Thanks so much for joining the Arabian Drilling second quarter and first half earnings call. It's a pleasure for Policy Management to have this discussion. My name is Ricardo Rezende. I lead the oil and gas coverage for the Middle East and Eastern Europe at Morgan Stanley. Just before we start, I got to go with some disclaimers on my side as well. This webcast is intended for Morgan Stanley's traditional corporate clients, as well as for Morgan Stanley employees. It's not for members of the press. If you're a member of the press, please disconnect now and reach out. Also, note that this webcast is not for retail or individual wealth management clients. For important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley Research Disclosure website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. With that, I would like to pass it over to Bassem ElShawy, Head of Investor Relations. Bassem, with you.
Thank you very much, Ricardo, and thank you, Morgan Stanley, for hosting this call. [Foreign language] and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for taking the time to join us today for the first half and second quarter of the 2025 earnings call. I'm joined today by Ghassan Mirdad, the CEO, and Hubert Lafeuille, the CFO. We will begin with an overview by Ghassan, followed by an in-depth analysis of our financial information performance for the first half and second quarter biomet. After our presentation, we will open the floor for questions. Please note that this presentation includes forward-looking statements. We encourage you to review the disclaimer provided in this document at your leisure for more details. Now, I'll pass the presentation over to Ghassan.
Thank you, Bassem. [Foreign language] and thank you for your participation in today's call.
I'll start by giving you a high-level view on the financials, which Hubert will cover in more detail in the following slides. H1 2024 last year highlights two important facts. The impact of the suspension that started kicking in gradually at the end of H1 2024, offset by the unconventional land rigs renewal contribution. On the EBITDA side, we closed H1 with an EBITDA margin of 38.5%, slightly below the 40% mark, 48% mark. As we expected and mentioned in our last earnings call, achieving 40% will remain challenging under the prevailing market conditions. Despite the current headwind, we are showing resilience with a cash flow generation of SAR 653 million and an asset to EBITDA still below two multiples. Moving to the quarter-on-quarter performance, we have a slight revenue decrease of 5% while within the guidance we gave.
As you recall, we had a strong rig move performance that pushed our revenue and profits up in Q1 2025. Q2 is showing more normal numbers. While the decline in revenue is only 5%, we have seen a substantial drop in our net income due to the combined effect of high margin rig move activity in Q1 that did not repeat, as well as some non-recurrent income in Q1. In addition, in Q2, we had planned maintenance time for one of our offshore rigs that spent more time in the shipyard in Q2 versus Q1. This rig is now back into operation. Now, looking at the operational indicators, I will focus on key indicators that had an important impact.
First, I am happy we announced that the intake of SAR 2.4 billion of backlog in Q2 2025, which is the largest backlog intake since the award of the unconventional rigs in Q3 2023. This addition relates to six rigs that were extended for a total of 39 rig years. Land segments contributed most of this intake, highlighting the continuation of land segments. On the other hand, our utilization rate continued being affected by ongoing suspension, and Hubert will cover it in more details. On the rig move, although we have the same activity quarter on quarter, this quarter was affected by the long duration of the move due to external factors. Finally, and more importantly, I am thrilled for signing our first international contract with a GCC-based oil operator. We signed this contract directly with the client.
This is a significant milestone for us as it is the first win in our geographical experience. After having 13 unconventional land rigs fully operational with a sustainable revenue stream of close to SAR 400 million since the beginning of the year, I am proud that we are now delivering on what we have been promising the market since the IPO. Important to note that the offshore rig committed to this international contract is one of our suspended rigs and is scheduled to start operation in Q1 2026. We have obtained permission from [Saudi Aramco] to use this suspended rig in other tenders while keeping its existing contract active. The rest of the suspended rigs are actively participating in more than eight tenders across different geographies. Now, I will pass it to Hubert to walk you over the backlog and financials in more details. Hubert?
Thank you, Ghassan. Very good afternoon to everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call. Let's start with the backlog. On the backlog, we closed the quarter with a backlog in excess of SAR 11 billion. As mentioned by Ghassan, we have added SAR 2.4 billion in our backlog this quarter, which was the largest intake since 2023. These backlog additions have improved our top-line visibility with a remaining contract tenure of 2.4 years per rig on average, up from 2.0 in Q1, and a book-to-bill ratio on 12 months' revenue of 3.2 multiple, up from 2.7 in Q1. The day rates associated with this extension are solid compared to the market. On the rig activity fronts, as mentioned by Ghassan, our utilization rate keeps being affected by the ongoing suspension. We have three more rigs suspended in Q2, two land and one offshore.
