Select Water Solutions, Inc. (WTTR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for joining us today for a fireside chat with CEO, John Schmitz; CFO, Chris George; Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, Mike Lyons; and Vice President, Garrett Williams from Select Water Solutions. I am Jeff Robertson, Managing Director for Natural Resources at Water Tower Research. Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that our discussion could include forward-looking statements as of today, December 11, 2025. Select's disclosures regarding such statements can be found under the Investors tab of its corporate homepage. If anyone is not familiar, Select Water Solutions is a leading provider of sustainable full life cycle water solutions to the energy industry and is an emerging water infrastructure solutions provider to municipal and industrial markets. These solutions are supported by the company's critical water infrastructure assets, including connected networks of pipelines, recycling, storage, disposal and solid treatment facilities and its water services and chemical technologies segments. Select owns an expansive infrastructure assets with high barriers to entry in every major producing -- U.S. producing basin. The Water Infrastructure segment is the company's highest margin and fastest-growing segment. Select's scale and solutions provide significant through-the-cycle free cash flow generation capacity to fund organic growth prospects backed by long-term customer contracts and enhance its shareholder return opportunities. The Water Infrastructure segment is expected to contribute about 60% of gross profit in the next 12 to 24 months, up from 51% for the first 9 months of 2025. Water Infrastructure revenue is expected to grow about 10% year-over-year in 2025 and 20% year-over-year in 2026. 2026 growth is expected to be driven primarily by projects that are either onstream or currently in progress. So with that introduction out of the way, John, Chris, Mike and Garrett, I want to thank you for taking the time to join us today.

Thanks for having us, Jeff.

Happy to.

John, I'd like to start with -- just to focus on the company's ongoing transition to an infrastructure company. Since the early days of the transition in 2021 through the end of 2025, gross profit before depreciation and amortization in the segment is expected to have grown at a CAGR north of 70%. Can you talk about the motivation behind the transition and how you think that ultimately plays on the company's positioning in the market as an infrastructure company?

Sure. I'd be glad to, and thanks for having us as well, Jeff. Yes, what we saw really kind of going into the pandemic is a real big switch in the industry around the management of water. It was driven heavily weighted by the Permian Basin and the development of horizontal, but the reality is what came out of that is a switch from freshwater sources or sources that you go procure to management of the production water that comes out with the oil and gas and the way you could treat that water, recycle it and make it usable in the completion of new wells. We were really the very first adapters of that, but that's because of our background. We've always been really a water-focused company to supply sources into the frac horsepower for completion in Lower 48. This was just another step in transition, and we identified it. At the same time that, that happened, the '21 year coming out of the pandemic, there was a lot of broken balance sheets or bankruptcies or things of that nature that was in the space after the pandemic. And the team really managed the company really well during the pandemic. So we came out with cash and no debt. And we went to work and took advantage of that because what it gave us is the ability to put together a bunch of assets that we could then drop in and develop this new thesis around recycle, repurpose and at the same time, build these networks out that we keep landing these contracts around. What does it change for the company? Those assets and really the company was heavily focused on a call-out service business for completion activity around the wellhead. That's what we did. One of those services was water. I mean we always delivered water to the wellhead in a meaningful way, a leader in the industry as it relates to that, but still a call-out service business. And what we've been able to do because of the assets, the networks, the contracts is move away from just completion and get into the water that's coming out with the oil and gas, the production like water throughout the life of the well, the management of that water, so repurposing it to use it as a completions water versus disposing of it. So recycle first, building out these networks so you can water balance and manage the companies that are long water and the companies that are short water and do it throughout these networks and put contracts around it. So get acre dedications, ROFRs, length of time. But along with that length of time, you're actually within the production life of the well. And because of the value that we brought to the marketplace, the earnings within those contracts in the dedication acres are the value in the management in the water solution. These contracts have 40% to 50% gross margins around that contract, around these services and around the actual water management solution that we bring. So stability through production life, stability through contracts, stability through way improved gross margins, it really changed the profile of the company, Joe.

Chris, the shift from a call-out business to providing a service over the life of a well, can you talk about it from a high level, how that impacts your earnings and cash flow visibility as you look out into the future?

