WBI Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 6, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Record second-quarter results included revenue of $217.8 million, up 8% sequentially, and Adjusted EBITDA of $115.8 million, up 12%, with margins improving to 53%.
  • Positive Sentiment: WaterBridge raised its 2026 guidance for volumes to 2.55–2.75 million barrels per day and Adjusted EBITDA to $435–$475 million, while increasing capital expenditure guidance by $100 million to $530–$590 million to fund growth projects and acquisitions.
  • Positive Sentiment: The Ranger Water Midstream acquisition and planned NDB Landfill acquisition are expected to be immediately accretive or provide high returns, expanding disposal, treatment, storage, and waste-management capacity in the Delaware Basin.
  • Positive Sentiment: Speedway Phase I began receiving volumes in July and is expected to ramp to approximately 100,000 barrels per day over the next few months, while strong customer demand is advancing Speedway Phase II toward potential sanctioning in the second half of 2026.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Management highlighted a longer-term opportunity to supply brackish or treated produced water to hyperscale data centers, but commercial deployment depends on establishing the necessary regulatory framework.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
WBI Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Welcome to WaterBridge's second quarter 2026 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Mae Herrington, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Mae Herrington
Director of Investor Relations at WaterBridge

Good morning. Thank you for joining WaterBridge's second quarter 2026 earnings call. I am joined today by our Chief Executive Officer, Jason Long, our Chief Operating Officer, Michael Chop Reitz, and our Chief Financial Officer, Scott McNeely. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that in this call and the related presentation, we will make forward-looking statements regarding our current beliefs, plans, and expectations, which are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from results and events contemplated by such forward-looking statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Please refer to the risk factors and other cautionary statements included in our filings with the SEC.

Mae Herrington
Director of Investor Relations at WaterBridge

I would also like to point out that our investor presentation and today's conference call will contain discussions of non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are useful in evaluating our performance. These supplemental measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release and the appendix of today's accompanying presentation. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Jason Long.

Jason Long
CEO at WaterBridge

Thanks, Mae. Good morning, everyone. I am pleased to announce that we delivered another strong quarter, achieving record revenues and Adjusted EBITDA. Our results were driven by organic growth across our core business, underpinned by WaterBridge's unique ability to handle and recycle the rising volumes of produced water across our scaled, integrated network. We were able to monetize strong commercial demand for access to our existing infrastructure, especially along the state line where pore pressure constraints are limiting injection capacity. In addition to our organic growth and strong commercial execution, we also announced a number of accretive transaction to strengthen our position across the Delaware Basin. First, we closed the acquisition of Ranger Water Midstream. The acquisition increases our capacity in the highly active and disposal-constrained Lea County in New Mexico.

Jason Long
CEO at WaterBridge

The acquisition includes disposal wells with approximately 70,000 barrels per day of total permitted capacity, approximately 30 miles of produced water gathering pipelines, a water treatment facility with up to 100,000 barrels per day of capacity, and 1.2 million barrels of storage capacity. The acquired infrastructure is adjacent to Speedway, creating meaningful opportunities for future integration, additional throughput, and enhanced operational flexibility for both new and existing customers. With established contracts and acres dedications with blue-chip producers already in place, we anticipate Ranger will be immediately accretive and should be a strong tailwind to WaterBridge's increasing market share in the region. We also announced two new investments that will allow us to significantly expand our synergistic environmental waste management business. First, we entered into an agreement to acquire the NDB Landfill in Lea County, expanding our waste management footprint into new markets across New Mexico.

Jason Long
CEO at WaterBridge

The 560-acre NDB Landfill is a large oil field waste facility with 44 million cubic yards of permitted capacity, with open capacity currently representing more than 40 years of future volumes. This acquisition provides us with a large, scalable platform for growth in a region with high empty activity. Additionally, our board has approved the organic construction of a 280-acre environmental waste management facility in the Stateline region, which will be our fourth site in the basin. Construction is expected to begin in the third quarter with an anticipated in-service date of mid-2027. This project represents a high-return opportunity to construct an additional landfill facility with an approximately two-year capital payback period expected. Once completed, the facility will significantly expand our integrated waste management capabilities in the region and create operational efficiencies for our core water business through reduced waste hauling costs.

