e425
Filed by Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc.
Pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act of 1933
and deemed filed pursuant to Rule 14a-12 and Rule 14d-2(b)
of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
Subject Company: Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc.
Commission File No.: 0-22739
The following documents are filed herewith pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act of 1933:
Transcript of presentation by Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. at the Howard Weil 34th
Annual Energy Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana on Tuesday, March 21, 2006.
Howard Weil 34th Annual Energy Conference
Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. Presentation
March 21, 2006
Moderator: (Inaudible Portion) Helix (Inaudible) those of you not (Inaudible) Helix
(Inaudible) Cal Dive International (Inaudible) answer that question 100 times a day (Inaudible)
Helix (Inaudible) schedule. So (Inaudible) former Cal Dive. Were very pleased (Inaudible)
[Martin Ferron,] President of Helix and also (Inaudible) [Wade Pursell, CFO of Helix].
Martin Ferron (M): Thanks, Bill. Its great to be back in New Orleans for this conference.
Get. Present many times as Cal Dive. And this is our first of many as Helix. I have been asked a
lot today. Why did you change your name? Why did you choose Helix? Why did you do it now? So,
hopefully, as the presentation unfolds, youll get the answers. This is the presentation outline.
Im going to talk about strategy, our contracting services and our own gas business. Then Im going
to hand over to Wade for financials and some highlights and term goal information. Early in March
we did change our name to Helix. Weve been Cal Dive for almost 40 years. But presently diving only
makes up about 20 percent of our business and we havent worked in California for about 30 years.
So, I guess, it was time for a change. We have been, you know, developing a pretty unique business
strategy here over the last decade or so. So, with the acquisition of Remington in January, we
just thought it was the right time to make this name investment.
Im going to get straight into our strategy. Whenever we sit down for strategic sessions over
the years, we always come up with three undeniable trends irrespective of where the cycle is.
Firstly, we see a lot more mature properties, a lot more mature fields and infrastructure as
producing basins get older. Secondly, we see a lot more small fields than big ones. I think its
fair to say that for every big field thats found theres maybe 20 small ones. Thirdly, theres a
big push into subsea developments as the industry goes deeper.
So, in about 92 we decided to try and come up with a strategy that kind of gets the best from
these three trends. And thats what weve been about since that point. So, right now, we kind of
describe ourselves as a company that provides development solutions and related services to the
energy market. But we specialize in exploitation of marginal fields. So, marginal, being either
small or mature. And we further differentiate ourselves by taking oil and
gas reserves, equity interests and reservoirs(?) as an alternative to cash for certain types of
project.
So, the Helix strategy is two-stranded. We came up with the name based on a double helix. In
the DNA molecule, apparently, the strands run anti-parallel(?) and the two parts of our business
service and oil and gas production run counter cyclical. So, we kind of thought that this was a
neat way to try and express our strategy in a name. By applying service and getting into oil and
gas production, we managed to grow this company at a 36 percent compound annual growth rate for the
last decade in a very cyclical business, and Wade will show you his financials shortly.
So, we have a two-stranded strategy and a two-stranded structure. Weve got a service
organization which addresses the external market and provides internal services for our own
projects, and then we have an oil and gas group that does everything from prospect generation
through expiration to abandonment. And on the side were showing our key assets and resources.
Over the last couple decade, weve built up a portfolio of assets, a tool box, if you like, any one
of which can be deployed in the open market to earn a good return. But each of these services and
assets also has to play a part in our production contracting model. It has to contribute to the
internal development of our own fields.
And at about this time next year, well be able to take a small field in deep water from
cradle to grave. In other words, well be able to identify a prospect. Well be able to drill it,
appraise it, develop it, maintain it, and, finally, abandon it. So, well be complete masters of
our own destiny in deep water with these small projects. Well be the operator, and well be in
control of our cost structure. So, one of our key goals going forward is to reduce F&B costs by
about 20 percent, compared to the Norman(?) industry, and were pretty excited about showing people
how were going to achieve that.
Its a combination of the application of the assets and also the methodologies that we employ
to develop these particular types of reservoir. We are expanding our services internationally.
Were getting into the North Sea and also into the Far East. Weve already made some service
acquisitions in those areas and youll see us take our production model there in the next two to
three years. Just to run you through contracting services, again, we have a two-slanted approach
to contracting, in that we do external work, and we do internal work. Right
now, in the peak a cycle, our focus clearly is on the external markets. You know. We can earn good
margins with our assets, same as any other service company.
But in a poor market, you know, when the cycle turns, we have an internal backlog of projects
that we can work on, and its our aim to produce about 30 percent utilization in a downturn
situation. So, often, pricing changes to the downside when utilization goes below 70 percent, is
the way we look at things. So, if we can create 30 percent utilization on our own jobs, then well
be cushioned from that sort of pricing pressure in a down cycle. In December we picked up a small
reservoir management company called, actually, Helix RDS, that helped us get our name.
