Q1 2025 ProPetro Holding Corp Earnings Call

In This Article:

Participants

Matt Augustine; Investor Relations; ProPetro Holding Corp

Samuel Sledge; Chief Executive Officer, Director; ProPetro Holding Corp

Celina Davila; Chief Accounting Officer, Interim Principal Financial Officer; ProPetro Holding Corp

John Daniel; Analyst; Daniel Energy Partners

Alex Shegelhofer; Analyst; Stifel

Waqar Syed; Analyst; ATB Capital Markets Inc.

Arun Jayaram; Analyst; J.P. Morgan Securities LLC

Presentation

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the ProPetro Holding Corp first-quarter 2025 conference call. Please note this event is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)
I now I'll send the call over to Matt Augustine, Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations for ProPetro Holding Corp. Please go ahead.

Matt Augustine

Thank you and good morning. We appreciate your participation in today's call. With me today are Chief Executive Officer, Sam Sledge; Chief Accounting Officer and Principal Financial Officer, Celina Davila; and President and Chief Operating Officer, Adam Munoz.
This morning we released our earnings results for the first quarter of 2025. Please note that any comments we make on today's call regarding projections or our expectations for future events are forward-looking statements covered by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Forward-looking statements are subject to several risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. These risks and uncertainties can cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. We advise listeners to review our earnings release and risk factors discussed in our filings with the SEC.
Also during today's call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release. Finally, after our prepared remarks, we'll hold a question-and-answer session.
With that, I would like to turn the call over to Sam.

Samuel Sledge

Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. I'd like to start with an overview of our first-quarter performance and some perspective on the current market dynamics. We'll then turn it over to Celina Davila, our current Chief Accounting Officer, who is also serving as our Interim Principal Financial Officer until a new Chief Financial Officer is appointed.
The first quarter was another great quarter for ProPetro both operationally and financially. Our performance underscores our commitment to strong execution and demonstrates that our strategy is working and continues to yield solid results. This strength is even more notable in light of recent macroeconomic volatility. In particular, the impact of tariffs and the OPEC+ production increases have placed significant pressure on the energy market and crude oil prices, a dynamic that creates uncertainty for the entire energy value chain.
Despite the industry stagnation over the past couple of years, our focus on more capital efficient asset investments is generating resilient free cash flow, demonstrating the effectiveness of our industrialized model. The investments we have made over the last few years in disciplined M&A, our new ProPWR offering, and our forced electric fleet transition ensure ProPetro is built to withstand market turbulence and deliver durable returns over time.
We've created a strong company with low debt, first-class customers, a focused presence in the leading Permian Basin with hardworking and dedicated team mates, and we are confident that ProPetro will continue to perform in light of volatile market conditions.
Demand for our next-generation services remains strong as it encompasses 75% of our fleet through our Tier IV DGB dual-fuel and electric offerings. We currently operate seven Tier IV DGB dual-fuel fleets with industry-leading diesel displacement, two of which are now recently under long-term contracts. Additionally, we have 4 FORCE fleets in the field under long-term contracts, with a 5th FORCE fleet expected to be deployed under contract this year. In total, we now have 6 fleets under contract, which represents approximately 50% of our active hydraulic horsepower today.
We plan to increase this number as we deploy more FORCE fleets over the next few years. Accordingly, we intend to continue to transition capital from legacy diesel equipment to FORCE electric equipment, which is in high demand and securing committed contracts that reduce our future earnings risk.
Now to ProPWR. As a reminder, earlier this year, we reported an approximate total of 140 megawatts of mobile, natural-gas-fueled, power-generation equipment on order. Since then, we have placed additional orders for approximately 80 megawatts of natural gas reciprocating generators which are expected to be funded from our cash flow.
With this, our equipment type is split relatively evenly between turbines and natural gas reciprocating generators. We anticipate full delivery of all ordered ProPWR equipment, approximately 220 megawatts by mid-year 2026. Moreover, we are encouraged by the sustained robust demand for these assets and have secured letters of intent on approximately 75 megawatts of long-term ProPWR service capacity with two separate operators in the Permian Basin to support their infield power needs, with final contract execution expected soon.
We're encouraged by these early results but believe this is truly just the beginning for ProPWR. We've made significant progress in obtaining additional customer commitments and are actively negotiating long-term contracts beyond what we have announced today. We believe the demand for reliable, low-emission power solutions is vast and increasing, and we are positioning ProPWR to capitalize on this high-growth vertical.
Now I mentioned this earlier, but I want to touch on it once again given today's macro trends. We believe in a dynamic capital allocation strategy that allows us to pursue growth through M&A, our ProPWR offering, and our FORCE electric fleet transition, all of which drive opportunities for shareholder returns.
We expect to continue to execute on all of these moving forward. And I would like to underscore the fact that our financial improvements over the past two years are a result of the execution of this very strategy.
Celina will review our first-quarter results shortly, but I would like to highlight a few things. As I shared at the beginning of the call, despite market headwinds, we generated strong free cash flow as well as solid adjusted EBITDA and lower-than-expected capital expenditures relative to guidance. This is due to a variety of factors including our higher utilization across all segments, stabilization of pricing, effective cost controls, operational excellence, and record efficiency. In addition to strong operational performance, we are benefiting from the resilience of our offering as both our Tier IV, DGB dual-fuel and electric equipment remain highly utilized.
Finally, in terms of our outlook and how our strategy will support us through current market uncertainty, we recognize that the near-term outlook is unclear. Due to the recent decline in oil prices influenced by tariffs and OPEC+ production increases, along with our discipline asset deployment strategy, we anticipate operating approximately between 13 and 14 fleets in the second quarter, a reduction from the 14 to 15 fleets we ran throughout the first quarter.
I want to make it abundantly clear that we are committed to maintaining the health of our fleet and will not compromise it by operating assets at subeconomic levels. Our primary focus is on preserving our assets to be well positioned once the broader market stabilizes and the cycle turns back around.
That said, for all the reasons I've highlighted throughout these remarks, ProPetro's low debt, premier customer base, Permian focus, long-term service contracts, and flexible capital allocation program that safeguards free cash flow generation along with the earnings growth potential of ProPWR, we are confident that we will continue to maximize long-term value for our shareholders.
With that, I'll turn it over to Celina to discuss our financial results.