Stephen Taylor
Analyst · CL King
Okay, thanks, Leann, and thanks, Erica, and good morning and welcome to the Natural Gas Services Group's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2011 Earnings Review.
2011 was a very successful year for NGS. We continue to grow our rental fleet, utilization improved and we gained more exposure to the oil and liquids-oriented plays. Total sales grew as well. And in fact, each of our 3 product lines grew by between 20% to 30% for the year. While our total revenue has declined significantly, our operating income, net income and EBITDA grew at an even faster rate.
Look at total revenues, we saw a 21% increase when compared to 2010, with 2011 revenues hitting a little over $65 million. For the sequential quarters of Q3 '11 compared to Q4 '11, total revenues rose almost $1 million or 5% primarily due to increased flare sales and rental revenues.
Our gross margin grew from $29.2 million in 2010 to $34.8 million in 2011, a 19% increase. Sequentially, gross margin increased 13% from $8.8 million in the third quarter of 2011 to $9.9 million in the current quarter, with overall margins at 53% of revenue compared to 49% last quarter. In the sequential quarters, all of our product lines increased their gross margins.
In comparative full year periods, SG&A increased by less than 1% in 2011 and fell from 11% of revenue in 2010 to 9% in 2011. SG&A decreased 5% in the sequential quarters and moved down to 8% of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2011. Operating income for the full year of 2011 was $14.9 million compared to $11.4 million in 2010, a crowd-pleasing 31% increase. As a ratio of revenue, it grew from 21% to 23%. Sequentially, operating income increased almost $1 million or 28% to $4.7 million, and moved from a margin of 21% up to 25% of revenue this quarter.
Our improvements in gross margin, SG&A and operating income all reflect the efforts of our employees in controlling expenses. And I want to compliment all of them, field and staff, on those efforts.
Full year net income grew 39% to $9.8 million or 15% of revenue in 2011 when compared to $7 million in 2010. Comparing the third quarter of 2011 to the fourth quarter, net income increased 36% to $3 million, an increase from 13% of revenue to 16%.
EBITDA of $23.4 million in 2010 grew 27% to $29.7 million in 2011, with a corresponding increase from 43% of revenue to 46%. EBITDA grew from $7.2 million in the third quarter of last year to $8.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, a 19% increase. This is the fourth year in a row that NGS has delivered EBITDA margins in the 40% to 50% range.
Fully diluted earnings per share increased to $0.80 per common share in 2011, a 38% increase when compared to the $0.58 earned in 2010. EPS this quarter was $0.25 per common share, compared to $0.18 in the third quarter of 2011 and $0.16 in the fourth quarter of 2010.
I want to point out that revenue, gross margin, operating income, net income and EBITDA were all at their highest levels this quarter than at any quarter since the first quarter of 2009, which was our previous record quarter.
Total sales revenue, looking at segment comparisons, increased 25% to $15.4 million for the full year of 2011. Sequential quarterly total sales revenues were flat at $4.8 million, however, margins moved up from 33% to 43%. Compressor sales in the current quarter were $1.8 million with a gross margin of 21%. Our compressor sales segment continued to have limited visibility in this low-priced market, and I think that'll continue to be a variable on a quarterly basis until prices firm.
Our backlog, however, was approximately $7.5 million at the end of the fourth quarter of '11. This includes a couple of million dollars in projects that were delayed from the third quarter of 2011.
Compressor rental revenue in 2011 increased to $48.6 million with a full year gross margin of 57%. This is a 20% revenue increase compared to 2010. Gross margin last year was 60% with the year-over-year difference being continued cost pressure from lube oils, parts costs and labor costs. Sequentially, rental revenues were up 6% from $12.7 million in the third quarter of 2011 to $13.5 million this quarter. Gross margin also ticked up from 56% to 57% of revenue. Average rental pricing of an active compressor was up about 2% in 2011 compared to 2010.