Sure. So as John outlined, Jeff, the transition was really driven from a strategic standpoint for a few different reasons. One was a very intentional choice to expand into the production life of well to add through cycle stability, managing the resource over the 20-, 30-year life of the asset, materially changes the ability to stabilize the cash flow stream through cycle. The value proposition we were providing to customers allowed us to do that under contract to build out infrastructure, network the existing assets into larger systems versus stand-alone single assets, which creates more balancing flexibility of the volume flows through cycle as well. And I think importantly, the reason it was successful was because it was a better opportunity for our customer to save money. So it was a better economic choice for the customer we were providing, primarily driven by that focus on recycling and not just pure disposal. The disposal piece is an important part. That's how you manage the longevity of that production stream over 30 years. But the ability to provide near-term economic value around the recycling application was really what established our infrastructure platform and allowed it to scale in a meaningful way and do so in a manner that was allowing us to add contracts that over the last 18 months have averaged about 11 years in tenure, but range from 5 to 20 years on an individual basis. So certainly, the through-cycle stability is a great opportunity for us. It's allowed us to look at the balance sheet differently. It will allow us to look at shareholder returns differently over time as well and has been a great opportunity for us to redeploy the organic operating cash flow of the business into the high-growth application of infrastructure.

Just a follow-up question on the contract structure. Chris, can you tell us whether or not the contracts, just given their duration, have some protections in them for Select's margins over their lives to maintain your margins?

Yes, that's a great question, Jeff. So we do have various forms of contract structure within infrastructure. The primary forms are acreage dedications, wellbore dedications, minimum volume commitments. And then John mentioned it, ROFRs, these right of first refusal dedications as well. Ultimately, those are structured in a manner where you have typically fixed pricing based on your capital return profile with standard escalators that allow you to protect against that inflationary application over the life of the contract given the longevity. Occasionally, we'll have capital return components of those contracts as well. But yes, generally speaking, Jeff, you're going to protect the longevity of that cash flow stream through defined terms.

The dedications in ROFRs are an important part of your business model. And I think you've added a lot of acreage just in the last 12 months or so. I think you have 2.5 million acres under long-term contract at the moment. When you think about future or supporting the future growth of the infrastructure business, how do you really characterize that inventory of dedicated acreage and acreage under ROFR to support the long-term business?

Yes, I'll hit on that and then maybe let John or Mike weigh in as well. But that 2.5 million acres under dedication and growing, the bulk of that has been put in place over the last 12 to 24 months. And so when you think about the long-term earnings opportunity around those contracts, we're just in the early stages. Many of these dedications are still being supported by infrastructure build-out under construction today that's not yet contributing to the earnings of the business. So when you're talking about long-term contracts with these large dedications, we certainly look at the inventory from a well standpoint and a production standpoint over the life of that acreage position from our customers. We do our own engineering work around that inventory and the geology. And we generally think that when you look at the base leasehold dedications that we've underwritten through, through these contracts, you probably got somewhere around double that in terms of the right of first refusal acreage that's beyond that current leasehold. And then I think importantly, even though it's outside the scope of our contracts in place today, those contracts help underwrite the infrastructure build-out. And then around that infrastructure, that asset footprint is geographically positioned to capture what is a meaningful uncontracted acreage and well inventory position for other customers that we expect to commercialize the assets with over time.

So is it fair to say that it really supports the -- maintaining a high utilization rate on the systems that you're putting in place over the long haul?

Yes. That's certainly the right way to think about it, Jeff. The larger the network gets, particularly around these recycling first networks like we have in the Northern Delaware, this is large diameter dual-line infrastructure. It is built to balance the longs and the shorts, like John mentioned earlier, and that balancing across a large geographic footprint allows you to continue to increase the stability of volume flows into the asset over time. Obviously, we still got to get the system fully built out over the next 12 months or so. But once you do, the ability to balance the longs and the shorts over the full scope of the Northern Delaware and New Mexico around that Eddy Lea County position will allow you to maintain that stability of inflow with the demand of the outflow as well.

I guess one more question on the move from kind of a call-out business to a long-term infrastructure business. How do you think that transition ultimately will differentiate Select against oilfield service type peers, but also as you become more of an infrastructure type company with maybe exposure to multiple industries, how do you think that positions the company to really build value?

Yes. It's a great question. I'll start and John can probably weigh in as well here, Jeff. But we're obviously making the choices we've been making from a strategic shift here because we think it creates long-term value for our shareholders and all our stakeholders. We think that the differentiation between what we're doing today and where we're going versus where we came from is material. The ability to take what was 8% of the profitability of the business, grow it to 60% or so over the next 12, 24 months in the segment that we're talking about that's high-margin, long-term contracts, high value proposition to the customer. I mean that's a great way for us to generate, I think, long-term value over time. We think that it also Select as a platform has a distinguishment against other water infrastructure peers and our ability to provide the integrated logistics with our service footprint. We've been able to add that logistics capability into some of our contracts here more recently. And our recycling first approach is also, I would say, different than most others have taken to market. And that's where that cost savings benefit really comes into play for our customers versus traditional disposal solutions and why we've been able to successfully ramp that contracted base over the last couple of years. So we think that as we continue down the execution path, you're going to see the margins of the business grow. We've already seen the margin profile go from, call it, 20% to 30% over the last couple of years, even though the overall business hasn't fundamentally changed from a corporate earnings standpoint. So the margin profile, the quality of the earnings continues to improve. And we think over the next couple of years, once you continue to see that infrastructure growth drive corporate level earnings growth, you're going to see that long-term value proposition, I think, provide a good opportunity to drive shareholder value. John, anything to add there?