Jason Long
CEO at WaterBridge

Together, these two waste management transactions are expected to double our total facility count and more than double our permitted waste handling capacity in the Delaware Basin. Overall, each of these acquisitions and investments reflect our disciplined approach to capital allocation. They provide attractive standalone returns, support the economics of our existing water infrastructure assets, and support market share growth through new and existing customer relationships. As a result of these accretive acquisitions, as well as a number of new or accelerated commercial capital projects expected in the second half of this year, we have increased our 2026 guidance, raising volume and Adjusted EBITDA guidance for the second quarter in a row and raising capital expenditures guidance as we capitalize on compelling opportunities. Scott will provide further details on the increases in his remarks. I'd like to now turn the call over to Chop Reitz.

Michael Chop Reitz
COO at WaterBridge

Thanks, Jason. Operational performance was strong across the platform in the second quarter, and I'm happy to announce that Speedway Phase I launched on schedule with first volumes coming online in July as expected. Speedway is one of our most important near-term growth projects. It connects growing produced water volumes in Lea and Eddy County to long-term out-of-basin disposal capacity, supported by our infrastructure network and our access to vast pore space through LandBridge. We expect volumes to continue ramping through the second half of the year, adding high-margin volume growth for this year and beyond. Momentum behind Speedway Phase II continues to build. Customer demand for this second phase has been robust, which is consistent with what we shared last quarter, and our commercial and operational discussions are advancing towards underwriting the project, a milestone that we hope to share very soon.

Michael Chop Reitz
COO at WaterBridge

Customer activity remains strong across the footprint, reflected in our volume and revenue performance this quarter. Operators are prioritizing development in areas where WaterBridge has meaningful infrastructure density, particularly in New Mexico, subsequently driving demand for access to our out-of-basin and state line disposal assets. WaterBridge offers responsible long-term disposal solutions in a state line ecosystem where capacity is shrinking due to pore pressure limitations. That dynamic is already creating new growth opportunities for us in the near term. Part of the increase to our CapEx guidance this year comes from a number of commercially driven new build and bolt-on infrastructure projects across our footprint. These smaller projects are a strong signal of growing customer demand for our network, and they're a very attractive use of capital alongside larger organic projects like Speedway, delivering build multiples of five times or better.

Michael Chop Reitz
COO at WaterBridge

We're also building momentum into 2027 by accelerating construction on previously announced New Devon project, which moves up its in-service date. This pipeline will transport volumes from New Mexico to low-pressure LandBridge-owned pore space in Loving and Winkler Counties. By accelerating it, we expect to shift growth from this project into early 2027. It's a good example of how we direct capital toward high return opportunities as they develop, and it's one of the reasons behind our increased capital plan. Another way we're supporting high activity levels in the Northern Delaware Basin is through the acquisition of Ranger. Beyond the immediate contribution from existing assets and contracted volumes, Ranger is highly complementary to our Speedway Phase I and anticipated Speedway Phase II infrastructure. In the second half of the year, we plan to invest in connecting Ranger and Speedway, which will fully unlock the operational advantages of the acquired infrastructure.

Michael Chop Reitz
COO at WaterBridge

Once they're connected, we'll have even more flexibility to enable recycling and treated water supply, and we'll be well-positioned to maximize throughput as customer development continues across the region. Our recent investments in our environmental waste management business are a complementary growth driver that adds value to our core business. The NDB Landfill acquisition delivers immediate high-margin revenue upside, and the construction of a fourth solids facility along the state line is an attractive opportunity to grow our business with high return on capital revenue realization beginning in 2027. Looking out further, WaterBridge is uniquely positioned to participate in the digital infrastructure opportunity rapidly developing across the Delaware Basin. This is where our operating model and our partnership with LandBridge really sets us apart, positioning WaterBridge to move beyond traditional oil and gas enablement by potentially serving as a full-scale utility partner to hyperscalers.

Michael Chop Reitz
COO at WaterBridge

This opportunity is a direct result of the scale of our infrastructure in place today. We have access to large and growing produced water volumes, approximately 5 million barrels a day of handling capacity in the Delaware Basin, with roughly 2.6 million barrels a day of total active volumes in the second quarter. Through our partnership with LandBridge, we're also well-positioned to be an infrastructure partner for brackish water supply, with access to approximately 13.4 million acre feet, which satisfies multi-gigawatt scale data center water needs almost indefinitely. Our integrated network connects those resources directly to the high-demand growth centers and industrial corridors where the digital infrastructure is taking shape.

