Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Trican Well Service third quarter 2022 earnings results conference call and webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Brad Fedora, President and Chief Executive Officer of Trican Well Service. Please go ahead, Mr. Fedora.
Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you for attending the Trican Well Service conference call for the third quarter of 2022. A brief outline on how we intend to conduct the call is first, Scott Matson, our Chief Financial Officer, will give an overview of the quarterly results. I will then provide some comments with respect to the quarter, current operating conditions, and our outlook for the future. We'll open the call for questions. Several members of our senior executive team are in the room today and are available to answer any questions that anybody may have. I'd now like to turn the call over to Scott.
Thanks, Brad. Before we begin, I'd just like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements and other information based on current expectations or results for the company. Certain material factors or assumptions that were applied in drawing conclusions or making projections are reflected in the forward-looking information section of our third quarter 2022 MD&A. A number of business risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements and our financial outlook. Please refer to our 2021 annual information form and the business risks section of our MD&A for the year ended December 31st, 2021 for a more complete description of business risks and uncertainties facing Trican. These documents are available on our website and on SEDAR.
During this call, we will refer to several common industry terms and use certain Non-GAAP measures, which are more fully described in our 2021 annual MD&A and in our third quarter 2022 MD&A. Our quarterly results were released after the close of market last night and are available both on SEDAR and on our website. With that, let's move on to our results for the quarter. Most of my comments will draw comparisons to the third quarter of last year, and I'll also provide some commentary about our expectations going forward. Revenue for the quarter, CAD 258 million, a substantial increase from last year, 57% increase compared to Q3 of 2021.
Our activity levels in the quarter were generally higher across the board than the prior year comparative period as industry activity in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin increased fairly significantly, driven primarily by strong commodity prices. This led to significant improvements in demand for all of our pressure pumping services, which then resulted in better utilization across our service lines in Q3 compared to last year and a much more constructive pricing environment. Adjusted EBITDA came in at CAD 70.9 million, again, a significant improvement from the CAD 32.1 million we generated in Q3 of 2021. I would also note that our adjusted EBITDA figure includes expenditures related to fluid end replacements, which totaled CAD 3.8 million in the quarter and were expensed in the period.
Adjusted EBITDAS for the quarter came in at CAD 72.1 million, again, a significant improvement compared to the CAD 33.2 million we printed last year. To arrive at EBITDAS, we add back the effects of cash-settled stock-based compensation recognized in the quarter to more clearly show the results of our actual operations without some of the financial noise. We recognized about CAD 1.2 million in expense related to cash-settled stock-based comp in the quarter. We continue to make progress in monetizing stranded assets with a number of transactions closing in the quarter, bringing in about CAD 3.4 million in cash proceeds and generating about CAD 500,000 net gain on disposal. That brings us down on a consolidated basis. We generated positive earnings of CAD 38.2 million in the quarter or about CAD 0.16 per share.
We generated free cash flow of CAD 64.9 million during the quarter as compared to CAD 29.9 million in the same period of last year. Our definition of free cash flow is essentially EBITDAS less non-discretionary cash expenditures. Those would include our maintenance capital program, interest, cash taxes, and cash-settled stock-based comp. Capital expenditures for the quarter totaled CAD 24.6 million, split between our maintenance capital program, about CAD 5.5 million, and our upgrade capital of CAD 19.1 million, primarily dedicated to our ongoing Tier 4 capital refurbishment program. The balance sheet remains in excellent shape. We exited the quarter with positive working capital of approximately CAD 125 million, which includes cash of about CAD 10 million and no long-term bank debt.
Finally, with respect to our ongoing NCIB program, we were pretty active throughout the year, and repurchased and canceled approximately 11.3 million shares at an average price of CAD 3.41 per share, about 5% of the company's issued and outstanding share base. We continue to view share repurchases as a solid investment opportunity and an effective way to return capital to our shareholders. With that, I'll turn things back over to Brad, who will provide some comments on our operating conditions and our outlook going forward.
Thanks, Scott. Overall, Q3 was a very busy quarter, even though we had a wet start in late June and early July, and we really didn't get started until almost mid-month. We still were very happy with the overall activity in the quarter. Importantly, we chased inflation for the first half of the year from a pricing perspective. Finally, in Q3, we were able to catch up and actually get net pricing gains. As everybody knows in this industry, you know, we have significant operating leverage both in the upturns and the downturns. Finally, you know, that kicked in and worked to our advantage. You see expanded operating margins in the quarter. We still see cost inflation in Q3 in all facets of the business, whether it's products, chemicals, third-party trucking, et cetera.
