Calumet, Inc. /DE Q3 FY2022 Earnings Call

Hello. Thank you for being with us. Welcome to the Q3 2022 Calumet Specialty Products Partners, L.P. Earnings Conference Call. Currently, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentations from our speakers, we will have a question-and-answer session. It is now my pleasure to introduce the Head of Investor Relations, Barry.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today for our third quarter 2022 earnings call. With me on today's call are Todd Borgmann, CEO; Vince Donargo, CFO; Bruce Fleming, EVP Montana/Renewables and Corporate Development; Scott Obermeier, EVP Specialty Products and Solutions; Marc Lawn, EVP Performance Brands; and Steve Mawer, our Executive Chairman. You may now download the slides that accompany the remarks made on today's conference call, which can be accessed in the Investor Relations section of our website at www.calumetspecialty.com. Additionally, a webcast replay of this call will be available on our site within a few hours. Turning to the presentation, on Slide two you can find our cautionary statements. I would like to remind everyone that during this call, we may provide various forward-looking statements. Please refer to the partnership's press release that was issued this morning, as well as our latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a list of factors that may affect our actual results and cause them to differ from expectations. As we turn to Slide three, I'll pass the call to Todd. Todd?

Thanks, Brad. And to our attendees. Welcome and thank you again for joining the call. Calumet continues to demonstrate that our strategic vision of creating two leading, highly competitive businesses is becoming a reality. Our specialties business is performing superbly and proving its capability. Montana Renewables is in completion and growth mode, and I will provide a detailed update on our SAF, renewable hydrogen and renewable diesel launch in a few minutes. With respect to the third quarter, let's turn to Slide four. Our third quarter adjusted EBITDA of $127 million is the second best quarter we've seen at Calumet, despite our Montana plant taking a planned turnaround for most of the quarter. Of course, the commissioning of Montana Renewables marks a significant milestone for Calumet as our vision becomes a reality, and we enter the renewable diesel business. Since our last earnings call, we've also expanded our MRL product offering by adding sustainable aviation fuel to the mix. Our SAF has quickly contracted. Not only are these sales at a premium to renewable diesel, but once our engineering modifications are complete in early 2023, MRL should be the largest SAF producer in North America. It was less than one year ago that we announced the initial funding of Montana Renewables, and we're proud of what the team has accomplished here in such a short amount of time. In the time that it took to stand up MRL, our specialties team has redefined what this unique business is capable of. This year alone, the business has generated $330 million of adjusted EBITDA and produced the best two quarters in company history. This is a combination of a favorable market, a competitively advantaged business, and a step change in execution across the board. Our ops and commercial teams have maximized the value of optionality that sets our integrated platform apart. The heart of our advantage is that Northwest Louisiana Specialty Complex, specifically our Shreveport facility. Here we produce products for third-party sale. We make suite docks for our solvents division, basals and waxes for our Penreco and Paralogics brands, lubricants for our performance brand segment, and we gather intermediates throughout the system and upgrade them into finished products. In the third quarter, we processed over 51,000 barrels of feed per day through this facility, a 40% improvement versus 2021, and more than 10% higher than any annual period we've seen. Further, the Northwest Louisiana team has now delivered two turnarounds this year, one in Shreveport and one at Princeton, both on time and on budget. This step change in execution has been fundamental to advancing the key strategic initiatives of deleveraging organically. At this time last year, our debt-to-EBITDA ratio was over 10 times. At the end of the third quarter, it was four times. Not where we ultimately want to be, but we're on pace to reach our destination quickly. I thank the Shreveport team for their tireless commitment. They developed a plan to change the culture, prove our capability, and invest capital wisely. Early in the year, we talked about capital investment in Northwest Louisiana. We've been thrilled with these investments so far and will continue to do that in a disciplined way as we further integrate and widen our competitive moat. It's underpinned by industry leading flexibility and optionality. Montana Renewables has quickly become a reality. A mere 355 days ago, we secured project funding from Oaktree and formally launched what’s become known as MRL. Over the past year, we formed a strong partnership with Warburg Pincus and turned that project into both a business and a growth platform positioned for the future. During this time, we've seen our hypotheses tested, and we've learned a lot. Our hypotheses regarding the advantages of location, the over-competitiveness and increasingly expensive market for ECO, the likelihood that Canola would gain EPA approval, and how RD margins ultimately work were all viewed as outside the mainstream a year ago. But now they're being proven out and even becoming conventional. In the case of MRL, they provide a unique competitive advantage. We've overcome other challenges too. Like everyone, we scheduled materials at the peak of the global supply chain crisis, managed through a tight labor market, and fought inflation across the board. Our project timeline has been aggressive, and we ultimately commissioned the units within a few weeks of the planned date. I'd like to recognize the tenacity of our team that has made this a reality. Delivering a schedule-driven project in this environment is a tremendous accomplishment. From here, our focus is pointed towards operating this new unit and completing the hydrogen plant and pretreater, which will provide the scale and feedstock flexibility that underpin our economics. As excited as we are about renewable diesel, the growing energy around SAF provides an added growth platform. In a few short months we've pivoted to take advantage of this rapidly emerging opportunity. In the first quarter of next year, we will be the largest SAF supplier in North America. We have contracted 2,000 barrels a day, or 30 million gallons a year, to a blue-chip off-taker. And that volume has contracted at margins substantially higher than renewable diesel. Like our RD experience, demand for SAF was oversubscribed. Interestingly enough, this deal was in the works prior to the Infrastructure Reduction Act being signed into law a few months ago. Prior to the IRA, SAF was a niche market, supported largely by private jet demand. The IRA creates an incentive for producers to develop new technologies and generate more supply to meet increasing demand from commercial airlines. We believe this will create a growth trajectory similar to or better than we've seen in renewable diesel. We are perfectly positioned to be a first mover in the high-growth West Coast and Canadian markets. The similarities between RD and SAF don't stop there. Many in the industry have adopted our view that the RD market should see relatively steady margins over time. Biodiesel volumes are necessary to meet market demand, even if all announced RD projects were built, and renewable diesel has net yield and cost advantages relative to biodiesel. We believe that, in order to ultimately meet long-term industry SAF demand, new expensive technologies will be required. Like biodiesel, those technologies require financial and technical certainty to get off the ground. One could deduce that the IRA bill projects, whether its enabling incentives might be. With our technology, SAF can be manufactured more economically than through these new technologies. RD producers that have invested in the ability to produce SAF could expect a lasting advantage. Montana Renewables is expected to have an additional transportation cost advantage relative to its Gulf Coast competition. Warburg Pincus, our partner in MRL, has been even more impactful than we expected. In just a few short months, they've helped us expand our thinking, and their experience in decarbonization continues to be a force multiplier. We believe this alliance is a strong global partner that helps us cement our position as the leading independent SAF and renewable diesel producer in North America. Jointly, we continue to work with Lazard as they evaluate inbound investor interest, specifically from strategics and increasingly with regard to SAF. Later, we'll talk a bit more about the SAF opportunity. But before we go there, I'll turn the call over to Vince, to walk us through the segments. Vince?

