WaterBridge Infrastructure LLC (WBI) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the WaterBridge's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Mae Herrington, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining WaterBridge's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. I'm joined today by our Chief Executive Officer, Jason Long; our Chief Operating Officer, Michael Chop Reitz; and our Chief Financial Officer, Scott McNeely. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that in this call and the related presentation, we will make forward-looking statements regarding our current beliefs, plans and expectations, which are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from results and events contemplated by such forward-looking statements. You're cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Please refer to the risk factors and other cautionary statements included in our filings with the SEC. I would also like to point out that our investor presentation and today's conference call will contain discussions of non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are useful in evaluating our performance. These supplemental measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release and the appendix of today's accompanying presentation. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Jason Long.

Thanks, Mae, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to announce that we delivered another strong quarter, achieving record revenues and adjusted EBITDA. Our results were driven by organic growth across our core business, underpinned by WaterBridge's unique ability to handle and recycle the rising volumes of produced water across our scaled integrated network. We were able to monetize strong commercial demand for access to our existing infrastructure, especially along the Stateline where pore pressure constraints are limiting injection capacity. In addition to our organic growth and strong commercial execution, we also announced a number of accretive transactions that strengthen our position across the Delaware Basin. First, we closed the acquisition of Ranger Water Midstream. The acquisition increases our capacity in the highly active and disposal-constrained Lea County in New Mexico. The acquisition includes disposal wells with approximately 70,000 barrels per day of total permitted capacity, approximately 30 miles of produced water gathering pipelines, a water treatment facility with up to 100,000 barrels per day of capacity and 1.2 million barrels of storage capacity. The acquired infrastructure is adjacent to Speedway, creating meaningful opportunities for future integration, additional throughput and enhanced operational flexibility for both new and existing customers. With established contracts and acreage dedications with blue-chip producers already in place, we anticipate Ranger will be immediately accretive and a strong tailwind to WaterBridge's increasing market share in the region. We also announced 2 new investments that will allow us to significantly expand our synergistic environmental waste management business. First, we entered into an agreement to acquire the NDB Landfill in Lea County, expanding our waste management footprint into new markets across New Mexico. The 560-acre NDB Landfill is a large oilfield waste facility with 44 million cubic yards of permitted capacity with open capacity currently representing more than 40 years of future volumes. This acquisition provides us with a large scalable platform for growth in a region of high E&P activity. Additionally, our Board has approved the organic construction of a 280-acre environmental waste management facility in the Stateline region, which will be our fourth site in the basin. Construction is expected to begin in the third quarter with an anticipated in-service date of mid-2027. This project represents a high-return opportunity to construct an additional landfill facility with an approximately 2-year capital payback period expected. Once completed, the facility will significantly expand our integrated waste management capabilities in the region and create operational efficiencies for our core water business through reduced waste hauling costs. Together, these 2 waste management transactions are expected to double our total facility count and more than double our permitted waste handling capacity in the Delaware Basin. Overall, each of these acquisitions and investments reflect our disciplined approach to capital allocation. They provide attractive stand-alone returns, support the economics of our existing water infrastructure assets and support market share growth through new and existing customer relationships. As a result of these accretive acquisitions as well as a number of new or accelerated commercial capital projects expected in the second half of this year, we have increased our 2026 guidance, raising volume and adjusted EBITDA guidance for the second quarter in a row and raising capital expenditures guidance as we capitalize on compelling opportunities. Scott will provide further details on the increases in his remarks. I'd like to now turn the call over to Chop Reitz.

