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spk01: Good morning, and welcome to Tetra Technologies' second quarter 2022 results conference call. The speakers for today's call are Brady Murphy, Chief Executive Officer, and Elegio Serrano, Chief Financial Officer. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need any 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 touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Serrano. Please go ahead, sir.
spk05: Thank you, Joe. Good morning, and thank you for joining Tetra's second quarter 2022 results call. I would like to remind you that this conference call may contain statements that are or may be deemed to be forward-looking. These statements are based on certain assumptions and analysis made by Tetra and are based on a number of factors. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of the company. You are cautioned that such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. In addition, in the course of the call, we may refer to EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA gross margins, adjusted free cash flow, net debt, net leverage ratio, liquidity, or other non-GAAP financial numbers. Please refer to yesterday's press release or to our public website for reconciliations of non-GAAP financial numbers to the nearest GAAP number. These reconciliations are not a substitute for financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP and should be considered within the context of our complete financial results for the period. In addition to our press release announcement that went out yesterday, we would also encourage you to refer to our thank you that will be filed later today. I will now turn the call over to Brady.
spk04: Thanks, Aligio, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Tetra's second quarter 2022 earnings call. I'll summarize some highlights for the second quarter, provide an update on our exploratory well fluid sample results, and discuss the current outlook before turning it back to Aligio to discuss cash flow, the balance sheet, and liquidity. For the second quarter, financial results were in line with our expectations, while some key milestones on our low-carbon energy opportunities well exceeded our expectations. Our water and flow-back business continues to grow faster than the active rig and frack crew count, while expanding margins for the fifth straight quarter. On a per-active frack crew basis, our Q2 annualized revenue was 33% above that of 2018, which was the peak of the North America shale market. While our European chemical business was impacted by a supply chain disruption due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the overall segment still achieved 24% adjusted EBITDA margins as the offshore and deep water markets continue to show signs of a multi-year growth cycle supported by a forecasted five-year high in subsea tree orders in 2022. The brine fluid test results from our exploratory well are very encouraging with both lithium and bromine concentrations above the values used by an independent study for the exploration target report values that we announced last year. Our pure flow deliveries to EOS as a key part of their electrolyte for long duration energy storage have doubled each of the past two quarters and are expected to continue at that pace into the following quarters as they continue to ramp up to meet their growing backlog. Overall, our second quarter revenue grew 8% from the first quarter of 2022 and 38% from the second quarter of 2021. Adjusted EBITDA of $18.7 million decreased $1.8 million sequentially, and was negatively impacted by $2 million of charges, which included $1.3 million on favorable impact because of the aforementioned European supplier declaring force majeure as a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the second quarter, it unrealized mark-to-market losses on investments of $700,000, net of gains on investments. Excluding the impact from the supplier force majeure and mark-to-market losses of but off the second quarter of 2022 would have been $20.7 million. The European supplier has since resumed supplying to Tetra, but currently still at reduced volumes from normal levels. Cash from operating activities was $17.9 million, a strong improvement of $11.9 million sequentially. Our second quarter cash flow far exceeds our pre-pandemic first quarter 2020 results. Before discussing our Q2 segment financial results in more detail, I'd like to discuss the fluid sampling results from our exploratory well in Arkansas, where we own certain brine mineral rights, including lithium and bromine. As previously announced in the third quarter of last year, we completed a preliminary technical assessment by an independent geological consulting firm to assess lithium and bromine exploration targets on all of the company's approximately 31,100 net acres of brine leases in the Smackover Formation in southwest Arkansas. The assessment focused on areas within the approximately 31,000 net acres of brine leases where tetra holds 100% of the bromine rights and for lithium where tetra holds 100% of the lithium rights not subject to the standard lithium option agreement. For bromine, the technical assessment identified a brine exploration target estimated to contain between 2.54 million and 8.58 million tons of bromine, and for lithium, the exploration target estimated to contain between 