NCS Multistage Q1 2026 Earnings Report

NCS Multistage EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.14
• Consensus EPS: $1.33
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$1.47
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

NCS Multistage Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $45.64 million
• Expected Revenue: $51.22 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$5.58 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

NCS Multistage Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2026
• Date: 4/29/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, April 30, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 8:30AM ET

NCS Multistage (NASDAQ:NCSM) is an oilfield services company that designs, engineers and manufactures downhole completion systems for use in hydraulic fracturing operations across North America. Specializing in multi‐stage stimulation technologies, the company’s product portfolio includes composite frac plugs, open‐hole frac systems and mechanical isolation tools that enable producers to optimize well performance in unconventional reservoirs. Its tools are employed in plug-and-perf operations, horizontal completions and re-entry applications, providing zonal isolation and pressure integrity throughout the fracturing process.

In addition to its core frac plug offerings, NCS Multistage provides a range of complementary services including on-site rig support, tool installation supervision and pressure testing. The company leverages its in-house engineering team to adapt its completion solutions to diverse well geometries and pressure regimes, aiming to enhance operational efficiency and reduce non-productive time. By offering both rental fleets and consumable composite products, NCS Multistage works closely with exploration and production companies to tailor its service models to individual project requirements.

Founded in the early 2000s, NCS Multistage has established a presence across major U.S. shale plays, including the Permian Basin, Bakken, Eagle Ford and Appalachia. Its North American footprint is supported by multiple service hubs and a distributed fleet of specialized equipment that enables rapid deployment to well sites. Led by a management team with deep expertise in completion engineering and oilfield operations, the company continues to invest in product innovation and manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand for advanced completion technologies.

NCS Multistage Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Negative Sentiment: Q1 revenue was $45.6 million, about $5 million below prior guidance driven by a 38% decline in Canada (weather, spring breakup and customer deferrals); adjusted EBITDA was $5.6 million (below guidance) and the company reported a net loss of $0.4 million.
• Positive Sentiment: U.S. revenue more than doubled year‑over‑year, driven by Repeat Precision product sales and tracer diagnostics, and the company won a multi‑well sliding‑sleeve project (~2–3% of annual revenue, ~ $4–5M) with most revenue expected in Q4.
• Neutral Sentiment: Management modestly raised full‑year revenue guidance to $186M–$194M while maintaining adjusted EBITDA guidance of $26M–$29M, but increased 2026 capital spending and expects higher cash‑settled share‑based comp and some supply‑chain costs.
• Positive Sentiment: The ResMetrics integration is advancing (ResMetrics contributed ~$1.8M in Q1), enabling new tracer offerings (SmartProp, RapidTrace) and operational synergies that management expects will accelerate revenue and margin benefits in H2 and beyond.

Presentation

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the NCS Multistage Q1 2026 results conference call. All participants are at present in a listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to Corbin Woodhull of Hayden IR. Corbin, you can begin.

[Corbin Woodhull, Managing Director and Global Advisory at Hayden IR]

Thank you, Latif. I would like to welcome everyone to the conference call and thank NCS Multistage management for hosting today's call. With us on the call today are Mr. Ryan Hummer, the CEO of NCS Multistage, and Mr. Mike Morrison, the CFO. I would like to remind listeners that some of today's comments include forward-looking statements such as our financial guidance and comments regarding our future expectations for financial results and business operations. These statements are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from any other expectations expressed herein. Please refer to our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and our latest SEC filings for risk factors and cautions regarding forward-looking statements.

[Corbin Woodhull, Managing Director and Global Advisory at Hayden IR]

Our comments today, as well as the results of operations included in our earnings release, contain the following non-GAAP financial measures: EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted EBITDA less share-based compensation, adjusted gross profit, adjusted gross margin, free cash flow, free cash flow less distributions to non-controlling interests, and net working capital. These non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to our most comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in our Q1 earnings release, which can be found on our website at www.ncsmultistage.com. With that, I will now turn the call over to Ryan Hummer.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