We now stand at 13 inactive rigs out of a total fleet of 61 units, which means that our utilization rate at the end of Q2 was 79%. You can refer to the appendix of this presentation that gives a more detailed view on the breakdown of these 13 inactive rigs between what is suspended, what is uncontracted, and what is land, what is offshore. In terms of contract renewal, if you recall, we had 24 rigs to be renewed in 2025 as we started the year. We have achieved good progress as we have successfully renewed 10 rigs as of 30th of June, plus one more offshore rig that we announced on 14 July. This means that out of the original 24 rigs, we have secured renewal for almost half of them.
In June, we still have 14 rigs to be renewed, which is broken down between 12 land and 2 offshore. If we look at the 12 land, on the 12 land rigs, we have 11 land rigs that relate to the [Gas] LSTK with SLB. We have a one-year option that we expect to finalize in Q3. We have one more land rig, which ends contract in Q4. On the offshore, two more offshore rigs to be renewed, of which one was renewed in Q4. This is the announcement that we did on 14th of July that I just mentioned. The other one is the second of the two leased offshore rigs that just got suspended, recently got suspended in Q2. The contract for these leased rigs ends in Q4, and it has a one-year option. The rigs will be returned to its owner if the ownership is not exercised.
Now, let's have an overview on the financial performance, and let's start looking at the year-to-date figures. H1 2025 versus H1 2024. On the revenue side, the drop that we see between 2025 and 2024 was limited because the impact of the suspension and the contract termination, which amounted to roughly SAR 460 million, was partially offset by the revenue contributions from the unconventional land rigs of about SAR 330 million. Our EBITDA dropped by 14%, which is in line with the revenue shortfall. The net income dropped by roughly SAR 100 million, which is made of SAR 100 million of EBITDA shortfall, plus another SAR 100 million of costs in 2025, mainly due to the additional depreciation of the unconventional rigs. This was partially offset by an asset impairment of SAR 100 million that we recognized in 2024.
On the CapEx side, you can see there is a significant reduction as the unconventional rig CapEx cycle was in full swing in 2024. Our net debt increased by roughly SAR 240 million, which is mainly due to lower cash on hand position of circa [SAR 2 billion], while the gross debt only increased by SAR 40 million as the new debt facility that we took in 2025 was offset by ongoing loan repayments. Now, looking at the quarterly figures, the revenue dropped by 5%, mainly due to the high rig move performance in the last quarter that did not repeat in Q2. In Q2, as mentioned by Ghassan, we also had more maintenance time for a planned shipyard for one of our offshore rigs.
Both impacts were partially offset by the revenue contribution of the new service vessel that was acquired in Q1 and that started its two-year contract in June. Our EBITDA is down by 20%, 21% Q on Q due to the revenue loss just explained, as well as some non-recurring income that were recognized in Q1. We incurred higher rig move expenses due to longer rig move duration, due to some external factors such as waiting on weather and restriction to conduct certain rig move activities during nighttime. On the net income, the Q on Q net income was mainly affected by the EBITDA shortfall, just as discussed, as well as additional financial interest expenses due to a slightly higher gross debt, partially offset by a few other items. Now, let's move on to our segment analysis.
Our segment analysis land versus offshore, you can clearly see the shift in the revenue mix between 2024 and 2025. While the revenue split was roughly 50/50 in 2024, we can see our land revenue now makes up for almost three quarters of our top line in 2025. Now, looking at the EBITDA progression, as Ghassan mentioned, our EBITDA is slightly below the fourth mark as we expected. However, we're still showing some good resilience during these challenging market conditions. Now, looking specifically at the segment, let's talk about the land on the upper side of the slides. The land revenue has a progression year on year of almost 24%, which is mainly due to the unconventional and the performance of the rig move that we had in 2025. That was, of course, partially offset by the suspension and the uncontracted rig.
