Tronox Holdings plc Q1 FY2023 Earnings Call

Good morning, and welcome to the Tronox Holdings First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call and Webcast. My name is Brika, and I will be your event specialist running today's call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. And after the speakers’ remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Thank you. I will now turn the conference call over to Jennifer Guenther, Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of Investor Relations and Financial Planning to begin today's call. So Jennifer, please go ahead when you are ready.

Thank you, Brika and welcome to our first quarter 2023 conference call and webcast. On our call today are John Romano and Jean-François Turgeon, Co-Chief Executive Officers; and John Srivisal, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We will be using slides as we move through today's call. You can access the presentation on our website at investor.tronox.com. Moving to slide 3. A friendly reminder that comments made on this call and the information provided in our presentation and on our website include certain statements that are forward-looking and subject to various risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to the specific factors summarized in our SEC filings. This information represents our best judgment based on what we know today. However, actual results may vary based on these risks and uncertainties. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. During the conference call, we will refer to certain non-US GAAP financial terms that we use in the management of our business and believe are useful to investors in evaluating the company's performance. Reconciliations to their nearest US GAAP terms are provided in our earnings release and in the appendix of the accompanying presentation. Additionally, please note that all financial comparisons made during the call are on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise noted. Moving to slide 4. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to John Romano. John?

