Stabilis Solutions Inc (SLNG) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Stabilis Solutions Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us today are Westy Ballard, President and CEO; and Andy Puhala, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's conference call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Reform Act of 1985 and other securities laws. These forward-looking statements are based on the company's beliefs and expectations as of today, March 9, 2023. Forward-looking statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. The company undertakes no obligation to release updates or revisions to the forward-looking statements made in today's conference call. Additional information concerning factors that could cause those differences is contained in the company's filings with the SEC and the press release announcing the company's results. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Please also note that the company may refer to certain non-GAAP financial information on today's call. You can find reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in the company's earnings press release. Today's call is being recorded. Currently, I'd like to turn the call over to Westy Ballard, President and CEO of Stabilis Solutions. Please go ahead.

女士們先生們，早上好，歡迎參加 Stabilis Solutions 第四季度和 2022 年全年收益電話會議。今天加入我們的是總裁兼首席執行官 Westy Ballard；和首席財務官 Andy Puhala。在我們開始之前，我想提醒大家，今天的電話會議將包含 1985 年《私人證券改革法》和其他證券法含義內的前瞻性陳述。這些前瞻性陳述基於公司截至 2023 年 3 月 9 日的信念和預期。前瞻性陳述受風險和不確定因素的影響，可能導致實際結果與預期結果存在重大差異。公司沒有義務發布對今天電話會議中所做的前瞻性陳述的更新或修訂。有關可能導致這些差異的因素的更多信息包含在公司向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件和宣佈公司業績的新聞稿中。提醒投資者不要過分依賴任何前瞻性陳述。另請注意，公司可能會在今天的電話會議上參考某些非 GAAP 財務信息。您可以在公司的收益新聞稿中找到非 GAAP 財務指標與最具可比性的 GAAP 指標的對賬。今天的通話正在錄音中。目前，我想將電話轉給 Stabilis Solutions 總裁兼首席執行官 Westy Ballard。請繼續。

