Natural Gas Services Group Inc (NGS) 2015 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Natural Gas Services Group first-quarter earnings call. (Operator Instructions) Your call leader for today's call are Alicia Dada, IR coordinator; Steve Taylor, Chairman, President, and CEO.

I would now hand the call over to Ms. Dada. You may begin.

Thank you, Erica, and good morning, listeners. Please allow me to take a moment to read the following forward-looking statement prior to commencing our earnings call.

Except for the historical information contained herein, the statements in this morning's conference call are forward-looking and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions as outlined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements, as you may know, involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause Natural Gas Services Group's actual results in the future periods to differ materially from forecasted results.

Those risks include, among other things, a loss of market share through competition or otherwise, the introduction of competing technologies by other companies, and new governmental safety, health, or environmental regulations which could cause -- require Natural Gas Services Group to make significant capital expenditures.

The forward-looking statements included in this conference call are made as of the date of this call and Natural Gas Services undertakes no obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, factors described in our recent press release and also under the caption risk factors in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Having all that stated, I will turn the call over to Steve Taylor, who is President, Chairman, and CEO of Natural Gas Services Group. Steve?

Thank you, Alicia and Erika. And good morning and welcome to Natural Gas Services Group's first-quarter 2015 earnings review. I'll start off by saying I'm pleased with our performance in this first quarter, especially the growth we achieved over the year-ago period, where we saw improvement in all segments of our business.

On a sequential quarterly basis, rental revenue held up, but as we anticipated, quarterly compressor sales slowed down. Our rental gross margins continued strong this quarter and our EBITDA and net income metrics, with respect to revenue, grew. Cash flow from operations was exceptionally strong this quarter. We anticipate appreciable growth and free cash generation throughout the year.

Looking forward, 2015 will be a more challenging year. And while we expect pricing and utilization pressures, we are focused on our costs and maintaining our service response to our customers. I will comment in more detail as we review the financials.

Starting with total revenue and looking at the year-over-year comparative quarters, our total revenues increased 11% or $2.4 million, from $22.3 million in the first quarter of 2014 to $24.7 million in the first quarter of 2015. We had strong gains across all product lines this quarter compared to the same quarter last year, with the rental revenues up 10%, sales revenues up by 17%, and service and maintenance increasing 16%.

For the sequential quarters of the fourth quarter 2014 compared to the first quarter of this year, total revenues were down almost 9% or $2.4 million, from $27.1 million to $24.7 million. Rental revenues were up marginally, but compressor sales were the major driver of this quarter's change in revenue, with a $2.6 million decline.

Moving to our total gross margin and comparing the first quarter of last year to this current quarter, total gross margin was up 18%, from $12 million to $14.2 million, end increased from 54% to 57% of revenue. Sequentially, total gross margin was off 5%, from $14.9 million to $14.2 million, driven by the aforementioned decline in sales revenues. Gross margins were, however, 57% this quarter compared to last quarter's gross margin of 55% of revenue.

Our sales, general, and administrative expenses continue to the lowest in the industry and were at 10% of revenue this current quarter. This compares to 12% in last year's comparative quarter and 9% last quarter.

Operating income increased by 33% in the comparative year-over-year quarters by almost $1.5 million -- up to $5.8 million, but decreased 13.6% in sequential quarter comparisons. Again, this decrease was due to lower compressor sales in the first quarter of this year as compared to the fourth quarter of 2014. Operating income is running at 23% of revenue for the quarter, up from 20% for the same quarter last year and 25% last quarter.

In the comparative year-over-year first quarters, net income increased 29% to $3.7 million this year, up from $2.9 million in the same quarter of 2014. As a percent of revenue, net income rose from 13% in the first quarter of 2014 to 15% in the first quarter of this year.

The sequential quarters of Q4 2014 and Q1 2015 saw net income dip $300,000, from $4 million to $3.7 million, but holding at 15% of revenue for both quarters. Again, the decrease is due to fewer compressor sales in the first quarter this year.

Looking at EBITDA and on a year-over-year basis, EBITDA increased 23%, from $9.4 million in the first quarter of last year to $11.6 million in this current first quarter 2015. Sequentially, EBITDA was down $770,000, while still running at 47% of revenue, which is up from 42% in the year-ago quarter and 46% in the fourth quarter 2014.

