Earnings Call Transcript - AROC Q4 2024

Operator, Operator

Good morning. Welcome to Archrock's Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2024 Conference Call. Your host today is Megan Repine, Vice President of Investor Relations at Archrock. I will now turn the call over to Ms. Repine. You may begin.

Megan Repine, Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, Celine. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us on today's call. With me today are Brad Childers, President and Chief Executive Officer of Archrock; and Doug Aaron, Chief Financial Officer of Archrock. Yesterday, Archrock released its financial and operating results for the fourth quarter and full-year 2024, as well as annual guidance for 2025. If you have not received a copy, you can find the information on the company's website at www.archrock.com. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 based on our current beliefs and expectations as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Archrock’s management team. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Please refer to our latest filings with the SEC for a list of factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements made during this call. In addition, our discussion today will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures including adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS. For reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to our GAAP financial results, please see yesterday's press release and our Form 8-K furnished to the SEC. I'll now turn the call over to Brad to discuss Archrock’s fourth quarter and full-year results and to provide an update for our business.

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

Thank you, Megan, and good morning, everyone. Across the board, Archrock delivered excellence in 2024. Excellence in safety, customer service, operational performance, and financial results. We achieved this during one of the busiest compression markets we've ever experienced, and while concurrently completing a transformative acquisition that established Archrock as the leader in electric compression. Before turning the page to 2025, I want to take a moment to thank and congratulate our dedicated employees on an extensive list of 2024 accomplishments, which included records for almost every operational and financial metric. Among the highlights, we reported record adjusted EPS and adjusted EBITDA. Compared to 2023, we increased our adjusted EPS by 69% and adjusted EBITDA by more than 30%. Our teams worked tirelessly to meet our customers' robust demands. We increased our contract compression operating fleet by 716,000 horsepower, excluding sales of non-strategic assets. This growth reflects organic investments in new build horsepower as well as the acquisition of TOPS. We maintained an all-time high equipment utilization, ending the year at 96%. As we met this demand, we recorded over 4.5 million man hours and drove 24 million miles. In this exceptionally busy environment and despite a dynamic labor market, we continued to deliver industry-leading safety performance. Our contract operations and aftermarket services segments delivered record-setting adjusted gross margins due to continued pricing improvement, enhanced efficiency, and a continued focus on managing costs. This step change in our earnings power enabled us to return $124 million in capital to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. We also concurrently delivered outstanding dividend coverage of 3.1 times for the full-year 2024 and drove our year-end leverage ratio to an impressive 3.3 times. And we're even more excited about what we are positioned to deliver in 2025. Our investment in high-quality assets, exceptional customer service, and implementation of innovative technology is translating into repeatable results and driving value for our customers and our shareholders. We kick off 2025 in an enviable position, and I expect Archrock to continue to raise the bar for the compression industry. In 2025, we're focused on the following three business objectives. First, capturing opportunities presented by this robust market. We believe that the increases in natural gas production and demand for compression is part of a structural change requiring significant investment in additional natural gas production infrastructure in which compression and Archrock will play a critical part. Our investment returns remained strong and support our ability to generate stable and growing cash flows today and over time. Second, maximizing the reliability of our service for our customers. In addition to the supportive macro-environment, we're remaining proactive in our focus on innovation, efficiency, and improvement. We believe this is critical to our success and ongoing position as the premier compression provider. We will continue to prioritize the standardization of our field operating model and the enhanced adoption of the technology that we've implemented over the past couple of years. Third, helping answer the call on all businesses to reduce carbon emissions. We are the leader in electric motor drive compression and expertise. The planned expansion of our electric motor drive fleet not only provides environmental benefits but should also augment customer uptime and Archrock’s operational efficiency. In addition, our new venture theme is advancing opportunities to bring methane emissions detection, measurements, and capture solutions to market. These opportunities are adjacent and complementary to our core contract compression services. As these offerings move out of the pilot phase, we are working to bring these early-stage products to market in order to help our customers and the industry identify, quantify, and reduce emissions. Now let me dive deeper into the fantastic market we see for compression. The primary driver of our business is natural gas demand and production, which