Thanks, Jason. Operational performance was strong across the platform in the second quarter, and I'm happy to announce that Speedway Phase 1 launched on schedule with first volumes coming online in July as expected. Speedway is one of our most important near-term growth projects. It connects growing produced water volumes in Lea and Eddy County to long-term out-of-basin disposal capacity, supported by our infrastructure network and our access to vast pore space through LandBridge. We expect volumes to continue ramping through the second half of the year, adding high-margin volume growth for this year and beyond. Momentum behind Speedway Phase 2 continues to build. Customer demand for the second phase has been robust, which is consistent with what we shared last quarter, and our commercial and operational discussions are advancing towards underwriting the project, a milestone that we hope to share very soon. Customer activity remains strong across the footprint, reflected in our volume and revenue performance this quarter. Operators are prioritizing development in areas where WaterBridge has meaningful infrastructure density, particularly in New Mexico, subsequently driving demand for access to our out-of-basin and Stateline disposal assets. WaterBridge offers responsible long-term disposal solutions in a Stateline ecosystem where capacity is shrinking due to pore pressure limitations. And that dynamic is already creating new growth opportunities for us in the near term. Part of the increase to our CapEx guidance this year comes from a number of commercially driven new build and bolt-on infrastructure projects across our footprint. These smaller projects are a strong signal of growing customer demand for our network, and they're a very attractive use of capital alongside larger organic projects like Speedway, delivering build multiples of 5x or better. We're also building momentum in '27 by accelerating construction on the previously announced New Devon project, which moves up its in-service date. This pipeline will transport volumes from New Mexico to low-pressure LandBridge-owned pore space in Loving and Winkler counties. By accelerating it, we expect to shift growth from this project into early '27. It's a good example of how we direct capital toward highest return opportunities as they develop, and it's one of the reasons behind our increased capital plan. Another way we're supporting high activity levels in the Northern Delaware Basin is through the acquisition of Ranger. Beyond the immediate contribution from existing assets and contracted volumes, Ranger is highly complementary to our Speedway Phase 1 and anticipated Phase 2 infrastructure. In the second half of the year, we plan to invest in connecting Ranger and Speedway, which will fully unlock the operational advantages of the acquired infrastructure. Once they're connected, we'll have even more flexibility to enable recycling and treated water supply, and we'll be well positioned to maximize throughput as customer development continues across the region. Our recent investments in our environmental waste management business are a complementary growth driver that adds value to our core business. The NDB Landfill acquisition delivers immediate high-margin revenue upside and the construction of a fourth solids facility along the Stateline is an attractive opportunity to grow our business with high return on capital revenue realization beginning in '27. Looking out further, WaterBridge is uniquely positioned to participate in the digital infrastructure opportunity rapidly developing across the Delaware Basin. This is where our operating model and our partnership with LandBridge really sets us apart, positioning WaterBridge to move beyond traditional oil and gas enablement by potentially serving as a full-scale utility partner to hyperscalers. This opportunity is a direct result of the scale of our infrastructure in place today. We have access to large and growing produced water volumes, approximately 5 million barrels a day of handling capacity in the Delaware Basin with roughly 2.6 million barrels a day of total active volumes in the second quarter. Through our partnership with LandBridge, we're also well positioned to be an infrastructure partner for brackish water supply with access to approximately 13.4 million acre-feet, which satisfies multi-gigawatt scale data center water needs almost indefinitely. Our integrated network connects those resources directly to the high-demand growth centers and industrial corridors where the digital infrastructure is taking shape. And because we manage the entire water life cycle, backed by more than a decade of disposal expertise, we can supply data center water needs for cooling, then recycle and dispose of the liquid and solid waste products. That full-cycle capability from supply through disposal is critical for data center operations and the scale of infrastructure required gives WaterBridge a distinct advantage over its competitors. From near-term projects like Speedway and the New Devon project to longer term opportunities in digital infrastructure, we've never had more attractive high-return growth in front of us. And with that, I'll hand it over to Scott to walk you through the quarter's financial results.