Michael Chop Reitz
COO at WaterBridge

Because we manage the entire water life cycle, backed by more than a decade of disposal expertise, we can supply data center water needs for cooling, then recycle and dispose of the liquid and solid waste by-products. That full-cycle capability from supply through disposal is critical for data center operations, and the scale of infrastructure required gives WaterBridge a distinct advantage over its competitors. From near-term projects like Speedway and the New Devon project to longer-term opportunities in digital infrastructure, we've never had more attractive, high-return growth in front of us. With that, I'll hand it over to Scott to walk you through the quarter's financial results.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Thank you, Chop, and good morning, everyone. We reported strong second quarter results, capping off significant growth for the first half of the year. As Jason referenced, we are raising our full year 2026 guidance and now expect full year volumes of 2.55 million barrels per day to 2.75 million barrels per day and Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $435 million to $475 million due to the expected second half impacts of the Ranger and NDB Landfill acquisitions. We are also raising our CapEx guidance by $100 million to a range of $530 million to $590 million, reflective of the planned investments in Ranger, construction of a new landfill facility in the Stateline region, acceleration of the New Devon project, and other commercially driven new build and bolt-on infrastructure projects.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Importantly, every incremental project in our forecast meets or exceeds our capital allocation criteria, featuring build multiples below 5x, long-term contracts, credit-worthy counterparties, and the ability to fund them while maintaining the strength of our balance sheet. In Q2, we delivered record revenue of $217.8 million, representing 8% sequential growth. The increase was primarily driven by higher produced water volumes and higher rates on contracts that became operational during the quarter. As you know, our contracts are primarily longer term with minimum volumes. Net income was $14.6 million, compared to $9.5 million in the first quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $115.8 million, up from $102.9 million in the first quarter, representing approximately 12% sequential growth. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 53%, reflecting the benefits of higher throughput, the scalability of our infrastructure base, and continued operating discipline across the platform.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Adjusted operating margin was $124.1 million, up from $111.3 million in the first quarter, and gross margin improved sequentially to $58.1 million from $48.2 million in Q1. Capital expenditures were $123.3 million during the quarter. Spending was primarily driven by the Speedway build-out and ongoing Stateline infrastructure development. We ended the quarter with total liquidity of $347.6 million, including $47.6 million of cash and approximately $300 million of available borrowing capacity under our revolving credit facility. Total debt was $1.636 billion, and our covenant net leverage ratio was 3.3x. We remain committed to our long-term leverage target of sub 3x. Subsequent to quarter end, we took steps to increase our liquidity by expanding our revolving credit borrowing base. We amended our revolving credit facility, increasing commitments from $500 million to $750 million, with the ability to grow it further to as much as $1 billion.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

We reduced our borrowing costs by 25 basis points across the pricing grid. That gives us even more flexibility to fund our high return capital program while staying within our leverage targets. WaterBridge maintains a disciplined capital allocation framework, empowering the company to strategically deploy capital and execute on our fiscal priorities, which include, first, driving organic growth across our infrastructure network alongside accretive acquisitions such as Ranger and NDB Landfill. Second, maintaining a conservative balance sheet and prudent capital structure that maximizes financial flexibility and contributes to our long-term leverage target. Third, opportunistically returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. This quarter, we announced a dividend of $0.05 per share. To close, our results this quarter reflect a business with real operating leverage, a disciplined approach to capital, and a balance sheet built to fund growth.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

A 53% Adjusted EBITDA margin, a second straight guidance raise, an upsize revolver, and a dividend all point to the same thing, durable, high return growth that continues to reward shareholders. We are confident in the path ahead. Thank you for joining today. Operator, could you please open the line for questions?

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Derrick Whitfield with Texas Capital. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Derrick Whitfield
Derrick Whitfield
Managing Director at Texas Capital

Good morning, all. Congrats on the quarter and your acquisitions.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Hey, good morning, Derrick. Thanks for joining.

Derrick Whitfield
Derrick Whitfield
Managing Director at Texas Capital

Wanted to start with the landfill acquisition and your organic landfill opportunity in the Stateline area. Could you speak to why you chose to buy versus build in New Mexico, also the broader growth opportunity you see for solid waste over the next few years across the Delaware, perhaps ending with just how you see the convergence in value between water and solid waste streams?