The only thing I'd add is we have really rationalized what's in water services and continue to do that. We will do more of it. We have made comments around that. But what is real strategic in water services and very strategic to our customers and value to our customers is that last mile logistics. That's a very big piece of water services. And we've now been able to contract that last mile water distribution system under these long-term contracts. So we got our first dedicated 300,000 acres around that. We pulled it through. But I think really important to note that what we rationalize to is what is a value add to our customer that works interactive with that infrastructure business either through the completion side, through the chemistry side, actually, through the development of the network itself, it's become very apparent that having that water last mile logistics transfer and services has allowed us to be really good at building out these networks that we're building out and become an integrated part of it as we've done it. So I think we could affect our water services business differently than we have been in the past because of that value add, Jeff.

Mike, to bring you in, how significant are the barriers to entry that Select naturally is building, I guess, around the infrastructure networks that you control?

Yes.

Go ahead. Please.

Yes. And John, I'm sure I'll miss something, so please chime in after. And I think the moats that we've been building actually go back many years. A lot of the technology that we use in the field, a lot of the software we've built, like we use Ignite as our SCADA backbone. The folks from that world, good and bad, will tell us that we operate the largest, most complex SCADA system in the entire industry, and that includes oil and gas, refineries, chemical plants. I mean we have mobile assets that we have to track geospatially around each basin. The reason that, that is important is our mission for customers is to reduce costs on the AFE side and LOE side we're helping them unlock new acreage to bring water to and from assets that prior to our, let's say, creative solution providing weren't accessible. We're bringing down their breakevens, and we're providing them water security. So to do all that, the network we build is differentiated and it's bigger and it's multi-flow, multidirectional. And so what we've built is a series of a 24/7 command center, 24/7, we're watching all of our assets. We have a digital twin of every single facility. We have the ability to digitally reach out and touch these assets. And when you've got hundreds of miles of large diameter pipe, millions and millions, tens of millions of barrels of storage, you have to increase your capabilities in that space to provide a very high level of service that includes the initial delivery of extremely high-volume complex trimul, simul and even quad fracs. So that part of it is quite complex, and we leverage our transfer, our infrastructure, water movement capabilities that John was just referencing, but we've been able to kind of lift and shift that into how we manage our water networks as well. So just the capabilities are a moat and then referencing some other things that Chris and John mentioned, the contracts are a moat and then having that large-scale network physically in place also is a moat versus competitors, which tend to be more point-to-point solution providers leaving often the operators either to do it themselves and deploy capital in the areas they don't want to deploy capital into or you're trying to deal with like multiple spot solution providers and the operator has to be the integrator, but they don't have to do that with us.

I'd like to come back to something you said with respect to Select's other 2 segments, Water Services and Chemical Technologies. You put -- Select posted a conversation recently between one of your PhD engineers talking about adapting chemistry to different well solutions. With what you're seeing in the recycling area, especially in the Permian Basin, are you seeing the capabilities of the company on services and some of the chemistry technology solutions that you can provide really playing into your customer needs as they continue to try to figure out how to adapt recycled water to what seems to be more complex well designs?

Yes. So I'll take them in 2 points, Jeff. The first one is the automation that we have developed in the company really throughout a long period of time because we have been a water logistics company for many years now into the frac horsepower. And that frac has gotten more complex and more intensity and the automation allows you to do these very technical enhanced jobs that are coming with simul-fracs and trimul-fracs and quads and multiple sources of water and either blending on the fly or treating on a daily basis and a massive quantity of water for long periods of time. So the automation is really a unique position that we put ourselves in. The chemistry is really came with produced water recycling and repurposing for fracking that, that actually requires matching chemical science to that water quality and determining what chemistry mix that you need for that frac job and then being able to batch that job up and deliver it directly to the job. That is getting enhanced because of the volumes that we described. More and more water is getting pushed through the frac horsepower in a 24-hour period for longer periods of time, and that water is going longer reached into longer laterals and that chemistry has to do what it's supposed to do with that water at a longer lateral without breaking down or failing and then the actual what it does within the reservoir once it reaches the reservoir and gets pushed into the reservoir, the matching of that water to that chemistry is becoming more and more important. So intensity and longer lateral and more reservoir and more water in a 24-hour period is actually very positive to us, both on our automation and our chemistry.

