CLEAN HARBORS INC — Call Transcript 2026

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to day four of Oppenheimer's 21st Annual Industrial Growth Conference. I'm Noah Kaye, Managing Director in Oppenheimer's Sustainable Growth and Resource Optimization practice, which was recently rebranded to Industrial Innovation. We are very glad to welcome back to the conference the management team of Clean Harbors, CFO Eric Dugas, SVP of IR and Communications, Jim Buckley. Gentlemen, welcome. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having us, Noah. Excited to be here. I would love to maybe just start with yesterday's results and the market reaction. You know, the company raised guidance across segments above the street. It is pretty unusual for the company to raise guidance in the first quarter. You know, certainly there was some anticipation of stronger results given what's happened with energy markets. I guess the question to start with is, what, if anything, do you feel was underappreciated by the market, and where there might still be some upside in the outlook that you provided? Yeah, great. I'll start, Noah, I'm sure Jim will share some thoughts as well. Appreciate the question about kinda what wasn't appreciated yesterday. Certainly, you know, the market reaction was a bit disappointing, but I don't think it takes away from the positivity we felt about quarter one and our optimism for the rest of 2026 here, as well as our optimism around many of the long-term tailwinds that are still intact and that we still believe in for the business. You know, we were really excited yesterday morning to come out with kind of a Q1 beat. You know, virtually all of our business units performed well in Q1. We're still seeing a difficult market conditions across our industrial services business. Outside that, when you look at our other core businesses in environmental services, we felt a very strong quarter. Overcame some weather weaknesses early in the quarter that was kind of in our expectations in our guide back in February, but you know, really saw some good momentum in March and continue to see good momentum in April here, which gives us confidence about the rest of the year. When you look at our core technical services business, we're continuing to see good volumes in our waste streams. We're continuing to collect a wider variety of waste streams and utilizing our entire waste network to handle those waste streams. Beyond the chemical sector and things like that, we're still seeing fair volumes in manufacturing. We've made great headways with some retail waste, which has really been a great story as we build that business out over the last couple years. We continue to see some really good pricing momentum in that business as we continue to keep volumes high and utilize all of our, all of our assets. Our project work was great in Q1, and we see that pipeline continuing to grow with remediation work as well as PFAS. PFAS continues to be a huge opportunity for us, kind of both in the near term and long term, and I'm sure we'll get into that. So, just a really strong quarter in tech services. Field service continues to perform well. You know, some of the things we emphasize, we're continuing to build out that field services organization with new branches, some really nice investments on the sales side and the equipment side that are really putting us in a strong position to be able to respond to our customers when bad things happen and require an emergency response. Oftentimes, we win that work because we have the right equipment, we have the people in the right place, and we're able to respond quickly and we continue to benefit from some large jobs at the current time. Also, you know, we see going forward, these things, you know, they're gonna continue to happen, and we'll be in a good position to respond. Lastly, on the Safety-Kleen branch business, again, really good pricing power. This business is very consistent, very subscription-like, and we continue to deliver great service to our customers and that gives us the ability to continue to price accordingly. You know, really strong quarter. You know, again, the momentum and the strength we see the rest of the way in our guidance for the rest of 2026, you know, we did guide environmental services up about $15 million, and so, we're now expecting kinda year-on-year growth rate in environmental services to be about 6.5%. We think there's a lot of upsides that we couldn't quite put in our guidance, but things that we're hearing about, you know, increased chemical manufacturing and things like that, perhaps starting now. We'll see those waste streams probably in the back half of the year, but if things like that happen in response to some of the things we're seeing in Iran and the consequences of that, that's all upside to kind of our guide. I think we'll continue to see great project work and a great, you know, PFAS momentum, probably to the extent of growing a little bit better than that 20% marker that we've put out there on PFAS work. So, feeling very, very good on that. If I switch gears, you know, SKSS, obviously the conflict in Iran, that's having the biggest impact on our SKSS business. Yeah. Largely from a base oil pricing perspective. We're seeing what's been a very depressed market with lower base oil pricing in the last few years that obviously reversed and has become more positive as the supply of base oil has tightened. You know, customers, our customers and many of our more significant major oil customers, are coming to us looking for base oil supplies, both Group II base oils as well as Group III base oils. At that higher price that we see certainly playing out at least through Q2 and Q3, we raised the guidance on that part of our business by $30 million. Ultimately, you know, a $40 million increase across the consolidated business. We're now forecasting the business for the full year to deliver total consolidated EBITDA growth of about 9%. Again, I think there's a lot of things that could break our way that would make that number even better. Again, I would just reemphasize, and I hope people took this away from the quarter, irrespective of the stock reaction, but, you know, the business is performing well. We like to think of the business as kind of a 12-piston engine. Many of those pistons kind of functioning extremely well right now, the potential for the few that are a bit slower to turn, and even those that are firing to really increase our current expectations. We're excited about the balance of 2026. We're excited about some of the internal growth projects we have from a capital perspective. Also excited about the DCI acquisition that we kind of got across the goal line here in late March, and really an acquisition pipeline that's pretty full and active right now, and definitely kind of the way we feel today as compared to maybe 12 months ago, you know, much higher chance that we continue to kind of get some of these acquisitions over the goal line here like we have historically. Great. Well, that covered a lot of ground. Jim, did you want anything? 'Cause I think Eric really [crosstalk]. Yeah, no, I mean Eric said it all. It's hard for us to, on the market side of it, I mean, the stock obviously we're very disappointed with the response, given kind of our view. We came in, we guided, ultimately, what was pretty conservative at a 5% growth in February, and here we are, as Eric said, we're at a 9% growth. When we gave that guidance in February, we had said, you know, we're not assuming a big reshoring impact, we're not assuming PFAS grows faster than 20%, we're not assuming any captives close, we're not assuming any recovery in base oil, we're not assuming, you know, there's a lot of turnarounds, and we're not assuming a lot of large ERs. There was a lot of upside potential in that 5%. We move it up after 60 days to 9%, and the market's unhappy with that. That's a little bit of a head scratcher, I think, for us, because even at the 9%, we feel that there's still a lot of upside. You know, I think others use their different valuation approaches and things, so it's hard for us to necessarily comment on the stock other than we'd say, you know, we think it's a great value at yesterday's price, or even the day before yesterday's price. It's certainly a better value today, because we couldn't be more bullish on our prospects for this year. I'll take that comment and, you know, file it away for a capital allocation question at the end. But I wanted to ask about your comments around the acceleration of PFAS pipeline, right? Which is now growing 25%-35%, I think you said quarter-over-quarter. Maybe just give us some granularity on where you're seeing that inflection showing up within PFAS. Yes. And what's happened since kind of the DOW and EPA issued favorable disposal guidance? Yeah. I mean, I'll start and Eric can jump in. There's always so much we can talk about with PFAS. The question that I'm sure some folks tuning in would wanna know is, have we seen any movement on the Department of War side now that they've given their guidance? The answer to that is not yet. That calendar has to come together. That funding has to come together. We are getting some assignments. We're in discussions with some of the base commanders, and then they'll move it up the chain. So, that's gonna play out over, you know, to the 700 locations. Yeah. That's gonna play out over a decade plus, but certainly we'd like to see some movement on that. I think as one goes, then others will follow. We're seeing work there. Definitely the EPA guidance that came out didn't have the granularity of, you know, parts per million or parts per billion. They were just clarifying what technologies they would endorse. Yeah. So, that helps us, but not quite as much as it will when they get some more detail into that framework, if you will. Sort of the, what I think what we talked about is, internally, is this just a real validation of incineration, which we've believed for years is a great scalable, cost-effective solution to PFAS in many forms. To have the endorsement of both on the kind of the private side, if you will, from the EPA and then on the public side through the War Department, is terrific. I think from a pipeline perspective, it just has so many tentacles where you're seeing it in contaminated water at sites. You're seeing it in emergency situations where the AFFF foam is going off, and now it's out into the environment or out onto that property and has to be remedied. We're seeing it in, at airports, at fire, firehouses, and it's just, you know, it almost seems endless at times of how much contamination that these chemicals have caused in drinking water, industrial water, and locations. Our pipeline has grown quite a bit. It's a little bit of everyone sort of, maybe looking at others to see who jumps first in terms of some of the big cleanups or contamination. I think if you see a 3M or a Chemours or someone start to clean up their sites and some of the industrial locations themselves where this stuff was produced, that may open up a channel for folks like us. Similarly, as you see public bodies of water getting addressed, you'll probably see some momentum there. On the drinking water side, you know, that's an area that we're starting to grow in. We've got a lot of visibility around our installation in Pearl Harbor, so we think that market's gonna continue to grow for us as well because, you know, from many angles, you know, people consuming this stuff is something that, from a health perspective, we obviously wanna stop immediately. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, the only thing I would add to that is I think a lot of investors are looking for us to really try to put a more of a concrete timeline and value on the growth of this business and where we can bring it. What I would say on that is certainly kind of the growth rates that we've talked about, you alluded to a moment ago, you know, now 25%-35%, certainly think that is achievable this year. I think what gets me most excited about this opportunity, and I can't put an exact number on it as to when, but when I look at how we're building the pipeline, when I look at the team that we have in place, and the tools that we have in place, the assignments that we're giving to people to go out and touch base with these different areas and different military bases where we know there's things, the relationships that we're developing with those. I mean, Jim alluded to kind of Pearl Harbor. Yeah. That's where we are doing some work and then have essentially broadened the scope there and nearly doubled the work that we're doing under that relationship. It's those types of things, laying that groundwork, and I do think, obviously, kind of the military is where we see a lot of these opportunities, but private companies as well that we already have a relationship with. We've gone out, we've talked to them about the opportunities and our capabilities. It's those things that are gonna kinda give us, you know, that first step in the door to show them all of our capabilities all in one spot and really grow this business, you know, 25%, 30%, 35% kinda annually here for a good period of time. You know, I think PFAS remediation and PFAS cleanup is something that, you know, folks in these chairs are gonna be talking about, you know, a decade from now as well. I'm really excited about the opportunity, really excited about the growth rate. It's coming. Exactly how much, at what period in time, that is the question, but it's something we're devoting capital to, a lot of energy to, and, you know, think we're the right provider for many, many people, and many, many communities that are gonna have to deal with this issue. Yeah, I mean, it, thank you for kind of getting into the characterization of the pipeline itself, because obviously, a lot of this work is going to be longer cycle in nature for a myriad of reasons, funding availability, you know, figuring out who does what, and where. Right. And the timeframe, and who pays for it. But you know, you're the CFO, and so you have to kind of look at this sort of pipeline and how probability-weighted or evaluate that. Can you kind of help us understand how you think about the sort of the shape of the funnel, and how you look at kind of probability-weighting as stuff comes from kind of early stage talks down to, okay, this is gonna move in the next couple of quarters or the next, you know, couple of months? Yeah. That's a great question and I can give you a couple of examples, obviously on a no-name basis, but a couple of opportunities where you can kinda see, okay, this is near term. I would say in our field services business, there's certainly been some opportunities that have come our way that we've executed on, where you can tell, based on the description and the pipeline and conversations that our sales folks are having, that, okay, this is something that that customer, there's an issue here, there's a contamination here, they wanna get out in front of it and remediate this problem before there's a larger kind of publicity problem or legal issue. Those types of opportunities are coming our way from the private sector, and those you can kind of put a much shorter tail on. You can tell that the customer wants to deal with the situation sooner rather than later, and those have turned into real opportunities. You also see opportunities more in the public space, whether that be a municipal airport or the military or a fire department or something like that, where they've got PFAS. You can tell it's an opportunity. They may need some funding. They may have some funding. There's also aspects of some of these projects that come in that you can see may be dealt with in tiers. Maybe this is a more of a near term in the next 90 days, this is more six months, this is probably a year, two years into the future. So, you can see that cadence building based upon the nature and the customer. It really, you know, I'm really pleased where I hear of an existing customer of ours that we have a relationship with, that you see an opportunity in the pipeline or something that they wanna do. Typically, that type of thing, you know, kinda comes to us a little bit sooner than some of these much larger projects that are often in there. You know, it's not a perfect science in terms of timing that things out. Yeah. But, you know, I like the opportunities that are filling the pipe with obviously the public sector where the funding exists, but also, you know, those things that we're doing for customers that are current customers of us, maybe in a different part of the business. Very helpful. I guess the last part of this that people often ask us is, you know, how will the margin profile of the PFAS work kind of compare, say, versus the ES segment broadly, because there's a lot of different lines here, right? There's, you know, disposal, there's, you know, water filtration, the soils contamination, remediation, land filling, things like that. Just help us understand, you know, how this should trend relative to broader ES. Yeah. Yeah, I certainly