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Thanks for the question, Derrick. As a reminder, we had about 5% of our business at IPO through Desert Environmental, which was environmental waste management. At the time, we had flagged that business line as very promising, but we hadn't contemplated any meaningful growth. Ultimately today, we see a lot of the same fundamentals that drive our core produced water business driving waste management. A mix of overlapping customers, the criticality of surface control, a meaningful permitting and regulatory component serving as a competitive moat, and that long-term criticality to the Delaware Basin operators. All of which are driving water, is also driving the need for a good waste management solution. It was a natural step out for us as we looked to other ways to intelligently grow, but stick with our core strategy and our core operations.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Coming out of this, we'll be at about 10% of our business in waste management, by no means a meaningful ramp-up, but we think a step in the right direction here. To add just a couple other points of additional context, I think relevant to your questions. First, WaterBridge itself actually generates a meaningful amount of solid waste as part of its operations. As we look to build and scale our infrastructure on the water handling side along the Stateline, there is going to be waste by-products that come with that. Establishing a foothold for waste management in Lea County, which is the core of the oil and gas activity as we see it here for the foreseeable future and adjacent to our infrastructure, allows us not just to capture third parties, but also keep our cost structure at WaterBridge tight and margins attractive.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

A real vertical integration story and one that we think is additive. Lastly, to address your view on valuations. We've said from the onset there are just so many parallels with the waste management thesis and the water handling thesis, and it goes back to a lot of those same fundamentals that I mentioned earlier, primarily the criticality of geography, of surface control, and of regulatory footprint, and regulatory dynamic. From our seat, because of those competitive moats, there wasn't an opportunity to work through the organic build-out in New Mexico like we had in this fourth site in Texas. It made stepping into this acquisition make all of the sense at the time.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

As we see it coming together, see waste management growing as a part of our business at WaterBridge, obviously we're excited for all the reasons I just mentioned. I would finalize by flagging the market's already seen a lot of this already work out very positively, and I'd refer you to SECURE Waste Infrastructure acquisition by GFL Environmental earlier this year as a meaningful premium. For those of you who aren't familiar with SECURE Waste Infrastructure, a similar call it Canadian analog to WaterBridge, in which they handle both produced water and solid waste, and it worked out fantastic for them. While that serves as a helpful data point, it's certainly not the only reason we're doing this, but we are excited about it.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

We're able to work through this growth both from an acquisition standpoint as well as an organic standpoint that competes with or is not better than what we're seeing from a return perspective on produced water.

Derrick Whitfield
Derrick Whitfield
Managing Director at Texas Capital

Extremely helpful. As for my follow-up, I wanted to focus on the Ranger Water Midstream acquisition. Its fit and value are very clear as shown on slides eight and nine. As we think about the sizing of Project Speedway Phase II, could you elaborate on the impact this acquisition could have on total throughput as you're closing in on your FID decision?

Michael Chop Reitz
COO at WaterBridge

Thanks for the question. It's a really complimentary set of assets and comes with a new set of customers as well. We do think that it could add volumes to the Speedway system as it grows, but we'll remind you that we're not going to over-commit our firm capacity on that pipeline system. Yeah, we do have the ability to utilize both the Ranger assets for overflow from Speedway, as well as the Speedway system for overflow from the Ranger contracts.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Yeah. I would just add, Ranger, similar to the landfill acquisition we're working through, 18 to 24-month timeframe, we expect that to be competitive with, if not better than the five times investment multiple we seek to achieve on organic growth projects. We've said historically, we'll be judicious around M&A, but it has to compete for our capital against the attractive returns we're seeing organically, and both of these acquisitions certainly fit that mold.

Derrick Whitfield
Derrick Whitfield
Managing Director at Texas Capital

That's great. Thanks for your time.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jackie Koletas with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Jackie Koletas
Jackie Koletas
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Hi. Thank you so much for the time. First, just wanted to touch a little bit again on the waste management business. Is there appetite for further waste management investments from here? Are there incremental opportunities for you to grow this further in the near term, and how do those returns compare to the water opportunities across your footprint? From a margin perspective, how would you potentially square the difference between those two businesses?

