Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to SBO's conference call on the results for the first quarter of 2026. My name is Judit Helenyi, and I would like to thank you for joining us today.

We appreciate your interest in SBO. Before we begin, let me briefly cover a few organizational points.

This conference will be recorded and made available to the public. The presentation will be held in listen-only mode, followed by the Q&A session.

Please note our disclaimer, which you can find at the beginning of the presentation. Today's presentation will be given by the SBO Executive Board: Klaus Mader, CEO, and Campbell MacPherson, COO.

With that, we are ready to start. Klaus, the floor is yours.

Judit, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome also in the name of the Executive Board.

As usual, I'm doing this call together with Campbell MacPherson, our Chief Operating Officer. Today, we will talk about the business highlights in the first quarter, the financial performance on a group and segment level, followed by a detailed market outlook, including the implications on our business, and after the presentation, as usual, followed by a Q&A session.

Let me start with the business highlights of the first quarter. Also in the first quarter, we executed on our strategy that is, and you know that already, based on the four pillars: diversification, technology leadership, market expansion, and operational excellence.

All activities within SBO are supporting these four pillars, the long-term strategy that is going to be executed over the next couple of years. The activities in the first quarter, let me start with diversification.

The share of diversified bookings of the group bookings is continuously increasing in additive manufacturing, flow control, but also as well as in geothermal. You may probably have heard about the very successful IPO of Fervo Energy last week in NASDAQ, and we are a strategic supplier to this successful company in enhanced geothermal systems markets.

After the completion of the acquisition 3T Additive Manufacturing, we are doing the next step. We consolidated the additive manufacturing activities in Europe between the facility of 3T Additive Manufacturing in the UK as well as the Austrian facility to Additive Europe, compared to our Additive North America, which is hosted in Houston, to strengthen our market positioning in Europe.

Also in diversification, we advanced the market introduction of the high-performance alloy H720 for the subsea flow control applications. We also took steps in the other three pillars.

To give you one example on market expansion, we progressed in Asia Pacific with new technology applications such as decommissioning, and expanded activities also in sub-Saharan Africa, in Namibia, Gabon, and Cameroon. In technology leadership, we achieved new record results with high-performance motors.

As one example, our [Pico?] Rocket is taking more and more momentum.

In operational excellence, the ramp-up of the reline facility, we talked about that earlier this year, for drilling motors took place. This in-sourcing will reduce the relining costs on the one hand and will increase the availability of downhole drilling motors in the most important market, North America.

Let us now move to the market environment. The market environment changed quite substantially in the first quarter from an oversupply in the year 2025 and also in the first two months to an under-supply as a result of the Middle East conflict, or you call it the Iran War.

Some call it a market disruption, some call it a supply shock, some one of the biggest energy crisis. In the first two months, we still had an oversupply situation, a more positive momentum on the back of a slight uptick in the oil prices, and also the momentum and the developments in Venezuela were the key themes in the first two months.

Since the end of February, the situation changed significantly. The Middle East conflict leads to a supply shock for oil and gas, and this significantly increased prices predominantly for oil.

The volatility remains elevated as long as the Strait of Hormuz is closed, and the volatility is very high, also based on messages that you read with significant increases and decreases of oil prices, depending on the current breaking news. The Strait of Hormuz closure and the damaged infrastructure led also to logistics constraints that we also have been impacted in the first quarter.

We will talk about that. This evolving crisis that takes much longer than anyone anticipated sustains also the market uncertainty.

Campbell is going to discuss that topic in more color in the outlook section as well as the implications on our business. Let us continue with the financial highlights.

The positive news in the first quarter is clearly bookings. You may recall that the bookings already increased in Q4 2025, 10% after the low point in the third quarter, but the Q1 bookings with almost €180 million are 18.5% above the previous quarter, 30% above the Q3, and even 8.5% above the strong quarter in the first quarter of 2025.

This resulted in a promising book-to-bill ratio of 1.2 for the first quarter, and that is definitely the promising and positive momentum that we have seen in the first quarter of this year. The sales, on the other hand, still reflect the lower bookings from the predominantly second half of '25, and you also have to take into consideration when you compare Q1 this year with previous year that Q1 '25 was by far the strongest month in the whole year of '25.

To put it in figures, sales were down 23.7% of the strongest quarter of the previous year as a result of the lower customer demand in Precision Technology, sales deferrals in Energy Equipment, also driven by the Middle East conflict. The weaker US dollar is also something that we need to talk about because you see that the foreign exchange-adjusted decline is 16.5% compared to 23.7%, there is a significant portion also coming from foreign exchange.

