Q3 2024 Kodiak Gas Services Inc Earnings Call
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Speaker Change: Greetings and welcome to the Kodiak Guest Services third quarter 2024 earnings conference call.
Speaker Change: At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. The question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation.
If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad.
As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
Speaker Change: I'd now like to turn the conference over to your host, Graham Sones, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
Graham Sones: Good morning. We appreciate you joining us for the Kodiak Gas Services Conference Call and Webcast to review third quarter 2024 results.
Graham Sones: Participating from the company today are Mickey McKee, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Griggs, Chief Financial Officer.
Following my remarks, Mickey and John will review recent developments, discuss our third quarter financial results, our updated 2024 outlook, and some initial thoughts on 2025 before opening the call for Q&A.
Speaker Change: There will be a replay of today's call available via webcast and also by phone until November 21st, 2024. Information on how to access the replay can be found on the investor's tab of our website at KodiakGas.com.
Speaker Change: Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, November 7, 2024, and therefore you are advised that such information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay listing or transcript reading.
Speaker Change: The comments made by management during this call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of United States federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements reflect the current views, beliefs, and assumptions of CODIAC's management based on information currently available.
Although we believe the expectations referenced in these four looking statements are reasonable, various risks, uncertainties, and contingencies could cause the company's actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in the statements made by management.
Speaker Change: and management can give no assurance that such statements or expectations will prove to be correct.
The comments today will also include certain non-GAAP financial measures.
Details and reconciliations, the most comparable gap measures, are included in yesterday's earnings release which can be found on our website.
Speaker Change: And now I'd like to turn the call over to Kodiak's CEO, Mr. Mickey McKee.
Thank you.
Thanks, Graham, and thank you for joining us today.
I'd like to start the call, as we do every internal meeting at Kodiak, discussing safety.
Speaker Change: As a company, we've set a high bar for safety with a goal to make certain that every employee goes home safe and sound to their families every night.
Speaker Change: We have invested in an industry-leading training program to make certain that all of our employees have the knowledge and the training needed to do their job safely.
The focus of each and every Kodiak employee on this topic truly embodies the philosophy that we've adopted at Kodiak.
Safety first, all the time.
Speaker Change: Before we talk about our financial results, I'd like to briefly touch on a few noteworthy events that happened during the third quarter.
We've been actively evaluating opportunities to high-grade our compression fleet.
The first step in that process was the divestiture of the small horsepower gas jack business that we acquired in the CSI transaction.
Speaker Change: The sale, which we completed in September, involved about 90,000 horsepower, less than half of which was being utilized.
Speaker Change: The transaction also allowed us to fully exit Canada and Romania.
Speaker Change: Simplifying our operations while increasing the average horsepower of our fleet and reducing our exposure to dry gas basins.
Speaker Change: As you know, Kodiak's strategy is focused on large horsepower compression in liquids-rich basins, and you should expect us to continue to high-grade our fleet over time.
Speaker Change: Another notable development during the quarter was the successful completion of the first marketed follow-on offering by EQT, our largest shareholder.
Speaker Change: which allowed us to take a large step towards diversifying our shareholder base.
Speaker Change: At the start of the year, our top five shareholders collectively represented about 84% of our shareholder base.
limiting our trading liquidity and float.
Speaker Change: As of today, we have reduced that concentration by about 20%, and the trading liquidity in FedEx stock has increased by over 100%.
making Kodiak a more attractive investment for large institutions.
Speaker Change: I want to thank the investors who participated in the offering, which we completed in September. We had very strong demand, and it was one of the tightest-priced follow-on offerings in the energy sector in the last few years.
Speaker Change: We view the success of this transaction as a vote of confidence in our strategy and future earnings growth potential.
Speaker Change: We were pleased to complete our first share repurchase in connection with the offering.
Speaker Change: demonstrating our confidence in the outlook of our business and adding to our multi-pronged approach to delivering shareholder value.
Speaker Change: Thank you for joining us. I'm Graham Sones. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Speaker Change: Measured growth, a strong and growing dividend, and now share repurchases.
Speaker Change: All, while driving leverage to 3.5x or less by the end of next year, have proven to be the right formula and delivered total shareholder returns of approximately 110% since our IPO.
Speaker Change: Yesterday, we released third quarter 2024 financial results, including another record quarter with revenues of $325 million and adjusted EBITDA of $168 million.
Speaker Change: We also generated $53 million of free cash flow in the quarter.
