Tetra Technologies Q1 2026 Earnings Report

Tetra Technologies EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.06
• Consensus EPS: $0.03
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Tetra Technologies Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $156.25 million
• Expected Revenue: $151.20 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$5.05 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Tetra Technologies Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2026
• Date: 4/29/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, April 30, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 10:30AM ET

Tetra Technologies (NYSE:TTI) (NYSE: TTI) is an energy services and industrial products company that provides specialized fluids, water-management services and related solutions to the oil and gas industry. The company serves customers involved in drilling, completion, production and well-maintenance activities.

Its Completion Fluids and Products business supplies clear brine fluids and associated products, including calcium bromide, zinc bromide and calcium chloride-based fluids used in well-completion and workover operations. TETRA also provides chemicals and other products for industrial and energy-sector applications.

Through its Water and Flowback Services operations, TETRA helps manage water used in hydraulic fracturing and other oilfield activities. Its services include flowback, production testing, water transfer, treatment, recycling and disposal support, helping operators manage water throughout the well life cycle.

Founded in 1981, TETRA serves energy customers in North America and selected international markets. The company is headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas. Brady M. Murphy has served as TETRA’s president and chief executive officer, according to the company’s publicly available information.

Tetra Technologies Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Company reported a very strong Q1 with revenue of $156 million and adjusted EBITDA of $26 million — both 10-year highs (excluding last year's Neptune benefit) driven by standout results in Brazil, Gulf of America, industrial chemicals and production testing.
• Positive Sentiment: TETRA is maintaining 2026 guidance of single-digit revenue growth with completion fluid margins of 25%–30% and water flowback margins in the mid-teens, and says current oil prices could pull forward offshore projects that would benefit the business.
• Positive Sentiment: The Southwest Arkansas bromine plant remains on time and on budget (Phase 2 underway, Phase 3 in 2027) with first production targeted in early 2028 and design capacity up to 75 million pounds, supporting both deepwater fluids and expected growth in battery electrolytes.
• Positive Sentiment: OASIS produced-water desalination is progressing commercially — the Permian pilot is operating at over 96% uptime and the company has multiple engineering studies and customer engagements that could lead to commercial projects.
• Negative Sentiment: Balance sheet and cash flow showed near-term pressure: $36 million cash, $182 million total debt (1.5x net leverage), Q1 adjusted free cash flow used $32 million (base-business use $23.5 million) as the company reinvests in the Arkansas bromine project.

Presentation

[Operator]

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Kurt Hallead. Please go ahead.

[Kurt Hallead, Treasurer and VP of Investor Relations at TETRA Technologies]

Hey, good morning, and thank you for joining TETRA's first quarter 2026 earnings call. Speakers on today's call will be Brady Murphy, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt Sanderson, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to call your attention to the safe harbor statement in our Form 10-Q. Some of the remarks we make today may be forward-looking and are subject to risks and uncertainties as outlined in our SEC filings. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. In addition, we may refer to adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow and other non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our press release for GAAP reconciliations and note that these reconciliations are not a substitute for GAAP financials. As such, we encourage you to refer to our 10-Q that was filed yesterday. After Brady and Matt provide their comments, we will open the line for Q&A.

[Kurt Hallead, Treasurer and VP of Investor Relations at TETRA Technologies]

I'll now turn the call over to Brady.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Thank you, Kurt. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to TETRA's first quarter 2026 earnings call. I'll walk through the very positive first quarter highlights, how TETRA is positioned in this uniquely uncertain time and the progress towards our 2030 targets before turning it over to Matt to cover more detailed financials and the balance sheet. Despite the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of the oil and gas industry, we started 2026 with one of the strongest first quarter performances in the company's past 10 years. If we exclude the benefit of the Gulf of America Neptune project in the first quarter of last year, revenue of $156 million and adjusted EBITDA of $26 million were 10-year highs, as were the first quarter results for both Brazil and Gulf of America.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