think kind of on average over a broader project, we're certainly looking at being margin accretive projects. When you think about our environmental services segment, and, you know, we're kind of forecasting this year to be about 27% margins, you know, if you think about the broad types of projects that are come in, it'll be accretive to that number. Each project is unique. It'll be, you know, determined whether it's more kind of labor equipment or if there is a lot of disposal attached to it. Obviously, the jobs with a lot of disposal certainly will garner higher margins. Overall, you know, it's just a, you know, we've talked about for a few years now kinda having a longer-term goal of getting those environmental services segment margins to 30% and above. We've made great headway over the last five, six years, raising those margins by 500, 600 basis points to where they are today at 27%. Yeah. These types of services are gonna be just another way that we get those margins into the 30% range. You know, if we go through the sort of subsegments within ES, and you commented on this at the start, but I wanna pick up on that thread. If we start with tech services, maybe just help us unpack the utilization and mixed trends in incineration for 1Q, and the visibility you have to higher utilization moving throughout the year. Sure. You know, yesterday when we announced Q1, we're now giving a incineration utilization number that includes our new incinerator that we opened late in 2024, December 2024, out in Kimball, Nebraska. The utilization for the quarter was about 80%. Admittedly, probably a little bit lower than we had hoped, but kind of in line with our expectations that we gave in February, and probably negatively impacted through some difficult weather that we had predominantly in February that affected one of our sites, then just kinda some normal calendarization of some down days and turnaround time that we incurred. Typically, Q1 is, we spend a little more time kind of in turnaround at some of our sites, just given the relative slowness in the seasonality of the business. You know, our line of sight and what we've talked about yesterday is, you know, when we close out the year, you know, that utilization for the full year will be pretty consistent with past years, kind of in the mid to high 80% range. As we move beyond Q1, get into Q2 and Q3, you're gonna see high 80%, even maybe close to 90% for kind of Qs two and three, and that's pretty consistent with our past history. Obviously, we'll have more volumes this year as we continue to ramp up Kimball. Right. Really excited with the progress we've made so far on Kimball, kinda right on track. I think when you look at 2026 versus 2025, there's probably more of that high-haz waste stream, type of waste that'll be going through that new unit this year. So, good line of sight to filling the plan. You know, excited about the progress we made in Kimball, and certainly, when you think about mix, though, going back to some of what we talked about earlier, if in fact we start to see some more of those, chemical and manufacturing vertical-produced waste streams. Yeah. That are higher price points, a little bit nastier material. Yeah. You know, you'll see the utilization kinda stay in that same level, but the mix will get better and profitability improves. Yeah. I want to ask about the captives element of this, you know, which has been an ongoing story, really with the partnership with 3M, for example, which, you know, led them to close their captive incinerator and give you the business. Very important signal to the market, we thought. Can you talk about the current prospects for captives to close and how we should think about the upcoming MACT regulations? Very lucky. Playing a role here? Yeah. I can start, and Eric can jump in. We love talking about captives, and the industry does too, but it's sort of a turning of the Queen Mary because it's just a huge decision for the captive operator to make, 'cause they can only make it once. You know, 3M did theirs at a time that the industry was pretty backed up, and then industry became very backed up. Now, since then, we've opened up Kimball, and one of our competitors is working on opening up some more capacity there. You know, Eric and I like to say logic would tell you that now there's some capacity available, it's not gonna be there for a long time with all the reshoring coming to America. So, we have those discussions with the captives, and we think, you know, everyone wants to pin us down on what quarter or when, how many this year type thing, but it's something that we would expect that some of those captives will come off. We were talking pretty closely with a couple of them last year, and then Liberation Day kinda threw all the chess pieces up in the air, and they had to deal with supply chains and other things. It's a lot of change management to go through closing your captive and rerouting all your waste to a third party. For us, like with 3M, we put our systems in and put them on our kind of waste profiling system, so, it's a lot involved. From a financial perspective, we are showing them, as we did with 3M, that we can save them a lot of money. A lot of them are trying to promote cost savings plans, and we can be a big part of that. It's just the timing of that, it's just hard to predict, but we're probably dancing with three or four or five of them right now out of the 41 captives that are operating in the U.S. I mean, you're providing your utilization figures, right, 80% for 1Q going to, you know, close to 90%? Is it fair to assume that the captives generally don't run as high utilization rates because they're not taking in a whole mix of third-party waste for the most part, right? They have to be oversized to, you know, meet their max load demand, which they don't probably meet most of the time, right? That's right. I think there's some data to support this, but, you know, what is sort of that delta? And I ask because I think these regulations are gonna make it, you know, more expensive to run more inefficiently. I think you're spot on, Noah. You know, we have a gentleman that does the best he can to kinda estimate and determine some of those run rates and utilization rates at some of these captives. You know, I, some of them could be as low as 30% or 40%, based upon some of the intel that he's gathered. So, you're exactly right, and you know, Jim noted a minute ago, kinda, hey, logic would tell you that these things shut down, or at least that's like what we say. If I was running these plants or I was running a company that had one of these plants and it's not my core business and it's running at 30% and now I gotta go put X million dollars into some capital investments to upgrade it to the current regulations, you know, I'm beginning to think, "Hey, is it about time to find a, you know, a more professional outfit, if you will, to take care of my waste streams?" You know, over time, that's how we see this thing playing out in some instances. A lot of those characteristics I walked through, you know, not all of them are consistent with the 3M case study, but there was some of each of those things I just mentioned kind of built into their decision to move to Clean Harbors. And each captive, Noah, has its own story and what the pitch would be to them. For them, they're not a commercial operator, so operating at 50% or 40%, they can do that. We obviously couldn't afford to do that. They also put a lot of things in there that if we were to handle those waste streams, we might be able to send some of that to our landfills or to an alternative or even recycling. But because they have that outlet, they just throw everything in it and burn it. That's where that kind of cost savings can really come into play if we were to take those waste streams over for them. Makes sense. I guess within tech services, landfill volumes trends were very strong in 1Q. So, what is, what does the pipeline and the guide really imply for growth moving throughout the year? 'Cause you've had strong volume trends in landfill now for two quarters. Yeah, we have, and a lot of that landfill volume is coming from some of these waste projects and remediation work that's coming our way. So, kind of in the guide, I, you know, I wouldn't say we have blowout, continued kind of blowout quarters from landfill, but it is an area that we seem to have some good momentum. The pipeline of our project services group is fairly strong, probably increasing and increased over where it was, you know, six months ago and 12 months ago. You know, that's part of, you know, the confidence we have in increasing our guide by $50 million here yesterday. Some of that is coming from continued strong project work, much of which kind of feeds our landfills. As you know, Noah, the landfills, you know, those generate good margins as well. And just, for those that don't maybe know us as well, you know, from the landfill side, 50% of those volumes in a given year are usually from projects, and 50% is kind of from base business. We have had, as you mentioned, a couple years of good runs last year. Overall, landfill volumes grew 24%. I would say assumed in the guide this year is that continues to grow, but it's hard to put up those kind of numbers every single year because, you know, there is some project dependence there. Yep. Very helpful. Thank you both. I guess turning to field services, outperformed, right, just full stop in 1Q. I know you have a tough comp here in 2Q. When we pull back, though, it just seems like you're taking share in field services, and not just through consolidation, but organically. So, maybe talk a little bit about what's been the driver of the share gains, and going forward, you know, with the branch expansion and some of the other investments you're making, you know, can you hang on to or expand that share? Yeah. So, great questions, and we would agree with you. I think we're definitely taking share there. I think we're doing it a couple different ways. You know, certainly kind of getting a larger business and expanding branches, so getting larger through the HEPACO acquisition that we did now couple years ago. I think, you know, two years later, you know, feel even better about that acquisition than we did when we made it, just the, our ability to continue to grow that platform and really, you know, it fit hand in glove in our current field services organization. To have a field services organization, almost $1 billion in revenue, you know, continue to build out sites, we really are, you know, if you kind of look at a map of our field services organization now, we really are everywhere. We can respond anywhere that we need to. I think the other thing we're doing a great job on, and it's an ability to take share, but also, you know, internalize a lot of our labor. Our dependency, you know, our dependency on third-party labor or subcontractors is much less than perhaps it was a few years ago because we're, we've made some investments in our employees. Our retention rate is much better. And through all those things, they're doing the work more efficiently, but it also allows our branches to remain staffed up so that when an ER happens, we are right there, ready to go. I also think we made some nice investments in some specialized equipment related to kinda marine responses and things like that, so we're much more competitive kind of in that realm. And I think some really nice leadership coming over again from the HEPACO and some internal hires, has really, you know, allowed us to put a strategy forward and grow the business and take some market share. I guess, on IS, you know, it's understandable, right, that refiners are gonna run at high production levels in this environment, and that reduces turnaround work. We saw that post-COVID, right? If we look at that sort of history of, you know, the refiners running strongly and deferring some of the turnaround work, what does that history imply for when you should see an uptick in activity? Yeah, I mean, when you look at that most recent cycle with COVID, if you were to go back and look at our industrial services business, you know, late 2021 onto 2022, 2023, you know, the business put up some pretty good numbers. You know, that was right around the time we did an acquisition as well, so you got in there. Each and every month we kinda closed out, it was better. It was better because during that period of time, early during COVID and right after, people were delaying the maintenance that's required for these plants. That's kind of what's happening now, Noah. When you think about, hey, when do these customers get back into their normal routine of not deferring maintenance and really getting in there and cleaning out these units, you know, we're hopeful that once we get through this major ramp-up, you know, maybe it's the back half of this year, we don't have that in our guide right now, we won't guide that way until we see that happening, but you know, you kinda look at the length of time this is going on now, and it's beginning to be very analogous to the situation you referenced and I mentioned a moment ago. You've gotta think here at some point here in 2026 or early 2027, you really start to see kind of those maintenance schedules and the scope of those maintenance projects increasing and benefiting that industrial services business. For us, we've done a lot of self-help things I've talked about on public calls and conferences before, but a lot of underlying self-help things that I think will put that business in even a better position when that demand comes back. One question, given the time constraints, on SKSS. Sure. We expected the uplift in the guide from higher base oil prices. Can you talk about some of the internal initiatives around charge for oil in Group III production and direct sales? We don't have to get into them all in great detail, but to what extent did any, you know, sort of improvement in progress there drive some of the upside for the year? Or is there more upside to come if you get, you know, an uptick in Group III or direct sales? Yeah. Certainly, I think there's more upside to come if base oil pricing stays high for longer than we've anticipated. Certainly, if we continue to get more interest from the majors who are looking for that consistent stream of base oil and maybe even some more Group III, that's certainly upside to the guide. Those capabilities, the partnerships we've developed, the development of our Group III initiatives, those are all helping to the upside here and will continue to do so. Then you mentioned kinda charge for oil initiatives. We've just gotten a lot smarter, we've gotten a lot better communicative with our customers, we're managing that better in terms of making sure that we maintain the volumes to get into our plants. All those things have improved over the last few years, and all provide kinda upside here to the numbers, both this year as well as, you know, hopefully going forward with continuing to stabilizing this business and growing it to the extent we can as well. All right. I wanna ask you in the final minutes about capital allocation. You know, you mentioned at the beginning, you know, increasing confidence year-over-year around getting some M&A done. Maybe just comment on what's driving that. Talk about the funnel. Then the pair of that is, you know, you talked about, you know, the value you see in the shares. You've still got a healthy amount of dry powder around the buyback. Just how we should be thinking about, you know, your activity there. Sure. Sure. The acquisitions funnel is super strong, lots of opportunities. I'd say lots of opportunities kind of in our core tech services, field services, kind of environmental segment space. So, feel, like I said, you know, compared to 12 months ago, I think a high likelihood that, you know, we get kind of more acquisitions over the goal line this year. I also think valuations may be ticked down a little bit in some of these, and so, that's helping. You know, on the remaining capital allocation on share repurchases, you know, we always weigh our share repurchases against other value-deriving opportunities like acquisitions, capital investments. Last year, we kind of really stepped on the share repurchase program, absent acquisitions and things. We'll continue to utilize that. The first quarter we bought back 25 million of shares. I think we'll continue to exercise that program to, as another outlet to deliver value to shareholders. But like all things, it's always balanced against kind of other opportunities and what are the most accretive. All right. Well, there's a lot of, you know, I think progress and momentum, you know, across the different parts of the business. We look forward to seeing that play out over the course of this year and beyond. Gentlemen, thanks so much for the discussion today. As always, it's a pleasure to have you here. If anyone wants to follow up, they can certainly go through us or contact Jim and his team. We hope everyone has a great day at the conference, and a great rest of your week. Thank you. Thank you all.