Speaker Change: Through the combination of putting idle equipment back to work, divesting lower margin small horsepower, and adding new large horsepower units, Kodiak's fleet utilization increased sequentially to over 96 percent.
Speaker Change: Our core large horsepower assets remain near full utilization, in excess of 99%.
Speaker Change: reflecting the continued tightness and capital discipline of the large horsepower compression market.
Speaker Change: A man from large horsepower compression remains as strong as ever.
Speaker Change: During the third quarter, we added roughly 50,000 horsepower of new units to our fleet.
All were permanently focused, large horsepower.
Speaker Change: averaging over 2,000 horsepower per unit and they were deployed at rates well above the fleet average.
Speaker Change: Additionally, we were able to redeploy approximately 38,000 horsepower that was previously idle.
Speaker Change: Our commercial team has done a great job working with our customers and recontracting units of all sizes that were up for renewal and realizing prices closer to current market rates that are also above our current fleet average.
Speaker Change: We continue to differentiate our compression offering through our mechanical availability guarantee and the service we provide.
Speaker Change: After realizing cost synergies, returning idle equipment back to work, and another strong order of recontracting.
Speaker Change: I am pleased to announce that we delivered a third quarter adjusted gross margin of 66% in our contract services segment.
Speaker Change: Not only does that match the high end of our annual guidance, but it also matches our historical record margin even before the CSI acquisition.
Speaker Change: This is no small accomplishment and reflects the great results our team has been able to achieve through the integration process.
Switching to our other services segment.
Speaker Change: As a reminder, this segment primarily consists of our station construction and aftermarket services businesses.
Speaker Change: which are somewhat less predictable than contract compression but generate significant free cash flow with very little capital investment.
Speaker Change: One great example of our segments working together to provide customized, integrated solutions for our customers
Speaker Change: is a project that we are currently working on in Midland, Texas.
Speaker Change: A midstream customer needed to add a compressor station inside the city limits where the compression equipment must meet strict emissions and noise requirements.
Speaker Change: The location is close to reliable grid power, so we were able to offer as a customized electric motor driven large horsepower solution.
Speaker Change: We're hired to design and install the compression infrastructure, as well as contracted to deliver four large horsepower electric driven compressors.
Speaker Change: We recently completed the engineering, the site construction expected to begin before year end, and we are currently on schedule to set the four new units in the second quarter of 2025.
Speaker Change: As we have previously discussed, electric motor-driven, large horsepower compression units are going to represent an increased portion of our capital spend as we strive to help customers lower their emissions to produce oil and natural gas.
Speaker Change: Approximately half of the new units we plan to install next year will use electric motors.
Speaker Change: However, large horsepower electric compression presents unique challenges as the motors require a significantly higher voltage than smaller motors, requiring a step-up transformer and increasing the overall power demand for the project.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: As many of you know, West Texas power demand has been increasing at a materially faster pace than the rest of Texas.
Speaker Change: growing by approximately 11% per year over the last decade. This demand increase has been driven by oil and natural gas production.
Speaker Change: cryptocurrency mining and data centers and has resulted in regional power shortages.
Speaker Change: Thankfully this summer we saw several meaningful steps by the state of Texas to address the sizable demand growth.
Speaker Change: including the Public Utility Commission moving forward with more than five billion dollars in loans for 17 new natural gas fired power plants which are expected to add approximately 10 gigawatts of electricity.
Speaker Change: Then in September, the Permian Basin Reliability Plan was approved, calling for $13 to $15 billion of investments in electric transmission line upgrades in West Texas.
Speaker Change: These investments in the security of the supply of power are crucial for the oil and gas industry to continue powering our economy.
Speaker Change: In last night's earnings press release we increased the low end of our full year revenue guidance for both segments as well as our full year 2024 adjusted EBITDA guidance.
Speaker Change: Given the third quarter gas jack sale plus a handful of small additional divestitures, we thought it would be helpful to provide an early outlook on our financial expectations for 2025.
Speaker Change: After factoring in these asset sales, along with our new unit expectations for the fourth quarter, we expect to exit the year with roughly 4.25 million of operating compression horsepower.
Speaker Change: With that in mind, we expect Adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2025 to be in a range of $675 to $725 million.
In summary, we're very pleased with our third quarter results.
Speaker Change: The realized transaction synergies as well as strong industry fundamentals resulted in improved margins and increased cash flows.
Speaker Change: We've made progress high-grading our fleet and our commercial team has been actively redeploying idle assets, improving fleet utilization.
Speaker Change: Our dividend remains well covered and we are on track to achieve our increased guidance for the year.
