Smart Sand, Inc.

Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call

8/14/2024

speaker
Operator
and welcome to the SmartStand Q2 2024 earnings call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At which time should you wish to ask a question, just press star 1 on your touchtone phone. And if at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star 0 for the operator. This call is being recorded on Wednesday, August 14, 2024. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Green.
speaker
Chris Green
Please go ahead, sir.
speaker
spk02
Good morning, and thank you for joining us for SmartSAN's second quarter 2024 earnings call. On the call today, we have Chuck Young, founder and chief executive officer, Lee Beckelman, chief financial officer, and John Young, chief operating officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind all participants that our comments made today will include forward-looking statements. which are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated. For a complete discussion of such risks and uncertainties, please refer to the company's press release and our documents on file with the SEC. Marksam disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial projections or forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. This conference call contains time-sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast today, August 14, 2024. Additionally, we will refer to the non-GAAP financial measures of contribution margin, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow during this call. These measures, when used in combination with our GAAP results, provide us and our investors with useful information to better understand our business. Please refer to our most recent press release or our public filings for our reconciliations of gross profit to contribution margin, net income to adjusted EBITDA, and cash flow provided by operating activities to free cash flow. I would now like to turn the call over to our CEO, Chuck Young.
speaker
Chuck Young
Thanks, Chris, and good morning. In the second quarter, we continued to build off of our first quarter momentum and once again delivered strong results. Sales volume were just under 1.3 million tons in the second quarter, which exceeded our projections. 2024 sales volume through June were 15% higher than sales volumes for the first six months of 2023. Contribution margin in the second quarter improved to $19.8 million and adjusted EBITDA increased to $11.8 million. Additionally, we generated $13.5 million in pre-cash flow for the quarter. Due to our strong results, we are now free cash flow positive for the year through June. Importantly, we expect to remain free cash flow positive for the full year and, as a direct result of our focus on generating free cash flow, we expect to announce plans to return value to our shareholders later this year. We also remain focused on managing our cost structure. We have driven down our production costs and administrative costs in the quarter. These efforts have directly resulted in improvements to contribution margins and adjusted EBITDA. We will continue to benefit from these savings initiatives in the future and remain committed to finding new ways to drive efficiency in our business. In the second quarter, we continued to execute on our long-term goals. We continue to strengthen our market-leading Northern White franchise. We continue to build market share in the Bakken and Marcells basins, Through our Blair facility, we are establishing SmartSand as a consistent and growing supplier of northern white sand into the Canadian market. We are expanding the markets we serve. We invested in two new terminals in Minerva and Denison, Ohio, which will open up the Utica Shale Formation as a market for us. The terminals are now operational in transloading sand. We are establishing markets for our industrial product solutions business. We continue to make strides with new industrial sand customers, making the change to SmartSand to meet their industrial product needs. We are laying the groundwork this year to position SmartSand to compete for new business as industrial sand contracts come up for renewal in 2025. We remain committed to high standards of product quality and service delivery for our last mile business. We continue to strive to be the best in class in last mile solutions and continue to look to improve capabilities of our product and services for sand delivery and storage at the well site. Our focus never wavers from having efficient and cost-effective sand production and delivery costs. In the second quarter, we implemented several initiatives to manage our labor costs, improve our plant product yields, and invest in more efficient mining methods. We will maintain our focus to be a low-cost producer of northern white sand. We will not deviate from our commitment to a strong capital structure with low debt and appropriate liquidity. Lee will provide more details later in the call, but in June, we refinanced our Oakdale equipment financing into a new four-year equipment financing. We remain committed to being the premier provider of northern white sand in North America, and we are confident that the foundation for northern white sand demand is strong and will be durable over time. The primary frac sand markets we currently serve are the Marcellus, the Bakken, including