RPC Q4 2025 Earnings Report

RPC EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.04
• Consensus EPS: $0.07
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.06

RPC Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $425.78 million
• Expected Revenue: $423.30 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$2.48 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +26.90%

RPC Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 2/3/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

RPC (NYSE:RES) (NYSE: RES) is an oilfield services company that provides specialized equipment and services to exploration and production companies. Its offerings support the drilling, completion, production and maintenance of oil and natural gas wells.

The company’s services include pressure pumping, well control, coiled tubing, snubbing, nitrogen pumping, wireline operations, well testing, downhole tools and equipment rental. RPC also provides related services used in well intervention and completion activities, helping customers improve well performance and address challenging production conditions.

RPC traces its history to 1984 and operates primarily through a network of specialized service businesses. Its activities have included operations in the United States and selected international markets, with the scope of its geographic presence varying according to industry conditions and customer demand.

RPC Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Negative Sentiment: Q4 results showed a sequential revenue decline of 5% to $426 million, Adjusted EBITDA fell to $55.1 million and Adjusted diluted EPS was $0.04 as margins compressed 230 basis points.
• Neutral Sentiment: The company changed its accounting for wireline cables in Q4 to expense them (instead of capitalizing), increasing cost of revenues and reducing CapEx but with no impact to free cash flow and contributing $0.06 of EPS adjustments.
• Positive Sentiment: RPC highlighted product and service wins that could drive future growth, including market-share gains from the A10 downhole motor, rollout of the Metal Max power section and UnPlug technology, plus snubbing growth and a new big-bore unit to target gas storage work.
• Positive Sentiment: The balance sheet remains strong with roughly $210 million of cash, no revolver borrowings, roughly $52.9 million of free cash flow after CapEx (year-to-date), and management says it will use this flexibility for selective M&A, capex and potential buybacks.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for RPC Inc.'s fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Today's call will be hosted by Ben Palmer, President and CEO, and Mike Schmidt, Chief Financial Officer. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. I would like to advise everyone that this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Schmidt.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

Thank you, and good morning. Before we begin, I want to remind you that some of the statements that will be made on this call could be forward-looking in nature and reflect a number of known and unknown risks. Please refer to our press release issued today, along with our 10-K and other public filings that outline those risks, all of which can be found on RPC's website at www.rpc.net. In today's earnings release and conference call, we'll be referring to several non-GAAP measures of operating performance and liquidity. We believe these non-GAAP measures allow us to compare our performance consistently over various periods. Our press release and our website contain reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. I'll now turn the call over to our President and CEO, Ben Palmer.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Thanks, Mike, and thank you for joining our call this morning. Today, we'll talk about our fourth quarter results and provide you with a few operational highlights. Fourth quarter results reflect a sequential revenue decline across the majority of our service lines. While October and November were consistent with third quarter monthly activity, we saw a weakness in December, particularly later in the month. During the quarter, service lines other than pressure pumping represented 70% of total revenues and saw a 4% sequential decrease compared to the third quarter of 2025. Although we did see revenues increase at Spinnaker Cementing Solutions, Patterson Tubular Services, storage and inspection business, and Cudd Pressure Control, snubbing, and well control businesses. Within technical services, Thru Tubing Solutions, downhole tools revenues decreased 9% sequentially. We saw growth in our Southeast and Northeast regions.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Our largest region, the Western MidCon, which includes the Elk City and Odessa locations, was flat sequentially. Weakness was experienced in the International and the Rocky Mountain regions. Thru Tubing Solutions is a market leader in downhole completion tools and includes a portfolio of products and advanced technologies. We have seen success building since our late 2024 rollout of the A-10 downhole motor. The new motor is positioned in the completions market to specifically address today's longer laterals and higher flow rates. We believe this tool technology provides customers with unmatched performance and has resulted in incremental share gains. Thru Tubing Solutions continues to expand the rollout of its new metal-on-metal power section component called MetalMax. The product allows for a shorter motor design, higher torque output, reduced downtime, and improved performance in demanding downhole environments.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