Definitely the rate has slowed compared to the first half of the year. You know, we don't expect this to go away, but I don't think we're gonna see the sort of week after week price increases that we saw in the first half of 2022. In particular, we're still seeing fuel surcharges from the rail companies. You know, they base their fuel surcharges on U.S. diesel prices, and so that has a big impact on our sand prices and chemistry prices, for one, once it gets landed in Northwest Alberta and Northeast BC. Our customers were generally, I would say, very cooperative on accepting the price increases. It's easy to show them where they're coming from and to justify them.
They work with us throughout the quarter, and as a result, we are able to get better margins. You know, overall, I would say the frack market is very balanced at these activity levels. There are approximately 30 staffed frack crews operating in Canada and at a drilling activity of 200 drilling rigs- 220 drilling rigs. Those 30 frack crews are basically operating at capacity. Any activity above sort of 220 drilling rigs would tip the frack industry into an undersupplied situation, and we'll talk about next year, but I think that's where we're heading. Currently, we're operating at about seven frack crews. We expect to be operating with eight frack crews early in Q1 of next year. We certainly have the demand on the board for it today.
This means we're still only operating about 60% of our frac capacity in comparison to our competitors that are basically operating full out. You know, when you look at the upside of this basin, we still own over half of the spare capacity that exists in Canada today. As the basin demand grows, you know, we're in a great position to provide this industry with incremental frack crews. We're very happy with our cementing division. The cementing business in Canada is running at absolute full-out capacity for all of the frac equipment that exists today. At Trican, we have about 17-19 crews, which means we have about 30%-40% market share in their overall Deep Basin, or in the overall Western Canadian Basin.
Likely, this is much closer to 50% when you look at our market share in the Montney and the Deep Basin. Our market share gains are limited only by staff. We certainly have more demand than we're able to supply in cementing. You know, unfortunately, it's been a frustrating experience keeping people working in the field. There's a significant pull back into towns and cities. Hopefully, we will expand our market share as drilling activity picks up next year. The coil market, we're very happy with the coil business as well. It's a little more lumpy than fracking and cementing, but overall, pricing and demand for our coil division has been really good. That too, we're basically limited by our ability to staff it.
Today, we're operating at about seven coil crews. The outlook for Q4 and next year, naturally, we expect Q4 to be sequentially lower than Q3, as is typical. You know, October and November are good months, but the quarter, it does experience the typical weather delays as we transition out of fall and into winter. Once December arrives, lots of customers have exhausted budgets, and then we basically lose half the month to Christmas. It's natural to see a little bit of a dip down in Q4, but it'll still be a good quarter. Q1 2023 looks very busy. Our board is booking up well into the spring, very active. You know, we're scrambling to try to add people in advance of what looks like a very busy quarter.
You know, we expect full year 2023 to be modestly busier than 2022, and it really depends on the customer. I mean, generally, everybody is telling us they're going up sort of between, you know, 3%-10%, in activity levels compared to 2022. You know, their well economics are still very attractive, you know, especially natural gas wells in the Montney. You know, they're paying out in a matter of months, and that's obviously a good thing for the industry. You know, the frack market, in particular, is balanced today, and so any incremental activity over 2022 levels would lead to higher activity, pricing, and margins. We're excited about next year. Our customers. Thankfully, our customers remain very disciplined with respect to their capital budgets.
You know, even though activity is going up, they're still spending less than 50% of their free cash flow on drilling and completions. This market feels very sustainable for the next few years. It has an odd, orderly, predictable feel, which is unusual for the oil patch in Western Canada. We're, you know, we're very positive about the next few years. It allows us to plan well in advance. We're, you know, we're expecting lots of good things coming. LNG drilling activity has started. LNG Canada is adding production. They've got rigs in the field drilling. This project, you know, has a 50-year life, so this is a great base level of activity for Canada in the future. People will definitely be the bottleneck for growth, particularly in things like cementing.
You know, we're working hard to attract people back to our industry. We're paying more. We have had some success recruiting across Canada. You know, we're fortunate that our staff take great pride in the work they do, and we're proud of the work that they have done so far this year under you know, very busy conditions. You know, we're very fortunate people not just in the field, but in the office as well, are very committed to the success of the company. We've got a great safety record, which our customers have been noticing, and it's you know, more and more important as you know, as the world transitions to a more of an ESG focus. You know, companies like LNG Canada are focusing on safety records as well as the local operators as well.