The ramp-up of natural gas demand remains highly visible.
Speaker Change: The U.S. needs to continue to add electric generation capacity, and natural gas remains the most reliable and affordable fuel of choice. And that's on top of the wage of LNG export terminals expected to enter service in the coming years.
Speaker Change: The increase in gas production required to meet this demand is going to require significant compression infrastructure development.
Speaker Change: and we continue to believe that Kodiak is well positioned to be the compression provider of choice.
Speaker Change: Our focus on customers and employees, industry-leading mechanical availability, and our market position separates us from our peers.
Speaker Change: And now I'll pass the call to John Griggs to review third quarter financial highlights and our guidance. John?
John Griggs: Thanks Mickey. We had another great quarter with revenue growth and realized cost synergies driving margins and results above expectations.
Speaker Change: The strong financial performance wouldn't have been possible without the focused efforts of our employees to successfully integrate two companies while continuing to deliver differentiated service to our customers.
Speaker Change: I couldn't be more proud of this company and all the things we've accomplished this year.
Now let's drill down into the numbers.
Speaker Change: Total revenues for the quarter were $325 million, a 5% sequential increase.
Speaker Change: This growth was driven by a strong quarter in the other services segment and steady gains in contract services.
Speaker Change: The bullish fundamentals of the compression market, in particular within the large horsepower subsector, remain strong, and we continue to realize nice rate increases as part of our recontracting efforts.
Speaker Change: With a quarter, we reported a net loss of $6.2 million. Included in the loss were several non-cash items totaling nearly $41 million.
This song was comprised of three main items.
Speaker Change: A $10 million loss on asset sales related mostly to the successful exit from the gas jack business.
Speaker Change: A $9.9 million asset impairment charge on some of our older units.
and a $20 million mark-to-market loss on interest rate hedges.
Speaker Change: As it relates to the hedges, our interest rate swaps are designed to mitigate cash flow volatility. We're not trying to predict rate moves.
Speaker Change: As of today, we've swapped floating rates for fixed on about 70% of our ABL exposure. If you include the bonds, we're at about 80% fixed on all our debt.
Speaker Change: Our hedging strategy has served us well over the Fed's hiking cycle that began in 2022. But now that the Fed has begun to ease rates, the quarterly mark-to-market value of our swaps is declining. And we report this unrealized in non-cash change on our income statement.
Speaker Change: As the Fed raised rates, we saw non-cash market-to-market increases boost net income.
Speaker Change: But now that rates appear to be going the other way, we'll see the opposite. But importantly, the underlying cash flows will remain highly predictable, which is the priority.
Moving on.
Speaker Change: Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $168 million, an increase of 9% compared to the second quarter. Not only did we realize sequential growth, but our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded as well, with a third quarter margin of 52% versus 50% in the prior quarter.
looking at our segments.
Speaker Change: In contract services, revenues for the quarter were $284 million, with an adjusted gross margin percentage of 66%, matching the high end of our annual guidance range.
Speaker Change: We were pleased with this result, and we expect to continue to deliver margins like this going forward as we set new horsepower at market rates.
repriced the existing fleet.
Speaker Change: divest lower-margin, smaller horsepower, and maintain a relentless focus on operational efficiency.
Speaker Change: In our other services segment, revenues were $40 million in Q3, with an adjusted gross margin of 19%. As Mickey discussed, we have been very active on the station construction side of our business.
Speaker Change: We think it's highly complementary to our contract compression activities, despite its inherent lumpiness and lower margin profile.
Speaker Change: In terms of CapEx for the quarter, maintenance capital expenditures came in just shy of $22 million, up from the second quarter. The third quarter spin represents what we expect to be a peak for the year due to the timing of some large engine overhauls.
Speaker Change: We expect maintenance capex to decline sequentially in the fourth quarter.
Speaker Change: Growth capex for the third quarter is approximately 65 million and we added nearly 50,000 horsepower to the fleet.
Speaker Change: Capital expenditures related to the addition of new fleet units represented about three-quarters of our total growth cap tax for the period.
Moving to the balance sheet.
Speaker Change: As of September 30th, we had a total debt of $2.6 billion, consisting of the 2029 senior unsecured notes and borrowings under our ABL facility.
Speaker Change: Our credit agreement leverage ratio at the end of the quarter was 3.9 times. We had approximately $306 million of availability on the revolver. We remain confident that we will exit 2025 with leverage at or below 3.5 times.