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Good morning, Jackie. We will continue to look at acquisition opportunities. I think, for waste management, very similar to our water infrastructure, we need to ensure that it meets our underwriting thresholds. We need to ensure that it's not cannibalizing an opportunity set or a business line that we can either service via the infrastructure we have in place today or that we can tackle through organic growth. I mentioned in my answer to Derrick that there are very real competitive moats that exist here, the regulatory piece being the big one that sometimes prohibits our ability to work through an organic growth project, which drives the need for acquisitions like we're seeing here. No, we will continue to evaluate these.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

We think the demand for these types of facilities is only going to increase, and we'll have to constantly look at just the evolving landscape to see how that need moves. From a returns perspective, very similar to water infrastructure, we'd always prefer to do it organically if we could. We spoke in the prepared remarks as well as in the deck that the returns on the organic build-out here eclipse even what we see on the water side. That state line opportunity on build-out that we're going to be working through, we expect a two-year payback on the capital needed for that facility. Incredibly attractive returns on capital. Then once those facilities are online, a margin profile that is either equivalent to or slightly improved compared to what we see on the produced water handling piece of the business.

Jackie Koletas
Jackie Koletas
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

That's helpful color. I appreciate it. Just as a follow-up, touching a little bit more on your data center opportunities. Water security is rapidly emerging as a critical gating item for data center development. In your discussions with potential hyperscaler customers, how high of a priority is securing long-term water solutions? Could treated produced water help support a water positive narrative for these companies that are required to meet ESG mandates? How do you see commercial demand for water treatment evolving as a result?

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Yeah. I'll start, and then I'll turn it over to Chop for any follow-up remarks. Ultimately, water is critical for both enabling operations and keeping operations online once they're up and running. These have been active discussions with virtually all the counterparties we're working through on the LandBridge side, also some incremental counterparties that are called WaterBridge specific. Ultimately, what we're looking to deploy here is not the kind of water that the municipalities necessarily need. It is non-potable brackish water or treated produced water like you mentioned. A real value proposition in terms of, one, being able to access the brackish water resource that LandBridge has today and use that in the near term. Second, and what I think is really exciting, is this potential to treat produced water and deploy that for cooling for both power as well as for digital infrastructure.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

I would say with where we sit at the moment, we have incredibly high confidence in both the operational and the commercial viability of deploying treated produced water for cooling. At the moment, we're working with both local, state, as well as national level officials on effectively defining the regulatory framework that is going to allow us to do that. We've got buy-in from blue chip counterparties as part of those efforts. It's a very exciting point for us on the WaterBridge side. We think that there's going to be some very, I would call it definitive, but very optimistic news that we can share with the public here the back half of the year, if not more imminently, to put a little bit of framework out there for everyone to understand. Chop, anything you'd add to that?

Michael Chop Reitz
COO at WaterBridge

You said it pretty well. Yeah, I would just add that we do have the scale of brackish water supply and access to that brackish water supply to, as we mentioned, supply these multi-gigawatt data centers for a very long time. What we think is really the Holy Grail is being able to take this waste by-product, which is produced water, and convert that to a usable industrial supply water. We think it's real, and we think that we have probably the best opportunity to do so because of our infrastructure in place today. We can aggregate a lot of water into one single point, which is really hard to replicate. That's really what these data centers need is the assurance that they have not only enough supply from the brackish side, but enough supply from the produced side. That's really what we can offer.

Jackie Koletas
Jackie Koletas
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Operator

A reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Furrow with Pickering Energy Partners. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Michael Furrow
Michael Furrow
VP at Pickering Energy Partners

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Based on the updated produced water handling guidance range, the upper end of the range implies a meaningful ramp in volumes over the next two quarters, which I think you guys hit on in the prepared remarks. What would you need to see in order to bring the lower half of guidance into play based on what you're seeing on the current ramp of Speedway and other projects? Is that sort of dependent on a meaningful pullback in drilling activity?

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Hey. Good morning, Michael. That's exactly right. I think with where we're at today, it's a very low likelihood. If we saw a black swan event and commodity prices pivot to the negative and drilling activity halt, I think that becomes a risk, and we just want to be honest about that. Ultimately, we're very much focused on stepping out with call it conservative guidance. I would say it's going to take something pretty outsized for that bottom half to really be a meaningfully call it potential outcome here.

