Liberty Energy Inc (LBRT) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to the Liberty Energy earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please note, this event is being recorded.

歡迎參加自由能源財報電話會議。（操作員說明）請注意，正在記錄此事件。

I would now like to turn the conference over to Anjali Voria, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

我現在想將會議交給投資者關係總監 Anjali Voria。請繼續。

Thanks, Wyatt. Good morning, and welcome to the Liberty Energy third-quarter 2024 earnings call. Joining us on the call are Chris Wright, Chief Executive Officer; Ron Gusek, President; and Michael Stock, Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝，懷亞特。早安，歡迎參加 Liberty Energy 2024 年第三季財報電話會議。與我們一起參加電話會議的還有執行長克里斯·賴特 (Chris Wright)；羅恩·古塞克，總裁；和首席財務官邁克爾·斯托克。

Before we begin, I would like to remind all participants that some of our comments today may include forward-looking statements reflecting the company's view about future prospects, revenues, expenses, or profits. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. These statements reflect the company's beliefs based on current conditions that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that are detailed in our earnings release and other public filings.

在開始之前，我想提醒所有參與者，我們今天的一些評論可能包括反映公司對未來前景、收入、費用或利潤的看法的前瞻性陳述。這些事項涉及風險和不確定性，可能導致實際結果與我們的前瞻性陳述有重大差異。這些聲明反映了公司基於當前狀況的信念，這些信念受到我們的收益發布和其他公開文件中詳細說明的某些風險和不確定性的影響。

Our comments today also include non-GAAP financial and operational measures. These non-GAAP measures, including EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, adjusted net income per diluted share, and adjusted pre-tax return on capital employed, are not a substitute for GAAP measures and may not be comparable to similar measures of other companies.

我們今天的評論還包括非公認會計準則財務和營運措施。這些非GAAP 衡量標準，包括EBITDA、調整後EBITDA、調整後淨利潤、調整後每股攤薄淨利潤和調整後所用資本稅前回報率，不能取代GAAP 衡量標準，並且可能無法與其他類似衡量標準相比較。

A reconciliation of net income to EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, net income to adjusted net income, and adjusted net income per diluted share and the calculation of adjusted pre-tax return on capital employed as discussed on this call are available on our Investor Relations website.

本次電話會議中討論的淨利潤與EBITDA 和調整後EBITDA、淨利潤與調整後淨利潤、調整後每股淨利潤的調節表以及調整後所用資本稅前回報率的計算可在我們的投資者關係網站上找到。

I will now turn the call over to Chris.

我現在將把電話轉給克里斯。

Thank you, Anjali. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our third-quarter 2024 operational and financial results. Liberty delivered a solid quarter with revenue of $1.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $248 million. We again reached new heights and efficiencies, pumping more hours in a quarter than ever before, company wide, amidst the backdrop of a slowing demand environment.

謝謝你，安賈利。大家早安，感謝您加入我們討論我們的 2024 年第三季營運和財務業績。Liberty 實現了穩健的季度業績，營收為 11 億美元，調整後 EBITDA 為 2.48 億美元。在需求放緩的背景下，我們再次達到了新的高度和效率，整個公司在一個季度內的工作時間比以往任何時候都多。

We are excited to celebrate the progress of a Liberty digiPrime fleet that set the company record for number of hours pumped in a month by any crew in company history, low fuel cost from natural gas, low emissions, and record operational performance. The Liberty culture of striving for improvement and pushing beyond our prior achievements continues, regardless of the macro environment we find ourselves in. I'm proud of our team for executing at the highest operating levels, generating strong financial performance and value for our customers.

我們很高興慶祝 Liberty digiPrime 車隊取得的進展，該車隊創下了公司歷史上任何船員每月泵送時間的記錄、天然氣燃料成本低、排放量低以及創紀錄的營運績效。無論我們所處的宏觀環境如何，努力改進和超越先前成就的自由文化都會繼續下去。我為我們的團隊以最高的營運水平執行任務、為客戶創造強勁的財務表現和價值而感到自豪。

In the third quarter, we generated strong free cash flow, enabling a robust return of capital program. We opportunistically increased our share repurchases at $39 million at a lower stock price relative to the prior quarter. Since the reinstatement of our capital return program in July 2022, we have distributed $509 million to shareholders through the retirement of 14% of shares outstanding and quarterly cash dividends.

第三季度，我們產生了強勁的自由現金流，並實現了強勁的資本回報計畫。我們趁機以較上一季較低的股價增加了 3,900 萬美元的股票回購。自 2022 年 7 月恢復資本回報計畫以來，我們已透過退還 14% 的已發行股票和季度現金股息向股東分配了 5.09 億美元。

Earlier this week, we also announced a 14% increase in our quarterly cash dividend to $0.08 per share. The compounding effect of buybacks and dividends is an attractive way to drive higher total shareholder returns over cycles. We balance our return of capital program with disciplined investment in innovative businesses and leading-edge technologies that expand our competitive advantage and increase our market opportunities in the coming years.

本週早些時候，我們也宣布將季度現金股利增加 14% 至每股 0.08 美元。回購和股利的複合效應是在周期內推動更高股東總回報的一種有吸引力的方式。我們平衡資本回報計劃與對創新業務和領先技術的嚴格投資，以擴大我們的競爭優勢並增加未來幾年的市場機會。

Our success across multiple business cycles is driven by our well-defined competitive moat, differential technologies, long-term growth potential and high returns on invested capital. I want to highlight two of the drivers of our leading financial performance. Number one, we've built trust and loyalty with our customers by delivering a superior service focused on their specific needs. And number two, we've strategically expanded in essential areas that grow our technology and service leadership position.

我們在多個商業週期中的成功得益於我們明確的競爭護城河、差異化技術、長期成長潛力和高投資資本回報率。我想強調我們領先的財務表現的兩個驅動因素。第一，我們透過提供專注於客戶特定需求的優質服務，與客戶建立了信任和忠誠度。第二，我們在重要領域進行了策略性擴張，以提高我們的技術和服務領導地位。

Why is this important? When we look at our relative performance in a softening market, our largest customers have grown during this period of industry consolidation, and our percentage of their work has also grown. This demonstrates the importance of dedicated relationships with customers that are also able to withstand and prosper across cycles and who value quality, safety, and service.

為什麼這很重要？當我們審視我們在疲軟市場中的相對錶現時，我們最大的客戶在這個行業整合時期有所增長，我們的工作比例也有所增加。這證明了與能夠承受跨週期並繁榮發展並重視品質、安全和服務的客戶建立專門關係的重要性。

Our focus on strategic investment drives the differential experience our customers benefit from today. Focused investments have allowed us to develop new markets and lead technology innovation and operational efficiency in the industry. Let me share a few recent examples. Over the past year, Liberty entered partnerships with entrepreneurs to develop the new gas-rich [BW Basin] in Australia. We have taken a significant step forward with the arrival of a Liberty fleet in country. Operations are expected to begin next month.

我們對策略投資的關注推動了我們的客戶今天受益的差異化體驗。集中投資使我們能夠開拓新市場，引領產業技術創新和營運效率。讓我分享一些最近的例子。去年，Liberty 與企業家建立了合作夥伴關係，開發澳洲新的富含天然氣的 [BW 盆地]。隨著自由艦隊抵達該國，我們向前邁出了重要一步。預計下個月開始營運。

Another example is our Liberty advanced equipment technologies, LAT, manufacturing and assembly division that delivered its first digiPrime pumps in the third quarter. This marks great progress since the launch of LAT just last year. For the last few years, we have supported our frac operations with the design and manufacturing of Liberty pump technology, including power ends, fluid ends, and ancillary equipment. We are now designing and manufacturing digi technologies as well as critical components for LPI and PropX.

另一個例子是我們的 Liberty 先進設備技術、LAT、製造和組裝部門，該部門在第三季交付了第一批 digiPrime 泵浦。這標誌著自去年推出 LAT 以來的巨大進步。在過去的幾年裡，我們透過 Liberty 泵浦技術的設計和製造（包括動力端、流體端和輔助設備）來支援我們的壓裂作業。我們現在正在設計和製造數位技術以及 LPI 和 PropX 的關鍵組件。

The new LAT organization expands our ability to design, engineer, and package complete proprietary systems. The success of new technology comes through ownership of the engineering design and the ability to rapidly incorporate feedback from field operations.

新的 LAT 組織擴展了我們設計、工程和封裝完整專有系統的能力。新技術的成功來自於工程設計的所有權以及快速整合現場操作回饋的能力。

This accelerates the innovation cycle and reduces total cost of ownership. Our manufacturing strategy reflects a balanced approach to in-house versus outsourced production, whereby we can leverage selective key learnings through the innovation cycle with our external partners, which remain an important part of the scale of our manufacturing and assembly needs.

這加快了創新週期並降低了總擁有成本。我們的製造策略反映了內部生產與外包生產的平衡方法，因此我們可以透過與外部合作夥伴的創新週期選擇性地利用關鍵知識，這仍然是我們製造和組裝需求規模的重要組成部分。

Our PropX division acquired three years ago is a leading provider of last-mile proppant handling and delivery solutions and has delivered nearly 400 billion pounds of sand since inception. As the premier provider of wet sand handling technology, we're excited to share several new developments. PropX has recently deployed its new PropStack, damp pile delivery system, optimizing the use of damp sand piles for high-throughput frac locations.

我們三年前收購的 PropX 部門是最後一哩支撐劑處理和輸送解決方案的領先供應商，自成立以來已輸送了近 4,000 億磅的沙子。作為濕砂處理技術的主要供應商，我們很高興與大家分享一些新的發展成果。PropX 最近部署了新的 PropStack、濕樁輸送系統，優化了高通量壓裂位置濕砂樁的使用。

The innovative new [prop hopper] together with advanced laser sand-metering technology currently in testing offer additional value to our customers through improved accuracy and simplified on-site operations. We are also in the advanced stages of testing a slurry pipe system for last-mile delivery of sand that could minimize trucking, reduce environmental impact, and provide real sustainable cost reductions across the value chain.

創新的新型[螺旋槳料斗]與目前正在測試的先進雷射測砂技術相結合，透過提高精度和簡化現場操作為我們的客戶提供附加價值。我們也處於測試用於最後一哩輸送沙子的泥漿管道系統的高級階段，該系統可以最大限度地減少卡車運輸，減少對環境的影響，並在整個價值鏈中提供真正可持續的成本降低。

Earlier this summer, Liberty Power Innovations, LPI, fuel gas operations commenced in the DJ Basin with first CNG sales in July. LPI's expanded compression and delivery operations in Colorado are off to a strong start, helping bring our frac fleet CNG fueling services to critical mass. We are now supporting most of our gas-burning fleets in both the Permian and DJ Basin. Alongside CNG, we are also treating field gas in the Haynesville, Permian, and other basins for certain customers.

今年夏初，Liberty Power Innovations (LPI) 在 DJ 盆地開始燃氣業務，並於 7 月銷售了第一批 CNG。LPI 在科羅拉多州擴大的壓縮和輸送業務取得了良好的開端，幫助我們的壓裂船隊 CNG 加氣服務達到了臨界規模。我們現在為二疊紀和 DJ 盆地的大部分燃氣船隊提供支援。除了壓縮天然氣之外，我們還為某些客戶處理海恩斯維爾、二疊紀和其他盆地的現場天然氣。

LPI handled more gas volumes and delivered more CNG in the third quarter than in its operating history with much more runway to expand. Today, the rising demand for power in commercial and industrial applications offers compelling opportunities for LPI. We are excited to leverage the expertise that we have built constructing and managing power plants per frac fleet to additional opportunities, both inside and outside the oilfield.

LPI 在第三季處理的天然氣量和交付的 CNG 數量超過其營運歷史，並且有更多的跑道需要擴建。如今，商業和工業應用中不斷增長的電力需求為 LPI 提供了誘人的機會。我們很高興能夠利用我們在建造和管理每個壓裂船隊發電廠方面積累的專業知識，在油田內外提供更多機會。

An energy-rich future creates opportunity as much of the ensuing demand will be meaningfully powered by natural gas, which is an area we believe we have significant advantages. The other opportunity in growing long-term supply of firm power is nuclear, which has been much in the news these days. Our ownership stake and partnership with small modular reactor company, Oklo, has been truly exciting.

