Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Trican Well Service Q4 2023 earnings results conference call and webcast. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Brad Fedora, President and Chief Executive Officer of Trican Well Service Limited. Please go ahead, Mr. Fedora. Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for attending the Trican Q4 results conference call. First of all, 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 and the current operating conditions and our outlook for the near future, and then we'll open the call for questions. As usual, several members of our executive team are in the room today and are available to answer any questions anyone may have. I'd now like to turn the call over to Scott to start things off. Thanks, Brad, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I'd 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 MD&A for Q4 2023. 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 2023 Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31st, 2023, for a more complete description of business risks and uncertainties facing Trican. This document is 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 Q4 2023 MD&A. Our quarterly results were released after close of market last night and are available both on SEDAR and our website. So with that, let's move on to our results for the quarter. Most of my comments will draw comparisons to the Q4 of last year, and I'll provide a few comments about our quarterly activity and expectations going forward. Trican's results for Q4 were, as anticipated, essentially in line with last year's Q4, with slightly more activity muted a bit by inflationary pressure and impacted by the standard Christmas break, which lasted pretty much through the end of the year. Revenue for the quarter was CAD 254.9 million, an increase of about 8% compared to Q4 of 2022, and adjusted EBITDA came in at CAD 56.4 million, or 22% of revenues, down slightly from the CAD 59.4 million or 25% of revenues we generated in Q4 of 2022. This was mainly attributable to our job mix in the quarter based on the specific well designs and customer programs that we executed during the quarter. Adjusted EBITDAS for the quarter came in at CAD 58.8 million or 23% of revenues, again, essentially in line with the CAD 60.1 million or 25% of revenues we printed last year. To arrive at EBITDAS, we add back the effects of cash-settled, share-based compensation recognized in the quarter to more clearly show the results of our operations and remove some of the financial noise associated with changes in our share price as we mark to market these items. On a consolidated basis, we continued to generate positive earnings, printing CAD 28.8 million in the quarter, which translates to about CAD 0.14 per share basic and CAD 0.13 per share on a fully diluted basis. We generated free cash flow of CAD 38.7 million during the quarter, as compared to CAD 47.1 million in Q4 of 2022. Our definition of free cash flow is essentially EBITDAS less non-discretionary cash expenditures, which includes maintenance, capital, interest, cash taxes, and cash-settled, stock-based compensation. As we've previously noted, we moved into a net taxable position in 2023, which is the primary driver of the year-over-year difference. You can see more details on this in the non-GAAP measures section of our MD&A. Capital expenditures of the quarter totaled CAD 18.3 million, split between maintenance capital of about CAD 8.8 million and upgrade capital of CAD 9.5 million. The upgrade capital was dedicated mainly to our ongoing Tier 4 capital refurbishment program and the electrification of ancillary frac equipment, which Brad will touch on later. Updates to our 5th Tier 4 fleet were largely completed in the Q4, with final commissioning occurring early in Q1, and that equipment is now deployed and operating. The balance sheet remains in excellent shape. We exited the quarter with positive working capital of approximately CAD 153.2 million, including cash of CAD 88.8 million, and I would note that a portion of that cash balance will be used to satisfy our 2023 tax obligations and will flow out in Q1 of 2024. Finally, with respect to our return of capital strategy, we repurchased and canceled 2.6 million shares under our NCIB program in Q4 of 2023. On an annualized basis in 2023, we repurchased and canceled a total of 22.7 million shares at an average price of about CAD 3.46 per share, representing approximately 10% of the shares outstanding at the beginning of last year. We've repurchased and canceled about 2.6 million shares since year-end, and we continue to be active and opportunistic with our buyback program. As noted in our press release, our board of directors approved a dividend of CAD 0.045 per share for the quarter, representing an increase of 12.5% from our previous quarterly dividend. This essentially offsets the reduction in share count as a result of the company's ongoing NCIB program, and we'll keep our annual expected dividend payout in the CAD 34 million-CAD 36 million range. Distribution is scheduled to be made on March 29, 2024, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 15, and I would note that the dividends are designated as eligible dividends for Canadian income tax purposes. So with that, I'll turn things back over to Brad. Okay, thanks. My comments will include what happened in Q4, what's happening currently, and what probably most people are interested in, what we expect for the next few quarters, particularly the summer. So, in the Q4 recap, overall, like as Scott was saying, it went pretty much as expected. You know, we now expect Q4 to be slower than Q1 and Q3. You know, as the year winds to a close, more work has shifted to Q2 in these last few years, and we expect that'll continue on, which