Archrock, Inc. (AROC)

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our Financial Statements, the notes thereto, and the other financial information appearing elsewhere in this Form 10–K. The following discussion includes forward–looking statements that involve certain risks and uncertainties. See “Forward–Looking Statements” and Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” in this Form 10–K.

This section primarily discusses 2024 and 2023 items and comparisons between these years. For a discussion of changes from 2022 to 2023 and other financial information related to 2023, refer to Part II, Item 7. “Manag Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” of our Annual Report on Form 10–K for the year ended December 31, 2023 filed with the SEC on February 21, 2024.

Overview

We are an energy infrastructure company with a primary focus on midstream natural gas compression and a commitment to helping our customers produce, compress and transport natural gas in a safe and environmentally responsible way. We are a premier provider of natural gas compression services to customers in the energy industry throughout the U.S., and a leading supplier of aftermarket services to customers that own compression equipment in the U.S. We operate in two business segments: contract operations and aftermarket services. Our contract operations services primarily include designing, sourcing, owning, installing, operating, servicing, repairing and maintaining our owned fleet of natural gas compression equipment to provide natural gas compression services to our customers. In our aftermarket services business, we sell parts and components and provide operations, maintenance, overhaul and reconfiguration services to customers who own compression equipment.

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Significant 2024 Transactions

TOPS Acquisition

On August 30, 2024, we completed the TOPS Acquisition whereby we acquired all of the issued and outstanding equity interests in TOPS, including a fleet of approximately 580,000 horsepower for aggregate consideration consisting of $868.7 million in cash and approximately 6.9 million shares of common stock with an acquisition date fair value of $139.1 million. The cash portion of the purchase price was funded with proceeds from the July 2024 Equity Offering, the 2032 Notes offering and borrowings under the Credit Facility. See Note 4 (“Business Transactions”) for further details.

2032 Notes

On August 26, 2024, we completed a private offering of $700.0 million aggregate principal amount of 6.625% senior notes due September 2032 and received net proceeds of $690.0 million after deducting issuance costs. The $10.0 million of issuance costs were recorded as deferred financing costs within long-term debt in our consolidated balance sheets and are being amortized to interest expense in our consolidated statement of operations over the term of the notes. A portion of the net proceeds was used to fund a portion of the cash consideration for the TOPS Acquisition, the 2027 Notes Tender Offer and to repay borrowings outstanding under our Credit Facility. See Note 16 (“Long-Term Debt”) for further details.

2027 Notes Tender Offer

In connection with the TOPS Acquisition and offering of the 2032 Notes, we completed a concurrent cash tender offer of $202.0 million, which reflects approximately 101% of the aggregate principal amount of the tendered 2027 Notes and $0.2 million of agent and legal fees. On the date of tender, the net carrying value of the tendered 2027 Notes was $198.8 million and we recorded a debt extinguishment loss of $3.2 million in our consolidated statements of operations. See Note 16 (“Long-Term Debt”) for further details.

July 2024 Equity Offering

On July 24, 2024, Archrock sold, pursuant to a public underwriting offering, approximately 12.7 million shares of common stock, including approximately 1.7 million shares of common stock pursuant to an over-allotment option. Archrock received net proceeds of $255.7 million, after deducting underwriting discounts, commissions and offering expenses. Proceeds from this equity offering were used to fund a portion of the TOPS Acquisition. See Note 18 (“Stockholders’ Equity”) for further details.

Trends and Outlook

The key driver of our business is the production of U.S. oil and natural gas. Approximately 64% of our operating fleet is deployed for midstream natural gas gathering applications, with the remaining fleet being used in gas lift applications to enhance oil production. As our business is so closely aligned with production and is typically less directly impacted by commodity prices, we are not as exposed to the volatility often faced in shorter–cycle oil field service businesses.

Domestic natural gas production generally occurs either in basins where natural gas is produced alongside oil, also known as “associated” gas, such as the Permian and Delaware Basins, the Eagle Ford and the Mid–Continent or in natural gas basins, such as the Marcellus, Utica and Haynesville Shales. Significant investment in domestic exploration and production and midstream infrastructure across the energy industry has been made over much of the past decade, particularly in the low–cost basins characterized by oil and associated natural gas production. The development of these basins producing both commodities has created additional incremental demand for natural gas compression over the recent past as it is a critical method to transport associated gas volumes or enhance oil production through gas lift.

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Current Trends

According to the EIA Outlook, average U.S. oil and dry natural gas and production were as follows:

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During 2024, U.S. natural gas and oil production grew to record levels, resulting in strong demand for our compression services. In response, we increased our investment in new large horsepower fleet units and expanded our fleet through the TOPS Acquisition. Our contract operations revenue and total operating horsepower increased 21% and 17%, respectively in 2024.

Outlook

The EIA Outlook forecasts the following year–over–year changes:

The EIA Outlook expects natural gas production to continue to increase to all-time highs in 2025 and 2026. Natural gas consumption is expected to be largely consistent with 2024, reflecting consistent usage of natural gas in the electric power generation and residential sectors, as well as increased LNG exports and exports of natural gas via pipeline to Mexico.

We believe the outlook for the energy industry in the U.S. is positive. While we anticipate that the combination of commodity prices and demand may likely have a positive impact on activity levels in both the upstream and midstream sectors, we cannot predict the ultimate magnitude of that impact on our business and expect it to be varied across our operations, depending on the region, customer, nature of our services, contract term and other factors. However, we continue to believe that overall the long–term demand for our compression services will continue given the necessity of compression in facilitating the transportation and processing of natural gas.

Regarding our aftermarket services business, the base of owned compression in the U.S. has increased over the past several years, which we believe will help sustain our aftermarket services business over the long term.

Key Challenges and Uncertainties

In addition to general market conditions in the oil and natural gas industry and competition in the natural gas compression industry, we believe the following represent the key challenges and uncertainties we will face in the future.

Labor. We believe that our ability to hire, train and retain qualified personnel will continue to be important. Although we have been able to historically satisfy our personnel needs, retaining employees in our industry continues to be a challenge. Our ability to grow and to continue our current level of service to our customers will depend in part on our success in hiring, training and retaining our employees. Further, the cost of labor has increased and may continue to increase in the future with increases in demand, which will require us to incur additional costs.

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Cost Management. In order to improve our operations and further reduce operating expenses, we invested and continue to invest significant resources into a process and technology transformation project that has, among other things, replaced our former ERP, supply chain and inventory management systems and expanded the remote monitoring capabilities of our compression fleet. Cost management continues to be challenging, however, and there is no guarantee that our efforts will result in a reduction in our operating expenses. Natural gas production growth and resulting demand for our services could cause us to experience increased operating expenses as we hire employees and incur additional expenses needed to support the rebound in market demand.

Further, we depend on suppliers for the materials, parts, equipment and lube oil necessary to our operations, which exposes us to volatility in prices. Significant price increases for these inputs could adversely affect our operating profits. Supply chain disruptions could also adversely affect our ability to obtain, or increase the cost of, such items. While we generally attempt to mitigate the impact of increased prices through strategic purchasing decisions, diversification of our supplier base, where possible, and the passing along of increased costs to customers, there may be a time delay between the increased commodity prices and the ability to increase the price of our services.

Capital Requirements and the Availability of External Sources of Capital. We funded a significant portion of our capital expenditures and the TOPS Acquisition with proceeds from the July 2024 Equity Offering and the 2032 Notes offering and borrowings under the Credit Facility. Current conditions could limit our ability to access the debt and equity markets to raise capital on affordable terms in 2025 and beyond. If we are not successful in raising capital within the time period required or at all, we may not be able to fund these capital expenditures or acquisitions, which could impair our ability to grow or maintain our business.

Demand for natural gas-powered compression. Demand for our services is dependent on the demand for natural gas in the markets we serve. Although the EIA currently forecasts natural gas demand will grow through 2050, technological advances and accelerated adoption of renewable sources of energy could reduce demand for natural gas in our markets and have an adverse effect on our business. In addition, increased focus of our customers on reducing emissions from, or the use of, combustion engines in compression could increase demand for electric motor-driven compressors or require us to make modifications to our existing natural gas-powered units.

Operating Highlights

(1) Defined as idle and operating horsepower. Includes new compressors completed by third party manufacturers that have been delivered to us.

(2) Defined as horsepower that is operating under contract and horsepower that is idle but under contract and generating revenue such as standby revenue.

(3) Defined as average of period end horsepower that is operating under contract and horsepower that is idle but under contract and generating revenue such as standby revenue, including operating horsepower as of September 30, 2024 through December 31, 2024 for compressors acquired in the TOPS Acquisition.

Non–GAAP Financial Measures

Management uses a variety of financial and operating metrics to analyze our performance. These metrics are significant factors in assessing our operating results and profitability and include the non-GAAP financial measure of adjusted gross margin.

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We define adjusted gross margin as total revenue less cost of sales, exclusive of depreciation and amortization. Adjusted gross margin is included as a supplemental disclosure because it is a primary measure used by our management to evaluate the results of revenue and cost of sales, exclusive of depreciation and amortization, which are key components of our operations. We believe adjusted gross margin is important because it focuses on the current operating performance of our operations and excludes the impact of the prior historical costs of the assets acquired or constructed that are utilized in those operations, the indirect costs associated with our SG&A activities, our financing methods and income taxes. In addition, depreciation and amortization may not accurately reflect the costs required to maintain and replenish the operational usage of our assets and therefore may not portray the costs of current operating activity. As an indicator of our operating performance, adjusted gross margin should not be considered an alternative to, or more meaningful than, gross margin, net income (loss) or any other measure presented in accordance with GAAP. Our adjusted gross margin may not be comparable to a similarly titled measure of other entities because other entities may not calculate adjusted gross margin in the same manner.

Adjusted gross margin has certain material limitations associated with its use as compared to net income. These limitations are primarily due to the exclusion of SG&A, depreciation and amortization, long-lived and other asset impairments, restructuring charges, debt extinguishment loss, interest expense, transaction-related costs, gain on sale of assets, net, other expense (income), net and provision for income taxes. Because we intend to finance a portion of our operations through borrowings, interest expense is a necessary element of our costs and our ability to generate revenue. Additionally, because we use capital assets, depreciation expense is a necessary element of our costs and our ability to generate revenue and SG&A is necessary to support our operations and required corporate activities. To compensate for these limitations, management uses this non-GAAP measure as a supplemental measure to other GAAP results to provide a more complete understanding of our performance.

The reconciliation of net income to adjusted gross margin is as follows:

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The following table reconciles adjusted gross margin to gross margin, its most directly comparable to GAAP measure:

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RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Summary of Results

Revenue was $1,157.6 million and $990.3 million during the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. The increase in revenue was primarily due to increased revenue from our contract operations business. See “Contract Operations” below for further details.

Net income was $172.2 million and $105.0 million during the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. The increase was primarily driven by higher adjusted gross margin from our contract operations business and higher gain on sale of assets, net. These increases were partially offset by increases in depreciation and amortization, provision for income taxes, SG&A, transaction-related costs, interest expense and debt extinguishment loss.

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Year Ended December 31, 2024 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2023

Contract Operations

(1) Defined as adjusted gross margin divided by revenue.

Revenue in our contract operations business increased approximately $105.6 million due to higher rates and an increase in average operating horsepower, as well as an increase of $65.5 million due to the compression units acquired in the TOPS Acquisition.

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The increase in cost of sales, exclusive of depreciation and amortization, was primarily due to a $17.9 million increase in employee compensation, including the addition of headcount from the TOPS Acquisition, a $4.1 million increase in parts expense, a $1.4 million increase in auto expense and a $1.3 million increase in local and miscellaneous taxes. This increase was partially offset by a decrease of $6.6 million in startup expenses resulting from average horsepower utilization for the fleet at record levels as well as fewer unit stops and a decrease of $2.9 million in lube oil expenses mainly due to lower prices.

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The increases in adjusted gross margin and adjusted gross margin percentage were mainly driven by revenue growth that outpaced the increase in cost of sales, exclusive of depreciation and amortization.

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Aftermarket Services

(1) Defined as adjusted gross margin divided by revenue.

Revenue in our aftermarket services business decreased primarily due to lower parts sales, which was partially offset by increased service activity driven by higher customer demand, and an increase in maintenance service contracts.

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The increases in adjusted gross margin and adjusted gross margin percentage were mainly due to a reduction in cost of sales, exclusive of depreciation and amortization, due to a difference in the scope, timing and type of services performed, including additional work associated with maintenance service contracts, which outpaced the decline in overall revenue.

Costs and Expenses

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Selling, general and administrative. The increase in SG&A was primarily driven by a $17.2 million increase in employee incentive and other compensation expense, a $2.4 million increase in professional and consulting fees, a $0.8 million increase in network and computer-related costs and a $0.7 million increase in insurance expense.

Depreciation and amortization. The increase in depreciation and amortization was primarily due to fixed assets additions, including $15.8 million depreciation and amortization associated with the compression units and intangible assets acquired in the TOPS Acquisition, and accelerated depreciation associated with certain assets. The increase was partially offset by a decrease in depreciation associated with assets reaching the end of their depreciable lives, the impact of compression and other asset sales, and long-lived asset impairments.

Long–lived and other asset impairment. We periodically review the future deployment of our idle compressors for units that are not of the type, configuration, condition, make or model that are cost efficient to maintain and operate. We also evaluate for impairment our idle units that have been culled from our compression fleet in prior years and are available for sale. During the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, we recognized $10.7 million and $12.0 million, respectively, of impairment charges to write down these compressors to their fair value. The decrease in impairment charges on compressors is due to an increase in customer demand and as a result, higher utilization of our equipment. See Note 22 (“Long-Lived Asset and Other Impairments”) for further details on these impairment charges. The following table presents the results of our compression fleet impairment review, as recorded in our contract operations segment:

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Restructuring charges. Restructuring charges of $1.8 million during the year ended December 31, 2023 consisted of severance and consulting costs related to our restructuring activities. See Note 23 (“Restructuring Charges”) for further details on these restructuring charges.

Debt extinguishment loss. We incurred $3.2 million of debt extinguishment loss during the year ended December 31, 2024 as a result of the 2027 Notes Tender Offer.