All right. Thank you, Corbin Woodhull, and welcome to our investors, analysts, and employees who are joining our Q1 2026 earnings call. I'll begin by discussing our results for the Q1 and our outlook for the remainder of the year. I'll then briefly review some recent commercial and operational highlights aligned with our strategy and long-term growth objectives. Mike will follow with additional detail on the Q1 and our guidance for the Q2. Revenue for the Q1 of $45.6 million was slightly more than $5 million below the midpoint of our prior guidance. The shortfall was concentrated in Canada with the balance from international.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

In Canada, we experienced both challenging weather conditions in March in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, as well as an earlier than expected onset of spring breakup, which contributed to a year-over-year Q1 Canadian rig count reduction of approximately 7%. Certain of our customers experienced drilling issues or deferred their planned activity from Q1 until later in the year, while other customers reduced activity on recently acquired assets as they evaluate than we had anticipated under a new completions contract that was awarded last year. A high point for the quarter for us was our U.S. revenue, which improved by over 100% year-over-year and by 6% as compared to the fourth quarter of 2025.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Despite the revenue shortfall, we met the midpoint of our adjusted gross margin guidance and reduced our SG&A, even with the inclusion of additional operating expenses related to ResMetrics. As we look forward to the remainder of the year, we're modestly increasing the midpoint of our revenue guidance for full year 2026 and maintaining our adjusted EBITDA guidance despite the challenges encountered late in the Q1. Starting with Canada, our expectations for full year capital spending by our customers remains unchanged. Accordingly, we expect the lower rig count in the Q1 of 2026 compared to the Q1 of 2025 to reverse after spring breakup with modestly higher year-over-year activity in the second half of the year, including jobs that were deferred from Q1 by our customers, as mentioned previously.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Importantly, this view of activity is based on current customer capital budgets and does not reflect any budget or activity adjustments that could result from higher oil prices ensuing from the current conflict in the Middle East. In the U.S., we've had two positive developments that improve our outlook. A large customer has placed an order for a multi-well, multi-basin fracturing systems project in the Permian and the Rockies after a successful initial two-well project last year. We expect to deliver the sliding sleeves for this project later this year, with most of the revenue to come in the fourth quarter. Completions for these wells are expected to take place in 2027. Repeat Precision has successfully converted field trials that were underway during the Q1 into recurring work with several customers. This increase in activity started in late February and has since continued.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Repeat Precision was awarded this work based on the operational performance of our products, validated in many cases by third-party diagnostics resulting from head-to-head comparisons with one or more competing products. Another key differentiator supporting growth at Repeat Precision is the StageSaver frac plug introduced last year. As a reminder, StageSaver is a product that helps customers keep operations running smoothly when unexpected problems happen in the well. It reduces disruptions from screen outs and other downhole issues, which helps customers get more value from their advanced completion methodologies like Simul-frac and Trimul-frac. Additional customer trials are underway for the StageSaver plug and also Repeat Precision's PurpleReign dissolvable plug.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

To support recent and potential future growth, we are investing in additional machining assets at Repeat Precision to increase capacity by approximately 25% and to reduce labor costs for overtime hours that we are currently using to support the increased volumes. Our guidance for 2026 currently excludes the potential delivery of sliding sleeves for our first deepwater opportunity in the Gulf of Mexico. We continue to work with our customer and the regulators to advance this opportunity, which could materialize in late 2026 or in early 2027. Our international outlook for this year remains consistent with our prior call. We could see additional orders in the North Sea and higher volumes of frac plug sales to the Middle East, which may be offset slightly by lower tracer diagnostics activity in Saudi Arabia.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Looking forward, we expect continued growth in North Sea activity in 2027 as two of our customers begin multi-year projects in fields that will be utilizing our technology. We've also submitted a tender for a three-well project, which, if awarded, would represent our first shallow water project outside of the North Sea and would continue to validate the applicability of our RayTech frac sleeve family in multiple geographies. I'll now spend just a few minutes reviewing some recent commercial and operational highlights that are aligned with our long-term strategy. During the Q1, a customer in the MidCon region completed the first zipper frac of wells in the U.S. with NCS sleeves. While zipper and Simul-frac completions using NCS sleeves occurs frequently in Canada, this is a great example of a U.S. customer pairing the downhole performance of our fracturing systems technology with efficient surface methods.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