The euro-US dollar relation in the first quarter of the previous year was 1.05. This year it was 1.17, and out of the roughly rounded €30 million sales decrease, 1/3 can be contributed, exactly more than €9 million can be contributed just to foreign exchange translation.

As expected, and that's important because we mentioned that back in March, sales and profitability are pretty much in line with Q4 '25, when sales were €97.1 million, similar levels, higher levels we are going to expect as the year continues. The key drivers of the lower EBITDA from €26.4 million to €11.4 million in the previous year, and in EBIT from €18.3 million in the previous year to €2.7 million is predominantly sales-driven: lower sales and lower capacity utilization in Precision Technology, foreign exchange impacts, sales deferrals in the Energy Equipment.

The ramp-up of the reline facility, which is not at full capacity, it's according to plan, but it's not at full capacity yet, and also the weaker US dollar had an impact of about €4 million from translation and transaction. Also here to note, the results were pretty much in line with Q4 '25, when this EBIT was slightly above €3 million, and now it's €2.7 million.

Let me first talk also about bookings because this is the important news. What you see on this very nice chart and graph is the clear trend and the clear signs of a recovery.

After almost two years of decreasing bookings after the record year, after the top of the cycle in the year '23, you see now the trend increasing with the low point, I already mentioned it, €90 million in the third quarter, increasing by 10% to almost €100 million in the fourth quarter, and now almost another 20% in the first quarter of this year. On this chart, you can clearly see the increasing trend and also the increase in backlog.

Backlog at the end of the year was €89 million at the end of the year '25. It stands now at 106 at the end of the first quarter, and these higher bookings will be reflected in higher sales as the year continues.

When we now talk about sales on the segment level, we talked about the sales on a group level already, in Precision Technology, I already mentioned it, the lower customer demand driven by the lower bookings in the second half of the year had an impact of 32.7%, to some extent also foreign exchange-driven. Important to note, it seems like that the bottom has been reached in Precision Technology.

Sales in Q1 were only very slightly, or rounded, even on the same level of the fourth quarter, and we see this trend also continuing in the second quarter. On the level of Energy Equipment, I mentioned it already, the deferred sales, including also two sales from the Middle East that we expected already some time ago, and also the weaker US dollar were driving the sales down from 72 to 58 in the fourth quarter, but in the first quarter of this year, already a slight uptick compared to the previous quarter.

The results follow the sales developments with group EBITDA being at €11.4 million, which is a margin of 11.6%, almost on similar levels to the Q4. The takeaway here on the group level is it's a double-digit EBIT margin of 11.6%, and the EBITDA on similar levels to the previous quarter.

When we talk about the segment level, the main driver, of course, is the lower sales and capacity utilization and the foreign exchange impacts compared to the previous year. Also compared to the previous quarter, the result is slightly lower due to slightly lower sales, and in the fourth quarter in PT, we had foreign exchange gains, this quarter we had foreign exchange losses.

Those are the two drivers of the result in the first quarter being a bit below the previous quarter. On the level of Energy Equipment, it's compared to the previous year predominantly the lower sales and the sales deferrals from the Middle East conflict.

Compared to the previous quarter, we have already seen a slight uptick in rounded figures from €9 million to €10 million, although we have seen in the first quarter sales deferrals and some impacts from the ramp-up of the US reline and distribution center. When we move to the cash flow and the balance sheet, and here the balance sheet remains very excellent, the balance sheet structure.

The cash flow is lower than on the previous year, which is driven and predominantly the result of the lower profit. The same is true for the free cash flow as we also continue to invest in our strategy, such as the purchase of 3D metal printers or some carryover CapEx from the reline facility.

All in all, the balance sheet structure remains very excellent also at the end of Q1. Equity increased from €422 million to €433 million.

This is the result of a stronger US dollar end of March compared to end of December, the closing rates, not the average rate. The strengthening of the US dollar at the end of March to even less than 1.15 had a positive impact of about €11 million on the equity.

Also the cash with 277.4 remains on the very high level of 282 at the beginning of the year. Net debt with less than €83 million to similar levels at the end of 2025 with €78 million.

Also the gearing remains consistently low with a gearing ratio of 19.1%. At the balance sheet and net debt gearing front, not a lot changes till the end of the year, and still in a very solid and excellent structure.

With that information on the financials of the first quarter, I'm going to hand over to Campbell for the market outlook.