Speaker 3: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to day four of Oppenheimer's 21st Annual Industrial Growth Conference. I'm Noah Kaye, Managing Director in Oppenheimer's Sustainable Growth and Resource Optimization practice, which was recently rebranded to Industrial Innovation. We are very glad to welcome back to the conference the management team of Clean Harbors, CFO Eric Dugas, SVP of IR and Communications, Jim Buckley. Gentlemen, welcome. Thanks so much for being here. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to day four of Oppenheimer's 21st Annual Industrial Growth Conference. good afternoon everyone and welcome back to day four of oppenheimer's 21st annual industrial growth conference I'm Noah Kaye, Managing Director in Oppenheimer's Sustainable Growth and Resource Optimization practice, which was recently rebranded to Industrial Innovation. i'm noah kaye managing director in oppenheimer's sustainable growth and resource optimization practice which was recently rebranded to industrial innovation We are very glad to welcome back to the conference the management team of Clean Harbors, CFO Eric Dugas, SVP of IR and Communications, Jim Buckley. we are very glad to welcome back to the conference the management team of clean harbors cfo eric dugas svp of ir and communications jim buckley Gentlemen, welcome. gentlemen welcome Thanks so much for being here. thanks so much for being here

Speaker 1: Thanks for having us, Noah. Excited to be here. Thanks for having us, Noah. thanks for having us noah Excited to be here. excited to be here

Speaker 3: I would love to maybe just start with yesterday's results and the market reaction. You know, the company raised guidance across segments above the street. It is pretty unusual for the company to raise guidance in the first quarter. You know, certainly there was some anticipation of stronger results given what's happened with energy markets. I guess the question to start with is, what, if anything, do you feel was underappreciated by the market, and where there might still be some upside in the outlook that you provided? I would love to maybe just start with yesterday's results and the market reaction. i would love to maybe just start with yesterday's results and the market reaction You know, the company raised guidance across segments above the street. you know the company raised guidance across segments above the street It is pretty unusual for the company to raise guidance in the first quarter. it is pretty unusual for the company to raise guidance in the first quarter You know, certainly there was some anticipation of stronger results given what's happened with energy markets. you know certainly there was some anticipation of stronger results given what's happened with energy markets I guess the question to start with is, w hat, if anything, do you feel was underappreciated by the market, and where there might still be some upside in the outlook that you provided? i guess the question to start with is, w hat if anything do you feel was underappreciated by the market and where there might still be some upside in the outlook that you provided

Speaker 1: Yeah, great. I'll start, Noah, I'm sure Jim will share some thoughts as well. Appreciate the question about kinda what wasn't appreciated yesterday. Certainly, you know, the market reaction was a bit disappointing, but I don't think it takes away from the positivity we felt about quarter one and our optimism for the rest of 2026 here, as well as our optimism around many of the long-term tailwinds that are still intact and that we still believe in for the business. You know, we were really excited yesterday morning to come out with kind of a Q1 beat. You know, virtually all of our business units performed well in Q1. We're still seeing a difficult market conditions across our industrial services business. Yeah, great. yeah great I'll start, Noah, I'm sure Jim will share some thoughts as well. i'll start noah i'm sure jim will share some thoughts as well Appreciate the question about kinda what wasn't appreciated yesterday. appreciate the question about kinda what wasn't appreciated yesterday Certainly, you know, the market reaction was a bit disappointing, but I don't think it takes away from the positivity we felt about quarter one and our optimism for the rest of 2026 here, as well as our optimism around many of the long-term tailwinds that are still intact and that we still believe in for the business. certainly you know the market reaction was a bit disappointing but i don't think it takes away from the positivity we felt about quarter one and our optimism for the rest of 2026 here as well as our optimism around many of the long-term tailwinds that are still intact and that we still believe in for the business You know, we were really excited yesterday morning to come out with kind of a Q1 beat. you know we were really excited yesterday morning to come out with kind of a q1 beat You know, virtually all of our business units performed well in Q1. you know virtually all of our business units performed well in q1 We're still seeing a difficult market conditions across our industrial services business. we're still seeing a difficult market conditions across our industrial services business Outside that, when you look at our other core businesses in environmental services, we felt a very strong quarter. Overcame some weather weaknesses early in the quarter that was kind of in our expectations in our guide back in February, but you know, really saw some good momentum in March and continue to see good momentum in April here, which gives us confidence about the rest of the year. When you look at our core technical services business, we're continuing to see good volumes in our waste streams. We're continuing to collect a wider variety of waste streams and utilizing our entire waste network to handle those waste streams. Beyond the chemical sector and things like that, we're still seeing fair volumes in manufacturing. Outside that, when you look at our other core businesses in environmental services, we felt a very strong quarter. outside that when you look at our other core businesses in environmental services we felt a very strong quarter Overcame some weather weaknesses early in the quarter that was kind of in our expectations in our guide back in February, but y ou know, really saw some good momentum in March and continue to see good momentum in April here, which gives us confidence about the rest of the year. overcame some weather weaknesses early in the quarter that was kind of in our expectations in our guide back in february, but y ou know really saw some good momentum in march and continue to see good momentum in april here which gives us confidence about the rest of the year When you look at our core technical services business, we're continuing to see good volumes in our waste streams. when you look at our core technical services business we're continuing to see good volumes in our waste streams We're continuing to collect a wider variety of waste streams and utilizing our entire waste network to handle those waste streams. we're continuing to collect a wider variety of waste streams and utilizing our entire waste network to handle those waste streams Beyond the chemical sector and things like that, we're still seeing fair volumes in manufacturing. beyond the chemical sector and things like that we're still seeing fair volumes in manufacturing We've made great headways with some retail waste, which has really been a great story as we build that business out over the last couple years. We continue to see some really good pricing momentum in that business as we continue to keep volumes high and utilize all of our, all of our assets. Our project work was great in Q1, and we see that pipeline continuing to grow with remediation work as well as PFAS. PFAS continues to be a huge opportunity for us, kind of both in the near term and long term, and I'm sure we'll get into that. So, just a really strong quarter in tech services. Field service continues to perform well. We've made great headways with some retail waste, which has really been a great story as we build that business out over the last couple years. we've made great headways with some retail waste which has really been a great story as we build that business out over the last couple years We continue to see some really good pricing momentum in that business as we continue to keep volumes high and utilize all of our, all of our assets. we continue to see some really good pricing momentum in that business as we continue to keep volumes high and utilize all of our all of our assets Our project work was great in Q1, and we see that pipeline continuing to grow with remediation work as well as PFAS. our project work was great in q1 and we see that pipeline continuing to grow with remediation work as well as pfas PFAS continues to be a huge opportunity for us, kind of both in the near term and long term, and I'm sure we'll get into that. pfas continues to be a huge opportunity for us kind of both in the near term and long term and i'm sure we'll get into that So, just a really strong quarter in tech s ervices. so, just a really strong quarter in tech s ervices Field service continues to perform well. field service continues to perform well You know, some of the things we emphasize, we're continuing to build out that field services organization with new branches, some really nice investments on the sales side and the equipment side that are really putting us in a strong position to be able to respond to our customers when bad things happen and require an emergency response. Oftentimes, we win that work because we have the right equipment, we have the people in the right place, and we're able to respond quickly and we continue to benefit from some large jobs at the current time. Also, you know, we see going forward, these things, you know, they're gonna continue to happen, and we'll be in a good position to respond. Lastly, on the Safety-Kleen branch business, again, really good pricing power. You know, some of the things we emphasize, we're continuing to build out that field services organization with new branches, some really nice investments on the sales side and the equipment side that are really putting us in a strong position to be able to respond to our customers when bad things happen and require an emergency response. you know some of the things we emphasize we're continuing to build out that field services organization with new branches some really nice investments on the sales side and the equipment side that are really putting us in a strong position to be able to respond to our customers when bad things happen and require an emergency response Oftentimes, we win that work because we have the right equipment, we have the people in the right place, and we're able to respond quickly and we continue to benefit from some large jobs at the current time. oftentimes we win that work because we have the right equipment we have the people in the right place and we're able to respond quickly and we continue to benefit from some large jobs at the current time Also, you know, we see going forward, these things, you know, they're gonna continue to happen, and we'll be in a good position to respond. also, you know we see going forward these things you know they're gonna continue to happen and we'll be in a good position to respond Lastly, on the Safety-Kleen branch business, again, really good pricing power. lastly, on the safety-kleen branch business again really good pricing power This business is very consistent, very subscription-like, and we continue to deliver great service to our customers and that gives us the ability to continue to price accordingly. You know, really strong quarter. You know, again, the momentum and the strength we see the rest of the way in our guidance for the rest of 2026, you know, we did guide environmental services up about $15 million, and so, we're now expecting kinda year-on-year growth rate in environmental services to be about 6.5%. We think there's a lot of upsides that we couldn't quite put in our guidance, but things that we're hearing about, you know, increased chemical manufacturing and things like that, perhaps starting now. This business is very consistent, very subscription-like, and we continue to deliver great service to our customers and that gives us the ability to continue to price accordingly. this business is very consistent very subscription-like and we continue to deliver great service to our customers and that gives us the ability to continue to price accordingly You know, really strong quarter. you know really strong quarter You know, again, the momentum and the strength we see the rest of the way in our guidance for the rest of 2026, you know, we did guide environmental services up about $15 million, and so, we're now expecting kinda year-on-year growth rate in environmental services to be about 6.5%. you know again the momentum and the strength we see the rest of the way in our guidance for the rest of 2026 you know we did guide environmental services up about $15 million and so, we're now expecting kinda year-on-year growth rate in environmental services to be about 6.5% We think there's a lot of upsides that we couldn't quite put in our guidance, but things that we're hearing about, you know, increased chemical manufacturing and things like that, perhaps starting now. we think there's a lot of upsides that we couldn't quite put in our guidance but things that we're hearing about you know increased chemical manufacturing and things like that perhaps starting now We'll see those waste streams probably in the back half of the year, but if things like that happen in response to some of the things we're seeing in Iran and the consequences of that, that's all upside to kind of our guide. I think we'll continue to see great project work and a great, you know, PFAS momentum, probably to the extent of growing a little bit better than that 20% marker that we've put out there on PFAS work. So, feeling very, very good on that. If I switch gears, you know, SKSS, obviously the conflict in Iran, that's having the biggest impact on our SKSS business. We'll see those waste streams probably in the back half of the year, but i f things like that happen in response to some of the things we're seeing in Iran and the consequences of that, that's all upside to kind of our guide. we'll see those waste streams probably in the back half of the year, but i f things like that happen in response to some of the things we're seeing in iran and the consequences of that, that's all upside to kind of our guide I think we'll continue to see great project work and a great, you know, PFAS momentum, probably to the extent of growing a little bit better than that 20% marker that we've put out there on PFAS work. i think we'll continue to see great project work and a great you know pfas momentum probably to the extent of growing a little bit better than that 20% marker that we've put out there on pfas work So, feeling very, very good on that. so, feeling very very good on that If I switch gears, you know, SKSS, obviously the conflict in Iran , that's having the biggest impact on our SKSS business. if i switch gears you know skss obviously the conflict in iran that's having the biggest impact on our skss business

