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spk15: Hello, and welcome to today's conference call to discuss Algoma Steel's fiscal third quarter 2023 financial results. My name is Shamali, and I'm your operator for today's call. At this time, I'd like to hand the call over to Mike Maraca, Treasurer and Investor Relations Officer for Algoma. Mr. Maraca, please go ahead.
spk05: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Algoma Steel Group, Inc.' 's financial and operating results conference call for the fiscal third quarter ended December 31st, 2022. Leading today's call are Michael Garcia, our Chief Executive Officer, and Rajit 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 are 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 a presentation on our financial and operating results to accompany today's prepared remarks. The slides for today's call can be found in the Investors section of our corporate websites. With that in mind, I would ask everyone on the call to read the legal disclaimers on slide two of the accompanying presentation and to also refer to the risks and assumptions outlined in Algoma Steel's financial statements and management's discussion analysis for the full year ended March 31st, 2022. 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 third quarter financial statements have been prepared for the three months ended December 31st, 2022. Please note all amounts referred to on today's call are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call to conduct a question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Michael Garcia. Mike.
spk08: Thank you, Mike. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. As we always do, I would like to begin my remarks by addressing Algoma's top priority, which is the safety of our employees. At Algoma, safety is non-negotiable and is firmly rooted in our corporate values, where with every decision, every action, and every day, we will work safely with teamwork, integrity, and a deep care for our people, their families, and the environment. Our continued dedication has led to a significant improvement in our lost time injury frequency rate, over the past decade. We will continue to work diligently as we relentlessly pursue our goal of achieving zero workplace injuries. Next, I'll cover key events and milestones during our fiscal third quarter and subsequent to its end. I will then turn the call over to Rajat for a deeper dive into the numbers before closing with an update on market conditions and our strategic investments set to deliver long-term value for all of our stakeholders. Our performance in the third quarter was largely in line with our pre-announcement on January 9th, 2023. Shipments of 458,000 tons were sequentially higher, though still below our normal run rate as we completed commissioning of our plate mill modernization phase one. Our overall financial results also reflected lower pricing in the third quarter. Steel prices for hot rolled coil have recovered meaningfully since early November and plate pricing has maintained a significant price premium. While commissioning of the plate mill modernization phase one was a challenge in the second half of calendar 2022, it's important to highlight the reasons for the project and the value delivered from it. Our plate mill is the only discrete plate mill in Canada, and it produces a full range of high-quality rolled and heat-treated plate products. including the widest plate manufactured in Canada. Our products can be tailored for high-strength abrasion resistance and military applications, among a wide range of other end uses. Completion of Phase I will now deliver enhanced capabilities, including improved surface quality and shape. Importantly, plate shipments return to normalized levels by the end of the third quarter, and we expect shipments in calendar 2023 to be consistent with historical production levels. The next phase of our plate mill modernization project, phase two, will focus on increasing mill throughput and is expected later in 2023. As we outlined on our last quarterly call, we will be mindful of market conditions before commencing phase two, and we will be laser focused on utilizing lessons learned from phase one in its implementation. Looking forward on the cost side, we expect a quarter-over-quarter improvement on cost of goods sold per ton as we return to normal production levels. It should be noted that we continue to experience some headwinds on account of higher-priced purchased coke. Our demand for coke at the blast furnace outstrips our production capacity, requiring us to supplement with purchased coke. In an effort to mitigate this, we are focused on operational improvement initiatives at our coke-making facilities to increase throughput. We anticipate to complete these improvements over the next few months, providing additional internal coke production by the end of fiscal Q1 2024. As previously disclosed, we have a long-term contract with a third-party coke producer, which provides us with the coke needed to maintain still production at normalized levels. The fiscal third quarter was also characterized by a volatile market for steel and raw material inputs, which continued to impact realized prices and costs. Pricing reached 2022 lows in early November before recovering through the end of the quarter and into 2023. During the quarter, we continued to advance construction of our transformative electric arc furnace project, which remains on budget and on time for our planned mid-2024 startup. Piling and foundational work is largely complete. Cranes are in position, and the first structural steel components are being raised as we speak, an exciting milestone in the project. On the capital allocation side, we declared our regular quarterly dividend of US $0.05 per share, and we remained active under our normal course issuer bid program. Now I will pass the call over to Rajat to go over the financial results of the third quarter. Rajat?