This improved technology allows us to expand into new markets due to these advantages. We initially prototyped the MetalMax motor in a few key geographic areas and have recently expanded into other regions. Thru Tubing Solutions continues to actively market and develop it, develop its UnPlug technology. This innovative product reduces and can sometimes eliminate the need for bridge plugs during the completion of a well and delivers faster drill out times while achieving highly effective stage isolation. While the product is early in its life cycle, adoption has steadily increased. Also, within technical services, Cudd Pressure Control revenues were up 1% sequentially, led by increases in well control activity and snubbing, which was up 13%, as this equipment was well utilized during the quarter.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Cudd Pressure Control snubbing business expects to take delivery of a big bore snubbing unit in 2026 that is specifically designed for cavern gas storage work. This unit was built to support a long-term customer, their storage well maintenance schedule over the next several years. This work is regulatory driven and is part of our effort to continue diversifying into other markets. Coil tubing, our largest service line within Cudd Pressure Control, was down 2% sequentially after a really strong third quarter. Our new 2 7/8-inch unit continued to be well utilized. We are upgrading an existing coil unit to handle the larger 2 7/8-inch tubing, and it's expected to be in service by the middle of 2026. Pintail Completions, the largest wireline provider in the Permian Basin, experienced a decline in revenues of 3% during the quarter.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Given our market position, we expect 2026 to trend closely with large Permian operator activity. Cudd Energy Services pressure pumping business saw a 6% sequential decrease. This decline largely related to holiday shutdowns and a fleet we idled in October. We do not expect to reactivate any fleets until returns improve. Many of our businesses have been impacted by recent winter storms early in the first quarter. While activity is expected to continue as conditions improve. These lost operating days are not fully recoverable, and the associated costs incurred will impact near-term profitability. RPC's focus remains on leveraging our strong balance sheet and maximizing long-term shareholder returns. We continue to strategically grow our less capital-intensive service lines, both organically and through acquisitions. With that, Mike will now discuss the quarter's financial results.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

Thanks, Ben. Our fourth quarter financial results with sequential comparisons to the third quarter of 2025 are as follows: Revenues decreased 5% to $426 million compared to Q3. Breaking down our operating segments, technical services, which represented ninety-five percent of our total fourth quarter revenues, was down 4%. Support services, which represented 5% of our revenues, was down 18%. The following is a breakdown of the fourth quarter revenues for our largest service lines. Pressure pumping, 27.6%. Wireline, 24.1%. Downhole tools, 22.4%. Coiled tubing, 9.7%. Cementing, 5.9%. Rental tools, 3.4%. Together, these service lines accounted for 93% of our total revenues.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

As disclosed in this morning's press release, we made the decision to expense wireline cables that were previously being capitalized beginning in the fourth quarter. This was due to a change in our useful lives because of increased activity and change in work type. The impact is seen primarily through an increase in cost of revenues and a reduction in capital expenditures, but also a modest decrease in depreciation and amortization. Cost of revenues, excluding depreciation and amortization, was $337 million, compared to $335 million in the previous quarter. This increase was primarily related to expensing wireline cables and other materials and supplies expenses related to job mix. SG&A expenses were $48 million, up slightly from $45 million.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

As a percent of revenues, SG&A increased 120 basis points to 11.2%, primarily due to employee incentives and higher other related employment costs. The effective tax rate was unusually high during the quarter. The higher rate was primarily due to the liquidation of our company-owned life insurance policies that were part of the previously announced dissolution of the company's non-qualified supplemental retirement income plan, coupled with the non-deductible portion of the acquisition-related employment costs. Adjusted diluted EPS was $0.04 in the fourth quarter. Adjustments totaled $0.06 and related to the expense of wireline cables purchased and capitalized from previous quarters, acquisition-related employment costs, and a significant increase in tax expense related to taxable gains on the sale of the company-owned life insurance policies and other investments related to the liquidation of the company's non-qualified supplemental retirement income plan.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

