Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here. Hello, my name is Dustin, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome you to the Third Quarter 2025 Helix Energy Solutions Group Earnings Conference Call. I will now turn the conference over to Brent Arriaga.

Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today on our conference call, where we will be reviewing our third quarter 2025 earnings release. Participating on this call for Helix today are Owen Kratz, our CEO; Scotty Sparks, our COO; Erik Staffeldt, our CFO; Ken Neikirk, our General Counsel; Daniel Stewart, our Vice President, Commercial; and myself. Hopefully, you've had an opportunity to review our press release and the related slide presentation released last night. If you do not have a copy of these materials, both can be accessed through the Investor Relations page on our website. The press release and slides can be accessed under the News and Events tab. Before we begin our prepared remarks, Ken Neikirk will make a statement regarding forward-looking information. Ken?

During this conference call, we anticipate making certain projections and forward-looking statements based on our current expectations and assumptions as of today. Such forward-looking statements may include projections and estimates of future events, business or industry trends or business or financial results. All statements in this conference call or in the associated presentation other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements and are made under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Our actual future results may differ materially from our projections and forward-looking statements due to a number of and variety of risks, uncertainties, assumptions and factors, including those set forth in Slide 2 of our presentation and our most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and in our other filings with the SEC. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and we do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statement. We disclaim any written or oral statements made by any third party regarding the subject matter of this conference call. Also during this call, certain non-GAAP financial disclosures may be made. In accordance with the SEC rules, the final slides of our presentation provide reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP financial measures. These reconciliations, along with this presentation, the earnings press release, our annual report on Form 10-K and a replay of this broadcast will be available under the Investors section of our website. Please remember that information on this conference call speaks only as of today, October 23, 2025, and therefore, you are advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of any replay of this call. Scott?