spk02: Thanks, Mike. Good morning, and thank you all for joining the call. Our fiscal third quarter results, while challenging for the operational reasons Mike alluded to, came in line with the guidance for shipments and EBITDA provided in January. I'll remind you again that all numbers are expressed in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. However, our functional currency is the US dollar. For the third quarter, we reported a net loss of 69.8 million or 64 cents per diluted share compared to net income of 123 million or 92 cents per diluted share in the prior year quarter. With the decline attributable to weaker steel market condition as well as lower than expected shipments, due to the commissioning delays at the plate mill. Now let me summarize the key drivers of our performance. We shipped 458,000 net tons in the quarter, down 17% as compared to the prior year quarter. As we previously disclosed, delays experienced during the commissioning of a plate mill modernization project had the
spk12: largest impact on shipments.
spk02: Net sales realization averaged 1116 per ton down 38.9% versus the prior year period. The decrease versus the prior year level primarily reflects weaker market conditions during the quarter relative to record pricing levels seen during the prior year period. This resulted in steel revenue of $512 million in the quarter down 49.3% versus the same quarter of last year. On the cost side, Algoma's cost of goods sold averaged 1,157 per ton in the quarter, up 22.3% over the prior year period. This includes approximately $100 per ton of cost attributed to previously disclosed operational challenges flowing through inventories. Further cost pressure comes from higher prices for key input including metallurgical coke, natural gas, alloys, and scrap, as well as the impact of lower shipments. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was a loss of $35.9 million as compared to $457.3 million in the prior year comparable quarter. The year-over-year decrease was driven primarily by the decline in realized steel pricing and lower shipment volumes. From a cash flow perspective, cash flow from operating activity was a use of $128.6 million in the quarter compared to cash generation of $318.4 million in the prior year comparable quarter. The main drivers include lower EBITDA and a significant investment in the working capital in the quarter as we continue to build both raw material and work in progress inventories given seasonal inventory build and lower than normal production volumes. For context, Our inventory position as of December 31, 2022 stood at $912 million versus $616 million in the same quarter of the prior year. This nearly $300 million increase in inventory was partially attributable to higher prices and exchange variation. However, approximately 55% of the variance relates to higher inventory quantities. We expect to gradually release this excess inventory in the coming quarters, which will add to our liquidity levels. We finished the quarter with $245 million of cash and equivalents on the balance sheet, and our asset-backed credit facility was undrawn with $239 million in availability. As an update to year project spending, through the end of the third fiscal quarter ended We have spent approximately $220 million on the EF project and issued letters of credit of US $48 million securing fabrication and delivery of key components. While this aggregate spending level is lower than originally anticipated for the quarter end, it is primarily due to timing differences in fabrication and erection of EF building and the delivery of offshore equipment. These timing differences do not affect the critical part of the completion of the project, and we remain on time and on budget for a mid-2024 startup. To date, approximately 70% of the total EF investment amount has been contracted with fixed price commitments, with the balance still to be contracted. Supporting the remaining items to be contracted, we maintain approximately $50 million of available contingency. we expect to spend approximately 70 to 80 million on the EF project in the fourth fiscal quarter. Putting this all together, I would like to highlight a few points. As of December 31st, Algoma's net working capital plus cash total 1.15 billion, and we have full access to our undrawn AVL facility. We have a conservative and prudent approach to our balance sheet with virtually no long-term debt except for attractive government financing. We have access to an additional $168 million of funding available on the SIF facility, which is supporting the development of the EAF. All this together puts us in a strong position to advance on our strategic capital initiatives, including the transformation to EAF, which we expect to deliver improved operational performance, enhanced cash flow, and EBITDA through the cycle and reduce earnings volatility. I'd now like to turn the call back to Mike for a market update and closing remarks.
spk08: Thank you, Rajat. Now, turning to the North American steel market, 2022 was marked by significant volatility in pricing. Highs that were reached in March around the start of the Ukraine war quickly reversed, testing various support levels through the summer and fall before bottoming in November. We are encouraged by the recent price improvements in hot-rolled coil and continued robust plate pricing. Key market indicators, including extended lead times and a strengthening forward curve, support our expectation of improved performance in calendar 2023. Our order book, supported by a significant portion of contract sales, shows consistent demand for our product, including sales to the automotive, construction, oil and gas, and other steel-intensive industries. And from a global perspective, price dynamics and trade measures continue to reduce the attractiveness of imports into our North American markets. For the fiscal fourth quarter, we expect sequentially higher shipments, more consistent with our normal operating levels, and in combination with current steel pricing, we expect sequential improvement in net sales realizations and EBITDA performance. That said, we continue to experience pricing pressure on our key inputs, including metallurgical coke, coking coal, alloys, and general inflationary increases on other goods and services, which will have an effect on margins for our product. In calendar 2023, we expect to benefit from normalized and consistent operating performance, labor stability, a strong and flexible balance sheet, and great support from our government partners and our community. We expect this year to yield a combination of improved operational results and accelerating progress on our transformative EAF investment. As the market is showing signs of greater stability, we expect to generate significant free cash over the longer term, which supports our two main capital improvement programs, the second phase of the plate mill modernization and the EAF investment. Our focus remains on prudent financial discipline, maintaining full operating capability, and completion of our EAF project, ushering in the next era for Algoma Steel and providing long-term value creation for our stakeholders. As the world transitions towards a more sustainable future, it will continue to need steel for decades to come. At Algoma, we are building on our proud 120-year-plus history to serve our customers today while simultaneously becoming one of the lowest-cost producers of green steel in North America. We are very excited for our company and employees and look forward to what the future holds. Thank you very much for your continued interest in Algoma Steel. At this point, we would be happy to take your questions. Operator, please give the instructions for the Q&A.