In addition, the industrial chemicals and production testing sub-segments each delivered 10-year high revenues with strong margin contributions. What encourages us most about our results is that the operational and financial fundamentals for each of our segments and many of our sub-segments are improving even before the benefit of current elevated oil prices and potential increased customer spending activity. At current oil prices, we anticipate offshore projects could be pulled forward into unconventional activity in the U.S. will eventually respond. Combine this with the significant growth opportunities laid out in our ONE TETRA 2030 strategy, which I'll update later on our call, we feel very good about how TETRA's positioned for 2026 in the coming years.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Regarding the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, given that this region has historically accounted for about 5% of the company's revenue, we do not expect an overall negative impact on our financial results. That is because what we have seen so far is activity in our core business regions of the U.S., Europe and Latin America will likely offset any reductions that may occur in our Middle East business. This applies to our supply chain as well since all of our chemical manufacturing plants are located in the U.S. and Europe, our elemental bromine is sourced from Arkansas, which is also the location of our critical minerals resources. Over the longer term, it remains to be seen how the developments in the Persian Gulf and Middle East will impact the global oil and gas markets and our business.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

In general, we believe it could boost investment in the U.S. and international oil and conventional activity and provide tailwinds to an already robust offshore and deepwater outlook. For completion fluids and products, our industrial chemicals business had a record-setting 1st quarter, with revenue up 15% year-over-year and 13% quarter-over-quarter. For the first time since 2021, when energy services were suppressed due to COVID-19, it accounted for over 50% of total first quarter segment revenue. Higher pressure gas plays in South Texas and the Western Haynesville supporting Gulf Coast LNG plants are driving higher volumes of higher value completion fluids. Increasing pressures in West Texas due to disposal well pore space are also contributing to higher density fluids for well workovers. Looking forward, we're well-positioned heading into our traditional European seasonal second quarter peak.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

For completion fluid energy services, Q1 revenue and adjusted EBITDA in Brazil were at a 10-year high. Although we did not execute any Neptune jobs, our first quarter fluids business in the Gulf of Mexico excluding Neptune work in the first quarter of last year, also recorded a 10-year high in revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Regarding Neptune projects, we're very encouraged by the growing pipeline. The trend toward deeper, hotter wells in the Gulf of Mexico continues, as evidenced by very strong first quarter revenues for our highest density zinc bromide completion fluid. For the water and flowback business, despite U.S. frack fleets down 24% year-over-year and a slow January due to freezing weather, our overall revenue was up 1% year-over-year and 3% quarter-over-quarter.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Our production testing segment reached a 10-year high in the Q1 revenue as our automated SandStorm technology continues to gain market share across the unconventional land operations in the U.S., Argentina, and the Middle East. Our strategy to grow this segment internationally has been successful, and for the first time in the last 10 years, international production testing revenue was over 50% of the total PT subsegment revenue. Looking ahead to the rest of 2026, significant uncertainty remains for oil and gas prices. However, given our geographic footprint, we believe any headwinds from the Middle East will be offset by the strength of our other geomarkets. We expect to gain further clarity on customer activity offshore and outside of the Middle East as we move through the second quarter.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

For now, we are maintaining our prior 2026 guidance of single-digit revenue growth over 2025, with completion fluid margins between 25%-30% and water flowback in the mid-teens. Turning to our strategic progress towards our ONE TETRA 2030 objectives. At our Investor Day last September, we outlined a clear strategic path for the company. Although much has changed in the world since that event, our view of the company's key growth trajectories across deep water, specialty chemicals, electrolytes for battery energy storage, critical minerals, and desalination of produced water has strengthened. We expect bromine demand to support our deep water completion fluids and battery storage electrolytes to double by 2030, driving the need for and reliable access to cost-effective elemental bromine, a critical feedstock.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

This has become more evident with the current events in the Middle East, as well over 50% of the global bromine supply comes from that region. Our bromine plant project in Southwest Arkansas continues to proceed on time and on budget. Phase 2 of the project is underway, with phase 3 slated for 2027 and first production at the start of 2028. The plant is designed to have an annual capacity of up to 75 million pounds, more than double our existing long-term third-party supply agreement. TETRA's electrolyte revenue grew meaningfully in 2025 as U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that a record 15 gigawatts of utility-scale battery storage was added to the grid in 2025. The EIA projects that another record 24 gigawatts is planned for 2026, representing a 16% growth rate.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

