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DATE
Thursday, August 7, 2025 at 2:30 p.m. ET
CALL PARTICIPANTS
Chief Executive Officer — Tyler Glover
Chief Financial Officer — Chris Steddum
Executive Vice President, Texas Pacific Water Resources — Robert Crain
Head of Investor Relations — Shawn Amini
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RISKS
WTI oil price averaged $64 per barrel during Q2 2025, marking the lowest average oil benchmark price since 2021.
Management noted "lower oil prices during the quarter resulted in reduced activity and deferments by operator customers," which may affect future production timing.
TAKEAWAYS
Consolidated Revenue-- driven by higher royalty production, produced water royalties, and easement income, offset by lower oil price realizations and water sales.
Adjusted EBITDA-- Adjusted EBITDA was $166,000,000 for Q2 2025 with an 89% adjusted EBITDA margin.
Free Cash Flow-- Free cash flow was $130,000,000 for Q2 2025.
Royalty Production-- 33,200 BOE/d for Q2 2025, setting a company record.
Permitted / DUC / Completed-but-not-producing Wells-- Ended with 6 net permitted wells, 11.1 net drilled but uncompleted wells, and 5.1 net completed but not producing wells.
Easements and Surface-Related Revenue (SLM)-- $36,000,000 for Q2 2025, a company record, boosted by $20,000,000 from pipeline easements related to multiple large-scale pipeline and infrastructure projects.
Produced Water Royalty Revenue-- $31,000,000 produced water royalty revenue for Q2 2025, also a company record, reflecting continued growth in Permian produced water volumes.
Produced Water Royalty Volumes-- Surpassed 4,000,000 barrels per day for the first time in Q2 2025, driven by secular growth in basin water production and successful commercial initiatives.
CapEx and Project Milestones-- Phase 2b desalination facility (10,000 barrels per day) in Orla, Texas, has broken ground; equipment received; on track for year-end water intake, with unchanged CapEx estimates.
Regulatory Progress-- Permit applications for land application and environmental discharge for the desalination facility have been submitted, with approvals anticipated in the coming months.
Balance Sheet-- Company remains debt-free, maintaining financial flexibility for buybacks, organic growth, or acquisitions.
Industry Trends and Innovation-- Operators on TPL acreage are adopting lightweight proppants, leading to up to 20% improved recovery rates, as described by management in the Q2 2025 earnings call and expanded development with technologies such as horseshoe wells.
SUMMARY
The quarter featured record results for royalty production, produced water royalty revenues, and easement income. despite oil prices dropping to a four-year low. Operators’ deferred activity due to low realizations has been partially rescheduled, with management expecting Q3 to be "very strong" and Q4 "more heavily dependent on commodity prices than any other quarter." Management highlighted new lease activity in previously unvalued assets, signaling incremental value capture from recent acquisitions.
Management emphasized TPL’s strong position to benefit from long-term Permian resource longevity, citing a recent report estimating remaining inventory of over 60,000 drilling locations with breakevens below $60 oil and advances in drilling and completion efficiency.
Robert Crain stated that the Orla desalination project is viewed as "research and development at scale," with industry importance for power generation, data center cooling, and industrial water reuse opportunities.
Commercial efforts have enabled TPL to inject over 100,000 barrels per day of produced water into out-of-basin pore space, a volume management expects to continue growing.
Operator activity and leasing trends indicate operators expanding to new formations and extending boundaries across the Midland and Delaware Basins, driving additional upside potential on TPL’s royalty and surface assets.
INDUSTRY GLOSSARY
BOE/d: Barrels of oil equivalent per day; a standard industry measure aggregating oil, gas, and NGL volumes for production reporting.
SLM: Surface and Land Management; refers to revenue streams from easements, leases, and other surface-related activities.
DUC: Drilled but uncompleted well; a well that has been drilled but not yet finished for production.
SWD: Saltwater disposal well; an injection well used to dispose of produced water from oil and gas operations.
Horseshoe Well: A U-shaped horizontal well design that maximizes lateral length within a single leasehold section.
Full Conference Call Transcript
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, greetings, and welcome to Texas Pacific Land Corporation Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, as a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Shawn Amini. Please go ahead. Thank you for joining us today for Texas Pacific Land Corporation Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call.
Shawn Amini: Yesterday afternoon, the company released its financial results and filed its Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is available on the investors section of the company's website at www.texaspacific.com. As a reminder, remarks made on today's conference call may include forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. We do not undertake any obligation to update our forward-looking statements that might new information or future events. For more detailed discussions of the factors that may affect the company's results, please refer to our earnings release for this quarter and to our recent SEC filings.