is actually great. You know, it keeps our staff busy throughout Q2 and then gives everybody a better Christmas break, which is appreciated by the staff in this industry. You know, all of the pricing in each business line did, you know, we did feel a little bit of pressure. We're continuing to feel that pressure as people sort of get antsy with gas prices, and particularly in Q4, you know, there was some real aggressive pricing as people positioned themselves for the winter. When that's happening, we typically withdraw from those situations, and we will continue to do that going forward. You know, we believe in the value that we have to offer, and we'll make sure that it's priced accordingly. We're still in the fracturing division. We're still running with 7 frac crews. We don't think the activity is there yet to justify an 8th or a 9th crew. One of the highlights from Q4 is that we did our first pad for Petronas, which is one of the LNG Canada partners. Went very well. You know, we, the equipment and the people performed extremely well. The, the customer was happy, so we expect that work to continue in 2024. On the cementing side, you know, the results from our cementing division continue to prove our expertise and leading market position in the service line. And we, we ran our cementing division at our absolute active capacity, which means all the equipment that we can staff. You know, we still hold about a 35% market share in the overall basin and just over 50% in the Montney Duvernay and Deep Basin, which is an indication of the customers, you know, looking to us for anything that's sort of technically tricky or, or, you know, critical, you know, they turn to us for the, for that, service line. Of course, you know, we're really happy with this division. As a technical leader, we have a great customer list, and we expect that this division will continue to perform really well in the next few years. On the coil side, we're making good progress there. As I've mentioned in previous calls, our coil division is one of those that we, you know, we're not that happy with just because of the scale. You know, it's very profitable at the field level, but certainly the scale of that operation needs to increase in order for it to generate a reasonable return on invested capital. We wanna run sort of more in the line of 10 coil crews, as opposed to 7 that we're operating today. We've added key salesperson from one of our competitors, who is already having a significant impact on our activity going forward, and we'll just continue to focus on that and slowly, slowly build that division. So, what's our outlook for the rest of the year and for Q1 of this year? We expect Q1 of this year will be slightly lower than last year. Nothing major. You know, there's a few less rigs running. We have, you know, low gas prices, so we have had some margin compression. It'll still be a really good quarter, just, you know, won't, probably won't match up to last year. You know, we had a really slow start in January. It seemed like the Christmas break seemed to extend past New Year's, and then just as we were ready to start, we were hit with some brutally cold weather, which lasted for about a week, and so we really didn't get started until the H2 of January, which is slow. You know, normally it starts much before that. And then for February and March, we, you know, we're completely completely booked. Very, very busy, you know, limited only by weather. So, we expect to have a good quarter just, you know, due to the slow start in January, we're probably slightly behind last year. And, you know, where do we see 2024? Again, I think it's gonna be a good year, but it probably won't measure up to last year just due to the fact that, you know, we've had some disappointment, disappointment in the natural gas prices over the last 2 months. And what does that mean? We know we've had some work move out of Q1 and pushed into the summer as people are looking for better gas prices and lower water heating costs. We've had very little in the way of outright cancellations, but we do expect drought conditions that are, you know, present in much of Western Canada to cause some water restrictions this summer. You know, we will have to turn more to produced water or recycled water, and as we've talked about in the past, we have an extensive portfolio of chemicals to deal with this exact scenario. So, you know, we're kind of excited to put our, sort of our technical chemistry to work this year. About 70% of our frac chemistry supports non-potable water, which is basically, like, produced or effluent or recycled water, and about 60% of our customers make use of non-potable water in their fracturing operations. And, you know, we would say overall, on an annual basis, about 40% of the water we pump is non-potable. So even though we do expect restrictions, you know, we think we're gonna fare very well throughout that, and our chemical offering, I think will prove to our customers that, you know, it's well worth looking into. So we are expecting some choppiness this summer, just due to gas prices. You know, the strip for gas is good in the winter, but it's fairly soft in the summer, and anytime there's sort of any unease in the market, normal. You know, we still think that Montney will be the focal point of activity. The Duvernay is building momentum, very, very frac intensive in its sort of oil and liquid space, so that won't be affected by gas pricing. You know, we think that our equipment fleet is very well suited for the Duvernay. Our fifth fleet that just came out was built specifically with the Duvernay in mind. It's heavy duty, high horsepower pumps, you know, built to pump at high pressures for long periods of time, and so we will actively market that equipment fleet with our Duvernay customers