Thanks, Ken, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today, and we hope everybody is doing well. This morning, we will review our third quarter highlights, financial performance and operations. We'll provide our view of the current market and update our guidance for the remainder of 2025. Our teams offshore and onshore safely delivered another well-executed quarter. Our safety statistics continue to remain among our best on record. Moving on to the presentation. Slides 6 and 7 provide a high-level summary of our results and key highlights for the quarter. Our third quarter results were better than expected, producing our highest quarter results since 2014 despite the continued low-cost stacking of the Seawell and the lower utilization of the Q4000 in the Gulf of America. Revenues in the third quarter were $377 million, with a gross profit of $66 million and a net income of $22 million compared to $302 million in revenue, $15 million in gross profit and a net loss of $3 million in Q2. Adjusted EBITDA was $104 million for the quarter, and we had positive operating cash flow of $24 million, resulting in positive free cash flow of $23 million. Year-to-date, we have generated revenues of $957 million, gross profit of $109 million and a net income of $23 million with adjusted EBITDA of $198 million. Our cash and liquidity remain strong with increased cash and cash equivalents of $338 million and increased liquidity of $430 million at quarter end. Highlights for the quarter include Brazil operating 3 vessels with strong utilization, all 6 trenches and all 3 IROV Boulder grabs working in the quarter, improved results in the Gulf of America Shelf following a later start to the season, execution of a 3-year contract with a minimum 150-day commitment for the key units in the Gulf of America and our entry into a 4-year agreement with NKT for the installation, operation, project engineering and maintenance of the T3600 designed to be the world's most powerful subsea trencher to be operated from one of our trench and support vessels. Over to Slide 9. Slide 9 provides a more detailed review of our segment results and segment utilization. In the third quarter, we continued to operate globally with minimal operational disruption with operations in Europe, Asia Pacific, Brazil, the Gulf of America and the U.S. East Coast. Slide 10 provides further detail of our Well Intervention segment. The Q5000 achieved high utilization working in the Gulf of America in Q3. The vessel is currently working on a multi-well program for Shell and should be highly utilized for the remainder of 2025. The Q4000 completed a multi-well P&A campaign in the Gulf of America. And then due to gaps in its schedule, we pulled forward the 2026 planned regulatory docking into 2025 to facilitate a cleaner runway in 2026. During this period of a softer Gulf of America market, we are experiencing some gaps within the schedule in Q4 with lower rate ROV decommissioning projects for a good portion of the remainder of the year prior to returning to contracted works at well intervention level rates in January of 2026. In the North Sea, the Well Enhancer had 100% utilization during the quarter, working for 4 customers. Due to the well-known market turmoil in the North Sea, the Seawell remained warm stacked and is expected to remain warm stacked at a low cost base for the remainder of 2025. In Q3, the Q7000 completed work on numerous wells for Shell on the 400-day decommissioning campaign in Brazil with 100% utilization. The SH1 had 98% utilization working for Trident and the vessel has now completed the Trident contract and is currently undergoing inspections and acceptance prior to commencing its 3-year Petrobras contract. ESH II had a very strong quarter with 100% utilization for Petrobras. And the stand-alone 15K IRS system was on hire in Brazil contracted to SLB for the quarter, achieving 100% utilization. Moving to Slide 11. Slide 11 provides further detail of our Robotics business. Robotics had a strong quarter. The business performed at high standards, operating 7 vessels during the quarter, working between trenching, ROV support and site survey work on renewables and oil and gas-related projects globally. Robotics worked 6 vessels on renewables-related projects within the quarter and had strong vessel utilization overall with 3 vessels working on trenching projects and 3 vessels working on site clearance. All 6 trenches and all 3 IROV boulder grabs were utilized. We operated 3 vessel trenching spreads in Europe, including the GCIII and the North Sea Enabler with jet trenches and the JD Assister with the i-Plough. The Glomar Wave and the Trym support vessel were working on renewables site clearance utilizing the IROV boulder grabs in Europe. The Shelia Bordelon completed renewables works on the U.S. East Coast, utilizing our third IROV boulder grab prior to transitioning back to the Gulf of America, where she is currently undertaking ROV support works. Also in renewables, we have the T1400-1 trencher working on a longer-term contract from a third-party client-provided vessel in Taiwan and the T-1400-2 working from a third-party client-provided vessel for a longer-term contract in the Mediterranean. The GCII in the Asia Pacific region performed oil and gas support work offshore Thailand during the quarter. Our renewables and trenching outlook remain very robust with numerous sizable contracted works in 2025 and 2026 through to 2030 with a solid pipeline of tender activity as far out as 2032. Slide 12 provides detail of our shallow water abandonment business. In Q3, activity levels increased with 100% utilization for the Hedron heavy lift barge and strong utilization for the dive vessels and liftboats. In Q3, we had a higher number of P&A spreads working offshore, totaling 790 days of utilization compared to 614 days in Q2. Whilst 2025 continues to be a soft year on the Gulf of America shelf, we continue to believe in the long-term outlook for this segment as our agent customers look to reduce their decommissioning obligations. So in summary, whilst we have seen a softer-than-expected U.K. intervention market and some gaps in the latter half of the year for the Q4000, we are encouraged by our strong Robotics and Brazil segments. We expected Q3 to be a very strong quarter, and it was. We executed it well, producing our highest resulting quarter since 2014. I'd like to thank our employees for their efforts, delivering again safely at a high level of execution and for again securing a further backlog and long-term contracts. I'll now turn the call over to Brent.

Thanks, Scotty. Moving to Slide 14. It outlines our debt instruments and key balance sheet metrics as of September 30. At quarter end, we had $338 million of cash and availability under the ABL facility of $94 million with resulting liquidity of $430 million. Our funded debt was $315 million, and we had negative net debt of $31 million at quarter end. Our balance sheet is strong and is expected to strengthen further as we anticipate generating meaningful free cash flow in the fourth quarter and have minimal debt obligations between now and 2029. I'll now turn the call over to Erik for a discussion on our outlook.

