The Market Online speaks with AKITA Drilling CEO, Colin Dease & CFO, Darcy Reynolds as AKITA announces first quarter results with net income of $8.6 million.
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00:00Welcome to The Watchlist. I'm Lindsay Melchick.
00:08Akita Drilling has continued their momentum from Q4 into Q1 of 2025,
00:13announcing more than three times the net income over Q1 of last year at $8.6 million.
00:19Now joining us to delve further into all of this is Colin D., CEO and Darcy Reynolds, CFO.
00:25Well, hello to you both. It's great to have you back.
00:28Thanks for having us, Lindsay.
00:30So let's actually just dive right into things then.
00:32Colin, we're going to start with you.
00:34From an operational standpoint, how was the company able to achieve these results
00:38and what do you see for the remainder of the year?
00:42Yeah, thanks, Lindsay.
00:43I would say strong activities was the clear answer how we achieved our Q1 results.
00:49For the first time since we acquired extreme drilling in the U.S.,
00:53we had strong activity in both divisions.
00:55That started in Q4 of last year and it continued into Q1.
01:00So strong activity led to our strong results in the first quarter.
01:05Looking through the balance of the year,
01:08I'm more comfortable with Canadian activity post-breakup.
01:13The U.S. has a little bit more uncertainty to it,
01:16but I'm optimistic that the strong performance we've established in the first quarter
01:21will lead us to further opportunities over the balance of the year.
01:25All right.
01:26Now, Darcy, I'm going to flip this over to you now.
01:28Where do you stand on the debt repayment?
01:30I mean, what will allow you to improve on that in the coming quarters?
01:32So we're on track right now.
01:37We didn't make any debt repayments in Q1, which is as expected.
01:41We typically have a working capital build in the first quarter,
01:44and that's released in the second quarter with the spring breakup hitting Canada.
01:49And that's usually when we make our first debt repayment,
01:51and that's the plan this year as well.
01:55How are we going to keep doing that?
01:56That's kind of to Colin's point.
01:58Keeping activity up, keeping our rates up,
01:59is how we're going to keep paying down debt.
02:03Keeping with the uncertainty in the second half of the year
02:05and the uncertainty facing the whole industry, really,
02:07that kind of really highlights why we've been focusing on debt repayment so much
02:14over the last two years, cutting our debt in half over that time.
02:17Things can change quickly and change for the worse,
02:19so having a strong balance sheet is simply a must in this industry.
02:24Well, this is all really great news,
02:25and it looks like the work that you're doing is really starting to pay off,
02:28so it's always a joy speaking to both of you,
02:30and thank you again for joining us.
02:33Thank you, Lindsay.
02:35Again, that was Colin D., CEO and Darcy Reynolds, CFO of Akita Drilling.
02:39Flip over to their website at akita-drilling.com
02:42and stay right here on stockhost.com for all of your market news.
02:45I'm Lindsay Melchuk.