Q4 2023 Century Aluminum Co Earnings Call
Participants
Ryan Crawford; Financial Planning & Analysis and Investor Relations Manager; Century Aluminum Co
Jesse Gary; President, Chief Executive Officer and Director; Century Aluminum Co
Gerald Bialek; Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer; Century Aluminum Co
Lucas Pipes; Analyst; B. Riley Securities
John Tumazos; Analyst; Very Independent Research
Presentation
Operator
Good afternoon, and thank you for attending the Century Aluminum Company Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings conference call. My name is Matt and I will be your moderator for today's call. (Operator Instructions)
I will now pass the conference over to our host, Ryan Crawford with Century Aluminum. Brian, please go ahead.
Ryan Crawford
Thank you, operator.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the conference call. I'm joined here today by Jesse Gary, Century's President and Chief Executive Officer; Jerry Bialek, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Peter Trpkovski, Senior Vice President of Finance and Treasurer.
After our prepared comments, we will take your questions. As a reminder, today's presentation is available on our website at www.centuryaluminum.com. We use our website as a means of disclosing material information about the company, and for complying with Regulation FD.
Turning to slide 1, please take a moment to review the cautionary statements shown here, with respect to forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures contained in today's discussion. And with that, I'll hand the call to Jesse.
Jesse Gary
Thanks, Ryan. Thanks to everyone for joining. I'll start today by quickly reviewing our 2023 performance before turning to the current macroenvironment and the dynamic operating conditions we are working through in Q1.
Jerry will then take you through the details of the fourth quarter results and Q1 outlook, and then I'll finish with an update on the Inflation Reduction Act, potential further benefits that we expect to receive.
Turning to slide 3. Market conditions remained volatile last year, reflecting a seemingly new normal we have experienced post-COVID where a broadly balanced global supply and demand picture for aluminum is paired with historically low levels of inventories. Tight global inventories, along with rising and dynamic geopolitical tensions, has created a market where small changes in market conditions are driving outsized effects on aluminum prices.
Despite this continued volatility, Century produced adjusted EBITDA of $120 million in 2023, including $57 million of adjusted EBITDA in Q4, reflecting the impact of our 2023 Inflation Reduction Act advanced manufacturing credit. Jerry will give you the full details here in a bit.
Our team completed several strategic projects last year, including the acquisition of our 55% share in Jamalco, completing our long-held ambitions to secure captive supply of high-quality alumina and bauxite for our smelters to create a more balanced, consistent, and robust operational footprint, and better position us to deliver strong performance through commodity cycles. Returning this asset to its full potential will continue to be one of our main priorities in 2024.
Finally, we continue to focus on our most important priority -- to return our employees home safely at the end of each and every day. While we will never be satisfied until we achieve zero workplace injuries, our teams should be proud to have reduced injuries by 20% over 2022 levels. We hope to significantly improve on this trend in the coming year.
Market conditions for Century's businesses continue to reflect uncertain macroeconomic conditions in much of the world. As you can see on slide 4, global supply and demand remain roughly balanced and global inventories remain near all-time lows. The driving forces behind these balanced markets, however, are much more dynamic than years past and reflect the complexity of the current market supply was largely because it's constrained over the past year from China growth was limited by their 45 million ton capacity cap and continued curtailments in UNICON and surrounding provinces. Western supply also remained challenged over the past year by a difficult demand picture that ultimately led to the curtailment of two more western smelters in noise, Germany and New Madrid, Missouri, a bit further, East Russian metal continues to be disfavored in Western markets where Russian metal today constitutes 90% of all LME inventories. There have been increasing calls for Russian aluminum sanctions in the EU and US following the initial implementation of a 200% tariff on Russian products into the U.S. and an EU ban on certain downstream Russian aluminum products into the EU.