This reduces costs and improves financial returns. The customer plans to continue with zipper fracs in this area going forward. We installed several convertible sleeves in a well that the customer intends to use for enhanced oil recovery or EOR in the Permian area. These sleeves can be used during the initial completion and early production phase of the well, with the option to later shift them for controlled injection as part of the overall EOR project. We're developing a 6-inch frac sleeve and service tool to support a customer project in the Rockies for 2027. For this project, our sleeves will be run in several new wells at a depth below an existing well pad and used to re-stimulate the existing asset. Regulatory approval for this application was supported by the unique attributes of our technology and the reliability of our ShiftFrac Close operations.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

We've also been awarded a second fracturing systems job in Oman, scheduled for later this year. This follows the successful operations and strong production results from our initial well in the region last year. In tracer diagnostics, we provided our SmartProp solution, initially developed by ResMetrics, to a customer in Canada. This SmartProp tracer carrier has properties that are very similar to frac sand, transporting like sand into the formation to provide a better indicator of stage level performance. Continuing in tracer diagnostics, we recently completed our first RapidTrace project in the North Sea. This on-site testing solution provides qualitative results in nearly real time, eliminating the need to ship samples to our laboratories. The customer validated production from the lateral after the completion during the well-testing phase, informing their decisions and helping them to release expensive dayrate assets from location earlier than they otherwise would have.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Last, the final ResMetrics integration steps are underway. We relocated our manufacturing and laboratory assets from ResMetrics facility in Houston to our facility in Tulsa. Over the next few weeks, we'll move the remaining Houston tracer inventory into our districts, fully consolidating field operations. Our NCS and ResMetrics team has done a fantastic job throughout the integration process. We're starting to benefit from operational synergies, which we expect to accelerate in the second half of the year. Our team in Canada, in particular, is leaning into the new service capabilities and combined offerings to capture revenue synergy potential. Mike will now review our results for the Q1 in more detail and provide our guidance for the Q2 of 2026.

[Mike Morrison, CFO at NCS Multistage]

Thanks, Ryan. As reported in yesterday's earnings release, our Q1 revenues were $45.6 million, a 9% decline compared to the Q1 of last year and below our guidance range. The decrease in revenue for the quarter was driven by lower activity in rig counts in Canada, as well as a decline in international service revenue. From a geographic standpoint, the U.S. led with revenue that more than doubled year-over-year, international increased by 13%, and Canada declined by 38%. The increase in the U.S. was broad-based, driven by Repeat Precision product sales and tracer diagnostics service revenue, including a $1.8 million contribution from ResMetrics, a business we acquired in July 2025. International benefited from well construction product sales in the Middle East, delivering a 63% year-over-year increase in international product revenue.

[Mike Morrison, CFO at NCS Multistage]

Our adjusted gross profit, defined as total revenue less total cost of sales, excluding depreciation and amortization expense, was $18.2 million for the Q1, representing an adjusted gross margin of 40% compared to adjusted gross margin of 44% for the same period in 2025. Adjusted gross margin was at the midpoint of our guidance. The year-over-year decline reflects a revenue contraction for the quarter attributable to lower activity in Canada and reduced higher margin international tracer diagnostic activity in the Middle East. The favorable contribution for ResMetrics served to partially offset the gross margin pressure. Selling, general, and administrative costs were $15.7 million for the Q1, down 3% compared to the same period last year, reflecting lower incentive bonus accruals recorded in 2026, as well as lower share-based compensation expense associated with our cash settled awards.

[Mike Morrison, CFO at NCS Multistage]

ResMetrics contributed $0.7 million of SG&A in the quarter. Normalizing for these items, the rest of our SG&A was lower by $0.4 million year-over-year, further validating our financial discipline. Other income of $1.9 million increased from $0.9 million in the Q1 of 2025, driven primarily by royalty income from licenses associated with our intellectual property, as well as stronger scrap sales. Our net loss for the quarter was $0.4 million, or a loss per share of $0.14, compared to net income of $4.1 million, or diluted earnings per share of $1.51 in the year-ago period.

