During the third quarter, we generated $15 million of cash from operations and reduced our total debt balance by $34 million as we continue to harvest working capital and repatriate excess cash from our foreign subsidiaries.
Benefiting from the strong cash generation over the past two quarters, we reduced our total outstanding debt by $65 million since the start of the year.
Touching on the specifics of the segment results, Fluids Systems posted third quarter 2020 revenues of $68 million, reflecting a 9% sequential decline.
In contrast to a 35% reduction in U.S. rig count, revenues from U.S. land has steadily improved as we progressed through the quarter, increasing 8% sequentially to $30 million.
As we touched on last quarter, our market share in U.S. land has meaningfully expanded in recent months and I'm pleased to highlight that our share has remained above [Phonetic] 20% mark, throughout the third quarter, achieving a record level for Newpark.
In the Gulf of Mexico, the quarter is impacted by the repeated weather-related disruptions which led to revenues declining by nearly 50% to $7 million.
This led to a 12% sequential reduction in our international Fluids revenues.
With a partial quarter of production, we generated nearly $3 million of revenue from the cleaning products in the third quarter.
In the Mats segment, despite the continuing impact of COVID across the United States and the United Kingdom, revenues improved 5% sequentially in the third quarter to $29 million.
In the Fluids Systems segment, as Paul touched on, revenues from U.S. land increased 8% sequentially to $30 million in third quarter despite the 35% reduction in average rig count, reflecting our expanding market share as well as a rebound in customer spending per rig.
Our Gulf of Mexico business had an extremely challenging quarter due to the repeated hurricane shutdowns leading to nearly 50% reduction in revenues to $7 million in the third quarter.
Industrial cleaning product revenues contributed nearly $3 million in the third quarter, more than tripling the prior quarter.
In Canada, revenues declined 36% to $2 million in the third quarter with the sequential comparison negatively impacted by the timing of customer projects.
Total international revenues declined 12% sequentially to $25 million with operations in the Middle East contributing the majority of the decline.
With the COVID-driven impacts, total revenues from the Middle East pulled back 27% to $9 million in the third quarter.
On a year-over-year basis, our Fluids Systems revenues declined 56% compared to Q3 of 2019.
North American land revenues declined by $64 million or 66%, modestly favorable to the 71% decline in rig count while Gulf of Mexico revenues declined $2 million or 25% year-over-year as our expanding market share was more than offset by the impact of the 2020 hurricane season.
International revenues also declined $21 million or 45% year-over-year with declines seen across substantially all markets.
Despite realizing a meaningful impact from our cost actions, the third quarter operating loss was impacted by the $7 million sequential decline in revenues, cost inefficiencies driven by the unplanned activity interruptions in the Gulf of Mexico and EMEA region, the start-up of cleaning products packaging as well as ongoing efforts to drawdown excess inventories.
Turning to the Mats business, total segment revenues increased 5% sequentially to $29 million in the third quarter, driven by improvement in rental and services as well as product sales.
As Paul mentioned, rental and service revenues increased 3% sequentially as the late third quarter surge in demand from the utility sector along the Gulf Coast, was largely offset by a $2 million reduction from E&P markets.
Product sales improved 14% to $6 million for the quarter.
From an end market perspective, $20 million of our third quarter revenues is derived from the energy infrastructure and industrial markets, representing roughly 70% of our total segment revenue.
Compared to the third quarter of last year, Mats segment revenues declined $22 million or 43%, largely reflecting a $12 million decline in E&P, rental and service and $9 million decline in direct sales.
Our UK operation has been a particular bright spot year-over-year, delivering more than 20% growth in revenues over 2019.
Mats segment operating income declined $1 million sequentially to essentially breakeven, generating EBITDA of $5 million in the third quarter.
Total corporate office expenses were $6.6 million in the third quarter, relatively in line with the second quarter.