Thanks, Brent. Our team performed well in the quarter. It's been a challenging year, but our Q3 results provide a glimpse into our earnings potential even with 2 of our larger assets negatively impacting results. As we enter Q4, we do expect seasonal impacts to our operations, particularly in the North Sea, Gulf of America Shelf and APAC. That said, we are tightening our guidance on certain key financial metrics in our forecast. Revenues of $1.23 billion to $1.29 billion. EBITDA, $240 million to $270 million. We have narrowed our EBITDA guidance. Our new range reflects our year-to-date actual results and the expected variability that comes with the winter season during the fourth quarter. Free cash flow a range of $100 million to $140 million. The range continues to reflect the variability in working capital, specifically timing of accounts receivable with 2 of our blue-chip customers. We expect to have this resolved by early 2026. From capital expenditures, we are maintaining our forecast at $70 million to $80 million. Our spend continues to be a mix of regulatory maintenance on our vessels and fleet renewal of our robotics ROVs. Our spend is committed, but deliveries may slip into 2026. These ranges involve some key assumptions and estimates and any significant variation from these assumptions and estimates could cause results to fall outside these ranges. As discussed, our fourth quarter results will be impacted by the winter seasonal weather in the Northern Hemisphere. The variability in our fourth quarter guidance range is dependent on the length and extent of operations working into the season, namely in the North Sea well Intervention and Robotics business in our Asia Pac robotics operations and in the Gulf of America shelf. Providing some key assumptions for the remainder of the year by segment and region, starting on Slide 16. In Gulf of America, the Q5000 is contracted through the remainder of the year with expected strong utilization. The Q4000 will have gaps in its schedule as it looks to perform lower revenue ROV support work prior to resuming well intervention work in January. In the U.K. North Sea, the Well Enhancer has work into November with the extent of the season being weather dependent. The Seawell continues in warm stack. In Brazil, the Q7000 continues working for Shell into Q2 2026. The Siem Helix 2 continues working for Petrobras. The Siem Helix 1 completed its work for Trident. The vessel is currently mobilizing for Petrobras with work expected to start this quarter. Moving to our Robotics segment. Our Robotics segment will be affected by seasonality with activity levels in the North Sea and APAC expected to diminish in the winter months. In the APAC region, the Grand Canyon II is providing ROV support and hydraulic stimulation offshore Thailand and Malaysia with expected strong utilization. In the North Sea, the Grand Canyon II and the North Sea Enabler are performing trenching projects and are expected to remain utilized for the remainder of the year. The Glomar Wave is forecasted to remain on-site clearance operations into December. In the U.S., the Shelia Bordelon is back in the Gulf, providing ROV support into November with potential for further work. Moving to production facilities. The HP I is on contract for the balance of '25 with no expected change. We do have expected variability with production as the Drosky field continues to deplete and the Thunder Hawk field is still shut in. Continuing with shallow water abandonment, we expect the business to decline in line with the winter weather arrival in the Gulf of America. Our outlook range includes variability depending on the timing and extent of the winter season. Shelf decommissioning is a call-off business, but given customers' needs and continued reversion of properties through bankruptcies, long term, we believe in the solid foundation for this market. Slide 17, reviewing our balance sheet. Our funded debt stands at $315 million with no significant maturities. Our year-to-date share repurchase spend stands at $30 million, in line with our stated target of minimum 25% of our expected free cash flow with 4.6 million shares acquired. At this time, I'll turn the call back to Owen for a discussion on our outlook beyond 2025 and for closing comments.

