Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Ensign Energy Services Inc. first quarter 2026 results conference call. I would now like to turn the conference over to Michael Gray, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Yeah, just to clarify, former Chief Financial Officer. Thank you and good morning and welcome to Ensign Energy Services first quarter conference call and webcast. On our call today, Bob Geddes, President and COO, Trevor Russell, a new Chief Financial Officer, and myself, Michael Gray. Today, we will review Ensign's first quarter highlights, financial results, followed by operational update and outlook. We'll open the call for questions after that. Our discussions today may include forward-looking statements based upon current expectations that involve several business risks and uncertainties.
The factors that could cause results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, political and economic and market conditions, crude oil and natural gas prices, foreign currency fluctuations, weather conditions, the company's defensive lawsuits, the ability of oil and gas companies to pay accounts receivable balances or other unforeseen conditions which could impact the demand for services supplied by the company. Additionally, our discussions today may refer to non-GAAP financial measures such as Adjusted EBITDA. Please see our first quarter earnings release and see our plus filings for more information on forward-looking statements and the company's use of non-GAAP financial measures. Before I pass the call back over to Bob, I'd like to take a moment to sincerely thank all of Ensign's employees for their hard work and dedication. I've truly appreciated my time here and the opportunity to work alongside such a strong team.
I'm confident that the company is in very good hands going forward under Trevor's leadership. On that, I'll pass the call back to Bob.
Thanks, Mike. Let me start by acknowledging that Mike Gray is retiring as you understand here, and we have appointed Trevor Russell to the CFO role. I just want to first of all thank Mike for his guidance and service with Ensign over the last years on behalf of the board of directors, myself, and all employees. Mike has helped the company manage through some intense Trinidad acquisitions, the Mavers acquisition, the COVID years, et cetera. Thank you, Mike, for all of that. I also want to congratulate Trevor on his promotion to the CFO role. Trevor has been with the company for 20 years and was the last in the role of VP Finance. Mr. Russell will provide a seamless transition for us moving forward.
Mike Gray has agreed to stay on as an Executive Advisor until July to help through the transition period. We've had 2 significant events in the 1st quarter that have provided a very positive construct for Ensign. Right out of the gate in 2026, we saw Venezuela become de-risked to a large extent with a strong proxy for increased activity. With Ensign having the only rigs operating in Venezuela, we are well-positioned to expand that business unit. We have the Middle East conflict, which has pushed oil prices up significantly. Today, we are bumping in the low $90s. If anyone had told me WTI would be in the low $90s a few months ago, we would have been critical of such a prediction. Let's just hope demand stays somewhat inelastic. Here we are.
For a deeper dive into the first quarter financial results, I'll turn the call over to Trevor Russell. Trevor?
Thanks, Bob. The oilfield services sector maintains a generally constructive outlook despite a year-over-year activity decline in Canada. With the political and security situation in the Middle East, the disruption of shipping within the Strait of Hormuz and the continuing conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and the recent actions of the U.S. and Venezuela, the expectation is these factors and their continued development will have a direct impact on the industry. To date, oil and natural gas producers continue to moderate their capital spend, remain committed to cash flow generation and maintaining current production levels. Furthermore, the impact of uncertainty around the global economy and tariff policies adopted by the U.S. administration and the implications of such policies continue to impact operating activity.
Total operating days were slightly lower in the first quarter of 2026, with the United States and international operations recording a 15% and a 1% increase, respectively. While our Canadian operations saw a 15% decrease compared to the first quarter of 2025. The company generated revenue of CAD 418 million in the first quarter of 2026, a 4% decrease compared to the revenue of CAD 436.5 million generated in the first quarter of the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2026 was CAD 94.8 million, a 7% decrease from the Adjusted EBITDA of CAD 102.4 million in the first quarter of 2025.
The decrease in Adjusted EBITDA was primarily due to a decrease in the operating activity, as well as a negative 4% translation difference of converting our US dollar denominated earnings. Depreciation in the first three months of 2026 was CAD 85.1 million, 4% higher than the CAD 81.9 million for the first three months of 2025. The decrease in depreciation is due to the more assets entering services following additional capital spending. Offsetting the decrease is a 4% decrease in the translation effect of converting our depreciation on U.S. denominated assets. General and administration expenses was CAD 14.7 million, 3.5% of revenue for the first quarter of 2026 compared to 15% up for the first quarter of 2025.
