Arty Straehla
Analyst · Wunderlich. Your line is open
Thank you, Mark. Moving to Slide 5, you will see a snapshot of Stingray Pressure Pumping. Our expansion into the SCOOP/STACK has begun with the yard and transload secured. And as Mark stated earlier, a majority of the equipment ordered in November is now in our possession. We anticipate our fourth fleet to be fully operational and begin its first job on June 1 with a fifth fleet expected to begin operations in August. The sixth fleet remains on track for a Q4 startup likely in October. Our frac calendar in the Utica and Mid-Continent is fully booked into the fourth quarter. While our first job will be with Gulfport in the SCOOP, we have plans to work for several operators in the area and intend to operate these fleets in the spot market for the next several months. Discussions have begun with several operators on longer-term agreements for 2018. So far in 2017, the industry has added 217 land rigs, which in our opinion has created the need for an additional 79 high pressure pumping fleets or roughly 3.5 million horsepower. In total, we believe current industry demand is roughly 11 million to 12 million horsepower based on the current land rig and growing. When you compare this to the current estimated working capacity of roughly 11 million, you can see why we and our peers believe pricing continues to see upward pressure. Some industry analysts are projecting a rig count of between 1000 to 1100 rigs operated by the end of 2018. This would equate to the need for up to 18 million horsepower by late 2018. If this comes to bear, there could be a significant shortage of horsepower in the market. While these are just estimates, the inbound calls and discussions we are having with our customers leads us to believe that there remains a shortage of horsepower in the industry, despite the recent reactivations. One other dynamic that is occurring today is the shift to higher sand concentrations and the pump times required to place the sand in the wellbore. The majority of current jobs require roughly 500,000 pounds of sand per stage, up from an average of approximately 275,000 pounds per stage in 2016. This shift has required us to increase our average pump time to approximately 2.2 hours, which is up from approximately 1.3 hours during 2016. The increase in pump time is, in effect, creating additional demand for horsepower as the intensity of completions continues to rise. Given where we see the current frac market and the effect of the shift to higher sand concentrations, we see the potential for continued upward pressure on pricing as we move during 2017 and into 2018. Current frac pricing is approximately 25% to 30% above the lows experienced in the third quarter of 2016 and targets EBITDA margins in the mid to high 20% range. Moving to Slide 6, we give you a snapshot of our sand division. The acquisitions of Taylor Frac and Piranha will be transformational events for Mammoth. These acquisitions are strategic as they will add sand reserves to the Mammoth portfolio and provide direct support to our pressure pumping fleets. Once they are completed, we will not only be able to fully supply the needs of our six high-pressure fleets, but we will also have roughly 2 million tons of sand available to be sold into the spot market once the Taylor expansion is completed and Piranha is fully operational. Starting with Taylor, we are working through the closing process with the expectations of closing the transaction in late Q2. The capacity expansion of the plant to 1.75 million tons per year has begun and is expected to be completed by year-end. Given that we have been managing the business for several years now, the transfer of operator is expected to be seamless. Moving to Piranha, this asset acquisition will give us access to the Union Pacific Railway with unit train capabilities on site. This will allow for a low cost solution to transport sand into the Mid Continent and Texas markets in direct support of our pressure pumping expansion in the area. We are actively working towards closing this transaction in the next 30 to 45 days. Once closed, we will begin the process for restarting both the wet and dry plants over the coming months. The Piranha facility has been shuttered for approximately six months, and it will take some time to restart the operations and begin selling sand. As you can see in the top right graph, we expect minimum volumes to be sold from the Piranha plant in the back half of 2017 with a steady ramp up to full capacity throughout 2018. The demand for sand, especially 40/70, remains strong with our volumes completely sold out for the next 60 days. As you can see from the charts on the lower portion of the page, we delivered approximately 228,000 tons of sand during the first quarter of 2017 through Muskie, of which 55% was sold to Gulfport. The average sales price for the sand sold during the first quarter was $35.18 per ton, up roughly 24% quarter over quarter and up more than 80% from the lows set in Q3 of 2016. Current pricing for 40/70 is approximately $43 to $45 per ton. Due to increased sand prices, the arbitrage we exploited through 2016 by brokering sand has narrowed considerably. With the acquisitions and startup of Muskie, we feel that the brokering of sand would become much smaller going forward than it was in the past. Moving on to our contract drilling business on slide 7, the rig market continues to tighten especially in West Texas. This is driving rig rates for all rigs higher as can be seen by our average day rate rising to 14,400 per day in the first quarter, which is up 18% from the lows experienced during the third quarter of 2016. On average we operated four rigs throughout the quarter as we upgraded two of our rigs with walking systems and high pressure fluid ends to make them more competitive in today’s market. The volume of inbound calls remains high with five rigs working today and a sixth horizontal rig expected to begin operating in the coming weeks. In addition, we anticipate putting one of our vertical rigs back to work, drilling some salt water disposal wells into next month. We will continue to monitor the market and make selectively upgrade -- and may selectively upgrade additional rigs in the future if there is demand. Finally, if you turn to slide 8, let me provide a summation. We had a busy first quarter with the announced acquisitions of four separate businesses to further integrate our service offerings. The acquisition of both Taylor Frac and Piranha is expected to eliminate a potential bottleneck, which some of our competitors are already feeling. By internally providing the sand requirements for our own pressure pumping fleets, we’ll capture any further appreciations in sand pricing, while providing our customers with the peace of mind that their wells will be completed in a timely manner. Our initial expansion into the SCOOP/STACK is nearly complete with the final equipment for our fourth fleet expected to be delivered in the coming weeks and our first frac job scheduled for June 1. After months of planning, we are excited with this expansion and look forward to further existing relationships in the area and establishing new ones. I would be remiss if I did not mention our balance sheet. At the end of the quarter, we had approximately $156 million of liquidity, including $12 million of cash on hand and a fully undrawn revolver. While we expect to dip into our revolver throughout the year to finance our planned expansions, we intend to remain conservative and see the potential for significant free cash flow as we move into 2018. The significant increase in the land rig count so far this year has created incremental demand for both pressure pumping and sand. We continue to believe that the full effect of the increased drilling activity has not been fully realized with the pressure pumping market, which is in our opinion just slightly undersupplied. We believe the best indicator for this is frac calendar availability, which is booked solid into the fourth quarter with inbound calls for 2018 and work increasing from both existing and new customers. In addition, the higher sand concentrations per well and longer pump times required to place the sand in the wellbore are causing a shift in pumping requirements and, in fact, creating additional demand for the existing operating fleets. Looking forward, all these factors should continue to put upward pressure on pricing for the remainder of 2017 and throughout 2018. This concludes our prepared remarks. Thank you for your time and attention. We will now open the call up for questions.