ProFrac Holding Corp. ($ACDC)

Greetings, and welcome to the ProFrac Holding Corp. Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Michael Messina, SVP of Finance. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for ProFrac Holding Corp. conference call and webcast to review our results of the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2025. With me today are Matt Wilks, Executive Chairman; Ladd Wilks, Chief Executive Officer; and Austin Harbour, Chief Financial Officer. Following my remarks, management will provide high-level commentary on the operational and financial highlights of the fourth quarter and full year 2025 before opening up the call to your questions. A replay of today's call will be made available via webcast on the company's website at pfholdingscorp.com. More information on how to access the replay is included in the company's earnings release. Please note that the information reported on this call speaks only as of today, Thursday, March 12, 2026. You are advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay listening or transcript reading. Also, comments on this call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States federal securities laws, including management's expectations of future financial and business performance. These forward-looking statements reflect the current views of ProFrac's management and are not guarantees of future performance. Various risks, uncertainties and contingencies could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in management's forward-looking statements. The listener or reader is encouraged to read ProFrac's Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be found at sec.gov or on the company's Investor Relations website section under the SEC Filings tab to better understand those risks, uncertainties and contingencies. The comments today also include certain non-GAAP financial measures as well as other adjusted figures to exclude the contribution of Flotek. Additional details and reconciliations to the most directly comparable consolidated and GAAP financial measures are included in the earnings press release, which can be found on the company's website. With that, let me hand the call over to ProFrac Executive Chairman, Mr. Matt Wilks.