we see ramping up in 2025 and well into the future. Natural gas remains a reliable, affordable, and cleaner source of energy domestically, and the U.S. continues to be a significant player in the global market for natural gas. First, on 2025. The EIA is forecasting 2% to 3% annual growth in production of both oil and natural gas this year. Natural gas production growth continues to be led by key Archrock oil-producing markets that have associated gas, like the Permian. And growth in crude oil production is expected to continue driving demand for compression for gas lift applications. Looking beyond this year, we expect LNG demand, exports to Mexico, power generation, and the emerging opportunity presented by the onshoring of AI data centers to require a significant call on U.S. natural gas production. To support this production, the U.S. will need to make substantial investments to expand the natural gas transportation infrastructure in the U.S. This includes gathering systems, processing plants, pipelines, and compression. Our customers need our equipment, our service, and our people. We intend to support them in what we believe will be a durable and rewarding investment cycle for natural gas production and natural gas infrastructure, including compression. With this continuing strong market for compression to support the transportation of natural gas and the production of oil, we have a substantial contract backlog for 2025; we're booking units for 2026 delivery, and we believe we will continue to see strong customer demand for new equipment well into next year. Moving to our segments, we posted record results in contract operations during Q4 and 2024. Revenue and profitability outperformed in our pre-acquisition business, and we were able to capture the full impact of the accretive TOPS transaction, which came through in our fourth quarter performance. Our fleet remained fully utilized during the quarter with utilization exiting the quarter at a rate of 96%. Looking at period-end operating horsepower in the fourth quarter compared to the third, we delivered approximately 93,000 in active horsepower growth, excluding approximately 45,000 horsepower in non-core asset sales. Average operating horsepower during the fourth quarter of 4.2 million horsepower was up from 3.8 million in the third quarter and 3.6 million a year ago, reflecting the acquisition of the TOPS fleet, which closed in August 2024, as well as organic growth. Monthly revenue for horsepower has also moved higher. In 2025, we expect to benefit from a full year's impact of rate increases from 2024, and we also expect additional increments throughout the year. I'm proud to say that we delivered 2024 adjusted gross margin dollars of $657 million, which was up $155 million from 2023. This translated into a 500 basis point increase in our gross margin percentage for the year. Notably, we achieved a quarterly high for 2024 of 70% during the fourth quarter. Going forward, our efforts to standardize, digitize, and automate should position us to continue delivering outstanding profitability. Moving to our aftermarket services segment, despite some seasonal softness during the fourth quarter, full-year 2024 activity stayed strong, while profitability remains substantially higher compared to historical levels as we focus on higher quality and higher marginal work. This level of performance and consistency in results is the best we have seen in a long time. Great leadership and customer service by our AMS team is driving repeat business with key customers and keeps us optimistic about 2025. Shifting to our capital allocation framework for 2025. Our approach continues to be rooted in a returns-based strategy that balances our leverage position, investment in high-quality opportunities presented by the market, and returns to shareholders. Yesterday, we announced our 2025 capital plan, which includes between $330 and $370 million of growth investment in our fleet, the vast majority of which is already under contract. The IRRs at which we expect to invest new build capital are strong, and we will continue to meet the needs of our customer base through new build investments to support the sustainable growth in U.S. oil and gas production that we see ahead. These 2025 new build investments are focused on large midstream and electric motor drive compression units tied to natural gas and oil production in key growth plays like the Permian. The acquisition of TOPS and its book of business is a meaningful contributor to the increases in the absolute level of 2025 growth capital compared to 2024. As we invest in these compelling opportunities, we're committed to maintaining an industry-leading balance sheet and plan to maintain a leverage ratio of between 3 to 3.5 times. This underpins our ability to execute on our plans and opportunistically adapt to market conditions. Finally, as shareholders ourselves, management and the board are focused on maintaining a well-covered dividend that grows along with the profitability increases in our underlying business. Given our confidence in the outlook for compression, as well as Archrock's sector-leading financial flexibility, we recently announced a 15% year-over-year increase in our quarterly dividends. Archrock continues to perform at an exceptional level, reflecting consistent operational execution and the successful progression of our strategic initiatives. We carried significant momentum into 2025. In addition to capturing market opportunities, we will be expanding the implementation of technology and processes to improve our operations to drive efficiency and profitability. I'm confident in our ability to generate stable and growing cash flows today and over time, and I'm confident the best is yet to come. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Doug for a review of our fourth quarter and full-year performance and to provide additional color on our 2025 guidance.