Adjusted EBITDA was $55.1 million, down from $67.8 million, due to broad-based declines across the majority of the businesses. Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased 230 basis points sequentially to 12.9%. The adjustments made to EBITDA were made to make future periods more comparable. Operating cash flow to date was $201.3 million, and after CapEx of $148.4 million, free cash flow was $52.9 million. The change to expensing wireline cables reduced both operating cash flow and CapEx, but resulted in no change to free cash flow. At quarter end, we had approximately $210 million in cash, a $50 million seller finance note payable, and no borrowings from our $100 million revolving credit facility.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

Payment of dividends totaled $35.1 million year to date through Q4 2025. During the quarter, we paid $8.8 million in dividends. Full year 2025 capital expenditures were $148 million, primarily related to maintenance, maintenance CapEx, and inclusive of opportunistic asset purchases, as well as our ERP and other IT system upgrades. Capital expenditures were $12 million lower due to wireline cables being expensed rather than capitalized in the fourth quarter. Additionally, we saw approximately $15 million in anticipated capital expenditures delayed into 2026. Due to this, this delay, we expect 2026 capital expenditures in the range of $150 million-$180 million. We'll adjust our spend based on activity levels. I'll now turn it back over to Ben for some closing remarks.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Thank you, Mike. 2025 was a challenging year, with year-end oil prices reaching its lowest level since COVID. While we have seen recent improvement in oil and gas, natural gas prices, we need further increases to disperse significant customer activity levels. Our management teams have experienced many cycles over the years, and we will continue to focus on costs, returns, and maintaining financial flexibility. This flexibility allows us to take advantage of opportunities that arise and to pursue growth opportunities through selective investment for organic growth, investment in new technologies, and M&A within our existing markets in the broader energy sector. I want to thank all of our employees who put in tremendous work, provide high levels of service and value to our customers. Thank you for joining us, joining us this morning, and at this time, we're happy to address any questions you might have.

[Operator]

At this time, in order to ask a question, press Star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. And your first question comes from the line of Don Crist with Johnson Rice. Please go ahead.

[Don Crist, Equity Research Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Good morning, guys.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Good morning, Don.

[Don Crist, Equity Research Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Hopefully, y'all are doing well this morning.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Hang in there.

[Don Crist, Equity Research Analyst at Johnson Rice]

My first question, and, Ben, I don't want to pin you down to any kind of guidance for the first quarter, but given the weather impacts for the first, call it two weeks of the year, do you think it kind of shakes out similar to the fourth quarter directionally? And again, I'm not looking for specific numbers here.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

To be honest with you, Don, it's a great question. We're still, you know, trying to, you know, analyze the impact. You know, we do have-- we're quite geographically diversified, but we are concentrated, you know, in the Permian and in the MidCon, you know, Oklahoma, and both of those areas were hit pretty hard. So reasonable question. I understand why you're asking, but, we don't know yet, but certainly, it's, it's, it's not, it's not insignificant. Put it that way.

[Don Crist, Equity Research Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Right. I understand it's hard to quantify, given-

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Yeah

[Don Crist, Equity Research Analyst at Johnson Rice]

...given we still got a lot of winter left. My second question would be, you know, we've seen a lot of your competitors have challenges outside of pressure pumping in the other business lines that y'all operate in, and a lot of that equipment start to move overseas to the Middle East and other places for unconventional, you know, type development. Are you seeing that other business lines, you know, Thru Tubing and coil and wireline start to normalize, or some of your competitors go away and have a little bit less competition there as that equipment moves overseas?

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Maybe a little bit of that. I don't know that it's a tremendous amount yet, but certainly every little bit can help. You know, there have been. We've heard of some competitors and some of those other service lines that are obviously reorganizing or, you know, being sold, absorbed by other competitors. So perhaps that is an indication that the market stress is getting to some of the less well-capitalized companies, and hopefully that'll inure to our benefit as we move forward.

[Don Crist, Equity Research Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Okay, and just one last question for me. You know, obviously, you've, you've been very, very prudent with the balance sheet over the years and, and selectively done M&A, but, you know, you've got a pretty large cash hoard right now. Any, any indication that we could see some stock buybacks, or, or are you gonna just keep that for M&A in the, in the near term?

