Liberty Energy Inc.

Welcome to Liberty Energy Iron's conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. If you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note that this event is being recorded. Now I'd like to turn the conference over to Anjali Borya, Strategic Finance and Investor Relations Lead. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Nick. Good morning, and welcome to the Liberty Energy first quarter 2023 earnings column. Joining us on the call are Chris Wright, Chief Executive Officer, Ron Guthick, President, and Michael Stuck, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind all participants that some of our comments today may include forward-looking statements reflecting the company's view about future prospects, revenues, expenses, or profits. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. These statements reflect the company's beliefs based on current conditions that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that are detailed in our earnings release and other public filings. Our comments today also include non-GAAP financial and operational measures. These non-GAAP measures, including EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted pre-tax return on capital employed, are not a substitute for GAAP measures and may not be comparable to similar measures of other companies. A reconciliation of net income to EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA and the calculation of adjusted pre-tax return on capital employed, as discussed on this call, are presented in our earnings release, which is available on the investor section of our website. I will turn the call over to Chris.

Thanks, Ange. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2023 operational and financial results. Liberty delivered an outstanding first quarter with adjusted EBITDA of 330 million and fully diluted earnings per share of 90 cents, navigating volatile oil prices resulting from financial sector stresses that sent ripples across the energy sector. This was our fourth consecutive quarter of record profitability, which is reflected in our trailing 12-month adjusted pre-tax return on capital employed of 43%. Revenue for the quarter was 1.3 billion, a 59% increase over the prior year. We have the unique opportunity today to grow our earnings per share meaningfully via both growing our total profits and reducing our share count. Our 10% sequential growth in earnings per share this quarter was nearly one-third from reduced average quarterly share count. Michael will discuss our financial results in more detail later. We are proud of the Liberty team for executing at impressive levels. Liberty has an 11 year track record of delivering significantly higher average returns than the overall market. Our competitive advantage has never been larger and our industry is in a stronger position with significant consolidation and the leading players focused on returns and investing with discipline. Supplying the world with oil and gas is mission critical and spare production capacity today is quite modest. implying a positive outlook in the coming years for our industry and company. We began 2023 generating strong free cash flow, putting us in a position to invest in the business and return cash to shareholders. Since the reinstatement of our return of capital program in July of 2022, we have now returned $218 million to shareholders through cash dividends, and the retirement of 7.1% of outstanding shares, while continuing to invest in long-term growth and expanding our competitive advantage. We now have 300 million remaining in our authorization, and we are focused on the opportunistic execution of our buyback strategy. The speed at which we execute on our buyback authorization will be driven by the dislocation in our stock price relative to what we believe the intrinsic value of the stock to be. Three years on from the onset of the global pandemic and severe crash in energy markets, discipline is now widespread in the energy sector. North American frack activity predominantly just supports the maintenance of today's oil and gas production levels. The days of breakneck oil and gas production growth are over. The large majority of current frac activity is required to simply maintain today's record high oil and gas production levels in the U.S. and Canada. Service sector margins are now at healthy levels, more in line with our EMP customers that have been experiencing strong margins for many quarters. In this longer, perhaps steadier cycle ahead, there will be episodic challenges like we are seeing today in natural gas markets, and of course, recessionary risks. Today, we have excess demand for Liberty services as our customers want to align themselves with the top performers. This is part of a broader industry flight to quality trend. We will lead the way in maintaining pricing and profitability as we invest in our Digi technologies offering and retire older equipment. We believe these actions will support strong long-term returns for both Liberty and our customers. The oil field is undergoing a transformational change in how frac fleets are powered from diesel to natural gas, and Liberty is at the forefront of this change. We were an early driver of this industry shift, deploying our first dual fuel fleet 10 years ago. Today, our suite of digitechnologies, including mobile power generation, state-of-the-art digifrac electric fleets, The industry's first hybrid pump, DigiPrime, and our electric wire line solution, DigiWire, bring together the best of our innovation with the highest thermal efficiency and lowest emission solutions in the market. This suite of new technology developments allows us to deliver a customized, fit-for-purpose solution. We can integrate Digi technologies with either full or partial grid power. We can fuel DigiFleets with any type of gas, including field gas, CNG, or LNG, with Liberty Power innovations we'll provide for our customers. During the first quarter, we deployed our first DigiFleet, comprising Digifrack electric pumps, with no disruption to completion operations. We are pleased to announce that the crew quickly reached a milestone achievement of 1,291 minutes of pumping time