Thank you, Michael. I'll kick off with some high-level remarks about our recent performance, market outlook and strategic initiatives. Ladd will expand on the performance of our businesses. And finally, Austin will discuss our financial performance. Our results in the fourth quarter improved from Q3 with total adjusted EBITDA increasing 49% on an improvement across our two largest segments, Stimulation Services and Proppant Production. This performance was driven by better-than-anticipated activity levels, strong operational execution with optimized uptime and the early benefits of our cost and capital management initiatives. Notably, our Proppant Production segment delivered exceptional results, benefiting from increased volumes and improved logistics efficiency that helped us maintain strong margins. Ladd will elaborate on this in a few minutes. Looking at 2025 as a whole, the year presented a challenging backdrop for the completions industry. Tariff-driven economic uncertainty and OPEC's decision to increase supply in early April rattled commodity prices and prompted widespread operator reassessment of near-term activity. Throughout the summer and early fall, operators remained cautious as they balanced hedge books, return commitments and commodity exposure against continued commodity volatility and broader economic and geopolitical uncertainty. Against this backdrop, the market ebbed and flowed at relatively subdued activity levels. What enabled us to navigate 2025 effectively and emerge well positioned for 2026 was the fundamental strength of our business model. Throughout the year, our vertical integration and asset management platform were instrumental, providing the operational flexibility and cost advantages that differentiate our performance during difficult market conditions. However, this isn't just about weathering downturns. It's about having the structural advantages that allow us to compete more effectively across cycles. The recent conflict in the Middle East resulting in disruptions to tanker flows to the Strait of Hormuz, in addition to the damage to Gulf energy infrastructure are likely to continue to not only have a meaningful impact on both near term, but also potentially on medium-term physical supply and demand balances. The severity and duration of these factors remains fluid. However, if disruptions prove lasting, the path to sustainably higher oil prices may crystallize. The conflict in the Middle East is playing out against the backdrop where the setup in North America for onshore activity remains compelling. As we've noted for several quarters, activity has been running below levels needed to sustain flat shale production, and we expect that gap to close as operators accelerate activity to combat natural decline. On the gas side, expanding LNG capacity and rising power demand continue to support a favorable outlook. Layered on top of that, we believe capital discipline across the hydraulic fracturing industry, combined with ongoing equipment attrition and restrained new additions, sets the stage for supply-demand tightening as activity picks up. Any sustained disruption to Arabian Gulf supply could be the catalyst that pulls the time line forward. When that acceleration comes, we believe ProFrac is well positioned to benefit. Some of the same attributes mentioned earlier, including our vertical integration and how we manage our asset base as well as our position in dual fuel and electric technologies are what keeps us squarely where operator demand is highest and position us to move decisively as the cycle turns. Turning to the first quarter for a few moments. We experienced a significant weather impact in January that created near-term operational challenges. Winter storms affected our operating regions during a period when operators were also taking a measured approach to activity amid broader macro uncertainty. However, momentum has been building as we've moved through the quarter, which has been encouraging. Our calendar has tightened, activity levels have improved. And with oil prices recovering since the start of the year, operator sentiment has strengthened. Key to being well positioned for the dynamics we have seen for several quarters is the work we have done internally to strengthen our cost structure. On our November call, we introduced a business optimization plan targeting annualized savings of approximately $100 million at the midpoint by the end of the second quarter of 2026. This consists of $35 million to $45 million in labor-related COGS and SG&A reductions, $30 million to $40 million in nonlabor operating expenses and $20 million to $30 million in capital expenditure efficiency. We are pleased to report strong progress across all three components of this program. On capital expenditure efficiency, we have already achieved at a minimum, the midpoint of our targeted range and expect to be at the higher end of the $20 million to $30 million target. The early benefits of these capital savings were visible in our fourth quarter results, where we delivered a significant beat on net capital expenditures in frac. Austin will provide more detail on what this progress means for our 2026 capital expenditure outlook in a few moments. On labor-related savings, we have fully implemented the cost reduction measures such that we are currently running at an annualized savings rate that positions us at or above the midpoint of our $35 million to $45 million target range. For nonlabor operating expenses, we've achieved approximately 1/3 of the targeted savings on an annualized basis, primarily from fully implemented SG&A reductions. The larger component of this category related to repair and maintenance and asset level operating expenses remains in earlier stages of implementation and should accelerate as we move through the year. We continue to expect to achieve the full $30 million to $40 million range as these initiatives mature through the second quarter. Taken together, we believe these actions meaningfully improve our cost structure and position ProFrac to generate stronger returns as market conditions improve. Alongside those efforts, technology differentiation remains a key focus. Let me take a few minutes to walk through our latest technology initiatives, which I believe represent a meaningful and underappreciated part of the ProFrac value proposition. When we announced our strategic partnership with Seismos back in August, we talked about bringing closed-loop fracturing to the industry, combining ProPilot surface automation with Seismos' subsurface intelligence to enable real-time optimization during active pumping. The partnership has been performing as we envisioned, and we believe recent field trials have validated the approach. But as we deployed this technology and collaborated with our customers, it became clear the closed-loop control was just one piece of a larger opportunity. Today, I want to discuss Machina, our complete well optimization suite. that we believe takes everything we've built with Seismos and ProPilot and extends it into a unified platform that spans the entire completion life cycle. Machina integrates treatment design, real-time measurement, mid-stage intervention, frac hit detection, live pad level tracking, historical analytics, supply chain optimization and water quality analysis into a single continuous architecture. Central to Machina's architecture is a new generation of AI engineering agents that we think of as digital employees embedded directly into the workflow. These agents monitor, interpret and act continuously across the completion life cycle. Challenges that historically required physical intervention, mechanical testing or group force diagnostic runs can now be identified and resolved through a software update. What makes Machina particularly powerful is how it builds on ProPilot 2.0's foundation. ProPilot serves as both a cost optimization tool and an execution precision enabler designed to reduce labor requirements and maintenance expenses while delivering the coordinated pump control and millisecond level response time that makes closed-loop fracturing possible. Without ProPilot's execution, stability and predictive maintenance capabilities, we couldn't achieve the rapid repeatable actuation that knocking up requires to translate subsurface intelligence into immediate operational adjustments. Design assumptions now flow directly into execution monitoring. Intervention decisions designed by our customer are interpreted algorithmically and executed immediately through ProPilot. Subsurface response is validated in real time, and all of that learning feeds back into future design optimization. We believe that this is not only about making one stage better, it's about creating a continuous improvement engine that potentially improves perforations in every stage, every pad and every program. Ladd will walk through how this works operationally and what we've experienced to date. In summary, we closed 2025 with momentum. Q4 EBITDA was up 49% sequentially, demonstrating the strength of the business model and cost initiatives and positioning us to capitalize when the market inflects. Weather headwinds early in the quarter have given way to strengthening fundamentals. While Q1 began with operational challenges, our calendar has tightened with activity accelerating. Our $100 million cost optimization program is ahead of schedule. Labor savings have been fully implemented. CapEx efficiency is tracking to the high end of targets and nonlabor reductions are progressing. Machina represents the next evolution in completion technology. By unifying ProPilot surface automation with subsurface intelligence into a complete optimization platform. We're not just improving individual stages. We're building a continuous improvement engine. With that, I'll turn it over to Ladd, who will provide more detail on our segment performance.