85,000 and 286,000 tons of lithium carbon equivalent. These exploratory targets were based on an average lithium and bromine concentration in the brine of 283 milligrams per liter and 4,956 milligrams per liter, respectively, for lithium and bromine. Our recently drilled and completed exploratory well was on the acreage where Tetra retains 100% of the rights to lithium and was drilled to a total depth of 10,000 feet penetrating the top, middle, and lower smackover formation. The well is perforated in selective zones of good porosity across a total depth of 196 feet, with fluid samples collected in three primary groupings of perforations. The fluid sample test results were conducted by two independent labs, and all valid results yielded very consistent lithium results across all three zones with an average concentration of 473 milligrams per liter per which is 67% above the concentrations used for the exploratory target. For bromine, the average concentration was 5350 milligrams per liter, which is 8% above the exploratory target concentration. Obviously, these are very encouraging results, and we look forward to the independent resource study, which we expect to have completed in the third quarter. However, it is important to remember that the final resource report is dependent on many geological and reservoir parameters, and we are not suggesting we can anticipate the full impact of these encouraging fluid samples. As a reminder, bromine is used extensively in our completion fluids business, and more recently as part of our patented manufacturing process to produce PureFlow, a high purity zinc bromide, which is a key part of electrolytes for long duration energy storage. With recovering offshore and deep water oil and gas markets, as well as ongoing exponential growth in energy storage demand, Access to these potential extensive bromine assets is very valuable to the company, as is, of course, lithium, which as of yesterday's spot price was trading at $69,000 per metric ton, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. While this is a spot market price, a large internationally public traded global producer of lithium reported that their average selling price of lithium was $38,000 per ton in the first quarter. Mentioned in our press release this morning is that we've executed an agreement to have a preliminary economic assessment for bromine, which we expect to have completed before year-end. It is our intention to follow a quick follow-up PEA for lithium on that same acreage where we plan to extract both minerals with much of the same downhole well infrastructure. Also in the third quarter, we will be delivering our first supply of calcium chloride to an international lithium producer for use in their lithium processing operations. This shipment is the first of six-month order that we have received, and we believe represents a new market application for our calcium chloride product that will add incremental revenue and opportunities in the future. Now turning to the segments, starting with water and flowback services, revenue increased 16% sequentially and 75% from a year ago, as North America land activity and pricing continues to improve for key parts of our business. The second quarter revenue for our U.S. land business was the highest since the third quarter of 2019, despite active frac crew and U.S. rig count 22% and 16% lower, respectively, during the second quarter of 2022 compared to the third quarter of 2019. With adjusted EBITDA margins of 15.1% in the second quarter, we achieved our four-year target earlier than expected, as our technology, integration, and digital investments continue to gain traction, while price increases continue to modestly stay ahead of inflation, which is still very significant for fuel, labor, and equipment. We expect our third-quarter margins to be above that of the second-quarter margins, reflecting the benefit of what I previously mentioned, plus the launch of two major early production facilities in Argentina. While U.S. market growth is limited by availability of additional frack fleets and unlikely to grow until 2023, we continue to grow through profitable market share gains with broad customer acceptance of our integrated water management business model leading water recycling capabilities and delivering the best-in-class sand management services with the recently patented Tetra Sandstorm technology. We're seeing significant demand for produced water recycling to help our customers reduce disposal costs and address increasing seismicity events with four new recycling projects added in the second quarter. In the Permian alone, we recycled 571 million gallons in the second quarter, up 62% from a year ago and up 17% from the first quarter of 2022. We continue utilization and higher pricing for the Tetra Sandstorm technology across most of the North American plays and in Argentina. And at the end of the second quarter, we were awarded our largest scope of work yet for a super major operator in the Delaware Basin and the Eagleford Shale play. With that award and continued increase in demand for sandstorms, we will be adding more sandstorms to our fleet in the third quarter. I'm excited to announce that during the second quarter, we also had a successful trial for our new auto drill-out technology for a large independent producer in Appalachia. This new technology expected to reduce well site personnel