Speaker Change: Let's turn to the updated 2024 outlook where we've adjusted a few items. Specifically, we now expect revenue to range between $1.15 and $1.18 billion.
Speaker Change: We also raised our adjusted EBITDA guidance by bringing up the low-ended range and think we'll land between $600 and $610 million, with the improvement driven primarily by adjusted gross margin strength in the contract services segment.
Speaker Change: We've left discretionary cash flow, growth, and maintenance capex guidance unchanged.
Speaker Change: And, as Mickey highlighted, we gave some initial guideposts for 2025.
Speaker Change: We'll deliver our traditional guidance metrics in our fourth quarter earnings release.
Speaker Change: But we thought it would be helpful to provide a preliminary adjusted EDIR range of 675 to 725 million.
Speaker Change: This early outlook factors in the transactions that Mickey referenced earlier, all of which are designed to high-grade our fleet, simplify our operations, and further our U.S.-focused large-horsepower strategy.
Speaker Change: To wrap things up, our board approved our quarterly dividend of $0.41 per share, which will be paid this Friday, November the 8th. This equates to an annualized dividend of $1.64 per share.
Speaker Change: That's it for my prepared comments. Thank you for your participation and support. I'll hand it back to Mickey.
Thanks, John.
Speaker Change: To wrap up, we had a strong third quarter with revenue growth and margin expansion in both of our segments.
Speaker Change: Our revised 2024 guidance and the early outlook we've provided for 2025 indicates that we expect this strength to continue.
Speaker Change: We progressed against a number of strategic objectives and continued to deliver shareholder value.
Speaker Change: I want to thank the women and men of Kodiak for their focus on serving our customers safely, which allowed us to deliver such great results.
Speaker Change: With that, we're happy to open up the line for questions. Operator?
[inaudible]
Speaker Change: Great, thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove yourself from the queue.
Speaker Change: For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. One moment, please while we poll for questions.
Speaker Change: First question is from Doug Irwin from Citi. Please go ahead.
Doug Irwin: Hey, thanks for the questions. I just want to start with gross margin here. You talked about being at the high end of your range for the quarter, which is great.
Doug Irwin: I'm just wondering if you could provide any more color around maybe what you're assuming for 2025 and then just kind of where you see margins trending here over the near term as you continue to see more synergies from CSI and maybe continue to divest some more lower margin horsepower.
John Griggs: Yeah, you bet. Hey, Doug, it's great to talk to you. This is John, and I'll turn it over to Mickey, too, if he wants to have some incremental comments. So, we're not going to talk about the 25 margins on this call. We'll do that later.
when we get formal guidance at the end of Q4.
John Griggs: But I will say the 66% adjusted gross margin in that contract services segment was something that we're really proud of.
Speaker Change: If you think about kind of how we get there, we finished the last quarter at 64%, but recall we had a unique $3 million sales tax accrual that happened in that particular segment. So if you remove that, it's roughly 65%.
Speaker Change: So that 1% increase, how did we get there? Again, it's a factor of continued repricing of the fleet.
Setting new horsepower at new horsepower type pricing.
Speaker Change: continued realization of the transaction synergies and frankly just good old fashioned cost management. So, we're not done at the 66%. It's our ambition to continue to increase that margin and that will really be the needle in the business.
That's kind of where we are now.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: Great, thanks. And then my second question just on tax allocation.
Speaker Change: I'm just wondering if you could talk about how you're thinking about balancing buybacks versus maybe the benefits of some increased liquidity in the shares moving forward. I'm just wondering if we can maybe see you be a bigger buyer in the future if we see more secondaries.
Speaker Change: Yeah, hey Doug, this is McKee. I think we're certainly open to entertaining that. We've definitely modeled some into our next year's kind of models. That'll depend on when EQT comes back to market with some additional follow-ons.
Speaker Change: But keep it in mind that whatever we do is going to drive towards our goal of making sure we get to our three and a half times leverage target by the end of next year. So I don't think that what you'll see will be drastically different than what you've seen in the past.
Speaker Change: Understood. That's all for me. I'll leave it there. Thank you.
Great, thanks Seth.
Speaker Change: Our next question is from Dave Maureen from Mizzou Hill. Please go ahead.
Speaker Change: Hey, morning team. I wanted to ask about McKee's comments on high-grading assets, just kind of where things stand in terms of the divestiture program, and also now that you have a couple more months of Compresco under your belt, to what extent you're kind of looking at some of their regions where you might have a little bit of a smaller horsepower presence?
Speaker Change: Whether you're committed to being there, those might be candidates for divestiture and high-grading the portfolio.
