Kirby - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 EPS of $1.33 beat S&P Global consensus $1.28*; revenue of $785.7M missed $816.0M consensus as weather-driven delay days rose 50% sequentially and 15% YoY in Inland, dampening throughput. Consensus values marked * retrieved from S&P Global.
• Marine Transportation margins held up: segment margin 18.2% (vs. 17.5% YoY) with Inland “around 20%” despite adverse conditions; Coastal utilization stayed mid/high-90% with term renewals in the mid-20% range.
• Distribution & Services mixed: revenue down 7% YoY on supply delays and oil & gas softness, but operating margin improved to 7.3% and oil & gas operating income +123% YoY on e-frac and cost controls.
• Outlook maintained: management reaffirmed 2025 EPS growth of 15–25% YoY on the call; expects Inland full-year operating margins to average 200–300 bps higher and Coastal margins to mid-teens; 2025 CFO $620–$720M; capex $280–$320M.
• Capital returns/M&A optionality: $101.5M of Q1 buybacks (avg $101.19) plus $23M through 4/30 (avg $91.18); acquired 14 barges and 4 high-horsepower boats for $97.3M; majority of free cash flow earmarked for buybacks absent large M&A—environment for consolidation “more constructive” per management.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Marine pricing and utilization stayed firm: Inland utilization in the low/mid-90% with spot up low single digits QoQ/high single digits YoY; term renewals mid-single digits; segment margin 18.2% with Inland “around 20%” despite elevated delays.
• Coastal momentum building: utilization mid/high-90%; term renewals up mid-20%; management expects sequential margin improvement as heavy shipyards wind down and aims to push Coastal margins above Inland over time.
• D&S operational discipline: despite oil & gas revenue -18% YoY, operating income +123% YoY on e-frac deliveries and cost control; Commercial & Industrial revenue +12% YoY with operating income +23%.

Quotes

• “Overall, margins were right around 20% despite the poor operating conditions.” — CEO David Grzebinski.
• “We are reaffirming [2025 EPS growth].” — CEO, on 15–25% EPS growth target.
• “We expect a significant step up in [Coastal] revenues and margins through the remainder of the year.” — CEO.

What Went Wrong

• Weather and navigation headwinds: delay days up 50% sequentially and 15% YoY, slowing transit times and impacting contracts of affreightment.
• D&S power generation supply delays: power gen revenue -23% YoY in Q1 as OEM lead times pushed deliveries; margins mid-to-high single digits.
• Oil & gas and free cash flow: conventional oil & gas remains “exceptionally soft”; free cash flow was negative in Q1 (-$42.2M) due to capex and a ~$122M working capital build tied to project growth; company expects unwind later in 2025.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Kirby Corporation 2025 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Kurt Niemietz, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Kurt Niemietz (VP of Investor Relations)

Good morning, and thank you for joining the Kirby Corporation 2025 First Quarter Earnings Call. With me today are David Grzebinski, Kirby's Chief Executive Officer; Raj Kumar, Kirby's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Christian O'Neil, Kirby's President and Chief Operating Officer. The slide presentation for today's conference call, as well as the earnings release, which was released earlier today, can be found on our website. During this conference call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP or adjusted financial measures.

Reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings press release and are also available on our website in the Investor Relations section under Financials. As a reminder, statements contained in this conference call with respect to the future are forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management's reasonable judgment with respect to future events.

Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, and our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated as a result of various factors. A list of these risk factors can be found in Kirby's latest Form 10-K filing and in our other filings made with the SEC from time to time. I will now turn the call over to David.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Thank you, Kurt, and good morning, everyone. Earlier today, we announced first-quarter earnings per share of $1.33, which compares to 2024 first-quarter earnings of $1.19 per share. Our first-quarter results reflected improved market fundamentals in marine transportation and continued strong demand for power generation in distribution and services. These positive trends were partially offset by weather and navigational challenges in marine and continued supply delays in distribution and services.

Overall, our combined businesses performed well during the quarter. In Inland Marine Transportation, our first-quarter results were considerably impacted by delay days. Throughout the quarter, our operations were challenged by winter storms, high winds, and fog across the Gulf Coast, as well as lock delays throughout the system. These weather and navigational issues slowed transit times and impacted the financial performance of our contracts of affreightment.

Overall, delay days increased 50% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024 and 15% from a year ago. Despite these increases in delays, market conditions improved from the fourth quarter due to better customer demand and limited barge availability, which contributed to favorable price improvements. From a demand standpoint, customer activity was strong in the quarter, with barge utilization rates running in the low to mid-90% range throughout the quarter. Spot prices were up in the low single digits sequentially and in the high single digits year-over-year.