能源豐富的未來創造了機會，因為隨之而來的大部分需求將有意義地由天然氣提供動力，我們相信我們在這一領域擁有顯著優勢。增加固定電力長期供應的另一個機會是核能，這幾天新聞頻頻報道。我們的所有權以及與小型模組化反應器公司 Oklo 的合作關係確實令人興奮。

Oil markets reflect significant uncertainty across the global economy, OPEC+ production plans, Chinese economic growth, and Middle East geopolitical dynamics. Total demand for oil will grow by approximately 1 million barrels of oil per day this year and is expected to exceed that rate next year. While global oil production may be in surplus in 2025, oil prices are expected to remain relatively range bound and supportive of North American activity.

石油市場反映了全球經濟、OPEC+生產計劃、中國經濟成長和中東地緣政治動態的巨大不確定性。今年石油總需求將每天增加約 100 萬桶石油，預計明年將超過這一速度。儘管 2025 年全球石油產量可能出現過剩，但預計油價將保持相對區間波動，並支持北美活動。

Natural gas prices rose in recent weeks as storage congestion concerns ease due to producer curtailments and strong domestic power generation demand. However, higher prices may incentivize reversal of curtailments, and therefore, proved to be transitory. The commissioning of LNG export facilities in the US and Canada is expected to stimulate gas activity in 2025 and support higher sustained natural gas demand.

由於生產商減產和強勁的國內發電需求，儲存擁塞問題得到緩解，天然氣價格近幾週上漲。然而，較高的價格可能會刺激削減限產的逆轉，因此事實證明這是暫時的。美國和加拿大液化天然氣出口設施的投產預計將刺激 2025 年的天然氣活動，並支持更高的持續天然氣需求。

Frac markets are navigating the slowing of E&P's operators 2024 development programs in response to the strong first-half 2024 production efficiency gains from factors including producer consolidation, longer lateral wells, and concentration of activity in high-graded acreage. Elevated uncertainty in energy markets has further left operators reluctant to accelerate completions activity in advance of the new year. We now expect a low double-digit percentage reduction in Q4 activity a bit more than the typical Q4 softening.

壓裂市場正在應對勘探與生產運營商 2024 年開發計劃的放緩，以應對 2024 年上半年生產效率的強勁增長，這些因素包括生產商整合、更長的側井以及活動集中在高品位區域。能源市場不確定性的加劇進一步導致營運商不願在新年之前加快竣工活動。我們現在預計第四季經濟活動將出現兩位數的低百分比下降，略高於典型的第四季疲軟情況。

Completions activity likely increases in early 2025 to support flattish E&P oil and gas production targets. Since late 2023, US crude oil production has been relatively flat and would likely decline if current completion activities levels persist. Eventually, activity levels will likely increase to support growing global demand for oil and natural gas. Frac industry dynamics are poised to improve in 2025 from today's levels.

2025 年初完井活動可能會增加，以支持勘探與生產石油和天然氣生產目標持平。自 2023 年底以來，美國原油產量一直相對平穩，如果目前的完井活動水準持續下去，可能會下降。最終，活動水平可能會增加，以支持全球對石油和天然氣不斷增長的需求。壓裂產業的動態預計在 2025 年從目前的水準得到改善。

E&Ps brought wells to production faster this year, in part due to completion efficiencies and increased frac intensity with higher pump rates. Efficiencies were aided by a mix shift towards larger producers benefiting from consolidation and partnership with top-tier frac service providers. Industry-wide frac efficiency is at its highest levels, but we expect the rate of improvement will slow going forward.

今年勘探與生產加快了油井投產速度，部分原因是完井效率提高以及泵速提高導致壓裂強度增加。向大型生產商的混合轉型有助於提高效率，並受益於與頂級壓裂服務提供者的整合和合作。全行業的壓裂效率處於最高水平，但我們預計未來改善速度將會放緩。

Higher intensity fracs require more horsepower. Softer activity has been a catalyst for equipment attrition, cannibalization, and idling of fleets. Together, these imply that the supply and demand balance of frac fleets is tighter than headline frac fleet counts suggest. Large, well-capitalized E&P are enjoying attractive economics across a wide range of oil prices.

更高強度的壓裂需要更大的馬力。經濟活動疲軟一直是設備磨損、拆解和車隊閒置的催化劑。總之，這些意味著壓裂船隊的供需平衡比整體壓裂船隊數量所顯示的更為緊張。大型、資本充足的勘探與生產公司在不同的油價範圍內都享有有吸引力的經濟效益。

To maintain efficiency gains and further support the increasing complexity of E&P needs, investment is necessary in leading-edge service technologies. Soft year-end frac activity levels are pressuring prices in the near term to levels that are inconsistent with the anticipated market demand and supply of horsepower in 2025. It is important that service prices support investment, especially given aging equipment industry underinvestment in next-generation technologies and growing fleet sizes.

為了保持效率提升並進一步支援日益複雜的勘探與生產需求，有必要對領先的服務技術進行投資。年終壓裂活動水準疲軟，導致近期價格承壓至與 2025 年預期市場需求和馬力供應不一致的水準。服務價格支援投資非常重要，特別是考慮到老化設備產業對下一代技術的投資不足以及船隊規模不斷擴大。

New service providers are positioned to manage the growing complexities of completion demands with quality service and next-generation technologies. We are significantly advantaged with our deep customer relationships, leading-edge digi technologies offering, and the integrated services that enable strong efficiencies for our customers and returns for our shareholders.

新的服務提供者能夠透過優質服務和下一代技術來管理日益複雜的竣工需求。我們擁有深厚的客戶關係、領先的數位技術產品以及綜合服務，這些優勢為我們的客戶帶來了強大的效率並為我們的股東帶來了回報。

We remain disciplined in investing in asset deployment as we seek to drive superior long-term financial results. Over the last two years, we have maintained a roughly flat deployed fleet count. However -- and missed near-term reductions in customer activity and market pressures, we are planning to temporarily and modestly reduce our deployed fleet count while continuing to support our long-term partners.

我們在尋求推動卓越的長期財務表現的同時，仍嚴格投資於資產部署。在過去兩年中，我們部署的機隊數量基本上保持不變。然而，由於錯過了近期客戶活動和市場壓力的減少，我們計劃暫時適度減少部署的機隊數量，同時繼續支持我們的長期合作夥伴。

Looking ahead, we expect to deliver healthy free cash flow generation in 2025. Our investment cadence within frac slows following an accelerated technology transition push in the last few years. Our strategic investment is expected to shift in support of our growing opportunities for power generation services. We are well positioned to deliver on our dual priorities of strategic investment and return of capital to shareholders, creating value over the long term.

展望未來，我們預計將在 2025 年實現健康的自由現金流產生。隨著過去幾年技術轉型的加速推進，我們在壓裂領域的投資節奏放緩。我們的策略性投資預計將轉向支持我們不斷成長的發電服務機會。我們有能力實現策略投資和向股東資本回報的雙重優先事項，從而創造長期價值。

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Michael Stock, our CFO, to discuss our financial results and outlook.

說到這裡，我想將電話轉給我們的財務長邁克爾·斯托克（Michael Stock），討論我們的財務表現和前景。

Good morning, everyone. Over the past two years, our results demonstrate the hard work and dedication of the Liberty team. We've delivered superior returns during a time when industry activity levels and market conditions have softened from peak levels. We've also strategically used those two years to focus on building our competitive advantages.

大家早安。過去兩年來，我們的成果體現了 Liberty 團隊的辛勤工作和奉獻精神。在行業活動水平和市場狀況已從峰值水平回落的時期，我們提供了卓越的回報。我們也策略性地利用這兩年來專注於建立我們的競爭優勢。

We embarked on an initiative to transition our fleet to next-generation digi technologies that are in high demand. We are pleased to share that we are on track to start the year with approximately 90% of fleets primarily powered by natural gas with dual fuel and digi fleets. We also launched and have now reached critical mass in LPI infrastructure to power our fleets. As we look ahead, we are well positioned to drive continued differentiation and solid performance through cycles.

我們發起了一項計劃，將我們的機隊過渡到需求量很大的下一代數位技術。我們很高興地告訴大家，今年伊始，我們將有大約 90% 的車隊主要由天然氣提供動力，採用雙燃料和數位化車隊。我們還推出了 LPI 基礎設施，現已達到臨界質量，為我們的車隊提供動力。展望未來，我們處於有利地位，可以在整個週期中推動持續的差異化和穩健的業績。

In the third quarter of 2024, revenue was $1.1 billion compared to $1.2 billion in the prior quarter, representing a 2% sequential decline on pricing headwinds. Third-quarter net income after tax was $74 million compared to $108 million in the prior quarter. Adjusted net income after tax was $76 million compared to $103 million in the prior quarter and excludes a pre-tax net unrealized loss of $3 million for mark-to-market loss adjustments.

2024 年第三季的營收為 11 億美元，而上一季的營收為 12 億美元，受定價不利影響季減 2%。第三季稅後淨利為 7,400 萬美元，而上一季為 1.08 億美元。調整後稅後淨利為 7,600 萬美元，而上一季為 1.03 億美元，不包括因按市值計價的虧損調整而產生的 300 萬美元的稅前未實現淨虧損。

Fully diluted net income per share was $0.44 compared to $0.64 in the prior quarter, and adjusted net income per diluted share was $0.45 compared to $0.61 in the prior quarter. Third-quarter adjusted EBITDA was $248 million compared to $273 million in the prior quarter. General and administrative expenses totaled $59 million in the third quarter, largely in line with $58 million in the second quarter and included noncash stock-based compensation of $5 million.

完全稀釋每股淨利為 0.44 美元，上一季為 0.64 美元；調整後每股攤薄淨利潤為 0.45 美元，上一季為 0.61 美元。第三季調整後 EBITDA 為 2.48 億美元，上一季為 2.73 億美元。第三季一般及管理費用總計 5,900 萬美元，與第二季的 5,800 萬美元基本持平，其中包括 500 萬美元的非現金股票薪資。

Other expense items totaled $11 million for the quarter, inclusive of the aforementioned $3 million net unrealized loss on investments. Net interest expense of $9 million was relatively in line with $8 million in the prior quarter. Third-quarter tax expense was $22 million, approximately 23% of pre-tax income. We continue to expect the tax expense rate in 2024 to be approximately 23% to 24% of pre-tax income.

本季其他費用項目總計 1,100 萬美元，其中包括上述 300 萬美元的未實現淨投資損失。淨利息支出為 900 萬美元，與上一季的 800 萬美元基本持平。第三季稅費為 2,200 萬美元，約佔稅前收入的 23%。我們繼續預計2024年的稅費率約為稅前收入的23%至24%。

Cash taxes were $16 million in the quarter, and we now expect 2024 cash taxes to be approximately 50% of our effective book tax rate for the year. We ended the quarter with a cash balance of $23 million and net debt of $100 million. Net debt declined by $17 million from the end of the second quarter. Third quarter uses of cash included capital expenditures, [$9 million] in share buybacks and $11 million of quarterly cash dividends. Total liquidity at the end of the quarter, including availability under the credit facility, was $352 million.

本季現金稅為 1,600 萬美元，我們現在預計 2024 年現金稅約為當年有效帳面稅率的 50%。本季結束時，我們的現金餘額為 2,300 萬美元，淨債務為 1 億美元。淨債務較第二季末減少了 1700 萬美元。第三季的現金使用包括資本支出、[900 萬美元]的股票回購和 1,100 萬美元的季度現金股利。本季末的總流動資金（包括信貸安排下的可用資金）為 3.52 億美元。

Net capital expenditures were $163 million in the third quarter, which included an investment in digi fleets, dual-fuel fleet upgrades, LAT and Permian facility construction, capitalized maintenance spending, and other projects. We had approximately $4 million of proceeds from asset sales in the quarter. In the fourth quarter, we expect capital expenditures to be approximately $200 million based on expected timing deliveries on digi technologies, completion of dual-fuel technology upgrades, demand for wet sand handling equipment.