[Mike Morrison, CFO at NCS Multistage]

Adjusted EBITDA was $5.6 million, or an adjusted EBITDA margin of over 12%, short of the low end of our quarterly guidance range and a decline from the $8.2 million in the prior year. Turning to our cash flow and balance sheet. Our cash flow from operating activities was a positive $1.3 million, and our free cash flow was $0.7 million, both improvements to the use of cash from operating activities of $1.6 million and a negative free cash flow of $2.1 million in the same period in 2025. As of March 31st, 2026, we had $34.5 million in cash and total debt of $7.2 million, which consists entirely of finance lease obligations, resulting in a positive net cash position over $27 million.

[Mike Morrison, CFO at NCS Multistage]

The borrowing base availability under our undrawn ABL facility was $18.5 million, resulting in total liquidity of $53 million. Turning now to a few points of guidance for the Q2 of 2026. We currently expect Q2 total revenue in the range of $36 million-$39 million, implying an increase of 3% at the midpoint compared to the Q2 of 2025. We expect US revenue from $18 million-$19 million, international revenue from $5 million-$6 million, and Canadian revenue from $13 million-$14 million. Adjusted gross margin is expected to be between 35.5% and 37.5%, with the midpoint of the range representing a modest expansion compared to the Q2 of 2025.

[Mike Morrison, CFO at NCS Multistage]

Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between breakeven and $2 million, and our Q2 depreciation and amortization expense is expected to be approximately $1.6 million. With that, I'll hand it back over to Ryan, who will provide our updated full year 2026 guidance and closing remarks.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Thank you, Mike Morrison. I covered our market expectations, including the various product lines and geographies earlier. Accordingly, our full-year guidance for 2026 is as follows. We currently expect full-year revenue in the range of $186 million-$194 million. This reflects a $2 million increase to the low end of the range and a $1 million increase to the midpoint of our prior guidance. We're maintaining our full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance range at $26 million-$29 million, with the benefit of the higher revenue offset by an expected increase in our cash-settled share-based compensation expense. We're also incurring additional supply chain costs, including shipping and transportation, resulting from the current conflict in the Middle East.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

We are increasing our planned capital expenditures for 2026 to $2.2 million-$2.8 million, an increase of $0.8 million at the midpoint. The increased capital investment is dedicated to expanding manufacturing capacity at Repeat Precision in support of growing sales volumes. We expect free cash flow after distributions to our joint venture partner of $11 million-$15 million. This is $1 million lower at the midpoint, reflecting the higher capital expenditures, potential working capital impacts related to revenue timing for the year, and a higher mix of earnings derived from Repeat Precision this year. Consistent with prior years, we anticipate that the achievement of our annual adjusted EBITDA will be weighted to the second half of the year and that our free cash flow will be weighted towards the end of the year.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

As I mentioned earlier, our guidance at this time does not incorporate any expectation of increased customer activity that could result from improved customer cash flows associated with higher oil and liquids prices. I believe NCS is very well-positioned if we do enter a market that supports higher oil prices over the medium to long term, both through our presence in North America as a source of shorter cycle production and in international markets where we support highly capital-efficient resource development in growing markets. We've demonstrated our ability to deliver organic revenue growth at high incremental contribution margins, leveraging our relatively fixed SG&A, and expect that we could continue to do so if a new structural demand cycle emerges, as many are suggesting. Before Q&A, I'll close with a few comments. I'm proud of what the team at NCS accomplished during the quarter.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

While we fell short on our revenue expectation this quarter, we converted several opportunities that we expect to materialize as revenue later this year and into the future. Our business model continues to be proven as we generated free cash flow during the Q1, a quarter when we've historically experienced a use of cash. We maintain a strong balance sheet and liquidity position with total liquidity of $53 million, including availability under our revolver. We continue to deliver impactful new technology to our customers, as exemplified by our StageSaver composite frac plug and the DualBarrel frac sleeve for enhanced oil recovery. We are approaching the final stages of the ResMetrics operational integration and are on track to realize the expected cost synergies, we're capitalizing on incremental revenue synergy opportunities.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Finally, we're taking actions to better position NCS to capitalize on the growth opportunities that we've been targeting in global offshore markets. We're establishing an internal cross-functional team, including business development, technical services, product line, engineering, and operations, to identify and prioritize commercial and product development opportunities and to assist customers in planning for and delivering successful operations. This team is supported by a recent hire that we've made, bringing on board an individual with extensive global experience in stimulation design and execution, both offshore and onshore, during his time at a super major. We believe that this enhanced focus will better position NCS to capitalize on our strong and growing track record in offshore completions. With that, we welcome any questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Dave Storms of Stonegate. Your line is open, Dave.