Term contract prices also renewed up higher, with mid-single digit increases versus a year ago. Overall, margins for inland marine were right around 20% despite the poor operating conditions. In coastal marine, market fundamentals remained steady, with our barge utilization levels running in the mid to high 90% range.

During the quarter, we saw continued strength in customer demand and limited availability of large capacity vessels, which resulted in mid-20% range price increases on term contract renewals. Our planned shipyard maintenance on several large vessels that we mentioned last quarter continues to wind down but was a headwind to coastal revenue and margins during the quarter. Overall, first-quarter coastal revenues decreased 6% year-over-year, and operating margins were in the high single to low double-digit range.

Turning to distribution and services, demand was mixed across our end markets, with growth in some areas offset by softness or delays in other areas. In power generation, revenues were down 23% year-over-year as supply delays pushed some projects out of the quarter.

However, the pace of inbound orders was strong, adding to our backlog, with continued project wins from backup power and other industrial customers as the need for power remains critical. In oil and gas, even though a very soft conventional oil and gas business pushed revenues down 18% year-over-year, operating income was up 123% year-over-year, driven by EFRAC and cost management initiatives.

In our commercial and industrial market, revenues grew 6% sequentially and 12% year-over-year, driven by growth in marine repair activity, while operating income was up 23% year-over-year due to favorable product mix and ongoing cost control initiatives. In summary, our first-quarter results reflected continued strength in market fundamentals for both segments despite meaningful weather impacts and supply delays. The inland market is strong, and market conditions continue to support higher rates.

In coastal, industry-wide supply and demand dynamics remain favorable, our barge utilization is good, and we are realizing real rate increases. In distribution and services, strong demand for power gen is mostly offsetting weakness in oil and gas and in other areas. I'll talk more about our outlook later, but first, I'll turn the call over to Raj to discuss the first-quarter segment results and the balance sheet.

Raj Kumar (Executive VP and CFO)

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. In the first quarter of 2025, marine transportation segment revenues were $476 million, and operating income was $87 million, with an operating margin of 18.2%. Total marine revenues, inland and coastal together, were steady as compared to the first quarter of 2024, and operating income increased $3.6 million, or 4%. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, total marine revenues increased 2%, and operating income increased 1%.

As David mentioned, fog and high winds along the Gulf Coast produced a 50% sequential increase in delay days that impacted operations and efficiency in inland, while planned shipyard activity impacted the coastal marine business. This was offset by solid underlying customer demand, improved pricing, and most importantly, execution. Looking at the inland business in more detail, the inland business contributed approximately 82% of segment revenue.

Average barge utilization was in the low to mid-90% range for the quarter, which was better than the utilization seen in the fourth quarter of 2024. Long-term inland marine transportation contracts, or those contracts with a term of one year or longer, contributed approximately 70% of revenue, with 61% from time charters and 39% from contracts of affreightment. Improved market conditions contributed to spot market rates increasing sequentially in the low single digits and in the high single digit range year-over-year.

Term contracts that renewed during the first quarter were up on average in the mid-single digits compared to the prior year. Compared to the first quarter of 2024, inland revenues increased 2%, primarily due to higher utilization and pricing, offsetting the negative impacts of higher delay days. Inland revenues increased 3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, despite unfavorable weather-related conditions.

Even with the difficult weather conditions, inland operating margins improved year-over-year, driven by the impact of higher pricing and continued cost management, which helped stave off lingering inflationary pressures. Now I'll move on to the coastal business. Coastal revenues decreased 6% year-over-year due to the higher number of shipyards in the quarter. The impact from these higher shipyards was felt throughout the quarter but is beginning to wind down in the second quarter.

Overall, Coastal had an operating margin right around 10%, as shipyards were partially offset by higher pricing and cost leverage. The coastal business represented 18% of revenues for the marine transportation segment. Average coastal barge utilization was in the mid to high 90% range, which is in line with the first quarter of 2024.

During the quarter, the percentage of coastal revenue under term contracts was approximately 100%, of which approximately 100% were time charters. Renewal of term contracts were, on average, approximately 25% higher year-over-year, and we also noted that average spot market rates were up in the mid-single digit sequentially and around 20% year-over-year. With respect to our tank barge fleet for both the inland and coastal businesses, we have provided a reconciliation of the changes in the first quarter, as well as projections for 2025.

This is included in our earnings call presentation posted on our website. At the end of the first quarter, the inland fleet had just over 1,100 barges, representing 24.6 million barrels of capacity, and includes the newly acquired barges we announced today. We expect to end 2025 with a total of 1,117 inland barges, representing 24.8 million barrels of capacity.