On a fully diluted basis, earnings per share this quarter was $0.29 per common share, an increase from $0.23 in the year-ago quarter, but down $0.03 per common share from the previous quarter.

Total sales revenues, which includes compressors, flares, and aftermarket activities, grew almost $600,000 in the year-over-year quarters, from $3.3 million in the first quarter of 2014 to $3.9 million in the first quarter of 2015. The increase was primarily attributable to higher flare and compressor sales than last year. But aftermarket sales also grew.

For the sequential quarters, as mentioned, total sales revenues decreased $2.5 million, from $6.4 million to $3.9 million. Reviewing compressor sales alone, in the current quarter, they were $2.5 million compared to $2.2 million in the first quarter of last year and $5 million last quarter.

As I noted in last quarter's call, our compressor sales backlog always suffers in a downturn. But it has held up fairly well the last couple of quarters, with the current backlog approximately $3.5 million as of March 31, 2015. This compares to last quarter's backlog of roughly $4 million.

Rental revenue had year-over-year quarterly growth of $1.8 million or 10%, from $18.8 million in the first quarter of 2014 to $20.6 million for this current quarter. Rental gross margins exhibited a healthy increase, from 58% in last year's comparative quarter to 62% this quarter. This margin expansion, combined with our higher rental revenues, contributed to 19% higher rental gross margin dollars in this current quarter.

Our field personnel have done an excellent job controlling their direct expenses while maintaining our service response to our customers. I want to recognize that.

Sequentially, rental revenues held steady, at $20.6 million, with gross margins of 62% for each quarter. Our rental margins have averaged 61% the last four quarters, with this being the high water mark over the past couple of years.

This demonstrates that we have our operating expenses under control. We do anticipate pressure on margins, so our cost control average will continue, but we think we are well positioned.

Fleet side at the end of March was 2,918 compressors and we had a net addition of 39 compressor units this quarter. Last call, I estimated that capital expenditures will be $10 million to $15 million for the first 6 months of this year and that is all we thought we could forecast at that time.

We spent approximately $6.9 million on fleet compression in the first quarter and the indicators are still muddled enough that we will stay with that prediction. But I will say that unless we see solid opportunities, I don't anticipate that second-half spending would even approach this reduced level.

Our active fleet utilization dropped 200 basis points to 300 basis points since last quarter to 73%, with our active and contracted compression utilization at the 74% level. Utilization is an indicator we watch. In the strong markets, it will usually correlate to growth.

However, in a declining market like we're in, it tends to have a more elastic relationship to what is going on. This is primarily due to the impact of pricing that begins to have a larger impact.

For example, utilization can be driven by lower or higher rental prices; lower prices obviously being able to facilitate higher utilization, albeit at the expense of profitability. As we have noted in the past and continue to practice, NGS will tend to sacrifice some utilization in order to support our chosen pricing. So while we watch it, the significance of utilization now has to be considered in conjunction with market pricing and profitability.

I think utilization will remain under pressure through the year and March was the most severe month we've seen. So I don't know if that signals a trough or the start of a rougher period. But since we cannot predict what will happen, our strategy is to position ourselves for the worst, but be ready to respond as required.

Speaking of which and counteracting our utilization pressure, average rental rates across the active fleet increased 5% in the year-over-year first quarter periods and 2% sequentially. Average rental rates for newly set units this quarter were almost 12% higher than the first quarter of 2014 and were up 3% sequentially.

We are seeing pricing pressures from customers and competitors, and we do expect to see some softening in these averages over the year. But today, we haven't had a lot of customers approach us for discounts. Where we have had to negotiate lower rates, though, I'm pleased with our results.

Our approach to these market downturns has been to address pricing aggressively. Not from the point of cutting them indiscriminately, but to hold them as tight as we can to preserve our margins and premium status.

This does not mean that we won't be competitive where we choose. But we do employ yield management practices in an attempt to maintain pricing where we think we can differentiate ourselves with our equipment and our service.

Although pricing will probably stop climbing, our past gains have given us an enviable pricing position as we head into the rest of the year. As noted, we have pulled back in a fabrication dramatically and do not anticipate adding any further compression unless it is fully utilized and pre-contracted. The only exception to this will be a minor buildout of our new vapor recovery units and our larger horsepower reciprocating compressors to ensure reasonable deliveries for this equipment.