The gross profits increased from 5% to 15% due to the impairment that was recognized in 2024. In 2025, we had the high rig move performance that pushed up the gross profits as a percentage point. If you look at the other segments on the bottom, the revenue dropped by 43%. This is the combined effect of the suspension, the contract terminated, the discounted rate. We had a shipyard activity as well in 2025. All of this contributed to the drop, and it was partially offset by the new barge that started its contract in June. If you look at the gross profit, the decrease from 40% to [22%] is due to the overall lower rig activity and discounted day rates. The next slide is about the net income bridging.
As you can see, the main components of the decrease relate to the impact of the rig performance Q on Q, which accounts for $54 million, as well as some non-recurring income that were recognized in Q1, which accounts for SAR 13 million. Collectively, these two items represent an unfavorable variance Q on Q of SAR 67 million, which is roughly 90% of the net income that we recognized in Q1. In Q2, as mentioned, we have also incurred more planned maintenance time for one of our offshore rigs that was in shipyards that accounted for a SAR 6 million negative variance. Our finance expense was slightly up by SAR 4 million due to owing a SAR 300 million bank facility at the end of Q1.
To end on a positive note, we start seeing some good payoff on our cost reduction initiatives with a significant SAR 14 million cost decrease quarter on quarter on our SG&A expenses. If you look at the cash on hand bridging, our cash on hand position remains solid with a shy of SAR 400 million balance. If you look at the CapEx, you can start seeing, so we have a CapEx spending of SAR 196 million. We can start seeing a more normalized spending as we have now completed our CapEx growth cycle. Another noteworthy event is the improvement on the networking capital quarter on quarter. Our DSO and client collections have improved compared to Q1 2025. We have debt reimbursement of SAR 72 million. During the quarter, we paid back roughly SAR 55 million of debts and the rest in lease obligation, and there was no new debt drawing during the quarter.
Finally, we paid in Q2 SAR 120 million of dividends that related to the period of H2 2024. My last slide relates to the debt profile. As you can see, our balance sheet remains robust, reflecting a strong solvency position with our net debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA at 1.9 multiple and net debt remaining below 0.5 multiple of equity in spite of the current headwinds we are facing. This metric demonstrates our financial health, which supports our capability to fund future growth opportunity efficiently. I will now hand it over back to Ghassan, who will walk you through the guidance for the next quarter and some closing remarks.
Thank you, Hubert. We are bracing for a few tough quarters ahead by recalibrating our cost baseline to the new level of utilization. We estimate next quarter revenue to reflect a potential decline of up to 10% compared to Q2 levels. This is due to realizing the impact of suspended rigs. The Board of Directors' recommendation announced this week to pause dividends payment in 2025 comes as a direct result of the notable decline in utilization rate, which cascades to profitability and cash flow. While maintaining dividend payment to shareholders remains a core interest, our immediate priority is to reinvest available resources into the business as we pursue expansion beyond Saudi Arabia borders. Growing our international presence has long been a strategic focus, and we are proud to have already begun delivering on that ambition. We are pushing ahead with our cost realization efforts.
This does not apply only to CapEx, but also to OpEx. When it comes to CapEx, we have trimmed our additional SAR 50 million from our plan this year. Our CapEx plan now becomes SAR 800 million to 500 million for the year, compared to SAR 800 million to 900 million level communicated in our previous earnings call. This CapEx level enables us to improve our free cash flow by SAR 50 million. Despite foreseeing the remaining of 2025 being challenging, we see potential signs of pickup in 2026. We will be strategically managing the next two to three quarters to right-size the company in order to position ourselves at a vantage point to benefit from this potential pickup early next year. With this, we end the presentation and we'll open it now. I'll pass it now to the Operator to open it for questions and asks.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Alternatively, you could submit your written questions via the Q&A box found on your screen. First question comes from Jarryd Thomas with JP Morgan. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Hi, can you hear me? Yes, can you hear me? Hello?
Yes, I hear you.
Okay, cool. Yeah. So two questions for now. The first question is, it seems like the suspensions in Saudi are an ongoing issue. At what point do you think it stops and we can sort of have a baseline in terms of how many rigs are suspended and how many are not? Do you think it's going to continue in the second half or we're done now? The second question is on the dividend. What will trigger the dividend to be reinstated at some point in the next year or the year after? Those are my two questions for now. Thank you.
On the suspensions, to be honest, it's not clear and that's why we're forecasting quarter by quarter. It's unclear for this year. I see that what we see in the market is that 2026 it will pick up. We just signed the SAR 2.4 billion. It just tells you that there is the need for the continuation of the land rigs. It's just when do they start? We can't tell at the moment. It's not very clear on the suspension how much it will go.