Coastal marine is expected to remain unchanged for the year. Now I'll review the performance of the distribution and services segment. Revenues for the first quarter of 2025 were $310 million, with operating income of $23 million and an operating margin of 7.3%. Compared to the first quarter of 2024, the distribution and services segments saw revenue decrease by 7%, while operating income increased by approximately 3%. When compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, revenue decreased by $26 million, and operating income decreased by $4 million.

In power generation, revenues decreased 23% year-over-year, as supply delays pushed some projects out of the quarter. Despite power generation revenues being down, we saw continued orders from data centers and other industrial customers for power generation and backup power installations. This contributed to a very healthy backlog of power generation projects.

Power generation operating income was down 39% year-over-year, given the supply delays, and had an operating margin in the mid to high single digits. Power generation represented 34% of total segment revenues. On the commercial and industrial side, growth in marine repair offset lower activity levels in our on-highway and Thermo King business, driven by the ongoing trucking recession. As a result, commercial and industrial revenues were up 12% year-over-year, and operating income increased 23% year-over-year, driven by favorable product mix and ongoing cost savings initiatives.

Commercial and industrial made up 52% of segment revenues, with operating margins in the high single digits. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, commercial and industrial revenues increased 6%, as increased activity in marine repair was partially offset by softness in the trucking-related businesses. Operating income was up 13% over the same period, driven by favorable product mix.

In the oil and gas market, we continue to see softness in conventional frac-related equipment, as low rig counts and tampered demand for new engines, transmissions, and parts throughout the quarter. This softness is being partially offset by execution on backlog for orders of EFRAC equipment. This dynamic caused revenue to drop 17% sequentially and 18% year-over-year. However, despite the drop in revenues, operating income was up 7% sequentially and 123% year-over-year, driven by our EFRAC business and cost management initiatives.

Oil and gas represented 14% of segment revenue in the first quarter and had operating margins in the high single digits. Now I'll move on to the balance sheet. As of March 31, we had $51 million of cash, with total debt of around $1.1 billion, and our net debt to EBITDA was just under 1.5 times.

During the quarter, we had net cash flow from operating activities of $36.5 million. First-quarter cash flow from operations was impacted by a working capital build of approximately $122 million, driven by the underlying growth in the business in advance of projects, especially in the power generation space. We expect to unwind some of this working capital as the year progresses. We use cash flow and cash on hand to fund $79 million of capital expenditures, or CapEx, primarily related to maintenance of equipment.

Additionally, as announced, we used $97.3 million to acquire some equipment from an undisclosed seller that comprised 14 barges, including four specialty barges and four high-horsepower riverboats. During the quarter, we also used $101.5 million to repurchase stock at an average price just over $101.

Our repurchases have continued in the second quarter with another $23 million at an average price of $91.18 as of April 30th. As of March 31st, we had total available liquidity of approximately $334 million. We are on track to generate cash flow from operations of $620-$720 million on higher revenues and EBITDA for 2025. We still see some supply constraints, posing some headwinds to managing working capital in the near term.

Having said that, we expect to unwind this working capital as orders ship in 2025 and beyond. With respect to CapEx, we continue to expect capital spending to range between $280-$320 million for the year. Approximately $180-$220 million is associated with marine maintenance capital and improvements to existing inland and coastal marine equipment and facility improvements.

Approximately $100 million is associated with growth capital spending in both of our businesses and could be deferred depending on economic conditions. As always, we are committed to a balanced capital allocation approach and will use this cash flow to opportunistically return capital to shareholders and continue to pursue long-term value-creating investment and acquisition opportunities. I will now turn the call back over to David to discuss the remainder of our outlook for 2025.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Thank you, Raj. We're off to a solid start in 2025. While recent macro events have created some near-term uncertainty in places, we continue to see favorable fundamentals as the year progresses. Our current outlook in the marine market remains strong for the full year. Refinery activity is at high levels. Our barge utilization is strong in both inland and coastal, and rates continue to increase.

In distribution and services, we are seeing strong demand for our power generation products and services, and we continue to receive new orders in manufacturing, both of which are helping to soften the decline in our oil and gas markets. Overall, we expect our businesses to deliver improving financial results as we move through the remainder of 2025. In inland marine, we anticipate positive market dynamics due to limited new barge construction in the industry, combined with steady customer demand.

With these strong market conditions, we expect our barge utilization rates to be in the low to mid-90% range throughout the year. Overall, inland revenues are expected to grow in the mid to high single-digit range on a full-year basis. However, I need to give the normal cautionary points. A potential tariff-induced recession or unforeseen changes in trade flows could cause a drop in demand, which would impact expected growth.