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Interest expense. The increase in interest expense was primarily due to a higher average outstanding balance of long-term debt due to the 2032 Notes offering, an increase in the outstanding balance on the Credit Facility and higher interest rates. These increases were partially offset by the 2027 Notes Tender Offer and the write-off of $1.0 million of unamortized deferred financing costs as a result of the Amended and Restated Credit Agreement during the year ended December 31, 2023.

Transaction-related costs. We incurred $13.2 million of professional fees, compensation-related and other costs during the year ended December 31, 2024 related to the TOPS Acquisition. See Note 4 (“Business Transactions”) for further details on these transaction-related costs.

Gain on sale of assets, net. The increase in gain on sale of assets, net was primarily due to gains of $17.6 million on compression asset sales during the year ended December 31, 2024 compared to gains of $7.6 million on compression asset sales during the year ended December 31, 2023.

Other expense, net. The increase in other expense, net was primarily due to a $0.5 million increase in unrealized change in the fair value of our investment in an unconsolidated affiliate recognized during the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the year ended December 31, 2023.

Provision for Income Taxes

The increase in provision for income taxes was primarily due to the tax effect of the increase in book income and the limitation on executive compensation offset by the benefit from equity-settled long-term incentive compensation during the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the year ended December 31, 2023.

LIQUIDITY AND CAPITAL RESOURCES

Overview

Our ability to fund operations, finance capital expenditures and pay dividends depends on the levels of our operating cash flows and access to the capital and credit markets. Our primary sources of liquidity are cash flows generated from our operations and our borrowing availability under our Credit Facility. Our cash flow is affected by numerous factors, including prices and demand for our services, oil and natural gas exploration and production spending, conditions in the financial markets and other factors. We have no near-term maturities and believe that our operating cash flows and borrowings under the Credit Facility will be sufficient to meet our future liquidity needs.

We may from time to time seek to retire or purchase our outstanding debt through cash purchases and/or exchanges for equity or debt securities in open market purchases, privately negotiated transactions or otherwise. Such repurchases or exchanges, if any, may be material, will be upon terms and prices as we may determine and will depend on prevailing market conditions, our liquidity requirements, contractual restrictions and other factors.

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Cash Requirements

Our contract operations business is capital intensive, requiring significant investment to maintain and upgrade existing operations. Our capital spending is primarily dependent on the demand for our contract operations services and the availability of the type of compression equipment required for us to provide those contract operations services to our customers. Our capital requirements have consisted primarily of, and we anticipate will continue to consist of, the following:

Capital Expenditures

Growth Capital Expenditures. The majority of our growth capital expenditures are related to the acquisition cost of new compressors when our idle equipment cannot be reconfigured to economically fulfill a project’s requirements, and the new compressor is expected to generate economic returns that exceed our cost of capital over the compressor’s expected useful life. In addition to newly–acquired compressors, growth capital expenditures include the upgrading of major components on an existing compression package where the current configuration of the compression package is no longer in demand and the compressor is not likely to return to an operating status without the capital expenditures. These expenditures substantially modify the operating parameters of the compression package such that it can be used in applications for which it previously was not suited.

Growth capital expenditures for the year ended December 31, 2024 were $250.9 million, including TOPS’ specific growth capital expenditures of $69.4 million.  Growth capital expenditures for the year ended December 31, 2023 were $190.3 million.

Maintenance Capital Expenditures. Maintenance capital expenditures are related to major overhauls of significant components of a compression package, such as the engine, electric motor, compressor and cooler, which return the components to a like–new condition, but do not modify the application for which the compression package was designed.

Maintenance capital expenditures were $87.8 million and $92.2 million during the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. The decrease in maintenance capital expenditures from 2023 to 2024 was primarily due to lower make–ready investment, as our fleet’s average horsepower utilization reached record levels, and we experienced fewer stops in 2024 compared to 2023. This decrease was partially offset by an increase in scheduled and unscheduled maintenance activities due to maintenance cycle requirements.

Projected Capital Expenditures. We currently plan to spend approximately $470 million to $535 million on capital expenditures during 2025, primarily consisting of approximately $330 million to $370 million for growth capital expenditures and approximately $105 million to $115 million for maintenance capital expenditures.

Dividends

On January 30, 2025, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.19 per share of common stock, or approximately $33.5 million, which was paid on February 19, 2025 to stockholders of record at the close of business on February 12, 2025. Any future determinations to pay cash dividends to our stockholders will be at the discretion of our Board of Directors and will be dependent upon our financial condition, results of operations, and credit and loan agreements in effect at that time and other factors deemed relevant by our Board of Directors.

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Contractual Obligations

Our material contractual obligations as of December 31, 2024 consisted of the following:

In addition, we had $19.5 million of unrecognized tax benefits (including discontinued operations) recorded as liabilities related to uncertain tax positions at December 31, 2024, which are uncertain as to if or when such amounts may be settled. We had a liability of $2.7 million recorded for potential penalties and interest (including discontinued operations) related to these unrecognized tax benefits at December 31, 2024, which we are uncertain as to if or when such amounts may be settled.

Sources of Cash

Revolving Credit Facility

During the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, our Credit Facility had an average daily balance of $315.0 million and $298.8 million, respectively. The weighted average annual interest rate on the outstanding balance under the Credit Facility was 6.8% and 7.7% at December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. As of December 31, 2024, there were $4.0 million of letters of credit outstanding under the Credit Facility and the applicable margin on borrowings outstanding was 2.2%. We amended and restated our Credit Facility on May 16, 2023; see Note 16 (“Long-Term Debt”) to our Financial Statements for details on the Amended and Restated Credit Agreement.

Credit Facility Terms. Our Credit Facility matures on May 16, 2028 (or December 2, 2026 or December 3, 2027, as applicable, if any portion of our 2027 Senior Notes and 2028 Senior Notes, respectively, remain outstanding at such date) and has an aggregate revolving commitment of $1.1 billion. Portions of the Credit Facility, up to $110.0 million, are available for the issuance of swing line loans and $50.0 million is available for the issuance of letters of credit. Subject to certain conditions, including approval by the lenders, we are able to increase the aggregate commitments under the Credit Facility by up to an additional $750.0 million. The Credit Facility borrowing base consists of eligible accounts receivable, inventory and compressors.

Covenants. Our Amended and Restated Credit Agreement requires that we meet certain financial ratios (see Note 16 (“Long-Term Debt”)) and contains various additional covenants including, but not limited to, mandatory prepayments from the net cash proceeds of certain asset transfers, restrictions on the use of proceeds from borrowings and limitations on our ability to incur additional indebtedness, engage in transactions with affiliates, merge or consolidate, sell assets, make certain investments and acquisitions, make loans, grant liens, repurchase equity and pay distributions. As of December 31, 2024, we were in compliance with all covenants under our Amended and Restated Credit Agreement.

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2032 Notes and 2027 Notes Tender Offer

On August 26, 2024, we completed a private offering of $700.0 million aggregate principal amount of 6.625% senior notes due September 2032 and received net proceeds of $690.0 million after deducting issuance costs. In connection with the offering of the 2032 Notes, we completed a concurrent cash tender offer of $202.0 million for our 2027 Notes. See Note 16 (“Long-Term Debt”) for further details.

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July 2024 Equity Offering

On July 24, 2024, Archrock sold, pursuant to a public underwriting offering, approximately 12.7 million shares of common stock, including approximately 1.7 million shares of common stock pursuant to an over-allotment option. Archrock received net proceeds of $255.7 million, after deducting underwriting discounts, commissions and offering expenses. See Note 18 (“Stockholders’ Equity”) for further details.

Other Sources of Cash

Asset Sales. We received proceeds of $67.6 million and $72.2 million from asset sales during the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. We typically use the proceeds from these sales to repay borrowings outstanding under our Credit Facility; however, we are not able to estimate the timing of asset sales or the amount of proceeds to be received and as such, we do not rely on asset sale proceeds as a future source of capital.

Cash Flows

Cash flows provided by (used in) each type of activity were as follows:

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Operating Activities.

The increase in net cash provided by operating activities was primarily due to increased cash inflows of $161.4 million from adjusted gross margin, excluding deferred revenue recognized in earnings and amortization of freight and mobilization charges, changes of $9.6 million in accounts receivable due to increased cash receipts from customers and of $2.7 million in deferred revenue. These increases were partially offset by changes of $6.1 million in inventory and of $3.7 million in accounts payable and accrued liabilities.

Investing Activities.

The increase in net cash used in investing activities was primarily due to $868.7 million of cash paid in the TOPS Acquisition and a $60.4 million increase in capital expenditures, partially offset by a decrease of $4.8 million in investment in non-consolidated affiliates and a $4.6 million decrease in proceeds from the sale of property, plant and equipment.

Financing Activities.

The change from net cash used in financing activities in 2023 to net cash provided by financing activities in 2024 was primarily due to $700.0 million of proceeds from the issuance of the 2032 Notes, $255.7 million of proceeds from the July 2024 Equity Offering and a $85.5 million increase in net borrowings of long-term debt, partially offset by $202.0 million for the 2027 Notes Tender Offer, a $14.6 million increase in dividends to Archrock shareholders, a $6.3 million increase in debt issuance costs paid, a $4.5 million increase in shares repurchased under the Share Repurchase Program and a $2.7 million increase in taxes paid related to net share settlement of equity awards.

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Critical Accounting Estimates

We describe our significant accounting policies more fully in Note 2 (“Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies”) to our Financial Statements. As disclosed in Note 2, the preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, expenses and related disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities. We evaluate our estimates and accounting policies on an ongoing basis and base our estimates on historical experience and other assumptions that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances. The results of this process form the basis of our judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions and these differences can be material to our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Depreciation

Property, plant and equipment, net, at December 31, 2024 was $3.3 billion and depreciation expense was $185.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2024. Property, plant and equipment are carried at cost and depreciated using the straight–line basis over the estimated useful life of the asset.

Our estimate of useful lives and salvage values are based on assumptions and judgments that reflect both historical experience and expectations regarding future use of our assets, including wear and tear, obsolescence, technical standards, market demand and geographic location. The use of different assumptions and judgments in the calculation of depreciation, especially those involving useful lives, would likely result in significantly different net book values and results of operations.

The estimated useful life of an asset is monitored to determine its appropriateness, especially when business circumstances change. For example, changes in technology, excessive wear and tear, or unanticipated government actions may result in a shorter estimated useful life than originally anticipated. In these cases, we would depreciate the remaining net book value over the new estimated remaining life, thereby increasing depreciation expense per year on a prospective basis. Likewise, if the estimated useful life is increased, the adjustment to the useful life would decrease depreciation expense per year on a prospective basis.

Impairment of Assets

During the year ended December 31, 2024, we recorded long–lived and other asset impairments of $10.7 million.

Impairment Assessments of Property, Plant and Equipment and Identifiable Intangible Assets

We review long–lived assets, which include property, plant and equipment and intangibles assets that are being amortized, for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances, including the removal of compressors from our active fleet, indicate that the carrying amount of an asset may not be recoverable. An impairment loss may exist when the estimated undiscounted cash flows expected from the use of the asset and its eventual disposition are less than its carrying amount. Determining whether the carrying amount of an asset is recoverable requires us to make judgments regarding long-term forecasts of future revenue and costs related to the asset subject to review. These forecasts are uncertain as they require significant assumptions about future market conditions. Significant and unanticipated changes to these assumptions could require a provision for impairment in a future period. Given the nature of these evaluations and their application to specific assets and specific times, it is not possible to reasonably quantify the impact of changes in these assumptions.

Compression Fleet. The fair value of a compressor is estimated on the expected net sale proceeds compared to fleet units we recently sold, a review of other units recently offered for sale by third parties or the estimated component value of the equipment we plan to use. See Note 22 (“Long-Lived and Other Asset Impairment”) and Note 27 (“Fair Value Measurements”) to our Financial Statements for further details of our fleet asset impairments.

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Income Taxes

Our income tax expense, deferred tax assets and liabilities and reserves for unrecognized tax benefits reflect management’s best assessment of estimated current and future taxes to be paid. We operate in the U.S. and have investments in unconsolidated affiliates that operate in the U.S. and international locations. Significant judgments and estimates are required in determining consolidated income tax expense.

Deferred income taxes arise from temporary differences between the financial statements and the tax basis of assets and liabilities. In evaluating our ability to recover our deferred tax assets, we consider all available positive and negative evidence including scheduled reversals of deferred tax liabilities, projected future taxable income, tax–planning strategies and results of recent operations. In projecting future taxable income, we begin with historical results adjusted for results of discontinued operations and changes in accounting policies and incorporate assumptions, including the amount of future U.S. federal, state, and international pretax operating income, the reversal of temporary differences and the implementation of feasible and prudent tax–planning strategies. These assumptions require significant judgment about the forecasts of future taxable income and are consistent with the plans and estimates we use to manage the underlying businesses. In evaluating the objective evidence that historical results provide, we consider three years of cumulative income (loss) before income taxes.

Changes in tax laws and rates could also affect recorded deferred tax assets and liabilities in the future. Aside from the budget reconciliation process currently occurring in Congress, management is not aware of any such changes that would have a material effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows. The calculation of our tax liabilities involves dealing with uncertainties in the application of complex tax laws and regulations in various state and local jurisdictions.

The accounting standards for income taxes provide that a tax benefit from an uncertain tax position may be recognized when it is more-likely-than-not that the position will be sustained upon examination, including resolutions of any related appeals or litigation processes, on the basis of the technical merits. We adjust these liabilities when our judgment changes as a result of the evaluation of new information not previously available. Because of the complexity of some of these uncertainties, the ultimate resolution may result in a payment that is materially different from our current estimate of the liabilities. Such differences are reflected as increases or decreases to income tax expense in the period in which the new information becomes available.

Recent Accounting Developments

See Note 3 (“Recent Accounting Developments”) to our Financial Statements.

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our Financial Statements, the notes thereto, and the other financial information appearing elsewhere in this 2023 Form 10–K. The following discussion includes forward–looking statements that involve certain risks and uncertainties. See “Forward–Looking Statements” and Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” in this 2023 Form 10–K.