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

We're always evaluating the various uses of our capital. And buybacks are certainly one of those choices, and we'll just have to see. Again, reasonable question. I wouldn't see us necessarily in the near term doing anything dramatically different, but that's in the tool chest, and we're looking at it.

[Don Crist, Equity Research Analyst at Johnson Rice]

I appreciate it. I'll get back in queue. Thanks.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Thank you, Don.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

Thanks, Don.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of John Daniel with Daniel Energy Partners. Please go ahead.

[John Daniel, Founder and Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

Hey, guys. Thanks for including me.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Morning, John.

[John Daniel, Founder and Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

You mentioned that the fleet was idle in the... Is there anything-

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

John, can I interrupt? John.

[John Daniel, Founder and Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

Can you hear me okay?

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Kind of hard. Having a little bit of difficulty.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

Yeah, cut out.

[John Daniel, Founder and Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

How about now? How about now?

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

That's better.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

Much better. Much better.

[John Daniel, Founder and Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

All right. Sorry, just driving to Midland. My question is, you know, with the fleet that was idled in October, I think you said October, at least in fourth quarter, is there anything today which would suggest that you think that fleet comes back this year? And with the reactivation, is it function of price, or would it be a function of if you had, you know, a sufficient amount of work, even at current pricing? Just how do you think about that?

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Good question. I mean, you know, we're always looking and evaluating, you know, opportunities where I would say the probability is we would need this, you know, being really comfortable that it's incrementally better pricing. We're not looking for the same pricing at the prior activity levels, right? And as we've always talked over the years, you know, some of it, you know, given, I mean, we do have some customers that we do have nice, steady programs with. So it's always a combination of our confidence in how steady the activity can be at a certain pricing and so forth. So I think-

[John Daniel, Founder and Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

Right

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

... we're not in a panic to try to put that fleet back to work. We wanna make sure we're comfortable that it's that it's gonna be generating probably better cash flow ... than we've recently been experiencing, not just from that, but just overall. We would want to tell them to present a pretty high probability that we would have an incremental benefit from bringing it back into service.

[John Daniel, Founder and Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

Okay, fair enough. So the second question is about M&A. Obviously, you guys have the balance sheet to prosecute deals, should you wish to. When you think of step back and think about just the market, you've got some of your peers that are, you know, chasing power, others will be more focused on international. It would seem that the universe of, you know, realistic buyers is traditional, you know, land equipment is kinda diminishing. I don't know if that's think that's a reasonably fair statement. Is that would you agree with that? And does it argue you take, you know, be very, you know, careful. I mean, just take your time. There's no rush to do deals if there's limited buyers. Just if you could kinda bloviate on that.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

I think that's a good way to set it up. Yeah, you know, I'm not well-versed with the entire market, but yes, I don't think there's a whole lot of competition out there for people seeking to buy traditional oilfield services companies. But there are some good companies out there that could be ones that would either add to some of our existing service lines. It could be a really good strategic fit, but all of it depending on, of course, you know, trajectory of their business and the price and all of those sorts of things. So yeah, we're not in panic. We, you know, traditionally, you know, don't lean into highly competitive bidding situations.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

And to the entire point, there's probably not gonna be situations where there's multiple bidders aggressively going after a particular target. So I think that's a nice position to be in, that we can be patient. We do have the balance sheet, not only the capital capacity, but the cash gives us a lot of flexibility, and so OFS is something we're looking at. But we too, you know, wanna be—we wanna open up the aperture of, what's the possible. You know, we've been doing some things that are on the edges of, you know, other parts of, you know, energy, like some of the, you know, gas storage work.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

You know, we don't have any yet that's of a significant amount, but, but we like that diversification, and so we're opening up the aperture to, you know, look at even more broadly than we may have in the past.

[John Daniel, Founder and Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

Okay. Well, thank you for including me today.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Well, thank you, John. Drive safely.

[John Daniel, Founder and Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners]

Yes, sir.

[Operator]

Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star one. Your next question comes from the line of Derek Podhaizer with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

[Derek Podhaizer, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Hey, good morning, guys. Maybe we could just start with-

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Morning.