spk15: Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your hand tip before pressing the star key. And one moment, please, while we pose for questions. Our first question comes from the line of David Ocampo with Cormark Securities. Please proceed with your question.
spk14: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Rashad, I was hoping we could touch a little bit on the working capital, particularly as it relates to the inventory. You called out that 55% of it is due to higher inventory levels. I was wondering if you could break that down between potentially How much of it is related to unfinished slabs versus, say, higher inventory levels of iron ore?
spk02: So on a very high level, let's say 40% will be in whip and finished, and the balance will be in rest of the raw materials, so roughly 40%, 60%.
spk14: Okay. And then on the work in process or in progress, is there potentially a catch-up in shipments that we could expect that sort of unwinds in calendar 23?
spk02: Yeah, we should, as we start reducing our and finish, we should expect that to flow into the flow into the shipments over the next, let's say, couple of quarters.
spk14: Okay, that's good. And then on the plate mill modernization phase two component of it, should we expect any downtime if you guys do decide to go forward with this for the end of the year, or how should we think about any disruptions to your production levels as you move forward with that next phase?
spk08: David, this is Mike. So, The phase two implementation of the plate mill modernization project involves two components. One component is to bring online the new inline high capacity shear that will replace a small undersized shear that's there currently and replace most of the gas flame cutting that we need to do. in the facility, anything under two inches. That portion of phase two does not require any mill downtime. So as we're doing that, we can continue to produce both plate and strip. The small amount of cutting that would be done on the small shear we'll do with an outside processor. The other component is the replacement and the upgrade of drives on the four-high stand and the hot mill. That does require an outage. Currently, that outage will be approximately 40 days of production, or you can think about roughly 60,000 tons of both plate and strip. And that's kind of what that outage looks like currently. And again, the timing for... The outage, the shear work and the finishing end work will begin in May, take approximately five months. Again, no impact to ongoing operations. And then the 40-day mill outage for the drive upgrade has not been scheduled with a final implementation date, and that will depend on both market conditions and our readiness for the for the down. Does that help?
spk14: That's extremely helpful. That's all the questions I had. I'll hop back in the queue, guys. Thanks.
spk15: Our next question comes from the line of Ian Gillies with Defo. Please proceed with your question.
spk21: Morning, everyone. Morning, Ian. I just wanted to start on the volume side. As you think about it from a business planning perspective, are you anticipating pretty standard volumes across all the quarters this year? Do you think we should be thinking about it as they build through the year, given that there is still a little bit of ancillary repair and maintenance work left to be completed?
spk08: Yeah. Thanks, Ian. So we anticipated to be pretty standard, other than the plate mill outage that I spoke about, which we haven't decided when exactly we'll take that it should be relatively standard and somewhat equal across the four quarters with maintenance kind of spread evenly throughout the steelworks.
spk21: Okay, that's helpful. Switching gears to the pricing side, obviously there's been two increases by one of your competitors in the last, call it 11 or 12 days. Are you able to provide any initial feedback from how your customers are feeling about these price increases and how you're thinking about that in the context of current market conditions?
spk08: Sure. I mean, I think it's difficult for me to speak for the entire market, but I think the price increases have been received relatively well by the market with an understanding that the price is moving up, and I think as we go forward into the remainder of this quarter and into the first quarter of the new fiscal year, we will start to see that displayed in our own order book and results. Our lead times are going out a little bit, so there is a matter of weeks before you know, a price increase that hits the market kind of today is reflected in, in our bookings, even if it's a new price today and we book it at that new price today, it's still, you know, six, seven, sometimes eight weeks, but more six or seven weeks before, uh, that product is produced and, and shipped and, and realized as a, uh, as revenue for us that help.
spk21: No, no, that's, that's very helpful. I appreciate that. Um, And then on the cost side, I have two separate questions. The first one, you made some commentary in and around Coke and Coal this quarter and buying from a third party. Just to clarify, is there anything unusual expected to happen in the fiscal fourth quarter relative to, say, last year on the Coke and Coal side, or was that more of just a general comment that you're working on getting that cost lower over the course of time?
