Earnings call transcript: Kimbell Royalty Q2 2025 misses expectations

Kimbell Royalty Partners, with a market capitalization of $1.56 billion, reported its second-quarter 2025 earnings, revealing a significant miss on both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue forecasts. The company posted an EPS of $0.02, falling short of the expected $0.14, and reported revenues of $74.69 million against a forecast of $81.05 million. This earnings miss led to a pre-market stock price decrease of 2.27%, with shares trading at $14.79. According to InvestingPro analysis, the stock appears slightly undervalued based on its Fair Value metrics, with 12 additional exclusive insights available to subscribers.

Key Takeaways

• Kimbell Royalty’s EPS fell short by 85.71% compared to forecasts.
• Revenue also missed expectations by 7.85%.
• Stock price dropped by 2.27% in pre-market trading following the earnings release.
• The company increased rig counts in key basins but faced challenges in the Permian Basin.
• Full-year 2025 guidance remains unchanged despite current quarter’s performance.

Company Performance

Kimbell Royalty Partners faced a challenging second quarter in 2025, with both EPS and revenue not meeting analyst expectations. Despite increasing its rig count in critical areas like the Permian Basin and Haynesville, the company experienced difficulties due to a potential oil production decline in the Permian Basin and a slower acquisition market.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $74.69 million, down from the forecasted $81.05 million.
• EPS: $0.02, substantially lower than the expected $0.14.
• Adjusted EBITDA: $63.8 million.
• Cash distribution: $0.38 per common unit.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Kimbell Royalty’s actual EPS of $0.02 was significantly below the forecast of $0.14, representing an 85.71% miss. Similarly, the company’s revenues of $74.69 million were 7.85% less than the anticipated $81.05 million. This performance marks a departure from previous quarters, where the company had managed to meet or exceed expectations.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Kimbell Royalty’s stock price dropped by 2.27% in pre-market trading, reaching $14.79. This decline reflects investor disappointment with the earnings miss, especially given the stock’s recent performance near its 52-week high of $16.99. The broader market trends also show a cautious stance among investors, particularly in the energy sector.

Outlook & Guidance

Despite the disappointing quarterly results, Kimbell Royalty reaffirmed its full-year 2025 guidance. The company remains optimistic about its development prospects, expecting a slightly gassier production mix and maintaining confidence in its asset base’s quality. With a conservative beta of 0.51 and a healthy current ratio of 6.01, the company maintains strong financial stability. Operating with a moderate debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51, the potential for lower cash flow multiples in acquisitions could pose a challenge. For detailed valuation metrics and expert analysis, investors can access the comprehensive Pro Research Report available on InvestingPro.

Executive Commentary

Davis Ravness, CFO, emphasized the company’s long-term growth prospects, stating, "We have a dozen plus years of inventory so we can grow organically." He also highlighted the firm’s strategic flexibility, noting, "We’re always gonna look at opportunities based on what makes the most sense across every basin in The United States."

Risks and Challenges

• Decline in oil production in the Permian Basin could impact future earnings.
• Slower acquisition market due to lower oil prices may hinder growth.
• Potential for lower cash flow multiples in acquisitions.
• Increased competition in key drilling areas.
• Macro-economic pressures affecting the energy sector.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about Kimbell Royalty’s M&A strategy and potential upstream partnerships. The company discussed its focus on acquisitions under $500 million and resilience in rig activity, despite challenges in the Permian Basin.

Full transcript - Kimbell Royalty Partners LP (KRP) Q2 2025:

Conference Operator: Greetings and welcome to the Kimbell Royalty Partners Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Rick Black.

Please go ahead, sir.

Rick Black, Investor Relations, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Kimbell Royalty Partners conference call to review financial and operational results for the second quarter, which ended 06/30/2025. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the Events and Presentations page of the IR section of kimbellrp.com. Information recorded on on this call speaks only as of today, which is 08/07/2025, so please be advised that any time sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay listening or transcript reading. I would also like to remind you that the statements made in today’s discussion that are not historical facts, including statements of expectations or future events or future financial performance, are considered forward looking statements made under the pursuant to the safe harbor’s provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

We will be making forward looking statements as part of today’s call, which by their nature are uncertain and out of the company’s control. Actual results may differ materially. Please refer to today’s earnings press release for our disclosure on forward looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Management will also refer to non GAAP measures, including adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution.

Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of today’s earnings press release. Kimball assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any of these forward looking statements. I would now like to turn the call over to Bob Ravonis, Kimball Realty Partners’ Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Bob?

Bob Ravonis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us on the call this morning. With me today are several members of our senior management team, including Davis Ravness, our President and Chief Financial Officer, Matt Daly, our Chief Operating Officer and Blaine Rheinsberger, our Controller. We are pleased to report solid results for the second quarter with strong cash flow, continued debt pay down and lower cash G and A costs per BOE. Our rig count remains robust and our market share of overall US land rigs actively drilling increased by 1% to 17%.

In addition, while the overall US land rig count dropped by 7% quarter over quarter as operators primarily in the Permian slow drilling activity, our overall rig count dropped by only 2% to 88 rigs actively drilling at our acreage. In the Permian Basin, our rig count actually increased by four rigs and Haynesville increased by five rigs while the Mid Con experienced a decline in drilling activity. Net DUCs increased by 9% quarter over quarter led by the Permian Basin, which bodes well for near term production contributions from this region. Finally, cash G and A per BOE came in below the low end of guidance reflecting operator discipline and positive operating leverage. Today, announced a $0.38 distribution per common unit, as we continue to focus on returning value to unitholders.

We remain encouraged by the opportunities we see in 2025 and beyond to continue to grow and expand our industry leading portfolio of assets to generate long term unitholder value. And now I’ll turn the call over to Davis.

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Thanks, Bob, and good morning, everyone. I’ll now start by reviewing our financial results for the second quarter. Oil, natural gas and NGL revenues totaled $75,000,000 during the second quarter and run rate production was 25,355 Boe per day. On the expense side, second quarter general and administrative expenses were $9,600,000 $5,400,000 of which was cash G and A expense or $2.36 per BOE. Total second quarter consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $63,800,000 You will find a reconciliation of both consolidated adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution at the end of our news release.

This morning, we announced a cash distribution of $0.38 per common unit for the second quarter, and we estimate that approximately 100% of this distribution is expected to be considered return of capital and not subject to dividend taxes, further enhancing the after tax return to our common unitholders. This represents a cash distribution payment to common unitholders that equates to 75% of cash available for distribution, and the remaining 25% will be used to pay down a portion of the outstanding borrowings under Kimball’s secured revolving credit facility. Moving now to our balance sheet and liquidity. At 06/30/2025, we had approximately $462,000,000 in debt outstanding under our secured revolving credit facility, which represented a net debt to trailing twelve month consolidated adjusted EBITDA of approximately 1.6 times. We also had approximately $163,000,000 in undrawn capacity under the secured revolving credit facility as of June 30.

As a reminder, on 05/01/2025, the borrowing base and aggregate commitments on our secured revolving credit facility were increased from $550,000,000 to $625,000,000 in connection with our spring redetermination. In addition, on 05/07/2025, we redeemed 50% of the outstanding Series A cumulative convertible preferred units, further simplifying our capital structure and reducing our cost of capital. We continue to maintain a conservative balance sheet and remain very comfortable with our strong financial position, the support of our expanding bank syndicate and our financial flexibility. Today, we are also affirming our financial and operational guidance ranges for 2025. As a reminder, our full 2025 guidance outlook was included in the Q4 twenty twenty four earnings release.

We remain confident about the prospects for continued robust development as we progress through 2025, given the number of rigs actively drilling on our acreage, especially in the Permian, as well as our line of sight wells materially exceeding our maintenance well count. We continue to believe that the overall demand for energy and our well established and diversified asset portfolio will continue to enhance value for our unitholders for years to come. With that, operator, we are now ready for questions.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. And And our first question will come from Tim Rezvan with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Tim Rezvan, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Good morning, folks. Thank you for taking our questions.

Bob Ravonis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Good morning, wanted to start,

Tim Rezvan, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: I’m sure you gave this a review as we did the City of Viper 14 filing that came out recently ahead of that merger closing this month. It was pretty clear from that publication that City of was actively looking for an upstream partner to sort of bolster the minerals production and it made me think of the SPAC you all had. And if I recall, when you wound that down in 2023, you said we’re winding down the SPAC, but we’re still very much supportive of that, the role that a partnership could have. So I was curious kind of speaking on behalf of the board, where is that on the sort of priority list for the company? Is it a back burner wish list item?

