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Select Water Solutions, Inc. (WTTR)

Q3 2018 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 7, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Nuverra Environmental Solutions Third Quarter Earnings Call. This call is being recorded and will be available for the next 30 days on the company website at nuverra.com. I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Ed Lang, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Lang, please go ahead, sir.

Edward Lang

Management

Thank you, Andrea. Good morning, everyone. Joining me today on the call are Charlie Thompson, Chairman and Interim CEO; Robert Fox, Chief Operating Officer; and Stacy Hilgendorf, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer. Today’s presentation will contain forward-looking statements about our expected financial results and operational performance. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from our expectations. Potential risk factors that could cause these differences are described in our SEC filings, which may be obtained by visiting the Investor Relations section of our website. All information provided on this call is as of today, November 6, 2018 and Nuverra undertakes no duty to update or revise this information. Today’s discussion will also include certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the most likely related GAAP results can be found in the tables attached to our press release announcing financial results for the quarter. With that, I will turn the call over to Charlie.

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

Thanks very much, Ed. Nuverra’s third quarter was characterized by a healthy operating environment across all of our businesses, a continued focus on improving efficiencies and profitability and additional investment in the business. I’d like to discuss a few of the priorities we’re pursuing, as well as some of the noticeable changes in the business. A high priority has been to recruit drivers. Robert Fox has focused on targeted recruiting to add drivers in those regions, where we have the greatest business opportunity. He has added two experienced recruiters to the Bakken, become more active on social media and concentrated on individual yards. Those efforts have been successful. In the Rocky Mountain region, we have added 25 net drivers since the end of the second quarter. September was the best recruiting month we’ve experienced this year. In the Northeast, we added 11 drivers since the end of the second quarter. We recognize the market is extremely competitive and hope these trends continue. We invested in the business throughout the quarter. The most notable event was the Clearwater acquisition, which we hope will transform the profitability of the Northeast region. We have been working on scheduling and traffic patterns at those wells and preliminary results are encouraging. In addition, customer response has been positive with many operators interested in additional volumes. We continue to complete axle extension projects in the Northeast, which adds capacity to those trucks. We completed about 15 of those projects in the quarter and have another 10-plus to complete before the end of the year. We also ordered 28 new high-capacity trucks for the Northeast, which are going to be delivered in the fourth and first quarters. We hope to continue this fleet refurbishment project throughout 2019, but have yet to finalize those plans. On the technology…

Edward Lang

Management

Thanks, Charlie. I’d like to walk through several key metrics and provide some additional thoughts on our third quarter performance. Nuverra has continued to realize steady organic revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA in 2018. Activity levels in all our regions are increasing and pricing continues to improve from last year. Similar to our previous calls and SEC filings, we have included references distinguishing the predecessor and successor periods, which relate to the reporting periods prior to and subsequent to our reorganization. Those references are included in order to comply with GAAP guidance. Total revenue was $49.7 million in the third quarter, compared to $48.9 million in the same period a year ago, an increase of approximately 2%. Our revenue growth was comprised of 1% from price improvements, 8% due to volume increases, offset by a 7% decrease due to the exit of the Eagle Ford Shale area. The areas where we experienced the greatest volume growth were our Northeast and Bakken trucking and disposal operations. We experienced challenging year-over-year comparisons in the Southern division, due our decision to exit the Eagle Ford basin in early 2018, coupled with the lower volumes in our Haynesville-produced water disposal pipeline. The positive growth reflects the momentum throughout the E&P business. Rig counts are up 4.3% over the past year in the basins we operate. Energy production within our regions has increased over 20% compared to last year. In addition, the number of wells completed in the basins we operate have increased by 22%, which indicates continuing growth in production activity going into 2019. Nuverra did experience higher direct operating costs in the third quarter, due primarily to the increase in business activity in all basins. Along with increased reliance on higher third-party or subcontracted truck drivers as a result of the difficulties in…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from Hamzah Mazari from Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Mario Cortellucci

Analyst · Macquarie. Please go ahead

Hi. This is actually Mario Cortellucci filling in for Hamzah. When do you think you’ll start to realize the benefits of fleet investment? Have you approved further fleet investment for 2019? And maybe you can tell us a little more about your backlog to delivery – I’m sorry, to deliver new equipment?

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

I can start with that one, Mario. It’s Charlie.

Mario Cortellucci

Analyst · Macquarie. Please go ahead

Good morning, Charlie.

