STEP Energy Services Ltd.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the STEP Energy Services first quarter of 2023 conference call and webcast. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, May 11, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dana Benner, Senior Advisor, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Steph's first quarter 2023 conference call and webcast. I am pleased to introduce today's roster of speakers. Steve Glanville, our President and CEO, will give some opening remarks. Vast Deemter, our CFO, will follow with an overview of the financial highlights before turning it back to Steve or some strategy and outlook focused commentary. We will then host a Q&A session to follow. Before I turn it over to Steve, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements and other information based on current expectations or results for the company. Certain material factors or assumptions that were applied in drawing conclusions or making projections are reflected in the forward-looking information section of our Q1 2023 MD&A. Several business risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements and our financial outlook. Please refer to the risk factor and risk management section of our MD&A for the quarter ended March 31, 2023 for more complete description of business risks and uncertainties facing STEP. This document is available both on our website and on CDAR. During this call, we will also refer to several common industry terms and certain non-IFRS measures that are fully described in our MD&A, which again, is available on CDAR and on our website. With that, I will pass the call over to Steve.

Thanks, Dana, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our first quarter 2023 conference call. As noted, my name is Steve Glanville, and I am the President and CEO of STEP Energy Services. We will be providing an overview of our Q1 results. By now, hopefully you will have the opportunity to look at them, and you will also recall that we released a preliminary operations and financial update on April 10th. As you see, our results fell comfortably within those projected ranges. The first quarter was a very good one for our company, and it showed yet again the strength of our overall business model. This time we had an excellent performance from our Canadian fracturing division as well as both Canadian and U.S. co-tubing divisions. The combination of those business units was enough to propel STEP's consolidated revenue to the second highest level in its history and up 5% from the fourth quarter of 2022. Recall that in the fourth quarter call, my commentary was similar in that we had a terrific performance from three of our four business units. but it was our U.S. fracturing that put up record revenue, while E&T completion budgets in Canada wound down until the new year. This time, Canadian fracturing took the ball and ran with it. STEP suggested EBITDA for the quarter was $45.3 million, which is still good in the context of last year's Q1 results. Overall, As I say frequently, it is difficult in our project-focused business to have all groups performing at maximum capability all the time, which is why we believe in the strength of our diverse business offering. We continue to trend along as a company at a strong level overall and keep paying down debt as we go. In fact, since the middle of 2018, STEP has paid down approximately $180 million of net debt, and we are now sitting at 0.6 times trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA. For most of the last 25 years, that ratio would have been seen to be under-leveraged in relation to an efficient balance sheet. Thus, our financial position is strong, and we expect it to keep building on this strength. I am very proud of the continuing efforts that our client partners and our STEP professionals give in making these results happen. Before I address our strategy and outlook, I want to turn the call over to Klaas, our CFO, for some financial highlights.