第三季淨資本支出為 1.63 億美元，其中包括對數位機隊、雙燃料機隊升級、LAT 和二疊紀設施建設、資本化維護支出以及其他項目的投資。本季我們從資產出售中獲得了約 400 萬美元的收益。根據數位技術的預期交付時間、雙燃料技術升級的完成以及濕砂處理設備的需求，我們預計第四季度的資本支出約為 2 億美元。

Our ability to generate strong cash flows through cycles enables our commitment to capital returns. In the third quarter, we repurchased $39 million of shares or over 1% of the shares outstanding and distributed $11 million in cash dividends. We continue to deliver on our return of capital program while reinvesting in high-return opportunities that increase our long-term cash flow generation. Looking ahead, we are now anticipating fourth-quarter seasonality to be more pronounced than typical as early year E&P production outperformance, coupled with emerging macroeconomic uncertainties, keep E&P's hesitant to raise activity ahead of the new year.

我們在整個週期中產生強勁現金流的能力使我們能夠承諾資本回報。第三季度，我們回購了3,900萬美元的股票或超過1%的已發行股票，並派發了1,100萬美元的現金股利。我們繼續履行資本回報計劃，同時對高回報機會進行再投資，以增加我們的長期現金流產生。展望未來，我們預計第四季度的季節性因素將比典型情況更為明顯，因為年初勘探與生產的產量表現出色，加上新出現的宏觀經濟不確定性，使得勘探與生產在新年之前增加活動猶豫不決。

While unusually soft year-end activity levels are serving as a backdrop in pricing conversations, these pressures are inconsistent with the anticipated industry demand in 2025. We believe fleet activity is now at or below levels required sustain flattish oil and gas production and are poised to inflect higher in 2025. Horizontal rig counts have also stabilized, a signal of bottoming activity in the market.

儘管年底活動水平異常疲軟是定價討論的背景，但這些壓力與 2025 年的預期行業需求不一致。我們認為，船隊活動目前處於或低於維持石油和天然氣產量持平所需的水平，並預計在 2025 年出現更高水平。水平鑽機數量也趨於穩定，這是市場活動觸底的訊號。

After two years of largely maintaining a flat fleet count, we are now planning to temporarily reduce our deployed fleets by approximately 5%. We will reactivate those fleets to support our customers' long-term development needs in a disciplined fashion.

經過兩年機隊數量基本上保持平穩後，我們現在計劃暫時將部署的機隊數量減少約 5%。我們將重新激活這些機隊，以有紀律的方式支持客戶的長期發展需求。

As we invested early in the cycle to build our competitive advantage, transitioning our fleet to next-generation digi technologies, we now expect our capital spending program for our completion services to decline in 2025. As such, we expect free cash flow as defined as EBITDA less CapEx for the completions business to increase year over year.

由於我們在周期早期進行投資以建立競爭優勢，將我們的船隊過渡到下一代數位技術，我們現在預計我們的竣工服務資本支出計畫將在 2025 年下降。因此，我們預期竣工業務的自由現金流（定義為 EBITDA 減去資本支出）將逐年增加。

We have significant flexibility to maintain strong free cash flow generation and adjust our capital spending targets to fund potential new power opportunities while continuing to support our robust return of capital program. We expect our investments to shift towards growing opportunities for power generation services in the years ahead.

我們擁有巨大的靈活性來維持強勁的自由現金流生成，並調整我們的資本支出目標，為潛在的新電力機會提供資金，同時繼續支持我們強勁的資本回報計劃。我們預計未來幾年我們的投資將轉向發電服務領域不斷增長的機會。

We also increased our quarterly cash dividend by 14% to reflect the confidence we have in our ability to invest and expand our long-term earnings, drive free cash flow generation, and deliver a leading return of capital strategy. We combine a cash dividend with opportunistic share repurchases to generate significant value for our shareholders.

我們還將季度現金股利增加了 14%，以反映我們對投資和擴大長期收益、推動自由現金流產生以及實現領先的資本回報策略的能力的信心。我們將現金股利與機會性股票回購結合，為股東創造巨大價值。

I will now turn the call back to Chris for a few remarks.

現在我將把電話轉回給克里斯，請他發表幾句話。

Thanks, Michael. Slowing activity is pressuring pricing levels, inconsistent with expected future demand. Let me try to put this in perspective. Our per-fleet frac profitability remains above the cyclical high in 2018. This cycle is markedly different than previous cycles, reflecting a far healthier frac market with perhaps wider differential in profitabilities across the quality of frac providers.

謝謝，麥可。經濟活動放緩給價格水準帶來壓力，這與預期的未來需求不一致。讓我試著正確看待這一點。我們的每船隊壓裂獲利能力仍高於 2018 年的周期性高點。這個週期與先前的週期明顯不同，反映出壓裂市場更加健康，不同品質的壓裂供應商的獲利能力差異可能更大。

Already, we are seeing smaller frac companies fall into insolvency, and most of our competitors' investments in frac equipment are below their attrition levels. Available frac capacity is shrinking. This will lead to tightening in the frac market even without increasing frac demand. Our competitive advantage is bigger than it has ever been. CapEx in our core business will trend downward next year and in the foreseeable future, boosting our free cash flow.

我們已經看到規模較小的壓裂公司陷入破產，而我們大多數競爭對手對壓裂設備的投資都低於其損耗水準。可用壓裂能力正在萎縮。即使不增加壓裂需求，這也將導致壓裂市場收緊。我們的競爭優勢比以往任何時候都更大。我們核心業務的資本支出明年和可預見的未來將呈下降趨勢，從而增加我們的自由現金流。

Liberty Power Innovation is in its infancy, and we have the technology, business infrastructure, and cash flow to develop a high-return sizable diversification to the frac business. However, we love the frac business and have never been more excited about our competitive position and future prospects in frac.

Liberty Power Innovation 正處於起步階段，我們擁有技術、業務基礎設施和現金流來開發高回報的大規模多元化壓裂業務。然而，我們熱愛壓裂業務，並且對我們在壓裂領域的競爭地位和未來前景感到前所未有的興奮。

I will now turn it back to the operator for Q&A, after which I will have some closing comments at the end of the call.

我現在將把它轉回接線員進行問答，然後我將在通話結束時發表一些結束語。

(Operator Instructions). Scott Gruber, Citigroup.

（操作員說明）。史考特‧格魯伯，花旗集團。

Yes. Good morning.

是的。早安.

Good morning, Scott.

早安，史考特。

Good morning, Scott.

早安，史考特。

I wanted to start on your comments around investment next year, so EBITDA less CapEx or completions that will rise with lower completions CapEx next year. What does it mean for how many e-frac fleet additions you could target for next year? It sounds like LPI investment could go higher next year. So putting those two pieces together, what are your early thoughts on '25 CapEx and a wide range is fine. I know we're early, but just curious what that range could be.

我想從您對明年投資的評論開始，因此 EBITDA 減去資本支出或完工量將隨著明年完工資本支出的降低而上升。這對於您明年的目標增加多少 e-frac 船隊意味著什麼？聽起來 LPI 投資明年可能會更高。因此，將這兩部分放在一起，您對 25 年資本支出和廣泛範圍的早期想法是什麼就可以了。我知道我們還早，但只是好奇這個範圍可能是多少。

Yes. Thanks, Scott. Yes, I mean, that level of CapEx that we're discussing there probably has us bring four or five digi fleets into the market, about -- just a bit about 10% kind of replacement. So we're probably in 14% -- sort of 14% to 15% or closing in on 40% at the end of next year with digi technologies, just depending on how the fleet configuration goes between [simul] frac fleets and others. So I think that's about where we are on that.

是的。謝謝，斯科特。是的，我的意思是，我們正在討論的資本支出水平可能會讓我們將四到五個數位機隊帶入市場，大約只有 10% 左右的替代品。因此，我們可能會在14% 左右——大約是14% 到15%，或者在明年底使用數位技術接近40%，這取決於[模擬]壓裂船隊和其他船隊之間的船隊配置如何。所以我認為這就是我們目前的情況。

And then the LPI investments, obviously, kind of early days in looking at the power opportunities. Got a lot of discussions going on there that are quite interesting and reasonable advanced status, but that will come clear and probably be a lot clearer by our January call of what those numbers would look like. But we'd like to kind of think about it for investors to say, we're generating far more cash -- we're going to be generating more cash next year out of our completions business, which is where we're doing at the moment.

然後，LPI 投資顯然處於尋找電力機會的早期階段。那裡正在進行很多討論，這些討論非常有趣且合理，但透過我們一月份的電話會議，這些數字會是什麼樣子，這一點將會變得清晰，而且可能會更加清晰。但我們想為投資者考慮一下，我們正在產生更多的現金——明年我們將從我們的竣工業務中產生更多的現金，這就是我們正在做的事情那一刻。

That also includes the -- that number that I gave for the CapEx also includes the base molecule management, kind of the -- any expansion that we need for delivering natural gas to support those freight fleets as well. So that's included in what I consider the completions business side of that. And eventually, any sort of outside of frac power generation will be something we talk about in January.

這也包括——我為資本支出給出的數字還包括基本分子管理，類似於——我們輸送天然氣以支持這些貨運車隊所需的任何擴展。因此，這包含在我認為的竣工業務方面。最終，任何形式的壓裂發電以外的項目都將成為我們一月份討論的話題。

Got it. I appreciate that color. And then just a follow up on the near-term dynamics, I guess, one, how should we think about the [decrementals] in 4Q on that low teens revenue decline? And two, can you offer any early thoughts on the 1Q recovery from a revenue and incremental standpoint? A couple of moving pieces there in terms of a positive seasonal trend, but I would assume those two fleets, you're laying down, probably stand the sidelines for a bit. And then there could be some additional pricing headwind. Just trying to level set how we should think about where Liberty starts 2025 from a revenue and EBITDA standpoint?

知道了。我很欣賞那種顏色。然後是對近期動態的跟進，我想，第一，我們應該如何考慮第四季度青少年收入下降的[遞減]？第二，您能否從收入和增量的角度提供第一季復甦的任何早期想法？就積極的季節性趨勢而言，有一些移動因素，但我認為您正在放下的那兩支船隊可能會暫時觀望。然後可能會出現一些額外的定價阻力。只是想從收入和 EBITDA 的角度來說明我們該如何思考 Liberty 2025 年的起點？

Yes. So Scott, let me take that one. I think the revenue decline, it will be similar compared to last year in the fourth quarter. I think decrementals will be a little higher. That's with kind of -- as we've sort of looked at the slow decreasing of pricing and kind of the dynamics at the end of this year versus the dynamics at the end of last year. So if you look at revenue -- the revenue of the decrementals there.

是的。史考特，讓我來拿那個吧。我認為第四季的收入下降與去年相似。我認為減量會更高一些。這是因為我們已經看到了價格的緩慢下降以及今年年底的動態與去年年底的動態的比較。因此，如果你看一下收入——那裡的減量收入。

I think we'll have activity recovery coming into Q1. It won't be back to Q3 levels. It will be between Q4 and between Q4 and Q3 and the standard incrementals, I would say, from there. We'll have to -- I guess, we'll get closer and closer. We're still in the early part of RFP season, et cetera, but we have a reasonable look at where things are at the moment.

我認為我們的活動將在第一季恢復。它不會回到第三季的水平。我想說，它將在第四季之間以及第四季和第三季之間以及標準增量之間。我們必須——我想，我們會越來越接近。我們仍處於 RFP 季節的早期階段，等等，但我們對目前的情況有合理的了解。

Thank you, Michael. I appreciate it. Thank you.

謝謝你，麥可。我很感激。謝謝。

Thanks, Scott.

謝謝，斯科特。

Ati Modak, Goldman Sachs.