Thanks, Erik. Let me start by sharing some macro observations about Helix's position in the current market. As we all know, the oil and gas market operates in cycles, influenced by various segments and regions. The exploration and drilling cycle typically kicks off the offshore oil and gas investment cycle, often during periods of high commodity prices or supply-demand imbalances. This was the case as markets recovered after COVID. Following the exploration and drilling phase comes the development cycle, which usually begins approximately two years later. I believe we are currently in this development phase. While drilling activity shows some softness, it is supported by consolidation and a strong commitment to capital discipline compared to previous cycles. The subsea construction market, on the other hand, is currently robust. As production from drilling and development ramps up and commodity prices fluctuate, capital expenditure budgets often get trimmed, redirecting funds towards operating expenses and well intervention, initiating the production enhancement cycle. Without delving into regional variations, we view the industry as entering a strong early development cycle. This situation has led to elevated vessel charter rates and asset values, while production enhancement activity remains stable. Abandonment efforts are increasing due to regulatory pressures, the aging of reserves, and a backlog of concerns regarding liabilities. Overall, we believe we're experiencing a trough, but we're on the verge of an up cycle. As the market advances, it will transition to the production enhancement cycle, and we are poised to benefit from this shift. In navigating this trough, we have faced three challenging areas in our business for 2025. First, the U.K. North Sea, where government tax policies and regulatory changes, combined with mergers and acquisitions, caused a sudden slowdown in spending early in 2025. We expect 2026 to be slightly better, allowing us to bring back a second vessel, although competition will remain tough and work will still be slow. By 2027, we foresee a significant increase in abandonment work as producers exit the region and remaining companies seek to reduce liabilities. Second, regarding the Q4000, we anticipate improved work visibility in the Gulf of America for 2026 compared to the deferrals that plagued early 2025. There is a risk of further deferrals or cancellations; therefore, we are considering a campaign in West Africa for part of 2026, although we already have contracts in place for the Gulf of Mexico in Q1. As Scotty mentioned, we've expedited a drydock that was originally scheduled for 2026 to the softer market of 2025, increasing availability for deployment. This should enhance our U.S. well operations results year-on-year. By 2027, we expect greater demand in the Gulf of America driven by both production enhancements and abandonment activity. Third, our belief remains strong regarding the shallow water abandonment market in the Gulf of Mexico. We have adjusted our business accordingly and have been delivering better results. We anticipate that 2026 will be an improved year, albeit still slow, with more work available, yet at reduced rates due to competitive pressures. There are indications that the volume of work from properties affected by bankruptcy will increase significantly in 2027, signaling a robust market. We're pleased with the performance of our Robotics group this year, as we're seeing modest rate increases and strong work visibility, establishing our position as a global leader in trenching and supporting construction and wind farm projects. Despite the challenges of 2025, we achieved our highest quarterly EBITDA since 2014 and remain on track for meaningful free cash flow. While our 2025 results may fall short of our initial expectations, we still see strong earnings potential. Looking ahead to 2026, our challenge will be to manage pricing pressures amid rising supply chain and labor costs. It's crucial that we maintain our focus on managing costs effectively. With the strong subsea construction and robotics markets, we are experiencing upward pressure on material and labor costs. Our focus next year will be on OpEx and marine cost savings, which we see as a significant opportunity. Additionally, we anticipate better EBITDA contributions from Q7, provided we can keep it active in Brazil without transferring it between regions at higher costs. However, we have both SH vessels in Brazil scheduled for their 5-year special surveys next year, and the associated out-of-service costs could impact the expected improvements; we'll assess this as we refine our budget. Beyond these challenges, our balance sheet remains strong, showing negative net debt and a substantial cash position, enabling us to consider growth opportunities through acquisitions. We remain a leader in intervention, decommissioning, and robotics. Throughout these market cycles, we have showcased our resilience and our ability to deliver results in a difficult environment while positioning ourselves for future success. Back to you, Erik.

Thanks, Owen. Operator, at this time, we'll take any questions.

Owen, congratulations on a successful quarter. It was encouraging to see the potential of the company. I have a question regarding the Q4000. You mentioned some challenges it encountered in 2025, particularly customer decisions to defer or cancel. You also pointed out the strong visibility in Q1. What should we be considering moving forward? There seems to be a lot of optimism for the outlook in 2026, but one concern is whether we might see some customers postponing work again. How are you planning for mid-2026 regarding the factors that might influence these decisions to proceed with work or potentially delay it for another quarter or two?