Second question is dividends. When do we expect to resume the dividends?
As of now, we're just pausing for 2025. We don't see any challenges with our cash flow. We're just preserving cash and we're using it for the expansion that we have outside of the kingdom. We'll evaluate it early next year, [Foreign language].
Yes. I think if I can add, Ghassan, I think the two questions complement, right? Of course, because of the market uncertainty and because we don't know what's going to happen with the suspension, I think the pause of the dividend was just seen as a prudent and precocious approach due to the uncertainties that we are facing. I'd like to stress, as we have said, we don't have a liquidity problem. We have enough liquidity to meet our future obligations, to finance our working capital. It's just that we want to be a little bit prudent and cautious and have a strong financial discipline as we navigate through the uncertainties.
It's just a preemptive measure.
Okay, thank you. I'll jump back in.
We now turn to Ricardo Rezende with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
If I may, a couple of questions. First one is on this offshore contract that you announced on Tuesday as well. If you, to the extent that you may comment on that, is that contract part of the agreement with Shelf Driiling or is that something that the Arabian Drilling did it on its own? Is there any CapEx related to that new contract that you're going to have to do on this rig? My second question is on your cost cutting initiative, especially on the SG&A. How long should it take or should we still see some normalization through third quarter, fourth quarter, or is that a one-off in the second quarter?
Okay, very good question on the contract. When we tried to go international, there were different ways to go international. One is we get dive contracts or we go on the alliance with Shelf. The reason why is if we go alone, we only cover a small geography, whereas if we go with Shelf, we have a bigger geography. This contract is a direct contract, so it's not going through the alliance. We managed, the team managed to secure this contract. This secures one of the suspended rigs, so it's still contracted. The client accepted to keep the suspension. There is one, the second rig is being tendered on almost more than eight tenders. We're kind of a bit optimistic to see some good results, hopefully in H2, but that would be with the alliance. That's on the contract with the alliance.
The second question was on the, no, first was on the CapEx. We will see some spend to get to reactivate the rig to go, but it's not major CapEx that we're going to see. The last one was the question.
On the SG&A.
On the SG&A, out of the 14, some are one-off items, some of them are basically structural savings that we're going to have. We have embarked in downsizing the workforce at the SG&A level. This has started, so you have some effect that has happened in Q2, and it will continue in Q3 and Q4. There is an ongoing plan, and we believe that the savings on the SG&A on an annualized base will be in the range of SAR 35 million-SAR 40 million.
Just to highlight on the cost savings, we're looking at the cost savings not only in the SG&A, we're looking at all cost lines, looking at the structure of the company and downsizing to make sure that we are good with this such level of activity. Once the activity picks up, you know, hopefully the pickup will come with a lot better fall through.
Okay, thank you.
We now turn to Nabil Anwar with TAQA. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. This is Nabil from TAQA. Am I audible?
Yes, yes, Nabil, we can hear you.
I have a question about your suspended rigs. Are we expecting any further impairment because we witnessed that there was impairment in 2024? Are we expecting any impairment during the second half of the year for the suspended rigs?
We don't see any plans for any impairment for any suspended rigs.
Thank you.
We now turn to Ildar Khaziev with HSBC. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Thank you very much. I have a few questions. First of all, apologies, I wasn't able to join immediately because of poor audio connection. I've missed what you said about the extensions of the contracts with Saudi Aramco. Can you tell us what offshore rigs have received the extensions exactly? That's my first question. Secondly, on CapEx, what is the scale of the potential savings on CapEx? I think previously you said that the CapEx will probably be 50% of the budget of the last chain, which applies SAR 0.9 billion. I think your guidance is just slightly low at the moment. Lastly, also, I've seen some news headlines saying that you are opening up an office in Sharjah. Could you tell us the cost of setting up the office there and what's the purpose of it? Thank you.
Okay, on the extensions, it's SAR 2.4 billion, six land and one offshore, all with Saudi Aramco at the moment. This constitutes part of the remaining contract that is still ongoing that we're going to extend. We expect another wave of backlog addition in Q3 because we're in the final negotiation of 11 rigs as we speak right now. The second question was on the CapEx, I believe. In the original plan, we had CapEx of $1 billion, and now we trimmed it down to between SAR 800 million- SAR 850 million. I hope I covered the second question as well, no?