This section primarily discusses 2023 and 2022 items and comparisons between these years. For a discussion of changes from 2021 to 2022 and other financial information related to 2021, refer to Part II, Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” of our Annual Report on Form 10–K for the year ended December 31, 2022 filed with the SEC on February 23, 2023.

Overview

We are an energy infrastructure company with a pure–play focus on midstream natural gas compression. We are the leading provider of natural gas compression services to customers in the oil and natural gas industry throughout the U.S., in terms of total compression fleet horsepower, and a leading supplier of aftermarket services to customers that own compression equipment in the U.S. Our business supports a must–run service that is essential to the production, processing, transportation and storage of natural gas. The natural gas that we help transport satisfies demand from electricity generation, heating and cooking and the industrial and manufacturing sectors. Our geographic diversity, technically experienced personnel and large fleet of natural gas compression equipment enable us to provide reliable contract operations services to our customers.

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We operate in two business segments:

• Contract Operations. Our contract operations business is comprised of our owned fleet of natural gas compression equipment that we use to provide compression operations services to our customers.

• Aftermarket Services. Our aftermarket services business provides a full range of services to support the compression needs of our customers that own compression equipment, including operations, maintenance, overhaul and reconfiguration services and sales of parts and components.

Significant 2023 Transactions

In November 2023, we agreed to serve as the lead investor in a series A financing round for Ionada, a global carbon capture technology company committed to reducing GHG emissions and creating a sustainable future. Ionada has developed a post-combustion carbon capture solution to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from various small to mid-sized industrial emitters in the energy, marine and e-fuels industries, among others. See Note 12 (“Investments in Unconsolidated Affiliates”) to our Financial Statements for additional information about this investment.

Trends and Outlook

The key driver of our business is the production of U.S. oil and natural gas. Approximately 75% of our operating fleet is deployed for midstream natural gas gathering applications, with the remaining fleet being used in gas lift applications to enhance oil production.  As our business is so closely aligned with production and is typically less directly impacted by commodity prices, we are not exposed to the volatility often faced in shorter–cycle oil field service businesses.

Domestic natural gas production generally occurs in either basins where natural gas is produced alongside oil, also known as “associated” gas, such as the Permian and Delaware Basins, the Eagle Ford and the Mid–Continent or in natural gas basins, such as the Marcellus, Utica and Haynesville Shales. Significant investment in domestic exploration and production and midstream infrastructure across the energy industry has been made over much of the past decade, particularly in the low–cost basins characterized by oil and associated natural gas production. The development of these basins producing both commodities has created additional incremental demand for natural gas compression over the recent past as it is a critical method to transport associated gas volumes or enhance oil production through gas lift.

Current Trends

According to the EIA Outlook, average U.S. oil and dry natural gas and production were as follows:

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During 2023, U.S. natural gas and oil production grew to record levels, resulting in strong demand for our compression services and we increased our investment in new fleet units. Our contract operations revenue and total operating horsepower increased 19% and 5%, respectively in 2023. Similar increases in demand in 2023 were seen in our aftermarket services business, where we experienced an increase of 8% in aftermarket services revenue.

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Outlook

The EIA Outlook forecasts the following year–over–year changes:

The EIA Outlook expects natural gas production to continue to increase to all-time highs in 2024 and 2025. Natural gas consumption is also expected to increase, reflecting consistent usage of natural gas in the electric power generation and residential sectors, as well as increased LNG exports and exports of natural gas via pipeline to Mexico.

We believe the outlook for the energy industry in the U.S. is positive. While we anticipate that the combination of commodity prices and demand may likely have a positive impact on activity levels in both the upstream and midstream sectors, we cannot predict the ultimate magnitude of that impact on our business and expect it to be varied across our operations, depending on the region, customer, nature of our services, contract term and other factors. However, we continue to believe that overall the long–term demand for our compression services will continue given the necessity of compression in facilitating the transportation and processing of natural gas.

Regarding our aftermarket services business, the base of owned compression in the U.S. has increased over the past several years, which we believe will help sustain our aftermarket services business over the long term.

Key Challenges and Uncertainties

In addition to general market conditions in the oil and natural gas industry and competition in the natural gas compression industry, we believe the following represent the key challenges and uncertainties we will face in the future.

Capital Requirements and the Availability of External Sources of Capital. We have funded a significant portion of our capital expenditures and acquisitions through borrowings under our Credit Facility and have issued a substantial amount of debt, which could limit our ability to fund future planned capital expenditures. Current conditions could limit our ability to access the debt and equity markets to raise capital on affordable terms in 2024 and beyond. If we are not successful in raising capital within the time period required or at all, we may not be able to fund these capital expenditures, which could impair our ability to grow or maintain our business.

Cost Management. In order to improve our operations and further reduce operating expenses, we are investing significant resources into a process and technology transformation project that has, among other things, replaced our existing ERP, supply chain and inventory management systems and expanded the remote monitoring capabilities of our compression fleet. Cost management continues to be challenging, however, and there is no guarantee that our efforts will result in a reduction in our operating expenses. Natural gas production growth and resulting demand for our services could cause us to experience increased operating expenses as we hire employees and incur additional expenses needed to support the rebound in market demand.

Further, we depend on suppliers for the materials, parts, equipment and lube oil necessary to our operations, which exposes us to volatility in prices. Significant price increases for these inputs could adversely affect our operating profits.  Supply chain disruptions could also adversely affect our ability to obtain, or increase the cost of, such items. While we generally attempt to mitigate the impact of increased prices through strategic purchasing decisions, diversification of our supplier base, where possible, and the passing along of increased costs to customers, there may be a time delay between the increased commodity prices and the ability to increase the price of our services.

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Labor. We believe that our ability to hire, train and retain qualified personnel will continue to be important. Although we have been able to historically satisfy our personnel needs, retaining employees in our industry continues to be a challenge. Our ability to grow and to continue our current level of service to our customers will depend in part on our success in hiring, training and retaining our employees. Further, the cost of labor has increased and may continue to increase in the future with increases in demand, which will require us to incur additional costs.

Demand for natural gas-powered compression. Demand for our services is dependent on the demand for natural gas in the markets we serve. Although the EIA currently forecasts natural gas demand will grow through 2050, technological advances and accelerated adoption of renewable sources of energy could reduce demand for natural gas in our markets and have an adverse effect on our business. In addition, increased focus of our customers on reducing emissions from, or the use of, combustion engines in compression could increase demand for electric motor-driven compressors or require us to make modifications to our existing natural gas-powered units.

Operating Highlights

(1) Defined as idle and operating horsepower. Includes new compressors completed by third party manufacturers that have been delivered to us.

(2) Defined as horsepower that is operating under contract and horsepower that is idle but under contract and generating revenue such as standby revenue.

Non–GAAP Financial Measures

Management uses a variety of financial and operating metrics to analyze our performance. These metrics are significant factors in assessing our operating results and profitability and include the non–GAAP financial measure of gross margin.

We define gross margin as total revenue less cost of sales (excluding depreciation and amortization). Gross margin is included as a supplemental disclosure because it is a primary measure used by our management to evaluate the results of revenue and cost of sales (excluding depreciation and amortization), which are key components of our operations. We believe gross margin is important because it focuses on the current operating performance of our operations and excludes the impact of the prior historical costs of the assets acquired or constructed that are utilized in those operations, the indirect costs associated with our SG&A activities, our financing methods and income taxes. In addition, depreciation and amortization may not accurately reflect the costs required to maintain and replenish the operational usage of our assets and therefore may not portray the costs of current operating activity. As an indicator of our operating performance, gross margin should not be considered an alternative to, or more meaningful than, net income (loss) as determined in accordance with GAAP. Our gross margin may not be comparable to a similarly–titled measure of other entities because other entities may not calculate gross margin in the same manner.

Gross margin has certain material limitations associated with its use as compared to net income (loss). These limitations are primarily due to the exclusion of SG&A, depreciation and amortization, impairments, restructuring charges, interest expense, debt extinguishment loss, gain on sale of assets, net, other (income) expense, net, and provision for (benefit from) income taxes. Because we intend to finance a portion of our operations through borrowings, interest expense is a necessary element of our costs and our ability to generate revenue. Additionally, because we use capital assets, depreciation expense is a necessary element of our costs and our ability to generate revenue and SG&A is necessary to support our operations and required corporate activities. To compensate for these limitations, management uses this non–GAAP measure as a supplemental measure to other GAAP results to provide a more complete understanding of our performance.

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The reconciliation of net income to gross margin is as follows:

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RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Summary of Results

Revenue was $990.3 million and $845.6 million during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. The increase in revenue was due to increased revenue from both our contract operations business and aftermarket services business. See “Contract Operations” and “Aftermarket Services” below for further details.

Net income was $105.0 million and $44.3 million during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. The increase was primarily driven by a higher gross margin from both our contract operations business and aftermarket services business and decreases in long-lived asset impairment expense and SG&A. These changes were partially offset by a decrease in the gain on sale of assets and the unrealized change in fair value of our investment in an unconsolidated affiliate and increases in our provision for income taxes, interest expense, depreciation and amortization and restructuring charges.

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Year Ended December 31, 2023 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2022

Contract Operations

(1) Defined as gross margin divided by revenue.

Revenue in our contract operations business increased primarily due to higher rates for contract compression in response to market conditions and an increase in average operating horsepower, partially offset by the impact of strategic dispositions of horsepower in 2022.

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The increase in cost of sales was primarily due to a $10.8 million increase in parts expense as a result of an increase in maintenance activities and a $1.9 million increase in lube oil expenses which were both driven by higher pricing throughout our supply chain, as well as increased volumes associated with unit redeployment as customer activity accelerated. The increase in cost of sales was also due to an increase of $8.1 million in total employee compensation expense. Further, cost of sales for the year ended December 31, 2023 includes an increase of $9.1 million for sales tax as a result of a change in tax compliance for sales tax associated with contract operations cost of sales. Prior to 2023, contract operations sales tax amounts were recognized in SG&A. Partially offsetting these cost increases was the decrease in expense attributable to the horsepower sold in 2022.

Gross margin percentage increased primarily due to an increase in revenue which exceeded the increase in cost of sales.

Aftermarket Services

Revenue in our aftermarket services business increased primarily due to higher service activities and parts sales from the continuation of the market recovery which began in the prior year and continues to drive an increase in customer demand.

Gross margin increased in our aftermarket services business as a result of increased revenues which exceeded the increase in cost of sales due to differences in the scope, timing and type of activities performed. The increase in cost of sales resulted from an increase in cost of service activities of $5.0 million attributable to increased labor and parts costs, which was partially offset by a reduction in the use of parts and labor from third party providers, which resulted in savings of $3.2 million.

Costs and Expenses

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Selling, general and administrative. The decrease in SG&A was primarily due to a decrease of $8.0 million for sales tax as a result of a change in tax compliance for sales tax associated with contract operations cost of sales. Beginning in 2023, contract operations sales tax amounts are recognized in contract operations cost of sales. Further, SG&A for the year ended December 31, 2023 includes a $2.2 million decrease in professional expense and a $1.3 million decrease in accrued expenses, partially offset by a $5.4 million increase in long-term performance-based incentive compensation expense, a $4.0 million increase in short-term incentive expense and a $1.6 million increase in software and maintenance expense.

Depreciation and amortization. The increase in depreciation and amortization expense was primarily due to an increase in depreciation expense associated with fixed asset additions and accelerated depreciation associated with certain assets. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in depreciation expense resulting from assets reaching the end of their depreciable lives, the impact of compression and other asset sales, and long-lived asset impairments.

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Long–lived and other asset impairment. We periodically review the future deployment of our idle compressors for units that are not of the type, configuration, condition, make or model that are cost efficient to maintain and operate. We also evaluate for impairment our idle units that have been culled from our compression fleet in prior years and are available for sale. During the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, we recognized $12.0 million and $21.4 million, respectively, of impairment charges to write down these compressors to their fair value. The decrease in impairment charges on compressors is due to an increase in customer demand and as a result, higher utilization of our equipment. See Note 21 (“Long-Lived Asset and Other Impairments”) for further details on these impairment charges. The following table presents the results of our compression fleet impairment review, as recorded in our contract operations segment:

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Restructuring charges. Restructuring charges of $1.8 million during the year ended December 31, 2023 consisted of severance and consulting costs related to our restructuring activities. See Note 22 (“Restructuring Charges”) for further details on these restructuring charges.

Interest expense. The increase in interest expense was due to an increase in interest rates, a higher average outstanding balance of long–term debt and the write-off of $1.0 million of unamortized deferred financing costs as a result of the Amended and Restated Credit Agreement, partially offset by an increase in capitalized interest.

Gain on sale of assets, net. The decrease in gain on sale of assets was primarily due to gains of $7.6 million on compression asset sales during the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to gains of $38.5 million on compression asset sales during the year ended December 31, 2022.

The net gain on the sales of assets during 2022 was primarily the result of $28.1 million of gains recognized on sales of certain contract operations customer service agreements and approximately 770 compressors and $12.4 million of gains recognized on other compression asset sales and transportation and shop asset sales during the period.

Other expense (income), net. The decrease in other expense (income), net was primarily due to a $0.9 million decrease in the unrealized change in the fair value of our investment in an unconsolidated affiliate during the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to the year ended December 31, 2022.

Provision for Income Taxes

The increase in provision for income taxes was primarily due to the tax effect of the increase in book income during the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the year ended December 31, 2022.

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LIQUIDITY AND CAPITAL RESOURCES

Overview

Our ability to fund operations, finance capital expenditures and pay dividends depends on the levels of our operating cash flows and access to the capital and credit markets. Our primary sources of liquidity are cash flows generated from our operations and our borrowing availability under our Credit Facility. Our cash flow is affected by numerous factors including prices and demand for our services, oil and natural gas exploration and production spending, conditions in the financial markets and other factors. We have no near-term maturities and believe that our operating cash flows and borrowings under the Credit Facility will be sufficient to meet our future liquidity needs.

We may from time to time seek to retire or purchase our outstanding debt through cash purchases and/or exchanges for equity or debt securities in open market purchases, privately negotiated transactions or otherwise. Such repurchases or exchanges, if any, may be material, will be upon terms and prices as we may determine and will depend on prevailing market conditions, our liquidity requirements, contractual restrictions and other factors.