Thanks, Jennifer, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'd like to start the call today with a brief summary on Tronox for anyone who may be a little bit newer to our story. We're the world's largest vertically integrated TiO2 producer with nine pigment plants, six mines and five upgrading facilities across six continents. Our sales are fairly evenly distributed across the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific, and our 1.1 million tons of pigment capacity supports our well-balanced space of approximately 1,200 customers globally. Our vertically integrated business model supplies about 85% of our internal feedstock needs at full effective capacity and this ensures consistent and secure supply for our customers. In addition to TiO2, we also generate significant value as the world's second largest producer of zircon with approximately 300,000 tons of capacity. Our strategy is focused on positioning Tronox as the advantaged global TiO2 leaders through the production of safe quality low-cost sustainable tons. So now let's turn to slide 5. In the first quarter, we saw the recovery from the fourth quarter trough levels we predicted and guided on our fourth quarter earnings call. Sequentially, TiO2 volumes improved 14% within our previously guided range or average TiO2 selling prices improved 1% from the fourth quarter or 3% compared to the prior year despite 30% lower volumes year-over-year. As we emphasized to our investors over the last few years, we have continued to transform our business and our first quarter performance is a demonstration of that. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $146 million exceeding the top end of our guided range by $16 million. And we delivered adjusted EBITDA margins of 20.6% above the high teens range we previously anticipated. Our outperformance was due to several factors including favorable exchange rates relative to our assumptions mainly on the South African rand and the Australian dollar, prudent cost and discretionary spend management and the sale of lower cost inventory in the quarter versus what we anticipated. We're proud of the team's focus this quarter and despite the continued macroeconomic challenges we face our team continues to step up and deliver. We also wanted to provide a brief update on the fourth quarter events we spoke about last quarter. We're happy to report that our upgrading operations at KZN in South Africa are back to full utilization levels by following a fire in the fourth quarter that impacted production rates. There will be no further impacts from the KZN event in the second quarter or going forward. Additionally, our Atlas mining operations in Australia are also now up and running. We're continuing to work with local authorities towards being able to utilize the primary roads for hauling material offsite, which we anticipate will occur mid-2023. Until then we're continuing to utilize the higher-cost alternative haul roads and moving lower volumes compared to what we could ship on the primary roads. Our costs will remain elevated in the second quarter due to these higher hauling costs and in the second half of the year as we consume the higher cost feedstock at our pigment plants. Our free cash flow for the quarter was a use of $172 million primarily due to increased inventories including Jazan slag, higher accounts receivables driven by improved sales and lower accounts payable. As we communicated on our last earnings call, while we reduced our pigment production rates as a result of lower demand, we did not bring production levels down to align with market demand since we projected demand would not sustain at the Q4 trough levels. Additionally, we slowed some of our upgrading operations in South Africa and we continue to purchase slag under our contract. We anticipate generating positive free cash flow for the remainder of the year to more than offset the first quarter use of cash. Moving to slide 6. We are relentlessly focused on our sustainability efforts at Tronox as this area is becoming an increasingly significant focal point and part of our conversations externally with investors, customers and other key stakeholders. In an effort to create a centralized approach to communicating our sustainability efforts, we appointed Jennifer Guenther to the role of Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of Investor Relations and Financial Planning. Having Jennifer lead these efforts will provide greater insight externally into the exciting ongoing work around ESG and ensure our efforts continue to align Tronox towards a profitable and sustainable future as we believe these two go hand-in-hand. I also wanted to highlight that we'll be publishing our 2022 Sustainability Report in May. This report will reinforce our previously disclosed path to carbon neutrality by 2050. Additionally, we're committing for the first time to targets to reduce Scope 3 emissions intensity by 9% by 2025 and 16% by 2030 against a 2021 baseline. We're excited about the continued progress we make each year to become more fully aligned with the expectations of our key stakeholders. Now let's move to slide 7 for a review of our first quarter financial performance in more detail. Revenue of $708 million improved 9% sequentially due to improved TiO2 revenues but represented a decline of 27% to the prior year due to continued market softness. Income from operations was $62 million in the quarter and net income was $25 million. Our effective tax rate in the quarter was 26% and our GAAP diluted earnings per share and our adjusted diluted earnings per share were both $0.15. Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was $146 million and our adjusted EBITDA margin was 20.6%, both exceeding our previous guidance. Our free cash flow in the quarter was a use of $172 million as previously outlined. Now let's move to slide 8 for a review of our commercial performance. Our TiO2 volumes came in within our previously guided range. Volumes increased 14% versus the fourth quarter driven by increases in Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and the Americas. TiO2 pricing continued to improve by 1% sequentially and 3% on a year-over-year basis in line with our expectations. We continue to deliver against our commercial strategy and realize favorable pricing trends despite the current macro backdrop. Zircon volumes declined as anticipated due to lower production as a result of the fourth quarter events. Zircon pricing remained relatively flat to the prior quarter, which represented an increase of 10% year-on-year. Revenue from other products was $76 million, a decrease of 10% to the prior year, largely driven by lower pig iron volumes and pricing. Partially offsetting the lower pig iron sales were sales of rare earths, which increased 62% year-over-year. We're continuing to evaluate opportunities in the rare earth space to enhance our earnings potential from what was previously considered a waste stream. The euro was a headwind to revenues compared to the prior year but represented an improvement sequentially as currencies strengthened in the first quarter versus the fourth. As we stated on our last earnings call, we expected the fourth quarter to be the trough for TiO2 volumes than it was. We saw the rebound in the first quarter and expect to continue in the second quarter, albeit still at lower levels relative to the second quarter of 2022. We expect second quarter pigment sales volumes to increase from the first quarter in the mid- to high teens range. This would represent a decline in the mid-teens range versus the prior year as the recovery in volumes begin to close the gap into the prior year. We'd continue to see the benefits of our margin stability initiatives in our financial results. Even with the recent significant volume reductions, we anticipate our overall TiO2 pricing to be flat to slightly down from the first quarter to the second quarter, largely driven by pricing declines in the Middle East and Latin America. As we've communicated previously and demonstrated over the last several quarters, we do not expect pricing to move as significantly as it has in previous economic transitions owing in large part to our commercial approach we have successfully implemented over the last several years. I'll now turn the call over to JF for a review of our operational performance. JF?