the Canadian Bakken, the Montigny, and the Duvernay in Canada, and now the Utica Shale Basin in Ohio. The basins are all primarily northern white sand supplied markets. We believe these markets will continue to have strong and growing demand for northern white sand for the foreseeable future. The basins we serve are evenly divided between oil and gas, with the Marcellus and the Canada primary being natural gas markets, and the Bakken and Utica being oil-focused markets. The combination of our three operating mines in Oakdale, Wisconsin, Blair, Wisconsin, and Utica, Illinois, coupled with our direct access on four Class I rail lines, the Canadian Pacific, the Union Pacific, the Canadian National, and the Burlington Northern, uniquely precision smart sands that continue to be a leading provider of northern white sands. Collectively, our three facilities have a combined capacity of 10 million tons annually. And as the markets grow, we have the capacity ready and available to meet its growth and needs. However, we recognize that oil and gas demand for Fraxan can and will continue to fluctuate based on current and expected prices for oil and natural gas. That is why we remain focused on being a low-cost producer. We continue to move forward on our plans to convert our Oakdale facility to hydro mining, which should reduce our operating costs in the future. And we've worked to better align our labor force for their current operational needs. We're also in the process of implementing a new ERP to provide us with access to more timely operational and financial information. We had strong demand in the Marcells in the first quarter. Demand in the second quarter in the Marcells did moderate slightly. We currently expect third quarter sales volume in the basin to be relatively consistent with second quarter, but we could see a slowdown in the fourth quarter based upon current natural gas prices and expected activity. With the startup of our new terminals, we're seeing the Utica demand increase, which should mitigate any short-term slowdowns in the Marcells. While activity in the Marcells may slow down in the second half of the year due to current low natural gas prices, We believe the long-term demand fundamentals for natural gas supply in the United States and Canada is strong. Increasing demand from LNG export facilities and power generation for new AI data centers support the need for increased natural gas demand in the US. We expect this market to be a growing part of our business as we look out to 2025 and beyond. In contrast to natural gas prices, oil prices have remained at healthy levels. Activity in the Bakken Basin in North Dakota typically picks up in the second and third quarters, and this year has been no exception. We had strong activity in the second quarter in this basin, and we expect that to continue into the third quarter. Bakken activity usually slows down in the fourth quarter due to the onset of winter. We continue to work on increasing our market presence in the Canadian markets. The first half of 2024, Canada's sales have represented approximately 10% of our sales volume. We expect Canadian activity to be consistent in the second half of 2024. As we look to grow our Canadian market presence, we're looking at terminal options to establish our logistics footprint in this market. Efficient and sustainable logistics capabilities are essential to our long-term success. Our investment in our Van Hook terminal in North Dakota and our Waynesburg terminal in Pennsylvania have been key drivers in our ability to increase our market share in the Bakken and Marcellus markets. Having control of terminals in the basins allows us to deliver sand more efficiently, sustainably, and cost effectively. Our primary objective is to deliver positive free cash flow consistently. In the second quarter, we had strong cash conversion of receivables that were built up in the first quarter. which, coupled with the effective cost management and disciplined capital spending, led to substantial improvement in free cash flow in the second quarter and positive free cash flow for the six months of the year. We expect to be free cash flow positive for the year. We are committed to start returning value back to our shareholders. Given our generation of free cash flow over the first six months and our expectation that we will remain free cash flow positive for the year, we expect to communicate our plans to start returning value to our shareholders later this year. We believe northern white sand will continue to be a key product for both the energy and industrial sand markets. In the second quarter, we continue to build off our solid first quarter performance. While there may be short-term blips in natural gas basins due to current low natural gas prices, the long-term fundamentals for northern white sand in general, and smart sand in particular, continue to be strong. We believe no other company is better positioned to take advantage of the market for Northern White Sand than SmartSand. We couldn't have delivered these results without the hard work and dedication of our employees. I want to thank all of our employees for their continued support and dedication to SmartSand. As always, we'll keep our employees' and shareholders' interests in mind in everything we do. And with that, I'll turn the call over to our CFO, Lee Beckleman.
