Call is being recorded on Thursday, April 30th, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chad Magus. Please go ahead.
Thank you, good morning to everyone who is listening to the call. Welcome to SECURE Waste Infrastructure Corp.'s conference call to discuss our first quarter 2026 results. I'm Chad Magus, Chief Financial Officer. Joining me on the call today are Allen Gransch, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Corey Higham, our Chief Operating Officer. During the call, we will make forward-looking statements related to future performance and refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that do not have standardized meanings under IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures disclosed by other companies. Forward-looking statements reflect management's current expectations and are based on assumptions that we believe are reasonable. However, actual results may differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties.
Please refer to our disclosure documents available on SEDAR+ for further details of these risks and for definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures. Today, we will focus on 3 areas: the GFL transaction and shareholder meeting, an overview of Q1 performance and key financial highlights, and an outlook for the remainder of 2026 and beyond. I will now turn the call over to Allen.
Thanks, Chad. Good morning, thank you for joining the call today. I'd like to start with our recently announced transaction with GFL Environmental and the materials filed this week in connection with the upcoming shareholder meeting. This transaction delivers immediate and certain value to shareholders at an attractive valuation, including a meaningful premium to our recent trading levels, while also providing continued participation in future upside through equity ownership in the combined company. The board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the transaction following a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives. In making this recommendation, the board considered the opportunity to crystallize the value created at SECURE, the ability to participate in future value creation through GFL equity, alignment with a proven entrepreneurial management team, as well as limited number of alternative transactions available and the relative risk-adjusted value of continuing as a standalone business.
The board also considered that GFL shares are currently trading below historical levels, and in its view, do not fully reflect the underlying value of the business, providing potential for future re-rating over time. Over the past several years, SECURE has built a high-quality infrastructure-backed waste platform with strong fundamentals and a clear path to continued growth. However, realizing that value on a standalone basis requires ongoing execution and capital deployment. This transaction enables shareholders to crystallize that value today and reduces execution risk and preserves meaningful upside through the combined platform. None of this would be possible without our people. Over 2,000 employees have built SECURE into what it is today, grounded in a culture of safety, operational excellence, and doing the right thing. These values are strongly aligned with GFL, and our team will play a critical role in the combined company going forward.
We encourage all shareholders to review the materials and vote in favor of the transaction on May 27th. Turning briefly to the quarter, we delivered a strong start to 2026, generating CAD 137 million of Adjusted EBITDA, up 13% year-over-year and 21% per share. This performance reflects continued strength across volumes, pricing, capital projects, and acquisitions despite lower oil prices for the majority of the quarter prior to the recent strengthening in commodity pricing. Operationally, we continue to advance our growth projects, including commissioning our produced water infrastructure in the Montney, and progressing the reopening of suspended industrial waste processing facility in Alberta's industrial heartland, which remains on track for completion by the end of the second quarter. Overall, the quarter reinforces what we consistently see in our business: stable volumes, disciplined pricing, and incremental growth from capital deployment.
We now expect results to trend toward the high end of our 2026 Adjusted EBITDA guidance range, and we are increasing our growth capital to approximately CAD 100 million from CAD 75 million to support the acceleration of high-return infrastructure projects. I'll now turn the call over to Chad.
Thanks, Allen. In the first quarter, we generated CAD 137 million of Adjusted EBITDA on CAD 383 million of revenue, resulting in a margin of 36%. Revenue growth was modest, EBITDA growth was stronger, reflecting a continued shift toward higher-margin waste streams, disciplined pricing, and cost control. This is consistent with our strategy of prioritizing quality of earnings over top-line growth. We also generated CAD 101 million of funds flow from operations in the quarter, supporting both our capital program and returns to shareholders. On the balance sheet, let me walk through a few more items in more detail than usual. We reported restricted cash of CAD 31 million, reflecting margin posted on hedging positions. This was driven by the sharp movement of oil prices during March, which created temporary margin requirements.
These positions were fully offset by physical positions that have either been or are expected to be realized at a higher price. We also reported a higher-than-normal cash balance of CAD 59 million, reflecting a large payment received on the last day of the quarter. As of today, our revolver balance has been paid down by CAD 76 million since the end of Q1 to approximately CAD 350 million.