Thank you, John and good morning. Turning to Slide 9. Our adjusted EBITDA of $146 million represents a 39% decline year-on-year, driven by unfavorable fixed cost absorption due to lower production rate, higher processed chemical costs, higher mining site costs and lower sales volume. This was partially offset by improved pricing, favorable exchange rate and lower freight costs. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 20.6% for the quarter. On a sequential basis, adjusted EBITDA improved 29% due to improved freight and corporate costs; the roll-off of LCM and other abnormal charges from Q4; higher sales volume and improved product mix; and improved pricing. This was partially offset by exchange rate headwinds. As John outlined, the quarter was impacted by the Q4 event at our KZN facility in South Africa and the Atlas Campaspe mine in Australia. I'm happy to report the KZN impacts are fully resolved. Atlas is up and running and we are working toward being able to use the primary road in the middle of the year. Despite the Atlas cost headwinds to EBITDA, at this time in Q3, we anticipate achieving a run rate level of adjusted EBITDA in the range of the low end of our previously guided recession case. In total, had Atlas been fully running on January 1, our full year 2023 EBITDA would be approximately $70 million to $90 million higher. Turning to Slide 10. As a result of the macroeconomic backdrop, we are continuing to take action to navigate the current landscape and position Tronox for success. We continue to be laser-focused on cost reduction and have a number of levers to optimize performance across a variety of scenarios. We have continued to execute against our cost-reduction playbook, the result of which can be seen in our first quarter financials. We implemented a hiring freeze. We reduced professional fees, travel and other discretionary costs. We are also optimizing our fixed costs and driving additional supply chain initiatives. We are prudently managing working capital. While the first quarter saw a build of working capital in line with our expectation, we expect to see a release as we move through the remainder of the year. While our long-term strategy target is to be approximately 85% vertically integrated on feedstock as a result of current lower TiO2 production levels, driven by customer demand, which was down 30% year-on-year in Q1, we took action to reduce our feedstock production. This resulted in slightly higher mining and upgrading costs in the first quarter, which will continue in the second quarter of the year. On capital expenditure, as we have highlighted previously, we have implemented plans to significantly reduce our annual capital spend to below $275 million this year to adapt to the macroeconomic environment as it unfolds by delaying investment, primarily associated with volume growth. While this will delay our ability to realize benefits from our key capital projects, we do believe this is the appropriate decision for the business at this time and is consistent with our ability to flex our capital spend. We anticipate these actions will enable Tronox to generate positive free cash flow across a variety of scenarios including our recession case. We will continue to balance cash generation while ensuring we have the product necessary to meet our customer needs and are effectively positioning Tronox for future success. Before I turn the call over, I want to briefly provide an update on Jazan. As we have mentioned, one of the furnaces is operating and we have continued purchasing Jazan slag under the terms of the agreement. As we have disclosed in our filings, the Jazan Option Agreement expires on May 10, 2023. We are in discussions with TASNEE about under what circumstances we may extend the agreement. Meanwhile, we have agreed to extend the term of the Technical Service Agreement and continue to work with TASNEE to support the Jazan's smelter complex. The term of the $125 million we loaned to the project, which can be repaid as late as June 2025, remains unchanged and can be paid in the form of cash or in kind. We will continue to keep the market updated on the development on Jazan. I would now like to turn the call over to John Srivisal for a review of our financial position. John?

Thank you, JF. Turning to Slide 11. We ended the year with total debt of $2.7 billion. Our net leverage at the end of the year was 3.3 times on a trailing 12-month basis. In the first quarter, we amended and extended our interest rate swaps such that approximately 77% of our interest rates are fixed through 2024, approximately 68% are fixed from 2024 through 2028, aligning with the maturity of our term loan. Our balance sheet remained strong with no near-term significant maturities until 2028 and no financial covenants under term loan or bonds. Total available liquidity as of March 31 was $432 million, including $115 million in cash and cash equivalents, which is well distributed across our global operations. Capital expenditures totaled $93 million in the quarter. Approximately 40% of this was for maintenance and safety capital and 60% was for strategic growth projects. Depreciation, depletion and amortization expense was $71 million for the quarter. As John mentioned earlier, our free cash flow was a use of $172 million. This was due to inventory build for the reasons JF outlined, higher accounts receivable owing to our improved sales and lower accounts payable. In the first quarter, we declared a $0.125 dividend per share that we paid in the second quarter. This equates to $0.50 per share on an annualized basis. Moving to Slide 12. At Tronox, we employ a robust bottoms-up analysis of our markets, operations and the risk and opportunities in developing our forecast. Based on this in our current view, we anticipate second quarter adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $160 million to $170 million. We are forecasting TiO2 volumes will increase in the mid to high-teens range from Q1 and assume zircon volumes improved by approximately 15,000 tons, now that KZN and Atlas are up and running. Additionally, for TiO2, we are assuming that pricing will be flat to slightly down. We are also assuming to see continued cost impacts from Atlas, unfavorable product mix impacting margins as TiO2 volumes improved relative to zircon volumes and unfavorable fixed cost absorption from lower mining and pigment production rates. Pivoting to our expectations for our 2023 cash uses, our working capital assumption remains the same at a use of approximately $150 million. We anticipate flipping working capital into a source of cash for the remainder of the year including further cash from AR securitization. Our net cash interest expense assumption remains approximately $130 million. Our expectations for cash taxes have increased to approximately $50 million due to increased zircon sales expectations and FX rates. And our expectations for capital expenditures remain unchanged at less than $275 million for the year. JF shared earlier the actions we are currently taking as a business. We will continue to assess and execute against the levers we can pull to ensure sufficient liquidity and continued alignment of our production and costs to respond to the economic environment we are operating in. We will remain focused on delivering on our commitments. That concludes our prepared remarks. With that, I'd like to turn the call over for questions. Brika?