阿蒂·莫達克，高盛。

Hi. Good morning, team. Can you talk about the pricing pressure dynamic in the market? Do you think industry pricing discipline is breaking down? Is there a profitability level or return level on your fleet that we should think of in trying to understand where pricing can go?

你好。早上好，團隊。能談談市場的定價壓力動態嗎？您認為產業定價紀律是否正在被打破？在嘗試了解定價的走向時，我們是否應該考慮您的機隊的獲利水準或回報水準？

Yes. I wouldn't -- I think discipline breaking down is definitely too strong of a statement. But you get to the year-end, and there's a number of fleets going down, people's programs are just running out. They may not have gotten down yet, but they know they're going to get down late in November or early December after this pattern or the next pattern. And we do see people trying to fill that gap and keep that fleet working.

是的。我不會——我認為紀律崩潰這種說法絕對是太強烈了。但到了年底，很多機隊都停機了，人們的計畫即將耗盡。他們可能還沒有下降，但他們知道在這個模式或下一個模式之後，他們將在 11 月底或 12 月初下降。我們確實看到人們試圖填補這一空白並保持車隊正常運作。

So for extra pickup work, pricing is very rough, and unusually rough even. Normally, that's not great pricing, but that's particularly rough. And we're just not going to play that game. We're just not going to run a fleet at pricing that doesn't justify running that fleet. And so look, we were two years ago, the market condition peaked, and it's been sort of a slow, gradual decline.

因此，對於額外的接送工作，定價非常粗糙，甚至異常粗糙。通常情況下，這並不是一個很好的定價，但也特別粗糙。我們只是不會玩那個遊戲。我們不會以不合理的價格來經營一支車隊。所以看，兩年前，市場狀況達到頂峰，然後是緩慢、逐漸的下降。

We've used technology in improving our efficiency and services to try to swim against that tide, offsetting it. I think we obviously continue to do that. But rig count has plateaued. I think operators probably feel we're at or near a pricing bottom. And so yes, look, we stay tight to our partners. We're going to keep our profitability up. And if we can't, we're going to take the actions we're taking right now, which is idle some capacity. We're fine doing that. But conditions aren't great today. But I don't -- this isn't a normal downturn where it's about to drop, and this is just the first leg down. We're probably, pricing wise, at or near the bottom would be my guess.

我們利用科技來提高效率和服務，試圖逆流而上，抵銷它的影響。我認為我們顯然會繼續這樣做。但鑽機數量已趨於穩定。我認為運營商可能認為我們正處於或接近定價底部。所以，是的，我們與合作夥伴保持緊密聯繫。我們將保持獲利能力。如果我們不能，我們將採取我們現在正在採取的行動，這會導致一些產能閒置。我們這樣做很好。但今天的條件不太好。但我不這麼認為——這不是一場即將下跌的正常衰退，而這只是下跌的第一階段。我的猜測是，就定價而言，我們可能處於或接近底部。

Got it. That's very helpful. And then you mentioned efficiency. You also mentioned that it's at the highest levels, but there is room for some incremental changes, which will be slower from you. Maybe can you help us understand those changes that would take that efficiency even higher and what that means for the competitive advantage?

知道了。這非常有幫助。然後你提到了效率。您還提到它處於最高級別，但還有一些增量更改的空間，這對您來說會比較慢。也許您可以幫助我們了解那些可以提高效率的變化以及這對競爭優勢意味著什麼？

Yes. Look, we -- and I would say our industry, but I would say led by Liberty, are just passionate innovators, right? We're always looking to do something different, to do something better, and that won't stop. But think of the huge changes in just the last 12 to 18 months, we've had some consolidation of significant sized companies. What happens then? Maybe together, they were running 12 rigs and now they're running nine, and all nine of those are running on that acreage in the combined portfolio.

是的。聽著，我們——我想說我們的行業，但我想說的是由 Liberty 領導的，只是充滿熱情的創新者，對吧？我們一直在尋求做一些不同的事情，做一些更好的事情，而這不會停止。但想想過去 12 到 18 個月內發生的巨大變化，我們對大型公司進行了一些整合。然後會發生什麼事？也許他們之前一起運行 12 台鑽機，現在運行 9 台，所有 9 台鑽機都在合併後的投資組合中的該面積上運行。

That increases productivity per well or swims against a long-term degradation in average well productivity that's been going on for six, seven, eight years now. People are going to -- when there's excess capacity and pricing feels soft, people go more to simul frac, which is really more than one fleet on operations. So it gets counted as one fleet, but really, that's 1.6 fleets, so 1.7 fleet. So these factors have allowed in the last couple of years and maybe especially in the last nine months, great increases in efficiency and productivity.

這可以提高每口井的生產率，也可以避免平均井生產率的長期下降，這種下降已經持續了六、七、八年了。當產能過剩且價格疲軟時，人們會更多地進行同步壓裂，這實際上不僅僅是一支船隊在運作。所以它被算作一支艦隊，但實際上，這是 1.6 支艦隊，所以是 1.7 支艦隊。因此，這些因素在過去幾年中，尤其是在過去九個月中，使得效率和生產力大幅提高。

This is great for our industry, great for the economics of the whole pie. But obviously, in the short term, it's pricing pressure on stack equipment. We're just getting more done with the same amount of horsepower. The decline in fleet count is roughly half offset by growth in the average fleet count size. So horsepower that's being run has not declined by as much as frac fleet count has declined.

這對我們的產業和整個產業的經濟效益來說都是偉大的。但顯然，短期內，堆疊設備面臨價格壓力。我們只是用相同的馬力完成更多的工作。機隊數量的下降大約被平均機隊數量規模的成長所抵消。因此，運行的馬力並沒有像壓裂車隊數量下降那麼多。

But yes, I would say what makes us feel better about the marketplace is the differential in the profitability, say, of Liberty versus smaller privates you don't even know that are out there in their part of the marketplace. They are truly struggling. Some of those companies are drying up, shutting down operations, going into bankruptcy, or just sort of holding their cards and selling their assets away to someone else or shutting them down.

但是，是的，我想說的是，讓我們對市場感覺更好的是盈利能力的差異，例如，Liberty 與您甚至不知道其所在市場部分的小型私營公司之間的差異。他們確實在掙扎。其中一些公司正在枯竭、關閉營運、破產，或者只是持有自己的牌並將資產出售給其他人或關閉它們。

So if we see that generation -- that shrinkage in capacity in the marketplace, that's what it takes to fix a market where supply and demand are a little bit out of whack. But I'd probably address not as much on your technology thing. I don't know if Ron wants to add into that, but optimizing supply chain AI for routing truck delivery, how do we maximize the life of an engine, how do we increase gas substitution so we can bring a greater fuel cost savings to ourselves and to our customers, a lot of technical efforts going on. I think I'm talking too long. Ron, if you want to add anything or if we move on?

因此，如果我們看到這一代人——市場容量的萎縮，那就需要修復供需有點失調的市場。但我可能不會談太多你的技術問題。我不知道羅恩是否想補充這一點，但是優化卡車運輸路線的供應鏈人工智慧，我們如何最大限度地延長引擎的使用壽命，我們如何增加汽油替代，以便我們可以為自己帶來更大的燃料成本節省對於我們的客戶來說，我們正在進行大量的技術工作。我想我說太長了。羅恩，你想補充什麼或我們繼續嗎？

I think you hit all the high points, Chris.

我認為你已經達到了所有的高潮，克里斯。

Thanks, Ron. Thanks, Ati.

謝謝，羅恩。謝謝，阿蒂。

Thank you, guys.

謝謝你們，夥計們。

Stephen Gengaro, Stifel.

史蒂芬·根加羅，斯蒂菲爾。

Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Two for me. I'd start just back on the pricing question. When you talk about dedicated fleets with customers, do these prices roll at this time of year or they roll throughout the year? And just as an add-on to that, do you expect any material deterioration in pricing for that part of the business?

謝謝。大家早安。給我兩個。我先回到定價問題。當您與客戶談論專用車隊時，這些價格是在每年的這個時候滾動還是全年滾動？除此之外，您預期這部分業務的定價是否會出現實質惡化？

Yes, those are all different. Some of them is fixed for a year. Some of them, it has twice a year or even quarterly adjustments based on some factors. Those adjustments aren't big, and there's usually caps on how much that can move up or down. So there can be movements, but they're not huge. There is some rebidding going on now for a new contract starting in January. Not everybody does it on the calendar year, but a lot due.

是的，這些都是不同的。其中一些固定期限為一年。有的，根據某些因素，每年兩次甚至季度調整。這些調整幅度並不大，而且通常有上下變動的上限。所以可能會有變動，但幅度不會很大。一月份開始的新合約正在進行一些重新招標。並不是每個人都在日曆年這樣做，但很多人都這樣做。

So there is -- and that's the negotiations and dialogue we're having right now with our customers. We have long-term partners. They appreciate the efficiency and the quality of us working together. Those relationships are going to continue. But are other bids coming in that are lower that pressure that dialogue a little bit? Sure, but that's been going on for two years now.

這就是我們現在正在與客戶進行的談判和對話。我們有長期的合作夥伴。他們欣賞我們合作的效率和品質。這些關係將會持續下去。但其他出價是否會比對話壓力低一點？當然可以，但這種情況已經持續了兩年了。

Great, thanks. And the other one is when you -- we hear all about energy demand and for AI, data centers, et cetera. And I know about the investment in partnership with Oklo, and then you sort of think about the LPI business. Is the LPI sort of end market similar to sort of where SMRs will be playing? Or is there any way that you can help us sort of start thinking about what kind of end market you'd be after on the LPI side?

太好了，謝謝。另一個是當我們聽到有關能源需求以及人工智慧、資料中心等的所有資訊時。我了解與 Oklo 合作的投資，然後你會想到 LPI 業務。LPI 終端市場是否與 SMR 的市場類似？或者有什麼方法可以幫助我們開始思考 LPI 方面您想要什麼樣的終端市場？

You bet. Both of them are aimed at what I would call 10-plus years, and in some states more than that, of just sort of bad electricity policy that has driven up the price of electricity and driven down the stability of the grid. That is -- look at California's electricity prices. They doubled with actually no increase in demand at all. High prices just push the industry out of California, but they've still driven up their prices. Now nationwide, we're about to see the first meaningful growth in demand in electricity in 25 years.

你打賭。兩者的目標都是我所說的十多年（在某些州甚至更長）的不良電力政策，這些政策推高了電價並降低了電網的穩定性。也就是說——看看加州的電價。它們翻了一番，但實際上需求根本沒有增加。高價格只是將這個行業趕出了加州，但他們仍然推高了價格。現在，在全國範圍內，我們即將看到 25 年來電力需求首次出現有意義的成長。

So yes, they're both targeted at that. But think of Oklo, they're going to be fixed on location. They're going to be built somewhere and could be on the grid, they could be behind the grid, but they're going to be fixed. So data center is a huge target market for that, other industrial facilities. LPI and our natural gas generating assets, they're on wheels. They could be supplying a data center that's 18 months behind or 24 months until it gets a grid connection.

所以是的，他們都瞄準了這一點。但想想奧克洛，他們將被固定在某個位置。它們將建在某個地方，可能在電網上，也可能在電網後面，但它們會被修復。因此，資料中心是其他工業設施的巨大目標市場。LPI 和我們的天然氣發電資產，它們都在輪子上。他們提供的數據中心可能會延遲 18 個月或 24 個月才能獲得電網連接。

But they're not likely to be parked somewhere for 20 years or the nuclear power plant's going to be there forever. So they could be in some of those same markets, but they also have the flexibility to move where there's power dislocations. So we're figuring that out. The interest in them is just tremendous. What we've got to figure out is, we only got a limited amount of assets and we're only going to build a limited amount of capacity. Where is the best and highest use of those fleets. So there's some overlap but there's very different capabilities between the two. So I think the overlap will probably be more the exception than the rule, but exactly about the opportunities for both.

