Kjetil Gjersdal, Chief Executive Officer of Odfjell Drilling AS commented:

“Q1 has been a positive start to the year for our Company, with all units operating well throughout the period despite the challenging winter weather conditions offshore Norway and the unpredictable weather offshore Namibia.

Thanks to this steady operational performance, this quarter we have also further solidified our balance sheet, moving to a leverage ratio of 1.8x, and will return our fourth quarterly dividend to shareholders. As a result, we continue to have one of the most robust balance sheets amongst our peers and with firm backlog secured on all of our owned units until 2026, we expect to continue to build on this trend.

“2024 is going to be a very important year for our Company. In addition to our units moving countries, fields and operators, we must also co-ordinate three SPS programs on our owned fleet as well as three on our external fleet within the next 12 months. We are making good progress on all of these, however have noticed increased costs on our own fleet due to scope increase and delayed commencement of the yard stay for the Deepsea Atlantic. As we complete these processes and reduce associated capex risk, we look forward to this positively impacting our capability to distribute cash via dividend to our shareholders.”

Q1 Highlights:

Record revenue generation, despite tough weather
oQ1 Revenue of USD 194 million
oQ1 EBITDA of USD 85 million

Further deleveraging of balance sheet
oLeverage ratio of 1.8x
oEquity Ratio of 62%
oRepayment of USD 53 million Samsung Yard Credit

Fully booked until 2026
oOrder Backlog of USD 2 billion
oUSD 1.9 billion from firm contracts
oUSD 0.1 billion from priced options
oPriced options exercised by Equinor for work on Deepsea Stavanger

SPS programs ongoing
oAverage capex allocation for the three remaining SPS programs now anticipated to be around USD 50 million per unit, with 2-4 weeks of off hire time
oNew Deepsea Atlantic ultra-deepwater BOP cost increased to USD 50 million

Shareholder Distributions
oQ1 Quarterly Dividend of USD 14.2 million declared
oFourth dividend declared since 2023 refinancing, resulting in USD 56.8 million cumulatively being returned to shareholders
Source: Odfjell Drilling Ltd.