I think our people have embraced an advanced safety culture in the field this year. Our employee retention is obviously our top priority at this stage, not just attracting new people to the industry, but keeping them. If we can keep our people and add some people, you know, next year will be very busy and prosperous for us. Supply chain. There are concerns on supply chain. Supply chain does operate at or near capacity, particularly sand coming out of the U.S. So our procurement group has done a great job, not just managing this on a day-to-day basis, but making sure that they get ahead of what we predict will be shortages, you know, months into the future. The market for third-party trucking is very tight.
There's less drivers today than there used to be. Sand tonnage per well has grown, and so it takes a lot of time and planning to ensure that we maximize logistics efficiency and we minimize the delays for our customers, especially when we get to quarters like Q1, which we expect will be stressing the system. It's important to note as an industry in the last few years, we've become extremely efficient with our operations. You know, we're starting to capture some of the financial gains of those efficiencies. You know, over the past seven years, the customer has been benefiting generally as our pump times have changed from, you know, 15-hour to 22-hour, 23-hour record or pump times.
You know, we continue to set records for the amount of sand placed in a 24-hour period. You know, well laterals are getting longer and stage count is increasing. In order to maintain this efficiency, you know, we have to make sure that our logistics department, our planning department, our dispatch, are all working in sync to ensure that we provide a very efficient service to our customers. We've made great strides with technology and innovation. You know, we have a guiding principle of clean air, clean water, and so we've made the capital investments into areas like our Tier 4 engine upgrades and into our chemistries that allow us to use less fresh water, more produced water, and cement blends that make sure that they protect fresh water sources.
We're gonna continue to focus along those lines. You know, just from a Tier 4 upgrade and a corporate strategy perspective, we're very bullish on the industry in Canada. We believe that, you know, Canada will play an important role on the global stage in providing the world with clean, reliable energy, particularly natural gas. You know, we view Western Canada as a great basin in which to grow our business. You know, Montney is a world-class resource, and it's in the early stages of development. You know, when we think about our corporate strategy over the next, you know, it's three, five, 10 years, we're very focused on Western Canada, and certainly the Montney, the Deep Basin is a focal point of where we plan on deploying our people and our equipment.
LNG Canada's development of the LNG facility on the West Coast is almost done, and they're already talking about expansion. You know, we look at that as a great base of activity for natural gas drilling in Western Canada over the next, you know, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years. All of that drilling, all of those well developments are very fracturing-intensive. As everybody knows, you know, very little natural gas or oil come out of the ground without a frack. All of our divisions, starting with cementing, fracturing and coil will be absolutely essential to developing the natural resources in Western Canada in the future. You know, we're very focused on growth, free cash flow, and return on invested capital.
Certainly, free cash flow and return on invested capital are really all that matter at the end of the day, and they underpin every decision we make. We are investing our cash flow for growth based on predictable long-term returns. We're not overly concerned with market share, but we are very concerned with things like free cash flow and return on invested capital. You know, we're fortunate enough to have had the balance sheet to invest, you know, starting 18 months ago. Our strategy is basically differentiation and modernization while maintaining a conservative balance sheet. We focused on adding state-of-the-art equipment, getting our systems and processes up to a modern standard, you know, deploying ESG strategy in our department to make sure that we're ahead of that and working with Indigenous partnerships.
All of this is to ensure that our growth is sustainable throughout the cycles and, you know, with what's changing with the public with respect to emissions et cetera. We wanna make sure that we're on the forefront of providing equipment and services to our customers. One of the ways, of course, that we differentiate is with our new equipment. You know, we rolled out our first Tier 4 spread back in early this year, and we've been extremely happy with the results. We put out our second Tier 4 spread in the summer, and we just activated our third Tier 4 spread into the field. Our fourth Tier 4 spread is planned for late in Q1 2023. Clearly, we can all see the trend in where this is going.
We're gonna continue to invest in this technology. You know, we now have the newest, most modern, efficient fleet in the basin. We're very impressed with the performance and the operating results so far. I think we have over 33,000 hours on our Tier 4 pumps. They provide lower emissions from the state-of-the-art engines. You know, the high-performance pumps, you know, they provide, you know, high-pressure, continuous duty performance that allows us to operate very efficiently on location. What that means is we have less people and less equipment. You know, 22 hours-23 hours per day of pumping is the norm now, regardless of pressure and rates. We, you know, if we use natural gas on site to provide fuel to these pumps, that takes diesel trucks off the road.