As artificial intelligence and cloud computing drive rapid growth in data center power demand, scalable long-duration energy storage is becoming increasingly critical. TETRA's proprietary PureFlow zinc bromide is a key input for these systems, supporting safe, non-flammable performance at utility scale. TETRA's OASIS TDS end-to-end desalination of produced water for beneficial reuse continues to gain momentum with multiple engineering efforts and customer commercial engagements. Since achieving 24/7 steady state operations 60 days ago, our Permian Basin pilot project has operated at over 96% uptime and continues to meet our performance specifications. We believe that behind-the-meter power generation, access to affordable natural gas and land, and other factors will drive significant data center growth in West Texas and accelerate the produced water desalination market well ahead of our 2030 targets.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Regulatory agencies continue to focus on understanding the technology, setting permitting standards, and encouraging the industry to bring solutions to the produced water disposal challenge. TETRA is honored to participate in the National Petroleum Council Produced Water Committee and to support the recently announced U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Reuse Action Plan 2.0. Regarding TETRA's lithium and magnesium critical mineral resources in Arkansas, we continue to advance relationships with technology providers and conduct engineering studies. We have formed a joint venture with Magrathea Metals to advance domestic magnesium metal production and monetize this asset. The JV will leverage our specialty chemical processing expertise and large-scale magnesium resource base, combined with Magrathea's proprietary electrolytic magnesium production technology, which has been partially underwritten by the U.S. Department of Energy.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

In April, Magrathea successfully converted TETRA's Smackover brine, rich in magnesium, into a high-purity magnesium metal at its small pilot operation in the San Francisco Bay Area. The JV, named Arkansas Magnesium, is currently conducting engineering studies for a first-of-a-kind demonstration plant planned for co-location at the Evergreen Bromine site in Arkansas. For lithium, a strong rebound in lithium carbonate prices over the past six months has led us to look at options to accelerate the development of our Evergreen 585,000 metric ton lithium carbonate resources. As a reminder, Evergreen is a 6,900 acre brine unit in Southwest Arkansas, on which TETRA owns 65% of the brine mineral rights and ExxonMobil owns 35%. The combination of current LCE prices of around 25,000 per metric ton and efficiency advances in direct lithium extraction technology are making this a very attractive option to accelerate.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

More to come as we look at ways to advance this opportunity. With that, I'll turn the call over to Matt.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

Thank you, Brady. Good morning, everybody. Completion fluids and products revenue of $92 million, adjusted EBITDA of $26 million increased 10% and 12% respectively relative to Q4 2025. The sequential increase was driven by higher sales volumes in our industrial chemicals business and ongoing deep water projects in the Gulf of America and Brazil that Brady referenced earlier. Year-over-year, completion fluids and products revenue and adjusted EBITDA decreased 1% and 23% respectively. As a reminder, our first half 2025 results included high-impact TETRA CS Neptune projects, which we previously noted we do not expect to repeat in the first half of this year. That said, the pipeline of deep water and high pressure, high temperature completion opportunities continues to grow.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

With our best-in-class service delivery and unique fluid chemistry solutions, we are well-positioned to participate in the forecasted growth in offshore deep water activity. As Brady Murphy mentioned earlier, geopolitical unrest in Europe and the Middle East has led to rapid shifts in global market dynamics. As a result, offshore activity in the Middle East has slowed, and logistics into the region continue to face higher costs and shipping delays. Our exposure in the region is relatively small compared with our overall business, but some of our Q2 2026 completion fluid sales in the Middle East could be delayed. However, as mentioned, our calcium chloride and bromine-based completion fluids are manufactured outside the Middle East.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

As such, our fluid production has been unaffected. We are seeing an increased number of spot sales inquiries from regions and customers we have not historically supported, which could more than offset any delays. For water and flowback services, revenue of $65 million increased 3% sequentially and 1% year-over-year. To put our performance in context, during the same 12-month period, U.S. frac activity declined more than 24% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA of $9 million increased 20% sequentially and 9% from the prior year. The improvement in profitability was driven by cost reduction initiatives and continued market penetration of higher margin automation technology. Outside the U.S., project startups in the Vaca Muerta basin will enable us to double revenue in Argentina in 2026 at margins that are overall accretive to this segment.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

Compared with the broader market conditions, our outperformance highlights the strength of our service delivery, our differentiated technology, and our geographical diversification. As commodity prices have increased and the 12-month strip price remains above what the market projected at the start of this year, we are seeing our customers consider increasing their activity plans for 2026. Should this occur, we are well-positioned to incrementally benefit from any increase in activity in U.S. shale basins that may result from higher oil and gas prices. Regarding our capital structure, we had $36 million in cash and a total debt of $182 million at the end of the quarter, resulting in a net leverage ratio of 1.5 times. Cash used in operating activities was $12 million. Total CapEx was $19 million, including $8.4 million for our Evergreen Project.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