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, all. Building on what Matt covered, let's start with Stimulation Services. As we mentioned on our November call, we were encouraged by signs of stability in the first several weeks of Q4. As noted, deferred September activity returned to the calendar in October, and we successfully kicked off a multi-fleet contract with a large operator early in the quarter. Activity was much more consistent in Q4 relative to our expectations. On fleet utilization and pricing, we maintained a consistent fleet count in the low 20s throughout the fourth quarter and into Q1. More importantly, we saw improved utilization and operational efficiency across our active fleets and pricing remained relatively stable quarter-over-quarter. What I'd emphasize is the meaningful impact our cost and capital savings initiatives had on our margin performance in the fourth quarter. We began to see the early benefits of these programs flow through our results, which was a key driver of our strong adjusted EBITDA performance and contributed significantly to our ability to deliver improved margins. As Matt referenced, January presented weather-related headwinds that impacted operations across both our stimulation and proppant businesses. The winter conditions created operational disruptions that we estimate have resulted in approximately $8 million to $12 million of adjusted EBITDA impact in the quarter, more heavily weighted towards stimulation services. That said, since weather conditions improved, our calendar has tightened and activity has picked up. While we expect Q1 results will be softer than our strong fourth quarter performance, primarily due to the January disruption, the operational momentum we're experiencing positions us well heading into the second quarter. Now turning to Proppant Services. Matt referenced the strength of Alpine Silica's performance in the fourth quarter. After some challenges in Q3, revenues in the segment stepped up approximately 50% and segment adjusted EBITDA doubled in Q4. We delivered strong operational execution throughout the period with volumes reaching over 2 million tonnes. Q4 benefited from solid demand across our key markets, coupled with exceptional operational performance and high uptime, we were able to maximize our production efficiency and cost absorption. From a geographic perspective, West Texas remained a significant contributor to our overall mix, along with continued gains in South Texas. Our cost control initiatives, especially on the logistics side, were a key driver of our ability to maintain strong margins and drive improved profitability in the quarter. In Q1, we expect volumes to be down quarter-over-quarter. Weather disruptions in January, combined with some operational challenges that impacted production levels created headwinds after the strong execution we saw in Q4. Customer demand remains solid and as conditions normalize, we're focused on returning to the operational performance that drove our fourth quarter results. Looking ahead, we continue to see momentum building in the Haynesville, where we've secured significant customer wins on both the frac and sand side. We expect activity in this basin to continue increasing as we move through 2026, further diversifying our revenue base. Now let me circle back to the technology discussion Matt introduced and get specific about what Machina does on location. Closed-loop module remains our core real-time optimization capability using acoustic friction analysis to detect perforation efficiency issues and prescribe immediate interventions that ProPilot executes with millisecond level response. Machina is designed to extend this by integrating a broad operational context into a unified decision engine. Treatment design flows directly into execution monitoring. Intervention decisions are made algorithmically and executed immediately through ProPilot's precision control. Subsurface response is validated in real time and all of that learning feeds back into future design optimization. This integration of frac hit indicators, water quality data, supply chain optimization and fleet health monitoring can create a continuous improvement engine. We believe field results demonstrate the impact. Closed-loop intervention reduced cumulative perforation efficiency degradation by 33% compared to untreated stages. More importantly, every stage adds to our historical database, potentially improving design refinement across entire programs. With that overview of our operational performance and technology progress, I'll turn it over to Austin to walk through our financial results in detail.