Thank you, and good morning, and welcome to all of you that joined our call. Let me start by congratulating our entire company for delivering a fantastic 2022 despite considerable geopolitical and financial instability around the world. We remain focused and deliberate and executed on two key areas that we outlined for you this time last year. One, the optimization and enhancement of our existing business and operating model; and two, the advancement of our strategy into new and really exciting markets. Along the operational front, our team did a tremendous job managing costs with power, natural gas feedstock and transportation as the main culprits. Behind the scenes, we also consolidated offices, divested non-core assets in Brazil and Mexico, closely monitored overtime in job site labor costs and streamline our commercial organization. Also during the year, our commercial and operational teams developed and executed on strategies to rationalize our customer base, elevate pricing, enhance profitability and improve return on assets. We began laying the foundation for growth into the large and rapidly growing industries of marine and aerospace. We successfully executed bunkering operations on 3 costs throughout the year and provided Rocket Fuel on 2. Revenue across both sectors increased year-over-year to 24% of total revenue versus roughly 5% in 2021, which is noteworthy as we are expanding our revenue base into markets that are roughly 20x to 30x larger than our historical industrial business. In addition to bunkering operations, we developed an international export capability, and in September, announced that the U.S. Department of Energy granted us a 28-year license to export domestically produced LNG equivalent to roughly 52 billion cubic feet of natural gas annually. The DOE's approval not only provides us with the ability to assist in the world's lingering energy crisis, but is yet another wonderful opportunity for us to play a larger role in the world's addition of cleaner energy sources over the long term. This capability is very exciting and appears the market agrees as evidenced by our trading value jumping from a daily average of roughly 7,700 shares to over 21 million shares on the day we made the announcement, pretty compelling. As you can see, our entire team's efforts really paid off in 2022, having delivered strong operating cash flow, resulting in a considerable increase in cash from $900,000 at the end of 2021 to $11.5 million at the end of 2022, which not only places us on dramatically better financial footing but also advances our company's positioning for growth. In our Industrial business, we believe we are the only true turnkey provider of last mile LNG delivery in North America through our considerable asset base and supported by our robust commercial logistical engineering, liquefaction and field operations capabilities. Aging U.S. natural gas infrastructure and high political barriers to any significant new pipeline construction outside of the Gulf Coast continue to drive demand for last mile virtual pipelines to off-grid and off pipeline gas customer locations, and we currently deliver this capability in 25 states and Mexico. This market is not without its challenges as U.S. commercial power industrial net natural gas demand is forecasted to remain flat through 2030. This demand profile will require us to utilize our ingenuity to build upon our current portfolio to stimulate profitable demand in new and incremental industries and geographies. As we progress, we will continue to focus on maximizing cash flow in this business through broadening our commercial strategies and creating efficiencies and economies of scale across all facets of our supply chain, operations, engineering and safety that will benefit not only this business group, but our entire franchise as well. In our aerospace business, advances in technology, declining launch costs and rapidly growing interest from private sector financing has elevated its profile. Broadband communications, the Internet of Things, earth observation, national security, weather and GPS are primary drivers of demand, resulting in the number of satellites in orbit expected to grow 10x by 2029. This will require an enormous uplift in launches per year. And as you can expect, propellant is one of the most critical items needed for launching rockets and many launch providers are moving towards LNG as their fuel of choice over alternatives used in the past. This business has many similar characteristics to our industrial business, and we will continue to develop a variety of strategies to remain a market leader. Our Marine business consists of two main components: one being marine bunkering and two; the ability to export LNG internationally. In the U.S., there are a variety of compelling drivers for vessels to bunker cleaner fuels here. Barriers to entry are high and for a supplier to be successful in bunkering, they must have the ability to source and deliver volumes and scale. They must have the ability to bunker in a variety of ports. They must have considerable technical and supply chain capabilities, and they must have the ability to deliver fuel simultaneously with vessels loading and unloading their respective cargo or passengers. Our unparalleled ability is to aggregate considerable fuel volumes utilizing both our production of LNG and third-party sources, along with our ability to deliver the last mile to ships flange as we did in multiple geographies in the U.S. in 2022, clearly positions us as a market leader. The outlook in our export business is positive as well. The world remains considerably short energy and U.S. natural gas will play a vital role in addressing this imbalance. The marine industry continues to undergo considerable change since the International Maritime Organization required the lowering of emissions beginning in 2020, and this change takes time. But as the velocity of LNG fuel ship commissionings increases in early 2024, combined with the persistent volatility in global energy supply and demand, we intend to leverage our proven record to remain a major leader in this space. As I mentioned, there are a variety of actions in motion, and we see several green shoots on the horizon. To deliver on our expectations, in 2023, we expect to increase investment across a variety of fronts, including sales and marketing. We will also invest in key technical and operational areas of our company where the onboarding and trending of these resources takes time to ensure future delivery of our solutions safely and efficiently to customers. Along the CapEx front, during the year, we expect to invest in liquefaction, storage and rolling stock to timely support all of our growth initiatives. We are still evaluating numerous location and constructs, but one of the beneficial competitive elements in small-scale LNG is our ability to construct liquefaction in modules and with accelerated commissioning schedules. Clearly, the global macro challenges of 2022 have not ended. And I think it is safe to say that 2023 still carries considerable risk and uncertainty. So with this, many of the anticipated operating capital investments are variable, and we will be vigilant and thoughtful in our approach throughout the year. It is also important to note that while exciting, the markets in which we continue to focus on are still in their infant stages and our revenue expectations and results are not linear as there is variability in the adoption and capital invested to support sustained growth in the marine and aerospace sectors. But looking out over the next several years, the future is really, really bright. And with that, I will turn it over to Andy to discuss the fourth quarter results and year-end results.

