Ranger Energy Services, Inc. Class A

Thank you and welcome to Ranger Energy Services second quarter 2024 results conference call. Ranger has issued a press release summarizing operating and financial results for the three months ended June 30th of 2024. This press release together with accompanying presentation materials are available in the investor relations section of our website at www.rangerenergy.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 the 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 that the non-GAAP financial measures may be disclosed during this call. A full reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measurements are available in our latest quarterly earnings release and conference presentation. With that, I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Stuart Bowden, Ranger CEO, and Ms. Melissa Kugel, Ranger CFO, for their prepared remarks. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning everyone. We are pleased to welcome you to our second quarter 2024 earnings call. We are happy to report very strong performance in the second quarter after a challenging start to the year. The Ranger team banded together across service lines and functions to to regroup in the second quarter, taking bold action in some areas, exercising patience in others, but ultimately emerging as a stronger and more focused company. Our second quarter results reflect the inherent strength of our production-focused business model, which is able to ride out cycles and maintain consistency despite broader activity and spending declines. The most illustrative example of this was in Ranger's high-specification rig business which reached a new high watermark for revenue with outstanding margins along the topside growth. We continue to have a firmly held belief that most of our business doesn't behave the same way as a traditional oilfield services company. While market conditions have been difficult over the past 12 months, with the U.S. onshore rig count declining by over 20% and frack activity following suit, several of our service lines are showing year-over-year improvements. This improvement is driven by several factors, including a consistent submitting profile for production-tied work, a more consolidated and rationalized space for some service lines, along with high-growth market backdrop for service lines such as P&A and gas processing. We also feel that we have deepened and strengthened ties to customers who appreciate and value Ranger's differentiated service quality. In light of recent consolidating transactions in the E&P space, Ranger is regularly presented with the question, what does consolidation mean to Ranger? We believe over the long run, the E&P consolidation trend, while removing and reducing the customer population, has also placed Ranger in an enviable position of being a preferred provider in a space that was historically characterized by smaller and more fragmented players. This consolidation has strengthened our ties with most of the acquirers who are interested in reducing their total number of vendor relationships and work with companies who maintain consistent, superior service quality and safety records. Our second quarter is an indication of the earnings potential we have, the strength of our customer relationships, and we are excited to continue building on that momentum in the third quarter. Our confidence in the consistent earnings power of Ranger is best evident through the continued return of capital to our shareholders through our base dividend program and share repurchases, which have continued throughout the year. We believe our own stock represents a compelling investment, so we have opportunistically been repurchasing shares in the open market and have purchased nearly 1.4 million shares this year. Since the inception of our shareholder returns program, we have repurchased nearly 3.2 million shares or 14% of the total current outstanding shares as of June 30th. Since inception of our capital return framework in the second quarter of last year, we have returned nearly 70% of our free cash flow to shareholders. There is no other small company in our industry with the level of conviction and commitment to capital returns that Ranger has with such an attractive valuation profile. Melissa will provide more detailed commentary in a few minutes, but let me highlight some of our more notable results for this past quarter. Total company revenue during the second quarter was $138.1 million, a slight increase over the first quarter, with meaningful improvements in high spec rigs and ancillary segments, offset by a decline in our wireline segment, which I will discuss in a moment. Our adjusted EBITDA was $21 million, nearly double our first quarter results, on the back of EBITDA margins that improved substantially to over 15%. a higher mark than any quarter in the past two years, which is a remarkable achievement in light of recent market pressures. Our efforts to increase energy across service lines and promote cross-pollinization are bearing fruit, and we are seeing more efficiency at every level of the company. This is exciting for the leadership team, who have pushed hard on this initiative for the past couple of years. Further, a huge credit goes to our over 2,000 team members who have truly embraced our One Ranger spirit and execute at an exceptional level each and every day, insisting on superior safety performance and service quality. All of these factors matter and are responsible for pushing Ranger forward in a tough environment. Focusing on our high specification rig segment, we couldn't be