We entered the fourth quarter with a rental fleet utilization rate of 74% on a fleet size of 2,120 compressors. This was a slight increase in the utilization from last quarter and it was on top of a 44-compressor addition to the fleet. Our horsepower utilization is running at 77%. With a rental fleet consisting of 2,120 compressors at year-end, we have built 211 units in 2011 compared to 133 units built in 2010. Rental capital expense for 2011 was $34 million compared to 2010 where we spent $21 million for the full year.
Turning to the balance sheet, we are debt free for the first time in almost a decade, and cash in the bank was $16.4 million at the end of the year. Our cash flow from operations this year was $34 million compared to $29 million for the same period in 2010, an increase of 17%.
We continue to generate a free flow amounts of cash even in sideways markets. We spent $34 million in CapEx this year, $13 million more than last year, and our cash balance is only $3 million lower.
Now looking at current markets, it is apparent that gas pricing isn't where it should be. It's been a very quick turn in the gas market. At the beginning of winter and over the prior year, pricing was stable, storage was balanced and the world was a happier place. But, throw in a little bit of warm weather, not to mention a total lack of cold, and in 2 to 3 months prices have tumbled as fast as storage is built. Lesson here, again, is that is folly to try and predict natural gas prices. I have been under the apparently mistaken impression that if there's one cost in this world, it was that natural gas prices increase in the onset of winter. Always, always, going into winter, prices got better. Not this year. Winter just hasn't happened. We now have the lowest gas prices in 10 years and some are predicting further deterioration. Along with that, the natural rig count is also at a 2-year low. However, that is a positive because it will help reduce the supply issue that has driven the price problem.
Our business doesn't direct -- directly depend on the rig count or the price of natural gas, although they both are indications of future activity. Instead, we are interested on how much gas is moving through the system. And even at these low prices, we haven't seen any real shut-ins. That doesn't mean that spring or summer couldn't bring some, but right now we haven't seen any real impact from low prices. There isn't anything we can do about the price, but we can choose the markets we compete in. And we will continue to push into the oilier areas while also maintaining our presence, relationships and service in the existing dry gas areas. This is still a good big business and it will resurface.
We now have 20% of our active fleet in liquids-oriented areas, up from 0 in 2009. And our challenge will be to keep liquids-oriented growth high enough to counter any negative impact on the dry gas side. Some recent figures show that weather-adjusted storage has shifted from a 3 Bcf per day oversupply to a 2 Bcf per day undersupply over the past few weeks. This is a huge 5 Bcf per day swing as being attributed to coal-gas switching, some production shut-ins and the falling rig count, which also has a knock-on effect with not replacing depleting wells. So, if you are one of the guys predicting [indiscernible] lowered gas for the next decade, I will refer you back to my comments about trying to predict the price of natural gas.
From a macro and longer-term perspective, the consumption of natural gas doesn't have any choice but to grow. For example, LNG liquefaction plants are being destructed from natural gas imports here in the U.S. And not only are they being built, but they're securing long-term export contracts and favorable financing and investment. Natural gas vehicle, NGV trucks, have been announced this past week by Chevy and Chrysler. This should kickstart some fuel intakes and buildout. These are also biofuel vehicles, so the risk of running out of fuel is no greater than a standard gasoline-powered vehicle, and that should mitigate the present lack of infrastructure issues.
The low price of natural gas has called a -- has caused a minor renaissance in the billing and reopening of petrochemical plants. The Northeast region of the U.S. has 1.5 Bcf per day of new gas-fired power plants proposed to come online within the next 2 years. And a cross-border pollution rule that would have driven the retirement of many coal plants over time has been held up by the courts recently, but I expect it will go into effect in the next year or 2. These are all natural gas issues that are structural. Once you have them in place, they're not easily displaced.
Exxon's recently issued annual energy report noted that in 2040, coal, oil and natural gas will supply nearly 80% of the world's energy. Renewable fuels will be the fastest growing energy sources, but they remain a minor slice of the global energy supply, increasing from 1% today to 4% in 2040. Natural gas will continue to be the fastest-growing major fuel, and demand will increase by about 60% from 2010 to 2040. After 2030, they see global coal demand declining for the first time in modern history, and coal is the most direct competitor to natural gas. So we continue with the short-term gas price issue, but the future looks all the brighter.
