Tetra Technologies Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 30, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: In Q2, TETRA delivered a record adjusted EBITDA of $35.9 M with 20.6% margins and $37.4 M of base business free cash flow, pushing YTD adjusted EBITDA to $68.1 M—$3.1 M above guidance.
  • Positive Sentiment: The deepwater segment saw record activity including 25 deepwater jobs in Q1, completion of the Neptune project, and a new multi-year ultra-deepwater award, positioning 2025 for a ten-year revenue high.
  • Positive Sentiment: TETRA’s battery electrolyte business is poised for a material ramp in 2026 with EOS’s automated production line starting in Q4 and a new bulk tanker loading system now operational.
  • Positive Sentiment: The Arkansas bromine facility is on track for 2027, with $44 M invested to date and an expected $200 M–$250 M in incremental revenue and $90 M–$115 M adjusted EBITDA at full capacity.
  • Positive Sentiment: Progress continues on the Oasis water desalination solution, with an engineering design for a 25 k bbl/d modular commercial plant due by mid-Q4 to support customer engagements.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Tetra Technologies Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Kurt Hallead
VP - Treasurer & IR at TETRA

Great. Thank you, Chloe. Good morning and thank you for joining TETRA's second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. The speakers for today will be Brady Murphy, Chief Executive Officer and Elijio Serrano, Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to remind you that this conference call may contain statements that are or may be deemed to be forward looking, including projections, financial guidance, profitability and estimated earnings.

Kurt Hallead
VP - Treasurer & IR at TETRA

These statements are based on certain assumptions and analysis made by TETRA and are subject to several risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control. You are cautioned that such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements. In addition, we may refer to EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, free cash flow, net debt, net leverage ratio, liquidity, returns on net capital employed or other non GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our press release for reconciliations of non GAAP to the GAAP measures. These reconciliations are not a substitute for financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP and should be considered within the context of our complete financial results for the period.

Kurt Hallead
VP - Treasurer & IR at TETRA

We also encourage you to refer to our 10 Q that was filed yesterday. Before turning it over to Brady, I want to remind everyone that TETRA's executive team will be hosting an Investor Day on Thursday, 09/25/2025 at the New York Stock Exchange. During the session, attendees will gain insights into the company's operational performance, innovative technologies, emerging growth initiatives and financial prospects. The registration link can be found in the investors section of our website. Brady?

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Thank you, Kurt. Good morning everyone and welcome to TETRA's second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. I'll summarize some highlights for the quarter, provide an update on our strategic initiatives before turning the call over to Elijio to provide more details on our segments and update on our cash flow and balance sheet. Our employees delivered an exceptional second quarter and across our current business reporting segments, a record setting adjusted EBITDA for the 2025. For the quarter, we achieved an adjusted EBITDA of $35,900,000 with adjusted EBITDA margins of 20.6% and base business free cash flow of $37,400,000 all above our expectations.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

The $68,100,000 adjusted EBITDA for the 2025 is a record for our current segments and $3,100,000 above the upper range of guidance we provided in our first quarter twenty twenty five earnings. This was largely driven by a record level of deepwater activity for TETRA in the 2025, including 25 deepwater jobs in the first quarter alone and the completion of the three well Neptune project in the second quarter. The team delivered an 11% sequential increase in revenue, which included another strong Northern Europe industrial chemical season. Year over year, total revenue was up 1%, but adjusted EBITDA increased by $5,200,000 or 17%. This performance was achieved despite a sixteen month decline in The U.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

S. Rig count and lower oil prices, which is due to overall market uncertainty. Compared to the 2025, Completion Fluids and Products adjusted EBITDA margins increased by 100 basis points to 36.7% from 35.7%, supported by the CS Neptune jobs previously mentioned. Year over year, industrial chemicals grew by 5.5% as it continues to outgrow both U. S.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