Thank you, Klaus. A good morning and afternoon to you, ladies and gentlemen, from my side.

Let's talk about the outlook. The key issue obviously in the near term is clearly the Middle East crisis, which Klaus has already mentioned.

What started as a regional disruption has become a broader market issue, affecting supply, demand, logistics, and ultimately customer activity. The real question now is the timing of recovery.

The slide we have here summarizes scenario assumptions based on the latest IEA Oil Market Report, issued only last week, and we use it here only as external market context. This is not SBO guidance.

The purpose is to show the range of possible outcomes now affecting the market. In the base case, a ceasefire or political agreement would stop the immediate escalation, but it would not normalize the market straight away.

There's I think over 800 ships still stranded either side of Hormuz, shipping routes would take a long time to get back into place, the associated insurance for them to go about their daily business, port schedules, all the associated supply chains, and overall customer activity need a lot of time to recover. They reckon that the earliest that would really happen is into the second half of this year, and I would say towards the back end of that.

Even in this base case, the demand side is already under pressure. The IEA expects global oil demand to contract by around 2.4 million barrels a day in Q2 2026, and by 420,000 barrels a day for the year as a whole, which is 1.3 million barrels below its pre-conflict forecast.

In the risk scenario, if tensions persist and energy flows remain constrained through '26, the market becomes much more dependent on inventory drawdowns, emergency stock releases, and further demand reduction. In that case, demand could contract by as much as 5 million barrels a day, with inventory drawdowns of up to 6 million barrels a day.

Really the focus then shifts from normalization to crisis management. The gas market shows the same issue from another angle.

The IEA points to damage to Qatari LNG infrastructure, delaying expansion by more than two years of projects there. This is a cumulative LNG supply shortfall of around 120 bcms between '26 and 2030, and that's around 15% of expected global LNG supply growth over the period.

That could certainly contribute to a tight market through '26 and into 2027. For us in SBO, the key issue is timing.

If the situation stabilizes, logistics can normalize, and deferred demand can start to convert into sales. If disruption continues, the recovery moves further out.

The market then has to balance through inventory drawdowns, stock releases, more supply from other regions of course, and then further demand reduction rather than through a recovery of normal Middle East flows. I think we all watch the news and you can see where demand reduction is reducing or being reduced in Asia, we're even talking about jet fuel crisis now happening in Europe.

At the same time, the market experts expect oil prices to remain above pre-conflict levels for the time being, which should support continued investment once logistics and customer activity normalize. That's why we remain very constructive on the medium to long term, but slightly cautious on the short term.

The positive point for us, Klaus has already mentioned it, is that bookings are already improving, especially in Precision Technology. Once logistics and customer activity normalize, we have a better starting point for recovery.

Q1 showed a clear improvement in bookings. Klaus already mentioned this, the book-to-bill ratio was 1.2, and this confirms the positive trend that we started to see at the end of '25 has continued into Q1 2026.

Sales and earnings still reflect the low bookings from the second half of last year and the consequent lower capacity utilization, as well as the first logistics-related sales deferrals in the Middle East. Therefore, '26 remains somewhat of a transition year, although recovery signals are now visible.

In Precision Technology, the improvement was really encouraging, both in the core oil and gas market, but particularly in the diversified applications, predominantly in additive manufacturing and also in subsea flow control applications. In Energy Equipment, the opportunities remain attractive through geographic expansion, including Asia, Latin America, Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa, and the ramp-up, as Klaus has mentioned, of the reline and distribution center for our drilling motors to support the US market.

What is also important to add is the booking trend of Q1 has continued so far also into Q2. The message is constructive, but cautious.

The short term remains uncertain. The pace of recovery is still mainly a question of timing: how quickly logistics normalize, how customers restart activity, and how fast deferred activity comes back.

Looking at the mid to long term, well, the mid- to long-term upstream fundamentals absolutely remain intact, as we've said in many previous earnings calls. The disruption has made energy security more important, and that supports the three structural drivers of future demand on this slide.

First, the refill of inventories. The longer the crisis continues, the more commercial and strategic stocks are drawn down, and those stocks will need to be built back up.

Second is diversification of supply. Customers and countries will not want to depend too heavily on one region, one export route, or one choke point.

The Strait of Hormuz disruption has made that very visible. In practical terms, that could mean looking at alternative supply sources.

We've got the US, Latin America, Canada, sub-Saharan Africa, depending on availability and security of export routes. Third is accelerated development of local resources.

