Century Aluminum Co (CENX) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Good afternoon. Thank you for attending today's Century Aluminum Company fourth quarter 2024 Ernie's conference call. My name is Jaylen. I'll be a moderator for today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call, with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. And I'd like to turn the conference over to our host, Ryan Crawford. Ryan, you may proceed.

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 Beilich, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Peter Tripakovsky, 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 means of disclosing material information about the company and for complying with regulation fd turning to slide one 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 thanks ryan and thanks to everyone for joining i'll start today by quickly reviewing our full year 2024 performance before discussing our Q4 performance and the strong market conditions we are experiencing so far in 2025.

Jerry will then take you through the details of the results and our first quarter outlook, and then I'll finish with the discussion of the recent U.S. Section 232 tariff announcements before turning the call over for questions. Century produced strong results in 2024, generating adjusted EBITDA of $245 million for the year and $82 million for the fourth quarter. Overall, strong realized aluminum prices, both at the LME and regional premium level and low energy prices, threw up increased profitability in the fourth quarter. Aluminum prices averaged $2,575 for the quarter and rose further in Q1 to date, with spot LME trading above $2,700 and Midwest premium trading near $0.39 today. Turning to slide 4, IndyHub power prices continued to be attractive in Q4, as a mild start to winter kept natural gas and power prices low. Cold snaps in January and February have led to higher U.S. and European gas and energy prices so far in 2025, and we have experienced some of this normal seasonality in our power prices at Seabree in the first quarter. Turning to page five, as you can see in the top left graph, strong global demand and continued constraints on new global supply is expected to move the global market into deficit by over 600,000 tons in 2025. Global aluminum supply remains challenged with China approaching its 45 million ton production cap and limited announced new projects outside of China. We believe demand growth will continue to outpace supply in 2025 and for years to come with inventories again at multi-year lows of 49 days western demand growth in 2025 should be supportive of higher aluminum prices as we move forward in the year and inventories continue to deplete alumina supplies also remain tight in q4 driving api alumina prices to all-time highs in late november and early December. Illumina prices have retreated somewhat in 2025, with Spot API trading today around $505. Our Jamalco acquisition and LME-linked commercial contracts continue to service well during this period of Illumina price volatility. During Q4, one of our major Illumina suppliers declared a force majeure, which reduced deliveries under one of our supply contracts and required us to procure some spot api alumina in q4 fortunately we were able to reach a financial settlement with the supplier that fully offset the additional costs of these spot cargos please just note that the 12 million dollar benefit from the financial settlement was booked in q4 while the offsetting one-time costs associated with the replacement material will not roll through our results until lq1 due to fifo accounting just to wrap this up the fm was limited to q4 and we do not expect any further impact from this beyond q1 you can continue to use our 50 jamalco and fixed and 50 lme linked alumina sensitivity numbers for q2 and beyond on page six you can see our other raw material price inputs continue to be constructive but we did see some uptick in coke and pitch prices as we enter 2025. Caustic prices and HFO continue to be at levels that are very constructive for Jamalco. Turning to operations, across the company, our assets continue to deliver strong operating results into year-end. Starting with Seabree, 2024 represented one of the smelter's finest operating years ever, delivering strong results across their operating KPIs. We are very proud of the fine assets that the team has created there now holly did suffer some minor operational instability in q4 as an excursion on the carbon side of the business increased operating costs and drove slightly lower production across the plant the management team there has this issue well in hand and we expect the plant to return to normal performance over the course of q1 at grunder tangy and jamalco the respective teams delivered excellent operating quarters And Jamalco notably is off to a very strong start to 2025, with January production at the highest monthly levels since we purchased the plant. The Jamalco team continues to focus on improvement, both through operational optimization and execution of our multi-year CapEx program that will aim to increase production at Jamalco towards 1.4 million tons of capacity. In Q4, the Jamalco team took action to right-size its workforce by implementing a 5% reduction in the plant's headcount. This step was necessary to lower the plant's labor expense and increase productivity and continues our progress towards Jamalco's goal of producing in the second quartile of the cost curve. Our evaluation process at Haskell made good progress with strong interest and lots of due diligence ongoing. We will keep you updated on progress here as we move through the year. Wrapping up with some very good news out of Iceland, recent rainfall and stronger-than-expected snowmelt has improved reservoir levels in the hydropower schemes on the island. Given these improved reservoir levels, the National Power Company ended the power curtailments to Gründer-Tangi in mid-February. The curtailments had originally been expected to last through May. The plant is now in the process of restoring operations to full production, which will have a partial benefit in Q1 and should result in full production levels for Green to Tanguy in Q2. The positive financial impact of the additional production is included in our outlook on page 10 in our full year volume guidance that is included later in this presentation. Jerry will now walk you through the details on the quarter and our Q1 outlook.