Speaking of this, we have our first two 400 horsepower units being delivered to the field in the second quarter. If you recall, we previously announced our intention to move into the 350 horsepower to 500 horsepower segment and initially thought our first units would be ready by the end of this year.

However, in the meantime, we have had an opportunity to place two of these units with a good customer and they have contracted more. So we are ahead of schedule. We fully expect a successful debut and are already gearing up our manufacturing capacity and capability to roll these units out as the market demands them.

In addition to these product developments, we have also entered into a formal research and development effort with another industry group that we think, if successful, may challenge the traditional view of rental fleet compression and potentially offer some disruptive technology to a tradition-bound industry. I will caution that since this venture is just entering an exploratory phase and since there are some competitive aspects to it, I will not provide regular updates. But I will comment as we have something to announce.

There are, of course, no guarantees that we can achieve what we are attempting, whether it's due to technology challenges or market acceptance. But as you can see, we are pursuing various opportunities that we think will add value to the Company.

Now going to the balance sheet, our total short-term and long-term bank debt is approximately $400,000 and cash in the bank was approximately $8.6 million, both as of March 31, 2015. Additionally, due to a significant tax refund in April, our cash balance has doubled to approximately $12 million at the end of last month compared to about $6 million in cash we had on December 31, 2014.

Our cash flow from operations was $11.6 million for the quarter. This is the highest it has been over the past year and was aided by a reduction in inventory and work in progress. Our free cash flow this quarter is the highest quarterly average amount generated since 2009.

Now, about the market, let me just quickly dismiss any false hope you may have about my ability to predict the price of oil or gas, higher or lower, in any time frames. I certainly have my opinions, but my reluctance to predict was reinforced yesterday when I read a special section of the Wall Street Journal in which two quote unquote experts had totally divergent ideas about what will happen and when.

So I choose to practice the action recommended by Mark Twain: it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

There do seem to be some positive indicators coming out; the most encouraging being a drop in production of some major shale oil basins. But I do think the market will remain difficult throughout the year.

Our business tends to be impacted on a delayed basis relative to drilling-oriented services, but we will also recover later because once operators decide to resume activity, there will be a delay getting production back on. We are well prepared for the coming year and the competitive forces going forward. We look forward to planning out the rest of the year.

That's the end of my prepared remarks. And I will turn the call back to Erica for questions anyone might have.

(Operator Instructions) Joe Gibney, Capital One.

Just a quick question on cost. Trying to strike a balance between differentiating by maintaining service quality and what you can do to control direct expense. So what do you nibble out on the fringes to try to do that specifically? Just trying to get a better understanding of how you control costs or whittle it down a little bit at this point.

Well, you know, you do the standard things. You certainly start cutting back on fuel expenses first from the point of what's over time run, how can we cut that down, where can we be more efficient there. Certainly, we are trying to share the fun with our suppliers and going back to them and seeing where they can help us to reduce some of our costs.

We had some natural reductions with oil coming up. Obviously, our lubricating and oils are also down somewhat. So some of that you get just as a function of the slowing market and lower commodity price.

We look at all different things. As in the past, we will cut the small and large, because a lot of the smalls add up to large stuff. I won't go into all details, because some are what we think are not proprietary, but we think are unique in how we are approaching things.

But the main thing we do, we get our costs down. And I think you can see from the last downturn and certainly starting into this one that our margins are holding up well. But you know, the thing we won't do sacrifice the service response to the customers. So we know going through a downturn like this that is a very tempting target and something easy to do, where maybe you load up your fuel guzzle a little bit more.

Certainly, we will be as efficient as we can in that respect. We are not going to overload people from the point that it starts impacting downtime, that it starts impacting the customer's ability to produce what he can produce, etc. So we look at anything and everything and along with suppliers and certainly [work for] the customers would go through. But we intend to maintain the service response same time.

Okay, helpful. And then just in terms of your short horsepower mix, and what's going on in the market now. You referenced obviously this move into the 300-plus horsepower tranche and getting some traction there.

In terms of stop activity, customer pushback on pricing, it almost sounded from your comments that sort of the barbell where the higher-end equipment that you are putting out is still executing well and there is still demand on the VRU side, it sounds like. Maybe you could update us on that.

