Mammoth Energy Services Inc (TUSK) 2018 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Mammoth Energy Services First Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay on Mammoth Energy Services' website.

I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Don Crist, Mammoth Energy Services Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Shelby. Good morning, and welcome to Mammoth Energy Services' First Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on today's call are Arty Straehla, Chief Executive Officer; and Mark Layton, Chief Financial Officer.

Before I turn the call over to them, I would like to read our safe harbor statement. Some of our comments today may include forward-looking statements, reflecting Mammoth Energy Services' views about future events. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to materially differ from our forward-looking statements. These risks are discussed in Mammoth Energy Services' Form 10-K, Forms 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason. Our comments today may also include non-GAAP financial measures. Additional details and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our first quarter press release, which can be found on our website, along with our updated presentation.

Now I'll turn the call over to Arty.

Thank you, Don, and good morning, everyone. The first quarter of 2018 marked our sixth quarter as a public company and the third consecutive record quarter on an EBITDA basis. The first quarter, while difficult due to several factors, showed the strength of our integrated and diversified model. The quarter was driven by successful execution within our infrastructure segment, while our integrated completion business avoided many of the sand logistics issues many of our competitors faced. The customers that utilized our combined pressure pumping sand and logistics capabilities experienced an uninterrupted completion of their wells in a timely manner.

While Mark will elaborate further on our financial performance in his comments, I wanted to point out a few key highlights I am particularly proud of. Our infrastructure segment made up approximately 65% of our overall revenue during the first quarter underscoring our differentiation. Expansion into infrastructure activities was targeted specifically to lessen the impacts of the volatility seen over recent years in the commodity markets and stabilizing our earnings potential. During the first quarter, we spent approximately $36 million on capital expenditures and we were able to reduce our debt by approximately $61 million. As of March 31, 2018, we had $39 million in debt, down from $100 million at year-end and $10 million in cash. Looking forward to the remainder of the year, we anticipate free cash flows to allow for increased financial flexibility, which we intend to use to grow both organically and through acquisitions. We remain acquisitive and target acquisitions opportunistically focusing on such factors as technological shifts, geopolitical disruptions or bottlenecks in current operations. The events occurring over the past 12 months in the Permian Basin are a prime example of this. As many of you have heard, the rapid production growth in the Permian has caused a shortage of oil pipeline capacity and the shift to in-basin sand has caused a trucking bottleneck. We were proactive in expanding our sand hauling operations into the area in late 2017 to take advantage of one of these bottlenecks. We are currently evaluating approximately 35 transactions, some of which are in areas that would help solve bottlenecks in the current oilfields service system and are expected to have rapid paybacks. As our history has shown, we will remain disciplined in our deployment of capital, choosing only the transactions that are projected to meet or exceed our return thresholds. Now let me give you an update on our current operations, starting with our infrastructure division. Our team has been in Puerto Rico for 191 days or just over 6 months, as of today, with nearly 1,000 people and more than 600 pieces of equipment on the island. We continue to work closely with PREPA and other governmental agencies to restore power to all citizens as quickly as possible. Through the deployment of the mutual aid network in Puerto Rico and in the Northeast during recent winter storms, several large IOUs were able to see our workforce in action, which has translated into increased interest for our services. We remain in discussions with several IOUs to expand our operating footprint and build our backlog in all of our operating areas. The infrastructure division's total backlog was approximately $900 million at the end of the first quarter, as compared to $1 billion and the end of 2017. We continue to work across the Northeast, Southwest and Midwest portions of the U.S. and in Puerto Rico for private, public, investor-owned and cooperative utilities.

From an oilfield perspective, the first quarter is always the most challenging. Our teams performed very well. Starting with our frac business, the first quarter was operationally challenging. Our teams did an outstanding job of moving sand to the jobs where we were supplying sand, and while our job site sand supplies ran low at times, our crews did not see downtime due to a lack of sand. The same cannot be said for some of our customers that supply their own sand or last mile trucking. Due to the sand logistics challenges, we experienced some idle time on a portion of our fleets, which impacted our financial performance during the quarter. The vertical integration of Mammoth remains a distinguishing factor for our customers. Inquiries from potential customers regarding the use of our suite of completion offerings has increased over the past few months as a result of the recent events. As of today, all of our fleets are operating with 3 fleets in the Northeast, 2 in the Mid-Continent area and 1 in the Permian. Based on spot pricing today, we've not changed our view with regard to adding frac capacity. We feel the need to see pricing increase by approximately 10% to 15% before ordering any additional fleets. We remain in close contact with the equipment manufacturers with lead times remaining in the 6- to 7-month time frame. As you will recall, the previous expansion of our pressure pumping fleet during 2017 was done at approximately half the current new build cost, providing attractive returns. At this point, given leading-edge pricing combined with full retail prices for new equipment, we believe the payback is simply not there to meet our return thresholds.