Thank you, Jesse. Let's turn to slide 7 to review fourth quarter results. On a consolidated basis, fourth quarter global shipments were approximately 167,000 tons, slightly lower than last quarter due primarily to year-end cut-off timing of shipments. Net sales for the quarter were $631 million, an increase of $92 million sequentially. this was driven by higher third-party aluminum sales volumes along with higher aluminum prices and regional premiums adjusted net income was 46 million dollars or 49 cents per share the main adjusting items were add backs of five million dollars for share-based compensation and two million dollars for lower of cost or net realizable value on inventory partially offset by a six million dollar deduction for the unrealized impact of forward derivative of contracts. Looking at Q4 operating results, adjusted EBITDA attributable to Century was $82 million. Liquidity was $245 million to end the fourth quarter. This consisted of $33 million in cash and $212 million available on our credit facilities. Our liquidity position remains near target range but decreased last quarter primarily due to working capital dynamics within Illumina sourcing. Turning to slide 8 to explain fourth quarter sequential improvement and adjusted EBITDA on a normalized basis. As a reminder, the Treasury Department published final 45x rules addressing carbon and other operating supplies in Q3. As a result, we recorded an incremental tax credit to true up the full year 2023 and year-to-date 2024 periods in the third quarter. Normalized adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter improved $9 million to $82 million. Realized LME of $2,462 per ton was up $11 versus prior quarter, while realized U.S. Midwest premium of $436 per ton was up $15, and European delivery premium of $341 per ton was up $6. Together, higher metal prices and regional premiums contributed an incremental $4 million compared with the prior quarter. We also realized favorable energy costs adding $2 million of EBITDA. In addition, as Jesse discussed, we recorded a $12 million benefit after reaching a settlement with an external aluminum supplier regarding a force measure supply disruption in Q4. These benefits were partially offset by unfavorable other raw material costs of $3 million and higher operating spend at Mount Holly, a headwind of $5 million. With that, let's turn to slide 9 for a look at cash flow. We began a quarter with $33 million in cash. Adjusted EBITDA contributed $82 million. dollars. Increased borrowings of 42 million dollars was used to support the working capital build. Capital expenditures totaled 13 million dollars. Interest in taxes were 14 million and nine million dollars respectively. The force majeure settlement was recorded in adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter, but as Jesse already noted, the offsetting cost will run through inventory in Q1. Finally, the regular 45X tax credit booked in the quarter increased the tax credit receivable on our balance sheet until direct cash payments from the federal government are received. Through December 31, we have a 45X receivable of $152 million related to full year 2023 and 2024 operations. At the end of quarter four, we had $33 million in cash. Let's turn to slide 10 for Insight's indoor expectations for the first quarter of 2025. For Q1, the lagged LME of $2,575 per ton is expected to be up about $113 versus Q4 realized prices. The Q1 lagged U.S. Midwest premium is forecast to be $600 per ton, up $165. dollars remember the realized midwest premium is on an approximately one month lag so the recent significant premium increase will be reflected primarily in q2 results the european delivery premium is expected at 345 dollars per ton or up about five dollars per ton versus the fourth quarter taken together the lagged lme and delivery premium changes are expected to have a 35 to 40 million dollar increase to q1 ebitda compared with q4 levels normal seasonality will impact power prices and should be an approximate 15 million dollar ebitda headwind in q1 after a mild start to winter in q4 we expect carbon and other material prices to increase by 5 million dollars the force majeure notice from one of our alumina suppliers caused us to purchase some alumina cargoes at spot prices during Q4. The additional cost of these cargoes was fully offset by a $12 million financial settlement that we reached with our supplier in Q4. Note the benefit of the financial settlement was realized in Q4, but due to FIFO accounting, the higher cost of the cargoes will flow through our results in Q1. So while we are showing a one-time $10 to $15 million aluminum headwind in q1 the impact of this was really offset by the financial settlement re-recorded in q4 to be clear we do not expect this will repeat in q2 or beyond we will incur approximately five million dollars of higher opex from pot reline cost to return to full pot complement and grinder tangy and trailing restructuring costs associated with the jamalco workforce changes BIM and MIX will add an incremental $10 million benefit. All factors considered, our outlook for Q1 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in a range between $75 to $85 million. As previously discussed, this outlook does not include the full quarter impact of the significant increase in Midwest Regional Premium since the announcement of the revised Section 232 tariffs. Using the sensitivities provided in our appendix, you can see that this will have a significant effect on the profitability of our U.S. business, with each penny of increase in Midwest premium equating to an additional $9 million of EBITDA on an annualized basis. When you apply that to the nearly 20 cent increase we have already experienced since Q4, you can see the material impact of this action on our American operations. please just remember that due to our contractual pricing agreements midwest premium will run through our financial results on a one-month lag which means the vast majority of the benefit from the increased section 232 tariffs will not hit our financial results until q2 now referring to slide 11 for the full year 2025 financial assumptions we expect shipments to improve to 700 000 tons in 2025 as all plants operate at targeted utilization levels We expect to spend approximately $45 to $50 million in sustaining CapEx. This is in line with historical sustaining CapEx for the smelter assets and now includes Jamalco. We also plan to invest $25 to $30 million in various projects across the asset base that meet or exceed our return threshold. The investment CapEx will focus on improving operating efficiencies at Jamalco and our current U.S. and European facilities. 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 16 in the appendix. With that, I will hand the call back to Jesse.

