About NCS Multistage Holdings

NCS Multistage Holdings, Inc. (NCS) provides highly engineered products and support services that facilitate the optimization of oil and natural gas well construction, well completions and field development strategies. The company provides its products and services primarily to exploration and production (E&P) companies for use in onshore and offshore wells, predominantly wells that have been drilled with horizontal laterals in both unconventional and conventional oil and natural gas formations. The company’s products and services are utilized in oil and natural gas basins throughout North America and in selected international markets, including Argentina, China, the Middle East and the North Sea. The company’s extensive research and development efforts are influenced and driven by the needs of its customers, allowing it to introduce innovative and commercial solutions that improve customer efficiency and profitability. The company provided its products and services to over 245 customers in 2022, including leading large independent oil and natural gas companies and major oil companies. The company’s primary offering is its fracturing systems products and services, which enable efficient pinpoint stimulation: the process of individually stimulating each entry point into a formation targeted by an oil or natural gas well. The company began providing pinpoint stimulation products and services in 2006 and its fracturing systems products and services are typically utilized in cemented wellbores and enable its customers to precisely place stimulation treatments in a more controlled and repeatable manner as compared with traditional completion techniques. Fracturing systems products and services include the company’s casing-installed sliding sleeves and downhole frac isolation assembly. Customers typically purchase the company’s casing-installed sliding sleeves, a consumable product that is cemented at intervals into the casing of the wellbore and can also utilize its services, in which the company’s personnel supervise the use of its downhole frac isolation assembly during completion operations. The company’s fracturing systems products and services are utilized in conjunction with third-party providers of pressure pumping, coiled tubing and other services. The company offers enhanced recovery systems, which enable its customers to inject water, other fluids, or gases in a controlled manner with the objective of increasing the amount of hydrocarbons produced from their assets. The company owns a 50% controlling interest in Repeat Precision, LLC (Repeat Precision), which the company consolidates. Repeat Precision sells composite frac plugs, perforating guns and related products directly to customers and provides high-quality machining services for NCS products. The company provides tracer diagnostics services for well completion and reservoir characterization that utilize downhole chemical and radioactive tracers. The company sells products for well construction, including its casing buoyancy systems, liner hanger systems and toe initiation sleeves. The company’s customers utilize these products to safely and efficiently install casing and production liners, facilitate cementing operations and initiate a flow path into the formation at the commencement of stimulation operations. Business Strategy The company’s business strategy is to increase the adoption of its products and services in all geographies, to continue to be an innovator of technology and to create value for its stockholders. Products and Services The company provides highly engineered products and support services that facilitate the optimization of oil and natural gas well construction, well completions and field development strategies. The company’s key products and services include: Fracturing Systems: The company’s fracturing systems products and services encompass its technology developed to enable efficient pinpoint stimulation, selective stage isolation and re-stimulation strategies. Pinpoint stimulation is the process of individually stimulating each entry point into an oil or natural gas formation. The company’s pinpoint stimulation solutions and refined field processes are designed to enable efficient, controlled, verifiable, and repeatable completions. Some of the company’s products can also be utilized later in a well’s life to allow for selective stage isolation or to enhance injection efficiencies if the well is converted from a production well to an injection well. The company’s fracturing systems products and services are consisted of its casing-installed sliding sleeves and its downhole frac isolation assemblies, which are typically deployed using coiled tubing and can also be deployed on threaded pipe. The company’s services include operating the downhole frac isolation assemblies and advising customers on optimizing completion designs and field efficiencies. Casing-installed Sliding Sleeves: The company’s casing-installed sliding sleeves are a consumable product, sold to its customers and integral to a well’s casing. These sliding sleeves can be used in both cemented and open-hole wellbores in vertical, deviated or horizontal wells. There is no practical limitation on the number of sleeves that can be installed in a well, and all sleeves have an inner diameter that is similar to the casing in the wellbore. The company’s primary model of sliding sleeves can be opened and closed multiple times throughout the life of a well. These closable sleeves provide the company’s customers the benefit of additional completion or production options and the ability to better optimize a well’s overall performance. During completion operations, the downhole frac isolation assembly is located in the sleeve and the inner barrel of the sleeve is shifted down, exposing the frac ports to the formation, allowing the stimulation of that stage to begin. Regarding the company’s closable sleeves, the inner barrel can