[Dave Storms, Director of Equity Research at Stonegate]

Morning. Thank you for taking my questions.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Dave. Good morning.

[Dave Storms, Director of Equity Research at Stonegate]

Morning. Just wanted to start maybe with Canada. You know, obviously there was a lot of things that were maybe headwinds in the quarter for you, between the weather issues, spring break-up, customer delays. Would you be able to maybe break out a little bit more there about how much of a factor each of those variables were? I'm just trying to get a sense for what the risks could be going forward. Obviously, you kept your revenue guide, you know, still very strong, so that's encouraging, but just trying to figure out what the risks are there.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Yeah. I'll take them kind of one by one. Really kind of three, you know, things that kind of cropped up primarily, you know, in March with respect to Canada. The first was the weather that we had alluded to. You know, conditions got unfavorable in March for completions activity in Southern Alberta and Saskatchewan. We had a little bit earlier onset of spring breakup as the thaw line kind of progressed north faster than is typical. You know, I'd say that was probably, you know, half of the driver of, you know, kind of the miss in Canada relative to the Q1 expectations. You know, beyond that, we had some customers who deferred their activity projects they'd expected to kick off in February and March, and they deferred that.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

If you think about it, you know, the expectation coming into this year, budgets were set with $60 or $65 oil. There was an expectation that the market would potentially improve in the latter half of the year. It makes sense that some of those customers might defer their planning. With spring breakup hitting in the middle of the year, our Canadian customers have the ability to do that. I think they were just kind of looking at what was in front of them and potential improving market later in the year and just decided to shift their capital a little bit further back. The last piece, which is smaller but is impactful, is we mentioned that customers had some drilling issues.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

You know, they either encountered tough formations or weren't able to get to depth, and we don't sell our sleeves until they get installed in the customer's wells. You know, a couple of wells for us where we had expected those sleeves to get installed and either they came up short or, they had to drill a new lateral. The accumulation of all of those led up to, you know, kind of the miss in Q1. I'd say most of that, you know, we'll be able to, you know, recover later in the year. Again, that's on a basis of customers continuing with their initial budgets. I think there's potential upside from there if the markets start to react to, you know, the higher oil price environment.

[Dave Storms, Director of Equity Research at Stonegate]

Understood. That's great commentary. Thank you. Maybe just wanted to talk to some of the new tech. You mentioned that the deep water stuff could either come in 2026 or 2027. Maybe just walk us through some of the variables there. Is this just a matter of getting the tech right? Is there still qualification that needs to be done? Is this a customer timing thing at this point? I guess, what would bring that into 2026 versus 2027? Maybe additionally, what does the backlog for additional projects look like in deep water, assuming this all goes well?

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Yeah. So for the initial well, right, the asset has been identified. We're working together with the customer and the regulator, as we've said, for that project. You know, that's being targeted. You know, drilling for that well is expected to start, you know, kind of late this year. We are targeting delivery of sleeves for that project in December. You know, but obviously, with projects like that, there's an opportunity for it to slip a little bit, so we're just being a little bit cautious and not putting a large project into the guidance in December that if it slips by one week or two could fall into next year.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

You know, there is ongoing work there, as far as finalizing, you know, the metallurgy that goes into the sleeves and some testing requirements and whatnot, but we do feel like we're on track. Yeah, that customer has identified two other projects in the Gulf of America, where we think that technology would have some application as you move into kinda thinking about later 2027, 2028. As with most projects in the offshore environment, you know, there you have the operator for that well and then other companies who have, you know, smaller percentages of that project. You know, we've been talking to several customers about this deep water solution. We do think that we'll be able to grow that customer base over time.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Again, this is a kinda long cycle from a customer acquisition standpoint, proving out the technology, making sure it's fit for the application in each customer, in each well's environment. We feel good about how that'll play out over the course of the next couple years. We think we're on track for this first well. That customer has plans for additional opportunities, it's from there expanding that customer base and moving into other markets worldwide.