Cash Requirements

Our contract operations business is capital intensive, requiring significant investment to maintain and upgrade existing operations. Our capital spending is primarily dependent on the demand for our contract operations services and the availability of the type of compression equipment required for us to provide those contract operations services to our customers. Our capital requirements have consisted primarily of, and we anticipate will continue to consist of, the following:

• operating expenses, namely employee compensation and benefits, inventory and lube oil purchases;

• growth capital expenditures;

• maintenance capital expenditures;

• interest on our outstanding debt obligations; and

• dividend payments to our stockholders.

Capital Expenditures

Growth Capital Expenditures. The majority of our growth capital expenditures are related to the acquisition cost of new compressors when our idle equipment cannot be reconfigured to economically fulfill a project’s requirements and the new compressor is expected to generate economic returns that exceed our cost of capital over the compressor’s expected useful life. In addition to newly–acquired compressors, growth capital expenditures include the upgrading of major components on an existing compression package where the current configuration of the compression package is no longer in demand and the compressor is not likely to return to an operating status without the capital expenditures. These expenditures substantially modify the operating parameters of the compression package such that it can be used in applications for which it previously was not suited.

Growth capital expenditures were $190.3 million and $146.3 million during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. The increase in growth capital expenditures from 2022 to 2023 was the result of increased investment in new compression equipment as a result of higher customer demand.

Maintenance Capital Expenditures. Maintenance capital expenditures are related to major overhauls of significant components of a compression package, such as the engine, compressor and cooler, which return the components to a like–new condition, but do not modify the application for which the compression package was designed.

Maintenance capital expenditures were $92.2 million and $84.2 million during the years ended years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. The increase in maintenance capital expenditures from 2022 to 2023 was the result of an increase in scheduled maintenance activities due to maintenance cycle requirements as well as additional make–ready investment as we return idle equipment to work to meet customer demand.

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Projected Capital Expenditures. While market activity continues to be strong, we currently anticipate reducing capital expenditures in 2024 compared to 2023 to support free cash flow generation after dividends, and plan to spend approximately $275.0 million to $290.0 million in capital expenditures during the year ended December 31, 2024, primarily consisting of approximately $175.0 million to $180.0 million for growth capital expenditures and approximately $80.0 million to $85.0 million for maintenance capital expenditures.

Dividends

On January 25, 2024, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.165 per share of common stock, or approximately $25.9 million, which was paid on February 13, 2024 to stockholders of record at the close of business on February 6, 2024. Any future determinations to pay cash dividends to our stockholders will be at the discretion of our Board of Directors and will be dependent upon our financial condition, results of operations, and credit and loan agreements in effect at that time and other factors deemed relevant by our Board of Directors.

Share Repurchase Program

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On April 27, 2023, our Board of Directors authorized the 2023 Share Repurchase Program which allows us to repurchase up to $50.0 million of outstanding common stock.  Under the 2023 Share Repurchase Program, shares of our common stock may be repurchased periodically, including in the open market, privately negotiated transactions, or otherwise in accordance with applicable federal securities laws, at any time until April 27, 2024. The actual timing, manner, number, and value of shares repurchased under the program will be determined by us at our discretion.

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The following table summarizes shares repurchased under the 2023 Share Repurchase Program during the year ended December 31, 2023:

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Contractual Obligations

Our material contractual obligations as of December 31, 2023 consisted of the following:

• Long–term debt of $1.6 billion, all of which is due in 2027 and 2028;

• Estimated interest on our long–term debt of $428.8 million, consisting of annual payments of approximately $108.3 million in 2024 through 2026, approximately $82.5 million in 2027, and approximately $21.4 million in 2028;

• Purchase commitments of $192.7 million, of which $151.6 million is due in 2024, that primarily consist of commitments to purchase fleet assets and information technology–related costs; and

• Operating lease payments of $18.0 million that are spread relatively evenly in 2024 through 2032.

In addition, we had $19.5 million of unrecognized tax benefits (including discontinued operations) recorded as liabilities related to uncertain tax positions at December 31, 2023, which are uncertain as to if or when such amounts may be settled. We had a liability of $2.5 million recorded for potential penalties and interest (including discontinued operations) related to these unrecognized tax benefits at December 31, 2023, which we are uncertain as to if or when such amounts may be settled.

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Sources of Cash

Revolving Credit Facility

During the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, our Credit Facility had an average daily balance of $298.8 million and $235.4 million, respectively. The weighted average annual interest rate on the outstanding balance under the Credit Facility, excluding the effect of interest rate swaps, was 7.7% and 6.9% at December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. As of December 31, 2023, there were $4.5 million of letters of credit outstanding under the Credit Facility and the applicable margin on borrowings outstanding was 2.1%. We amended and restated our Credit Facility on May 16, 2023; see Note 15 (“Long-Term Debt”) to our Financial Statements for details on the Amended and Restated Credit Agreement.

Credit Facility Terms. Our Credit Facility matures on May 16, 2028 (or December 2, 2026 or December 3, 2027, as applicable, if any portion of our 2027 Senior Notes and 2028 Senior Notes, respectively, remain outstanding at such date) and has an aggregate revolving commitment of $750.0 million. Portions of the Credit Facility, up to $75.0 million, are available for the issuance of swing line loans and $50.0 million is available for the issuance of letters of credit. Subject to certain conditions, including approval by the lenders, we are able to increase the aggregate commitments under the Credit Facility by up to an additional $250.0 million. The Credit Facility borrowing base consists of eligible accounts receivable, inventory and compressors.

Covenants. Our Credit Facility agreement requires that we meet certain financial ratios (see Note 15 (“Long-Term Debt”) and contains various additional covenants including, but not limited to, mandatory prepayments from the net cash proceeds of certain asset transfers, restrictions on the use of proceeds from borrowings and limitations on our ability to incur additional indebtedness, engage in transactions with affiliates, merge or consolidate, sell assets, make certain investments and acquisitions, make loans, grant liens, repurchase equity and pay distributions. As of December 31, 2023, we were in compliance with all covenants under our Credit Facility agreement. Additionally, all undrawn capacity on our Credit Facility was available for borrowings as of December 31, 2023.

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Senior Notes

As of both December 31, 2023 and 2022, we had a principal balance of $1.3 billion of outstanding senior notes that consisted of the following:

• $800.0 million of 6.25% senior notes due in April 2028 and

• $500.0 million of 6.875% senior notes due in April 2027.

See Note 15 (Long-term Debt”) to our Financial Statements for further details of these notes.

At–the–Market Continuous Equity Offering Program

Under our ATM Agreement, we may sell, from time to time, shares of our common stock having an aggregate offering price of up to $50.0 million. The agreement terminates upon the earlier of (i) the sale of all shares of common stock subject to the agreement or (ii) the termination of the agreement by us or by each of the sales agents. Any sales agent may also terminate the agreement but only with respect to itself. We used the net proceeds of these offerings for general corporate purposes. During the year ended December 2022, we sold 447,020 shares of common stock, respectively, for net proceeds of $4.2 million, pursuant to the ATM Agreement. There were no shares of common stock sold during the year ended December 31, 2023.

Other Sources of Cash

Business Dispositions and Other Asset Sales. We received proceeds of $72.2 million and $120.3 million from business dispositions and other asset sales during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. We typically use the proceeds from these sales to repay borrowings outstanding under our Credit Facility, however, we are not able to estimate the timing of asset sales nor the amount of proceeds to be received and as such, we do not rely on asset sale proceeds as a future source of capital.

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Cash Flows

Cash flows provided by (used in) each type of activity were as follows:

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Operating Activities.

The increase in net cash provided by operating activities was primarily due to increased cash inflows of $115.2 million from gross margin and changes of $15.4 million in deferred revenue, partially offset by changes of $24.3 million in contract costs, $12.2 million in accounts payable and other liabilities and decreased cash inflows of $9.1 million from accounts receivable.

Investing Activities.

The increase in net cash used in investing activities was primarily due to a $58.8 million increase in capital expenditures and a $99.6 million decrease in proceeds from the sale of business, partially offset by a $51.6 million increase in proceeds from sales of property, plant and equipment and a $7.4 million decrease in investments in non-consolidated affiliates.

Financing Activities.

The increase in net cash used in financing activities was primarily due to $8.9 million of common stock purchased under the 2023 Share Repurchase Program, a $6.0 million payment for debt issuance costs related to the Amended and Restated Credit Agreement, a $5.5 million increase in dividends paid to stockholders and a $4.2 million decrease in proceeds from the sale of shares under the ATM Agreement, partially offset by a $19.0 million increase in net borrowings of long-term debt.

Critical Accounting Estimates

We describe our significant accounting policies more fully in Note 2 (“Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies”) to our Financial Statements. As disclosed in Note 2, the preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, expenses and related disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities. We evaluate our estimates and accounting policies on an ongoing basis and base our estimates on historical experience and other assumptions that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances. The results of this process form the basis of our judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions and these differences can be material to our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Depreciation

Property, plant and equipment, net, at December 31, 2023 was $2.3 billion and depreciation expense was $159.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2023. Property, plant and equipment are carried at cost and depreciated using the straight–line basis over the estimated useful life of the asset.

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Our estimate of useful lives and salvage values are based on assumptions and judgments that reflect both historical experience and expectations regarding future use of our assets, including wear and tear, obsolescence, technical standards, market demand and geographic location. The use of different assumptions and judgments in the calculation of depreciation, especially those involving useful lives, would likely result in significantly different net book values and results of operations.

The estimated useful life of an asset is monitored to determine its appropriateness, especially when business circumstances change. For example, changes in technology, excessive wear and tear, or unanticipated government actions may result in a shorter estimated useful life than originally anticipated. In these cases, we would depreciate the remaining net book value over the new estimated remaining life, thereby increasing depreciation expense per year on a prospective basis. Likewise, if the estimated useful life is increased, the adjustment to the useful life would decrease depreciation expense per year on a prospective basis.

Impairment of Assets

During the year ended December 31, 2023, we recorded long–lived and other asset impairments of $12.0 million.

Impairment Assessments of Property, Plant and Equipment and Identifiable Intangible Assets

We review long–lived assets, which include property, plant and equipment and intangibles assets that are being amortized, for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances, including the removal of compressors from our active fleet, indicate that the carrying amount of an asset may not be recoverable. An impairment loss may exist when the estimated undiscounted cash flows expected from the use of the asset and its eventual disposition are less than its carrying amount. Determining whether the carrying amount of an asset is recoverable requires us to make judgments regarding long-term forecasts of future revenue and costs related to the asset subject to review. These forecasts are uncertain as they require significant assumptions about future market conditions. Significant and unanticipated changes to these assumptions could require a provision for impairment in a future period. Given the nature of these evaluations and their application to specific assets and specific times, it is not possible to reasonably quantify the impact of changes in these assumptions.

Compression Fleet. The fair value of a compressor is estimated on the expected net sale proceeds compared to fleet units we recently sold, a review of other units recently offered for sale by third parties or the estimated component value of the equipment we plan to use. See Note 21 (“Long-Lived and Other Asset Impairment”) and Note 26 (“Fair Value Measurements”) to our Financial Statements for further details of our fleet asset impairments.

Income Taxes

Our income tax expense, deferred tax assets and liabilities and reserves for unrecognized tax benefits reflect management’s best assessment of estimated current and future taxes to be paid. We operate in the U.S. and have investments in unconsolidated affiliates that operate in the U.S. and international locations. Significant judgments and estimates are required in determining consolidated income tax expense.

Deferred income taxes arise from temporary differences between the financial statements and the tax basis of assets and liabilities. In evaluating our ability to recover our deferred tax assets, we consider all available positive and negative evidence including scheduled reversals of deferred tax liabilities, projected future taxable income, tax–planning strategies and results of recent operations. In projecting future taxable income, we begin with historical results adjusted for results of discontinued operations and changes in accounting policies and incorporate assumptions, including the amount of future U.S. federal, state, and international pretax operating income, the reversal of temporary differences and the implementation of feasible and prudent tax–planning strategies. These assumptions require significant judgment about the forecasts of future taxable income and are consistent with the plans and estimates we use to manage the underlying businesses. In evaluating the objective evidence that historical results provide, we consider three years of cumulative income (loss) before income taxes.

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Changes in tax laws and rates could also affect recorded deferred tax assets and liabilities in the future. Management is not aware of any such changes that would have a material effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows. The calculation of our tax liabilities involves dealing with uncertainties in the application of complex tax laws and regulations in various state and local jurisdictions.

The accounting standards for income taxes provide that a tax benefit from an uncertain tax position may be recognized when it is more likely than not that the position will be sustained upon examination, including resolutions of any related appeals or litigation processes, on the basis of the technical merits. We adjust these liabilities when our judgment changes as a result of the evaluation of new information not previously available. Because of the complexity of some of these uncertainties, the ultimate resolution may result in a payment that is materially different from our current estimate of the liabilities. Such differences are reflected as increases or decreases to income tax expense in the period in which the new information becomes available.

Recent Accounting Developments

See Note 3 (“Recent Accounting Developments”) to our Financial Statements.

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our Financial Statements, the notes thereto, and the other financial information appearing elsewhere in this 2022 Form 10–K. The following discussion includes forward–looking statements that involve certain risks and uncertainties. See “Forward–Looking Statements” and Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” in this 2022 Form 10–K.

This section primarily discusses 2022 and 2021 items and comparisons between these years. For a discussion of changes from 2020 to 2021 and other financial information related to 2020, refer to Part II, Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” of our Annual Report on Form 10–K for the year ended December 31, 2021 filed with the SEC on February 23, 2022.

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Overview

We are an energy infrastructure company with a pure–play focus on midstream natural gas compression. We are the leading provider of natural gas compression services to customers in the oil and natural gas industry throughout the U.S., in terms of total compression fleet horsepower, and a leading supplier of aftermarket services to customers that own compression equipment in the U.S. Our business supports a must–run service that is essential to the production, processing, transportation and storage of natural gas. The natural gas that we help transport satisfies demand from electricity generation, heating and cooking and the industrial and manufacturing sectors. Our geographic diversity, technically experienced personnel and large fleet of natural gas compression equipment enable us to provide reliable contract operations services to our customers.