by more than 30%, reduce rig up and down time by approximately 40%, and reduce HXC exposure, a meaningful impact to our customers' well and their economic success. Lastly, our two early production facilities in Argentina became operational late in June and early July, and that will add a full quarter of revenue of EBITDA starting in the third quarter. We expect an additional award of an early production facility shortly for startup in the new year. Completion fluids and product second quarter revenue increased 2% sequentially from the first quarter of 2022. As the seasonal increase from our Northern Europe industrial chemicals business albeit lower than normal due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, was partially offset by lower activity in the Gulf of Mexico and international markets, as we previously reported that some fluid sales from these markets were pulled forward into the first quarter. Adjusted EBITDA decreased by $4 million sequentially, and adjusted EBITDA margins were 23.7% compared to 26.1% in the first quarter. The Russia-Ukraine conflict impacted our supplier, and as a result, we saw lower production levels, that resulted in under-absorption of our coca-la Finland plant. While the supplier has since increased production to a level above that of the second quarter, it is still not back to 100% of our normal levels. Also in the second quarter, our Tetra Advanced Displacement Systems, or TADS, was awarded the 2001 EMP Special Meritorious Award for Engineering Innovation for Drilling Fluids Stimulation Category. This technology is used for a highly efficient transition from drilling muds to clear brine fluids, to clear brine completion fluids in the well completion phase. We continue to have good engagement with a growing list of customers on offshore projects where we believe Tetra CS Neptune is the best option and most environmentally friendly for their completion. Our previously mentioned North Sea first generation Tetra CS Neptune job is still on schedule to be completed in this quarter, Q3. As we look towards the third quarter of 2022, based on new customer awards and activity increases, we expect to see further growth and margin expansion for our water and flowback segment, despite 40-year high inflationary pressures. For completion fluids and products, we will see the normal seasonal drop-off from our northern European chemicals business with continued lower production volumes at least through the third quarter due to the aforementioned supply chain disruption. For our completion fluids energy services, we expect continued strong demand for overall activity including contribution in the second half of the year from Deepwater Brazil Awards that we previously communicated. Overall, despite the inflation headwinds and the supply chain disruption, our management team navigated us to a solid quarter. Our technology investments are paying off, giving us opportunities to grow and expand margins, while the customer activity levels grow modestly due to a lack of additional frack crew capacity. Our focus on low-carbon energy markets, which requires critical minerals and chemistry expertise, is creating significant growth opportunities for the company and are already contributing financial benefit with much more to come. We continue to find new markets for our existing products, which collectively contribute to a broader earnings base and high growth market opportunities. Since beginning 2020 with the onset of COVID-19, every quarter has presented a different global challenge, and our management team and employees have done an excellent job adjusting to the ever-changing market conditions and reacting quickly to them. I'll turn it over to Alijo to provide some additional information, then we'll open it up for questions.
spk05: Thank you, Brady. Second quarter adjusted earnings per share was $0.05 and compares to $0.06 in the first quarter and also compares to a $0.02 loss in the second quarter of last year. The second quarter of this year included a $4.9 million charge of non-recurring items. So the first quarter included a benefit of $164,000 of non-recurring credits, net of expenses. Just the second quarter was $18.7 million and compares to 20.5 in the first quarter, and it's up 44% from the $13 million of the second quarter of last year. The second quarter included mark-to-market losses of $700,000 from our equity holdings in CSI Compresco and Standard Lithium, partially offset by a non-realized valuation gain on our convertible note investment in carbon-free. This compares to our first quarter $1.1 million mark-to-market gain of our equity holdings in CSI Capresco and Standard Lithium. These items represent an unfavorable swing of $1.8 million from the first to the second quarter of this year. If you compare the first quarter to the second quarter focused on our EBITDA performance, without the impact of these mark-to-market gains in the first quarter and mark-to-market losses in the second quarter, Both quarters were adjusted EBITDA of $19.4 million. The second quarter adjusted EBITDA is flat on this basis with the first quarter and is consistent with what Brady and I communicated as our expectations on the first quarter earnings conference call. And keep in mind that the first quarter included several significant offshore fluid shipments that moved up from the second quarter, and the second quarter also included a negative