Ranger Energy Services, Inc. Class A

Good day and welcome to the Ranger Energy third quarter 2023 conference call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should 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. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Justin Whitley, Ranger's General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome to Ranger Energy Services' third quarter 2023 results conference call. Before the market opened today, Ranger issued a press release summarizing operating and financial results for the third and nine months ended September 30, 2023. The press release, together with accompanying presentation materials, are available in our investor relations section of our website at www.braingerenergy.com. Today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements about future business and financial expectations. Actual results may differ significantly from those projected in today's forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties, including risks described in our periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update our forward-looking statements. Further, please note non-GAAP financial measures may be disclosed during this call. A full reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measurements is available in our latest quarterly earnings release and conference call presentation. With that, I would like to now turn the conference call over to Stuart Bowden, Ranger's CEO, and Melissa Coole, Ranger's CFO, for their prepared remarks.

Thank you, Justin, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to share our third quarter 2023 financial and operational results, results that reflect Ranger's resilience and ability to succeed despite the lower U.S. onshore drilling activity experience this year and sustained weakness in natural gas basins. I will begin with a summary of our third quarter performance by segment, followed by our thoughts for the macro setup as we head into our 2024 planning cycle. As we reflect on our business this year, we are incredibly proud of the hard work of our teams and the resilience demonstrated by our business. At a consolidated level, Ranger has seen sequentially increasing revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin each quarter in 2023, despite U.S. rig count dropping by more than 15% since the end of last year. We talk frequently about our production-focused business model and our differentiation in service quality and safety performance. And this year, we saw that differentiation in action. To elaborate, we do have 30 to 40% of our revenues exposed to completion activity in some of our assets in Gadsier Basins. We saw some of those exposed assets get released during the spring and early summer. Due to the hustle of our operations teams and strong collaboration across regions, along with a strong reputation for service quality and safe operations, we were able to redeploy idled assets efficiently to keep revenue moving in the right direction in the high specification rig segment this year. We did have to contend with more white space than anticipated due to rig redeployments in the third quarter, but having the bulk of our assets allocated to production-focused work in oilier basins allowed us to limit churn and turnover to keep our baseline activity largely unaffected. Our ability to hold our revenue level and even increase them in some segments, despite the decline in overall onshore activity this year, should provide clear evidence about the flexibility and robustness of our production-focused business model and strong operational teams. Finally, in its further support of our strong operational performance, we are pleased to have signed a new customer agreement with a major integrated onshore operator this quarter that provides for significant market share of the wealth service work in their onshore U.S. asset portfolio. This agreement and commitment for work provides us with higher confidence in our 2024 plan and opportunities for further growth from an already strong base of revenue with this customer. We have talked in the past about our positioning with larger customers and vendor consolidation momentum, and it is encouraging to realize the first of what we hope will be a