SLNG Stabilis Solutions, Inc.

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Stabilis Solutions, Inc. Q3 F2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator
Conference Call Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the operator. We will be getting started in just a few minutes. Thank you for your patience. You will be placed back on music hold until start. Welcome to the Stabilis Solutions third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 1 again. So others can hear your questions clearly, we ask that you pick up your handset for best sound quality. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press Store 0. I would now like to turn the call over to Andy Puhala, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Puhala, please go ahead.
Andy Puhala
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Good morning, and welcome to Stabilis Solutions' third quarter 2026 results conference call. I'm Andy Puhala, Senior Vice President and CFO of Stabilis, and joining me today is our Executive Chairman and Interim President and CEO, Casey Crenshaw. We issued a press release after the market closed yesterday detailing our third quarter operational and financial results. This release is publicly available in the investor relations section of our corporate website at Stabilis-Solutions.com. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's conference call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other securities laws. These forward-looking statements are based on the company's expectations and beliefs as of today, November 5, 2026. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. The company undertakes no obligation to provide updates or revisions to the forward-looking statements made in today's call. Additional information concerning factors that could cause those differences is contained in our filings with the SEC and in the press release announcing our results. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Further, please note that we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial information on today's call. You can find reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in our earnings press release. Today's call is being recorded and will be available for replay. With that, I'll hand the call over to Casey Crenshaw for his remarks.
Casey Crenshaw
Executive Chairman and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Andy, and good morning to everyone joining us today. Our third quarter results were in line with our expectations and consistent with the outlook we provided on our call last quarter. Revenue improved 25% sequentially and adjusted EBITDA improved to $1.9 million. Following the conclusion of multiple large contracts at the end of 2025, we have now turned a corner with momentum continuing to build ahead of what we expect will be a record 2027 for Stabilis. The driver of the sequential improvement from the second quarter was the short-term behind-the-meter power generation contract we secured earlier this year to support the commissioning of a U.S. data center. We began delivering LNG under the agreement in August. As a result, data center-related revenue represented 17% of our total revenue in the third quarter compared to less than 1% in the second quarter. This project will conclude in the fourth quarter. Looking ahead, our focus is squarely on 2027. Our multi-year agreement to supply LNG for behind-the-meter bridge power at a U.S. data center expected to be the largest contract to date in our company's history, remains on track to begin in the first quarter of 2027, and will ramp during the second and third quarters. We are progressing as planned on the pre-commissioning for the project, with more than $15 million of specific project equipment on order and scheduled for delivery ahead of start-up. The investment required for the readiness is fully funded by customer advance payments under the contract. We are also finalizing LNG supply agreements for the project, along with backup supply alternatives to support reliable delivery. Beyond the contracts in hand, demand for small-scale LNG to support behind-the-meter power at data centers remains robust. We think about these opportunities in four phases, construction, Commissioning, Bridge Power, and Long-Term Backup. Our commercial team is bidding on additional work across multiple phases of data center demand. We believe we are well positioned to extend our growth runway well beyond 2027 and the contract that begins next year. Outside of the data center market, aerospace remains the other key growth engine of our business. Revenue from aerospace customers increased 49% year-over-year in the third quarter, driven by increasing pace of launch and testing activity and a growing number of commercial space customers. These customers have demanding purity and delivery requirements. and the operating track record we have built with them is difficult to replicate. We are currently in discussions with multiple space customers for long-term off-take agreements. Turning to Galveston, we continue to engage with prospective customers and financing partners and we believe the project offers an attractive long-term growth opportunity for Stabilis. That said, we are not ready to commit to a timeline for FID, which remains subject to arranging a final financing structure and securing sufficient commercial offtake. While we remain super excited about the long-term value of the project and what it could and we believe will create, our primary short-term and near-term growth opportunities remain in the aerospace and behind-the-meter data center power projects. To close, the third quarter marked the beginning of a transformational period for Stabilis. While fourth quarter revenues will reflect the conclusion of our short-term data center project, we expect meaningful revenue growth in 2027. We have returned to profitability on a net income basis, our largest contract is funded and on schedule, and our growth in markets are expanding. We expect this momentum to build in 2027 and we remain committed to delivering value for our customers and our shareholders through disciplined capital allocation and focused execution. With that, I'll turn the call over to Andy for a detailed review of our financials.