Doug Aron, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Brad. Good morning and I appreciate everyone for joining us. Let's review our fourth quarter and full-year results before discussing our financial outlook for 2025. For the fourth quarter of 2024, our net income was $60 million. After excluding transaction-related costs and adjusting for taxes, our adjusted net income was $62 million, or $0.35 per share. We reported an adjusted EBITDA of $184 million for the fourth quarter. Our business performed strongly during this time, with increased total adjusted gross margin dollars for contract operations sequentially. We also gained $13 million from net asset sales related to non-strategic horsepower sales. Our quarterly results included an $8 million sequential rise in SG&A expenses, largely driven by the stock price increase this year, leading to higher long-term incentive compensation and additional performance-based compensation due to better-than-expected results in 2024. In terms of our business segments, contract operations revenue reached $286 million in the fourth quarter, a 17% increase from the third quarter. This significant rise is due to a full quarter's contribution from the TOPS acquisition, organic horsepower growth, and higher pricing. Compared to the third quarter, our adjusted gross margin dollars increased by $35 million, resulting in a record adjusted gross margin percentage of 70%. In our AMS segment, we reported fourth quarter 2024 revenue of $40 million, which is a decline compared to both the third quarter and the same period last year, mainly due to seasonal softness and delays in service work expected to be completed in the first half of 2025. The fourth quarter AMS adjusted gross margin percentage was 23%, down from 26% in the third quarter and 22% year-over-year. At the end of the year, we had a total debt of $2.2 billion and robust liquidity of nearly $700 million. Our leverage ratio at year-end was 3.3 times, calculated as year-end 2024 total debt divided by our trailing 12-month EBITDA, down from 3.5 times in the fourth quarter of 2023, highlighting our strong operational performance and careful financing following the TOPS acquisition. We aim to maintain a consistent leverage ratio of 3 to 3.5 times through different business cycles. This financial flexibility supports increased returns to our shareholders. We recently declared a higher fourth quarter dividend of $0.19 per share or $0.70 annually, which marks a rise of about 9% from the third quarter dividend and 15% from last year. Cash available for dividends in the fourth quarter of 2024 totaled $118 million, allowing for strong dividend coverage of 3.5 times. Archrock announced 2025 annual guidance with our recent earnings release. Detailed information can be found in the materials published, and I will provide a high-level overview for this call. Our 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance range is set at $750 million to $790 million. At the midpoint, this indicates an increase of $175 million compared to the $595 million in 2024, or nearly 30%. In contract operations, we expect full-year revenue to rise by 24% at the midpoint relative to 2024, driven by horsepower growth, continued robust utilization, and increased pricing. We anticipate an adjusted gross margin percentage in the range of 68% to 71% for 2025, up from 67% in 2024. This reflects both top-line growth and our enhanced fleet, alongside our ongoing efforts to maximize profitability through technology and expense control during this upcycle. For our AMS business, we project full-year revenue between $190 million and $210 million, along with a sustained level of healthy service activity seen in 2024. We also aim to preserve the profitability gains we've made, expecting an adjusted gross margin percentage between 22% and 24%. With respect to capital expenditures, we anticipate total capital spending in 2025 to range from approximately $470 million to $535 million. We expect growth CapEx to be between $330 million and $370 million to support investments in new horsepower and repackaged CapEx to meet ongoing customer demand, compared to growth CapEx of $251 million in 2024. This increase corresponds to sustained demand from key customers and premier plays, supported by multi-year contracts, as well as underspending and carryover from 2024 due to supplier equipment delays. We also foresee $35 million to $50 million in other CapEx, mainly for new vehicles. We expect total capital expenditures to be mainly funded by operations, with potential additional support from non-strategic asset sales as we continue upgrading our fleet. Before we open the floor for questions, I'd like to highlight that following a very rewarding 2024, we have a promising outlook for 2025 and beyond. Industry fundamentals for oil and gas production and compression demand remain robust. We are committed to continuous improvement and maintaining our position at Archrock as the leading compression company in America for our employees, customers, and investors. With that, Celine, we are ready to take questions.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Your first question comes from Jim Rollyson with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Jim Rollyson, Analyst