Thank you, Chop, and good morning, everyone. We reported strong second quarter results, capping off significant growth for the first half of the year. As Jason referenced, we are raising our full year 2026 guidance and now expect full year volumes of 2.55 million to 2.75 million barrels per day and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $435 million to $475 million due to the expected second half impacts of the Ranger and NDB Landfill acquisitions. We are also raising our CapEx guidance by $100 million to a range of $530 million to $590 million, reflective of the planned investments in Ranger, construction of a new landfill facility in the Stateline region, acceleration of the New Devon project and other commercially driven new build and bolt-on infrastructure projects. Importantly, every incremental project in our forecast meets or exceeds our capital allocation criteria, featuring build multiples below 5x, long-term contracts, creditworthy counterparties and the ability to fund them while maintaining the strength of our balance sheet. In Q2, we delivered record revenue of $217.8 million, representing 8% sequential growth. The increase was primarily driven by higher produced water volumes and higher rates on contracts that became operational during the quarter. As you know, our contracts are primarily longer term with minimal volumes. Net income was $14.6 million compared to $9.5 million in the first quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $115.8 million, up from $102.9 million in the first quarter, representing approximately 12% sequential growth. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 53%, reflecting the benefits of higher throughput, the scalability of our infrastructure base and continued operating discipline across the platform. Adjusted operating margin was $124.1 million, up from $111.3 million in the first quarter, and gross margin improved sequentially to $58.1 million from $48.2 million in Q1. Capital expenditures were $123.3 million during the quarter. Spending was primarily driven by the Speedway build-out and ongoing Stateline infrastructure development. We ended the quarter with total liquidity of $347.6 million, including $47.6 million of cash and approximately $300 million of available borrowing capacity under our revolving credit facility. Total debt was $1.636 billion, and our covenant net leverage ratio was 3.3x. We remain committed to our long-term leverage target of sub 3x. Subsequent to quarter end, we took steps to increase our liquidity by expanding our revolving credit borrowing base. We amended our revolving credit facility, increasing commitments from $500 million to $750 million with the ability to grow it further to as much as $1 billion, and we reduced our borrowing cost by 25 basis points across the pricing grid. That gives us even more flexibility to fund our high-return capital program while staying within our leverage targets. WaterBridge maintains a disciplined capital allocation framework, empowering the company to strategically deploy capital and execute on our fiscal priorities, which include: first, driving organic growth across our infrastructure network alongside accretive acquisitions such as Ranger and NDB Landfill. Second, maintaining a conservative balance sheet and prudent capital structure that maximizes financial flexibility and contributes to our long-term leverage target. And third, opportunistically returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. This quarter, we announced a dividend of $0.05 per share. To close, our results this quarter reflect the business with real operating leverage, a disciplined approach to capital and a balance sheet built to fund growth. A 53% adjusted EBITDA margin, a second straight guidance raise, an upsized revolver and a dividend all point to the same thing: durable, high-return growth that continues to reward shareholders. We are confident in the path ahead. Thank you for joining today. Operator, can you please open the line for questions?

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Derrick Whitfield with Texas Capital.

Congrats on the quarter and your acquisitions. Wanted to start with the landfill acquisition and your organic landfill opportunity in the Stateline area. Could you speak to why you chose to buy versus build in New Mexico and also the kind of broader growth opportunity you see for solid waste over the next few years across the Delaware and perhaps ending with just how you see the convergence in value between water and solid waste streams?

Yes. Thanks for the question, Derrick. As a reminder, we had about 5% of our business at IPO through Desert Environmental, which was environmental waste management. At the time, we had flagged that business line as very promising, but we hadn't contemplated any meaningful growth. But ultimately, today, we see a lot of the same fundamentals that drive our core produced water business driving waste management. So a mix of overlapping customers, the criticality of surface control, a meaningful permitting and regulatory components serving as a competitive moat and that long-term criticality to the Delaware Basin operators, all of which are driving water is also driving the need for a good waste management solution. And so it was a real -- it was a natural step--out for us as we look to other ways to kind of intelligently grow but stick with our core strategy and our core operations. Coming out of this, we will be at about 10% of our business at waste management. So by no means a meaningful ramp-up, but we think a step in the right direction here. And to add just kind of a couple of other points of additional context, and I think relevant to your questions. First, WaterBridge itself actually generates a meaningful amount of solid waste as part of its operations. So as we look to build and scale our infrastructure on the water handling side along the Stateline, there is going to be waste byproducts that come with that. And so establishing a foothold for waste management in Lea County, which is the core of the oil and gas activity as we see it here for the foreseeable future and adjacent to our infrastructure allows us not just to capture third parties, but also keep our cost structure at WaterBridge tight and margins attractive. So a real vertical integration story and one that we think is additive. And then lastly, to address your view on valuations, I mean, we've said from the onset that there are just so many parallels with the waste management thesis and the water handling thesis. And it goes back to a lot of those same fundamentals that I mentioned earlier, primarily the criticality of geography of surface control and of regulatory footprint and a regulatory dynamic. And so from our seat, they're really -- because of those competitive moats, there wasn't an opportunity to work through the organic build-out in New Mexico like we had in the fourth site in Texas. And so it made stepping into this acquisition make all of the sense at the time. And so as we kind of see it coming together, see waste management growing as a part of our business at WaterBridge, obviously, we're excited for all the reasons I just mentioned. But I mean, I would finalize by flagging the market has already seen a lot of this already work out very positively. And I'd refer you to SECURE Waste acquisition by GFL Environmental earlier this year as a meaningful premium. And for those of you who aren't familiar with SECURE Waste, a similar, call it, Canadian analog to WaterBridge in which they handle both produced water and solid waste, and it worked out fantastic for them. And so while that serves as a helpful data point, it's certainly not the only reason we're doing this, but we are excited about it. We're able to work through this growth at both from an acquisition standpoint as well as an organic standpoint that competes with or is not better than what we're seeing from a return perspective on produced water.