Thanks, Jerry. Turning to slide 12, I'd like to end the prepared portion of our call by thanking President Trump for so quickly taking action to strengthen the Section 232 tariffs on aluminum. When President Trump originally created the Section 232 program in 2018, it allowed the U.S. aluminum industry to steady itself and begin to invest again in U.S. production. We were proud to do our part, as we invested in U.S. production and became the largest producer of primary aluminum in the United States. Unfortunately, after President Trump left office, the effectiveness of the program was degraded through a number of country exemptions that allowed foreign producers to bypass the program and even increase their imports to all-time high levels, including imports from exempted countries increasing by over 25% since 2018. Effective March 12th, President Trump's actions will restore the original effectiveness of the Section 232 program by revoking all country and product exemptions and raising the tariff rate from 10 to 25%. The effects of President Trump's action is beginning to be reflected in the Midwest Premium, which has already risen from the $0.20 we realized in Q4 to $0.39 spot today. We believe that the Midwest Premium has room to increase further following the effective date of the program in March. As the largest producer of primary aluminum in the United States, Century is doing its part to build and secure the aluminum production that is so essential to U.S. national security needs. when complete our new smelter project will represent the first new smelter built in the us in 50 years and will double the size of the existing u.s industry the new century smelter will build on our leading market position to fulfill the ever-growing strategic need for a secure american supplier of cutting-edge primary aluminum alloys and value-added products the new century smelter will also provide our u.s customer base with a secure domestic source of military-grade primary aluminum, as well as a full suite of value-added products produced with best-in-class technology. The new smelter will create over 1,000 full-time direct jobs and over 5,500 construction jobs here in the United States. We continue to make good progress on the project, having completed the second phase of engineering work and nearing completion of site selection and energy supply negotiations. We are grateful to President Trump and his administration for recognizing the vital importance of a strong domestic primary aluminum industry to U.S. national security. These actions will help to underpin further investment in our industry, strengthen domestic supply chains, and ensure the U.S. industry will be able to meet U.S. needs for this critical mineral. With that, we're ready for your questions and we'll turn the call over now to the operator.

This time, if you would like to ask a question, it'll start followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, it'll start followed by two. Again, to ask a question, it is star one. As a reminder, if you're using a speaker phone, please remember to pick up your headset before asking a question. I'll pause briefly here as questions are registered. My first question comes from Nick Giles with the company Be Reilly. Nick, your line is not open.

Thank you very much, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Guys, congrats on all the progress here as of late. My first question is, you noted that the more recent rise in Midwest premiums won't be reflected until 2Q. And so I was wondering if you could help bridge us to your earnings power in the current environment. I believe Midwest premium in your 1Q guide versus thought today could imply an annual impact of around 100 million. So I wanted to confirm that and see how we might think about other moving parts. Thanks a lot.