be shifted up to re-isolate the frac ports. These sleeves can often be re-opened or re-closed at any time, allowing its customers to selectively access or isolate segments of the wellbore. Several generations of sliding sleeves have been developed over the years, each providing improvements in functionality and reliability. Innovus: The Innovus line of sliding sleeves is the generation of the company’s fracturing sleeves designed primarily for the onshore market. This line of sleeves comes in standard duty and heavy duty (high pressure and high rate) models. Ratek: The Ratek line of sliding sleeves has been commercialized for more stringent environments, including high torque, high burst and collapse, and high compression environments, features that are required for many offshore applications. The company offers Ratek sleeves with ISO V0 and V3 ratings. Downhole Frac Isolation Assembly: The company’s proprietary downhole frac isolation assembly consisted of several components, including a resettable bridge plug for stage isolation, a sleeve locator to efficiently locate its sliding sleeves in the wellbore, an optional abrasive perforating sub that can create additional perforations in the casing, and gauge packages that can measure and record downhole data. The assembly tool, which is attached to a third-party threaded pipe, is primarily used to locate and shift the company’s sliding sleeves open or closed. The systems provide real time-downhole pressure measurements, as well as recorded pressure temperature and force measurements. The company typically utilizes the assemblies in its service to its customers and does not sell them. The company’s personnel operate the assemblies in coordination with other on-site service providers. Sand jet Perforating: The company’s sand jet perforating technology was part of the first NCS frac isolation assembly used for pinpoint stimulation. To cut access points into the formation, sand-laden fluid is pumped down the coiled tubing and through tungsten-carbide nozzles in the frac isolation assembly. The high-velocity slurry cuts a tunnel through the casing and cement and into the formation. The tunnels serve as access points for stimulation. Stimulation treatments are pumped down the annulus between the coiled tubing and the casing. This technology provides a practical option for pinpoint stimulation in wells that are already cased, such as for drilled, but uncompleted (DUC) wells. Enhanced Recovery: The company’s Enhanced Recovery product line evolved as an extension of its experience with fracturing systems, featuring a series of injection control devices to deliver fluid at a predetermined rate to selected stages along the wellbore. This product line includes valve systems to extend the life of a well by conversion from primary hydrocarbon production operations to enhanced recovery operations, such as waterflood or gas injection. Innovus Convertible: This sliding sleeve is a dual barrel version of the company’s Innovus sleeve. Following the initial fracturing and production phase, a second inner barrel can be shifted to convert the frac ports to flow paths utilized to control injection. Water or gas can then be selectively injected into the reservoir at a predetermined rate suitable for enhanced recovery operations, extending the useful life of the original completion. Terrus System: This system includes injection control devices with customizable flow rates that can be assembled into various configurations and deployed between isolation devices to create a customized water or gas injection string for installation in existing wells. Repeat Precision: Repeat Precision sells its high-performance Purple Seal line of composite frac plugs and bridge plugs, RP single-use disposable setting tools, Purple Seal Express systems that combine a Purple Seal Frac Plug with a single-use disposable setting tool, and related products directly to E&P companies. Repeat Precision began selling PurpleFire perforating guns, devices utilized to perforate a well’s casing, in late 2021. The entry into perforating guns expands Repeat Precision’s addressable market and compliments its existing completion tool technologies. Repeat Precision sells perforating guns to other oilfield services companies that act as distributors and convey the tools downhole for E&P companies. Repeat Precision also provides high-quality machining services for certain NCS products. Tracer Diagnostics: The company provides chemical and radioactive tracer diagnostics services used by its customers to assess wellbore clearance, completion performance, well production and well-to-well communication. The company’s technology includes fracture fluid identifier tracers (FFIs), particulate water-soluble tracers (WSTs), particulate oil-soluble tracers (OSTs) and reservoir natural gas tracers (RGTs), which enable efficient, cost-effective downhole diagnostics, providing E&P companies with critical data to better optimize field and reservoir development and production/injection performance. Well Construction: The company’s well construction products are designed to allow its customers to safely and efficiently install casing and production liners, facilitate cementing operations and initiate a flow path into the formation at the commencement of stimulation operations. AirLock Casing Buoyancy System: The company’s AirLock casing buoyancy system facilitates landing casing strings in horizontal wells to the desired depth, while minimizing running time and surface hook-load. The AirLock assembly is installed in the casing string, allowing the vertical casing section to be filled with fluid, while the lateral section remains more air-filled. The air-filled segment significantly reduces sliding friction, while the weight of the vertical section provides the force to push the casing to depth. After the casing is landed, surface pressure is increased to release and shatter the glass or ceramic seal at a predetermined pressure, leaving