Governments and national oil companies will put more emphasis on resources that they can control directly. A really good example of this is Norway, where the focus is on maintaining and developing the Norwegian continental shelf as a secure regional supply source for Europe.

As recent as only yesterday, Norway announced new activity, which includes new licensing rounds, field optimization, and steps to accelerate offshore developments. The point is that Norway is not trying to replace the Gulf, but energy security will push countries to develop and extend resources closer to home, where they have more control over production and export routes.

For SBO, these drivers all translate into activity. Short-term disruption does not weaken the strategic relevance of our core business.

If anything, it reinforces the need for secure supply, resilient infrastructure, and continued investment in technically demanding oil and gas activity. Coming to strategy.

Of course, we really focus and continue to execute on our strategy, and this is now becoming visible in order intake. In Q1 2026, bookings for diverse applications increased significantly, more than doubling on a group level compared to Q1 of '25.

Our diversification focus is of course on our core capabilities. We're not moving away from what SBO is good at, but applying those capabilities into adjacent markets where they are relevant.

In Energy Equipment, we're utilizing existing drilling, completion, and circulation technologies in adjacent energy markets. Geothermal is the clearest example, but we're also seeing applications now in carbon capture and storage, and we've been involved with several projects in lithium and helium drilling.

In Precision Technology, additive manufacturing is becoming a more important growth platform. The market is moving from prototyping towards serial production, and we have our focus on aerospace and defense, space, and the semiconductor industry sectors, including the energy sector, where complex geometry, material performance, and repeatable production are critical.

We're developing this on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, we're expanding our defense manufacturing through Conroe and Schooner.

Defense is really a growing area, and they're adapting the use of additive manufacturing very, very strongly to try and compress their supply chain and their lead time, and a lot of products moving from casting to additive, and a lot more focus on design for additive. In Europe, as Klaus has mentioned, we're creating an Additive Europe platform by bringing 3T Additive Manufacturing in the UK and our Austrian additive manufacturing entity under one coordinated organization.

The entities remain in place, but the market approach becomes stronger, with more depth and breadth, and a clearer European additive manufacturing offering. Flow control and our new material grade H720 follow the same logic.

We're taking this high-performance material coupled with our precision manufacturing capability and applying them into demanding subsea flow control applications. The NORSOK approval of H720 supports that positioning.

For M&A, our approach remains targeted and disciplined and is fully in line with our strategy. We continue to look for acquisitions where they strengthen our core capabilities, support diversification, and of course meet our return expectations.

With that, I'll hand back over to Klaus, who is going to wrap up or close the presentation.

Campbell, thank you so much. I just want to show you a slide that you are all aware of.

In closing the presentation, I simply want to reiterate that we remain on course, on the one hand, by navigating through the current market environment, current market challenges, and also continuing and executing our strategy. Increasing booking trend is definitely promising, with a continuation so far also in the second quarter, what Campbell already mentioned.

The Middle East conflict is currently the elephant in the room, but also this is something that we will overcome because it is not about the if, it's only about the when. Then we will benefit from the already mentioned by Campbell energy security priority, and the mid- and long-term fundamentals for our traditional business will remain and do remain intact.

At the same time, we continue to execute on our growth strategy with promising increases in bookings in terms of diversification, and continue to do those two paths in parallel, namely navigating through the challenges, but also shaping the future. With that, ladies and gentlemen, we close our presentation, and we are looking forward to your questions.

Thank you, Klaus and Campbell, for the presentation. We will now begin the Q&A session.

As a reminder, you have two options. Please raise your hand in the Webex call.

Once I call your name, you may unmute your microphone and ask your question. Alternatively, you can post your question in the online Q&A tool, and I will read it out loud.

We have the first question from Lebacq Baptiste. Baptiste, please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Sorry.

Thanks for your presentation, Klaus and Campbell. Two questions from my side.

The first one is you mentioned the ramp-up of the reline and distribution center in the US. Where are we today?

Are we at the plateau or not? The second question, maybe tricky to have a specific answer, but regarding your backlog, do you have an exposure of this backlog to Middle East clients or countries in terms of percentage?

Or in other words, could you be impacted by some delays in terms of deliveries of equipments in Q2 in this region? Thank you.

Baptiste, good afternoon. Pleasure to have you on the call.

Let me talk about the ramp-up of the reline facility. You may recall it because we discussed it also back in March.