Extremely helpful. And as my follow-up, I wanted to focus on the Ranger Water Midstream acquisition. Its fit and value are very clear as shown on Slides 8 and 9. But as we think about the sizing of Project Speedway Phase 2, could you elaborate on the impact this acquisition could have on total throughput as you're closing in on your FID decision?

Yes. Thanks for the question. It's a really complementary set of assets and comes with a new set of customers as well. So we do think that it could add volumes to the Speedway system as it grows, but we'll remind you that we're not going to overcommit our firm capacity on that pipeline system. So yes, we do have the ability to utilize both the Ranger assets for overflow from Speedway as well as the Speedway system for overflow from the Ranger contracts.

Yes. I would just add, Ranger, similar to the landfill acquisition we're working through, 18- to 24-month time frame, we expect that to be competitive with, if not better than the 5x investment multiple we seek to achieve on organic growth projects. And so we've said historically, we'll be judicious around M&A, but it has to compete for our capital against the attractive returns we're seeing organically and both of these acquisitions certainly fit that mold.

Your next question comes from the line of Jackie Koletas with Goldman Sachs.

First, just wanted to touch a little bit again on the waste management business. I mean, so is there appetite for further waste management investments from here? Are there -- or are there incremental opportunities for you to grow this further in the near term? And how do those returns compare to the water opportunities across your footprint? From a margin perspective, how would you potentially square the difference between those 2 businesses?

Jackie, we will continue to look at acquisition opportunities. I think for waste management, very similar to our water infrastructure, we need to ensure that it meets our underwriting thresholds. We need to ensure that it's not cannibalizing an opportunity set or a business line that we can either service via the infrastructure we have in place today or that we can tackle through organic growth. I mentioned in my answer to Derrick that there are very real competitive moats that exist here, the regulatory piece being the big one that sometimes prohibits our ability to work through an organic growth project, which drives the need for acquisitions like we're seeing here. But no, we will continue to evaluate these. We think the demand for these types of facilities is only going to increase. And we'll have to constantly look at just the evolving landscape to see how that need kind of moves. From a returns perspective, very similar to water infrastructure, we'd always prefer to do it organically if we could. We spoke in the prepared remarks as well as in the deck that the returns on the organic build-out here eclipse even what we see on the water side. And so that Stateline opportunity on build-out that we're going to be working through, we expect a 2-year payback on the capital needed for that facility. And so incredibly attractive returns on capital. And then kind of once those facilities are online, a margin profile that is either equivalent to or slightly improved compared to what we see on the free water handling piece of the business.

That's helpful color. I appreciate it. And just as a follow-up, touching a little bit more on your data center opportunities. Water security is rapidly emerging as a critical gating item for data center development. In your discussions with potential hyperscaler customers, how high of a priority is securing long-term water solutions? Could treated produced water help support a water positive narrative for these companies required to meet ESG mandates? And how do you see commercial demand for water treatment evolving as a result?

Yes. I'll start, and then I'll turn it over to Chop for any follow-up remarks. But ultimately, water is critical for both enabling operations and keeping operations online once they're up and running. So these have been active discussions with virtually all the counterparties we're working through on the LandBridge side, but also some incremental counterparties that are called WaterBridge specific. Now ultimately, what we're looking to deploy here is not the kind of water that the municipalities necessarily need. It is non-potable brackish or treated produced water like I mentioned. And so a real value proposition in terms of, one, being able to access the water, the brackish water resource that LandBridge has today and use that in the near term. But second, and what I think is really exciting is this potential to treat produced water and deploy that for cooling for both power as well as for digital infrastructure. And I would say with where we sit at the moment, we have incredibly high confidence in both the operational and the commercial viability of deploying treated produced water for cooling. And at the moment, we're working with both local state as well as national level officials on effectively defining the regulatory framework that is going to allow us to do that. And we've got buy-in from blue-chip counterparties as part of those efforts. And so it's a very exciting point for us on the WaterBridge side. We think that there's going to be some very -- I would call it definitive, but very optimistic news that we can share with the public in the back half of the year, if not more imminently to put a little better framework out there for everyone to understand. And Chop, anything you'd add to that?