more pleased with this performance this quarter. Consistent demand together with strong customer relationships resulted in increases in both rig hours and pricing this quarter, allowing us to post record top line revenue of $82.7 million and record adjusted EBITDA of $18.7 million. The majority of our business is exposed to production related services and that strategic focus continues to prove remarkably resilient. As we often note, as long as more wells are being drilled in the US than are being plugged, our total addressable market and Ranger's value to its customers continues to grow. In our processing and ancillary services, We are encouraged by the bounce back in the second quarter and the future earnings potential of this business. We increased revenue over the first quarter by 27% and nearly tripled adjusted EBITDA to $7.2 million, the second highest quarter on record. We achieved a 23% margin and saw notable results in several of our service lines, particularly coil tubing, which reverted to more historical norms after a challenging first quarter. Our P&A business also had a strong rebound in the second quarter posting record top line revenue and adjusted EBITDA numbers, exhibiting strong margins as winter seasonality abated, and customers began more aggressively pursuing their P&A programs for the year. Although a small contributor, we have also seen our gas conditioning and processing service line, branded Torrent, double revenues from earlier in the year. This service line has exposure to the fast-growing field power generation market, and we are excited to see it continue to grow its contribution to Ranger. Concluding with our wireline segment, we have been transparent about the challenges of this business. The past two years have been marked by intermittent performance and significant volatility. The wireline completion space over the past five years has grown increasingly commoditized with lower barriers to entry and more widespread availability of what was at one time differentiated technology and service offerings. At this point, we believe that the best thing we can do for Ranger is to stay focused, on our production wireline offering, rather than chase price to the bottom hoping for the turnaround in plug and perf. As many say, hope is not a strategy. Our shift to more production-focused wireline work is bearing fruit, and we have recently seen real traction on the top line. We mentioned in our prior quarter that a series of restructuring efforts have been outlined, and they are now largely complete. In the past couple of months, we have seen the results of this restructuring, along with a moderating and more stable market backdrop. We have been pleased with the most recent month's uptick in margin in this segment, and we are pleased to report our highest ever top line revenue for our production service line. But to be clear, this segment has changed dramatically over the past year, and its contribution to Ranger's overall results has been diminished. We do expect to see modest but steady increases in future quarters, although there is quite a ways to go before it replaces the historical revenue contribution from Wireline Completion's work. Looking forward, we are encouraged by trends we are seeing moving into the second half of the year. The third quarter is looking strong based on seasonal activity and we believe that our high specification rate segment will continue to perform well this quarter with modest incremental growth. All the indicators support continued strength in our processing services and ancillary segment as well. We believe the worst of the wireline declines is behind us and look forward to operating this segment with a much leaner cost structure while repositioning it to emerge stronger in the coming quarters. This market has proven unpredictable during the fourth quarter periods, but we will update investors regarding our year-end thoughts during our next call. In summary, we believe we have a stronger, more fundamentally resilient business today than we did one year ago, as evidenced by our margin profile and record-setting results in some service lines. We remain focused on creating long-term value for our shareholders based on our strategic pillars of maximizing cash flow conversion, growing through acquisition, maintaining a pristine balance sheet, and returning substantial capital to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. We repurchase shares because we think our valuation is particularly compelling at current trading levels. As this sector emerged from this challenging period and customer activity rebounds, Ranger's differentiated value proposition will continue to shine and ultimately be rewarded by the market. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Melissa to give more detail on our financial results.