series of similar agreements. Stated already, but worth reiterating, is the fact that our highest quality customers are willing to get stickier in their agreements with Ranger, which is a testament to the commitment and service reliability of our teams and the industry-leading quality of our assets. Moving on to our third quarter specifics, we reported net revenue of $164.4 million, the second highest revenue quarter in Ranger's history. Looking at trends in our business, I'm pleased that, although down from our record third quarter of last year, we have been able to provide steadily increasing results across 2023. Net income on a year-to-date basis is $21.7 million, or triple that of the $7.5 million reported over the same period in 2022. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $24.0 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin has increased from 12.8% at the beginning of this year to 14.6% in the third quarter. We realized higher EBITDA quarter over quarter in all segments and feel this sequential growth quarter over quarter will prove rare across North American onshore service providers. Our high-specification rig business has been a consistent source of stability and strength for us this year. We've talked a lot about Ranger's production focus and how it helps us weather energy sector volatility, and this segment's performance this year is exhibit A. Despite unexpected white space in the schedule due to several rig change-outs that created some additional labor costs, RIG HOURS HELD STEADY QUARTER OVER QUARTER WITH SLIGHT PRICING IMPROVEMENTS. MOVING ON TO OUR WIRELINE BUSINESS, THE NORTH REGION, WHICH IS OUR LARGEST CONTRIBUTOR TO THIS SEGMENT, SUBSTANTIALLY IMPROVED ITS MARGINS THIS QUARTER BY FOCUSING ON STRONG EXECUTION AND EFFICIENCY. HOWEVER, THE SOUTH REGION CONTINUES TO EXPERIENCE SIGNIFICANT COMPETITION AND PRICE DESTRUCTION IN COMPLETION SERVICES, ERODING MUCH OF THE PROGRESS WE MADE LAST YEAR. WE'RE CONTINUING TO MAKE A STRATEGIC FOCUS A STRATEGIC SHIFT TO FOCUS ON PRODUCTION AND PUMP DOWN ORIENTED WIRELINE WORK WITHIN THE SOUTH REGION WHILE CHOOSING NOT TO BID AT BREAK EVEN LEVELS OR BELOW. THIS WORK BETTER ALIGNS WITH RANGERS PRODUCTION FOCUS AND COMES WITH HIGHER MARGINS AS WELL. AND WE EXPECT THIS REALIGNMENT WILL RESULT IN STRONGER SEGMENT CONTRIBUTION AS WE MOVE INTO 2024 AND PROVIDE FOR MORE SEASONAL RESILIENCE. Relative to the fourth quarter of 2022, we've grown revenue by 10% despite the decline in U.S. drilling and completion activity, and we've also more than doubled operating income over the same period and increased adjusted EBITDA by 57%. Finally, with our ancillary services business, we have achieved modest sequential improvements largely across the board in 2023. Our P&A business has grown by double digits this year, which has been an intentional effort on our part. AND OUR COIL AND RENTALS BUSINESSES HAVE HELD STEADY DESPITE ACTIVITY DECLINES. WE HAVE SEEN SOME PRICING DECLINES BOTH WITHIN OUR COIL BUSINESS AS WELL AS OUR RENTAL BUSINESS BECAUSE OF NEW COMPETITION THAT MIGRATED FROM GAS TO YOUR BASINS THIS YEAR WHICH HAS AFFECTED OUR YEAR TO DAY MARGINS. WE'RE HARD AT WORK TO MAINTAIN GROWTH MOMENTUM IN OUR P&A BUSINESS AND ALSO RESTART GROWTH IN OUR RENTALS AND COIL BUSINESS. WE HAVE ACHIEVED STEADY ALBEIT MODERATED GROWTH THIS YEAR DESPITE SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER THAN EXPECTED CUSTOMER ACTIVITY. The activity declines on the completion side certainly threw off our original, much more ambitious growth plans for the year, and we have aggressively reacted to those activity declines by redeploying assets, pursuing operating efficiencies, and reorganizing where appropriate. The great news is that the challenges we've experienced in 2023 have made our fundamental business stronger today than it was a year ago, with higher margins and more streamlined operations. You saw in our earnings release this morning that we adjusted our full-year guidance to calibrate for year-to-date results, and although disappointed to pull back our expectations, our team has handled the market challenges this year remarkably well, and it's poised to hit the ground running in 2024. We are also still on track to convert 60% of our adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow this year, which is an important differentiator for Ranger and influences our capital return strategy. The latter part of 2022 and early part of this year was spent evaluating, developing, and ultimately rolling out a capital returns framework. The framework we announced included returning at least 25% of free cash flow to shareholders through a quarterly dividend and or share repurchases. No other small cap oilfield service company has the fundamental strength and confidence in its business to be able to offer this kind of shareholder returns program. In the third quarter, we paid off the first quarterly dividend in Ranger's history at $0.05 per share. Additionally, I'm pleased to report that year-to-date, we have repurchased approximately 781,000 shares for approximately $8.6 million, reflecting our belief that Ranger's shares traded a compelling discount to their intrinsic value. We have approximately $26 million of authorization remaining, or 14% of our current float, and intend to opportunistically deploy that capital to buy back shares should conditions be supportive, although we remain mindful of liquidity. Through the end of the third quarter, we have already exceeded our 25% annual shareholder return commitment. Looking ahead, we hold a similar view to other industry observers who believe the rig count is close to its bottom and we anticipate increased activity levels in 2024 as customer budgets reset. The tight global supply and demand balance suggest a constructive oil and gas market, and our early conversations with customers have been positive. Furthermore, the two recent major consolidation announcements in E&P indicate both a positive long-term view of North American resource development and an opportunity for the highest quality service providers to continue to gain market share. We are observing an increasingly prevalent trend among our customers to consolidate their service providers, which holds positive implications for Ranger's business, particularly as we look forward to recovery and reactivity going into 2024. In conclusion, while we have faced unexpected market headwinds this year, our ability to adapt, innovate, and focus on efficiency has allowed us to not just weather the storm, but to thrive. We remain steadfast in our commitment to create value for our shareholders. The steps we've taken, including accretive acquisitions, share repurchases, and the initiation of a quarterly dividend showcase our dedication to delivering value to our shareholders. Before I turn the call over to Melissa, I want to mention our other press release issued this morning. As part of our board succession process, WE INITIATED A SEARCH EARLIER THIS YEAR FOR TWO NEW BOARD MEMBERS, AND WE ARE HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT CARLA MISHINSKI AND SEAN WOLVERTON HAVE AGREED TO JOIN THE RANGER BOARD STARTING IN THE NEW YEAR. THEY BOTH BRING A WEALTH OF INDUSTRY-RELATED EXPERIENCE AND FRESH PERSPECTIVES TO OUR BOARD THAT WE ARE EXCITED TO HAVE AVAILABLE TO US. AS PART OF THESE CHANGES, BILL AUSTIN, WHO HAS BEEN OUR CHAIRMAN, AND DICK AG, WHO MERGED HIS PRIVATE WEALTH SERVICE COMPANY INTO RANGER BEFORE THE IPO, will both be exiting their seats at the end of this year. Both have helped nurture and guide Ranger for these past several years and have been instrumental in the growth experience since 2021. Because of their leadership and guidance, Ranger has successfully completed multiple acquisitions, simplified its capital structure, achieved net debt zero, and implemented a capital returns program. We could not have done this without them, and we wish them well as they take on new endeavors. As part of this transition, Michael Carney will assume the role of chairman in 2024. Mike has been chairman of two other publicly traded companies and brings not only his deep knowledge of Ranger, having served on the board for several years, but also his wealth of knowledge from his prior experiences. It's an exciting time at Ranger. We are successfully navigating the headwinds of 2023 and positioning the company for continued growth and to benefit from E&P consolidation. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Melissa to discuss our financial results and outlook.