[Derek Podhaizer, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Some additional insight. Morning. Just some additional insight and maybe some history into the updated wireline accounting treatment. Maybe just, just why now and not when the deal occurred last year? I think you mentioned a change in work type with the wireline. Just trying to understand better, you know, really what happened that caused this change.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

Sure. Derek, thanks for the question. Previously, you know, they, they had an audit, and previously they were capitalizing wireline, but their business had started changing about the time that we had the acquisition. You know, it's more Simul-frac, trimul-frac, and just working more. So it's something we kept our eyes on and that we wanted to make sure we were comfortable with by the end of the year. We were only depreciating them over 18 months previously, which was kind of where they historically had been. But we knew that the type of work was changing, and so we were just monitoring over, you know, the last couple of quarters, how much spend we were having on wireline cables. And, you know, we were more comfortable that it's, you know, closer to, you know, under a year.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

Rather than letting it build over time and being aggressive, we thought the right thing to do was within our first accounting window. We had enough evidence to, at this point, before year-end, to go ahead and make the switch. And, you know, we focused a lot on free cash flow here, and it doesn't have a ton of. It has zero free cash flow impact. So for us, we just thought it was, you know, the correct accounting treatment as we looked at kind of how quickly we were using up the cables, which has really changed, and started changing as the work changed.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Derek, as you know, too, I mean, we and the pumping industry went through this with fluid ends a number of years ago, so it's not dissimilar, excuse me, dissimilar in that regard. So, but we appreciate the question.

[Derek Podhaizer, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Right. Right. Yeah, no, that was very helpful. I appreciate the color, and yeah, it did remind me of the fluid end issue years ago. I guess maybe a question on Thru Tubing Solutions. You talked about international regions and your footprint there. Maybe just can you expand on that, maybe to educate us on the location and the type of technology you're deploying there, and how you really see that business growing over the next couple of years?

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Yeah. Well, with respect to the color on international, we have pared back significantly our international business from where we were a number of years ago. Thru Tubing Solutions has the largest presence internationally of our service lines. The Middle East is where we have the most activity, and that's the area that experienced the weakness that we were referring to. Canada is an area where we've done some work historically and have some work up in Canada consistently.

[Derek Podhaizer, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Got it. Is there any renewed focus as far as the Middle East and the build out of unconventionals and through tubing, you know, being a potential, you know, growth trajectory for you? Maybe reigniting, just given the unconventional build out of Middle East, or is that not the correct read-through?

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

It's possible. You know, we kind of several years ago kind of changed our business model there. So we have less of a quote-unquote, "physical presence." We're making the tools and the technology available. So yes, I mean, I think our tools certainly can perform very well in those environments like they do here in the States. So I would expect and hope that we would have some improvement there. But like I said, we're not directly there ourselves, so you know, we're working through other groups and making our tools available to them. So we'll have to see. Hopefully, they can be successful, and we can increase some revenues there.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

It's not anything that we're counting on in any of our current forecasts, but we hope it does come to fruition.

[Derek Podhaizer, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Got it. Okay, that's helpful. And then, maybe just a third question. A quick state of the union on the current spot market and pressure pumping. You know, how's the competition? It's always, it's always been oversupplied, but, you know, you've stacked the fleet, and I'm sure some of your competitors have stacked the fleet. I'm not sure if any of the smaller mom-and-pop privates have gone away, just given where pricing and activity has gone to. Obviously, we have accelerating attrition as well. So maybe could you help us further understand the state of the market today? Do you see competition reducing any sort of, you know, secular fundamental improvement that we could potentially see in the spot market as we work through the year?

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

We're not seeing anything dramatic yet at this point. Of course, you know, some of the consolidation that was occurring over the last couple of years has resulted in us selling off some of the properties and things like that, and that brings in some of the customers that are more spotty looking, if you will. So it could create some opportunities, but it's really more the same. I think discipline, we're trying to be disciplined again with our pricing. Again, one of the reasons we, you know, idle the fleet, we trimmed a little bit of headcount. So we're trying to do what we can to make the best of the situation. We are...