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Ranger's second quarter 2024 financial results. As Stuart said earlier, we are pleased and reassured with our results this quarter. Ranger took thoughtful and decisive action after the first quarter, which has been validated by historically strong results in two of our three segments. despite a rig count decline of over 20% since last year's peak. Despite the declines in our wireline segment, our year-over-year EBITDA performance is comparable on the back of stronger margins this year, which is a very encouraging sign for the health of our business. Revenue for the second quarter was up slightly from the first quarter of 2024 at $138.1 million, but down 15% year-over-year. Improvements in both high specification rigs, driven by expansion in rig hours and rig rates, as well as increases in ancillary segment revenue, were offset by further reductions in wireline completions activity. Net income of $4.7 million, or 21 cents per share, rebounded nicely from the first quarter's net loss of $800,000. Cost of services for the quarter was $113.2 million, representing 82% of revenue. This is a significant improvement over the first quarter of the year, which represented 88% of revenue, and the prior year period that was 84% of revenue. The decrease in the cost of services as a percent of revenue was primarily attributable to restructuring activities undertaken to adjust for reduced activity in our wireline completions business, as well as improved pricing in other service lines. We are operating leaner and more in line with market realities which has a direct positive impact on our bottom line. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $21 million, nearly double the $10.9 million of adjusted EBITDA from the first quarter of this year and a slight decrease from the prior year period of $21.9 million. The high specification RIGS segment provided its strongest contribution ever to adjusted EBITDA, along with record margins, while ancillary margins were at their highest level in the past two years. The company's consolidated EBITDA margin of 15.1% was the highest recorded in nearly two years. Providing some additional segment details. High spec RIG revenue for the second quarter was a record $82.7 million, a 4% increase from the company's previous record of $79.7 million, which was achieved in the first quarter of this year. Year over year, the segment increased 7% from $77.8 million in the second quarter of 2023. Rig hours increased 2% from the previous quarter and held flat from the second quarter of 2023. The blended rig hourly rate for the second quarter was $732 per hour, 2% higher than the first quarter and 6% higher than the prior year period. In our ancillary services segment, revenue was $30.9 million in the second quarter, a 27% increase over the first quarter and flat with the prior year period. Contributing most notably to the rebound was a return to more historical levels of revenue in the coal tubing service line and stronger activity levels and margins in our P&A service line. In our wireline services segment, revenue was $24.5 million in the second quarter, down 25% compared to the first quarter, with stage counts down 50%. Year over year, revenue was down 55% and stage counts were down 77%. These numbers provide clear definition to Stuart's remarks regarding our determination not to chase market share at the expense of profit. We instead have acted to right-size the organization to accommodate current activity levels. As Stuart also mentioned, we continue the strategic pivot towards production-focused wireline work which grew top line revenue by an encouraging 14% over the prior quarter and prior year quarter. Turning to the balance sheet, our strong financial condition remains a differentiator and the choices we made last year to pay off all our outstanding debt have supported our ability to continue to repurchase our shares at very attractive valuations. We firmly believe that our financial stability positions us to act strategically in the best interest of our shareholders whether that be through accretive acquisitions or prudently returning capital. Year to date, cash from operating activities was $34.1 million, a modest reduction from $40.9 million during the same period last year. We front-loaded our capital expenditures this year, so the first half number of $21.8 million is high relative to $12.9 million reported in the prior year period. due to growth capex we deployed this year to upgrade coil tubing assets and provide supporting equipment for new contracts with stronger customers. We do expect capital expenditures to decline in coming quarters as this deployed growth capex abates. That said, there are active discussions ongoing with customers regarding the deployment of additional assets and associated equipment that could result in additional capital expenditures in future periods to support their requirements. As and when those conversations progress to firm decisions and contracted work, we will provide our investors with an update. Free cash flow for the quarter was $6.8 million, or 30 cents per share, reflecting a lower than typical conversion rate given the elevated capex spending in the second quarter. We continued to be opportunistic and focused on our share repurchase program and bought back over $5.3 million of ranger shares during the quarter. Over the past year, we have far exceeded our initial commitment to return at least 25% of free cash flow to shareholders. Since rollout of our program, we have returned close to $40 million to shareholders and repurchased approximately 14% of the company's current outstanding shares while paying a consistent quarterly dividend of $0.05 per share, no matter the market conditions that have presented themselves. We ended the quarter with $72.2 million in liquidity, consisting of $63.5 million of capacity on our revolving credit facility and $8.7 million of cash on hand. All told, Ranger is in an enviable financial position, having demonstrated a significant rebound in our operations during Our attractive free cash flow profile and yield at current share prices combined with substantial capital returns is always worth reinforcing to the market as well. We appreciate your support and look forward to engaging with you in the coming weeks and months. With that, we will turn the call back over to the operator for questions.