We operate in two business segments:

Significant 2022 Transactions

During the year ended December 31, 2022, we completed sales of certain contract operations customer service agreements and approximately 770 compressors, comprising approximately 172,000 horsepower, used to provide compression services under those agreements, as well as other assets used to support the operations. We recorded an aggregate gain on the sales of $28.1 million. See Note 3 to our Financial Statements for additional information about these dispositions.

In April 2022, we agreed to acquire for cash a 25% equity interest in ECOTEC, a company specializing in methane emissions detection, monitoring and management. As of December 31, 2022, we own 22.7% of ECOTEC. We acquired the remaining equity interest of 2.3% in January 2023. See Note 11 to our Financial Statements for additional information about this investment.

Trends and Outlook

The key driver of our business is the production of U.S. oil and natural gas. Approximately 79% of our operating fleet is deployed for midstream natural gas gathering applications, with the remaining fleet being used in gas lift applications to enhance oil production. As our business is so closely aligned with production and is typically less directly impacted by commodity prices, we are not exposed to the volatility often faced in shorter–cycle oil field service businesses.

Domestic natural gas production generally occurs in either primarily natural gas basins, such as the Marcellus, Utica and Haynesville Shales, or in basins where natural gas is produced alongside oil, also known as “associated” gas, such as the Permian and Delaware Basins, Eagle Ford and the Mid–Continent. Relative stability in commodity prices over much of the past decade encouraged investment in domestic exploration and production and midstream infrastructure across the energy industry, particularly in the low–cost basins characterized by oil and associated natural gas production. The development of these basins producing both commodities has created additional incremental demand for natural gas compression over the recent past as it is a critical method to transport associated gas volumes or enhance oil production through gas lift.

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Current Trends

According to the EIA Outlook, average U.S. oil and dry natural gas and production were as follows:

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Looking back to 2021, the economic recovery from the effects of the COVID–19 pandemic brought a rebound in energy demand around the globe; however, producers limited drilling and completion activity to achieve maintenance levels of production and cash flows in the course of the pandemic. In 2022, the rebound in energy demand triggered supply constraints and price spikes for multiple commodities. That, coupled with the conflict in Ukraine, increased market uncertainty and price spikes as the market and consumers balance supply security and affordability. Even given this uncertainty in the market, oil and natural gas production in 2022 continued to rebound, particularly natural gas production. The increases in production in 2022 resulted in strong demand for our compression services and we increased our investment in new fleet units. Our contract operations revenue and total operating horsepower increased 5% and 6%, respectively in 2022. Similar increases in demand in 2022 were seen in our aftermarket services business, where we experienced an increase of 26% in aftermarket services revenue in 2022.

Outlook

The EIA Outlook forecasts the following year–over–year changes:

The events of 2022 drove broad realization that a more diverse energy mix is needed to satisfy global energy demand and preserve energy security, making it a rewarding time to be in the business of transporting U.S. natural gas. The EIA Outlook expects natural gas production to continue to increase primarily in the Permian region in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico and in the Haynesville region in Louisiana and East Texas due to the expected completion of new pipeline infrastructure expansions in 2023 and 2024. Although the EIA expects natural gas production to increase, natural gas consumption is expected to decrease slightly, reflecting a decrease in the usage of natural gas in the electric power generation sector, as a result of increased power generation from renewables, partially offset by increased LNG exports and exports of natural gas via pipeline to Mexico.

We believe the outlook for the energy industry in the U.S. is positive. While we anticipate that the combination of commodity prices and demand may likely have a positive impact on activity levels in both the upstream and midstream sectors, we cannot predict the ultimate magnitude of that impact on our business and expect it to be varied across our operations, depending on the region, customer, nature of our services, contract term and other factors. However, we continue to believe that overall the long–term demand for our compression services will continue given the necessity of compression in facilitating the transportation and processing of natural gas.

Regarding our aftermarket services business, the base of owned compression in the U.S. has increased over the past several years, which we believe will help sustain our aftermarket services business over the long term.

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Key Challenges and Uncertainties

In addition to general market conditions in the oil and natural gas industry and competition in the natural gas compression industry, we believe the following represent the key challenges and uncertainties we will face in the future.

Capital Requirements and the Availability of External Sources of Capital. We have funded a significant portion of our capital expenditures and acquisitions through borrowings under our Credit Facility and have issued a substantial amount of debt, which could limit our ability to fund future planned capital expenditures. Current conditions could limit our ability to access the debt and equity markets to raise capital on affordable terms in 2023 and beyond. If we are not successful in raising capital within the time period required or at all, we may not be able to fund these capital expenditures, which could impair our ability to grow or maintain our business.

Cost Management. In order to improve our operations and further reduce operating expenses, we are investing significant resources into a process and technology transformation project that has, among other things, replaced our existing ERP, supply chain and inventory management systems and expanded the remote monitoring capabilities of our compression fleet. Cost management continues to be challenging, however, and there is no guarantee that our efforts will result in a reduction in our operating expenses. Natural gas production growth and resulting demand for our services could cause us to experience increased operating expenses as we hire employees and incur additional expenses needed to support the rebound in market demand.

Further, we depend on suppliers for the materials, parts, equipment and lube oil necessary to our operations, which exposes us to volatility in prices. Significant price increases for these inputs could adversely affect our operating profits. Supply chain disruptions could also adversely affect our ability to obtain, or increase the cost of, such items. While we generally attempt to mitigate the impact of increased prices through strategic purchasing decisions, diversification of our supplier base, where possible, and the passing along of increased costs to customers, there may be a time delay between the increased commodity prices and the ability to increase the price of our services.

Labor. We believe that our ability to hire, train and retain qualified personnel will continue to be important. Although we have been able to historically satisfy our personnel needs, retaining employees in our industry continues to be a challenge. Our ability to grow and to continue our current level of service to our customers will depend in part on our success in hiring, training and retaining our employees. Further, the cost of labor has increased and may continue to increase in the future with increases in demand, which will require us to incur additional costs.

Increasing customer focus on free cash flow. Many of our customers have begun transitioning their business model to focus on sustainable free cash flow generation rather than growth, and the COVID–19 pandemic further fueled this change in focus. We expect this transition to have a positive impact on the industry in the long term, as we anticipate the change will reduce volatility through cycles and improve the financial strength of our customers. In the near term, however, we expect this transition to result in a modest natural gas production growth rate, to which demand for our products and services is closely aligned.

Demand for natural gas-powered compression. Demand for our services is dependent on the demand for natural gas in the markets we serve. Although the EIA currently forecasts natural gas demand will grow through 2050, technological advances and accelerated adoption of renewable sources of energy could reduce demand for natural gas in our markets and have an adverse effect on our business. In addition, increased focus of our customers on reducing emissions from, or the use of, combustion engines in compression could increase demand for electric motor-driven compressors or require us to make modifications to our existing natural gas-powered units.

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Operating Highlights

Non–GAAP Financial Measures

Management uses a variety of financial and operating metrics to analyze our performance. These metrics are significant factors in assessing our operating results and profitability and include the non–GAAP financial measure of gross margin.

We define gross margin as total revenue less cost of sales (excluding depreciation and amortization). Gross margin is included as a supplemental disclosure because it is a primary measure used by our management to evaluate the results of revenue and cost of sales (excluding depreciation and amortization), which are key components of our operations. We believe gross margin is important because it focuses on the current operating performance of our operations and excludes the impact of the prior historical costs of the assets acquired or constructed that are utilized in those operations, the indirect costs associated with our SG&A activities, our financing methods and income taxes. In addition, depreciation and amortization may not accurately reflect the costs required to maintain and replenish the operational usage of our assets and therefore may not portray the costs of current operating activity. As an indicator of our operating performance, gross margin should not be considered an alternative to, or more meaningful than, net income (loss) as determined in accordance with GAAP. Our gross margin may not be comparable to a similarly–titled measure of other entities because other entities may not calculate gross margin in the same manner.

Gross margin has certain material limitations associated with its use as compared to net income (loss). These limitations are primarily due to the exclusion of SG&A, depreciation and amortization, impairments, restructuring charges, interest expense, debt extinguishment loss, gain on sale of assets, net, other (income) expense, net, and provision for (benefit from) income taxes. Because we intend to finance a portion of our operations through borrowings, interest expense is a necessary element of our costs and our ability to generate revenue. Additionally, because we use capital assets, depreciation expense is a necessary element of our costs and our ability to generate revenue and SG&A is necessary to support our operations and required corporate activities. To compensate for these limitations, management uses this non–GAAP measure as a supplemental measure to other GAAP results to provide a more complete understanding of our performance.

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The reconciliation of net income (loss) to gross margin is as follows:

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RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Summary of Results

Revenue was $845.6 million and $781.5 million during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. The increase in revenue was due to increased revenue from both our contract operations business and aftermarket services business. See “Contract Operations” and “Aftermarket Services” below for further details.

Net income was $44.3 million and $28.2 million during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. The increase was primarily driven by a higher gross margin from our aftermarket services business, decreased depreciation and amortization expense and interest expense and an increased gain on sale of assets, net, partially offset by higher SG&A expenses and lower gross margin from our contract operations business and higher SG&A.

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Year Ended December 31, 2022 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2021

Contract Operations

Revenue in our contract operations business increased primarily due to higher rates and an increase in average operating horsepower in response to improving market conditions, partially offset by the impact of the strategic dispositions in 2022 and 2021.

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Despite the increase in revenues, the decrease in gross margin in our contract operations business reflects the impact of a larger increase in cost of sales. Start–up, maintenance, lube oil and other operating expenses increased, driven by higher pricing throughout our supply chain, as well as increased volumes associated with unit redeployment as customer activity accelerated. Partially offsetting these cost increases was the decrease in expense attributable to the horsepower sold in 2022 and 2021.

Aftermarket Services

Revenue in our aftermarket services business increased due to the increase in both service activities and sales of parts and components driven by increased customer demand during 2022 compared to 2021.

Gross margin increased due to the increase in revenue mentioned above, partially offset by the increase in cost of sales. The increase in cost of sales was primarily driven by increases in the cost associated with parts and labor.

Costs and Expenses

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Selling, general and administrative. The increase in SG&A was primarily due to a $4.7 million increase in employee compensation costs, a $1.7 million increase in information technology expenses related to increased amortization expense of capitalized implementation costs and service agreements related to the substantial completion of our process and technology transformation project at the end of 2021, a $1.6 million increase in sales and use tax related to audit settlements and a $1.1 million increase in travel and meeting expenses.

Depreciation and amortization. The decrease in depreciation and amortization was primarily due the impact of assets reaching the end of their depreciable lives, compression and other asset sales and impairments and certain intangible assets reaching the end of their useful lives, partially offset by the increased depreciation and amortization expenses associated with fixed asset additions.

Long–lived and other asset impairment. We periodically review the future deployment of our idle compressors for units that are not of the type, configuration, condition, make or model that are cost efficient to maintain and operate. In addition, we evaluate for impairment idle units that have been culled from our compression fleet in prior years and are available for sale. See Note 20 to our Financial Statements for further details.

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The following table presents the results of our compression fleet impairment review, as recorded in our contract operations segment:

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Restructuring charges. Restructuring charges recorded in 2021 primarily related to reductions in headcount and costs to exit a facility no longer deemed economical for our business. We recorded no such restructuring charges during 2022. See Note 19 to our Financial Statements for further details.

Interest expense. The decrease in interest expense was primarily due to a decrease in the average outstanding balance of long–term debt and the $4.9 million write–off of unamortized deferred financing costs related to an amendment to our Credit Facility in 2021, which were partially offset by an increase in the weighted average effective interest rate.

Gain on sale of assets, net. The net gain on sales of assets during 2022 was the result of $28.1 million of gains recognized on sales of certain contract operations customer service agreements and approximately 770 compressors and $12.4 million of gains recognized on other compression and transportation asset sales.

The net gain on the sales of assets during 2021 was primarily the result of $19.0 million of gains recognized on sales of certain contract operations customer service agreements and approximately 875 compressors, $9.3 million of gains recognized on other compression asset sales and $3.3 million of gains recognized on other transportation and shop asset sales during the period.

Other expense (income), net. The change in other expense (income), net was primarily due to a $2.4 million decrease in insurance proceeds related to damages to facilities and compressors caused by Hurricane Ida, a $1.9 million unrealized change in the fair value of our investment in an unconsolidated affiliate and a $0.9 million decrease in indemnification expense remitted pursuant to our tax matters agreement with Exterran Corporation.

Provision for Income Taxes

The increase in the provision for income taxes is primarily due to the tax effect of the increase in book income during the year ended December 31, 2022 compared to the year ended December 31, 2021. See Note 22 to our Financial Statements for additional details.

LIQUIDITY AND CAPITAL RESOURCES

Overview

Our ability to fund operations, finance capital expenditures and pay dividends depends on the levels of our operating cash flows and access to the capital and credit markets. Our primary sources of liquidity are cash flows generated from our operations and our borrowing availability under our Credit Facility. Our cash flow is affected by numerous factors including prices and demand for our services, oil and natural gas exploration and production spending, conditions in the financial markets and other factors. We have no near–term maturities and believe that our operating cash flows and borrowings under the Credit Facility will be sufficient to meet our future liquidity needs.

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We may from time to time seek to retire or purchase our outstanding debt through cash purchases and/or exchanges for equity securities in open market purchases, privately negotiated transactions or otherwise. Such repurchases or exchanges, if any, will depend on prevailing market conditions, our liquidity requirements, contractual restrictions and other factors.

Cash Requirements

Our contract operations business is capital intensive, requiring significant investment to maintain and upgrade existing operations. Our capital spending is primarily dependent on the demand for our contract operations services and the availability of the type of compression equipment required for us to provide those contract operations services to our customers. Our capital requirements have consisted primarily of, and we anticipate will continue to consist of, the following:

Capital Expenditures

Growth Capital Expenditures. The majority of our growth capital expenditures are related to the acquisition cost of new compressors when our idle equipment cannot be reconfigured to economically fulfill a project’s requirements and the new compressor is expected to generate economic returns that exceed our cost of capital over the compressor’s expected useful life. In addition to newly–acquired compressors, growth capital expenditures include the upgrading of major components on an existing compression package where the current configuration of the compression package is no longer in demand and the compressor is not likely to return to an operating status without the capital expenditures. These expenditures substantially modify the operating parameters of the compression package such that it can be used in applications for which it previously was not suited.

