Precision Drilling Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

On Thursday, Precision Drilling (NYSE:PDS) discussed first-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below. This transcript is brought to you by Benzinga APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ for a consultation. Access the full call at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/952icqoy/ Summary Precision Drilling reported improved utilization rates in Q1 2026, with a 7% increase in Canada and a 24% increase in the U.S., despite a 7% decline in industry rig counts in both markets. The company generated $63 million in operating cash flow, reduced its debt by $25 million, and allocated $4 million towards share buybacks. Precision Drilling's capital expenditures were $65 million, with $35 million for sustaining infrastructure and $30 million for rig upgrades. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was $124 million, but net earnings were down to $18 million from $35 million in Q1 2025, partly due to increased stock-based compensation expenses. The company expects record Q2 activity levels in Canada and increased utilization in the U.S. due to higher oil prices and rig upgrades. Precision Drilling raised its capital expenditure budget to $265 million for 2026, with $168 million for sustaining infrastructure and $97 million for upgrades. Management highlighted strategic priorities, including maintaining strong free cash flow, enhancing shareholder returns, and expanding their digital and technology initiatives. The company is optimistic about increasing U.S. rig counts in the second half of the year and expects price increases to improve margins. International operations faced challenges due to Middle East tensions, but efforts are underway to secure more contracts and expand technology offerings. Full Transcript OPERATOR Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Precision Drilling Corporation 2026 First Quarter Results Conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in 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 one one on your telephone. You will then 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 your speaker today, Lavon Schudonek, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Lavon Schudonek (Vice President, Investor Relations) Welcome and thank you everyone for joining Precision Drilling's first Quarter Conference call and webcast. Today. I'm joined by Kerry 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 meaningfully 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 $63 million in operating cash flow and returning capital to shareholders through debt reduction and share repurchases. In the first quarter, 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. Dustin Honing (Chief Financial Officer) Thank you Lavon 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 longstanding 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 return space 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 US Maximizing strong free cash flow remains central to our strategy. Moving on to first quarter results despite our recurring and expected heavy Q1 working capital build, Precision generated 63 million of cash from operations. Capital expenditures were 65 million, comprised of 35 million for sustaining an infrastructure and 30 million for rig upgrades. These investments were made in step with our shareholder return commitments, reducing debt by 25 million and allocating 4 million towards share buybacks. We recorded adjusted EBITDA of 124 million which equates to 143 million before share based compensation expense compared with prior year Q1 EBITDA of 137 million 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 18 million compared to 35 million in the first quarter of 2025. In Canada, drilling activity averaged 79 active rigs, an increase of 5 rigs from Q1 2025. Our reported Q1 daily operating margins were $14,282 compared to $14,780 in the prior first quarter 2025, falling within our prior guidance range. During the first quarter, Precision's operating margins were slightly impacted by rig mix, with stronger demand requiring a higher proportion of super singles and doubles working through the winter. In the US we averaged 37 active rigs in line sequentially from Q4 and an increase of 7 rigs from prior year Q1. Our daily operating margins for the quarter were US $9,291 compared to US $8,754 sequentially from Q4, slightly exceeding our prior guidance range. Internationally, Precision averaged 7 active rigs down 8 rigs from prior year Q1. International day rates averaged US $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 US $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 Completion and Production (CMP) segment. Adjusted EBITDA was 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 second quarter of 2025. Moving on to forward guidance, I will begin with our expectations for the second quarter 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 to 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 singles working. Our operating margins in Canada are expected to range between $12,000 and $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 US we expect to sustain the momentum we built in the last year. Early in Q2 we experienced increased contract turn 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 second quarter, 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 triples, we are in the process of implementing price increases which will flow to the back half of the year through the back half of year 26. 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 $265 million up from prior guidance of $245 million, which is now comprised of 168 million for sustaining an infrastructure and 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 US. 