And the global GDP. The long term outlook for completion fluids and products business remains strong, driven by our solid deepwater market positions in key areas such as Gulf Of America, Brazil and the North Sea, along with continued exceptional performance in our industrial chemicals business reaching a new high for the tenth consecutive quarter. The strength of our market position is further demonstrated by a new multi well, multi year ultra deepwater 20 ks completions award in the Gulf Of America. Although the pace of deepwater well completions can vary quarter to quarter, the overall annual trend is upward as shown by a projected ten year revenue high for this segment in 2025. Revenue for water and flowback services remained flat compared to the first quarter and decreased 10% year over year, outperforming U.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

S. Frac activity, which declined 14% quarter over quarter and 26% year over year. Despite declining U. S. Land activity, our automated technology fleet included automated sandstorm and automated drill out is effectively fully utilized and is being recognized for reducing manpower and removing employees from the wall site red zone.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Although U. S. Land drilling and completion activity has been declining, produced water volumes continue to increase and is expected to increase well into the future. TETRA achieved an important milestone for the quarter, recording our first revenue for Permian Basin produced water desalination from our commercial grasslands pilot operation. Although a small contribution for the quarter, it represents the successful execution of our TETRA AESIS solution.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Water and Flowback adjusted EBITDA margins of 10% declined from 13% in the first quarter. However, this result included nearly $2,000,000 of costs not expected to recur in the third quarter, such as inventory write offs and trailing exit costs for a small sub segment of the business. Adjusting for the non recurring costs, EBITDA margins would have been flat from the first quarter. We'll continue to adjust our cost structure and close underperforming service lines in The U. S.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Onshore business to protect our margins and maximize free cash flow. Going forward, there remains some uncertainty in U. S. Completion activity, but the demand for our automated technology, the focus on produced water treatment and recycling and a favorable mix of super majors and large independent operators will help improve margins for the rest of the year. Moving to our strategic growth initiatives, we continue to make significant progress throughout the second quarter.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

On the electrolyte front, energy storage power capacity is expected to surpass 45 gigawatts by 2025, representing a 76% increase from 2024 levels and growing by 25% annually over the next decade according to the U. S. Energy Information Administration. This growth highlights the vital role that utility scale energy storage will play in improving grid stability as the exponential rise in overall demand strains our systems. Zinc based energy storage systems such as EOS' Z3 utility scale energy storage technology are becoming the preferred choice for utility applications.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

As the only known U. S. Manufacturer of zinc bromide, our U. S. Directly supports the increased focus on domestic supply chain resilience and American made energy solutions.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

We're seeing strong forecast projections from EUS for their energy storage electrolyte needs as they ramp up their automated production line. Once their automated line is finished, which they expect to be in the fourth quarter of this year, we will see a material increase in electrolyte deliveries. In preparation, we completed the installation of our electrolyte bulk tanker loading system in West Memphis. This will enable us to shift from towed shipments to much larger volumes with less costly tanker deliveries, which we have already begun. Although our baseline electrolyte revenue in 2025 remains modest, 2026 is shaping up to be the first year with a real material impact on our business results.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

To meet the increasing demand for both EOS Electrolyte and our bromine based deepwater completion fluids, we remain on track with our Arkansas bromine processing facility. In the 2025, we invested 22,000,000 of the $52,000,000 in free cash flow generated from our base business into the project. We plan to invest an additional $22,000,000 in capital expenditures by year end, which will greatly support site preparation, power infrastructure and the construction of the bromine tower for plant operation. Since starting this project in 2024, we've invested $44,000,000 in Arkansas to enable the plant to go online by 2027. As outlined in definitive feasibility and economic analysis completed in 2024, the facility is expected to produce incremental revenues of 200,000,000 to $250,000,000 with adjusted EBITDA of $90,000,000 to 115,000,000 annually at full capacity.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