During this call, we'll also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. More information and reconciliations about these non-GAAP financial measures are contained in our earnings release and SEC filings. Please also note, we may, at times refer to our company by its stock ticker TPL. This morning's conference call is hosted by TPL's Chief Executive Officer, Tyler Glover, TPL's Chief Financial Officer, Chris Steddum, and Executive Vice President of Texas Pacific Water Resources, Robert Crain. Management will make some prepared comments, after which we will open the call for questions. Now I will turn the call over to Tyler Glover. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.
The 2025 marked another quarter of record performance across TPL's major revenue streams and key performance indicators, showcasing the company's ability to prosper amid commodity price volatility. Average WTI Cushing oil price during the quarter averaged $64 per barrel, which was the lowest average oil benchmark price since 2021. Despite this oil price weakness, TPL still set quarterly revenue for produced water royalties and easements and other surface-related income. Oil and gas royalty production of 33,200 barrels of oil equivalent per day also represents a company record. Even with our direct and indirect commodity price exposure, TPL still efficiently converted revenues to cash flow with second quarter adjusted EBITDA margin of 89%.
Tariff uncertainty and OPEC's decision to reduce voluntary cuts were significant factors contributing towards slumping oil prices and sentiment. With WTI struggling to regain $70, over the last few months, various operators have publicly signaled intentions to reduce activity. According to Baker Hughes, Permian horizontal oil-directed rig counts have declined over 20% from the peak in 2023. Because of this broader slowdown, we now hear more speculation about this idea of peak Permian. This is the notion that Permian production is soon set to forever be on a plateau or terminal decline. Given TPL's experience in Permian-centric position, I'd like to spend some time in my prepared remarks to share our perspective. First, some stats to put things into context.
The Permian spans millions of acres spread across West Texas and New Mexico, and it contains numerous high-quality stacked pay formations. On a production basis, the Permian is the largest oil and gas basin in the world. With oil production currently averaging approximately 6,500,000 barrels per day. The Permian accounts for roughly half of all US oil production. And it produces more than every OPEC nation other than Saudi Arabia. Just ten years ago, Permian production was less than 2,000,000 barrels of oil per day. The Permian also produces approximately 3,000,000 barrels per day of natural gas liquids bringing its total liquids production to close to 10,000,000 barrels per day. Which represents about 9% of total liquids supply globally.
Simply put, the Permian is a major force in the global market. After such a remarkable run of resource development and combined with recent activity reduction, it might be easy to conclude that Permian geology is nearing exhaustion and past its peak. In our view, this is a misguided conclusion. First, a slowdown in activity due to lower oil prices should not be conflated as the slowdown due to limited drilling inventory. Upstream companies are still price sensitive. It is reasonable to slow down development when commodity prices have declined. This slowdown does not diminish or change how much resource remains underground.
Preserving those reserves when commodity prices are higher is a sensible strategy for upstream companies looking to maximize long-term shareholder value. Which brings me to my second point. From our perspective, the Permian still retains a long runway of undeveloped inventory. For example, a report published earlier this year by Enveris which is a leading provider of oil and gas analytics, estimates that there are over 60,000 locations remaining with breakevens below $60 oil and $3 natural gas. This represents undeveloped resource upwards of 30,000,000,000 barrels of oil.
For context, in 2024, the Permian turned to sales of approximately 5,700 wells, Assuming that same pace, which would put the Permian on a growth trajectory, that would translate to approximately eleven years of drilling inventory just for the subset of wells that break even below $60. As you move up the oil price beyond $60, that would potentially pull in tens of thousands of additional economic locations billions of barrels of additional resource, and years or decades worth of additional runway. Furthermore, these types of analysis are generally predicated on prevailing drilling and completion practices. Improvements in technology and operational efficiency can further extend the basin's longevity.
As development techniques continue to evolve, which they consistently have since the advent of horizontal drilling and fracking, upstream companies will continue to drive breakeven economics lower, and improve resource recovery. Past and ongoing advancements such as increased fluid and proppant loading, produced water recycling, increased lateral length, and co-completions are examples of industry innovation that have generally become standard practice for modern-day Permian well development.
To provide a specific example horizontal wells developed in Loving County, Texas in 2025 compared to 2015 you've seen, lateral lengths doubled to over 10,000 feet, proppant intensity per foot increased over 50%, fluid intensity per foot nearly doubled, all of which has resulted in a doubling of the NPV per well with an illustrative $60 oil, $3 gas price deck. Development trends for more recent periods show that operators continue to make impressive efficiency gains, For example, in 2023, the Permian average 323 horizontal rigs during the year, which then declined in 2024 to an average of 296 rigs. An 8% decrease year over year.