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 1: Largely from a base oil pricing perspective. We're seeing what's been a very depressed market with lower base oil pricing in the last few years that obviously reversed and has become more positive as the supply of base oil has tightened. You know, customers, our customers and many of our more significant major oil customers, are coming to us looking for base oil supplies, both Group II base oils as well as Group III base oils. At that higher price that we see certainly playing out at least through Q2 and Q3, we raised the guidance on that part of our business by $30 million. Largely from a base oil pricing perspective. largely from a base oil pricing perspective We're seeing what's been a very depressed market with lower base oil pricing in the last few years that obviously reversed and has become more positive as the supply of base oil has tightened. we're seeing what's been a very depressed market with lower base oil pricing in the last few years that obviously reversed and has become more positive as the supply of base oil has tightened You know, customers, our customers and many of our more significant major oil customers, are coming to us looking for base oil supplies, both Group II base oils as well as Group III base oils. you know customers our customers and many of our more significant major oil customers are coming to us looking for base oil supplies both group ii base oils as well as group iii base oils At that higher price that we see certainly playing out at least through Q2 and Q3, we raised the guidance on that part of our business by $30 million. at that higher price that we see certainly playing out at least through q2 and q3 we raised the guidance on that part of our business by $30 million Ultimately, you know, a $40 million increase across the consolidated business. We're now forecasting the business for the full year to deliver total consolidated EBITDA growth of about 9%. Again, I think there's a lot of things that could break our way that would make that number even better. Again, I would just reemphasize, and I hope people took this away from the quarter, irrespective of the stock reaction, but, you know, the business is performing well. We like to think of the business as kind of a 12-piston engine. Many of those pistons kind of functioning extremely well right now, the potential for the few that are a bit slower to turn, and even those that are firing to really increase our current expectations. Ultimately, you know, a $40 million increase across the consolidated business. ultimately you know a $40 million increase across the consolidated business We're now forecasting the business for the full year to deliver total consolidated EBITDA growth of about 9%. we're now forecasting the business for the full year to deliver total consolidated ebitda growth of about 9% Again, I think there's a lot of things that could break our way that would make that number even better. again i think there's a lot of things that could break our way that would make that number even better Again, I would just reemphasize, and I hope people took this away from the quarter, irrespective of the stock reaction, but, you know, the business is performing well. again i would just reemphasize and i hope people took this away from the quarter irrespective of the stock reaction but you know the business is performing well We like to think of the business as kind of a 12-piston engine. we like to think of the business as kind of a 12-piston engine Many of those pistons kind of functioning extremely well right now, t he potential for the few that are a bit slower to turn, and even those that are firing to really increase our current expectations. many of those pistons kind of functioning extremely well right now, t he potential for the few that are a bit slower to turn and even those that are firing to really increase our current expectations We're excited about the balance of 2026. We're excited about some of the internal growth projects we have from a capital perspective. Also excited about the DCI acquisition that we kind of got across the goal line here in late March, and really an acquisition pipeline that's pretty full and active right now, and definitely kind of the way we feel today as compared to maybe 12 months ago, you know, much higher chance that we continue to kind of get some of these acquisitions over the goal line here like we have historically. We're excited about the balance of 2026. we're excited about the balance of 2026 We're excited about some of the internal growth projects we have from a capital perspective. we're excited about some of the internal growth projects we have from a capital perspective Also excited about the DCI acquisition that we kind of got across the goal line here in late March, and really an acquisition pipeline that's pretty full and active right now, and definitely kind of the way we feel today as compared to maybe 12 months ago, you know, much higher chance that we continue to kind of get some of these acquisitions over the goal line here like we have historically. also excited about the dci acquisition that we kind of got across the goal line here in late march and really an acquisition pipeline that's pretty full and active right now and definitely kind of the way we feel today as compared to maybe 12 months ago you know much higher chance that we continue to kind of get some of these acquisitions over the goal line here like we have historically

Speaker 3: Great. Well, that covered a lot of ground. Jim, did you want anything? 'Cause I think Eric really [crosstalk]. Great. great Well, that covered a lot of ground. well that covered a lot of ground Jim, did you want anything? 'Cause I think Eric really [crosstalk]. jim did you want anything 'cause i think eric really [crosstalk]

Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean Eric said it all. It's hard for us to, on the market side of it, I mean, the stock obviously we're very disappointed with the response, given kind of our view. We came in, we guided, ultimately, what was pretty conservative at a 5% growth in February, and here we are, as Eric said, we're at a 9% growth. When we gave that guidance in February, we had said, you know, we're not assuming a big reshoring impact, we're not assuming PFAS grows faster than 20%, we're not assuming any captives close, we're not assuming any recovery in base oil, we're not assuming, you know, there's a lot of turnarounds, and we're not assuming a lot of large ERs. There was a lot of upside potential in that 5%. Yeah, no, I mean Eric said it all. yeah no i mean eric said it all It's hard for us to, on the market side of it, I mean, the stock obviously we're very disappointed with the response, given kind of our view. it's hard for us to on the market side of it i mean the stock obviously we're very disappointed with the response given kind of our view We came in, we guided, ultimately, what was pretty conservative at a 5% growth in February, and here we are, as Eric said, we're at a 9% growth. we came in we guided ultimately what was pretty conservative at a 5% growth in february and here we are as eric said we're at a 9% growth When we gave that guidance in February, we had said, you know, we're not assuming a big reshoring impact, w e're not assuming PFAS grows faster than 20%, w e're not assuming any captives close, w e're not assuming any recovery in base oil, w e're not assuming, you know, there's a lot of turnarounds, and we're not assuming a lot of large ERs. when we gave that guidance in february we had said you know we're not assuming a big reshoring impact, w e're not assuming pfas grows faster than 20%, w e're not assuming any captives close, w e're not assuming any recovery in base oil, w e're not assuming you know there's a lot of turnarounds and we're not assuming a lot of large ers There was a lot of upside potential in that 5%. there was a lot of upside potential in that 5% We move it up after 60 days to 9%, and the market's unhappy with that. That's a little bit of a head scratcher, I think, for us, because even at the 9%, we feel that there's still a lot of upside. You know, I think others use their different valuation approaches and things, so it's hard for us to necessarily comment on the stock other than we'd say, you know, we think it's a great value at yesterday's price, or even the day before yesterday's price. It's certainly a better value today, because we couldn't be more bullish on our prospects for this year. We move it up after 60 days to 9%, and t he market's unhappy with that. we move it up after 60 days to 9%, and t he market's unhappy with that That's a little bit of a head scratcher, I think, for us, because even at the 9%, we feel that there's still a lot of upside. that's a little bit of a head scratcher i think for us because even at the 9% we feel that there's still a lot of upside You know, I think others use their different valuation approaches and things, so it's hard for us to necessarily comment on the stock other than we'd say, you know, we think it's a great value at yesterday's price, or even the day before yesterday's price. you know i think others use their different valuation approaches and things so it's hard for us to necessarily comment on the stock other than we'd say you know we think it's a great value at yesterday's price or even the day before yesterday's price It's certainly a better value today, because we couldn't be more bullish on our prospects for this year. it's certainly a better value today because we couldn't be more bullish on our prospects for this year

Speaker 3: I'll take that comment and, you know, file it away for a capital allocation question at the end. But I wanted to ask about your comments around the acceleration of PFAS pipeline, right? Which is now growing 25%-35%, I think you said quarter-over-quarter. Maybe just give us some granularity on where you're seeing that inflection showing up within PFAS. I'll take that comment and, you know, file it away for a capital allocation question at the end. i'll take that comment and you know file it away for a capital allocation question at the end But I wanted to ask about your comments around the acceleration of PFAS pipeline, right? but i wanted to ask about your comments around the acceleration of pfas pipeline right Which is now growing 25%-35%, I think you said quarter-over-quarter. which is now growing 25%-35% i think you said quarter-over-quarter Maybe just give us some granularity on where you're seeing that inflection showing up within PFAS. maybe just give us some granularity on where you're seeing that inflection showing up within pfas

Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. yes

Speaker 3: And what's happened since kind of the DOW and EPA issued favorable disposal guidance? And what's happened since kind of the DOW and EPA issued favorable disposal guidance? and what's happened since kind of the dow and epa issued favorable disposal guidance

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I'll start and Eric can jump in. There's always so much we can talk about with PFAS. The question that I'm sure some folks tuning in would wanna know is, have we seen any movement on the Department of War side now that they've given their guidance? The answer to that is not yet. That calendar has to come together. That funding has to come together. We are getting some assignments. We're in discussions with some of the base commanders, and then they'll move it up the chain. So, that's gonna play out over, you know, to the 700 locations. Yeah. yeah I mean, I'll start and Eric can jump in. i mean i'll start and eric can jump in There's always so much we can talk about with PFAS. there's always so much we can talk about with pfas The question that I'm sure some folks tuning in would wanna know is, have we seen any movement on the Department of War side now that they've given their guidance? the question that i'm sure some folks tuning in would wanna know is have we seen any movement on the department of war side now that they've given their guidance The answer to that is not yet. the answer to that is not yet That calendar has to come together. that calendar has to come together That funding has to come together. that funding has to come together We are getting some assignments. we are getting some assignments We're in discussions with some of the base commanders, and then they'll move it up the chain. we're in discussions with some of the base commanders and then they'll move it up the chain So, that's gonna play out over, you know, to the 700 locations. so, that's gonna play out over you know to the 700 locations

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 2: That's gonna play out over a decade plus, but certainly we'd like to see some movement on that. I think as one goes, then others will follow. We're seeing work there. Definitely the EPA guidance that came out didn't have the granularity of, you know, parts per million or parts per billion. They were just clarifying what technologies they would endorse. That's gonna play out over a decade plus, but certainly we'd like to see some movement on that. that's gonna play out over a decade plus but certainly we'd like to see some movement on that I think as one goes, then others will follow. i think as one goes then others will follow We're seeing work there. we're seeing work there Definitely the EPA guidance that came out didn't have the granularity of, you know, parts per million or parts per billion. definitely the epa guidance that came out didn't have the granularity of you know parts per million or parts per billion They were just clarifying what technologies they would endorse. they were just clarifying what technologies they would endorse

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 2: So, that helps us, but not quite as much as it will when they get some more detail into that framework, if you will. Sort of the, what I think what we talked about is, internally, is this just a real validation of incineration, which we've believed for years is a great scalable, cost-effective solution to PFAS in many forms. To have the endorsement of both on the kind of the private side, if you will, from the EPA and then on the public side through the War Department, is terrific. I think from a pipeline perspective, it just has so many tentacles where you're seeing it in contaminated water at sites. So, that helps us, but not quite as much as it will when they get some more detail into that framework, if you will. so, that helps us but not quite as much as it will when they get some more detail into that framework if you will Sort of the, what I think what we talked about is, internally, is this just a real validation of incineration, which we've believed for years is a great scalable, cost-effective solution to PFAS in many forms. sort of the what i think what we talked about is internally is this just a real validation of incineration which we've believed for years is a great scalable cost-effective solution to pfas in many forms To have the endorsement of both on the kind of the private side, if you will, from the EPA and then on the public side through the War D epartment, is terrific. to have the endorsement of both on the kind of the private side if you will from the epa and then on the public side through the war d epartment is terrific I think from a pipeline perspective, it just has so many tentacles where you're seeing it in contaminated water at sites. i think from a pipeline perspective it just has so many tentacles where you're seeing it in contaminated water at sites You're seeing it in emergency situations where the AFFF foam is going off, and now it's out into the environment or out onto that property and has to be remedied. We're seeing it in, at airports, at fire, firehouses, and it's just, you know, it almost seems endless at times of how much contamination that these chemicals have caused in drinking water, industrial water, and locations. Our pipeline has grown quite a bit. It's a little bit of everyone sort of, maybe looking at others to see who jumps first in terms of some of the big cleanups or contamination. You're seeing it in emergency situations where the AFFF foam is going off, and now it's out into the environment or out onto that property and has to be remedied. you're seeing it in emergency situations where the afff foam is going off and now it's out into the environment or out onto that property and has to be remedied We're seeing it in, at airports, at fire, firehouses, and it's just, you know, it almost seems endless at times of how much contamination that these chemicals have caused in drinking water, industrial water, and locations. we're seeing it in at airports at fire firehouses and it's just you know it almost seems endless at times of how much contamination that these chemicals have caused in drinking water industrial water and locations Our pipeline has grown quite a bit. our pipeline has grown quite a bit It's a little bit of everyone sort of, maybe looking at others to see who jumps first in terms of some of the big cleanups or contamination. it's a little bit of everyone sort of maybe looking at others to see who jumps first in terms of some of the big cleanups or contamination I think if you see a 3M or a Chemours or someone start to clean up their sites and some of the industrial locations themselves where this stuff was produced, that may open up a channel for folks like us. Similarly, as you see public bodies of water getting addressed, you'll probably see some momentum there. On the drinking water side, you know, that's an area that we're starting to grow in. We've got a lot of visibility around our installation in Pearl Harbor, so we think that market's gonna continue to grow for us as well because, you know, from many angles, you know, people consuming this stuff is something that, from a health perspective, we obviously wanna stop immediately. I think if you see a 3M or a Chemours or someone start to clean up their sites and some of the industrial locations themselves where this stuff was produced, that may open up a channel for folks like us. i think if you see a 3m or a chemours or someone start to clean up their sites and some of the industrial locations themselves where this stuff was produced that may open up a channel for folks like us Similarly, as you see public bodies of water getting addressed, you'll probably see some momentum there. similarly as you see public bodies of water getting addressed you'll probably see some momentum there On the drinking water side, you know, that's an area that we're starting to grow in. on the drinking water side you know that's an area that we're starting to grow in We've got a lot of visibility around our installation in Pearl Harbor, so we think that market's gonna continue to grow for us as well because, you know, from many angles, you know, people consuming this stuff is something that, from a health perspective, we obviously wanna stop immediately. we've got a lot of visibility around our installation in pearl harbor so we think that market's gonna continue to grow for us as well because you know from many angles you know people consuming this stuff is something that from a health perspective we obviously wanna stop immediately