as it's now ready and operating in the field. We are expanding our cementing services into the Clearwater, into the heavy oil. You know, that's some of the ground that we gave up just due to the staffing shortage in 2020 and 2021, but I think we'll build that market back up. You know, in general, I would say the supply chain is operating still at capacity. You know, we're still very careful to manage, especially things like third-party trucking and sand supplies into Northwest Alberta and Northeast BC. You know, that sort of supply chain has been playing catch up for the last few years, and so we'll actively manage that going forward. On the strategy side, you know, even though we expect we could have a choppy summer, you know, we still think Canada is a great place to do business. We love, we love this basin going forward. We expect it to be sort of a growth avenue for us. Just in the Montney alone, you know, LNG drilling activity has been very active. That facility is expected to come on stream early next year. So all the players, they are active, making sure that they have the production required. Trican has the balance sheet to allow us to continue executing our strategy going forward. You know, we actually look forward to times of volatility. You know, we're uniquely set up to take advantage of any pauses or choppiness in the market, and we're certainly not concerned about anything from a gas price perspective as we expect it's gonna be short-lived. We're actually looking forward to taking advantage of any opportunities that may come up. Frac intensity on a per well basis is still increasing. Large sand volumes, lots of stages. We expect over 8 million tons of sand to be pumped in Canada this year, and that's in comparison to just over 6 million in 2021. So sand is something that we're still actively managing. We've talked about sort of our logistics perspectives on how we're gonna deal with these increased volumes going into Northeast BC. And so we're still looking at investing in that side of the business, and that's another way that we think we'll differentiate ourselves. And as we've said before, you know, differentiation and modernization is the key to our strategy. You know, we have state-of-the-art equipment. We're upgrading our systems. We have Indigenous partnerships in Northeast BC, all of which makes for a very profitable and sustainable business. We still have the most efficient fracturing fleet in Canada. I think up until recently, we've displaced over 50 million liters of diesel with our Tier 4 equipment. So that's something that's been very well received by our customers, and we expect that'll be the standard technology in the Montney going forward. We run 5 of the 9 Tier 4 fracturing fleets that are active in Canada today, so we're very fortunate to have had a sort of a 2-year head start in that technology. And recently, another one of our differentiation strategies has been with the electric, ancillary equipment. We're the only pumping company in Canada that has electric frac equipment, and when you combine this with the Tier 4 technology, we get over 90% natural gas diesel displacement. So it's very well received by the customers. It's actually something that we can continue to focus on this year, and we expect to build out our capacity on the electric side in the next few years. It's operationally very efficient, uses less people. We expect less R&M with the equipment, and it's something that we definitely intend to focus on. Excuse me. On the shareholder return of capital side, our priority is still to build a resilient, sustainable, and differentiated company going forward. It's gone very well over the last few years. You know, we'll look for any blips in the market to take advantage of any M&A opportunities that present themselves. And other than that, we'll just continue to focus on our strategy and deploy our equipment, particularly into Northwest Alberta and Northeast BC. We're still very active in our NCIB. I think we purchased just under 23 million shares last year. We've continued to be active every day in the market in 2024, year to date, and we'll continue to go forward with that. On the dividend side, as Scott mentioned, we've had a small increase, which just offsets the share reduction due to the NCIB, and the record date is March fifteenth, payable at the end of the quarter. I think I'll stop there, and we'll go to questions. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To join the question queue, you may press *, then 1 on your telephone keypad. You will 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 * then 2. The first question comes from Aaron MacNeil with TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Hey, morning. Thanks for taking my questions. It's been pretty warm lately, but also pretty dry. You know, I haven't seen anything in terms of road bans on the Alberta website, but how do you think, you know, road bans might impact Q1 and Q2 this year? ... You mentioned the drought conditions are, you know, will that impact the pace of activity? Maybe just an update sort of on external factors that are positive or negative. Yeah. Excuse me. This time of year, there's always road ban concerns. And certainly, yeah, it's been a warm Q1. There's very little snow up north. And so, yeah, you can have sort of 10 to 10 bans on, but that's quite typical for this time of year. You know, there's certainly a lot of work booked for the rest of February and into March, and so, and the Q2 work, you know, is always dealing with road bans and bonding roads and staging sand and water in advance. I would say the difference now that we're seeing this year that we haven't seen in prior years is that you're seeing customers actually start to really think about how they're going to be managing water months in