We pumped 1,672 stages during the first quarter of 2018 with our EBITDA margins coming in at 17%. While our margins were slightly lower than the fourth quarter, this was a direct result of lower utilization caused by the self-sourcing of sand by some of our customers. We anticipate a sequential recovery and stable utilization throughout the balance of 2018.

Turning to sand. Winter weather and logistic issues made for a very challenging quarter. I can't say enough about our team, which, despite logistical challenges, was able to facilitate the movement of sand, both via rail and barge to keep our pressure pumping cruise supplied. Again, our vertically integrated model worked as designed. The rail issues that first rose in mid-February have eased some, but sand transportation is still not back to normal. Our teams continue to work through these issues to deliver sand to both our crews and our customers. While we don't have a timetable as to when the rail condition will be fully alleviated, we anticipate the issue should be resolved by year-end.

The expansion of our Taylor facility to 1.75 million tons per annum is now complete with both the dry and wet plants operating. The equipment needed to upgrade the dry plant at Piranha is on order and expected to be delivered, installed and commissioned by mid-2018. Once the expansion at Piranha is completed, Mammoth's total processing capability is expected to increase to approximately 4.4 million tons per annum. Approximately half of our processing capability or 2.1 million tons is expected to be consumed by customers utilizing our pressure pumping services, and we currently have another 1 million tons under long-term take-or-pay contracts. The 2 contracts in place are 3-year take-or-pay agreements, which run through late 2020. We sold approximately 735,000 tons of sand during the first quarter of 2018, of which 19% was brokered. The average sales price for the sand sold during the first quarter of 2018 was $44.42 per ton. Sand demand and pricing remains strong, with most of our current available processing capabilities sold out for the next 60 days. Our current pricing for 40/70 is approximately $57.50 per ton, with some spot markets trading in the mid-$60s per ton.

Our blended first quarter production costs came in at approximately $19 per ton, in line with our projections. As our internal capacity increases through -- throughout 2018, we anticipate a gradual decrease in our production costs towards the mid-teens by mid-2018.

Before passing the call to Mark, let me take a moment to stress one point, following the rapid increase in our asset base in 2017, we felt that Mammoth has the necessary management teams in place to allow for expansion in all of the operating areas. We remain acquisitive and intend to be a consolidator in the years to come through acquisitions, organic growth and vertical integration to enhance our efficiencies and take advantage of our management's lean manufacturing background. Given the significant free cash flows we expect in 2018 and beyond, we anticipate building a cash position throughout the year. We remain focused on reinvesting the cash to grow in our core operating areas and possibly into new areas. We will remain disciplined and intend to target opportunities that are projected to meet or exceed our targeted thresholds. We have no interest in growing just for the sake of growing. If our cash flows continue as we expect, and we have not identified organic or strategic growth opportunities that meet our standards, we will evaluate other alternatives to improve stockholder value.

Let me turn the call over to Mark to take you through the financial performance during the first quarter of 2018, after which we will take questions.

Thank you, Arty. I hope that all of you have had a chance to read our press release, so I will keep my financial comments brief and focus on certain highlights. Mammoth's revenue during the first quarter of 2018 came in at $494 million, up more than 33% from the fourth quarter of 2017. The growth of our infrastructure segment, the expansion of our pressure pumping division, the growth of our internal sand production, improved equipment utilization and improved pricing for our services, all contributed to the higher revenue compared to the prior period. Net income for the first quarter of 2018 came in at $56 million or $1.24 on a per share basis. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2018 came in at $131 million, up approximately 18% from the fourth quarter of 2017. Our corporate adjusted EBITDA margin was 26% during the first quarter, as compared to 30% in the fourth quarter of 2017. The reduction in corporate margin was a direct result of the lowering of our daily billable rates in Puerto Rico in early January 2018.