On a year-over-year basis, corporate office expenses declined $3 million, primarily driven by a $1.5 million reduction in personnel costs, as well as lower M&A and strategic planning costs.
SG&A costs were $21 million in the third quarter, down slightly from the second quarter.
On a year-over-year basis, SG&A costs declined $7 million, largely reflecting lower personnel expense, strategic planning costs, and legal and professional spending.
As a result of the reduced debt balance, interest expense declined 17% to $2.4 million in the third quarter, roughly half of which reflects non-cash amortization of facility fees and discounts.
As of the end of the third quarter, the weighted average cash borrowing rate on our outstanding debt was approximately 3%.
The third quarter benefit from income taxes was $4.8 million, which reflects a 17% effective rate for the third quarter and 15% rate for the first nine months of 2020.
This compares to a net loss of $0.29 per share in the second quarter, which included $0.09 of charges and a net loss of $0.02 per share in the third quarter of last year.
For the third quarter, cash provided by operating activities was $15 million which included a $29 million net reduction in working capital.
Our cash balance declined $20 million in the third quarter, reflecting our ongoing efforts to repatriate excess cash from our foreign subsidiaries, which combined with our free cash flow generation was used to pay down our U.S. asset-based loan facility by $34 million in the quarter.
With the benefit of the debt repayments, our total debt balance declined to $102 million, while our cash balance ended the third quarter at $24 million, resulting in a total debt-to-capital ratio of 17% and a net debt-to-capital ratio of 14%.
Our primary debt components include the remaining $67 million of convertible notes due December of next year and $30 million outstanding on our U.S. asset-based bank facility, which runs through 2024.
Substantially, all of our $24 million of cash on hand resides in our international subsidiaries.
In U.S. land, we're seeing continuing improvement in customer activity with October revenues coming in roughly 5% ahead of the Q3 run rate.
In the Mats segment, with the benefit of the hurricane-driven demand in the U.S. utility sector to start the fourth quarter, ongoing strength from our UK business along with the pickup in customer bidding and planning activity, we expect Q4 rental and service revenues to improve by roughly 10% from Q3.
With regards to cash flows, we have made solid progress in monetizing working capital over the past two quarters and see additional opportunities ahead with over $200 million of net working capital remaining on our books.
As illustrated by our actions over the past two quarters, we are taking prudent steps to maintain positive cash flow with a particular focus on the remaining $67 million convertible note maturity at the end of next year.
It's also worth noting that with our 30-day average share price recently falling below the NYSE's $1 listing requirement, we expect to receive notification from the NYSE regarding this non-compliance.
Since the beginning of the year, we've generated $36 million in free cash flow and reduced our outstanding debt by $65 million, a reduction of nearly 40%.
In our Mats business [Technical Issues] 70% of our revenues from energy infrastructure and other industrial markets, which we believe provide significant growth opportunities as the energy transition gains traction.
Over the last 12 months, we've secured several new contracts in the EMEA region that should add incremental revenue once the COVID headwinds ultimately subside.
And fourth, we've taken aggressive actions to rightsize our Fluids business, particularly in the U.S. and as we touched on last quarter's call, we have now reduced our Fluids Systems EBITDA breakeven point to roughly $350 million of annualized revenue.
For examples of this, you need to look no further than our flagship products, including our fully [Indecipherable] DURA-BASE matting system which has been in the market for over 20 years and competes primarily with old-growth timber mats or our evolution water-based drilling fluid system launched in 2010, which provides customers with a number of environmental benefits over traditional diesel fuel-based products.

Summary:
During the third quarter, we generated $15 million of cash from operations and reduced our total debt balance by $34 million as we continue to harvest working capital and repatriate excess cash from our foreign subsidiaries.
Our cash balance declined $20 million in the third quarter, reflecting our ongoing efforts to repatriate excess cash from our foreign subsidiaries, which combined with our free cash flow generation was used to pay down our U.S. asset-based loan facility by $34 million in the quarter.