但它們不太可能在某個地方停泊 20 年，也不可能讓核電廠永遠在那裡。因此，他們可能會進入其中一些相同的市場，但他們也可以靈活地轉移到權力錯置的地方。所以我們正在解決這個問題。人們對它們的興趣是巨大的。我們必須弄清楚的是，我們只有有限數量的資產，我們只會建立有限數量的產能。這些艦隊的最佳和最高利用率在哪裡？因此，兩者之間存在一些重疊，但功能卻截然不同。所以我認為重疊可能更多的是例外而不是規則，但正是兩者的機會。

Great. Thank you for the color.

偉大的。謝謝你的顏色。

I would throw Fervo, Fervo's electric generating capacity from next-generation geothermal. They're plugging into that same market. Those are more long-term contracts to utilities, but and maybe -- but that's another business that Liberty is a partner in that I think has got pretty bright prospects addressing the same problem, but in a slightly different way.

我會拋出Fervo，Fervo的下一代地熱發電能力。他們正在進入同一個市場。這些是與公用事業公司簽訂的更長期的合同，但是也許——但這是 Liberty 合作的另一項業務，我認為它在解決同樣的問題方面有著相當光明的前景，但方式略有不同。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Saurabh Pant, [BOA].

索拉布褲子，[蟒蛇]。

Hi. good morning.

你好。早安.

Good morning.

早安.

Good morning.

早安.

Chris, maybe I want to dig in a little bit on your comment on -- I think you said the pricing pressure is inconsistent with the anticipated supply-demand balance next year, right? So I'm just thinking forward from there and thinking, if that's the case, that's your view, then how do we think you approach your contracting strategy for 2025? Basically saying, do you want shorter-term contracts with more reopeners just to get the upside potential in the back half of '25? Or do you look to sign up contracts with relatively fixed, stable pricing -- again, relative is the word, right, for most of 2025? How do you approach that?

克里斯，也許我想深入探討一下您的評論——我想您說過定價壓力與明年預期的供需平衡不一致，對嗎？所以我只是從那裡開始思考，如果是這樣的話，這就是您的觀點，那麼我們認為您如何制定 2025 年的承包策略？基本上是說，你是否想要與更多的重新開放者簽訂短期合同，只是為了在 25 年後半段獲得上行潛力？或者您是否希望簽訂價格相對固定、穩定的合約——同樣，在 2025 年的大部分時間裡，這個詞是相對的，對吧？你如何處理這個問題？

Great question. So if we're going to build a new fleet for someone, that's going to have locked-in pricing that guarantees it makes sense to deploy the capital and build this fleet. It may have reopeners that can move that price up, but it will certainly be structured in a way that that price will not degrade to make that investment a bad investment for us. But there's a lot of interest with producers right now.

很好的問題。因此，如果我們要為某人建造一支新艦隊，那麼就會有鎖定的定價，以保證部署資本和建造這支艦隊是有意義的。它可能會重新開放，從而提高價格，但它的結構肯定會確保價格不會下降，從而使該投資對我們來說是一項糟糕的投資。但現在製片人對此很感興趣。

Of course, for new fleets, we're not -- they're not going out at poor pricing, none of them, zero of them. But for legacy equipment, there is some tough pricing going on in that world. We do have some assets like that. So it's possible with partners there, we would make price adjustments for a dedicated fleet that would just be structured such that they move up as the market firms.

當然，對於新機隊，我們不會——它們不會以低廉的價格出售，沒有，零。但對於傳統設備來說，定價存在一些困難。我們確實有一些這樣的資產。因此，我們可以與那裡的合作夥伴一起對專門的車隊進行價格調整，該車隊的結構將使其隨著市場公司的發展而上升。

It's a slow and gradual partnership way that we've been doing since we started the company. So yes, it depends on asset type, depends on customer, depends on duration. So it is a wide range of things going on, and that's part of the Liberty thing. Different customers have different needs and different priorities. And what we do is just engage with them candidly. And find out the right way to structure that we're comfortable with, that works for them. And if we can't, again, we'll find idle capacity, but, there aren't many players out there that want to move away from their partnership with Liberty. That's a vanishingly small miss.

這是我們自公司成立以來一直在採取的一種緩慢而漸進的合作方式。所以是的，這取決於資產類型、取決於客戶、取決於持續時間。因此，正在發生各種各樣的事情，這是自由事件的一部分。不同的客戶有不同的需求和不同的優先事項。我們所做的只是與他們坦誠地接觸。並找出我們熟悉且適合他們的正確建構方式。如果我們不能，我們會再次找到閒置產能，但是，沒有太多參與者想要放棄與 Liberty 的合作關係。這是一個微不足道的小失誤。

Right. That makes a lot of sense, Chris. Thanks for that. And Mike, maybe one for you. In the press release, you mentioned a healthy free cash flow for 2025. If you can help us think through the pieces as we think about 2025 from a free cash flow perspective, what things should we be mindful of as we try to build that up?

正確的。這很有道理，克里斯。謝謝你。麥克，也許也適合你。在新聞稿中，您提到了 2025 年健康的自由現金流。如果您能幫助我們從自由現金流的角度思考 2025 年，那麼我們在努力實現這一目標時應該注意哪些事項？

Yes, so I mean, as we've talked about, we're going to be managing CapEx down in our completions business. We'll look at replacing four to maybe five digi fleets, kind of the 10% attrition cycle, the kind of natural cycle maintenance capital in that business. A lot of our -- sort of all of our investments in dual fuel, that will be completed in the fourth quarter. and a number of other new blended technologies, et cetera, and some of the investments we made with PropX and the [wet pile handling] to support clients there.

是的，所以我的意思是，正如我們所討論的，我們將在竣工業務中管理資本支出。我們將考慮更換四到五個數位機隊，類似於 10% 的損耗週期，即該業務中的自然循環維護資本。我們對雙燃料的所有投資都將在第四季度完成。以及許多其他新的混合技​​術等等，以及我們對 PropX 和 [濕樁處理] 進行的一些投資，以支持那裡的客戶。

So we'll see that CapEx comes down, which obviously is the biggest part of it, as it offsets kind of a decline in EBITDA. I think what you'll see is you're going to see kind of a slight raise in cash taxes, we're running about 50% of our tax rate. We will run, I think, about 100% of our book tax rate next year by the looks of things.

因此，我們會看到資本支出下降，這顯然是其中最大的部分，因為它抵消了 EBITDA 的下降。我認為你會看到現金稅略有增加，我們的稅率約為 50%。我認為，從目前情況來看，明年我們的帳面稅率將達到 100% 左右。

Interest remain relatively flat. Given the fact we're going to have the quietest Q4, you're going to see working capital fluctuate during the year, but I would expect that over the whole year next year, working capital will be relatively flat on that side of the business. Obviously, the largest portion of our free cash flow at the moment -- and very much going forward, we can easily support the same strong return of capital to shareholders that we're doing now, and we'd expect that to continue.

利息保持相對穩定。考慮到我們將經歷最安靜的第四季度，您會看到年內營運資金出現波動，但我預計明年全年，業務方面的營運資金將相對持平。顯然，這是我們目前自由現金流的最大部分，而且在未來，我們可以輕鬆地支持我們現在正在做的同樣強勁的資本回報給股東，我們預計這種情況將持續下去。

Okay, perfect. That's all very useful color, Mike. Thank you. I'll turn it back.

好的，完美。這些都是非常有用的顏色，麥克。謝謝。我會把它轉回來。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Marc Bianchi, TD Cowen.

馬克·比安奇，TD·考恩。

Thank you. Maybe, Michael, just a follow up on the capital spending for next year. It wasn't clear to me. Do you expect the CapEx dollars to be higher or lower for the total company?

謝謝。也許，邁克爾，只是明年資本支出的後續。我不清楚。您預期整個公司的資本支出會是更高還是更低？

Lower for the completions business. Obviously, the power generation opportunity is still to be clarified, that we'll talk about. I mean, I would expect that within the realm, I think it probably would be slightly lower, unless it's a really exciting and very large power generation opportunity. But generally, I'd say it will be down slightly. it will be down significantly in the completions business. But a good portion of that may, I would say, until we get made up in the outside of frac car generation business, that's still to be thought about and going and decided upon, and you'll see announcements around that as we go through the quarter into the January call.

竣工業務較低。顯然，發電機會仍有待澄清，我們將討論這一點。我的意思是，我預計在該領域內，我認為它可能會略低，除非這是一個非常令人興奮且非常大的發電機會。但總的來說，我會說它會略有下降。竣工業務將大幅下降。但我想說，在我們在壓裂汽車發電業務之外進行彌補之前，其中很大一部分可能仍然需要考慮、進行和決定，當我們討論時，你會看到相關的公告該季度進入一月電話會議。

Yes, okay. That was going to be my next question. The other one that I had was just on the revenue progression here. So the activity is down low double digits, but it sounds like your revenue is down also low double digits, but there's some pricing weakness. So I would have thought that the revenue decline is more than the activity decline. So maybe you could talk about that and how that progresses into 1Q? I know you said activity is up in 1Q but not quite to 3Q levels. But there's pricing component we probably need to be considering to, right?

是的，好吧。這將是我的下一個問題。我的另一件事是關於這裡的收入進展。因此，活動下降了低兩位數，但聽起來您的收入也下降了兩位數，但定價存在一些弱點。所以我認為收入下降幅度大於活動下降幅度。那麼也許您可以談談這一點以及它如何進展到第一季？我知道您說過第一季的活動有所增加，但尚未達到第三季的水平。但我們可能需要考慮定價因素，對嗎？

Yes. There's a lot of sort of mix issues that happen sort of when you look at sort of an activity decline versus the revenue decline, so it depends on sort of where things are going on, certain parts of kind of the mix of the business. So it happens that those two will be pretty similar in Q4.

是的。當你觀察活動下降與收入下降的情況時，會發生很多混合問題，因此這取決於事情的進展情況，以及業務組合的某些部分。所以碰巧這兩者在第四季會非常相似。

As you'll see, there's a pricing element in there. There's some offsets, obviously, because as I've said, the decrementals will be slightly higher in Q4 this year with a similar revenue drop than it was Q4 last year. So you can basically read through that there is a little bit of a pricing sort of element to that that's kind of increasing those incrementals.

正如您將看到的，其中有一個定價元素。顯然，存在一些抵消，因為正如我所說，今年第四季的減量將略高，收入下降幅度與去年第四季類似。因此，您基本上可以讀到，其中存在一些定價因素，這會增加這些增量。

Yes, and I'd say, as we say, I think what we're going to see is we're going to see things come up Q1 to come up sort of between Q4 and Q3. And I think you'll see we'll kind of get some clarity around that as we get through pricing season, how that falls through to earnings. But I'd say kind of modeling it in that medium point. We see total activity, really, for the whole industry at kind of pretty much equal lateral feet next year versus this year, right?

是的，我想說，正如我們所說，我認為我們將看到第一季的情況出現在第四季和第三季之間。我想你會發現，當我們度過定價季節時，我們會對此有一些清晰的了解，以及這如何影響到收益。但我想說的是在那個中間點進行建模。我們確實看到明年整個行業的整體活動與今年幾乎相同，對吧？

And that's where Chris talks about this. The pricing pressure at the moment is kind of inconsistent with the future demand, right? I mean, when you look at this thing, kind of the amount of demand for this whole year, the whole of next year is going to be similar. So if you think about the limited number of supply of frac fleets, the increased attrition really is going on and the larger amount, the sort of more complex fracs, we have got a slightly tightening market. Hence, the reason that we see that improving -- probably improving on a pricing metric as we go through the year.

這就是克里斯談論這個的地方。目前的價格壓力與未來的需求有點不一致吧？我的意思是，當你看這個問題時，全年的需求量和明年全年的需求量都會相似。因此，如果你考慮到壓裂船隊的供應數量有限，磨損確實在增加，而且數量更大，更複雜的壓裂，我們的市場略有緊張。因此，我們看到這一年的定價指標可能會有所改善。

I think it's going to naturally happen. It is one -- I think we've talked about this with a number of folks. There's a flavor of the end of '21, '22, and here. And I think you may have remembered, if you go to our September call, we had six fleets that weren't working. We said we were bringing them out because the bid in the market was weaker than it should have been.