Michael Furrow
Michael Furrow
VP at Pickering Energy Partners

That makes a lot of sense. As a follow-up, just staying with the Northern Delaware Basin Landfill, we're trying to get a better understanding of the unit economics. Looking at slide eight, the deck discloses 44 million cubic yards of capacity. That represents 40 years of solid waste handling capacity. The rough math would suggest something like a million cubic yards per year. From what we can find, a waste management facility can often collect somewhere between $25-$30 a cubic yard, but of course, that's dependent upon a multitude of factors. From your perspective, does that sound like the right ballpark for the acquired facility?

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

That's ultimately going to be conservative. I would say the all-in figures, if you were to work through the framework you just laid out, are going to be higher. You're probably looking closer to $40-$45 all in if you were looking for a simple way to model it.

Michael Furrow
Michael Furrow
VP at Pickering Energy Partners

All right. That's great detail. Thanks.

Operator

Our final question will come from the line of Don Crist with Johnson Rice. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Don Crist
Don Crist
Analyst at Johnson Rice

Thanks, guys. Good morning, and thanks for letting me in. I wanted to talk about Speedway. I know you said it's taken volumes down, and it's going to ramp up as we go into the back half of the year, but also wanted to ask about Speedway two and the timeline of sanctioning and inflationary factors there. Just any comments around, number one, the ramp-up of Speedway one, but the progress with Speedway two as we move forward?

Michael Chop Reitz
COO at WaterBridge

Thanks. Thanks, Don. I will take that, then Scott can follow up. Speedway Phase I is online. The team did a really great job getting prepared for bringing that system online. We are being thoughtful about how we ramp that system to really learn how it operates and prevent any kind of issues and potential downtime in the future. We will ramp over the next couple of months up to around 100,000 barrels a day and hope to exit the year well above that. As far as Speedway Phase II goes, the commercial conversations are going great. As you can appreciate with the quality of counterparties and sophisticated counterparties that we are working with, contracting takes time, that is what we are working through right now.

Don Crist
Don Crist
Analyst at Johnson Rice

Okay. You would still expect to have something sanctioned probably by year-end? I do not want to pin you down to a timeframe, is that the right timeframe to think of?

Michael Chop Reitz
COO at WaterBridge

We think so.

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Potentially imminent, back half of this year, we have a high degree of confidence in.

Don Crist
Don Crist
Analyst at Johnson Rice

Okay. If I could squeeze in one more just on customer activity going forward. We've seen a bunch of rigs being added to the rig count, but we haven't seen a lot of completion crews. It's our analyst contention that there's going to be a whole lot more activity as we move into 2027. I know you're early in the process when these guys are planning. Are you seeing increased activity as we move into 2027 from the bigger guys? I know we've seen a little bit from the smaller guys to date. Are you seeing increased activity as we move into 2027 from the bigger operators out there?

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Yeah. I think that's a good way to look at it. There's been several public statements made through the course of the last six months that if the forward strip into 2027 hit or exceeded the mid-70s, you would see a more aggressive hedge program put in place and greater activity in 2027 than certainly what was contemplated stepping out of 2025 in a much softer commodity price environment. No one has come to us and formally firmed up their 2027 programs yet, although we expect to start getting that here pretty soon. I think generally speaking, we expect a much more constructive year next year than certainly what we were expecting at the beginning of this year. Even I would say over the course of the last few months, we've seen it evolve to the positive.

Don Crist
Don Crist
Analyst at Johnson Rice

I appreciate the color. I'll turn it back. Thanks, guys.

Operator

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

Scott McNeely
CFO at WaterBridge

Yeah. Thanks again to everyone for joining us today. We appreciate your ongoing focus on WaterBridge. We're very excited stepping out of the quarter with both the acquisitions as well as just the operational momentum we have stepping into the back half of this year. Just so much opportunity ahead of us in a number of different business lines, we're really excited to circle back and give you all more updates here as they materialize. Thanks again. We hope you all have a good day.

Operator

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

Analysts
    • Mae Herrington
      Director of Investor Relations at WaterBridge
    • Jason Long
      CEO at WaterBridge
    • Michael Chop Reitz
      COO at WaterBridge
    • Scott McNeely
      CFO at WaterBridge
    • Derrick Whitfield
      Managing Director at Texas Capital
    • Jackie Koletas
      Analyst at Goldman Sachs
    • Michael Furrow
      VP at Pickering Energy Partners
    • Don Crist
      Analyst at Johnson Rice
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