impact of $1.3 million at our Northern Europe Industrial Chemical Operations as a result of the supplier declaring force majeure that Brady mentioned. In late April, we received 400,000 shares in Standard Lithium when the Standard Lithium share price was $6.36 a share with a total value of $2.5 million that we amortized over a 12-month period. And then we do mark-to-market adjustments each quarter relative to the $6.36 price. Yesterday's Standard Lithium price closed at $5.49. Recall that last year we accumulated 1.6 million shares of Standard Lithium and sold those at approximately $11 per share, generating about $18 million of cash proceeds. Second quarter cash from operating activities was $17.9 million, an improvement of $12 million from the first quarter. Capital expenditures net of cash proceeds from the sale of assets were $10.3 million and compared to 8.9 in the first quarter. Free cash flow or cash from operating activities less capital expenditures was $6.3 million in the second quarter and improvement of 9.3 from the first quarter. We are increasing our total year capital expenditures to reflect investments in sandstorms with paybacks significantly better than 18 months and in early production facilities in Argentina with good margins and with the expectations that the clients buy those projects within a two to three year period after the early production facility. Working capital consumed $6 million of cash in the first quarter and generated $5 million of cash in the second quarter. This points to Tetra being able to quickly monetize the first quarter ramp up on revenue that was up 15% sequentially. And in the second quarter, when revenue ramps up 8% sequentially, we're able to manage our working capital to generate cash during the quarter. We are building inventory for some significant deep water and natural activity in the second half of the year and expect third quarter to be free cash flow negative, but to be high in the fourth quarter. Free cash flow this year should be in excess of $10,000,000.00. Even after taking into account. Cost of work incurring in Arkansas drilling or test well. Doing the resource study. The front end engineering and design study and the preliminary economic assessment. This demonstrates the value of having a strong EBITDA and a strong free cash generating oil, fuel services and insert rope industrial chemicals business. to fund the startup of our low-carbon initiatives in the smack world formation of Arkansas without having to issue dilutive equity or incur debt to do so. Total debt outstanding was $153 million at the end of June, down from a high of $222 million in 2019, while net debt was reduced to $117 million. At the end of the quarter, the net leverage ratio was one times, an improvement from 2.1 times at the end of the first quarter. Liquidity at the end of the second quarter was $103 million, an improvement of $8 million from the first quarter, and was the highest it has been since 2019. Liquidity is defined as unrestricted cash with availability under the revolving credit facility. At the end of the second quarter, unrestricted cash was $36 million, and availability under a credit facility was $67 million. We are building cash and liquidity to continue to make some initial investments on our assets in Arkansas. We've already drilled an exploratory well and incurred costs in the first half of this year. In the second half of the year, I mentioned earlier, we'll spend cash to move towards a resource study, a front-end engineering design or feed study, then a preliminary economic assessment. We have also now been positive at the profit before taxes level for two consecutive quarters, generating gap PBT of $10.2 million year-to-date. This is a good time to remind everyone that we have federal tax laws carried forth in the United States that can offset over $400 million of future profits. Keep this in mind as our oil and gas and industrial chemicals business continues to improve, and we look forward to bringing more profits from incremental bromine and from lithium from our leased acreage in the Smackover Formation. This will allow us to have a very high conversion of PBT to cash flow from operations and fund or quickly pay back some of the expected investments for our low-carbon initiatives. I encourage everyone to read our news release that we issued today and the 10Q that we'll be filing later today for all the supporting details and additional financial and operational metrics. With that, I'll turn it over to Brady.
spk02: Thanks, Elegio. I guess we'll open it up for questions now.
spk01: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.
spk02: Our first question will come from Martin Malloy with Johnson Rice.
spk01: Please go ahead.
spk03: Good morning. Good morning, Martin. The first question I had was about the calcium chloride for use in the lithium extraction process. Could you maybe talk about the potential here and is that a localized use of the calcium chloride or? Is it expected to be more widespread potentially?
spk04: Yeah, it's actually an international lithium provider, not here in the U.S., and so it's the first application that we have seen working with this provider to use calcium chloride in their process, and we're very encouraged by the results and what we think the applicability of this solution will be on a more broad scale. But this is not for a provider here in the U.S.
