mitigation in terms of adding supply to the market that's generally been pretty good for the last couple of years? You also mentioned a unique customer contract structure in the prepared remarks. Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

Carey Ford: Yeah. I mean, this was a five-rig contract for a major customer in Canada where we moved two rigs from the U.S. market to Canada, but also were able to get long-term contracts on three other rigs in the Canadian market. We were able to look at the contract package and the capital committed for that contract package and the contract term and the return that the contract delivered for all those rigs. Together as a package, it was a very attractive opportunity for us, and we were uniquely positioned to be able to capture it. I think it was just a unique situation that allowed us to move two rigs to the Canadian market.

Now, your question about supplying more rigs to the market, and I just want to be clear on the comments that we delivered both in our press release and I believe Dustin delivered on his press release. We expect to be at 100% utilization on the super triples this winter drilling season. We are addressing higher demand for Precision Drilling super triples. I don't know what that means for the rest of the market of triples in Canada, but certainly for our rig class, we expect to be at 100% utilization.

Aaron MacNeil: Okay. Makes total sense. Thanks, everyone, and congrats again.

Carey Ford: Thank you, Aaron. Thanks, Aaron.

Operator: Our next question comes from John Daniel with Daniel Energy Partners. Your line is open.

John Matthew Daniel: Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. I guess Carey, well, congrats. Everyone, congrats, by the way. This question is for Jean. I know it's too early to say how many rig upgrades you're going to do next year, but I'm curious if you could just speak to the demand for more upgrades next year.

Jean Stahl: Yeah. Hey, John. Thanks. We are working closely with all of our customers here in the U.S. and trying to understand what they need for rig requirements, what their drilling programs look like. We have three classes of super triples: our regular 1500, our 1500 EDR, and our ST2000. Depending on what their drilling program looks like, if they've got a steady program and we've got a rig that we can upgrade for them at a reasonable price and we can come to contract terms, we will go ahead and see if we can move forward with the upgrade.

John Matthew Daniel: Okay. When I look at the five rigs that you're doing for Canada, can you just speak to how that evolved, the opportunity, how long were the discussions? Could you be surprised next year all of a sudden that you're going to have 5 to 10 more upgrades? I'm just trying to get a feel for what the opportunity could be.

Jean Stahl: Yeah. It's a blend of heavy oil rigs and a blend of triples. Obviously, Carey just spoke to the triples. The heavy oil is super single rigs. We have 48 of them. As the Clearwater starts to evolve and they expand their well design, they're looking for year-round operations. Typically, that can mean 100 more days of utilization for us as a drilling contractor. Converting those single mode rigs to pad rigs is something that's of interest to our customers and to ourselves, and that's where the growth would come from.

John Matthew Daniel: Got it. All right. Apologies for what's going to be a drilling 101 question here, but you did the 27 rig upgrades this year, or you'll do them. Can you remind me what a potential rig upgrade cycle could be? When would you have to bring those 27 back in?

Jean Stahl: Oh, you mean the time it takes to complete an upgrade?

John Matthew Daniel: Yeah. Just.

Jean Stahl: I'm sorry for such a basic question, but I'm slow today. You know, it's.

John Matthew Daniel: For what we're doing, some of the rig upgrades might be an in-base and upgrade where in a rig move where we're installing a new piece of equipment, you know, a wrench or a high torque top drive. A longer-term upgrade might be doing a pad configuration for a super single. That would be three to four months. The rigs that we moved up, the super triples, those were both, those were probably two to three-month upgrades to get those rigs ready. We're not looking at any kind of six to nine-month upgrades. Most of them are going to be pretty quick, inside a week to three or four months.

Jean Stahl: Yeah, it speaks to our rig design and our capability to use our inventories and upgrade to our specs. I think a differentiator for Precision, certainly.

John Matthew Daniel: All right. Fair enough. Thanks for indulging these questions.

