Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to SBO's conference call on the results for the first quarter of 2026. My name is Judit Helenyi, and I would like to thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in SBO. Before we begin, let me briefly cover a few organizational points. This conference will be recorded and made available to the public. The presentation will be held in listen-only mode, followed by the Q&A session. Please note our disclaimer, which you can find at the beginning of the presentation. Today's presentation will be given by the SBO Executive Board, Klaus Mader, CEO, and Campbell MacPherson, COO. With that, we are ready to start. Klaus, the floor is yours.
Judit, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome also in the name of the Executive Board. As usual, I'm doing this call together with Campbell MacPherson, our Chief Operating Officer. Today, we will talk about the business highlights in the first quarter, the financial performance on the group and segment level, followed by a detailed market outlook, including the implications on our business. After the presentation, as usual, followed by a Q&A session. Let me start with the business highlights of the first quarter. Also in the first quarter, we executed on our strategy. That is, and you know that already, based on the four pillars: diversification, technology leadership, market expansion, and operational excellence. All activities within SBO are supporting these four pillars. The long-term strategy that is going to be executed over the next couple of years.
The activities in the first quarter, let me start with diversification. The share of diversified bookings of the group bookings is increasing. It's continuously increasing in additive manufacturing, flow control, but also as well as in geothermal. You may probably have heard about the very successful IPO of Fervo Energy last week on Nasdaq, and we are a strategic supplier to this successful company in enhanced geothermal systems markets. After the completion of the acquisition 3T Additive Manufacturing, we are doing the next step. We consolidated the additive manufacturing activities in Europe between the facility of 3T Additive Manufacturing in the U.K., as well as the Austrian facility to SBO Additive Europe, compared to our Additive North America, which is hosted in Houston to strengthen our market positioning in Europe. Also in diversification, we advanced the market introduction of the high-performance alloy H720 for the subsea flow control applications.
We also took steps in the other three pillars. To give you one example on market expansion, we've progressed in Asia Pacific with new technology applications in applications such as decommissioning and expanded activities also in sub-Sahara Africa, in Namibia, Gabon, and Cameroon. In technology leadership, we achieved new record results with high-performance motors. As one example, our Haiko rocket is taking more and more momentum. In operational excellence, the ramp-up of the reline facility, we talked about that earlier this year, for drilling motors took place. This insourcing will reduce the relining cost on the one hand and will increase the availability of downhole drilling motors in the most important market, North America. Let us now move to the market environment. The market environment changed quite substantially in the first quarter.
From an oversupply in the year 2025 and also in the first two months, to an undersupply as a result of the Middle East conflict, or you call it the Iran war. Some call it a market disruption, some call it a supply shock, some one of the biggest energy crisis. In the first two months, we still had an oversupply situation, a more positive momentum on the back of a slight uptick in the oil prices, and also the momentum and the developments in Venezuela were the key themes in the first two months. Since the end of February, the situation changed significantly. The Middle East conflict leads to a supply shock for oil and gas, and this significantly increased prices predominantly for oil.
The volatility remains elevated as long as the Strait of Hormuz is closed, the volatility is very high also based on messages that you read, with significant increases and decreases of oil prices depending on the current breaking news. The Strait of Hormuz closure and the damaged infrastructure led also to logistics constraints that we also have been impacted in the first quarter. We will talk about that. This evolving crisis that takes much longer than anyone anticipated, sustains also the market uncertainty. Campbell is going to discuss that topic in more color in the outlook section, as well as the implications on our business. Let us continue with the financial highlights. The positive news in the first quarter is clearly bookings. You may recall that the bookings already increased in Q4 2025, 10% after the low point in the third quarter.
The Q1 bookings with almost EUR 180 million are 18.5% above the previous quarter, 30% above the Q3, and even 8.5% above the strong quarter in the first quarter of 2025. This resulted in a promising book-to-bill ratio of 1.2 for the first quarter, and that is definitely the promising and positive momentum that we have seen in the first quarter of this year. The sales, on the other hand, still reflect the lower bookings from the predominantly second half of 2025. You also have to take into consideration when you compare Q1 this year with previous year, that Q1 2025 was by far the strongest month in the whole year of 2025.