From a capital allocation perspective, we continue to execute on our priorities during the quarter. We increased the dividend by 5% to CAD 0.105 per share paid quarterly. We repurchased nearly 1 million shares at a weighted average price of just over CAD 17. We continue to invest in high return projects, spending CAD 22 million to advance previously announced plans. Our priorities remain unchanged: Invest in the business, maintain a strong balance sheet, and return capital to shareholders. I'll turn the call over to Corey now to discuss the business outlook for the remainder of 2026 and beyond.
Thanks, Chad. To start, I wanna provide an overview of the underlying cash flow profile of the business. One of SECURE's key strength is that our cash flow is generally not tied to short-term commodity prices. Our business is driven by ongoing production, industrial demand, and mandated environmental spending. These are long cycle drivers resulting in stable volumes and predictable cash flow across cycles. What we typically see is limited near-term upside when prices rise and moderated downside when prices fall. That stability underpins our performance. Now, tying that to our outlook, the move toward the high end of our guidance range primarily reflects oil prices that are approximately 20% stronger than our original assumption. That said, given our limited direct exposure to commodity prices, the impact to our business remains modest and confined within a relatively narrow range.
Importantly, this is not what is driving the underlying growth of the business. The year-over-year increase relative to 2025 is being driven by the same factors that have consistently underpinned our performance. First, the strength and resilience of our base business, supported by steady volumes and disciplined pricing. Second, the full contribution from infrastructure projects and acquisitions commissioned through 2025 and early 2026, which are now contributing incremental EBITDA. Third, improved performance in metals recycling, supported by higher volumes, better pricing, and the logistics improvements we made last year. When you step back, the move within the guidance range reflects macro tailwinds with the growth of the business itself. While the growth of the business itself continues to be driven by execution, capital deployment, and the strength of our underlying platform. Looking longer term, the fundamentals remain strong.
Western Canadian production is expected to grow approximately 3% annually through 2030, supported by improved market access through TMX and LNG development, resilient producer economics, and a continued focus on efficient long life resource development. Additionally, increasing reclamation and remediation requirements are driving non-discretionary demand for our infrastructure. Produced water volumes are also increasingly increasing with higher intensity development. As water handling becomes more complex and capital intensive, we continue to see a structural shift towards outsourcing. When you combine these factors, it creates a long duration, highly visible demand profile for our business. I'll now turn it over to Allen to conclude our prepared remarks.
Thanks, Corey. To close, SECURE continues to deliver stable, reoccurring earnings, strong free cash flow, and visible long-term growth, core attributes that underpin the intrinsic value of our business. The transaction with GFL captures that value today, reduces the risks associated with realizing it independently, and positions shareholders to participate in the next phase of growth through a larger, more scaled platform. The transaction has the full support of our board, including a special committee of independent directors. Additionally, certain of our largest shareholders, together with our directors and executive officers, have entered into voting support agreements representing approximately 21% of our outstanding shares. We encourage all shareholders to review the materials and vote in favor of the upcoming meeting.
I also want to recognize our employees for their continued commitment, their focus on safety and execution as what built this business, and will continue to drive success going forward. With that, we will open the line for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question comes from Konark Gupta with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Thanks, good morning, Allen and team. I think maybe the first one on the volume side, it seems like you guys have changed the disclosures around volumes. Just trying to understand, you know, the volumes seem to be up on the liquid side, on the waste segment, and maybe down a little bit on the solid waste side, which I think includes now the scrap metal. If you can help us parse out the key underlying drivers in these volumes. I mean, I think seems like produced water seems still more positive than other commodities, but what are the sort of puts and takes in the quarter on different commodities? Thanks.
Good morning, Konark. It's Corey. Yeah, I think you kinda nailed it there in terms of the macro pieces. It, you know, it's kind of the same themes as we exited Q3 and Q4 where, you know, activity was a little softer in the field. You know, I think Q1 showed stability in our liquids volumes, which it was driven by the produced water volumes, as you mentioned. When you look at the solids processing side, we had outperformance in our metals group, which offset some of the softness in the landfill volumes.
You know, when I look at this, it really just emphasizes the performance and the stability in those two, solids and liquids processing pieces of our business.