Total adjusted free cash flow was a use of $32 million, and base business adjusted free cash flow was a use of $23.5 million. The use of cash was driven by higher incentive compensation tied to our strong 2025 financial results, our three-year return on net capital invested, and our exceptional total shareholder return performance. Cash use also reflected a build in our AR balance at the end of the quarter and the seasonal inventory builds in Europe, which will be monetized in Q2. We expect to generate positive base business free cash flow in 2026, with that cash being reinvested in our Arkansas bromine plant. Overall, we are off to a strong start and remain confident in our ability to deliver solid financial results this year while continuing to advance towards our 2030 targets.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

The global market conditions continue to evolve. Overall, they're providing modest tailwinds for the markets that we serve. I'll now turn the call back to Brady for his closing comments.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Thanks, Matt. Again, despite the continued uncertainty caused by the conflict in the Persian Gulf, the long-term outlook for our business appears to be, you know, even better than when we had started the year in 2026. Overall, very confident in TETRA's ability to execute in this market conditions that we see, make prudent financial decisions to support our growth, and continue to make progress towards our 2030 targets. With that, let's open it up to questions and answers.

[Operator]

Your first question comes from Bobby Brooks with Northland Capital Markets.

[Bobby Brooks, Analyst at Northland Capital Markets]

Hey, good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my question.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Morning.

[Bobby Brooks, Analyst at Northland Capital Markets]

Good morning. It seems like OASIS commercial discussions are progressing well, and what really stuck out to me in the script was the quote, "Multiple engineering efforts and customer commercial engagements." Could you just pull back the curtain a little bit more about what that looks like and add some comparison to what that looked like, say, at the start of the year or six months ago?

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Sure, Bobby. Appreciate the question. Yeah, we are very encouraged with the ongoing dialogues that we have. Remember, we'd mentioned in our last call that we were engaging in a 100,000 barrel per day plant. We actually now have several parallel engineering studies going on for a smaller size plant as well as a 100,000 barrel per day plant. And those engineering studies, you know, they take time and we're still on progress. We feel to have what we need from those projects to at least get into more commercial discussions with our customers before the end of the second quarter. We're encouraged by what we see from the preliminary engineering studies in terms of the, you know, the OpEx and the CapEx and socializing some of those discussions with customers.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

We still have a ways to go to finish those efforts, and we'll continue to do so. That's really kind of an update. Again, we're in the middle of engineering studies, engineering work, that we'll need to complete before we can really get into any long-term contracts, Bobby.

[Bobby Brooks, Analyst at Northland Capital Markets]

Got it. Maybe just on the customer discussion side, it seems like over the past, like since the Investor Day specifically, there's probably been more folks entering, reaching out, wanting to hear about the technology and learn more. Is that trend still continuing or maybe I'm off base? Just any color on the kind of that dynamic.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

Yeah, Bobby, this is Matt. Absolutely. As said.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

We cannot disclose the customers that we're engaged with, but certainly those engagements, those dialogues, those engineering studies like Brady referenced, that's increased. As you say, you picked up on the fact that it's not 1 engineering effort. This is with different customers, multiple opportunities. We're very encouraged. We're also very encouraged by the performance of our technology, of our patented OASIS offering, and the economics associated with that, I think also are only continuing to improve. I think as you're well aware, some of the challenges with disposal, some of the costs associated with disposal, those costs continue to rise.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

As we continue to go through our engineering efforts, we're able to demonstrate that the TETRA OASIS solution is in our view very cost competitive with alternatives.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Martin Malloy, Johnson Rice.

[Martin Malloy, Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Good morning and congratulations on a solid quarter. My first question was on the deepwater side. Any indications? I know there's no Neptune projects in your 2026 guides, but can you talk about what you're seeing in terms of your conversations with customers for deepwater completion fluids and particularly with respect to Neptune, potential projects second half this year or next year?