To put it in a context, to put it in figures, sales were down 23.7% of the strongest quarter of the previous year as a result of the lower customer demand in precision technology, sales deferrals in energy equipment also driven by the Middle East conflict. The weaker USD is also something that we need to talk about because you see that the foreign exchange adjusted decline is 16.5% compared to 23.7%. There is a significant portion also coming from foreign exchange. The EUR/USD relation in the first quarter of the previous year was 1.05. This year it was 1.17. Out of the roughly rounded EUR 30 million sales decrease, one-third can be contributed exactly more than EUR 9 million can be contributed just to foreign exchange translation.
As expected, and that's important because we mentioned that back in March, sales and profitability are pretty much in line with Q4 2025 when sales were EUR 97.1 million. Similar levels, higher levels we are going to expect as the year continues. The key drivers of the lower EBITDA from EUR 26.4 million to EUR 11.4 million in the previous year. In EBIT from EUR 18.3 million in the previous year to EUR 2.7 million is predominantly sales driven. Lower sales and lower capacity utilization in precision technology. Foreign exchange impacts sales deferrals in the energy equipment. The ramp-up of the reline facility, which is not at full capacity. It's according to plan, but it's not at full capacity yet. Also the weaker U.S. dollar had an impact of about $4 million from translation and transaction.
Also here to note, the results were pretty much in line with Q4 2025, when this EBIT was slightly above EUR 3 million and now it's EUR 2.7 million. Coming to the sales on a divisional level, let me first talk also about bookings because this is the important news. What you see on this very nice chart and graph is the clear trend and the clear signs of a recovery after almost two years of decreasing bookings after the record year, after the top of the cycle in the year 2023. You see now the trend increasing with the low point, I already mentioned it, EUR 90 million in the third quarter, increasing by 10% to almost EUR 100 million in the fourth quarter, and now almost another 20% in the first quarter of this year.
On this chart you can clearly see the increase in trends and also the increase in backlog. Backlog at the end of the year was EUR 89 million at the end of the year 2025. It stands now at EUR 106 million at the end of the first quarter. These higher bookings will be reflected in higher sales as the year continues. We now talk about sales on the segment level, we talked about the sales on a group level already. In Precision Technology, I already mentioned it, the lower customer demand, driven by the lower bookings in the second half of the year had an impact of 32.7%, to some extent also foreign exchange driven. Important to note, it seems like that the bottom has been reached in Precision Technology.
Sales in Q1 were only very slightly, rounded even on the same level of the fourth quarter. We see this trend also continuing in the second quarter. On the level of energy equipment, I mentioned it already, the deferred sales, including also tool sales from the Middle East that we expected already some time ago, and also the weaker U.S. dollar, were driving the sales down from EUR 72 to EUR 58 in the fourth quarter. In the first quarter of this year, already a slight uptick compared to the previous quarter. The results follow the sales developments with group EBITDA being at EUR 11.4 million, which is a margin of 11.6%, almost on similar levels to the Q4. The takeaway here on the group level is it's a double-digit EBIT margin of 11.6% and the EBITDA on similar levels to the previous quarter.
When we talk about the segment level, the main driver, of course, is the lower sales and capacity utilization and the foreign exchange impacts compared to the previous year. Also compared to the previous quarter, the result is slightly lower due to slightly lower sales. In the fourth quarter in PT, we had foreign exchange gains. This quarter, we had foreign exchange losses. Those are the two drivers of the result in the first quarter being a bit below the previous quarter. On the level of Energy Equipment, it's compared to the previous year, predominantly the lower sales. The sales deferrals from the Middle East conflict.
Compared to the previous quarter, we have already seen a slight uptick in rounded figures from EUR 9 million to EUR 10 million, although we have seen in the first quarter sales deferrals and some impacts from the ramp-up of the U.S. reline and distribution centers. We move to the cash flow and the balance sheet, and here the balance sheet remains very excellent, the balance sheet structure. The cash flow is lower than on the previous year, which is driven and predominantly the result of the lower profit. The same is true for the free cash flow, as we also continue to invest in our strategy. Such as the purchase of 3D metal printers or some carryover CapEx from the reline facility. All in all, the balance sheet structure remains very excellent also at the end of Q1. Equity increased from EUR 422 million to EUR 433 million.
This is the result of a strong U.S. dollar end of March compared to end of December, the closing rate, not the average rate. The strengthening of the U.S. dollar at the end of March to even less than 115 had a positive impact of about EUR 11 million on the equity. Also the cash with EUR 277.4 million remains on the very high level of EUR 282 million at the beginning of the year. Net debt with less than EUR 83 million to similar levels at the end of 2025 with EUR 78 million. Also the gearing remains consistently low with a gearing ratio of 19.1%. At the balance sheet and net debt gearing front, not a lot changes till the end of the year and still in a very solid and excellent structure.
