Noble Corporation plc (NYSE:NE) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 7, 2024 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Ian MacPherson - VP, IR
Robert Eifler - President & CEO
Richard Barker - CFO
Blake Denton - SVP, Marketing & Contracts
Joey Kawaja - SVP, Operations

Conference Call Participants

Kurt Hallead - Benchmark
Eddie Kim - Barclays
Greg Lewis - BTIG
David Smith - Pickering Energy Partners
Doug Becker - Capital One
Noel Parks - Tuohy Brothers

Operator

Good morning, and thank you for standing by. My name is Abby, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Noble Corporation First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

Thank you. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Ian McPherson, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Ian MacPherson

Thank you, operator, and welcome everyone, to Noble Corporation's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. You can find a copy of our earnings report along with the supporting statements and schedules on our website at noblecorp.com. This conference call will be accompanied by a slide presentation that you can also find located at the Investor Relations section of our website.

Today's call will feature prepared remarks from our President and CEO, Robert Eifler, as well as our CFO, Richard Barker. Also joining on the call are Blake Denton, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Contracts; and Joey Kawaja, Senior Vice President of Operations.

During the course of this call, we may make certain forward-looking statements regarding various matters related to our business and companies that are not historical facts. Such statements are based upon current expectations and assumptions of management and are therefore subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements, and Noble does not assume any obligation to update these statements. Also note that we are referencing non-GAAP financial measures on the call today. You can find the required supplemental disclosure for these measures, including the most directly comparable GAAP measure and associated reconciliation in our earnings report issued yesterday filed with the SEC.

Now I'll turn the call over to Robert Eifler, President and CEO of Noble.

Robert Eifler

Good morning. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. I'll begin with opening remarks on our first quarter results and recent commercial activity, a brief word on the market, and then hand it over to Richard to cover the financials. As usual, following our prepared remarks, we look forward to taking your questions. Our first quarter adjusted EBITDA of $183 million was up 32% year-on-year and reflected solid operational uptime during the quarter and a slight sequential increase in marketed utilization. While costs were up from last quarter, this was primarily timing related and resulted in a modest sequential decrease in EBITDA. As we mentioned last quarter, we do expect quarter 1 to represent just a starting point for EBITDA this year, followed by progressive improvement throughout the year.