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Yeah, sure. Sure, Martin. I mean, we've been feeling good about the deep water outlook, really going all the way back to when at our investor day when we outlined, you know, some pretty strong compound annual growth as we march towards 2030. I would say the recent events have only strengthened, you know, that outlook. As you look at cutting off the amount of oil that's currently happening in the Middle East, these projects that are already were looking, you know, very strong financially for our customers. As you can imagine, they're looking at what they can pull forward, what makes sense to pull forward. We're hearing some of that churn.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

We've actually picked up, as we've mentioned, you know, the work outside of the Middle East that we've seen already will offset whatever impact that we see from our Middle East business, even though it's, you know, roughly 5% of our revenue. We've seen opportunities already well overcompensate that potential loss. Yes, we're seeing some churn in that regard, but it's already been a strong outlook, at least in terms of our base business, deep water completion fluids. With regards to the Neptune, as we said, the pipeline continues to grow. The wells are getting hotter, more challenging. You know, zinc is still an option in the Gulf of Mexico, but it has its own challenges as you get hotter with corrosion, as you deal with production facilities.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

We're seeing that pipeline continue to grow. We're also seeing opportunities outside of the Gulf of Mexico continue to build. You may or may not see a Neptune project in this year, but I would say the probabilities for next year are continuing to increase pretty significantly.

[Martin Malloy, Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Great. Very helpful. For a follow-up question, just wanted to ask you commented on it a little bit, but in your press release, you did talk about evaluating options to accelerate lithium and magnesium development. I don't know if there's more you can share with us now. Would that be in conjunction with perhaps accelerating the bromine project, or is it dependent on that, or is this separate related to the ExxonMobil joint venture?

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Yeah. We're accelerating the bromine project really at the pace, at the fastest pace we can. That project is our priority. You know, we will definitely prioritize that project to have them completion by the end of 27 and start in 2028. Now the benefit of that is that all the upstream that we, you know, the brine wells that we put in place, the pipelines, some of the pretreatment plant capabilities to take out H2S from the brine field, those types of things will all be in place for whatever additional plants we put on that site. As we've mentioned on the call, we're currently doing engineering studies and plan to put a demonstration plant with Magrathea for the magnesium demonstration plant.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Also we've already done quite a bit of engineering for a lithium plant that will be on that same site. That again, will benefit from a lot of the infrastructure and investments that we have already made on for the bromine project. A lot of synergies related to that. We're not ready to publish any financial, you know, information on those projects yet. As we move forward, you can anticipate we will be at the appropriate time.

[Martin Malloy, Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Your next question is from Tim Moore with Clear Street.

[Tim Moore, Analyst at Clear Street]

Thanks. My first question's about battery energy storage. You know, we all know that lithiumEos, you know, had some, you know, supply and manufacturing hiccups, which, you know, seem temporary. I'm just kind of curious, you know, do you get a rolling update on that? You know, it seems like you have enough feed supply for electrolytes to quickly maybe get it to them if they start ramping up more seriously, you know, after the summer. Just kind of curious about how you're thinking about that logistically and the supply side.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Yeah. Yeah, Tim, we don't want to comment on kind of forecasting anything obviously ahead of EOS, but obviously we're very plugged into their forecast so we can plan for not only the bromine but the full electrolyte production that we need to produce. We do have good visibility into that, but really can't talk about any specifics. As we'd mentioned before, in addition to our long-term supply agreement, we have secured additional third-party bromine supply that is in place to meet, you know, the forecast that we are getting from EOS. That's really not a concern.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Of course, once we have our own plant operating in 2028, if they continue their path to the 8 gigawatt-hours of production that they've stated publicly they're striving for, we'll be in a great position to not only supply, you know, their requirements, but also the deepwater growth that we have projected.

[Tim Moore, Analyst at Clear Street]

That's helpful, Brady. I'm sure we'll get an update in 2 weeks from them when they report, but it seems like it's fixable on their end. The other question, just switching gears, and I don't know if this is more for Matt than you, Brady, but for the Arkansas bromine project, I mean, it was nice to hear Brady your prepared remarks on production still expected, you know, early 2028. Can you just maybe just walk us through maybe some of the next construction milestones? And, you know, I'd anticipate CapEx to uptick pretty meaningfully, I guess, the coming quarters. I think it was only $7 million in the March quarter.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Yeah.