Yeah Gabe, hey, appreciate it, this is Mickey.
Speaker Change: You know, we're always looking at the fleet and evaluating it to figure out if it's a basin we want to be in and if it's units that we want to potentially divest over time.
Speaker Change: Right now, we don't have any plans to exit any basins. We're a Permian-centric company, because that's where the opportunity's been for the last decade or so.
Speaker Change: But there's other basins out there that certainly meet our strategic goals of being in oil-directed basins with liquids-rich.
the type of opportunities with associated gas.
Speaker Change: You know, just because it's not the Permian doesn't mean we don't want to be there. So, there's lots of other opportunities, lots of good people that we can find outside the Permian as well. However, most of our growth is happening.
Speaker Change: within the Permian Basin. So we've got a couple other small divestitures planned for this year of some packages of small horsepower units as we continue to just kind of prune the fleet and get rid of some some non-desirable stuff but
Speaker Change: Really and truly, it's not needle-moving horsepower or funds that are going to be moving. It's just really just pruning and shaping the fleet and making sure that we're focused with our people on the best possible place to create shareholder value.
Speaker Change: Thanks, Mickey. And then maybe if I could follow up with a Permian-related question, because it seems like things are going from bullishness to bullishness here on the Permian gas outlook. Can you just talk about directionally what that may mean for your CapEx next year? I mean, we certainly heard some midstreamers.
Speaker Change: continue to slot in additional processing and gathering system upsizing. So I'm just wondering if that's kind of going to be pulling on your CapEx maybe a little bit into 2025?
Speaker Change: I don't think anything's going to change here, Dave. We've got a capital allocation strategy that is, you know, what we believe creates the most value for our shareholders, which is
Speaker Change: to pay a nice and growing dividend to make sure that we live within our cash flows and reinvest.
Speaker Change: The balance of our discretionary cash flow into growing the fleet with organic growth at very, very attractive margins. But like I said, to end up...
Speaker Change: have more cash at the end of the year than we did when we started the year. So, it's a combination of all those things, working in some share buybacks along the way, and living within our means, within our cash flows. So, I know people will be asking probably about that.
Speaker Change: Any change to capital allocation priorities because of the results of the election and that kind of thing but really from our standpoint It doesn't it's just kind of
Speaker Change: We believe we have the best plan, no matter what administration is in the White House, and as far as capital allocation priority, and it's going to be the same either way, and we believe that's the best way to create shareholder value.
Speaker Change: and what we've said at the time of the CSI acquisition, given the long lead times on new horsepower.
Speaker Change: For the most part, the 24 horsepower was pretty fully baked by the time we bought the company.
Speaker Change: As you look forward to 2025, we always said you should look to us to be kind of bare or a shade lower since we can control the CapEx spend in 2025. So, we'll put a finer pin on that as we get to 2025 guidance and our Q4 earnings release. But I would say that kind of should set some bounds as to what to expect in terms of new horsepower for next year.
Appreciate the comments. Thanks guys.
Yeah, thanks Gabe.
Speaker Change: Next question is from John McKay from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
John McKay: Hey guys, thanks for the time. I just wanted to start on some of these new unit additions, kind of a little bit on forward-year CapEx.
John McKay: Are you guys still seeing higher costs for new units, you know, higher per unit capex? And maybe just give us an update on how that's been flowing through into ability to push through higher prices. Thanks.
Speaker Change: Yeah, I mean, good morning, John. Yeah, I mean, the cost of compression isn't going down. It is, in fact, it goes up consistently year over year. We're not seeing the same level of inflation on CapEx costs that we've seen in the past, but you are going to see, you know, kind of...
John McKay: mid-single digits inflationary costs on on the cost of that equipment as it results from you know
John McKay: major component suppliers and that kind of thing. So, we have been able to pass that kind of.
Speaker Change: of costs on to our, in our contracts because, you know, us just targeting that same amount of return on capital was.
with more expensive units, we need a...
Speaker Change: a higher return and higher rates and higher contribution margin to justify spending that capital and
Speaker Change: and spending that money. So, yeah, I mean, it's going up marginally, I think, for next year, and we continue to see that trend, but we've had really good luck contracting that out and making sure that we're getting the same returns as our expectations are.
Speaker Change: That was clear. Thanks for that. Second, just on electrification, I appreciate all the comments on how long it's going to take to build the grid and then permit, etc. I guess just maybe when you're having your conversation with customers, let's say for...