Thank you, Stuart. Good morning, everyone. I'll now provide further insights into our financial performance for the third quarter. In the third quarter of 2023, our revenue was $164.4 million, marking a 1% increase from the second quarter of this year. As Stuart mentioned, we experienced some unexpected white space early in the quarter in our high-spec rig business, which resulted in lower growth than expected. Year-to-date, our revenue is $485.1 million, marking a 7% increase from the prior year. Our net income for the quarter was $9.4 million, or 38 cents per fully diluted share. This is a significant improvement from the $6.1 million, or 24 cents per share, in the second quarter of this year. Our continued focus on operational efficiency has contributed to this increase. Year to date, net income stands at $21.7 million or 86 cents per fully diluted share, a significant improvement from $7.5 million or 33 cents per share in the prior year. We achieved an adjusted EBITDA of $24 million in the third quarter, representing a 10% increase from the second quarter of this year. This performance underscores our commitment to controlling what we can control. We achieved an adjusted EBITDA of $66 million year-to-date, representing a 14% increase from the prior year. During the quarter, we repurchased $2.7 million worth of shares under our existing share repurchase authorization, bringing the total repurchases year-to-date to $8.6 million. We also initiated a 5 cent per share quarterly dividend during the quarter, and announced today that the board has approved our fourth quarter dividend as well. On the growth side, during the quarter, we closed on our acquisition of pump down assets for our wireline business, paying approximately $7.25 million with some of those assets already working and the remainder undergoing upgrades and refurbishments to bring them up to ranger standard. We remain active in screening acquisition and consolidation opportunities, but have committed to being very disciplined in our approach. The pump assets proved a great fit given their relatively easy pull-through in our existing service lines, and too good to pass up from a valuation perspective, with payback economics of less than two years. We would call attention to the increase in capital expenditures this quarter, as not only were the pumps treated as capex, as well as their ongoing refurbishment, but we also spent some capital dollars in support of the contract that Stuart mentioned earlier. We expect capital costs may remain a bit elevated in the next couple of quarters, driving us to the high end of our guidance range as these certifications and refurbishments are completed and additional equipment on order is delivered. To conclude our review of the financials, let me touch briefly on the balance sheet. Our liquidity was $70 million at the end of the quarter. We ended the quarter with approximately $10.3 million in debt and $8.2 million of cash. Financially, Ranger is as strong as it's ever been with near zero net debt and over double the liquidity it had one year ago. Free cash flow for the quarter was affected by the accounting treatment of the pump-down assets that were treated as capital expenditures and some build in working capital, which is already trending in the right direction in the fourth quarter once more. Turning to 2023 guidance. As Stuart previewed in his comments, given the lower than expected results during the third quarter, we have revised our expectations accordingly for the year. While revenue growth hasn't been as robust as we had hoped at the beginning of the year, The revised forecast does reflect the resiliency of our business amid what has been a trough and onshore activity this year. We would stress that our fourth quarter will be dependent on a variety of factors, both positive and negative, and we expect a lighter quarter before picking back up in 2024. We are already contending with some early winter effects and talking about holiday planning with customers. Offsetting those challenges, we have continued to deploy new assets during October, which somewhat moderate our seasonality impact. These adjustments reflect our commitment to transparent communication, delivering value to our shareholders, and our dedication to managing our financial performance in an ever-changing environment. We are currently in the process of preparing and reviewing our 2024 budgets and look forward to sharing insights on 2024 and updating our investment community with those insights as part of our year-end report. We remain positive about our market fundamentals and the constructive backdrop for a multi-year growth cycle. and we currently expect activity to increase modestly in 2024. Thank you again for your time and interest this morning. We look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. With that, we would like to open the floor to any questions you might have. Operator, please go ahead.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your hands up before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from John Daniel with Daniel Energy Partners. Please go ahead.