I think too, it's Allen here, Konark. I think too, you know, as we think about the activity levels here in 2026. Obviously, we just raised our guidance to the upper end of that range. You know, we were looking at a CAD 65 dollar WTI year where I think our expectation were volumes were going to be relatively flat in the first six months. In the back half, we were going to see some growth as the, you know, demand and overall activity levels started to increase. You know, we're obviously seeing a lot of volatility in that price right now. We are expecting that, you know, volumes are going to contribute. I think it's just an easier way for us to just characterize them as liquids processing and solids processing.
You know, throughout, you know, the last, you know, few weeks in terms of having conversations with some customers, I think, you know, our business last year really showcased that even through these low commodity cycles, that the volumes are relatively robust in terms of, you know, where we're seeing breakevens. I think if you look at, you know, Western Canada, a lot of our plays breakevens at a CAD 50 WTI. If you look in the U.S., it's CAD 55. When you get to these breakeven levels, what we see is that reoccurring production volume coming through our liquids processing facilities and our landfills.
I think, you know, one thing that we've added here, and this might be helpful for a few potential shareholders and investors, is we posted on our website our updated investor presentation. It goes through, you know, what we've seen over the past few years in terms of growth in Western Canada, and you see productions growing at that 2%-3% per year, and you can see the movements in WTI. It also goes through, you know, some of our volumes and what happens through volumes through these cycles, and you can see the stability in it. I think that will give some color to those kind of looking for how, you know, stable the business is through these commodity cycles.
You know, the fact that we upped guidance and it's at the higher end of the range just shows you it doesn't move significantly on the way down, and it doesn't move significantly on the way up. It just, you know, points to everything we talk about is these volumes are very reoccurring. We see them at our facilities on a day-to-day basis.
That's, that's helpful, and appreciate the investor deck with some history on that. On the landfill side, what's driving the weakness here? I mean, like, can you describe the nature of your landfills compared to, you know, the other solid waste companies? You're seeing a kind of different dynamic than maybe some of the solid waste guys. What goes in there?
Yeah. Great question, Konark. I think when you look at our landfills, there's kind of like 3 main drivers. The first being production waste that is generated every day, and we see this solid waste coming into our non-haz and our Class 1 haz landfill. That would represent approximately a third of the volumes that we see on an annual basis. Very consistent. The second part of it would be reclamation. You know, over a third of it would be reclamation driven. As you know, in Western Canada, we've got regulation changes two years ago that are mandating that any customer, whether you're in the industrial mining or energy sector, you have to spend part of your Asset Retirement Obligation on a ratable basis, i.e., approximately 5% per year.
What we've seen in the landfills is that 5% is required to be spent every year. You see this reoccurring volumes that flow into the landfills. Finally is, you know, drilling volumes, drill cuttings, which are driven by, you know, where the commodity price is and activity levels on the rig count. They don't fluctuate as much as they did, you know, 10 years ago. You know, if you look at Western Canada, the average rig count can move from 190 to, you know, call it 230. There's just not a lot of movement between, you know, higher activity levels and lower activity levels. We do see a consistency stream on the drill cuttings as well.
In terms of the landfills, like as I said, when you're into the lower, you know, CAD 60 environment, which is what we saw in January and February, obviously, we've only had one month of increased WTI, which, you know, would represent more activity from our customers thinking, you know, potentially they're gonna do more on the drilling side. Our expectations were that things were gonna be slower. You don't get a lot of cleanups happening in the colder months in, you know, call it January, February. It's just difficult to do that. We typically see a higher peak season in Q3 and Q4, and we expect that trend to continue. This is all within our expectations.
You know, when you look at not only our volumes into the landfills, but also our scrap metal volumes, you know, we're down 1%. That's exactly where we predicted. My expectations would be that they're gonna increase throughout the year. When you think about kind of longer term tailwinds here, I mean, the strength in where WTI is gonna land structurally, I think we change, and I think you're gonna see some pretty robust activity in 2027, 2028, 2029 as we have these higher energy prices for volumes to come into these landfills. As I said, they're not building any more. These landfills are very difficult to build. We're in core areas where activity is taking place. I think what you'll see in our reporting anyways is the volumes increasing over time.
That's great color, Allen. Thanks. On the mill side, I'm curious, you know, you guys I know were adding a lot of rail cars and pushing the product into the U.S. market, which obviously is probably helpful given the tariffs right now. With the Section 232 changes that we have seen recently on the tariff side, have you seen any incremental or decremental impact on scrap metal demand in Canada?