spk05: And Marty, they've given us an order, Brady mentioned, for six months as they're about to ramp up production of lithium in their facility.
spk03: Okay. And then just on the Finland calcium chloride production plant and the raw materials for that, can you maybe talk about the supplier outlook. Is there an opportunity to add another supplier that might be able to provide the key raw material on the demand side for the output from that plant? Has it essentially just been deferred? Any help you could give us on the situation there would be appreciated.
spk04: Sure. Yeah, I appreciate that. Obviously, it's a pretty fluid... uh situation and uh the ukraine russia conflict came up you know fairly suddenly um and caught us all a little bit off guard as you can imagine um you know we're fortunate that yes there are more there are other supplies this is a commodity but as you're probably aware you know global commodities even today's environment are are pretty tight so it's just not an immediate immediate replacement We were encouraged with the production volumes that they are now projected for the third quarter, but it's still not to the full levels that we need. We think ultimately this will get solved, but we don't have a perfect visibility right now into exactly when we can anticipate that. The demand for our products is still extremely high, which has helped us in terms of getting price increases, which we clearly need given the European inflation for both logistics as well as energy. But we've been very successful on that front. So there's no issue, no concerns on the demand side. This is really just being able to replace that supply chain material and get up to running as quickly as we can.
spk03: Great. Thank you very much. I'll get back to you.
spk04: Okay. Thank you, Mark.
spk01: Our next question will come from Steven Gengoro with Stifel. Please go ahead.
spk06: Thanks. Good morning, gentlemen.
spk01: Morning, Steve.
spk06: So I was curious if you could help us out here. So when we're looking at the fluids business and we're thinking about the normal I mean, normally from the second quarter to third quarter, you lose some of the European business and then there's some other pluses and minuses. But just given the noise that we saw in the second quarter, I think some of the continued, maybe lingering impacts of the supplier issues. Can you give us some sense for how you're thinking about the third quarter? And I think if I did the math right, your EBITDA margins, excluding some of the noise, were like 25.5% in that business and Curious what your commentary is on that going forward.
spk05: Good question, Stephen. So historically, we've seen about a $14 to $15 million increase, Q1 to Q2, coming from our calcium chloride sales in Northern Europe. And then that comparable drop of Q2 to Q3. Last year, it dropped from $64.6 million down to $48.7 or about $16 million. This year, second quarter was at $75 million. We're expecting a comparable drop-off, partially offset by some of the activity that we've mentioned, such as calcium chloride sales into the market for production of lithium. Also, some of our increased sales that we expect that be occurring with pure flow, in addition with an uptick in deep water activity. So $14 million to $15 million drop-off Q3 to Q2 comparable to last year.
spk06: Great, thank you. If you took out the noise in the quarter, I think margins were about 25.7% in fluids. How should we think about that progression?
spk05: So the second quarter without the market gain or losses that we had turned out to be $24.8 million. and the, I'm sorry, 24.8%. And the second quarter should be around those numbers.
spk06: Okay. Thanks. And then just one final one. When we think about the water and flow back business, I mean, you talked about some share gains. Sounds like your revenue opportunity there continues to increase against the backdrop where there's just not a lot of frack spreads going to work in the second half of the year. Do you think you'll just sort of outpace the rise in frack activity in the back half of this year and also in 2023? Like, should we use that kind of as a benchmark and then expect that you can outpace that growth based on some share gains?
spk04: Absolutely, Stephen. I mean, if you just look at historically the gains that we have made on a frack crew basis, We think those gains are sustainable, continue to maintain those gains. We've also continued to gain share in the recycling space. Our sandstorms, as I've mentioned, are actually our largest award to date with a super major in the Delaware Basin and Eagleford that we've not seen any benefit of yet. We'll see that in the second half of the year on, as you said, pretty flat frack crew activity. Argentina is just getting kicked off. For us, we've not seen any real benefit of that. We'll see that in the second half of the year. So, yes, we definitely will outpace the FRAC activity, certainly for the second half of this year, and we would anticipate into next year as well.