Yes, thank you.
You had the third question again?
The third question was about.
Sharjah.
Yes, we have announced the.
Yeah, we announced that we opened a branch in Sharjah. This branch will help us in this expansion in the GCC. We looked at different, the cost was very, very, very minimal.
I mean, yeah, the branch is to facilitate our geographical expansion, and the opening of the branch was done in-house, entirely in-house. We had very, very minimum costs coming from legal, tax, or, you know, external legal or tax advisors.
Thank you. Just coming back to the first question, you said one offshore rig has received extension by Aramco. Is that rig currently operational? Is it generating revenue?
No, not at the moment. It's expanding, but it tells you, you know, it gives you a bit of hope that this thing will come back.
Sure.
Having said that, it is being tendered outside of Saudi Arabia.
Thank you.
We now turn to Abhishek Kumar with Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. I have a question on the onshore margins. Previous quarter was obviously benefited from the rig movements. Looking forward, is it going to be like this with quarterly variations, or are we looking at some sort of stabilization in margins? In that case, what is the margins that we should, you know, model, you know, going forward for the onshore business?
Right. Thank you, Abhishek, for your question. As we have seen on the slides, there is a huge increase in the margin between H1 2024 and H1 2025. In H1 2024, you have the effect of impairments. In H1 2025, you have some very strong rig move performance in Q1. I would say that, in terms of gross profit, I'm not talking about EBITDA. I'm just talking about gross profit. In terms of gross profit, I think it's comfortable to say, from low to mid teens percentage points.
Okay. I was also talking about gross profit margins only. All right. Thank you very much.
I have another reminder. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Alternatively, submit your written questions via the Q&A box found on your screen. We have a text question. When will the impairment loss get reversed and why was it not done in Q1?
Yeah. We typically don't reverse impairments. Impairments, just on the impairment, the process works is, you know, every quarter we look at rigs that meet certain conditions for impairments. One of the conditions would be that the rig is either suspended or doesn't have a contract. We do an assessment of whether the impairment, you know, is there is a constitution for an impairment. If there is a case for an impairment, we submit this work to our external auditors that validates the logic and the reasoning behind the work that we've done. We typically do not reverse impairments that we made. The reason we do that, just to explain a little bit more, the reason we do that, you know, the rigs, it's very common that the rigs go on and off contract. Right? The rig goes off a contract.
If you say that they have an impairment, that, you know, it goes on the contract, it goes to the impairment, and it goes back off contract again, and you have to re-impair it. It's just not something that we see either practical or something that will, it's not something that will ease on the financial reporting. We typically make the impairments when the impairment has been, you know, is proven, and we don't reverse it.
We have a follow-up from Ildar Khaziev with HSBC. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Ildar, your line is open.
Yes, hi. Sorry. There is a follow-up quick one on the rig which you plan to return. I think it's [Capital] Offshore, right? Is there any penalty associated with the early return of the rig to the owner?
There are two that we're trying to return as we speak. I think it's with that, it's ending its contract. I don't think there is any penalty.
The contract is such that, you know, whether we keep the rig or return the rig, it constitutes the same. Financially, it doesn't make any difference for us.
You're trying to return two of which one was suspended a month earlier, right? It hasn't been done to the first one yet.
Yeah, once, I mean, if we're going to send it, we'll have to cancel the contract and then we'll send it. This is the plan. If we send it now or at year end, it's the same impact from a financial point of view.
Yeah, I see. Thank you.
We have another follow-up from Jarryd Thomas with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Yes, thank you. Just two more questions. You previously earmarked one of the suspended rigs for sale. Can you give us an update on the sale of that rig? Secondly, the unconventionals in Saudi, any news on tenders coming or is it fairly quiet at the moment? Thank you.
Okay. On the sale of the rig 817, it's just a bit of delays from the buyer. They had to make sure that they have all the papers ready. We will try to close it hopefully in Q3. It's in Q3, Q4, hopefully we close. The second one was the unconventional. We think unconventional is going to be strong, but we don't know when it's going to stop tendering. In the beginning of the year, we've seen requests to move rigs from the suspended rigs from the gas conventional to unconventional. That was the kind of initial requirements, but it kind of cooled down at the moment. I think next year we'll start seeing an increase in activity. Nothing concrete, but this is what I feel next year we'll see that.