On the demand side, Western world demand appears to have reached a low in Q3, driven by continued destocking across downstream users and challenging EU industrial growth. The market saw increased demand in Q4, and we now expect an improved and growing Western demand equation in 2024. Overall, we expect that Western demand will return to its long-term growth rates as falling interest rates and improve GDP growth returns to the US and EU markets and inflation Reduction Act and similar spending programs in the EU and elsewhere continue to drive increased aluminum demand in automotive and renewable energy applications. The largest demand-side story in 2023, however, was the strength of the Chinese market where we saw Chinese demand growth of 5% in 2023 and expect to see similarly high growth rates this year. We estimate that the Chinese market imported about 1.3 million tons of non-Chinese production last year, and we expect that to expand further as this year.
Chinese demand growth has been driven by the broad macro trends we have long expected, namely in aluminum intensive electric vehicles and renewable energy applications. We expect demand growth in these areas to continue to accelerate this year, both in China and the U.S. As we've discussed over the course of the past year. Fill demand in the US and Europe has been a relatively weak point in the market as post pandemic destocking continued and increased imports of extrusions into both markets, decreased domestic demand due to the annual contract structure built in the US, we were somewhat insulated from this downturn in 2023 by higher annual contract prices set in late 2022. Unfortunately, demand conditions for billets in both the US and Europe remained weak in Q4 and into Q1 of this year, which created a headwind in our 2024 billet contract negotiations and lead to lower pricing that we expect will impact our Q1 results by around $10 million from Q4 levels. Despite these near-term headwinds, we continue to anticipate very constructive long-term billet demand trends in both the US and Europe as automotive, lightweighting and renewable energy applications drive increasing aluminum consumption. We expect this trend to support significant long-term demand expansion for primary aluminum billet and slab in the EU and U.S. In addition, as you can see on slide 7, we expect that the pending US antidumping countervailing duty trade case against extrusion imports from 14 countries will have a significantly positive impact on domestic U.S. build demand beginning in the second half of 2024. In August, the U.S. aluminum extrusion industry filed suit alleging dumping and illegal subsidies by countries constituting over 68% of extrusion imports and over 27% of total U.S. extrusion demand. The US International Trade Commission has already determined. There's an indication of material injury to the US industry. And in March and May of this year, the U.S. Department of Commerce is expected to rule on the preliminary implementation of anti-dumping and countervailing duties against the subject of imports. If implemented, the duties wouldn't immediately go into effect and are expected to have a material impact on the U.S. extrusion and billet market. This is an example when antidumping duties were first placed on aluminum extrusions from China and 2011 imports to subject extrusions from China immediately dropped to almost zero due to the significant relief provided by the antidumping and countervailing duties and the domestic industry accordingly took back significant market share. We would expect a similar impact from this case if duties are leveled in March and May, meaning that 27% of domestic extrusion demand currently met by the imports would have to be served by increased U.S. increasing production and a corresponding increase in USD demand. While we are not direct participants in the case, we have reviewed the case in detail and believe it is strong on the merits. If successful, the AD/CVD duties would benefit spot billet premiums in the second half of 2024, and we have accordingly less more of our second half billet volumes open to potentially benefit from the higher pricing environment. The AD/CVD duties would remain in place for at least five years, driving increased USD demand across the period and beyond.
Turning to operations, we saw a strong and stable performance across our smelters in Q4 of the Jamalco refinery continued to recover from the energy related disruptions suffered in late September. We now expect that some of the production and cost efficiencies that we had expected to Jamalco in Q1 will instead begin in Q2 in Iceland, a relatively dry and cold winter has led to water levels in the nation's hydro scheme falling below normal levels. And the energy companies have accordingly issued partial curtailment orders across certain industrial customers, including our on the smelter. These curtailments first began in early December and are expected to reduce current Integrys energy consumption by approximately 20 megawatts, about 3% of our total load. We expect that the curtailment will finish by the end of April, but this remains subject to weather patterns and reservoir levels in Iceland. Based on the scheduled curtailment in date, we expect the curtailments will reduce wintertime use 2024 production by approximately 3,500 metric tons. This impact is included in our Q. one and full year volume guidance. It also impacted our Q4 production levels and you can see the impact in the volume column on our bridge on Page 9, finishing out the energy picture, energy prices in the US have generally been constructive, driven by mostly moderate winter and natural gas prices near term and nationwide. Mid January cold snap did drive about a week of very high US power prices, which we expect to have a negative impact of about $5 million in Q1. Other than this week, a very cold weather power prices have been very constructive and the power price forwards have fallen significantly since the cold snap reflecting the low natural gas price.