Selling, general and administrative expenses came in at $39 million in the first quarter of 2018, up from $27 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. Growth across all of our operating segments and an increase in total employee count contributed to the increase in total SG&A expenses, compared to prior periods. SG&A expenses, as a percentage of total revenue, came in at 7.8% in the first quarter of 2018 compared to 7.4% during the fourth quarter of 2017. Going forward, we expect SG&A to grow on a nominal basis, as we continue to grow, but remain in the range of 5% to 8% of total revenues, which we feel compares favorably versus our peer group. CapEx during the first quarter of 2018 was approximately $36 million, the majority of which was related to the organic growth of our infrastructure segment in the continental U.S. and the expansion of our Taylor facility.

Our 2018 CapEx plan is currently $125 million. As our cash position grows, we expect to increase our CapEx budget to pursue projects that meet our targeted return thresholds. As we see the market today, we do not anticipate adding frac fleets or further increasing our sand processing capacity beyond our current plans. This may change as the market dynamics change. Today we see significant opportunity to invest in electrical infrastructure and in general oilfield logistics, including trucking. And particularly, we see opportunity in the Permian Basin. The tightness in Permian oil pipeline take away capacity is having an effect on the oil differential and is expected to present some transportation opportunities until the oil pipeline capacity catches up to the growth and supply. In past oil growth cycles, the differentials increased to more than $20 per barrel as significant logistical bottlenecks arose. Another potential bottleneck on the horizon is the pending IMO regulation changes that go into effect in January 2020. We are currently evaluating what impacts these new regulations mean for the industry and where potential opportunities may arise.

Our borrowing base on March 31, 2018, was $170 million with approximately $39 million drawn. We also had cash on hand of approximately $10 million, resulting in liquidity of approximately $135 million net of letters of credit. Based on our current CapEx budget and cash flow outlook, we anticipate fully repaying our outstanding debt during the first half of 2018.

We thank our shareholders for their support. This concludes our prepared remarks. Thank you for your time and attention.

We will now open the call for questions.

(Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from Daniel Burke from Johnson Rice.

I guess, I will start out with a couple on Puerto Rico, if you don't mind. Arty, can you maybe update us, I know it's essentially a public process, but where the RFP process might stand for potential reconstruction work on the island?

Sure, Daniel. The RFP process has begun and in earnest, there's nothing to really announce right now, but we are working through the processes as PREPA and the Puerto Rican government are. We think we have a competitive advantage, in that we have nearly 1,000 people and 600 pieces of equipment. So we think that as we go forward, we are looking forward to possibility of getting that RFP. We think it's -- we expect to be very competitive.

Okay, fair enough. And then, I don't know if this is for you, Arty, or maybe Mark, but this might be clumsily worded, but looking at the effective tax rate in Q1, do you guys have any, sort of, legal or contractual ability to mitigate your tax expense in Puerto Rico?

Yes, Daniel, I'll preface this by saying that the tax profile is complicated and there are a couple of factors impacting the effective tax rate inside of Q1. First, the effective tax rate is impacted by geography. The effective tax rate in Puerto Rico is approximately 45% and the net income before taxes was heavily weighted towards Puerto Rico in Q1. The second factor is that sequentially, the effective tax rate declined by approximately 9% when you consider that Q4 included approximately $31 million in provisional tax benefits related to the tax act. And then the final factor that is impacting the effective tax rate inside of Q1 is that there is a book-tax difference relating to the bad debt reserve of approximately $25 million that we took in Q1. All that being said, as you alluded to, on a go-forward basis, recall that we entered Puerto Rico on an emergency basis. So as we look forward to a reconstruction effort, we're evaluating alternatives relative to that tax structure to attempt to minimize our liability.

Okay. And then, I guess, I'll ask maybe just depends, 1 last question. I think you guys referred to the IMO low sulfur regulations. And I guess, this is more of an observation than a question, but then, I guess the question would be, I take it then as you look at 35 transactions and the opportunities that will present themselves to Mammoth, we shouldn't think of you all -- and I don't think you've encouraged this, but we shouldn't think of Mammoth as confined to sort of traditional OFS plus infrastructure in terms of the opportunity set you will evaluate. Is that fair?

Daniel, as always, we search for the best return on invested capital. We try to go to areas where there's geopolitical shifts or there's regulation shifts and things like that. IMO, of course, is International Maritime Organization. It's the governing body of the sea, and they are -- by 2020, they're going to lower sulfur content. We think that opens up some opportunities that we will explore. So I think your question about IMO is very timely.

Our next question comes from Tommy Moll from Stephens.