Speaker Change: ads in 2026. Is it that top-down kind of grid discussion that's driving their demand for, you know, electric motor units? Or is it something else? I guess, like, what's driving the pace of those deployments overall?
Speaker Change: generating capacity. That's what is driving the adoption rate on the electric motor units, it's an access to reliable power.
Speaker Change: Can I ask a quick follow-up on that? Is there an opportunity for you guys to get involved on kind of that slight extension, I guess we could say, of the value chain getting into
You know the power side a little bit more
Speaker Change: potentially you know it's something that we'll probably evaluate but you know we'll look at you know how that would might
Speaker Change: to bake into our capital allegation priorities and see if there's a spot for it there. Not sure. Something that we'll have to evaluate pretty considerably more over the next coming year.
Oh, clear. Still early days. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, John.
Speaker Change: Our next question is from Neil Dingman from Chua Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: Morning guys, another nice quarter. Maybe I'll just start to ask, but first a little bit different on margins specifically. Could you all speak to, you know, you were notably able to bring your segment margins back.
Speaker Change: to that 66% level after acquiring a CSI. I'm just wondering, what were the drivers? How were you able to do that so quickly? And then, you know, now that those assets seem to be pretty fully integrated, does that just keep going?
Speaker Change: Yeah, Neil, great question. Excuse me, it's John Griggs talking to you.
Speaker Change: You know, I guess what I'd point out, one of the things that really strikes us is that before we acquired CSI, Kodiak's compression operations business operated at a 66% gross margin. Of course, we were trying to move that up. CSI was somewhere in the mid-50s.
Speaker Change: So now we've put the two together, we've captured some synergies, we've raised some prices, and we're right back to kind of where we started. So we think that's really notable.
Speaker Change: To be more specific about how we get there, so again, said it earlier, but it's
setting new units that market rates
Speaker Change: repricing the existing fleet as it rolls over. Those are probably the biggest levers that get us there. And then the synergies, you know, we called out probably 30 million dollars in synergies.
Speaker Change: but they're really not moving the needle. And the further we get from the CSI transaction, the more, I guess I'd say, the murkier it gets as to, well, heck, was that a synergy or was that just hard work on us trying to manage our costs?
Speaker Change: So we're not really looking at those synergies as much as we are let's manage our costs. Let's think about automation Let's think about rethinking the process
Speaker Change: Great details. And John, maybe just a follow-up for you as well, just on debt and shareholder return. I'm just wondering, can we assume shareholder return will sort of remain around the same, you know, sort of pace and has that targeted leverage level changed going forward?
Speaker Change: Yeah, I'll repeat what Mickey said. So our capital allocation framework, it's really simple, and it remains unchanged. We seek to grow adjusted EBITDA in the upper single digit range annually. You see that on a pro forma basis with the guidepost we've given for 25.
Speaker Change: We've been very vocal about how we want to pay out roughly, call it, 35% of our discretionary cash flow to shareholders in the form of a recurring dividend. And so as we wrote EBITDA.
Speaker Change: DCF should grow as well, so the expectation should be that the dividend should grow as that percentage holds.
Speaker Change: That's of course subject to the board, but that's the model that we use and the mental map that we use. And then the most important, maybe our true north is, we want to get to that three and a half times leverage by the end of 2025.
Speaker Change: So those two variables, plus the new variable of a share repurchase, that repurchase is important. We think that studying prior sell-downs by other private equity-backed energy businesses that have gone successfully
Speaker Change: The ones that have gone the best tend to be done the same way we just accomplished ours. It's a formula that's worked for them and we think it's a formula that's going to work for us. We have the incremental repurchases, but just know that if we do it, we're not going to take our eyes off our leverage target of three and a half times by the end of next year.
Thanks, John.
You bet.
Speaker Change: Our next question is from Jim Rolison from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Speaker Change: Hey, good morning guys. Mickey, you made a couple comments around...
Speaker Change: around setting new units at higher prices, obviously around the fact that inflation's still, you know, muted from what it was, but ongoing. Maybe just a level set of kind of...
Speaker Change: where leading-edge pricing is today relative to your fleet average because you know that numbers I think both have been moving higher, but just kind of curious where that spread sits today ballpark
Speaker Change: Good morning, Jim. I think that new unit spot prices are probably 20% higher than what the fleet average looks like right now, maybe 25% higher.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: So, you know, like I said in the question earlier, you know, a lot of that's driven by the higher capital cost.
Speaker Change: of the equipment that is around today and what we're paying for this equipment, as well as labor costs, too. Everybody knows that labor is a challenge in the Permian.