Growth capital expenditures were $146.3 million and $37.2 million during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. The increase in growth capital expenditures from 2021 to 2022 was the result of increased investment in new compression equipment as a result of higher customer demand.

Maintenance Capital Expenditures. Maintenance capital expenditures are related to major overhauls of significant components of a compression package, such as the engine, compressor and cooler, which return the components to a like–new condition, but do not modify the application for which the compression package was designed.

Maintenance capital expenditures were $84.2 million and $47.3 million during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. The increase in maintenance capital expenditures from 2021 to 2022 was the result of an increase in scheduled maintenance activities due to maintenance cycle requirements as well as additional make–ready investment as we return idle equipment to work to meet customer demand.

Projected Capital Expenditures. We currently plan to spend approximately $270.0 million to $295.0 million in capital expenditures during the year ended December 31, 2023, primarily consisting of approximately $180.0 million to $200.0 million for growth capital expenditures and approximately $75.0 million to $80.0 million for maintenance capital expenditures. We anticipate increased 2023 capital expenditures, particularly growth capital expenditures, as compared to 2022 due to increased investment in new compression equipment as a result of higher customer demand.

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Dividends

On January 26, 2023, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share of common stock, or approximately $23.6 million, which was paid on February 14, 2023 to stockholders of record at the close of business on February 7, 2023. Any future determinations to pay cash dividends to our stockholders will be at the discretion of our Board of Directors and will be dependent upon our financial condition, results of operations, and credit and loan agreements in effect at that time and other factors deemed relevant by our Board of Directors.

Contractual Obligations

Our material contractual obligations as of December 31, 2022 consisted of the following:

In addition, we had $19.7 million of unrecognized tax benefits (including discontinued operations) recorded as liabilities related to uncertain tax positions and a liability of $2.1 million recorded for potential penalties and interest (including discontinued operations) related to these unrecognized tax benefits at December 31, 2022, which we are uncertain as to if or when such amounts may be settled.

Sources of Cash

Revolving Credit Facility

During the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, our Credit Facility had an average daily balance of $235.4 million and $295.3 million, respectively. The weighted average annual interest rate on the outstanding balance under the Credit Facility, excluding the effect of interest rate swaps, was 6.9% and 2.6% at December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. As of December 31, 2022, there were $5.7 million of letters of credit outstanding under the Credit Facility and the applicable margin on borrowings outstanding was 2.4%.

Our Credit Facility matures in November 2024 and has an aggregate revolving commitment of $750.0 million. Portions of the Credit Facility up to $50.0 million are available for the issuance of swing line loans and $50.0 million is available for the issuance of letters of credit. Subject to certain conditions, including approval by the lenders, we are able to increase the aggregate commitments under the Credit Facility by up to an additional $250.0 million.

Our Credit Facility agreement requires that we meet certain financial ratios (see Note 14 to our Financial Statements) and contains various additional covenants including, but not limited to, mandatory prepayments from the net cash proceeds of certain asset transfers, restrictions on the use of proceeds from borrowings and limitations on our ability to incur additional indebtedness, engage in transactions with affiliates, merge or consolidate, sell assets, make certain investments and acquisitions, make loans, grant liens, repurchase equity and pay distributions. As a result of the financial ratio requirements, $487.6 million of the $493.0 million of undrawn capacity was available for additional borrowings as of December 31, 2022. We were in compliance with all other covenants under our Credit Facility agreement.

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Senior Notes

As of both December 31, 2022 and 2021, we had a principal balance of $1.3 billion of outstanding senior notes that consisted of the following:

See Note 14 to our Financial Statements for further details of these notes.

At–the–Market Continuous Equity Offering Program

Under our ATM Agreement, we may sell, from time to time, shares of our common stock having an aggregate offering price of up to $50.0 million. The agreement terminates upon the earlier of (i) the sale of all shares of common stock subject to the agreement or (ii) the termination of the agreement by us or by each of the sales agents. Any sales agent may also terminate the agreement but only with respect to itself. We used the net proceeds of these offerings for general corporate purposes. During the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, we sold 447,020 and 357,148 shares of common stock, respectively, for net proceeds of $4.2 million and $3.4 million, respectively, pursuant to the ATM Agreement.

Other Sources of Cash

We received proceeds of $120.3 million and $112.9 million from business dispositions and other asset sales during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. We typically use the proceeds from these sales to repay borrowings outstanding under our Credit Facility, however, we are not able to estimate the timing of asset sales nor the amount of proceeds to be received and as such, we do not rely on asset sale proceeds as a future source of capital.

Cash Flows

Cash flows provided by (used in) each type of activity were as follows:

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Operating Activities.

The decrease in net cash provided by operating activities was primarily due to increased cash outflow for cost of sales, contract costs, and SG&A, as well as decreased cash inflow from accounts receivable. Partially offsetting these decreases in operating cash were increased cash inflow from revenue and deferred revenue.

Investing Activities.

The change in net cash used in investing activities was primarily due to a $142.0 million increase in capital expenditures and a $14.7 million increase in our investment in unconsolidated affiliates, partially offset by a $7.4 million increase in proceeds from the sale of business and other assets.

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Financing Activities.

The decrease in net cash used in financing activities was primarily due to $16.8 million of net borrowings of long–term debt during 2022 compared with $158.5 million of net repayments of long–term debt during 2021, and a $3.1 million decrease in payments for settlements of interest rate swaps that include financing elements.

Critical Accounting Estimates

We describe our significant accounting policies more fully in Note 2 to our Financial Statements. As disclosed in Note 2, the preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, expenses and related disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities. We evaluate our estimates and accounting policies on an ongoing basis and base our estimates on historical experience and other assumptions that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances. The results of this process form the basis of our judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions and these differences can be material to our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Depreciation

Property, plant and equipment are carried at cost and depreciated using the straight–line basis over the estimated useful life of the asset. As of December 31, 2022, property, plant and equipment, net was $2.2 billion and depreciation expense was $155.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2022.

Our estimate of useful lives and salvage values are based on assumptions and judgments that reflect both historical experience and expectations regarding future use of our assets, including wear and tear, obsolescence, technical standards, market demand and geographic location. The use of different assumptions and judgments in the calculation of depreciation, especially those involving useful lives, would likely result in significantly different net book values and results of operations.

The estimated useful life of an asset is monitored to determine its appropriateness, especially when business circumstances change. For example, changes in technology, excessive wear and tear, or unanticipated government actions may result in a shorter estimated useful life than originally anticipated. In these cases, we would depreciate the remaining net book value over the new estimated remaining life, thereby increasing depreciation expense per year on a prospective basis. Likewise, if the estimated useful life is increased, the adjustment to the useful life would decrease depreciation expense per year on a prospective basis.

Impairment of Assets

During the year ended December 31, 2022, we recorded long–lived and other asset impairments of $21.4 million. We review long–lived assets, which include property, plant and equipment and intangibles assets that are being amortized, for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances, including the removal of compressors from our active fleet, indicate that the carrying amount of an asset may not be recoverable. An impairment loss may exist when the estimated undiscounted cash flows expected from the use of the asset and its eventual disposition are less than its carrying amount. Determining whether the carrying amount of an asset is recoverable requires us to make judgments regarding long-term forecasts of future revenue and costs related to the asset subject to review. These forecasts are uncertain as they require significant assumptions about future market conditions. Significant and unanticipated changes to these assumptions could require a provision for impairment in a future period. Given the nature of these evaluations and their application to specific assets and specific times, it is not possible to reasonably quantify the impact of changes in these assumptions.

For compressors that are removed from our active fleet, the fair value of a compressor is estimated based on the expected net sale proceeds compared to other fleet units we recently sold, a review of other units recently offered for sale by third parties or the estimated component value of the equipment we plan to use. See Note 20 and Note 25 to our Financial Statements for further details of our fleet asset impairments.

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Income Taxes

Our income tax expense, deferred tax assets and liabilities and reserves for unrecognized tax benefits reflect management’s best assessment of estimated current and future taxes to be paid. Significant judgments and estimates are required in determining consolidated income tax expense.

Deferred income taxes arise from temporary differences between the financial statements and the tax basis of assets and liabilities. In evaluating our ability to recover our deferred tax assets, we consider all available positive and negative evidence including scheduled reversals of deferred tax liabilities, projected future taxable income, tax–planning strategies and results of recent operations. In projecting future taxable income, we begin with historical results adjusted for changes in accounting policies and incorporate assumptions, including the amount of future U.S. federal and state pretax operating income, the reversal of temporary differences and the implementation of feasible and prudent tax–planning strategies. These assumptions require significant judgment about the forecasts of future taxable income and are consistent with the plans and estimates we use to manage the underlying businesses. In evaluating the objective evidence that historical results provide, we consider three years of cumulative income (loss) before income taxes.

Changes in tax laws and rates could also affect recorded deferred tax assets and liabilities in the future. Management is not aware of any such changes that would have a material effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows. The calculation of our tax liabilities involves dealing with uncertainties in the application of complex tax laws and regulations in various state and local jurisdictions.

GAAP provides that a tax benefit from an uncertain tax position may be recognized when it is more likely than not that the position will be sustained upon examination, including resolutions of any related appeals or litigation processes, on the basis of the technical merits. We adjust these liabilities when our judgment changes as a result of the evaluation of new information not previously available. Because of the complexity of some of these uncertainties, the ultimate resolution may result in a payment that is materially different from our current estimate of the liabilities. Such differences are reflected as increases or decreases to income tax expense in the period in which the new information becomes available.

Recent Accounting Developments

See Note 2 to our Financial Statements.

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our Financial Statements, the notes thereto, and the other financial information appearing elsewhere in this 2021 Form 10-K. The following discussion includes forward-looking statements that involve certain risks and uncertainties. See “Forward-Looking Statements” and Part I Item 1A “Risk Factors” in this 2021 Form 10-K.

This section primarily discusses 2021 and 2020 items and comparisons between these years. For a discussion of changes from 2019 to 2020 and other financial information related to 2019, refer to Part II Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020 filed with the SEC on February 23, 2021.

Overview

We are an energy infrastructure company with a pure-play focus on midstream natural gas compression. We are the leading provider of natural gas compression services to customers in the oil and natural gas industry throughout the U.S., in terms of total compression fleet horsepower, and a leading supplier of aftermarket services to customers that own compression equipment in the U.S. Our business supports a must-run service that is essential to the production, processing, transportation and storage of natural gas. The natural gas that we help transport satisfies demand from electricity generation, heating and cooking and the industrial and manufacturing sectors. Our geographic diversity, technically experienced personnel and large fleet of natural gas compression equipment enable us to provide reliable contract operations services to our customers.

We operate in two business segments:

Significant 2021 Transactions

July 2021 Dispositions

In July 2021, we completed sales of certain contract operations customer service agreements and approximately 575 compressors, comprising approximately 100,000 horsepower, used to provide compression services under those agreements, as well as other assets used to support the operations. We received cash consideration of $60.3 million for the sales and recorded gains on the sales of $13.0 million during the year ended December 31, 2021. The proceeds received from the sales were used to repay borrowings outstanding under our Credit Facility. See Note 4 (“Business Transactions”) to our Financial Statements for further details of these transactions.

February 2021 Disposition

In February 2021, we completed the sale of certain contract operations customer service agreements and approximately 300 compressors, comprising approximately 40,000 horsepower, used to provide compression services under those agreements as well as other assets used to support the operations. We recorded a gain on the sale of $6.0 million during the year ended December 31, 2021. See Note 4 (“Business Transactions”) to our Financial Statements for further details of this transaction.

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Amendment No. 3 to our Credit Facility

In February 2021, we amended our Credit Facility to, among other things, reduce the aggregate revolving commitment from $1.25 billion to $750.0 million and adjust the maximum Senior Secured Debt to EBITDA and Total Debt to EBITDA ratios. We incurred $1.8 million in transaction costs and wrote off $4.9 million of unamortized deferred financing costs as a result of Amendment No. 3. See Note 14 (“Long-Term Debt”) to our Financial Statements for further details of this amendment.

At-the-Market Continuous Equity Offering Program

In February 2021, we entered into an ATM Agreement whereby we may sell, from time to time, shares of our common stock for an aggregate offering price of up to $50.0 million. We use the proceeds of these offerings for general corporate purposes. During the year ended December 31, 2021, we sold 357,148 shares of common stock for net proceeds of $3.4 million pursuant to this agreement. See Note 16 (“Equity”) to our Financial Statements for further details of this agreement.

Trends and Outlook

The key driver of our business is the production of U.S. natural gas and crude oil. Approximately 77% of our operating fleet is deployed for midstream natural gas gathering applications, with the remaining fleet being used in gas lift applications to enhance crude oil production. Changes in natural gas and crude oil production spending therefore typically result in changes in demand for our services.

Spending on natural gas and crude oil exploration and production typically declines when there is a significant and prolonged reduction in natural gas and crude oil prices or significant instability in energy markets, and increases during periods of rising prices and market stability. As our business is so closely aligned with production and is typically less directly impacted by commodity prices, we are not exposed to the volatility often faced in shorter-cycle oil field service businesses.

COVID-19 Pandemic

Beginning in the first quarter of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a deterioration in global macroeconomic conditions, including a collapse in the demand for natural gas and crude oil coupled with an oversupply of crude oil, which led to substantial spending cuts by our customers and a decline in natural gas and crude oil production. This global response to the pandemic adversely impacted our revenue and cash flows. Though demand and commodity prices have shown improvement since the lows reached in the second quarter of 2020, the potential for additional surges and variants of the disease remains and as such, uncertainty still exists around the timing and potential for a full economic recovery.