spk05: Marty, the other thing that I would add as a result of those items is that last year we generated EBITDA of $14.9 million for the entire year from water and flow back. And the second quarter, if you annualize it, we're already at a $10 million per year EBITDA, at a $40 million per year EBITDA run rate based on $10 million in the second quarter. And we've indicated that we've got the EPF coming online in Argentina that will show the exit rate this year being quite a bit higher than the $40 million run rate EBITDA that we're at right now.
spk06: Great. Thanks. I'll get back in line. Thank you.
spk01: Our next question will come from Tim Moore with EF Hutton. Please go ahead.
spk07: Thanks and congratulations on the level of adjusted EBITDA on the quarter and it was nice to see the free cash flow. My first question is I just want to clarify timing. It sounds like the inferred resources report can be completed maybe by late September, and my understanding from your comments earlier was that the preliminary economic assessment for bromine could still be finished by the end of the year, but then there might be a PEA for lithium carbonate equivalent. Is that maybe sometime early next year?
spk04: Yeah, so the cadence that we feel is highly probable is we We think the inferred resource or the final resource report will be, you know, certainly completed before the end of the third quarter, hopefully, you know, early, mid-September type timeframe. The PEA, as we'd mentioned for bromine, we're doing first because there's really no technology risk associated with that. And we have a great team assembled with our PEA provider to fast track that. We still believe that will be completed before the end of the year. The lithium, as you know, is a little bit more complicated. We have a great direct lithium extraction partner, technology partner that we're working with. We're very encouraged with the results that we're getting, but we still got to, you know, prove out certain aspects of that. So we don't want to delay our bromine investment of trying to do lithium at the same time. So we will do them sequentially. Based on the pace that we're going, if we continue to make the progress that we are, we fully expect to launch the PEA early in next year for the lithium following the bromine.
spk07: Great. That's terrific. Just switching gears, for the integrated water management and your automation with blue links control systems, can you give us a sense of that remaining opportunity for penetration? Is it Fifth inning now, I mean, given it's such good quick payback and staff reductions of up to maybe 40% and field safety improvement, I saw the project count went up to 62, but I was trying to get my head wrapped around how far along are you in that? Is it still kind of a different way?
spk04: That's a great question. We rolled this out in the end of 2018, 2019, so we are a couple years into this now. I think we still have quite a bit of growth with the integrated wall just because of the efficiency gains that the operators benefit from. As you can imagine right now, labor is a real issue in this market, and so customers are coming to us where we can run jobs with far fewer people. So we still believe we've got some pretty significant room to grow that model I would estimate we're still only at less than 20% market share of that type of model that's available to us.
spk05: Perfect. You referenced a couple of data points that we have in our press release, and that was focused on the automated drill-out technology, which is new and above and beyond what we're doing with the automation and blue links. What we have done today with this automated drill-out technology is drill out the plugs reduce personnel, and introduce a new technology to do so. So this is a new technology above and beyond what we've been doing with Blue Links and what we've been doing with the Sandstorm. So this is another in the series of efficiencies that we're bringing to the market.
spk07: Yes, great. That was nice to see for the appellation. Just maybe on the water and flow back topic, maybe elaborate, you know, besides that good technology you just mentioned in the press release, Just maybe any other opportunities as you look out to 2023? Is there opportunity for converting produced water to surface discharge quality, which seems like it could be a huge market if the EPA and some state water regulatory agencies move towards that?
spk04: Right. Well, absolutely. That's been a focus of ours as part of the next evolution of our recycling capabilities. We have We have some things we think we'll be able to announce on that in the coming weeks as it relates to beneficial reuse. We're staying very closely connected to the regulatory agencies as they're moving forward to be able to enable that market. And we like to pace that that's moving at as well. So yeah, there's no question that is the next step. The seismicity events are causing some real headache. for our customers, especially in the Permian Basin for disposal. No question that's the next step in the process. As I said, more to come on that, we think, in the coming weeks.