謝謝大家，早上好，歡迎大家加入我們的電話會議。首先讓我祝賀我們整個公司在全球地緣政治和金融不穩定的情況下實現了出色的 2022 年。我們仍然專注、深思熟慮並執行去年這個時候為您概述的兩個關鍵領域。一、優化和提升我們現有的業務和運營模式；第二，將我們的戰略推進到新的、真正令人興奮的市場。在運營方面，我們的團隊在管理成本方面做得非常出色，電力、天然氣原料和運輸是主要成本。在幕後，我們還整合了辦事處，剝離了巴西和墨西哥的非核心資產，密切監控工作現場勞動力成本的加班情況，並精簡了我們的商業組織。同樣在這一年中，我們的商業和運營團隊制定並執行了戰略，以合理化我們的客戶群、提高定價、提高盈利能力和提高資產回報率。我們開始為進入大型且快速發展的海洋和航空航天行業奠定基礎。我們全年以 3 項成本成功地執行了燃料加註作業，並以 2 項成本提供了火箭燃料。這兩個部門的收入同比增長至總收入的 24%，而 2021 年這一比例約為 5%，這一點值得注意，因為我們正在擴大收入立足於比我們歷史上的工業業務大大約 20 到 30 倍的市場。除了加油業務，我們還開發了國際出口能力，並於 9 月宣布，美國能源部授予我們 28 年的許可證，每年出口相當於約 520 億立方英尺天然氣的國產液化天然氣。美國能源部的批准不僅使我們有能力幫助解決世界上揮之不去的能源危機，而且為我們提供了另一個極好的機會，使我們能夠在世界長期增加更清潔的能源方面發揮更大的作用。這種能力非常令人興奮，並且市場似乎同意我們的交易價值從我們發佈公告當天的平均每日約 7,700 股躍升至超過 2100 萬股，這非常引人注目。如您所見，我們整個團隊的努力在 2022 年真正得到了回報，交付了強勁的運營現金流，導致現金從 2021 年底的 90 萬美元大幅增加到 2022 年底的 1150 萬美元，這不僅使我們在顯著改善財務基礎的同時也提升了我們公司的增長定位。在我們的工業業務中，我們相信我們是北美唯一真正的最後一英里液化天然氣交付交鑰匙供應商，憑藉我們龐大的資產基礎，並得到我們強大的商業物流工程、液化和現場運營能力的支持。老化的美國天然氣基礎設施和墨西哥灣沿岸以外任何重大新管道建設的高政治障礙繼續推動對最後一英里虛擬管道的需求到離網和非管道天然氣客戶地點，我們目前在 25 個州和墨西哥。這個市場並非沒有挑戰，因為美國商業電力工業天然氣淨需求預計到 2030 年將保持平穩。這種需求狀況將要求我們利用我們的獨創性來建立我們當前的產品組合，以刺激新興和增量行業的盈利需求，以及地理。隨著我們的進步，我們將繼續專注於通過擴大我們的商業戰略並在供應鏈、運營、工程和安全的各個方面創造效率和規模經濟來最大化該業務的現金流，這不僅有利於該業務集團，但我們的整個特許經營權也是如此。在我們的航空航天業務中，技術的進步、發射成本的下降以及私營部門融資興趣的迅速增長提高了它的知名度。寬帶通信、物聯網、地球觀測、國家安全、天氣和 GPS 是需求的主要驅動因素，因此預計到 2029 年在軌衛星數量將增長 10 倍。這將需要每年大幅增加發射次數。正如您所預料的那樣，推進劑是發射火箭所需的最關鍵物品之一，許多發射供應商正在轉向液化天然氣作為他們選擇的燃料，而不是過去使用的替代品。該業務與我們的工業業務有許多相似的特徵，我們將繼續制定各種戰略以保持市場領先地位。我們的海運業務包括兩個主要部分：一是海上加油，二是；國際出口液化天然氣的能力。在美國，有各種令人信服的驅動因素促使船隻在這裡加註更清潔的燃料。進入壁壘很高，供應商要想在加油方面取得成功，他們必須有能力採購和交付數量和規模。他們必須有能力在各種港口設掩體。他們必須具備相當的技術和供應鏈能力，並且必須能夠在船舶裝卸各自的貨物或乘客的同時運送燃料。我們無與倫比的能力是利用我們的液化天然氣生產和第三方資源來聚合大量燃料，以及我們將最後一英里運送到船舶法蘭的能力，就像我們在 2022 年在美國多個地區所做的那樣，這清楚地表明我們是一個市場領導者。我們出口業務的前景也很樂觀。世界仍然嚴重缺乏能源，美國天然氣將在解決這種不平衡方面發揮至關重要的作用。自國際海事組織要求從 2020 年開始降低排放量以來，海洋行業繼續發生重大變化，而這種變化需要時間。但隨著 2024 年初 LNG 燃料船調試速度的加快，再加上全球能源供需的持續波動，我們打算利用我們久經考驗的記錄保持這一領域的主要領導者地位。正如我所提到的，有各種各樣的行動在進行中，我們看到地平線上出現了一些綠芽。為實現我們的預期，到 2023 年，我們預計將增加銷售和營銷等各個方面的投資。我們還將投資於我們公司的關鍵技術和運營領域，這些資源的入職和趨勢需要時間來確保未來安全有效地向客戶交付我們的解決方案。在資本支出方面，我們預計年內將投資於液化、儲存和機車車輛，以及時支持我們所有的增長計劃。我們仍在評估眾多地點和結構，但小型液化天然氣的有利競爭因素之一是我們能夠在模塊中構建液化並加快調試進度。顯然，2022 年的全球宏觀挑戰並未結束。我認為可以肯定地說，2023 年仍然存在相當大的風險和不確定性。因此，許多預期的運營資本投資是可變的，我們將在全年的方法中保持警惕和深思熟慮。同樣重要的是要注意，雖然令人興奮，但我們繼續關注的市場仍處於起步階段，我們的收入預期和結果不是線性的，因為支持持續增長的採用和資本投資存在差異海洋和航空航天領域。但展望未來幾年，未來真的非常光明。有了這個，我將把它交給安迪討論第四季度業績和年終業績。