General and administration expenses decreased due to non-recurring fees incurred in the prior year and a positive 4% translation effect of converting our U.S. denominated expenses. Net capital purchases for the quarter were CAD 64.8 million. The purchases consist of CAD 14.4 million in upgrade capital and CAD 50.9 million in maintenance capital for a total of CAD 65.3 million, offset by sales proceeds of CAD 600,000. Our 2026 maintenance capital budget is set at CAD 162 million and CAD 79.2 million in selective upgrade capital, of which CAD 58.2 million is customer funded and will be monitored very closely and will be adjusted if required.
Interest expense in the first quarter of 2026 was CAD 12.9 million, a decrease of 37% from the first quarter of 2025 as a result of lower debt levels and effective interest rates, a one-time recovery and a positive 4% translation on converting U.S. denominated interest expense. The company expects its blended interest rate to be less than 7% and will allow us to reduce our interest expense going forward. Net repayments against debt totaled CAD 7 million during the quarter. Our trailing twelve months net debt Adjusted EBITDA was 2.47 and will continue to reduce as the company continues to reduce debt. Our debt reduction for 2026 is targeted to be approximately CAD 125 million. If the industry conditions change, this target will be increased or decreased.
On that note, I'll turn it back to Bob.
Thanks, Trevor. Let's circle the globe now with a summary of our first quarter and some insight operation into what we're seeing develop under this strong commodity pricing environment. Starting with U.S. drilling, which is our biggest revenue and margin generator. Today, we have 45 rigs under contract in the U.S. We are seeing a more active bid book over the last month develop, obviously the result of generous commodity prices. We are seeing more private equity and new names to the game. At these prices, a lot more smaller players become more compelling. Starting on the West Coast and moving east, we are seeing our California drilling asset base now up to 8 high-spec ADR drilling rigs under contract and the business looks very steady moving forward.
We have 8 rigs active in the Rockies division and 29 in our US Southern Division, mostly in the Permian. The Permian continues to be extremely active for our high-spec ADR rigs, with an expectation that we should see 2 to 3 more rigs go to work over the next 6 months. Almost half our U.S. rigs are on a performance-based contract, which elevates margin opportunities. Going to Canada, we operate a wide range, 47 to 6 high-spec ADR drill rigs in Canada. In the first quarter, we saw 5 of our rigs come down early in the quarter for their 5-year recertifications, which were planned for breakup, but because the operator wanted to get after their drilling during breakup, we had to take these rigs off the production line the first quarter and get them in for the recertification. This, of course, affects the first quarter results.
We have a lumpy first quarter, which we'll see pushed into a beneficial uptick in our second quarter activity. Last year, we had 30 rigs active over breakup, building up to 43 into July. This year, we expect to have those 5 rigs incrementally added year-over-year, and we'll see us build up from 30 rigs today to 50 by late summer. This is a 7 rig year-over-year uptick in the second quarter and entering into the third quarter, which we expect will stay sticky at 50 plus through the rest of the year. We have 2 cold stacked rigs coming back to work after breakup, and we have 3 rigs receiving operator re-requested upgrades, which are tied into 2-year contracts.
We are already seeing operators wanting to tie up rigs in the spring of 2027. That's a leading indicator for business getting busier. We are now wanting to get our book not too long as we see upward demand construct, and we will start raising rates about 5% to 10% as we move into the back half of the year. On the international front, we have a fleet of 25 rigs in our international fleet. We have 9 rigs, of which, 8 are under contract in the Middle East. All our rigs in the Middle East were kept on contract with the revenue rigs, some on standby rigs with crews, but in any case, we're making revenue during the conflict. Cost to run crews and parts while the conflict is on has pushed some additional expenses our way, which are clipping margins, obviously.
We added in a rig in Oman in the quarter, and we'll have another 1 on the payroll on long-term contract in the 2nd quarter. We had hoped to have that 5th rig in Oman commissioned in the 1st quarter, but the Middle East conflict created some challenges. Nonetheless, it is up and running today. In Australia, we have 5 rigs operating and expect to add a 6th and 7th into the back half of the year. Argentina is steady with both our high-spec ADR 2000s under contract and contract extensions underway. Venezuela. Let's talk about Venezuela. Everything changed in January the sixth. Ensign has the only 2 drilling rigs running in the country, and we expect to add a 3rd rig before year-end. Infrastructure build-up will determine how fast Venezuela is able to add rigs efficiently. We feel it will be into 2027 before it catches traction.
