Archrock, Inc. (NYSE:AROC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Selman Akyol: Okay. wanted to just pivot over to the balance sheet and some comments you made there. You talked about your goal of getting down to 3%, 3.5%, and you talked also about wise things you do in a higher interest rate environment, complete agreement there. I guess my question is, and I’m thinking about interest expense even with lower leverage unless you actually take your debt levels down, your interest expense would be, would it be so in order to lower that? Are you guys planning on paying down additional debt? Or do you — are you seeing your leverage just being achieved through higher EBITDA?

Douglas Aron: So a couple of comments there. And I think you were — you coined a phrase that I’ve now used since then when we were on the road with you, Selman. We are not just planning to take leverage down, as you call it, the Texas way by growing EBITDA, right? But we have actually repaid $230 million or so worth of debt since 2019. In — and that has been a meaningful part of the leverage reduction. So yes, as we look forward and think about EBITDA growth into next year and the use of free cash flow thereafter. We’ve said that the 3 things that we’ll look at there are new growth CapEx expenditures, increasing our dividend and then leverage reduction and/or share buybacks, right? And so we’ll continue to evaluate all of those.

And again, I think when comparing us certainly to other midstream companies and definitely to the rest of the compression peers, we’re a best-in-class provider there. We have flexibility that some of our peers don’t have. And we will look to find the right balance of all of those different possibilities of what to do with free cash flow.

Selman Akyol: Understood. And I guess you mentioned conversations on 2025 are starting. Just how are those going? And I’m just kind of curious, meaning they’re very open to seeing continued price increases out that far, still hearing things are going to be tight. Is there just any insight you can kind of give on what’s going on there?

Bradley Childers: Demand is high for 2024. Demand signals overall, pricing and horsepower amounts and unit amounts, those discussions with customers are as strong at the beginning of ’24 as they were in 2023. And in fact, I think, in some cases, they are earlier because with the tightness of the market, our customers have become accustomed to planning further in advance than they ever have. So it’s a robust market and it looks to be very demand and growth-oriented continuing through 2024.

Operator: We have no further questions. I’ll now hand back to Mr. Childers for any final remarks.

Bradley Childers: Thank you, everyone, for joining our fourth quarter call this morning. Our performance was exceptional this quarter. And with Archrock’s enhanced platform and financial flexibility, we are well positioned to capture opportunities presented by the current market. I look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. Thank you, everyone.

Operator: Thank you. This now concludes today’s call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

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