Despite the drop in rig counts, total drilled feet increased approximately 5% during the same period. This equates to an approximate year over year increase of 15% lateral feet drilled per rig. In other words, declining rig counts were more than offset by increased drilling efficiency. A more recent example of an exciting innovation by a major operator on our royalty acreage is the use of new lightweight proppants to enhance recovery factors. This operator has been utilizing this material derived from relatively low-value refinery coproducts, to drive improved recoveries up to 20%. And the operator has plans to deploy it in roughly a quarter of its Permian wells this year.
In other more mature basins such as Eagle Ford and Bakken, you also see operators recomplete wells that have already been producing for a while. Economics for recompletions can be just as good, if not better, than for new drills. In the Permian, there have been upwards of tens of thousands of wells that have been completed years ago using older, less productive development techniques. Down the road, even if it might be decades away, recompletion in the Permian could shallow decline rates further extend the basin's resource life and ultimately allow the industry to recover significant incremental reserves. With current development techniques, only a fraction of oil reserves are recovered from shale.
Whether through new profits, recompletions, or any other future advancements, even just a few percentage points improvement in recovery factors could mean billions of barrels of incremental future production. This is especially lucrative for royalty owners given that these incremental recoveries are pure upside without having to bear any of the cost to implement. It's a free call option on innovation. Another example of industry ingenuity are horseshoe wells. Horseshoe wells are basically a u-shaped horizontal lateral. These are used when operators are unable to pool or unitize leasehold acreage to accommodate longer straight-line laterals.
What operators are doing instead of drilling one-mile laterals within a section they're drilling a u-shaped or horseshoe-shaped lateral that allows longer lateral length while staying within the leasehold boundaries. Horseshoe wells can also contribute to reduced surface footprint. Which can be an advantage in areas with environmental concerns or limited surface availability. Though this is more operationally complex, it can save operators substantial capital and improve well economics by only having to drill one horseshoe well with, say, 10,000 lateral feet versus drilling two shorter straight-line wells, each with their own vertical section and then 5,000 feet of lateral.
Three years ago, we had zero horseshoe wells on TPL's royalty acreage. by multiple operators across both the Midland and Delaware that are in various stages of development. This royalty acreage could have otherwise been stranded single sections with the advancement of horseshoe wells, these sections are now economic for operators to develop. The oil patch, always find a way. with the Permian already the largest producing basin in the world, these evolving and improving development practices are allowing operators to pursue new formations while also pushing the boundaries of the basin potentially adding significant incremental drilling inventory.
Some notable recent examples include the emerging Barnett formation in the Midland Basin, the Harkey formation in Culberson County, and the surrounding state line, and the Bone Springs in the Northwest Shelf of the Delaware. We're also seeing operators push the northern and eastern boundaries of the Northern Delaware and basically the entire Midland Basin boundaries on all sides. New development in these formations and boundary extension trends are evident in new leasing activity from our acquired minerals portfolio primarily located in the Midland Basin. Leasing activity has increased meaningfully this year and most of these were for unleased mineral assets where we originally had not ascribed any value to when we acquired the broader portfolios.
Already, the preeminent engine of global oil supply growth over the last decade the Permian still fosters a vibrant entrepreneurial industry. We are constantly impressed by all the technology and innovation that occurs here. And we're excited to see operators still exploring new formations and new areas. Longer term, as the oil cycle will inevitably turn upwards, the Permian will play a critical role towards satisfying the world's growing energy needs. And as the world will depend on the Permian to supply critical energy for many decades to come, TPL stands to benefit from our extensive footprint.
There's arguably no better basin in the world to be in than the Permian, and there's undoubtedly no other public company in the Permian with TPL size and scale combined across royalties, surface, and water. Turning to our desalination efforts. We continue to make progress with our phase two b desalination facility. Recall this will be a 10,000 barrel per day facility that will intake Permian produced water and output high-quality freshwater in addition to a concentrated brine solution. We have broken ground on location in Orla, Texas. Most of the desalination equipment has been received and is on-site. We expect installation to take a few months, and we still anticipate the unit to begin taking produced water by year-end.
Our CapEx estimates related to the facility remain unchanged, We have made a number of process improvements since our previous prototype we look forward to bringing online the largest desalination facility in the Permian to date. In addition, we have submitted permit applications for both land application and environmental discharge and we hope to procure regulatory approvals within the next few months. As a reminder, the Permian is now generating north of 23,000,000 barrels per day of produced water.