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. The first question we have comes from David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank. You may proceed with your question David.

Hi. Good morning. John, JF the sequential increase in Q2 versus Q1 is about $19 million at the midpoint. Is that a little bit less than normal seasonality? And if so why is that?

I wouldn't say that's necessarily less than seasonal I guess move in the coating season. Clearly, we saw you know 14% increase from Q4 to Q1 albeit off of very low levels. So what we had forecasted in the fourth quarter and communicated on the last call is that there was a lot of destocking going on mixed with demand that had dropped and that we would have seen the fourth quarter be the trough. That's in fact what we saw. When we think about moving Q1 into Q2 we have pretty good visibility into where those numbers are. So, it's April 27, we have a pretty good idea what April is going to look like. Our order book moving into May is a lot more solid. We have a better picture on May. June orders are typically always higher than what we would see in May. So it's typically the highest month in that second quarter. So even if our volumes in May and June were somewhat similar to what we see in May or even slightly lighter we still feel comfortable with the range that we just presented.

Yes. And David the only thing I would add look if you compare it to 2022, Q2 of this year will still be lower but that's in line with the macroeconomic environment.

Understood. And just one last thing. On the Atlas mining operations can you quantify the impact this year and what the tailwind might be for next year if that were to resume or return to more normal operations?

Hey, David, it's John Srivisal. Thanks for that question. And as JF mentioned, if Atlas had been up and running for the full year it would be an additional $70 million to $90 million of benefit for the year. Approximately $25 million to $30 million of that was impacted Q1. We do see a similar impact to Q2. And as we ramp up Atlas and get more productions and costs improve we'll see that improve throughout the year.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. We now have Josh Spector of UBS. Your line is open, Josh.

Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I just want to follow-up on something you said, JF. I wasn't sure if I heard it right that in Q3 you expect the run rate to be at the low end of your recession case. Is that guidance or is that just a hypothetical scenario?

Look I think that we feel confident with our recession case scenario Josh. And I think that for Q3 I mean being at the low end of the range of our recession scenario, I mean, we feel confident about that.

Yes. Joshua, I made a comment specific to that on the last call and that we thought it was appropriate to follow it up because we're still comfortable with the comment that we made last quarter with regards to how the business is developing. So that was really an add-on just kind of a follow-up to what we said last quarter as opposed to strict guidance.

Okay. I appreciate that. I guess if I could poke on that a little bit more is that if we think about the run rate at your low end I mean seasonally Q3 is bigger than some of the other quarters would that imply greater than $200 million? And what do you need to get there I guess in terms of TiO2 volumes and I guess some of the costs on Atlas and everything else?

Well, Josh, there's a lot of uncertainty regarding what will happen in the second half of the year. We chose not to provide clear guidance. I think, as John explained about the Atlas mine, we expect the road to open in the middle of the year. However, it takes time for the cost of those products to be reflected in our pigment costs. Therefore, we will still face higher costs than anticipated in Q3 this year due to those events. We will also see zircon volume increasing because of the Atlas mine. Overall, we feel confident about our business model.

And not only zircon volume growth, but there'll be TiO2 growth in that as well. So when we start to think about the comps, we made reference into where our comps were for this quarter. But the third quarter comps is going to be a lot easier because the third quarter of last year was significantly down. So again when we made reference to the recession case it's in the range of that. Again, we're not providing guidance on Q3, but we're confident that we're moving in the direction of the recovery as we've outlined over the last couple of quarters.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question is from Duffy Fischer of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Yeah. Good morning. Question just around your comments on pricing being flat to down. Is that a mix issue where you called out Latin America and Europe, or you actually think the physical prices will be down in those regions and it will drag down your printed price?