With that information on the financials of the first quarter, I'm going to hand over to Campbell for the market outlook.
Thank you, Klaus. A good morning and afternoon to you, ladies and gentlemen, from my side. Let's talk about the outlook. The key issue, obviously, in the near term is clearly the Middle East crisis, which Klaus has already mentioned. What started as a regional disruption has become a broader market issue affecting supply, demand, logistics, and ultimately customer activity. The real question now is the timing of recovery. The slide we have here summarizes scenario assumptions based on the latest IEA oil market report issued only last week. We use it here only as external market context. This is not SBO guidance. The purpose is to show the range of possible outcomes now affecting the market. In the base case, a ceasefire or political agreement would stop the immediate escalation, but it would not normalize the market straight away.
There is, I think, over 800 ships still stranded either side of the Hormuz, so shipping routes would take a long time to get back into place. The associated insurance for them to go about their daily business, port schedules, all the associated supply chains, and overall customer activity need a lot of time to recover. Then they reckon that the earliest that would really happen is into the second half of this year, and I would say towards the back end of that. Even in this base case, the demand side is already under pressure. The IEA expects global oil demand to contract by around 2.4 million barrels a day in Q2 2026. By 420,000 barrels a day for the year as a whole, which is 1.3 million barrels below its pre-conflict forecast.
In the risk scenario, if tensions persist and energy flows remain constrained through 2026, the market becomes much more dependent on inventory drawdowns, emergency stock releases, and further demand reduction. In that case, demand could contract by as much as 5 million barrels a day, with inventory drawdowns of up to 6 million barrels a day. Really the focus then shifts from normalization to crisis management. The gas market shows the same issue from another angle. The IEA points to damage to Qatar LNG infrastructure, delaying expansion by more than two years of projects there. This is a cumulative LNG supply shortfall of around 120 BCMs between 2026 and 2030, That's around 15% of expected global LNG supply growth over the period. That could certainly contribute to a tight market through 2026 and into 2027. For us in SBO, the key issue is timing.
If the situation stabilizes, logistics can normalize, and deferred demand can start to convert into sales. If disruption continues, the recovery moves further out. The market has to balance through inventory drawdowns, stock releases, more supply from other regions, of course, and further demand reduction rather than through a recovery of normal Middle East flows. I think we all watch the news, and you can see where demand and reduction is reducing or being reduced in Asia. We're even talking about jet fuel crisis now happening in Europe. At the same time, the market experts expect oil prices to remain above pre-conflict levels for the time being, which should support continued investment once logistics and customer activity normalize. That's why we remain very constructive on the medium to long term, but slightly cautious on the short term.
The positive point for us, Klaus has already mentioned it, is that bookings are already improving, especially in precision technology. Once logistics and customer activity normalize, we have a better starting point for recovery. Q1 showed a clear improvement in bookings. Klaus already mentioned this. The book-to-bill ratio was 1.2, this confirms the positive trend that we started to see at the end of 2025 has continued into Q1 2026. Sales and earnings still reflect the low bookings from the second half of last year and the consequent lower capacity utilization, as well as the first logistics-related sales deferrals in the Middle East. Therefore, 2026 remains somewhat of a transition year, although recovery signals are now visible.
In precision technology, the improvement is really encouraging, both in the core oil and gas market, particularly in the diversified applications, predominantly in additive manufacturing and also in subsea flow control applications. In energy equipment, the opportunities remain attractive through geographic expansion, including Asia, Latin America, Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa. The ramp-up, as Klaus has mentioned, of the reline and distribution center for our drilling motors to support the U.S. market. What is also important to add is the booking trend of Q1 has continued so far also into Q2. The message is constructive but cautious. The short term remains uncertain. The pace of recovery is still mainly a question of timing, how quickly logistics normalize, how customers restart activity, and how fast deferred activity comes back.
Looking at the mid to long term, well, the mid to long-term upstream fundamentals absolutely remain intact, as we've said in many previous earnings calls. The disruption has made energy security more important, and that supports the three structural drivers of future demand on this slide. First, the refill of inventories. The longer the crisis continues, the more commercial and strategic stocks are drawn down, and those stocks will need to be built back up. Second is diversification of supply. Customers and countries will not want to depend too heavily on one region, one export route, or one choke point. The Strait of Hormuz disruption has made that very visible. In practical terms, that could mean looking at alternative supply sources. We've got the U.S., Latin America, Canada, sub-Saharan Africa, depending on availability and security of export routes. Third is accelerated development of local resources.