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 310 million and cash interest expense from debt is expected to be approximately 45 million. Our effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 25 to 30% with cash taxes remaining low in 2026. For 2026 we expect SGA to stay flat at approximately 95 million before share based compensation expense. As previously communicated, share based compensation guidance for the full year would range between 25 million and 45 million assuming a share price of 100 to 140 and a 1 times multiplier. Our long term target to achieve a net debt to adjusted EBITDA of less than one times remains firmly in place. In 2026 we were planning to reduce debt levels by at least 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 $433 million in total liquidity. Kerry Ford (President and CEO) With that, I'll pass it over to Kerry. Thank you Dustin and good morning and good afternoon to everyone. From 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 first strategic priority. Third, our North American market outlook and 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 first strategic priority, growing revenue and deepening customer relationships. We are succeeding on several fronts, but I will focus on three field performance, our upgrade program and international optionality. There are many ways we measure field performance, but 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. Now forgive me as I will briefly get into the weeds talking about a key field performance metric which is mechanical downtime. This is the percentage 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, so we do everything we can to minimize it for precision. In Q1, mechanical downtime in the US was 0.59% and 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. So 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 scaled 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 support 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 and every operational support function, making these results possible and repeatable. Now there are multiple performance metrics demonstrating Precision's progress in the field, a number of customer records set in the quarter, but 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 capacity for upgrades. We continue to execute our plan and are even expanding our growth investment to include two contracted Canadian Super Triple rig upgrades for delivery later this year in the first quarter. Precision delivered year over year over year. Growth in activity and revenue in a declining market and the success of our upgrade program is a key driver. As Dustin pointed out, we expect growth to continue into the second quarter with a record Q2 in Canada and the US rig count exiting June at the earth's highest level. I'll remind the listeners that our upgrade program succeeds because of our vertical integration, the capital like 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, but 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 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 Alpha Automation system on one rig in Kuwait and are driving performance on that rig through our Alpha Remote Operations 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 per two months, our US customers have not immediately reacted by adding rigs. In fact, the US 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's a lag time between the time a customer contracts a rig and the time the that rig goes to work. Over the past few weeks we have become increasingly confident of the US 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 US 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 Canada LNG Phase 2. In both markets, the expected tightness of 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 second half of the year. Following the market demand increase, we are expecting the market to tighten for both personnel and equipment in the second half 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 deployment 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. OPERATOR 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, you wish to move yourself from the queue, please press Star one one again. We'll pause for a moment while we compile our Q and A roster. Our first question comes from Tim Cello with ATB Capital Markets. Your line is open. Tim Cello (Equity Analyst) Hey, good morning and afternoon to everybody. Hey Tim, first question just on your expectations for ASUS pricing improvement. That's a pretty positive comment. 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? And with that, then maybe talk about where you expect margins to go in the US in the back half from where they were in Q1. Dustin Honing (Chief Financial Officer) Yeah. So Tim, I understand your question and I understand why you're asking it. We typically give margin guidance 1/4 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 second half of the year. So it will have a meaningful impact on our day rates and margins in the second half of the year. I would just say that the US Market, a misconception about the market is that there are a large number of rigs ready to go when customers want them. And 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. So there's going to be more tightness in the market to stimulate day rate growth than I think the numbers would 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 really just started here in the past few weeks implementing price increases. Tim Cello (Equity Analyst) Okay, got it. And the rigs that I guess are churning or in between contracts right now, are those going on to new higher rate contracts? Dustin Honing (Chief Financial Officer) Some of them are. I'd really like to. We attempted to distinguish between our rig increases in the second quarter and our rig increases beyond the second quarter. Most of the rig increases in the second quarter are just replacing the churn. Most of them are actually in gas basins and aren't really reflective of a market change in demand. And where we see the demand increase from oil based customers is really going to be in Q3 and Q4. Now that has a follow on effect in the gas basin customers recognizing that the market is going to 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. Tim Cello (Equity Analyst) Are you seeing any change in demand from gas basins? Gas prices are pretty weak and I would imagine there's going to be some incremental supply of associated gas coming out of oil basin. So is that market dynamic changing at all or is that still pretty, pretty strong for you? Dustin Honing (Chief Financial Officer) 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. So I think that our customers are less reactive to the spot price than they would have been a couple 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. So it's a little bit tougher to draw a read on the broader market. But we do see our rig counts moving up in the next couple months in the gas basis Tim Cello (Equity Analyst) and for incremental rig adds that you might see through the back half of the year in 27. 