Hey, good morning, guys, and solid work again on the quarter and the year. Brad, last quarter I remember talking about the strong margin post you did in compression and kind of asking around the sustainability of it, and I remember you commenting that you think it's sustainable and perhaps expandable through some of the things you're doing internally, and that obviously came through this quarter and in your margin guidance. As you look out at the things you're doing and the fact that pricing on average is still rolling higher, where can that go? What's the ceiling on margins based on the things that are going on internally?

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

Thanks, Jim. As we approach 100%, the curve is definitely going to be less steep. We're really proud of the gains we've made. The team has worked extremely hard to both focus on leveraging the pricing position that we have in the market today given the extremely high utilization at 96%, but also to continue to manage cost and efficiencies through the investments in technology that we've made. So never say never; we're really pleased with this margin performance and the returns that we can drive to our investors. But at this level of profitability, the main thing we're going to focus on now is growing a very profitable business by investing in high-return assets and long-term contracts to support the infrastructure build-out going forward. So, we are still going to continue to work on the profitability of this business, but at the level we've achieved now, we think it's a green light to grow the business, support our customers' growth, and provide the infrastructure needed to power America.

Jim Rollyson, Analyst

Understood. As a follow-up regarding growth capital expenditures, can you share some statistics on the total horsepower you plan to add in 2025? Additionally, could you provide insights on the balance between your traditional large horsepower capacity and the current gas lift opportunities, particularly in light of the TOPS transaction? Furthermore, how are you considering growth capital expenditures beyond 2025, especially with the year-over-year increase, which Doug mentioned includes some catch-up? If you could address this comprehensively, that would be appreciated.

Doug Aron, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, we just released guidance on 2025 CapEx yesterday. We're not going to guide 2026 quite yet, but it's a great question. Let me address a couple of the components. With the CapEx budget that we're tabling, we'll deliver over 200,000 horsepower in the year. The number is elevated a bit because of the expansion of our overall base fleet with TOPS as we noted. And in the split, about 80% of the budget is going to go to large horsepower midstream gas drive engines and 20% to 25% of the budget is going to go toward electric motor drive, the vast bulk of which is on gas lift. So that's the rough split between these. But overall, I'd say that this capital budget is just engineered to meet our customers' demands expectations. When you step back and look at what we're focusing on, the amount that the EIA forecast for growth in the business is totally validated by the commitments we're getting from our customers to enter into long-term contracts and bookings. 2025 is booked and now we're moving into 2026, and we're going to maintain our focus on the two most profitable segments of the space, and that is large horsepower gas drive and electric motor drive equipment.

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

Jim, I'll just add, now that the secret's out that perhaps we script some of our prepared remarks. The page that was missing here for me was that about $15 million of this year's CapEx is carryover from 2024. So apologies for that.

Jim Rollyson, Analyst

Yeah, no worries. Thanks, I appreciate that. Thanks, guys.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Doug Irwin with Citi. Please go ahead.

Doug Irwin, Analyst

Hey, thanks for the question. Just trying to start with the 2025 guidance, wondering if you could provide a bit more detail on some of the assumptions you're making into the high end and low end of the range here. You already gave some detail around the fleet additions, which is helpful, but just specifically kind of curious how much of that range is driven by pricing tailwinds versus maybe the timing of fleet additions throughout the year.

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

The guidance focuses primarily on profitability, and we will discuss the factors influencing it. Throughout the year, our pricing strategies and gross margin will significantly impact our success in implementing price increases and managing costs in a rapidly growing market. These factors are crucial to the profitability outlined in our margin guidance. Regarding contract operations, the ability of our customers to fully utilize the horsepower we aim to deploy this year is essential. These are the primary factors driving our contract operations business. On the AMS side, forecasting remains challenging, and the guidance range reflects our difficulty in providing accurate predictions for that segment. However, we are very pleased with the activity and profitability levels we are currently achieving, which are at record highs for that business.