Speaker Change: You know, when the labor prices go up, they certainly don't retreat. Typically, nobody likes getting a pay reduction.
Speaker Change: So, you know, like I said, that's some inflationary cost drivers right there, plus capital costs is driving us to kind of think about spot prices being, you know, 20 or 25 percent higher than what the fleet average is right now.
Speaker Change: That's great obviously that you get to keep capturing that as you reprice things
Speaker Change: And then on the kind of complete composition as you've sold off the gas jack business, you mentioned a few other kind of targeted smaller...
Speaker Change: divestitures, how do we think about utilization? Because prior to the CSI transaction, right, you guys were at high 90% utilization across the Kodiak fleet.
Speaker Change: And then that dipped when you kind of merged in those low utilization, low horsepower units. And as you kind of migrate away from those and maybe reposition some of the CSI units on the larger horsepower side, just this quarter you were a little over 96%. Does that get back up to the 99-plus percent range at some point?
Speaker Change: We hope so, and that's what we're going to be shooting for, Jim. So, you know, that's the goal here, is to make sure that we get that utilization back in hand. And not just utilization for the sake of utilization, right? We want it to be...
Speaker Change: the right utilization with the right customers and the right basins with the right contracts and that kind of thing. So, that's what we work on every day and make sure that we have the longevity and the stability of those cash flows and not just...
Speaker Change: sacrificing some of the things that are kind of strategically important to us for the safety utilization.
Speaker Change: Yep, you've all been pretty thoughtful about that. Appreciate the answers.
Thanks, Jim.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: Our next question is from Jeremy Tonic from J.P. Morgan Chase & Company. Please go ahead.
Speaker Change: Hey, this is Eli Allen for Jeremy. Maybe just back to the 2025 outlook, you know, I know the portfolio is largely contracted and, you know, the utilization upside has kind of been touched on, but, you know, can you just reframe the dynamics that could actually drive you guys to the higher end of that range next year?
Speaker Change: Yeah, good morning. I think, like, look, I mean, we're a pretty highly-contracted business, but we do have the variability in a lot of our contracts rolling off of contracts and being up for renewal for the year.
Speaker Change: You know, about 30% of our contracts will come up for renewal over the next 12 to 15 months.
Speaker Change: based on the success of that renewal and kind of the increase in those rates to get them closer to market rates is probably the variability that we have in the...
Speaker Change: in the contribution for next year, and so, as well as, you know, making sure that we continue to realize, you know, I think John said earlier, we're most of the way there on the synergies, but there are some additional synergies.
Speaker Change: to be had here and it's going to depend on our our ability to execute on those and make sure that we keep our eye on the ball and and keep moving forward there and make sure that we execute in the way that we've been executing.
Thank you.
Thank you.
and everybody else.
Speaker Change: Got it. Sounds good. And then maybe just as a follow-up, I respect that the compression market continues to remain hot, and previously there was discussion around lead times. So maybe just where you see lead times right now, and if those were to come in, how that would affect your ability to deploy compression units over the next couple of years, and kind of deliver those to your customers.
Speaker Change: The only times today to get a new package built and ordered and built from scratch from Caterpillar and Ariel are about nine months.
Speaker Change: maybe a tick under that. So still is is elongated lead time, still working with our with our customer base.
Speaker Change: Well in advance of when they need When they need the equipment and making sure that we have that stuff contracted up Before we spend any any capital. So as you recall, we don't spend any capital on speculation here. So
Mike Satterthwaite
Speaker Change: almost a nine-month lead time. Right now it's still elongated lead times. I wouldn't expect, if those lead times did come in at all, I wouldn't expect them to come in any shorter than probably six months at the most. So, you know, and looking at the activity that we have coming up and the massive amount of compression infrastructure that has to be
Speaker Change: in installed over the net over the balance of a decade to handle increased LNG volumes, to handle AI and data center gas demand, gas driven demand. It really, I don't foresee
Speaker Change: Lead time is coming in in a significant manner anytime soon.
Gotcha. Alright, I'll leave it there. Thanks.
Thank you all.
Speaker Change: Our next question is from Sebastian Erskine from Red Burnet Atlantic. Please go ahead.
Speaker Change: Hi, good morning, Mickey, John and team, and thanks for taking my questions. Just to start, I mean, I guess one of the issues that's been facing ENPs in the Permian has been the lack of kind of sufficient pipeline infrastructure. And that's meant that they kind of held a bit back on production. And obviously, you know, in the third quarter, we've seen that the Matterhorn pipeline has come online and there are several more to come online in the coming years. So I'm just curious, in your conversations with your customers, are you expecting this new infrastructure to allow new wells to come online, production to be boosted in the Permian? And obviously, kind of the read across from that to compression demand as well would be great.