Thanks, Ladd. In the fourth quarter, revenues were $437 million compared with $403 million in the third quarter. We generated $61 million of adjusted EBITDA with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 14% compared with $41 million in the third quarter or 10% of revenue. For the full year 2025, revenues were $1.94 billion with an adjusted EBITDA of $310 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 16%. Free cash flow was $14 million in the fourth quarter versus negative $29 million in the third quarter. For the full year 2025, free cash flow was $25 million. As Matt outlined, we have been executing on our business optimization program targeting $85 million to $115 million of annualized savings and have made strong progress. Within the fourth quarter specifically, we estimate the combined cash impact of labor, nonlabor and capital expenditure savings was approximately $45 million, with labor savings accounting for roughly $10 million, nonlabor approximately $10 million and the remaining $25 million from CapEx savings. Of note, labor and nonlabor savings were executed throughout the quarter. As a result, our progress on these initiatives does not reflect the full potential quarterly impact. Turning to our segments. Stimulation Services revenues were $384 million in the fourth quarter and improved from $343 million in the third quarter. Adjusted EBITDA in Q4 was $33 million, above the $20 million we reported in Q3, with margins increasing to 8.7% versus 5.7% in Q3. The improvement was driven by our more consistent activity levels, better fleet utilization and early benefits from our cost savings initiatives. For the full year 2025, Stimulation Services revenues were $1.68 billion with adjusted EBITDA of $209 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.4%. Our Proppant Production segment generated $115 million of revenue in the fourth quarter, materially higher than the $76 million of revenue we reported in the third quarter. Approximately 43% of volumes were sold to third-party customers during the fourth quarter versus 39% in Q3. Adjusted EBITDA for the Proppant Production segment was $16 million for the fourth quarter, which was 2x the $8 million we delivered in Q3. On a margin basis, EBITDA margins increased to 14% in the fourth quarter versus 10.5% in Q3. Strong segment performance reflected approximately 2 million tonnes of volume, high equipment uptime and effective logistics optimization, particularly in West Texas and South Texas markets, as Ladd touched on. For full year 2025, proppant production revenues were $336 million with adjusted EBITDA of $57 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 17%. Our Manufacturing segment generated fourth quarter revenues of $43 million versus $48 million in the third quarter. Approximately 18% of segment revenues were generated from third-party sales, consistent with Q3. Adjusted EBITDA for the Manufacturing segment was $4 million, in line with Q3. For full year 2025, Manufacturing segment revenues were $212 million with adjusted EBITDA of $19 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 8.7%. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $43 million in the fourth quarter, in line with the third quarter. We expect to see continued improvement in SG&A as we execute on our cost savings initiatives, as Matt discussed. Turning to the cash flow statement. Cash capital expenditures of $37 million in the fourth quarter was down slightly from $38 million in the third quarter. For the full year 2025, CapEx totaled $170 million, a material improvement from 2024's $255 million in CapEx. As Matt discussed earlier, the progress we've made on capital expenditure efficiency has been one of the most encouraging outcomes of our business optimization program. The discipline and execution our teams demonstrated in 2025 gives us confidence in our ability to continue to execute as we move through 2026. To that end, we expect total capital expenditures in 2026, including Flotek spend to be in the range of $155 million to $185 million. Excluding Flotek, we expect our CapEx to be in the range of $145 million to $175 million, split between maintenance-related and growth-oriented investments. This guidance reflects our continued commitment to capital discipline while ensuring we maintain our competitive positioning, equipment reliability standards and the flexibility to capitalize on market opportunities as conditions improve. Turning to cash. Total cash and cash equivalents as of December 31, 2025, were approximately $23 million, including approximately $6 million attributable to Flotek. Total liquidity at year-end 2025 was approximately $152 million, including $135 million available under the ABL. Borrowings under the ABL credit facility ended the year at $69 million, a $91 million reduction from September 30. At year-end, we had approximately $1.05 billion of principal debt outstanding with the majority not due until 2029. We repaid approximately $136 million of long-term debt in 2025. As background, recall that in June, we executed a series of transactions to provide incremental liquidity through 2025, including an initial $20 million issuance of additional 2029 senior notes and commitments for additional tranches at our discretion. We completed the remaining $40 million of that program in December. As discussed on our November earnings call, we also monetized the $40 million Flotek seller note early in the quarter, selling it to a Wilks affiliate at par. Lastly, in Q4, we amended the Alpine term loan to reduce quarterly amortization payments from $15 million to $7.5 million for the first two quarters of 2026 and deferred leverage ratio testing by one year to March 2028. Subsequent to year-end, we closed on an additional $25 million issuance of 2029 senior notes to Beal Bank in January, building on the senior notes program we completed in December and further strengthening our liquidity heading into 2026. In addition, earlier this month, we extended the maturity of our senior unsecured revolving credit facility by 6 months to September 2027, providing further flexibility in our capital structure. The facility now has a capacity of $275 million. As we look ahead, we remain disciplined and opportunistic in how we manage our balance sheet, and we will continue to evaluate ways to further strengthen our liquidity and financial flexibility as market conditions evolve. That concludes our prepared comments. Operator, let's open up to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from John Daniel with Daniel Energy Partners.