This company has 180 reservoir managers and engineers. And we bought this company to export
our model to the North Sea and the Far East. To put it simply we understand the Gulf of Mexico,
but we needed the capability to do the same in those international areas. So, this company is a
nice business in its own right providing services to the open markets. But we can tap into this
resource for our needs in the future. We do intend to start drilling next year. Were converting
one of our well operations vessels, the Q4000, to do slimbore drilling. And our sandwich
in-between two drilling presentations was nice to hear earlier that drilling rates continue to
increase almost daily.
So, we think that this asset is going to do well in the open markets but also on our internal
portfolio projects. As of March next year, we intend to drill a couple of our own opportunities,
and then theres sufficient interest in the open market to think that were going to enjoy a nice
feature with this vessel on a combination of outside an internal work. Its a very simple upgrade
designing(?) components to an already established rig. Were going to spend about $35 million on
the exercise.
And as I mentioned earlier, its going to be ready in about March next year. We own stakes in
three production facilities, and we do this to get a nice mid-stream type of turn on the ownership
of the asset. But, as I think this picture shows, we can farm into many of these PUDs and small
reservoirs that tie back into these hubs, and we also do all the contracting work that goes along
with such developments. So, the layers of value in terms of us owning these facilities is very
compelling for us as a company, and I think youll us do more of these deals in the future. Our
first facility, Marco Polo, should be pretty much full by the end of this year with an
additional seven wells coming on stream, and our second facility, the independent sub(?), will
start producing in the first quarter next year.
We do have a full suite of construction assets for deep water and shallow water. In the deep
water area, we concentrate on pipelay mainly and robotic intervention where they get to tie back
reservoir developments. And we think were the market leader in the gulf of Mexico in that area.
That business is growing very nicely with the pickup in prospects being drilled and also the number
of trees that have been deployed in the deep water Gulf of Mexico. In the shallow water we doubled
the size of our suite last year through the acquisitions of Stolt and Torch assets just when the
hurricanes were sweeping through the Gulf of Mexico.
So, that fleet of assets is doing extremely well right now and is pretty much booked up
through next year as are our deep water assets. So, all of these construction assets have a pretty
good battle(?), at least 80(?) months, as we stand here today. Finally, on services, were the
market leader in well intervention. We compete with drill rigs here providing welling based well
intervention, and those drill rigs are mostly drilling holes in the grounds. Were pretty much
freed up to pursue this business on a kind of market leadership basis.
Again, the Q4000 and the Seawell are good backlogs. We are holding some space open to do some
drilling next year with the Q4000. But the Seawell is pretty much booked right through next year.
Turning to the second strand (Pause) must be operator error, Im afraid. Oil gas production. We
started producing 14 years ago. So, were no novices in this business, and we learned a few things
along the way. I think, one of the key things is to extract maximum value as a company, you need
to be the operator. We are the operator on all our mature properties, and we manage to squeeze a
lot of costs and reserves out of those declining assets.
But we found in deep water, when we started moving into that area four years ago that we could
only pick up minority stakes by offering promoted positions. So, in other words, we were taking a
disproportionate share of the risk and the cost in order to take a minority stake in prospects.
Weve been pretty successful at that. But its not the best value proposition for us as a company.
So, in January we decided to get into prospect generation and exploration linked to our own ability
to drill wells. So, we acquired Remington Oil and Gas. And you know, this is a big move for us as
a company, a $1.4 billion acquisition. So, its got a lot of attention.
So, Im going to just focus a couple of minutes on why we did that. Firstly, we doubled our
production and we doubled our reserve base. At the end of 05 we got over 500 BCFE of
reserves compared to 116 BCFE at the end of 04. So, we really managed to add reserves here. Double
our production, were expecting post Remington Exploration and acquisition production to be around
$250 million a day. And we managed to do all that while preserving our mix of oil and gas and the
ratio of PDP to PUDs. So, were pretty pleased with our combination on a proven basis.
The real reason we went after Remington Exploration and convinced them to be acquired was
that we see a lot of volume in their prospects. Now, theyve got almost four TCF of unrisked
reserves and 150 prospects which, when you risk for geological success and technical success, we
think its going to translate into over a BCF of proven reserves for us. And the key thing is,
were going to do a lot of the contracting work that turns these prospects into production. You
know, weve got 19 wells, 12 of which we can drill with the Q4000. So, by turning these prospects
into reality, were going to generate over a billion dollars of contracting work for our fleet.
Now, we regard that as backlog. You know.
We dont have to rely totally on the external market for that work. Its there for us to do at
the time of our own choosing. When you think this year that our total service revenue is going to
be 700 million, this represents over a year-and-a-half of work for us that we can do any time we
want. So, the proven reserves have value. The prospects have value. But also the contracting work
made this a great deal for us. The other good thing about Remington prospects in deep water was
that theyre not a wildcatter in remote areas.
All their prospects are close to existing clients and also to existing infrastructure. So, we
believe that, you know, weve got a higher chance of success in turning these into reserves and
also we can very quickly develop them. Many of them we can probably develop within a year of
exploration. So, the cash will come back very quickly from this portfolio. So, post Remington, as
I mentioned before, you know, pretty good production, five times the reserve base we had at the end
of 04, interests in over 30 deep water fields and combined risk reserves of 1.4 BCF combined with
our own properties and over a billion dollars in contracting work.
