Secure Waste Infrastructure Aktie

Good morning, and welcome to the Special Meeting of the Shareholders of SECURE Waste Infrastructure Corp. My name is Mick Dilger, and I will act as Chair for today's meeting. I'd like to welcome all shareholders and guests joining us in person and online. We thank our shareholders for submitting their votes via proxy in advance of the meeting.

The formal business to be considered at today's meeting is described in the notice of meeting that accompanied the company's management information circular dated April 21, 2026. This is a special meeting, I may refer to the management information circular as the circular.

The notice calling this special meeting, the circular and the form of proxy were mailed on or about April 27, 2026, to registered shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 23, 2026. This meeting is being held in hybrid format, both in person and on the Lumi Connect platform. Registered shareholders and proxy holders will have the opportunity to ask questions and discuss the business matters to be addressed at this meeting.

After the motion to approve the special resolution has been made, and before we vote, I will invite questions or discussion. Please wait until that point before raising any questions. However, if you are participating online, please submit your questions immediately, and we'll address them at the proper time.

For those attending in person, you will have a chance to ask your questions at the proper time. Please raise your hand and a microphone will be brought to you. Before speaking, state your name and indicate whether you are a registered shareholder or a proxy holder.

For those attending online, you should now see the agenda on the right side of your screen. At the left of the page is a navigation bar giving access to different parts of the platform. The first icon, the home icon contains written instructions on using the Lumi platform and directions to further support if needed. To ask a question in writing, click the messaging icon in the navigation bar, type your question in the box and press send. Your question will enter a queue and will be addressed at the proper time.

To ask a question verbally, click the request to speak button at the top right of your screen, follow the prompts to select your audio devices and connect with the Lumi moderator who will test your connection and add you to the queue. At the appropriate time, your device will be unmuted and you will be called on to address the meeting. When you have finished asking your question, click the return to broadcast button. Please note, this meeting is being recorded.

For questions that are not pertinent to the business of the meeting, shareholders are directed to the Investor Relations contact on the website at www.secure.ca.

I would like to take a moment to comment on the voting procedures to be used at today's meeting. In order to efficiently cover the required business of this meeting, we have made prior arrangements with certain shareholders to move and to second the motions of the business. If you have voted your shares prior to the start of the meeting, your vote has been received by the scrutineer, and there is no need to vote those shares during the meeting, unless you wish to revoke or change your vote.

Accordingly if you have already voted and do not wish to revoke or change your vote, please do not vote during this meeting. Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders attending the meeting in person who have not yet voted, would have received a paper ballot from a scrutineer at the registration desk.

Shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders attending the meeting virtually will see the electronic ballot appear on the screen of your device when the polls are open. The meeting will now come to order. And with the consent of the meeting, I will ask Michael Callihoo to act as Secretary and Nazim Nathoo of Odyssey Trust to act as scrutineer. I direct the secretary to include with the minutes a copy of the meeting materials, confirmation of mailing to shareholders and report on attendance.

The scrutineer has advised me that the required quorum is present, and accordingly, I now declare that the meeting has been regularly called and is properly constituted for the transaction of business. To streamline the voting procedure, voting on the special resolution is now open. Registered shareholders and proxy holders attending online will now see their screens change to display the item of business for the meeting. You may cast your vote now and change your vote at any time until I announce that the voting is closed.

The sole item of business to be considered at this meeting is the arrangement resolution to approve a plan of arrangement under Section 193 of the Business Corporations Act of Alberta involving, among others, SECURE, GFL Environmental Inc. and SECURE shareholders. Under the arrangement, GFL will, among other things, acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of SECURE as described in the circular.

The full text of the arrangement resolution is attached as Appendix A to the circular. To be passed, the arrangement resolution must be approved by 2 thresholds. First, approval by not less than 66.6667% of votes cast at the meeting by shareholders present in person or by proxy; and second, approval by at least 50.1% of votes cast in person or by proxy at the meeting, excluding votes required to be excluded in determining minority approval in accordance with Multilateral Instrument 61-101. May I please have a motion on this matter?

Mr. Chairman, I move that the arrangement resolution in the form of resolution set forth in Appendix A to the circular be approved.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Thank you. Is there any discussion or questions submitted from any registered shareholder or proxy holder on that motion. The polls remain open. For those who have not yet voted virtually, please do so now. For those attending in person who have not yet voted please provide your ballot to the scrutineer.

[Voting]

Voting is now closed. We will now wait for the scrutineer to provide the preliminary voting results. I've been advised that the voting results have been received. The scrutineer reports the arrangement resolution in respect of the proposed arrangement that has been voted on in this meeting, first has been passed by not less than 66.6667% of the votes cast by shareholders present in person or represented by proxy at the meeting, and second has been passed by more than 50.1% of the votes cast by the shareholders present in person or represented by proxy at the meeting, after excluding the votes required to be excluded in determining minority approval in accordance with Multilateral Instrument 61-101.

The final voting results will be disclosed by a press release after the meeting, and filed with the Securities Commissions on SEDAR -- on SECURE's SEDAR+ profile. This information will also be made available on SECURE's website. Accordingly I am able to now declare the arrangement resolution carried. Thank you. As there is no additional formal business to be brought before the meeting, may I please have a motion to terminate the formal portion of the meeting.

I move that the meeting terminate.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Opposed, if any? Carried. There being no opposition, I declare the meeting terminated. Thank you, everyone, for attending SECURE Special Meeting of Shareholders.

Good afternoon, and welcome to SECURE's Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I'll now turn it over to SECURE's Chairman of the Board, Mick Dilger. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of SECURE Waste Infrastructure Corp. My name is Mick Dilger, and I will act as the Chair for today's meeting. I'd like to welcome all shareholders and guests joining us via live conference call today, and we thank our shareholders for submitting their votes via proxy in advance of the meeting.

This format still allows shareholders and guests to submit questions, which we will address at the end of the formal portion of the meeting to the extent they are pertinent to the business of the meeting. For questions not pertinent to the business of the meeting, shareholders are directed to the Investor Relations contact details on our website at www.secure.ca.

Earlier today, we issued our first quarter results and held our conference call with senior management to discuss those results. The first quarter of 2026 represented another strong quarter, with solid execution across all business units and optimization of our capital structure. Please see our website at www.secure.ca for more details, our latest investor presentation and for Investor Relations contact details, should you wish to speak to someone.

Note that we will not be discussing, answering questions or voting on any matters related to the arrangement agreement between SECURE and GFL Environmental at this meeting. We encourage all shareholders to review the circular relating to that transaction that was mailed earlier this week and to vote at the special meeting on May 27. The SECURE Board of Directors and management fully support the transaction and recommend that to be approved by shareholders.

In order to efficiently cover the required business of this meeting, we have prearranged with certain shareholders to move and to second motions of business. The meeting will now come to order. And with the consent of the meeting, I will ask Michael Callihoo to act as Secretary and Nazim Nathoo of Odyssey Trust Company to act as scrutineer. The scrutineer has advised me that the required quorum is present, and accordingly, I now declare the meeting has been regularly called and is properly constituted for the transaction of business.

Our first item of business relates to the audited financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2025. These financial statements have previously been provided to shareholders, and I will dispense with the reading of the financial statements and the audit report contained therein. I'm pleased to receive any questions relating to the financial statements at the conclusion of the meeting.

We will now proceed with election of directors. The directors have determined that the Board shall consist of 8 members to be voted upon individually. I now declare the meeting open for nominations.

Mr. Chairman, I nominate Rene Amirault, Mark Bly, Mick Dilger, Allen Gransch, Wendy Hanrahan, Joseph Lenz, Susan Riddell Rose and Deanna Zumwalt for election as directors of SECURE to hold office for the ensuing year.

Thank you. As no additional nominations were received, in accordance with the advanced notice provisions of SECURE's bylaws, no additional nominees for election of SECURE's Board of Directors will be considered at this meeting. May I please have a motion to elect those nominated as directors of SECURE.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the 8 individuals nominated be elected as directors of SECURE.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

[Operator Instructions] The conference will pause while we tabulate any votes received.

[Voting]

I'm advised by the scrutineer that the result of the vote is that each of Rene Amirault, Mark Bly, Mick Dilger, Allen Gransch, Wendy Hanrahan, Joseph Lenz, Susan Riddell Rose and Deanna Zumwalt have been duly elected as a Director of SECURE. Our next item of business is the appointment of auditors, and I would ask for a motion on this matter.

Mr. Chairman, I move that KPMG LLP, Chartered Accountants, be appointed auditors of SECURE to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders at such remuneration as may be fixed by the Directors.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

[Operator Instructions] The conference will pause while we tabulate any votes received.

[Voting]

I'm advised by the scrutineer that the result of the vote is that KPMG LLP has been duly appointed as auditors of SECURE to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders at such remuneration as may be fixed by the directors.

Our final item of business is a shareholder advisory vote on the corporation's report on executive compensation. The full text of the advisory resolution is set out on Page 13 of the information circular. May I have a motion to approve the resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I move to approve the advisory resolution as tabled at this meeting.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

I'm advised by the scrutineer that the resolution has been duly carried. As there is no formal business to be brought before the meeting, may I please have a motion to terminate the formal portion of the meeting.

I move that the meeting terminate.

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Opposed, if any? Carried. There being no opposition, I declare the meeting terminated.

We'll now move on to any questions with respect to our formal proceedings. [Operator Instructions] We have been advised by the operator, there are no questions relevant to the meeting that have been received. Thank you, everyone, for attending SECURE's Annual Meeting of Shareholders.

This now concludes the meeting. Have a wonderful day. Today's conference has ended. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SECURE Waste Infrastructure Corp. Q1 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Thursday, April 30, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chad Magus. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning to everyone who is listening to the call. Welcome to SECURE Waste Infrastructure Corp.'s conference call to discuss our first quarter 2026 results. I'm Chad Magus, Chief Financial Officer. And joining me on the call today are Allen Gransch, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Corey Higham, our Chief Operating Officer.

During the call, we will make forward-looking statements related to future performance and refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that do not have standardized meanings under IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures disclosed by other companies. Forward-looking statements reflect management's current expectations and are based on assumptions that we believe are reasonable.

However, actual results may differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Please refer to our disclosure documents available on SEDAR+ for further details of these risks and for definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures. Today, we will focus on three areas. the GFL transaction and shareholder meeting, an overview of Q1 performance and key financial highlights and outlook for the remainder of 2026 and beyond. I will now turn the call over to Allen.

Thanks, Chad. Good morning, and thank you for joining the call today. I'd like to start with our recently announced transaction with GFL Environmental and the materials filed this week in connection with the upcoming shareholder meeting. This transaction delivers immediate and certain value to shareholders at an attractive valuation, including a meaningful premium to our recent trading levels while also providing continued participation in future upside through equity ownership in the combined company.

The Board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the transaction following a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives. In making this recommendation, the Board considered the opportunity to crystallize the value created at SECURE, the ability to participate in future value creation through GFL equity, alignment with a proven entrepreneurial management team as well as limited number of alternative transactions available and the relative risk-adjusted value of continuing as a stand-alone business.

The Board also considered that GFL shares are currently trading below historical levels and in its view, do not fully reflect the underlying value of the business, providing potential for future re-rating over time. Over the past several years, SECURE has built a high-quality infrastructure-backed waste platform with strong fundamentals and a clear path to continued growth. However, realizing that value on a stand-alone basis requires ongoing execution and capital deployment. This transaction enables shareholders to crystallize that value today and reduces execution risk and preserves meaningful upside through the combined platform. None of this would be possible without our people.

Over 2,000 employees have built SECURE into what it is today, grounded in a culture of safety, operational excellence and doing the right thing. These values are strongly aligned with GFL and our team will play a critical role in the combined company going forward. We encourage all shareholders to review the materials and vote in favor of the transaction on May 27.

Turning briefly to the quarter. We delivered a strong start to 2026, generating $137 million of adjusted EBITDA, up 13% year-over-year and 21% per share. This performance reflects continued strength across volumes, pricing, capital projects and acquisitions despite lower oil prices for the majority of the quarter prior to the recent strengthening in commodity prices.

Operationally, we continue to advance our growth projects, including commissioning our produced water infrastructure in the Montney and progressing the reopening of suspended industrial waste processing facility in Alberta's Industrial Heartland, which remains on track for completion by the end of the second quarter. Overall, the quarter reinforces what we consistently see in our business, stable volumes, disciplined pricing and incremental growth from capital deployment. We now expect results to trend toward the high end of our 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance range, and we are increasing our growth capital to approximately $100 million from $75 million to support the acceleration of high-return infrastructure projects. I'll now turn the call over to Chad.

Thanks, Allen. In the first quarter, we generated $137 million of adjusted EBITDA on $383 million of revenue, resulting in a margin of 36%. While revenue growth was modest, EBITDA growth was stronger, reflecting a continued shift toward higher-margin waste streams, disciplined pricing and cost control. This is consistent with our strategy of prioritizing quality of earnings over top line growth. We also generated $101 million of funds flow from operations in the quarter, supporting both our capital program and returns to shareholders. On the balance sheet, let me walk through a few more items in more detail than usual. We reported restricted cash of $31 million, reflecting margin posted on hedging positions. This was driven by the sharp move in oil prices during March, which created temporary margin requirements.

These positions were fully offset by physical positions that have either been or are expected to be realized at a higher price. We also reported a higher-than-normal cash balance of $59 million, reflecting the large payment received on the last day of the quarter. As of today, our revolver balance has been paid down by $76 million since the end of Q1 to approximately $350 million.

From a capital allocation perspective, we continue to execute on our priorities during the quarter. We increased the dividend by 5% to $0.105 per share paid quarterly. We repurchased nearly 1 million shares at a weighted average price of just over $17, and we continue to invest in high-return projects, spending $22 million to advance previously announced plans. Our priorities remain unchanged: invest in the business, maintain a strong balance sheet and return capital to shareholders.

I'll turn the call over to Corey now to discuss the business outlook for the remainder of 2026 and beyond.

Thanks, Chad. To start, I want to provide an overview of the underlying cash flow profile of the business. One of SECURE's key strength is that our cash flow is generally not tied to short-term commodity prices. Our business is driven by ongoing production, industrial demand and mandated environmental spending. These are long-cycle drivers resulting in stable volumes and predictable cash flow across cycles. What we see -- what we typically see is limited near-term upside when prices rise and moderated downside when prices fall. That stability underpins our performance.

Now tying that to our outlook. The move towards the high end of our guidance range primarily reflects oil prices that are approximately 20% stronger than our original assumptions. That said, given our limited direct exposure to commodity prices, the impact to our business remains modest and confined within a relatively narrow range. Importantly, this is not what is driving the underlying growth of the business. The year-over-year increase relative to 2025 is being driven by the same factors that have consistently underpinned our performance. First, the strength and resilience of our base business, supported by steady volumes and disciplined pricing.

Second, the full contribution from infrastructure projects and acquisitions commissioned through 2025 and early 2026, which are now contributing incremental EBITDA; and third, improved performance in metals recycling, supported by higher volumes, better pricing and the logistics improvements we made last year. So when you step back, the move within the guidance range reflects macro tailwinds with the growth of the business itself or while the growth of the business itself continues to be driven by execution, capital deployment and the strength of our underlying platform.

Looking longer term, the fundamentals remain strong. Western Canadian production is expected to grow approximately 3% annually through 2030, supported by improved market access through TMX and LNG developments, resilient producer economics and a continued focus on efficient long-life resource development. Additionally, increasing reclamation and remediation requirements are driving nondiscretionary demand for our infrastructure. Produced water volumes are also increasingly -- increasing with higher intensity development and as water handling becomes more complex and capital intensive, we continue to see a structural shift towards outsourcing. When you combine these factors, it creates a long duration, highly visible demand profile for our business. I'll now turn it over to Allen to conclude our prepared remarks.