Matt, Ladd, I was hoping if you could provide a little bit more color on the new technology. Just how does it -- is it software that gets installed in the data van? Like how does it get rolled out? And what will be the sales cycle in terms of educating customers what it can do? And how long -- what's an expectation for that education process?

Definitely. So it's installed on every fleet, and it's -- ProPilot is our frac automation. It's on every single fleet. It's in the data van. And then Machina is the customer-facing software for well optimization. It allows us -- it allows the customer to pull in real-time data from offsetting wells as well as data from the same well, same stage and to write rules on how the equipment should respond to that data. So we're extremely excited about this. When you -- a great way to think about it is what we're seeing across the entire industry is that operators are only getting about 2/3 of the perfs open on each well. So if there's 15,000 perfs, they're only getting about 10,000 of them actually open. And so our technology allows us to go in, recognize that in real time, respond to it and initiate what we call interventions to increase the number of open perfs. We can't improve the resource. We can't change the rock, but we can open more perfs. And so we've been able to see where we can open as much as 1,500 extra perfs on a well where your D&C cost is $12 million and you're only getting 10,000 perfs open, you're spending $1,200 per open perf. So if we can open an extra 1,500 or 2,000 perfs, that's creating anywhere from $1.8 million to $2.4 million of D&C cost that would have otherwise been left behind on each well.

Okay. I'm curious, and if you said this in the release, I apologize for missing it, but when you've tested this with your customers, what did they share with you what the production uplift might have been through the technology?

It's too early to tell, and it's a slippery flip for us to get into promising well results or an increase in production. Ultimately, it comes to whether or not these perfs are open or closed. If that perf is closed, we're not getting hydrocarbons out of it. But if I can open these additional perfs, that's a better way for us to measure our success. And it also has a quicker time cycle. For us to see the enough production and work with an operator to get enough data, we'd be looking at just one well anywhere from six to nine months before we really get the appropriate feedback. But -- and then we get into the complicated process of trying to establish how much of that production, what were the changes, what other items were going on at the same time and what's directly attributable to our technology. But just keeping it simple and focusing on whether or not these perfs are open is the best unit of measure and way to establish progress.

Okay. And then I guess one final one and not looking for a specific number here, Matt, but Q1 down relative to Q4, but just given the costs that you're pulling out and sort of the run rate right now in March, I'm assuming Q2 probably better than Q4. Is that -- would be that big feel?

That's a fair assumption.

Your next question comes from Saurabh Pant with Bank of America.