So I wanted to start on the oilfield service side. In Q1, like a lot of your peers, there were some transitory issues on the pressure pumping and -- for the pressure pumping and sand businesses. Sounds like in the cases where customers were using your vertically integrated platform, you were able to navigate those better than in cases where customers were self-sourcing their own sand. So if you could give us any more detail on that, it would be great. And then also if you can peer through the Q1 noise and give us a sense of the underlying fundamentals, particularly in terms of price for both of the business lines as we go into Q2, that would help a lot.

Well, let me start off by saying, Tommy, that our vertical integration model works as we talked about on the call. It's one of those type situations where, during Q1, where we were supplying the sand, we were supplying the logistics. We never did have downtime. We were able to pump all the way through that. Where customers supplied this -- their own sand and many of the E&Ps that we work for -- some of the E&Ps that we work for supplies their own sand, their own logistics, and we had to either postpone or completely cancel those frac jobs in Q1 because they could not get the sand to the destination, it wasn't available. So we feel like it worked. When you look at it from an overall basis, we effectively ran 4.7 fleets and it would be right at $14.8 million per fleet with our effective rate that we were running. But downtime, that was not avoidable from our customers' perspective was what lowered the number from 6 fleets to 4.7.

Yes. And any sense you can give us on what the macro looks like in pressure pumping and sand as we go into Q2?

On the macro -- yes, go ahead, sorry, Tommy.

I was just going to ask for any commentary on pricing trends.

On pricing trends, we continue to press price on the pumping side. We believe that the pumping market is still undersupplied. The impacts in Q1, as Arty mentioned, were largely due to weather and logistical issues that faced some of our customers. But going forward, we would expect both the utilization and price to increase on the pumping side. On the sand front, our sand production is currently sold out for the next 60 days, and we're seeing 40/70 spot market trades in the $55 to $60 range, FOB mine.

Let me add a little bit to that, just so you see where we're coming from. We are very bullish oil. We think that demand is going to remain strong. We've seen more reports in the last 2 weeks, including PIRA and some other folks, that are starting to talk about $80 to $100 oil. With that, one of the things you noticed from our -- the first portion of our call is that we are now active in the Permian Basin with one of our pressure pumping fleets. We expect to increase that as we go forward, and we pivot a little bit away from natural gas to the stronger bullish areas of oil. And we always said we would not go into the Permian unless we had a customer that would pull us in, and we have certainly found those customers.

If I could shift to Puerto Rico for a follow-up. We'll just wait to hear from you on the RFP for reconstruction, but in the meantime, I wanted to drill down on restoration. If you just look at how many folks have been -- have the lights turned on, it looks like we're most of the way through that phase, but I have to imagine that the grid is still pretty fragile at this point. I wonder if you could comment on any additional opportunities there might be to win work on the restoration side or if most of that's behind us?

Well, we -- there's still -- I mean about 96% of the customers in Puerto Rico have their electrical power back on. But there is still an awful lot of restoration work to go. And you can see how frail the system is, they've had a couple of blackouts in the last few weeks, and it's a very fragile system the way that it's set up. But the restoration work, most of the restoration work is tremendously, tremendously adverse conditions. You're in the mountains, you're in the hills, you're in the forest, you have to cut trees to it, so we expect it to go on through August at the paces that we are working now. So we feel like that's a very strong indicator that it will continue. Now let me -- one of the things that I do want to highlight that we'd like to talk about a little bit is the pivot from Puerto Rico to the Mainland. And our backlog went up substantially from $425 million to $500 million and one of the things that the Puerto Rican opportunity and work in the Northeast has given us is with the agreements -- mutual aid agreements that were in place. We were able to -- a lot of the IOUs came down to the island. They saw us work, they've got an example of it and our demand has shot up accordingly. Our demand remains extremely, extremely strong on the Mainland, and we continue to add additional contracts in that area on the Mainland.

Our next question comes from James Wicklund from Crédit Suisse.

Six quarters as a public company, time flies when you're having fun. Bad debt expense, it was I think $16 million in Q4, $25 million this quarter. Can you talk about was the bad debt expense is? And we frankly didn't have it in our model for Q1 because we didn't think it would repeat. And so after you explain what it is, will it repeat in Q2 and Q3 and Q4?