And maybe to add one thing to that, Jeff, to put a financial perspective on that. I mean even though it's a tough macro environment, the completions crews out there has been decreasing steadily over the last 24 months. That completion chemicals application around what John is talking about in support of our water treatment application as well, you're going to see chemicals see 30% to 40% potential gross profit improvement year-over-year in 2025 versus prior year. So even in a tough macro, the success we've had around the chemical development, the R&D side and the importance of the quality of that chemistry and its integration with the produced water recycling solutions has definitely been driving market share capture and importantly, the drive towards higher-margin specialized chemistry products for us in those complex solutions.

It seems like it makes the business more strategic to the customer because you can deliver recycled water that's tailored to their specific lateral lengths and wellbore needs and I guess also with the type of proppant they're using to get the best economic outcome for them.

Yes. That's absolutely right.

It sure has. I mean there's not any piece of the industry that is not saying something that we've been saying for about 2 years now, which is it's more with less with better results. You drill them faster, you complete them with more intensity and more proppant in water and chemistry and longer laterals and you get more oil and gas out of it. And we fit really well in that value-add proposition.

We started talking about the Permian Basin. I think just in the first 9 months of 2025, just over 50% of Select's total revenue has come out of the Permian Basin, where the company operates its largest infrastructure network in the northern portion of the Delaware Basin in Eddy and Lea Counties, New Mexico. That system includes about 220 miles of large diameter pipe plus more than 175 miles that are under construction, 1.3 million barrels of fixed recycling capacity with another 500,000 barrels under construction and 12 active disposal facilities. John, can you just talk a little bit about the industry's produced water problem or challenge in the Northern Delaware Basin and how your network and the build-out you have underway is really geared toward helping operators deal with that?

Yes. So I'll start off first with the challenges just around water. I mean the ability to balance water east, west, north, south across the Eddy and Lea County is a major value to our customers because really the western side is short and need and the Eastern side is more developed and long water and to be able to have those dual line cross flows that the team has described and have the network of storage and the ability to recycle first and dispose second really gives us a very unique position and value to our customer. But even if you just stop there and say, well, it's all along water or water is becoming a very big problem, whether it's in pore space, seismicity, out of basin takeaway, what is the solution to the amount of water that's being produced as we develop more and more wells in that area, all that's needed, but the important piece is it might all be needed, but recycle first is the most economic solution for our customers. And the more we can do that, the less they use the pore space, the less they have to move water long distances at a higher cost, the less challenges you got from one regulatory body to the next regulatory body or one state to the next state. And it's just a very really value-add prop that we put in place, and it just is the best economic solution. I think Mike Lyons said, both AFE. So the money they spend to drill and complete the well, we can forcefully push that down in a meaningful way as it relates to water. And the value that we bring on the lease operating expense of dealing with that water during the life of the production of that well, we can push that down meaningfully too. So we can kind of hit both sides while also saving pore space and long distance cost.

Chris, can you put some quantification around some of the numbers on the economic model that Select offers for its customers and how that helps them from a cost standpoint, but also how it creates revenue opportunities for you?

Yes. Certainly, Jeff. And maybe before I hit on the specific kind of financial components of that kind of cost and value prop. And one thing to add on John's comments, I mean, when you think about the challenges in the Permian Basin and in particular, in the Northern Delaware, from a large macro kind of picture perspective, I mean, the Permian has all of the challenges. So if you think about as an overall industry where we're at, even if you think U.S. oil production is going to stay flat, every barrel of new oil production that comes on is incrementally driven to higher water production. So you take away legacy conventional barrels, replace them with new barrels coming out of the Northern Delaware where the bulk of the growth in new production is coming from in the industry, you're adding more water to the industry's overall water production because you get more water out of the Delaware than you get about out of any other basin in the U.S. So the scale of the problem, even in a flat oil environment is growing from a water logistics and management standpoint. So when we think about how you solve that problem, the most effective thing you can do, as we mentioned, is recycle a barrel of water locally, and that's going to be more efficient than disposing of it locally. It's going to be more efficient than disposing of it through out-of-basin disposal solutions. And so when you think about how that cost translates into financials, you're talking about a 30% to 40% economic savings for the customer to recycle a barrel of produced water versus dispose of it and resource that barrel versus an alternative fresh or brackish barrel that they have to procure. And so that benefits both the capital side of drilling and completing new wells and it benefits the operating cost side of a customer's long-term lease operating expenses that improve the longevity of their wells productivity and can enhance the reserve life for them as well. So the scale of the problem is growing, the consumption of pore space locally or even from New Mexico pushing into the Texas State line, where you're getting a lot of the pressure issues and pore space challenges, that's pushing to what we're talking about in terms of longer distance solutions needed for pipeline distribution and out-of-basin disposal. Those costs continue to go up. And we think there's going to be an ability to provide relief of that cost pressure through recycling first and even longer term through recycling for solutions that are outside the industry's own reuse demand for new oil and gas consumption, but pushing into other industrial demand outlets like mining, data centers, nonconsumable agriculture, et cetera.