我認為這會自然發生。這是一個——我想我們已經和很多人討論過這個問題。這裡有一種 21 世紀末、22 世紀末的味道。我想您可能還記得，如果您參加我們 9 月的電話會議，我們有六支機隊無法正常工作。我們說我們把它們拿出來是因為市場上的出價比應有的要弱。

And I think you can kind of look back at when we brought those fleets out in April, they came out of significant profitability increase, right, in a very short period of time because market sentiment caught up with the realities of the underlying supply and demand. Now it's not going to be that extreme next year, we don't think, but there is going to be a flavor of that in this. So yes, so it's going to be a little dynamic as we go through the year. But the great thing about that one is better free cash flow next year than we will share on that side of it.

我認為你可以回顧一下我們在四月份推出這些機隊時，它們在很短的時間內就實現了盈利能力的顯著增長，因為市場情緒趕上了潛在供需的現實。我們認為明年不會那麼極端，但其中會有這樣的味道。所以，是的，所以隨著我們度過這一年，它將會有點動態。但最棒的是明年的自由現金流比我們在這方面分享的還要好。

Yes, strategy makes sense. If I could just squeeze one more in, how indicative do you think your experience here into year-end is for the broader industry? And I'm wondering if there's Liberty-specific things. You've got your sand business. You've got some wireline. Are there things happening in those parts of the businesses that might cause you to be different than sort of the broader frac industry as we think about the implications for other companies into 4Q?

是的，戰略是有道理的。如果我可以再插一句，您認為您在年底的經歷對更廣泛的行業有何指導意義？我想知道是否有 Liberty 特有的東西。你已經有了你的沙子生意了。你有一些有線線路。當我們考慮對其他公司進入第四季度的影響時，業務的這些部分是否發生了一些事情，可能會導致您與更廣泛的壓裂行業不同？

I think the short answer is we don't know. It's hard to say. There's just a lot of moving pieces. But I think what we're seeing is reasonably indicative of the whole marketplace. But definitely, our business is dictated by our relationships with our customers and other people's businesses. So yes, I don't think it's probably far off from the overall macro, but I guess we'll see in the coming weeks.

我認為簡短的答案是我們不知道。很難說。只是有很多移動的部分。但我認為我們所看到的情況合理地反映了整個市場。但毫無疑問，我們的業務是由我們與客戶和其他人的業務的關係決定的。所以，是的，我認為這可能與整體宏觀情況相距不遠，但我想我們將在未來幾週內看到這一點。

Yes. All right, Chris. Thanks a lot.

是的。好吧，克里斯。多謝。

Thanks.

謝謝。

Keith Mackey, RBC Capital Markets.

基思·麥基，加拿大皇家銀行資本市場部。

Hi, good morning. So it looks like CapEx for this year ends up at around $650 million. Could you maybe just talk a little bit about what the frac portion of that would be? And what portion of that would be maintenance CapEx?

嗨，早安。因此，今年的資本支出看起來約為 6.5 億美元。能否簡單談談其中的壓裂部分是什麼？其中哪一部分是維護資本支出？

Yes. So I think this year, probably maintenance CapEx -- so obviously, maintenance CapEx is a big part of -- frac is a big part of maintenance CapEx. So maintenance CapEx is probably below $200 million, say $175 million, plus or minus on that side of the business. We've had a pretty significant investment in LPI, some in the wet sand handling side of the world. And then we've had a significant amount of dual-fuel upgrades, digi frac, and some other underlying technology on the blend or another side of upgrades that went on this year. So that's the bulk of it.

是的。所以我認為今年可能是維護資本支出 - 很明顯，維護資本支出是維護資本支出的重要組成部分 - 壓裂是維護資本支出的重要組成部分。因此，維護資本支出可能低於 2 億美元，例如 1.75 億美元，加上或減去業務方面的內容。我們對 LPI 進行了相當大的投資，其中一些投資在世界的濕砂處理方面。然後，我們在今年進行了大量的雙燃料升級、數位壓裂以及混合燃料或升級的另一方面的其他一些基礎技術。這就是其中的大部分。

Okay. Got it. And just a follow up, would it be fair to assume then that next year, your maintenance CapEx in the frac business is roughly similar to that? And then you had four to five digi fleets at maybe $50 million each, and your total frac CapEx ends up $400 million to $450 million. Is that how we should be thinking about it at this point?

好的。知道了。作為後續，假設明年您在壓裂業務中的維護資本支出與此大致相似，是否公平？然後你有四到五個數位車隊，每個車隊可能需要 5000 萬美元，而你的總壓裂資本支出最終達到 4 億到 4.5 億美元。我們現在應該這樣思考嗎？

You're in the general realm of sensibility there, yes.

是的，你處於一般的感性領域。

Okay. And just one more, if I can. Just to maybe put some of the commentary into numbers for Q4, it looks like with the revenue decline being similar year over year and the higher decremental, like we should be getting somewhere between $170 million and $180 million of EBITDA. Is that also in the right ballpark there, Michael?

好的。如果可以的話，就再多一個吧。只是為了將一些評論轉化為第四季的數字，看起來收入下降幅度與去年同期相似，而且遞減幅度更大，我們應該獲得 1.7 億至 1.8 億美元的 EBITDA。邁克爾，那也是在正確的範圍內嗎？

Reasonable estimation.

合理的估計。

Okay, that's it. Thanks very much.

好吧，就是這樣。非常感謝。

Jeff LeBlanc, TPH.

傑夫·勒布朗，TPH。

Good morning, Chris and team. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to follow up on the comment on CapEx of Q4 of $200 million. I'm just curious if you're pulling forward CapEx from 2025 or what's causing the increase? Because I believe on the prior call, the estimate was $550 million for the full year. Thank you.

早上好，克里斯和團隊。謝謝你回答我的問題。我只是想跟進有關第四季度 2 億美元資本支出的評論。我只是好奇你們是否將資本支出從 2025 年推遲，或者是什麼導致了資本支出的增加？因為我相信在之前的電話會議中，全年的預算為 5.5 億美元。謝謝。

Yes. With deliveries, it's kind of a combination of sort of -- I think there's been a lot of debottlenecking going on in some of our delivery partners. I think we had -- they had some fairly significant issues around the assembly lines and kind of -- and so there's a lot of that debottlenecking was happening at the end through the back end of summer, the early part of fall. And I think they've got that together.

是的。對於交付，這是一種組合——我認為我們的一些交付合作夥伴正在消除許多瓶頸。我認為我們——他們在裝配線方面遇到了一些相當重大的問題——所以在夏末、秋初期間發生了很多瓶頸問題。我認為他們已經做到了這一點。

So I think the delivery cycle will go to sort of where things were going to fall as expectation is reasonable. And then we've sort of had some extra wet sand additions and a few other things that you have added to the Q4 that it probably added an order of those things.

因此，我認為交付週期將達到預期合理的水平。然後我們添加了一些額外的濕沙和一些其他東西，你已經添加到了第四季度，它可能會添加這些東西的順序。

Thank you very much. I'll turn the call back over to the operator. Thanks.

非常感謝。我會將電話轉回給接線生。謝謝。

Thanks, Jeff.

謝謝，傑夫。

Roger Read, Wells Fargo.

羅傑·里德，富國銀行。

Hey, Roger.

嘿，羅傑。

Hey, good morning, guys. I just wanted to kind of follow up on some of your comments about this, call it, seasonality or CapEx exhaustion issues next month and into December. One of the things we hear from the E&P companies is that they like to pursue this productivity and efficiency, and it requires pretty consistent operations.

嘿，早上好，夥計們。我只是想跟進一下你們對此的一些評論，稱之為季節性或資本支出耗盡問題，下個月一直到 12 月。我們從勘探與生產公司那裡聽到的一件事是，他們喜歡追求這種生產力和效率，而這需要相當一致的營運。

Does the opening in, call it, activity levels or jobs, reflect kind of a mix? Is this mostly smaller private E&Ps? Is it guys exposed more to gas where maybe it makes sense to take a little time off here? Or are you seeing this across kind of the entire area of operations, meaning large E&Ps all the way down to the small privates?

活動水準或工作崗位的空缺是否反映了某種混合？這主要是規模較小的私人勘探與生產嗎？是不是這些傢伙接觸到了更多的氣體，也許在這裡休息一會兒是有意義的？或者您是否在整個營運領域都看到了這種情況，這意味著大型勘探和生產企業一直到小型私人企業？

I think you've given a reasonable summary, Roger. It's mostly smaller -- it could be small publics. The very biggest players, I would say, for sure, are the most steadfast in keeping things going, keeping efficiency on track and not ceasing operations. But even those, occasionally, they'll be, geez, we're too efficient. So there is a frac holiday, a brief break. But I would say, yes, it's mostly smaller players. Definitely, it's gas players. Gas has been a hard thing to predict, and plans have evolved a lot over the last 12 to 24 months with the gas players. So yes, I think your summary at the beginning was reasonable.

我認為你已經給出了合理的總結，羅傑。它大多較小——可能是小公眾。我想說，毫無疑問，最大的參與者是最堅定地讓事情繼續下去、保持效率在正軌上並且不停止運作的。但即使是這些，偶爾他們也會說，天哪，我們效率太高了。所以有一個壓裂假期，一個短暫的休息。但我想說，是的，主要是規模較小的參與者。毫無疑問，這是天然氣玩家。Gas 一直是一件很難預測的事情，在過去 12 到 24 個月裡，Gas 玩家的計畫已經發生了很大變化。所以是的，我認為你一開始的總結是合理的。

So are you implying that it's going to become easier to forecast gas after 12 months?

那麼您是在暗示 12 個月後預測天然氣會變得更容易嗎？

Good humor. But again, as you've seen, we're probably at a level of gas activity right now that's below even keeping production flat. So no, it's not going to be easy to predict it, but instead of a bouncing trend down, it might be more of a bouncing trend up.

好幽默。但正如您所看到的，我們目前的天然氣活動水平可能低於保持產量持平的水平。所以不，預測它並不容易，但它可能不是一個向下的反彈趨勢，而是一個向上的反彈趨勢。

Yes. I'm just checking you there. I was trying to make sure you were still standing on two feet. The other question, I know we understand completion CapEx will likely trend lower. But if we were to see, let's call it, a solid move up or a solid move down in commodity prices, what is your flexibility to either defer spending or to pull spending forward as you look at the supply chains out there?

是的。我只是在那兒檢查一下你。我試圖確保你仍然用兩隻腳站立。另一個問題，我知道我們知道完成資本支出可能會下降。但如果我們看到大宗商品價格大幅上漲或大幅下跌，那麼當您審視供應鏈時，您推遲支出或提前支出的靈活性如何？

Yes. I mean we've got very -- we have very strong ability to defer or bring spending forward. But that said, it really has sort of a three- to five-month window sort of as far as deliveries goes. You can defer deliveries. We've done that before. You think about closes. We pushed off deliveries, and we pushed those off 9 to 12 months in partnership with our people. So extreme circumstances. But in general, you've got a three- to five-month window there where it's not going to change. But you can meaningfully change CapEx within a 12-month period.

是的。我的意思是，我們有非常強大的能力來推遲或提前支出。但話雖如此，就交付而言，它確實有三到五個月的窗口期。您可以延遲交貨。我們以前就這麼做過。你考慮關閉。我們推遲了交付，並與我們的員工合作將交付推遲了 9 到 12 個月。如此極端的情況。但總的來說，你有一個三到五個月的時間窗口，它不會改變。但您可以在 12 個月內有意義地改變資本支出。

Okay, great. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

好的，太好了。欣賞它。謝謝，夥計們。

Thanks, Roger

謝謝，羅傑

Waqar Syed, ATB Capital Markets.

Waqar Syed，ATB 資本市場。

Thank you very much. Good morning. Chris, I just wanted to get a sense on -- by when do you think LPI could have a material impact on the revenue line that would be -- maybe something that 10% of revenues could be LPI? Is that two to three years out? Or is it be looking at five, six years out? Any guidance on that would be helpful.

