Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTEN) Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call October 27, 2022 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Mike Drickamer – Vice President-Investor Relations

Andy Hendricks – Chief Executive Officer

Andy Smith – Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Scott Gruber – Citi

Luke Lemoine – Piper Sandler

Derek Podhaizer – Barclays

Don Crist – Johnson Rice

Saurabh Pant – Bank of America

Keith Mackey – RBC

Sean Mitchell – Daniel Energy

David Smith – Pickering Energy Partners

Dan Kutz – Morgan Stanley

Operator

Good morning. My name is Denis and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to Patterson-UTI Energy Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would like to turn the conference over to Mike Drickamer, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Mike Drickamer

Thank you, Dennis. Good morning. And on behalf of Patterson-UTI Energy, I'd like to welcome you to today's conference call to discuss the results for the three months ended September 30, 2022.

Participating in today's call will be Andy Hendricks, Chief Executive Officer; and Andy Smith, Chief Financial Officer.

A quick reminder that statements made in this conference call that state the company's or management's plans, intentions, beliefs, expectations or predictions for the future are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties as disclosed in the company's SEC filings which could cause the company's actual results to differ materially. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement.

Statements made in this conference call include non-GAAP financial measures. The required reconciliations to GAAP financial measures are included on our website patenergy.com and in the company's press release issued prior to this conference call.

And now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Andy Hendricks for some opening remarks. Andy?

Andy Hendricks

Thanks Mike. Good morning. And thank you for joining us today for Patterson-UTI’s third quarter conference call. I'm very pleased with our third quarter results as we continue to deliver growing profitability. We remain focused on generating returns on our invested capital, while maintaining the high level of service quality and technology enhancements that customers expect from Patterson-UTI.

As our profitability continues to improve, we are increasing our forecast for 2022 consolidated adjusted EBITDA to more than $650 million, up from 600 million. We're also increasing our 2022 CapEx forecast to approximately $425 million, up from the previous $390 million. The increase includes the acceleration of rig upgrades for delivery in 2023 where this CapEx is being largely funded by customers. We also had an opportunistic purchase of an additional Tier 4 pressure pumping horsepower in order to continue to upgrade the quality and earnings power of our fleet.