Chris, it sounds like -- and I maybe suggest people look at Slide 9 of your November investor deck, it sounds like that even if oil prices -- or I'm sorry, oil production stays relatively stable that the business opportunity for Select to deal with the water challenges that the operators will have is -- only will continue to grow.

Certainly, in the Permian Basin and especially in the Delaware. I think that's absolutely true, Jeff.

Just given some of those challenges in the Northern Delaware, and you started to talk about it, Chris, the interest in finding an economic beneficial reuse solution continues to rise. Mike, can you talk a little bit about Select's approach to develop economic reuse solutions?

Sure. That is definitely a hot topic. So I'll start with maybe the regulatory side. I think this is 2-sided in many respects. There are ways, especially in Texas, where you can land apply water, and that is something that the TCEQ allows. It's done often in an agricultural context or other context. That is something that is out there and that I think many of us in the industry are perhaps looking to utilize. But there's also a pretty strong industry push to develop a surface water discharge type permit that would allow for a very large volume discharge into the environment. I think both are great, both should be utilized. And I think ultimately, the crux of it there is that our mission here is to bring treated produced water or produced water all the way from what would be considered an oil and gas waste fluid all the way to a clean barrel and something that is safe and reliably released into the water cycle. So you're either displacing fresh water that would have been used somewhere else otherwise or you're bringing just new water into the environment in a very positive way, either into the environment or recharging aquifers. There's lots of ways to do this. So -- and the way this works, I think, at scale is you have to find an angle in the market where you're -- same we do with recycling. You got to deliver a solution that is cost advantaged and has the security in this case of like a disposal type takeaway, like firm takeaway. So we've put some of the -- some of our perspective into our IR materials showing where we believe from a technical economic point of view, where we can compete in the market. And we do see good line of sight to being able to be competing against current disposal solutions and even some of the more out-of-basin solutions like distant disposal solutions out there. And what we're excited about is every bit of water, every region requires something slightly different in terms of pretreatment, desalination, posttreatment. Every water is a little bit different. We are technologically agnostic, but have solutions developed for Permian water, for the DJ Water and for other water around the region. And our infrastructure touches all the major regions. So we see a future where in each region, we deploy what makes sense. We provide that service to an operator and then we provide, I would say, the beneficial use of either clean water to an industrial customer or clean water to the water cycle. And this needs to compete in the market. It needs to make us money. It needs to be something we can deploy capital against and have a reasonable return against it. And everything that we're seeing with our several larger scale pilots that we've done proves that the economics are there. So we are excited to continue to work with various universities, with the states, partner with operators to not just mature the technology, but to scale it. Like that's the piece that we're targeting in '26 and '27 is to make sure we bring proven commercial scale facilities to market to really play a leading -edge role here to mature both the technology but also mature the market around these solutions.

Mike, just to follow that thought, you talked about working with all the interested parties. Can you characterize maybe the conversations with either landholders or stakeholders to convince them that a barrel of what came out of an oil well is a clean barrel now to be used in some other industrial process or for surface discharge?

Yes, sure. Great question. In our line of work, the best way is not to try to convince them, it's just to show them. So that is a variety of treating the barrels all the way to our spec, what we -- what our technology can deliver. You can test it for everything, so you can show them that it's clean. A second step, an extra step that we've now undertaken for most of this year and will continue next year is we are in a pilot format, which allows this, the regulation allows this. We are land applying this treated water and actually growing what we call our farm out in the Permian. So we have plants of all different varieties that are growing and actually grow better with the treated water than they do with just raw well water. So it is something that is proven safe via a number of different ways. And it's net positive, not only on the water side, but we can also find ways and have found ways to either harvest waste heat off of existing facilities. So a gathering system, a gas processing plant benefits from that heat being taken off of it. So you have an industrial positive benefit. But also there can be even like subsurface geothermal type sources of power to where you're turning a water waste into a water benefit, but you're also not taxing any of the power systems or adding additional burden in the processing and in the transformation of that water. So we're trying to be extremely thoughtful in making sure that this is something that is positive all the way around.