I'll start and then Scotty can provide more details. In this volatile market, there's always a chance that producers will alter their planned spending. As we engage in the budgeting process, we mainly collaborate with the operating groups to identify the work and begin to develop our schedule for the upcoming year. However, it is possible for corporate to become involved during this process and change those plans, although this doesn't always happen. We were caught off guard this year and are still adjusting. We anticipated that the Gulf of America could be slow in 2025, which led us to take a contract that was originally intended to be a six-month agreement in West Africa. That project ended up being shortened, so we returned to the Gulf slightly earlier, only to confront budgeting decisions that deferred work out of 2025, which caught us unprepared. We didn't foresee this. Looking ahead to 2026, we face a similar situation, but I believe we have better visibility for the work in '26 compared to '25. The work has been deferred once, which reduces the likelihood of it being deferred again. However, as I mentioned earlier, we can't completely dismiss that possibility, which is why we're also considering mitigating that risk by pursuing another campaign in West Africa this year.

Yes. I'll add to that. Thanks, Owen. We have a sizable contract to kick off in very early January that will get us going for a good start of the year. And then we are at high-level discussions with many operators about works into 2026 in the Gulf of America. One of the reasons we brought forward the regulatory dry docking from '26 into '25 is if we do take a West Africa campaign, it would be very difficult to do the docking in the Africa region. And we're also starting to have discussions about potential works in Guyana as well. So a few other workplaces have opened up for us, and we're looking at regional options as well. And you have to also remember, we're not a rig. You never hear of rigs going off and doing construction or decommissioning support work. We're quite a versatile unit. All those rates are lower, we can go off and do other works if the well intervention work doesn't come to us.

Yes, that was very helpful. I have a follow-up question regarding shallow water abandonment. We believe the market will improve over time. Could you elaborate on your expectations for 2026? You mentioned there might be an increase in activity, albeit at reduced rates. I'm curious if you can provide more details on that comment.

2023 was a stronger year as Apache effectively utilized all the available capacity in the market, leading to record-high rates and utilization. In 2024, when they exited the market, competitors added capacity, which worsened the situation and created a period of excess supply relative to demand. We believe this trend will persist into 2025. Our response in 2024 was not optimal; we anticipated a quicker recovery, but regulations allowed producers to postpone their work for up to three years, which hindered the rebound we expected. Looking ahead to next year, we are noticing an increase in work volume, even though competitors have increased their capacity. Therefore, 2026 is likely to remain a highly competitive year regarding margins, though our utilization should remain strong. By 2027, we expect the hiatus to end, and the shallow water abandonment market should return to a more normal state following these boomerang properties, resulting in a significantly stronger market by that time.

Okay. To clarify, it seems that even though there has been some softness in operations over the past year or two for SWA, there were competitors that may have added capacity. Did they shift that capacity to the U.S., or was it just new developments in the market?

No, it was incremental spreads that were actually fabricated and put into the market. The big bottleneck in that market is actually the people. So whoever has the work sort of gets the people. We came up short in 2024. And because of our competition bidding lower rates, the people sort of moved away from us. Throughout this year, we've been very successful in getting the people to come back to us, and we've increased our utilization, of course, by cutting rates. So I think we're pretty well positioned going into next year to be a strong competitor in the market.

I was hoping you could help me understand the transition from the third quarter to the fourth quarter in Subsea Robotics. It seems like there will be some Q4 seasonality. However, it looks like all vessels will be utilized to some extent, although the number of vessel days might be slightly lower. If I interpret your slides correctly, you had all six trenchers operational in the third quarter, but only four in the fourth quarter. Is that accurate? Could you provide a high-level overview of the expected sequential drop for Subsea Robotics?

So we did have 6 trenches working in the third quarter. We will drop down to eventually 4 trenches in the fourth quarter. The trencher that's currently working in Taiwan, that will get seasonal, once the weather kicks in, that will get demobilized. However, we are expecting work in Taiwan again for T1400-1 next year. The North Sea trenches, they should be relatively busy through the quarter. But again, you will start getting affected by seasonal weather, which will bring down rates. And then the i-Plough that was on the JD Assister, that project has come to a close in Q3. So that will not be utilized in Q4.

Scotty, when you said it will bring down rates, did you mean bring down utilization? Or do rates also soften in the fourth quarter?

Generally, when we're trenching, we have an operational full rate and then there's a lower weather rate. We still get paid for weather, but it'll be at lower rates. So there'll be less trenches utilized. And as the weather kicks in, there'll be some lower rate coming in.