Andy Puhala
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Casey. I'll begin with a discussion of our third quarter performance followed by an update on our cash flow, balance sheet, liquidity and capital spending. Third quarter revenue was $14.8 million, a decrease of 27% compared to the third quarter of 2025. Similar to the first two quarters of the year, the year-over-year decline reflects the completion of large marine and power generation contracts in the fourth quarter of 2025, partially offset by continued growth in aerospace, where revenue increased 49% compared to the prior year period, as well as growth in our legacy industrial business. On a sequential basis, revenue increased $2.9 million, or 25%, from $11.9 million in the second quarter. That increase was primarily driven by the short-term data center contract that began deliveries in August, which took data center-related revenue from less than 1% of the total in the second quarter to 17% in the third. Adjusted EBITDA was $1.9 million in the third quarter, compared to $2.9 million in the prior year period with a decrease attributable to the completion of the two large multi-year contracts in the fourth quarter of 2025. Sequentially, adjusted EBITDA increased to $1.9 million from $0.1 million in the second quarter, primarily due to the higher revenues. Net income was $0.2 million, or one cent per diluted share, compared to net income of $1.1 million in the third quarter of 2025 and a net loss of $4.6 million in the second quarter. I would also note that SG&A was $2.5 million in the quarter, essentially flat with the second quarter and down from $2.8 million a year ago. Turning to cash flow, operating cash flow was $3.9 million in the third quarter compared to $2.4 million a year ago and included a $5 million customer advance payment for our 2027 data center contract. Second quarter operating cash flow was $7.1 million which also included a $5 million advance payment. So the sequential decline primarily reflects changes in working capital. Year-to-date, cash flow from operations totaled $23.4 million, reflecting the full $25 million of advance payments we've now received under the contract. At quarter end, cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash totaled $18.4 million compared to $18.9 million at the end of the second quarter. Of the $18.4 million, $16.8 million is restricted to support equipment purchases and other preparations for the 2027 data center contract, and $1.5 million is unrestricted. Capital expenditures totaled $4 million during the quarter, compared to $2.3 million in the second quarter, bringing year-to-date capital of spending to $11.5 million. These expenditures were primarily related to equipment and infrastructure for the upcoming data center contract, Looking ahead, we expect to continue investing to secure equipment and guaranteed supply ahead of the first quarter 2027 start, and we expect those investments to continue to be funded by the advance payments already received. Before I close, a brief reminder on the points we made last quarter about the earnings profile of the business as we continue to scale. Nothing here is new, and we're not providing 2027 guidance, but with the third quarter now behind us, they're worth keeping in mind. First, our fixed cost base is largely in place and we do not expect those costs to grow in proportion to revenue as the 2027 contract comes online, which should drive meaningful operating leverage. Second, we'll service much of the incremental power generation demand with third-party LNG, so it requires limited incremental capital and preserves our plant capacity to support continued growth with our aerospace and other existing customers. The equipment for the 2027 contract is being funded by advance payments already received. And third, our contracts pass through all commodity price risk. Taken together and in the context of a materially larger revenue base in 2027, this should translate into meaningful growth in adjusted EBITDA dollars and margin expansion into the high teens as execution accelerates. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the line for the Q&A session.
Operator
Conference Call Operator
The floor is now open for questions. At this time, if you have a question or comment, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question is answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 1 again. Again, we ask that you pick up your handset when posing your questions to provide optimal sound quality. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Martin Malloy with Johnson Rice. Please go ahead.
Martin Malloy
Johnson Rice
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions.
Andy Puhala
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Good morning, Marty.
Martin Malloy
Johnson Rice
Good morning. First question, I just wanted to ask about the aerospace markets.
Matt Dane
Titan Capital Management
And it sounded you're in your prepared remarks sounded incrementally positive on what's going on there.
Martin Malloy
Johnson Rice
Could you maybe talk a little bit more about the volumes involved with these discussions with customers for long-term offtake contracts versus your current business, and perhaps could this lead to investment in additional liquefaction capacity?
Casey Crenshaw
Executive Chairman and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, let me start, Marty, and again, thanks for joining the call today and covering the company. And I'll take it from a high level and then let Andy try to come in and answer anything additional. But, you know, look, we just, if we didn't, if we weren't clear, we believe Stabilis has three really dynamic markets that we operate in. One is the behind-the-meter power business that works in the hyperscale data centers, you know, just distributed power markets like all types of different end markets. Second is this giant marine bunkering infrastructure opportunity. And finally, it's the aerospace business that we've been heavily involved with since, you know, I guess 2018, 2019, you know, quite some time. And we provide high purity, reliable supply to people in the aerospace, primarily related to rockets and launching rockets. primarily for telecommunications, satellites, different things of the nature. We don't know exactly everything they do, but mainly those in markets. And we are just seeing the maturing of the business with both additional customers, so more clients that are real clients that buy product and need product, and the expansion and inclusion Thank you for joining us. But we have proximity to some clients and historical relationships with others, and we expect it to be a meaningful growth area for us. One of the challenges with the customers is due to the newness of some of the programs, you have anomalies, you have changes in timing, you have regulatory stuff that everybody's going through, so that changes some of the visibility of cadence. of everything, but we're starting to see clients ask for multi-year off-take arrangements, and we're having multiple customers that were involved with that. At the same time, there's conversations out there about some of the clients wanting to vertically integrate, so you have a lot of noise out there, but the growth is kind of beyond any of the negative noise out there. So I've touched it from a high, high level. and then I'll let Andy add to it if there's anything to add but we expect it to continue to grow to continue to grow as a in volume and revenue you know as a percentage of the overall company when you see the new behind the meter activity that's contracted that may grow you know as you look at percentages that may just outgrow that growth rate next year but we're seeing some tremendous growth rate and multi-year contracting happening in the aerospace industry. Your last question was, will we have enough demand or term contracts to add capacity? And we think we hope to, and if they want to contract that, we're in some discussions to add infrastructure and capacity. We've talked about contracting with even in the Galveston facility to bring it inbound, inland from there. We've talked about additional expansion opportunities with infrastructure, so we're actively involved with that, but we don't have anything to give you any forward guidance on that other than multiple customers now, multiple term contracting negotiations going on, so real positive overall market movements.