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

So we’ve – the actual extension project is is ongoing. So we’ve been monitoring those projects in terms of when the work is done, how it compares on a cost basis and on a timing basis. Those have been going pretty much on schedule and on budget. And I think we have about 15 of those working right now, so that’s happening. And we’re recognizing the benefits of those – that additional barrels. It’s in the order of maybe 30-plus additional barrels per truck that we’re reconfiguring. With respect to the new orders, I don’t remember the exact date that we placed the order, but we put an order in for 28 new trucks, all allocated to the Northeast. It was kind of in two chunks, a five a 23. The five are having the barrels put on now, and last I checked and I was hopeful some of those might get delivered this year, but I’m not 100% sure. The rest of them are going to be coming into service. I think, in the first quarter, I will tell you that the adherence to the original schedules of delivery hasn’t been 100%. There has been a little drifting. We’re looking into that, so I don’t have a perfect answer. But I think, it’s just a function of the fact that there are a lot of people ordering trucks and the manufacturers are busy. We had a couple of Board meetings over the last two or three weeks during which we discussed what it is we were going to do in 2019. We have some preliminary ideas along the lines of a size similar to what we’ve ordered this year, but that’s not final. We don’t have any Board approval and we’re still talking about it and we’re talking about the allocation of that equipment into the different markets. I think, there will be a priority, because we get the most economic benefit from putting equipment into the Northeast, so there’ll be a priority there. But we’re also mindful of allocating equipment across the other basins, primarily the Bakken.

Edward Lang

Management

And Mario, just as far as the backlog, generally what we’re seeing now, I’d say, for orders placed today you’d probably expect about a four to six-month delivery timeframe. Simply as Charlie mentioned, the manufacturers are – have a pretty good backlogs and it does take – you have to kind of look around to find an opportunity to get slots to manufacture. So manufacturers are busy. And so orders placed, say, before year-end probably won’t be delivered until sometime late Q2 in 2019.

Mario Cortellucci

Analyst · Macquarie. Please go ahead

Great. Thank you. And just a quick follow-up. I guess, what are your expectations for M&A activity in 2019?

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

That is a – that’s the $64,000 question. There is an awful lot of stuff out on the market for sale. We’ve seen a number of trucking companies. We’ve seen other disposal assets. We’ve seen kind of derivative assets to our core businesses. That’s been kind of an M&A theme through the course of 2018 across all parts of the service sector and it’s continued recently. I think, we’re looking at a lot of those things. I think, our focus right now given the magnitude of Clearwater for us is to integrate that. But we’re not staying still with respect to additional M&A. I think, our aspirations continue to be for scale in the markets primarily that we operate. We’re not spending a lot of time looking at new markets right now, but we certainly see opportunities outside of the core areas we operate. I think, the market, as you’re probably well aware, has been a balance of supply more than demand. So executions have been spotty and pricing has been, I guess, generally weak. So with that backdrop in mind, we’re continuing to look. But that’s about all I can say on that right now.

Mario Cortellucci

Analyst · Macquarie. Please go ahead

That’s great. I appreciate it.

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

Sure. Thanks for calling in.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question from Mr. Adam Ritzer from Pressprich & Co. Please go ahead, sir.

Adam Ritzer

Analyst · Pressprich & Co. Please go ahead, sir

Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Just in terms of the Clearwater deal, you guys closed that, what 30 days? That was pretty quick. Congrats on getting that done. Has there been anything better or worse that you guys have seen or anticipated since we had the call about a month ago from that?

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

We are – we’re working – it’s kind of too early to tell, is the answer. We’ve been working pretty hard to deal with the integration of that thing right now. And I would say, our operating people are spending a lot of time at the facilities, dealing with things like scheduling trucks. It’s a slightly different business now integrated with us than it was previously, it’s just a place where trucks showed up. We have a higher sensitivity to scheduling the deliveries of the saltwater in the context of our trucking operations. So we’re working hard on that. I would say, the preliminary results have been encouraging. We’ve reduced the delays that some of the trucks were experiencing previously. That’s number one. Number 2, I would say, there has been a pleasantly encouraging set of responses from the operators all of whom seem keenly interested in additional volumes. So I would say, Adam, that it was right after we announced the deal, there was like a flurry of calls, we want more space, we want – when are you going to do this, when are you going to do that, we want more water. We’re having those conversations, those have subsided a little bit or we’ve kind of called through who we think are genuinely interested and might do something on a more committed basis. So working – we’re working through those opportunities right now.