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 and I guess what's the that idle capacity? Dustin Honing (Chief Financial Officer) Yeah, I would say that in our I'll just say in our capital plan we have room to move up and reactivate 15 or so rigs that maybe a little bit more than that where we don't have to increase our capital plan and 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. So 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 second quarter to make sure that we're able to meet the staffing demand. So I think for precision we're going to 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. Tim Cello (Equity Analyst) All right, appreciate it. I'll turn it back. OPERATOR Our next question comes from Derek Pothaser with Piper Stanley. Your line is open. Derek Pothaser (Equity Analyst) Hey, good morning. Good afternoon everyone. I guess sticking on the US Land theme, Kerry, 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 publics rig count. Like you said, we've been stuck in this 5 to 30 level for quite some time now. I guess. Dustin Honing (Chief Financial Officer) What are your expectations when you think about going through second quarter into the second half 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? Yeah. So I think I'll in terms of the broad industry rig adds, we're about 7 or 8% of the US 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. But an industry rig add increase of 40 or 50 rigs does not seem unreasonable to us. Where 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. So I think our read through is probably pretty decent there where we're having customers with customer conversations about rig adds in the second half of the year, it's the Permian and the Rockies and that's thankfully where we have a lot of our idle capacity that's ready to go. So I think we'll Be really well positioned to meet that demand. And in terms of, 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 rigas. 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 singles and the super triples. 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? 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 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. But I would say the demand for our super triples, the 32 super triples we have in Canada remains strong. So we always see a little bit of spotty activity in Q2 during spring breakup. But for what we're seeing in the second half of the year, demand is not really changing for the super triples. On the super singles 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, but we are seeing our rig count grow. And we think that kind of speaks to the performance differentiation and value proposition for our customers. And so that is, that's 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 doubles? Yeah, for sure. And 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 singles, 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 singles 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. So 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 and we do see a bit more pricing challenges in the doubles market. Yeah. And just to wrap up that pricing conversation, as Dustin said, we expect to have 20% more rigs running Q2 than we did last year. And all of those rigs are going to be singles and doubles. So they're going to be lower margin rigs than they're super triples, which impacts the overall margin. Right. That all makes sense. Great color, guys. Derek Pothaser (Equity Analyst) Really appreciate it. Dustin Honing (Chief Financial Officer) I'll turn it back. Thank you, Derek. Thanks, Derek. OPERATOR Our next question comes from Aaron McNeil with TD Cowan. Your line is open. Aaron McNeil (Equity Analyst) Hey, everyone, thanks for taking my questions. By my math, you've deployed, call it just over $160 million of upgrade capital over the last two years. Maybe another 70 or 80 million expected this year. I wanted to zero in on the US Market specifically and sort of understand how much capital and the number of rigs that you've upgraded in the US Market over the last couple years, how many you expect to upgrade this year, and 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 utilization has been a bit better, but we continue to see a lot of churn Dustin Honing (Chief Financial Officer) 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. So I think top line on activity, that's definitely improved. We've had revenue growth year over year, so that's improved. We've addressed some reasons for margin guidance in Q2. We have. 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 going to carry a few more crews to make sure that all of those startups that we have planned are executed very well. So 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 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 3 to 5 million dollars in spin. On the super triples, it could be anywhere from kind of 4 to 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 so lower dollar upgrade can get paid back in a shorter term contract. The US 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, but 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 going to be a little bit of white space. But 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 going to be delivered later in this year. And we fully expect to see revenue and EBITDA growth in our business year over year. Okay, fair enough. Maybe to build on one of Tim's many questions, just given that the US contract durations are shorter with most rolling off by the end of this year. In the context of your comments around pricing increases, do you think that'll translate directly into margin or do you think we'll continue to see this churn over the next couple quarters that might 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 second half of the year. So I won't, I won't, 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 second half of the year. The only thing that I would say that might offset that is, 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 1200 horsepower rigs which have slightly lower margins than our 1500 horsepower rigs. But I think the uplift on the margins and contracts on the 1500 class rigs are definitely going to be going up. Okay, makes sense. Aaron McNeil (Equity Analyst) Thanks everyone. Dustin Honing (Chief Financial Officer) I'll turn it back. Thanks, Aaron. OPERATOR Our next question comes from Keith McCabe with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Keith McCabe (Equity Analyst) 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. And then more broadly, Kerry, how do you think about the international business now given everything that's happened over there? Do you place a higher risk premium on deploying assets there and just how do you think about where that business fits within precision over the longer term? Kerry Ford (President and CEO) Yeah. So all fair questions I think Dustin highlighted. I'll kind of go one by one there if I can remember. Remember