Yeah, Konark, it's Corey. We haven't seen any impact today. You know, about 95% of our shipments of scrap are outgoing into the U.S. today, still remain about in that low 5% sort of numbers into the domestic market. Nothing on the radar and no impact to 2026 as we see it today.
Okay, thanks. Last one from me before I get back in the queue. On the pricing side, are you guys surprised how resilient the pricing had been the last 3 years? I mean, you have seen, what, 5% maybe, annually. Do you think this is sustainable going forward? I mean, the inflation clearly is not moving down more substantially now, in light of what's happening around the globe. Do you think there's further opportunity for pricing here? As you said, you know, the regulations require and the complexities now require more outsourcing than insourcing. Any thoughts on the pricing going forward?
Sure. No, good question. I think, you know, over the past few years, we have increased our pricing, you know, above inflation and you can see that in our overall EBITDA margins this quarter being 36%. I think at the end of Q4 last year, we had raised prices on average in that 4%-5%. I would break it down into two buckets. First bucket being, you know, we've got a lot of contracts in place. Those contracts are CPI-linked contracts, so they're automatically increasing based on that CPI index every year. That part of our business will have automatic pricing increases.
In terms of where we are looking to raise prices in subsequent years, I mean, a lot of our infrastructure are in areas where, you know, we have the ability to move that price up. You're correct, the, you know, we're gonna see more inflation occur. I think when you look at our infrastructure, it's just hard to replicate infrastructure. It's, it's required to, you know, process and dispose of material that these producers need. You know, the insourcing side is really on the, on the produced water, on the liquids. The trend has been they're outsourcing more and more of that water. The complexity of that water to deal with is very difficult, the chemistries around it.
We take our skill set, our assets, we add the appropriate mechanical filtration and chemical components to it to be able to dispose of it safely. They value that service and there is a price for that service. We are able to get that pricing to be able to give you a high quality of service. I think we are going to be able to continue to do that. Obviously, when you have got energy prices that are higher and having those conversations when your customers have strong balance sheets, they are focused on they want to grow production, they want to do it very efficiently. Our conversations with them is they want to outsource that waste to us and have it safely processed and disposed of.
A long-winded answer is yes, I do believe we're going to continue to increase prices every year based on where our infrastructure is located in some of these core areas.
That's great. I appreciate the time. I'll be in the queue. Thanks.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from Arthur Nagorny with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Just wanted to start on the GFL transaction. I guess my first question, I appreciate the rationale outlined in your materials, but why is now the right time to pursue a sale, especially considering how supportive the oil price backdrop is at this time?
Thanks, Arthur. Yeah, no, great question. You know, as I noted, I think over the past few years, SECURE has continued to execute a clearer strategic repositioning within the waste sector. I think our investors have a better understanding of, you know, the nature of our high-quality infrastructure-backed businesses. I think we've been very clear on the stability of the cash flows, the durability on the growth and the financial metrics at which they, you know, which we have. Over the past while, I think, you know, our multiple has increased, I think reflecting a clear understanding of that, but we recognize it could be higher. When you look at this transaction, I think it accelerates that recognition, capturing that intrinsic value today.
You know, we're also very aware that our shareholders will have some meaningful participation on the upside of having 80% in GFL Environmental in the combined entity. I think when you also look at, you know, the share price premium on the 60-day, that was a 23% premium to the VWAP. You know, when you think about the context of the timeframe when we started having the conversation, you know, a couple of months ago, obviously all the volatility in the commodity was pre that and obviously some of the uplift in our share price. You know, we're up 70% year to date, and then you're getting a premium on top of that.
I think when you look at the combined business, you know, the scale that we have together, just overlapping their, call it, collection infrastructure and all of our critical infrastructure post-collection and being able to put that platform together, I think creates some significant value. I think we bring that high margin, free cash flow profile that's going to improve the overall pro forma entity as well. You know, we went and did a fairness evaluation, RBC, and both ATB, I think, provided fairness opinions as we looked at the business. You know, we think about intrinsic value every day, and our board is very thoughtful on that value. We looked at our strategy as a standalone business and our strategy, you know, together with GFL.