In any case, our strategic positioning in the country over the last 25 years will provide great opportunities for the company moving forward. Well servicing. We operate a fleet of roughly 92 well servicing rigs in North America, split mostly into the U.S., 2/3 U.S., 1/3 Canada. To drive better focus on the well servicing assets, we incorporated all our assets under the responsibility of one focused Vice President, Well Servicing VP, Mr. Pat Kearley. Pat is solely now responsible for all the well servicing assets. This focus will help drive growth in this business segment for Ensign. The Edge Drilling Rig automation. Our Edge Drilling Rig control system platform is now on 65% of our rigs globally, generating revenue anywhere from CAD 650 a day to CAD 2,600 a day.
We continue to see the opportunity to grow this business top line and bottom line by 15% year-over-year well into the future. We're also beta testing our Directional Guidance System, DGS, which with the help of AI, the team were able to deliver a beta test ready product in months versus years at one-tenth the cost. Our other business segments, directional drilling and NGD are delivering consistent steady revenue and margin. I'll turn it back to the operator for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Aaron MacNeil with TD Cowen. Your line is now open.
Hey, morning all. Thanks for taking my questions. Before I get into that, Mike, just wishing you all the best. It's been an absolute pleasure working with you over the years. Trevor, I wouldn't take the share price performance today with as your first day as CFO personally, so looking forward to working with you going forward.
Good. Thanks very much.
Thanks.
Bob, on the Venezuela rig add, can you give us?
Right
additional insights on the upgrade? Is it in country? What type of rig is it? What kind of work does it require? Then, you know, you mentioned 2027 before we likely get more, but bigger picture, what do you think is sort of the potential quantum of rig adds beyond the current 3?
Yeah. To unpack that, it's a lighter version of our high-spec ADR 1500 currently in the U.S. that's getting specific upgrades and recertifications for the Venezuela market. Because we've been operating there for so long, we've got a pretty good idea of what's required. The rig will be down there forever. We expect, well, not expect, we have a long-term contract with the rig, an operator-funded CapEx upgrades that they specifically requested, which will help to drive a little bit of efficiency in their well planning into the future.
As far as infrastructure, this is a challenge I think that behold Venezuela, is everyone wants to turn on the tap tomorrow, but there's a lot of infrastructure issues, building locations, getting services and products. We've got a great field professional field crew presence and they're all Venezuelans. They're, you know, highly trained. We're able to add, you know, kind of a rig at a time. So I think it develops slower than everyone thinks, but it will develop positively, upward for sure. We've got the capacity to add more rigs into that market as it needs to.
Okay. I just wanted to make sure I heard this right, but I think you mentioned the potential for 2-3 rig adds in the U.S. Is that based on contracts in hand today? You know, one of your largest U.S. customers has said, I think, you know, last week, earlier this week, that they may return to a higher spending and growth rate going forward.
Right.
Is there the potential for something incremental to that if the strong commodity price persists?
Yeah. That's the story. We're adding two to three. These are contracted into the near-term future. That's what those are talking to. You can tie those two comments together.
Okay. Great. I will turn it back.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Parvin Madhav with Equinox. Your line is now open.
Hi. Congrats on the results. I had two questions. First one was more high level, your expectations of the rig market and when do you think it changes the dynamics for you? So far it seems like, and you noticed this in your release too, in North America, the rig count hasn't moved significantly in response to prices. Do you think it takes another quarter or two quarters of high oil prices to push it higher? Or what is your internal expectation?
That's a very good question and a question we've been putting to our client base. Of course, the consistent response we're getting back is, we'll take a quarter of these nice prices. Once we get past the second quarter, we'll start to expand, willing to take up on that. It's why you're also seeing private equity slide in where they're putting together some management teams and going after areas where, you know, the cost base entry level may have been around CAD 60 a barrel. When oil is in the 60s, it doesn't attract capital.
It's attracting capital, and we're seeing a lot of private equity names we haven't seen before, put together teams and call us and ask us for rigs and rig activity. Rig activity, of course, the most desirable rigs are always fully booked. The operators who have them now are hanging on to them. A couple of our operators have told us they wanted to add 1 to 2 rigs into the back half of the year. Everyone is waiting to question for a second quarter under the belt of this crisis before they start to move with any conviction.