advance. And so, you know, they just haven't had to worry about that before. You're starting to see, you know, the rentals of on-site C- rings or the, you know, the big swimming pools on location, that, you know, all of that market is extremely active. So it's nothing new. I think the industry continues to get better at sort of long-term planning. And, you know, I think with this drought that we've had for the last couple of years, people will just think about water sort of 3 or 4 months in advance instead of 3 or 4 weeks in advance. And it's really important to note that the activity in Northeast BC is mostly sort of produced and recycled water. There's not a ton of fresh water use up there. It's not, you know, just because there's water restrictions doesn't mean that, you know, the completions activity is severely impacted. You know, there's lots of ways to work around this problem. And of course, you know, if we get a bunch of rain in May and June, like we usually do, you know, that'll alleviate a lot of these concerns. You mentioned the aggressive pricing in Q4. Has that continued into Q1? And, you know, I know you're not gonna participate in competitive bids, but is that starting to impact your utilization as you get undercut on pricing? Like, how should we think about that? No, our utilization has remained really high, with the exception of the H1 of January. Yeah, this you know, every time the market flinches, there seems to be, you know, some nervousness that goes around. But, you know, we're one of the few companies that has a long-term customer list, and so our you know, we're, we're fortunate, right? We've—It's a 28-year-old company. We've had many of our customers for 10+ years now. So we're not looking for a new customer list every quarter like some of our competitors are. And so, you know, we tend to be somewhat insulated by, by that activity. But, yeah, like, we don't, we don't feel the need to chase it. We don't have covenants to meet. You know, we've – we're well, well ahead of the refurbishment of our equipment into the Tier 4 technology. So, you know, we're, we're in a really fortunate position. You know, we're able to sort of sit back and sort of look at how we're gonna take advantage of this, of these kind of times in the market. And if the quarterly results are down a little bit, so be it, right? We run this business for the long term, not the short term. And we're fortunately not sort of impacted by short-term, you know, sort of financial volatility. Makes sense. I'll turn it back. Thanks, Brad. Thanks, Aaron. The next question comes from Keith Mackey with RBC. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. So Brad, you mentioned you're gonna stick with 7 active fleets. And you've, you know, still got five potential fleets in the yards that you've talked about historically. How do you think about this excess capacity, given, you know, you see the market to be relatively stable in Canada for the next few years? A sentiment we would certainly, certainly agree with. Just how do you think about that excess capacity? Is there any opportunity to rationalize and, you know, use that to improve margins over time? Or do you think you'll potentially still need that capacity? Or just how are you thinking about it in light of the market of today? Yeah, it's both. We have been rationalizing our equipment fleet, and that's just the really old equipment that was left. You know, we're sort of fortunate. A lot of the really old, outdated equipment was taken care of a few years ago now, prior to me joining. And so we were in a great position from a selling equipment perspective. So yeah, we've rationalized a little bit of equipment, and we will always continue to do that. But, you know, we do generally believe that a good majority of that spare capacity will come online, and so we're happy to have it sit there until we're ready to bring it out. I maybe add one other thought, Keith, that, you know, as we went through our Tier 4 refurbishment program over the last few years, we effectively took, you know, gear off the fence, upgraded that gear, put it in the field, and displaced the existing operating stuff. So the stuff that we've actually got parked in our, our spare capacity is actually quite fresh and ready to go. So as you know, we look forward a few years as industry activity- ... will likely pick up, right? We'll be able to easily respond to that incremental demand when it comes. So that capacity is still in pretty good shape and doesn't require CapEx to spend to get it going again. Yeah, fair enough. And just secondly, we've seen a few budget cuts recently from Canadian producers. You know, what impact do you see, direct or indirect, on your outlook for market fundamentals for your services as a result of some of these cuts? And certainly, it might change if we continue to see more, but overall, things look to be relatively stable or up a little bit from last year in terms of a total CapEx spending perspective, but we have seen some of those cuts recently. So, how significant of a risk do you see this as, you know, to your business in terms of financial results differing materially year-over-year, or just generally the tightness in the market? Well, just like I think we said in the comments, we probably changed or we've changed our perspective. You know, on the last call, I would have said we would have expected an increase in activity in 2024, and now I would say we would expect a decrease in activity compared to 2023. You know, how significantly? I don't think that significantly, but I think it's a little early to tell in the budget cycle for 2024. You know, part of me says this, you know, anytime there's a downturn, it's the perfect time to increase your investment. So, you know, how will it impact us? I mean, it could prove to be some