[Tim Moore, Analyst at Clear Street]

If Matt could just share some color on that.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Sure. Yeah, I'll take that one, and if Matt wants to add anything, I'm sure he will. Yeah, the project is on schedule. We've completed phase one. Phase one was important because standing the bromine tower up, the tower up on site, you know, was a logistics challenge. It's a large 130-foot, you know, titanium structure. Having that up and secured was a really important milestone. Again, a lot of the actual on-site construction around the bromine tower, the pipelines from the upstream, all of that, the pretreatment, all that has to still be constructed. Yes, there will be more construction activity in 2027 and 2028. You know, again, we're projecting good cash flows for the rest of this year and 2027.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

We are looking to finance as much of that as we can from our free cash flow. If we do need additional capital, we have very good options available to us if we have to go that direction. For right now, we're funding from our cash flow, and that's the plan.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Patrick Ouellette with Stifel.

[Patrick Ouellette, Analyst at Stifel]

Hey, it's Pat on for Stephen Gengaro. Thanks for taking the questions.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Sure.

[Patrick Ouellette, Analyst at Stifel]

Could you talk about the opportunity you have for magnesium production, maybe including any sense you have for demand and any color on the joint venture? I believe I saw the JV partner reference 7,000 tons per year by 2029.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Yeah. We're having ongoing discussions. We have finalized the joint venture, which is great. We had our first formal board meeting a week or so ago. We really like this technology. As you're probably aware, the U.S. really doesn't produce any magnesium. The world is heavily dependent on China production for magnesium. As you can imagine, it's being on the critical minerals list, it's got the attention of the current administration, the U.S. Department of Energy. I would say it's a little premature to start saying how large the first commercial plant will be, that we are having some discussions along those lines. We will have plenty of brine flow to make the plant as large as we wanna make it.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

There are some other considerations that we, you know, we wanna take into account. What type of offtake agreements we can have, you know, well ahead of time. What type of support we may or may not get from government funding. There are considerations that will still be taken into account. The demonstration plant obviously will be a small scale to prove out the technology. As far as the commercial scale, we have not made any final determinations on that yet.

[Patrick Ouellette, Analyst at Stifel]

Okay. Thanks for the color there. Seems like a great opportunity. Just shifting gears a little bit, thinking about fluids, it seems like the timing of completions versus rig activity in deepwater would lead to maybe sharply higher 2027 fluids demand. Is that reasonable? Any way you'd maybe translate deepwater rig additions to demand?

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

Yeah, Patrick, on the earnings call back in, this is Matt, back in February, we mentioned and gave some soft guidance around what to expect at our completion fluids and products this year. You know, highlighting that we came off a very strong performance in 2025, where a lot of the rigs in the markets that we serve, you know, were in completion activity. We guided that we expected, you know, those rigs to move into more drilling activity in 2026. Again, of course, shifting back to 2027 and seeing some of that higher completion activity like what you referenced.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

As Brady touched on, certainly the geopolitical events that are going on in the world today, it have really highlighted, you know, global demand in terms of, and where that demand is fulfilled. We are seeing, you know, projects coming online, FID. If you look at some of the leasing activity that's been going on, again, as Brady touched on, it tends to be deeper, hotter, a little more challenging environment requiring, you know, higher density brines and more exotic chemistries, which again, plays into the strength of TETRA. We're very pleased by what we're seeing already in 2026. We said some modest tailwinds, you know, quite a strong performance in Q1. As we got into earlier on our call back in February, we expect that 2027, some of that completion activity, but also the type of completion activity that'll be going on, really benefits TETRA.

[Patrick Ouellette, Analyst at Stifel]

Great. Thanks for all the color. I'll turn it back.

[Operator]

Your next question is from John Daniel with CJS.

[John Daniel, Analyst at CJS]

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Morning.

[John Daniel, Analyst at CJS]

My first one is, good morning. Pardon me. Could you talk about your partner's lithium project FID status, and one, if you may need to pursue your own well investments there, to hit the bromine project on time? Second part of that is, if you do decide to drill your own wells, would that be feeding into your own lithium production endeavors, if you want to accelerate that? Thank you.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Let me make sure I understood the question. It came across a little bit like The question was status of lithium FID, was the first part of the question?

[John Daniel, Analyst at CJS]

Right. Your partners who are drilling the lithium wells, what's the status there? If you think you'll have to drill your own lithium, or your own wells to get the brine for the bromine?