Thanks, Corey. To close, SECURE continues to deliver stable reoccurring earnings, strong free cash flow and visible long-term growth, core attributes that underpin the intrinsic value of our business. The transaction with GFL captures that value today, reduces the risks associated with realizing it independently and positions shareholders to participate in the next phase of growth through a larger, more scaled platform. The transaction has the full support of our Board, including a special committee of independent directors. Additionally, certain of our largest shareholders, together with our directors and executive officers have entered into voting support agreements representing approximately 21% of our outstanding shares.

We encourage all shareholders to review the materials and vote in favor of the upcoming meeting. I also want to recognize our employees for their continued commitment, their focus on safety and execution is what builds this business, and we continue to drive success going forward. With that, we'll open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Konark Gupta with Scotiabank.

I think maybe the first one on the volume side. It seems like you guys have changed the disclosures around volumes. So just trying to understand, the volumes seem to be up on the liquids side on the waste segment and maybe down a little bit on the solid waste side, which I think includes now the scrap metal. So if you can help us parse out the key underlying drivers in these volumes. I mean, I think it seems like produced water seems still more positive than other commodities. But what are the sort of puts and takes in the quarter on different commodities?

Konark, it's Corey. Yes, I think you kind of nailed it there in terms of the macro pieces. It's kind of the same themes as we exited Q3 and Q4, where activity was a little softer in the field, but I think Q1 showed stability in our liquids volumes, which was driven by the produced water volumes, as you mentioned. When you look at the solids processing side, we had outperformance in our metals group, which offset some of the softness in the landfill volumes. So when I look at this, it really just emphasizes the performance and the stability in those 2 solids and liquids processing pieces of our business.

I think to -- it's Allen here, Konark. I think to -- as we think about the activity levels here in 2026, and obviously, we just raised our guidance to the upper end of that range. We were looking at a $65 WTI here where I think our expectation where volumes were going to be relatively flat in the first 6 months. And in the back half, we were going to see some growth as the demand and overall activity levels started to increase.

We're obviously seeing a lot of volatility in that price right now. So we are expecting that volumes are going to contribute. And I think it's just an easier way for us to just characterize them as liquids processing and solids processing. And throughout the last few weeks in terms of having conversations with some customers, I think our business last year really showcased that even through these low commodity cycles that the volumes are relatively robust in terms of where we're seeing breakevens. I think if you look at Western Canada, a lot of our play breakevens at a $50 WTI. If you look in the U.S., it's $55. And so when you get to these breakeven levels, what we see is that reoccurring production volume coming through our liquids processing facilities and our landfills.

And I think one thing that we've added here, and this might be helpful for a few potential shareholders and investors is we posted on our website our updated investor presentation -- and it goes through what we've seen over the past few years in terms of growth in Western Canada, and you see production growing at that 2% to 3% per year, and you can see the movements in WTI. But it also goes through some of our volumes and what happens through volumes through these cycles, and you can see the stability in it. And so I think that will give some color to those kind of looking for how stable the business is through these commodity cycles. And the fact that we upped guidance and it's at the higher end of the range just shows you it doesn't move significantly on the way down and it doesn't move significantly on the way up. And it just points to everything we talk about is these volumes are very reoccurring, and we see them at our facilities on a day-to-day basis.

That's helpful. And I appreciate the investor deck with some history on that. On the landfill side, what's driving the weakness here. I mean, like can you describe the nature of your landfills compared to the other solid waste companies? You're seeing kind of a different dynamic than maybe some of the solid waste guys. So what goes in there?

Yes. Konark, I think when you look at our landfills, there's kind of like three main drivers. The first being production waste that is generated every day, and we see this solid waste coming into our non-haz and our [ one-haz ] landfill. That would represent approximately 1/3 of the volumes that we see on an annual basis, very consistent -- the second part of it would be reclamation. So over 1/3 of it would be reclamation driven. And as you know, in Western Canada, we've got regulation changes a couple of years ago that are mandating that any customer, whether you're in the industrial mining or energy sector, you have to spend part of your asset retirement obligation on a ratable basis, i.e., approximately 5% per year.

And so what we've seen in the landfills is that, that 5% is required to be spent every year. So you see this reoccurring volumes that flow into the landfills. And then finally is drilling volumes, drill cuttings, which are driven by where the commodity price is and activity levels on the rig count. they don't fluctuate as much as they did 10 years ago. If you look at Western Canada, the average rig count can move from 190 to, call it, 230. There's just not a lot of movement between higher activity levels and lower activity levels. So we do see a consistent stream on the drill cuttings as well. But in terms of the landfills, like when you -- as I said, when you're into the lower $60 environment, which is what we saw in January and February, obviously, we only had 1 month of increased WTI, which would represent more activity from our customers thinking potentially they're going to do more on the drilling side.

And so our expectations were that things were going to be slower. You don't get a lot of cleanups happening in the colder months in, call it, January, February, it's just difficult to do that. So we typically see a higher peak season in Q3 and Q4, and we expect that trend to continue. So this is all within our expectations. And when you look at not only our volumes into landfills, but also our scrap metal volumes, we're down 1%. That's exactly where we had predicted. And my expectations would be that they're going to increase throughout the year. And then when you think about kind of longer-term tailwinds here, I mean, the strength in where WTI is going to land structurally, I think we've changed. And I think you're going to see some pretty robust activity in '27, '28, '29 as we have these higher energy prices for volumes to come into these landfills. And as I said, they're not building anymore of these landfills are very difficult to build. We're in core areas where activity is taking place. And so I think what you'll see in our reporting anyways is the volumes increasing over time.

That's great color, Allen. On the metal side, I'm curious, you guys -- I know we're adding a lot of railcars and pushing the product into the U.S. market, which obviously is probably helpful given the tariffs right now. But the S232 changes that we have seen recently on the tariff side, have you seen any incremental or decremental impact on scrap metal demand in Canada?

Yes, Konark, it's Corey. We haven't seen any impact today. About 95% of our shipments of scrap are out going into the U.S. today, still remain about in that low 5% sort of numbers into the domestic market. But nothing on the radar and no impact to 2026 as we see it today.

Okay. And last one for me before I get back in the queue. On the pricing side, are you guys surprised how resilient the pricing had been in the last 3 years? I mean you have seen, what, 5% maybe annually. Do you think this is sustainable going forward? I mean the inflation clearly is not moving down more substantially now in light of what's happening around the globe. But do you think there's further opportunity for pricing here? As you said, the regulations require and the complexities now require more outsourcing than in-sourcing. Any thoughts on the pricing going forward?

Sure. No, good question. I think over the past few years, we have increased our pricing above inflation. And you can see that in our overall EBITDA margins this quarter being 36% -- and I think at the end of Q4 last year, we had raised prices on average in that 4% to 5%. But I would break it down into two buckets. First bucket being we've got a lot of contracts in place. Those contracts are CPI-linked contracts. So they're automatically increasing based on that CPI index every year. And so that part of our business will have automatic pricing increases.

In terms of where we are looking to raise prices in subsequent years, I mean, a lot of our infrastructure are in areas where we have the ability to move that price up. And you're correct, we're going to see more inflation occur. And I think when you look at our infrastructure, it's just hard to replicate infrastructure. It's required to process and dispose of material that these producers need. The in-sourcing side is really on the produced water on the liquids and the trend has been they're outsourcing more and more of that water.

The complexity of that water to deal with is very difficult. The chemistries around it. And so we take our skill set, our assets, we add the appropriate mechanical filtration and chemical components to it to be able to dispose of it safely. And so they value that service, and there's a price for that service. And so we're able to get that pricing to be able to give you a high quality of service. So I think we're going to be able to continue to do that.

Obviously, when you've got energy prices that are higher and having those conversations when your customers have strong balance sheet, they're focused on they want to grow production. They want to do it very efficiently. And our conversations with them is they want to outsource that waste to us and have it safely processed and disposed of. So a long-winded answer is, yes, I do believe we're going to continue to increase prices every year based on where our infrastructure is located in some of these core areas.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Arthur Nagorny with RBC Capital Markets.

Just wanted to start on the GFL transaction. I guess my first question, I appreciate the rationale outlined in your materials, but why is now the right time to pursue a sale, especially considering how supportive the oil price backdrop is at this time?

Arthur. Yes, no, great question. As I noted, I think over the past few years, SECURE has continued to execute a clear strategic repositioning within the waste sector. And I think our investors have a better understanding of the nature of our high-quality infrastructure-backed businesses.

And I think we've been very clear on the stability of the cash flows, the durability on the growth and the financial metrics at which they -- which we have. And so over the past while, I think our multiple has increased, I think, reflecting a clear understanding of that. But we recognize it could be higher. When you look at this transaction, I think it accelerates that recognition, capturing that intrinsic value today.

And we're also very aware that our shareholders will have some meaningful participation in the upside of having 80% in GFL and the combined entity. I think when you also look at the share price premium on the 60-day, that was a 23% premium to the VWAP. And when you think about the context of the time frame when we started having the conversation a couple of months ago, obviously, all the volatility in the commodities was pre that and obviously, some of the uplift in our share price.

But we're up 70% year-to-date and then you're getting a premium on top of that. I think when you look at the combined business, the scale that we have together, just overlapping there call it, collection infrastructure and all of our critical infrastructure post-collection and being able to put that platform together, I think, creates a significant value. I think we bring that high-margin free cash flow profile that's going to improve the overall pro forma entity as well. We went and did a fairness evaluation, RBC and both and ATB, I think, provided fairness opinions as we looked at the business. But we think about intrinsic value every day, and our Board is very thoughtful on that value. And we looked at our strategy as a stand-alone business and our strategy together with GFL.

And obviously, we felt being in the business for 19 years, combining with GFL and layering our infrastructure and looking at the opportunities was very attractive to us. and felt like this is the opportunity for us. I also considered M&A. And I've been working on this M&A strategy on the metals, which has been hugely successful in Western Canada. I think we're at the tail end of that.

And when you think about future M&A, I think for us, it was getting a bit limited when we're now looking at business lines that GFL competes in today. They've got a hopper of opportunities. And I think when you think of that M&A opportunity on their perspective, I think they're very efficient and they're very good at integrating businesses. And I think when you look at our -- where we're really strong at, it's our organic growth platform where we can grow our hopper of opportunities. We've been spending $100 million per year and adding some really great new projects that contribute 20% after-tax IRRs. These are great projects. And so I think when you put the 2 businesses together, with these management teams, I think you've got a very high-quality business.

Okay. That's helpful. And then I know it's still early in the process, but do you have any preliminary views on potential divestitures that may be required from the Competition Bureau review? Or anything, if not required, maybe any voluntary sales of any business lines or anything of that sort?

Well, I mean, we're just in the midst of doing all of our analysis on what's required for the Competition Bureau submission. That will have to go in here relatively shortly, where we'll provide our overall views of how the businesses overlap today. I mean, really, when we looked at it, there were really no material issues on combining the two businesses.

The Competition Bureau is very knowledgeable about this market. We've been through it, obviously, with them in the past. We recognize that this process is going to take 3 months to 5 months for them to really make their assessments, and we'll give them all the data that they need to. But at this point in time, no, we're not thinking there's going to be any sort of material divestments. But again, we're not quite done the analysis, and we'll need to go through it. But that process, as we get more educated on it, we'll be smarter and we'll update accordingly.

Got it. And then maybe switching over to the quarter and looking at the metals recycling business. It seems like there's a few moving pieces there overall, but quite strong performance in the base business, even when factoring in the Edmonton facility acquisition. Can you maybe dive into some of the drivers there a bit more between what you're seeing? I think you called out U.S. and Canadian demand being strong, and I guess, Canadian picking up. But then also on the pricing side, maybe both on the prices you're getting, but also on the prices you're paying for the scrap metals.

Yes. I mean we -- you nailed that we -- the performance of the metals recycling business in Q1 was quite strong. It's a combination of increased volume across the scale. It's also adding in inventory reduction that we've been working through the last couple of quarters based on the inventory build in Q3, Q4 last year because we couldn't move some of the volume as we were reestablishing some of those downstream markets. quarter-over-quarter, the pricing that the mills we're paying for is a little bit higher. We paid a little bit lower for scrap across that scales in Q3 and Q4. So we're realizing some of that benefit. And we're also realizing just the integration efforts and the improvement in logistics that we've had over the last couple of quarters. So I think when you pack all those three things together, it set up for a really strong quarter in that business.

And I think, too, just to add to it, I mean, we just purchased another 50 railcars -- and these 50 railcars, why that's important is now we have enough, and I think we're getting delivery here in August. When you think about the cycle time into the U.S., I think we were sitting around 35- to 40-day cycle time. Our main goal here, and this is our competitive advantage is to be able to move the scrap metal here from the Western Canadian market into Central U.S. and get that cycle time within 30 days because ultimately, we're not in the business of taking any commodity risk.

We're in the business of processing efficiently and really processing and what we get across the scale to ultimately what we're going to get paid within a 30-day period. And so we've now opened up all these U.S. markets where we can deliver the scrap -- and I think that will start to knock down our inventory, but we've seen volumes coming through just because our competitors don't have the scale that we have in terms of being able to move the product via train. So to Corey's point, one, I think the U.S. market is quite strong right now. So we're going to see continued movement of scrap into the U.S., but we're going to now have all the tools we need to make it as efficient as possible.

All right. And then last one for me. I know the question about tariffs was already asked, but maybe just to double-click on it a little bit, specifically thinking about the 232 tariff update that was announced a couple of weeks ago. Would you expect any potential indirect uplift to U.S. steel demand from these tariffs? Or is it kind of still too early to say?

I think it's too early to say, Arthur. We're still digesting it.

Your next question comes from Ian Gillies with Stifel.

I wanted to go back and just talk about Competition Bureau approval again. With respect to market share since you divested assets a few years ago, I guess the first question is, has there been any material change in your market share estimates? And the second one I would have is, as you're going through and prepping for this transaction, is there any instance of the comp bureau going back and looking at such a niche industry this quickly in such quick succession?

Ian, no, good question. I think when you go back to the Tervita SECURE merger, that was a fulsome analysis of all markets in which we operate. And as you know, we took that all the way to the federal court and then the Supreme Court. And so this is case law. And when you looked at the competitive environment in those markets, which is substantially the majority of our critical infrastructure, and we looked at the competitive players, GFL wasn't one of them. So I think there's case law examples here that showcase that this doesn't have a lot of competition issues embedded in it within this transaction.

And so we do know on our waste transfer facilities where we offer some similar services, they'll look at whether there's similar customers, they'll look at other competitors in the market and see whether or not we have a market share that would be considered anticompetitive from this transaction. We're still working on that. We're going to have a final conclusion here as we report our ARC to the comp bureau. But I think we'll be able to work through with them. This is not material at all.

And I think when it's relatively minor like that, we should get to a conclusion in a relatively quick manner. But again, we just want to make sure they're up to speed and seeing what we're seeing within this marketplace. But we think, again, I mean, they've got to go through their process, and we're going to try to make it as easy as we can for them because we want to get to close and move on with the combined entity.

Understood. That's helpful. And maybe moving to your conversation about the guide. This question is inherently going to be hard to answer. But how did you think about providing that commentary in the context of how long oil prices are going to remain elevated for? And maybe put a different way, if the situation persists through the end of the year, do you think that would be -- lead to more positivity in how you're thinking about this year and next year and the EBITDA generation for SECURE?

Yes. No, it's a good question because I think we had in our own budget had $65 WTI. I think we recognize the back half of this year was going to be stronger with demand supply getting to that equilibrium. Our producers at the start of the year came out saying some of them were growing at 4% to 5%. Some of them were growing at 2% to 3% based off that forecast. They're not materially changing that because of all this volatility going on.