We continue to work closely with Standard Lithium and Equinor on their SWA Lithium project with significant project synergies, including potential upstream CapEx savings of $80,000,000 from the $270,000,000 CapEx in the DFS study. Moving on to produced water treatment for beneficial reuse, The US oil and gas sector continues to face significant water management challenges. Reistat estimates the Permian Basin alone over 6,000,000,000 barrels of produced water are discharged into saltwater disposal wells each year. Traditionally, this wastewater has been disposed of by injecting the underground, but this method is becoming increasingly unsustainable as downhole formation pressures continue rising. As a result, there is a growing sense of urgency among regulators and industry players to find a solution.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

In March, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would review wastewater regulations for the oil and gas industry to help unleash American energy. And in June, the Texas governor signed a law, Texas House Bill 49, enabling and facilitating the industry to treat produced water for beneficial reuse. Following the commercial announcement of our OASIS T2S TDS water desalination technology, we continue to see customer engagement from both operators and water midstream companies. These engagements include signed NDAs followed by visits to our research center to gain insight into ACES TDS end to end process and results. During the quarter, we engaged an engineering firm to begin designing our first Permian Basin commercial plant, which is planned for 25,000 barrels per day with a design allowing for 25,000 barrel per day increments to enable scaling.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

One of the many benefits of the Oasis technology design is that it's well suited for scaling, a key aspect of industry requirements. A completed engineering package, which we expect by the middle of the fourth quarter, will facilitate in-depth commercial discussions with numerous customers requesting commercial engagements. Looking forward to the 2025, although U. S. Land activity is trending lower, our automation technology continues to gain traction and will help us improve margins.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Second half deepwater activity will not be at the record levels that we've seen in the first half, but still strong enough to project a ten year high for the full year 2025. We're maintaining a healthy pipeline of Neptune projects worldwide, but given their significance to our financials, we'll wait until a project is awarded with a confirmed date before making any announcements. Heading into 2026, we'll have the benefit of a full year of our Brazil Deepwater award, recently awarded 20 ks Gulf Of America award and a projected material ramp up in EOS electrolyte deliveries. For the full year 2025, we expect GAAP net income before taxes to be between $21,000,000 and $34,000,000 adjusted EBITDA between 100,000,000 to $110,000,000 and revenue to be between $610,000,000 and $630,000,000 These guidance ranges are subject to risk associated with scheduled delays for completion fluid projects, hurricane disruptions in the Gulf Of America and changes to oil and gas company spending plans. We have a strong free cash flow generating business that should enable us to navigate through any near term macro uncertainty and position the company to capitalize on our emerging growth opportunities for the coming years. Now, I'll turn it over to Elijio.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

Thank you, Brady. Good morning, everybody. Second quarter free cash flow from the base business was very strong as we generated $37,000,000 of cash. From the base business, we generated $1,000,000 more in cash than we did EBITDA. In the first six months of the year, we've generated $53,000,000 of base business free cash flow compared to $68,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

This ratio of free cash flow to adjusted EBITDA reflects the quality of the earnings and the focus we have on managing working capital and minimizing capital expenditures to be only on those projects with quick paybacks. We remain on track to deliver in excess of $50,000,000 of free cash flow from the base business. We have said that our objective is to bring the Arkansas bromine project online without stressing TETRA's balance sheet. Our objective is to keep TETRA's leverage ratio below two times EBITDA. Out of the $52,000,000 of base business free cash flow generated in the first half of the year, we invested $22,000,000 into Arkansas in the first six months of the year.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

We increased our cash balance by $32,000,000 and in the process improved our net leverage ratio to 1.2 times trailing twelve months EBITDA. Our objective remains to have the booming project online by the 2027, to keep up with the growing demand for our zinc bromide battery electrolyte, and to keep up with the strong demand for deepwater offshore projects. Any incremental capital required above base business free cash flow will be at the project level and will not be dilutive to TETRA shareholders. We are of the opinion that the growth opportunities we have with water desalination and battery electrolyte are not yet reflected in our share price and as such, we will take no actions to dilute our tetra shareholders. To fund the desalination projects that Brady mentioned, we are working toward a license model that materially reduces the need for TETRA to invest any material amounts of capital expenditures.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