On the raw materials side, we've begun to see many of our raw material imports begin to return towards historical pre-pandemic price levels with cold hedge and caustic soda prices. We've been most significantly downward over the past couple of months due to our contractual and physical inventory lags. The benefits of these price decreases will take some time to roll through our results, which Jerry will give you a bit more detail on.
We do expect coke prices, especially to continue to moderate further over the course of this year.
Finally, in light of the currently suppressed demand environment, we've implemented a new cost control program designed to lower our spending. While aluminum prices remain depressed. We, of course, have executed similar programs in the past, and we are confident that we will be able to reduce costs and also our cash spending during this period. Gary is leading this initiative for us and we'll provide you with the details in light of this environment and long supply chains. We continue to work on our Mount Holly restart plans, but do not expect that we will have any significant capital or cash requirements for the restart over the course of 2024.
Carrie will now walk you through the quarter and our Q1 outlook. Thank you.
Gerald Bialek
Jessie.
Let's turn to Slide 8 to review fourth quarter results. On a consolidated basis, fourth quarter global shipments were nearly 174,000 tons, up 1% sequentially realized prices, however, decreased substantially versus prior quarter, due primarily to significantly lower lagged LME prices and delivery premiums, resulting in net sales of $512 million, a 6% decrease sequentially.
Looking at Q4 operating results, adjusted EBITDA attributable to Sentry was $57 million, an improvement of $40 million compared with the third quarter during the period we recorded a full year benefit of 59 million related to the inflation Reduction Act advanced manufacturing credit Section 45 times adjusted net income was 40 million or $0.39 per share. And the major adjusting items are add-backs of 7 million in costs related to the Jamalco equipment failure, 3 million for the unrealized impacts of forward contracts and 1 million for share-based compensation. We had strong liquidity of 312 million at the end of the quarter, consisting of 89 million in cash and 223 million available on our credit facilities.
Turning to slide 9, to explain the $48 million fourth quarter sequential improvement in adjusted EBITDA in total adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $57 million. Realized lagged LME prices and delivery premiums were significantly lower in the quarter, realized LME of $2,182 per ton was down $55 versus prior quarter, while realized U.S. Midwest premium of $425 per ton was down $68 and European delivery premium of $280 per ton was down $44. Together, these factors amounted to a 19 million headwind in the quarter. Power cost increased by $1 million realized alumina cost was $382 per tonne, $13 lower on a sequential basis, realized copper prices decreased 9% and REALIZE pitch prices decreased 5%. Remember there is a three to four month lag for alumina coke and pitch costs to work through our income statement. Together, alumina and other raw material costs resulted in a 14 million improvement in EBITDA volume, OpEx and premiums and mix were headwinds of 2,000,003 million, respectively. And as I said earlier, during the period, we recorded a full year benefit of 59 million related to the higher rate advanced manufacturing credits. For additional clarity, the E credit was calculated as 10% of production costs incurred, excluding direct and indirect material costs. No, the Department of Treasury is still considering including direct and indirect material as eligible costs. Jesse will elaborate further in his closing remarks.
With that, let's turn to Slide 10 for a look at cash flow. We began the quarter with $93 million in cash and then December was $89 million. Capital expenditures totaled $30 million 22 million of which relates to the Grundartangi casthouse project. Semi-annual interest payments were $13 million and net debt repayments were $30 million. Working capital and other items contributed 68 million. We continue to maintain our focus on optimizing working capital. But as I mentioned last quarter, some of these savings are related to the timing of material flows, which may reverse in subsequent quarters.
