Q2 2023 Antero Midstream Corp Earnings Call
Participants
Brendan E. Krueger; CFO, VP of Finance & Treasurer; Antero Midstream Corporation
Justin James Agnew; Finance Director; Antero Midstream Corporation
Paul M. Rady; President, Chairman & CEO; Antero Midstream Corporation
Brian Patrick Reynolds; Analyst; UBS Investment Bank, Research Division
Elias Max Jossen; Analyst; JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division
Gregg William Brody; MD; BofA Securities, Research Division
Ned Antonov Baramov; Senior Analyst; Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division
Presentation
Operator
Greetings, and welcome to the Antero Midstream Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Justin Agnew, Director of Finance. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Justin James Agnew
Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Antero Midstream's Second Quarter Investor Conference Call. We'll spend a few minutes going through the financial and operating highlights, and then we'll open it up for Q&A. I would also like to direct you to the homepage of our website at www.anteromidstream.com, where we have provided a separate earnings call presentation that will be reviewed during today's call.
Today's call may also contain certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings press release for important disclosures regarding such measures, including reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures. Joining me on the call today are Paul Rady, Chairman, CEO and President of Antero Resources and Antero Midstream; Brendan Krueger, CFO of Antero Midstream; and Michael Kennedy, CFO of Antero Resources and Director of Antero Midstream.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Paul.
Paul M. Rady
Thanks, Justin. Antero Midstream delivered another terrific quarter building upon the momentum generated in the first quarter of 2023. In my comments, I will discuss the operational and capital efficiencies at both AM and AR. Brendan will then walk through the financial results that have put us on track to achieve our 2023 guidance.
I'll start my comments on Slide #3, titled Drilling and Completion Efficiencies at AR. After a record-breaking first quarter operationally, AR has continued success during the second quarter. As shown on the top left portion of the page, during the second quarter, AR completed over 11 stages per day. This is a 40% improvement compared to 2022 and over a 90% improvement compared to 2019.
Drill-outs, which are the process of drilling out the plugs in each stage of the horizontal portion of the well, exhibited the same success. Drill-outs averaged 4,250 feet per day during the second quarter, a 9% increase compared to 2022 and a 50% improvement compared to 2019. These 2 factors have resulted in 65% shorter cycle times for AR compared to 2019 as shown at the bottom of the page. These cycle times reflect the number of days it takes to drill, complete and place a pad to sales. Shorter cycle times equate to better capital efficiency and returns at AR, which drives the ability to consistently develop its acreage position dedicated to AM.
Now let's move to Slide #4, titled Optimizing Compression and Processing Utilization. The top half of the page illustrates our compression capacity, including organically built compression in green and acquired compression capacity in blue. Historically, we have consistently maintained high utilization rates as a result of our just-in-time capital investment philosophy.
The recent acquisitions have increased our compression capacity by over 1 Bcf a day, including underutilized capacity that will support capital efficient future development. Importantly, we valued our acquisitions in 2022 on a PDP-only basis. So any development on the systems or reuse of underutilized assets is upside for AM. The bottom half of the page illustrates our joint venture processing capacity in the Marcellus shale.
During the second quarter, our JV processing capacity of 1.6 Bcf a day was 100% utilized as a result of growth in the liquids-rich Marcellus shale. As a reminder, we can generally run approximately 10% above nameplate processing capacity, providing additional runway for growth. One of the under-recognized aspects of Antero Midstream's business model is the coordinated planning effort with Antero Resources. For example, AR will be drilling 2 pads in the Ohio Utica shale later this year. This will help manage overall infrastructure and provide attractive Chicago pricing in the winter months for AR.
Lastly, I wanted to touch on our compression capacity relocation efforts on Slide #5. These relocation efforts result in capital savings for AM and peer-leading returns on invested capital. During 2022, we successfully relocated 4 underutilized compressor units to our Castle Peak compressor station to support growth in that area. Given the success of that relocation, we are now in the process of relocating the remaining 8 units on the East Mountain station over to our Grays Peak station colored in blue. This station will be placed online in 2024.
As you can see in the picture on the top right-hand portion of the page, we recently poured the foundations for the additional units that will be relocated to this station. 8 of the 12 units at the Grays Peak station will be relocated units from East Mountain, resulting in 120 million cubic feet a day of initial capacity.
In summary, both AR and AM are displaying incredible operational and capital efficiencies in 2023. This supports a stable outlook and gives us confidence in achieving our long-term targets.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Brendan.