You mentioned well water in West Texas. If memory serves, the well water in West Texas is not quite what comes out of Ozarka bottle that someone buys in a grocery store.

It's funny. It takes a couple of more steps than that, correct, Jeff.

John mentioned moving water across state lines. Are there significant regulatory hurdles, just say, in the Permian Basin between New Mexico and Texas and how they treat produced water and disposal?

Yes, I'll hit that and let others clean me up. But I think it's fair to say, Jeff, there is definitely a distinction between the regulatory environments. Every state, every county and municipality can have its own application of oversight around water management when you're talking about both freshwater resources and discharge. But disposal capacity, the availability, the management of the seismicity challenges we've seen and the permitting frameworks between the states. And it's not just Texas and New Mexico, it's Texas and Louisiana. It's the same in the Northeast around Pennsylvania and in Colorado as well. So each of these states has varying degrees of regulatory, I would say, oversight and some more challenging than others. But I think at the end of the day, regulation is appropriate for some of these challenges, but it also creates a need for solutions in an appropriate stewardship application. And so we're very focused on partnering with the states to come up with the right solutions that fit within the regulatory frameworks that they're looking to put together. But it's pretty clear that there is going to be a need for increased recycling to meet the long-term objectives of the various states that we're interacting with.

Mike, you mentioned...

Go ahead, John.

I would add one thing to that subject. I mean there is a very big difference between the 2 states to -- it has some to do with regulations, but New Mexico is made up of a lot of federal land and state land. And what you can do across that land and how you get permits to do it is very different than the state of Texas, where you have private land ownership. As well, you could reverse that and say what you can do across private land in the negotiations with the landowner. And that discussion is very different than what you've got across federal and state in New Mexico. And it causes limitations and confusions between the 2 applications of states.

You see stories from time to time about the water tables in Texas and concerns over the water table levels and then there are stories about the need for water for the industrial parts along the Gulf Coast. Mike, you talked about distant transport. Just is it economically feasible to move produced water over longer distances to serve the needs in another market?

Short answer, yes. I think given the pressure that -- especially in the Northern Delaware that operators are feeling, and I say that in 2 ways. I mean, one is the physical pressure of some of the formations that they're looking to explore. I mean that becomes eventually cost prohibitive and like physically prohibitive if you cannot frac those formations, but also just that wall of water creates pressure for new and creative solutions. So I think we see the industry as having to develop and Select as having to develop really the everything and all of the above in the portfolio. Like we will have and do have disposal in the Northern Delaware. That probably will grow over time. We will have recycling as well, and we will do as much of that as we can because it allows us to grow and improve our relationships with operators. That also needs to happen at scale. Beneficial reuse on the backside of this large infrastructure system needs to happen. And also, you need that same committed disposal to flow out of that area and then it just all needs to balance. So we've seen some projects already being talked about in the space. And I think the returns are there. There's a lot of parcels of land you touch when you undertake a project like that. It's a lot of capital to put together. It's a lot of commercial negotiating to make happen. So it's a very big capital project that has all the warts and wrinkles on it. But I think it is certainly within our focus in a couple of different directions out of New Mexico and probably 2 or 3 different directions to try and figure out where that fits in our own portfolio. And I would not be surprised if you do see us developing those types of solutions because I think for our shareholders, it brings stability, it brings high free cash flow, great return on capital. And frankly, very important to us is our customers, and we're fixing and resolving some of their pain points. And John and Chris, I mean, you guys are in all these discussions that we're having around this. Anything else to add?

I think you covered it pretty good there, Mike.

Like to go down that path of diversification a little bit. Select entered the municipal and industrial water market in Southern Colorado in the first quarter of 2025 with the formation of the AB Farms joint venture. Mike, can you talk about the -- or outline the AB Farms development process as you work with potential customers and when you think it could start to become an earnings and EBITDA contributor?