Or do you feel the need in the consolidation? Like, is there more of a greater urgency to look to create some sort of partnership?

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Yeah, Tim, I’d say that, that’s an option that we’ve explored in the past. We continue to explore that. We have resources internally that continue to look for operator partnerships. I wouldn’t put it at the front of our list of priorities. We have, as you know, a dozen plus years of inventory so we can grow organically, and we continue to see an incredible opportunity set for M and A, particularly for deals under $500,000,000 which is the vast majority of royalty transactions, and deals of that size can meaningfully move the needle for a company like us in terms of accretions.

So, we continue to maintain just a business as usual approach to making acquisitions, but certainly an operating partnership, if it makes sense for us, would would be a wonderful thing.

Bob Ravonis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Hey, Tim. This is Bob. I’d also like to just add right now, you know, as a placeholder. Through the years, I’ve talked to a number of people, and everyone, that has talked about Chris at Citio has always said what a great guy he is. And in reading the filings, it certainly shows that he also works really hard.

I’ve known Dax over there going back to the days of Brigham, and he’s a fantastically talented guy too. So I’d just like to wish Chris and Dax the best of luck and everybody else over at Resideo, and they should be proud of what they built there.

Tim Rezvan, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Thanks for those comments. And then as a follow-up, sounds like in this environment where oil production is starting to roll, you all feel like maybe organically, you can sort of outperform that a little bit. But given kind of increasing rig count on the gas side, how are you you’ve been basically Permian focused and I know you give a good answer that we’re agnostic, we look at returns, but there’s clearly been a Permian focus. So are you sort of resetting sort of how you’re looking at opportunities out there given that the Permian is potentially on the cusp of an oil decline? Just kind of curious how you’re rethinking A and D opportunities.

Thank you.

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: No, it’s great question and the same answer is always. We’re always gonna look at opportunities based on what makes the most sense across every basin in The United States. We didn’t deliberately get, you’re absolutely correct. We have made, I would say an outsized Permian acquisition, move in the last few years. That’s really just been where the opportunity set was.

The vast majority of private equity capital beginning five to ten years ago really went into the Permian. And so as those portfolios started to mature, they came to market and became accretive candidates for acquisition for us. We weren’t specifically saying that we wanted to buy Permian assets. That’s just where we saw the opportunity set. We’ve had a harder time in recent years making natural gas acquisitions.

Some of the packages that we’ve seen in the Haynesville have just been priced at levels that we just don’t really understand candidly. Now that being said, we were able to make, at the time our largest acquisition, which was Haymaker back in 2018. That was back when gas prices were $2 and nobody really wanted to be in the Haynesville. People were more focused on the Permian. So it really is it’s not a contrarian strategy, would say, but it’s more of a where do we see the opportunity set and let’s use the benefit of the fact that we’ve made successful acquisitions in every basin.

And from that experience, just allocate our time and resources to the basins where we can benefit our shareholders the most is really the answer. I appreciate that, I was surprised to see there is I mean, of course, you’re correct about Permian activity and all the headlines there in the news that we’re reading. We were surprised to see five rigs added to our Permian acreage quarter over quarter. We had four added to the Haynesville. The Mid Con slipped a little bit.

But I think your point at the initial outset was well taken, which is we do expect, just based on the data we’re seeing, that we will outperform, at least on a relative basis, other folks, not only in the Permian, but outside there, just based on what we’re seeing in rig data.

Tim Rezvan, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Okay. That’s helpful. And just to follow-up, you said you focused on the Permian because that’s where the opportunity set was. Is that still the case today relative to the Yes. Last two or three

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: I mean, again, great question. I mean, we bought the Born acquisition back in January, which was core Midland Basin. I would say good question. No one’s asked me that directly recently. I would say we’re seeing a slowdown in Permian packages coming to the market, and I’m not exactly sure what’s driving that other than the obvious oil and gas prices or oil prices being $65 and lower recently.

I would say that the Permian is probably at a lower share of activity from a sell side perspective today than it has been over the last couple of years. So, I think that’s a fair statement and a good question.

Tim Rezvan, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Okay. Thank you for all the details.

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Of course. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Our next question comes from John Anas with Texas Capital Bank.