Brendan E. Krueger
Thanks, Paul. I'll start my comments by briefly highlighting the year-over-year results on Slide #6, titled Operational Success Drives Earnings Growth. During the second quarter, low pressure gathering and compression volumes increased by 11% and 17%, respectively, compared to the prior year quarter. Of the 11% growth in low pressure gathering volumes, approximately 5% was organic growth on our legacy assets and 6% was attributable to the Brestwood acquisition that closed in the fourth quarter of last year. This double-digit throughput growth was the primary driver of our year-over-year adjusted EBITDA growth of 10%.
Capital expenditures declined by 31% from the prior year quarter to $49 million this quarter. As a result of increasing EBITDA and declining capital, we generated $139 million of free cash flow before dividends and $31 million of free cash flow after dividends. This was the fourth straight quarter of generating positive free cash flow after dividends and the second highest quarterly free cash flow after dividends behind the first quarter of this year.
Now let's move on to Slide #7, titled 10% year-over-year EBITDA Growth, to walk through the drivers of the EBITDA growth at AM. Our gathering and compression EBITDA is shown in green, our processing, fractionation and stonewall joint ventures are shown in purple, and our water business is illustrated in blue. As depicted on the slide, our gathering and compression business increased by $22 million year-over-year and our water business and joint venture distributions were approximately flat. As a result, our 10% year-over-year increase in EBITDA was driven by our G&P business, which continues to be a larger and larger percentage of our overall business.
In the second quarter of 2023, our gathering and processing business made up approximately 86% of our EBITDA, and we see that growing towards 90% over the next several years as the cash flow from this business continues to grow. While making up just 14% of our overall EBITDA, our water business still has some of the highest project economics. This is a function of the short payback period of our pad connect capital investment, particularly as the cycle times at AR continue to improve.
I'll finish my comments on Slide #8, titled AM Checking All the Boxes. The first half of 2023 has been incredibly successful, both operationally and financially for AM. Over the last year, we expanded our business organically and through immediately accretive, high-visibility acquisitions. Importantly, these acquisitions have only added to our peer-leading return on invested capital in the high teens as we integrate them into our asset base and drive additional synergies.
We have significantly derisked the business by transitioning to generate consistent free cash flow after dividends, which has totaled $77 million year-to-date. This has allowed us to reduce absolute debt and drive our leverage down to 3.5x from 3.7x at year-end as we progress towards our 3x target in 2024. We believe these best-in-class attributes, checking all of the boxes to be a premier midstream company, position AM to increase our return of capital to shareholders in the future.
In summary, we have made tremendous strides over the past year to drive growth while simultaneously derisking the business through absolute debt and leverage reduction. We look forward to the next several years as our EBITDA continues to grow, our free cash flow after dividends continues to expand and our leverage continues to decline.
With that, operator, we are ready to take questions.
Question and Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) The first question is coming from Brian Reynolds of UBS.
Brian Patrick Reynolds
Quick question on just the guidance between the Antero families. It seems like AR raised its production by 100 Mcf per day, and that seemed to be related to some noise around ethane and some cracker downtime. But I was curious if you could explain if this is no impact to AM and whether some of that was captured in AM's 1Q quarterly EBITDA guidance update.
Brendan E. Krueger
Good question, Brian. Overall, to your comments, AM did increase guidance in the first quarter. AM was comfortable with the gross wellhead volumes, which what drives its EBITDA increasing. But for AR, as you're probably aware, they guide on a net equivalent production basis. And so with the ethane volumes being risk further, they wanted to wait another quarter before providing an update on guidance. So no change. Overall, I will say it is positive for AM in the sense that AR did guide to higher volumes and also talked about the fact that 2024 would be maintained at those higher volumes. So that is a new piece of information, I think, that would drive AM's 2024 volumes.
Brian Patrick Reynolds
Great. Super helpful. And then just a follow-up on just return to capital opportunities into '24. You have a potential investment upgrade at the AR level, which could read through to AM. So just kind of curious as we think about potential refinancing of those '26 to '29 bond maturities and how that could potentially impact the return of capital that works -- that is expected to come as AM trends below 3x leverage next year?
Brendan E. Krueger
Yes. No, I think as we look at the balance sheet for AM, you've got a couple of attributes there. You have the declining leverage to the 3x level, which will be positive for its own balance sheet and investment ratings. And then you have, as you mentioned, the AR credit rating. To the extent AR gets upgraded, AM would automatically get upgraded. And then that, combined with the momentum with the leverage reduction should improve the overall credit profile at AM. So we'll continue to be patient, watch the market on the bonds, and we'll be opportunistic in terms of refinancing those bonds as they come due.