If some customers prefer the sharing of capital instead of our license model, we'll also pursue non dilutive capital at the project level. Liquidity as of yesterday was approximately $219,000,000 up $15,000,000 from the June. Liquidity includes a $75,000,000 delay drop feature that is available to TETRA for the bromine project. Let me close out by summarizing what I believe the key items everybody should focus upon. First, our base business continues to perform.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

Our completion fluids and calcium chloride business is achieving record highs and generating significant free cash flow. Our onshore water and flowback business remains in the double digit EBITDA margins despite the continued decline in fracking activity. Our objective is cash generation. Second, the balance sheet keeps getting stronger, giving us the capital necessary to fund our bromine project. Third, we continue to make very measured and methodical progress toward the growth initiatives.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

We are focused on getting it right and not launching anything until we have all the engineering support in place, customer acceptance, and our economics fully fleshed out. If it takes a bit longer, that's fine, as our focus is getting it right and not getting it faster than we believe would be appropriate. And lastly, we encourage you to visit with us on September 25 at the New York Stock Exchange for our Investor Day or join us on our webcast. We plan on laying out our financial targets for our growth initiatives and lay out what TETRA will look like when these technologies have been deployed to the market. Brady, let me turn it back to you for some closing comments before we open it up to questions.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Thanks, Liyo. I'll save my closing comments for after the questions. We'll open it up for Q and A now.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer To ask the question, you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Our first question comes from the line of Martin Malloy from Johnson Rice. Your line is open.

Martin Malloy
Partner & Director - Equity Research at Johnson Rice & Company L.L.C.

Congratulations on the strong quarter.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

Thank you.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Thanks, Marty.

Martin Malloy
Partner & Director - Equity Research at Johnson Rice & Company L.L.C.

I wanted to ask about desalinization. And maybe if you could spend some time broadly speaking about the economics of these desalination projects and the amount of energy being used to desalinate the water, the produced water and the costs. And also maybe about legislative initiatives that you're following related to desalinization potential demand.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Okay. Let me start I guess with the commercial aspects of this opportunity for us. What we're seeing is disposal well costs for operators continuing to increase and solutions like ours from a desalination's perspective continuing to decrease. And so you've got a converging environment of operator costs increasing due to higher pressures or taking out of basin costs. Trucking for instance is extremely expensive, could be $5.06 dollars a barrel.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Additional pipelines, if you've seen some of the announcements out of basin pipelines are extremely capital intensive, so costs continue to go up. While technologies like ours, Oasis is we believe one of the lower cost, lower energy cost solutions that will be available in the market. And so that convergence Marty has given us the opportunity to have these discussions with the operators, with the midstream companies who quite frankly need this solution in the coming years as the amount of curtailment of production just due to produced water injection disposals and pressures is really gonna start to impact them. The regulatory environment is extremely supportive. I think I mentioned on the call the Texas House Bill 49 was approved, which essentially facilitates the operators and technology providers like ourselves to process produced water and distribute it into the economy, which previously was not allowed.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

EPA has been getting involved. We actually met with the EPA in Washington DC to talk about our desalination technology and the support that we would like to see from them. They're very, very supportive as well. So there's a lot of momentum on all fronts, which continues to give us the encouragement that we have about our opportunity here. As far as the actual commercials, we're going save that for discussions with our customers in terms of our pricing, our costs, our OpEx, our CapEx.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

That'll be a little more refined when we get our first complete end to end package that I'd mentioned completed by the fourth quarter. That allows us to have the level of detail of a commercial contractual negotiations that we need.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

And Brady, would add that preliminary discussions indicates acceptance to a license model that reduces any stress on TETRA's balance sheet.

Martin Malloy
Partner & Director - Equity Research at Johnson Rice & Company L.L.C.

Thank you. That was very helpful. And then for my follow-up question, I just wanted to ask about the offshore completion market and those indications that of Subsea Tree order outlook has been strong, is expected to be strong. Could you maybe spend some time just talking about level of customer conversations? And if those Subsea tree orders are aligning with where your strengths are in terms of the higher pressure wells and the basins that you have a strong presence in?