them. So on the rig reactivation cost, it was $2 million US is what it cost us to reactivate the one rig in Saudi. It was higher than what we expected the rig had been if it was part of all of the rig suspensions in the kingdom. And 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 we thought. But 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 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 oil field service industry peers have reported lots of disruption related to supply chain in the region. But for us it's having to get parts from one part of the country that's far away where parts are 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. So there's some logistical challenges. I it's tough to quantify right now what that cost is going to be. I think it's going to be low. Single digits impact on profitability on those disruptions. But it's a dynamic market, there's a lot of changes. So I'll stop short of giving you an exact number of what those disruptions might be. And then in terms of longer term, we said we want to grow the business, but we're not going to grow it in spite of returns. We really want to get the good returns on our capital. Your question about a discount rate or the required returns given the perceived increased risk level, it's a question for the broader market. I don't know that I'm the best person or Precision is the best company to comment on that, but the environment has changed a bit and there will be new variables in the models that come before deploying capital. And so we certainly think about that. And for the business it's not optimal size from a scale standpoint, but seven rigs or eight rigs as I mentioned, would likely have sometime later this year or early next year. It's enough for us to generate meaningful EBITDA and meaningful cash flow. So although it's not optimal size, I think we've got some optionality on whether to grow the business or plan to do something else. Strategic. Keith McCabe (Equity Analyst) Thanks for that color, Kerry. Appreciate it. Maybe just quickly on the two upgrades in Canada, 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 there's significantly more of these upgrades that you could potentially do or likely do just given kind of where the Canadian market is. Well, some comments around that would be helpful. Kerry Ford (President and CEO) Yes. So these rigs are going into multi year contracts. The capital that we 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. So 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 ST1200. We're increasing the capacity pretty much all over the rig from hook flow capacity, racking capacity, pumping capacity. And 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. And so these are opportunistic for our customers. They're core customers of ours, their important customers in the region and we think that these are specific for their drilling programs. But there may be more demand for these rigs and we would happily meet that demand with these return metrics. But don't expect to have a one a month type cadence. I think this is maybe a few year over the next couple years might be a good way to think about it. Dustin, anything to add? Yeah, no, I would just say more broadly speaking, Keith, 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 Kerry mentioned, they're incredibly strategic as far as the location and the core customers will deepen our relationship and 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. So for the financial pull through, you would see portions of that in 2020. Keith McCabe (Equity Analyst) Understood. Thanks very much. OPERATOR Thanks, Keith. Our next question comes from John Daniel with DanL Energy Partners. Your line is open, John Daniel (Equity Analyst) Kerry, Dustin. Team Kerry, have you had any customers start asking you about 2027 yet? Kerry Ford (President and CEO) Some of the rig contract discussions that we're having gone that we are having are one year or more. So they're going into 2027. So I can't give you concrete examples, but it's possible. John Daniel (Equity Analyst) No. Okay. I just didn't know what they're telling you in terms of potential needs next year versus where they are today. But I'm guessing the answer is no. Kerry Ford (President and CEO) I don't know an answer. Like I said, these customer conversations, they've really ramped up here in the last two or three weeks and in the past couple of days we may have had some conversations that I'm not aware. John Daniel (Equity Analyst) Fair enough. That's cool. Just so I get the number straight here, your US count is is it 35 today? Kerry Ford (President and CEO) That'll be 35 next week. 30. 32 today. 35 next week. And did you where did you say you're going to exit the quarter? The expected number high 30s, 38 or 39 rigs? And John, just to make sure. You heard our comments. That's really just kind of the normal churn that's not really commodity price. Sure. Okay. John Daniel (Equity Analyst) No, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm just. I'm just. I'm getting old, Carrie. I'm trying to. It's hard to follow numbers. But you got 15 or so rigs that could come back to work. Is it. Kerry Ford (President and CEO) 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 than a quarter? Yeah, I think more per quarter. John Daniel (Equity Analyst) That's fine. Okay. Times are good. Okay. All right, guys. Thanks a lot, Big John. OPERATOR Our next question comes from John Gibson with VMO Capital Markets. Your line is open John Gibson (Equity Analyst) morning or afternoon, wherever you are. Just had one. You talked a lot about US pricing. Mornings you talked 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 and Kerry Ford (President and CEO) do you see that being possible based on the commodity price 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. But I would say at the field level and the customer conversations, we are not seeing an indication that that rig class is moving up in price. Got it. John Gibson (Equity Analyst) Appreciate the responses. I'll turn it back. Thanks, John. OPERATOR I'm not showing any further questions this time. I'd like to turn the call back to Lavon for any further remarks. Lavon Schudonek (Vice President, Investor Relations) Thank you. As A reminder, our Q1 financial statements and MD and 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 relationship department. Thank you very much and have a good day. OPERATOR Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's presentation. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day. Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.