非常感謝。早安.Chris，我只是想了解一下 - 您認為 LPI 何時會對收入線產生實質影響 - 也許 10% 的收入可能是 LPI？是不是要等兩三年了？還是要考慮五、六年後的情況？任何有關這方面的指導都會有所幫助。

Yes. Well, it's not five to six years. It's certainly faster than that. But for us -- as with our core frac business, it's always more about doing it right than doing it big or doing it fast. So two to three years is probably not an unreasonable expectation.

是的。好吧，這不是五、六年。它肯定比那更快。但對我們來說，就像我們的核心壓裂業務一樣，更重要的是把事情做好，而不是做大或做快。因此，兩到三年可能不是一個不合理的期望。

Okay. And then from an activity perspective, pumping activity perspective for next year, you're mentioning that you see activity needs to go up to maintain crude oil production. Where do you expect activity to pick up? Do you think it's going to be mostly Permian? Or do you think Bakken and Eagle Ford also sees some activity increases? And then when do you expect Haynesville activity to kind of pick up?

好的。然後從活動的角度來看，從明年的抽油活動角度來看，您提到需要增加活動以維持原油產量。您預計活動會在哪裡回升？你認為主要是二疊紀嗎？或者您認為巴肯和伊格爾福特也看到了一些活動的增加？那麼您預計海恩斯維爾的活動何時會回升呢？

Wow, those are all the hard questions, Waqar. But I think it will be across basins for sure. Obviously, some of the northern areas, they slow down naturally in the wintertime. So Q1 is often a little bit slower in Northern regions for weather, and Q2 and Q3 are busier. Permian doesn't really have a weather cycle per se. But it's certainly commodity price dependent.

哇，這些都是難題，Waqar。但我認為這肯定會跨流域。顯然，北方的一些地區，冬天它們的速度自然減慢。因此，北方地區的天氣通常第一季會比較慢一些，而第二季和第三季則比較繁忙。二疊紀本身並沒有真正的天氣週期。但這肯定取決於商品價格。

Look, if oil prices move, it doesn't wildly change things. But on the margin, it does. We'll start a little earlier. We'll do this. So in gas -- so look, I think in general, across the basins where we -- look, we're in Q4 right now. In general, if we look at six months from now, I think the average level of activity in the oil basin, it will be up from where it is today. How much is yet to be seen, but it will be up from where we are today.

聽著，如果油價變動，情況不會有太大變化。但從邊緣來看，確實如此。我們會早一點開始。我們會做這個。因此，在天然氣方面，我認為總的來說，在我們所處的盆地中，我們現在正處於第四季度。總的來說，如果我們從現在開始的六個月來看，我認為石油盆地的平均活動量將會比今天上升。具體多少還有待觀察，但會比我們今天的水準有所提升。

And gas basins, that's probably a reasonable assumption as well. It's just activity is very low right now. We've got some great competitive advantage there. So I mean, our market share, our gas activity today is not insignificant. It's not huge, but our market share is big. So if that gas activity is maybe a little higher six months from now, maybe meaningfully higher 12 months from now -- but that's just a guess. That's just a guess. I shouldn't -- I probably shouldn't be predicting that too much.

對於天然氣盆地，這也可能是個合理的假設。只是現在活動量很低。我們在那裡有一些巨大的競爭優勢。所以我的意思是，我們今天的市場份額和天然氣活動並不是微不足道的。雖然規模不大，但我們的市佔率卻很大。因此，如果從現在起 6 個月後氣體活動可能會稍微高一些，那麼從現在起 12 個月後可能會有意義地更高——但這只是一個猜測。這只是一個猜測。我不應該——我可能不應該預測太多。

Okay. And then the pricing pressures that you're seeing, is that now across entire fleet, or is it still more on the Tier 2s and maybe Tier 2 dual fuel as well? Or now it's permitted to e-fleets and Tier 4 DGBs as well?

好的。然後，您所看到的定價壓力是現在整個機隊面臨的價格壓力，還是 Tier 2 甚至 Tier 2 雙燃料的價格壓力更大？或者現在也允許使用電子車隊和第 4 級 DGB？

It's certainly strongest in legacy equipment, the least desirable equipment. That's where attrition is being driven -- equipment being retired there as well. The high-end natural gas-burning fleets are much more desirous. But yes, when you've got the softest market, there's a little bit of pressure everywhere. A newbuild fleet, we wouldn't do a newbuild fleet without great economics. So yes, not so much change at the top. But not zero.

它無疑是傳統裝備中最強的，也是最不理想的裝備。這就是消耗的根源——設備也在那裡退役。高階天然氣船隊的需求更大。但是，是的，當市場最疲軟時，到處都會有一點壓力。新建機隊，如果沒有良好的經濟效益，我們就不會建造新建機隊。所以，是的，高層並沒有太大變化。但不是零。

Great. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate the color.

偉大的。嗯，非常感謝。欣賞顏色。

Thanks, Waqar.

謝謝，瓦卡爾。

Tom Curran, Seaport Research Partners.

湯姆‧柯蘭，海港研究夥伴。

Good morning, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in. Chris, and Michael, in addition to everything you've accomplished via ever-better execution on technology out in the field as Chris gave a comprehensive overview earlier in the call, you've also been pulling different levers internally to protect and sustain your record profitability and missed this long grinding downtrend in frac pricing. At this point, which ongoing initiatives do you expect to provide the most support to margins? Have you identified any new efficiency or cost-out opportunities that have yet to be meaningfully realized?

早安，夥計們。謝謝你把我擠進去。克里斯和邁克爾，除了透過更好地執行現場技術所取得的成就（克里斯在電話會議早些時候進行了全面概述）之外，你們還在內部拉動了不同的槓桿來保護和維持你的記錄獲利能力並錯過了壓裂定價的長期下行趨勢。目前，您預計哪些正在進行的舉措將為利潤率提供最大的支持？您是否發現了任何尚未切實實現的新的效率或成本降低機會？

I'm going to -- there's so many incremental things. I'm going to turn it over to Ron, and he -- we have medium-term projects and long-term projects. But you're right, and I appreciate you pointing them out that that is always an effort for us. We don't control the marketplace, but we do drive our own self-improvement. And that's always in two buckets: that's how can we deliver a better service to our customers and how can we do the same thing more efficiently and cheaper?

我要－－有很多增量的事情。我要把它交給羅恩，他——我們有中期專案和長期專案。但你是對的，我很感謝你指出這對我們來說始終是一種努力。我們不控制市場，但我們確實推動自己的自我提升。這總是分為兩個面向：一是我們如何為客戶提供更好的服務，二是我們如何更有效率、更便宜地做同樣的事情？

Yes. I mean, certainly, a number of areas of focus there for us. Obviously, on the digi fleet side of things, the maintenance outlook changes pretty meaningfully. We're building an asset there that is longer lived. And that's true on both the digiPrime and the digiFrac side of things. If you think about the electric side of things, of course, the maintenance profile looks very different there, both on the pump side and on the power generation side of things.

是的。當然，我的意思是，我們有很多重點領域。顯然，在數位車隊方面，維護前景發生了相當有意義的變化。我們正在那裡建立一項壽命更長的資產。在 digiPrime 和 digiFrac 方面都是如此。當然，如果您考慮電力方面，那麼無論是在泵浦方面還是在發電方面，維護情況看起來都非常不同。

And the same is true in the digiPrime world. We're building an asset there that has a very different maintenance profile than our historical diesel assets. And so a lot of work that's been going on in that regard. And we're certainly taking those learnings and applying them throughout the fleet as we advance our machine-learning capabilities around our ability to understand how an asset is performing and respond to that in the field.

在 digiPrime 世界也是如此。我們正在那裡建立一項資產，其維護概況與我們歷史上的柴油資產截然不同。在這方面我們正在進行大量工作。我們當然會吸取這些經驗教訓並將其應用到整個機隊中，因為我們圍繞著了解資產的表現和現場響應的能力來提高我們的機器學習能力。

Lots of other work going on that ultimately changes our outcomes. Automation has been a big thing. We've been focused on automating the operation of our fleet, all the way from the sand-handling side of things through the chemistry side of things and into the pump side of things. And so an immense amount of work going there. You can imagine that as we continue to automate these things, we improve operations out there. You see that both in our efficiency, but you also see that in the maintenance profile for the assets.

許多其他工作正在進行，最終會改變我們的結果。自動化已經成為一件大事。我們一直專注於車隊營運的自動化，從砂處理方面到化學方面再到泵浦方面。因此，那裡有大量的工作要做。您可以想像，隨著我們繼續實現這些事情的自動化，我們會改善營運。您不僅可以在我們的效率中看到這一點，而且還可以在資產的維護概況中看到這一點。

A huge amount of work on the logistics side of things. We've got Sentinel out and running across the board from a sand-handling standpoint. That has dramatically changed our efficiencies from a sand-handling and trucking measure. We're probably down about 30% in the number of trucks required to move sand to a location versus pre-Sentinel deployment. We're rolling that out across our LPI division as well. We're using that same technology to manage our gas deliveries and improve the efficiencies there at the same time.

物流方面的工作量很大。我們已經推出了 Sentinel，並從沙子處理的角度全面運作。這極大地改變了我們沙子處理和卡車運輸措施的效率。與 Sentinel 部署之前相比，我們將沙子運送到某個地點所需的卡車數量可能減少了約 30%。我們也在整個 LPI 部門推廣這項舉措。我們正在使用相同的技術來管理我們的天然氣輸送並同時提高效率。

You're going to see us -- our percentage of fleets working in the simul frac space climb over the coming year as well. We probably, just by virtue of our customer base, not had as high a percentage of our fleets working in that space as some others have. But that's climbing for us in the coming year as well. And so of course, we've seen efficiencies come as a result of that on a per-lateral-foot per-hour completed basis, and we're going to feel the benefit of that as we head into next year too.

你將會看到我們——我們在同步壓裂空間工作的船隊比例在未來一年也會攀升。僅僅憑藉我們的客戶群，我們可能沒有像其他一些公司那樣在該領域工作的車隊比例那麼高。但來年我們的數字也會不斷攀升。當然，我們已經看到了效率的提高，以每小時完成的橫向英尺為基礎，當我們進入明年時，我們也將感受到它的好處。

Got it. A lot to chew on there. Thanks, Ron. And then just with LPI, you guys have once again stated to where the puck is headed in terms of the need for a technology solution. In this case, for next-gen power support and logistics out in the field, looking to 2025, could you share any quantified targets or expectations you have for LPI, be they operational or financial?

知道了。那裡有很多值得咀嚼的東西。謝謝，羅恩。然後，就 LPI 而言，你們再次說明了技術解決方案需求的發展方向。在這種情況下，對於現場的下一代電力支援和物流，展望 2025 年，您能否分享您對 LPI 的任何量化目標或期望，無論是營運目標還是財務目標？

No. I mean, that's coming in clarification over the Q4 bound. I mean that is -- as we've said, this is something that we'll discuss in the January call. So we'll kind of look at that, and I think kind of more of a holistic view of what that business will look like.

不。我的意思是，這是對第四季界限的澄清。我的意思是——正如我們所說，這是我們將在一月份的電話會議中討論的問題。所以我們會對此進行研究，我認為更多的是對該業務的整體看法。

Okay. But it sounds like there is more coming that we can look forward to there, Michael?

好的。但聽起來還有更多值得我們期待的事情，麥可？

There certainly is. We're very excited about it. But as you know, we're not in a debate where we very much -- we talk about things where [the tortoise is not there yet]. We talk about things when they're ready to go. And we may not be first to market, but we always seem to end up winning.

當然有。我們對此感到非常興奮。但正如你所知，我們並不是進行一場辯論，我們討論的是[烏龜還沒到]。當他們準備好出發時，我們會談論事情。我們可能不是第一個進入市場的人，但我們似乎總是最終獲勝。

Appreciate that. Thanks for taking my questions.

很欣賞這一點。感謝您回答我的問題。

Thanks.

謝謝。

Eddie Kim, Barclays.