Yes, sure. So we've been in the space in Colorado for about 15 years or more. And when you operate in Colorado, even in the water transfer space on the services side, we've owned water rights. We continue to own water rights. We own augmentation facilities, we own pipes and head gates and all of that. So we've really been in this market for quite some time. I think really what you're seeing us do here is expand our footprint, leveraging that capability and just increasing the size and the commitment against a different set of customers. And the reason we did that is because cities are becoming increasingly tight on budgets. They're having to spend a lot of money on treatments and treatment facilities and other things. So we can step in, provide the capital, provide the certainty of delivery and all of our capabilities. So that really was the thesis behind it. Ultimately, we assembled a very unique asset base, lots of water rights across a couple of different addiction canal systems, locations for storage, right away around pipes. So it really was a very thoughtful assembly and everything that we're seeing in the market says, I need water, I need storage. I need you to get it kind of some put to work locally, so creating value for greenhouses. We're talking to some data center companies. A lot of that would be dairies even. A lot of that can be water that stays local, provides value for farmers, for industrial customers, long-term contracts, very clear cash flows. And then separately, yes, there's absolutely discussions around some of this water reaching other parts of the state, but with similar characteristics, high free cash flow, high margin, super long duration contracts. So that's, again, the thesis. And I think the -- everything we've seen and put out publicly, somewhere in that $20 million to $30 million range of free cash flow out of the asset coming. We had underwrote it with 2028 forward. But all that said, that's fairly conservative. These contracts take a while to get in place, but then they're in place basically forever or for a very long period of time. And everything that we're seeing now is that parts of this portfolio we're pulling it forward. And so as soon as these contracts get in place, that will be something that we can talk about publicly, and we'll start building that waterfall up to that $20 million to $30 million range. And we have line of sight beyond that as well, even for the same capital. So I think it's going to turn out to be a really nice cornerstone for this market entry.

Chris mentioned that the duration of the contracts in the Northern Delaware that have been put in place in the last year or so is about -- it's just over 11 years. Can you share any color over on dealing with the mix of industrial and municipal potential customers in Colorado throughout just the length of contract that you're looking -- or length of contracts? And also, can you share any color on how margins there might compare to what you currently have in the Northern Delaware?

Yes. There's a discussion with -- so in general, whether it's AB Farms or other discussions we're having, I think data center contracts tend to be in the 15- to 20-year range. On AB Farms specifically, at least everything that we've put out into some of our offtakers is in the 30-year range with extensions and a very standard contract will have that kind of term. It will have escalators on price. It will have firm pieces of offtake or capacity reservations. So that piece -- and I joke with Chris and John about -- well, joke about the structure in the sense of -- it's a lot of work to put these together, but then you have a very boring, very predictable, very high-margin business. And it has to be because you're putting a lot of capital to work, so you need that return. And these can be 80-plus percent gross margins ultimately. So very good paybacks, a high degree of security for shareholders, and I think a great way to grow the business and to return cash to investors in a very stable way.

Select is obviously looking for opportunities to leverage the infrastructure networks that the company owns, and that's really evidenced by the lithium extraction facility groundbreaking in East Texas that was announced in October with Mariana Minerals. Mike, that's obviously a -- when I first read it, it sounded like a bit of a departure from the company, but you've clearly got Brian going through the system. Can you talk about how the company is just working in general to find areas across the asset base to generate incremental economic value and leverage the systems that you do have?

Yes, sure enough. And honestly, I have John and Chris and Michael Skarke to thank, especially for this East Texas asset. This is something that it's a very unique piece of our infrastructure portfolio. It's a very long large diameter pipe that gathers water from a lot of different places. And we have a pinch point in a positive way in our system where a lot of that water collects in one single point. it's drawing off this formation that is higher in lithium concentration than anything we see in the Permian and frankly, anything we see in oilfield fluid waste or produced water anywhere in our portfolio. So that was a very unique asset. It was competitively bid. A lot of -- we talked to essentially anybody that is doing direct lithium extraction. Mariana has proven to be quite a strong operator. They're strong commercially. There's a lot of positives there. And that was the thesis, which supports we want to invest in bringing water together, and then this is a natural extension of that to further monetize that resource. And we still give our point of view on water treatment and water handling, like we play, I would say, more than I expected, we're playing a role in still making sure the water gets there consistently and sharing our knowledge on chemistry, water treatment to make sure the water gets to a point where we can hand it off and it can go through the rest of the process. And this is something where we've characterized really for lithium, for iodine, for strontium, for magnesium, like you pick a monetizable mineral, we've tested the majority of our asset base and have LOIs or contracts with probably 4 individual minerals partners, and that continues to grow. So I think our -- really, our strategy here is to bring the best of the minerals world to Select, partner with them, move quickly and get this cash flow coming into the business. That's really the goal there.

And I think to maybe add to that, Jeff, one thing that's important to note, I mean, in this particular circumstance, we already have the existing infrastructure, as Mike outlined, we already have the concentration of delivery to our facilities. And so we can provide a great opportunity to increase our revenue base and generate royalty-based cash flows here without investing incremental capital and partner with somebody to do that. So we're talking about generating incremental royalty stream cash flows out of an existing volume stream that's already existing in our system today. And so when we think about what we have in the Permian, what we're aggregating there as well from a volume standpoint and the application of treatment on a base level that we're already doing there, plus opportunities around beneficial reuse, you continue to enhance the volume stream and potentially the concentration application of those volumes into heavy brine streams that provide potential extraction resource opportunities long term as well. So this is obviously a great way for us to start, but we already have the volumes. They're under contract. And how do you maximize the value out of those volume streams under contract, whether it's selling it back into an industrial market opportunity or finding ways to extract additional potential out of that stream.

