RPC, Inc. (NYSE:RES) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jim Landers: Don, this is Jim. Your point is a good one. I would say not yet, because there is still so much–you know, demand is still greater than supply. I would say if there’s anything regarding the natural gas market weakness, it’s more an opportunity cost than anything else. I mean, when you have no white space in the calendar, something that might have happened in the future but isn’t going to doesn’t impact near term results.

Ben Palmer: This is Ben. I’ll add a very large percentage of our activity is directed towards oil wells, and it’s just been that way. We’ve not consciously made the shift. We’ve been talking about it, but have not made a conscious shift to try to move assets or focus on the primarily gas basins as of the .

Jim Landers: Yes, I think right now, we’re about 80% oil or a little more.

Don Crist: Okay, I appreciate that color. One more from me. You called out pricing in the fourth quarter as one of the reasons why you outperformed consensus expectations. How broad-based was that, and was it more skewed to pressure pumping or coil, and can you just kind of run down how pricing has been across two or three of your segments?

Ben Palmer: Relative to–talking about the fourth quarter results, I don’t know that there was–I think the increases in pricing has been sort of a steady process over the last quarter or two. There wasn’t–we had some nice wins, especially with the new fleet we put into service in the fourth quarter. It went to work at a nice–it was a good piece of work for us. There was not a tremendous increase in the fourth quarter. I think the fourth quarter was driven as much by efficiency. The fact is, as we indicated, there was very little fourth quarter normal slowdown, number one; and number two, though, it was just a good job mix that wasn’t quite as hard on our equipment, and we were able to be really efficient. There was minimal white space, as there has been in earlier quarters, so I think it was just a combination of a good job mix, good efficiency on those jobs that we were working on, just overall good execution.

The guys have done a tremendous job taking advantage of the opportunities that have been presented.

Don Crist: Okay, and one final one from me, do you have any major contract rolls as we move into the first quarter? I don’t know if, you know, had quarterly openers or whatnot on your contracts, but any significant pricing uplift from contact roll expected in the first quarter?

Ben Palmer: By the nature of our portfolio, no; but we are continuing to work on pricing, but there’s no specific whatever event or contract rolling, that would have an individually significant impact, but we do see some additional improvement opportunity as we move forward.

Don Crist: I appreciate all the color. I’ll turn it back. Thank you.

Ben Palmer: Thank you.

Jim Landers: Thanks Don.

Operator: We’ll go next to John Daniel at Daniel Energy Partners.

John Daniel: Hey, good morning guys. Thank you for including me.

Jim Landers: Morning John.

John Daniel: I have a quick question on the capex budget. I think you said 250 to 300 is the guide for this year, and if my monkey math is correct, you were around 140-ish for ’22. I’m curious, within that capex budget and aside from the one fleet that you have on order, is there any additional new equipment orders that are anticipated in that budget or is that all maintenance?

Jim Landers: There’s plenty of refurbishment in there, John.