They've got their plans through Q1, now Q2. I think a few of the smaller players that are a little bit more nimble are going to look at that spot opportunity and potentially transact on it. And typically, when we see increases in activity, then you start to see that lag effect in the next quarter in your waste volumes. But I think structurally, we recognize that WTI over $70 is probably what our future is going to indicate. I mean you've taken a lot of supply off the market in the last 30 days. I think you've got geopolitical risk now that is going to be systemic for quite some time.

And so I think structurally, you see the large investment that's now coming into Western Canada, where you have a political environment and a resource base that is so strong. I mean you saw Shell's move by taking out ARC and they're looking at Itachi and looking at LNG. I mean I think the prospects here for Western Canada are very strong. And I think when you look at WTI for '27 and beyond, even the next 10 years, I mean, we've been in a bottom cycle for quite some time and performed very, very well when you think of our customers in Western Canada and now we're hitting the upswing of that, I think, is going to be very, very positive. But again, these larger swings in WTI, we know we're going to get more waste volumes on the production side.

And eventually, as drilling and equipment and people pick up, you're going to see that as an additional tailwind. So we're comfortable in moving our range up to that $550 level. And every quarter, you get smarter about activity levels and what customers want to do. I mean we're relatively only, as I said, a month or better in as we think about activity levels. So as we get through Q2, more conversations, we'll have a better indication at the end of Q2 when we report as to what things are going to look like, not only for the remainder of 2026, but what '27 is going to look like.

Okay. Last one for me. Canada is going through a bit of an infrastructure renaissance or fields and oil and gas growth seems like it's probably a bit closer than it has been. By rolling SECURE into GFL, does it give your infrastructure team a bit more flexibility to pursue larger projects than it might have done so in, call it, over the previous 10 years?

Yes. I think -- it's a good question. I think when you look at the overlay of GFL's infrastructure and our infrastructure. I think first and foremost, there's going to be some revenue synergies here where when you look at our networks and what GFL currently offers to their customers, now we're going to offer an even larger suite of services that, that customer needs. And when you think of some of these larger players, they want a one-stop shop where they can say, I'm going to outsource my non-haz and hazardous waste to this company because I know they have the infrastructure and the collection network to be able to deal with it.

And so we know that, that is going to be great for our customers. I think internally, we know that we could leverage off of each other's infrastructure, whether they're using third party today or we're using third party, we're going to make sure that, that comes together. This isn't really a cost synergy opportunity. I mean, obviously, there's the pubco and redundancy costs that we're going to be able to benefit from. But to your part B of your question, just in broad sense, I think when I see activity levels increase and I see opportunities like LNG Canada Phase 2 and I see WTI on the higher end of the spectrum, what you do see is more need for infrastructure, and we have infrastructure located in areas where I think we're going to need to expand.

So to your point, I think our hopper right now of, call it, $300 million to $400 million of organic new project opportunities that we wanted to execute on in the next couple of years, that can definitely grow in this type of environment. And so one, you've got cost advantage by almost being an investment grade here in terms of where we want to put this capital to work. So I do think this hopper of opportunities will grow and we'll be able to execute it with this larger platform.

I think one thing that might be --

Sorry. You go ahead.

Sorry, I think one thing that's also important is just around utilization in our facilities. not really at a -- we're not really constrained at a system level. So it positions us very well to accept any additional incremental volume without any outsized capital deployment. And I think where you've seen us deploy capital is where the system has been constrained. So I think we're set up very well for a back half 2027 uptick in volume.

You now have a question from Konark Gupta with Scotiabank.

Allen, I wanted to understand the mix of the business a little bit more for you. So I mean, you guys have grown the metal recycling through acquisitions and organic growth. Obviously, produced water is growing pretty fast as well. If you look at your business mix today, would you say the metal recycling would be breaching above the 10% mark on an EBITDA basis? And what do you think specialty chemicals are contributing these days?

Yes. I think when we look at our business mix and the business segments in general, yes, I mean, I think we're just above 10% on metal recycling. When we looked at our hub and spoke opportunity and obviously, GRI last year was a critical component of that, adding that mega shredder and efficient processing. There was a couple of other tuck-ins we could potentially do. That will be a future conversation with Patrick and Luke on where it's best to allocate capital.

But I think the asset structure we have in metal recycling right now is well situated to be a stand-alone business here for the foreseeable future. We like where it is. But that's just on a secure basis. I think when you roll it into GFL's larger, broader solid platform, it's a very, very small -- in terms of specialty chemicals, yes, they'd be slightly above where metal sits today.

I mean they really benefited from some specific chemistries and patents that they have around production waste. And so we characterize it as front-end waste management. So when you're getting production out of the ground, you've got waxes, you got paraffins, you've got scale, you've got corrosion. And typically, we're there providing that front-end chemistry, stripping out some of that waste that's very corrosive that cause their pipes, et cetera.

And so we do it on the front end and then any waste that we can't process just via chemicals that then is taken via truck into our facilities where we're then processing it with equipment and with our disposal network. And so for those businesses, they continue to have good opportunities and they're great brand businesses. And I think they fit very well in the overall network, but they're relatively small in the grand scheme of things.

That's great color on that. And on the growth CapEx, maybe just to understand a bit, where is the incremental spending going. Can you share some thoughts on the target markets and customers for the incremental $25 million growth CapEx? Is it more on the waste side and specific basins like maybe Montney or something? Or any thoughts there?

Yes, Konark, it's Corey. It's all on the waste side. We mentioned we're allocating some more capital for some railcars. And the remaining portion is around another -- some more water disposal assets in the Montney. And you'll see those come online in Q1 of 2027. So we're just advancing those projects. There's a ton of demand for this service, and we're happy to provide it and help our customers out.

And then the 50 railcar order, where does it take a fleet to now?

Takes us to about 300 cars. About 250 of those are owned and about 50 are on short-term lease or to be -- they're coming up to end of life. So on a go-forward basis, you'll probably see us run around 250 cars that manages our platform.

We also like these new cars because they have higher walls and they're a little bit deeper. So they can actually transport 30% more. And we're spending or paying for the same sort of transportation cost per car. So those older lease cars are smaller and you can't get as much material in it. So when we run the economics on these railcars, it's quite advantageous when you think of the transportation cost into the U.S. when you could put more scrap metal into the car.

There are no further questions at this time. So I will now turn the call over to Allen Gransch for closing remarks. Please continue.

Well, thank you again for your continued support of SECURE. Please be reminded that SECURE's Annual General Meeting will begin at 11:00 a.m. Mountain Time this morning via conference call. Questions at that meeting will be limited to the term -- to the items formally up for vote. Thank you again, and thank you for your continued support.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SECURE Waste Infrastructure Corp. 2025 Q4 and Annual Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Friday, February 20, 2026.

And I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Chad Magus. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning to everyone who is listening to the call. Welcome to SECURE Waste Infrastructure Corp.'s Conference Call to discuss our Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results. I'm Chad Magus, Chief Financial Officer. And joining me on the call today are Allen Gransch, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Corey Higham, our Chief Operating Officer.

During the call, we will make forward-looking statements related to future performance and refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that do not have standardized meanings under IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures disclosed by other companies. Forward-looking statements reflect management's current expectations and are based on assumptions that we believe are reasonable. However, actual results may differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Please refer to our press release, management's discussion and analysis and annual financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2025, all available on SEDAR+ for a discussion of these risks and for definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures. Today, we'll review our financial and operational results for the 3 and 12 months ended December 31, 2025, and provide our outlook for 2026.

I will now turn the call over to Allen.

Thanks, Chad. Good morning, and thank you for joining today's call. 2025 was a year that clearly demonstrated the resilience, durability and quality of SECURE Waste Management and energy infrastructure business. Despite lower commodity prices, reduced industry activity and significant volatility across several end markets, we delivered full year adjusted EBITDA of $501 million, representing 5% growth year-over-year on a pro forma basis.

Just as importantly, we generated strong discretionary free cash flow and continue to execute on our disciplined capital allocation strategy. At a high level, our performance in 2025 reflects 3 core strengths of our business model. First, the majority of our earnings are driven by reoccurring infrastructure-backed volumes. Approximately 80% of our adjusted EBITDA is tied to ongoing production and industrial activity with only about 20% linked to drilling and completion activity. That mix provides stability across cycles and limits our exposure to short-term swings in upstream activity.

Second, we operate long-life permitted assets, permitted assets with high barriers to entry. Our facilities are difficult to replicate, capital intensive and require unique operating capabilities. Additionally, many of our assets are embedded in our customers' operations. Overall, these factors provide us with strong competitive advantage and support consistent utilization and pricing over time.

Third, we remain highly disciplined in how we allocate capital. We invest where customers need capacity, where returns are attractive and where projects are supported by long-term contracts or clear demand and market signals.

Turning to the fourth quarter specifically. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $135 million, up 15% year-over-year and up 24% on a per share basis. This performance reflects contributions from assets placed in service during the year, disciplined pricing across key service lines and continued optimization across our network and the benefit of share repurchases. For the full year, we returned $373 million to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. In total, we repurchased nearly 19 million shares at an average price below $15, representing approximately 8% of our outstanding shares.

From a growth and investment standpoint, 2025 was an important year. We deployed $138 million of organic growth capital above our original plan of $75 million as customer demand accelerated and project scopes expanded. These investments were primarily directed toward produced water infrastructure in the Montney as well as an industrial waste processing and continued optimization of our metal recycling business. A key milestone during the year was the commissioning of our first 2 fully contracted produced water disposal facilities in the Montney region with the second facility expected to come online in March. These are long-cycle infrastructure assets supported by strong counterparties and long-term agreements, and they will contribute meaningful to earnings going forward.

In metal recycling, 2025 was a difficult year due to the implementation of a 50% tariff by the U.S. on finished steel, which significantly reduced domestic demand in Canada. In response, we repositioned over 90% of our scrap volumes into the U.S. markets. This required building new customer relationships, expanding rail capacity and working through inventory and transportation constraints. While this transition created near-term headwinds, the strategy is now largely in place and positions the business well for improved performance in 2026 as logistic improvements take effect and inventory levels normalize throughout the first half of the year.

Before turning the call over to Chad, I want to emphasize that our outlook for 2026 is grounded in what we see and control. While macro conditions remain volatile, our guidance is supported by contracted projects, infrastructure-backed cash flows and assets that are already built or nearing completion.

With that, I'll turn it back over to Chad to walk through the financial results and an important accounting update.

Thanks, Allen. I'll start with a brief review of our financial performance for the fourth quarter and full year.

For the fourth quarter, revenue was $372 million, up 10% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA was $135 million, with margins remaining strong and consistent with our infrastructure-driven model. Funds flow from operations was $118 million and discretionary free cash flow was $84 million, supporting continued investment, dividends and share repurchases.

For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was $501 million, funds flow from operations was $378 million and discretionary free cash flow was $273 million. While discretionary free cash flow declined modestly year-over-year, this was primarily due to higher interest expense and cash taxes, and we continue to deliver industry-leading conversion of over 50%. Our balance sheet remains very strong. We ended the year with total debt to adjusted EBITDA of 2.1x or 1.8x, excluding leases. During the fourth quarter, we also refinanced a portion of our debt with the issuance of $300 million of senior unsecured notes due in 2032, further extending our maturity profile and enhancing financial flexibility.

Turning now to the voluntary accounting policy change we implemented in the fourth quarter related to the presentation of our oil purchase and resale activities and certain commodity-related derivative instruments. Under the updated policy, we now present realized and unrealized gains and losses from physically settled commodity contracts and related derivatives on a net basis within revenue rather than presenting gross proceeds and offsetting costs. We believe this change better reflects the economic substance of these activities. It also provides financial statement users with a clearer view of SECURE's underlying infrastructure-driven earnings and improve the transparency and comparability of our reported results relative to our peers.

Importantly, there is no impact to net income, adjusted EBITDA, cash flow or the statement of financial position for any period. The change affects only the presentation of revenue and cost of sales and prior periods have been restated for comparability. Finally, in relation to this restatement and as part of our improving transparency and alignment with our business model, we intend to pursue changes to our industry classification with S&P and MSCI to better reflect our positioning as a waste infrastructure business.

With that, I'll turn it over to Corey to review our operational performance.

Thanks, Chad. Operationally, our teams delivered consistent and reliable performance across our 80 location infrastructure network in the fourth quarter and throughout 2025 despite a challenging operating environment. Safety and environmental stewardship remain foundational to how we operate. In 2025, we continue to advance our safety performance metrics, invest in environmental controls across our facilities and strengthen engagement within the communities in which we operate. Sustainability remains embedded in our daily operations and long-term strategic planning.

Across the waste management network in 2025, we disposed approximately 95,000 barrels per day of produced water, processed approximately 38,000 barrels per day of liquid waste, recovered roughly 1 million barrels of oil from waste streams and safely disposed of approximately 3.2 million tons of solid waste.

In our Energy Infrastructure segment, we handle over 133,000 barrels per day of crude oil across 13 terminals and 3 gathering pipelines. These figures reinforce the scale and critical nature of our platform and the repeatable infrastructure-backed cash flows that underpin our results. Across our waste management network, produced water volumes remained stable, reflecting ongoing production activity. Waste processing, oil recovery and landfill volumes did see some year-over-year declines, primarily due to reduced exploration activities and lower discretionary spending by our customers.

As Allen mentioned, approximately 20% of our business is tied to energy exploration. When WTI oil prices move into the high 50s and low 60s range, we typically see producers become more cautious, slowing discretionary work and pacing activity. That dynamic was evident in 2025 and contributed to volume declines in certain service lines. Importantly, these declines are partially offset by pricing actions, operational efficiencies and contributions from the new capacity brought online during the year.

In Energy Infrastructure, pipeline and terminalling volumes increased modestly, supported by the Clearwater terminal expansion and the introduction of emulsion treating capabilities. These assets continue to operate under long-term agreements and provide stable fee-based cash flows. From a capital standpoint, we ended the year with a strong portfolio of projects either commissioned or nearing completion.

As we think about volumes across the network, it's helpful to consider the broader production backdrop. Western Canadian energy production is expected to grow approximately 2% annually through 2030 and will be enabled by significant investments into LNG projects, petrochemical industry expansions, AI data center build-outs and baseline energy demand growth. Given the commodity price environment that existed in 2025 and is forecasted into 2026, we believe this is baseline activity and volume for our operating areas due to production profiles and declines in the basin. This gives us a great deal of confidence in the stability of our business, but also emphasizes the future volume growth within our infrastructure as a result of the significant energy investments being made in Western Canada. This growth underscores the importance of network density, pricing discipline and safe operations.

We will continue to optimize performance facility by facility, align capacity with customer demand and support growth activity -- support growth where activity is strongest, while maintaining cost discipline and operational consistency across the system. Our capital deployment continues to be selective and customer-driven, where demand exceeds current capacity, we will continue to invest and ensure reliability and long-term efficiency. These projects are all are aligned with customer activity and in many cases, supported by commercial agreements that provide visibility into future volumes.

With that, I'll turn the call back to Allen for closing remarks.

Thanks, Corey. To wrap up, 2025 reinforced why SECURE is different. We are a waste infrastructure business built around long-life assets, reoccurring volumes and disciplined execution. Even in a volatile macro environment, we delivered stable earnings, strong cash flow and meaningful shareholder returns.

Looking ahead to 2026, we are entering a year with solid momentum supported by structural production growth and the densification of our infrastructure network. Canadian crude oil supply is anticipated to increase on average approximately 2.5% per year to 2030 and regulatory-driven reclamation and abandonment programs continue to support reoccurring industrial and landfill volumes regardless of short-term commodity volatility. Additionally, managing significant produced water volumes is a material operational and cost consideration for producers. As water handling remains complex, regulated and capital intensive, we continue to see a structural shift towards outsourcing, supporting long-term demand for third-party disposal infrastructure.