You know, the natural gas burns clean, makes for a very efficient operation. All of this leads to higher profitability for our business when you compare, you know, operating Tier 4 equipment to the conventional equipment. You know, we're able to charge a premium, but at the same time, our customers are benefiting from a significant fuel cost savings. It's been a win-win for both us and our customers. We expect this technology to be the standard in the Montney, in the Deep Basin in the future. We're very fortunate that, you know, we were able to move on this early.
As a result, you know, now we're sitting here in Q3 with, you know, almost half our fleet with Tier 4 technology, you know, by far the most state-of-the-art, you know, up-to-date efficient fleet in Canada. Our strategy is to continue converting our equipment over the coming years. You know, we'll have an entirely new fleet of fracturing equipment within the next four years. These fleets will either be incremental as the industry demand grows, or they'll go to replace our existing equipment. Whether it's diesel or, you know, diesel Tier 2 dual fuel, you know, will depend on the time at the time. Either way, they're more efficient, more profitable. They provide the customer with better service, lower emissions.
You know, both the public is happy to have them, the customer is happy to use them, and we're certainly happy to provide them. We look forward to developing this as time goes on. On a return of capital basis, you know, we generate significant free cash flow, and we can only spend a portion of it intelligently on growth opportunities. We subscribe to a diversified return of capital strategy. To date, the best way of doing that, to providing that, has been to buy our shares in the market. We've been using our buyback now for a few years, and we think it's been the, you know, the most effective way to return our capital, especially at sort of historical share prices.
I think we bought up to 55% of our outstanding shares in Q3 alone. Now when you look back a few years, we've purchased almost 35% of the company back in the last few years. You know, we plan to continue this. We renewed our NCIB in October for late 2022 and 2023, and we remain committed to this program for the foreseeable future. We both have a consistent monthly allocation and sort of a reserve fund for when the market disconnects and our views of the future, you know, are positive, so we'll use that when we can. We stay committed to returning capital to our shareholders. I think I'll stop there, and we'll go to questions. We'll go back to the operator.
Thank you. We'll now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Our first question is from Aaron MacNeil with TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey, morning, all. Thanks for taking my questions. Brad, you sort of touched on this in your prepared remarks, but, you know, one of your competitors suggested in their Q3 disclosures that Q4 utilization will have some gaps due to, you know, fears around supply adds. I know you're going from seven to eight, albeit in Q1, not Q4, and you have a bit of a different view on supply and demand. I thought it might be a good opportunity to kind of, you know, talk about what your approach will be going forward, and specifically how you're treating, you know, these new additions through upgrades, as it relates to the dynamic gas blending engine. Maybe I'll turn it over to you.
Okay. Thanks. There's always gaps in the schedule in late Q4. It seems like these last few years. Our views of returns, pricing, price levels at which we let the equipment leave the yard, they do not change just because we have a bit of white space. You know, we're fortunate we run a very conservative balance sheet, very profitable company, and, you know, we don't panic just because there's a bit of white space on the board. Our pricing views, they don't change. You know, from a supply and demand perspective, whether it's December or next July, you know, the marginal price of supply is determined by the supplier, not the customer.
We don't let equipment go to work unless we can get a reasonable return on it because the wear and tear on that equipment is real. You know, the market is priced based on where the service companies set the price, not the reverse. You know, that whether there's a little bit too much equipment from one month to the next. You know, this is a long-term game. We make our decisions on long-term returns and know that this equipment only has a finite life to it, and we need to get the most out of it that we can. At the end of the day, our customers just want, you know, efficient, predictable services using state-of-the-art equipment and the best people, and we will give that to them.
You know, we need to make sure that we are paid appropriately. We don't let the month-to-month variations in supply and demand determine our pricing behavior.
Total sense. From a labor perspective, you know, I'm not really thinking about how much you pay people, but more about how you pay them. I guess specifically, you know, you guys used to pay guarantees over the second quarter to retain talent, and I know you're tight labor today, so.
Yeah.
Like, I guess I'm wondering, like, what's the model? Is it fixed through the kinda weaker periods of the year, or is it still variable?