Now let's address the oil and energy policy recently announced by the administration. This was described as, among other things, a strategy to expand and expedite the production of fossil fuels on federal lands while ensuring their safe and responsible development. Sounds like a good policy. Who couldn't agree to that? Not surprisingly, this tribute to the development of our own safe, secure, domestic resources seems to be again more hype than hope. Instead of listening to what is said on the campaign trail, let's look at the facts as inconvenient as they may be.
The administration says they want to expand U.S. production of fossil fuels on federal land but in fact, the opposite has happened. Oil and gas production from federal acreage is 40% lower today than 10 years ago. Under this administration, 2010 had the lowest number of onshore leases issued since 1984. The administration had only one offshore lease sale and narrowly avoided making 2011 the first year since 1953 without an offshore lease sale. The administration wants to raise federal royalties to "market rates." This is increased taxation under another name. They want safe and responsible development, but as an example and outside of all the noise, frac-ing is actually safe and responsible. There has been no tie to groundwork contamination ever proven. But there are those trying to shut it down and causing delays in the development of some of our resources. Safe and responsible can be a cover for stop and resist, too.
This administration has recently taken a position that all the increase in oil and gas production in this country has been due to their positive actions. Nice try. But U.S. oil and gas production has increased only because of increased production from private and estate lands. Our restrictive federal policies have resulted in the declines in oil and gas production from federally held lands.
Do these sound like effective methods, as the policy purports, to increase production of our own oil and gas resources? No. In my opinion, these are the guys who retired domestic production of [indiscernible] higher levies [ph] on oil and gas industry and redirect them to renewables in the title of an all-in energy policy. When applied to the oil and gas industry, it's actually all-out of our pocket plan.
There are couple of other interesting actions recommended by the policy. Cafe [ph] regulations are set to increase the mileage in cars by 25% to 30% in the next 10 to 15 years. A noble endeavor, and this is entirely [ph] as a way to energy independence, but again, the economics of it are left behind. The added cost per car gained, there is about $5,000, and that was never mentioned. I love this one: Have the government by more hybrids. How in the world does that do anything for anybody? It is fitting though. The government can start buying Volts, the GM electric car, that they had to stop building because no one is buying them. People in the government gave $7,500 towards the purchase of one.
This week, the administration announced that the rising prices of gasoline has to be the actions of nefarious traders and manipulators and announced another investigation of price manipulation. There have been at least 10 to 12 investigations by the government over the last decade and never was any manipulation found. Never. The primary reasons for the higher price of crude and gasoline is our lack of a real domestic oil and gas policy, which begets the instability of our supply chain of crude, and the inflationary effect of a dollar-based barrel of crude due to the tremendous [indiscernible] that have weakened the value of our dollar. This administration pleads innocence when it comes to high gasoline prices, but there are real actions that can be taken to minimize the impact.
Let's take this a bit further to the administration's other great passion besides the production of oil and gas of course, and that is higher taxes on the oil and gas industry. I'll call them tax hikes, but the administration characterizes them as elimination of subsidies. These subsidies, however, are available to all manufacturing industries, but they want to eliminate them only for the oil and gas industry. This is nothing less than discriminatory and selective taxation for an industry that is out of favor with the present administration. Speaking of subsidies, according to a July 2011 Energy Department study, oil, natural gas and coal received tax preferences that amount to $0.64 per megawatt hour in 2010, while wind energy received 100x more or $56.29 per megawatt hour. And their subsidies were tax preferences and direct cash infusions. At least the oil, natural gas and coal industries were net taxpayers to the tune of billions of dollars.
I'm not even going to go into the cancellation of the Excel [ph] pipeline. Apparently, 4 years of study wasn't enough. If it isn't already obvious that this was a political payback, then nothing I say will make any difference. So the all-in energy policy is no such thing. It's the same rhetoric cloaked in a different cover. The intent is not to increase domestic oil and gas production, but to increase the taxes on it and redistribute its income towards energy industries that have no chance of standalone profitability, and by default, a real secured supply for at least 20 years.
That's the end of my prepared remarks, and I'll turn the call back to Erica for questions that anybody might have.