Within the macro backdrop, our strategy remains disciplined, deploy capital where production is growing, where we can continue to support our customers and where returns exceed our hurdle rates. Several growth projects advanced in 2025, we will continue to contribute to 2026 results. Metal recycling performance is expected to improve as the logistics normalize, and our core waste network continues to benefit from stable production and industrial activity.

For 2026, we are providing adjusted EBITDA guidance of $520 million to $550 million. While macro conditions remain uncertain, our guidance is supported by contracted infrastructure, reoccurring production back volumes and assets already built or nearing completion.

From a quarterly cadence perspective, we expect the first quarter to be broadly consistent with the fourth quarter of 2025, reflecting similar macro conditions and activity levels. As the year progresses, we anticipate incremental improvement relative to prior year quarters, driven by contributions from projects commissioned in late 2025 and early '26 as well as improving performance in metal recycling as logistics continue to normalize.

Our capital allocation priorities for 2026 include investing in high-return infrastructure-backed growth projects. We anticipate spending $75 million in organic growth projects, and we believe we can continue to build on that amount during 2026, including completion of our previously announced projects, incremental water disposal capacity at 2 existing facilities in the Montney region and optimization projects and equipment at various facilities, including the investment of a pre-shredding infrastructure for the Edmonton metal recycling facility to enhance throughput and reduce downtime on the mega shredder. We will also continue to evaluate tuck-in acquisition opportunities that complement our existing business.

All of our investing activities, whether organic growth or M&A, will continue to strengthen our core business and create long-term value. Growing our dividend by 5% to $0.42 per share annualized beginning with the second quarter of 2026 in April. This increase reflects our confidence in the durability of our cash flows and the strength of our balance sheet while preserving significant financial flexibility to execute on our capital allocation priorities and continuing to grow the dividend over time. Preserving financial flexibility to pursue high-return organic projects and strategic acquisitions in a disciplined and selective manner, focusing on high-quality assets that are strategically aligned, accretive to cash flow and offering clear integration and synergy potential while continuing to opportunistically buy back shares where we see a meaningful dislocation in our share price.

Since renewing our NCIB in December, we have repurchased 1.1 million shares at a weighted average price of $17.10. With the portfolio simplification largely complete and our positioning as a waste infrastructure company firmly established, 2026 will be about execution, consistency and incremental growth. I want to thank our employees for their hard work and commitment throughout a demanding year and our shareholders for their continued support.

That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we're now happy to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Konark Gupta from Scotiabank.

Maybe the first one on the commodity price. I think there's a clear evidence of commodity price volatility not having a similar impact on your fundamentals. But the volumes, we saw some impact on the waste processing side, as you mentioned. Would you say the impact from those commodity prices be relatively similar on EBITDA as well compared to the volumes or would be less?

Yes. So when we think about the volumes in 2025, we -- when you have a lower commodity price, specifically with WTI being off 14% throughout the year, you generally see our customers slow down in their activity. And that's not a surprise to us. I mean we do have a portion that is centered around the exploration activity. And so when they slow down, they're going to have less discretionary spending, they're going to do less exploration, and they're going to be focused solely on optimizing their infrastructure.

And so we saw that on a pro forma basis, we saw that on our landfill volumes specifically tied to that, and we also saw that in our waste processing volumes. But it's really consistent to what we expected would happen with that -- what I would consider the trough of the cycle.

When you look at breakevens for not only the Canadian basin, but in the U.S., I mean, you're in the 50s, mid-50s. And so when you get a high $50 WTI price, low $60, you can imagine that they're optimizing what they currently are producing. And so when I think about EBITDA and where EBITDA kind of changed year-over-year, I mean, it's reflective of the pricing increases we did in Q4 of 2024, and we saw that contribute in 2025. And then we came out with some price increases in Q4 this year as well, which will contribute to EBITDA growth in 2025 -- 2026.

So yes, so I think generally, and I'll maybe pass it over to Corey to give you a little bit more intel on the volumes, but that's generally what we saw in '25 and kind of what we're seeing here as we start 2026.

Yes, Konark, volumes in '25 reflected everything Allen just mentioned around lower exploration activities, a decrease in discretionary spend, but that production-based volumes, which is really the backbone of our network remains pretty stable. Specific to produced water volumes at about 95,000 barrels per day in the quarter, it truly reflects the resilient of the production-based volumes in our network. And when you do get into that mid-50s, you're starting to lose some of those services. But that's exactly what we would expect in that 20% of the EBITDA that is tied to exploration-linked services. So these volumes that had -- that we saw in the $50 WTI environment, we see these as close to baseline volumes. So it just gives us a lot of confidence in the stability of the business as we look forward.

And on the metal recycling side, I mean, it sounds like, I mean, your additional railcars helped you reach or broaden the reach to the U.S. market. I think I heard 90% of the volumes are now going to the U.S. In 2026, as things probably stabilize from an inventory perspective, do you see some sort of balance into the Canadian market? Or you're still kind of waiting for clarity given the tariff situation here?

Yes, Konark, it's Corey again. I would characterize the back half of 2025 as performing through some volatility. As you mentioned, we shipped 90% of our volume to Canadian-based mills up until middle of 2024. We had to pivot pretty quickly to find new markets. And through Q3 into Q4, we shipped all of that volume or 90% of the volume into U.S. markets and the investments that we made in the railcars through 2025, and we took on an additional 50 railcars in Q4 has helped to normalize our logistics and help us work through the inventory that had built in the back half. So we see that inventory that was built sort of get back to normal levels by the end of the second half -- beginning of the -- end of the first half of 2026. And this improvement is a combination of both just normalized throughput and better operating efficiencies.

But we don't really have any sort of clear expectations when Canadian mills are going to get it back up and running. It really depends on Canadian steel manufacturing and Federal Government projects. So we're pretty comfortable with the railcar movements from logistics into the U.S. mills, and we're obviously keeping our finger on the pulse of all the developments in that market.

That's great. And last one for me before I turn over. On the CapEx side, I think you guys pulled forward some CapEx in December on the 2 produced water facilities you're building. Any sense as to what led you to do that? I mean, was it more required based on demand? Or was just the timing of the activity levels, et cetera? And then are you waiting for any incremental growth CapEx subject to green lighting by any of your customers?

It's Allen here. Yes. So let's start with 2025. And I think we came out last year when we put out our guidance, we announced that our capital program was $75 million, and it would grow. I would say that similar situation exists for 2026. As you progress through the year, you're talking with your customers, you're working through your engineering and your scoping. And so it does take time for that to come to fruition. But we have a lot of projects in the hopper that we continue to work through this quarter and through the rest of the year. So you'll see updates every quarter as these projects get closer to what we call sanctioned and get Board approval on, we will announce.

When I think about what we wanted to spend, obviously, we raised our $75 million in 2025 to $125 mimillion and that was primarily consisted of these 2 new water disposal facilities, one -- both of them in the Montney. One of them came online in Q4. The other one is going to come online here very shortly. There's very little capital we've spent on that project here in 2026. We also have Redwater Phase 1 and Phase 2, and we decided to do it all as one tranche. But I would characterize it as the Phase 1 is now completed now and part of our capital program here in 2026 is completing that Phase 2 for that has industrial facility, which will come online in Q2.

And then we bought some railcars and equipment. And so the pre-investment, this $13 million that we invested in December, it was primarily access to equipment. Things are tied up long term. And if you can get access to equipment to be able to access and drill these disposal wells. So we drilled 2 disposal wells in December, got access. We were planning on doing it in Q1. So it helps advance getting those wells drilled already. And so there will be a pipeline and basically some other infrastructure and equipment required to tie all that in, and we'll provide more clarity throughout 2026 as we get there.

But essentially, I think we very successful $125 million capital deployment, very contract-backed. And then as we think about the program here for 2026, we got 2 expansions. And then we've invested in some pre-shred equipment. So this would go in front of the mega shredder in Edmonton. And the purpose of that is just to run through some of the scrap material in advance of it hitting in the mega shredder. And we want to make sure whatever goes into the shredder has already been processed to a certain point where it doesn't require the shredder to have any sort of downtime or maintenance because of a large piece or because of certain components that might make their way in.

So we're pretty excited about the growth opportunities. I said the hopper is quite large here for us as we think about 2026 and more to come on that as we progress through the year.

And your next question comes from the line of Steven Hansen from Raymond James.

I know it's not disclosed specifically, but can you give us like really rough magnitudes in terms of how big of a hit the metals business took in '25 on an EBITDA basis? Like was it down 10%, 20%? Just want to get a rough flavor of magnitude as we think about the recovery.

Yes. So on the metals business, I think there's a couple of things that we work through. We were obviously repositioning some of our, what we call hub and spoke. So we were moving some of our metal -- scrap metal from some of our yards directly into Edmonton to utilize the mega shredder. So we had some synergies that we were working on in integration. At the same time, we had to balance that with some railcars that we needed to move that product into the U.S.

And so I would say roughly 10% to 15% would have been impacted by not only what we saw in Q3 and partly into Q2 as well. But really, we were building inventory and then you've got this transition time that takes you from your cycle time of what you can get your inventory processed and through into the U.S. just over 30 days. And as we've said in the past, we don't like taking commodity risk. We want to process our inventory and ship it out on a 30-day basis. And so that's what Corey and his team are going to work on here through 2026. We're in a slower period for metals in the winter months as spring hits and you start to see more scrap metal roll into the yards. We want to make sure we've got our logistics balance and at the same time, monitor the Canadian market to see whether or not these mills are going to get operational again, and there will be some opportunities for us there.

But I would say that would be my rough estimate of the magnitude. So we'll get some of that back here into 2026, which is great.

That's great color. I appreciate that. As it happens, copper and some of these other metals have rallied quite nicely in the meantime. So perhaps there's some benefit there. Just wanted to circle back to Konark's earlier question around the volume side. And it's more just that recognizing you've already given some pretty good color so far. But how have you seen the pattern shift, if at all, as we started into '26 here, crude is not at 50 anymore. So I'm just trying to get a sense if you're starting to see that recovery in activity take place? Or is it probably more of maybe a second or third quarter type benefit?

Yes. I think if we could see sustained mid-$60 WTI, we'll see some slow improvement. But right now, we're a month into 2026. There hasn't been a whole lot of change from the activity levels that we saw in Q4.

And your next question comes from the line of Arthur Nagorny from RBC Capital Markets.

Maybe just starting with the 2026 adjusted EBITDA guide. Can you maybe give us some perspective on what your assumptions might look like between the high and the low end of the range?

Arthur, it's Chad here. Yes, it's a similar range size to last year. And when we take a look at the macro and all of our different service lines of what can change, obviously, what we've seen in the past and that we are still, I'd say, have a little uncertainty around it is just metals operations and what happens there with tariffs and how we've been able to acquire more railcars and the logistics around that. And even if we could acquire more railcars, that can help improve that number.

Obviously, field activity is the biggest impact especially with new drilling and completion activities that can have an impact. Obviously, we saw that decline in 2025. So that obviously can swing the ultimate range of what we come in at.

Yes. I mean, so right now, we're at the midpoint. And I think all signs are pointing to very similar first half 2026 to the back half of 2025. So you're going to have that kind of being consistent. I do think a lot of our customers, they came out with their budgets in December and a lot of them are calling for 3% to 5% growth. And a lot of them have planned out what they wanted to do in Q1 and Q2. So even though you've seen the uptick in the commodity doesn't really change what they planned on doing. I think that's more of a back half story.

So I think depending on where we see that going, they can make changes and shifts in what they want to do in Q3 and Q4. That's primarily you get out of spring breakup and they can start to get access to some of these locations, and we'll see activity pick up. And that's our expectation. And so you'll see us go above that midpoint when that activity level starts to percolate. And so we'll have more clarity on that as we get through Q1 and get into how does the spring-like conditions look like. But that would be your upside scenario just on activity levels in the back half of 2026.

All right. That's helpful. And then I believe you mentioned you took some price in the back half of last year. Have you completed your pricing discussions already for 2026? And if so, can you give us an idea of kind of what that looks like across the business lines?

Yes. We have had multiple discussions with our customers. I mean when you look at inflation in Canada, it was up over 3%. A lot of our price increases [ on Q1 ], you want to cover your inflationary costs, but also we want to make sure that we're cognizant of where our customers are at. And so it was a bit of a balanced approach, I would say, in Q4, and we were selective on certain service lines where we felt like we needed to increase prices more significantly. And it was a lot of detailed conversations with our customers, but we did manage to get that done in Q4. We don't plan on doing anything in the near term here. I think all those discussions have been settled.

For us, right now, our primary focus is on operations, getting this facility commissioned here in the next couple of weeks in the Montney and then obviously turning our attention to some other growth projects and some tuck-in M&A. I think I've talked about M&A in the past just on -- there's a few more metal recycling locations we're looking at. And so that might come to fruition here in 2026 if we can get to the appropriate valuations. We also have some other complementary businesses that I think would fit well into SECURE's network. And so we're looking at those as well. And so you'll see a balance of our focus on some of the growth capital, but also on some of this tuck-in M&A that we think could be very complementary to 2026 and 2027.

Got it. And then maybe on the metals recycling business, you mentioned the kind of inventory that you're working through given the disruption from last year. And just wondering kind of, I guess, where you're at with that? And maybe as a follow-up, I think near the end of the year, the Canadian government announced some measures to support the Canadian market. So just wondering if you're seeing any improvements in the [ Nomesta ] market yet and maybe how you're thinking about your go-forward positioning given some of these changes?

Yes. A couple of questions there. The first one would be really around how do we -- how we're working through our inventory. As I mentioned previously, I think we'll get through back to normal inventory levels and inventory turns by the midpoint of this year. So everything is going to plan.

With respect to what are we seeing in the Canadian markets, we haven't seen much demand pull into the Canadian mills as of yet. There has been small orders here and there. But I think what we've done in our business with the railcar infrastructure, when and if there are buy signals from Canadian mills, we are well positioned to ship to Canadian mills as well as the U.S. mills. So now we have a lot of outlets for our scrap. So we feel very comfortable where we're at today, Arthur.

All right. And then last question for me. Just curious how the Specialty Chemicals business did in Q4, if you can give some perspective on maybe volume or pricing or revenue, sorry.

Yes. I mean on the specialty chem side, we're continually seeing more of our production chemistry being really a useful tool, specifically on the paraffins on the wax side of things. And so we've got quite a few programs now where we're assisting some of our customers with taking some of that wax out of their production streams. And so we saw a continuation of that in Q4. That's a pattern that we do have that we're quite happy to promote with our customers.

Activity levels, I would say, Q3 over Q4 were relatively similar on the fluids and the equipment side. There wasn't really much of a change. I think it was really just as expected of what our customers wanted to do in the last quarter. But I would say we got the benefit on the production chemistry side and that side continues to perform very, very well as we roll out some of the new initiatives we have on not only the paraffin side, but there's also some on emulsion breakers and scale, and that seems to be going very, very well.

I don't know, Chad, do you want to add?

Yes. Just looking at kind of year-over-year, again, I think similar to what Allen said, just probably up a couple of percent Q4 versus Q4 of the prior year.

I think you would have also noticed as well, we had disclosed this lawsuit that we have with CES. And really, we're at the point now where it's gone through the federal courts and the Supreme Court recently concluded that we own this patent. And we put into our disclosure the potential claim of $100 million, and that's really based off of -- this goes back to 2018 and really the sale that relates directly -- the sale of fluids that relate directly to this patent as well as did you get the work because of that patent.

And so the $100 million claim, I think that's something we're going to pursue here over the next couple of years. And it's really going to go back to how -- what will the courts do in terms of the timing of when that patent was concluded at SECURE's as well as are we including just the sale of the patent or also other fluid sales that are included in that. So that $100 million will be determined by the courts in some future manner, but that's also ongoing.

And your next question comes from the line of John Gibson from BMO Capital Markets.

Just in terms of the growth CapEx for '26, how much of it will be focused on your energy end markets versus more of the metals recycling or conventional waste businesses? And is this mix materially different than last year?

