Flotek Doubled Revenue and Raised Guidance a Third Time — the Stock Is Still 36% Off Its August High
A blowout quarter, two vanished power contracts, and a chemistry business in Saudi Arabia that the tape has not yet decided to believe
FTK · Earnings Call · 2026-11-04
A quarter that outran its own share price
Flotek's third quarter of 2026 is, on the printed numbers, the best quarter this company has produced in twelve years. Total revenue crossed $114 million, more than double the prior-year period, with both the data analytics and chemistry segments growing 104%. Adjusted EBITDA rose 87% to $19.5 million. Management pushed full-year revenue guidance to $382–390 million and EBITDA to $59–62 million — the third increase this year. That is a revenue trajectory that went from $48M a quarter in 2023 to $99M in the June quarter and then to $114M in September, and the operating leverage is finally showing: G&A fell to 7% of revenue from 13% a year earlier, the lowest in at least a decade.
The tape disagrees. Flotek sits roughly 36% below its August 11 high of $38.82, and the last 90 trading days have produced a net gain of only about 5%. At 2.9x revenue, the stock is still valued as a growth asset, not a services company. The company delivered; the multiple did the talking.
Two revenue streams quietly left the building
This is where the report gets interesting, because the growth is real *despite* two of last quarter's headline power opportunities falling away.
First, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was the marquee item on the August call, when the CEO described a pipeline "well over $1 billion" and a contract tied to the PREPA grid. On this call, in response to a question, Ryan Ezell explained that the award unwound after a consortium partner failed to post a performance bond, killing the conditioning work Flotek had attached to it. The keyword record tracks that arc precisely — PREPA was one of the company's fastest-rising terms last quarter and is now among its largest momentum decliners.
They are still in dire need for the power They are working at a power deficit as a country. there is 200 thousand people a day without electricity. They reach out to us on a regular basis asking us. However, you know, there has to be some type of contractual construct. We cannot just ship you know, the assets down there and take that kind of risk on.
Second, Montana. The power services contract there expired in September, and the CFO was explicit that guidance carries none of it: “we are again assuming no fourth quarter revenue related to our power services contract in Montana in our guidance. We continue to evaluate options for additional work beyond the initial term which expired in September.” — J. Bond Clement, Chief Financial Officer · 2026-11-04 That is a revenue line that ran at roughly $6 million a quarter in 2026, gone, and the company raised guidance anyway. Read that as the single most bullish fact on the call.
The chemistry engine nobody is pricing
Set against those losses, the international chemistry business went vertical. International revenue hit $28.4 million, about 25% of the consolidated total versus 4% a year ago — a twelvefold increase — and year-to-date international chemistry stands at $40.8 million against $10 million in the prior-year period. Full-year international chemistry should land near $70 million.
This is a company-unique story with no obvious read-through in the global theme tape. It also has a clean sequential arc that management has been telegraphing for three quarters. In May, the tone was damage control: “International business was extremely light in Q1 due to logistics delays.” — Ryan Ezell, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-05-06 By Q2 the tone flipped, and now Ezell frames it as pure land-grab: “International piece is a 100% been mostly share gain.” — Ryan Gillis Ezell, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-11-04 The vector is Saudi Arabia's Jafurah unconventionals, where Flotek sits on multiple frac fleets with room to add stages, plus optionality in the UAE and Latin America.
That chemistry mix is the reason gross margin optics look superficially weak. Gross margin printed 24% in Q2 and held at 24% in Q3, down from 32% a year ago — but the prior-year figure contained an $8.7 million order shortfall payment with no associated cost. Strip it out and the current quarter is roughly 400 basis points better, driven by high-margin data analytics at 68% segment gross margin.
The power skid business, and the AI-adjacent trade that unwound
Here is the confluence worth watching. Flotek's data center adjacency is no longer a slide — of 41 PowerTech skids in service, roughly 25 to 28 sit with ProFrac, while 13 to 15 have migrated to utilities, power generation and preliminary data center work. The company expects to add another gigawatt of support by Q1 2027, taking it to almost 6 gigawatts of behind-the-meter power, a figure that has compounded from "almost 5 gigawatts" a quarter ago.
But the market's AI-power complex is in outright liquidation. Over the last 30 days, AI data center exposure is among the worst-performing theme clusters on the tape, with more than 50 decliners against a handful of advancers, and demand for power has been a persistent 360-day laggard. Flotek sells into that value chain without being valued as a member of it, which is either the opportunity or the trap.
The offsetting evidence is in the recurring-revenue line. Data-as-a-Service now accounts for “almost 80% of data analytics revenues derived from Data-as-a-Service offerings making a milestone in the company's transformation” — Ryan Gillis Ezell, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-11-04, and digital valuation devices deployed passed 135 against a 150-unit full-year target. The new EPA approval for flare-vent-gas measurement at refineries is a genuine option on a $40 million addressable market that the company did not have last quarter.
What to watch
Two things. First, cash. Free cash flow was negative $8 million in the June quarter while effective net cash sits at roughly negative $46 million, and management has now committed to a further $15–20 million of 2027 capex on top of ~$15 million this year. Leverage under 1x on guided EBITDA buys patience, but not indefinitely.
Second, the skid fleet. Ezell claims “our plans in the 2025 is to build a fleet that would match our potential wins that we are having built in our CRM system. With probably about a 25% excess” — Ryan Gillis Ezell, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-11-04 — a rare admission that a quarter of the capital plan is speculative capacity rather than contracted backlog. Last quarter the language was about measurement winning acceptance; this quarter it's about being able to say yes when the phone rings. That shift, from proving technology to buying inventory, is the real change in this report.