Methanex Corporation (NASDAQ:MEOH) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Methanex Corporation (NASDAQ:MEOH) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 1, 2024
Methanex Corporation isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Good morning. My name is Dennis, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Methanex Corporation 2023 Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference call over to the Director of Investor Relations at Methanex, Ms. Sarah Herriott. Please go ahead, Ms. Herriott.
Sarah Herriott: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2023 results conference call. Our 2023 fourth quarter news release, management’s discussion and analysis and financial statements can be accessed from the reports tab of the Investor Relations page on our website at methanex.com. I would like to remind our listeners that our comments and answers to your questions today may contain forward-looking information. This information, by its nature, is subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause the stated outcome to differ materially from the actual outcome. Certain material factors or assumptions were applied in drawing the conclusions for making the forecasts or projections, which are included in the forward-looking information.
Please refer to our fourth quarter 2023 MD&A and our 2022 annual report for more information. I would also like to caution our listeners that any projections provided today regarding Methanex’s future financial performance are effective as of today’s date. It is our policy not to comment on or update this guidance between quarters. For clarification, any references to revenue, EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, cash flow, adjusted income, or adjusted earnings per share, made in today’s remarks reflects our 63.1% economic interest in the Atlas facility, our 50% economic interest in the Egypt facility, and our 60% interest in Waterfront Shipping. In addition, we report our adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income to exclude the mark-to-market impact on share-based compensation and the impact of certain items associated with specific identified events.
These items are non-GAAP measures and ratios that do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP and, therefore, unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. We report these non-GAAP measures in this way, because we believe they’re a better measure of underlying operating performance and we encourage analysts covering the company to report their estimates in this manner. I would now like to turn the call over to Methanex’s President and CEO, Mr. Rich Sumner, for his comments and a question-and-answer period.
Rich Sumner: Thank you, Sarah, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today as we discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results. I’m excited to report that the G3 plant is in the process of starting up, and we expect that commercial production is imminent. G3 significantly increases our cash flow generation capability and has one of the lowest emission intensity profiles in the industry. We’re extremely proud of our global team for safely delivering this high-quality addition to our asset portfolio. Turning to our results for the fourth quarter. Our average realized price of $322 per tonne and produced sales of approximately 1.7 million tonnes, generated adjusted EBITDA of $148 million and adjusted net income of $0.52 per share.
Adjusted EBITDA was higher compared to the third quarter due to the higher average realized price and higher produced sales. Our global team has delivered a strong year of operating results with production of 6.6 million equity tonnes. For the full year 2023, we recorded adjusted EBITDA of $622 million and adjusted net income of $153 million or $2.25 per share. We estimate that global methanol demand increased in 2023 to approximately 91 million tonnes. Through the fourth quarter, market conditions strengthened with increased demand primarily in China outpacing and increasing supply, leading to a drawdown on inventories and increasing methanol prices. Global methanol demand grew by over 3% compared to the third quarter with significantly improved operating rates in methanol-to-olefins and growth in traditional demand in China.
Outside of China, demand for traditional and energy applications remained relatively stable. We estimate MTO operating rates have increased from low-70%s in Q3 to mid-80%s in Q4, driven by the completion of planned downstream expansions and an improvement in affordability during the quarter. On the supply side, production increased from coal-based producers in China, which was offset by planned and unplanned outages in the U.S., Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, as well as lower production from natural gas restrictions in Iran and China. Coal pricing in China was steady during the fourth quarter, ranging from around RMB950 to RMB1,000 per tonne. We currently estimate the marginal cost of production to be between RMB280 and RMB300 per tonne based on current coal pricing in China.
Overall, continued high energy pricing, low global inventories, and tightening supply-demand balances led to higher pricing throughout the fourth quarter and into the first quarter. Our February posted prices in North America, Asia-Pacific, and China were posted at $570, $390, and $360 per metric tonne, respectively. And our first quarter European price was posted at €525 per tonne, an increase from Q4 of €150. Based on our January and February posted prices, we estimate our global average realized price to be approximately $335 to $345 per metric tonne for these 2 months. Looking forward, we expect 2024 demand growth rates to be similar to 2023 based on current global economic forecasts. Supply additions in 2024 include our G3 plant, a plant in Malaysia which is expected to startup in the second half of the year, and some limited new capacity in China.