That said, for now, we see revenues growing as planned and expect operating margins will gradually improve during the year from the first quarter's levels and average around 200 to 300 basis points higher on a full-year basis. In coastal, market conditions remain solid, and the supply of vessels is favorable across the industry. Strong customer demand is expected throughout the remainder of the year, with our barge utilization in the mid-90% range.

With the number of shipyard days declining and essentially 100% of the coastal fleet on term contracts, we expect a significant step up in revenues and margins through the remainder of the year. For all of 2025, we expect revenues to increase in the high single to low double-digit range compared to 2024. Coastal operating margins are expected to improve to the mid-teens range on a full-year basis.

In the distribution and services segment, we still see mixed results as near-term volatility driven by supply issues, customers deferring maintenance, and lower overall levels of activity in oil and gas, partially being offset by orders for power gen. In commercial and industrial, the demand outlook in marine repair remains steady, while on-highway service and repair remains weak.

In oil and gas, we expect revenues to be down in the high single to low double-digit range as the shift away from conventional frac to EFRAC continues to take place and customers continue to maintain considerable capital discipline. In power generation, we anticipate continued strong growth in orders as data center demand and the need for backup power is very strong. We expect extended lead times for certain OEM products to continue, and it will contribute to volatility in the delivery schedule of new products throughout 2025.

Overall, we expect total segment revenues to be flat to slightly down on a full-year basis, with operating margins in the high single digits, but very slightly lower than they were a year ago. To conclude, we're off to a solid start in 2025 and have a favorable outlook for the remainder of the year.

Our balance sheet is strong, and we expect to generate significant free cash flow despite high levels of CapEx this year. Absent acquisitions, we would expect to use the majority of free cash flow for share repurchases. We see favorable markets continuing and expect our businesses will produce improving financial results as we move through the year.

As we look long-term, we are confident in the strength of our core businesses and our long-term strategy. We intend to continue capitalizing on strong market fundamentals and driving shareholder value creation. Operator, this concludes our prepared remarks. We are now ready to take questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Jonathan Chappell from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Jonathan Chappell (Senior Managing Director)

Thank you. Good morning.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Hey, good morning.

Jonathan Chappell (Senior Managing Director)

David, I wanted to ask about not so much the acquisition that you announced this morning, but more the path forward. It seems like we're in this interesting spot in inland where you're well off the bottom. The outlook is still pretty bright, but there's a lot of uncertainty kind of in the broader market and the macro. I imagine input costs and maintenance costs continue to go up. Are you seeing more opportunities kind of being signaled from the tree now where your balance sheet can provide you with a little bit more optionality on the M&A front?

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Yeah, the short answer is yes. I would say the environment's more constructive in terms of acquisition opportunities. As you know, John, it's really hard to predict those. The environment's better than we've seen in the last three or four years, for sure. Obviously, from a capital deployment standpoint, that's our first priority. We'd love to do a consolidating marine acquisition. As you would expect, we're always looking out for those types of opportunities.

That said, as you've seen, absent that, we're going to deploy our free cash and buy back stock. It's pretty easy for us to buy the barge company we know the most about. That said, our first priority would be trying to get a consolidating acquisition if possible. The environment feels a lot better for that right now.

Jonathan Chappell (Senior Managing Director)

Okay. That's clear. Just for my follow-up, pivot to D&S and then kind of a two-parter here. You mentioned the cost controls, and your margins were better than we expected, I think, than probably you expected in the first quarter. You had the full-year guides about the same. One, is there some stickiness to those cost controls that can maybe, even in a kind of protracted soft oil and gas market, help the full-year margin? Secondly, it feels like there's always building backlog, building backlog, building backlog, and delays. Are we getting close to the point where this backlog really starts to translate into some revenue acceleration across any of the different segments within that category?

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Yeah, let me take that in pieces, and Christian can chime in here as well. On the margin improvement, look, we've taken some strong lean processes throughout our whole distribution and services business. The margin should continue to improve. There is a mix issue. EFRAC will be very high margins, whereas data center backup power is kind of thinner margins.

That is because the engine is such a big portion of that, and it's hard to mark up the engine. We get paid for our service and our engineering and our packaging, really, on those data center things, but the margin is thinner. There is always a mix issue. That said, I would be disappointed if we're not able to continue to improve our margin outlook for the full year, but we're just not ready to declare that yet.

The second part of your question really is, where's the pig in the python, right? It's really been very difficult with natural gas recipes more than the standby. We had a pretty good shipment period in the first quarter for data centers, which is diesel standby. The natural gas recipes have been a little slower. Our second half, you should start to see the revenue start flowing through. We had one of our engine OEMs push out deliveries that were supposed to be in the first quarter to the third quarter.