Adam Ritzer

Analyst · Pressprich & Co. Please go ahead, sir

Okay. It sounds pretty good. What – could you give anymore details about what the record dates are going to be and when the rights offering was going to officially kick off?

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

Well, Adam, we filed the S-1 registration statement on October 25. Obviously, then you kind of get into the process of working with the SEC. I guess, the best direction we could give you is that, we would hope to complete the rights offering before year-end, but we don’t totally control the calendar.

Adam Ritzer

Analyst · Pressprich & Co. Please go ahead, sir

Okay. So you have to hear back from them, get official approval, then you could launch?

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

Correct.

Adam Ritzer

Analyst · Pressprich & Co. Please go ahead, sir

Got it. So the Bakken looks pretty good, so that – and the extra truckers should help there. It sounds like, I guess, really the only issue right now is, what’s going on with the pipeline. Could you talk about a little more in detail about what the issues are? How we’re going to resolve them? That was forecasted to be the best asset you guys had coming out of bankruptcy, and obviously, it hasn’t done as well as expected? Could you talk about that a little more?

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

Yes. The – a couple of things are going on there. That is – it’s still a good pipe. It’s still got a lot of capacity, but what we’ve seen is a couple of things, I guess, a little bit of episodic activity levels. You deal with out there the two principal producing formations, which are the Haynesville and the Cotton Valley. The Cotton Valley makes a lot more water than the Haynesville. From our perspective, we like Cotton Valley more than we like Haynesville from an economic standpoint. From the perspective of the operators, they’re probably spending more time in the Haynesville. So the activity level has been, it’s in pockets. It’s more enthusiastic for some than it is for others. The basin is still busy. We’ve seen some increased activity from some other people that we’re going after. We’ll see what happens with the BP deal and there are some other names there, who are – who seem to be getting active again. Some of our customers have been, as the trend has existed, whether it’s in the Permian in particular or in some other basins, where some of the operators are going in-house with their own water infrastructure activity. We’ve suffered from a little bit of that, so that’s taken some volumes off of the system. They’ve also done some of their own saltwater disposal drilling, which has put some pressure, given the overall capacities of saltwater supply – saltwater supply in the region on pricing. So I would say, yes, it hasn’t performed as we had hoped and expected it would coming out of bankruptcy. I don’t think on objective reflection as to what was going on at the time that, that should have been a huge surprise. What we’re doing is working – the business…

Adam Ritzer

Analyst · Pressprich & Co. Please go ahead, sir

Okay, that’s helpful. I guess, two follow-ups on that, not being an expert on the various basins. Could you – is there, like what’s the difference between the Haynesville and the Cotton Valley, number one? And number two, what has BP announced down there?

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

The first question is, my geology days are deep in the rearview mirror. So I’m going to have to do a little extra homework rather than babble through that on the call and I’ll call you back. On the second one, we’re – I don’t know if – I haven’t checked the news to see if it – but BP was picking up to BHP onshore business. And so their acreage in the potential activity, we’ve – I know we’ve talked to BP about what they’re going to do with the BHP assets? But their answer was late last month and into early this month, we can’t talk to you quite yet on that, but when we can we will. So we’re…

Adam Ritzer

Analyst · Pressprich & Co. Please go ahead, sir

Okay.

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

…that’s – there’s nothing that we’re counting on there. It’s just sort of a significant event in the area that affects a big operator, and I don’t have all the answers on what that’s going to mean for us and any opportunities that are going to come out of that.

Adam Ritzer

Analyst · Pressprich & Co. Please go ahead, sir

Got it. Okay. Thanks very much for answering my questions.

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

Okay, I’ll circle back with you with a little….

Adam Ritzer

Analyst · Pressprich & Co. Please go ahead, sir

Okay.

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

…Haynesville, Cotton Valley primer.

Adam Ritzer

Analyst · Pressprich & Co. Please go ahead, sir

Great, thanks a lot.

Charlie Thompson

Chairman

Okay. Yep, sure, Adam.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions queued at this time.

Edward Lang

Management

Okay. Thank you, Andrea. And we thank everybody for dialing in for the call today, and we look forward to talking to you about our fourth quarter and full-year earnings early in the New Year and happy holidays to everyone. Thank you.

A - Charlie Thompson

Analyst

Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.