[Dave Storms, Director of Equity Research at Stonegate]

That's great. Thank you. Maybe one more for me before I jump back in queue. On the macro, you guys, you both have a lot of conversations with operators in the industry. Obviously, the macro environment is fast-changing. Are you seeing any operators changing their philosophy or their stance, or is everyone still in a bit of a wait and see mode as the commodity prices change?

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Yeah, those conversations are certainly starting to pick up. You know, we're having those conversations, and I think that's been articulated also through some of the drilling contractors have reported recently, whether it be Patterson or Nabors, talking about customer inquiries for increasing the rig count. You've seen some commentary from Halliburton and Liberty and Patterson talking about, you know, the ability to bring some completion crews back into the market. There's not as many excess rigs as there used to be. There's not as much excess frac capacity as there used to be, but those conversations are certainly taking place. And they're taking place both in the U.S. and in Canada. But don't wanna lean into that too much just yet.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

We'll wait for the customers to come up with their budgets and actually, you know, contract those rigs and move it from conversations about picking up activity to commitments to do so.

[Dave Storms, Director of Equity Research at Stonegate]

That's great. Thank you for taking my questions. I'll get back in queue.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

All right. Thanks, Dave.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Daniel of Daniel Energy Partners. Please go ahead, John.

[John Daniel, Founder and President at Daniel Energy Partners]

Hey, guys. Thanks for all the color on the call. Call it a two-part question for you. You know, let's assume we're positively surprised and the activity accelerations occur a bit faster and more assertively than conventional wisdom. In such a scenario, Ryan, what constraints, if any, do you think could become obstacles to growth, and what could you do right now to start getting ahead of it?

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Yeah, John, thanks for the question. For us, really there's very little, right? A lot of that comes from the way we've set up the business model. We are, as I mentioned earlier, we're investing to increase the capacity at Repeat Precision. Those machining assets are coming online in the course of the next month or two, so we'll be able to pick up capacity there, and I think be able to handle growth should it pick up on the frac plug side. If it comes to fruition right across tracer diagnostics, across our frac systems business, from a supply chain standpoint, we're in really good shape across both of those. We've got an outsourced manufacturing model. We're not limited really with respect to any sort of roof line or equipment constraints.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

What we'd really need to do is start, you know, hiring some people to support that. In Canada, we use a contractor model, so we have some employees, but we can also flex our field capacity with contractors. It's really good work for them, so if we have activity, I think no issues getting those contractors on board to support it. In the U.S., most of our activities in international is supported by employees. You know, to support a pickup in activity in the U.S. international, we would need to start hiring folks and getting them out there and trained and on jobs. You know, we maintain kind of a roster of folks who either previously worked at NCS or that have come to us in the past as we've had open positions.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

We can lean into that.

[John Daniel, Founder and President at Daniel Energy Partners]

Okay.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

... and try to build up that workforce as quickly as possible. It's really more a people constraint than it is, you know, a manufacturing or supply chain constraint.

[John Daniel, Founder and President at Daniel Energy Partners]

Okay. Sticking with the sort of the glass half full outlook here, from my perspective at least, if we have that, you know, you guys went through a number of new projects that you're working on. As you think about the growth in the business, would you expect, you know, the faster growth rate to come from those new projects, products, if you will, or like legacy products? I'm not looking for specific financial guidance here, although it's gonna sound like it.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Mm-hmm.