埃迪金，巴克萊銀行。

Hello. Good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in here. I'll just keep it to one question. I just wanted to dig into the softness you're seeing in 4Q a bit more. It just feels like the market has softened pretty substantially over the past three months. So could you talk about what's really surprised you or what got much worse than you initially expected back in July? Is it mainly kind of the volatility in oil prices that's causing operator uncertainty, as you mentioned, or operators reaching their production targets for the year earlier than expected. Just any color on what the main negative surprise was for you guys over the past three months.

你好。早安.謝謝你把我擠在這裡。我只保留一個問題。我只是想進一步深入了解您在第四季度看到的柔軟度。感覺市場在過去三個月已經大幅疲軟。那麼您能否談談什麼讓您真正感到驚訝，或者什麼比您在 7 月最初預期的情況要糟糕得多？正如您所提到的，主要是油價波動導致營運商不確定，還是營運商比預期提前實現了今年的生產目標。過去三個月對你們來說主要的負面驚喜是什麼？

I'd say a little bit of both. Think of consolidation, you bring acreages together, and now you are mostly drilling 2 miles. And now you -- by early this year, you start drilling a lot of 3- and 4-mile laterals, and they worked well. Efficiency got them done quickly. Production came on strong. So I think part of it is some positives on productivity efficiency gains from bigger operators, focusing in the sweet spot. So I think that's a good chunk of it.

我想說兩者都有一點。考慮整合，您將土地整合在一起，現在您主要鑽探 2 英里。現在，到今年年初，您開始鑽探大量 3 英里和 4 英里的支線，並且效果良好。效率讓他們很快就完成了。生產強勁。因此，我認為部分原因是大型營運商在提高生產力效率方面取得了一些積極成果，並專注於最佳點。所以我認為這是其中的很大一部分。

Definitely, the softening in oil prices on a margin, like were we going to kind of hang here, take a little break, maybe we're going to take a little break. So it's a little bit of both of those. But when you think of the productivity gains of the wells, a lot of that's kind of one-time big gear shifts.

當然，油價小幅走軟，就像我們要堅持在這裡，休息一下，也許我們要休息一下。所以兩者都有一點。但當你想到油井生產率的提高時，你會發現其中許多都是一次性的重大轉變。

In general, next year, the average quality of the drilling location is going to be lower than it was this year. And three or four years from out from now, is going to be lower still. That doesn't mean shale revolution is over or ending. It just means we'll see a continued migration up in frac intensity.

總體而言，明年鑽井地點的平均品質將低於今年。從現在起三、四年後，這個數字還會更低。這並不意味著頁岩革命已經結束或結束。這只是意味著我們將看到壓裂強度持續上升。

Or maybe another way to say it is, we'll see a continued migration in that more pounds of sand have to be pumped underground on an annual basis to get the same amount of oil out of the ground on an annual basis. So we have a longer-term macro trend that's sort of modestly positive. But in the short term, we were sort of victim of our success, a little bit increased well productivity and the pricing as well, a little bit of both.

或者換句話說，我們將看到持續的遷移，每年必須將更多磅的沙子泵入地下，才能每年從地下開採相同數量的石油。因此，我們的長期宏觀趨勢是適度積極的。但從短期來看，我們有點成為成功的受害者，油井生產力和定價都略有提高，兩者兼具。

Got it. Understood. Thanks for all that color, Chris. I'll turn it back.

知道了。明白了。謝謝你的顏色，克里斯。我會把它轉回來。

Thanks.

謝謝。

John Daniel, Daniel Energy Partners.

約翰‧丹尼爾，丹尼爾能源合夥人。

Hey, good morning. Thanks for including me. Chris, as you probably know, there are a number of E&P management teams that now have private equity backing and should probably start up in '25. I'm just curious if that is factored into your '25 outlook, and presumably that would drive upside to your spot market views?

嘿，早安。謝謝你包括我。克里斯，您可能知道，現在有許多勘探與生產管理團隊獲得了私募股權的支持，並且可能應該在 25 年啟動。我只是好奇這是否會納入您對 25 年前景的考慮，而這可能會推動您對現貨市場的看法上行？

Yes. Definitely not driven into our views right now. We certainly are in dialogues with lots of them. They're people we know. And it's smaller-number teams, but there's a fair amount of dry capital powder looking for divestitures and opportunities to get assets. So yes, look, as a lifelong entrepreneur, that's exciting. But John -- no, not baking in any of that happening. But yes, some of those events are going to happen. Absolutely.

是的。現在絕對不會進入我們的觀點。我們當然正在與他們中的許多人進行對話。他們是我們認識的人。雖然團隊數量較少，但有相當多的干資本正在尋找資產剝離和獲得資產的機會。所以，是的，作為一名終身企業家，這是令人興奮的。但是約翰——不，不會參與任何發生的事情。但是，是的，其中一些事件將會發生。絕對地。

Right. And then, Michael, you touched on the possibility of pricing improvements next year. And I think the attrition story is real. Bankruptcies, liquidations are happening, perhaps some consolidation and then a rise in spot market activity as new players emerge, it would seem to me that when that all happens, all else being equal, the pricing recovery is probably not low single digit, but something perhaps more substantial, at least in the spot market. Is that a fair assessment?

正確的。然後，邁克爾，您談到了明年提高定價的可能性。我認為消耗故事是真的。破產、清算正在發生，也許會出現一些整合，然後隨著新參與者的出現，現貨市場活動有所增加，在我看來，當這一切發生時，在其他條件相同的情況下，定價復甦可能不會低個位數，而是會下降。這是一個公平的評價嗎？

There's certainly one way you could look at it. If you look at the '21, '22 example, we've got some historical -- recent historical kind of evidence of that. So yes, I think it will be -- we'll see what it is when it comes. As you like to see, I think, as we said, it's a naturally soft end market at the moment. The animal spirits will take hold, and I think we may see an improvement next year.

當然，您可以透過一種方式來看待它。如果你看一下「21」、「22」的例子，我們就得到了一些歷史上的——最近的歷史證據。所以，是的，我認為它會是——當它到來時我們會看到它是什麼。正如你所希望看到的那樣，我認為，正如我們所說，目前這是一個天然的軟終端市場。動物精神將佔據主導地位，我認為明年我們可能會看到進步。

Okay. And this is probably a leading question, so I apologize, I guess -- maybe not. But if I were modeling 2026, which I'm not, doesn't this flow through, coupled with lower R&M, the rise in LPI, and eventually a higher call in OFS activity, given lower quality rock, it would seem that you could have a material improvement in '26 versus '25?

好的。這可能是個引導性問題，所以我想道歉——也許不是。但如果我模擬 2026 年（我不是），那麼這是否會隨著 R&M 的降低、LPI 的上升以及最終 OFS 活動的更高要求（考慮到岩石質量較低）而發生變化？ 26 年有實質改進嗎？

That certainly would be a very reasonable assumption.

這當然是一個非常合理的假設。

Okay, and then the last one for me. Sorry to be a question hog. But I think there was a question earlier on the power generation CapEx. As we talk to people in that side of the business, it was seen that those -- that CapEx would likely be back with contractual support, perhaps longer term than what you normally see in the frac market. Is that a fair assessment?

好的，然後是我的最後一個。抱歉成為一個問題狂。但我認為早期有一個關於發電資本支出的問題。當我們與業務方面的人員交談時，我們發現資本支出可能會透過合約支援回來，也許比您在壓裂市場上通常看到的更長。這是一個公平的評價嗎？

Yes, that is a fair assessment.

是的，這是一個公平的評估。

Okay, that's all I got. Thanks for including me.

好吧，這就是我所得到的。謝謝你包括我。

Yes, I appreciate driving a lot -- everyone in the field. That's much appreciated by everyone.

是的，我非常喜歡開車——現場的每個人。這是大家非常讚賞的。

Well, thank you. See you, guys.

嗯，謝謝。再見，夥計們。

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

我們的問答環節到此結束。我想將會議轉回克里斯·賴特（Chris Wright）發表閉幕詞。

Thank you. Thanks for joining us today. Since the first addition of our Bettering Human Lives report, we have raised awareness of energy security. In January this year, we took important deliberate steps to address global energy poverty by launching the Bettering Human Lives Foundation to address a major fixable problem: the over 2 billion people who lack access to clean cooking fuels, and therefore, cook every meal using wood, charcoal, or dung. This problem results in over 3 million annual preventable death from indoor air pollution, more than malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis combined.

謝謝。感謝您今天加入我們。自從首次加入「改善人類生活」報告以來，我們提高了對能源安全的認識。今年1 月，我們採取了重要的、深思熟慮的措施來解決全球能源貧窮問題，啟動了改善人類生活基金會，以解決一個可解決的重大問題：超過20 億人無法獲得清潔的烹飪燃料，因此每頓飯都用木頭煮飯、木炭或糞便。這個問題每年導致超過 300 萬人因室內空氣污染而死亡，這一死亡人數是可預防的，超過了瘧疾、愛滋病和結核病的總和。

I view this as the largest fixable problem with so far very little concerted efforts to address it. The Bettering Human Lives Foundation has created active partnerships and provided loans to entrepreneurial businesses, in both Ghana and Kenya, to increase access to clean cooking fuels. In Ghana, our partner has built propane cylinder exchange cages to get propane into communities. In both countries, our partners will convert large boarding school kitchens from burning copious amounts of wood to clean-burning propane for student meals. Thousands of student lives will be improved with each conversion made.

我認為這是最大的可解決問題，迄今為止幾乎沒有共同努力來解決它。改善人類生活基金會在加納和肯亞建立了積極的合作夥伴關係並向創業企業提供貸款，以增加獲得清潔烹飪燃料的機會。在加納，我們的合作夥伴建造了丙烷鋼瓶交換籠，將丙烷輸送到社區。在這兩個國家，我們的合作夥伴將把大型寄宿學校廚房從燃燒大量木材改為清潔燃燒丙烷作為學生膳食。每一次轉變都會改善數千名學生的生活。

Further, our partnership with an innovative American company will soon, early in 2025, dramatically lower the barrier to entry to switching to propane stoves. It will allow the piece-wise selling of propane contained in large cylinders, allowing consumers to pay a small amount each time they cook as opposed to having to upfront purchase for nearly a month's supply. This is a major barrier to entry or families who otherwise would make the switch to clean cooking fuels by reducing the upfront payment by a factor of 10. This could be transformative in speeding adoption of clean cooking fuels.

此外，我們與一家創新的美國公司的合作很快就會在 2025 年初大幅降低改用丙烷爐的進入門檻。它將允許分段銷售大鋼瓶中的丙烷，允許消費者每次烹飪時支付少量費用，而不是必須預先購買近一個月的供應量。這是進入或家庭的主要障礙，否則他們會透過將預付款減少十倍來改用清潔烹飪燃料。這可能會對加快清潔烹飪燃料的採用產生變革性影響。

We are also partnering with the same American stove manufacturer to open a facility in Ghana to produce these stoves locally, lowering costs and growing supply. You can find out more about all of this at BetteringHumanLives.org. The American [Shell] revolution has dramatically increased waterborne global propane supplies. Our aim is to bring the benefits of this surge in new supply to those desperately in need of clean cooking fuels.

我們也與同一家美國爐灶製造商合作，在加納開設一家工廠，在當地生產這些爐灶，從而降低成本並增加供應。您可以在 BetteringHumanLives.org 上找到有關所有這些的更多資訊。美國[殼牌]革命大大增加了全球水運丙烷供應。我們的目標是為那些迫切需要清潔烹飪燃料的人們帶來新供應激增的好處。

My heartfelt thank you to all of our existing and future partners in this life-changing endeavor. And if you were in Colorado this weekend, please join us for our inaugural 5K run, supporting the Bettering Human Lives Foundation this weekend. Have a great day, everyone.

我衷心感謝我們所有現有和未來的合作夥伴在這項改變生活的努力中。如果您本週末在科羅拉多州，請參加我們的首次 5K 跑步活動，以支持本週末改善人類生活基金會。祝大家有美好的一天。

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

會議現已結束。感謝您參加今天的演講。您現在可以斷開連線。