We expect to see increased supply from these new capacity additions to be partially offset by the rationalization of existing supply. Production in Trinidad will be lowered by approximately 1 million tonnes annually beginning in September 2024, when we shut down Atlas and restart Titan, and we continue to monitor our competitors’ operating rates in Trinidad and other factors globally that could further impact supply such as the announced gas diversion from methanol to LNG in Equatorial Guinea. Beyond 2024, we expect to see continued methanol demand growth and do not see any meaningful supply additions outside of China for the next few years. Looking at long-term demand drivers, ship orders for dual-fueled methanol vessels accelerated at a rapid rate in 2023.
This was the first year that orders for dual-fueled methanol vessels, outpaced LNG-powered ships, and the current order book for methanol vessels would result in over 250 ships being on the water by the end of 2028. The momentum for methanol as a marine fuel is clearly very strong, and we believe that methanol demand into marine applications will depend on a number of factors, including availability of low-carbon methanol, including green methanol, marine fuel regulations, and the cost competitiveness of methanol versus other fuels. Our low carbon solutions team is in discussions with multiple shipping companies on how we can supply them with methanol as these ships start to come on the water in the 2025 to 2028 period. In the fourth quarter, we had higher production with no scheduled turnarounds and both Chile plants operating at full rates with gas from Argentina.
The Egypt plant had an unplanned outage in mid-October due to a mechanical failure in the synthesis gas compressor. The unit was sent to its manufacturer in Germany for repair and I’m happy to report that it’s now back on site and we expect the plant to be able to startup in the first half of February. The G3 plant is in the process of starting up and we expect that commercial production is imminent. We expect the plant to ramp up to full rates over the month of February. I want to thank the project team who worked tirelessly to deliver this high quality project safely. And we expect the total capital cost to come within the budget of $1.25 billion to $1.3 billion. In 2024, we have one planned turnaround scheduled. Our forecasted production for 2024 is approximately 8.1 million equity tonnes, although actual production may vary by quarter based on timing of turnarounds, gas availability, unplanned outages, and unanticipated events.
In Chile, both plants are currently operating at full rates with gas deliveries from Argentina. We estimate production for 2024 will be between 1.1 to 1.2 million tonnes, which is underpinned by year-round natural gas supply from Chile for about 30% to 35% of our requirements with the remaining 60% to 65% from Argentina during the non-winter period, allowing us to operate both plants at full rates. Natural gas development and related infrastructure investments in Argentina continues to progress, and we’re working with our natural gas suppliers on extending the period of full gas availability to our plants. In New Zealand, we’re expecting lower gas deliveries and lower production in 2024 of 1 to 1.1 million tonnes. 2024 natural gas supply is expected to be impacted by a combination of our suppliers’ planned infrastructure maintenance outages, as well as lower than expected output from existing wells.
While upstream investment has been made by our gas suppliers in New Zealand over the past few years, recent production results have been lower than originally expected, which has contributed to the revised forecast for lower production in 2024. We ended the fourth quarter in a strong financial position with $451 million of cash and $300 million of undrawn backup liquidity. Our capital priorities are to pay the remaining G3 capital of approximately $60 million to $110 million in the first 2 quarters of 2024 and to repay rather than refinance the $300 million bond due at the end of 2024. Moving forward, we expect to generate strong free cash flow with limited maintenance capital and higher production capability with G3 operating. Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2024, we’re expecting slightly higher adjusted EBITDA with a higher realized price and similar produced sales as we will be building produced inventory with the G3 startup and the Egypt restart.
With G3 expected to ramp up the full rates over the month of February, we expect the second quarter of 2024 to be more representative of our run rate production and cash generation capability. Our priorities for 2024 are to deliver strong operational results from our assets and supply chain, maintain a strong balance sheet including the repayment of debt, and return excess cash to shareholders. We would now be happy to answer questions.
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