[John Daniel, Founder and President at Daniel Energy Partners]

... speak to what happens in terms of margin impact over you know, multiple quarters if the thing, if we take off here.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

It's a good question. I think if the industry does inflect, I think in some ways it leads with kind of our historical products. I'll say there's a little bit of nuance to that in that, you know, for Repeat, StageSaver I think has moved on to where, you know, it was introduced last year, and it's now probably half of the volume on the plug sides. That new product is really kind of at the leading edge in displacing our traditional composite plug.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

I think the increase in activity would be across our legacy products and projects, but it could lead to a little bit more rapid, you know, development and advancement of the opportunities across the newer, you know, the newer products and solutions that we've been bringing to market. I think it helps on all fronts, but you react more quickly of what you already know, right? From an operator standpoint, I think it benefits both, but I think it's an uptick, again, kinda traditional products, but does maybe accelerate the timeline to introduce the newer solutions.

[John Daniel, Founder and President at Daniel Energy Partners]

Okay. Thank you for including me.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Yep, appreciate it, John.

[Operator]

Thank you. Again, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. Our next question. Please stand by. Our next question comes from the line of Gowshihan Sriharan of Singular Research. Your line is open, Gowshi.

[Gowshihan Sriharan, Analyst at Singular Research]

Good morning, guys. Can you hear me?

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

We can. Morning, Gowshi.

[Gowshihan Sriharan, Analyst at Singular Research]

Good morning. All right. On the calendar, can you the accounts, the top three accounts, the specific customers, have they since reconfirmed the deferred work for H2, or is the Canadian recovery assumptions more of a market-level expectation?

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

It's a little bit of both, right? Our, you know, I think as we talked about a little bit, we had an M&A combination of two of our larger customers last year that was announced about this time, and that closed, I think it was maybe late in the Q2 last year. When you do have some of that consolidation on the upstream side, a lot of times their pro forma activity will be reduced a bit. We're seeing the year-over-year impacts of that really across more the first and second half, or sorry, first and Q2s of this year. We'd already really kind of experienced the impact in the second half starting last year.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

You know, with that customer in particular, they use us in their operating areas where they use frac sleeves, so our fracturing system product line, they also use us for precision products where they run plug and perf completions. We've got a good sense for, you know, as their program moves forward, you know, the projects where they're gonna be using sleeves and the projects where they're gonna be using plugs and how that plays into the revenue for the 2nd half of the year. With respect to the rest of the customer base, yes, again, for our largest customers, you know, our sales and business development team and also our COO have been in front of customers recently kind of confirming their plans for the 2nd half of the year.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

It's a bit of a, you know, customer by customer buildup for our larger customers together with a general sense for the market.

[Gowshihan Sriharan, Analyst at Singular Research]

Okay. Thanks for that. Just to look at your, the outlook, the H2 out, is that achievable at the current lower rig count levels or is that are you assuming the rig counts in the calendar to level back to Q1 2025 levels?

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Right. For Canada, our expectation is unchanged with respect to the market, and that expectation is that the market as a whole, you know, capital spending across our customer base is relatively flat year-over-year, and therefore, rig count would be relatively flat year-over-year across the year. With that, with the rig count having been lower in the Q1 on a year-over-year basis, we do expect rig count will be a little bit higher in the second half on a year-over-year basis. Again, it doesn't include any change in our expectations for what the full-year rig count would be.

[Gowshihan Sriharan, Analyst at Singular Research]

Okay. Gotcha. On the Repeat Precision pricing, are the StageSaver and the PurpleReign commanding a premium price over some of your legacy plugs or is this more still of a volume growth story?

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

For StageSaver, it's primarily volume growth. There's not much of a, you know, pricing differential between the StageSaver and our traditional PurpleSeal composite plugs. You know, the PurpleReign is a different product entirely in that it's a dissolvable frac plug, and that does come at a higher price point in the market, in part because the materials cost that goes into that is a bit more elevated. I'd say just from a kind of profitability standpoint, they command relatively similar contribution margins.

[Gowshihan Sriharan, Analyst at Singular Research]

Gotcha. Okay. On a multi-well customer in the U.S. with the sliding sleeves, are you able to give us a size of that project in terms of revenue terms? Is that, is that a low single-digit or double-digit million-dollar opportunity and kind of the margin profile of that opportunity?