Hey, all. Thank you for having me, and congratulations on the incremental work you guys are getting from the the bigger EMP companies, I guess the first question, Stuart, is there any way that you can provide some quantification as to what the incremental rig opportunities will be and then just touch on the ability to find people to man those rigs or will you just transition rigs from existing customers to take that work?

Good morning, John. Thanks for the question. I think it's going to be a little bit of both. I think there will be some rigs that transition from existing customers, and I think there will be some incremental growth as we go into the year. I think on the labor markets, what we're finding is it still is a tight labor market, but it is certainly better than it was in 2023. So I think we're confident that if we need to find those crews that we can But again, I think I would reiterate is, you know, I think just sort of depending on how budgets play out, it could be a combination of new rigs or incremental rig ads, but also some kind of reshuffling amongst customers.

Okay. And then just two other quick housekeeping. Does the agreement provide for pass-throughs in the event of inflationary labor or other costs, or are you locked in at a certain rate? No, it allows for pass-throughs. Okay. And then on the wireline business, as you shift to more of a production work, what happens? Are you idling some of the completion-oriented units? Do those become candidates to sell, or can you just repurpose them for the production work?

That's my final question. I appreciate the question, John. They can be repurposed for production work relatively easily. We do, through the acquisitions, have a fair amount of kind of wireline production-related equipment and tools. So we don't think we need to really do anything incrementally other than just really kind of put greater emphasis on that.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ben.

Our next question comes from Don Christ with Johnson Rice. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. Good morning, Don. It looks like the fourth quarter is going to be impacted by normal seasonality, but given that we're in the RFP season right now, I mean, obviously you signed a new contract, but can you give us any indication on 24, you know, with the caveat that I know it's still early?

Yeah, I think what we'd say is early and kind of hard to get a definite read. I mean, what I would say is on the rig side and with the contract that we recently signed, you know, that pricing was strong. So we were excited about that. I think we are seeing in some RFPs, like in the wireline side, for instance, there have been some contracts that we won that I think we would say are attractive pricing. And then there have been some that we have lost at pricing that we've been really quite surprised at how low they went for from what we understand. So I think it's a bit of a mixed bag at the moment. And again, I think, as you said, it's still kind of early days.

Okay. And on the recent consolidation, you know, obviously those deals have enclosed the bigger ones anyway. Do you think that impacts your business any? Do you think there's any kind of synergies there that maybe you could go or working for those bigger companies now and kind of expand operations? Or how do you think that kind of plays out over time?

I think ultimately we feel like it's a positive. I think there might be, um you know without kind of getting it you must have to answer about each one of the of the announcements a little bit differently so so i think there's one that we would very clearly feel like is is a long-term positive for us um i think there's one that we would say uh will be a positive long term but but but there could be a little bit of kind of near-term choppiness just depending on um you know on sort of how that closes um But generally, I think we view that the trend to consolidation, the trend to our E&P customers wanting fewer providers, fewer higher quality providers, we think that's just ultimately a good thing for Ranger.

Okay. And it looks like the pricing, at least the hourly pricing on the rigs, ticked up a little bit. Is that true? the indication of the market bottom, in your opinion, or do you think that that's just a shift between, you know, lesser quality customers towards higher quality customers, in your opinion?

Yeah, in general, I think we would say it's a move to higher quality customers. I think underlying that, too, I think as we've gone forward, we've really been focusing on getting additional ancillary equipment out with those rigs that ultimately helps pricing and margins as well.

Okay, I appreciate it. Thanks so much. I'll get back to you.

Yeah, thanks, Don.

Our next question comes from Donovan Schaefer with Northland Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. The first one I want to ask is with the lower rig count, I know that some of that on some basis is being offset by focusing on longer or trying to go a bit longer on the laterals. And so I'm wondering if there's any kind of offsetting benefit for you guys with that over time. I know the focus on high spec rigs with services is with the idea in mind that more wells are going to be horizontal and require you know, the ability to pull heavier loads against friction and horizontal section or whatever. So, you know, it's a slow down near term. Is there any like later benefit a year, a year out, two years out when these wells go on, you know, need to go on artificial lift or something and it skews things more favorably or adds to the relative value of your high spec rigs? Just can't think through that.

Yeah, again, and Melissa chime in. No, I appreciate the question, Donovan. So, again, I think long-term we would say that does help us because I think to go do, you know, whether it's routine well work or more intensive work over work, you know, you do need higher spec equipment over time to get into the outer reaches of the lateral. So, we do think that that will help us. And, you know, it becomes harder and harder, as an example, to get coil out there if you're doing any kind of remedial work. ultimately we we think that's a good thing for us and i think you're also kind of you know kind of highlighting you know another issue that you know we'll just say that as long as the industry is drilling more new wells than are being sort of plugged and abandoned ultimately we feel like our total addressable market is growing so um and certainly we believe we're in that that environment right now um so again i think you know long term we think that that's a positive okay um