Yeah, good morning, Sebastian. Thanks for the question.
Speaker Change: All of our customers that we're dealing with and planning out 9 months and 12 months ahead of time are all very cognizant of what the take-away capacity is in the Permian. Most of them have firm take-away already committed to long before they decide to commit to compression.
Speaker Change: I think that some of this capacity that's coming online is just as planned, and it shouldn't affect...
Speaker Change: The demand for our services at all, it's going to be kind of baked into that planning process that's 9 months or 12 months out.
Speaker Change: Really appreciate that. And the second one, if I may, I just noticed in the third quarter there was quite a large working capital cash outflow. I think it was about 85 million dollars. If you could give us some color on what kind of what drove that and maybe what we can expect on working capital movements going forward, that would be really appreciated.
Speaker Change: You bet. Sebastian, this is John. Yeah, that's something that we've got our eye really closely on. After we brought the two businesses together, we continue to work in two systems across our inventory, which makes it difficult for people that are using one aspect of the system to know what's in the other side. Pretty natural thing in acquisitions like this, so that's caused us to have an elevated level of inventory. As we migrate those two systems into one, we would expect for that to go down during 2025, and that's something that we're keenly focused on.
Speaker Change: A lot of the challenges as you do that are making sure that you can get set up with your customers so you can effectively bill them. I remind everybody that probably 85 to 88% of our revenues are contractually driven and our counterparties are some of the largest household names in the upstream and midstream energy industry. So we're absolutely unconcerned with the credit quality of those customers. We just need to work through the invoicing process, make sure that we're set up and get caught back up. We expect to get there by the end of the year and in the next year as well. A great question and something that the management team is keenly focused on.
Thank you.
Brilliant. Thanks very much and congratulations on the quarter. Thanks.
Thanks Sebastian.
Speaker Change: Our next question is from Theresa Chen from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Theresa Chen: Morning, thank you for fitting me in. Just a quick one on your recontracting outlook.
Theresa Chen: given a lot of commentary on the tightness of the supply chain and how that's translating to economic tailwinds for your assets
Speaker Change: I'm just curious, as you think about recontracting going forward, do you consider trading some rate for term and elongating your weighted contract duration? How do you generally think about that trade-off?
Speaker Change: Yeah, typically we don't, we like to have our equipment under contract for sure.
Speaker Change: But personally, I'm not willing, I wouldn't be willing to trade contract rate for term.
Speaker Change: The way we look at it at Kodiak, Teresa, as you know, is we look at the life and the longevity of the production that's sitting underneath our compressors as kind of the contract term that we have, right?
Speaker Change: I've said before, if I put a large horsepower compressor on 20-year life production and I sign a 1-year contract, I'm going to renew that contract 20 years, 20 times if I
Speaker Change: We take care of our business operationally and we're providing the best level of service operationally.
Speaker Change: Like she said, when we look at contract term, we're looking at the life of the production, which is what drives our strategy of wanting to be in liquids-rich, oily basins with associated gas. So those basins tend to have...
Speaker Change: Longer life to them. The Permian is certainly is a great example of that And and we want our equipment on on long life production that we know will provide a stability of cash flows for many many years
Thank you.
Thank you, Drew, for the question.
Speaker Change: Sorry about that. Next question is from Zach Van Everen from TPH. Please go ahead.
Speaker Change: Hey guys, thanks for taking the question. Just one quick one from me. You know, with 2025 fully contracted, can you give an update on how 2026 is coming along?
Some quick discussions.
In 2026, Zach, nothing really hard booked up for 2026.
Thank you. Bye bye. Bye bye.
Speaker Change: type of deliveries right now, so our customers aren't super concerned right now about starting to work on contracts out in mid-2026. And quite yet, having some preliminary conversations, but we don't have contracts pending out there right now, so I kind of feel like we've got about
Speaker Change: probably four to six months of runway before we really need to start looking at deliveries into 2026.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: Got it. That makes sense. Appreciate it. Have a good one.
Thank you, Zach.
Speaker Change: This concludes today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back to management for any closing comments.
Speaker Change: Thank you, Operator, and thanks to everyone participating in today's call. We look forward to speaking with you again after we report our results for the fourth quarter. Thanks.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you again for your participation.
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