Our customers substantially cut spending and activity beginning in the second quarter of 2020 as a result of the significant declines in natural gas and crude oil prices and demand and consequently, our horsepower, utilization and revenue experienced declines and remained at lower levels in 2021, as compared to early 2020 and periods prior, in both our contract operations and aftermarket services businesses. In addition to the decline in revenue, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our results is primarily visible in the $99.8 million non-cash impairment of goodwill and the impairment’s resulting $22.7 million tax benefit in the first quarter of 2020. Cost of sales, SG&A, long-lived and other asset impairment and restructuring charges have also been significantly impacted. See “Financial Results of Operations” below and Note 9 (“Goodwill”), Note 18 (“Long-Lived and Other Asset Impairment”), Note 19 (“Restructuring Charges”) and Note 20 (“Income Taxes”) to our Financial Statements for further discussion.

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Current Trends

In 2019, increased global demand for U.S. natural gas and crude oil production contributed to increased production for both resources and record U.S. natural gas production. Production fell sharply, however, in the second quarter of 2020 as a result of the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and remained at depressed levels until the latter half of 2021, at which point production rose relatively consistently through the remainder of the year. According to the EIA’s February 2022 Short-Term Energy Outlook, average U.S. dry natural gas and crude oil production in 2021, 2020 and 2019 were as follows:

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The increases in production in 2019 resulted in strong demand for our compression services in that year and into the first quarter of 2020. Additionally, we increased our investment in new fleet units in 2019 to take advantage of improved market conditions. As a result of this increased demand and investment, our contract operations revenue and average operating horsepower increased 15% and 10%, respectively, in 2019. In 2020, however, the decrease in demand and production brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic drove revenue and average operating horsepower to below 2019 levels, where they remained through all of 2021, as producers limited drilling and completion activity to achieve maintenance levels of production and cash flows in the course of the pandemic.

Similar decreases in demand as a result of the pandemic were seen in our aftermarket services business, where we experienced a rise in customer deferrals of maintenance activities throughout 2020 and the beginning of 2021, before demand picked up in the second quarter of 2021 and continued to improve through the remainder of the year.

Outlook

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The EIA forecasts the following year-over-year changes in its February 2022 Short-Term Energy Outlook:

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Overall, natural gas and crude oil production is expected to increase in 2022 and 2023, returning to pre-COVID-19 levels in 2023, as U.S. onshore activity continues the rise it began in mid-2021. Accordingly, we anticipate demand for our compression services to also increase as we move into 2022.

Longer term, per the EIA’s 2021 Annual Energy Outlook, the EIA expects dry natural gas production to increase 12%, 17% and 33% through 2025, 2030 and 2050, respectively. Natural gas provides an affordable and reliable solution that we believe will play a prominent role in a cleaner energy mix, even as energy generation from renewables increases. We believe that the U.S. natural gas compression services industry continues to have growth potential over time due to, among other things, increased natural gas production in the U.S. from unconventional sources, aging producing natural gas fields that will require more compression to continue producing the same volume of natural gas and expected increased demand for natural gas in the U.S. for power generation, industrial uses and exports, including liquefied natural gas exports and exports of natural gas via pipeline to Mexico. We expect that such an increase in demand for U.S. natural gas will in turn lead to continued strong demand for compression services.

Regarding our aftermarket services business, the base of owned compression in the U.S. has increased over the past several years, which we believe will help sustain our aftermarket services business over the long term.

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Key Challenges and Uncertainties

In addition to general market conditions in the oil and gas industry – those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and otherwise – and competition in the natural gas compression industry, we believe the following represent the key challenges and uncertainties we will face in the future.

Capital Requirements and the Availability of External Sources of Capital. We have funded a significant portion of our capital expenditures and acquisitions through borrowings under the Credit Facility and have issued a substantial amount of debt, which could limit our ability to fund future planned capital expenditures. Current conditions could limit our ability to access the debt and equity markets to raise capital on affordable terms in 2022 and beyond. If we are not successful in raising capital within the time period required or at all, we may not be able to fund these capital expenditures, which could impair our ability to grow or maintain our business.

Cost Management. In anticipation of lower customer activity levels in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we implemented a plan in the second quarter of 2020 to significantly reduce our annual operating, corporate and capital costs, many aspects of which we continued to execute on throughout 2021 and expect to continue in the foreseeable future. In addition, in order to improve our operations and further reduce operating expenses, we are investing significant resources into a process and technology transformation project that has, among other things, replaced our existing ERP, supply chain and inventory management systems and expanded the remote monitoring capabilities of our compression fleet. Cost management continues to be challenging, however, and there is no guarantee that our efforts will result in a reduction in our operating expenses. Natural gas production growth and resulting demand for our services, once resumed in full, could cause us to experience increased operating expenses as we hire employees and incur additional expenses needed to support the rebound in market demand.

Further, we depend on suppliers for the materials, parts, equipment and lube oil necessary to our operations, which exposes us to volatility in prices. Significant price increases for these inputs could adversely affect our operating profits. Supply chain bottlenecks resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic could also adversely affect our ability to obtain, or increase the cost of, such items. While we generally attempt to mitigate the impact of increased prices through strategic purchasing decisions, diversification of our supplier base, where possible, and the passing along of increased costs to customers, there may be a time delay between the increased commodity prices and the ability to increase the price of our services.

Labor. We believe that our ability to hire, train and retain qualified personnel will continue to be important. Although we have been able to historically satisfy our personnel needs, retaining employees in our industry continues to be a challenge. Our ability to grow and to continue our current level of service to our customers will depend in part on our success in hiring, training and retaining our employees, including those employees impacted by our headcount reduction and furloughs through the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the cost of labor has increased and may continue to increase in the future with increases in demand, which will require us to incur additional costs.

Later-Cycle Market Participant. Compression service providers have traditionally been a later-cycle participant as energy markets fluctuate. As such, we anticipate that any significant change in the demand for our contract operations services will generally lag a change in drilling activity. Increased natural gas and crude oil production in 2018 and 2019 contributed to increased new orders for our compression services during those years and into the first quarter of 2020, the revenue gains from which were realized in 2019 and the first quarter of 2020. In the second quarter of 2020, however, customer demand dropped sharply in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the associated decrease in our revenue occurred almost immediately.

Dry natural gas production, one of the key drivers of our business, increased 10% in 2019, decreased 1% in 2020, increased 3% in 2021, and is expected to increase 12% in 2022 through 2025. We believe that, similar to the rapid drops in customer demand and associated revenue experienced in 2020, our revenue will increase closely behind the pickup in customer demand as the COVID-19 pandemic runs its course. Long term, we expect to return to the more traditional cycle in which production growth increases demand for compression services, which results in increases in revenue and gross margin, though on a lag of several quarters or more.

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Customer deferrals. Our aftermarket services revenue decreased in 2020 and 2019 as customers deferred near-term maintenance activities. We saw a decrease in these deferrals beginning in the second quarter of 2021, and we believe the large installed base of owned compression in the U.S. supports the long-term fundamentals of the aftermarket services business, however, the timing of a full recovery is difficult to predict, particularly in light of the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the meantime, we remain focused on cost management and the higher margin business within our aftermarket services operations.

Increasing customer focus on free cash flow. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of our customers had begun transitioning their business model to focus on sustainable free cash flow generation rather than growth, and the COVID-19 pandemic has further fueled this change in focus. We expect this transition to have a positive impact on the industry in the long term, as we anticipate the change will reduce volatility through cycles and improve the financial strength of our customers. In the near term, however, we can expect this transition, combined with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, to result in a modest natural gas production growth rate, to which demand for our products and services is closely aligned.

Demand for natural gas-powered compression. Demand for our services is dependent on the demand for natural gas in the markets we serve. Although the EIA currently forecasts natural gas demand will grow through 2050, technological advances and accelerated adoption of renewable sources of energy could reduce demand for natural gas in our markets and have an adverse effect on our business. In addition, increased focus of our customers on reducing emissions from, or the use of, combustion engines in compression could increase demand for electric motor-driven compressors or require us to make modifications to our existing natural gas-powered units.

Operating Highlights

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Management uses a variety of financial and operating metrics to analyze our performance. These metrics are significant factors in assessing our operating results and profitability and include the non-GAAP financial measure of gross margin.

We define gross margin as total revenue less cost of sales (excluding depreciation and amortization). Gross margin is included as a supplemental disclosure because it is a primary measure used by our management to evaluate the results of revenue and cost of sales (excluding depreciation and amortization), which are key components of our operations. We believe gross margin is important because it focuses on the current operating performance of our operations and excludes the impact of the prior historical costs of the assets acquired or constructed that are utilized in those operations, the indirect costs associated with our SG&A activities, our financing methods and income taxes. In addition, depreciation and amortization may not accurately reflect the costs required to maintain and replenish the operational usage of our assets and therefore may not portray the costs of current operating activity. As an indicator of our operating performance, gross margin should not be considered an alternative to, or more meaningful than, net income (loss) as determined in accordance with GAAP. Our gross margin may not be comparable to a similarly-titled measure of other entities because other entities may not calculate gross margin in the same manner.

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Gross margin has certain material limitations associated with its use as compared to net income (loss). These limitations are primarily due to the exclusion of SG&A, depreciation and amortization, impairments, restatement and other charges, restructuring charges, interest expense, debt extinguishment loss, transaction-related costs, (gain) loss on sale of assets, net, other (income) expense, net, provision for (benefit from) income taxes and loss from discontinued operations, net of tax. Because we intend to finance a portion of our operations through borrowings, interest expense is a necessary element of our costs and our ability to generate revenue. Additionally, because we use capital assets, depreciation expense is a necessary element of our costs and our ability to generate revenue and SG&A is necessary to support our operations and required corporate activities. To compensate for these limitations, management uses this non-GAAP measure as a supplemental measure to other GAAP results to provide a more complete understanding of our performance.

The following table reconciles net income (loss) to gross margin:

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Results of Operations: Summary of Results

Revenue

Revenue was $781.5 million and $875.0 million during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. The decrease in revenue was due to declines in revenue from both our contract operations and aftermarket services businesses. See “Contract Operations” and “Aftermarket Services” below for further details.

Net Income (Loss)

We had net income of $28.2 million and a net loss of $68.4 million during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. The change from net loss in 2020 to net income in 2021 was primarily driven by decreases in goodwill impairment, long-lived and other asset impairment, depreciation and amortization, restructuring charges and debt extinguishment loss, as well as increases in gain on sale of assets, net and other income, net. These changes were partially offset by decreases in gross margin of our contract operations and aftermarket services businesses and the change from a benefit from to a provision for income taxes.

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Results of Operations: Year Ended December 31, 2021 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2020

Contract Operations

Revenue decreased primarily due to returns of horsepower amidst the market downturn that began in early 2020, as well as the strategic disposition of horsepower in 2020 and 2021.

Gross margin decreased due to the decrease in revenue, however, the decline was partially mitigated by the decrease in cost of sales. The lower operating horsepower discussed above drove a decrease in maintenance, freight and other operating expenses. Offsetting these decreases were (i) increases in start-up and other operating expense, which resulted from an increase in unit redeployment as customers returned to operations from standby status, and lube oil expense, which was primarily due to an increase in commodity price and increased volumes associated with unit redeployment, and (ii) a decrease in our sales and use tax benefit, which resulted from audit settlements in 2020 and no comparable settlements in 2021.

Aftermarket Services

Revenue decreased by $5.2 million due to the sale of our turbocharger business in July 2020, and was further reduced by a decrease in service activities, which was primarily driven by customer deferral of maintenance activities amidst the market downturn. These decreases were partially offset by an increase in parts sales that resulted from an increase in customer demand in the second half of 2021.

Gross margin decreased due to the decrease in revenue, however, the decline was partially mitigated by the decrease in cost of sales. The decrease in cost of sales was driven by the decrease in service activities and the sale of our turbocharger business. These decreases to costs of sales were partially offset by the increase in parts sales.

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Costs and Expenses

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Selling, general and administrative. The increase in SG&A was primarily due to a $4.1 million increase in sales and use tax that was mainly driven by audit settlements in 2020 and no comparable settlements in 2021, a $1.3 million increase in information technology expenses, which largely consisted of costs related to our process and technology transformation project, and a $0.8 million increase in professional expenses. These increases were partially offset by a $3.6 million decrease in our provision for credit losses and a $1.4 million decrease in compensation and benefits.

Depreciation and amortization. The decrease in depreciation and amortization was primarily due to a decrease in depreciation expense resulting from assets reaching the end of their depreciable lives, the impact of compression and other asset impairments and sales and a decrease in amortization expense as certain intangible assets reached the end of their useful lives. These decreases were partially offset by increases in depreciation expense associated with fixed asset additions and the write-off of compression and building assets damaged by Hurricane Ida in 2021.

Long-lived and other asset impairment. We periodically review the future deployment of our idle compressors for units that are not of the type, configuration, condition, make or model that are cost efficient to maintain and operate. In addition, we evaluate for impairment idle units that have been culled from our compression fleet in prior years and are available for sale. See Note 18 (“Long-Lived and Other Asset Impairment”) to our Financial Statements for further details. The following table presents the results of our compression fleet impairment review, as recorded in our contract operations segment:

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Also during the year ended December 31, 2020, we impaired $1.7 million of capitalized implementation and unamortized prepaid costs related to the mobile workforce component of our process and technology transformation project. See Note 12 (“Hosting Arrangements”) to our Financial Statements for further details.

Goodwill impairment. During the year ended December 31, 2020, we recorded goodwill impairment of $99.8 million due to the decline in the fair value of our contract operations reporting unit. See Note 9 (“Goodwill”) to our Financial Statements for further details.

Restructuring charges. Restructuring charges of $2.9 million and $8.5 million during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively, primarily consisted of severance and property disposal costs related to our restructuring activities. See Note 19 (“Restructuring Charges”) to our Financial Statements for further details.

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Interest expense. The increase in interest expense was primarily due to an increase in the weighted average effective interest rate and the $4.9 million write-off of unamortized deferred financing costs related to Amendment No. 3, which were largely offset by a decrease in the average outstanding balance of long-term debt.

Debt extinguishment loss. We recorded a debt extinguishment loss of $4.0 million during the year ended December 31, 2020 as a result of the redemption of the 2022 Notes. See Note 14 (“Long-Term Debt”) to our Financial Statements for further details.