John Anas, Analyst, Texas Capital Bank: Hey. Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions.

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: My first

John Anas, Analyst, Texas Capital Bank: one, morning. Digging into your comments on the rig market share, what do you attribute to the resilience of rig activity across your acreage relative to the broader decrease seen across industry? Is it just more sticky activity from the large well capitalized operators that you highlight on slide eight?

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: It’s a good question, and I’ll try to answer it with fairness and humility. I think we have an asset base that is of higher quality than average and in its diversified nature across the Permian Basin. And so, have seen a little bit more stickiness on our acreage specifically relative to the rest of the basin. And it’s always encouraging to see that, on our footprint. And mostly, that’s the result of we have an active acquisition program that goes back twenty five years.

We’ve just been very careful over the years to buy in areas that we think are above average in terms of the results and the development activity that we would expect.

John Anas, Analyst, Texas Capital Bank: Terrific. For my follow-up, with the step up of gas directed activity across your acreage relative to oil, how should we think about natural gas growth in the 2025 and into ’twenty six? And any expectations on how your production mix might evolve over the next couple of quarters?

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: That’s a great question. We’re very excited about natural gas for all the reasons that everybody else is. I would say it’s very lumpy. We’ll have quarters where we see, dramatic increases in natural gas production. We saw that in the Haynesville really over the last several quarters.

And then this quarter, production went down a little bit, but then we saw, you know, rigs getting added to the Haynesville. So all things all things being equal, if natural gas as a commodity continues to outperform outperform oil, we would expect a a slight, you know, slightly gassier mix in our production profile going forward. But nothing quite yet to where I would say it’s really noteworthy or substantial. Stayed relatively sticky at least for now.

John Anas, Analyst, Texas Capital Bank: I appreciate the color. Thanks, guys.

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Thank you.

Conference Operator: And our next question comes from Noah Hungness with Bank of America.

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Good morning, Noah. Good morning. I

Noah Hungness, Analyst, Bank of America: guess for my first question here, now that growth isn’t a given anymore in the Permian and then also even basins that were in the plateau is not necessarily given. Could you just touch on how the M and A market has changed in terms of what people what valuations are starting to look like? People taking a more conservative approach now or do people still feel comfortable underwriting some level of growth?

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: So good question. Every acquisition is different. Right? So the Born acquisition we did in January, they have continuous drilling clauses and things that help us underwrite growth on the asset or at least maintenance and production. But that’s unusual, I would say, and more unique in nature.

Some other acquisitions don’t have that same profile. So I think one of the reasons that and I think it gives us 10 to ask me earlier what we’re seeing in the Permian. I I think that one of the reasons perhaps you’re not seeing a lot of Permian packages out there right now is that they want multiples of cash flow that reflect, to your point, a growth environment, where in today’s atmosphere, we’re expecting flat volumes, if not slightly lower, which would justify a lower cash flow multiple. So usually, these kind of things take time. Either sellers don’t transact or they get enough feedback over a long period of time that they need to expect a lower price, and then they start to run up against exit constraints and timing and those things become sellers at more reasonable valuations.

So it’s still early days on what to expect there. But I would think over time that necessarily cash flow multiples on acquisitions are going to have to come down if you don’t see that same growth profile in the Permian that you’ve seen in the past to your point.

Noah Hungness, Analyst, Bank of America: Got you. That makes sense. And then for my second question, could you guys maybe just give any additional color on what drove your G and A so low this quarter and kind of how sticky that is looking forward?

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Yeah. Matt, I’ll I’ll maybe transition over to you to answer that one.

Matt Daly, Chief Operating Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Yeah. I mean, it it was mainly due to lower lower professional fees, this quarter. Obviously, nice to see it below the low end of guidance. I I would say for the rest of the year, you should target for modeling purposes sort of the lower end of guidance. I believe it’s around $2.45 per BOE.

We expected it obviously, we’re focused on efficiencies and keeping the personal level constant here as we make acquisitions. But this is a great quarter on G and A. And again, going forward, probably the low end of guidance is an appropriate level.

Noah Hungness, Analyst, Bank of America: Helpful stuff, guys. Thank you.

Davis Ravness, President and Chief Financial Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. This now concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.

Bob Ravonis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Kimbell Royalty Partners: We thank you all for joining us this morning, and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. This completes today’s call.

Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.