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Yeah, trends that we're seeing certainly in overall deepwater is continuing to increase in terms of activity over the coming years, four to five years visibility that we often have with customers that are planning these very complex, highly technical, deepwater completions. The other trend that we're seeing is the pressures are getting higher as evidenced by the 20 ks rigs that are coming into the Gulf Of America. Those pressures play into Tetris strength due to the heavy bromine based completion fluids, including Neptune for certain applications. So yeah, all positive signs, particularly as we start to see The US oil production flatten out plateau. I think deepwater will continue to get a lot more attention in coming years for additional online supply.

Martin Malloy
Partner & Director - Equity Research at Johnson Rice & Company L.L.C.

Great. Thank you very much. I'll turn it back.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jesse Sylvester from DeBroyal Capital. Your line is open.

Jesse Sobelson
VP - Equity Research at D. Boral Capital

I was just the curious on guidance that you guys issued for the rest of the year is really strong and very promising. I think a lot of investors really pleased with it. I was curious as we look to the second half, are you able to give any insight into what you're seeing this quarter versus the next or are we generally expecting both quarters to be pretty similar from a financial standpoint?

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

I think activity wise, you're going to see, we expect to see activity fairly consistent between Q3 and Q4. As I've mentioned, overall, it's not going to be the record setting pace that we had in the first half of the year. That's just how Wells activities are drilled and completion activities follow the drilling. As I said, annually, it's going to be a record year for us and we think that we'll continue to build on that as we go into 2026. But I expect Q3 and Q4 to be relatively similar in terms of finance.

Jesse Sobelson
VP - Equity Research at D. Boral Capital

Good, understand. And then just a really quick follow-up on the financials here. Working capital looks to have come in a little bit, generated some cash this quarter. Was this something that is seasonal? Or could this be a future source of cash flow throughout the rest of the year?

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

A couple of items worked in our favor, Jesse. Number one, we've collected the CS Neptune project that we completed in the first half of the year. And second, as we go through our seasonality in Northern Europe, we start invoicing in April and the collections go from June into July. So we got the benefit of those two, but we still expect to continue to increase free cash flow in the second half of the year for the base business.

Jesse Sobelson
VP - Equity Research at D. Boral Capital

Great. Yes. I noticed free cash flow adjusted was above that $50,000,000 guide you gave for the year already. So congrats. Thanks for taking my questions.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Bobby Brooks from Northland Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Bobby Brooks
VP & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Hey, good morning guys. And kind of a follow-up on Jesse's last question. I just first want tip my hat to you guys for the continuation of providing some guidance points. It's been very helpful in setting expectations, and I think it also allows the investment community to better understand and appreciate the TTI story. With that said, I was curious, what are some of the assumptions underpinning that revenue guidance?

Bobby Brooks
VP & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

How I'm looking at it is as the 2025, you guys benefited from about $30,000,000 or so from the CS Neptune wells, which are not repeating in the second half. And then you also got the seasonal industrial chemical sales in 2Q that don't repeat. So when you take that into account you take into account those pieces when comparing one half results to the second half implied guide, sales are flat when compared to some of your peers who are cutting guides due to lower frac activity. Obviously, EOS volumes ramping up as a benefit, but really curious to hear more about what else is underpinning your outlook? Thank you.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Yes, I'll make a few comments and then ask Elijio too as well. I wouldn't assign all of the Neptune revenue to the number that you gave Bob. The overall deepwater activity, we look at overall deepwater activity was extremely strong in the first half of the year. I think I'd mentioned we had 25 jobs in the first quarter. That's a very high pace of deepwater completions and then of course the Neptune wells in the second quarter with additional activity.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

But second year activity just won't be at that pace overall for deepwater. EOS really is not a significant factor for us in this year's financials, second year's financials. It is increasing but off of a very low base. But as we get into 2026, as I've mentioned, when they have their first line up and running, we believe certainly before the end of the year, that will be a material uplift for us in 2026, but not really material to us in 2025. I'll ask Elijio maybe add additional comments.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