Thanks, Westy, and good morning, everyone. For the fourth quarter of 2022, Stabilis reported revenues of $29.6 million, 15% higher than the third quarter of this year and 42% higher than the year ago quarter. In the fourth quarter, we delivered a record number of LNG gallons to customers, largely driven by the marine and aerospace activity Westy mentioned in his comments. Net income from continuing operations was $0.2 million compared to $1 million in Q3 and a loss from continuing operations of $2.3 million in the year ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $3.9 million compared to $2.3 million in the third quarter of this year and $0.7 million completed the sale of our Brazilian operations during the fourth quarter and Brazilian results are shown as discontinued operations for all comparative periods. For the full year of 2022, we reported revenues of $98.8 million, an increase of 43% from the prior year, driven by improved pricing, additional LNG gallons delivered and stronger now 2022 included strong incremental margins. We generated an additional $0.24 of direct margin, defined as revenues less cost of revenues for every incremental dollar of revenue in 2022. If you normalize for the significantly higher natural gas commodity prices in 2022, which are a pass-through to our customers, our incremental margins in 2022 were 52% as a result of our work on pricing, customer rationalization and cost controls that was a major focus for us in 2022 and will continue to be. Net loss from continuing operations for the year was $1.2 million compared to $7.6 million in 2021. Adjusted EBITDA for the year was $9.6 million, an improvement of 86% compared to the $5.2 million reported in 2021. During the year, we generated positive cash flows from continuing operations of $13.6 million, a significant improvement over the $4.7 million generated in 2021. We ended the year with $11.5 million of cash on our operating cash flows, cash on hand and capacity under our bank agreement will provide us adequate liquidity to execute our 2023 growth plan. This concludes our prepared remarks. So at this time, Kelly, please open the line for questions.

謝謝，Westy，大家早上好。 2022 年第四季度，Stabilis 報告的收入為 2960 萬美元，比今年第三季度增長 15%，比去年同期增長 42%。在第四季度，我們向客戶交付了創紀錄數量的液化天然氣加侖，這主要是受到 Westy 在其評論中提到的海洋和航空航天活動的推動。持續經營淨收入為 20 萬美元，而第三季度為 100 萬美元，去年同期持續經營虧損為 230 萬美元。本季度調整後的 EBITDA 為 390 萬美元，而今年第三季度為 230 萬美元，第四季度完成了 70 萬美元的巴西業務出售，巴西業績顯示為所有比較期間的停產業務。對於 2022 年全年，我們報告的收入為 9880 萬美元，比上一年增長 43%，這得益於定價改善、交付的額外 LNG 加侖以及現在 2022 年的強勁增長包括強勁的增量利潤率。我們額外產生了 0.24 美元的直接利潤，定義為 2022 年每增加一美元的收入減去收入成本。如果您將 2022 年天然氣商品價格大幅上漲歸一化，這是對我們客戶的傳遞，我們的由於我們在定價、客戶合理化和成本控制方面的工作，2022 年的增量利潤率為 52%，這是我們 2022 年並將繼續關注的主要重點。本年度持續經營淨虧損為 120 萬美元，而 2021 年為 760 萬美元。本年度調整後的 EBITDA 為 960 萬美元，比 2021 年報告的 520 萬美元增加了 86%。在這一年中，我們產生了正現金流來自持續經營業務的 1,360 萬美元，比 2021 年產生的 470 萬美元有了顯著改善。我們在年底的經營現金流量、手頭現金和銀行協議下的產能為 1,150 萬美元，這將為我們提供足夠的流動性來執行我們的業務2023 年增長計劃。我們準備好的發言到此結束。那麼這個時候，Kelly，請開通提問線。

Certainly. (Operator Instructions). Your first question is coming from Martin Malloy with Johnson Rice.

當然。 （操作員說明）。你的第一個問題來自 Martin Malloy 和 Johnson Rice。

Congratulations on all the achievements you had last year. My first question was on some of these new markets, the space, the bunkering, can you maybe talk about milestones that we should look out for, if any, in terms of progress in these areas? I'm just thinking aloud here, but announcements of bunkering facilities opening up or customer contracts or anything like that. What can we look out for?

祝賀你去年取得的所有成就。我的第一個問題是關於這些新市場中的一些，空間，燃料，你能否談談我們應該注意的里程碑，如果有的話，就這些領域的進展而言？我只是在這里大聲思考，但是關於加油設施開放或客戶合同或類似內容的公告。我們可以注意什麼？

Yes. Thanks, Martin. You kind of answered the question for me. I think there are several different kind of leading indicators that you should be thinking about in and around really just that some of the announcements as we start to put more commercial meat on the bone and start to realize some of these green shoots that we see on the horizon, I think we'll be more communicative to the market about the details around some of them. But also, I think as we start to put capital expansion plans, whether it's our preexisting liquefaction capabilities or in kind of greenfield markets around the U.S., I think those will also be really good indicators of us starting to see signs of life on the commercial side, a bit kind of vocal in the past and that we don't want to do everything on spec, but we're also willing to take some reasonable commercial risk. So I'm not looking for a complete backlog, but I'm not looking for a 0 backlog to inspire me to go ahead and start building infrastructure. And that infrastructure can be liquefaction, it could be storage, it could be a variety of different strategies based upon the market.