No. The mix will be relatively similar. I think it's primarily weighted to our waste management business. On the metal side, we're calling it around the $10 million level. We've got the pre-shred and some equipment and then we've been leasing some railcars. But primarily, it's related to waste expansion at our facilities.

When you look at certain areas like the Montney, it's busier. We haven't spent a lot on expansion capital here over the last few years. A lot of the capital we've directed more in closer to production within a specific customer. And so this is now looking at some of our facilities where we're getting to the point where it's almost a bottleneck and we need to expand to allow more volumes to come in. And so you see a little bit more of expansion capital in 2026 just because we're at that point in certain facilities that will need that required capital.

Got it. Just in regards to your move to ship steel products to the U.S., what is the incremental cost on doing so? And I guess you mentioned the business was impacted by roughly 15%. Just wondering how much of this you can recapture with these improved logistics if volumes are similar?

John, there is obviously an incremental cost. It's just moving it further by rail. However, we've been able to recoup some of that by getting a better price by just having a bigger market to ship it to. So I think when you net those 2, there's maybe been a percent margin erosion, but we're continuing to work with markets to try to improve that. What was the second part of the question?

No, that's great. That answers it. I appreciate it, and I'll turn it back.

And your next question comes from the line of Maxim Sytchev from National Bank Capital.

I had one quick follow-up on metals recycling, if I can. There was some speculation that perhaps some of the tariffs will be rolled back and administration sort of walked that down. But in case of the were to happen, can you maybe walk through how much of a tailwind that could be for the overall business right now that you have fully built out the capacity in the U.S. and Canada, obviously, on the metal side of things?

Yes, I think we've been monitoring what's been happening in the U.S., and we've got a lot of relationships with a lot of the mills and we figured out the turnaround times and logistics for our railcars. And so if the Canadian market remains challenged, that's really giving us a competitive advantage over our competitors here in Western Canada. A lot of them don't have railcars, which we do. And so the fact that we're already 90% gives us that competitive edge.

And from our standpoint, when we factor in the additional transportation cost to obviously get the scrap further down into the U.S. market, we have to reduce the price that we're willing to pay across the scale because we want to maintain our margin spread. And so from our perspective, at some point, that will turn where you're going to see that inventory that we may have paid a lower value for being realized in the Canadian market. And so all of a sudden, that shipping cost is going to go down, and you're going to realize some of that. And I think that's kind of what you're driving at. Difficult to predict. I mean it's just been -- we haven't seemed to make any ground on where we're going to go with the tariffs here in the U.S.

And so our focus is really about getting the scrap in, getting it processed efficiently and turning it around into the U.S. I mean this whole electric arc furnace change has been substantial. The demand for scrap, we've seen it pick up. And I think Steve made the comment just on the commodities on copper on the nonferrous side is very strong. And I think even on the ferrous side, we're just seeing more and more demand for it from our perspective.

And so I think the market is getting very, very robust, which is really, really good. And I think there will be a moment in time here as things play out where I think some of the things will be on the benefit of our side as we think about inventory levels and how activity is going to progress throughout 2026.

And your last question comes from the line of Konark Gupta from Scotiabank.

Just a few follow-ups. On the tuck-ins, I just wanted to clarify, the EBITDA guidance, the range does not embed any of the tuck-ins that you might do this year, right?

That's correct. Yes. No, it does not embed any tuck-ins at this point. And that's something that -- because you never really know if you can get to a definitive agreement and get everything tied up to the way you want. So as that progresses and as we get potential opportunities coming across our desk, that's when we'll start thinking about, okay, what is this going to contribute to '26.

So we -- I guess, long story short, we'll provide guidance when the acquisitions happen and what that means for 2026.

Okay. Great. And on the cash flow side, I don't think I heard too much today. So just like in terms of any outlook for ranges, et cetera. I mean your EBITDA at the midpoint is up $35 million, I think, and CapEx -- total CapEx is down about $65 million. So that's $100 million together. I mean, should we simply add that $100 million to the cash flow? Or should we consider any other factors this year, like taxes, et cetera?

Yes. I mean there's not -- I would say the remaining items will be relatively in line with what we saw in 2025. I think, obviously, cash interest will change a little bit depending on our leverage ratio. And then cash taxes, we're still kind of in a transition year in 2025. So it will be slightly higher as a percent, if you look at it, I guess, on adjusted EBITDA, slightly higher next -- in 2026. But still probably not above that $60 million mark for the full year. And then when we just look at the conversion ratio, we're still going to come out higher than 50% discretionary free cash flow conversion from adjusted EBITDA.

That's helpful. And last one, on the GICS, I heard you guys talked about the S&P and MSCI discussions. I mean with the accounting change, I mean, that reduces a substantial portion of your sort of commodity revenue, right? And what would be some of the GICS options that might be available to you? I mean I know you cannot choose, but what you might qualify for D&O at this point?

Yes. Thanks, Konark. Yes, good question in the past, we can make certain recommendations, but obviously, they ultimately decide. But definitely, it should result in a change. Next steps will be all of our information will be updated. I definitely think they will change it. I don't know how long it will take to change it. But I mean, more of an industrial type [ GICS ] code, there is when you look at all the different waste peers, there is a number of different ones. They're not all exactly the same. But we think any of those would be more relevant than where we are today.

I think, too, I mean, this accounting change will be very helpful for investors and shareholders. I think when you go on Bloomberg and you're looking at our financials, you're now looking at all of the margins are where they need to be, and we've got the highest margins out of all of our waste peers. We've got the highest discretionary free cash flow per share, return on capital. We've increased the dividend as well.

Just showing that you come out of a trough year like 2025, and we've got the conviction to not only push up the dividend, we've been buying back stock, just showing that the value of the business is -- there's more to go. And when we compare to some of our waste peers and you look at some of these key metrics, we stack up very, very well. So we're pretty excited. We're happy that we came off of 2025 and here we go in 2026. So that's a lot.

That ends our question-and-answer session. I will now hand the call back to Allen Gransch for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you for your time today and your continued support of SECURE. We look forward to talking with you again at the end of April with our Q1 results.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SECURE Waste Infrastructure Corp. Q3 2025 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Thursday, October 30, 2025.

And I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Alison Prokop. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning to everyone who is listening to the call. Welcome to SECURE's conference call for the third quarter of 2025.

Joining me on the call today is Allen Gransch, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Chad Magus, our Chief Financial Officer; and Corey Higham, our Chief Operating Officer.

We will be making forward-looking statements during this call. These statements reflect current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially. We will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, which may not be directly comparable to similar measures disclosed by other companies. Please refer to our continuous disclosure documents on SEDAR+ for more information on risk factors and definitions. Today, we will review our financial and operational results for the 3 and 9 months ended September 30, 2025.

I'll now turn the call over to Allen.

Good morning, and thank you for joining today's call. SECURE delivered another strong quarter, demonstrating the resilience of our infrastructure-backed business. Our core waste and energy infrastructure network performed largely in line with expectations, and it continues to highlight the strength and the stability of our cash flows even amid lower oil prices and disciplined producer spending.

Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $135 million, up 6% year-over-year or 17% higher on a per share basis. Canadian producers continue to approach the current environment with caution, maintaining discipline and spending -- maintain disciplined spending and stable production. Our business directly benefits from their ongoing need to reliable waste management and energy infrastructure solutions. Approximately 80% of our adjusted EBITDA is derived from reoccurring production and industrial activity, while only 20% is linked to drilling and completions, underscoring our ability to generate stable cash flows across lower market cycles.

This resiliency combined with disciplined execution gives us confidence in our ability to maintain strong free cash flow and balance sheet flexibility. We did, however, experience continued weakness in our metal recycling business, particularly with the ferrous market. Conditions remain challenging due to soft Canadian demand driven by tariffs on finished steel sold into the U.S. Foreign oversupply and broader macroeconomic caution that is limiting new steel production. These factors have reduced domestic sales and led to a buildup of ferrous inventory. We have now redirected 95% of our shipments to stronger U.S. markets where scrap metal remains exempt from tariffs, though the full financial benefit may be realized into 2026 as our inventory turns per month improve with our rail capacity expansion in Q4.

As a result of lower drilling and completion activity stemming from weakening of the benchmark oil prices, together with the near-term headwinds in metal recycling, we are revising our 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance to approximately $500 million. This reflects a 2% reduction from the low end of our prior range. Compared to the initial guidance provided last December, this decrease reflects the delayed ferrous metal sales as described, the weaker macro environment as well as the decision not to proceed with a small acquisition originally anticipated to contribute roughly $6 million of EBITDA this year. Importantly, our revised 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance represents approximately 5% growth over pro forma 2024 adjusted EBITDA. This demonstrates continued year-over-year improvement despite a softer macroeconomic environment and it highlights the strength and resilience of the business.

Looking ahead, we expect to enter 2026 with strong operational momentum and the benefit of several long-cycle projects nearing completion. Our infrastructure growth program remains on track with $97 million of our $125 million capital budget deployed in the first 9 months of the year. The 2 major projects we've advanced this year, both pipeline connected produced water disposal facilities in the Alberta Montney region are progressing on schedule. Each project is backed by 10-year commercial agreements with strong counterparties.

The first facility is expected to be operational before year-end and the second in early 2026. These developments will add meaningful capacity in one of the most active basins in North America and generate stable reoccurring cash flow for years to come. We've also increased the project scope associated with our Industrial Heartland waste processing facility, which will expand our ability to manage industrial waste in an underserviced region. This facility is now expected to be operational later in Q2. In total, over 70% of our 2025 organic growth capital is directed towards long-cycle contract-backed infrastructure projects that perform across commodity cycles. As these assets come online, together with an expected recovery in metals recycling and continued strength across our core network, we anticipate delivering solid adjusted EBITDA growth in 2026.

Our balance sheet remains strong with total debt-to-EBITDA of 2.1x or 1.8x, excluding leases, providing ample flexibility to support our capital priorities. Through the first 9 months of the year, we've returned $335 million or nearly $1.50 per share to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, reducing our outstanding shares by approximately 8%. We remain committed to opportunistic buybacks under our Normal Course Issuer Bid and maintaining our quarterly dividend of $0.10 per share, supported by our strong free cash flow and balance sheet flexibility.

Our strategy remains unchanged to build long life, high barriers to entry infrastructure backed by contracts and reoccurring volumes to operate safely and efficiently and to continue to return meaningful capital to shareholders.

With that, I'll turn it over to Chad to walk through our Q3 financial results in more detail.

Thanks, Allen, and good morning, everyone. From a financial standpoint, the third quarter again demonstrated the strength and stability of our cash flow profile. Revenue, excluding oil purchase and resale, was $365 million, down 2% from Q3 2024, primarily due to lower specialty chemical sales and volumes tied to reduced drilling and completions. This decrease was partially offset by contributions from the Edmonton metals recycling acquisition completed earlier this year. Net income was $1 million compared to $94 million in the same period last year. The decline reflects a noncash $55 million provision in the current quarter as well as the absence of a onetime tax recovery that benefited the prior year results.

Excluding these nonrecurring items, underlying profitability remained stable. The provision relates to an arrangement for crude oil storage capacity at a major oil hub in Western Canada. Following the start-up of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion last year and the resulting increase in market egress, the near-term prospects for profitable use or subleasing of the storage tanks have decreased. In accordance with accounting standards, SECURE recognized a provision for the present value of the remaining fixed monthly payments associated with the contract.

Adjusted EBITDA was $135 million, up 6% from the prior year as contributions from the Edmonton metals recycling acquisition and proactive G&A cost reductions more than offset the impact of lower drilling and completion activity and continued weakness in the ferrous metals market. Funds flow from operations was $96 million and discretionary free cash flow was $68 million, providing ongoing capacity to support dividends, growth and share buybacks. We invested $54 million of growth capital in the quarter, bringing the year-to-date total to $97 million, primarily for the Montney water projects, incremental railcars and optimization projects. Our sustaining capital spend was $24 million in the quarter and $59 million year-to-date, consistent with our expectations.

We continue to forecast we'll spend $85 million on sustaining CapEx this year. With respect to capital returns, we repurchased 1.7 million shares at an average price of $15.77 for a total of $27 million in Q3, bringing year-to-date repurchases to 18.1 million shares for $268 million, including the Substantial Issuer Bid completed earlier this year. We maintained our quarterly dividend of $0.10 per share for an annualized yield of approximately 2%. Our leverage ratio of 2.1x total debt-to-EBITDA and 1.8x excluding leases, reflects continued balance sheet strength and liquidity of over $300 million, comprised of cash on hand and capacity on our credit facility. With a strong free cash flow outlook and disciplined spending, we have significant flexibility to continue returning capital while funding high-return projects and potential bolt-on acquisitions. For the fourth quarter, we expect adjusted EBITDA to remain broadly consistent with Q3 levels, supported by stable production and industrial activity as well as incremental contributions from new infrastructure as projects begin to come online.

While our outlook assumes steady operating conditions, results could be influenced by several seasonal and market factors, including the severity of December weather, the extent of typical year-end holiday slowdowns, significant movements in commodity prices and the timing of metals inventory drawdowns.

I'll now pass it on to Corey for some operational detail.

Thanks, Chad. Operationally, our team executed very well throughout the quarter, maintaining high reliability and safety performance across our network. At our waste processing facilities, we safely processed on average 91,000 barrels per day of produced water and 36,000 barrels per day of slurry and emulsion. We also recovered 220,000 barrels of oil from waste streams, reinforcing the value we create. 941,000 tons of solid waste were also safely contained across our landfill network.

Overall, volumes declined from the third quarter of 2024, driven by a combination of lower activity levels, maintenance program and remediation project deferrals. Specifically, our produced water volumes were down 3% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, although up 1% on a trailing 12-month basis. In addition to lower field activity, the scheduled maintenance and shutdown of a third-party gas plant temporarily impacted produced water volumes in the Montney/Wapiti area. Both upstream volumes were fully restored by mid-Q3. Processing volumes were down 16% quarter-over-quarter as discretionary work related to customer integrity management programs, facility turnarounds and some remediation program postponement.

Additionally, as part of SECURE's preventive maintenance programs and taking advantage of lower field activity levels during the quarter, we had a number of our facilities undergo onetime maintenance work impacting further -- further impacting processing volumes. All of those facilities are back to 100% operational. As a result of the produced water and processing volumes, our recovered oil volumes decreased by 26%. Landfill volumes were down 23% quarter-over-quarter due to a combination of postponed remediation projects and field activities from our customers. Of note, the comparative Q3 2024 was a record quarter for SECURE's landfill segment, magnifying the decrease in the current year period. While our volumes were lower compared to the third quarter of 2024, there was minimal impact to waste processing facility and landfill margin contributions due to price increases implemented at the beginning of 2025.

Our metals recycling business continues to benefit from the scale and efficiencies of the Edmonton acquisition. We are proactively managing through near-term challenges in the ferrous market by expanding our rail fleet with 50 new cars in 2025 and adding 50 cars on short-term lease to improve efficiency and access to U.S. markets. At present, we have approximately 220 railcars shipping ferrous scrap to the U.S. Prior to the tariffs being enacted, we were able to accept process and ship our inventory at a minimum of 1 inventory turn per month. Since the tariffs were put in place, our inventory turns have decreased where it takes us on average 45 days to turn our inventory, causing our inventory to build.

This is a result of shipping our product further into the U.S. versus our domestic mills with shorter railcar turnaround times. As we move into the fourth quarter, the addition of the new railcars will allow us to catch up on our inventory shipments, though the full financial benefit may be realized into 2026 as we continue to manage logistics, our average turns per month and expand our rail capacity, a key competitive advantage that provides greater flexibility and cost efficiency in serving multiple markets. We are also continuing to prioritize nonferrous metals with stronger fundamentals and maintaining disciplined purchasing and feedstock pricing to protect margins.