Thank you.
We have another text question. Is the company going to perform impairment reviews every quarter? Do management feel this will still have negative impact? Also, what are the expected savings till year end on the SG&A cost?
The impairment is something that we do on a quarterly basis, and we've been doing that for the last many, many years, at least as long as I've been here. This impairment review is being reviewed by the auditors. On the SG&A, yes, we expect to see, as I said, we had some savings Q on Q. Some of them were one-off, but some of them are structural. We'll repeat in the next quarters, and we expect to see a little bit more of acceleration on those savings simply because we are executing on the workforce downsizing plan. This is something which is going as we speak.
You'll see a recurring, a big part of it will be recurring, but as well, there will be more in the structural cost reduction. It'll be increased as well.
Our next text question is, it doesn't feel like Aramco suspensions have reached the bottom. Could you provide some market color about how many offshore and onshore rigs have been suspended in the last 12 months?
In the last 12 months, I don't know exactly by the last 12 months. For us, we had one offshore and a couple of land that were suspended from Aramco.
Our next text question.
For land, to be exact, for land and one off.
I mean, just to be clear, right now, in terms of suspension, as I said, 13 rigs are inactive. Out of the 13 rigs that are inactive, we have eight that are suspended, and the eight relate to five land and three offshore. That's eight. The remaining of the 13, which is five, relates to rigs that are not contracted. We have four land rigs that are not contracted and one offshore rig that is not contracted.
This is the complete since the suspension started.
This is since the suspension starts, which the first suspension started at the end of May 2024. None of the rigs that were suspended have been called back so far.
Our next text question is, I was experiencing some sound issues. Could you please update me on the renewal status of the two jack up rigs? There are now questions about the company returning two jack ups. Could you clarify what you have shared regarding this?
Okay, fine. What I said with respect to the two offshore rigs that need to be renewed in 2025, out of the two, one was renewed in Q3. We made a market announcement on the 14th of July, so you can refer to that. This rig was renewed for another three years. One of the two is already taken care of. The other one that needs to be renewed is the second of the leased rigs, the leased offshore rigs. This is a rig that got suspended in Q2. That rig has a contract that ends in Q4, and it comes with a one-year option. Basically, if the one-year option is not exercised, then the rig will be returned to its owner.
Our next question, any update on tendering on Kuwait?
Yes. There is a tender that is coming in Q3 that we're participating in. It's good, just to add to the question, I mean, Kuwait, usually moving out of Saudi in the offshore, you can use existing rigs. On the land, usually, they're not meant to be mobile from country to country. However, we're seeing different contracts, different countries requesting for our rigs, east Kuwait and outside of Kuwait as well. We're seeing some tenders for land as well internationally.
Our next question, when does management expect the suspended rigs to get back on revenue generating? What is the management assertion to optimize the cost and increase profitability?
I mean, it's very unclear to say now, but you know, we will know clearly in Q2, Q1 next year when, as of now, it's very unclear. For sure in 2026.
On the cost optimization, as mentioned by Ghassan, we're basically shaving off structural costs from the structure. Particularly, we're looking at SG&A. We have this workforce reduction plan going on. We're looking at the CapEx. We have already mentioned SAR 200 million savings compared to the plan that we have for 2025. We're looking at establishing a new cost baseline to basically adapt to the current market conditions. I think the important point that Ghassan mentioned as well is that when the activity picks up, we do not anticipate that the costs will pick up as well, right? We anticipate that most of the additional revenue that will be generated from rigs going back out of suspension back to normal will have a very good flow through on the bottom line.
Our next question, regarding suspended rigs, are those expected to remain idle temporarily or for extended periods? Any commitment from customer? What resumption timeline is assumed in impairment test?
Okay, I need to be more specific. On the offshore, the suspension on the offshore, mostly it's going to be long-term, and that's why we took the route to tender outside and get outside of Saudi on the offshore rigs. On the land rigs, they are temporary suspensions. That's why we believe that it's not going to be long. Most of the suspensions are maximum of 12 months. Aramco can call it. There are no clear indications when, but contractually, you have one month to start. Aramco can say, "Look, we want the rig. You have one month to get it ready to start again." Contractually. From a customer point of view, there are no comments from the client, no clear comments when they're going to start. They do check with us every once in a while, "How fast can you start?