Governments and national oil companies will put more emphasis on resources that they can control directly. A really good example of this is Norway, where the focus is on maintaining and developing the Norwegian continental shelf as a secure regional supply source for Europe. As recent as only yesterday, Norway announced new activity, which includes new licensing rounds, field optimization, and steps to accelerate offshore developments. The point is that Norway is not trying to replace the Gulf, but energy security will push countries to develop and extend resources closer to home, where they have more control over production and export routes. For SBO, these drivers all translate into activity. Short-term disruption does not weaken the strategic relevance of our core business. If anything, it reinforces the need for secure supply, resilient infrastructure, and continued investment in technically demanding oil and gas activity.
Coming to strategy, and of course, we really focus and continue to execute on our strategy, and this is now becoming visible in order intake. In Q1 2026, bookings for diverse applications increased significantly, more than doubling on a group level compared to Q1 2025. Our diversification focus, of course, on our core capabilities. We're not moving away from what SBO is good at. We're applying those capabilities into adjacent markets where they are relevant. In Energy Equipment, we're utilizing existing drilling completion and circulation tools in adjacent energy markets. Geothermal is the clearest example, but we're also seeing applications now in carbon capture and storage, and we've been involved with several projects in lithium and helium drilling. In Precision Technology, additive manufacturing is becoming a more important growth platform.
The market is moving from prototyping towards serial production, we have our focus on aerospace and defense, space, and the semiconductor industry sectors, including the energy sector, where complex geometry, material performance, and repeatable production are critical. In the U.S., we're expanding our defense manufacturing through Canoe Scotland. Defense is really a growing area, they are adapting the use of additive manufacturing very strongly to try and compress their supply chain and their lead time. A lot of products moving from casting to additive, a lot more focus on design for additive. In Europe, as Klaus has mentioned, we're creating an additive Europe platform by bringing 3T Additive Manufacturing in the U.K. and our Austrian additive manufacturing entity under one coordinated organization.
The entities remain in place. The market approach becomes stronger with more depth and breadth and a clearer European additive manufacturing offering. Flow control and our new material grade H720 follow the same logic. We're taking this high-performance material, coupled with our precision manufacturing capability, and applying them into demanding subsea flow control applications. The NORSOK approval of H720 supports that positioning. For M&A, our approach remains targeted and disciplined and is fully in line with our strategy. We continue to look for acquisitions where we strengthen our core capabilities, support diversification, and of course, meet our return expectations. With that, I'll hand back over to Klaus, who's going to wrap up or close the presentation.
Campbell, thank you so much. I just want to show you a slide that you are all aware of. In closing the presentation, I simply want to reiterate that we remain on course, on the one hand, by navigating through the current market environment, current market challenges, and also continuing executing our strategy. The increasing booking trend is definitely promising with a continuation so far also in the second quarter, what Campbell already mentioned. The Middle East conflict is currently the elephant in the room, also this is something that we will overcome because it is not about the if, it's only about the when. Then we will benefit from the already mentioned by Campbell, energy security priority and the mid and long-term fundamentals for our traditional business will remain and do remain intact.
At the same time, we continue to execute on our growth strategy with promising increases in bookings in terms of diversification and do those two paths and continue to do those two paths in parallel, namely navigating through the challenges but also shaping the future. With that, ladies and gentlemen, we close our presentation and we are looking forward to your questions.
Thank you, Klaus and Campbell, for your presentation. We will now begin the Q&A session. As a reminder, you have two options. Please raise your hand in the WebEx call. Once I call your name, you may unmute your microphone and ask your question. Alternatively, you can post your question in the online Q&A tool and I will read it out loud. We have the first question from Baptiste Lebacq. Baptiste, please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sorry. Thanks for your presentation, Klaus and Campbell. Two question from my side. The first one is, you mentioned the ramp-up of the reline and distribution center in the U.S. Where are we today? Are we at the plateau or not? Second question may be tricky to have a specific answer, but regarding your backlog, do you have an exposure of this backlog to Middle East clients or countries in terms of percentage? Or in other words, could you be impacted by some delays in terms of deliveries of equipments in Q2 in this region? Thank you.