And then a follow-up question on that with kind of talking about your different segments and wireline completion activity is obviously going to be pretty tightly tied to the rig count for drilling new wells. But I'm curious for the servicing side, the high-spec service rigs, is there any kind of rule of thumb or anything for a time lag where if you know, you get a big jump or a big drop in the rig count for, you know, on the new well side of things. Is there like a one year lag, two year lag where you see, you know, maybe it's a less pronounced movement, but some kind of a compare, some kind of a correlated movement on, you know, demand for the high spec servicing rigs. Again, maybe, you know, maybe it's like a typically a one year before they go to artificial lift or something like that. Just any way to kind of what the lag there is between rig count on the front end for new wells and kind of demand for the high-spec servicing rigs.

I don't think we've found a situation where we can kind of model it with any kind of accuracy. But again, Donovan, I think I guess I would just say a couple of things. You know, generally within the first, you know, year or less, after a well has been drilled, we typically go back in, you know, we, the industry typically goes back in and puts that well on artificial lift. So I do think that, you know, that happens relatively quickly. And then every year or two, you tend to go back into the wells to do well service work. I think the other thing I would just sort of point to is if you kind of look at on the high specification rig segment, you know, through this year, you know, hours have really been quite steady all through the year, despite the fact that, you know, drilling rig count has dropped pretty substantially. So, you know, again, I think we kind of talked about it earlier, but I think we feel like being really, you know, exposed and oriented towards this production-focused business model and making sure that we're keeping existing wells online just makes us a lot more resilient through the cycle.

Okay. That's helpful. And on the plugging and abandoning kind of opportunity, something I haven't, I need to kind of brush up on, I'm trying to remember the state of legislation around there. So just, have there been any more updates or guidance, clarifications or anything around, you know, potential to monetize credits for, you know, reducing methane emissions? from going back and doing plugging and abandoning, whether at the federal or the state level, or just kind of the current state of affairs for the subsidized or statutory kind of side of that equation would be great.

So on the P&H side, there's a lot of different ways to kind of To start to answer the question, but I'll sort of start, you know, as you know, there's a lot of money that was in the Inflation Reduction Act that was targeted to the Orphan Wealth Program. And that's federal money that ultimately gets distributed by the states. I think what we're seeing is kind of very early days, some of that state money is actually showing up in the industry in the form of bids. So we're, you know, we've seen kind of one of the early ones come out in the last several weeks. So, you know, on the orphan well program as it relates to the Inflation Reduction Act, I would say that money is just now starting to come in. I think what we are seeing on kind of a broader trend is that certainly our larger customers feel like this, that, they're really developing their own P&A programs outside of the IRA because they feel like that's part of their ESG effort. And so a lot of our work right now on the P&A side is actually directly with the NPs outside of the Inflation Reduction Act. And I guess the third thing I would say is I think there's several people that are trying to you know, think through does it make sense to buy a big package of wells, do P&A on them, and then take the carbon offsets. I'm not sure there is a business model that has sort of developed that is, quote, the winning way yet, but we're seeing lots of different people trying to piece that together. So hopefully that answers the question, Donovan. Yeah, no, that does.

And actually, if I can squeeze just one more in about kind of I'm curious if there are any trends to be mindful of, like in terms of approaches to workovers or, or artificial lift, you know, installations that are either, you know, that either hurt or, uh, or benefit the economics for, for work, you know, the high-sec work over rigs. Like, you know, think about if there's more use of electric, you know, submersible pumps versus, uh, you know, displacement pump jacks or something. Any kind of trends there moving positively or negatively?

So I don't think we've seen any trend on the, you know, as an example, the type of artificial lift. I mean, obviously it varies by region a bit, but I don't think we've seen that trend. I do think what we've seen with customers is as customers have become very focused on efficiency and I think as it relates to a lot of our work, what they see is that continuity of crews and specific crews is actually really driving a lot of efficiency. I actually think that we talked about the contract earlier. I think a lot of that is driven by safety is one, but I think it's also driven by efficiency. And they're saying, I think our biggest customers are saying they recognize that if they have steady work programs that basically allows for crew continuity, that they see improved performance across the board.

