Sustainable high dividends and investments

Another round of Aramco suspensions expected

Market sources suggest Saudi Aramco will further reduce its rig count in the coming months through early contract terminations and potentially more suspensions, which would mark the ‘fourth round’ of rig reductions. This follows last month’s request for dayrate discussions (historically, such requests have preceded it suspending rigs). We believe this round could be extensive, affecting c10 jackups out of its current rig count of c57 rigs. At the peak, Aramco had 92 jackups (22% of global demand...

Muted 2025 growth expectations

Following Q1 earnings calls by some of the oil service companies, 2025 outlooks appear more challenging than previously. Baker Hughes expects international upstream spending to decline by mid- to high-single digits, while Halliburton sees its international revenues flat to slightly down. Furthermore, Weatherford expects 2025 international revenue to decline by low double- to mid-double digits. Precision Drilling flagged additional rig suspensions by Saudi Aramco, and SLB highlighted a slow start...

Demand recovery continues to be delayed

Should continue to be the relative winner

ENI capex cut but maintains shareholder returns

Driven by macro headwinds and uncertainty around trade tariffs, ENI was the first large oil company to introduce capex cuts for 2025, contributing to a more challenging business environment for oil services. Over the past five years, we estimate ENI to have been the oil major with strongest offshore spending growth, and it has been considered active and opportunistic while others have been more conservative. Hence, we see its reduction as a soft datapoint for oil services. ENI has optimised its ...

Wallenius Wilhelmsen ASA (Buy, TP: NOK91.00) - Solid value in troublin...

Challenging times for the car carriers is reflected in depressed equity valuations. We believe a considerable backlog to derisk the investment over time, and potential upside on any respite in peaking trade tensions, make for an attractive investment case. We reiterate our BUY, but have cut our target price to NOK91 (115).

US tariffs pressure trade and rates

HMS Networks (Buy, TP: SEK615.00) - Broad-based beat shows promise

Q1 was better than feared on: 1) an intact demand story, with orders beating Visible Alpha consensus by 8%; 2) an inflection point for earnings momentum, with adj. EPS growth for the first time in six quarters; 3) strong FCF easing balance sheet concerns; and 4) we believe it remains well placed for the next industrial automation upcycle and potential reshoring initiatives. We have raised our 2025e EBIT by 4% and our target price to SEK615 (600), and reiterate our BUY.

Appealing, but low visibility

Margin protection in place

Telenor (Sell, TP: NOK140.00) - Q1e slightly below consensus

We have made only limited estimate changes (except for an accounting change for the treatment of write-offs in associates) and are slightly below consensus on Q1e revenues, service revenues, adj. EBITDA, net profit and FCF. With Nordics opex cuts looking set to be back-end loaded this year, we expect Q1 to be a relatively uneventful quarter. We will look for more clarity on lower-quality cash flow tailwinds with regard to Telenor’s ability to cover its dividends with FCF before M&A this year, wh...

USTR port fees watered down; positive for shipping overall, except car...

Another abrupt change

The US Trade Representative on 17 April published revised US port fees with significant changes to the initial proposal based on industry feedback. In its current form, the fees will primarily discourage use of Chinese-controlled maritime trade services to the US, and directly affect the use of Chinese-built vessels in US ports (with several considerable exemptions to avoid harm to US trade). The previous broader fees based on fleet composition and share of Chinese-built vessels has been scrappe...

Welcomed tender from Petrobras

Updates suggest Petrobras yesterday launched a new tender for “one or more” deepwater rigs for the Buzios field starting late-2026/early-2027. As it has been a while since the last Petrobras tender, and there has been uncertainty related to the timing of upcoming tenders, we believe a new Petrobras tender would offer relief for investors. As we count nine rigs already contracted with Petrobras to match the start-up window, we expect the requirement would be filled by rigs already in the country,...

Looking at required day-rates

Although there are several ongoing deepwater tenders, the lack of recent deepwater fixtures has created uncertainty among investors related to day-rates. Consequently, we have analysed the required day-rates to support current share prices and valuations. Given the high operating leverage and multiple variables involved (utilisation, lifetime and cost of capital), we estimate the sector requires 7G drillship day-rates from the mid-USD300k and above to support the current share prices.