Let's turn to slide 11, and I'll give you some insight into our expectations for the first quarter of 2020. For 4Q one, the lagged LME of $2,190 per ton is expected to be up about $8 versus Q4. Realized prices. The one lagged US Midwest premium is forecast to be $416 per ton, down $9. European delivery premium is expected at $222 per ton are down about $58 per ton versus the fourth quarter, but we have seen improvement in EDPP. in recent weeks with pricing earlier this week at nearly $250 per ton Taken together the LME and delivery premium changes are expected to decrease Q1 EBITDA by approximately 2 million versus Q4 levels. We expect power prices to be flat quarter over quarter despite a $5 million negative impact from the January cold snap.
Looking at our key raw materials lagged realized alumina cost is expected to be about flat. We expect a favorable impact from lower coke and pitch prices. Caustic soda prices are trending down, as I'd like to remind you that it takes five to six months for caustic spot prices to flow through our P&L all in, we expect lower raw material costs to contribute five to $10 million to EBITDA. The weak billet demand has driven value added premiums down. We therefore expect about a $10 million VAT impact to EBITDA. In Q1, we expect volume to be a slight headwind given the power curtailment imposed and our Grundartangi facility. Finally, we expect OpEx to contribute 5 million EBITDA in Q1. As Jesse highlighted in his opening comments, we have developed a robust playbook aimed at navigating the current demand landscape by effectively managing costs and preserving cash flow. We actively identify areas for efficiency, enhancement, exercise, prudence in discretionary expenditures and diligently pursue cost reduction initiatives, all in pursuit of establishing a sustainable and financially sound operational framework. All factors considered our outlook for Q1 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in a range of between five to $15 million. From a hedge impact standpoint, we expect no impact in the first quarter. As we have very limited hedges in place, we expect tax expense of approximately zero to $5 million. As a reminder, both of these items fall below EBITDA and impact adjusted net income.
Now referring to Slide 17. For full year 2020 for financial assumptions, we expect shipments to be flat compared to 2023 in line with our objective to conserve cash. We are managing spending very deliberately. We do expect to invest approximately 10 to 15 million in sustaining CapEx and about 10 to 15 million in Jamalco In addition, investment of approximately 15 to 20 million remains on our rice and KSS project, which will be funded in Q1 from our dedicated recruiter can die cast house credit facility the impact of the hedge book will vary with market conditions throughout the year, but to assist with anticipating these impacts on a go-forward basis, we have updated our previously reviewed financial hedge landscape, which can be found on page 19 and the index note, we have no remaining Nord Pool exposure in 2024.
And now I'll turn the call back back over to Jesse.
Ryan Crawford
Thanks, Terry. If you turn to page 12, I'd like to finish with some additional discussion regarding Section 45 X and our expected benefits thereunder. As we discussed in December host regulations higher by many aspects of the law. But treasury asked for comments on our auditors was specifically highlighting the important role the critical minerals like aluminum play in the renewable energy and energy storage industry. First and foremost, the proposed regulations confirmed the application of Section 45 X just essentially all of Century's primary aluminum production in the United States, the proposed regulations, but also clarified that eligible costs that qualify for the 10% credit are to be construed broadly to include all costs incurred by the producer in the production of the critical minerals other than certain direct and indirect material costs. Importantly, the Treasury Department also specifically notes that it is still considering adding direct and indirect material costs as eligible costs under Section 45 times and requested comments regarding how such costs should be treated for purposes of the critical minerals tax credit we are discussing with Treasury the essential nature of these materials and the significant associated costs as indeed it would not be possible to produce U.S. aluminum without materials like alumina and carbon anodes. Our position is in line with the broad set of industry participants ranging from the critical mineral producers to our downstream customers, including automotive companies seeking to ensure stable domestic supply chains. Overall, there seems to be broad consensus amongst industry and consumers. Such costs should be eligible for the tax credit, and we are very hopeful that they will ultimately be included as eligible costs.