Gain on sale of assets, net. Our net gain on the sale of assets during the year ended December 31, 2021 was primarily the result of $13.0 million of gains recognized on the July 2021 Dispositions, the $6.0 million gain on the February 2021 Disposition, $9.3 million of gains recognized on other compression asset sales during 2021 and $3.3 million of gains recognized on other transportation and shop asset sales during the period.

Our net gain on the sale of assets during the year ended December 31, 2020 was primarily due to the $9.3 million gain on the July 2020 Disposition, the $3.2 million gain on the March 2020 Disposition and gains of $3.7 million on sales of other transportation and shop equipment. These gains were offset by a $5.1 million loss on other compression assets sold during 2020.

Other income, net. The increase in other income, net was primarily due to an insurance settlement of $2.8 million related to damages caused by Hurricane Ida to facilities and compressors, as well as a $0.4 million decrease in indemnification expense remitted pursuant to our tax matters agreement with Exterran Corporation.

Provision for (Benefit from) Income Taxes

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The change from a benefit from to a provision for income taxes was primarily due to the tax effect of the increase in book income during the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to the year ended December 31, 2020. See Note 20 (“Income Taxes”) to our Financial Statements for further details.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

Overview

Our ability to fund operations, finance capital expenditures and pay dividends depends on the levels of our operating cash flows and access to the capital and credit markets. Our primary sources of liquidity are cash flows generated from our operations and our borrowing availability under our Credit Facility. Our cash flow is affected by numerous factors including prices and demand for our services, oil and natural gas exploration and production spending, conditions in the financial markets and other factors. Beginning in the first quarter of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a deterioration in global macroeconomic conditions, which adversely impacted our estimates of future revenues and cash flows. However, we have no near-term maturities and believe that our operating cash flows and borrowings under the Credit Facility will be sufficient to meet our future liquidity needs.

We may from time to time seek to retire or purchase our outstanding debt through cash purchases and/or exchanges for equity securities in open market purchases, privately negotiated transactions or otherwise. Such repurchases or exchanges, if any, will depend on prevailing market conditions, our liquidity requirements, contractual restrictions and other factors.

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Cash Requirements

Our contract operations business is capital intensive, requiring significant investment to maintain and upgrade existing operations. Our capital spending is primarily dependent on the demand for our contract operations services and the availability of the type of compression equipment required for us to provide those contract operations services to our customers. Our capital requirements have consisted primarily of, and we anticipate will continue to consist of, the following:

Capital Expenditures

Growth Capital Expenditures. The majority of our growth capital expenditures are related to the acquisition cost of new compressors when our idle equipment cannot be reconfigured to economically fulfill a project’s requirements and the new compressor is expected to generate economic returns that exceed our cost of capital over the compressor’s expected useful life. In addition to newly-acquired compressors, growth capital expenditures include the upgrading of major components on an existing compression package where the current configuration of the compression package is no longer in demand and the compressor is not likely to return to an operating status without the capital expenditures. These expenditures substantially modify the operating parameters of the compression package such that it can be used in applications for which it previously was not suited.

Growth capital expenditures were $37.2 million and $79.1 million during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. The decrease in growth capital expenditures from 2020 to 2021 was the result of a previously-planned decrease in spending in 2020, which was based on an expected deceleration in the growth rate of natural gas production, and further reductions in spend in response to the decreased customer demand that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maintenance Capital Expenditures. Maintenance capital expenditures are related to major overhauls of significant components of a compression package, such as the engine, compressor and cooler, which return the components to a like-new condition, but do not modify the application for which the compression package was designed.

Maintenance capital expenditures were $47.3 million and $32.0 million during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. The increase in maintenance capital expenditures from 2020 to 2021 was the result of an increase in scheduled maintenance activities due to maintenance cycle requirements as well as additional make-ready investment as we return idle equipment to work to meet customer demand.

Projected Capital Expenditures. We currently plan to spend approximately $213 million to $235 million in capital expenditures during 2022, primarily consisting of approximately $150 million for growth capital expenditures and approximately $55 million to $75 million for maintenance capital expenditures. We anticipate increased 2022 capital expenditures, particularly growth capital expenditures, as compared to 2021 due to increased investment in new compression equipment as a result of higher customer demand.

Dividends

On January 27, 2022, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.145 per share of common stock, or approximately $22.6 million, which was paid on February 15, 2022 to stockholders of record at the close of business on February 8, 2022. Any future determinations to pay cash dividends to our stockholders will be at the discretion of our Board of Directors and will be dependent upon our financial condition, results of operations, and credit and loan agreements in effect at that time and other factors deemed relevant by our Board of Directors.

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Contractual Obligations

Our material contractual obligations as of December 31, 2021 consisted of the following:

In addition, we had $19.6 million of unrecognized tax benefits (including discontinued operations) recorded as liabilities related to uncertain tax positions at December 31, 2021, which we are uncertain as to if or when such amounts may be settled. We had a liability of $2.2 million recorded for potential penalties and interest (including discontinued operations) related to these unrecognized tax benefits.

Sources of Cash

Revolving Credit Facility

During the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, our Credit Facility had an average daily balance of $295.3 million and $704.5 million, respectively. The weighted average annual interest rate on the outstanding balance under the Credit Facility, excluding the effect of interest rate swaps, was 2.6% and 2.7% at December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. As of December 31, 2021, there were $8.9 million letters of credit outstanding under the Credit Facility and the applicable margin on borrowings outstanding was 2.4%. We executed two amendments to our facility during the three-year period ended December 31, 2021; see Note 14 (“Long-Term Debt”) to our Financial Statements for details of these amendments.

Certain Facility Terms. Our Credit Facility matures in November 2024 and has an aggregate revolving commitment of $750.0 million. Portions of the Credit Facility up to $50.0 million are available for the issuance of swing line loans and $50.0 million is available for the issuance of letters of credit. Subject to certain conditions, including approval by the lenders, we are able to increase the aggregate commitments under the Credit Facility by up to an additional $250.0 million. The Credit Facility borrowing base consists of eligible accounts receivable, inventory and compressors.

Covenants. Our Credit Facility agreement requires that we meet certain financial ratios (see Note 14 (“Long-Term Debt”) to our Financial Statements) and contains various additional covenants including, but not limited to, mandatory prepayments from the net cash proceeds of certain asset transfers, restrictions on the use of proceeds from borrowings and limitations on our ability to incur additional indebtedness, engage in transactions with affiliates, merge or consolidate, sell assets, make certain investments and acquisitions, make loans, grant liens, repurchase equity and pay distributions. As a result of the financial ratio requirements, $502.5 million of the $506.6 million of undrawn capacity was available for additional borrowings as of December 31, 2021. We were in compliance with all other covenants under our Credit Facility agreement.

Senior Notes

As of both December 31, 2021 and 2020, we had a principal balance of $1.3 billion of outstanding senior notes that consisted of the following:

See Note 14 (“Long-Term Debt”) to our Financial Statements for further details of these notes.

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At-the-Market Continuous Equity Offering Program

Under our ATM Agreement, we may sell, from time to time, shares of our common stock having an aggregate offering price of up to $50.0 million. The agreement terminates upon the earlier of (i) the sale of all shares of common stock subject to the agreement or (ii) the termination of the agreement by us or by each of the sales agents. Any sales agent may also terminate the agreement but only with respect to itself. We use the net proceeds of these offerings for general corporate purposes. During the year ended December 31, 2021, we sold 357,148 shares of common stock for net proceeds of $3.4 million pursuant to the ATM Agreement. See Note 16 (“Equity”) to our Financial Statements for further details of this agreement.

Other Sources of Cash

Business Dispositions and Other Asset Sales. We received proceeds of $112.9 million and $52.6 million from business dispositions and other asset sales during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. We typically use the proceeds from these sales to repay borrowings outstanding under our Credit Facility, however, we are not able to estimate the timing of asset sales nor the amount of proceeds to be received and as such, we do not rely on asset sale proceeds as a future source of capital.

Cash Flows

Our cash flows, as reflected in our consolidated statements of cash flows, are summarized below:

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Operating Activities. The decrease in net cash provided by operating activities was primarily due to reduced cash inflows from revenue, deferred revenue, accounts receivable, contract costs and the receipt of cash proceeds from sales and use tax audit settlements in 2020 with no comparable settlements in 2021, as well as increased cash outflow for inventory. Partially offsetting these decreases in operating cash were decreased cash outflows for cost of sales, accounts payable and other liabilities, SG&A expenses and restructuring charges, and the receipt of additional cash proceeds from the July 2020 Disposition in 2021.

Investing Activities. The change from net cash used in to net cash provided by investing activities was primarily due to a $60.3 million increase in proceeds from business dispositions and other sales of property, plant and equipment and a $42.4 million decrease in capital expenditures.

Financing Activities. Net cash used in financing activities was relatively unchanged primarily due to several offsetting items, including an increase of $3.1 million in net repayments of long-term debt, which was offset by $3.4 million of net proceeds from the issuance of common stock under our ATM Agreement during 2021 and a $2.8 million decrease in payments for debt issuance costs.

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Critical Accounting Estimates

We describe our significant accounting policies more fully in Note 2 (“Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies”) to our Financial Statements. As disclosed in Note 2, the preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, expenses and related disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities. We evaluate our estimates and accounting policies on an ongoing basis and base our estimates on historical experience and other assumptions that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances. The results of this process form the basis of our judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions and these differences can be material to our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Depreciation

Property, plant and equipment, net at December 31, 2021 was $2.2 billion and depreciation expense was $167.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2021.  Property, plant and equipment are carried at cost and depreciated using the straight-line basis over the estimated useful life of the asset.

Our estimate of useful lives and salvage values are based on assumptions and judgments that reflect both historical experience and expectations regarding future use of our assets, including wear and tear, obsolescence, technical standards, market demand and geographic location. The use of different assumptions and judgments in the calculation of depreciation, especially those involving useful lives, would likely result in significantly different net book values and results of operations.

The estimated useful life of an asset is monitored to determine its appropriateness, especially when business circumstances change. For example, changes in technology, excessive wear and tear, or unanticipated government actions may result in a shorter estimated useful life than originally anticipated. In these cases, we would depreciate the remaining net book value over the new estimated remaining life, thereby increasing depreciation expense per year on a prospective basis. Likewise, if the estimated useful life is increased, the adjustment to the useful life would decrease depreciation expense per year on a prospective basis.

Impairment of Assets

During the year ended December 31, 2021, we recorded long-lived and other asset impairment of $21.4 million.

Impairment Assessments of Property, Plant and Equipment and Identifiable Intangible Assets

We review long-lived assets, including property, plant and equipment and identifiable intangibles that are being amortized, for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances, including the removal of compressors from our active fleet, indicate that the carrying amount of an asset may not be recoverable. An impairment loss may exist when the estimated undiscounted cash flows expected from the use of the asset and its eventual disposition are less than its carrying amount. Determining whether the carrying amount of an asset is recoverable requires us to make judgments regarding long-term forecasts of future revenue and costs related to the asset subject to review. These forecasts are uncertain as they require significant assumptions about future market conditions. Significant and unanticipated changes to these assumptions could require a provision for impairment in a future period. Given the nature of these evaluations and their application to specific assets and specific times, it is not possible to reasonably quantify the impact of changes in these assumptions.

Compression Fleet. The fair value of a compressor is estimated based on the expected net sale proceeds compared to other fleet units we recently sold, a review of other units recently offered for sale by third parties or the estimated component value of the equipment we plan to use. See Note 18 (“Long-Lived and Other Asset Impairment”) and Note 23 (“Fair Value Measurements”) to our Financial Statements for further details of our fleet asset impairments.

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Impairment Assessment of Goodwill

In the first quarter of 2020, the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted our market capitalization and estimates of future revenues and cash flows, which triggered the need to perform a quantitative test of the fair value of our contract operations reporting unit. The fair value calculation required us to make significant estimates to determine future cash flows, including future revenues, costs and capital requirements and the appropriate risk-adjusted discount rate by which to discount the estimated future cash flows. See Note 2 (“Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies”) and Note 9 (“Goodwill”) for further details of the assessment performed on our goodwill in 2020.

Income Taxes

Our income tax expense, deferred tax assets and liabilities and reserves for unrecognized tax benefits reflect management’s best assessment of estimated current and future taxes to be paid. We operate in the U.S. only and, as a result, are subject to income taxes in the U.S. only. Significant judgments and estimates are required in determining consolidated income tax expense.

Deferred income taxes arise from temporary differences between the financial statements and the tax basis of assets and liabilities. In evaluating our ability to recover our deferred tax assets, we consider all available positive and negative evidence including scheduled reversals of deferred tax liabilities, projected future taxable income, tax-planning strategies and results of recent operations. In projecting future taxable income, we begin with historical results adjusted for the results of discontinued operations and changes in accounting policies and incorporate assumptions, including the amount of future U.S. federal and state pretax operating income, the reversal of temporary differences and the implementation of feasible and prudent tax-planning strategies. These assumptions require significant judgment about the forecasts of future taxable income and are consistent with the plans and estimates we use to manage the underlying businesses. In evaluating the objective evidence that historical results provide, we consider three years of cumulative income (loss) before income taxes.

Changes in tax laws and rates could also affect recorded deferred tax assets and liabilities in the future. Management is not aware of any such changes that would have a material effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows. The calculation of our tax liabilities involves dealing with uncertainties in the application of complex tax laws and regulations in various state and local jurisdictions.

The accounting standard for income taxes provides that a tax benefit from an uncertain tax position may be recognized when it is more likely than not that the position will be sustained upon examination, including resolutions of any related appeals or litigation processes, on the basis of the technical merits. We adjust these liabilities when our judgment changes as a result of the evaluation of new information not previously available. Because of the complexity of some of these uncertainties, the ultimate resolution may result in a payment that is materially different from our current estimate of the liabilities. Such differences are reflected as increases or decreases to income tax expense in the period in which the new information becomes available.

Recent Accounting Developments

See Note 3 (“Recent Accounting Developments”) to our Financial Statements.