We expect performance to improve as 3 key factors normalize: rail throughput increases and logistics efficiencies take effect, North American steel demand recovers supported by infrastructure and manufacturing investment and import pressure eases as global steel production moderates.

In our Specialty Chemicals business, reduced drilling and completions activity has affected our drilling fluids business. However, our production chemicals business continues to grow. We've invested in people, equipment and product development to expand our product offering to help customers address complex operational and production challenges. In our Energy Infrastructure segment, pipeline and terminaling volumes averaged approximately 135,000 barrels per day, up modestly from last year, driven by increased throughput at our Clearwater terminal following the Phase 3 expansion. These assets continue to operate under long-term commercial agreements, providing stable fee-based cash flows and a platform for future growth.

Our talented staff continue to drive cost efficiencies and throughput optimization across our operations. Overall, our infrastructure continues to perform as designed, providing safe, reliable and environmentally responsible solutions to our customers.

With that, I'll turn the call back to Allen for closing remarks.

Thanks, Corey. To summarize, SECURE delivered another solid quarter in what remains a volatile environment. Our infrastructure-backed network continues to generate stable, high-quality cash flow supported by reoccurring production and industrial volumes, regulatory-driven demand, strong customer relationships and operational excellence. Operationally, our teams continue to perform exceptionally well, executing projects that strengthened our network and laid the groundwork for higher EBITDA in 2026. In metals recycling, we've acted quickly to address market conditions through targeted strategies that protect margins and reposition sales to stronger markets.

Looking ahead to 2026, we expect to build momentum as new infrastructure comes online and metal recycling synergies and U.S. transportation logistics are streamlined. These initiatives, combined with supportive long-term industrial fundamentals provides a strong foundation for sustained growth. The start-up of the Trans Mountain expansion and the commissioning of LNG Canada are improving market access and narrowing price differentials, supporting incremental production and associated waste volumes.

Additional LNG export capacity, data center developments and ongoing government programs focused on the liability reduction and are expected to reinforce these structural tailwinds in the years ahead. With more than 80 strategically located high barrier to entry facilities across Western Canada and North Dakota, SECURE is well positioned to meet growing demand for waste and energy infrastructure. Our network offers both expansion capacity and stability across market cycles, underpinning consistent volume and earnings growth through 2026 and beyond.

Thank you for joining us today and your continued support of SECURE. We'd like to highlight that we expect to provide 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance and capital investment guidance in February of 2026, along the release of our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. This is a change from prior years but aligns more closely with industry practice amongst our peers.

Operator, we'd now like to open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Konark Gupta from Scotiabank.

Just to begin with on the volume side of things. I think you guys pointed out, obviously, there's a bunch of issues in the quarter because of which the Waste Management segment volumes declined. I'm just wondering, is it possible to kind of parse out how much of the volume decline was directly associated with drilling and completion as opposed to the turnaround and other issues with production?

Konark, it's Corey. Good question. And when you look at the rig count dropping [ 15% ] quarter-over-quarter, it certainly made up a big chunk of the decline. And when producers -- the knock-on effect producers will tighten their budgets, they'll drill less wells, they'll complete less wells. And when they complete less wells, there's less waste to process, there's less drilling waste to dispose of. So there's just this knock-on effect where you're getting lower volumes. But when you look into the quarter, July was very similar to Q2 levels.

And as you move through July, August and September, there was just a general incremental increase month-over-month, and we're seeing that into October. So it was a tougher quarter from a volume perspective, but the assets operated the way they're supposed to, and our teams are chasing and hunting every barrel and cubic meter of waste that's out there.

I think too, Konark, to add to what Corey is saying, I think with a softer commodity, and I think we've been hovering in the high 50s, low 60s here, it just -- and we've said this in our outlook, it makes producers pause a little bit. They're thinking more on if they want to pause a turnaround or if they want to slow certain things down. As we're kind of looking into this quarter here, this last quarter of the year, it seems like most of them are kind of driving towards spending their budgets for the year. But you can understand with the softer commodity why activity levels generally would slow down a bit and relatively hung in there as well. So it wasn't really a surprise to us. It's just you kind of saw it come to fruition as we got through Q3.

Okay. Fair comment. On the guidance then, so I mean you're expecting now I think $500-ish million for full year on EBITDA basis. And I think it's not like down a lot from the low end of what you guys said before. But is that like incrementally -- you pointed out, obviously, the M&A that didn't happen. But is there an incremental pressure you would say from the metal recycling side or from the drilling and completion side versus where you guys were thinking 3 months ago perhaps? I mean, I'm just trying to understand like what drove this push down toward the $500 million. Is it more the metals or the drilling?

Good question, Konark. I would say there's a bit of balance on both. I think it's a bit of carryover on just general activity levels with the softer commodity price. And as I said, producers are kind of driving towards completing their budgets. December now becomes the period at which things slow down here in Western Canada. You used to have a bit of a breakup in the second quarter. But with all the pad drilling going on, they really just go hard all throughout the year. And so giving their own guys a break is typically now the Christmas break.

And so depending on weather in December and how close they get to their budgets, we know that there's going to be some softer volumes coming through in that month. So there's a -- part of it is associated with that. Part of it is associated with metals. It took us throughout the entire Q3 to get into some of these new U.S. markets. And so we were successful now transitioning 95%. I mean it's a huge competitive advantage for our facilities here in Western Canada to have not only the mega shredder in Edmonton and being able to process more efficiently, but also to have these railcars and move in the market into the U.S.

And so a huge advantage for us to shift entirely all of our scrap into the U.S. I think I talked about it in Q2, just maybe we could get an agreement with the U.S. on, on tariffs on steel, and that didn't happen. So we've effectively transitioned now 95% of the U.S. market. So for us, it's -- now that we have the market, it's all around the logistics and being able to get the turnaround time on the trains. Typically, when it's closer in Canada or relatively close from the border, you're looking at 21 days turning around your cars and getting them back and filled up again. As you think about further into the U.S., we're moving more into the 40, 45 days to get those same cars back. And so that logistics and that turnaround time is really the delta here.

And we've seen our inventory start to build here in through October. And it's going to be how efficient we can get the logistics nailed down here to the fourth quarter here, but there could be some amount that spills in. So it's really just a shift to profit as we think about our logistics. We've got an additional 50 cars that we've just leased that's going to add on to our fleet. So we're sitting around 270 railcars right now. And so we're going to run with that, make sure we can optimize our logistics. And yes, so those would be the 2 main factors for pinning it down on approximately $500 million.

Okay. And I just want to wrap up on the metal recycling side. I think you laid out a lot of factors there and numbers there. So I just want to understand, is that shift to the U.S. 95%, I mean that's obviously significantly higher than what you typically did before. Is that more like a temporary phenomenon? And I mean when you get more cars in next year, a, do you plan to return the lease cars? And b, do you expect the 40, 45-day inventory -- sorry, the car turnaround time to get back to closer to like 21 days or could still be higher because of the U.S.?

Yes. I mean, logistically, it is further to transport the cars. So I think the average days, maybe we get it down into that, call it, 40 days range. The lease cars that we brought on, that's, I think, another 3-year lease or 5-year lease for those cars. So they're in our fleet and it will be able to allow us to manage into the U.S. market for quite some time. We don't anticipate coming back into the Canadian market for quite some time. So we're really in developing these relationships with the mills in the U.S. and just optimizing our turnaround time. So if we need a few more lease cars if we find that, that is the optimal level that we need, and that's what we're going to run.

So we'll get it figured out here. It's what I call it a 3 to 6 months bringing out the logistics. But it just puts us such an advantage to our competition to be able to have these markets and to be able to price into the U.S. So again, coming up with this whole hub-and-spoke model, getting these other locations to feed into Edmonton to not only process it more efficiently, but then get it on the cars and get it down to these markets is great for us. So yes, we'll navigate that through Q4 and Q1, but after that, it should be just smooth running.

Yes, Konark, once the Canadian mills get some demand back and whether that's tariff relief or it's part of our federal government's Build Canada Better program, even if you have some Canadian mills resume, you saw we -- we've built some really good relationships with these mills, and there's certainly demand that we're seeing into Q1. So we don't have any issues in this current environment in being able to get rid of this inventory. If Canada does get in a much better position, we just have more outlets for our product, which is a good news all around.

And your next question comes from the line of Michael Doumet from National Bank.

I know it's 10% of your business, but I do want to touch on it a little bit more. So on the metals business, is there any way you can quantify how much of the 2025 EBITDA guidance was attributable to the metals? And the reason why I'm asking is because I feel like that's part of the business that can bounce back relatively easily in 2026. And just the latter part of that question. When you guys think about the metals business recovering in 2026, I would think that feedstock prices have to decline to offset the higher logistic costs. So I'm just wondering if you're seeing that already.

Yes, great question. So when we look at our guidance for 2025, we've talked about metals being about 10% of that overall guidance. So call it in the ballpark of around $50 million. And I commented there's a couple of things that have happened. Number one, when we acquired [ GRI ] in February, we knew that there was going to take -- there was going to be a time frame here, call it, 12 to 18 months to realize synergies. And what our synergies were? The first synergy we wanted to achieve was operational synergies. So this was getting our other locations that we call the feeder locations set up in a manner in which we can transfer that scrap efficiently into the Edmonton market and then process it.

So we get the operational synergies. Our shredder was running around 50% utilization. Our goal is to get it above 65%, and we're well on track to getting higher utilization, which is a more efficient way to process the scrap. So we knew there was going to be operational synergies. We knew there was going to be transportation synergies, and that's really from these new cars where they can hold 30% more scrap than these old leased cars that we have. And that transportation synergy, you pay by the car, you don't pay by the size that it can hold. And so we knew we would gain transportation synergies as well. And then we had some system integrations we wanted to do as well. A lot of these mom-and-pops run very archaic systems. We wanted to get it all up to a new operating system where we could use a lot of data management to make our inventory turns and our annual or monthly processing very, very efficient.

And so those synergies were going to take time. So we're going to get synergies into 2026 once we have all of that figured out. But when we think about the, let's call it, the $50 million or so associated with metal, switching into the U.S. market, there was a time that we're sending kind of smaller loads where they're getting test loads and we're getting relationships complete with some mills that we haven't done business with in quite some time. So there was a bit of a -- and I think I said in Q2 and Q3, you're calling like a $3 million to $5 million kind of impact to get that all established.

So now we're moving into really can we turn the inventory. I wanted to turn the inventory every 30 days so that you're not taking any sort of commodity risk. That's ultimately the way we're going to set up the business. We don't want the volatility. We just want the spread between what's coming across the scale to what we can sell to in the U.S. market. And so to your point is the price coming down to offset the logistics expense, the answer is yes.

We have to factor in what we would be willing to pay on the scale versus the cost to transport to get to the U.S. market. So that just takes time to figure out. So there is more upside as we think about 2026 metals, all of this logistically figured out and optimized, but also get those synergies realized. So there will be upside in 2026. And Q4 really is just a matter of what is our inventory build and how many cars do we need to make this as optimal as possible.

Allen, just on the $3 million to $5 million that you talked about there, was that the Q2, Q3 impact or potentially the full year impact?

That's right. That's the Q2, Q3 impact. So now I'm moving more into just the logistics aspect in Q4 on the inventory build and how much I can transfer out.

And maybe changing topics here. On the buybacks, what are your thoughts on share repurchases at these higher levels? I mean, do you or maybe the Board, do you have a preference for opportunistic buybacks? Or is there a view that maybe a more regular pro rata purchase makes more sense here?

Michael, it's Chad here. We've always said we're going to be opportunistic, and we reevaluate it every quarter along with our Board and just kind of set parameters as to how much we're going to buy. And obviously, we want to be in the market buying at levels that we think are attractive at that period of time. Now things have been transitioning nicely for us and that the multiple has been expanding and continue to reevaluate. We kept the wording on purpose that we're going to continue to be opportunistic buyers of our own stock.

[Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from the line of Arthur Nagorny from RBC Capital Markets.

Just on the Specialty Chemicals business, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you previously called out that drilling and completion is about 50% of that business with the rest being more tied to production. So I guess, would it be fair to say that drilling and completion activity or revenue was down meaningfully more than that 12% for that business? Or are there any other moving pieces that we should be keeping in mind there?

Arthur, it's Chad here. Yes, within Specialty Chemicals, about half is drilling fluids, so really tied to the rig count and then the other half is Specialty Chemicals. And so yes, I'd say the revenue decline there is fairly close to what we saw with rig activity decline in the quarter.

And then on the metals recycling business, it seems like the Edmonton facility generated [ $28 ] million of revenue in the quarter, which is only modestly lower than the $30 million in Q2, and that's, I guess, despite all the headwinds. But can you maybe talk about how things are progressing with that acquisition? And maybe what the revenue-generating capacity of that business could be like in a steadier operating environment?

Yes, I mean the -- I would say when you think about having a macro challenge like finished steel tariffs in Canada, it has an impact on the market. This is pretty unprecedented and it's why not only with the tariffs, but also just general kind of slowdown in activity from an industrial standpoint. We knew we had to deal with that kind of more challenging backdrop. But the business and the acquisition that we've acquired, we're very happy with. It is performing very well. We're super happy with the utilization of that shredder and how the shredder is operating the yard, how we're integrating all of our facilities. So we know there is substantial upside as we think about '26 and '27 with this asset.

You kind of bought it in the low part of the cycle, and we're currently optimizing at the same time. And so managing like I said, the logistics piece, once we get that figured out, this thing is going to be running very, very smoothly. And our goal will be to turn this inventory every month. And I think it gives you that, again, that competitive advantage to have multiple markets to be able to send your product to and that creates that advantage for us, specifically when we're attracting scrap into the Edmonton facility from that industrial market. So yes, so there is, I would consider what you see this year as being our low part of what metals can do, and there's definitely going to be upside.

And we'll -- I think I mentioned it in the call, we're going to put 2026 guidance out with our 2025 annual Q4 release kind of end of February. That's when most of our waste peers put out guidance. So at that point, I'll give you more clarity on where I think metals could go for the 2026 year. It just gives me a few more months to get through some of these, the areas I spoke about.

And then I guess in the Energy Infrastructure segment, you called out lower contribution from more mature areas. Is that just a function of, I guess, decline curves on producing wells? And do we need to see an uptick in drilling and completion activity for this to maybe reverse?

Yes. I think it's a bit of both of those, Arthur. You do have mature areas and when they stop drilling in some of those areas, the production does come down, but again, offset with the contributions from our Nipisi business. So we're pretty comfortable and confident in this business and market growth. So…

Yes. I think when you look at the price of oil, as I said kind of high 50s, if you look at the basin here, the reservoirs in Canada, you're kind of in that breakeven at $50 WTI. And so yes, they're going to slow down when you're into the 50s. But when you look at the play, they're very, I would say, from a netback perspective ahead of where maybe some of the U.S. production would be. And so all of this, you see that a little bit of a pause and it's to be expected given we're in the third year where WTI seems to be soft.

But it just shows you though, even with that little bit of decline on the drilling aspect, production still was very flat and kind of came into where we expected. So it's a good signal for us. And obviously, we're more bullish as we think about activity development in 2026.

And last one for me. The adjusted EBITDA margins were notably strong in the quarter, particularly in light of the revenue declines across your segments. Is there anything in there that you would call out as maybe being more onetime in nature? Or can we expect margins to be more in this range going forward, I guess, with keeping seasonality in mind?

Yes, I think when you look at the last couple of years of where the margin percentage has been, it has fluctuated. It is -- with all our different service lines, they all do have, in some instances, fairly significantly different margin profile. And so it really is the mix in the quarter. And so this quarter, I think the biggest drivers were Specialty Chemicals being a lower percentage of the overall EBITDA. They are at a lower margin. And so that helped, I guess, [ void ] the margin to higher than where we've seen on average. And then also probably lower than normal G&A this quarter as well, just helped to get to that 37%. But I think year-to-date, we're about 34%. And I think that's probably when you look at what we forecast going forward, we'd expect to be in the mid-30s, but it will be somewhat variable quarter-over-quarter.