Doug Aron, Chief Financial Officer

And I maybe would just add, I know you may not be new to compression, but newer to the Archrock coverage side. It's a pretty tight range, we think, given that it's February and we feel good about that range and as Brad highlighted, there are a few things that can lead us to either end of that spectrum as there are still a solid 10 months left in the year, but also understanding that we try to give you as tight of a range as we feel comfortable at the beginning of the year.

Doug Irwin, Analyst

Yeah, understood. I appreciate all that detail. As a follow-up, just wondering if you could talk about where you might be seeing demand opportunities outside of the Permian; you talked about a lot of the growing demand drivers around LNG and data center demand in your prepared remarks. Just curious if you're seeing increased opportunities in other basins, or if you're still just largely focused on the Permian here over the next few years?

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

The Permian is consuming 60% to 70% of our new build capital going forward, but we do see growth opportunities, albeit smaller in scale in other plays, and we saw growth, for example, in the fourth quarter of 2024 and incrementally in the Haynesville, in the Bakken, and in the Northeast. So much more incremental, but we see it there. But I'm going to highlight the other quality we have in our operation today is incredible stability in some of the plays that are not attracting new capital and growing, but still providing a high level of profitability, including, for example, the Eagle Ford.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Q – Unidentified Analyst, Analyst

Hey, this is indiscernible on for Jeremy. I wanted to start by noting that one of your competitors mentioned that the increased customer demand is leading to higher prices and chances for longer-term contracts. How is the team balancing the month-to-month mix with the opportunities for longer-term agreements? I understand there might be potential for both, but I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

Yes, I'm going to be limited in the comments I'm willing to share on a point that compares contract terms across the industry, but what I would describe is we see the opportunity, as you've seen in our performance to date, to both maintain record utilization, drive very good pricing. When you look at Q4-2023 versus Q4-2024, our revenue for horsepower is up approximately 15%, as well as to extend the terms of our contracts with customers where the midstream application is going to be a long-term application. So we do think that in this robust market where our fleet is more valuable, our services are seriously valuable, utilization is tight, and we're delivering excellent service to our customers, we see the opportunity to maximize on both.

Q – Unidentified Analyst, Analyst

Got it, that's helpful. And you touched a little bit on other basin plays, so can we just help frame some of the dry gas basin activity and the implications for the business, if there's somewhat of a ramp in some of those other basins? What are the implications for Archrock specifically and how much of that is contemplated in the 2025 guide?

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

Without repeating too much, the amount of activity and capital will deploy into plays other than the Permian is roughly 30%. And so that's an indication of what we think is going to happen in 2025 in plays outside of the Permian. Thinking about the dry gas context longer term, however, right now the best indication for us is to look at where the industry is putting their CapEx, and the industry continues to put their CapEx into the Permian by and large, and that hasn't changed. We don't see that changing immediately, but we are encouraged by the dry gas pricing that we're seeing today and some of the reactivation by our customers. From a scale perspective, however, it's not going to compare to the amount of capital and growth that we should expect out of the Permian over 2025 and 2026.

Q – Unidentified Analyst, Analyst

Got it. Helpful, thanks.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Selman Akyol with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Selman Akyol, Analyst

Thank you for the time. Good morning. Just a couple of quick ones. In terms of the pricing that you're seeing out there, can you make any commentary on whether you're seeing a difference between sort of the traditional gas versus the electric? Is one or the other having more pricing power than the other?

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

I can comment on it. We do not see a difference in pricing between the two as demanding and better or more premium than the other. In fact, those opportunities compete from a returns perspective fairly well head-to-head, both for our customers and for us. So, we don't really see much of a difference. The nice thing about the business that we operate today is that since we have made the investment in TOPS, we now have an excellent offering on both the gas drive side as well as the electric motor side. We can grow on both sides, and we see demand as being strong for both electric motor drive and gas drive going forward.