Operator
Conference Call Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Barry Hames with Sage Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Barry Hames
Sage Asset Management
Thanks. Congrats on the quarter. Had a couple questions. One is the new data center contract that's starting up in the first quarter. Is there an end date to that or just a little bit more feel for the term there? That's the first question. I have a couple others, but that's the first one.
Casey Crenshaw
Executive Chairman and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
First of all, thanks for being on the call. It's a multi-year contract. I'll let Andy give the details of what we can go over on that.
Andy Puhala
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, very good morning. What we've disclosed publicly is it's roughly a $200 million contract over two years, and it'll ramp starting in the beginning of next year. Now, it's bridge power, so a lot of these bridge power contracts depend on when The data center gets their permanent connections. So the initial contracts for two years, I think it is possible that that gets extended depending on the timing of grid connections and that sort of thing, but we just don't know yet.
Barry Hames
Sage Asset Management
Got it. Okay. Second question, could you give a little more of an update on the marine market and do you still have the cruise customer you used to have and just a little bit more color in that market. Thanks.
Casey Crenshaw
Executive Chairman and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, so I'll take it from a high level then let Andy come in after that. But yeah, the cruise or I should say marine bunkering business is something we've been doing. We talk about it a lot. We have a specific project that we've talked a lot about in the Houston Ship Channel, specifically Galveston related to A couple different cruise customer opportunities. We have one contract in hand with a long-term customer relationship. And when you look at the macro right now and you look at the alternatives of our really strong, high-credit-worthy cruise customers, they can either use marine gas oil, which is kind of a diesel-based product, or LNG, and their ships have switching capability. and because of the disruptions globally and the increased cost around those alternatives, their need for a fit for purpose asset to make LNG molecules and then have fit for purpose delivery capability and bunkering vessel is high and the macro is better than it's ever been for us to get an asset Thank you for joining us. and it requires significant committed offtake over a significant amount of time to make the project financing work for everybody. And so we're just working through those processes but the macro is really strong on moving that project forward and Stabilis' project is the furthest along and we believe the most efficiently cost process in the Gulf Coast region. And so we believe we're the leader of the pack in that area, but we still haven't gotten the project to final FID.
Barry Hames
Sage Asset Management
Okay, great. And just one quick follow-up on that is the, you know, in terms of how much offtake is committed to You know, I mean, just ballpark it. Is it a third committed half, two-thirds? Like, you know, just where are you in that process? You know, what inning are we in, if you will?
Casey Crenshaw
Executive Chairman and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, well, right now we've got about 25% of the committed offtake of that facility, the 350,000 gallons a day production. We don't need 100% offtake, but we need more than what we have now.
Barry Hames
Sage Asset Management
Got it. Fair enough. And then just last question. The three key markets you mentioned, behind the meter, the marine bunkering, and the aerospace. Could you give a rough sense of what percent of revenues each of those were? And whatever you think is most representative, either the third quarter just reported, year-to-date estimate for 27. I'm not looking for precision. I'm just looking for ballpark. Thanks.
Casey Crenshaw
Executive Chairman and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, let me give you the ballpark real quick. I think the best thing to do is to think about 27, 28, what we have booked and contracted right now. So we've already disclosed that we have one contract that's a $200 million contract, plus or minus, think about it, $100 million in revenue a year. We have other behind-the-meter power opportunities that we are bidding and actively working on and intend to execute on. And then we have the aerospace market which is growing really fast but a lower base when you think about percentages of growth rate. And then you talk about marine. Where we really see marine being very strong for Stabilis is out past, not next year, but hopefully getting some real revenue and earnings back during 2028. And when you look at the 10 years past there, we're really excited about that being an anchor year you know term duration while we have up and downs from both aerospace and behind the meter projects. So that is a not perfectly clear explanation but we see short term those kind of percentages happening and then when you look three years out and further and you start talking about how that backup power on behind the meter Demand starts happening where you need peaking opportunities with LNG around large behind-the-meter projects, and you continue to see the aerospace growing. Those can be major, major long-term contributors, consistent. But obviously, once we get the asset in on an FID, the Marine Project, that would be a meaningful percentage of revenue at that point in time. but that's not in our kind of next year plan, which we expect to be a record year for Stabilis.