Thank you, Todd. Let's turn to Slide six. Our specialty products and solutions business generated a record $131.7 million of adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter. This type of performance requires a combination of a strong market, exceptional execution, and advantaged underlying business. Our specialty material margin of $93.93 per barrel is the highest ever, which is a combination of rapidly falling feedstock prices, and continued focus on executing commercially. Additionally, we continue to see strength in the fuels market, especially for distillates. Our integrated platform allows us to ramp up diesel fuel production in environments like these, and at the same time, sell a large percentage of our specialty products to markets that are highly correlated to diesel fuel, providing a commercial optionality that is highly valuable. Ultimately, in order to capitalize on this margin environment, we have to run well, which we did. We had great operational performance and production across our SPS facilities during the quarter. Todd hit on some specific examples earlier, but the whole network turned in exceptional production. Additionally, our discretionary capital investments within this segment, and specifically in Shreveport, continue. We are experiencing the benefits of these low-risk, high-reward investments through improved efficiency, reliability, and optionality that increases our advantage going forward. Moving to Slide eight, our performance brands business generated $8.5 million in adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. Performance brands is beginning to see a turnaround from the headwinds we have faced for more than a year now. Our price increases are gaining traction, and as we have discussed in previous quarters, we are finally starting to see our raw material costs stabilize. Costs still increased versus the prior quarter, but the magnitude of the increase was less than pricing, especially late in the quarter. Our supply chain is not perfect, but there too, we continue to trend in the right direction. This quarter, our largest supplier lifted a force majeure that had been in effect for 18 months. At this point, our largest ongoing supply challenge is Greece, which is a significant growth opportunity for us. Given the multiple challenges of the past year, narrowing it to Greece is a welcomed step forward. We expect to see some normal seasonality in the business as we head into the winter months. But we are excited, at least for the time being, to see a semi-return to normalcy for this business. Moving to Slide 10, our Montana business had a busy quarter with the planned turnaround and renewable diesel conversion. As Todd mentioned, we are excited to move into the operating mode at MRL. Even with the planned turnaround for much of the quarter, we did generate $11.3 million in adjusted EBITDA, partly due to the ongoing improvements we've been seeing this year in differentials for heavy Canadian crude as the WCS WTI discount was approximately $20 per barrel in the quarter. The legacy plant is fully running at 12,000 barrels per day. As we have stated, we expect this reconfigured facility to generate approximately 60% of the adjusted EBITDA of the historical plant performance, even though we are running at 40% of its capacity. With that, I will turn the call back to Todd to talk in more detail about MRL as the concluding remarks. Todd?