Yeah, Duffy. So look there will be some movement in pricing in Middle East. And that is largely driven with some of the areas where we're competing against the Chinese. So in Latin America, it's the same thing. So there is some mix, but there is some price movement as well. And we talk a lot about what's happening with the Chinese; their price is still significantly lower than ours. There are areas where we're competing more directly with them, and we're selectively determining how and when we make those adjustments to price. But there is actually price movement on the downside in Latin America, and in the Middle East and there's also some mix issues there as well. But again, we're talking about - we said flat to slightly up in the first quarter and we ended up at 1% up and we're talking flat to slightly down in the second quarter. So there's not a lot of movement there which reinforces what we've been talking about around the stability of our business around some of the programs we've put in place around margin stability initiatives in our commercial group.

Okay. And then because the numbers aren't out yet, but if you had to guess what do you think the Chinese net exports have been year-to-date versus last year? Are they up, down or flat?

They are up. We haven't received the numbers for April yet, but we do have March's data, which shows figures around $155. There wasn't a significant sequential increase. A notable area is Europe, where exports decreased a bit, primarily due to significant exports earlier in the year that have since declined. We often get questions about China, which we view as a competitor, and that's why we are focusing on our costs. Our volumes are recovering. Regarding India, we've seen some pullback in volumes. However, we anticipate a 25% year-over-year increase in 2023, following a strong 2022. We are managing our pricing strategy against China carefully, but we are confident in our ability to grow our business according to our projections.

Great. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. We now have John McNulty of BMO Capital Markets. You may proceed.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. It sounds like you had lower cost inventory in the first quarter than expected. How did that happen? Additionally, I’m a bit confused about why your margins in Q2 are expected to be in the high-teens after being in the low 20s in the first quarter, especially since you'll be running the assets at a higher capacity with volumes improving by mid to upper teens quarter-over-quarter. Can you help me understand that?

So, I'll take the first part of that question. Maybe JF, if you want to take the cost piece of it first.

Well, I mean, John, the reason our costs are moving is, obviously, we're going to start to see the Atlas zircon material in Q2 and that has an impact on us. Because I mean this is high-cost material, because of the overall that is a different line. So that has an impact on us.

I'm sorry, could you please repeat the first part of your question?

Yeah. No, sure. The first part I think you had said in the prepared remarks that you had lower cost inventory running through the P&L when you saw Q1 through. I guess, how did that happen, like what drove that?

Okay. So a lot of that was zircon. So we referenced that we have had orders that were well in excess of what we could actually ship. And because Atlas was off, we would have expected that we would have been able to ship more material out of Atlas. So we actually were able to reposition some of our inventory out of South Africa, which is lower cost inventory to fill some of the gap that we had for what would have historically been expected to come out or what we had projected would have come out of Australia. So that was that. And then I mean we've also got some inventory position on TiO2 in some of our other locations that during the pandemic we moved around that was at lower cost. So those are the two pieces that when we reference lower cost inventory that was what was causing that.

Yeah. And just hopping back to the margin question, the reason why we are seeing a decline is mix. As mentioned, we expect TiO2 to grow in the mid to high-teens range and that is growing faster than our zircon sales. So as you know zircon gives a higher contribution to the bottom line and that's impacting the margin.

Okay, got it. No, that makes sense. And then maybe just one last one on Jazan. Can you give us an update as to how far off from the target run rate that asset is right now? And if you think there's a realistic chance of it getting to the finish line?

Look, John, I mean we're still working with TASNEE to see what needs to be changed to increase the rate, at which the furnace is operating. So as we mentioned last time at the moment, one furnace is running the order hasn't been modified and that furnace that is running is running at about 50% of capacity.

Got it. Okay. Thanks very much for the color.

Thank you. We now have John Roberts with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

Thank you. Just one question. One of the biggest changes you can make to achieve your carbon reduction targets. I'm thinking electrifying the mining operations and maybe using hydrogen to heat the conversion facilities? And can any of that happen by 2030 since those are longer type projects?