Obviously, we felt, you know, being in the business for 19 years, combining with GFL and layering our infrastructure and looking at the opportunities was very attractive to us and felt like, you know, this is the opportunity for us. I also considered, you know, M&A, you know. I, and I've been working on this M&A strategy on the metals, which has been hugely successful in Western Canada. I think we're at the tail end of that. When you think about, you know, future M&A, I think for us, it was getting a bit limited when, you know, we're now looking at business lines that, you know, GFL competes in today. They've got a hopper of opportunities. I think when you think of that M&A opportunity on their perspective, I think they're very efficient, and they're very good at integrating businesses.
I think when you look at where we're really strong at, it's our organic growth platform where we can, you know, grow our hopper of opportunities. You know, we've been spending CAD 100 million per year and adding some really great new projects that contribute, you know, 20% after-tax IRR. These are great projects. I think when you put the two businesses together with these, you know, management teams, I think you've got a very high-quality business.
Okay, that's helpful. I know it's still early in the process, but do you have any preliminary views on potential divestitures that may be required from the Competition Bureau review or anything, you know, if not required, maybe any voluntary sales of any business lines or anything of that sort?
Well, I mean, we're just in the midst of doing all of our analysis on what's required for the Competition Bureau submission that will have to go in here relatively shortly, where we'll provide our overall views of, you know, how the businesses overlap today. I mean, really when we looked at it, there were really no material issues on combining the two businesses. The Competition Bureau is very knowledgeable about this market. We've been through it obviously with them in the past. We recognize that this process is gonna take 3-5 months for them to, you know, really make their assessments, and we'll give them all the data that they need to. At this point in time, no, we're not thinking there's gonna be any sort of material divestments.
Again, we're not quite done the analysis, and we'll need to go through it. That process, you know, as we, you know, get more educated on it, you know, we'll be smarter and we'll update accordingly.
Got it. Maybe switching over to the quarter, and looking at the metals recycling business. Seems like there's a few moving pieces there overall, but quite strong performance in the base business, even when factoring in the Edmonton facility acquisition. Can you maybe dive into some of the drivers there a bit more between what you're seeing? I think you called out U.S. and Canadian demand, being strong and I guess Canadian demand picking up. Also on the pricing side, maybe both on the prices you're getting but also on the prices you're paying for the scrap metals.
Yeah. I mean, you nailed it. The performance of the metals recycling business in Q1 was quite strong. It's a combination of increased volume across the scale. It's a combination, also adding in inventory reduction, that we've been working through the last couple of quarters based on, you know, the inventory build in Q3 and Q4 last year because we couldn't move some of the volume as we were reestablishing some of those downstream markets. You know, quarter-over-quarter, the pricing that the mills were paying for is a little bit higher. We paid a little bit lower for scrap across the scales in Q3 and Q4, so we're realizing some of that benefit.
We're also realizing just the integration efforts and the improvement in logistics that we've had over the last couple of quarters. I think when you pack all of those three things together, it's set up for a really strong quarter in that business.
I think too, to just to add to it, I mean, we've just purchased another 50 rail cars. These 50 rail cars, why that's important is now we have enough, and I think we're getting delivery here in August. When you think about the cycle time into the U.S., I think we were sitting around 35-40 days cycle time. Our main goal here, and this is our competitive advantage, is to be able to move the scrap metal here from the Western Canadian market into Central U.S. and get that cycle time within 30 days. Ultimately, we're not in the business of taking any commodity risk. We're in the business of processing efficiently and really processing and what we get across the scale to ultimately what we're gonna get paid within a 30-day period.
We've now opened up all these U.S. markets where we can deliver the scrap. I think that will start to knock down our inventory. We've seen volumes coming through just 'cause our competitors don't have the scale that we have in terms of being able to move the product via train. To Corey's point, 1, I think the U.S. market is quite strong right now, so we're gonna see continued movement of scrap into the U.S. We're gonna now have all the tools we need to, you know, make it as efficient as possible.
All right. Last one for me. I know, the question about tariffs was already asked, maybe just to double-click on it a little bit. Specifically thinking about the 232 tariff update that was announced a couple of weeks ago. Would you expect any potential indirect uplift to U.S. steel demand from these tariffs? Is it kinda still too early to say?
I think it's too early to say, Arthur. We're still digesting it.
Perfect. That's all for me. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Ian Gillies with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. I wanted to go back and just talk about Competition Bureau approval again. With respect to market share since you divested assets a few years ago, I guess the first question is, has there been any material change in your market share estimates? The second one I would have is, as you were going through and prepping for this transaction, is there any instance of the Comp Bureau going back and looking at such a niche industry this quickly in such quick succession?