是的。謝謝，馬丁。你有點回答了我的問題。我認為有幾種不同類型的領先指標，你應該在內部和周圍考慮，真的只是一些公告，因為我們開始把更多的商業肉放在骨頭上，並開始意識到我們看到的一些綠芽在地平線上，我認為我們會就其中一些細節與市場進行更多交流。而且，我認為當我們開始實施資本擴張計劃時，無論是我們現有的液化能力還是美國各地的綠地市場，我認為這些也將是我們開始在商業上看到生命跡象的非常好的指標一方面，過去有點直言不諱，我們不想做任何事情都符合規範，但我們也願意承擔一些合理的商業風險。所以我不是在尋找一個完整的積壓，但我不是在尋找一個 0 積壓來激勵我繼續並開始構建基礎設施。基礎設施可以是液化，可以是存儲，可以是基於市場的各種不同策略。

Great. My second question, I just wanted to talk to you about your traditional industrial market and the impact of lower natural gas prices. What has that historically resulted in terms of volumes or margins? Can you give us any help there?

偉大的。我的第二個問題，我只是想和你談談你的傳統工業市場和較低的天然氣價格的影響。從歷史上看，這在銷量或利潤方面造成了什麼？你能在那裡給我們任何幫助嗎？

Yes. I'll look at it through a couple of lenses. One of which is one of my biggest competitors are alternative fuels, other fuels, diesel. And so with the spread arbitrage between where our oil prices are right now and where low natural gas prices are, that should be our friend. And we're pedaling pretty quickly to win the hearts and minds of our industrial customers to have them realize that we've got gas prices at a pretty low price and not that they can't go lower, but they can certainly go higher. And so we think that a lot of our customers are inspired to try and lock in a little bit longer term, which gives me a little bit of ratability in that industrial business on my revenue. And so we actually -- we're very comfortable where those prices are, and it can work to our advantage right now given, as I mentioned, the spread between where crude is.

是的。我會通過幾個鏡頭來看待它。其中一個是我最大的競爭對手之一是替代燃料、其他燃料、柴油。因此，隨著我們現在的石油價格和低天然氣價格之間的價差套利，這應該是我們的朋友。我們正在迅速努力贏得工業客戶的心和思想，讓他們意識到我們的汽油價格非常低，而不是他們不能降低，但他們肯定可以提高。因此，我們認為我們的許多客戶都受到啟發，嘗試鎖定更長的時間，這讓我對該工業業務的收入有了一點了解。所以我們實際上 - 我們對這些價格非常滿意，而且正如我提到的那樣，考慮到原油價格之間的價差，它現在可以發揮我們的優勢。

Your next question is coming from Liam Burke with B. Riley.

你的下一個問題來自 Liam Burke 和 B. Riley。

With your export license, have you had any customer interest or inquiry into availability of your LNG?

憑藉您的出口許可證，您是否有任何客戶對您的液化天然氣的可用性感興趣或詢問？

We have. We got an enormous number of inbounds back in September. And when we made the announcement, and subsequent to that, we've been in continuous dialogue. One of the challenges we've had over the last several months have been some of the lowering of the prices in Europe. Those prices have backed off considerably. But I think if you kind of step out of that and look more broadly, the macro still there, that supply-demand imbalance is still very prevalent and persistent and the discussions we're having are really longer winded about taking 1, 2, 3-year type offtakes, and so I'm optimistic that those conversations will bear fruit, hard to say when. But I think some of those potential offtake customers, certainly in Europe were a little spooked by the dramatic drop in natural gas prices in Europe over the last several months.

我們有。我們在 9 月份收到了大量入境。當我們宣布這一消息時，以及之後，我們一直在進行持續的對話。過去幾個月我們遇到的挑戰之一是歐洲價格的下降。這些價格已經大幅回落。但我認為，如果你跳出這一步，從更廣泛的角度來看，宏觀經濟仍然存在，供需失衡仍然非常普遍和持續存在，我們正在進行的關於採取 1、2、3 的討論實際上更加冗長-年類型的承銷，所以我樂觀地認為這些對話會取得成果，很難說什麼時候。但我認為，過去幾個月歐洲天然氣價格的急劇下跌讓一些潛在的承購客戶（當然在歐洲）感到有些害怕。

Great. And on the marine bunkering front, can you give us a sense as to the types of customers that are attracting for LNG bunkering?