Bobby, I would ask that people start looking at what's coming to us in 2026. We will have the second quarter seasonality again, which has been strong for three years in a row now. We've got EEOS ramping up and if you follow EEOS and you look at consensus revenue '26 versus '25, they're projected to have a very meaningful ramp up. The TETRA management team stays in close contact with EOS and we continually visit their operations to see what they're doing in their automated production line and we're very encouraged with what we see. We've mentioned that we secured an offshore Deepwater Brazil project that will have a full year impact in 2026 with.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

And then with the deepwater activity, we expect to see significant deepwater projects, including potential Neptune next year, that lays us out for a very solid 2026.

Bobby Brooks
VP & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Okay. Got it. Appreciate turning the page and looking at 2026, but could we maybe just touch on a little bit of like other factors that are driving that second half kind of implied guide?

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

Yeah, keep in mind that the frac count and the drilling activity in The United States has continued to get softer. We believe technology has created a differentiator for us and has allowed us to maintain a market share. But we're not focused on market share growth. We're focused on margin enhancement and cash generation on the onshore business. Everything else, as Brady mentioned, is timing of projects.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

We had a lot of the projects on the deepwater side that got completed in the first half. Now we need for those rigs to finish their drilling program so we can show up with a completion fluid at the tail end of those projects. And we think those are going to be more weighted toward early next year than the second half of this year.

Bobby Brooks
VP & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Got it. Fair enough. And then I wanted to also ask on the news of engaging an engineering firm for the design of the first commercial OASIS project. It seems like this design would be more so broad based and not necessarily for a specific project in mind. And with it being broad based, it could be kind of used across multiple scenarios with a few minor tweaks.

Bobby Brooks
VP & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Am I thinking about that right? And then secondly, you guys mentioned in the prepared remarks, it's for 25,000 barrels a day, but it'll have like a modular option to add additional 25,000 barrel I per day just want to make sure I'm understanding that right and maybe how to just think about how you would kind of plug in that extra capacity.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Yeah, so we've been working with a lot of Permian Basin operators, Bobby. And so we're very familiar now with the type of water that we're dealing with for these desal projects, specifically the Permian. Obviously, there'll be different South Texas or Haynesville or as you go around different basins across North America. So this 25 ks design will be designed to handle what we believe will be a wide variety of Permian Basin operators. In fact, we're using several of their specifications to make sure we've got that covered with Oasis.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

And you're absolutely right, the design is being built or the technology is being designed to accommodate 25,000 barrel per day increments. So if a customer wants to ramp up to 100,000 barrels a day, we would take essentially four of these trains, these 25 ks trains and link them up to provide 100,000 barrel a day type of solution. And this technology fortunately is very scalable along those lines and the engineering firm we're working with will be helping us ensure that that's part our solution.

Bobby Brooks
VP & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets

Got it. Appreciate the color. Congrats on the nice quarter. I'll get back in the queue.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Patrick O'Leary from Stifel. Your line is open.

Patrick Ouellette
Patrick Ouellette
Equity Research Associate at Stifel Financial Corp

Hey, it's Pat Olin on for Steven Giro. Thanks for taking the questions.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

Good morning.

Patrick Ouellette
Patrick Ouellette
Equity Research Associate at Stifel Financial Corp

You previously mentioned discussions with bromine suppliers to bridge supply as you looked for a more staged approach to develop the Arkansas bromine processing facility. Just curious how it's going securing the bromine for the various end markets you have and especially with the expected material ramp of volumes you're expecting to see from EOS?

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Yeah, so we have discussions underway, multiple bromine suppliers. Of course, we have our existing contract. Those discussions are going well. We're not going to announce anything until we have selected a final provider or multiple providers quite frankly. It could be multiple providers as part of the bridging supplies that we're talking about. And clearly we're monitoring both our deepwater demand and the EOS demand to ensure that between our existing current supply and the bridging volumes that we're talking about, it bridges us to the 2027 target that we have for our own plant. So that's an ongoing, somewhat dynamic discussions that we're having Patrick, but I would say at this point we're optimistic that we will have our demands covered.