I'll just add to that. I think Stuart's point, that's a trend that you're seeing sort of across multiple service lines, whether that be frack, whether that be, whatever, drilling, the programs are getting tighter, which altogether better serves the industry. There's less white space for everyone. I think this year has been a bit anomalous, just given the gas market crunch that we had. It kind of freed up. And then a lot of us had to deal with assets being redeployed.

Okay. That makes a lot of sense. All right. Thanks, guys. I'll take the rest of my questions offline. All right. Thanks, Donna.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeff Robertson with Water Tower Research. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Stuart, on the contract, I assume it's a one-year contract from the way the press release is written. And secondly, can you just talk about what level of business you would like to see underwritten by these types of agreements?

So it is a one-year contract that has evergreen provisions in it. So we actually think it could go for quite a long time. So that's on the first. You know, we don't really have a target per se. This type of a contract is pretty unique. I think if you look in our portfolio, we can point to one other. It has slightly different mechanics, but I think has a lot of the same kind of duration, if you will, to it through time. WHAT I CAN JUST SAY IS THAT WE HAVE SOME OTHER LARGER CUSTOMERS THAT ARE, AGAIN, AND I THINK IT RELATES TO THIS CONVERSATION ABOUT EFFICIENCY AND CONTINUITY OF WORK, THAT HAVE KIND OF OPENED UP DISCUSSIONS ABOUT DOING SOMETHING SIMILAR. IT DOES TEND TO BE WITH LARGER CUSTOMERS. AGAIN, I THINK THAT THEY WANT US TO GET A LOT MORE ENMESHED WITH THEIR SOPs AND GUIDELINES AND PROTOCOLS, ET CETERA.

I presume that's just to help drive their efficiencies in their capital program, as Melissa alluded to earlier?

Absolutely.

And secondly, is this agreement, does it span multiple basins, or is it just in one basin?

It's multiple basins.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Our next question is a follow-up from Don Crist with Johnson Rice. Please go ahead.

Thanks for letting me back in. Melissa, just one for you. The working capital ticked up a little bit in the third quarter, but it sounds like it's starting to release a little bit. Any color there? And should we expect all that to kind of come out the fourth quarter? Just kind of trying to model your cash as we go into the fourth quarter year end?

No, good question. And yes, we actually saw a nice big release. We had done some automations. where we were pushing through sort of invoices automatically with customers and saw a nice big release early in the year. What we didn't anticipate is over the summer that we basically hit a wall because we ran out of PO on several of our biggest customers and things really got stalled out and getting those POs replenished. And by the time we noticed, if you will, we were in remediation mode, These things just take a couple of months to sort of sort themselves out. So I do think we're going to get back right here in the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter is always tricky because everybody sort of manages their cash at year end. But we certainly have seen the contract asset more is running into AR and more collections are really we had sort of our best collection week just a week before last. So we're certainly see a trend back in the right direction. If that holds, we'll get to where, we'll get to a really comfortable place for year end. It's just there's a little bit of anybody's guess depending upon who wants to squeeze cash at the end of the year.

Completely understandable. I, thanks for letting me back in. Appreciate it.

No problem. You bet.

Our next question comes from William Kim with Predestino Asset Management. Please go ahead.

Hey, Stuart. Good morning. You mentioned earlier in your call, I think, in your remarks regarding the intrinsic value of your shares looking attractive for repurchase. I guess, how are you viewing intrinsic value? I guess, what is the thought process in determining what you think intrinsic value is for a range of

Yeah, so we had an initiative we kicked off this year. I'll take this one. It's a passion project of mine. We had an initiative we kicked off this year to actually do some intrinsic value work. So we actually did a multi-year model, built out our first CCF. We started with just kind of a three-year view, and we're adding on to five-year view. So we're driven by that. That's how we get to intrinsic value assessment. And then we also synthesize that. So what happens if there's some upside? What happens if, you know, things continue to languish? So we build a fundamental model that we think is here's our best guess of what we think the world's going to play out to be, and here's a much harsher view, and here's an upside view. And then we try to triangulate between those as well as sort of where the share price is at today. And, you know, so every quarter we're now refreshing it. This is actually the second quarter we refreshed it. So we're really proud to get it done. And then we kind of sit back around the table, Stuart and I, on how we want to think about share repurchases through that lens. And then we also make an approach and a proposal to the board to the same extent.