偉大的。在海上加註方面，您能否介紹一下吸引液化天然氣加註的客戶類型？

Yes. So if you think about that, obviously, the stickier the better. So when you think through that, who are some of the stickier types of customers? Well, certainly, cruise lines are stickier because they've got a pretty well-defined route that they're taking. You've got some of those container ships that have pretty well defined routes. Some of those car carriers have pretty well-defined routes. What you're trying to find is as much predictability and consistency as possible for obvious reasons. It creates ratability. So I think those are three kind of likely suspect areas that we would focus on as well as the chemical and crude tankers. A little bit different approach to bunkering those customers because they're not as predictable in when they make port calls. And so you got to be thoughtful in how you think about that bunkering capability for them. But I think those kind of four -- those four areas are all prime opportunities for us.

是的。所以如果你考慮一下，顯然，粘性越大越好。因此，當您仔細考慮時，哪些客戶具有更高的粘性？好吧，當然，遊輪航線更具粘性，因為它們有一條非常明確的路線。你有一些集裝箱船，它們的航線非常明確。其中一些汽車運輸公司有非常明確的路線。出於明顯的原因，您試圖找到的是盡可能多的可預測性和一致性。它創造了可評價性。因此，我認為這些是我們將關注的三種可能可疑領域以及化學品和原油油輪。為這些客戶提供燃料的方法略有不同，因為他們在停靠港口時無法預測。因此，您必須考慮如何為他們考慮加油能力。但我認為這四個——這四個領域對我們來說都是最好的機會。

Your next question is coming from Barry Haimes with Sage Asset Management.

您的下一個問題來自 Sage Asset Management 的 Barry Haimes。

Thanks for all the hard work last year. I have two questions; one, in the existing business, it felt like you were making improvements as you went through the year. And so if the world just stayed as it was right now, could you talk about how much more profitability you think you could generate in '23 versus '22? Again, just assuming the world as it is now. And then the second question is, on the two new businesses of Aerospace and Bunkering, can you give us any sort of a revenue growth range you're thinking about for the year? And what sort of incremental margins we might see? So if revenues from those two sources go up $5 million, $10 million, whatever number we might pick, is there sort of an incremental margin associated with that?

感謝大家去年的辛勤工作。我有兩個問題；第一，在現有的業務中，感覺你在過去的一年中正在做出改進。因此，如果世界只是保持現在的狀態，你能談談你認為你在 23 年與 22 年相比可以產生多少利潤嗎？再一次，假設世界是現在的樣子。然後第二個問題是，關於航空航天和燃料供應這兩項新業務，您能否給我們提供您今年考慮的收入增長范圍？我們可能會看到什麼樣的增量利潤？因此，如果這兩個來源的收入增加 500 萬美元、1000 萬美元，無論我們選擇什麼數字，是否有與之相關的增量利潤？

Yes. A lot to unpack here. Let me tackle the first one first. And first of all, I hope the world doesn't stay the same. And because that would mean it's fairly status quo. And if you look at that industrial business, it's about -- it's less than 1/10 the size of some of these growing maritime and aerospace businesses. But if it did stay the same, I don't know that you can expect a dramatic uplift in margin improvement. I think it's probably maximized. It doesn't mean we won't continue to try and optimize that through efficiencies, but you're only talking about $1 billion, $1.5 billion addressable market there. And so not a lot of growth. And so it'd be fairly status quo. That's why it's very important for us to continue to, I think, be aggressive and appropriate in our approach to these growth drivers, which instead of being about $1 billion, $1.5 billion, this is aggregate aerospace and maritime or marine aggregate almost $20 billion of addressable market. And so that's why if you looked at our revenue complexion growing 19% year-over-year into $20 billion of market opportunity, that's relevant and that's exciting us. So status quo is not something we're really excited about. Doesn't mean we won't generate free cash flow and good margins. It's just -- I wouldn't look for any uplift in that. With respect to our aerospace and marine growth, it's hard to answer that question, and I'm not trying not to answer that question. It's because every single market is going to have a different growth profile, meaning we may in the Gulf of Mexico, expand our George West facility at kind of a total cost, which is going to be different than that of us going greenfield and other markets. Maybe there's an acquisition in another market that has a different kind of ROIC profile, incremental margin revenue growth profile than if we don't do an acquisition. So it's -- I'm not trying to not answer it, it's just hard to say. What I can tell you that is that having the capabilities that we have gives us a real wonderful advantage and expanding those revenue and incremental margin opportunities. And I think as we start to bring some of those online, I think we'll be much more vocal and specific in kind of revenue and incremental margin expectations.