in a day, or over 90% of the available time with plug and perf operations. As part of the new DigiSuite, our DigiWire unit will be deployed alongside that fleet next month. We are excited by the strong positive reaction from our customers. Our second DigiFrac deployment will be underway this quarter, again, deployed in a modular fashion that will maintain completion schedule efficiency during the rollout. In February, We also unveiled our revolutionary hybrid pump, DigiPrime, at the SPE Frac Conference in Houston. DigiPrime is an extremely efficient 100% natural gas engine that we will use as the primary source of horsepower on location, base power, if you will, complemented by one or two DigiFrac electric pumps to manage transient load and precision rate control. This configuration minimizes gas consumption, emissions, and fleet capital. DigiPrime hybrid technology also generates and stores electricity to run a fully electric backside, powering sand handling, chemical additions, hydration units, the data fan, and DigiWire. As we undergo this technology transition to gas-driven equipment, a priority for Liberty is to secure the supply chain that fuels these fleets. Having control over the technology power generation, and fuel services ensure that we put the best technology in the field to drive even further improvement in our industry-leading operational performance. We launched Liberty Power Innovations to expand our vertical integration alongside our sand, logistics, manufacturing, and design capabilities. These business lines must check two boxes, strong returns on capital within their own realm and drive operational efficiency and performance in our core frac business. LPI's initial focus will be on CNG and fieldgrass processing services that support the secular demand shift towards natural gas as the primary fuel of choice. We will provide uninterrupted delivery of fuel for frac fleets and other customer needs. Today, we are already fueling both drilling and completions in the Permian and Haynesville through both acquired operations and our own organic efforts. To accelerate LPI's expansion, earlier this month, we announced the acquisition of Siren Energy, a Permian-focused integrated natural gas compression and CNG delivery business. Siren brings installed and expandable gas compression facilities at two Permian sites, together with transportation, logistics, and well site pressure reduction services. Our early plans include a strategic expansion to power our digi fleets and dual fuel fleets and other growing needs from our customers for reliable CNG. We have equipment on order to increase our compression capacity in the Permian and expansion into other basins, grow our fleet of CNG trailers, and expand our field gas processing and treating capabilities. Dependable access to fuel is critical to maintaining highly efficient frac operations that drive Liberty's industry leading performance and returns. The demands for energy and power generation for industries beyond the oil field are also on the rise. We expect to find compelling high return operations opportunities to leverage our expertise and industry leading thermal efficient efficiency, mobile power generation technology together with our integrated fueling and logistics services. We will be highly selective in deploying capital only into compelling opportunities that may arise with micro or mini grids, data centers, utilities, emergency power, et cetera. Our logistics platform is also designed to deliver RNG and hydrogen as well as CNG. The synergies between these critical components position us to capture greater value with our assets. Today, our supply chain and logistics team continues to deliver outstanding cost-effective performance, enabling the efficiencies of our fleets to produce day in and day out. We think critically about what components of the supply chain are necessary to provide a base load of support for our fleets versus what areas are sufficiently and reliably supplied in the market. We will continue to invest in areas that promote the highest efficiencies with high return opportunities. By doing so, we will build strong customer relationships based on dependability and elite service quality. Tight frack markets persist in North America. Domestic natural gas markets are now beginning to show signs of a widely anticipated slowdown, but the softness is likely transitory. ahead of a wave of LNG and Mexico pipeline export growth. The vast majority of frac services are weighted toward oilier basins and are working to simply maintain today's production levels, implying a demand floor for frac services. Today, our calendar remains strong with some expected movement from gas to oilier basins during this transient period. The fundamental outlook for North American hydrocarbons is strong. as constrained global oil supply is confronted by rising demand in emerging markets and a gradual recovery in China. North American EMP companies have demonstrated strength and discipline amidst economic turbulence. Development programs are largely unchanged, as production has been roughly aligned with oil demand in the years since the pandemic, and EMP companies are financially healthier today relative to prior cycles. In early spring, financial sector stresses and the heightened perceived recessionary risk on global oil demand resulted in an abrupt fall in oil prices. Concerns have since eased as markets digested the news and economic data showed resiliency. A surprise collective and proactive output cut from OPEC Plus members, coupled with falling Russian supply, drove oil prices back to pre-bank stress levels. The ebbs and flows are always expected in a cyclical industry, but we see a multi-year up cycle ahead that will favor companies who offer unique, dependable, reliable solutions. Liberty's focus on innovation puts us in an elite class, offering differential technologies and superior reliability. We are building unique technological, operational and cultural advantages that will enable us to continue broadening the markets and service offerings of Liberty Energy. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Michael Stock, our CFO, to discuss our financial results. Thanks, Chris.