an unrestricted casing bore. Vecturon and Vectraset Liner Hanger Systems: The company’s proprietary and robust liner hanger systems are specifically designed to hang and seal the production liner in complex horizontal wells. The company’s liner hanger systems are fully compatible with its fracturing systems products. The liner hanger is used to distribute the weight of the liner to the supporting casing. The system can be set in the absence of a wiper plug bump. Toe Initiation Sleeves: The company’s toe initiation sleeves are designed to provide initial formation access for multistage completions. After shifting open the toe initiation sleeve, a customer can perform a casing integrity test, a pre-frac injection fall-off test, flush the wellbore to facilitate the pumping of completion tools to the toe of the well or execute the first fracturing stage for the well. Intellectual Property and Patent Protection The company holds 59 U.S. utility patents and 50 related international utility patents, which relate to various products and services from each of its product lines, such as its casing buoyancy systems, OSTs, casing installed sliding sleeves, frac isolation assemblies, frac plug setting tools and other equipment and methods utilized in the provision of its services. The company’s U.S. utility patents expire between 2030 and 2040. The company’s international utility patents expire between 2028 and 2037. The company also has a number of U.S. and international patent applications pending. Some of these patent applications cover equipment and methods which are in development. The applications are in various stages of the patent prosecution process and patents may not be issued on such applications in any jurisdiction for some time, if they are issued at all. Customers The company’s customer base primarily consists of oil and natural gas producers in North America and certain international markets, as well as oilfield service companies. For the year ended December 31, 2022, the company had over 245 customers. Sales and Marketing The company’s sales and marketing activities are performed through a technically-trained sales force. The company’s technical sales force advises customers on the benefits of pinpoint stimulation, Innovus and Ratek sliding sleeves, enhanced recovery systems, well construction products and tracer diagnostics services. In the United States and Canada, sales of the company’s fracturing systems products and services, enhanced recovery systems, liner hangers, toe initiation sleeves and tracer diagnostics services are made directly to E&P companies. The company’s customers also hire coiled tubing companies and pressure pumping services companies that work alongside it during the completion of a well. The company provides its casing buoyancy systems directly to E&P companies, as well as to oilfield services companies that act as distributors for this product. Repeat Precision, which maintains a sales force separate from NCS in the United States, sells its products directly to E&P companies, as well as to oilfield services companies that act as distributors. International sales are made through local NCS entities or to the company’s local operating partners on a free on board or free carrier basis with a point of sale in the United States. Some of the locations in which the company has operating partners or sales representatives include China and the Middle East. The company’s operating partners and representatives do not have authority to contractually bind its company, but market its products in their respective territories as part of their product or services offering. The company provides extensive support services and has developed proprietary methodologies for assessing and reporting the information that is collected on its downhole gauges and through tracer diagnostics evaluations. In addition to the technical marketing effort, the company occasionally engages in field trials to demonstrate the economic benefits of its products and services. Seasonality A substantial portion of the company’s business is subject to quarterly variability. In Canada, the company typically experiences higher activity levels in the first quarter (year ended December 31, 2022) of each year, as its customers take advantage of the winter freeze to gain access to remote drilling and production areas. In the past, the company’s revenue in Canada has declined during the second quarter due to warming weather conditions that result in thawing, softer ground, difficulty accessing well sites and road bans that curtail drilling and completion activity. Access to well sites typically improves throughout the third and fourth quarters in Canada, leading to activity levels that are higher than in the second quarter, but usually lower than activity in the first quarter. Competition The company’s major competitors for its completion products and services include Baker Hughes Company (Baker Hughes); Core Laboratories N.V.; DMC Global Inc.; Forum Energy Technologies, Inc.; Halliburton Company; Innovex Downhole Solutions; Nine Energy Service, Inc.; NOV Inc.; Oil States International, Inc.; Packers Plus Energy Services Inc.; SLB; Schoeller-Bleckmann Oilfield Equipment AG; and Weatherford International public limited company, as well as a number of smaller or regional competitors. Research and Development The company incurred approximately $2.7 million in research and development costs for the year ended December 31, 2022. Government Regulations The company is subject to a number of federal and state laws and regulations, including the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act and comparable state statutes, establishing requirements to protect the health and safety of workers. History The company was founded in 2006. It was incorporated in Delaware in 2012. The company was formerly known as Pioneer Super Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to NCS Multistage Holdings, Inc. in 2016.