That sounds really negative, but what it is, is demand's pretty high. We just need to be higher in the pecking order with our OEM, which we're working on. I don't know. Christian, do you want to add anything?

Christian O'Neil (President and COO)

No, I think you summarized that very well. Power gen continues to grow. Demand is still really good. There are some challenges on the OEM supply side, particularly around engines. We're managing that as well as we can. What you don't see is certainly any cancellations or change in behavior. What we see is just some of this moving out to the right, as David said, revenue.

Jonathan Chappell (Senior Managing Director)

Got it. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, David. Thanks, Christian.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Take care, John.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Daniel Imbro from Stephens. Please go ahead.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director)

Yeah. Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking our questions.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Good morning, Daniel.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director)

David, maybe on the inland side, if we start there, it's good to see barge utilization and spot pricing continue to pick up. I guess, can you talk about maybe where we exited one Q on both utilization and spot? And then related, contract pricing was up mid-singles. How did that exit the first quarter, and how should we expect that to trend, just given the strength we've seen in all the pricing and utilization?

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Yeah. Christian and I will tag team this a little bit. I'll start. Look, our utility exited the quarter in the mid-90s. I mean, essentially sold out. We really can't run much more than 95-96%. I mean, we've been, even through April, we've been running in that 95-96%. Demand is really strong. We are pushing pricing up. The fourth quarter, we had a very tiny pullback. We've made that back up. Spot pricing was up sequentially, kind of 1-3%, in some cases a little higher than that.

Term contracts were up 3-5% on a year-over-year basis. Just remember, on the first quarter, the term contracts, there's not a lot of them being repriced. Those are typically second half loaded, particularly the fourth quarter. I'll let Christian give you some more color on what we're seeing.

Christian O'Neil (President and COO)

Yeah, I think David summarized that well. First quarter's a rather smaller sample set for our contract renewals, as he referenced. It's kind of a back half of the year loaded when you get a better sample set. However, the market conditions, as we emerge out of Q1, you look at the things that we think about and watch every week here at Kirby, crack spreads, refinery utilization, chemical activity barometers.

All of those indicators are in really good shape. Crack spreads have spread and expanded back into the mid-20% range, which is great. Refinery utilization has gone up from the high 80s to the low 90s in PADD 3, which is particularly important to us.

The chemical barometers that we look at, even though you see some pain in the sort of earnings in some of the major chemical manufacturers, their domestic operations remain very busy and quite strong. We on the marine transportation side have not seen a pullback in volumes. When you look at that in combination with the supply side, again, subjective view, but we think there are probably 50-some-odd barges on the order book. Shipyard capacity is extremely tight.

If you wanted to build a new 30,000-barrel tank barge, you are probably not going to get it delivered until late 2026. If you take those demand and supply dynamics that we see, it is all very positive. Limited barge construction, good fundamentals in the measurables that have always been highly correlated to our success.

Barge pricing has gone to new all-time high levels; steel is back up with some of the macro and tariff activity. It will cost you $4.7 million to go build a plain vanilla 30,000-barrel tank barge now. We've never seen that. $6.7 million for a black oil barge. I mean, you can almost build a tow boat for what it would cost you to build a single black oil barge at this point. And tens are at $2.5 million. Steel has spiked back up. That should keep a lid on new construction. I think the actual shipyard capacity that's out there, it really is reduced compared to the era when we were building hundreds of barges a year.

A subjective opinion that if you go to the high-quality shipyards that can build a good tank barge, you're still at about 50-60 a year is the capacity for the U.S. Jones Act in the tank barge construction. That is a long answer to your question. As we exit Q1, coming out of the winter months, which is the most challenging time to be a towboater or manage tow boats, and we emerge at 20%-ish margins headed into a good supply demand dynamic, leaves, I think, us feeling pretty good about the outlook. I'll stop there.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director)

Yeah. No, that's all really helpful, Color. Appreciate the detail. Maybe just from a follow-up related to that, on the inland margin, if I put all those pieces together, it sounds supportive. I think Q1 margins are actually flat from Q4 despite the big increase in delay days. If utilization and pricing are improving, hopefully delay days do not get sequentially worse, how should we expect inland margins to progress off this 20% level in Q1 as you move through the year to get to that full-year guide of 200-300 basis points?

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Yeah. Daniel, in our prepared remarks, we basically reaffirmed guidance. We think inland margins will be up on average for the full year, 200-300 basis points. We feel pretty good about that. Even with all the tariff noises, we're basically reaffirming our guidance on margin expansion. You know our quarterly cadence. Usually, the third quarter's the best.

