NYSE:KGS Kodiak Gas Services Q1 2024 Earnings Report $71.60 +0.71 (+0.99%) Closing price 03:59 PM EasternExtended Trading$70.70 -0.91 (-1.26%) As of 07:58 PM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Massive. Learn more. ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast Kodiak Gas Services EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.39Consensus EPS $0.36Beat/MissBeat by +$0.03One Year Ago EPSN/AKodiak Gas Services Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$215.50 millionExpected Revenue$220.55 millionBeat/MissMissed by -$5.05 millionYoY Revenue Growth+13.40%Kodiak Gas Services Announcement DetailsQuarterQ1 2024Date5/8/2024TimeAfter Market ClosesConference Call DateThursday, May 9, 2024Conference Call Time11:00AM ETUpcoming EarningsKodiak Gas Services' Q1 2026 earnings is scheduled for Monday, May 11, 2026, with a conference call scheduled at 11:00 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Q1 2026 Earnings ReportConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfilePowered by Kodiak Gas Services Q1 2024 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrMay 9, 2024 ShareLink copied to clipboard.Key Takeaways Kodiak delivered a record first-quarter with adjusted EBITDA of $118 million, up 11% year-over-year, while maintaining 99.8% horsepower utilization. The closing of the CSI acquisition creates the largest contract compression fleet with over 4.4 million horsepower and underpins updated 2024 adjusted EBITDA guidance of C$580 million–C$610 million. Revenue-generating horsepower grew by over 26,000 in Q1 and the company is now fully contracted through Q3 2025, focusing on large horsepower in liquids-rich basins like the Permian and Eagle Ford. Management cites a long-term natural gas demand boost—driven by new LNG export capacity, Mexico exports, and AI-related power growth—that could drive a 20% increase in U.S. gas demand by 2030. Pro forma debt stands at approximately $2.6 billion with a leverage ratio near 4× and an ambition to reach 3.5× by end-2025, while maintaining a quarterly dividend of $0.38 per share. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallKodiak Gas Services Q1 202400:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xTranscript SectionsPresentationParticipantsPresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Greetings and welcome to the Kodiak Gas Services First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance at the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Graham Sones, Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead. Graham SonesVP of Investor Relations at Kodiak Gas Services00:00:27Good morning. We appreciate you joining us for the Kodiak Gas Services conference call and webcast to review first quarter 2024 results. Participating from the company today are Mickey McKee, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Griggs, Chief Financial Officer. Following my remarks, Mickey and John will provide high-level commentary on the company, our first quarter financial results, and our updated 2024 outlook before opening the call for Q&A. Before I turn the call over to Mickey, I have a few housekeeping items to cover. There will be a replay of today's call available via webcast and also by phone until May 16, 2024. Information on how to access the replay can be found on the Investors tab of our website at kodiakgas.com. Graham SonesVP of Investor Relations at Kodiak Gas Services00:01:13Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, May 9, 2024, and therefore you're advised that such information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay listening or transcript reading. The comments made by management during this call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of United States federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements reflect the current views, beliefs, and assumptions of Kodiak's management based on information currently available. Although we believe the expectations referenced in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, various risks, uncertainties, and contingencies could cause the company's actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in the statements made by management, and management can give no assurance that such statements or expectations will prove to be correct. The comments today will also include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Graham SonesVP of Investor Relations at Kodiak Gas Services00:02:06Additional details and reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in yesterday's earnings release, which can be found on our website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Kodiak CEO, Mr. Mickey McKee. Mickey? Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:02:21Thanks, Graham, and thank you for joining us today. Let me get started by welcoming all the talented and dedicated CSI employees to the Kodiak family. By joining our team, each of you are contributing to Kodiak's increased scale and scope of service offerings to our customers and helping further expand our industry-leading footprint in key operating areas like the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale. I would also like to thank all of our Kodiak employees who have worked tirelessly on integration planning and execution while simultaneously staying focused on our ongoing business, which produced record adjusted EBITDA for yet another consecutive quarter. Extraordinary execution by an extraordinary workforce. We are now more than a month into the integration process with CSI and are extremely pleased with how the process is going. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:03:14As I have previously stated, we are very confident in our ability to deliver upon significant synergies provided by this combination, which will drive incremental value for our combined shareholder base. We are updating our guidance for the year and are very excited to announce revised adjusted EBITDA guidance of $580 million-$610 million. This reflects a full year of Kodiak's contribution, three quarters of CSI's contribution, and anticipated synergies we expect to realize throughout the rest of the year. John will discuss acquisition synergies further in his remarks, along with providing first quarter highlights and reviewing our outlook in more detail. So let's jump into it. Our first quarter results came in better than expected while maintaining our industry-leading horsepower utilization at 99.8%. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:04:09In addition to record-setting adjusted EBITDA contributions of $118 million for the quarter, up 11% versus the prior year period, we continued to strategically grow our large horsepower Permian-focused fleet, increasing revenue-generating horsepower by over 26,000 horsepower in Q1. We also paid another quarterly well-covered dividend with a compelling yield, reinforcing our commitment to returning capital to shareholders consistent with our previously discussed capital allocation strategy, targeting a 3.5x leverage by the end of 2025. But as you might imagine, I am even more excited for the future due to the step change we've made at Kodiak by becoming the largest contract compression provider in the industry with over 4.4 million horsepower. We are still in the early days following the close of the CSI acquisition and are in the evaluation phase of determining if there are small non-core assets that we could or should sell. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:05:19Our strategy of focusing on large horsepower in liquids-rich associated gas basins has not changed, and the majority of the horsepower acquired in the transaction continues to fit that strategic growth profile. This increase in that strategic horsepower is extremely attractive given the long-term bullish outlook for natural gas compression and the tight supply, as reflected by our industry-leading utilization level of 99.8%. As we have previously discussed, Kodiak is fully contracted on our 2024 new unit deliveries, including CSI new unit deliveries, and we are now fully contracted through the first three quarters of 2025. When we couple that contracted growth with our leading position in the Permian Basin, the addition of CSI's more than 600,000 horsepower of large horsepower compressors, the result is a dominant position in the most prolific oil and gas-producing regions in the United States. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:06:23As many of our peers have recently discussed, the U.S. is poised to see a step change in natural gas demand as numerous factors are shaping up to lay the foundation for a multi-year period of above-average growth. The next wave of U.S. Gulf Coast LNG export capacity is expected to become operational soon, with the first project slated to start up in the fourth quarter of this year. Natural gas exports to Mexico are set to increase at a faster rate over the next several years. Lastly, we are expecting to see exponential growth in power demand due to the proliferation of A.I. and data center technology, which will largely have to be sourced from natural gas-fired power generation. In total, we are seeing estimates that are calling for as much as a 20% increase in natural gas demand by 2030. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:07:18The Permian is strategically positioned to meet this incremental demand and supply the U.S. and the world with clean, reliable, and cheap fuel to power energy security while reducing worldwide emissions and energy poverty. However, in order to achieve this, there will need to be a large increase in horsepower compression capacity. Given the historical relationship between compression horsepower and domestic natural gas production, that much incremental demand would require more horsepower than the current combined fleets of Kodiak, Archrock, and USA Compression, which took decades to build. Combined with the well-documented supply and demand macro trends for our industry, we believe Kodiak is well-positioned to be the critical compression infrastructure partner of choice. Our focus on customers and employees, industry-leading mechanical availability and utilization, and our market position will be instrumental to meet this expected demand. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:08:27Now I'll pass the call on to John Griggs to review first quarter financial highlights and discuss our updated outlook. John? John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:08:34Thanks, Mickey. Here's the key takeaway. First quarter Kodiak results came in better than expected, and we're optimistic about steady, profitable growth in 2024 and beyond. That said, let me now highlight a few aspects of our first quarter standalone results. Total revenues were just under $216 million, up 13% compared to the first quarter of 2023. The increase in revenues was driven by year-over-year growth in both of our operating segments. Adjusted EBITDA was $118 million, up over 3% from Q4 and nearly 11% compared to the same quarter of last year. Looking at our segments, compression operations revenues for the quarter were $193 million, up 2% and 9% when compared to the fourth quarter and the same quarter a year ago, respectively. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:09:27The top-line growth was driven by a combination of higher pricing on the incumbent fleet as the tight market has allowed us to recontract at higher rates, as well as an increase in our overall revenue-generating horsepower from fleet additions. Revenue-generating horsepower increased by over 26,000 sequentially and 116,000 year-over-year. Compression operations adjusted gross margin percentage was just shy of 66%, which is the high end of our guidance range. In our other services segment, revenues were $22 million in the first quarter of 2024 compared to $12 million in the first quarter of last year. Other services adjusted gross margin was $4.4 million compared to $3.4 million in the first quarter of 2023. As we've discussed in prior calls, our other services segment is lumpy but strategic. Station construction projects are synergistic with our compression business and require no capital. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:10:26Every dollar of incremental cash flow adds to both our overall return on capital employed and discretionary cash flow, which in turn allows us to pay more dividends and invest in high-return growth capital projects. In terms of CapEx for the first quarter, our maintenance capital expenditure figure was just under $11 million. As a reminder, our maintenance spend is a function of the hours and age of our equipment and will vary by year depending upon when units were added to the fleet. Growth CapEx was $59 million for the quarter, of which $6 million was non-new unit CapEx. As we mentioned last quarter, our growth CapEx this year is front-end loaded, basically a function of when we ordered new units last year, and you're seeing that in Q1. Moving to the balance sheet. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:11:14As of March 31st, we had debt of $1.9 billion, consisting of the $750 million in senior unsecured notes we issued in February and the rest borrowings under our ABL facility. Our credit agreement leverage ratio was just under four times. We ended the first quarter with approximately $1.1 billion of availability on the ABL facility. On April 1st, in connection with the closing on CSI, we drew down on our ABL to retire all of CSI's debt. Pro forma for the transaction and including fees and expenses paid on the closing date, we had total debt of approximately $2.6 billion. Let's turn to the updated 2024 outlook. We provided updated guidance ranges in yesterday's earnings release. Given that we've only owned CSI for a few weeks, we felt it was appropriate to provide relatively high-level guidance this quarter. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:12:10You should expect us to come out with more fulsome, updated guidance in our second quarter earnings call in August. With that said, I'll reiterate what Mickey mentioned at the outset. We are more than pleased with the CSI acquisition. Our original investment thesis is proving true, and at this point, our previously estimated cost synergies seem conservative. For the full year, which includes 12 months of Kodiak but only nine months of CSI and synergies, we expect revenues will range between $1.125 billion and $1.175 billion. We estimate Adjusted EBITDA to range between $580 million and $610 million. We expect Maintenance CapEx to come in between $55 million and $65 million. In terms of Growth CapEx, we're forecasting between $215 million-$235 million for the year. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:13:05Bear in mind that the lion's share of that growth CapEx was committed by each of Kodiak and CSI during 2023 given the lead times on new equipment. Not included in that figure is approximately $35 million of extraordinary capital expenditures related to the acquisition. Prior to close, we knew there would be a variety of cleanup items, but now that we've owned them for a few weeks, we have a good handle of what those are and what we need to spend. These are items like fleet upgrades to meet Kodiak's safety and emission standards, plus facilities and rolling stock to meet the needs of the combined company. We think it's important to knock as much of this out in 2024 as we can to get it behind us and solidify the foundation. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:13:51Also, a meaningful portion of that $35 million figure relates to non-cash accounting accruals triggered by the transaction, including the conformance between our two companies of lease accounting methodologies and sales and use taxes on equipment purchases. We're obviously not guiding on 2025, but we don't see this type of CapEx spend being repeated in the future. To wrap things up, last week, our board declared a quarterly dividend payment of $0.38 a year, which will be paid on May 20th. This equates to an annualized dividend of $1.52 per year, yielding about 5.4% at a 2.4x discretionary cash flow coverage ratio. Dividends are a key component of our capital allocation framework, which I will remind you encompasses measured growth plus an attractive return of and return on capital, all while living within cash flow and driving towards our 3.5x leverage target by the end of 2025. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:14:51That's it for my prepared comments. Thank you for your participation and support. I'll hand it back to Mickey. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:14:58Thanks, John. In summary, I would like to close the call by thanking the extraordinary women and men of Kodiak Gas Services and again welcoming the CSI employees to the Kodiak family, a company that is stronger than the sum of the parts. Each team member's hard work and dedication to safety and our customers are what makes Kodiak special, and we would not be an industry leader without this commitment to excellence. We are very happy with the start of the year, and we look forward to continuing profitable growth in 2024 and beyond, which we expect will further enhance value for all of our shareholders. At this point, we will open the line up for questions. Operator? Operator00:15:41Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Thank you. Our first question is coming from John Mackay of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. John MackayVP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs00:16:11Hey, good morning. Appreciate the time. Definitely appreciate all the comments. You guys just closed a month ago, and we're kind of probably going to look towards the second quarter call for a more kind of quantitative update. But would just love to hear any initial reads of potential revenue synergies or other pieces now that you've had your hands on these assets just for a little bit now and kind of what we can think about for maybe time frame on rolling those out. Understand it's still going to be high level. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:16:43Yeah, John. Hey, this is Mickey. Thanks for joining us today. Look, I think we're still trying to get our arms around kind of what the potential revenue synergies are here. Our commercial team's been working diligently trying to align contracts with customers that are on contracts that are both Kodiak and CSI paper coming into the deal. So I think that there are revenue synergies to be had there. I think that we can bring a lot of business also in the ancillary revenue side of the business as well to CSI's legacy AMS business. And I think that's going to be pretty impactful for us as well. But I think there's definitely some revenue synergies there. And like you said, we're not quite ready to unpack those yet today. John MackayVP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs00:17:34Appreciate that. Thank you. Maybe just looking at the quarter on kind of, I guess, talking legacy business now, margins are trending really well, kind of top end of your range. Understand that'll change a little bit for the 2Q numbers plus bringing in the CSI business. But maybe just give us a read on kind of what's happening there, how you're feeling about that kind of underlying margin trajectory looking forward. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:17:58Yeah. So I think that I'll let John jump in here too and talk a little bit about that. But I think that what you're seeing here is a combination of both revenue rate increases but also cost control. And I think what you'll see, once we get the two businesses put together, you'll see a little bit of a drop in that gross margin just because CSI's contribution is a little bit lower than ours. So blended, it'll come back a little bit. But I think that's where you'll see those synergies start to take place in lube oil purchasing power, parts and pieces, and that kind of thing that comes with a transaction like this. So we'll start to realize those synergies throughout the second half of the year. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:18:40Yeah. I was just going to add to a little bit of what Mickey said. We're going to come back in the second quarter and kind of realign how the segments work because they had some different businesses than we have. So in addition to them, in their contract services, having just a lower margin, they also have different product lines. So this is the last you'll see of kind of the Kodiak compression operations. But I will leave you with, being at the top end of the guidance range, the 64%-66% that we gave to start the year feels good, feels right, and it feels sustainable. So we hope to carry that momentum into the back half of the year. John MackayVP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs00:19:13That's awesome. Appreciate that color. See you guys in two weeks. Thanks. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:19:17Sounds good, John. Thanks. Operator00:19:20Thank you. The next question is coming from Neal Dingmann of Truist Securities. Please go ahead. Neal DingmannManaging Director of Energy Research at Truist Securities00:19:27I'm on it, guys. Thanks for the time. Guys, my first question's around. I love the comment in there on the prepared remarks around the prospects for U.S. natural gas demand to support AI. And of course, a lot of others have talked about that. My question around that is, do y'all? I know it's further down the line, but do y'all envision potential forming partnerships? Or do you all think there's something different strategically you all might be able to do on this buildout versus what you've done historically? Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:19:58Potentially, Neal. I mean, we're going to look at opportunities like that nonstop going forward and looking at kind of that strategic rationale there. There could be things we want to do there. I think that at this point in time, though, we kind of look at that incremental demand as a really strong fundamental base for our growth of the business and supporting our capital allocation strategy that we have in place already. So opportunities for different kind of lines of work and that kind of thing, I think, is something we'll be constantly evaluating. But at the end of the day, that fundamental-based business, which is the contract compression business, is really going to be benefited from this incremental demand. Neal DingmannManaging Director of Energy Research at Truist Securities00:20:45Yeah. I love that tail end, Mickey, between that and the analogy, my just follow-up is maybe for you or John. I'm just wondering, your contract volumes continue to be just extremely high, obviously the best in the group. I'm just wondering, because of this, would y'all or have y'all considered potentially running with a bit more debt and boosting the shareholder return? And I only ask because the contract margins look so phenomenal. I'm just wondering if you're able to run with a bit more because of that. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:21:14I mean, I think that, look, as a private company, I think you've heard some of my peers talk about it too. As a private company, we ran with higher leverage than we are today. But I think that our capital allocation strategy is something that we believe is focused on the right sort of mix between return of capital to shareholders and growth and living within our free cash flow to do so. So I think that the combination with CSI gives us a good amount of scale that we can kind of ratchet up some growth CapEx in the next couple of years after we get this thing kind of integrated and smoothed out here. But I think that something that's pretty key is our focus on that 3.5x leverage by the end of 2025. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:22:05That's a commitment we've made to shareholders, and it's something we're going to stand pretty firm on. And yeah, we do understand that. Neal DingmannManaging Director of Energy Research at Truist Securities00:22:12Oh, go ahead, John. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:22:13Yeah, we do understand that there's opportunities abound for great return projects out there, but we're focused on that leverage. Neal DingmannManaging Director of Energy Research at Truist Securities00:22:22Thank you all. Nice quarter. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:22:24Yeah. Thanks, dude. Neal. Operator00:22:27Thank you. The next question is coming from Jeremy Tonet of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Eli JossenVP of Equity Research at JP Morgan00:22:33Hey, good morning, everyone. This is Eli on for Jeremy. Just wanted to maybe start on your views of the compression market overall. I think some of your competitors framed a nine-month lead time on some equipment, which maybe is coming in a bit from previous lead times of a year or more. I appreciate some of the commentary on increased nat gas demand you frame, but maybe if you can just speak to what you're seeing in the compression market more in the near term and your expectations. Thanks. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:23:03Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, Caterpillar has brought in some deliveries on their large horsepower engines from kind of over a year to inside to kind of that nine-month range. Still takes an extraordinary amount of planning with our customers to get that equipment ordered out there that far in advance. I'll remind you that we don't spend $1 of CapEx on speculation. That all of our CapEx spend a year-plus out has a signed contract to back it up and support it. So we're not spending any speculative CapEx out there and planning with our customers very, very, very, very early on there. But I think that the delivery times coming in from Caterpillar there is, I wouldn't say, indicative of any softness in the market. Caterpillar has alleviated some supply chain bottlenecks, and they are bringing in some deliveries a little bit. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:23:59I think what you'll see and what we look at is the amount of capital discipline in the industry that's keeping and continuing in our peers and us and some of our customers and not overspending and flooding the market with equipment. We like to see it that way. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:24:19Yeah. I'll chime in too and remind everybody. We said it in the prepared remarks, but we've committed our CapEx all the way through the third quarter of next year on Growth CapEx. That's indicative, again, of customer demand, not necessarily tied to that lead time on Caterpillar equipment. When we reference industry structure and the discipline we're seeing, it's obvious to see it in the public guys. You track that. We, of course, monitor the private guys as well. We really see discipline there as well. Capital is more difficult to access than it was in the past. Debt's more expensive. We see the industry structure with the combination of demand and supply staying stronger for longer as a result of this new artificial intelligence-driven boom in power, which ultimately results in more gas demand too. We're really excited about the multi-year outlook. Eli JossenVP of Equity Research at JP Morgan00:25:15Awesome. Yeah. That's helpful commentary, and seems like a good shape for the market ahead. Maybe just pivoting a little bit to the revised guidance, you talked a bit about hitting the higher end of the compression operations gross margin, which is really great. Maybe can you just talk a bit about what might drive you guys to the higher end of that guide and things that we should be watching in the second half of the year? Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:25:42Yeah. So I'll chime in there. And I really want to come back to the comment I made earlier in that when we come out in Q2, you're going to see slightly different segment breakups. You're going to see slightly different margin profiles. So our 64%-66% that we guided on for Kodiak standalone is going to be a different number. It's going to be a lower number by virtue of just doing simple math of combining CSI plus us. So you need to remember that we're not going to be talking about the same numbers. That said, on a standalone basis, as I mentioned earlier, being at the top end of the range in the first quarter feels good, and it feels like it's sustainable. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:26:19I think the combination of our standalone business plus the synergies will allow us to continue to chip away as we move forward throughout the year at improving that margin again too. Expect us to come out in August in our Q2 earnings call with fulsome guidance and a better margin breakdown for you to model. Eli JossenVP of Equity Research at JP Morgan00:26:40All right. We'll look forward to that. Thanks, guys. Operator00:26:45Thank you. The next question is coming from Zack Van Everen of T—yeah, I'm sorry, TPH. Please go ahead. Zack Van EverenDirector of Infrastructure Research at TPH00:26:54Perfect. Thanks for taking my question, guys. Just one on maybe future bolt-on acquisitions. You mentioned that you're focusing on liquids-rich plays, but curious if you would ever look outside your key markets of the Permian, especially with the natural gas demand ramp happening in more of the dry gas regions. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:27:18I think we'll be interested in looking at all sorts of M&A going forward. But I think that our philosophy and theory of focusing on liquids-rich associated gas basins has really proven to take really good care of us in the past. So I think we'll kind of stick with that strategy. I don't know if we'd jump into something that was really tied to dry gas basins and gas prices quite as much as any more than what we do now, which is very little. But from an M&A perspective, we'll be interested in looking at lots of different opportunities, compression, and kind of associated ancillary services as well that are complementary to our business today. Zack Van EverenDirector of Infrastructure Research at TPH00:28:15Perfect. That makes sense. And then just one on the synergies, the original $20 million or greater than $20 million you guys noted at the time of the acquisition, is a lot of that on the cost side? And should we see that show up fully in 2024? And then I'm sure there'll be some more in 2025 and beyond once you guys get the business under your name. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:28:39Yeah. So Zach, good question. So when we announced the deal, and I think in all the first quarter or the fourth quarter calls, we always stuck to our greater than $20 million of cost synergies, and that's all we referenced. If you do simple math on kind of where we've guided and used the midpoint of the range, if you took the midpoint of where Kodiak was before $475 million, you take three-quarters of the midpoint of where CSI guided, that's $105 million, that equals $580 million. In order to get to the midpoint of our range, that would imply $15 million realized synergies. The way we think about it, and again, in Q2, we'll come back with more detail, is we're doing really, really well as a Kodiak standalone basis. CSI is kind of at or better kind of where they thought they would be. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:29:26So those synergies are somewhere between $15 million and something less than $15 million. Remember, that's in nine months. It's not an annualized figure. That's realized during the back half of the year. So it's pretty easy to gross that up and say, "Hey, there's better than $20 million in cost synergies." The question was asked earlier for Mickey on revenue synergies. Again, not guiding on that, not extrapolating, but they're there, and we're optimizing against that fleet. So we're extremely confident that when we get through, call it that 12-18-month timeframe, that we will fully realize well beyond that original $20 million of cost synergies that we always knew would be there. Zack Van EverenDirector of Infrastructure Research at TPH00:30:03Perfect. That's all I had. Thanks, guys. Operator00:30:08Thank you. The next question is coming from Bill Austin of Daniel Energy Partners. Please go ahead. Bill AustinManaging Partner at Daniel Energy Partners00:30:15Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So you guys talked a little bit about the CapEx and the new units that you guys are seeing out there. How are you seeing deliveries for the remainder of this year on that new unit side? I know you committed all that CapEx last year, and now you're kind of getting to all those coming in. Are they coming in in this quarter, next quarter? How are you guys seeing that? John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:30:43Yeah. It's going to come in pretty smooth throughout the rest of the year. I think there's a big chunk in Q2 that CSI had ordered previously from last year, but that'll be pretty evenly spread throughout the rest of the year for the combined entities. So we're not seeing anything slide or any supply chain issues or bottlenecks that would affect that right now, and that's knock on wood. So you'll see those coming in pretty rapidly throughout the rest of the year. Bill AustinManaging Partner at Daniel Energy Partners00:31:21Great. Yeah. It's nice seeing that the supply chain stuff is getting a little bit more predictable. Anything, again? Yeah. And I know you guys have addressed it a little bit on the M&A side. From an organic perspective, any other basins that you guys are looking at that sound exciting to start more focusing on or just kind of sticking to the knitting these days? John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:31:47Yeah. I mean, we obviously have plenty of work to do in the Permian Basin, but labor is a challenge there. So we were going to be open definitely to working on some additional type of basins that are important to us: the Eagle Ford, Rocky Mountain region, some stuff up in the Northeast. Those are all areas that we think are opportunistic that have some liquids-rich type of opportunities with associated gas that kind of fit into our overall thesis for the business. Bill AustinManaging Partner at Daniel Energy Partners00:32:22Great. Well, hey, thanks for taking my question, guys. Congrats on the quarter. I'll leave it to everyone else. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:32:27Thanks, Bill. Operator00:32:30Thank you. This brings us to the end of the question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. McKee for closing comments. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:32:38Thank you, operator. Thanks to everyone who participated in today's call. We look forward to speaking with you again after we report our second quarter results. Operator00:32:50Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines at this time and enjoy the rest of your day.