You said it pretty well. But -- yes, I would just add that we do have the scale of brackish water supply and access to that brackish water supply to, as we mentioned, supply these multi-gigawatt data centers for a very, very long time. But what we think is really the holy grail is being able to take this waste byproduct, which is produced water and convert that to a usable industrial supply water. And we think it's real, and we think that we have probably the best opportunity to do so because of our infrastructure in place today, we can aggregate a lot of water into one single point, which is really hard to replicate. And that's really what these data centers need is the assurance that they have not only enough supply from the brackish side, but enough supply from the produced side, and that's really what we can offer.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Michael Furrow with Pickering Energy Partners.

Based on the updated produced water handling guidance range, the upper end of the range implies a meaningful ramp in volumes over the next 2 quarters, which I think you guys said in the prepared remarks. So what would you need to see in order to bring the lower half of guidance into play based on what you're seeing on the current ramp of Speedway and other projects? Is that sort of dependent on a meaningful pullback in drilling activity?

Michael, yes, that's exactly right. I mean I think with where we're at today, it's a very low likelihood. But if we saw a black swan event and kind of commodity prices pivot to the negative and drilling activity falls, I think that becomes a risk, and we just want to be honest about that. But ultimately, we're very much focused on stepping out with, call it, conservative guidance. And I would say it's going to take something pretty outsized for that bottom half to really be a meaningfully call it potential outcome here.

Yes. That makes a lot of sense. And as a follow-up, just staying with the Northern Delaware Basin landfill. We're trying to get a better understanding of the unit economics. So looking at Slide 8, the deck discloses 44 million cubic yards of capacity that represents 40 years of solid waste handling capacity. So the rough math would suggest something like 1 million cubic yards per year. From what we can find, a waste management facility can often collect somewhere between $25 to $30 a cubic yard, but of course, that's dependent upon a multitude of factors. So from your perspective, does that sound like the right ballpark for the acquired facility?

That's ultimately going to be conservative. I would say the all-in figures, if you were to work through the framework you just laid out are going to be higher. You're probably looking closer to $40 to $45 all in if you were looking for a simple way to model it.

Our final question will come from the line of Don Crist with Johnson Rice.

I wanted to talk about Speedway. I know you said it's taking volumes now and it's going to ramp up as we go into the back half of the year. But I also wanted to ask about Speedway 2 and the time line of sanctioning and kind of inflationary factors there. Just any comments around, number one, the ramp-up of Speedway 1, but the progress of Speedway 2 as we move forward?

Yes. Thanks, Don. I'll take that and then Scott can follow up. But Speedway Phase 1 is online. The team did a really great job getting prepared for bringing that system online. And so we're being thoughtful about how we ramp that system to really learn how it operates and prevent any kind of issues and potential downtime in the future. So we will ramp over the next couple of months up to around 100,000 barrels a day and hope to exit the year well above that. As far as Speedway 2 goes, the commercial conversations are going great. But as you can appreciate, with the quality of counterparties and sophisticated counterparties that we're working with, contracting takes time. And so that's what we're working through right now.

Okay. But you would still expect to have something sanctioned probably by year-end. I don't want to pin you down to a time frame, but is that the right time frame to think of?

Yes, we think so.

Yes, potentially imminent, but back half of this year, we have a high degree of confidence in.

Okay. And if I could squeeze in one more. Just on customer activity going forward. We've seen a bunch of rigs being added to the rig count, but we haven't seen a lot of completion crews and it's our analyst contention that there's going to be a whole lot more activity as we move into '27. Are you -- I know you're early in the process when these guys are planning. Are you seeing increased activity as we move into '27 from kind of the bigger guys? I know we've seen a little bit from the smaller guys to date, but are you seeing increased activity as we move into '27 from the bigger operators out there?

Yes, I think that's a good way to look at it. I mean there's been several public statements made through the course of the last 6 months that if the forward strip into '27 kind of hit or exceeded the mid-70s, you would see a more aggressive hedge program put in place and greater activity in '27 and certainly what was contemplated stepping out of '25 in a much softer commodity price environment. And so no one has come to us and kind of formally firmed up their '27 programs yet, although we expect to start getting that here pretty soon. But I think generally speaking, we expect a much more constructive year next year than certainly what we were expecting at the beginning of this year. But even I would say, over the course of the last few months, we've seen it evolve to the positive.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Scott McNeely for closing remarks.

Yes. Thanks again to everyone for joining us today. We appreciate your ongoing focus on WaterBridge. Again, we're very excited stepping out of the quarter with both the acquisitions as well as just the operational momentum we have stepping into the back half of this year. Again, just so much opportunity ahead of us in a number of different business lines, and we're really excited to circle back and give you all more updates here as they materialize. But thanks again. We hope you all have a good day.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.