This vertical integration, this in-sourcing of the reline facility, where the motors have been sent to Europe and then sent back, will clearly increase the turnaround times, will improve the asset lifecycle management, and will also reduce dependency on external service providers and increase the availability of the stators in the US. During this ramp-up, and it goes exactly according to plan, the facility did not work at full capacity because we started middle of January, and therefore certain inefficiency losses were incurred, which is normal when you set up and ramp up a facility.

Also kind of the dual sourcing where we got some stators still from Europe and some we did on our own, but as the year progresses, we will come to this full capacity, and then we will have cost savings on the one side because we in-source it, and we also expect sales opportunities on the other side from the improved availability of stators.

On the backlog for the Middle East,

Campbell is taking the question.

Thank you, Klaus. Let me give you some color on the Middle East backlog and sales situation, Baptiste.

Just to remind you, in '25, we generated sales of about €65 million with customers in the Middle East region, equivalent to approximately 14% of group sales. With that, the share is lower in Precision Technology at about 7% and higher in Energy Equipment at 19%.

In Q1 of '26, we generated revenue in the Middle East of approximately €15 million, reflecting 15% of the overall group sales. Again, the allotted amount to Division EE is much higher at 21% versus 7% of PT.

If we come to what are the direct impact that we know of in the Middle East at the moment, with all these logistic constraints and the related uncertainties by customers deferring sales and deferring rental revenue, the effect that we've seen so far in Q1 is at a mid-single-digit million level. This includes higher sales volume project business from tool sales, which was also severely impacted by the ongoing Middle East conflict and couldn't be executed.

The key point is here, these are all deferred revenue. This isn't lost demand.

It isn't demand going away. The bookings and the backlog remain intact, but the timing of the delivery and the rental activity is being pushed out by what's happening in the Middle East.

Hopefully, that's answered your question.

Yes, yes. Thank you very much.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Ms.

Pamela Steingat Titke from Steingat Titke. Please expand on your relationship with Fervo Energy.

How do you expect this relationship to geothermal market opportunity to develop? Thank you.

Can we? All right.

Yeah.

I take it. Okay.

More than welcome to do that. You may recall that we have defined geothermal as one of the diversification strategies, and this is predominantly through the Energy Equipment division.

Also in the last year, we have on geothermal with our motors, rotary steerable tools, circulation tools, but also with our geothermal plugs supported customers in the geothermal business: Mazama, Eavor, but also Fervo. The relationship to Fervo is an ongoing.

You have seen, and I mentioned it already, the very successful IPO. They are talking about significant projects also going forward, and we are supplier to them from the beginning, and therefore we see geothermal, especially enhanced geothermal systems in the US, as a significant growth driver going forward out of the topic of data centers powered by geothermal, a lot of tech companies supporting that initiative, the significant need to ramp up data centers because of the artificial intelligence topic, and therefore we see this as a promising diversification growth area for us.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Richard Dawson, Berenberg.

What was the pace of orders like at the start and the end of Q1? Trying to get a sense of what the impact on bookings was from the Middle East.

What are you seeing so far in Q2? Do you expect booking growth quarter-on-quarter in Q2?

Thank you, Richard, for that question. In terms of the pace of orders from the beginning of the quarter to the end of the quarter, if I look at the statistics that we have overall, it doesn't follow any particular pattern.

Yeah? We more look at it from an overall quarter perspective.

Certainly it was a very good uplift in the bookings that we saw from quarter four in '25 into quarter one, and at the moment the run rate of order intake that we have year-to-date, or at least in this quarter, is matching very similarly to what was seen in the first quarter.

If I even may add to that, because, Richard, I assume that you are also thinking about in a pattern, did since the Middle East conflict the order behavior change? No, not at all.

It continues. This is also what Campbell mentioned, when we talk about the Middle East conflict, it's not lower demand from our customers or cancellations from our customers.

We continue to get orders from the Middle East. It's about the sales deferrals.

The pattern of bookings, say the first two months and then the third month, did not change as a result of this conflict.

Internally in the Middle East, we even saw some still reasonable order activity in the businesses in the UAE and Saudi. Where activity is continuing, particularly in the UAE in land and Saudi on land, we're continuing obviously to get business there as well.

We have an add-on question by Richard that was already given before, but I still pose it as you partially already answered it. Do you see any signs of over-ordering by customers to secure supply given the uncertainties with the Middle East?

Hi, Richard. No, I would say I definitely don't see any situation where we feel that customers are over-ordering at this point in time.

That's pretty clear. Mhm.

Definitely. Definitely not in relation to the situation in the Middle East either.

Thank you. We have a question in the queue by Aleksandar Cinkovic.