Importantly, Senator Manchin along with several of his colleagues recently submitted comments to Treasury, knowing that their intent is drafters was for the direct and indirect material costs to be eligible and they called on treasury to expeditiously revise the regulations accordingly, if direct and indirect material costs are ultimately added, that's eligible costs under 45 times, we would expect to recognize an additional annual benefit of 50 to $55 million for 2023 and similar annual amounts for 2024. And going forward, any potential increases in future production would also be eligible for the production tax credit and would be expected to increase our annual benefit on a roughly pro rata basis to the amount of increased production. We will continue to update you as we receive more guidance from the Treasury Department. We look forward to your questions today, and we'll turn the call over now to the operator.
Question and Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions)
Lucas Pipes, B. Riley.
Lucas Pipes
Thank you very much, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. My first question is following up on the on the 45 X commentary. And specifically, I understand there is a there's a process for the review of the direct and indirect costs and including that and the benefit but wondering if you could maybe elaborate on kind of what the process looks like from here and what's the potential time line? What is the IRS looking for to make a determination on those.
Jesse Gary
Thank you very much for Lucas.
So first of all, I'd just like to say we're very thankful for the program. And the proposed regulations clearly have a material benefit for Sentry and also for U.S. aluminum production.
And to your point on process, we are working with Treasury on the proposed regulations, which, as I mentioned in my comments, included several questions for industry and other participants about which car should be included as eligible. And there's obviously been a lot of support coming in from industry and also from some of the drafters of the bill, which is obviously important and to the ultimate intent of the law. And so we do think there's good potential for more benefit to come, but it will obviously depend on on the process. So these regulations, as we call them, are proposed regulations and the process will be there. So a comment period and which a number of comments have already been submitted and there also will be hearings. And then after that, Treasury and the IRS will take that feedback back. And we'll also not issue the notice of proposed regulation or set of final regulations, there's no prescribed time line there. And so we'll just have to wait and see when we see the next set of proposed or final regulations.
Lucas Pipes
Thank you. And I'm remembered right. Some of the hearings are tomorrow and do you have a view on what you know when the comment period might close?
Jesse Gary
Yes, the initial comment period is already closed, Lucas, and the hearing is, in fact tomorrow.
Lucas Pipes
Very helpful. Thank you. And then I wanted to ask about Hawesville. I'm curious kind of if you could share your views on where that asset could sit on the US cost curve with lower energy prices more broadly with the 45 credit, there was a recent announcement about a curtailment of a smelter in the Midwest. So kind of curious on what it might be similar or different in will compare to that asset idled or maybe again, more broadly on the cost curve.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Jesse Gary
Sure, Lucas.
Good question.
Yes.
So we were very saddened to see the announcement that the New Madrid smelter in New Madrid, Missouri closed earlier this year. And but obviously, each and every smelter in the US has its own mix of costs and circumstances. And it's difficult to really make broad generalizations or comparisons across them.
With respect to Hawesville, specifically, we have obviously seen and power prices in the Midwest return towards attractive levels, mainly driven by the low price of natural gas, but also as additional renewable energy is built in the grid, and it's actually quite rewarding to see just how green the overall Midwest power environment has become. And so with respect to Hawesville, specifically, I think as we've said before, it will be a holistic decision based on many factors. Obviously, the power price situation is helpful. And when we have final guidance on the IRA credits. That will also be very helpful towards making that decision. And but we'll evaluate all factors at the time, including in our corporate allocation, capital power supply, LME outlook and restart costs. Of course, our first priority and as I said before, will be restarting and Mount Holly, as I mentioned, we continue to work on that and I make some progress Thank you very much for that.
Lucas Pipes
I'll trying to squeeze one quick one in on on Jamalco. First, could you provide some color as to the contributions of Jamalco to Q. one EBITDA on an attributable basis and then the 10 to 15 million CapEx for 2024, is that kind of a good steady-state number for your for your interest in the assets.