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. yeah. yeah, yeah

Speaker 1: You know, the only thing I would add to that is I think a lot of investors are looking for us to really try to put a more of a concrete timeline and value on the growth of this business and where we can bring it. What I would say on that is certainly kind of the growth rates that we've talked about, you alluded to a moment ago, you know, now 25%-35%, certainly think that is achievable this year. You know, the only thing I would add to that is I think a lot of investors are looking for us to really try to put a more of a concrete timeline and value on the growth of this business and where we can bring it. you know the only thing i would add to that is i think a lot of investors are looking for us to really try to put a more of a concrete timeline and value on the growth of this business and where we can bring it What I would say on that is certainly kind of the growth rates that we've talked about, you alluded to a moment ago, you know, now 25%-35%, certainly think that is achievable this year. what i would say on that is certainly kind of the growth rates that we've talked about you alluded to a moment ago you know now 25%-35% certainly think that is achievable this year I think what gets me most excited about this opportunity, and I can't put an exact number on it as to when, but when I look at how we're building the pipeline, when I look at the team that we have in place, and the tools that we have in place, the assignments that we're giving to people to go out and touch base with these different areas and different military bases where we know there's things, the relationships that we're developing with those. I mean, Jim alluded to kind of Pearl Harbor. I think what gets me most excited about this opportunity, and I can't put an exact number on it as to when, but when I look at how we're building the pipeline, when I look at the team that we have in place, and the tools that we have in place, the assignments that we're giving to people to go out and touch base with these different areas and different military bases where we know there's things, the relationships that we're developing with those. i think what gets me most excited about this opportunity and i can't put an exact number on it as to when but when i look at how we're building the pipeline when i look at the team that we have in place and the tools that we have in place the assignments that we're giving to people to go out and touch base with these different areas and different military bases where we know there's things the relationships that we're developing with those I mean, Jim alluded to kind of Pearl Harbor. i mean jim alluded to kind of pearl harbor

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 1: That's where we are doing some work and then have essentially broadened the scope there and nearly doubled the work that we're doing under that relationship. It's those types of things, laying that groundwork, and I do think, obviously, kind of the military is where we see a lot of these opportunities, but private companies as well that we already have a relationship with. We've gone out, we've talked to them about the opportunities and our capabilities. It's those things that are gonna kinda give us, you know, that first step in the door to show them all of our capabilities all in one spot and really grow this business, you know, 25%, 30%, 35% kinda annually here for a good period of time. That's where we are doing some work and then have essentially broadened the scope there and nearly doubled the work that we're doing under that relationship. that's where we are doing some work and then have essentially broadened the scope there and nearly doubled the work that we're doing under that relationship It's those types of things, laying that groundwork, and I do think, obviously, kind of the military is where we see a lot of these opportunities, but private companies as well that we already have a relationship with. it's those types of things laying that groundwork and i do think obviously kind of the military is where we see a lot of these opportunities but private companies as well that we already have a relationship with We've gone out, we've talked to them about the opportunities and our capabilities. we've gone out we've talked to them about the opportunities and our capabilities It's those things that are gonna kinda give us, you know, that first step in the door to show them all of our capabilities all in one spot and really grow this business, you know, 25%, 30%, 35% kinda annually here for a good period of time. it's those things that are gonna kinda give us you know that first step in the door to show them all of our capabilities all in one spot and really grow this business you know 25% 30% 35% kinda annually here for a good period of time You know, I think PFAS remediation and PFAS cleanup is something that, you know, folks in these chairs are gonna be talking about, you know, a decade from now as well. I'm really excited about the opportunity, really excited about the growth rate. It's coming. Exactly how much, at what period in time, that is the question, but it's something we're devoting capital to, a lot of energy to, and, you know, think we're the right provider for many, many people, and many, many communities that are gonna have to deal with this issue. You know, I think PFAS remediation and PFAS cleanup is something that, you know, folks in these chairs are gonna be talking about, you know, a decade from now as well. you know i think pfas remediation and pfas cleanup is something that you know folks in these chairs are gonna be talking about you know a decade from now as well I'm really excited about the opportunity, really excited about the growth rate. It 's coming. i'm really excited about the opportunity really excited about the growth rate. it 's coming Exactly how much, at what period in time, that is the question, but i t's something we're devoting capital to, a lot of energy to, and, you know, think we're the right provider for many, many people, and many, many communities that are gonna have to deal with this issue. exactly how much at what period in time that is the question, but i t's something we're devoting capital to a lot of energy to and you know think we're the right provider for many many people and many many communities that are gonna have to deal with this issue

Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it, thank you for kind of getting into the characterization of the pipeline itself, because obviously, a lot of this work is going to be longer cycle in nature for a myriad of reasons, funding availability, you know, figuring out who does what, and where. Yeah, I mean, it, thank you for kind of getting into the characterization of the pipeline itself, because obviously, a lot of this work is going to be longer cycle in nature for a myriad of reasons, funding availability, you know, figuring out who does what, and where. yeah i mean it thank you for kind of getting into the characterization of the pipeline itself because obviously a lot of this work is going to be longer cycle in nature for a myriad of reasons funding availability you know figuring out who does what and where

Speaker 1: Right. Right. right

Speaker 3: And the timeframe, and who pays for it. But you know, you're the CFO, and so you have to kind of look at this sort of pipeline and how probability-weighted or evaluate that. Can you kind of help us understand how you think about the sort of the shape of the funnel, and how you look at kind of probability-weighting as stuff comes from kind of early stage talks down to, okay, this is gonna move in the next couple of quarters or the next, you know, couple of months? And the timeframe, and who pays for it. and the timeframe and who pays for it But you know, you're the CFO, and so you have to kind of look at this sort of pipeline and how probability-weighted or evaluate that. but you know you're the cfo and so you have to kind of look at this sort of pipeline and how probability-weighted or evaluate that Can you kind of help us understand how you think about the sort of the shape of the funnel, and how you look at kind of probability-weighting as stuff comes from kind of early stage talks down to, okay, this is gonna move in the next couple of quarters or the next, you know, couple of months? can you kind of help us understand how you think about the sort of the shape of the funnel and how you look at kind of probability-weighting as stuff comes from kind of early stage talks down to okay this is gonna move in the next couple of quarters or the next you know couple of months

Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a great question and I can give you a couple of examples, obviously on a no-name basis, but a couple of opportunities where you can kinda see, okay, this is near term. I would say in our field services business, there's certainly been some opportunities that have come our way that we've executed on, where you can tell, based on the description and the pipeline and conversations that our sales folks are having, that, okay, this is something that that customer, there's an issue here, there's a contamination here, they wanna get out in front of it and remediate this problem before there's a larger kind of publicity problem or legal issue. Yeah. yeah That's a great question and I can give you a couple of examples, obviously on a no-name basis, but a couple of opportunities where you can kinda see, okay, this is near term. that's a great question and i can give you a couple of examples obviously on a no-name basis but a couple of opportunities where you can kinda see okay this is near term I would say in our field services business, there's certainly been some opportunities that have come our way that we've executed on, where you can tell, based on the description and the pipeline and conversations that our sales folks are having, that, okay, this is something that that customer, there's an issue here, there's a contamination here, t hey wanna get out in front of it and remediate this problem before there's a larger kind of publicity problem or legal issue. i would say in our field services business there's certainly been some opportunities that have come our way that we've executed on where you can tell based on the description and the pipeline and conversations that our sales folks are having that okay this is something that that customer there's an issue here there's a contamination here, t hey wanna get out in front of it and remediate this problem before there's a larger kind of publicity problem or legal issue Those types of opportunities are coming our way from the private sector, and those you can kind of put a much shorter tail on. You can tell that the customer wants to deal with the situation sooner rather than later, and those have turned into real opportunities. You also see opportunities more in the public space, whether that be a municipal airport or the military or a fire department or something like that, where they've got PFAS. You can tell it's an opportunity. They may need some funding. They may have some funding. There's also aspects of some of these projects that come in that you can see may be dealt with in tiers. Those types of opportunities are coming our way from the private sector, and those you can kind of put a much shorter tail on. those types of opportunities are coming our way from the private sector and those you can kind of put a much shorter tail on You can tell that the customer wants to deal with the situation sooner rather than later, and those have turned into real opportunities. you can tell that the customer wants to deal with the situation sooner rather than later and those have turned into real opportunities You also see opportunities more in the public space, whether that be a municipal airport or the military or a fire department or something like that, where they've got PFAS. you also see opportunities more in the public space whether that be a municipal airport or the military or a fire department or something like that where they've got pfas You can tell it's an opportunity. you can tell it's an opportunity They may need some funding. they may need some funding They may have some funding. they may have some funding There's also aspects of some of these projects that come in that you can see may be dealt with in tiers. there's also aspects of some of these projects that come in that you can see may be dealt with in tiers Maybe this is a more of a near term in the next 90 days, this is more six months, this is probably a year, two years into the future. So, you can see that cadence building based upon the nature and the customer. It really, you know, I'm really pleased where I hear of an existing customer of ours that we have a relationship with, that you see an opportunity in the pipeline or something that they wanna do. Typically, that type of thing, you know, kinda comes to us a little bit sooner than some of these much larger projects that are often in there. Maybe this is a more of a near term in the next 90 days, this is more six months, this is probably a year, two years into the future. maybe this is a more of a near term in the next 90 days this is more six months this is probably a year two years into the future So, you can see that cadence building based upon the nature and the customer. so, you can see that cadence building based upon the nature and the customer It really, you know, I'm really pleased where I hear of an existing customer of ours that we have a relationship with, that you see an opportunity in the pipeline or something that they wanna do. it really you know i'm really pleased where i hear of an existing customer of ours that we have a relationship with that you see an opportunity in the pipeline or something that they wanna do Typically, that type of thing, you know, kinda comes to us a little bit sooner than some of these much larger projects that are often in there. typically that type of thing you know kinda comes to us a little bit sooner than some of these much larger projects that are often in there You know, it's not a perfect science in terms of timing that things out. You know, it's not a perfect science in terms of timing that things out. you know it's not a perfect science in terms of timing that things out

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 1: But, you know, I like the opportunities that are filling the pipe with obviously the public sector where the funding exists, but also, you know, those things that we're doing for customers that are current customers of us, maybe in a different part of the business. But, you know, I like the opportunities that are filling the pipe with obviously the public sector where the funding exists, but also, you know, those things that we're doing for customers that are current customers of us, maybe in a different part of the business. but, you know i like the opportunities that are filling the pipe with obviously the public sector where the funding exists but also you know those things that we're doing for customers that are current customers of us maybe in a different part of the business

Speaker 3: Very helpful. I guess the last part of this that people often ask us is, you know, how will the margin profile of the PFAS work kind of compare, say, versus the ES segment broadly, because there's a lot of different lines here, right? There's, you know, disposal, there's, you know, water filtration, the soils contamination, remediation, land filling, things like that. Just help us understand, you know, how this should trend relative to broader ES. Very helpful. very helpful I guess the last part of this that people often ask us is, you know, how will the margin profile of the PFAS work kind of compare, say, versus the ES segment broadly, because there's a lot of different lines here, right? i guess the last part of this that people often ask us is you know how will the margin profile of the pfas work kind of compare say versus the es segment broadly because there's a lot of different lines here right There's, you know, disposal, there's, you know, water filtration, the soils contamination, remediation, land filling, things like that. there's you know disposal there's you know water filtration the soils contamination remediation land filling things like that Just help us understand, you know, how this should trend relative to broader ES. just help us understand you know how this should trend relative to broader es