Got it. Thank you. My next question is, I guess your CapEx behavior in response to this. Q1 was almost more than 30% of, I think, total annual CapEx already spent. Is this partially because you expect higher activities in the second half of the year and you're already spending now, or this just happened to be so?
A combination of both. We've had a lot of customer-funded CapEx, where they wanted to make upgrades to the rigs. Oman is a perfect example where we had 2 rigs in the first quarter. One got pushed into the second quarter because of the delay in commissioning because of the situation in the Middle East. Generally, you're seeing a little bit of an acceleration of capital. At least half of that is operator-funded capital, which will push into work starting in the second half of 2026. It's not to suggest that there's any difference in our run rate. Our maintenance CapEx is right on schedule with the number of rigs we have running.
As you add rigs, you have to recertify, reactivate, and put them to work. In most cases, we're able to get the operator to fund that and any changes they request and also tie in term contracts. We're careful to tie in term contracts, not to get too long because we see a situation developing where, you know, 5%-10% increases through the back half of 2026 will happen and into 2027. Because available rig equipment is starting to tie up. I mean, you just can't get it. If you need new pumps, you can't go buy them at an auction anymore. You have to order them. They're almost 1 year out now.
Everything is starting to tighten up, which is a great construct for, you know, starting to get the value that we've created over the last decade back to the drilling contractors.
Thank you. One quick last one for me on Canadian activity. It seems like, your peers have gained market share in Canada. What do you attribute that to?
Capital investment, well, bigger company invested more capital into Canada specifically, where we've been deploying capital, focused into other areas of the world, the U.S. and Middle East where we get a higher margin.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Adrian.
Your next question comes from Josef Schachter with Schachter Energy Research. Your line is now open.
Good morning, everyone. Mike, good congratulations and good luck with your career and go forward life intentions. 2 questions for me. Bob, with all the problems going on in the Middle East, did you guys pull back on and get your crews away when the fighting was on? If there is no peace deal in the next week or 2, and they go back to fighting, what do you do in the field? Do you stop drilling? Do you move your crews out? How do you handle the safety of your employees, you know, when the craziness goes on there?
Yeah. Fair question. I get a report every day, the team is on top of this every day. Safety of the crews is most important, of course. It's interesting. If you've been watching the news, you will see occasional fireworks in the skies every night. The Bahrain operation is the most affected. Oman, not really. Kuwait, not as much either. We, you know, we run a lot of crews are in, in camps. Of course, we're on top of it. Moving crews in and out, we've had to bring them in other ways through land, rather than, you know, fly them in.
Obviously, the, you know, we used to describe the Middle East as the most stable part of the world, and then everything changed. You know, we've operated in difficult places of the world. We were in Libya when it went through its conflict. You know, we're pretty street smart, got great teams. To your point, safety of the crews is always first, always first.
The second one is Venezuela. The last Baker Hughes international rig count showed there were 4 rigs in the country, so 2 of the 4 were yours. Production, you know, has gone up. I think Energy Secretary Wright said they were 1.2 million barrels a day up from the 800s. How much upside is there? He's throwing a number of 1.5 million by the end of the year. Is that possible? Do they have enough rigs and equipment and, you know, the whole, you know, infrastructure to raise production that quickly? Where do you see potential production, you know, in the next 2 to 3 years? How much more activity does that do for Ensign?
You know, Venezuela, we've been there, pre Chávez, Maduro, and now under Rodríguez. You know, they used to produce 3 million barrels a day. They're around 800, and the numbers you mentioned are reasonably accurate. That is coming through a lot of working with the wells that were shut in, getting current infrastructure going. That's where the efforts are. I think that behind that starts to come the drilling, and that will start in the back half of 2026 and into 2027. Everyone's efforts are spent just getting wells completed or not completed, re serviced, well serviced, back on production, getting infrastructure going, changing valves, fixing leaks, all of that, getting things up and running. That'll take them from the 800 to the 1.2.
To get up to the 1.5 by the end of the year, they're gonna have to start to do some drilling. To get to 3, they're absolutely gonna have to do some drilling. It's anyone's guess, you know, you can extrapolate how many rigs you think are gonna be required to get there, but it's gonna be a bunch. Venezuela is a challenging area to work in. Again, we've been working there for a long time. 95% of our people there are Venezuelans, so we've got a great infrastructure to lever off of. As I mentioned, we'll be adding a 3rd rig into the back half of 2026. We've got capacity to, you know, add rigs as they are required into the country.