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

You know, we're certainly continuing to maintain the business, but, you know, the returns just need to improve, and we're hopeful that competitors, there are some mom-and-pops out there that are difficult to compete with. But, you know, we continue to support pressure pumping, but, you know, we're focused on some of the other service lines that are less capital intensive, and we'll see where all that takes us.

[Derek Podhaizer, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Right. Right. All right, great. Appreciate the color. I'll turn it back.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Charles Minervino with Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

[Charles Minervino, Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna]

Hi, good morning.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Morning, Chuck. Morning.

[Charles Minervino, Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna]

Was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about that 2026 CapEx. Sounds like you had some deferred spend, spend from 2025, but then also, I guess the wireline cable now comes out of the CapEx. Maybe they were offsetting each other, but if they are, you still gonna have CapEx up in 2026. So we're just curious if you can kind of touch on that a little bit and if there's maybe room for that to come down, if you're looking to generate a little bit more free cash flow during the year.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Well, I think we put out there, I think it's a quote-unquote "conservative number," and that it's maybe, you know, larger. We could have said something smaller, but we're trying to be realistic with respecting our, you know, near-term and longer-term plans. I mean, we've always, you know, certainly if things move dramatically in one way or the other, you know, CapEx, you know, sometimes there's oftentimes long lead times on that, so sometimes you can't immediately cut it off. But we scrutinize our CapEx very, very carefully. Certainly, there's opportunities to reduce it if conditions warrant. You know, the way we run the business, you know, the...

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Our management teams, you know, they look at their plans, they come up with their CapEx plans, but they know that, you know, in terms of unapproved or undelivered equipment, it's always subject to us together with them, making the decision that we're not gonna spend that money. So, it's not committed. If it's in the budget, that doesn't mean it can be spent, so we scrutinize it very carefully. So there is an opportunity for that number to come down, and likewise, there could be opportunities for it to go up slightly, right? If an opportunity comes along that we can pursue, we've got the balance sheet to be able to do that.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Yeah, we, everybody understands that, you know, at the end of the day, the free cash flow is where the rubber meets the road, and everybody buys into that and understands, and just trying to do what's prudent to be able to support our businesses and selectively grow them. But obviously, be very, very mindful and particular and selective about the CapEx investments. We'll continue to do that.

[Charles Minervino, Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna]

Got it. And then just one other, you know, in support services, I know not a huge piece of the overall revenue pie, but the rental tool revenue down pretty sharply, it sounds like late in the year. I know there's always seasonality late in the year. Was that particularly kind of sharper than you've seen historically? And I was just kind of curious if there was any reason for it, or any more color you can provide.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Yeah, it is, it is, it was more acute. That, that business, you know, a nice little business that's been really, really steady. So I don't say it was a surprise. I mean, I thought this kind of thing can always happen in the fourth quarter. It's kind of, you know, you can have one or two customers that slow down for whatever reason. And I think it too, was impacted in the Rockies, similar to the tubing solutions that we talked about. So it's kind of one or two customer specific, that, that, you know, impacted that. So it's really just some of it was not permanent delays. I mean, it's just obviously they're a rental tool company and drilling. So this was some delays on drilling some wells, but we believe it's only delays.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

It was just delaying it slightly. So, it's not a lost opportunity or anything like that. It was just a delay.

[Mike Schmidt, CFO at RPC Inc]

The other call out on that is they had a really great third quarter, so I mean, they had a pretty tough comparable.

[Charles Minervino, Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna]

Gotcha.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Good point.

[Charles Minervino, Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

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

[Ben Palmer, President and CEO at RPC Inc]

Thank you very much, operator. We appreciate everybody calling in and listening, and look forward to talking to some of you perhaps later today, and hope you have a good rest of the day. Take care.

[Operator]

Today's call will be available for replay on www.rpc.net within two hours following the completion of the call. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Ben Palmer, President and CEO
• Mike Schmidt, CFO

Analysts

• Charles Minervino, Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna
• Derek Podhaizer, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Piper Sandler
• Don Crist, Equity Research Analyst at Johnson Rice
• John Daniel, Founder and Managing Partner at Daniel Energy Partners