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Sure. For that one and how it kinda plays into our guidance for the year, I'd say that the expectation is that that could end up being somewhere in the order of 2%-3% of our annual revenue, so think about it as a $4 million-$5 million project. I'm thinking about it that way primarily with respect to, you know, sort of the, call it the standard costs of the sleeves. There is a potential that they would have us provide some additional value-added services related to those sleeves, which would increase revenue but come in at a lower contribution margin.

[Gowshihan Sriharan, Analyst at Singular Research]

Gotcha. Okay. On the international side, is the cross-selling between the NCS legacy tracer offering and now the ResMetrics capabilities in the Middle East starting to show up in customer conversations or is that synergy still ahead of us?

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Yeah. I think there's definitely still some opportunity ahead, right? The alignment of the sales teams was one of the first things that we did, obviously, in the integration process. You know, the sales teams that came with the ResMetrics acquisition were a little bit less familiar with some of the things that we had that were unique on the NCS side and vice versa. I think as the sales teams get more exposure to being able to offer that full service suite, you know, you are seeing opportunities continue to expand. We talked about a few of them, talked about the SmartProp offering, which was a legacy ResMetrics product, which has some good traction in the market.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Talked about the RapidTrace onsite, which is really more for applications like we talked about in the North Sea or Alaska or maybe even some remote areas in the Middle East, where you want that quick qualitative result and don't want to, don't need to take the time to send a sample back to a lab. The other one that we didn't talk about on this call is something called Luminate, and that's a what we call a composite multi-day sampler. We've had deployments on that. It's been proven to be very robust in the field and have good customer interest to take that out to location on new projects going forward. That was a legacy NCS development that again, sort of that combined sales team is finding opportunities for.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

I think we're still relatively early innings in being able to fully capitalize on the full service suite and then to capitalize on the relatively newer product introductions that each of us had coming into the combination.

[Gowshihan Sriharan, Analyst at Singular Research]

Yeah, gotcha. All right. I'll make this my last one. On the EBITDA guidance for Q2, you've talked consistently about, you know, relatively fixed SG&A base as a key to operating leverage. Is the Q2 operating compression purely a gross margin issue from a lower revenue mix? At what revenue level does NCS kind of break even? Is that some of the cost due to higher supply chain costs due to what's happening on a macro level?

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Right. As far as the EBITDA guidance, then yeah, most of what you're seeing there is with respect to the fixed cost component that exists within cost of sales and the lower gross profit margin that Mike had articulated in Q2, and which we've experienced historically. Obviously, bringing ResMetrics, which is a new, a more U.S.-oriented business in from last year, helps with that. It eliminates some of the seasonality. The pickup in the Repeat Precision business helps to address that a bit. We're always gonna have, so long as, you know, our Canadian business represents the majority of our work or a very large component of our work, you're gonna see some seasonal impacts in Q2.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

As far as where does that kind of break even profitability sit, I think, within the guidance, the lower end of the EBITDA range was break even. Call it $35 million of revenue might get you to plus or minus break even at the EBITDA standpoint. You experience the benefits from there as you ramp up. You get a little bit better gross margin percentage flowing through and you're holding those operating costs flat.

[Gowshihan Sriharan, Analyst at Singular Research]

Gotcha. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you, gentlemen. That's all I had for now.

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back to Ryan Hummer for closing remarks. Sir?

[Ryan Hummer, CEO at NCS Multistage]

All right. Thank you. On behalf of our management team and our board, we'd like to thank everyone for joining the call today, including our shareholders, analysts, and especially our employees. I truly appreciate the depth and breadth of the expertise of our people at NCS, Repeat Precision, and ResMetrics, and the passion and effort that our people bring to their work. Our team continues to provide excellent service to our customers, commercializing new products and services that will enable our customers to be more successful. We're taking on demanding and technically challenging work and delivering results. We appreciate everyone's interest in NCS Multistage, and we look forward to speaking again on our next quarterly earnings call.

[Operator]

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

Participants

Executives

• Mike Morrison, CFO
• Ryan Hummer, CEO

Analysts

• Corbin Woodhull, Managing Director and Global Advisory at Hayden IR
• Dave Storms, Director of Equity Research at Stonegate
• Gowshihan Sriharan, Analyst at Singular Research
• John Daniel, Founder and President at Daniel Energy Partners