Second quarter's always pretty good. The first and the fourth quarter is where they pull back a little bit, largely because of weather. Rather not get into quarterly guidance here on margins. I just say, again, we like to look at it on a full-year basis. We think the full average will be up as we reaffirmed in our guidance. Is there some upside to that? Maybe.

It is really tight right now, but there are some macro headwinds out there that we're all watching with the tariffs. Does that impact the economy? Right now, we're very confident in where we're at, though.

Christian O'Neil (President and COO)

I would just add one small piece to that and the fact that spot prices continue to be above term prices. That is where we like to be and where we like to see it as we continue to try to grow the margin.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director)

Great. Appreciate all the color, guys. Best of luck.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Thanks, Daniel.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Group from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Scott Group (Managing Director)

Hey, thanks. I just want to follow up with that last comment you made about spot being above term. I know it sounds like there's not a lot of repricing activity in Q1, but why only a 3-5% increase in contract rate given sort of everything that you're talking about?

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Yeah. It's just a small set of contracts that are renewed. Every customer has a little different angle. Look, we're very positive with where we're at right now. Yeah, we would always like higher contract pricing, but we do have sophisticated customers, and they do tend to play us off each other. We're very constructive about continued price improvements.

Scott Group (Managing Director)

Okay. You mentioned trade flows and tariffs. I'm just curious how you see this playing out and where you see the risks. Are there any opportunities? Just more broadly on everything going on, the administration seems to be trying to incentivize U.S. shipbuilding. I don't know how you think about that impacting you.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Yes. Let me break down kind of the potential tariff impacts. Really not seeing much impact other than steel prices up right now. I would say there are three buckets: short term, medium term, and long term for us. Short term tariffs, pricing on engines could go up. We're seeing most of our engine suppliers have domestic plants, but they're still buying parts and pieces from abroad.

There is a little impact from that. That would be a negative. The positive in the short run is steel prices have really popped, which just makes the cost of new barges go up, which is really good for us. Medium term, obviously, would be more of the economy. Do we see a pullback in the economy? As Christian referenced, our customers are not pulling back. We're not seeing it.

Part of that may just be from a competitive standpoint, particularly in the chemical standpoint from the chemical side. These U.S. plants have a great feedstock position, and they're very efficient. There is a lot of new capacity there that has been built in the last five to six years. They are the best assets in the chemical company's portfolio. When we think about the economy, there could be a little pullback.

Again, we haven't seen signs of it. In the very long term, I think onshoring is really good for Kirby. We're essentially 100% domestic. On our DNS side, our manufacturing facilities are all here. Of course, on the Jones Act side, the more things that come onshore, that's better for our Jones Act fleet. You asked specifically about the administration's effort on shipbuilding.

That is really all about international shipbuilding, not really Jones Act at all. I think the administration is looking at China, and China in the international ship supply area, they're about 70% market share on new construction. I think the administration is trying to address that and stimulate maybe some more international shipbuilding capabilities here in the U.S. That's really not addressed for the Jones Act. It may actually help us.

We may have more maintenance options from shipyard stimulation, but we'll see. When we put all the tariff stuff together, it's probably a modest positive for us. There's all kinds of pluses and minuses and some unknowns. When you run through everything I just did, it's probably a small net positive for us.

Christian O'Neil (President and COO)

I might add one positive that we see in the executive order is an investment in marine training for the mariner. I think that's, I applaud the administration for addressing that and wanting to help U.S. labor and U.S. jobs. Anything we can do to help grow the merchant marine and improve the opportunities for our merchant mariners is a positive and a positive for Kirby. There's some of that in the executive order.

Scott Group (Managing Director)

Appreciate it, guys. Thank you.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ken Hoexter from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Ken Hoexter (Managing Director)

Hey, good morning.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Hey, good morning, Christian.

Ken Hoexter (Managing Director)

You did not kind of directly, I guess, address your EPS growth target in 2025 in the release that you set in the fourth quarter. Just wondering if there was any reason for that. Are you pulling it? Are you changing it to 15%-25% growth target? Secondly, I guess on rates, I understand the delay days, and it absorbs capacity. When that capacity gets freed up and you do not have the delay days, will we see additional pressure on yields? Is that something that you see as the capacity gets freed up? Maybe just, yeah, I guess address that and then I will follow up.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

No, Ken, I'm glad you asked that question. Yeah. We are reaffirming our EPS guidance. We should have probably been more explicit about that. When you add up everything, we said about it, it's the exact same guidance. We are reaffirming that %. I'll let Christian talk about the weather and freeing up capacity.