spk07: That's terrific. I'm looking forward to that. It could be the highlight of my summer. I know there's concern by some investors. The big question out there is what oil price level will be good enough for you you know, towards the end of this year and most of next year to achieve maybe double-digit sales growth next year. I mean, your revenues were very strong in 2018, 2019, $560 million. Oil price was, you know, $57 to $65 back then. Are investors just too hung up on $100 oil? I mean, it seems like you could do really well when it's an average above $60. Is there any thoughts on that, you know, for capital spending by customers?
spk04: Yeah, I mean, obviously... It's before we get into the budget cycle for our customers, but if you look at the returns that customers are able to make right now in the shale plays with the efficiencies, companies like us have brought to the market. Now, we still have to overcome some inflation. I think that's still a big issue in our industry, but I firmly believe 70, 75% of oil would support continued double-digit growth both on a frack crew count and certainly for our business with the projections that we have.
spk07: Great. That's very helpful. My last question is just switching to low carbon. How has the pilot plant been for sky cycle and carbon-free going? It seems like there would be an uptick in interest by large emitters given the inflation.
spk04: Yeah. We continue to stay very engaged with Carbon Free. Clearly, they're on the front end because they're negotiating with their end users, multiple projects. We're obviously engaged with them on those projects, assessing what the logistics cost, the plant cost, et cetera, would be for our component of that. So it's difficult for us to project when they will announce their first plant. because they're in the lead, taking the lead for that side of it, and we're supporting them, partnering with them in that capacity. But no, still much very engaged and still a very exciting opportunity for us.
spk07: Thanks, and that's it for my questions.
spk01: Thank you, Tim. Our next question will come from Samantha Ho with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
spk08: Hey guys, thanks for good morning. Maybe just to stay on this carbon-free topic, I'm just kind of curious, and especially with EOS and all that product ramping up, is there any sort of way you can quantify how much you think these new low-carbon services and products will contribute to fluids this year versus the growth from last year? Anyway, you can kind of peg a number to that.
spk05: Right. So the real contributions this year come in from PureFlow sales to EOS. And we've mentioned in the past that we believe that EOS has a very sound strategy of increasing production, and we keep shipping product to them. And in fact, Brady and I were in West Memphis last week, and there were quite a few totes of PureFlow ready to go to EOS that are being shipped in the third quarter. Brady mentioned earlier that the volumes in the second quarter were materially higher than the first quarter, and the third quarter continues to be high. That's going to be the majority of our revenue this year. Some have speculated that the revenue is somewhere between $8 and $10 million. We have not pushed back on that number, and that's strictly pure flow. In addition now to pure flow, we mentioned this morning that we're now starting to ship calcium chloride for the production of lithium in our country overseas. So those two are going to be the main impact from this year, and I think that those numbers can increase materially in the coming year.
spk08: Okay. I guess the other thing that I wanted to talk about more was just the recycling work in your water and flow back segment. It seems like you've called out recycling a lot over the past recent years, like one of your fastest growing products. And I was just wondering if you could sort of rank within the segment, you know, which products are, or which service lines are the biggest contributors and, and just like where, if you need to spend any more CapEx actually, because I think I also heard that you're adding Sandstorm, but do you need more steel for the recycling business?
spk04: Right. Right. So, yeah, No question about it, the two fastest growing segments for our water and flowback business are sandstorms and recycling. And we are continuing to add capital as we gain more market share with sandstorms and as well with recycling. I will say both of those technologies today are less than two-year paybacks for our capital investment. But yes, Those two require being fed some capital, and we will continue to do so as long as we can get those types of returns.
spk08: All right. Well, that's CS and FTN. I think I heard that you're completing a project right now. We're in the third quarter. What are you anticipating, I guess, over the next year, especially as some of these projects have FID'd in the North Sea?
spk04: Right. So we do have a job that's planned in the third quarter in the North Sea that, you know, high conference level will be executed actually in the coming weeks. But, again, the cycle that we're in with Deepwater, you know, I will say is still, you know, a longer-term horizon. We don't know if there will be additional Neptune opportunities this year. Most of the projects that we're in discussions with the customers are we think will be really starting to kick off next year. Whether that's first half of next year or second half of next year, I think still to be determined as we get into some of the more advanced discussions with these operators. You've probably seen the subsea tree orders really start to take off, and I think I anticipated the forecast that I saw now is going to be a five-year high in terms of subsea trees. And really, that's the leading edge for deepwater activity Unfortunately, on the completion side, we're at the tail end of that timing cycle, so there is a lag for us, but we clearly see it coming.