Thanks, Ian. No, good question. I think, you know, when you go back to the Tervita SECURE merger, that was a, the fulsome analysis of all markets in which we operate. As you know, we took that all the way to the Federal Court and then the Supreme Court. This is case law. When you looked at the competitive environment in those markets, which is substantially, you know, the majority of our critical infrastructure, and we looked at the competitive, you know, players, GFL wasn't 1 of them. I think there's case law examples here that showcase that this doesn't have a lot of competition issues embedded in it within this transaction.
We do know on our waste transfer facilities where we offer some similar services. They'll look at, you know, whether there's similar customers. They'll look at other competitors in the market and see whether or not, you know, we have a market share that would be considered, you know, anti-competitive from this transaction. We're still working on that. We're gonna have a final conclusion here as we re-report our ARC to the Competition Bureau. I think we'll be able to work through with them. This is not material at all. You know, I think, you know, when it's relatively minor like that, we should get to a conclusion in a relatively quick manner. Again, we just wanna make sure they're up to speed and seeing what we're seeing within this marketplace.
We think, again, I mean, they've got to go through their process, and we're gonna try to make it as easy as we can for them because we wanna get to close and move on with the combined entity.
Understood. That's helpful. Maybe moving to your conversation about the guide. This question's inherently gonna be hard to answer. How did you think about providing that commentary in the context of how long oil prices are gonna remain elevated for? Maybe put a different way, if this situation persists through the end of the year, do you think that would lead to more positivity in how you're thinking about this year and next year and the EBITDA generation for SECURE?
Yeah, no, I, you know, it's a good question because I think, you know, we had in our own budget had $65 WTI. I think we recognized the back half of this year was gonna be stronger with demand supply getting to that equilibrium. Our producers, you know, at the start of the year came out saying, you know, some of them were growing at 4%-5%, some of them were growing at 2%-3% based off that forecast. They're not materially changing that because of all of this volatility going on. They've got their plans through Q1 now Q2. I think a few of the smaller players that are a little bit more nimble are going to look at that spot opportunity and potentially transact on it.
Typically, when we see increases in activity, then you start seeing that lag effect in the next quarter in your waste volumes. I think structurally, we recognize that, you know, WTI over 70 is probably what our future is going to indicate. I mean, you've taken a lot of supply off the market in the last 30 days. I think you've got geopolitical risk now that is going to be systemic for quite some time. I think structurally, you see the large investment that's now coming into Western Canada, where you have a political environment and a resource base that is so strong. I mean, you saw Shell's move, by, you know, taking out ARC, and they're looking at Itachi and looking at LNG. I mean, I think the prospects here for Western Canada are very strong.
I think when you look at WTI for 2027 and beyond into the next 10 years, I mean, we've been in a bottom cycle for quite some time and performed very, very well when you think of our customers in Western Canada, and now we're hitting the upswing of that, I think is gonna be very, very positive. Again, these larger swings in WTI, and we know we're gonna get more waste volumes on the production side. You know, eventually as drilling and equipment and people pick up, you're gonna see that as an additional tailwind. We're comfortable in moving our range up to, you know, to that CAD 550 level. You know, every quarter, you get smarter about activity levels and, you know, what customers wanna do.
I mean, we're relatively, you know, only, as I said, you know, a month or better in as we think about activity levels. As we get through Q2, more conversations, we'll have a better indication at the end of Q2 when we report as to what things are going to look like, not only for the remainder of 2026, but what 2027 is going to look like.
Okay. Last one for me. Canada's going through a bit of an infrastructure renaissance with oil fields and oil and gas growth. Seems like it's probably a bit closer than it has been. By rolling SECURE into GFL, does it give your infrastructure team a bit more flexibility to pursue larger projects than it might have done so in, call it over the previous 10 years?
I think that's a good question. I think, you know, when you look at the overlay of GFL's infrastructure and our infrastructure, I think first and foremost, there's going to be some revenue synergies here, where when you look at our networks and what GFL currently offers to their customers, now we're going to offer an even larger suite of services that that customer needs. When you think of some of these larger players, they want a one-stop shop where they can say, "I'm going to outsource my non-haz and hazardous waste to this company because I know they have the infrastructure and the collection network to be able to deal with it." We know that that is going to be great for our customers. I think internally we know that, you know, we could leverage off of our
each other's infrastructure, whether they're using third party today or we're using third party. We're going to make sure that that comes together. This isn't really a cost synergy opportunity. I mean, obviously there's the pubco and redundancy cost that we're going to be able to benefit from. To your part B of your question, just in broad sense, I think, you know, when I see activity levels increase and I see, you know, opportunities like LNG Canada Phase II, and I see WTI on the higher end of the spectrum, what you do see is more need for infrastructure, and we have infrastructure located in the areas where I think we're going to need to expand.