John, thanks for the question. This is Jennifer. So great question. If you look at our footprint from a GHG perspective, if you total like the coke, anthracite coal, natural gas and total electricity, they drive 95% of our emissions. You saw us announce last year the solar project in South Africa with Solar Group that will significantly reduce our global emissions due to the significant amount of GHG emissions that come just from the smelting operations in South Africa. So shifting 40% of our electricity to renewables there will impact our global GHG emissions by reducing them by 13%. So we're focused on the areas around electricity, natural gas. Obviously to get to the further target the 2050 we will have to look at newer technology and those projects are underway, but we are focused on the interim on energy reduction and renewables.

Thank you. We now have Mike Leithead of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Good morning. First just two on the Jazan update. One, I think you mentioned an extension to one piece and that you're still renegotiating the second piece. So can you just help clarify what part is extended versus what part is still under negotiation? And then second just circling back to an earlier question. Obviously you've been working at this for about five years or so now, so you've got pretty good knowledge of what works, what doesn't. So I guess what is the realistic time frame to figure out, if or when you can reach commercial rates on both furnaces?

So, Mike, thank you for the question. Look, what we have extend is the TSA the Technical Service Agreement that we have with them. So we were basically, helping them working with the provider of the technology which is Metso Outotec. So we have our metallurgists and their metallurgists, and it's a team effort to see what would need to be modified and how we can continue to improve the existing furnace, and what modification would be necessary on furnace 2. And on the second question, I mean we're in negotiations.

Yes, if you consider where we are at stage 2, Jazan is producing slag, but it's not operating at the necessary rate. Therefore, we have an interest in exploring how we can enhance that asset to increase its output. We haven't made the significant progress we anticipated over the past five years. However, at this moment, the Option Agreement is set to expire on May 10th. We're engaged in discussions to see if there's a possibility of finding a way to extend that agreement—not the Technical Service Agreement, but the Option Agreement to purchase the asset.

Got it.

TSA is – sorry, about that.

That's, super helpful. Thank you. And then just on I guess tying to about your working capital. I think this year you talked about a $150 million working capital build and part of that is related to Jazan. I guess, how much of that is just slag purchases that you're obligated to buy, that you don't expect to sell through just given where your pigment operations are this year?

It's about 30% of that build.

We now have Matthew DeYoe of Bank of America.

Good morning. I wanted to break down the $114 million increase in production costs compared to last year. I believe it was mentioned on Slide 9 that Atlas accounts for $25 million to $30 million of that. Could you clarify the remaining amounts? How much is attributed to the fire, and how much to inflation? As we look ahead to the second quarter, where do you see this increase going? It seems Atlas will still be a factor, but the KZN fire might continue to impact us, although I assume some non-KZN Atlas production costs could begin to decrease. However, I am unsure of the scale of this situation.

Yes. The primary drivers of that relate to just general absorption at the mines and pigment sites, as well as just higher costs from a process chemical side.

Regarding Atlas, we previously mentioned that it is expected to contribute $70 million to $90 million for the year. We anticipate that this cost will impact us significantly, with an estimated $25 million to $30 million in the first and second quarters, before starting to decrease in the latter half of the year. The decrease will coincide with the opening of the haul road. The issue isn't related to shipping the material, but rather the higher cost of the material itself that will gradually be resolved in the pigment we are selling.

And on KZN, it impacted our zircon available for sale in the first quarter and had slightly higher costs as it was running at slightly lower rates. But, we fixed the remainder of the spirals in February. It is currently running at full rate. So, it has no further impact going forward and even the impact in the first quarter was fairly de minimis.

Okay. And so, I guess if I were to hone in on some of the non-core based inflation. Where do you kind of expect that to shake out, for the rest of the year or at least trend?

For the rest of the year, we haven't seen the significant decline that we would have liked compared to Q1. We do expect an overall decrease of about 2% to 3%, depending on the material. We are experiencing the largest increases in electricity, followed to a lesser degree by anthracite, chlorine, caustic, and lime. However, there are some benefits as well, particularly with natural gas, especially in the UK, along with sulfur and sulfuric acid.

Thank you. We now have Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. When you look back to 2022, how much did the global TiO2 industry contract or expand in volumes?

High single digits.

Contraction?

Yes.

And what's your expectation for the industry as a whole this year?