It will move up. It's been de-risked. So far everything is looking very nice.
Super. Is the pricing of the rigs, because of the, you know, political risk, et cetera, et cetera, that, are you getting higher margins on those Venezuelan rigs than other parts of your international business?
It's all relative. It's all relative generally because of crew-based costs. The margins in Venezuela are very close to what we'd be getting in the Middle East.
Super. That's it for me. Thanks so much. Thanks for answering my questions.
Thanks, Trevor. You bet.
Your next question comes from Keith MacKey with RBC. Your line is now open.
Hey, good morning, and thanks. Maybe, Bob Geddes, just wanna pick up on a comment you made about your capital deployment strategy. Maybe some of your peers are a little bit more focused on Canada, and you've got a bit more focus in other parts of the world. Can you just comment on the returns you're seeing in some of these other regions and what underpins your long-term strategy of, you know, whether it's U.S., Middle East, Latin America, et cetera, beyond just Canada? Is it the level of resource available? Is it geopolitical factors? Just a little bit more color there would be appreciated.
First and foremost, we want to stay focused on debt reduction. As Trevor pointed out, CAD 125 million is our target for 2026. When we're having conversations about rig upgrades and movement of rigs with our clients, we have that in our background. Because we operate in 8 different countries, we've got holes for capital in different ways. The U.S. has been absorbing a lot of our capital input over the last 3 to 4 years. The Middle East, specifically Oman, the last 2 years. Canada, we are just starting to focus back into Canada. We have 5 rigs.
2 of those 5 are cold stacked and then are being reactivated. They'll go to work here right after breakup. We're starting to focus back onto the high-spec singles, which were sold out of in Canada and high-spec triple upgrades, and with, you know, 5-tier packages, things like that. We've got a good runway of projects for capital in Canada, for example, that are paying for themselves in a year or less with the incremental margins that they'll be making. Again, we put capital where it provides us the best return and now you're starting to see us focus back into Canada. You know, our goal is to get to 25% market share.
That's what we used to own in Canada. We grew our market share in the U.S., and we're holding on to that significantly. Our market share in Oman has grown, et cetera. That's, that's the strategy we're deploying.
Got it. Appreciate the color. Just on the debt reduction target. CAD 125 targeted for this year. If I'm not mistaken, and it is quite possible that I am, but that would take you beyond the initial CAD 600 that you had planned to do from 2023 to 2025. Can you just comment on, you know, what you think the right amount of debt is, or even if it's an amount of debt versus an amount of liquidity is for the company? And then ultimately, what portion of free cash flow do you think that CAD 125 will represent? I'm guessing substantially all, but is there also some, say, dispositions or potential small dispositions built into that target?
Yeah. Trevor, do you want to take that one on?
Sure, yeah. To start with our CAD 600 million debt reduction target that we announced a while back, from 2023 to 2026 first half, we should hit that target. We're on target for that now to complete that. The target for this year is CAD 125 million debt reduction. We feel with the cash flow that we're generating that that will be an achievable target. There is some excess room in our free cash flow to cover some more on that. With our CapEx commitments and plans, we are leaving a little bit left over to make sure we hit that. We're comfortable with the 125, and it remains our focus to hit that target.
Overall, debts ratio, I mean, we're probably at that, like, 2 and a quarter, 2 and a half, somewhere in that zone. Target would be to get down to that 1, maybe 1 and a half, in the near future, couple years. We feel that that's kind of the appropriate level for, of debt for our company. Looking forward to continue moving on towards that target.
Understood. Thanks very much.
Your next question comes from Josh Young with Bison. Your line is now open.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. First question, can you talk a little bit about California and your activity trajectory there, and when we might see more rigs active there?
Yeah, yeah. Well, California is such an enigma. They don't like oil and gas, but don't take it away and give us more of it. You know, it's expensive gallon, it's interesting. Yeah, we've been in California for a long time. We're the biggest driller in California. We were down to 3 or 4 rigs at the beginning of the year. We're up to 8 rigs now. We're seeing that as a steady business moving forward. You know, we've probably only got 1 available rig left to put back to work. You know, California is almost like a different country. They have their own transportation regulations, tax, everything else. A little bit of a high barrier to entry into California.
We see a little bit of upside to maybe add another rig before the end of the year, but we're certainly steady at eight, which, we're very happy with.