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Yeah. Let me, let me clarify that a little bit. The wells that we drill in the upstream for the brine contain both lithium, bromine and magnesium. All three minerals are within the same brine. What I mentioned earlier, the wells that we will be drilling for our bromine project that will feed the bromine tower, those wells already have lithium and magnesium in it. We don't really need to drill additional wells to in order to extract the lithium or even the magnesium. That's the real benefit of this project. We're getting three, you know, really critical minerals for us out of the same upstream investment. The plant itself is a different issue. As you know, we're building the bromine plant right now.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

The lithium plant will come later. We're not at a point where we're ready to FID a lithium plant. There's still some more technology, you know, evaluation and engineering studies to be done before we are ready to do that. But as I said, the current economics of lithium make it attractive enough for us to put some accelerated time into that.

[John Daniel, Analyst at CJS]

Right. Thank you for that. I guess my question was, are you expecting your partners to drill the wells or are you expecting to drill your own wells?

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

When you say our partners, who are you referring to in that case?

[John Daniel, Analyst at CJS]

Standard Lithium and Equinor.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Okay. They have their own project, Standard Lithium and Equinor, on our brine leases. That's a separate project from our brine leases. They have the Reynolds unit that has been approved. We get a royalty of the lithium off of that production. They're not, technically not, really not partners. They are partners themselves. Equinor and Standard Lithium have a joint venture. We own the brine leases, and we get a royalty off of that production. There are separate units in discussion. Our Evergreen Project is where we will be drilling, producing brine for bromine and future lithium and magnesium.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

They will be drilling on their own unit, the Reynolds unit, where we get a royalty off the lithium, and we get the tail brine from that production when we need it in the future. We also get to have the other mineral rights within that brine. Hopefully that clarifies a bit.

[John Daniel, Analyst at CJS]

It does. Thank you. Appreciate it. Another question if I could. What's happening in calcium chloride markets, and is that being impacted by, you know, the conflict you're seeing in Iran and how that flows through supply chains and industrial demand?

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

The calcium chloride business for us continues to perform extremely strong. As I've mentioned, it's, you know, a big part of our chemicals, industrial chemicals business that had a record first quarter up, you know, pretty significantly over last year and quarter-to-quarter. I wouldn't say we're seeing any material change due to the current conflict. We really don't have any supply chain issues related to that for that market. We don't have a large presence selling calcium chloride into the Middle East, but our European business is very strong. Our U.S. business is very strong. We mentioned on our last call we saw some new emerging markets as it relates to chip manufacturing requirements. That business is performing very well for us and we fully expect it to into the future.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Josh Jayne with Daniel Energy Partners.

[Josh Jayne, Analyst at Daniel Energy Partners]

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First one is just on international production testing. You talked about revenues being greater than 50% internationally. Where do you see that going over time? Could you walk through some of the markets where you're seeing strength today and how the recent events have potentially changed your outlook there?

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Yeah. Thanks, Josh. As mentioned, we're seeing some, and we guided towards the beginning of the year, strong performance in the Argentina business.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

As we mentioned in our prepared remarks, we're seeing that continue throughout the quarter and expect that, you know, we're more than double our revenue in 2026. Other markets, you know, we've obviously touched on a little bit the Middle East, where we have some exposure there, although it's relatively small. We also see opportunities in some of those markets, those regions, to continue to deploy technology and automation. You know, we've been, as we touched on, very successful in terms of North America, you know, automating and bringing different differentiated technologies such as Sandstorm, automated drill out, and things like that to our North American customers. These are technologies that can be exported and used and deliver value in those international markets.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

As we touched on, we're quite pleased with our geographical diversification. Again, as we see the world in terms of where energy is produced, having that diversification is getting a lot of focus right now. It's not just U.S. land, but other markets are looking at how they secure their own energy, and we're pleased to participate in that.

[Josh Jayne, Analyst at Daniel Energy Partners]

On that point, could you just expand? I mean, what has the game changed when we think about energy security longer term and the opportunity set across multiple of your business lines, international and offshore, for just a broader opportunity set as a result of what's happened over the last 8 weeks? Are you starting to see that? Are you having incremental conversations with customers you may not have been having 8 to 12 weeks ago? Maybe just elaborate on that a little bit more.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

I think when you look at the current situation and the future energy markets where you want to be positioned, offshore deepwater is clearly a key market for future barrels, right? Also unconventional activity in the U.S. and Argentina, because relatively speaking, it's a short cycle time to get additional production as you put more rigs and frack crews into the unconventional markets. As Matt said, we're also seeing unconventional activities start to grow in the Middle East. We'll see how that, how this current environment impacts or may or may not impact that activity going forward. The markets where we want to be right now, strong position in Europe, strong position in the U.S., strong position in Latin America.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Offshore deepwater, unconventional, we think these are the markets that, we really wanna be in to, as you speak about security of future supply.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