Understood. Understood. Guys, in the North Sea, I think there were 2 large tenders. Is there an update there? Were you unsuccessful? Or we just haven't heard anything? Or what's the update there?

We're very active on both of those tenders. One of them, there's a lot of technical clarifications going on. And the other one, I'd say we're in quite a good position for. We're just not in a position yet to bring that out to the market, but it's in a good place. I think that next year will be turning into activating the Seawell again at some point. We don't know if it will be a full year or a partial year, but it's looking more and more likely we will activate the Seawell in 2026. We just don't know for what length of time yet.

Okay. That's where I was heading with that. Lastly, I need a quick clarification. Regarding the well intervention contract you announced with a minimum of 150 days, is that a total of 150 days over three years, or is it 150 days each year?

No, the minimum commitment over the 3 years is 150 days. However, in 2026, we're starting that contract with significant work for the kick off for the Q4000.

Like everyone else had great quarter here. So really strong showing for robotics in 3Q and reading the forward commentary. It looks like that should continue to be solid going forward. Just wondering if you could give a high-level overview next year, what you're thinking about 2026 robotics versus what we saw in 2025?

I think we should see a strong year in robotics for 2026. It should be at least be on par with what we have for 2025. We're expecting a strong trenching season in the Mediterranean, the North Sea and in Taiwan. The site clearance market is looking quite robust for next year as well. So I expect to at least be on par, if not better, as we go into 2026. Our trenching rates will certainly have some very large contracts in place at better rates in 2025. So it should be another good year for robotics.

We've seen some positive developments on that front that leads us to question whether or not an intervention will actually be necessary, but it's still early days, and we don't know. We have plans that are already submitted into BSEE for what the various optionality of work going forward to get it back online. Our anticipation, though, is that we should have it back online at least by some point in the first quarter.

First question, you noted rising supply chain costs moving forward into 2026. Where are you seeing the most pressure? And could you just talk about how you're mitigating those increases?

We're seeing rising cost pressures across the board actually, it began with labor costs. They went up for this year. I don't see any reprieve from the labor costs, but also on the materials and supply side and delivery through the supply chain, we're seeing escalating costs. So those are areas where we're going to really be focusing on trying to mitigate the cost. And that's just working with our suppliers, maybe consolidating our supplier base and just putting a little pressure on achieving a little bit of a margin gain there.

Okay. And then I wanted to talk about pricing for well intervention. So although deepwater rig rates have come down for incremental contracts from where we were sort of last summer, there's still a gap between where your assets can work and sort of seventh gen drilling assets. So I'm curious if you've seen any change in pricing discussions you're having on the intervention side? Or is securing backlog just more at this point about stacking programs on top of one rather than really a price-led discussion?

It is also a price-led discussion. We have seen downward pressure on our rates similar to what the drillers have experienced in the marketplace. Having said that, we are also able to tier our rates. So we have well intervention rates. We have rates for carrying out construction support projects and ROV support projects during times of lower utilization of well intervention and similar, but we have seen downward pressure.

We do have backlog in Brazil on longer-term contracts and for the Q5000 as well at set rates similar to and better than what we have in this year. And it's also a bit of a regional play. Sort of we might have a softness for the Q4000, the Q5000 is tight, but then the rates in the North Sea will be dependent on whether or not we can activate the second vessel. So you might see a bit of rate pressure there trying to get the second vessel into the market. Yes. I mean, we have to see in Helix 1 and 2, both on the Petrobras contracts, they're going to be for 3 years plus options. The Q7000 is on a good contract with Shell. We would hope that there's some extensions there. But then we're also starting to see quite a bit of interest in the Brazil market for the Q7000 with Shell. I would say Brazil in general, not just for us, but for the rigs, is the most buoyant market out there at this time. So we're quite confident of keeping our position.

Thanks for joining us today. We very much appreciate your interest and participation and look forward to having you on our fourth quarter 2025 call in February. Thank you.

The meeting has now concluded. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.