Yeah. First, Nick, congrats on the new role. Glad to have you covering us and look forward to working with you. Second, good question. So yes, where we've seen Midwest go, so maybe just to start with, so far we've seen Midwest go from the 20 cents we realized in Q4 to the 39 cents we're seeing in SPOT today. And in our Q1 outlook, we've assumed a realized Midwest premium of 27 cents. um so if you take it to spot you're right in the ballpark where that could be and ultimately we think that midwest premium will go higher we don't think it's fully reflecting uh the value of the tariff uh today um and we could see another five to ten cent um upside to what you see today so if you take that all together you could see about 20 cents uh upside um from where we are today called $0.20 to $0.25 from what we've assumed in the Q1 guide. Sorry, $0.20 to $0.25 from what we realized in Q4, looking somewhere in the $0.45 to $0.50 range on a measured basis.

Got it. Got it. Jesse, I really appreciate that. And maybe as a follow-up, I was hoping to get an update on how you're viewing a potential Mount Holly restart given current Midwest premiums and the implication of 232 tariffs. And then I had the same question for Hawesville. Has this impacted your ongoing strategic process? Thanks a lot.

Yeah, sure. Great question, Nick. So obviously, since the announcement, which was just last week, we have been updating our analysis at Mount Holly. Obviously, the tariff program is extremely constructive for the smelter. As we mentioned, we did experience a little instability in the operations in Q4. That'll get cleaned up over Q1. And we also see continued high spot ala prices. Those should also come down. So we'll continue to update you, but we're definitely moving in the right direction for a restart. The Hodgeville prices continues, Evaluation ongoing we've seen strong continued interest in the in the in the in the site but obviously we'll continue to look at the the new environment as we make a decision of what to do there but as we've said before I think first to come will be an outhaul every start and and then we'll go from there got it got it that's good to hear maybe one more if I could maybe a more point of clarification the the 1q guide is almost taking a double hit from the non-recurring settlement plus the luminous spot purchase given given the lags as you outlined and is it fair to assume that this kind of negative 10 to 15 million dollar hit will reverse in 2q or am i thinking about that wrong no you're you're absolutely right nick and and there's just a little bit of accounting noise running through that there's a couple ways of looking at it one if instead of booking the financial settlement in q4 you booked that in q1 you actually wouldn't see a headwind in the ala price in q1 those do fully offset as jerry said and secondly you're completely correct you won't see that repeat in q2 so that should all come back in q2 guys i really appreciate

all the colors so again congrats on the progress and continued best of luck thanks nick the next question comes from Katja Janik with the company BMO.

Katja, your line is not open. Hi, thank you for taking my questions.

Maybe going back to Mount Holly, if you do decide to restart it, how long it would take you and what would the investment needed be?

Yeah, so we're updating all that analysis, Katja, as I said, since the news came last week. As we've said before, you're probably looking at somewhere around a nine-month timeline from decision to restart, somewhere in that range. And we'll give you an update on the cost of a restart once we make that decision and announce the restart.

Maybe if I remember correctly, when you were restarting the pot line at Hossel a few years ago, did it cost about 45 to 50 million per pot line? Am I remembering that correctly?

Yeah, that's not exactly what it was. But, again, there's obviously been a lot of changes since 2018 when those restarts were done. We're about seven years down the line. So we'll just go ahead and give you that full analysis once we've made the decision at Mount Holly.

And maybe, you know, you mentioned the new smelter. You're making progress there. And I know that this is a multi-year type of project. But can you talk a bit more about how much it would actually cost to build a new smelter in the U.S.?

Yeah, we have made really good progress on the new smelter. In January, we finished up the process to finalize the terms of the award and went formally under award with the Department of Energy for the $500 million grant that we've talked about before. we've also finished up the second phase of engineering work for the project and really the next step for the project will be to finalize the energy contract negotiations and site selection which is ongoing today and we'd expect that gets done you know by the end of q2 or so so we'll give you a further update on that project after we've made that finished that work and made a decision to move forward into the next step.

Okay.

Our next question comes from Tima Tanners with the company Wolf Research. Tima, your last is that open.

I wanted to kind of hit back on some of the topics that have been touched on. Hey there. So I guess to circle back on Hasville, you know, just the one sentence in your prepared remarks that made me wonder, is there less conviction on that process? do you have anything in terms of timing or you know progress that you can update us on and just to circle back it is it is a possible that it restart or are you pursuing this alternative um 100 thank you uh not at all no no nothing to read into that update other than the process continues to be going well very strong continued interest uh in in the in the site and lots of

people doing due diligence. As I said on the last call, it is a complicated process and it's a little bit different than some of the other transactions that you've seen done in the space. We're here, we're going from an industrial site to a potential different use case. And as you might imagine, given the capital scale of what a potential purchaser would be looking at, you know, they want them to do their due diligence first. And so that's really ongoing process still going well and we'd expect to continue to keep you updated um to the second part of your question 10 what we said all along is we will always measure um whatever comes out of this process versus the potential value of the site under a restart scenario and obviously the recent actions will help the second part of that that analysis um so we'll just go ahead and pursue the process And once we've finished it, we'll give everyone an update, but nothing to read into process continues to go well. And we're excited about it.