great investment opportunities. You know, we've run the balance... We've run the company to you know, not just sort of weather these situations, but to take advantage of them, right? So we have no sort of concerns about anything other than making sure we don't miss any really good opportunities out there that may come this summer. Okay, thanks very much. I'll leave it there. Once again, if you have a question, please press *, then 1. The next question comes from Cole Pereira with Stifel. Please go ahead. Hi, morning, all. So thinking about the 2024 outlook, is it fair to say that you think maybe margins degrading year-over-year are more of a factor than activity? And you talked about a slow January, but are you able to talk about how activity has been year-over-year, maybe excluding that? As I'd assume, any CapEx reductions will be more of a H2 of 2024 event, kind of similar with, with what Keith said. Yeah, I mean, anytime you have an activity downturn, even if it's, you know, 3%-5%, it always impacts margins because a lot of our competitors have very different balance sheets than we do, and so they get antsy. So definitely there'll be a margin impact going forward. And I think to your point, you know, that might be more than the overall activity change. I would say activity in the quarter, excluding January, is pretty much consistent with last year. Got it. Thanks. - yeah, February, March of this year would be very similar to last year. Got you. And then any updates you can provide on how you're kind of thinking about your frac sand logistics strategy? No, no updates other than, you know, I think we will have sort of investment in the ground and working this year. Got it. Thanks. You know, obviously, you're still active with the buyback, but the pace seems to be slowing a bit, compared to last year, you know, despite having a bunch of cash and significant free cash flow generation, shares pulling back a little bit. How are you, how are you guys kind of thinking about the buyback, you know, relative to how active you were last year? Well, you can't compare this year with last year without comparing the stock price and the multiples associated with those stock prices. And so we're very opportunistic in the market. So any, you know, any time, like last year, where we had a total disconnect of market price from cash flow generation, we'll get very aggressive. Got it. Thanks. That's all for me. I'll turn it back. The next question comes from Josef Schachter with Schachter Energy Research. Please go ahead. Super. Thanks very much, and, thanks for taking my questions. Brad, you mentioned that you wanted to grow your coiled tubing fleet from 7 to 10. Are there any technology changes going on, you know, like we saw in the frac fleet, that building new equipment with all the latest technologies would be better than buying, you know, equipment that's out there that's working now from a competitor that's not as strong balance sheet as yourselves? Just wondering if there's an upgrade cycle in coiled tubing like we saw in the frac fleet. Yeah, good question. You know, any coil that we added will come from our existing, idle fleet, so we won't be purchasing any new equipment. There's not so much technology on the coil side, but there's lots of technology on the tool side. And so, you know, those go hand in hand, and so we're that, you know, we're participating in any new technologies that would, you know, have a corresponding effect on our coil unit utilization. You know, just the overall fracs, I mean, the changes in frac with more stages and more overall sand drives coil utilization as well. So, you know, there's no real shift changes like we've seen with the Tier 4 natural gas engines. But, you know, we're certainly looking at applying that same technology to coil as well. There's no reason, you know, no reason why we eventually we can't. I mean, there's natural gas tractors that are in the market today. You know, we're always looking for ways to take, to reduce diesel consumption and increase natural gas consumption on location, whether it's with fracing, cementing, or coil. Okay. Second question for me. When you're having your customer discussions, related to later this year and 2025, once LNG Canada comes on, are you finding that they're thinking of waiting until they see a CAD 2.50, CAD 3.50, a CAD 3 kind of handle on AECO? Or is it just that they know there's 2 BCF more, there's got to be more... If you don't have the gas, you got to drill it up. What, what's your thinking and, and, and the kind of conversations you're having, and what's your thought process? Is it price sensitive or is it, volume sensitive? I think the answer to all of those questions is both. You know, like, we've got the LNG Canada partners that, you know, would have some production requirements that need to be filled. But of course, other parties that whether they're selling into that or not, you know, we're looking at gas prices, and, you know, you've got a real differentiated. We've got a summer strip that's consistent with today's prices, followed up by a winter strip that's significantly higher. And so I think most of the people, most of the customers that we talk to, you know, expect much better, a much better market in 2025. And certainly the LNG Canada partners, you know, and I in no way speak for them, but I would expect they're trying to design sort of just-in-time inventory as much as they possibly can. Thanks very much. Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Fedora for any closing remarks. Please go ahead. Okay, thanks, everyone. Thank you for your time and attention to our company. The management team will be available today to answer any questions that you need to follow along with. Thank you very much. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.