是的。這裡有很多東西要打開。讓我先解決第一個問題。首先，我希望世界不會一成不變。因為這意味著它是相當現狀。如果你看看那個工業企業，它大約 - 它不到其中一些不斷增長的海事和航空航天企業規模的 1/10。但如果它確實保持不變，我不知道你可以期待利潤率的大幅提升。我認為它可能已最大化。這並不意味著我們不會繼續嘗試通過提高效率來優化它，但你只是在談論 10 億美元、15 億美元的可尋址市場。所以增長不多。所以這將是相當現狀。這就是為什麼我認為對我們來說非常重要的是繼續積極和適當地處理這些增長驅動因素，而不是大約 10 億美元、15 億美元，而是航空航天和海事或海洋總計近 200 億美元目標市場。這就是為什麼如果你看到我們的收入同比增長 19% 進入 200 億美元的市場機會，那是相關的，這讓我們感到興奮。所以現狀並不是我們真正興奮的事情。並不意味著我們不會產生自由現金流和良好的利潤率。只是——我不會在這方面尋求任何提升。關於我們的航空航天和海洋增長，很難回答這個問題，我也不想不回答這個問題。這是因為每個市場都會有不同的增長情況，這意味著我們可能會在墨西哥灣以某種總成本擴建我們的 George West 設施，這將不同於我們進入綠地和其他市場.與我們不進行收購相比，也許在另一個市場進行的收購具有不同類型的 ROIC 概況、增量利潤率收入增長概況。所以它是——我不是不想不回答它，只是很難說。我可以告訴你的是，擁有我們所擁有的能力給了我們真正的優勢，並擴大了這些收入和增加利潤的機會。而且我認為，當我們開始將其中一些上線時，我認為我們會在收入和增量利潤率預期方面更加直言不諱和具體。

Your next question is coming from Spencer Lehman.

你的下一個問題來自 Spencer Lehman。

Yes. A couple of questions. First, on your approval by the Department of Energy a few months ago on export. How do you define exporting? Is that -- because of your size, you're pretty busy just with North America. When they say export are you talking about Mexico or eventually Europe and Asia?

是的。幾個問題。首先，關於您幾個月前獲得能源部的出口批准。你如何定義出口？那是——因為你的體型，你只忙於北美。當他們說出口時，您指的是墨西哥還是歐洲和亞洲？

No, I think it's probably the opposite. We have the ability to export LNG to basically any non-OFAC country. So any free trade or non-free trade country, we have a green light. And so I would be thinking of (inaudible), I'd be thinking Europe, I'd be thinking Asia. There's considerable inbound from those markets that aren't necessarily looking to have that world-scale type capacity. But if you think ships with kind of 20,000 cubic meters and below are all reasonable assumptions for us to be talking to right now. So I would think not so much Mexico because, as you know, we're already working in Mexico, but I think more across the ocean.

不，我認為這可能恰恰相反。我們有能力將液化天然氣出口到基本上任何非 OFAC 國家。所以任何自由貿易或非自由貿易國家，我們都有綠燈。所以我會想到（聽不清），我會想到歐洲，我會想到亞洲。那些不一定希望擁有世界級容量的市場有相當多的入境。但是，如果您認為 20,000 立方米及以下的船舶都是我們現在要與之交談的合理假設。所以我不會考慮太多墨西哥，因為如你所知，我們已經在墨西哥開展工作，但我認為更多的是在大洋彼岸。

Yes. Well, Europe, especially, but I just -- are you able -- do you have the facilities to do that now? Or is that off in the future?

是的。好吧，尤其是歐洲，但我只是 - 你能 - 你現在有能力做到這一點嗎？還是將來會取消？

Well, one of the unique attributes of our business is we have a very muscular commercial team. So not only can we provide LNG from our own liquefaction plants, but we can touch over 30 supply points in America that not many others can do, and we can aggregate those molecules quickly. We have that ability to bring those -- that number of molecules to bear very, very quickly. But also, I'll say that to the extent that we are successful in landing one or some of these export, we will quickly start expanding our own organic liquefaction, manufacturing capabilities as well. So I think we've got several weapons at our disposal.

好吧，我們業務的獨特屬性之一是我們擁有一支非常強大的商業團隊。因此，我們不僅可以從我們自己的液化廠提供液化天然氣，而且我們可以接觸到美國 30 多個供應點，這是其他許多人無法做到的，而且我們可以快速聚集這些分子。我們有能力讓那些——那麼多的分子非常非常快地承受。而且，我要說的是，如果我們成功地實現其中一項或部分出口，我們將迅速開始擴大我們自己的有機液化和製造能力。所以我認為我們有幾種武器可供使用。

Okay. That's encouraging. And a quick second question. You didn't mention much about renewables or hydrogen or value fuels. Is that off in the future? Or is that getting pretty interesting now?

好的。這是令人鼓舞的。還有一個快速的第二個問題。您沒有過多提及可再生能源、氫氣或價值燃料。以後會不會這樣？或者現在變得很有趣了？

The manifestation is off in the future, but we are working now. As I mentioned, we're going to start bringing on costs this year to kind of start -- continuing to lay that foundation. Those will be costs that we will start to bring on throughout this year and into next year. What I don't want to do is wake up in 18 months to 2 years and say, wow, we wish we would have done something about that. So we are thinking granularly and thoughtfully around RNG and hydrogen, ammonia and methanol. Those are all coming. It's hard to say exactly when, but those are things that we're thinking about today, not tomorrow.