Christian O'Neil (President and COO)

No, I mean, you really homed in on something here, Ken. Q1, winter weather conditions artificially tightens the market. You're waiting to cross an open bay because the wind's blowing really hard. Your trip's a little longer. You chew up available capacity. And utility does tend to go up during the winter months. However, we are more profitable, and there's more margin on every voyage. When you're able to accomplish those voyages, again, a large contract of affreightment piece of our portfolio becomes highly profitable when the trip times accelerate, and we're able to make more ton miles. The other thing we do when we come out of the winter months is we actually gain net capacity.

What I mean by that is those days spent waiting to cross a bay or to get through a lock or for whatever weather delay it is, you're actually gaining barge days to sell as the weather gets better, and you accelerate all of your voyages. Your fleet sort of grows just because there's more available barge days to book in better weather months, plus the margin on the affreightment trips.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Yeah. The question would be, do the competitors get more aggressive? Look, Christian and his ops team are the preferred supplier out there. People tend to want to work with us reputationally and because we do a lot to save our customers money. There could be a small competitive impact, but I think having more barge days to sell right now in our outlook, we're not worried at all, Ken.

Ken Hoexter (Managing Director)

Okay. I guess that comes through in your contract pricing. The revenue per ton mile was down 11.8 cents. It is up 1% after upper teens last year. That is all just a factor of exactly what you are talking about in terms of mileage and getting jammed at the ports. Just some investors, I think, do not understand that. They are looking at those numbers and seeing the concern on pricing. I do not know if you want to just maybe extrapolate on that and how that turns into maybe accelerating pricing opportunities.

Christian O'Neil (President and COO)

No, that is exactly right. Great point. That is weather-driven, efficiency-driven. That gets better as the weather improves, and you make more ton miles and more margin. You will see that improve. I'm confident of that. You have seen that. If you followed Kirby for a very long time, you understand that there is a seasonality to that that just exists.

Ken Hoexter (Managing Director)

Yep. Can you relay that, I guess, to the number of delay days, shipyard days at coastwise and what we could see as in the acceleration into the second quarter and beyond?

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Yeah. I mean, we had a very heavy first quarter. We're starting to get that equipment back in. You will see the coastal margins progress up each quarter going forward. I don't want to give you specific margin guidance, but our coastal business is about to really start to generate margins. Christian and I kind of joke with our team that we got to get coastal margins above inland margins.

There is a little healthy competition internally here. Once we get these big shipyards done, you can imagine having a big ATB unit that's earning $40,000-$50,000 a day in a 120-day shipyard. That's a lot of revenue that's not there, but the cost is still there. That's about to reverse in each quarter. Second quarter will be a lot better than first quarter. Third quarter will be even better than second quarter.

The progression's there, Ken.

Ken Hoexter (Managing Director)

Yeah. That'll be the day, I guess, when we see coastwise beat inland. Last one for me, just M&A. Maybe can you just talk about the process? How long was this 14-barge discussion in working through? Are there other opportunities? I would imagine that given some of the financial constraints we've seen of some of the smaller carriers that would have been maybe more opportunities, are you seeing that increase?

Christian O'Neil (President and COO)

Can I think in general? Kirby is the logical strategic acquirer for companies that want to sell, particularly liquid marine assets. Those conversations, those relationships exist. If something is going to market, we almost always tend to get a look at it. Those relationships exist, and those communication lines stay open. I do not want to comment too much on the deal that we did. In general, we are the logical choice to at least have a conversation with if you're going to sell a liquid marine asset. We tend to see a lot of that activity.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Yeah. Ken, just to add on that, I mean, it is a much more constructive environment for acquisitions right now. Yeah, predicting one is a tough thing to do.

Ken Hoexter (Managing Director)

Thanks for the time, guys. Appreciate it.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Thanks, Ken.

Christian O'Neil (President and COO)

Thanks, Ken.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Our next question comes from Sharif Elmaghrabi from BTIG. Please go ahead.

Sharif Elmaghrabi (Equity Research Associate)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First, quick follow-up on Scott's question. I believe it was Scott. I believe that in the past, Q4 has historically been a big quarter for inland fleet repricing. Can you just give us an update on is that the case this year, or should we expect a different cadence?

David Grzebinski (CEO)

No, I mean, as you might imagine, most companies' contract portfolios are kind of year-end calendar. For us, the fourth quarter is always a big quarter for term contract renewals. Sometimes they slip. Somebody will say, "Hey, give us another month," and we need to go get some more approvals. No, it hasn't changed, Sharif. You should expect our fourth quarter renewal portfolio to that's the largest renewal. It's probably 40% of the contract renewals occur in that fourth quarter. The first quarter is usually one of the lighter ones.