I think the other aspect which we touched on in our remarks as well, is that we are seeing an increased inquiry of, you know, spot sale, in, from different customers into different regions than we've historically served in terms of our completion fluids. As Brady mentioned, you know, more than half of the world's bromine is derived from in the Middle East. Obviously, some of the challenges of that region are well-publicized. Some customers, we are having those conversations. Spot sale inquiries around being able to support their business with all of our fluids, you know, in terms of the bromine-based fluids being manufactured in North America from Arkansas. We're pleased with some of that.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

Obviously, I think as well, in terms of energy security, you highlighted it, right? The current situation, I think everyone's appreciating that the world needs all forms of energy and is gonna need all forms of energy for a long time.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Bobby Brooks with Northland Capital Markets.

[Bobby Brooks, Analyst at Northland Capital Markets]

Hey, thanks for letting me jump back in the queue. Just turning to domestic onshore completion fluids market, what are you hearing from customers on their back half of this year activity outlook? Are they sort of in a wait and see mode if these higher oil prices are here to stay? Just wanted to hear your perspective from on that.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Bobby, you were asking about our U.S. land completion fluids business?

[Bobby Brooks, Analyst at Northland Capital Markets]

Yeah

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

What I understood you're asking about?

[Bobby Brooks, Analyst at Northland Capital Markets]

Yeah.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Completion fluids is largely an offshore business for us. We do have some land business for our completion fluids, but generally speaking, it's small relative to our offshore and deepwater markets. Where we're seeing some interesting trends as it relates to land opportunities, I'd mentioned them on my comments. Some very high pressure, you know, Western Haynesville, South Texas gas wells that are feeding LNG projects require a heavy density, heavier density of brine fluid for completion work. That trend is working in our favor. In West Texas, the pore pressures are getting so high in West Texas that, you know, some additional work, some work overactivity also requires heavier brine.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Those two areas are where we see most of the activity that's growing for us on the completion fluid side for land applications. It's still relatively small to our deepwater, but it's actually starting to grow in a meaningful way.

[Bobby Brooks, Analyst at Northland Capital Markets]

Thank you for that clarity. I'll return to the queue, and congrats on this great quarter.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Thanks, Bobby.

[Operator]

Your next question is from Martin Malloy with Johnson Rice.

[Martin Malloy, Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Thank you for taking a follow-up question from me. Just wanted to focus maybe a little bit on Argentina. You've cited some projects coming on later this year, giving you confidence in the outlook there. Could you maybe talk a little more about the services you're providing down there? Are you seeing any? Are you expecting demand for the early production facilities that have been pretty profitable in the past, being utilized down there, or is this more on the flow back and testing side?

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

Yeah, really all of the above. We did see continued interest and secured some early production facility projects for this year. Also, as I mentioned, in terms of some of the technology such as TETRA SandStorm automation, you know, which has been deployed in unconventional and proven and unconventional plays in the U.S., we're seeing that technology be deployed into Argentina. We have TETRA SandStorm down there today, it's a little bit of a combination of both. Whereas historically in the past, our business down there was a little more levered towards the early production facilities. Now we're really seeing a combination of the two. You know, an increased number of early production facilities being executed and those pipeline of opportunities are very healthy.

[Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies]

Taking some of our differentiated technology from unconventional plays in the U.S. and deploying them down into the Vaca Muerta for the operators there, is bringing some value. We're quite pleased with how that business continues to progress.

[Martin Malloy, Analyst at Johnson Rice]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back over to Brady for any closing remarks.

[Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies]

Yeah. Thank you all very much. We appreciate your participation in our call, and we look forward to talking to you at our second quarter earnings call. We'll conclude the call now. Thank you.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Kurt Hallead, Treasurer and VP of Investor Relations

Analysts

• Bobby Brooks, Analyst at Northland Capital Markets
• Brady Murphy, President and CEO at TETRA Technologies
• John Daniel, Analyst at CJS
• Josh Jayne, Analyst at Daniel Energy Partners
• Martin Malloy, Analyst at Johnson Rice
• Matt Sanderson, EVP and CFO at TETRA Technologies
• Patrick Ouellette, Analyst at Stifel
• Tim Moore, Analyst at Clear Street