speaker
Lee Beckleman
Thanks, Chuck. Now I'll go through some of the highlights of the second quarter 2024 compared to our first quarter 2024 results. We sold 1.27 million tons in the second quarter, a 5% decrease from the first quarter sales volumes of 1.34 million tons. Total revenues for the second quarter were 73.8 million compared to 83.1 million in the first quarter. Total revenues were lower in the second quarter due primarily to lower sand sales volume. lower average frax and sales prices, and lower smart systems revenues from reduced utilization of our fleet. Our cost of sales for the quarter were 60.7 million, compared to first quarter of 71.2 million, a 15% decrease. The decrease was due primarily to lower sales volumes in the quarter, coupled with ongoing cost and efficiency initiatives to reduce production costs. Total operating expense were 9.5 million in the second quarter, compared to 11 million in the first quarter. The decrease sequentially was primarily due to higher incentive compensation and higher royalties from increased sales volumes in the first quarter. During the second quarter, we had a 1.3 million loss on the extinguished from the debt. This expense was related to the payoff of some equipment leases that were part of the refinancing that was completed in June. Contribution margin was 19.8 million or $15.53 per ton in the second quarter. First quarter contribution margin was $18.5 million, or $13.85 per ton. Adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter was $11.9 million, compared to $9.3 million in the first quarter. While sales volumes were down in the quarter, contribution margin and adjusted EBITDA both improved sequentially due to our continued focus on managing our cost structure. Second quarter 2024, we had $14.9 million in cash provided by operating activities, which led to $13.5 million in free cash flow after we spent $1.4 million on capital expenditures. This compares to $3.9 million in cash used by operating activities and a negative $5.5 million in free cash flow in the first quarter. The improvement in cash provided by operating activities was primarily due to reduced working capital requirements, as sales volumes leveled out, and we had higher cash conversion of our receivables in the quarter. We ended the second quarter with $2 million in borrowings on our credit facility. Today, there are no outstanding borrowings on our credit facility. We had approximately $6.3 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the second quarter. Between cash and availability from our credit facility, we currently have available liquidity in excess of $28 million. In June, we completed the refinancing of our Oakdale equipment financing, along with a couple of smaller equipment financings. We refinanced this debt with a new $10 million facility. This new facility amortizes over a four-year term and has an implied interest rate of approximately 8.6%. Our current $20 million ABL credit facility comes due in December. We're in the process of refinancing this facility and expect to close this new facility in the third quarter. While sales volumes did moderate in the second quarter, we still delivered solid sales results and improved contribution margin, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow. As Chuck highlighted, we do expect some pullback in the Marcellus due to lower current natural gas prices, but that should be mitigated some by expected increased volumes in the Bakken in the third quarter, as well as new sales volumes into the Utica Basin. Currently, we expect third quarter sales Sand sales volumes to be in the $1 million to $1.2 million range. Contribution margin per ton improved to $15.53 per ton in the second quarter. We expect third quarter contribution margin to be in the $14 to $16 per ton range. We evaluate and manage our capital expenditures on a quarterly basis. With our projects planned to date, we currently expect capital expenditures for the year to be in the $10 million to $13 million range. The increase in capital expenditures in the second half of the year from the $3 million spent through June is primarily due to the completion of projects that were started in the first half of the year. We delivered strong free cash flow in the second quarter, and while we expect quarterly free cash flow to moderate in the second half of the year, we still expect to be free cash flow positive for the year.
speaker
Chris Green
This concludes our prepared comments, and we will now open the call for questions. Thank you, sir.
speaker
Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star and one on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star two. Once again, star and one if you wish to ask a question.
speaker
Chris Green
One moment for your first question. And we now have our first question.
speaker
Operator
And this comes from the line of Stephen Gencaro from Stifel. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
speaker
Stephen Gencaro
Thanks, and good morning, everybody. Good morning, Stephen. So two questions for me. And I know the first one might be hard to dissect, but I'm going to ask. You talked about some of the things you're doing on the cost side and your contribution margin per ton in the quarter. and the guidance for the next quarter given the volumes is very strong. Is there any way to quantify or give us a sense maybe, you know, on a year-over-year basis or off of some level sort of the level of sort of cost savings that are sticky that we should sort of think about as we try to model going forward?
speaker
Lee Beckleman
I agree Steven that's a kind of a hard question to quantify but in general I think with some of the things we're doing in terms of managing our labor to be more in line and more flexible with our operations and sales volumes as well as the hydro mining in particular we're doing at Oakdale and other things of that nature that it could pitch you know an average you know reduce our production cost by potentially a dollar or two dollars per ton on average if we're operating at a fairly high utilization
speaker
John
Yeah, and Steven, what I would add to that is I think with a lot of the removal of the yellow iron, you know, the haul trucks and things like that, and moving that to electrically driven pumps and hydro mining, as we discussed, you know, allows us to kind of avoid some of the spikes we've seen in the past. You know, when diesel gets to five and six bucks, that provides a real headwind to us that we should have mitigated kind of going forward. So it provides a little bit more of an ability to see out and not have to worry so much about that stuff.