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I certainly think kind of on average over a broader project, we're certainly looking at being margin accretive projects. When you think about our environmental services segment, and, you know, we're kind of forecasting this year to be about 27% margins, you know, if you think about the broad types of projects that are come in, it'll be accretive to that number. Each project is unique. It'll be, you know, determined whether it's more kind of labor equipment or if there is a lot of disposal attached to it. Obviously, the jobs with a lot of disposal certainly will garner higher margins. Yeah. yeah Yeah, I certainly think kind of on average over a broader project, we're certainly looking at being margin accretive projects. yeah i certainly think kind of on average over a broader project we're certainly looking at being margin accretive projects When you think about our environmental services segment, and, you know, we're kind of forecasting this year to be about 27% margins, you know, if you think about the broad types of projects that are come in, it'll be accretive to that number. when you think about our environmental services segment and you know we're kind of forecasting this year to be about 27% margins you know if you think about the broad types of projects that are come in it'll be accretive to that number Each project is unique. each project is unique It'll be, you know, determined whether it's more kind of labor equipment or if there is a lot of disposal attached to it. it'll be you know determined whether it's more kind of labor equipment or if there is a lot of disposal attached to it Obviously, the jobs with a lot of disposal certainly will garner higher margins. obviously the jobs with a lot of disposal certainly will garner higher margins Overall, you know, it's just a, you know, we've talked about for a few years now kinda having a longer-term goal of getting those environmental services segment margins to 30% and above. We've made great headway over the last five, six years, raising those margins by 500, 600 basis points to where they are today at 27%. Overall, you know, it's just a, you know, we've talked about for a few years now kinda having a longer-term goal of getting those environmental services segment margins to 30% and above. overall you know it's just a you know we've talked about for a few years now kinda having a longer-term goal of getting those environmental services segment margins to 30% and above We've made great headway over the last five, six years, raising those margins by 500, 600 basis points to where they are today at 27%. we've made great headway over the last five six years raising those margins by 500 600 basis points to where they are today at 27%

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 1: These types of services are gonna be just another way that we get those margins into the 30% range. These types of services are gonna be just another way that we get those margins into the 30% range. these types of services are gonna be just another way that we get those margins into the 30% range

Speaker 3: You know, if we go through the sort of subsegments within ES, and you commented on this at the start, but I wanna pick up on that thread. If we start with tech services, maybe just help us unpack the utilization and mixed trends in incineration for 1Q, and the visibility you have to higher utilization moving throughout the year. You know, if we go through the sort of subsegments within ES, and you commented on this at the start, but I wanna pick up on that thread. you know if we go through the sort of subsegments within es and you commented on this at the start but i wanna pick up on that thread If we start with tech s ervices, maybe just help us unpack the utilization and mixed trends in incineration for 1Q, and the visibility you have to higher utilization moving throughout the year. if we start with tech s ervices maybe just help us unpack the utilization and mixed trends in incineration for 1q and the visibility you have to higher utilization moving throughout the year

Speaker 1: Sure. You know, yesterday when we announced Q1, we're now giving a incineration utilization number that includes our new incinerator that we opened late in 2024, December 2024, out in Kimball, Nebraska. The utilization for the quarter was about 80%. Admittedly, probably a little bit lower than we had hoped, but kind of in line with our expectations that we gave in February, and probably negatively impacted through some difficult weather that we had predominantly in February that affected one of our sites, then just kinda some normal calendarization of some down days and turnaround time that we incurred. Typically, Q1 is, we spend a little more time kind of in turnaround at some of our sites, just given the relative slowness in the seasonality of the business. Sure. sure You know, yesterday when we announced Q1, we're now giving a incineration utilization number that includes our new incinerator that we opened late in 2024, December 2024, out in Kimball, Nebraska. you know yesterday when we announced q1 we're now giving a incineration utilization number that includes our new incinerator that we opened late in 2024 december 2024 out in kimball nebraska The utilization for the quarter was about 80%. the utilization for the quarter was about 80% Admittedly, probably a little bit lower than we had hoped, but kind of in line with our expectations that we gave in February, and probably negatively impacted through some difficult weather that we had predominantly in February that affected one of our sites, t hen just kinda some normal calendarization of some down days and turnaround time that we incurred. admittedly probably a little bit lower than we had hoped but kind of in line with our expectations that we gave in february and probably negatively impacted through some difficult weather that we had predominantly in february that affected one of our sites, t hen just kinda some normal calendarization of some down days and turnaround time that we incurred Typically, Q1 is, we spend a little more time kind of in turnaround at some of our sites, just given the relative slowness in the seasonality of the business. typically q1 is we spend a little more time kind of in turnaround at some of our sites just given the relative slowness in the seasonality of the business You know, our line of sight and what we've talked about yesterday is, you know, when we close out the year, you know, that utilization for the full year will be pretty consistent with past years, kind of in the mid to high 80% range. As we move beyond Q1, get into Q2 and Q3, you're gonna see high 80%, even maybe close to 90% for kind of Qs two and three, and that's pretty consistent with our past history. Obviously, we'll have more volumes this year as we continue to ramp up Kimball. You know, our line of sight and what we've talked about yesterday is, you know, when we close out the year, you know, that utilization for the full year will be pretty consistent with past years, kind of in the mid to high 80% range. you know our line of sight and what we've talked about yesterday is you know when we close out the year you know that utilization for the full year will be pretty consistent with past years kind of in the mid to high 80% range As we move beyond Q1, get into Q2 and Q3, you're gonna see high 80%, even maybe close to 90% for kind of Qs two and three, and t hat's pretty consistent with our past history. as we move beyond q1 get into q2 and q3 you're gonna see high 80% even maybe close to 90% for kind of qs two and three, and t hat's pretty consistent with our past history Obviously, we'll have more volumes this year as we continue to ramp up Kimball. obviously we'll have more volumes this year as we continue to ramp up kimball

Speaker 3: Right. Right. right

Speaker 1: Really excited with the progress we've made so far on Kimball, kinda right on track. I think when you look at 2026 versus 2025, there's probably more of that high-haz waste stream, type of waste that'll be going through that new unit this year. So, good line of sight to filling the plan. You know, excited about the progress we made in Kimball, and certainly, when you think about mix, though, going back to some of what we talked about earlier, if in fact we start to see some more of those, chemical and manufacturing vertical-produced waste streams. Really excited with the progress we've made so far on Kimball, kinda right on track. really excited with the progress we've made so far on kimball kinda right on track I think when you look at 2026 versus 2025, there's probably more of that high-haz waste stream, type of waste that'll be going through that new unit this year. i think when you look at 2026 versus 2025 there's probably more of that high-haz waste stream type of waste that'll be going through that new unit this year So, good line of sight to filling the plan. so, good line of sight to filling the plan You know, excited about the progress we made in Kimball, and c ertainly, when you think about mix, though, going back to some of what we talked about earlier, if in fact we start to see some more of those, chemical and manufacturing vertical-produced waste streams. you know, excited about the progress we made in kimball, and c ertainly when you think about mix though going back to some of what we talked about earlier if in fact we start to see some more of those chemical and manufacturing vertical-produced waste streams

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 1: That are higher price points, a little bit nastier material. That are higher price points, a little bit nastier material. that are higher price points a little bit nastier material

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 1: You know, you'll see the utilization kinda stay in that same level, but the mix will get better and profitability improves. You know, you'll see the utilization kinda stay in that same level, but the mix will get better and profitability improves. you know you'll see the utilization kinda stay in that same level but the mix will get better and profitability improves

Speaker 3: Yeah. I want to ask about the captives element of this, you know, which has been an ongoing story, really with the partnership with 3M, for example, which, you know, led them to close their captive incinerator and give you the business. Very important signal to the market, we thought. Can you talk about the current prospects for captives to close and how we should think about the upcoming MACT regulations? Yeah. I want to ask about the captives element of this, you know, which has been an ongoing story, really with the partnership with 3M, for example, which, you know, led them to close their captive incinerator and give you the business. yeah. i want to ask about the captives element of this you know which has been an ongoing story really with the partnership with 3m for example which you know led them to close their captive incinerator and give you the business Very important signal to the market, we thought. very important signal to the market we thought Can you talk about the current prospects for captives to close and how we should think about the upcoming MACT regulations? can you talk about the current prospects for captives to close and how we should think about the upcoming mact regulations

Speaker 2: Very lucky. Very lucky. very lucky

Speaker 3: Playing a role here? Playing a role here? playing a role here

Speaker 2: Yeah. I can start, and Eric can jump in. We love talking about captives, and the industry does too, but it's sort of a turning of the Queen Mary because it's just a huge decision for the captive operator to make, 'cause they can only make it once. You know, 3M did theirs at a time that the industry was pretty backed up, and then industry became very backed up. Now, since then, we've opened up Kimball, and one of our competitors is working on opening up some more capacity there. You know, Eric and I like to say logic would tell you that now there's some capacity available, it's not gonna be there for a long time with all the reshoring coming to America. Yeah. yeah I can start, and Eric can jump in. i can start and eric can jump in We love talking about captives, and the industry does too, but it's sort of a turning of the Queen Mary because it's just a huge decision for the captive operator to make, 'cause they can only make it once. we love talking about captives and the industry does too, but it's sort of a turning of the queen mary because it's just a huge decision for the captive operator to make 'cause they can only make it once You know, 3M did theirs at a time that the industry was pretty backed up, and then industry became very backed up. you know 3m did theirs at a time that the industry was pretty backed up and then industry became very backed up Now, since then, we've opened up Kimball, and one of our competitors is working on opening up some more capacity there. now since then we've opened up kimball and one of our competitors is working on opening up some more capacity there You know, Eric and I like to say logic would tell you that now there's some capacity available, it's not gonna be there for a long time with all the reshoring coming to America. you know eric and i like to say logic would tell you that now there's some capacity available it's not gonna be there for a long time with all the reshoring coming to america So, we have those discussions with the captives, and we think, you know, everyone wants to pin us down on what quarter or when, how many this year type thing, but it's something that we would expect that some of those captives will come off. We were talking pretty closely with a couple of them last year, and then Liberation Day kinda threw all the chess pieces up in the air, and they had to deal with supply chains and other things. It's a lot of change management to go through closing your captive and rerouting all your waste to a third party. For us, like with 3M, we put our systems in and put them on our kind of waste profiling system, so, it's a lot involved. So, we have those discussions with the captives, and we think, you know, everyone wants to pin us down on what quarter or when, how many this year type thing, but it's something that we would expect that some of those captives will come off. so, we have those discussions with the captives and we think you know everyone wants to pin us down on what quarter or when how many this year type thing but it's something that we would expect that some of those captives will come off We were talking pretty closely with a couple of them last year, and then Liberation Day kinda threw all the chess pieces up in the air, and they had to deal with supply chains and other things. we were talking pretty closely with a couple of them last year and then liberation day kinda threw all the chess pieces up in the air and they had to deal with supply chains and other things It's a lot of change management to go through closing your captive and rerouting all your waste to a third party. it's a lot of change management to go through closing your captive and rerouting all your waste to a third party For us, like with 3M, we put our systems in and put them on our kind of waste profiling system, so, it's a lot involved. for us like with 3m we put our systems in and put them on our kind of waste profiling system so, it's a lot involved From a financial perspective, we are showing them, as we did with 3M, that we can save them a lot of money. A lot of them are trying to promote cost savings plans, and we can be a big part of that. It's just the timing of that, it's just hard to predict, but we're probably dancing with three or four or five of them right now out of the 41 captives that are operating in the U.S. From a financial perspective, we are showing them, as we did with 3M, that we can save them a lot of money. from a financial perspective we are showing them as we did with 3m that we can save them a lot of money A lot of them are trying to promote cost savings plans, and we can be a big part of that. a lot of them are trying to promote cost savings plans and we can be a big part of that It's just the timing of that, it's just hard to predict, but we're probably dancing with three or four or five of them right now out of the 41 captives that are operating in the U.S. it's just the timing of that it's just hard to predict, but we're probably dancing with three or four or five of them right now out of the 41 captives that are operating in the u.s