Okay, that's great. Appreciate the additional color. Also really enjoy the industry environment forecast that you have here for Midwest premium, you know, staying high alumina prices, you know, those are helpful. In the assumption here that does include a 25% Section 232 effectiveness on March 12th, but is there any assumption of an additional tariff on Canada? Is that in your thought process of what could play out going forward with that debate, or I guess that dialogue ongoing?

Yeah, we continue to watch that dialogue as well, and just to be clear, that's not included either in our guidance or sort of my views on where Midwest premium can go that I gave when we were speaking to Nick earlier. So again, we think fundamentally if the 25% tariff goes on, you'll see a Midwest premium somewhere in the $0.45 to $0.50 range, and that does not include any other additional tariffs that may come.

Okay, helpful. And then last one from me. Jamalco, you've been talking about expanding in this Illumina environment, that sounds great. And I think that would be part of the support for Matt Hawley. So just wanna make sure I'm thinking about that properly. But have you talked about the capital cost and timing for that expansion?

Yeah, we have, and just to remind, but just to remind you, so the investment capex at Jamalco, we estimate will be somewhere in the 50 to $20 million range in 2025, you'll probably see a similar range in 2026 as we continue to invest in projects that are needed to bring that production capacity back up. And that's included in the investment cap access in the back of our deck.

Is that part of the process of thinking about the Mont-Halli restart is to secure that additional alumina capacity or are they not necessarily linked?

They're not necessarily linked. We can secure that in the marketplace, Timna, but of course, we look to keep our book balanced. We're excited to have that additional production within our portfolio.

Okay. Many thanks.

The next question comes from John Tumazos with a company, Very Independent Research. John, your line is not open.

John Tumazos Thank you. Today, the International aluminum institute reported record daily global output up two and a half percent and with inventories falling it applies about a three and a half percent demand growth rate in the early part of this year and last year's apparent demand growth rate was about the same three and a half percent do you think demand is growing that rapidly or do you think that there's some inventory building maybe because of Illumina worries, less Russia exports, less China exports, maybe lower interest rates encourages some restocking or some tariff uncertainties?

No, John, we really haven't seen any evidence of any sort of shadow stockpiling, if you will, if that's sort of what the question is. We think that 49-day number has been very stable, and you've continued to see that tick down over the past several quarters. And we do think that, you know, I can't speak to IAI's exact numbers, but I think the ballpark that you gave and the analysis there is largely correct. As I said in my prepared remarks, We think aluminum demand will outpace aluminum supply growth over the next several years, for sure.

I could follow up. The IAI reported a record Chinese output for January, 120,645 tons a day. And it used to be that they would cut output in the winter to reduce urban pollution, but they've migrated and changed their energy sources a little bit. How do you interpret the Chinese output at a record in the middle of the winter? And with 6 million tons of aluminum capacity being idled, should we adjust that 45 million ton cap to 48 or 50?

No, absolutely not, John. I think both our view and I think widely the marketplace view is that the Chinese are respecting the 45 million ton cap, and we would expect that will be where it goes going forward. And I think one thing that hasn't been talked about a lot, but the decision back in the fall to eliminate the VAT rebate on export is actually a sign of their intention to recognize that 45 million ton cap. So in other words, as they look to meet their own downstream demand, they're going to keep all those semi products within China that used to lead. so we view those as actually very supportive of the 45 million ton cap and and really bolsters and supports that that's the intention of the chinese government of course we'll see but that's our view for now thank you at this time there are no more questions registered in queue again if you would like to ask a question it is start followed by one on your telephone keypad there are no more questions registered in queue i'd like to pass the conference back over to our hosting team for closing remarks okay thanks to everyone for joining the call we're really excited about what's to come in 2025 for Century. We think the market sets up very well for our company, and we're glad to continue our role that we play both in the United States and Europe in producing aluminum that's needed. Thank you very much. Talk to you next quarter.

That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation and enjoy the rest of your day.