Algoma Steel Group Inc.

Greetings. Welcome to the Algoma Steel Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Michael Marocca, Treasurer and Investor Relations Officer. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Algoma Steel Group, Inc.' 's third quarter fiscal 2022 earnings conference call. Leading today's call are Michael McQuaid, our chief executive officer, and Rajat Marwa, our chief financial officer. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and will be made available for replay later today in the investors section of Algoma Steel's corporate website at www.algoma.com. I would like to remind you that comments made on today's call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws, which involve assumptions and inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from statements made today. In addition, our financial statements were prepared in accordance with IFRS, which differs from US GAAP, and our discussion today includes references to certain non-IFRS financial measures. Last evening, we posted an earnings presentation to accompany today's prepared remarks. The slides for today's call can be found in the investor section of our corporate website. With that in mind, I would ask everyone on today's call to read the legal disclaimer on slide two of the accompanying earnings presentation and to also refer to the risks and assumptions outlined in Algoma Steel's third quarter fiscal 2022 management's discussion and analysis. Please note that our financial statements are prepared using the U.S. dollar as our functional currency and the Canadian dollar as our presentation currency. Our fiscal year runs from April 1st to March 31st, and our financial statements have been prepared for the three and nine months ended December 31st, 2021. Please note all amounts referred to on today's call are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. Following our prepared remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Mike McQuaid. Mike. Thank you, Mike.

Good morning. Welcome, and thank you for joining Algoma's earnings call for our third fiscal quarter ended December 31st, 2021, our second quarterly earnings call since returning to public markets. I will start my comments, as always, by addressing what truly matters most to us, the safety of our employees. At Algoma Steel, we believe in safety without compromise and our continued focus has resulted in substantial improvement over the last decade in our lost time injury frequency rate. I'm proud to say the calendar year 2021 was one of Algoma's safest years ever. Safety performance is our top priority at Algoma and I commend our entire team for their collective success and continued diligence as we relentlessly pursue our goal of achieving zero workplace injuries. Before getting into the specifics of our strong results for the quarter, I'd like to spend a few minutes discussing the remarkable transformation underway, how it positions Algoma in today's North American steel industry, and how it will shape our path forward. We are laser-focused on creating long-term value for our shareholders through a combination of prudent financial management transformative capital investment, and safe and efficient operations of our facilities. Still markets are cyclical and pricing can be highly volatile, as evidenced by what we have seen over the last several quarters. Prudent financial management means focusing on cash that we have, not cash that we expect to realize at some point in the future. Too much work has gone into putting us in the enviable balance sheet position we are in today. With the cash we had on hand at the quarter end and the $420 million of financing commitments we obtained from the Canadian government, construction of our transformative EAF project is underway. Our primary focus is preserving our ability to bring the EAF facility into production on time and on budget. a facility which is designed to modernize and expand our steelmaking capacity while lowering our carbon intensity and enhancing long-term stakeholder value. Let me give you a quick reminder of why we are so excited about the EAF project. The project entails dual furnaces that are designed for a combined annual raw steel production throughput of 3.7 million tons, matching our downstream finishing capacity while lowering our carbon emissions by approximately 70% when fully operational. This level of CO2 reduction would represent 11% of the federal and 100% of the provincial 2030 targets for industrial emitters as set forth under the Paris Accord. We expect the two EAFs to come online in 2024 following a 30-month construction phase This will be followed by a transition away from blast furnace steel production as increased power supply becomes available from the grid with the support of the provincial government. The project will fundamentally transform who we are and how we operate, positioning the company as a next-generation steelmaker focused on sustainability and poised to be successful across all phases of the steel market cycle. Construction of the facility and bringing it online over the next 30 months is expected to be achieved without disrupting production in our current facilities as we continue to safely operate in and benefit from today's favorable steel pricing environment. Later in the presentation, we will dive deeper into our capital allocation framework and how we see it evolving over time. But before that, I will pass it over to Rajat to go over the quarter's record financial results.