Speaker 3: I mean, you're providing your utilization figures, right, 80% for 1Q going to, you know, close to 90%? Is it fair to assume that the captives generally don't run as high utilization rates because they're not taking in a whole mix of third-party waste for the most part, right? They have to be oversized to, you know, meet their max load demand, which they don't probably meet most of the time, right? I mean, you're providing your utilization figures, right, 80% for 1Q going to, you know, close to 90%? i mean you're providing your utilization figures right 80% for 1q going to you know close to 90% Is it fair to assume that the captives generally don't run as high utilization rates because they're not taking in a whole mix of third-party waste for the most part, right? is it fair to assume that the captives generally don't run as high utilization rates because they're not taking in a whole mix of third-party waste for the most part right They have to be oversized to, you know, meet their max load demand, which they don't probably meet most of the time, right? they have to be oversized to you know meet their max load demand which they don't probably meet most of the time right

Speaker 2: That's right. That's right. that's right

Speaker 3: I think there's some data to support this, but, you know, what is sort of that delta? And I ask because I think these regulations are gonna make it, you know, more expensive to run more inefficiently. I think there's some data to support this, but, you know, what is sort of that delta? i think there's some data to support this but you know what is sort of that delta And I ask because I think these regulations are gonna make it, you know, more expensive to run more inefficiently. and i ask because i think these regulations are gonna make it you know more expensive to run more inefficiently

Speaker 1: I think you're spot on, Noah. You know, we have a gentleman that does the best he can to kinda estimate and determine some of those run rates and utilization rates at some of these captives. You know, I, some of them could be as low as 30% or 40%, based upon some of the intel that he's gathered. So, you're exactly right, and you know, Jim noted a minute ago, kinda, hey, logic would tell you that these things shut down, or at least that's like what we say. I think you're spot on, Noah. i think you're spot on noah You know, we have a gentleman that does the best he can to kinda estimate and determine some of those run rates and utilization rates at some of these captives. you know we have a gentleman that does the best he can to kinda estimate and determine some of those run rates and utilization rates at some of these captives You know, I, s ome of them could be as low as 30% or 40%, based upon some of the intel that he's gathered. you know i, s ome of them could be as low as 30% or 40% based upon some of the intel that he's gathered So, you're exactly right, and y ou know, Jim noted a minute ago, kinda, hey, logic would tell you that these things shut down, or at least that's like what we say. so, you're exactly right, and y ou know jim noted a minute ago kinda hey logic would tell you that these things shut down or at least that's like what we say If I was running these plants or I was running a company that had one of these plants and it's not my core business and it's running at 30% and now I gotta go put X million dollars into some capital investments to upgrade it to the current regulations, you know, I'm beginning to think, "Hey, is it about time to find a, you know, a more professional outfit, if you will, to take care of my waste streams?" You know, over time, that's how we see this thing playing out in some instances. If I was running these plants or I was running a company that had one of these plants and it's not my core business and it's running at 30% and now I gotta go put X million dollars into some capital investments to upgrade it to the current regulations, you know, I'm beginning to think, "Hey, is it about time to find a, you know, a more professional outfit, if you will, to take care of my waste streams?" You know, over time, that's how we see this thing playing out in some instances. if i was running these plants or i was running a company that had one of these plants and it's not my core business and it's running at 30% and now i gotta go put x million dollars into some capital investments to upgrade it to the current regulations you know i'm beginning to think "hey is it about time to find a you know a more professional outfit if you will to take care of my waste streams?" you know over time that's how we see this thing playing out in some instances A lot of those characteristics I walked through, you know, not all of them are consistent with the 3M case study, but there was some of each of those things I just mentioned kind of built into their decision to move to Clean Harbors. A lot of those characteristics I walked through, you know, not all of them are consistent with the 3M case study, but t here was some of each of those things I just mentioned kind of built into their decision to move to Clean Harbors. a lot of those characteristics i walked through you know not all of them are consistent with the 3m case study but t here was some of each of those things i just mentioned kind of built into their decision to move to clean harbors

Speaker 2: And each captive, Noah, has its own story and what the pitch would be to them. For them, they're not a commercial operator, so operating at 50% or 40%, they can do that. We obviously couldn't afford to do that. They also put a lot of things in there that if we were to handle those waste streams, we might be able to send some of that to our landfills or to an alternative or even recycling. But because they have that outlet, they just throw everything in it and burn it. And each captive, Noah, has its own story and what the pitch would be to them. and each captive noah has its own story and what the pitch would be to them For them, they're not a commercial operator, so operating at 50% or 40%, they can do that. for them they're not a commercial operator so operating at 50% or 40% they can do that We obviously couldn't afford to do that. we obviously couldn't afford to do that They also put a lot of things in there that if we were to handle those waste streams, we might be able to send some of that to our landfills or to an alternative or even recycling. they also put a lot of things in there that if we were to handle those waste streams we might be able to send some of that to our landfills or to an alternative or even recycling But because they have that outlet, they just throw everything in it and burn it. but because they have that outlet they just throw everything in it and burn it That's where that kind of cost savings can really come into play if we were to take those waste streams over for them. That's where that kind of cost savings can really come into play if we were to take those waste streams over for them. that's where that kind of cost savings can really come into play if we were to take those waste streams over for them

Speaker 3: Makes sense. I guess within tech services, landfill volumes trends were very strong in 1Q. So, what is, what does the pipeline and the guide really imply for growth moving throughout the year? 'Cause you've had strong volume trends in landfill now for two quarters. Makes sense. makes sense I guess within tech s ervices, landfill volumes trends were very strong in 1Q. i guess within tech s ervices landfill volumes trends were very strong in 1q So, what is, what does the pipeline and the guide really imply for growth moving throughout the year? 'Cause you've had strong volume trends in landfill now for two quarters. so, what is what does the pipeline and the guide really imply for growth moving throughout the year 'cause you've had strong volume trends in landfill now for two quarters

Speaker 1: Yeah, we have, and a lot of that landfill volume is coming from some of these waste projects and remediation work that's coming our way. So, kind of in the guide, I, you know, I wouldn't say we have blowout, continued kind of blowout quarters from landfill, but it is an area that we seem to have some good momentum. The pipeline of our project services group is fairly strong, probably increasing and increased over where it was, you know, six months ago and 12 months ago. You know, that's part of, you know, the confidence we have in increasing our guide by $50 million here yesterday. Some of that is coming from continued strong project work, much of which kind of feeds our landfills. Yeah, we have, and a lot of that landfill volume is coming from some of these waste projects and remediation work that's coming our way. yeah we have and a lot of that landfill volume is coming from some of these waste projects and remediation work that's coming our way So, kind of in the guide, I, you know, I wouldn't say we have blowout, continued kind of blowout quarters from landfill, but it is an area that we seem to have some good momentum. so, kind of in the guide i you know i wouldn't say we have blowout continued kind of blowout quarters from landfill but it is an area that we seem to have some good momentum The pipeline of our project services group is fairly strong, probably increasing and increased over where it was, you know, six months ago and 12 months ago. the pipeline of our project services group is fairly strong probably increasing and increased over where it was you know six months ago and 12 months ago You know, that's part of, you know, the confidence we have in increasing our guide by $50 million here yesterday. you know that's part of you know the confidence we have in increasing our guide by $50 million here yesterday Some of that is coming from continued strong project work, much of which kind of feeds our landfills. some of that is coming from continued strong project work much of which kind of feeds our landfills As you know, Noah, the landfills, you know, those generate good margins as well. As you know, Noah , the landfills, you know, those generate good margins as well. as you know noah the landfills you know those generate good margins as well

Speaker 2: And just, for those that don't maybe know us as well, you know, from the landfill side, 50% of those volumes in a given year are usually from projects, and 50% is kind of from base business. We have had, as you mentioned, a couple years of good runs last year. Overall, landfill volumes grew 24%. I would say assumed in the guide this year is that continues to grow, but it's hard to put up those kind of numbers every single year because, you know, there is some project dependence there. And just, for those that don't maybe know us as well, you know, from the landfill side, 50% of those volumes in a given year are usually from projects, and 50% is kind of from base business. and just for those that don't maybe know us as well you know from the landfill side 50% of those volumes in a given year are usually from projects and 50% is kind of from base business We have had, as you mentioned, a couple years of good runs last year. we have had as you mentioned a couple years of good runs last year Overall, landfill volumes grew 24%. overall landfill volumes grew 24% I would say assumed in the guide this year is that continues to grow, but i t's hard to put up those kind of numbers every single year because, you know, there is some project dependence there. i would say assumed in the guide this year is that continues to grow, but i t's hard to put up those kind of numbers every single year because you know there is some project dependence there

Speaker 3: Yep. Very helpful. Thank you both. I guess turning to field services, outperformed, right, just full stop in 1Q. I know you have a tough comp here in 2Q. When we pull back, though, it just seems like you're taking share in field services, and not just through consolidation, but organically. So, maybe talk a little bit about what's been the driver of the share gains, and going forward, you know, with the branch expansion and some of the other investments you're making, you know, can you hang on to or expand that share? Yep. yep Very helpful. very helpful Thank you both. thank you both I guess turning to field services, outperformed, right, just full stop in 1Q. i guess turning to field services outperformed right just full stop in 1q I know you have a tough comp here in 2Q. i know you have a tough comp here in 2q When we pull back, though, it just seems like you're taking share in field services, and not just through consolidation, but organically. So, m aybe talk a little bit about what's been the driver of the share gains, and g oing forward, you know, with the branch expansion and some of the other investments you're making, you know, can you hang on to or expand that share? when we pull back though it just seems like you're taking share in field services and not just through consolidation but organically. so, m aybe talk a little bit about what's been the driver of the share gains, and g oing forward you know with the branch expansion and some of the other investments you're making you know can you hang on to or expand that share

Speaker 1: Yeah. So, great questions, and we would agree with you. I think we're definitely taking share there. I think we're doing it a couple different ways. You know, certainly kind of getting a larger business and expanding branches, so getting larger through the HEPACO acquisition that we did now couple years ago. I think, you know, two years later, you know, feel even better about that acquisition than we did when we made it, just the, our ability to continue to grow that platform and really, you know, it fit hand in glove in our current field services organization. Yeah. So, great questions, and we would agree with you. yeah. so, great questions and we would agree with you I think we're definitely taking share there. i think we're definitely taking share there I think we're doing it a couple different ways. i think we're doing it a couple different ways You know, certainly kind of getting a larger business and expanding branches, so getting larger through the HEPACO acquisition that we did now couple years ago. you know certainly kind of getting a larger business and expanding branches so getting larger through the hepaco acquisition that we did now couple years ago I think, you know, two years later, you know, feel even better about that acquisition than we did when we made it, just the, our ability to continue to grow that platform and really, you know, it fit hand in glove in our current field services organization. i think you know two years later you know feel even better about that acquisition than we did when we made it just the our ability to continue to grow that platform and really you know it fit hand in glove in our current field services organization To have a field services organization, almost $1 billion in revenue, you know, continue to build out sites, we really are, you know, if you kind of look at a map of our field services organization now, we really are everywhere. We can respond anywhere that we need to. I think the other thing we're doing a great job on, and it's an ability to take share, but also, you know, internalize a lot of our labor. Our dependency, you know, our dependency on third-party labor or subcontractors is much less than perhaps it was a few years ago because we're, we've made some investments in our employees. Our retention rate is much better. To have a field services organization, almost $1 billion in revenue, you know, continue to build out sites, we really are, you know, if you kind of look at a map of our field services organization now, we really are everywhere. to have a field services organization almost $1 billion in revenue you know continue to build out sites we really are you know if you kind of look at a map of our field services organization now we really are everywhere We can respond anywhere that we need to. we can respond anywhere that we need to I think the other thing we're doing a great job on, and it's an ability to take share, but also, you know, internalize a lot of our labor. i think the other thing we're doing a great job on and it's an ability to take share but also you know internalize a lot of our labor Our dependency, you know, our dependency on third-party labor or subcontractors is much less than perhaps it was a few years ago because we're, we've made some investments in our employees. our dependency you know our dependency on third-party labor or subcontractors is much less than perhaps it was a few years ago because we're we've made some investments in our employees Our retention rate is much better. our retention rate is much better And through all those things, they're doing the work more efficiently, but it also allows our branches to remain staffed up so that when an ER happens, we are right there, ready to go. I also think we made some nice investments in some specialized equipment related to kinda marine responses and things like that, so we're much more competitive kind of in that realm. And I think some really nice leadership coming over again from the HEPACO and some internal hires, has really, you know, allowed us to put a strategy forward and grow the business and take some market share. And through all those things, they're doing the work more efficiently, but it also allows our branches to remain staffed up so that when an ER happens, we are right there, ready to go. and through all those things they're doing the work more efficiently but it also allows our branches to remain staffed up so that when an er happens we are right there ready to go I also think we made some nice investments in some specialized equipment related to kinda marine responses and things like that, so we're much more competitive kind of in that realm. i also think we made some nice investments in some specialized equipment related to kinda marine responses and things like that so we're much more competitive kind of in that realm And I think some really nice leadership coming over again from the HEPACO and some internal hires, has really, you know, allowed us to put a strategy forward and grow the business and take some market share. and i think some really nice leadership coming over again from the hepaco and some internal hires has really you know allowed us to put a strategy forward and grow the business and take some market share