But is there more pressure in sort of more your standardized sub-200 horsepower kind of units right now? Or is it sort of generally across the board, but you still have some traction on the higher horsepower side? Just curious how that is parsing out as the market unfolds a little bit here.

Yes, it's across the board pretty well. We are not seeing -- now it is more oil-oriented, which you would figure with oil coming off. Gas, as we all know, has been flat for four years or five years now, so we're not seeing a whole lot of impact there.

In fact, it will be interesting to see how we go through the year as to what gas may do. Because although you get the oil coming off, there may be some glimmers of hope on some gas pricing going through because, obviously, you are reducing the associated gas in the market also.

So it's across the board. It is more impacted on the oil side, though. And I think naturally what we would expect is most of the oil growth has been driven by these 200 horsepower to 250 horsepower units that we put out primarily on gas lift.

So that is where we are seeing most of the impact, because that is where all the growth has been the last four years or five years. So nothing unusual we are seeing out there, I don't think.

But you're just getting a lot of movement in the market. Customers, as will happen in these periods, the pendulum tends to swing pretty hard back and forth just like it was -- it probably swung a little too high last year. Now I think it's going to swing probably a little too low going this year.

But we are seeing various reasons why wells -- some wells get shut in, some wells getting delayed. The growth profile going forward has certainly slowed down. The name of the game right now is maintaining what you have out there or at least mitigating or trying to minimize utilization pressure. So summarize that answer: pretty well across the board, certainly focus on oil more so, and the gas lift units are seeing some impact.

I appreciate it. Thanks, Steve.

Rob Brown, Lake Street Capital.

On your utilization rates, you talked about I think March was sort of a weakening and the low point. Does that mean things have improved since March or what's the kind of trend there? And how do you see it playing out for the rest of the year?

Well, you don't know a low point until you get a few months down the road. So -- and that is why I'm seeing in March. So I'm not -- is that a trough or is that just the beginning of a tougher trend? It's too soon to tell. We don't know. We just noticed it January, February seemed to be fairly flat and then March really took a drop.

Now we've had more strengthening in oil price since then. And so again, I'm not predicting. I'll let you call it how you think that might go. But certainly that wouldn't be a negative going forward.

So I expect continued pressure on utilization from a couple of perspectives. Number one, just the market. That is just how the market is going to go. And again, operators are not just cutting, but slashing in some respects their expenses. And compression is one of those.

And then secondly, from the point that we will tend to try to maintain our pricing much more than what I would say the general industry does in that respect, and that is going to have some impact on utilization. Again, we try to balance that to where we are not going to just stick our head in the sand and draw a line and say no, we're not going to go past this or that. But we do look at every job individually, price according to where we think we have strengths or weaknesses, and go from there.

It's -- again, to summarize that, I guess. I do expect further pressure on utilization. Whether it accelerates or mitigates, it's hard to tell right now.

Okay, great. Thanks for the color. And then you are generating a nice cash. What's sort of your thought on uses of cash through the downturn here? Thank you.

Well, right now, we're going to hold it very close to our chest and not let it go. But much like the last time, being in a cyclical industry as we are, and these cycles tend to be -- maybe it's just me, but they tend to be getting more frequent. About every five years, we seem to go through one just to shake us up.

But we -- when you come out of these things, you always need to be able to react to the market. Put equipment in the customers' hands; grow as required. And that takes cash with capital equipment like this.

So right now, we've built it up certainly pretty quickly here the last couple quarters. It will continue to build. We are just going to put it in the bank right now. Preserve it as we go through this downturn.

Certainly, we are in excellent shape from essentially a no-debt standpoint; not really needing the cash from the point of having to survive or exist. But knowing that you need it coming out of these downturns.

And I think this -- oil, when you have an oil downturn, the most recent ones -- now you can go back and find a contradiction to this in some other places. But they've tended to be pretty well down and pretty well up. Unlike gas, we are pretty well down and it just stays down. We don't get a V or a U or anything. We get kind of an L, I guess.

I think we are going to start to come out of this one. I think this year is a rough year. But I think we know 2016, we start seeing a little better pricing, a little more activity, and things like that.

So I don't think we're into this thing where we are going to be conserving cash for two years or three years. I think we've got a year of it. We can build it up and then we're ready to address the market as we need that cash.