To your point, I think our hopper right now of call it CAD 300 million-CAD 400 million of organic new project opportunities that we wanted to execute on in the next two years, that can definitely grow in this type of environment. One, you've got cost advantage by almost being at investment grade here in terms of you know, where we wanna put this capital to work. I do think this hopper of opportunities will grow, and we'll be able to execute it with this larger platform.
I think one thing that might be-.
Oh, sorry. No, go ahead.
Sorry. I think one thing that's also important is just around utilization in our facilities. You know, we're not really constrained at a system level, so it positions us very well to accept any additional incremental volume without any outsized capital deployment. I think where you've seen us deploy capital, it's where the system has been constrained. I think we're set up very well for a, you know, back half 2027 uptick in volume.
Perfect. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
You now have a question from Konark Gupta with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for squeezing me in. Allen, I wanted to understand the mix of the business a little bit more for me. I mean, you guys have grown the metal recycling through acquisitions and organic growth. Obviously produced water is growing pretty fast as well. If you look at your business mix today, would you say the metal recycling would be breaching above the 10% mark on EBITDA basis? What do you think specialty chemicals are contributing these days?
I think when we look at our business mix and the business segments in general, I mean, I think we're just above 10% on metal recycling. You know, when we looked at our hub and spoke opportunity, and obviously GRI last year was a critical component of that, adding that mega shredder and efficient processing. You know, there was a couple other tuck-ins we could potentially do. That'll be a future conversation with Patrick and Luke on where it's best to allocate capital. I think the asset structure we have in metal recycling right now, you know, is well-situated to, you know, be a standalone business here for the foreseeable future. We like where it is. You know, that's just on the SECURE basis.
I think when you roll it into GFL's larger, broader, solid platform, you know, it's very, very small. In terms of specialty chemicals, yeah, they'd be slightly above where metal sits today. I mean, they've really benefited from some specific chemistries and patents that they have around production waste. We characterize it as front-end waste management. When you're getting production out of the ground, you've got waxes, you've got paraffins, you've got scale, you've got corrosion. Typically, we're there providing that front-end chemistry, stripping out some of that waste that's very corrosive, that, you know, clogs their pipes, et cetera.
We do it on the front end, and then any waste that we can't process just via chemicals, that then is, you know, taken via truck into our facilities, where we're then processing it with equipment and with our disposal network. For those businesses, you know, they continue to have, you know, good opportunities and they're great ran businesses, and I think they fit very well in the overall network, but they're relatively small in the grand scheme of things.
No, thanks. That's great color on that. On the growth CapEx, maybe just to understand a bit, where is the incremental spending going? Can you share some thoughts on the target markets and customers for the incremental CAD 25 million growth CapEx? Is it more on the waste side and specific basins like, you know, maybe Montney or something, or any thoughts there?
Yeah. Konark, it's Corey. It's all on the waste side. We mentioned we're allocating some more capital for some rail cars. The remaining portion is around another, some more water disposal assets in the Montney, and you'll see those come online in Q1 of 2027. We're just advancing those projects. There's a ton of demand for this service, and we're happy to provide it and help our customers out.
Thanks. Then the 50 rail car order, where does it take you complete to now?
Takes us to about 300 cars. About 250 of those are owned and about 50 are on short-term lease or They're coming up to end of life. On a go-forward basis, you'll probably see us run around 250 cars. That manages our platform.
We also like these new cars because they have higher walls, and they're a little bit deeper, so they can actually transport 30% more. We're spending or paying for the same sort of transportation cost per car. Those older lease cars are smaller, and you can't get as much material in it. When we run the economics on these rail cars, you know, it's quite advantageous when you think of the transportation cost into the U.S. when you can put more scrap metal into the car.
Makes sense. Appreciate the time. Thank you, guys.
Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Allen Gransch for closing remarks. Please continue.
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Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.