Yes, I agree. And that was for us the big strategic question is, do you deploy capital into this? Or do you deploy capital in your water networks and water infrastructure. And we said that's what we're good at. Let's do that. And then Chris said that he was willing to take 100% margin revenue streams if I was willing to generate them. So...

I mean it sounds like this is something where Select has no technical risk. You deliver brine to the -- to the facility that's put into your system, it gets processed and then you get the brine back for disposal purposes. Is that -- that's basically the simple way that will work, isn't it?

Yes. I mean, yes, I would say, though, every company and every group of people that we're partnering in that space, we think of them as partners. I mean we have commitments, sometimes soft commitments like, look, bring us as much water on a ratable basis as you can. And we take that really seriously. Like if we say either contractually or just operationally that we're going to do something, whether it's one of our partners in the mineral space, whether it's a customer, like we take that very seriously, whether it's a contract or a handshake. And so that is how we are approaching it. And that drives how we every day go to work and find the barrels to find the volumes and make sure they're delivered safely and reliably because that's -- in this space, that's what our partners need. They need to know the volumes are coming. If it needs pretreatment, do that, if they need storage, do that, if you need little to connect, like that's what we are delivering to them as full end-to-end solutions.

And one thing, Jeff, I mean, you mentioned technical risk. I mean one thing to be clear on, I mean, this is not a science project. This is, I mean, existing technology with a new application of outcome. So we're partnering with people that have that experience, have the technological ability here, have the offtaker relationships and opportunities there to get the appropriate outcome. And so we're, I think, finding ways to balance the expertise between both parties and a partnership managed structure that benefits both sides.

I want to be respectful of you all's time. So I want to come back. You've been an entrepreneur over your entire career in various parts of the upstream and midstream value chain in an industry that as it advances continues to create new opportunities. Can you just summarize your thoughts about the long-term positioning of a Select as a leading water infrastructure company with diversified and how you -- how diversifying the exposure to a variety of markets might impact the company's ability to deliver value in the future?

Sure. And I do look at it as kind of 2 buckets, Jeff. One is what is the current oil and gas Lower 48 land business and development of horizontal application? What does it need? What really fits it, what fits more with less with better results, the intensity, the unlocking of hard rock reservoir. And I believe Select has a very unique position in that. I believe that we have developed the recycle first approach and have contracted to put the moat around it as well as put the networks together that bring the value that somewhat puts the motor around it and the automation and technology along with the in-basin chemistry. I think we really have brought a lot of value there. And that gives us a unique position in the oil and gas space. But outside of that, we have been moving water a long time. We procure water when the oil and gas industry was fracking a lot of wells with a lot more frac horsepower than we have running today. We're the biggest water resource for the frac application and the completion across the United States in a meaningful way. In 2014, we probably had 30% or 35% of the market, and we had 2.5 billion barrels of water rights across many river basins and aquifers and source and we moved a lot of water and had a very unique position in the industry. We know how to procure. We know how to move. We know how to store, we know how to treat. We know how to deliver. We know we approach it. Mike just described that leasing model that we're trying to bring into the municipality application. We think we know how to bring solutions or business models that are needed, just like we did in the recycling -- recycle first business model that we brought to the market and fix plants. So we'd like to take that -- our skill sets and our knowledge and take it to other areas, whether it's industrial, even in areas where the oil and gas has an industrial side or a processing side that it fits it very well or the agriculture piece or the municipality, we think our skill sets, the knowledge of water and how to do that kind of stuff fits really well, and we can bring new business models that are needed where places of water is shorter or there's a better way to do it than what's being done today. So I think we're very unique that way, Jeff.

John, Chris, Mike, Garrett, I want to thank you for joining us today. And to our participants, I want to thank you also for joining us today for our fireside chat. Our research can be accessed from our website, www.watertowerresearch.com. The views expressed on this fireside chat may not necessarily reflect the views of Water Tower Research LLC and are provided for informational purposes only. This fireside chat may not be redistributed, reproduced without the written consent of Water Tower Research and should not be considered research or recommendation. WTR is an Investor Relations firm, not a licensed broker, broker-dealer, market maker, investment bank, underwriter or investment adviser. Additional disclaimers can be found at www.watertowerresearch.com. Once again, John, George, Mike, Garrett, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jeff, for hosting, and thanks, everyone, for listening in.