spk08: And given just that we're really seeing the deepwater recovery expand geographically, what other markets do you think is very suitable for Neptune? Could we see some of those majors who are very sensitive to environmental risks perhaps look to use Neptune in West Africa, for example?
spk04: Right. So I think North Sea and Brazil are clearly fairly highly sensitive as it relates to using zinc, banning zinc in most of their markets, which opens up more avenues for Neptune. But really, after that, it comes down to the pressures of the formations. Samantha and Both in the Gulf of Mexico, that's where we see the pressure regimes in some of these higher deep water wells will be conducive to Neptune. Not so much West Africa yet, I would say, but we have seen spots in other markets, Asia Pacific, North Sea, and Gulf of Mexico, I would say, would be the primary over the next 12 to 18 months opportunities for us with Neptune.
spk08: Okay, great. Thank you, guys.
spk02: Our next question is a follow-up from Stephen Gengoro with Stifel. Please go ahead.
spk06: Thank you. Thanks for taking the follow-up. So I have two other questions, if you don't mind. The first was one of the things with PureFlow is obviously we're tracking and trying to watch what EOS is doing, and it feels like their revenue expectations, their revenue, at least what the consensus has out there, has sort of plateaued after kind of having a downdraft since maybe 2021. But it seems like it's stabilized and there's a renewed level of confidence in their ability and their throughput, et cetera. Can you talk at all about any insights you guys might have into the traction that they're getting on the production side? And is there any color you can add to sort of the confidence that your pure flow volumes are going to be rampant? That was a hard question because EOS is involved. But is there anything you can add around that to give confidence to the volume growth?
spk04: The only thing I can say, Stephen, because I don't want to speak for EOS, but clearly they're a key customer of ours. We have visited their plant facility and the work that they are putting in, the investment that they are putting in to ramp up production. It's real. From our lens, it's very encouraging because we see the demand that they're putting on for us for PureFlow. I can't comment to whether or not they'll achieve what the consensus projections are, but there's no question they're ramping up and they're making very good progress, in our opinion.
spk06: Great. Thank you. That's helpful. And then you had talked about maybe another public and maybe another private, two other companies at least you were in conversations with for maybe – taking a similar product for battery storage application. Are there any updates on that front?
spk04: We continue to be engaged with them. We thought maybe we would have something to announce by now. Unfortunately, they've not completed their deal yet, but we do expect it in the third quarter. OK.
spk06: And then maybe just one final one. Do you have any thoughts you can add around the direct lithium extraction technologies being used in Arkansas and any sort of traction and progress that's being made there that makes the reserves that Standard Lithium has and then obviously that you have viable and any increase in confidence level there as we kind of move forward? Because I've heard There's a lot of potential, but there's still work to be done to prove up technology.
spk04: Right. No, it's a great question and one that we have spending a lot of time with direct lithium extraction providers and researching the landscape. First of all, let me clarify, direct lithium extraction, there's two people that are commercial today using direct lithium extraction. It's not here in the U.S., And we have been engaged with those two companies. But even their application today is essentially on, you know, salar brine pools using direct lithium. So the technology is working, but it's a little bit different application than what we're using in Arkansas. And that's the same case for standard lithium. where we will be pulling brine from a downhole well environment in a continuous basis and re-injecting it back into a downhole formation. There's actually nobody in the world today that we know of that is commercial with that application. But we do feel very confident adapting the DLE technology from the commercial providers will be applicable in the environment that I described that we will have in Arkansas.
spk06: OK, great. Thank you for the call.
spk02: Okay, with that, I think we will conclude our second quarter earnings call.
spk04: Thank you very much for your interest, and we'll end the call.
spk02: This will conclude our question and answer session.
spk01: This will conclude the conference. Thank you for partaking of the event today. You may now disconnect your lines.
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