Patrick Ouellette
Patrick Ouellette
Equity Research Associate at Stifel Financial Corp

All right, thank you. Great to hear the engineering design for the first commercial water desal plant. Just curious if you could give any color on expectations for either incremental pilot plants or commercial plants for 2025 or '26 and then maybe any details on tractions with NDAs? I know some time ago you talked about seven ish NDAs in Yeah,

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

so think earlier in the year I was of the impression that we would be doing multiple more pilot operations. I think that that is now shifting to, we have a pilot ongoing and we are engaging with customers who are now really, I think starting to talk more about small commercial plants of the 10,000 to 25,000 barrel per day range and skipping what I would say the really low volume pilot plant operations. That's a good sign for us because I think there's a confidence growing that a small commercial plant is of more value to these customers than a really small pilot operation. But we have, as we said, multiple N77 or so NDAs that we still have in place engage with those particular customers. And we get into contractual commitments, we'll be announcing them as we go.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

But obviously, we don't want to get out in front of ourselves until we're at that point.

Patrick Ouellette
Patrick Ouellette
Equity Research Associate at Stifel Financial Corp

All right, thanks so much. I'll turn it back.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Tim Moore from Clear Street. Your line is open.

Tim Moore
Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst at Clear Street

Thanks. Very nice execution on especially free cash flow magnitude and the working capital ARs collection from The Gulf. I also appreciate Lee has strong emphasis on preventing dilution of shareholders for the bromine project financing optionality beyond self funding. So most of my questions were already answered, but I want to start off just maybe getting a little bit more on desalination. It's the hottest topic I get asked about, still the last couple of years.

Tim Moore
Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst at Clear Street

How is that progress growing with the beneficial reuse for the growing seasons? I mean, you have to do a couple of growing seasons hurdle or is that not much more of a hurdle anymore to really move forward on the commercial plant side?

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Well, I will say that the progress so far on the commercial pilot that we have with EOG is going very well. Because of our NDA, I really can't get into any specific discussions about where we are and the timing and what the detailed plans for that will look like. That will ultimately be up to EOG if they want to switch from the pilot into commercial discussions. I would say the only thing I can say at this point is the pilot is going extremely well.

Tim Moore
Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst at Clear Street

Good, that's good. No, that's a great partner to have. And just housekeeping question on Brazil, we got a good understanding on the CS Neptune Golf. But what for Brazil, the offshore, do you expect much more revenue and EBITDA in the second half and this year? And what do you think next year's amount could be?

Tim Moore
Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst at Clear Street

It could be similar to this year's or will be just lower because you were doing more project well stuff this year in Brazil than maybe next year?

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Yeah, we will get some benefit from Brazil this year. We think most of the wells because we'll have a full year of the contract underway. We'll see the benefit in 2026 compared to 2025. The impact this year is not as significant as it will be next year. And the same for this, we've mentioned a new 20 ks rig completion in the Gulf Of America that we were awarded.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

That's a big deal for us. That'll be more significant in '26 than it is in the rest of this year.

Tim Moore
Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst at Clear Street

That's really good color because some investors just know you lap a little bit of CS golf, but you got more next year and Brazil seems stronger next year than even this year. And then my last question is just on Eos. That's another question we get asked a lot. Just on your visibility, they're doing like you mentioned, the automation line completion fourth quarter it sounds like. I mean, do you have a rolling ninety day kind of order of it and how quickly can you adjust if they really ramp up severely in the fourth quarter?

Tim Moore
Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst at Clear Street

Mean, I do you have enough supply that you can get them and that kicks in pretty robustly?