Baptiste, good afternoon. Pleasure to have you on the call. Let me talk about the ramp-up of the reline facility. You may recall it because we discussed it also back in March. This vertical integration, this insourcing of the reline facility where the motors have been sent to Europe and then sent back will clearly increase the turnaround times, will improve the asset life cycle management, and will also reduce dependency on external service providers and increase the availability of the stators in the U.S. During this ramp up, it goes exactly according to plan. The facility did not work at full capacity because we started mid of January, and therefore certain inefficiency losses were incurred, which is normal when you set up and ramp up a facility. Also kind of a dual sourcing where we got some stators still from Europe and some we did on our own.
As the year progresses, we will come to this full capacity, and then we will have cost savings on the one side because we insource it, and we also expect sales opportunities on the other side from the improved availability of stators.
Yeah
Campbell is taking the question.
Thank you, Klaus. Let me give you some color on the Middle East backlog and sales situation, Baptiste. Just to remind you, in 2025, we generated sales of about EUR 65 million with customers in the Middle East region, equivalent to approximately 14% of group sales. With that, the share is lower in precision technology, about 7%, and higher in energy equipment at 19%. In Q1 of 2026, we generated revenue in the Middle East of approximately EUR 15 million, reflecting 15% of the overall group sales. Again, the allotted amount to division EE is much higher at 21% versus 7% at PT.
If we come to what are the direct impact that we know of in the Middle East at the moment, with all these logistic constraints and the related uncertainties by customers deferring sales and deferring rental revenue, the effect that we've seen so far in Q1 is at a mid-single digit million level. This includes higher sales volume project business from tool sales, which was also severely impacted by the ongoing Middle East conflict and couldn't be executed. The key point is here, these are all deferred revenue. It isn't lost demand. It isn't demand going away. The bookings in the backlog remain intact, but the timing of the delivery and the rental activity is being pushed out by what's happening in the Middle East. Hopefully that's answered your question.
Yes. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Ms. Pamela Stengert-Tiedtke from Stengert-Tiedtke. Please expand on your relationship with Fervo Energy. How do you expect this relationship, the geothermal market opportunity, to develop? Thank you.
Campbell? Or I?
Yeah.
I do. Okay. Yeah, more than welcome to do that. You may recall that we have defined geothermal as one of the diversification strategies, and this is predominantly through the energy equipment division. Also in the last year, we have on geothermal with our motors, rotary steerable tools, circulation tools, but also with our geothermal blocks, supported customers in the geothermal business. Mazama Energy, Eavor, but also Fervo Energy. The relationship to Fervo Energy is an ongoing. You have seen, and I mentioned it already, the very successful IPO. They are talking about significant projects also going forward. We are supplier to them from the beginning, and therefore, we see geothermal, especially enhanced geothermal systems in the U.S., as a significant growth driver going forward.
Out of the topic of data centers powered by geothermal, a lot of tech companies supporting that initiative, the significant needs to ramp up data centers because of the artificial intelligence topic, and therefore, we see this as a promising diversification growth area for us.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Richard Dawson, Berenberg. What was the pace of orders like at the start and the end of Q1? Trying to get a sense of what the impact on bookings was from the Middle East. What are you seeing so far in Q2? Do you expect booking flows quarter-on-quarter in Q2?
Thank you, Richard, for that question. In terms of the pace of orders from the beginning of the quarter to the end of the quarter, if I look at the statistics that we have overall, it doesn't follow any particular pattern. Yeah. We more look at it from an overall quarter perspective. Yeah, certainly it was a very good uplift in the bookings that we saw from quarter 4 in 2025 into quarter 1. At the moment, the run rate of order intake that we have year to date, or at least in this quarter, is matching very similarly to what we've seen in the first quarter.
If I even may add to that, because Richard, I assume that you were also thinking about in a pattern, did since the Middle East conflict, the order behavior change? No, not at all. It continues. This is also what Campbell mentioned. When we talk about the Middle East conflict, it's not lower demand from our customers or cancellations from our customers. We continue to get orders from the Middle East. It's about the sales deferrals and the pattern of bookings, say the first two months and then the third month, did not change as a result of this conflict.
Actually, what I should add to that as well is we internally in the Middle East, we even saw some still reasonable order activity in the businesses in the UAE and Saudi. Where activity is continuing, particularly in the UAE on land and Saudi on land, we're continuing obviously to get business there as well.
We have an add-on question by Richard that was already keyed in before, but I still pose it as you partially already answered it. Do you see any signs of over-ordering by customers to secure supply given the uncertainties with the Middle East?
Hi, Richard. No, I definitely don't see any situation where we feel that customers are over-ordering at this point in time. That's pretty clear.
Definitely not in relation to the situation in the Middle East either.