Got it. That's great. Thanks. Then, on the Canadian market share, you guys have been slipping a little bit over the last year or so. Do you guys have thoughts on where you want to be there and, any, plan or strategy to either make back market share gains or, sort of continue as you're going?
Right. Yeah, fair question. Market share is always important to us, and we want to gain that market share back. Over the last few years, we've sent 2 of our biggest rigs, 2,000 horsepower rigs, down to the U.S. We got tired of waiting for the Northeast, the BC gas play to develop. We shipped those rigs down to the U.S. Now we're focusing back on market share expansion into Canada. 25% market share is where we need to be and where we will get to. As I mentioned, we've got 5 rigs that'll come on soon at the back end of break-up period in the next month or 2.
Year-over-year, we're going to have 7 to 8 rigs more running year-over-year. We should be getting 50 rigs by midsummer. The plan is to extend and grow up. We're gonna be growing market share at an uptick market, which is a nice place to be. It's better than trying to grow market share in a downtick market. You know, we've been focusing on debt reduction at the same time, deploying capital to the markets that provided us the best return. Keep in mind, in Canada, you make Canadian dollars. You know, whereas the equipment we buy to put on rigs like cats are all denominated US dollars.
That's why other areas other than Canada has seen a lot of capital deployment because it's just been better business sense for us. Now we've got 5 projects underway that will pay for the incremental upgrade capital in about 8 to 10 months.
Great. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star 1. Your next question comes from Tim Monachello with ATB Cormark. Your line is now open.
Hey, good morning, everyone. I joined the call late, so I don't know if I missed this. Could you just outline how many rig upgrades your capital program contemplates and in which regions?
We've got. Here, let me get that for you, Tim. Bear with me here. We've got 5 in Canada. We've got about 10 projects underway. 5 of them are in Canada, 1 in Venezuela, and the rest are in the U.S. I'm sorry, 1 in Australia. 5 Canada, 1 Australia, 1 Venezuela, and the rest are in the U.S.
Okay. Are all those rigs idle currently? Are those, like, net new additions to rig activity through the back half of the year?
Three of those 10 You know, four of those 10 would be net new additions. Definitely. Yeah.
Okay. Then when you talk about customer-funded capital, how much of that is upfront payments and how much of it is like, I guess implied in higher dayrates over the term of the contract?
There's I would say probably at least a third of them are upfront capital. With term contracts, the remainder of them are where we've been able to raise our rates to retrieve the capital within the first year. Of course, we have a lead base for contract extension after that first year at a higher rate. We've tended not to go long on those contracts.
Got it. In the U.S. market, can you talk a little bit about the state of your idle fleet and the amount of rigs available that you think could be upgraded for a reasonable cost, or I guess an economic cost in current market conditions.
Yeah
to go back to work in an upcycle?
Right. Right. Well, we've, we think we're gonna get close to 50 rigs running in the back half of 2026. As I mentioned before, we have a fleet of 70 rigs, let's set that for a moment. We have about 20 rigs that we can, we can put to work that the sales team can market. That that varies from some in the Rockies, a couple of doubles. But the rest are probably at least 10 of them are the kind of the high-spec triples that can be deployed and put to work competitively for probably about CAD 5 million, CAD 5 million-CAD 8 million per rig of research and upgrade capital.
Okay. Is that Venezuela rig that's being added in Q4, is that coming out of the U.S. fleet?
Correct. Yeah.
Do you expect to see more rigs going down there?
Yeah. I think that if it plays out like everyone thinks it will, we've got the capacity to feed into it, and we've got the infrastructure to support it. Yes.
Okay, great. I appreciate the details. Turning back.
Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Bob for closing remarks.
Thank you, well. This industry keeps on finding ways to deliver value by reducing well times. We have equipment performing at higher duty and delivering more work on a daily basis. That value has, for the last decade, been captured by the operators and helped keep industry competitive globally. Notwithstanding, as a result, contracted daily costs have increased with replacement equipment costs moving up. It's time for contractors to capture the value creation generated over the last decade. With that, with tightened supply of high-spec rigs, we will be increasing rates roughly 5% to 10% on contract rollovers. This will help contractors cover those costs and monetize into the future the value we've created over the last decade. We'll see where oil pricing lands, but it's certainly landing up from where it was.
With very little excess rig equipment capacity and lead times on rig equipment getting out there up to 1 year or more, and with utilization moving up, the market can instruct what's very promising for Ensign. We'll chat in 3 months. Thank you for joining the call.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.