Operator
Conference Call Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Matt Dane with Titan Capital Management. Please go ahead.
Matt Dane
Titan Capital Management
Great, thank you. I had a couple of questions here. First one, the data center contract that starts here in Q1 of 27, Just was looking for a little bit more detail. Does that start January timeframe? Does it start later in the quarter? And then secondarily, please confirm I heard correctly. So it ramps over Q2, Q3. So does that imply that Q4 is finally the full run rate for that contract?
Andy Puhala
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Good morning, Matt. Appreciate you joining the call today. Second question first, you know, it'll ramp over the first three quarters of the year. And so by the fourth quarter of next year, yes, we expect that to be kind of at the full run rate. In terms of startup, you know, it'll start middle of the first quarter. It'll start with mobilization of equipment and testing and some things like that. And then, you know, the deliveries will start to – the LNG deliveries will start to ramp from there. So that's kind of the, you know, the – The schedule and really the level of detail that we can go into at this point.
Matt Dane
Titan Capital Management
Okay, great. Appreciate that, Andy. Then also, I want to get a little bit more color, if I could, on the pipeline of data center opportunities. I know you talked about the four different buckets they fall in. Just was curious, how would you, I guess, first off, classify the overall pipeline? Does it continue to grow or is it pretty much stable with what you saw last quarter? And then What is the largest bucket where a lot of those opportunities fall into? I assume bridge would be the largest just because of the size of the contracts, but just, yeah, if you could add more color where things tend to fall within the pipeline, that would be helpful.
Casey Crenshaw
Executive Chairman and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
I'll try to give a little color. I don't know that we can give just all the detail around our kind of sales funnel, but I would say the first three categories are the biggest. That's the construction, where they're trying to You know, try to get, wean themselves off diesel. That's a really good opportunity where we're doing to customer education and trying to show them how that's working. The commissioning has become kind of a new and now robust area where they're like, we need to get the construction and the projects commissioned even before they get permanent power solutions in. And bridge is becoming, the size of bridge is pretty extreme. and it's not something that the customers are kind of anticipating so it's becoming kind of a more and more needed area when they have disruptions on their time schedules on getting their grid connections or pipeline interconnections into the facility. So that's becoming a more and more needed issue as you see Delays or Unexpected Things Happen. The one that we're probably seeing the most activity in the last quarter and we think in the future is going to be this backup area where we're providing kind of backup solutions long term for our clients that are active and behind the meter activity around data centers. And so that's That's the newest area that we're starting to see ramped up activity and questions around. Super excited about that. So I'd say if you talk about increased activity, that's the one that's increasing the most. And then I'd say next increasing is just the bridge activity due to delays and so many projects coming online and having connection delays. So I hope I answered it without giving the specifics all four of those areas are active and exciting to us and obviously with the price of diesel and the intent on having environmental compliance with construction being a focus of communities, having LNG and a better environmental footprint on construction is important to the owners of the facilities.
Matt Dane
Titan Capital Management
Okay, that is helpful. The overall size of the pipeline as of the end of the quarter or here today relative to, say, what it was like three to six months ago, let's say three months ago, how would you say that? Does it just continue to increase the opportunities that you are bidding and talking to people about?
Casey Crenshaw
Executive Chairman and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
Correct, substantially.
Matt Dane
Titan Capital Management
Okay.
Casey Crenshaw
Executive Chairman and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
A pipeline, you don't get to build against a pipeline. A pipeline is a pipeline. There are significant projects out there. We do not have to land all of the opportunities to be super successful in this area, this growth area of our company. So that's the way we're kind of looking at this area. The opportunities are pretty extreme. There's broad, deep need for infrastructure and execution in this space. I'd say we're a little bit more tighter focused in marine where we're much more focused on a specific project in a specific region where this area is pulling us into just where they're having issues on behind the meter or where they think they have a cost advantage.
Matt Dane
Titan Capital Management
Understood. I hope you win more than your fair share, though.
Casey Crenshaw
Executive Chairman and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer
We are hoping to win enough to make our shareholders happy.
Matt Dane
Titan Capital Management
Thank you.
Operator
Conference Call Operator
This concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. I would now like to turn the floor over to Andy Puhala for closing remarks.
Andy Puhala
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Well, thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. We appreciate your time and your continued interest in support of Stabilis. If you'd like to learn more, please reach out to me at our investor relations contact numbers, and we'll be happy to talk further. Thank you.
Operator
Conference Call Operator
Thank you. This concludes today's Stabilis Solutions third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Please disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day.