Selman Akyol, Analyst

Got it, thank you for that. And the next one, you guys referenced several times talking about longer contract periods or seeing deploying for longer periods. I'm just curious, when you say that, should we be thinking in terms of like you won't do a contract for like 3 years or 4 years; everything is going to be sort of 5+ years in duration. Are you seeing enough demand out there to support that?

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

You used a few superlatives, including the word everything, so the answer to that is going to be nuanced. Our business model is that we are going to meet our customers' wishes. And for various reasons, including approval levels, size of projects, and where decisions get made within our customer base, we see contract durations of various terms being a part of the business going forward. It's in our portfolio now as part of the business going forward. So that baseline is what I wanted to say, but with that baseline established, a couple of thoughts. The first is for us to deploy new build capital, especially large units today, we're seeking longer contract terms. And so that's more a part of new build deployment than it is a part of the overall business, especially with existing units in dry gas plays, for example. The second point I'll make is that with our customer base, we've established twenty-year relationships. We are a cornerstone part of their overall operations and of their capital stack. We do this under master agreements that are in place and just get renewed periodically that govern the entire relationship, including the separate work orders that we take down off those contracts for particular services at a location. That longer-term contract, that longer-term relationship approach is the overarching way we do business with our largest customers, which gives us a tremendous amount of stability and predictability in our operations overall. It's not just these 1, 3, 5+ year work orders.

Selman Akyol, Analyst

Got it, thank you so much.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Ferazani with Sidoti. Please go ahead.

Steve Ferazani, Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Appreciate all the detail on the call. I wanted to ask a couple of questions on some of your guidelines that surprised me. The guide for aftermarket revenue growth, double digits, maintaining that level of margin, coming off of this sort of seasonally slow Q4. Confidence level on being able to hit that double-digit growth; is that there's a lot more third-party assets out there now that require work? Is that just market share gains? What gets you to that kind of confidence level for 2025 on aftermarket?

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

As I said earlier, the one thing we have to remind is that this business can be notoriously hard to forecast, but we're pretty confident in our forecast for 2025, all things considered, customer activity remains high. Overall utilization in the market for contract operations is really tight, which indicates that the level of utilization within our customers is also quite high, meaning they have to keep their units running. They need our services. They need our technicians to help them do that, and that is providing for an oversized amount of services activity compared to parts than we've seen in the past, and that is a more profitable segment within our overall aftermarket services segment. So, we're confident in the guidance range that we delivered.

Doug Aron, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Steve, the only thing I'd add is I think we talked about it in the prepared remarks. November and December, we absolutely have line of sight to some jobs that just got postponed, and we expect to execute in the first 3 or 4 months of this year. And so I think that just with overall demand that Brad described looking good and strong and maintenance upcoming is where we came with that. And admittedly, still a relatively small part of our overall business.

Steve Ferazani, Analyst

Great, that's helpful. The other one was on maintenance and other CapEx guide for next year. We saw the first full quarter with TOPS, and your maintenance CapEx was a little over $20 million. I'm a little bit surprised the maintenance CapEx for next year would be at that higher level. Could that turn out to be a little bit high? And is there anything other than vehicles in that other CapEx number, which is a lot higher off the 2024?

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

I'll speak to the maintenance CapEx and Doug will speak to the other CapEx. On the maintenance CapEx, there are a few drivers of that, the amount of maintenance CapEx that we're spending, but the elevated level that we see next year is required to maintain our equipment, knowing that the biggest driver is which units are coming due for major maintenance over a calendar period. So when you look back, it's the timing of fleet additions that really dictate the timing of the next overhaul. And so the selections for next year are just on more units and larger units that are going to drive a higher level of expense to maintain the equipment, couple that with the addition of TOPS and the inflation that we've experienced over the last few years, that's providing for the building blocks for that maintenance CapEx. The important point I want to make, however, is that we believe we must maintain and invest in maintaining our units to be very competitive. We've worked really hard to have the youngest fleet we have had in more than a decade in operation today, competing well and delivering a time for our customers, making sure we maintain the units with discipline is a critical success factor for us to continue to do that.