Even if Permian oil production were to stay flat, we believe Permian produced water volumes could still grow by millions of barrels per day over the next few years, due first to increased water to oil ratio as well as age and second, to increase water cuts from the development of secondary benches. For TPL, we've been proactive across numerous fronts towards making sure we can provide the industry with essential produced water solutions. First, TPL's surface acreage still retains millions of barrels per day of additional in-basin disposal capacity.
From the beginning, we have been intentional in limiting the amount of disposal wells per section with increased regulatory attention on surface and reservoir pressure gradients our conservative approach to signing SWDs has allowed us to preserve ample injection capacity. Second, we have been proactively acquiring tens of thousands of acres of out-of-basin pore space. We currently have well over a 100,000 barrels per day of produced water that is currently being injected into out-of-basin pore space that we own and we expect that volume to continue growing for the foreseeable future. Third is the desalination and beneficial reuse efforts. That I just discussed.
Conceptually, if it works economically at scale, this would reduce the amount of produced water that would need to be injected subsurface while also providing a valuable freshwater stream that could potentially be repurposed for power and data center cooling hydrogen production, or a number of other industrial activities. Today, TPL already touches and generates royalties on over 4,000,000 barrels per day of produced water. We believe with our industry-leading and comprehensive solutions across in-basin disposal, out-of-basin disposal, and desalination plus beneficial reuse that we are well positioned to capture a substantial amount of the produced water volume growth going forward. In conclusion, for TPL, we're not overly concerned with near-term commodity price vacillations.
We don't have a crystal ball and can't say for sure what commodity price will be in the near term, However, we are certain that the Permian remains a world-class resource and still retains plenty of latent growth. We do ultimately believe that current oil prices are well below longer-term mid-cycle oil prices Despite today's broader macro uncertainty, TPL is still generating industry-leading cash flow margins. We already have a leading royalty water and surface footprint across key areas of the Permian, we believe we're in a favored position. And should this down cycle persist, ready to deploy capital opportunistically whether through substantial buybacks, organic investment, or asset acquisitions or some combination thereof.
With that, I'll hand the call over to Chris Steddum. Thanks, Tyler. For the 2025, consolidated total revenue was $188,000,000 and consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $166,000,000 Adjusted EBITDA margin was 89%, Free cash flow was $130,000,000 representing a 12% increase year over year. Performance year over year benefited from higher oil and gas royalty production, higher produced water royalties, and higher easements and other surface-related income, otherwise known as SLM, performance was partially offset by lower oil price realizations which declined 21% year over year and lower water sales. Royalty production this quarter was approximately 33,200 barrels of oil equivalent per day, representing a 33% increase year over year and a 7% increase sequential quarter over quarter.
As of quarter end, TPL had six net permitted wells, 11.1 net drilled but uncompleted wells, and 5.1 net completed but not producing wells. Slim revenues of $36,000,000 was a company record which benefited from $20,000,000 of pipeline easements The increase in pipeline easements was due to numerous new large-scale pipeline and infrastructure projects crossing our acreage. Produced ROTOR royalty revenues of 31,000,000 was also a company record. As Tyler mentioned, our commercial efforts across out-of-basin force-based acquisitions and new contracting continue to allow TPL to capture and take advantage of the secular growth trend for Permian produced water.
This quarter, we generated a royalty on over 4,000,000 barrels per day for the first time in our history. as lower oil prices during the quarter resulted in reduced activity and deferments by operator customers. We have seen operators bring back activity and many of the wells that were deferred during this quarter are now back in our completion schedules for the second half of this year. To conclude, TPL is in an excellent operating and financial position the broader industry works through this current cycle. As Tyler mentioned, commodity prices during this quarter led to the weakest realizations we've had since early 2021 during the depths of COVID.
However, comparing this quarter with the 2021, when oil last dipped below $60 we've since doubled our royalty production and source water revenue tripled our produced water royalty volumes, and quadrupled our slim revenue. We accomplished that while maintaining a debt-free balance sheet and returning hundreds of millions of dollars of capital back to shareholders. We've proven we can grow the business through cycles, and whenever this commodity cycle inevitably turns upward, TPL is positioned to benefit to the fullest extent. And with that, operator, we will now take questions. Thank you.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and 1 on a touch-tone telephone. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Derrick Whitfield with Texas Capital. Please go ahead.
Derrick Whitfield: Good morning, guys, and thanks for your general thoughts. On basin activity. Morning, Derrick. Morning, Derrick. For my first question, I wanted to focus on your outlook for water resources over the second half. While you guys achieved company records with water royalties, Water sales were a bit weaker than anticipated. And as you guys think about kind of industry activity leveling out following a pretty material reduction in industry, activity during the first half. How do you see each of those businesses performing in the second half? Derrick, this is Robert. I'll take that.