Speaker 3: I guess, on IS, you know, it's understandable, right, that refiners are gonna run at high production levels in this environment, and that reduces turnaround work. We saw that post-COVID, right? If we look at that sort of history of, you know, the refiners running strongly and deferring some of the turnaround work, what does that history imply for when you should see an uptick in activity? I guess, on IS, you know, it's understandable, right, that refiners are gonna run at high production levels in this environment, and that reduces turnaround work. i guess on is you know it's understandable right that refiners are gonna run at high production levels in this environment and that reduces turnaround work We saw that post-COVID, right? we saw that post-covid right If we look at that sort of history of, you know, the refiners running strongly and deferring some of the turnaround work, what does that history imply for when you should see an uptick in activity? if we look at that sort of history of you know the refiners running strongly and deferring some of the turnaround work what does that history imply for when you should see an uptick in activity

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, when you look at that most recent cycle with COVID, if you were to go back and look at our industrial services business, you know, late 2021 onto 2022, 2023, you know, the business put up some pretty good numbers. You know, that was right around the time we did an acquisition as well, so you got in there. Each and every month we kinda closed out, it was better. It was better because during that period of time, early during COVID and right after, people were delaying the maintenance that's required for these plants. That's kind of what's happening now, Noah. Yeah, I mean, when you look at that most recent cycle with COVID, if you were to go back and look at our industrial services business, you know, late 2021 onto 2022, 2023, you know, the business put up some pretty good numbers. yeah i mean when you look at that most recent cycle with covid if you were to go back and look at our industrial services business you know late 2021 onto 2022 2023 you know the business put up some pretty good numbers You know, that was right around the time we did an acquisition as well, so you got in there. you know that was right around the time we did an acquisition as well so you got in there Each and every month we kinda closed out, it was better. each and every month we kinda closed out it was better It was better because during that period of time, early during COVID and right after, people were delaying the maintenance that's required for these plants. it was better because during that period of time early during covid and right after people were delaying the maintenance that's required for these plants That's kind of what's happening now, Noah. that's kind of what's happening now noah When you think about, hey, when do these customers get back into their normal routine of not deferring maintenance and really getting in there and cleaning out these units, you know, we're hopeful that once we get through this major ramp-up, you know, maybe it's the back half of this year, we don't have that in our guide right now, we won't guide that way until we see that happening, but you know, you kinda look at the length of time this is going on now, and it's beginning to be very analogous to the situation you referenced and I mentioned a moment ago. When you think about, hey, when do these customers get back into their normal routine of not deferring maintenance and really getting in there and cleaning out these units, you know, we're hopeful that once we get through this major ramp-up, you know, maybe it's the back half of this year, w e don't have that in our guide right now, w e won't guide that way until we see that happening, but y ou know, you kinda look at the length of time this is going on now, and it's beginning to be very analogous to the situation you referenced and I mentioned a moment ago. when you think about hey when do these customers get back into their normal routine of not deferring maintenance and really getting in there and cleaning out these units you know we're hopeful that once we get through this major ramp-up you know maybe it's the back half of this year, w e don't have that in our guide right now, w e won't guide that way until we see that happening, but y ou know you kinda look at the length of time this is going on now and it's beginning to be very analogous to the situation you referenced and i mentioned a moment ago You've gotta think here at some point here in 2026 or early 2027, you really start to see kind of those maintenance schedules and the scope of those maintenance projects increasing and benefiting that industrial services business. For us, we've done a lot of self-help things I've talked about on public calls and conferences before, but a lot of underlying self-help things that I think will put that business in even a better position when that demand comes back. You've gotta think here at some point here in 2026 or early 2027, you really start to see kind of those maintenance schedules and the scope of those maintenance projects increasing and benefiting that industrial services business. you've gotta think here at some point here in 2026 or early 2027 you really start to see kind of those maintenance schedules and the scope of those maintenance projects increasing and benefiting that industrial services business For us, we've done a lot of self-help things I've talked about on public calls and conferences before, but a lot of underlying self-help things that I think will put that business in even a better position when that demand comes back. for us we've done a lot of self-help things i've talked about on public calls and conferences before but a lot of underlying self-help things that i think will put that business in even a better position when that demand comes back

Speaker 3: One question, given the time constraints, on SKSS. One question, given the time constraints, on SKSS. one question given the time constraints on skss

Speaker 1: Sure. Sure. sure

Speaker 3: We expected the uplift in the guide from higher base oil prices. Can you talk about some of the internal initiatives around charge for oil in Group III production and direct sales? We don't have to get into them all in great detail, but to what extent did any, you know, sort of improvement in progress there drive some of the upside for the year? Or is there more upside to come if you get, you know, an uptick in Group III or direct sales? We expected the uplift in the guide from higher base oil prices. we expected the uplift in the guide from higher base oil prices Can you talk about some of the internal initiatives around charge for oil in Group III production and direct sales? can you talk about some of the internal initiatives around charge for oil in group iii production and direct sales We don't have to get into them all in great detail, but to what extent did any, you know, sort of improvement in progress there drive some of the upside for the year? we don't have to get into them all in great detail but to what extent did any you know sort of improvement in progress there drive some of the upside for the year Or is there more upside to come if you get, you know, an uptick in Group III or direct sales? or is there more upside to come if you get you know an uptick in group iii or direct sales

Speaker 1: Yeah. Certainly, I think there's more upside to come if base oil pricing stays high for longer than we've anticipated. Certainly, if we continue to get more interest from the majors who are looking for that consistent stream of base oil and maybe even some more Group III, that's certainly upside to the guide. Those capabilities, the partnerships we've developed, the development of our Group III initiatives, those are all helping to the upside here and will continue to do so. Then you mentioned kinda charge for oil initiatives. We've just gotten a lot smarter, we've gotten a lot better communicative with our customers, we're managing that better in terms of making sure that we maintain the volumes to get into our plants. Yeah. Certainly, I think there's more upside to come if base oil pricing stays high for longer than we've anticipated. yeah. certainly i think there's more upside to come if base oil pricing stays high for longer than we've anticipated Certainly, if we continue to get more interest from the majors who are looking for that consistent stream of base oil and maybe even some more Group III, t hat's certainly upside to the guide. certainly if we continue to get more interest from the majors who are looking for that consistent stream of base oil and maybe even some more group iii, t hat's certainly upside to the guide Those capabilities, the partnerships we've developed, the development of our Group III initiatives, those are all helping to the upside here and will continue to do so. those capabilities the partnerships we've developed the development of our group iii initiatives those are all helping to the upside here and will continue to do so Then you mentioned kinda charge for oil initiatives. then you mentioned kinda charge for oil initiatives We've just gotten a lot smarter, we've gotten a lot better communicative with our customers, w e're managing that better in terms of making sure that we maintain the volumes to get into our plants. we've just gotten a lot smarter we've gotten a lot better communicative with our customers, w e're managing that better in terms of making sure that we maintain the volumes to get into our plants All those things have improved over the last few years, and all provide kinda upside here to the numbers, both this year as well as, you know, hopefully going forward with continuing to stabilizing this business and growing it to the extent we can as well. All those things have improved over the last few years, and all provide kinda upside here to the numbers, both this year as well as, you know, hopefully going forward with continuing to stabilizing this business and growing it to the extent we can as well. all those things have improved over the last few years and all provide kinda upside here to the numbers both this year as well as you know hopefully going forward with continuing to stabilizing this business and growing it to the extent we can as well

Speaker 3: All right. I wanna ask you in the final minutes about capital allocation. You know, you mentioned at the beginning, you know, increasing confidence year-over-year around getting some M&A done. Maybe just comment on what's driving that. Talk about the funnel. Then the pair of that is, you know, you talked about, you know, the value you see in the shares. You've still got a healthy amount of dry powder around the buyback. Just how we should be thinking about, you know, your activity there. All right. all right I wanna ask you in the final minutes about capital allocation. i wanna ask you in the final minutes about capital allocation You know, you mentioned at the beginning, you know, increasing confidence year-over-year around getting some M&A done. you know you mentioned at the beginning you know increasing confidence year-over-year around getting some m&a done Maybe just comment on what's driving that. maybe just comment on what's driving that Talk about the funnel. talk about the funnel Then the pair of that is, you know, you talked about, you know, the value you see in the shares. then the pair of that is you know you talked about you know the value you see in the shares You've still got a healthy amount of dry powder around the buyback. you've still got a healthy amount of dry powder around the buyback Just how we should be thinking about, you know, your activity there. just how we should be thinking about you know your activity there

Speaker 1: Sure. Sure. The acquisitions funnel is super strong, lots of opportunities. I'd say lots of opportunities kind of in our core tech services, field services, kind of environmental segment space. So, feel, like I said, you know, compared to 12 months ago, I think a high likelihood that, you know, we get kind of more acquisitions over the goal line this year. I also think valuations may be ticked down a little bit in some of these, and so, that's helping. You know, on the remaining capital allocation on share repurchases, you know, we always weigh our share repurchases against other value-deriving opportunities like acquisitions, capital investments. Last year, we kind of really stepped on the share repurchase program, absent acquisitions and things. We'll continue to utilize that. Sure. sure Sure. sure The acquisitions funnel is super strong, l ots of opportunities. the acquisitions funnel is super strong, l ots of opportunities I'd say lots of opportunities kind of in our core tech services , field services , kind of environmental segment space. i'd say lots of opportunities kind of in our core tech services field services kind of environmental segment space So, feel, like I said, you know, compared to 12 months ago, I think a high likelihood that, you know, we get kind of more acquisitions over the goal line this year. so, feel like i said you know compared to 12 months ago i think a high likelihood that you know we get kind of more acquisitions over the goal line this year I also think valuations may be ticked down a little bit in some of these, and so, t hat's helping. i also think valuations may be ticked down a little bit in some of these, and so, t hat's helping You know, on the remaining capital allocation on share repurchases, you know, we always weigh our share repurchases against other value-deriving opportunities like acquisitions, capital investments. you know on the remaining capital allocation on share repurchases you know we always weigh our share repurchases against other value-deriving opportunities like acquisitions capital investments Last year, we kind of really stepped on the share repurchase program, absent acquisitions and things. last year we kind of really stepped on the share repurchase program absent acquisitions and things We'll continue to utilize that. we'll continue to utilize that The first quarter we bought back 25 million of shares. I think we'll continue to exercise that program to, as another outlet to deliver value to shareholders. But like all things, it's always balanced against kind of other opportunities and what are the most accretive. The first quarter we bought back 25 million of shares. the first quarter we bought back 25 million of shares I think we'll continue to exercise that program to, as another outlet to deliver value to shareholders. i think we'll continue to exercise that program to as another outlet to deliver value to shareholders But like all things, it's always balanced against kind of other opportunities and what are the most accretive. but like all things it's always balanced against kind of other opportunities and what are the most accretive

Speaker 3: All right. Well, there's a lot of, you know, I think progress and momentum, you know, across the different parts of the business. We look forward to seeing that play out over the course of this year and beyond. Gentlemen, thanks so much for the discussion today. As always, it's a pleasure to have you here. If anyone wants to follow up, they can certainly go through us or contact Jim and his team. We hope everyone has a great day at the conference, and a great rest of your week. All right. all right Well, there's a lot of, you know, I think progress and momentum, you know, across the different parts of the business. well there's a lot of you know i think progress and momentum you know across the different parts of the business We look forward to seeing that play out over the course of this year and beyond. we look forward to seeing that play out over the course of this year and beyond Gentlemen, thanks so much for the discussion today. gentlemen thanks so much for the discussion today As always, it's a pleasure to have you here. as always it's a pleasure to have you here If anyone wants to follow up, they can certainly go through us or contact Jim and his team. if anyone wants to follow up they can certainly go through us or contact jim and his team We hope everyone has a great day at the conference, and a great rest of your week. we hope everyone has a great day at the conference and a great rest of your week

Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. thank you

Speaker 1: Thank you all. Thank you all. thank you all