There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Gransch, please proceed.

Thank you for your time today. We look forward to presenting at the Baird Industrial Conference in Chicago in a couple of weeks, followed by Scotiabank Transportation and Industrials Conference in Toronto mid-November. As mentioned, we expect to release our fourth quarter and 2025 annual results along with 2026 guidance at the end of February. Thank you all for your continued support.

And this concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SECURE Waste Infrastructure Corporation's Second Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Tuesday, July 29, 2025. The I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Alison Prokop.

Thank you, and good morning to everyone who is listening to the call. Welcome to SECURE's conference call for the second quarter of 2025. Joining me on the call today is Allen Gransch, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Chad Magus, our Chief Financial Officer; and Corey Higham, our Chief Operating Officer. We'll be making forward-looking statements during this call. These statements reflect current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially. We will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, which may not be directly comparable to similar measures disclosed by other companies. Please refer to our continuous disclosure documents on SEDAR+ for more information on risk factors and definitions. Today, we will review our financial and operational results for the 3 and 6 months ended June 30, 2025. I will now turn the call over to Allen.

Thank you, Alison. Good morning, and thank you for joining today's call. SECURE delivered solid second quarter results that reflect the resilience of our infrastructure-backed model and our continued focus on maximizing value through capital allocation. Adjusted EBITDA was $110 million or $0.49 per share, reflecting a 14% year-over-year increase on a per share basis from Q2 of 2024, even as total adjusted EBITDA declined modestly due to a more typical spring breakup, active forest fires and near-term volatility in the metals recycling segment from U.S. steel tariffs. We remain focused on creating shareholder value through disciplined capital deployment. So far this year, we've returned $286 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases including completing $137 million substantial issuer bid and repurchasing an additional $104 million under our normal course issuer bid.

In total, we purchased 7% of our common shares outstanding year-to-date. On the growth front, we deployed $43 million of our $125 million capital budget in the first half of the year, advancing several projects that will drive reoccurring long-cycle returns. The Phase 3 expansion at our Clearwater heavy oil terminal was completed in the first quarter and is fully operational. Construction continues on 2 new pipe-connected produced water disposal facilities in the Alberta Montney, both under 10-year contracts with strong counterparties. The first facility is expected to be operational in the fourth quarter of this year, with the second facility expected to be in service early 2026. Upgrades are underway to our reopening of our waste facility in Alberta's industrial heartland.

We've also added to our railcar fleet, which we are increasing to approximately 200 cars to improve metal recycling logistics. Collectively, these investments strengthen our competitive position and are expected to support meaningful EBITDA growth in 2026. In our metal recycling business, which represents about 10% of our operations, we continue to manage through challenging conditions related to U.S. tariffs, soft global demand and trade policy uncertainty. We have implemented targeted strategies, including redirection of scrap volumes to the U.S. where tariffs do not currently apply, dynamic feedstock pricing, selective purchasing and a shift toward a nonferrous volumes in order to protect segment performance and position the business for recovery.

These efforts are ongoing, and we anticipate any impacts in the short term will likely be recovered in future months. Based on the above, we remain cautious that are maintaining our 2025 guidance in the face of ongoing macroeconomic volatility, supported by higher volumes and pricing, contributions from organic growth projects and long-term industrial fundamentals. For the full year 2025, we expect adjusted EBITDA of $510 million to $540 million. While the third quarter is typically our seasonal high point, we expect a modest shift in 2025 to the fourth quarter, representing the strongest period of the year. This reflects the anticipated timing of recovery in the metals market as well as the phased-in service dates of the growth projects later in the year. We expect discretionary free cash flow of $270 million to $300 million, growth capital of $125 million, sustaining capital of $85 million and asset retirement obligation spend of $15 million.

The long-term fundamentals of our business remain intact. Consistent energy demand, mandated liability reduction and steady industrial activity. Our infrastructure supports reoccurring waste streams and is built to perform across cycles. We provide critical regulatory-driven services through this infrastructure, helping our customers meet environmental obligations while ensuring safe, compliant, waste handling. Our balance sheet remains strong with total debt-to-EBITDA covenant ratio of 2x or 1.8x excluding leases. We extended our revolving credit facility in the second quarter to 2028 and increased its size to $900 million, giving us ample liquidity to support our strategy.

Last week, we released our 2024 sustainability report, and I want to take a moment to highlight some of our most impactful progress. We exceeded our 3-year GHG emission reduction target achieving an 18% reduction since 2021. We returned 721,000 cubic meters of water to the watershed reducing free water use by 6% over 2023. We spent a record $13.4 million with indigenous suppliers, marking SECURE's continued commitment to supporting our indigenous partnerships. We also completed our first 5-year sustainability strategy and are now moving toward more actionable short-term climate goals aligned with emerging frameworks and technologies.

Sustainability is more than a strategy for us. It is embedded in how we operate, manage risk and create long-term value as we transform waste into value. To close these opening remarks, we are closely monitoring evolving market conditions but remain on track to deliver our 2025 plan and exit the year with solid momentum heading into 2026. Our infrastructure network is built for resilience. Our growth projects are backed by commercial agreements and our capital allocation strategy is delivering significant value. With that, I'll turn the call over to Chad to review the financials in more detail.

Thanks, Allen, and good morning, everyone. From a financial standpoint, the second quarter demonstrates our ongoing focus on per share growth and capital efficiency. Revenue, excluding all purchase and resale was $353 million, up 5% from Q2 2024, supported by steady volumes across our core waste network, pricing increases and contributions from the Edmonton Metals acquisition. Net income was $31 million or $0.14 per share, up 17% year-over-year on a per share basis as our capital return strategy continues to drive significant growth in per share metrics. As Allen noted, adjusted EBITDA was down 4% on an absolute basis from the second quarter of 2024, largely reflecting seasonality, the impact of forest fires and a challenging market for metals recycling. In addition, the prior year results benefited from a storage opportunity in energy infrastructure relating to the opening of the Trans Mountain pipeline system.

We saw continued strong cash flow conversion from adjusted EBITDA this quarter, with discretionary free cash flow of $54 million, up slightly from last year on an absolute basis, or an impressive 20% increase per share year-over-year. This level of free cash flow allows us to support our dividend, fund growth and continue repurchasing shares. We maintained our regular quarterly dividend of $0.10 per share and ended the quarter with liquidity of over $300 million. Looking ahead, we believe our strong balance sheet and robust projected cash flows provide us with the flexibility to execute on our capital allocation priorities, including advancing high-return organic projects, maintaining our quarterly dividend of $0.10 per share, equal to approximately $88 million annualized based on current shares outstanding.

Opportunistic share repurchase through the NCIB, which provides a flexible way to return capital to shareholders. Management and the Board of Directors continue to view share buybacks as an attractive use of capital at current valuation levels. And lastly, maintaining our strong balance sheet. I'll now pass on to Corey for some operational details.

Thanks, Chad. Our operations teams performed well throughout the quarter despite seasonal disruptions from spring breakup and active forest fires near several operating regions. As forest fires become more frequent across Western Canada, our operational teams continue to refine and implement robust emergency response protocols and site level contingency planning. These efforts have enabled us to protect our people, maintain service continuity for our customers and minimize the operational impact of these events. At our waste processing facilities, we processed on average 92,000 barrels per day of produced water and 40,000 barrels per day of slurry and emulsion. We also recovered 277,000 barrels of oil and -- from waste streams, reinforcing the value we create. 568,000 tonnes of solid waste were safely contained across our landfill network. Overall, volumes were broadly stable year-over-year. Second quarter throughput was impacted by a combination of seasonal factors, including spring breakup conditions, active forest fires near several operating regions and gas plant turnaround activity.

In particular, the scheduled maintenance shutdown of a third-party gas plant temporarily impacted our produced water volumes in the Montney Wapiti area. This facility is connected to our customers' production and the turnaround led to a short-term reduction in upstream volumes, which are expected to be restored in early Q3. We view this investment positively as it enhances long-term reliability and throughput capacity for the region. These headwinds were partially offset by additional processing capacity brought online at our Clearwater terminal. Our metals recycling business saw significant contributions from the Edmonton acquisition. While there are challenges in the ferrous market, we're repositioning our operations to optimize costs and enhance flexibility. We expect these strategies to help mitigate the macro factors impacting the business and set us up well for recovery.

In Specialty Chemicals, we're seeing strong customer demand and continued market share gains despite the typical seasonal lag in Q2 compared to a strong Q1 and prior year Q2, which benefited from unusually favorable weather conditions. In Energy Infrastructure, volumes averaged 135,000 barrels a day, an increase of 12% from Q2 2024 driven by increased throughput from the expansions of the Clearwater terminal. Our capital program to spend $125 million on growth projects and $85 million on sustaining projects is on track. Major projects are advancing on schedule and we're seeing strong customer interest in additional capacity, which will inform our capital plans for future years.

Thanks, Corey. To wrap up, we're pleased with our progress so far in 2025. We delivered stable results despite seasonal and macroeconomic challenges, advanced our high-return contract-backed capital program and returned $286 million to shareholders through dividends and buybacks, driving meaningful per share growth. Operationally, our teams continue to perform well, executing projects that strengthen our infrastructure network and lay the groundwork for higher EBITDA in 2026. In our Metals Recycling business, we've responded quickly to volatility with targeted strategies that will help protect margins and better position us for recovery. Our balance sheet remains strong, giving us flexibility to invest in growth, return capital and navigate ongoing market uncertainty. At the same time, we continue to lead in ESG, focusing on operational safety, minimizing environmental impact, enhancing community value and delivering long-term returns.

Looking beyond 2025, we remain confident in the long-term fundamentals that underpin our business, Canadian oil and gas production continues to show resilience and steady growth with more than 80 strategically located high-barrier facilities across Western Canada and North Dakota, SECURE is well positioned to meet growing demand for our waste and energy infrastructure. Our network provides both expansion capacity and stability across market cycles, supporting consistent volume growth through 2026 and beyond. Thanks again for joining us today. We'd now like to open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Michael Doumet from National Bank.

I guess I'm going to start by saying I think most people are thinking today. I'm a little surprised, given the cautious tone in Q1 and the incremental headwinds from the tariffs and the forest fires, that you guys maintained the 2025 EBITDA guide. So I guess with that nicely done, obviously. But given some of the incremental pressures, can you expand on maybe some of the areas that you saw some upside? And then more generally, is there an area, be it the low, mid or high end of the guide that you feel most comfortable with today?

Thanks for the question. Yes, I think as we look through Q2 operating results, I think the headwinds we faced were obviously the forest fires that impacted some of our customers' production when they had to shut in some of their facilities. So obviously, you're processing less waste. We also had the tariffs on Canadian steel and a lot of these mills difficult to operate when you have an additional 25% tariff. And so those were the headwinds we faced, offset by we were pleased with the volumes that we saw in Q2. It's probably more of a typical Q2 that we experienced, but pleased with the volumes.

We're starting to see that happen here as we entered into Q3, where we're anticipating the volumes are going to be strong. We do believe that we have this uncertainty around where we're going to get to on this tariff and trade agreement with the U.S. I mean we can't anticipate what's going to happen on August 1, which is why we put the cautionary note. I mean we're still 6 months away from full year guidance. And so to make a decision as to how this is going to play out, how it's going to impact our metals business is difficult to make that judgment call.

So we have some positives. We've also got some positives from some of the organic growth that we're currently spending right now. So we've got a couple of those projects that are advancing nicely that will come on in the fourth quarter. We think that if there is opportunity to move some of that scrap metal into the U.S. If that happens quicker, faster, that will happen in Q3. If not, it will get pushed to Q4. So there's lots of moving parts here and which is why we maintain guidance until we have more clarity on where all of this is going to play out, but I would say, yes, you got positives and negatives, and we're trying to do the best here to balance out where we think everything is going to land.

I think 1 of our advantages on the metal side of the business, and I think we did an investor tour back in June. And we had this discussion is our advantage right now on metals is we have 200 railcars, and we have the ability to ship into the U.S. and further into the U.S. A lot of our competitors move scrap metal by truck. So we can move it by train, opening up more markets for us. And so some of these markets, we haven't used in quite some time. But the fact that they're there they can do test loads and we can move multiple scrap loads down there, I think gives us a huge competitive advantage. We just don't know how long that takes to transition. So I know it's a long-winded answer, but I'm trying to give you a bit of our thought process as we think about where our guidance is and some of the cautionary pieces we put in the outlook.

I definitely appreciate the details. I guess further to that, there's a line of the outlook that I think is new and you discussed how you expect volume growth and robust EBITDA contributions from your organic capital program well into -- well into 2026 and well beyond. I mean are you expecting outsized EBITDA from your capital program in '26? And is there improved visibility into 2026 already in terms of volumes?

Yes. I think what -- I mean, when you're doing these large capital programs, and specifically in the Montney, we're seeing a lot of water from that area. A lot of our customers are trucking water 2 hours away from a specific location, and it's why we're tying in directly into their infrastructure, the geology is just very tight. And so you're seeing that there's a huge amount of water coming through and we're already talking about what they need in 2026 in terms of opportunities to continue to kind of tie into their network to avoid some of these larger trucking costs. And so that's giving us clarity that we see the volume growth out of this area being substantial. We're also seeing the growth out of Northeast BC.

I mean we had LNG Canada just started to commission and start up. And so there's going to be a lot of activity happening in Northeast BC to support some of the gas that's going to now flow into Kitimat and be operational where we're managing the waste as well for LNG Canada. And so we're seeing these markers and we're seeing what's happening in some of our facilities where the produced water volumes remain quite strong. And so I think that gives us not only that organic element, but it also gives us that same-store sales or that volume growth expectation as we head into 2026.

Your next question is from the line of Arthur Nagorny from RBC Capital Markets.

I think you mentioned in your prepared remarks that you expect a recovery in the metals recycling business towards the back end of the year. Can you maybe just parse that out a little bit more? And maybe even quantify your expectations for H2 relative to the first half of the year?

Yes, Arthur. I think that when you talk about the first half, I think we've sort of addressed the question in terms of the challenges we've had in the ferrous market. Typically, in steel production, most of the turndowns in steel production happen during the summer for summer turnarounds and they sort of clean up the mill, so to speak. So once we get through August here, and we see the mills, specifically the U.S. mills start to ramp up a bit, we'll see more demand for scrap. As Allen mentioned, with the railcars that we do have, we're seeing at least more than a handful of new mills take some of our products with intention to take even more through the back half of the year. So we'll see we'll get back to sort of the regular run rate towards the end of the year and into the first quarter of 2026. So there's some green shoots sprouting here in the metals business. And for the middle part of the year, we've just had to pivot and adjust our strategy.

Okay. And then maybe sticking on the metals recycling business. The Canadian government has recently taken steps to protect the domestic industry. I know it's still early, but can you maybe comment on what kind of market reaction you've seen to date?

I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it is still a little bit too early. We'll see the impact. We haven't -- we've yet to see the impact on the Canadian steel market. So I think we just have to leave it at that because it's still pretty early days in terms of that announcement.

Got it. And then maybe just touching on the forest fire situation a little bit more. Can you maybe quantify the impact in Q2? And is the situation in a better spot as of today? Or is it kind of similar to what we saw in Q2.

No, we're in a much better spot than we were in Q2. And just to put in perspective, none of our facilities were shut in as a result of the fires. They were just the activity levels within -- into those facilities was impacted because other customers -- our customers' volumes were cut back because they're managing their own production. So to put it in perspective, it's maybe a 5% to 10% volume impact on a week or 2 basis based on wherever the forest fires were burning, so a pretty minimal impact at the end of the day.

Got it. That's helpful. And last 1 before I jump in the queue. I know it's a smaller part of your business, but can you give us some color on how the North Dakota business is trending relative to maybe your Canadian business?