Thanks, Vince. Now let's get deeper into Montana Renewables on Slide 11. Our feedstock is sourced; our plants are commissioned. The throughput expansion that renewable hydrogen provides is expected shortly and our pretreater will open the full universe of feedstocks. Our plant is full of feedstock, and we will quickly turn that into cash. At one point, feedstock availability was the most frequently asked question we received. Since then, MRL’s feedstock advantage has proven to be a massive differentiator, and we believe that’s a lasting advantage. Feedstock for initial startup was secured months ago. Local suppliers liked the idea of shortening their supply chains with a high security off-taker like MRL. Our supply chain has been proven as transloading sites are working and rail cars are turning. Many of the same suppliers who are providing treated feedstocks now will be supplying the untreated feeds when our pre treater is complete in a few months. The pending approval of Canola further differentiates MRL, as there’s enormous volumes in our backyard that are incrementally exported to Asia. Something we haven’t discussed much is the emerging potential of Camelina oil. Camelina is high on our radar. It’s a non-food feedstock that’s currently grown in Montana. Camelina has intrinsic value to farmers as a rotation cover crop. It also has an extremely low carbon intensity, and the crop continues to gain momentum as a future powerhouse in the renewable fuels feedstock space. For Montana Renewables, that couldn’t happen in a better place. As mentioned earlier, we’ve contracted 2,000 barrels per day of SAF, which is part of our initial yield, and that makes us the largest North American SAF producer. On the bottom of Slide 12, you’ll see these initial volumes, all of which have been sold at a premium to renewable diesel. Immediately, we have an option to stretch the current SAF output, and we’ll fine-tune that as the plant completes its initial performance testing. Thereafter, we can capitalize for greater SAF production, which we, in our technology licensor, estimate could be up to 15,000 barrels a day. Preliminary engineering work has begun on this project, and its world-class position has generated considerable interest from strategic investors. On the right half of this slide, we see a map of the West Coast major airports and SAF hubs in relation to Montana Renewables. To many of you, this map might look familiar as we viewed something similar for RD. Location underpins so much of our competitive advantage at MRL, whether it's renewable diesel or SAF, and as all of you with refining and transportation knowledge know, location is the one competitive advantage that will stand the test of time. MRL's proximity to end product markets is exceptional. We serve renewable markets on the West Coast with direct BNSF rail access, and we're perfectly positioned to support the continuously growing low carbon markets in Canada. Recently we’ve seen that location is more than just an advantage; it’s a great expense. The strong staples margins that we see in the RD business are vulnerable to backwardation for anyone with long supply chains. We believe the same is true for SAF. In a highly backwardated market like we’re in right now, the price received for fuel is significantly less next month than it is if you can reach the market in the current month. We’ve heard more about this issue recently as backwardation has deepened. With our shorter supply chains, we expect to largely avoid this challenge. In summary, Slide 13 puts everything in one place. Right now, we’re focused on ensuring we take the time to understand the nuances of operating our RD unit that only come with experience. We really don’t generate much EBITDA until we gain the scale and feedstock flexibility that are coming soon. And right now the temperature is 30 degrees lower than the November average in Great Falls, so we’re taking it slow. From there, the focus is on getting the pretreatment and hydrogen plants stood up. It’s at this point that Montana Renewables is expected to deliver financially. Next year, we’ll be focused on operating the full plant, optimizing our feedstock advantage and, quite possibly, finalizing our SAF expansion. All this has been a busy year. We’re excited about the future. We’re proud of what has been accomplished thus far, and we believe the foundation is set for Montana Renewables as a leading growth platform in SAF and renewable diesel. With that, let’s turn it back to the operator for Q&A.