Matt, I know you alluded to some of this in your prepared remarks, but what's going on in the Middle East on the margin. I'm assuming it does help the U.S. land market a little bit. And I know you were talking about improving operator sentiment, Matt, can you talk to -- are you getting more phone calls? Are there more discussions? I know it's too early for anything to show up on the ground. But are you having more discussions? And just along those lines, theoretically, if there's a call on equipment, I know you said you have low 20 frac fleets out there. How easily can you bring more fleets out? And how should we think about any potential CapEx that you would need to spend on bringing fleets out?

Yes. It's an exercise that we continue to run through. I think things are happening pretty fast over in the Middle East, and it's -- what we're looking at is how much of this disruption is temporary from just the straight being closed compared to structural supply and demand imbalances on a go-forward basis from these attacks on infrastructure. Then there's also the possibility of artificial demand as national security interest for each state is reassessed and likely to see some increased reserves on a go-forward basis that should be very, very constructive for the supply and demand balance. As far as the onshore market here, we are fielding a lot of calls. There is a lot of conversations going on. So far, most of it is centered around DUCs being pulled forward as well as just more robust dense calendars associated with existing activity. It's too early to tell whether this is going to result in a material increase in rig count, but we're watching it very close, and it's interesting to see how our customers are responding and behaving in real time. So, hopefully, we'll have more to talk about in the near future. Probably the biggest impact regardless of a call on more horsepower and activity, diesel prices have shot through the roof. And so in some instances, the daily quote has essentially doubled from where it was just a few weeks ago. And that's creating a lot of opportunities for us to be better partners with our customers. Where we see customers that typically run all diesel fleets, the diesel -- the fuel bill is now more expensive than horsepower. And it creates a premium for your fuel-efficient fleet. So when you look at dual fuel, where you can eliminate as much as 70% of your diesel cost or an electric fleet where you can eliminate 100% of it, it's more important now than ever where we can see margin expansion while also saving our customer money and insulating or hedging -- giving them a physical hedge against an unanticipated or expected rise in fuel costs.

Right. No, that makes a ton of sense, Matt. That's super interesting. And then Austin, I have one for you. You talked about this in your remarks about how you strengthened your balance sheet, increasing liquidity, including -- we saw earlier this week some of the amendments you made to your credit facility. But as we look forward, Austin, right, in terms of just opportunities to deleverage outside of just organic free cash flow, maybe just talk to a little bit on what you are thinking, how you're evaluating the balance sheet, the deleveraging opportunity and what you maybe want to do from this point onwards?

Yes. Thanks, Saurabh. With respect to our balance sheet, so I think you can tell that we actively manage that, right? And we're constantly looking at a number of opportunities and strategies to optimize what the leverage profile looks like, what the liquidity profile looks like and then balance that against capital allocation opportunities that we have internally. So, as we look forward, I think we'll continue to actively manage it, and we'll continue to focus on making sure that we've got liquidity not only to run the base business, but also as opportunistic investments come around. And as we think about the flexibility to be able to respond to this market and also to be able to make investments in some of our other subsidiaries.

Your next question comes from Dan Kutz with Morgan Stanley.

Congrats on the quarter.

Dan Kutz, go ahead with your question.

I'm sorry, can you repeat that question?

Dan Kutz, your line is open. We'll move on to next question. Dan Kutz, press star one again to queue up. And your next question comes from Patrick Ouellette with Stifel.

It's Pat Ouellette on for Stephen Gengaro. So you highlighted the 1Q '26 results to soften sequentially in the pressure pumping segment. And I know the weather in January plays into that. But you also talked about the frac calendar tightening since then. So I was just wondering if you could give some color on maybe a run rate basis on where you see the segment exiting 1Q compared to 4Q?

Yes. I think our exit in Q1 is going to be in line to slightly better than what we saw in Q4. And it's just that disruption early in the quarter. You don't get those hours back. You don't get those days back. But it did compress the balance of Q1 and has given us a really tight schedule to run and benefit from higher utilization.