Yes. I think when prices drop, WTI prices dropped in at the beginning of Q2, there was an immediate slowdown in those facilities. But I think as we progress through the quarter, it rebounded back to sort of forecasted volumes at this point. So short-term impact at the beginning of Q2, but we're seeing regular volumes into Q3.

Your next question is from the line of Steve Hansen from Raymond James.

Just wanted to ask about the inventory levels that you're strategically holding here in the short term. How should we think about the unwind of that inventory? Is it just going to be dependent upon market conditions? Do you think it's a 3Q event or more 4Q or even into early next year, how do you think about it?

Yes. No, good question. I don't -- I'm not saying it's a strategy so much. I mean, our plan with the metal recycling facilities that we've acquired and our hub and spoke model is really about to drive efficiencies through that shredder but really to turn our inventory on a monthly basis. So if we have the Canadian mills running today at the capacity that we know they have, we would be turning that inventory. Our goal isn't to store any inventory. It's really to turn it and maintain that margin and maintain that consistency. It's really -- it's been since the tariffs have come on and we lost the Canadian market and now are shifting into the U.S. market is really just a function of timing.

So we've lowered the price that we're willing to accept scrap. And so as we see scrap coming in as we process it, we have to send this scrap into the U.S. market. The U.S. market would like to take a test load of it before they're going to agree to multiple loads, that takes a month, you got to turn the cars back and then you start shipping more ratably. And so that process just takes a bit of time. So we will likely have to hold more inventory in Q3, which then subsequently adds to margin and adds to profitability into Q4 and into Q1, which is why we're saying it could get pushed out a little bit.

Now that being said, if we get an agreement here on August 1, the Canadian mills start to ramp back up. Now -- now we've got to get all of our inventory, we could start to move very, very quickly. So there's just a variety of scenarios that could play out here. I mean we are taking the more proactive strategy of moving into the U.S. market. But if something changes in the Canadian market, that could change the outlook of Q3 and not push as much into Q4. So it's still undetermined depending on how this all plays out. But you're right, we will have a bit more inventory here as we think about Q3.

Okay. Very helpful. And just -- I know getting too specific on all this, but you disclosed that the metals business is roughly 10% of the run rate. Is there an ability to handicap on what you think the hit might have been in just the quarter on the Metals business, again, knowing the scenarios are still uncertain going forward, but just sort of give us the quarterly impact of the metals being down year-over-year, do we have a rough sense of dollar value?

I think I would say the impact was we're calling it a small amount like a couple of million maybe like it's not material. And most of the impact was in June following that increase of 25% because the Canadian mills were canceling orders. So some of those orders were in transit. And so there was a few million impact there and some of it would then get shifted into Q3, so again, we talked a little bit about the differences between '24 Q2 results and '25. Part of it was we had some storage profits on Trans Mountain last year, so that obviously boosted 2024 profits, offset by some of the things I was talking about within our volumes. So there was a few moving parts here in 2024 compared to 2025.

So pretty happy with the results in Q2 and our team being able to navigate some of these challenges that just kind of hit them. These are macro challenges that you face. It's not operational challenges.

Your next question is from the line of Konark Gupta from Scotiabank.

Just maybe to square off first on your EBITDA guidance to Michael's question perhaps in a different way. Like if you are looking at, call it, a 6% decline in the first half on EBITDA, you probably need about 14% or so in the second half growth to hit the bottom end of the range. So I mean you talked about the seasonality shifting from Q3 to Q4 this year, but it sounds like Q3 might still be better quarter than last year's Q3 and Q4 will be much stronger. Is that a fair way to characterize how things are shaping up at this point?

Yes. I mean, typically, when we go back in time, we -- after breakup in Q2, we see a lot of activity in Q3, and that's usually our high watermark for the year. Just given the acquisition -- the Metals acquisition in Q1 this year and just what we've already talked about with that expectation, we expect Q4 to be the busiest quarter of the year there. And then just with where our organic capital projects -- where we're spending the money and just when they're going to come online. Some of them -- 1 of them is going to start to contribute we hope early in Q4, which, again, just drives that number a bit higher. So you're right, we do expect a significant increase in our results in the latter half of the year. But I think that's -- that's in line with our initial expectations.

And you talked about, I think, in your prepared remarks as well as on the questions. In terms of how these projects that are coming online, the metal recycling business, maybe resetting or normalizing over time, perhaps and the capacity expansion you have been doing so far. Those all things come together in 2026. So like in a base case scenario, when you don't have more growth CapEx to spend for new projects in '26, are you expecting like what we are looking in, in the second half of this year and obviously subject to seasonality and all that, should we annualize the second half to get some sense on 2026?

Yes, Konark. Yes. So I think when we think about our organic opportunities, if I look at last year, we were around $75 million, this year we're at $125 million. I think our expectations are with some of the projects we have in the hopper, we could likely complete projects in that $80 million to $100 million in 2026. And even we're starting to work on 2027 opportunities as well. So there's always going to be this element of organic growth that is going to apply in these periods where you'll have to account for. I talked a little bit about volume growth. I mean, typically, on the produced water, we're in that 3% to 4% or emulsions in that 2%, which is very consistent when we think about the year average as to where these volumes tend to be at.

And then on top of that, we have an element where we will include pricing as well. I mean, we continue to manage inflation and pass those costs through to our customers. And so you've got an element of volume growth, you've got an element of the pricing that we're going to be able to push out and then you're going to have the organic projects that come in, if you think about 2026. I also talked a little bit in the past about it's going to take us a little bit of time to get the full realization of the metals acquisition strategy. I mean, you don't buy these businesses and day 1, all the synergies come together. We've got to reroute where we're processing some of the metals. We also want to upgrade their IT systems. We know that we have to work through the previous owner's inventory and process all that because we didn't want to pay for. We want to make sure they're getting the price that the spot market price. So those things take time to realize to fruition.

So when I think about the metals acquisition in February of this year, it's going to take us 12 to 18 months to get full run rate of where we think that facility and our overall network could get to. So you kind of -- you have to look at 2026 with all those factors in mind in terms of how you get to where that forward EBITDA looks like. But we can go offline and give you a little bit more color on that, but that's kind of the high-level assessment.

Yes. No, I think that's very helpful in terms of thinking about the drivers that shape up '26. You talked about the volumes, I think, in Q2. I think on the risk management side of things, if I aggregate your water, the waste landfill, et cetera, all the volumes are down in aggregate about 1% or so. But I think there was a forest fire impact in there as well, right? So I mean, what was your -- what do you think was your underlying volume growth in Q2 if you strip out the forest fire effects?

Yes. Konark, it's Corey. Thanks for the question. I think when we look at normalized volume growth, it's around that 3% level. And you're correct in terms of a bit flat or down on volumes in the quarter. Because again, when you have the wildfire activity and you have wetter weather, it defers a lot of work around the waste processing side, it defers a lot of the remediation reclamation projects on the landfill side. So we'll get that volume into Q3 and Q4. But the largest component of being flat in the quarter was really that turnaround that happened at the gas plant in the south of Grande Prairie which if you back that out, you normalize our water volumes without that turnaround, we'd be 3% quarter-over-quarter growth on the produced water side.

So I think we just had a bit of operational complexities and macro factors in the quarter that led to sort of that flat volume growth in the quarter.

Okay. That's helpful. And last 1 for me before I turn over. Just on the tariff side of things, I know you talked about a couple of things there. One, the steel notes are obviously having an impact from tariffs, and we don't know what's coming out of that. But at the same time, obviously, there's scrap ferrous is not subject to tariffs. Is there an opportunity to -- like besides, obviously, the U.S. market you talked about, is there an opportunity to look into the ferrous exports or ferrous demand from some of the end markets as the Canadian steel mills remain sort of in limbo for some time?

Yes, so currently, Konark, on the nonferrous side, most of the exports that we do are overseas, some through the U.S. market. With respect to exporting ferrous steel overseas, it becomes cost prohibitive to move that volume. So at this point, we're focusing on North American mills and specifically American mills, just 10 seconds until we see a recovery in the Canadian market for ferrous steel.

Your next question is from the line of John Gibson from BMO Capital Markets.

Just first, I was wondering if you could touch on pricing in your core waste management or waste processing business. Obviously you spoke positively to it in the release, and we've seen some good comps from your peers. So wondering what it was like this quarter and you see some room for growth here in the back half of the year?

So typically, on the pricing side of things, we would do an annual pricing review and start to roll that out at the beginning of Q4 for all of our customers, and we would stick to that cycle. Again, we'll start to review pricing here over the next few months and start engaging conversations with our customers, and that's just sort of the cadence that we operate at. So you can expect the same.

Okay. Great. Second 1 for me. Just wondering about the impacts of lower WTI prices on your business? And does your 2025 guide imply a bit of an uptick in commodity prices or maybe widening of differentials? Or is it sort of expectations of flattish prices here going forward?

What we use is just flattish. For now, we don't have any kind of, I'd say, expectations that are firm 1 way or the other, but just relatively flat.

Your next question is from the line of Michael Doumet from National Bank.

Look, you guys have done a lot of buybacks since 2023 with following the sale of the assets to waste connections. And I would say that not every company looks smart on a look back on large-scale buybacks. So kudos to you guys. I guess the question here is like how do we think about testing the upper limits in terms of share price for buybacks and maybe keeping something a little bit more balanced in terms of keeping some dry powder for either opportunistic purchases or M&A going forward.

Yes. Good follow-up question. I'd say on the buybacks, when we think about the SIB, we executed, we really fast forwarded a bit portion of our NCIB by doing that at what we thought was the price had just gone too low given the quality of our assets. And we continue to monitor that each quarter as to where it is. And you look at our balance sheet, we're still under levered to where our target debt to EBITDA is. So we do have that flexibility to continue to buy back the stock where we believe the intrinsic value and the multiple is higher than where it's trading at today.

So we still have a remaining amount on our NCIB, which we'll continue to pursue that through this year. But you're right, I do see potentially some M&A here where when we continue our metals strategy in terms of operational efficiencies and consolidating some of these mom and pops, I think they're going to be put in a position where you're not being able to sell to some of these Canadian mills and your only mode of transportation is trucking. I think there might be an opportunity where we should start to have some other conversations. So the dry powder you speak of, I think, would be opportunistic for us to keep some of that dry powder and as some of these potential opportunities play out in the next 6 months here.

So it will be a balance of, yes, we want to make sure we're getting the intrinsic value buying back our stock when we think it is below the value it should be trading at. But at the same time, we had some of these opportunities could come to fruition. So we want to make sure we can execute. And I think Chad did a good job here in the second quarter by increasing our credit facility and giving us a bit more capacity there. So -- and then you got to remember too, this business kicks out 50% free cash flow conversion. So we're kicking off a lot of free cash flow. It's not necessarily we're relying on debt. We're using free cash flow. So we've got lots of levers to pull here, which puts us in a great spot.

That's great. And maybe just to hit on 1 of the points there, Allen, do you think that the total addressable market for metal recycling M&A is above the previous number that you previously communicated. And I wonder if you think the multiples that you can get them at are a little bit more distressed given the situation as well.

Yes. I think it potentially could be. I mean I talked about we have potentially another $100 million more of M&A to do. That number could go a little bit higher. I do think the opportunity for us to get more value there in terms of what multiples we would have to pay given the current economic environment. I think this is truly where scale and operational capacity really plays into our favor. And so I think you're right. I think it could go that direction, and we just got to see how it all plays out here.

Your next question is from the line of Ian Gillies from Stifel.

As it pertains to M&A, is it possible -- if a trade deal isn't announced August 1 and it stretches out a little longer than we thought. Is it possible to get M&A done in this sort of environment? Or is it pens down until there's, I guess, some rules of engagement?

Yes, no, good question. I think it's almost depending on where they're located, depending on their financial situation, depending on the family dynamics. They all have their own uniquenesses and a variety of scenarios that could play out. But this has been -- we've been bumping along the bottom here for a period of time. And so I think that puts a lot of stress on a lot of these families where I think they're getting to points where they have to make decisions and -- and so I think from our perspective, we're there to work with them.

But you can only take it so far. We're not dealing with investment banks and big corporations. We're dealing with smaller mom and pops. That's just the way the Western Canadian business has operated for a number of years. So I anticipate some will get done. But again, it's just hard to predict their dynamics. And I don't know how August 1 is going to play out in terms of pushing them 1 step further, but good question.

Along the capital allocation lines as well, with the share price doing a bit better, valuation expanding, has there been any discussion yet around perhaps switching the strategy to a bit more dividend growth as you move into '26 and '27 or is it still a buyback focus in the here and now?

I think in the here and now, it's -- we're still focused on the ultimate valuation of the company and think buybacks are our best option. I think along with our Board, we continue to have that discussion and that could change, and hopefully, it does change 1 day when we feel like we're valued more appropriately, but in the short term, focused on buybacks. .

Understood. Last 1 for me. If we think about where we are now versus when you originally released guidance in December, have you -- is there any new cost optimization initiatives that have been put in place since that time that perhaps give you a bit more confidence and a bit more control over getting into the range, than you would have -- than you might have had at the time of announcement?

Yes. I think on -- on the G&A side, it's probably not -- it's not as impactful with the operations, but we have -- and we continually almost every year, look at all of our costs and where we can become more efficient. We've had a lot of organizational changes over the last few years since merging with Tervita and then divesting some assets. So -- we -- I think we've done, recently completed some initiatives there. With respect to operations, I think we're always doing that as well. But there's been nothing fundamental since putting out guidance.

The largest operational improvement that we would be doing on a regular basis is just around debottlenecking and how can we get more throughput through the same asset that we have. So it's a continual exercise that we do with the operating teams.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question is from the line of Arthur Nagorny from RBC Capital Markets.

I know a lot can change before the August 1 deadline, but as it relates to the prospective implementation of U.S. tariffs on copper, can you maybe provide some preliminary thoughts on how this might impact your metals recycling business and maybe give us some perspective on the kinds of conversations you're having with customers today?

Yes. I mean I think at the end of the day, for all of the scrap that we're dealing with in the commodities, it's really a control we can control at this point. So the conversations with the customers are really around, a, we have supply, they pay a fair price for our supply. And we don't have any insight today that things are going to change from the status quo. So I have a hard time giving you a straight answer here because I don't know anything different than what we're being told today by our suppliers plus our customers.

Yes, we do ship a lot of our nonferrous material internationally. So that opens up a lot more markets for us. So it's not so much just what the U.S. does or if there's an impact to the overall price of copper that can get factored in from an international market perspective, so that market actually could be a positive for us on some of these moves because we do deal with a lot of copper.

That's helpful. And then last 1 for me, recovered oil was a bit of a drag on revenues in the Waste Management segment. Can you give us some perspective on what that looked like in the quarter? And can you remind us what the EBITDA margins look like in that business line?

Yes. Like I think when we look at recovered oil, we're recovering waste, we're processing waste and recovering oil all the time. I think when you look at Q2 of 2024, oil was USD 80 WTI. This second quarter was $63. So the impact -- the impact is minimal in terms of overall contribution to our bottom line. When you look at the margins, we were -- adjusted EBITDA margin of 31%. We go through our history, Q2 is always a bit of a softer margin. I think this year, we're still projecting 33% margins for the 20, 25 years, so kind of right on track to where we target. So as Chad mentioned, we've kind of just kept price flat as we think about the forecast. We're not here to predict where WTI goes. We're here to ensure where the volumes need to be processed and what we think our expectations are through Q3 and Q4. So -- so I guess I would leave you with we're thinking our margins will be on track at 33% for 2025.

There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call over to Allen Gransch for closing comments. Sir, please go ahead.

Well, thank you for your time today and the robustness of all the questions. That was great. We thank you and your continued support of SECURE, and we look forward to sharing our third quarter results in October.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you very much for your participation. You may now disconnect.