Our first question comes from Carly Davenport with Goldman Sachs.

Hi, this is Nicolette Slusser on for Carly Davenport, thanks for taking the time. So the first question would just be on broader capital allocation, and how Calumet is thinking about the potential for shareholder returns over the coming quarters as you progress through continued leverage reduction?

Yes, we're excited about the upward potential of our units, obviously. First things first, we're focused on getting this business up and running. We think generating cash, which, like we said in the call, we think happens early spring next year. From there, we'll continue to pursue the strategic deleveraging, which has been priority number one now for a long time. Looking forward, we try not to get too far ahead of ourselves; we like the cash generation potential of the MRL business. Obviously, our specialty business continues to generate a lot of cash and it looks like for the foreseeable future that continues to be the case. We'll manage it accordingly.

Okay, great, thanks. And then just a follow-up there on Montana Renewables. If you can talk a little bit about what else is outstanding to get the renewable hydrogen plants and pretreatment unit online, as it relates to the asset?

Hey, Nicole, this is Vince. We’re operating on a small site, and so from the beginning, we’ve talked about this. The sequential commissioning of the discrete projects was part of our approach to efficient execution. Last summer, we completed the logistics segregation into two trends: the crude oil processing and the renewables. We’re presently commissioning the renewable diesel, which in the past we’ve called the hydrocracker. Hydrogen should come up next month and pretreated after that. So basically, through the winter, we’re going to finish the complete commissioning. Slide 13, which I should note has not changed in a long time, is telling you what that looks like in terms of throughput. I’ll echo Todd’s sentiments earlier: I’m proud of the Calumet team for having held the line on schedule here. That was our metric; that’s what we set out to do, and knock on wood, we’re bringing it home.

Okay, great. Thanks for the color there.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Amit Dayal with H.C. Wainwright.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Congratulations on the execution. I want to acknowledge MRL. Should we expect that the adjusted EBITDA for Montana Renewables will remain flat in Q4? Will this trend potentially carry into Q1 ’23, or will some of the SAF start to contribute by then?

Bruce, you are not in here. It sounds like we're missing Bruce here. So, I'll take a shot at it, Amit. Obviously, there are two steps to cash generation. The first one is scale with the hydrogen plant, that happens before the pretreat. I think you're right; we don't expect full cash flow until we get both the scale and the pretreater online. But we’ll do a little bit better; we expect to do a little bit better than flat, early in the quarter, as late in this year, kind of early next year as we get the hydrogen plant fully tuned out. We'll obviously continue to work through the learning curve on the pretreat and that type of things. So, I don’t think Q1 will be totally flat, but you’re right to assume that, the large earnings power starts after both pretreat and hydrogen plant.

Honestly, thank you for that. And just from the monetization perspective, I mean, this has been out there in terms of the renewable diesel optionality that is on the table, with specialty, the SPS segment and performance brand segment, now showing this level of performance. Have you reconsidered some of these options that have been in discussion previously? Just the organic cash flow seems pretty strong; I know deleveraging efforts seem to be moving in the right direction with this support. So, just wondering how we should think about the options in front of you from what do you have put out there with respect to the renewable diesel and SAF business?

Yeah, I think we got a very opportune. How are you? You're back, Bruce?

I am sorry, I don't know what happened. I'll take the Montana Renewables part, but I'm going to invite Todd to also cover that a little bit at the corporate level. So, we set out a year and a half ago to launch this business, and I think there was a series of questions we addressed along the way from analysts and investors. As each one of those questions was satisfied, and as the value proposition became more clear, we shifted our thinking a bit. The capstone on that was when Warburg came in and backed the venture at an enterprise value mark of $2.25 billion. Now, that was a pre-commissioning number. So, we were pretty happy with that accomplishment. We need to focus on getting this up safely and delivering what we've promised to the market. But at that point, Montana Renewables is standalone and self-funding all of the things that we talked about for future growth expansion SAF. Montana Renewables can do that on its own. We don’t think that we need to monetize any of our ownership in order to deliver the business plan. That makes it optional, and Calumet was founded as a partnership; the general partner thinks in terms of partnerships, and at the moment, we’re very interested in the strong inbound that we’re getting on SAF, and a couple of other strategics who have been waiting for us to de-risk this by getting it turned on. So, I think all of that is a long way around of saying that we really like our position, but we still think a complementary strategic partner would make a lot of sense. It’s in Calumet DNA to operate that way.