Okay. And you talked about the $8 million to $12 million impact to EBITDA from the weather disruptions. Is this sort of like lost EBITDA or just pushed out to the right and recoverable?

Yes, I would view it as pushed out to the right and recoverable. Certainly, it will be lost in Q1, right, to Matt's point. I mean we can't get those days back, right? But as we think about the calendar tightening even further as we move through the quarter and also into Q2, I think ultimately, we will be able to earn that back. It's just not all going to come back in February and March.

All right. And then if I could just squeeze in one more. If you could just talk a little bit about the guide for the profit segment, it seems like demand is relatively flat quarter-over-quarter into 1Q. Could you maybe touch on the operational challenges you highlighted? Are those sort of weather related? And then you sort of talked about maybe some strength into 2Q. Is this driven by maybe like better operational efficiency? Or is that demand driven?

It's a little bit of both. So the disruption early in the quarter impacts your sand mines disproportionately because your wash plants, your working inventory, those freezing temps, a lot of these facilities weren't -- they're in areas where you're not used to dealing with this kind of a weather impact. So it's pretty disruptive whenever you get a weather event like this. And it impacts your sand mines a little bit more than it does your frac fleets. With that being said, the operational efficiencies and the quality of our backlog, we've got everything that we can make, we've got sold. And so now it's just an exercise and execution. And we're starting to see the best performance out of these assets and believe that there's a lot more opportunity and continuing to see that best demonstrated performance climb.

Your next question comes from Dan Kutz with Morgan Stanley.

Congrats on the quarter. Sorry about that. I think my headset cut out. So you guys had flagged that you think we're running below production maintenance activity levels in the U.S. currently. Just wondering if you have any guess or any sense for how much higher completions activity would have to be at more of a maintenance level run rate?

Yes. We I think it's easier to look at it from a completed lateral feet per month. And it's -- depending on the quality of the inventory, you're looking at anywhere from 0.5 million feet to 1 million feet a month that is below sustainable levels.

Great. That's helpful. And then -- so it sounds like you guys had flagged recently that in tandem with this -- with the cost-out initiatives, you're kind of managing the deployed fleet count to a more range-bound level that leaves some spare capacity on the side. Just wondering if you could talk through what that horsepower, what the plans are for that? Is it going towards bigger fleets towards continuous frac, maybe used to minimize maintenance costs or maybe some of that just kind of gets attrits and gets retired. But yes, just wondering how the spare capacity that you guys have is being utilized or what the plans for that are?

Definitely, that's a great question. The way that we're looking at things right now is as tempting and interesting the environment that we have is, we're going to remain disciplined and keep our fleet count where it's at, unless we see a true call on assets and activity. I think things are too up in the air right now. We're seeing the calendars fill up. We're seeing DUCs being pulled forward. But once we see this inflection point where there's a true call on activity of increasing rigs and the demand for frac fleets commissioning full dedicated spreads rather than a few wells here and there pulling DUCs forward. Once we see a motivated push to deploy CapEx from operators, we'll respond appropriately at that time. And we do have spare capacity. It's just -- is this where we're going to put our priorities and focus our capital allocation. And at this time, we just -- that's -- we're going to stick to our plan, stay disciplined and look for opportunities to create value for our customers. And again, again, I'll highlight without a call on activity, just the shakeup in the fuel market is -- it's a huge risk for our customers. And with the number of fuel-efficient assets that we have, I think we're in a great position to be a great partner with them to help them save money, derisk their capital allocation and also to do it while seeing margin expansion on our side. We can help them save a lot of money on fuel. And we've been in a low diesel price environment that's really muted the value of these fuel-efficient fleets. But now that you're seeing diesel rise up as quickly and abruptly as it has, it's created a really interesting environment for us to improve our relationships with our customers and get paid handsomely for it.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. So I'll hand the floor back over to Matt Wilks for closing remarks.

It's good to wrap up 2025. We're excited about 2026. We're managing our business in a very disciplined and thoughtful way. We appreciate everybody's time and look forward to connecting on our Q1 call. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's call. All parties may disconnect. Have a good day.