Yes, Jim, so you can see in the segment disclosure, a large percentage of that relates to our infrastructure segment. And we evaluate a number of factors when we establish a reserve, including the customer's ability to make payment, economic events and other factors. And we adjust that reserves as additional information becomes available. In regards to whether that continues into the remainder of 2018, we'll have to continue to evaluate those circumstances. It's a dynamic process and we have ongoing conversations with our customers. We feel hopeful that they will collect on the work we've performed. But we've got those reserves established relative to the customer's ability to make payment. We going into great depth inside of our risk factors relative to the credit profile with some of our customers. So that's probably a longer answer than what you wanted but those are the factors that go into the reserves.

No, no, that's good. Did you pull any of the reserves from Q4 out in Q1?

No, sir. The $16 million establish inside of Q4 is still reserved. So $41 million round numbers in total.

So Jim, the expectations would be that if we do end up getting paid, we would reverse out that total $41 million.

Okay. And you'd let us know what that was in the income statement when you do that so we can adjust for operating?

Absolutely.

Okay. The next question, Arty, you talk about the future opportunities and take away issues and differentials in the Permian. And I think that's right all the differential is, is a near-term overcharge that's solved by time and capital. But it made it sound like you weren't going to build pipelines, I could be wrong. Is our option for getting oil out of the Permian more by truck or more by pipeline or are there are other ways to solve differential take away problems in the Permian?

I think the pipeline constraints are with us for a while. If you look at them, a lot of the estimates show that they start to get fixed in '19, but they are not considering the ramp-up of continued oil reduction. So we try to go areas where we think we can create value. Obviously, we already have trucking operations and terminals and that type of thing, not for oil terminals, but for sand hauling and for our rig moving businesses. We already have some infrastructure there that would allow us to work on trucks and all that. We just try to see where the opportunities are and where we can make the best return on investment. We certainly are not telling you that, you never say never. But we're looking more at the trucking side of it, than we are the pipeline side.

Considering your track record of creating value in ways we don't expect, damned if I'm going to shoot at you.

Your next question comes from Jason Wangler from Imperial Capital.

Just wanted to follow-up a bit on maybe Jim's question, on just the M&A side. You talked about so many fields that you guys are looking at. How is the landscape, and maybe that's changing with what we've seen in oil prices so far this year. Have you seen any type of shift, and people more apt to do deals or is the price moving around a lot? Or just kind of how you're seeing that flavor as you get more visibility?

Jason, I had characterized it before. When the oil boom first started coming back, you saw a lot of opportunities, a lot of deals with very, very high expectations or hockey stick effect basically, that '18 they were going to shoot up 4 or 5x their EBITDA. We starting -- we're starting to see some of those come around for the second time with a more realistic evaluation. And we certainly try to take advantage of that. As you know we have a very, very strong M&A team. We evaluated 135 different acquisitions last year, settled on 6, that I would argue were pretty fantastic returns on invested capital form. In addition, we are currently looking at 35 different acquisitions right now. So we are on track to -- and we've always -- our story has always been about mergers and acquisitions and being an acquisitive company, and at the same time building organically. So we continue to believe that's the best way to grow.

Okay, I appreciate that. And then curious on the infrastructure, you talked a little bit about the backlog before and obviously, the U.S. side, looks like it's building up. Could you maybe just talk about the timeline, how some of that work and how you see that kind of falling from even a broad-based perspective, just when you're going to be ramping-up that side of the business?

Yes, absolutely. As you look at Q1, the majority of our CapEx was spent in the infrastructure segment, so we're building in some growth in the lower 48 in that segment. And I would expect as we continue to deploy capital into that segment throughout the year that you would see that backlog increase to correspond with the deployment of the CapEx.

Our original plan was $125 million. As you know, we think we'll generate free cash flow. And there's a lot of alternatives that we can do with that free cash flow, including the mergers and the acquisitions, additional investments in infrastructure, or it could be something that we return money to our shareholders. So we try to look at all value opportunities that we can create.

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Praveen Narra from Raymond James.

I guess just following up on the same line of question on North America. From what you've seen so far, can you talk about how the profitability of the North America Mainland business has performed relative to your expectations?

It's performed right in line with our expectations. And I think, Arty briefly touched on it earlier. But through the execution of the team, both in Puerto Rico as well as in the Northeast, and the visibility that's given to IOUs through the mutual aid network. We're seeing a bit of a shift inside of North America from the distribution side of work more towards the transmission side. So as that mix picks up and we get more transmission work in the lower 48, that has a positive impact on the margin in the lower 48, which we previously couched at 15% to 18%, but certainly some upside potential there as we pick up more transmission work in the lower 48.