Yes, I’ll add a bit to that, Amit. As we mentioned, we're viewing this situation opportunistically at the parent level. We previously had a process with Lazard, which we discussed. That process concluded, specifically related to a set deadline, when we finalized the Warburg deal. Lazard is still engaged and actively exploring opportunities, as Bruce noted, they are responding to incoming interest, which has notably increased with SAF. We don’t feel rushed, but there could be an attractive deal that we might consider. We plan to proceed one step at a time.

Well, that's helpful guys. Thank you so much. That's all I have. I’ll take my other questions offline. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Bank of America.

Hey, good morning, guys. Just maybe talk a little bit more about what you're seeing on the demand side. Are you seeing any slowdown, and then on the industrial side or consumer, or are you seeing resilience?

Hey, Greg, this is Scott Obermeyer. On a macro level, we're aware of a lot of these forward indicators signaling a more challenging economic environment. We're also starting to see some typical year-end seasonality across both the industrial and the consumer side. All in all, Greg, I mean, we're seeing pretty solid demand overall. So, I think as we look forward, we view Q4 and Q1 with overall pretty solid demand. I think we'll see some of our prices regress a little bit toward some normalization, but we're pretty bullish overall in the businesses running well.

And you mentioned how SPS benefited from a decline in crude, I believe, in terms of helping our margins. Could you help us understand how much that enhanced your margins?

Yes, I think if you look at that margin chart, this is Todd, Greg. The margin chart in the material on the SPS side, you can see a pretty steady level over the past four or five months. You saw a little dip when crude ran up about $30 a barrel. You saw the exact opposite happen here when crude ran down about $30 a barrel. It’s hard to quantify exactly, but I think the way we like to look at it is to assume that steady line is the normal we expect to be able to maintain that in the current market. Looking forward, I’d say the pop above that steady line that we’re seeing in the third quarter is largely crude related.

Got it. And then on the performance brand side, you talked about how a lot of the force majeure is behind you, is the one remaining supply side Greece. I know you were expecting some delay in terms of being able to improve your pricing relative to improvement in crude prices. That’s obviously come down a bit. But I’m curious, it sounds like you’re saying what Q3 was reasonable expectation going forward for what type of EBITDA we should expect; am I misinterpreting that? Or should we expect that to improve?

Hi, Greg, it's Marc Lawn. A couple of things. Let me sort of disassemble that question into a few component parts. As Vince mentioned, we're still seeing inflationary pressures on the business, albeit at a reduced rate. The speed at which we're catching up with the pricing is a bit that we've seen come through there during the third quarter. Greece is one that we keep an eye on very carefully. We're doing a lot of work around trying to stabilize further the Greece market; demand is strong there and continues to remain strong. And that's not just a North American issue, it's sort of a global issue, which gives us opportunity. As you look forward, there isn't any indication in the short range that we're going to see a material change based on what we know at the moment, albeit we still think that there’s still an element of catch up. While we’ve caught up on an element on price lag, that’s still not all the way through. Some pricing was still going into play as late as the second and third week of September, for example. There are still some compounding benefits that we would expect to see rolling through.

I appreciate that color. And just last one for you. I know you're there's some timing around bringing in the proceeds from your different Montana Renewable facilities. Are you providing guidance on how much we should expect to come in from that facilities in the fourth quarter in terms of enhancing the liquidity down there?

Well, I think a good rule of thumb is, we built inventory feedstock with inventory that was around $50 million. That’s kind of just sitting there in the tanks. The supply and offtake deal in the ABL will combine to fund the inventory. And we’d expect that much back here as we progress through the quarter.

Okay, thanks for the time, guys. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Greg.

Thank you. I’ll now hand the call back over to Head of Investor Relations, Brad McMurray for any closing remarks.

Yes, thanks. So on behalf of the management team here in the room, and really all of Calumet, thanks for your time and interest here this morning. We appreciate your participation on the call. And everyone have a great rest of the week. Thanks.

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