Sharif Elmaghrabi (Equity Research Associate)

That's helpful. You mentioned crack spreads are pretty constructive at the moment. Last year, towards the end of last year, I remember petchems activity was an area of support while crack spreads came in. I'm curious about the dynamics of trading one versus the other. Is it possible to switch some of your tonnage from product-focused capacity to carrying petchems, or is the equipment more complicated than that?

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Yes, the answer is yes. There's a large piece of our portfolio that is homogenous. You can wash a barge out and move it from one service to another, clean it, and shift services. Your typical 30,000-barrel, 10,000-barrel clean barges are homogenous assets that can chase gasoline as well as they can chase Benzene, Toluene, Xylene.

Yeah, they're flexible, the assets themselves. There are certain assets that are more product-specific, black oil barges that have thermal fluid heating systems, pressurized gas barges, specific uses. For the most part, the homogenous pool of 30s and 10s are flexible to go in and out of the services.

Sharif Elmaghrabi (Equity Research Associate)

That's great. Thanks for taking my questions.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Bet.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Greg Badishkanian from Wolfe Research and Advisory. Please go ahead.

Greg Badishkanian (Managing Director)

Hey, good morning, guys. How you doing?

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Hey, good morning, Greg.

Greg Badishkanian (Managing Director)

Hey, I wanted to follow up on Ken and John's questions from earlier on the M&A environment. David, what exactly has made it a more constructive environment now versus the past few years? I would have thought that given that there hasn't been a ton of struggle in the past few years relative to past down cycles and prices seem to have gone nowhere but up, I just would have thought it'd be harder to find the right opportunity at the right price. Maybe you can just tell me how I'm wrong there.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

No, no. So willing sellers, they don't want to sell at the bottom, right? Right now, they're thinking, "Hey, look, things are better. If I do sell, I'm not selling at the bottom. I may be selling kind of mid-cycle, and that's okay." They know, look, that with the financing market and whatnot, life is more difficult. They might think that now is a better time to sell. The conversations are up for sure, but there's still a bid-offer spread.

There's always a bid-offer spread, and we just need it to narrow. At least the conversations are happening. I think post-COVID, everybody wanted to kind of get their feet back on the ground, maybe pay down some debt. Now, it just feels like the conversations are just a little more constructive. Again, it's so hard to predict acquisitions.

It's a price discovery type process. A lot of people have a lifestyle too that they're thinking about whether they want to give it up or cash out. You just never know. I'm not trying to be cagey or avoid the question. Everybody's got a little different angle on what they're looking for and why they might look for it.

Christian O'Neil (President and COO)

Okay. That makes sense. Is it fair to kind of characterize that market as being maybe two ends of the spectrum, one being distressed sellers, which is, I guess, probably what we're more familiar with with your more impactful acquisitions of the past, versus the other end of the spectrum, which would be more like opportunistic exits? The past few years has maybe been somewhere in the middle where it's been a little bit more muddy, and now it's getting more towards that more positive end of opportunistic exits. Is that fair to think about it that way?

David Grzebinski (CEO)

It could be. Yeah. I don't think that's an unfair characterization at all.

Greg Badishkanian (Managing Director)

Okay. Cool. And then one more, if you don't mind. It just seems like there's been a few more barge orders since the last call, appear to be mostly replacement tonnage, but just always good to get your viewpoint on it.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

Yes. Again, we subjectively look at the order book. We understand. We know who's building what at what shipyard. I can verify that in our opinion, much of this appears to be replacement tonnage. You can look at the age of the expiring assets in those portfolios for those that are building and can tell you with some level of confidence that it looks and feels like replacement tonnage, not new growth. [crosstal] Yeah. Greg, I actually think we'll see a reduction in the overall barge count this year.

Christian O'Neil (President and COO)

I would add, it's difficult even today to expand your fleet with the pressure and the acute shortage of mariners. Even if you wanted to grow your fleet, even if you're willing to invest at these halcyon numbers, which doesn't make sense to invest at $4.7 million for a clean 30, but say you wanted to do that and you wanted to get a boat and crew it up, it's still a challenge to grow your crew complement to effectively significantly grow your fleet.

Most of this looks and feels like replacement tonnage. Financing is still an issue for a lot of the owners. One of the benefits of being a publicly traded company is our access to capital. I think what you see out there is the financial difficulty and the cost associated with that, with the mariner shortage, most of this is replacement tonnage.

Greg Badishkanian (Managing Director)

Got it. Okay. Great. Thanks, David. Thanks, Christian.

David Grzebinski (CEO)

All right. Take care.

Operator (participant)

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I will now turn it back to Kurt Niemietz for closing remarks.

Kurt Niemietz (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Thanks again for everyone for joining us today. As always, feel free to reach out to me throughout the day and next week if there's any follow-up questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.