Doug Aron, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, and on the other CapEx, again, the vast majority is for trucks. There are software licensing and some other things, buildings or maintenance that may creep into that, but that's all very small by comparison.

Steve Ferazani, Analyst

Great. Thanks so much, Brad, Doug.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Josh Jayne with Daniel Energy Partners. Please go ahead.

Josh Jayne, Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. First question, I'm going to sort of roll into two. Could you update us on lead times for new equipment today? And then the second, I know it's a moving target with new administrations, but when we think about new equipment, is there any thought that tariffs could put any pressure on new equipment? And if so, how you guys are thinking about that and planning for that?

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

Lead times remain in what I would call a very normalized market range right now, 42 weeks, 44 weeks is the range for long lead items. That's very close to the historic norm. We do see some risk of that pushing out a bit, but not overly concerned about that at this time. The tariff question is vexing. I think it's very difficult for anybody to answer with any certainty. I'll point out that we and our major vendors, including the OEMs, source most of their material in the U.S., so the supply base will have some time before tariffs could impact it. We need to watch it carefully. We don't have any certainty on this, but there is of course a risk that longer-term that steel tariffs could impact the business in the same way that some of the supply chain challenges did back in the 2020 and 2021 timeframe, but we're not expecting that. We're working closely with our key suppliers now to assess that risk, and we don't see it as being material at this time.

Josh Jayne, Analyst

Okay, thank you. I'll turn it back.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Nate Pendleton with Texas Capital. Please go ahead.

Nate Pendleton, Analyst

Good morning and congrats on the strong quarter. Going back to the CapEx guidance for 2025 for a moment, can you provide any color on the shape of that CapEx spending throughout the year, knowing that there was some carried forward from 2024?

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

I believe that for the most part, you can think of it as rateable. The first quarter will likely be the largest again due to some carryover, along with strong demand for Q1, but after that, it should start to stabilize throughout the year. Regarding the CapEx spending, even though it's challenging to forecast and we don't provide guidance, we've observed that non-strategic asset sales have contributed to our cash flow over the years, helping us maintain a positive free cash flow situation. While we don't anticipate any such sales for this year, it's something you might consider in your modeling.

Nate Pendleton, Analyst

Got it, great color, thanks. As my follow-up, how are you thinking about share repurchases now as part of the capital allocation, given your bullish outlook on the sector and the rising dividend?

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

I think we think about it the same way we always have, which is it's a tool in the toolbox for us, and we have at least historically used that a bit more opportunistically when we see some weakness in the share price. It will continue to be a tool in the toolbox for us. We would like to have some presence there. Buying stock back if there's an opportunity to do so, I think like the dividend and like our growth CapEx, it's something that the board will discuss with management quarterly.

Nate Pendleton, Analyst

Thanks for taking my questions.

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Q – Unidentified Analyst, Analyst

Hey, thanks for squeezing me back in. Just had one more. I guess thinking about U.S. crude production, and recognizing things look pretty good in the Permian, but in the scenario where things maybe started to slow, and I know gas demand looks really good and you touched on that in your opening remarks, but just can you talk a little bit about what the oil macro, like a weakening of that would do to Archrock and if there were any slowdown in Permian production maybe beyond 2025 if you can give comments there.

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

The slowdown in oil production growth would likely result in a slowdown in our business growth as well. However, the advantage of our operations is that we are highly dependent on production, which generally doesn't decrease. The growth may either slow or accelerate based on market conditions. With the substantial capital we are investing and the infrastructure we need to build, we might see some reduction in growth around 2026. Nonetheless, we believe this change would not pose a significant risk to our business, aside from an overall slowing of growth, due to our leverage related to both oil and natural gas production.

Operator, Operator

There are no more questions. I would like now to turn the call over to Mr. Childers for final remarks.

Bradley Childers, President and CEO

Thank you, everyone, for participating in our Q4 review call. On almost all accounts, 2024 was a record year for Archrock, and I'm optimistic that 2025 is shaping up to be an even better year as we benefit from the strong dynamics that are driving oil and gas production growth in the U.S. and reap the benefits of our investments to build a first-rate compression business. I look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.