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Yeah, we have a very, very good, almost daily relationship with EOS in terms of their ramp up their orders. As I'd mentioned, we've converted our West Memphis plant over from being able to ship totes into bulk tankers now, which allow us to achieve a significantly higher volume of electrolyte in preparation for their ramp up. So yes, we get a forecast from them. We've been planning for all of the capacity needs that they will have when they get their first line running, which we understand is targeted to be a two gigawatt hour annual capacity. And so we understand that volume very well as we head into 2026.

Tim Moore
Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst at Clear Street

Brady, thanks for elaborating on that. That's it for my questions. Thank you.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Sure, thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Josh Jain from Daniel Energy Partners. Your line is open.

Joshua Jayne
Managing Director at Daniel Energy Partners

Thanks. First one, you highlighted the uncertainty in U. S. Land completions in the second half of the year. What are your thoughts on completion activity in The U.

Joshua Jayne
Managing Director at Daniel Energy Partners

S. And how that frames your assumptions for the water and flowback business and the drivers that may allow you to continue to outperform there?

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Yeah, I think the activity is a little bit hard to predict. Obviously, it's been trending down as I've mentioned for sixteen months and there's some outlook that that will continue trending down. I think our view is that while overall activity is trending down, the market share opportunities that we have with our automated technology both in Sandstorm and Drill Out, the utilizations that we're running at will allow us to continue to at least maintain growth, maybe not necessarily achieve growth, but certainly maintain revenue in the second half of the year at what we believe will be improved margins as we use more of our technology. And keep in mind, a bigger part of our revenue base is shifting from just flat completions to produced water recycling and treatment. We're one of the largest recycling and treatment for frac reuse.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

And as operators slow down, the percentage of water that they use for treatment and recycling actually increases. And so we've got some areas that we think will offset the overall activity declines in the second half of the year, which is why we provided the guidance we have.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

And Josh also recall that embedded in this segment is that we've got early production facilities in Argentina that are under multi year contracts. And then we have an offshore rig cooling business that's tied to deepwater activity.

Joshua Jayne
Managing Director at Daniel Energy Partners

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then second one, just maybe this is more of a longer term question, but as the base business continues to generate free cash flow and you continue to inch closer to generating free cash flow from both DSAL and Arkansas, how are you thinking about capital returns to shareholders in the near to intermediate future, just given it'll be here before you know it sort of some cash flow tailwinds over the next eighteen to twenty four months? Maybe you could just elaborate on your thoughts there a bit. Thanks.

Elijio Serrano
SVP & CFO at TETRA

That's a very good question, Josh. You've asked that we intend to address at our Investor Day. So we'll ask you to bear with us. And at the September, we're going to walk you how we're going to transition the company from investing in growth opportunities to a return of capital program.

Joshua Jayne
Managing Director at Daniel Energy Partners

Understood. Thanks. I'll turn it back.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Murphy for any closing remarks.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

Thank you, Chloe, and thank you for all of you joining our call this morning. As we close out the call, we have a lot of good things to feel really good about. A record setting first six months of the year, significant free cash flow from our base business to keep pace with our Arkansas project, a strong outlook for '26 and beyond for our deepwater business and electrolyte sales ramp up and significant progress for our desalination opportunities. So please, as Kurt and Elijio mentioned, please sign up for our Investor Day on September 25. We're very excited about our future.

Brady Murphy
President & CEO at TETRA

We'll lay out our execution strategies and plans to deliver on our future growth targets. Thank you very much for joining us and look forward to our next call.

Operator

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

Analysts
    • Kurt Hallead
      VP - Treasurer & IR at TETRA
    • Brady Murphy
      President & CEO at TETRA
    • Elijio Serrano
      SVP & CFO at TETRA
    • Martin Malloy
      Partner & Director - Equity Research at Johnson Rice & Company L.L.C.
    • Jesse Sobelson
      VP - Equity Research at D. Boral Capital
    • Bobby Brooks
      VP & Senior Equity Research Analyst at Northland Capital Markets
    • Patrick Ouellette
      Equity Research Associate at Stifel Financial Corp
    • Tim Moore
      Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst at Clear Street
    • Joshua Jayne
      Managing Director at Daniel Energy Partners
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