Our next question, can you clarify which Jack Ups are being returned? Is the management talking about two leased rigs?
Yes, the two leased rigs are the ones that we expect are going to be returned. One of them doesn't have a contract. The contract was terminated in Q1. I think we announced that in Q1. The other one is the one that got suspended in Q2. The contract is still going on. This one has a contract end at the end of Q4 with a one-year option. We'll just have to see whether the option is exercised or not. If the option is not exercised, then basically we'll return the two rigs.
Next question, what is the planned SG&A reduction percentage towards the year end?
The plan is ongoing. I cannot give you a specific percentage at this point in time, but I'm pretty confident that we'll see a decreasing SG&A quarter over quarter because this is, as I said, we are in the process of executing a workforce downsizing, and it will have immediate effect on the P&L.
It will be noticeable.
Yeah, it will be noticeable. I mean, we already have SAR 14 million this month, right?
This quarter, you mean?
Sorry, this quarter in Q2.
Our next question, what is the current utilization rate, and what is the average contract durations for the 10 renewed rigs that were suspended?
The utilization rate is just below 79%. It's 78.7%, if I recall correctly, which is basically 48 rigs active out of a total fleet of 61. On the extension, if I recall correctly, it's a total of 39 rig years over six rigs. It's likely above six, an average of six years per rig.
Our next question, can you comment on the average day rates for onshore and offshore rigs?
The offshore rigs, we see, it took an increase when there was a scarce amount of rigs and there was a tightness. Since the suspension, it was above SAR 100. Now it's below SAR 100. The price is below SAR 100 for the land rigs, for the offshore. For the land, it depends on the gas or oil. Yeah, it's like this memory.
Yeah, on the land for those rigs that we have renewed, the land, the rate has stayed flat or we have seen a small increase. We haven't seen any decrease on the extension of the land rigs.
Let's understand, on the land rigs, there is so much competition. The increase usually we would see is because of inflation, so there is not much huge pickup or drop.
Our next question, is it common to receive suspension onshore? Has it ever happened before?
Yes, yes. Land and offshore, yes.
I mean, the first suspension came along with the COVID scenario, right? This is when the first time the suspension was introduced in the contract, just because nobody knew what tomorrow would be made of. This has happened before. By the way, historically, all the rigs that were suspended were called back to operation. We haven't had one single rig that was suspended on the land side that did not come back from operation, that was not called back by Aramco.
This is not for AD . This is for the Thai market.
We have another follow-up question from Ildar Khaziev with HSBC. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks again. Just to make sure I understand correctly, the two rigs which you currently lease, once you return them, you will be basically not, you will stop paying that $70 million a year. The leasing costs and obviously the depreciation charges will also be smaller by $60 million- $70 million. Is that correct?
That's correct, yes.
That's very correct.
Thank you.
Our next question, are any of the land rigs that got extended, which were announced in 2025, are some of them suspended? For example, the two land rigs that got an extension in May 2025 for 10 years, could they be suspended but on a contract, basically not generating revenue?
Yes, it's possible and it has happened. I mean, you can very well be in a situation where you receive an extension for 10 years for one rig and then the following week you receive a suspension notice. One does not prevent the other from happening. The way we treat the suspension is that we believe that the suspension does not destroy any backlog. It's just a shift in the timing of when exactly you are going to recognize this revenue. We take this position precisely because this is what happened at the time of the COVID when the rig was suspended. The duration of the suspension was added back at the tail end of the contract. We didn't lose any backlog. It's just that it was a difference in the timing of revenue recognition.
Hubert, if this is best, I'd just like to add a point here that this doesn't apply only to Arabian Drilling. This happened also to some of our clients.
That's correct, yeah.
You have to understand our client here in Saudi is not trying to penalize one over the other. He's trying to make sure that, you know, if there is a reduction, we all kind of share a bit of the pain.
This concludes our Q&A. I'll now hand back to Ghassan Mirdad for any final remarks.
Thank you all for your insightful questions and for engaging with us today. As we navigate through the dynamic conditions of our industry, we remain committed to our operational excellence and transparency. We look forward to keeping you updated and to our continuous partnership in driving value for all our stakeholders. Thank you once again for joining us today, and we wish you a pleasant evening.
Thank you. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, today's call is now concluded. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.