Mr. Cinkovic, please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions.

Given your mid-term ambitions and the significant increase in bookings for diversified applications, when should we see some material contributions go to group sales and earnings? More general, are you on track with your expectations?

Another one, when should we see the bookings and backlog with that now recovering, should we see the effects coming more in from Q3 onward, or is this more of a Q4 effect?

If I may take that question, and Campbell, please jump in whenever you want. Diversification, you may remember, we have this target to do 20% of group sales till the end of this decade, and we are clearly on track.

Campbell mentioned that in his presentation, and I also mentioned it at the beginning of the presentation that the diversified bookings are increasing. We had last year in the first quarter a low single-digit percentage number.

This quarter, we had a high single-digit percentage number, we are on track, and this comes from all three streams: additive manufacturing, geothermal, lithium, helium, and carbon capture and storage drilling, and also flow control. We are on track.

In terms of bookings transferred into sales, I would be not that specific, Q3, Q4, I would rather like to say second half of the year. The second quarter, we still definitely have this Middle East conflict, and as long as we are now in the middle of the second quarter, we have this sales deferrals in the second quarter also because the logistics constraints are ongoing.

The promising higher bookings and also the positive booking trend in the first half of the second quarter is something that we should see in the second half of this year.

Okay. Fair enough.

Maybe one follow-up. Is the current situation perhaps affecting your CapEx planning or, if I might phrase it this way, if you experience a broader recovery, how should we think about CapEx for this year?

Let me take that question, and thank you for it. In 2025, we had approximately €50 million of CapEx because we had some significant spend in there for some of our strategic expansion, where that included our facility that we expanded in Vietnam and the reline and distribution center in Houston that we've been talking about.

Therefore, our base load CapEx for 2026 at a normalized level should be closer to 2024 levels, but we continuously explore what opportunities there is to invest in executing on our strategy. As we always say, if the right opportunities are identified to grow either organically or through M&A activities, then we will certainly seize on that.

We don't rule out strategic CapEx even in these economically challenging periods if it's aligned with our strategy and our future growth.

Thank you. Fair enough.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Mr.

Nikolas Kneip, Wiener Privatbank: "Do you already expect the first revenue recovery in Q2, or will this rather be the H2 topic?"

This goes pretty much in line what I just mentioned with the answer from Aleksandar Cinkovic. The elephant in the room is the Middle East conflict and the logistics constraints, at least what we have seen so far in April.

Therefore, I see definitely the recovery more in the second half of the year.

Thank you. Then we have a new question coming from Baptiste Lebacq.

Please go ahead.

Yes, thanks. Just one question regarding the US.

Halliburton in its Q1 results flagged that completion team were fully booked for Q2, clearly maybe acceleration of plugs demands and so on. Do you see already this type of events or, let's say, clients more ready to push the button in today's context and today's oil price environment?

Thank you.

Thank you for the question, Baptiste. A good question.

In relation to our well completions business, we definitely see that there's going to be a continuation and slight growth in the US-related business. Even if you look at the frac spread count as it moved to the month of May, it has increased.

In discussions with our customers, there is definitely a bit more activity. I hasten to say this is not an opening of the taps and flooding the market.

This is very much a stepped and controlled increase in the overall production levels. Because if you look at the drilled uncompleted wells, I think they're at a historic low for several years, there's definitely going to be a bit more activity from the completion side.

I just with caution say it's going to be a gradual step-up, it's not going to be a huge move up.

What we can definitely say, when also listening to market experts on the one hand, but also you mentioned the Halliburton call, Halliburton mentions we see signs of a recovery in North America. Market experts talk about rig count increase in the Permian of maybe 35 to 50 in the second half of the year.

Operators are kind of in the observation mode, but to some extent also prepared to pick up the activity going forward.

Thanks a lot. Very clear.

Thank you, Baptiste.

Thank you very much. Are there any further questions?

Let's give the system some more seconds to process the questions if there are any. As there seem to be no further questions at the moment, please feel free to contact me should any questions arise later.

Now let me hand back to Klaus for his closing statement.

Judit, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, thank you for your interest and participation in today's earnings call.

We appreciated your questions. We appreciated your interest.

We are going to see each other at the latest, and you see it already on the slide, August 20 for the half-year one results, but the one or the other we will clearly see before. Wishing you a nice afternoon and looking forward to seeing you soon.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Klaus and Campbell, for your insights into the business, and thank you to the audience for your questions and interest. With this, we conclude today's conference call.

Thank you for joining us, and goodbye.