Great, thank you. I will turn it over.

Jason Wangler, Wunderlich.

Maybe turning over to the sales side, looked a little stronger I think than maybe at least I had expected. Are you seeing anything different there? Were there a couple of one-offs? And then obviously, the backlog in pretty good shape, too. Just how you maybe see that playing out throughout the year.

This sales thing is real hard to predict, as I say every quarter. And everybody is probably tired of me saying that. But it really is hard to say, especially in a market like this. It's almost impossible to say how the thing is going to go.

You got a backlog that really only stretches one or two quarters. That doesn't give you very much visibility. So I am happy with where the backlog is from the point of in the past.

I think the past two or three years, we've always said that we were aiming for our sales revenues to be $10 million to $15 million, and those are in growing years. But we were managing to that level from the point of not wanting to have that sales getting too large because of just -- we were concentrating on the rental side of it. Now again, we would let it go if -- we are not going to turn away a job just because it messes up the percentages of revenue. But generally, that is where we have been holding.

So so far, the backlog is running about that rate as in a good year. Now I do expect it to come off. And we're starting to see some indications that that backlog will start to fall a bit.

But again, we've got a fair amount of proposals out that we try to evaluate and risk as far as what we think the revenue potential of that may be. And then we've taken a little harder look at the risking part and have reduced the number that we think may happen. But there is still a fair amount of potential backlog out there. Let me say that.

But I also hasten to say don't anyone think that the sales is going to be going up or anything like that. I fully expect sales backlog to reduce through the next couple quarters at a minimum and come on down. But we are happy it has held up so far the last couple quarters, a little better than what I expected.

Okay, great. And on the rental side, obviously kind of slowing the pace there. But just curious: you talked about March being a tougher month. Can you maybe just comment on where you are seeing the weakness, whether it is in price, whether it is in utilization? Just where you are seeing those tougher areas, given the changing dynamic?

It's mainly utilization. As I mentioned, our pricing's still holding up fairly well. And even where we've had to negotiate some discounts here in the last couple months, it's been a lower level of deals we've had to negotiate than I would have expected.

And we are very happy with what we've been able to negotiate. We've been able to exchange some discounts for some additional work or added terms for things like this.

So most of the pressure we are seeing is from utilization, primarily. And some of this is -- there is -- we look at each job and see why we're getting them back and what can we do to mitigate that. Some of the stuff is just, as I mentioned, customers have just really slashed a lot of expenses and try to really pull down on some stuff.

So at $100 oil, where you might have had maybe a little more equipment out there than you really needed, but you didn't want anything down, you wanted standby capacity, because $100 oil, you don't need that now at $50, $60 oil. So some of that stuff comes off.

Some of these shales are getting to be 4 years to 5 years old. So you are seeing some natural decline. And we would've seen this even at $100 oil. You are seeing some natural decline in some of these wells, where not only the oil is declining, but the gas associated with that well is declining.

So gas lift tends not to be the preferred method of producing that well. After four years or five years, start getting more into the depletion piece of it. So there's all kinds of things going on. But it's mainly utilization pressure right now that has flattened it out.

And one more if I could, just on that. Geographically, are you seeing certain areas that are more affected than others? Or is it pretty much just kind of a -- like you said, it's just everything is kind of getting cut right now, and you are just kind of seeing it from different areas at different times?

We are -- probably about half of the areas are being impacted and half aren't. I think I read yesterday or the day before, I think that out of the five major oil shale basins we've had, Niobrara, Bakken, and the Eagle Ford already start to roll over on production. At least I think is in April. We will see what the months going forward do.

But you would expect that to continue coming off, production coming off, which is obviously something we want. You don't necessarily like it from the business standpoint, but it's part of that phase we got to go through to get pricing back up and start activity back.

And the two areas that have actually have increased production have been the Permian and the Utica. And we are seeing the same thing. We are still having good luck in the Permian and the Utica and we are seeing pressures in these other areas. So it's pretty well along with what the industry is reporting from a production standpoint.

That's helpful. I will turn it back. Thank you, Steve.

(Operator Instructions) At this time, I have no further questions.

Okay. Well, I appreciate everybody joining us and Erika, appreciate your efforts. So appreciate your time. We will look forward to visiting with you again next quarter then. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for attending.