Sure. It's variable, but everybody's so busy. It's very predictable and, you know, if at certain times we have to make minimum commitments on the number of day rates that they receive per shift, we're happy to do that because it frankly doesn't cost us anything. It's weird now, you know, like Q2 is not what it used to be. Like, if anything, December is the new breakup 'cause our Q2 is busy, right? It's between getting equipment ready for Q3, 'cause Q3 is the busiest quarter of the year now. You know, between getting equipment ready and the amount of work that we expect that we'll have to do, and, you know, people start taking holidays as things warm up and kids, you know, kids come out of school, et cetera. It's not what it used to be.
Q2 is actually easier to manage. You know, a little bit of a slowdown in December, that's not a bad thing either, right? Because the guys have been working hard since the spring. If people can start to take a bit of a break for the second half of December before everybody gets back to work again in January, I think it would be welcome by all. Thankfully, the level loading that's occurred in the last few years has really helped us manage that, you know, that component of the business. You know, we have to keep up and, you know, we've obviously given raises over the last few years numerous times. We've gotta make sure that our people make a good living because we obviously rely on them.
The level loading is making our job a little bit easier now. Like I say, it's weird. It's almost like December is the new breakup and that's actually sort of a welcome change.
Okay, great. Thanks for the answers. I'll turn it over.
Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. Our next question is from Cole Pereira with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Morning, all. Obviously, return of capital has been focused on share buybacks thus far. How are you thinking about a dividend? I mean, I think we can all agree share buybacks have been a success. You know, why does it need to be just one or the other as opposed to both?
Yeah, you're right. It's just been such an easy decision up until now, right? I think we've telegraphed to the market pretty well that, you know, when we think about spending our excess free cash flow, it's pretty simple. You know, we look at additional growth opportunities, M&A, share buybacks and dividends, and there just aren't additional growth opportunities that we think we can get a decent return on, or there isn't the supply chain to provide the equipment to pursue them anyway. We can only spend so much money on our operations, and I think we're going as fast as we can just given the supply chain constraints. On the M&A side, there's still a bit of a disconnect between, you know, what public companies are trading at and what private companies are expecting.
That gap is never easy to close. We haven't had any opportunities there, so that leaves us with the buybacks and the dividends. The buybacks, frankly, they've just been so attractive at the share prices we've had since the spring. It was kind of a no-brainer. You know, if we sort of hover at current levels and break into the fours, yeah, it's getting tougher to justify purely the buyback, you know. We wouldn't be afraid to pay a dividend at all. You know, we're very optimistic about the future and, you know, we think our cash balance is gonna continue to grow. We'll just play it by ear.
It's, you know, basically a mathematical decision, and we're not biased to either one, frankly.
Got it. That makes sense. Thanks. Can you just remind us how many crews could you theoretically activate? Can you just comment in Q3, you know, what kind of utilization you would have realized on the active crews you did have?
Well, the utilization is. It's pretty full. I mean, it's. We don't change customers every month to make sure our board is perfect, right? I mean, we have long-term loyal customers, and we gotta roll with the punches a little bit. You know, we do have downtimes throughout any quarter, whether it's Q3, Q1, Q4, whatever. You know, Q3 is the busiest quarter of the year now, so it was pretty busy. Sure, we had downtime, so I don't know what the utilization was, but yeah, it was about 85%, Cole. Yeah. On the frack side of the business.
Okay, perfect.
You know, we're right on that edge here at this number of drilling rigs. We're right on that edge you know, we're not really in an over or under supplied situation. Like I said, you know, we're fortunate to have sort of long-term customers. You know, it'll be interesting to see what happens next year when I think we're gonna be above the 220 drilling rigs and, you know, things could be a little tighter.
Got it. For the incremental fleet in Q1, you'll obviously be getting improved pricing for that fleet. I mean, are you fairly confident you'll see higher pricing across the board as well? I mean, that additional fleet, you know, should we be thinking that that's going to work with the series of long-term customers, or do you have a little bit of spot exposure? How do you think about that?
No, I mean, it's the answer is always ideally both. We're not gonna have much spot exposure just because the schedule's getting so full. The Tier 4 equipment will go to our. You know, we don't have a huge customer list, but so we consider them all to be good, loyal, long-term customers. It'll probably go to our existing customers.
Got it. That's all for me. Thanks. I'll turn it back.
This concludes the question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Fedora for any closing remarks.
Okay, thanks everyone for joining the call. We appreciate the time you took. We'll sign off now, but the management team here at Trican Well Service will be available today and tomorrow for any follow-up questions. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your line. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.