未來的表現是關閉的，但我們現在正在努力。正如我所提到的，我們將在今年開始增加成本——繼續奠定基礎。這些將是我們將在今年和明年開始產生的成本。我不想做的是在 18 個月到 2 年後醒來時說，哇，我們希望我們能為此做點什麼。因此，我們正在圍繞 RNG 和氫氣、氨氣和甲醇進行細緻而深思熟慮的思考。這些都來了。很難說確切的時間，但這些是我們今天而不是明天考慮的事情。

Your next question is coming from Bill Dezellem with Tieton Capital.

你的下一個問題來自 Tieton Capital 的 Bill Dezellem。

First of all, would you discuss the magnitude of the peak power or base load that you were doing in the Northeast this year versus last year, please?

首先，您能否討論一下今年與去年相比您在東北部所做的峰值功率或基本負載的大小？

Andy, you have that. We might have to do that readily.

安迪，你有那個。我們可能不得不輕鬆地做到這一點。

Yes. I mean a lot of that, Bill, I'm happy to kind of have a follow-up discussion with you offline, if you'd like. We continue to do winter peaking in the Northeast, as you know. A lot of that is standby. I don't have a good update on volumes this year versus volumes last year at this point.

是的。我的意思是很多，比爾，如果你願意的話，我很高興能在線下與你進行後續討論。如您所知，我們繼續在東北部進行冬季高峰。其中很多是備用的。在這一點上，我對今年的銷量與去年的銷量沒有很好的更新。

Okay. I wasn't intending to stump you so we can talk later about that. The next question is, again, one of the historic industrial businesses. Oil and gas cracking and frac sand, what are you seeing in terms of activity levels with those segments?

好的。我不是故意難倒你的，所以我們可以稍後再談。下一個問題再次是歷史悠久的工業企業之一。石油和天然氣裂解和壓裂砂，您在這些領域的活動水平方面看到了什麼？

Right now, it's strong. It's still very strong, and we're a participant certainly through our George West facility down in South Texas, but I'll say coming from that world, I know as well as anybody, how quickly that switch can flip. And so I think we want to be very thoughtful and careful in the exposure we have in that market. So we do want to have exposure. I just don't want to have an overwhelming percentage of our eggs in that basket. You're starting to see, certainly, if you follow the Baker Hughes rig count, you start to see some of these rigs getting dropped in some of these markets. That has not really been a problem for us in the markets that we serve in South Texas, but rest assured, we're paying close attention.

現在，它很強大。它仍然非常強大，我們肯定是通過我們位於德克薩斯州南部的喬治韋斯特工廠的參與者，但我會說來自那個世界，我和任何人一樣知道，這個開關可以翻轉多快。因此，我認為我們希望在該市場的風險敞口上非常周到和謹慎。所以我們確實想要曝光。我只是不想在那個籃子裡放太多的雞蛋。你肯定會開始看到，如果你關注貝克休斯的鑽井平台數量，你就會開始看到其中一些鑽井平台在這些市場中有所下降。在我們在南德克薩斯州服務的市場中，這對我們來說並不是真正的問題，但請放心，我們正在密切關注。

(Operator Instructions). We have a follow-up question coming from Barry Haimes at Sage Asset Management.

（操作員說明）。我們有來自 Sage Asset Management 的 Barry Haimes 的後續問題。

So my question is, the 24% of revenues versus 5% from the two new markets that you alluded to for '22. Is most of that from aerospace? Or if bunkering was a meaningful part of the 24%, could you give us a feel for that?

所以我的問題是，你提到的 22 年收入佔兩個新市場的 24% 和 5%。大部分來自航空航天嗎？或者，如果加油是 24% 中有意義的一部分，你能給我們一個感覺嗎？

Yes. No, actually, I'd say most of that's from marine.

是的。不，實際上，我會說大部分來自海洋。

Sorry, most of it's from?

抱歉，大部分來自？

From not aerospace, it's from our marine business, from our bunkering business.

不是來自航空航天，而是來自我們的海運業務，來自我們的加油業務。

There appear to be no further questions in queue at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Westy Ballard for any closing remarks.

此時隊列中似乎沒有其他問題。現在，我想將發言權轉回給韋斯蒂·巴拉德 (Westy Ballard)，聽取任何結束語。

Great. Thanks again for joining us this morning, everyone, and we look forward to seeing you on the road.

偉大的。再次感謝大家今天早上加入我們，我們期待在路上見到你。

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

謝謝。這確實結束了今天的電話會議。此時您可以斷開電話線，度過美好的一天。感謝您的參與。