Yes. We think our growth profile, Praveen, will be predominantly going forward in North America, and Mark touched on very strong subject of the transmission versus distribution and we continue to pick up a lot of that work. And of course, you know that we like the vertical integration and covering our inputs in those areas, so those create opportunities for us. On the oilfield services side, I can't say enough about the performance of our sand team, and what they did. To get sand through really, really tough conditions that had developed with the barges and Ohio River flooding as well as with the -- we got a call on Friday afternoon that CN was shutting us down and they were able to overcome that to keep our pressure pumping cruise going. So our vertical integration model works.

Perfect. I guess moving just for a second back to Puerto Rico. On the question about the ongoing RFP. How do you think about the capital intensity of that business, if you win an award down there? Should we think about that as relatively the same magnitude as what we've seen so far? Or is it less or more how do we consider that?

No, we -- certainly there would be some incremental capital for on a permanent basis to go out and do that, but we don't expect it to be. I think we're somewhere around and somewhere our thought process about $30 million on capital that we would need in an RFP situation. That would be additive to our plan. We've kind of done the modeling and everything to see what that would do. But we also believe that there's other opportunities including the vertical integrations. We created Cobra Aviation and we actually own helicopter assets, and we think that is a way to go as you move into the transition -- transmission business. Helicopters in Puerto Rico are extremely critical. We've been operating between 6 and 8 almost full-time for -- since we've been on the restoration mission.

Okay, great. And there's one quick one on the pressure pumping side. Just -- as Gulfport roll off in 3Q or at the end of 3Q, any expectation to relocate out of Appalachia or how do you think about those?

We've certainly seen demand in Appalachia and we have an excellent working relationship with Gulfport and have an ongoing dialogue with them in regards to those contracts, although we have nothing to announce at this time, in regards to an extension. But I think as Arty touched on earlier, we're bullish on oil, the equipment is mobile. So we've got the opportunity to relocate that equipment if we need to. And we've made a cognitive shift over the last 15 months to deploy more equipment towards the oil basins as opposed to natural gas basins.

And our last question comes from John Daniel from Simmons & Company.

I think I'll start with some follow-ups to Praveen's question. If -- on the frac contracts. If nothing else changes, Mark, in the market when they role in the spot pricing, do you envision this being accretive or dilutive to the segment?

We don't anticipate any negative impact on our financial results. Spot market pricing continues to increase, so we would expect some opportunity for it to be accretive to current results.

Okay.

We still think the market is undersupplied, John. And we haven't seen the returns yet. We got -- we think we have better opportunities with other returns than buying another frac spread at this point.

I think if memory serves correct, you said pricing would be blunt to go up, call it, 10% to 15% or you would consider ordering a new frac fleet. Given bullishness in oil, given the undersupply as you see it, do you think that, that 10% or 15% increase materializes this year?

We think so but we need to see a few more data points to firm that thesis up.

Fair enough. I guess the last one for me, the Puerto Rico contract, that gets the most questions from clients. And I know you've mentioned nothing formal to announce now but there's, I guess, the RFP process with respect to reconstruction. When would you expect to have any visibility on an outcome from that?

We think that something will come within the next 30 days. It's generally a very competitive long process, but we would hope -- it started actually in February time frame, and we would like to see -- we expect to see something in the next 30 days.

Great. And then, I guess, just the last one for me. I recognize you guys are going to employ a disciplined approach as you evaluate all of the M&A opportunities. But given such a large volume of potential deals out there, the 35 that you referenced. Is it safe to assume there is a fairly high probability something gets announced this year?

I think so. We -- our basic thesis has always been around -- something around acquisitions and organic growth and we would certainly hope so. Now again, the numbers were pretty daunting the last year, 135 different discrete acquisitions we looked at, we pulled the trigger on 6.

And this concludes today's Q&A session. I would now like to turn the call over for closing remarks to Arty Straehla.

Thank you. And we want to thank everyone for dialing in today, during this very busy time. I want to personally thank our team. Without the hard work performed by each of you, Mammoth would not be what it is today. In particular, I want to thank our infrastructure teams who have shown the utmost professionalism while working in a very challenging environment and to our sand group who went above and beyond what is expected to facilitate movement of sand during the challenges presented over the past few months. The future is bright for Mammoth, as our unlevered balance sheet will allow us to become an industry consolidator in the years to come.

We look forward to speaking with you again in early August, when we release our second quarter earnings. This concludes our first quarter conference call. Good day.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's program. You may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.