Robert Crain: I mean, when we look at Q2, I think it was two factors at Q2 that really led to the we saw. One was definitely commodity price driven. You know, we had one of our biggest customers activity until second half of the year. And others you know, reduce in certain areas. But you know, I'd say Q2 was also combined with just kind of the spatial variation that you can see in completion activities. The decline we saw was not fully representative of a commodity price decline.
You know, there's times, especially when you look at the consolidated acreage positions that have been a result of the M and A over the last couple of years that know, like, there's there's time to have spatial variation. A lot of activity is outside of your core areas. Given the acreage position they hold now. So when we look at Q3, Q3, looks to be very strong. You know, Q4, which happens a lot in Q4 is, you know, it's kinda yet to be determined, you know, what that activity level is gonna be. And I'll say probably Q4 is gonna be more heavily dependent on commodity prices than any other quarter.
Derrick Whitfield: Great. And maybe just staying on water, I'd love your thoughts on the ARRIS acquisition by Western While we look at it and question it from a timing perspective as it relates value recognition, it absolutely supports the Delaware water thesis, yours, and also the value of poor space in the basin. So, again, love any thoughts you guys have there.
Robert Crain: Yeah. Derrick, I agree. It supports the Delaware Water thesis that we've been talking about for a while. I mean, you know, we've got a great relationship with ARIS and with Western, so we see this as I think consolidation in the water midstream just creates more opportunity for land and poor space owners. Great. And maybe, again, Tyler, you or Robert, I'd love for you to kinda speak to just your cost objectives for the 10,000 per day desal facility.
Derrick Whitfield: And more broadly, how important is this project to attracting power gen and data center opportunities to the Permian Basin?
Robert Crain: And, Derrick, you know this. This is Robert. you know, I say challenges that we saw that we're gonna come in next five years. You know, we tackled it in two ways. You know, it was out of basin disposal and truly leading the effort on desal within the Permian. We look at this project, you know, it's like I said, this is gonna be the largest, and it's still research and development, you know, we refer to it as research and development at scale. This is in the field. This is at scale. This is, you know, live piece out that would be occurring.
And it's extremely important, you know, for us, but think it's extremely important for the industry. You know, we know that it's still a multiyear effort to get beneficial reuse you know, at true commercial scale in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, barrels a day. But, know, we've taken that charge to help get it there. We look at it in terms of know, in conjunction with data center cooling and cogen power, you know, the opportunities are astounding when you really look at it. And that's what we're gonna be, you know, not only testing this, you know, in the field at scale, but then also continuing to explore what those synergies are.
Waste heat capture, which is a huge component that will that we're working in conjunction with Cogent Power, and then also the data center cooling aspect of what we do. There's a lot of synergies in both. So I mean, we're excited. We know the industry has to get there. On beneficiaries. Out of basin is really gonna provide that buffer in those years that we need to bring this to scale for what we see beneficiaries can be you know, 2028, '29.
Derrick Whitfield: That's great. And, Robert, maybe just leaning in on the power generation opportunities. With the announcements we've seen with CPV Basin Ranch Energy, and Lambridge this morning, Could you guys just maybe speak to your expectations for additional announcements based on the dialogue you're having with industry?
Robert Crain: I mean, when you look at power generation in the Permian, you know, it makes a 100 bit of sense, a 100% bit of sense. I mean, we wouldn't we have the largest component, you know, for cogen power, and we have water that's you know, is truly not part of the water cycle. You know, when we look at produced water and what produced water can do at cogen, all the ingredients are there. You know, a lot a lot of folks can say there's there's not a lot of sense to build transmission across the state of Texas to the Permian when you've got all the ingredients in the Permian to produce the power.
You know, I think the announcement that you saw today Kotera yesterday with Kotera is the first of many that are gonna come. You know, not only is the when we look at the power demand and power shortages that we're seeing in the Permian before you look at data centers and things of that nature, you know, it's real, and the need for power just to just to power the upstream industry, over the next couple of years. So the talks are continuing. They're accelerating, and it's exciting time for, you know, what we I think you'll see in the Permian on the next couple of years.
Derrick Whitfield: Great color, guys. I'll turn it back to the operator.
Robert Crain: Thanks, Derek. Thanks.
Operator: At this time, there are no further questions. This concludes Texas Pacific Land Corporation's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Thank you for joining the call today. You may now disconnect your lines.