Just to finish up. Production. We do hedge. Fifty percent of our PDPs. Weve got some good
hedges in place for this year and the first quarter next year. And in the merger agreement,
Remington agreed to put hedges in place. And if you look at their filings, youll see what theyve
done in that respect. Just handle the two weight for financials.
Wade Pursell: Thank you, Martin. Everyone in here knows that the energy business is very
cyclical. Right? Well, our two-stranded model has allowed us to consistently grow revenue line
over the last ten years, as Martin said, to the tune of 36 percent compounded annually. Nice linear
growth lines from 95 to 02, and then more exponential from 02 through 06. I like to point out,
back in 2001, we were pretty proud to top 200 million for the first time and in 05 in the fourth
quarter our contracting services alone topped 200 million for the quarter. More important, the
bottom line. This slide shows a similar growth line at the net income line. Back in 2004 we did
80 million of net income, and if you look ahead to 2006, based on our guidance, well easily double
that and, more likely, triple that number. We generate a lot of cash flow as reflected by the
EBITDA.
If you look back in 04, we did 240 million; then, last year, over 350 million; and then in
2006, well do over half a billion in EBITDA. However, our most important metric return on capital
invested we said is a corporate goal ten to 15 percent, and thats an after-tax return on capital.
You see back in 2002, 2003, we fell below our target that was on the heels of our 850 million
capital investment program, including the Q4000 and other investments.
We were a little too early to the party. You see by 2004 the party caught up to us. And we got
back in front of our hurdle. And then in 2005, you know, were up about 20 percent after the last
quarter which, you know, put the full year 05 up to 17 percent, and I look for 2006 to be even
better than that. This is an interesting side. I guess, with the Remington transaction a lot of
people have accused us of selling our soul to ENP. Hopefully, you heard from the stories this
afternoon, thats not the case, and just looking at this slide real quick, you see the pie chart in
the middle is 2006. Obviously, its heavily weighted to the oil and gas production side, because
that includes the cash component for the Remington acquisition. But if you look at the four years
preceding and then look at our projected next three years its more of a balanced mix of capital
between the oil and gas production and the contracting services.
At the end of 2005, the 433 million of total debt made up primarily of two pieces, some
convertible notes, 20 year maturity, and then the green box being (Inaudible) facility. Both of
those facilities, the interest is fixed at a blended rate of 3.75 percent. So, at the end of 05,
it represented a debt to equity of 40 percent and a debt to trailing EBITDA of 1.3 times. Looking
ahead, for the financing, for the cash portion of the Remington acquisition, we have a senior
credit facility that will be coming in.
That facilitys already been committed to and underwritten. Itll be 813 million. So, our
total debt, nearly 1.3 billion. And this will happen in, you know, May, June time frame, and at the
time of closing, I project, with all of that debt, our debt to trailing EBITDA will be about two
times, two-to-one. But also important to note, the amortization levels on all of these debt
facilities are very favorable such that coming out of the gate, well have a total debt service
coverage ratio of nearly ten times. So, every year, as a management team, weve set goals for
ourselves, and then kind of set up a report card as we go through the years, report back on how
were doing in those areas.
This is our objectives for 2006. Obviously, excluding any specifics relating to Remington.
See, in the contracting services we have a target of 650 to 750 million. That compares to, I think,
550 million for 2005. Margins. Weve projected 25 to 35 percent. I think were going to achieve
that quite handily. That compares to 26 percent in 05. Equity and earning. This relates just to
the contribution from the Marco Polo production facility. Were hoping from 27 to 32 million there.
That would be an increase from 11 million in 2005.
And then we want to achieve (Inaudible) on the independent side by the end of the year. We
would also like to be in construction on the new production facility during the year. In the oil
and gas production area, again, excluding Remington, our projection for the total production is 44
to 47 BCF equivalent. We had a goal of beginning production on at least one of our deep water
cuts(?) during the year. And then we want to make our first acquisition in the North Sea. The
financial side, our earnings guidance for the year is 230 to 330 per share. Thats an increase from
$1.86 from 2005. And then, last but certainly not least, we have an objective of keeping our
incident rate below 1.8.
Something weve added to our presentation is were going to start doing a rolling lookback of
whats going on recently over the last six months and then well give you some more specifics
objective to look for over the next 12 months. Here are the highlights from the last six months.
Obviously, its been very busy for the last six months, consolidating the shelf diving businesses,
adding a (Inaudible) vessel, the Caesar, and announcing the (Inaudible) drilling. Here, on the
production side, obviously, the announcement of the Remington oil and gas acquisition.
Big events that you can look over the next 12 months, Im not going to read through this list.
Its just included for you to kind of look at and maybe refer back to as we move through the
next 12 months. But obviously, its a very exciting time to be in the business. Its a very
exciting time to be at Helix. And these are some of the events that we look forward to over the
next year. That concludes our presentation. Thank you (Applause).
(END OF TAPE)