Operator
The next question is coming from Jeremy Tonet of JPMorgan.
Elias Max Jossen
This is Elias Jossen on for Jeremy. Just hoping to get a little guidance for well completion cadence for the rest of the year across the water business. How should we thinking -- how should we be thinking about that in the near term?
Brendan E. Krueger
Yes. So I think overall, we gave guidance for the year, which was 75 to 80 wells serviced by the water business. You're at 45-ish in the first half. There are 2 to 3 wells that you'll see most of that impact. It started -- we based it on when you start the completion. You'll see most of that water impact though in the third quarter for 2 to 3 wells. And then the remainder of that 75 to 80 that would be in the second half. So it works out to be about 55% to 60% of the completions in the first half and 40% to 45% in the second half of the year.
Elias Max Jossen
Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe moving to kind of CapEx through the rest of the year. I know you guys are guiding to a midpoint of about $190 million. And I know there's probably a little over $100 million less. So maybe just some more color on what's on the docket for the spend there. Any specifics would be helpful.
Brendan E. Krueger
Yes. I think in line with historical levels, typically, you do -- you're able to invest more capital and build out in the summer months with better weather. So you typically see second quarter and third quarter being the higher capital levels and then see that trend off in the fourth quarter. So I'd put that in the same ballpark this year in terms of how you get to the midpoint of capital guidance.
Operator
The next question is coming from Ned Baramov of Wells Fargo.
Ned Antonov Baramov
Just building on the previous question, can you talk about the impact to AM from AR's improved well productivity? I presume that will result in some capital efficiencies on the midstream side, too, but I appreciate any additional details you can provide on your 2024 and 2025 CapEx program at AM.
Brendan E. Krueger
Yes. No, it's a great question. I think as you look at the capital program for AM, you have the benefit of the efficiency gains at AR, which leads to lower well connect capital needed on the AM side. You continue to have larger -- higher lateral feet per well on average each year. So that's beneficial to AM's capital program.
And then the second piece that we've talked a little bit on past calls is just related to compression reuse. So you're starting to see more of that benefit and you'll see that play out, particularly in 2024 with about $15 million of incremental savings related to that compression reuse that Paul talked about in his prepared remarks. So excited about the capital program going forward. You should see '24 capital lower than '23 capital.
And then on the volume side, just as a reminder, again, the fee rebates are falling away on the AM side in 2024. When you combine that with the fact that AR is maintaining production at the higher levels, it equates to nice single to high single-digit EBITDA growth at AM as you move into 2024. So a great spot to be in for AM to have consecutive years of strong EBITDA growth and capital declining. Good spot to be in as we look forward.
Ned Antonov Baramov
Got it. And then the $15 million of CapEx savings on compression reuse, is that really the savings from compression relocation where -- versus the cost of building new compression?
Brendan E. Krueger
Well, it depends on how much -- how many units you're relocating. So next year, you'll see $15 million. Overall, we've talked about a total number in the $50 million level on ability to reuse. And that's something we're always evaluating in terms of reuse of underutilized compression capacity into areas that need it. So you'll see us update those numbers moving forward. But the total number is $50 million and $15 million of that you'll see in 2024.
Ned Antonov Baramov
I guess as a rule of thumb, can you provide a number of what's the cost of relocating equipment versus the cost of building new equipment?
Brendan E. Krueger
So we're relocating, call it, 120 a day of compression capacity and saving $15 million. So I think that's probably a fair ratio to assume moving forward.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our next question is coming from Gregg Brody of Bank of America.
Gregg William Brody
Just was wondering -- I know you've had your disclosures on the Clearwater facility litigation, it's pretty clear. But I'm just curious if you could talk about how you -- how much -- what do you think the time frame is for this resolving? I know there's appeals possibilities, but I just wonder if you could frame it for us.
Brendan E. Krueger
Yes, Gregg, unfortunately, we can't really comment on the pending litigation outside of what we've already disclosed in the 10-Q. So I'll just direct you to the 10-Q for our disclosures there.
Operator
At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Mr. Agnew for closing comments.
Justin James Agnew
Thank you for joining today's conference call. Please feel free to reach out with any additional questions.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines and log off from webcast at this time, and enjoy the rest of your day.