speaker
Stephen Gencaro
Okay. That helps. It's obviously a very positive trend. So the other question I had just quickly is when you look at the various markets you're serving, I mean, we've heard about sand pricing mostly around the Permian and some other markets. But what are you seeing kind of on the spot market, maybe just kind of relative to what your contracted volumes currently look like?
speaker
Lee Beckleman
In terms of pricing?
speaker
Stephen Gencaro
Yeah, in terms of pricing.
speaker
Lee Beckleman
I think John or Chuck can answer this, but pricing has been – relatively flat. So over the last couple of quarters, we saw a good pickup in pricing through the first half of last year, kind of moderated down, and it's been relatively flat for the last couple of quarters.
speaker
John
Yeah, I would just add to that. It's a little bit market dependent. Canada seems to allow for a little bit higher pricing, and some of the markets in the U.S. are a little bit lower pricing. But we have been in a relatively Stable pricing environment now for for quite a while, right and you know We're not seeing kind of what we were seeing back when the market was weak, you know teen pricing in the teens You're not sustainable. We're seeing pricing kind of in the mid 20s You know and we're seeing interest in contracting at those levels and so, you know knock on wood the pricing seems to be you know, we don't see anything that's going to take it out of that stability and You know, market demand and northern white supply seem to be still in relative balance. You've heard us say that before. And, you know, I think that going forward, we don't anticipate much of that's going to change.
speaker
Chuck Young
And one other thing I'd add is our sand, northern white sand, is heavily dependent on rail logistics. Our rail logistics setup is, you know, premier in the industry. We have the best assets.
speaker
Stephen Gencaro
Great. Thank you. And maybe just one quick one on that. We've been here, and I don't know if this affects you at all, but we've been hearing about this Canadian rail strike. And I forget, honestly, the drop dead date. Does that have any impact on you guys?
speaker
John
Yeah, it sounds like I think August 22nd is the big date for that as to when they're enabled to go on strike. Now that, we've been told by our rail partners that that is going to affect primarily Canada. It doesn't impact the lower 48 where the bulk of our volume goes today. But, yeah, we're hopeful that that gets resolved in a way that doesn't impact our operations, similar to the rail situation in the U.S. a few years ago, where it went right to the 11th hour and then got resolved and ended up impacting us. But, you know, the Canadian market is still a growing market for us. It's certainly going to be a very important market for us. But I think that this strike, assuming it gets resolved relatively quickly, shouldn't have too much of an impact on us.
speaker
Stephen Gencaro
Excellent. Thank you for all the people.
speaker
Operator
Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Josh Jane from Daniel Energy Partners. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
speaker
Josh Jane
Thanks. Good morning. First question I wanted to ask is on the Canadian market. Could you talk about how much sand you're selling into that market today and where it could ultimately go in 2025 and then Maybe just sort of a broad overview, when I look at the rig count, it's been holding up much better in Canada than the U.S. So could you talk about how much sand demand annually is coming from the Canadian market for northern white?
speaker
Lee Beckleman
Yeah, Josh, right now, obviously, it fluctuates by month and quarter, but approximately 10% of our sales are going to the Canadian market. And we do believe that that market has good, strong growth potential. it's hard to get great estimates on actual demand but we kind of put demand currently that market probably in the 8 to 10 million ton range and we think that market could grow you know grow substantially over the next couple of years most of the activity is going up into northwest alberta northeast british columbia and the duvenay and montane shell and that gas is really being driven by the lng export capacity on the west coast and we're really seeing a good pickup and activity And we expect that to be a growing and strong market for us. So we're at 10% today, and we hope to see that grow as we get into 2025 and be at a higher percentage of that. It's hard to give you an exact number, but we expect that to be growing as we get into 2025 and really extend our logistics network into Canada to really be more efficient in getting our sand into that market over time.
