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Earnings Calls: 
McDermott International Fourth Quarter Earnings Call
Author: Rozalina Destanova
123jump.com
Last Update: 5:30 AM EDT March 12 2008


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The engineering and construction company’s revenue increased 17% to $1.53 billion, exceeding analysts’ expectations of $1.48 billion. Revenue of offshore oil and gas construction unit was $733.3 million, up 54%. Income for the offshore oil and gas unit more than doubled to $100 million. In China, joint venture remains active, with Chinese and export work to Asia and the U.S.


Investors Question and Answers

 
Sequential Earnings Growth | Quarterly Earnings by Year | Quarterly Earnings Growth by Year

Source: Company filings    Q1:March  Q2:June  Q3:September  Q4:December
 
John Rogers (D.A. Davidson & Co.): You mentioned the $1 billion or more of new awards that you are hopeful to get in the offshore business? Is that work that extends out into 2009, 2010 or is it shorter-term project?

Bruce W. Wilkinson: For 23008 the sales side has already been accomplished. We still have holes in spite of everything. There is still a gap, just a short-term gap in Asia-Pacific and some of the fab work. We still have minimal work going on here on the gulf coast in the U.S. As far as what we have been projecting, as far in backlog, you should think of 2008 as essentially what is ahead of us is execute what we have got.

Michael S. Taff: Some of the feed work revenues and some of the early activities on these projects could contribute additionally to just what the pure backlog roll off is.

John Rogers (D.A. Davidson & Co.): In the past you have talked about the offshore margins in the low mid-teens levels and then you seem to do better than that. Any update on your comments there?

Michael S. Taff: Looking back at 2007, it is about 16%. You see wide variation in that quarter-by-quarter. I think that will continue, but the pricing remain strong, we are able to book work with good margin, with considerable contingency. We have over a $700 million dollar a quarter, which is the highest ever, where you can not just do $700 million a quarter and get to the numbers that you are working backwards into 2008 which means that we are going to have to execute at revenue levels even beyond our highest that just occurred. Having vessels stuck back-to-back on contracts, getting work out the potential for slippage or the need to use some of the contingency is always there. What we are doing is just moving heaven and earth to execute every month better than the month before. As long as we do that, and keep all this in balance, then we have the chance to beat all these numbers down in the 10% to 12% as we have been doing consistently.

John Rogers (D.A. Davidson & Co.): You mentioned $2 billion in bids outstanding on the power side. Are those projects that you expect to be awarded, or is it worth that it is a competitive situation?

Bruce W. Wilkinson: No. There is always competition out there. What is interesting about the B&W work, first of all, everybody assumes GAAP, and our backlog is not a GAAP term. Everybody has a different way of counting backlog and bookings. We are extremely conservative and what you tend to see us book things incrementally which reflects the incremental way that most electric utilities like to build capital projects, they take a step at a time, they are looking over their shoulder at permitting issues and cost issues and so we tend to creep into the number as opposed to having these much larger numbers that you see J. Ray experiencing in the offshore business. It is not $2 billion of dreams, they are real and they are the ones that we are after and think we have a real short at. In spite of all that has been said at the peak after we were awarded the TXU job in June of 2006, we got to $3.1 billion in backlog. We are now beyond that $3.3 billion and still a lot of bidding activity. There is a lot of work out there, but the numbers are just not the way we chase someone, the way we book them, they are never going to be these huge numbers that you see in J. Ray.

Joe Agular (Johnson Rice): On the J. Ray side, the awards that you referred to that may be booked in the next quarter, is that one order or is it more than one?

Bruce W. Wilkinson: No, there are several. Probably in about three or four I can give beyond 1 billion quickly. I can get that in three actually, but if you throw in some of the others, then I refer to down in the $100 million to $300 million range.

Joe Agular (Johnson Rice): Is it still mainly in the eastern hemisphere?

Bruce W. Wilkinson: Yes. The Mid East, Asia-Pacific and yet there is one good opportunity out in front of us, that is in the Caspian. The winners are still winning and the Gulf coast is still waiting.

Joe Agular (Johnson Rice): When the Gulf might come into play?

Bruce W. Wilkinson: It was originally going to be late 2008 and early 2009 now it is later in 2009. We still are bidding these alternative markets. We are still down in Morgan City, still chasing and being awarded, our plant worker that is going up to River System for flues and ducts and absorber towers for scrubbers that sort of thing. We still are proposing on a number of refinery modules for the other E&C''s and we have been awarded the first project down in Mexico for PEMEX. We are chasing several others traditional ones. It is still small pieces here and there. I think that is generally what they are writing about others who have backyards on the Gulf coast. The big market will be the floaters in the deepwater whenever that gets started. The good news for us is that the other markets are strong enough that we can keep achieving new record level in revenues and bookings with the Gulf coast essentially flat. The only thing that may change is that the Gulf coast is going to come back first and the Caspian behind it. Probably by next quarter I might be predicting the opposite because, it looks like the Kashagan resolution with the KazMuniGas and the major partners most of that seems to have been sorted out. One side gets moving then we will see the Caspian pick up and it may pick up before the Gulf coast.

Joe Agular (Johnson Rice): Did the Chevron''s Tahiti project alter your schedule on the DB 50?

Bruce W. Wilkinson: That is correct.

Joe Agular (Johnson Rice): How did that impact the fourth quarter?

Bruce W. Wilkinson: We did not have any revenue. Those are drydocks.

Brad Handler (Wachovia Capital): You mention R&D spend for 2008 going up. What it was in 2007 and what it will be for 2008?

Bruce W. Wilkinson: In 2007, it was about 40. I show about 42.6 in 2008 and 39.9 projected in 2009. We are including some traditional work that you do not think of as R&D, we have a normalized spend on engineering that has to do with simply incrementally advancing our base products.

Michael S. Taff: This year we are in the upper 30s and then next year we will be in the 40, 30 range. I would not be surprised if that creeps up to around 45, because there is a lot of activity going on there in Barberton related to the CO2 technology and things of that nature.
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