Jean Stahl: No problem, John.

John Matthew Daniel: Good luck, guys.

Operator: Our next question comes from Tim Monticello with ATB Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Tim Monticello: Hey, everybody. Long-time listener, first-time caller in a while.

Carey Ford: Yeah, congrats.

Tim Monticello: Yeah, congrats, Carey, Dustin, and Jean for much-deserved promotions and Kevin for a great career. First question just around Canada. Interesting to see a couple of rigs being moved out of the U.S. into Canada, super triple market. With your comment that you're fully utilized for or expecting to be fully utilized for the winter drilling season, do you think there's more opportunity to move rigs out of the U.S. into Canada?

Carey Ford: I think for this winter drilling season, no. We don't currently have deep discussions with customers about moving more rigs. Over time, over the next couple of years, LNG Canada phase two and other LNG opportunities could create more demand for super triple rigs. Certainly, the rigs that we have in Canada are delivering good performance for our customers. There may be opportunities in the future, but I would say it would be for next winter drilling season.

Tim Monticello: Okay. That makes sense. For the U.S., obviously, the oil basins, the outlook is a little bit surface backed as I would think. The gas basins, you've seen almost 20% rig activity growth in gas in the U.S. year to date. You have a unique footprint in the gas basins with a pretty fragmented customer base. I expect you have a decent view from a lot of customers on what their expectations are going forward for activity. Could you talk a little bit about your expectations for U.S. gas drilling activity over the next, I don't know, 6 to 12 months?

Carey Ford: Yeah. I think we have a decent viewpoint on where activity might be going on gas. I think the Marcellus is, I would say, steady to low growth. There might be some, what we've seen is there's been a bit of high grading within the basin. As we've added more rigs to the basin, there's been a few instances where a rig has gone down. They haven't, our additions there haven't necessarily resulted in basin growth. In the Haynesville, I think most people look at the Haynesville as a swing producer for LNG exports and natural gas production in general. We could see higher activity in the Haynesville over the next year if gas prices are supportive.

I wouldn't say that we have a, as we stated in our press release, we don't have much of a view on that demand beyond early 2026.

Tim Monticello: What's the motivating factor behind, I guess, higher activity levels this year, considering gas prices have been fairly uneconomic in the U.S.? Is it just LNG export and building supply? Is that what you're seeing?

Carey Ford: I think most people are seeing a wave of demand on both natural gas-fired generation for data centers and electrification of the economy, then LNG exports. I think some customers are looking through any short-term volatility in gas prices and looking at the longer-term demand outlook.

Tim Monticello: Okay. That's helpful. Could you just provide a quick overview of what geographies the 27 upgrades are going to?

Carey Ford: It's really a mix, Tim, but think of it, we obviously commented on the two Montney rigs that we're going to bring up from the U.S. into Canada. Heavy oil is really a key area we've invested a lot. This would be our Clearwater basin and then more into the unconventional plays and SAGD. One comment on that, we've seen a lot of enthusiasm with our customers on these upgrades where we have recognized a lot of upfront payments throughout the year to help support these upgrades as well.

When you look down to the U.S., it's primarily weighted to the Haynesville and the Marcellus, but we have had some upgrade opportunities with high-torque equipment in the Rockies and even in the Permian. Yeah. I would just add to that, Tim, I believe we said this in the press release, but the vast majority of the upgrades are going to areas in North America where we expect to have year-over-year increases in activity. It's a little bit out of step with kind of the broader market, but in the Haynesville, in the Marcellus, heavy oil, and in the Montney, we expect to have higher year-over-year activity, and that's what's driving these upgrades.

Tim Monticello: Okay, that's very helpful. I'll turn it back. Thanks.

Carey Ford: Yeah, thank you, Tim.

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

Lavonne Zdunich: Thank you for taking the time to learn more about Precision Drilling today. With that, we will sign off. Everyone, enjoy your day. Thank you.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.

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