It's hard to speak specific to the industry but I would say relatively flat. When we think about the first and second quarter of last year they were strong. Third and fourth were extremely weak. We're seeing the recovery in the first and the second quarter and we would expect to see that in the third. So it's almost kind of the inverse pattern of what we saw last year but probably not as exaggerated in the fourth quarter as it was in the first quarter of last year.

Okay. Can you give us a quick summary of Project newTRON that is how much was spent? How much still needs to be spent even if it's put on hold? How much was saved? How much could be saved in the future?

So Jeff maybe I'll start and I'll ask John to add some color. But we – when we say we put it on hold, we haven't stopped newTRON. I mean we're still working but we're doing more of that work internally, when we said that to control our costs we have reduced our external support. We're doing more of newTRON on our own. And obviously, it's less costly to do it like that and it's not as fast. But all of the newTRON that were related to cost reduction, we're still progressing that because they're good value projects that lower our costs and make us a better competitor. The volume-related project and the debottleneck I mean we put that on hold. I mean they're still available for us when we'll see the market pick up. But for now we have slowed down those volume-related elements.

And from a spend perspective, we've disclosed previously that we spent about $125 million in CapEx over the past two years. And we expect – it depends on a lot of different factors there but we expect to spend another $50 million to $75 million, depending on what we decide to do with the program.

Value – we're getting value from the project. I mean our advanced process control has allowed us to lower our petroleum coke consumption at our site and it's helped our greenhouse gas impact. The automation of our plant has allowed us to reduce the number of people in some tasks where we had lots of people retiring and it would have been hard to replace the skill. So we're on a journey and it's a journey that we could adapt based on market outlook.

Okay. At the beginning of the call you mentioned that you might have a new interest in rare earth, rare earth production. How much capital would be devoted to that or might be devoted to that in some kind of range?

Yes. So Jeff, what we've said historically, I think on the last couple of calls that the rare earth side of this it's not really new for us. It's new in that it historically was a waste stream and now we're converting that into a revenue stream. So I think we disclosed last year, it was around $40 million. That 62% increase in the first quarter is kind of significant compared to where we were ramping up last quarter. So think about $40 million. This year it's about $50 million. And when we talk about investing, we mentioned also that that was going to be something that would be self-funding. That's a relatively high-margin business. So it's something that we're continuing to explore. There's lots of interest in it. And because we're a miner, we actually mine rare earths and we're looking at how we might be able to extract something that we think might be a natural extension of our current business.

Thanks so much.

Thank you. We now have Hassan Ahmed of Alembic Global. Please proceed, sir.

Good morning, John and JF. I wanted to revisit some comments made during the call regarding the bridge to second quarter earnings. If I think about the transition from Q4 to Q1, you reported an increase of $33 million in EBITDA sequentially. Now for Q1 to Q2, you're guiding towards $24 million at the high end of your range. It seems like the momentum is slowing down a bit. I'm trying to understand the commentary, which suggests otherwise. Comparatively, your TiO2 volumes are expected to show better percentage growth, and your zircon volumes will also increase. KZN and Atlas will be fully operational. So what am I missing? Why did you realize that $33 million incremental EBITDA from Q4 to Q1, and now indicate that the growth will slow down?

John, do you want to start?

I think a lot of it is related to our beef in the first quarter. A significant portion was impacted by currency, which we don't anticipate affecting Q1 and Q2 as much. Additionally, we mentioned having some unfavorable product mixes, with an increase in TiO2 sales but a decrease in zircon sales, which are generally at lower margins than we initially expected in the first quarter. This correlates with John's remarks about selling lower-cost inventory in Q1 compared to Q2. Furthermore, we are experiencing higher costs, particularly electricity, especially in South Africa as we transition into the cooler months. There is a notable rise not only in pricing but also in surcharges for winter.

And, Hassan, I think the other piece, when we think about the volume pickup, right? So I think in the comments and I even made the point, we feel pretty good about where we are in the TiO2 volume in that guide. We are seeing some pickup in China, right? China is probably not our best margin area. So there's also a mix on the margin on where we're actually picking up the volume. So, not to say that it's all margin challenge, but some of that volume specifically in China is probably on the lower end of that margin wheel.