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesGraham SonesVP of Investor RelationsJohn GriggsCFOMickey McKeePresident and CEOAnalystsBill AustinManaging Partner at Daniel Energy PartnersEli JossenVP of Equity Research at JP MorganJohn MackayVP of Equity Research at Goldman SachsNeal DingmannManaging Director of Energy Research at Truist SecuritiesZack Van EverenDirector of Infrastructure Research at TPHPowered by Earnings DocumentsPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Kodiak Gas Services Earnings HeadlinesA Look At Kodiak Gas Services (KGS) Valuation After All Time High And Q1 Earnings AnticipationMay 6 at 10:15 AM | finance.yahoo.comKodiak Gas Services Announces First Quarter 2026 Earnings Release and Conference Call TimingMay 4 at 5:01 PM | businesswire.comIran's New Leader Just Said Something That Should Terrify Every AmericanIran's Supreme Leader has declared the Strait of Hormuz closed as leverage against the U.S. - and with 40% of the world's oil passing through that corridor, crude has already crossed $100 per barrel. History shows gold surged 571% during the 1973 oil crisis and 425% in 1979. Today, the U.S. holds 8,133 tonnes of gold valued on the books at $42.22 per ounce - while gold trades above $5,000. American Alternative Assets has released The Great Gold Reset report detailing what this gap could mean for investors.May 6 at 1:00 AM | American Alternative (Ad)Kodiak Gas Services, Inc. (KGS) Gets a Buy from BarclaysApril 24, 2026 | theglobeandmail.comKodiak Gas Services (KGS): Buy, sell, or hold post Q4 earnings?April 23, 2026 | msn.comKodiak Gas leads overbought energy stocks as Q1 earnings roll onApril 20, 2026 | msn.comSee More Kodiak Gas Services Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Kodiak Gas Services? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Kodiak Gas Services and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Kodiak Gas ServicesKodiak Gas Services (NYSE:KGS) operates contract compression infrastructure for customers in the oil and gas industry in the United States. It operates in two segments, Compression Operations and Other Services. The Compression Operations segment operates company-owned and customer-owned compression infrastructure to enable the production, gathering, and transportation of natural gas and oil. The Other Services segment provides a range of contract services, including station construction, maintenance and overhaul, and other ancillary time and material-based offerings. The company was formerly known as Frontier TopCo, Inc. Kodiak Gas Services, Inc. was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas.View Kodiak Gas Services ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Latest Articles Boarding Passes Now Being Issued for the Ultimate eVTOL ArbitrageDigitalOcean’s AI Surge: How Far Can This Rally Go?Years in the Making, AMD’s Upside Movement Has Just BegunCapital One’s Big Bet Faces Rising Credit RiskWestern Digital: The Storage Behemoth Skyrocketing on AI DemandOld Money, New Tech: Western Union's Crypto RebootHow Williams Companies Is Cashing in on the AI Power Boom Upcoming Earnings Coinbase Global (5/7/2026)Airbnb (5/7/2026)Datadog (5/7/2026)Ferrovial (5/7/2026)Gilead Sciences (5/7/2026)Microchip Technology (5/7/2026)MercadoLibre (5/7/2026)Monster Beverage (5/7/2026)Canadian Natural Resources (5/7/2026)W.W. 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PresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Greetings and welcome to the Kodiak Gas Services First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance at the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Graham Sones, Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead. Graham SonesVP of Investor Relations at Kodiak Gas Services00:00:27Good morning. We appreciate you joining us for the Kodiak Gas Services conference call and webcast to review first quarter 2024 results. Participating from the company today are Mickey McKee, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Griggs, Chief Financial Officer. Following my remarks, Mickey and John will provide high-level commentary on the company, our first quarter financial results, and our updated 2024 outlook before opening the call for Q&A. Before I turn the call over to Mickey, I have a few housekeeping items to cover. There will be a replay of today's call available via webcast and also by phone until May 16, 2024. Information on how to access the replay can be found on the Investors tab of our website at kodiakgas.com. Graham SonesVP of Investor Relations at Kodiak Gas Services00:01:13Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, May 9, 2024, and therefore you're advised that such information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay listening or transcript reading. The comments made by management during this call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of United States federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements reflect the current views, beliefs, and assumptions of Kodiak's management based on information currently available. Although we believe the expectations referenced in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, various risks, uncertainties, and contingencies could cause the company's actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in the statements made by management, and management can give no assurance that such statements or expectations will prove to be correct. The comments today will also include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Graham SonesVP of Investor Relations at Kodiak Gas Services00:02:06Additional details and reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in yesterday's earnings release, which can be found on our website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Kodiak CEO, Mr. Mickey McKee. Mickey? Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:02:21Thanks, Graham, and thank you for joining us today. Let me get started by welcoming all the talented and dedicated CSI employees to the Kodiak family. By joining our team, each of you are contributing to Kodiak's increased scale and scope of service offerings to our customers and helping further expand our industry-leading footprint in key operating areas like the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale. I would also like to thank all of our Kodiak employees who have worked tirelessly on integration planning and execution while simultaneously staying focused on our ongoing business, which produced record adjusted EBITDA for yet another consecutive quarter. Extraordinary execution by an extraordinary workforce. We are now more than a month into the integration process with CSI and are extremely pleased with how the process is going. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:03:14As I have previously stated, we are very confident in our ability to deliver upon significant synergies provided by this combination, which will drive incremental value for our combined shareholder base. We are updating our guidance for the year and are very excited to announce revised adjusted EBITDA guidance of $580 million-$610 million. This reflects a full year of Kodiak's contribution, three quarters of CSI's contribution, and anticipated synergies we expect to realize throughout the rest of the year. John will discuss acquisition synergies further in his remarks, along with providing first quarter highlights and reviewing our outlook in more detail. So let's jump into it. Our first quarter results came in better than expected while maintaining our industry-leading horsepower utilization at 99.8%. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:04:09In addition to record-setting adjusted EBITDA contributions of $118 million for the quarter, up 11% versus the prior year period, we continued to strategically grow our large horsepower Permian-focused fleet, increasing revenue-generating horsepower by over 26,000 horsepower in Q1. We also paid another quarterly well-covered dividend with a compelling yield, reinforcing our commitment to returning capital to shareholders consistent with our previously discussed capital allocation strategy, targeting a 3.5x leverage by the end of 2025. But as you might imagine, I am even more excited for the future due to the step change we've made at Kodiak by becoming the largest contract compression provider in the industry with over 4.4 million horsepower. We are still in the early days following the close of the CSI acquisition and are in the evaluation phase of determining if there are small non-core assets that we could or should sell. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:05:19Our strategy of focusing on large horsepower in liquids-rich associated gas basins has not changed, and the majority of the horsepower acquired in the transaction continues to fit that strategic growth profile. This increase in that strategic horsepower is extremely attractive given the long-term bullish outlook for natural gas compression and the tight supply, as reflected by our industry-leading utilization level of 99.8%. As we have previously discussed, Kodiak is fully contracted on our 2024 new unit deliveries, including CSI new unit deliveries, and we are now fully contracted through the first three quarters of 2025. When we couple that contracted growth with our leading position in the Permian Basin, the addition of CSI's more than 600,000 horsepower of large horsepower compressors, the result is a dominant position in the most prolific oil and gas-producing regions in the United States. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:06:23As many of our peers have recently discussed, the U.S. is poised to see a step change in natural gas demand as numerous factors are shaping up to lay the foundation for a multi-year period of above-average growth. The next wave of U.S. Gulf Coast LNG export capacity is expected to become operational soon, with the first project slated to start up in the fourth quarter of this year. Natural gas exports to Mexico are set to increase at a faster rate over the next several years. Lastly, we are expecting to see exponential growth in power demand due to the proliferation of A.I. and data center technology, which will largely have to be sourced from natural gas-fired power generation. In total, we are seeing estimates that are calling for as much as a 20% increase in natural gas demand by 2030. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:07:18The Permian is strategically positioned to meet this incremental demand and supply the U.S. and the world with clean, reliable, and cheap fuel to power energy security while reducing worldwide emissions and energy poverty. However, in order to achieve this, there will need to be a large increase in horsepower compression capacity. Given the historical relationship between compression horsepower and domestic natural gas production, that much incremental demand would require more horsepower than the current combined fleets of Kodiak, Archrock, and USA Compression, which took decades to build. Combined with the well-documented supply and demand macro trends for our industry, we believe Kodiak is well-positioned to be the critical compression infrastructure partner of choice. Our focus on customers and employees, industry-leading mechanical availability and utilization, and our market position will be instrumental to meet this expected demand. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:08:27Now I'll pass the call on to John Griggs to review first quarter financial highlights and discuss our updated outlook. John? John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:08:34Thanks, Mickey. Here's the key takeaway. First quarter Kodiak results came in better than expected, and we're optimistic about steady, profitable growth in 2024 and beyond. That said, let me now highlight a few aspects of our first quarter standalone results. Total revenues were just under $216 million, up 13% compared to the first quarter of 2023. The increase in revenues was driven by year-over-year growth in both of our operating segments. Adjusted EBITDA was $118 million, up over 3% from Q4 and nearly 11% compared to the same quarter of last year. Looking at our segments, compression operations revenues for the quarter were $193 million, up 2% and 9% when compared to the fourth quarter and the same quarter a year ago, respectively. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:09:27The top-line growth was driven by a combination of higher pricing on the incumbent fleet as the tight market has allowed us to recontract at higher rates, as well as an increase in our overall revenue-generating horsepower from fleet additions. Revenue-generating horsepower increased by over 26,000 sequentially and 116,000 year-over-year. Compression operations adjusted gross margin percentage was just shy of 66%, which is the high end of our guidance range. In our other services segment, revenues were $22 million in the first quarter of 2024 compared to $12 million in the first quarter of last year. Other services adjusted gross margin was $4.4 million compared to $3.4 million in the first quarter of 2023. As we've discussed in prior calls, our other services segment is lumpy but strategic. Station construction projects are synergistic with our compression business and require no capital. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:10:26Every dollar of incremental cash flow adds to both our overall return on capital employed and discretionary cash flow, which in turn allows us to pay more dividends and invest in high-return growth capital projects. In terms of CapEx for the first quarter, our maintenance capital expenditure figure was just under $11 million. As a reminder, our maintenance spend is a function of the hours and age of our equipment and will vary by year depending upon when units were added to the fleet. Growth CapEx was $59 million for the quarter, of which $6 million was non-new unit CapEx. As we mentioned last quarter, our growth CapEx this year is front-end loaded, basically a function of when we ordered new units last year, and you're seeing that in Q1. Moving to the balance sheet. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:11:14As of March 31st, we had debt of $1.9 billion, consisting of the $750 million in senior unsecured notes we issued in February and the rest borrowings under our ABL facility. Our credit agreement leverage ratio was just under four times. We ended the first quarter with approximately $1.1 billion of availability on the ABL facility. On April 1st, in connection with the closing on CSI, we drew down on our ABL to retire all of CSI's debt. Pro forma for the transaction and including fees and expenses paid on the closing date, we had total debt of approximately $2.6 billion. Let's turn to the updated 2024 outlook. We provided updated guidance ranges in yesterday's earnings release. Given that we've only owned CSI for a few weeks, we felt it was appropriate to provide relatively high-level guidance this quarter. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:12:10You should expect us to come out with more fulsome, updated guidance in our second quarter earnings call in August. With that said, I'll reiterate what Mickey mentioned at the outset. We are more than pleased with the CSI acquisition. Our original investment thesis is proving true, and at this point, our previously estimated cost synergies seem conservative. For the full year, which includes 12 months of Kodiak but only nine months of CSI and synergies, we expect revenues will range between $1.125 billion and $1.175 billion. We estimate Adjusted EBITDA to range between $580 million and $610 million. We expect Maintenance CapEx to come in between $55 million and $65 million. In terms of Growth CapEx, we're forecasting between $215 million-$235 million for the year. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:13:05Bear in mind that the lion's share of that growth CapEx was committed by each of Kodiak and CSI during 2023 given the lead times on new equipment. Not included in that figure is approximately $35 million of extraordinary capital expenditures related to the acquisition. Prior to close, we knew there would be a variety of cleanup items, but now that we've owned them for a few weeks, we have a good handle of what those are and what we need to spend. These are items like fleet upgrades to meet Kodiak's safety and emission standards, plus facilities and rolling stock to meet the needs of the combined company. We think it's important to knock as much of this out in 2024 as we can to get it behind us and solidify the foundation. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:13:51Also, a meaningful portion of that $35 million figure relates to non-cash accounting accruals triggered by the transaction, including the conformance between our two companies of lease accounting methodologies and sales and use taxes on equipment purchases. We're obviously not guiding on 2025, but we don't see this type of CapEx spend being repeated in the future. To wrap things up, last week, our board declared a quarterly dividend payment of $0.38 a year, which will be paid on May 20th. This equates to an annualized dividend of $1.52 per year, yielding about 5.4% at a 2.4x discretionary cash flow coverage ratio. Dividends are a key component of our capital allocation framework, which I will remind you encompasses measured growth plus an attractive return of and return on capital, all while living within cash flow and driving towards our 3.5x leverage target by the end of 2025. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:14:51That's it for my prepared comments. Thank you for your participation and support. I'll hand it back to Mickey. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:14:58Thanks, John. In summary, I would like to close the call by thanking the extraordinary women and men of Kodiak Gas Services and again welcoming the CSI employees to the Kodiak family, a company that is stronger than the sum of the parts. Each team member's hard work and dedication to safety and our customers are what makes Kodiak special, and we would not be an industry leader without this commitment to excellence. We are very happy with the start of the year, and we look forward to continuing profitable growth in 2024 and beyond, which we expect will further enhance value for all of our shareholders. At this point, we will open the line up for questions. Operator? Operator00:15:41Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Thank you. Our first question is coming from John Mackay of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. John MackayVP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs00:16:11Hey, good morning. Appreciate the time. Definitely appreciate all the comments. You guys just closed a month ago, and we're kind of probably going to look towards the second quarter call for a more kind of quantitative update. But would just love to hear any initial reads of potential revenue synergies or other pieces now that you've had your hands on these assets just for a little bit now and kind of what we can think about for maybe time frame on rolling those out. Understand it's still going to be high level. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:16:43Yeah, John. Hey, this is Mickey. Thanks for joining us today. Look, I think we're still trying to get our arms around kind of what the potential revenue synergies are here. Our commercial team's been working diligently trying to align contracts with customers that are on contracts that are both Kodiak and CSI paper coming into the deal. So I think that there are revenue synergies to be had there. I think that we can bring a lot of business also in the ancillary revenue side of the business as well to CSI's legacy AMS business. And I think that's going to be pretty impactful for us as well. But I think there's definitely some revenue synergies there. And like you said, we're not quite ready to unpack those yet today. John MackayVP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs00:17:34Appreciate that. Thank you. Maybe just looking at the quarter on kind of, I guess, talking legacy business now, margins are trending really well, kind of top end of your range. Understand that'll change a little bit for the 2Q numbers plus bringing in the CSI business. But maybe just give us a read on kind of what's happening there, how you're feeling about that kind of underlying margin trajectory looking forward. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:17:58Yeah. So I think that I'll let John jump in here too and talk a little bit about that. But I think that what you're seeing here is a combination of both revenue rate increases but also cost control. And I think what you'll see, once we get the two businesses put together, you'll see a little bit of a drop in that gross margin just because CSI's contribution is a little bit lower than ours. So blended, it'll come back a little bit. But I think that's where you'll see those synergies start to take place in lube oil purchasing power, parts and pieces, and that kind of thing that comes with a transaction like this. So we'll start to realize those synergies throughout the second half of the year. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:18:40Yeah. I was just going to add to a little bit of what Mickey said. We're going to come back in the second quarter and kind of realign how the segments work because they had some different businesses than we have. So in addition to them, in their contract services, having just a lower margin, they also have different product lines. So this is the last you'll see of kind of the Kodiak compression operations. But I will leave you with, being at the top end of the guidance range, the 64%-66% that we gave to start the year feels good, feels right, and it feels sustainable. So we hope to carry that momentum into the back half of the year. John MackayVP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs00:19:13That's awesome. Appreciate that color. See you guys in two weeks. Thanks. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:19:17Sounds good, John. Thanks. Operator00:19:20Thank you. The next question is coming from Neal Dingmann of Truist Securities. Please go ahead. Neal DingmannManaging Director of Energy Research at Truist Securities00:19:27I'm on it, guys. Thanks for the time. Guys, my first question's around. I love the comment in there on the prepared remarks around the prospects for U.S. natural gas demand to support AI. And of course, a lot of others have talked about that. My question around that is, do y'all? I know it's further down the line, but do y'all envision potential forming partnerships? Or do you all think there's something different strategically you all might be able to do on this buildout versus what you've done historically? Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:19:58Potentially, Neal. I mean, we're going to look at opportunities like that nonstop going forward and looking at kind of that strategic rationale there. There could be things we want to do there. I think that at this point in time, though, we kind of look at that incremental demand as a really strong fundamental base for our growth of the business and supporting our capital allocation strategy that we have in place already. So opportunities for different kind of lines of work and that kind of thing, I think, is something we'll be constantly evaluating. But at the end of the day, that fundamental-based business, which is the contract compression business, is really going to be benefited from this incremental demand. Neal DingmannManaging Director of Energy Research at Truist Securities00:20:45Yeah. I love that tail end, Mickey, between that and the analogy, my just follow-up is maybe for you or John. I'm just wondering, your contract volumes continue to be just extremely high, obviously the best in the group. I'm just wondering, because of this, would y'all or have y'all considered potentially running with a bit more debt and boosting the shareholder return? And I only ask because the contract margins look so phenomenal. I'm just wondering if you're able to run with a bit more because of that. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:21:14I mean, I think that, look, as a private company, I think you've heard some of my peers talk about it too. As a private company, we ran with higher leverage than we are today. But I think that our capital allocation strategy is something that we believe is focused on the right sort of mix between return of capital to shareholders and growth and living within our free cash flow to do so. So I think that the combination with CSI gives us a good amount of scale that we can kind of ratchet up some growth CapEx in the next couple of years after we get this thing kind of integrated and smoothed out here. But I think that something that's pretty key is our focus on that 3.5x leverage by the end of 2025. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:22:05That's a commitment we've made to shareholders, and it's something we're going to stand pretty firm on. And yeah, we do understand that. Neal DingmannManaging Director of Energy Research at Truist Securities00:22:12Oh, go ahead, John. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:22:13Yeah, we do understand that there's opportunities abound for great return projects out there, but we're focused on that leverage. Neal DingmannManaging Director of Energy Research at Truist Securities00:22:22Thank you all. Nice quarter. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:22:24Yeah. Thanks, dude. Neal. Operator00:22:27Thank you. The next question is coming from Jeremy Tonet of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Eli JossenVP of Equity Research at JP Morgan00:22:33Hey, good morning, everyone. This is Eli on for Jeremy. Just wanted to maybe start on your views of the compression market overall. I think some of your competitors framed a nine-month lead time on some equipment, which maybe is coming in a bit from previous lead times of a year or more. I appreciate some of the commentary on increased nat gas demand you frame, but maybe if you can just speak to what you're seeing in the compression market more in the near term and your expectations. Thanks. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:23:03Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, Caterpillar has brought in some deliveries on their large horsepower engines from kind of over a year to inside to kind of that nine-month range. Still takes an extraordinary amount of planning with our customers to get that equipment ordered out there that far in advance. I'll remind you that we don't spend $1 of CapEx on speculation. That all of our CapEx spend a year-plus out has a signed contract to back it up and support it. So we're not spending any speculative CapEx out there and planning with our customers very, very, very, very early on there. But I think that the delivery times coming in from Caterpillar there is, I wouldn't say, indicative of any softness in the market. Caterpillar has alleviated some supply chain bottlenecks, and they are bringing in some deliveries a little bit. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:23:59I think what you'll see and what we look at is the amount of capital discipline in the industry that's keeping and continuing in our peers and us and some of our customers and not overspending and flooding the market with equipment. We like to see it that way. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:24:19Yeah. I'll chime in too and remind everybody. We said it in the prepared remarks, but we've committed our CapEx all the way through the third quarter of next year on Growth CapEx. That's indicative, again, of customer demand, not necessarily tied to that lead time on Caterpillar equipment. When we reference industry structure and the discipline we're seeing, it's obvious to see it in the public guys. You track that. We, of course, monitor the private guys as well. We really see discipline there as well. Capital is more difficult to access than it was in the past. Debt's more expensive. We see the industry structure with the combination of demand and supply staying stronger for longer as a result of this new artificial intelligence-driven boom in power, which ultimately results in more gas demand too. We're really excited about the multi-year outlook. Eli JossenVP of Equity Research at JP Morgan00:25:15Awesome. Yeah. That's helpful commentary, and seems like a good shape for the market ahead. Maybe just pivoting a little bit to the revised guidance, you talked a bit about hitting the higher end of the compression operations gross margin, which is really great. Maybe can you just talk a bit about what might drive you guys to the higher end of that guide and things that we should be watching in the second half of the year? Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:25:42Yeah. So I'll chime in there. And I really want to come back to the comment I made earlier in that when we come out in Q2, you're going to see slightly different segment breakups. You're going to see slightly different margin profiles. So our 64%-66% that we guided on for Kodiak standalone is going to be a different number. It's going to be a lower number by virtue of just doing simple math of combining CSI plus us. So you need to remember that we're not going to be talking about the same numbers. That said, on a standalone basis, as I mentioned earlier, being at the top end of the range in the first quarter feels good, and it feels like it's sustainable. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:26:19I think the combination of our standalone business plus the synergies will allow us to continue to chip away as we move forward throughout the year at improving that margin again too. Expect us to come out in August in our Q2 earnings call with fulsome guidance and a better margin breakdown for you to model. Eli JossenVP of Equity Research at JP Morgan00:26:40All right. We'll look forward to that. Thanks, guys. Operator00:26:45Thank you. The next question is coming from Zack Van Everen of T—yeah, I'm sorry, TPH. Please go ahead. Zack Van EverenDirector of Infrastructure Research at TPH00:26:54Perfect. Thanks for taking my question, guys. Just one on maybe future bolt-on acquisitions. You mentioned that you're focusing on liquids-rich plays, but curious if you would ever look outside your key markets of the Permian, especially with the natural gas demand ramp happening in more of the dry gas regions. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:27:18I think we'll be interested in looking at all sorts of M&A going forward. But I think that our philosophy and theory of focusing on liquids-rich associated gas basins has really proven to take really good care of us in the past. So I think we'll kind of stick with that strategy. I don't know if we'd jump into something that was really tied to dry gas basins and gas prices quite as much as any more than what we do now, which is very little. But from an M&A perspective, we'll be interested in looking at lots of different opportunities, compression, and kind of associated ancillary services as well that are complementary to our business today. Zack Van EverenDirector of Infrastructure Research at TPH00:28:15Perfect. That makes sense. And then just one on the synergies, the original $20 million or greater than $20 million you guys noted at the time of the acquisition, is a lot of that on the cost side? And should we see that show up fully in 2024? And then I'm sure there'll be some more in 2025 and beyond once you guys get the business under your name. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:28:39Yeah. So Zach, good question. So when we announced the deal, and I think in all the first quarter or the fourth quarter calls, we always stuck to our greater than $20 million of cost synergies, and that's all we referenced. If you do simple math on kind of where we've guided and used the midpoint of the range, if you took the midpoint of where Kodiak was before $475 million, you take three-quarters of the midpoint of where CSI guided, that's $105 million, that equals $580 million. In order to get to the midpoint of our range, that would imply $15 million realized synergies. The way we think about it, and again, in Q2, we'll come back with more detail, is we're doing really, really well as a Kodiak standalone basis. CSI is kind of at or better kind of where they thought they would be. John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:29:26So those synergies are somewhere between $15 million and something less than $15 million. Remember, that's in nine months. It's not an annualized figure. That's realized during the back half of the year. So it's pretty easy to gross that up and say, "Hey, there's better than $20 million in cost synergies." The question was asked earlier for Mickey on revenue synergies. Again, not guiding on that, not extrapolating, but they're there, and we're optimizing against that fleet. So we're extremely confident that when we get through, call it that 12-18-month timeframe, that we will fully realize well beyond that original $20 million of cost synergies that we always knew would be there. Zack Van EverenDirector of Infrastructure Research at TPH00:30:03Perfect. That's all I had. Thanks, guys. Operator00:30:08Thank you. The next question is coming from Bill Austin of Daniel Energy Partners. Please go ahead. Bill AustinManaging Partner at Daniel Energy Partners00:30:15Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So you guys talked a little bit about the CapEx and the new units that you guys are seeing out there. How are you seeing deliveries for the remainder of this year on that new unit side? I know you committed all that CapEx last year, and now you're kind of getting to all those coming in. Are they coming in in this quarter, next quarter? How are you guys seeing that? John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:30:43Yeah. It's going to come in pretty smooth throughout the rest of the year. I think there's a big chunk in Q2 that CSI had ordered previously from last year, but that'll be pretty evenly spread throughout the rest of the year for the combined entities. So we're not seeing anything slide or any supply chain issues or bottlenecks that would affect that right now, and that's knock on wood. So you'll see those coming in pretty rapidly throughout the rest of the year. Bill AustinManaging Partner at Daniel Energy Partners00:31:21Great. Yeah. It's nice seeing that the supply chain stuff is getting a little bit more predictable. Anything, again? Yeah. And I know you guys have addressed it a little bit on the M&A side. From an organic perspective, any other basins that you guys are looking at that sound exciting to start more focusing on or just kind of sticking to the knitting these days? John GriggsCFO at Kodiak Gas Services00:31:47Yeah. I mean, we obviously have plenty of work to do in the Permian Basin, but labor is a challenge there. So we were going to be open definitely to working on some additional type of basins that are important to us: the Eagle Ford, Rocky Mountain region, some stuff up in the Northeast. Those are all areas that we think are opportunistic that have some liquids-rich type of opportunities with associated gas that kind of fit into our overall thesis for the business. Bill AustinManaging Partner at Daniel Energy Partners00:32:22Great. Well, hey, thanks for taking my question, guys. Congrats on the quarter. I'll leave it to everyone else. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:32:27Thanks, Bill. Operator00:32:30Thank you. This brings us to the end of the question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. McKee for closing comments. Mickey McKeePresident and CEO at Kodiak Gas Services00:32:38Thank you, operator. Thanks to everyone who participated in today's call. We look forward to speaking with you again after we report our second quarter results. Operator00:32:50Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines at this time and enjoy the rest of your day.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesGraham SonesVP of Investor RelationsJohn GriggsCFOMickey McKeePresident and CEOAnalystsBill AustinManaging Partner at Daniel Energy PartnersEli JossenVP of Equity Research at JP MorganJohn MackayVP of Equity Research at Goldman SachsNeal DingmannManaging Director of Energy Research at Truist SecuritiesZack Van EverenDirector of Infrastructure Research at TPHPowered by