speaker
Josh Jane
And is there much of a difference between what you're selling just from a grade standpoint into the Marcellas versus the Canadian market? Could you talk about that a bit?
speaker
John
Yeah, that's actually a pretty good question, Josh. So that mine that we've got up there in Blair is slightly coarser than our other reserves, but the Canadian market tends to be a little bit coarser than the lower 48 market. And so when we produce, call it the 3070 product, for Canada, we produce a decent amount of 100 mesh that we keep down here primarily. So that mine tends to be pretty balanced with Canadian demand and then being able to put kind of the 100 mesh product into the lower 48. So it's not something we anticipated when we picked the property up, but it's something that's actually kind of interesting from a standpoint of that mine has got good efficiency and we're able to use most of the product that we're making.
speaker
Josh Jane
Okay, that's helpful. Thanks. I wanted to ask sort of a follow-up on supply demand. You mentioned in your prepared remarks the market is balanced and there was a question on pricing, but when I think about the capacity today at Oakdale, let's just call it nameplate is 5.5 million tons. Based on today's staffing levels, what's the maximum amount of sand you believe you could sell today as product? And could you just give us a reminder of how much you would have to produce to arrive at that number of tons sold.
speaker
John
Yeah, so we talked a little bit about some of the changes we've made, particularly in Oakdale, with going to hydro mining and whatnot. And so where we are today versus getting to 5.5 million, it's not a substantial increase in staffing. There is some increase in staffing, but we've got five dry plants in Oakdale, two wet plants. and we operate to varying degrees all of those plants all of the time. So to increase that doesn't require doubling the staff or any of that kind of stuff at Oakdale. There'll be a little bit of increase in variable costs there to do that, but it's not a 2X thing. It's adding a handful of staff here and there just to move to full 24-hour operation seven days a week and not shutting plants down. So, you know, we think that that's a really good tailwind for us, you know, as market demand increases. You know, at Blair, it's kind of a similar story. You know, Blair is a, you know, a single, it's got two dry plants and one wet plant all on site with the rail there. And so, you know, both of those sites are well positioned to be able to add incremental volume without huge capital expenditure and without having to add a ton of, you know, variable costs with employees and whatnot.
speaker
Chuck Young
Additionally, Josh, the, the, the reserve at Oakdale really lines up well with what the market demand is. So that's probably our premier asset.
speaker
Josh Jane
For sure. And just to follow up, I guess, a little bit deeper, I think what I'm trying to get at is if nameplate is 5.5 million tons and that's what you could produce, I guess I just want to better understand the your yield is not going to be 100% on that, right? And so when we think about supply demand in the market, I'm just trying to understand what the maximum, I guess, that could actually be produced product from the mine or based on where you're staffing today, if that helps frame the question a little better.
speaker
Lee Beckleman
Well, Josh, we don't get into specific of yields by plant, but generally you can think about, you know, that we're probably in a 70, 80% yield on average. Okay. getting up to 5.5 million tons in terms of the sand we'd be producing, you know, you can kind of do the math from that. But again, also, we look at our assets on an integrated basis. So it's not just Oakdale and maximizing its capacity. It's maximizing the value of all three of our assets in total. And we have 10 million tons of total capacity. And so actually Oakdale and Blair are very synergistic because they can serve some of the same markets. So depending on what the best rail access is, et cetera, or what the mix of our sand is in terms of sales, we can toggle sales back and forth between the two of those. So it's not necessarily the max volume that Oakdale can do, it's the combination of our assets and what we can get to on a combined basis relative to the market demand for the particular products.
speaker
John
Yeah, and Josh, what I would add to that is just kind of a point in time, but in February this year, Oakdale produced beyond the five and a half million tons in February, right? You know, from a run rate perspective, Oakdale can do it. It's just, you know, it's market demand and things like that. But Oakdale does have a really good ability to flex, you know, even in months that aren't particularly favorable weather-wise like February. So it does have that ability.
speaker
Lee Beckleman
Yeah, I think it's fair to say with our current staffing, we could be, you know, we could get our sales volumes up north of 7 million tons with maybe an incremental 5% or 10% increase in staffing. And we can get beyond that. and get much closer to our nameplate capacity, but that would require an incremental investment probably in people and a bit of equipment.