Understood. And as a follow-up, I just wanted to sort of get the lay of the land, what you guys are seeing out in China in particular. I mean, it just seems that, at least through the course of Q1, I mean, there was some noise around the Chinese sort of government intervention with regards to TiO2 producers, essentially causing some of these producers to like very efficiently implement price hikes. So where are we there? Is capacity ramping up there? Are those, sort of, government interventions still in place?

We've mentioned this before, and I believe we first discussed it at your conference. Recently, the South China Morning Post published an article echoing the central government's stance on not providing additional loans to local governments. This raises the question of how it affects pricing. In the first quarter, we've observed price increases in China that have been more persistent than in the past during recovery phases. To date, no companies in the TiO2 sector have gone bankrupt in recent months, although they are consistently reporting similar information. I anticipate that may change at some point, but that remains to be seen. There's still considerable commentary backing our earlier points.

Very helpful. Thank you so much, Guys.

Thank you. We now have Vincent Andrews of Morgan Stanley. You may proceed.

Hi. This is Turner Hinrichs on for Vincent. Thank you for taking my question.

Hello.

Yes. Hi. So before the fire, flood and the cutback in spend, you were targeting a savings run rate of about $150 million to $200 million per ton by the end of 2023 from your newTRON program. How close do you think you can get to that number exiting 2023 now that you've got more confidence around Atlas being closer to normal by mid-2023?

We previously disclosed that we have achieved savings of approximately $20 million in newTRON for 2021, an additional $30 million in 2022, and we expect another $20 million in 2023. We anticipate further savings through initiatives like advanced process control and TOIS. This guidance primarily pertains to Project newTRON and does not relate to the KZN fire or Atlas.

Yes, Atlas was not part of newTRON.

Okay. Got it. Got it. Thank you for the clarity. Just another one. It would be interesting to hear about cost dynamics for chlorine in light of the sustained inflation. Specifically, I mean, could you quantify the benefit or detriment you would see from an incremental change in chlorine prices? And how is your appetite for strategic actions around chlorine if costs continue to inflate?

Chlorine has been a challenge for us in the US as we operate nine TiO2 plants, most of which are chloride-based. We have specialized facilities, including one in Saudi Arabia with our own chlorine production. Strategically, we are exploring long-term options based on market developments. We maintain strong relationships with our suppliers and observed a significant price increase in 2022, with a slight rise in 2021. We will continue to assess this situation as we progress. It remains a key concern for us, especially in the US.

All right. Thanks for the color.

Thank you. Our final question from the line comes from Roger Spitz of Bank of America.

Thank you. Good morning. In Q2, 2023 is that expected to be a working capital further outflow? And do you have a quantum for that?

On a net basis, we do expect to recover throughout the rest of the year. Q2 is roughly neutral.

Okay. You have a caustic chlor-alkali plant in Saudi Arabia. Are you selling most or all of that caustic and what is the annual metric ton capacity of the caustic you are selling?

Look Roger that plant is built to our needs for the pigment production. So we're not selling chlorine outside in Saudi Arabia. We just consume it for our Yanbu pigment plant. Look obviously, the caustic that is produced from that plant we sell it on the market in Saudi Arabia and we also have a flaking plant now that we can export as needed the caustic.

We're selling that. And to JF's point that's a recent development where we're starting to export that caustic.

And do you have an annual volume of the classic you're able to sell to the market?

Caustic production is approximately 1.1 tons of chlorine. Based on the asset's run rate, it produces around 130,000 tonnes a year. Therefore, we anticipate around 30,000 to 40,000 tons per year, depending on how we operate the asset.

Great. And lastly when you said flake, you're actually not selling the typical commercial grade 50-50 caustic and water at least not outside Saudi Arabia. You're actually evaporating it all the way to solid caustic and selling it?

And packaging it correct.

We do sell it 50-50 in Saudi Arabia that's the bulk of the production but we also have the facility to flake it.

Thank you very much. I would now like to hand it back to Mr. Turgeon for any final remarks.

Thank you for joining the call today. Our key priority for 2023 remains unchanged. We will maintain a relentless focus on sustainability and safety, continue to align production with customer demand and prudently reduce costs accordingly, manage our key capital project without losing sight of the long-term benefit to Tronox including reducing our cost per ton and generating free cash flow across a variety of economic scenarios. That concludes our call. Have a great day. Thank you.

Thank you all for joining. That does conclude today's call. Please have a lovely day and you may now disconnect your line.