Got it. And then as a separate follow-up, change in the board, is there something that prompted that? Is it just regular retirement? How did that kind of come about?

No, that, William, was just part of a kind of ongoing refresh process that we undertook. So there was, again, it's been sort of in the works for a while and planned, you know, just to make sure as part of good governance, we're kind of keeping good turnover through the board.

Yeah, I mean, you saw us, I'll add to that, you saw us do a little bit earlier as part of proxy. We made some initial changes. These had been discussed sort of at a high level back then, and we'd been working towards, our board hadn't, we had had outside parties, institutions point out our board lacked some diversity, number one, and then also, frankly, had not had any turnover in it. So we thought it was appropriate to kind of start that process.

Got it. I guess last question for me is, you know, if you look at the last downturn in 2020, 2021, Ranger managed to kind of hang in there pretty well as a company. I guess if there's a lot of talk of recession coming, if that were to kind of happen again, how are you looking at, you know, liquidity, cash flow, and how do you think in the current asset base, because it's a much larger company now, how do you think Ranger would fare?

So again, I appreciate the question. I think a couple of things that I'm really quite proud that the team has done is, you know, much like we had back then, but we've been very focused on making sure that we have large operations in basins versus a lot of scattered, you know, kind of local shops, which really in a downturn in particular, if you have like a lot of scattered shops, it's very hard to control costs in those environments. I think we've done a very good job just by doing that and consolidating our footprint is kind of one of the first things that you do structurally to prevent or to position yourself for a downturn if it happens. So I think we've actually done a really nice job of that, and I think that's one thing. You know, we run very lean G&A, you know, again, kind of on purpose, both in the corporate center and also in the region's again, trying to be protected in case there is something. I'd also sort of highlight that in the wake of the acquisitions, we have a larger percentage of our yards and shops that we own, which actually just kind of lowers our burn rate in a downturn. So I guess I feel like that a lot of the structural things that we've kind of worked on position as well. And I kind of

Yeah, I mean, I would only add to that to say I think what we're also doing from just pure financials and management perspective is we've really worked hard over the past year to get more real-time data. Before I even showed up, Stuart had been working on Power BI dashboards to show what rigs are working where, how much. We've really worked to expand that to make our monthly financial reviews much more impactful to really start to proliferate much more deeply our views on profitability And then I'd finally say, look, we have a lot of the same team. Matt Hooker's here in the room with us. He helps manage the COVID process, if you will. And Ranger appreciates that survivability is priority number one. And I would tell you that if we had, no one wants to make tough decisions again, but we recognize we have to at times.

Yeah, I think that last part is kind of where I was Looking for some clarity, you know, Ranger was very, very quick to cut costs when you saw weakness out there. I guess, what is the state of the labor market now in your industry? And, you know, how does that compare to 2020, 2021?

Yeah, so it's kind of, as I said earlier, what we would say is it's actually still pretty tight. It hasn't, you know, kind of, quote, freed up like you might have thought. But again, I think just to kind of reiterate what Melissa said, and this is the team that for better or for worse has been through a couple of downturns. And, you know, we know that, you know, acting quick is in the best interest of really the survivability of the company. So hopefully we don't have to do that, but we're ready if we have to.

Great. Thank you. Keep up the great work. All right. Thank you.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Stuart Bowden for any closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for your interest in ranger joining the call today. Happy Halloween, and I hope everybody has a great and safe week. Thank you.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.