Thank you.
Jesse Gary
And so obviously, as we continue to work on Jamalco and bringing it back to its full potential, which, as I've said before, we're quite confident over time we will return the asset to producing in the second quartile of the global cost curve. And but we did have a few headwinds in Q4 and into QQ. one when I said, there were some delays in the restoration of some of the high-efficiency boilers, and we continue to have a little instability and coming out of the energy related disruptions. We had towards the end of Q3. And so we now expect some of those production and cost efficiencies that we have previously talked about to be achieved in Q2 rather than Q1 and but we do expect Jamalco to be roughly breakeven on an EBITDA basis in Q1. Obviously, there's some some of the quarter to go still. And then as we see the production efficiency improvements take hold.
Ryan Crawford
We think that EBITDA generation will improve in Q2 and beyond.
I'm sorry. And then your CapEx to your CapEx question, Lucas, and I guess 10 to 15 reflects some of those restoration projects that we have in place and the powerhouse that we've talked about before. And so there's a little bit of mix of investment and sustaining CapEx in there, Lucas. So we'll just have to watch that, and we'll continue to guide you as we go forward.
On the CapEx breakdown in future periods, I really appreciate all the color, and I'll turn it over.
Lucas Pipes
Best of luck.
Ryan Crawford
Thank you, Lucas.
Operator
Thank you for your question.
John Tumazos, Very Independent Research.
John Tumazos
Thank you. We're at a spot natural gas well under $2 in the Henry Hub recently $0.025 panel or long term electricity prices behaving have long term prices falling. Is this an opportune time to contract wind or solar renewable energy from Mount Holly for CBRE? Super. And if there ever was a time to think about Hawesville, I would think that's when natural gas and so on.
Sorry.
Jesse Gary
Thanks, John. Good question. Unfortunately, natural gas isn't quite through yet. The latest agree that would be a good environment and there's a few things going on in your question. So I'm and Midwest and US power prices generally and all frankly, aside the cold snap we had in January they have been very constructive and both back half of last year and now certainly in the first quarter of this year, putting aside that brief week of very cold weather and you've got the range right? You've seen them trading with low gas prices in the high 20s and low 30s over the balance of 2024. And you have seen the near part of the curve come in and reduce back towards sort of pre-pandemic levels and in the Midwest.
On the renewable side, however, you continue to see renewable supply chains be very stretched and renewable prices remained well above pre-pandemic pricing levels for renewables. So it's pretty dynamic out there. That's a lot of things going on. It's kind of hard to make broad generalizations of the overall energy environment. But certainly it is a bit more constructive for CBRE as we continue to operate there.
John Tumazos
If I can ask another with your 5% demand growth estimate for last year from China. Does that mean Chinese exports?
Jesse Gary
So last year?
John Tumazos
Yes.
Jesse Gary
When you look at and you can sort of take a broader look and look at imports level, we saw about a million, 1.3 million tons of aluminum going into China. So the window was certainly open for most of the year and largely that was based on very strong demand for EVs and renewable energy applications within within China.
And so then your corresponding question on exports is a bit more complex because you did see a lot of that demand go into and not semis exports, which are easier to track, but more complete and downstream demand applications. And it's a bit harder to say exactly, but what we can see is that the drivers are those long-term demand drivers for aluminum we've long talked about, which is increasing aluminum intensity in electric vehicles and increasing aluminum intensity and renewable energy and renewable energy transmission applications.
John Tumazos
Thank you.
Jesse Gary
Thanks, John.
Operator
Thank you for your question. There are currently no further questions registered. (Operator Instructions)
There are no additional questions waiting at this time. So I'll pass the call back to the management team for any closing remarks.
Jesse Gary
Okay. Thanks, everyone, for joining and we look forward to talking to you after Q1 through.
Operator
That concludes the conference call and thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