Thank you. We have a question in the queue by Alexander Zivkovic.
Mr. Zivkovic, please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Given your midterm ambitions and the significant increase in bookings for diversified applications, when should we see some material contributions go to group sales and earnings? More general, are you on track with your expectations? Another one, when should we see the bookings and backlog with that now recovering? Should we see the effects coming more from Q3 onward, or is this more of a Q4 effect?
If I may take that question, Campbell, please jump in whenever you want. Diversification, you may remember, we have this target to do 20% of group sales till the end of this decade, and we are clearly on track. Campbell mentioned that in his presentation, and I also mentioned it at the beginning of the presentation, that the diversified bookings are increasing. We had last year in the first quarter a low single-digit percentage number. This quarter, we had a high single-digit percentage number. We are on track, and this comes from all three streams, additive manufacturing, geothermal, lithium, helium, and carbon capture and storage, drilling, and also flow control, and we are on track. In terms of bookings transferred into sales, I would be not that specific Q3, Q4. I would rather like the second half of the year.
The second quarter, we still definitely have this Middle East conflict. As long as we are now in the middle of the second quarter, we have the sales deferrals in the second quarter also, because the logistics constraints are ongoing. The promising higher bookings and also the positive booking trend in the first half of the second quarter is something that we should see in the second half of this year.
Okay. Fair enough. Maybe one follow-up. Is the current situation perhaps affecting your CapEx planning? If I might phrase it this way, if you experience a broader recovery, how should we think about CapEx for this year?
Let me take that question, and thank you for it. In 2025, we had approximately EUR 50 million of CapEx, because we had some significant spend in there for some of our strategic expansion. That included our facility that we expanded out in Vietnam and the reline facility in Houston that we've been talking about. Therefore, our base load CapEx for 2026 at a normalized level should be closer to 2024 levels, but we continuously explore what opportunities there is to invest in executing on our strategy. As we always say, if the right opportunity is identified to grow either organically or through M&A activities, then we will certainly seize on that. We don't rule out strategic CapEx, even in these economically challenging periods, if it's aligned with our strategy and our future growth.
Thank you. Fair enough.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Mr. Nicolas Kneip, Wiener Privatbank. Do you already expect the first revenue recovery in Q2, or will this rather be the H2 topic?
Well, this goes pretty much in line what I just mentioned with the answer from Alexander Zivkovic. The elephant in the room is the Middle East conflict and the logistics constraints, at least what we have seen so far in April. Therefore, I see definitely the recovery more in the second half of the year.
Thank you. We have a new question coming from Baptiste Lebac. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks. Just one question regarding the U.S. ADNOC Drilling, in its Q1 results flagged that completion team were fully booked for Q2, so clearly maybe acceleration of plug demands and so on. Do you see already these type of events or, let's say, clients more ready to push a button in today's context and today's oil price environment? Thank you.
Thank you for the question, Baptiste. A good question. In relation to our well completions business, we definitely see that there's going to be a continuation and slight growth in the U.S.-related business. Even if you look at the frac spread count as it moved to the month of May, it has increased. In discussions with our customers, there is definitely a bit more activity. I hasten to say, this is not an opening of the taps and flooding the market. This is very much a stepped and controlled increase in the overall production levels. If you look at the drilled but uncompleted wells, I think they're at a historic low for several years. There's definitely going to be a bit more activity from the completion side. I just, with caution, say it's going to be a gradual step-up.
It's not going to be a huge move up.
What we can definitely say, when also listening to market experts on the one hand, but also you mentioned the Halliburton call. Halliburton mentions we see signs of a recovery in North America. Market experts talk about rig count increase in the Permian of maybe 35- 50 in the second half of the year. Operators are kind of in the observation mode, but to some extent also prepared to pick up the activity going forward.
Thanks a lot. Very clear.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Are there any further questions? Let's give the system some more seconds to process the questions, if there are any. As there seem to be no further questions at the moment, please feel free to contact me should any questions arise later. Now let me hand back to Klaus Mader for his closing statement.
Judit, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, thank you for your interest and participation in today's earnings call. We appreciated your questions, we appreciated your interest. We are going to see each other at the latest, and you see it already on the slide, August 20 for the half year 1 results. The one or the other we will clearly see before. Wishing you a nice afternoon, and looking forward to seeing you soon. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Klaus and Campbell, for your insights into the business, and thank you to the audience for your questions and interest. With this, we conclude today's conference call. Thank you for joining us and goodbye.