spk02: So coking coal, there is no change from pricing perspective between last quarter, this quarter, and going forward. I think we indicated that the pricing year over year is very similar. On the coking coal coke production, metallurgical coke production, So the change will start coming from end of the first fiscal quarter where we'll start getting more of internal co-produce, which will definitely help us on the cost side. We are not expecting significant change quarter over quarter on the cost side. We are expecting it to improve as we get into the second fiscal quarter of next year.
spk21: Okay, understood. Rajat, the last one for me, there is, I think, a $19 million inventory impairment in the quarter. Are you expecting, should we expect to see much more of those sorts of items, or do you think you've largely worked through that piece?
spk02: I think it's worked through. The pricing from... From a realization perspective, it was pretty low at $600, and now when we are hovering around $900, $850 to $900, it's not there. So at $600 or $700, those were the adjustments that came through, and that reflected lower production and the cost challenges that we faced in the last two quarters. So most of it is taken care of. We should not expect You know, if the market conditions continue where they are with our production levels, we don't expect that to happen.
spk21: Thank you very much. That's helpful. I appreciate you taking all my questions. I'll turn it back over.
spk08: Thanks, Ian.
spk21: Thanks, Ian.
spk15: Our next question comes from the line of David Gagliano with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
spk09: Hi. Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to drill down a bit on the near-term outlook, if possible. We've had a few of the U.S. sheet producers report and guide pricing down quarter over quarter in the first quarter, mainly because of lags versus the price increases. Is that a reasonable assumption, and can you frame the magnitude of the decline in pricing expected on a per-time basis in the first quarter?
spk08: Yeah, I'll start, David. If you think of maybe the bottom, finding the bottom of the market in November, in November, The business we were booking at that time, the majority of it would have shipped in January. So I think that would kind of agree with what you're picking up and what you mentioned earlier. Rajat, you have any other?
spk02: Yeah, sure. So I think the expectation is – definitely to come down to some extent. For us, it's slightly different. We do have advantage of our quarterly contracts and monthly contracts, more so on the quarterly contract side which gives us some advantage. The other big portion for us definitely will be on the plate side. we will be having higher plate volume coming into this quarter versus last quarter. So when you factor all of this in, we should see some decline, less so than what others would have faced.
spk09: Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then just shifting to the cost side, I know there's been obviously clearly commentary here, and I've I believe mentioned was, you know, expectations for cost of goods sold per ton to improve largely to the, obviously to the improved volumes, you know, although somewhat offset by these higher price, you know, for example, merchant Coke and, you know, the other input costs. Can you frame, you know, the net result of those two in terms of the quarter over quarter expectations on cost of goods sold per ton?
spk02: So, I think what... I'll try and see if I can provide some more clarity, but what we said is that there is a $100 per ton one-time impact that was in the cost last time, which should go away, and then we should see further improvements coming because of volume, because of lower costs of some of the input items, primarily on the R&R side, as we always see five to six months lag when the R&R hits our cost versus where the index was. So we'll see some advantages and some benefits coming from that side. On the other major cost items, whether it's coking coal, coke, we should see probably very similar impacts quarter over quarter from cost perspective. So the trajectory will be down. where cost will come down 100 plus dollars, and that's because of some of the input material as well as the high production.
spk09: Okay, that's helpful. And then just to wrap up the same line of questioning here, this will be my last question. When we throw it into the mix, I mean, at least from my view, it looks like it'll be a positive EBITDA per ton quarter. I just want to confirm you know, based on, you know, the moving parts that we just talked about. Is that a reasonable expectation that you've got terms positive on a per-time basis?
spk22: Yeah, that's reasonable.
spk09: Okay, great. Thank you.
spk15: Our next question comes from the line of Anuprihar with 8 Capital. Please proceed with your question.
spk13: Yeah, good morning. I just want to ask a couple of questions on the plate, Noah, if I could. I noticed in the MD&A, you talk about the CapEx there being $135 million. Has that number increased from the $120 million you were using previously?
spk02: Yeah, it did. I think we disclosed it last quarter that the number went up just because of the delays during COVID and you know, the other pressure that we had on it with some changes that was coming. So, yeah, it went up from 120 to 135.
spk11: Can you give us an idea of how much is left to spend there on Phase 2? I think it will be around $20 to $25 million. Okay.
spk13: And we should assume basically throughput returning to normal in Q4 on the plate side? That's correct.
spk19: Yes.
spk13: All right. Okay, and just lastly on the quality. So the quality coming out of the plate mill now, is it higher than what it was before you guys started the expansion? In other words, the quality improvements that Phase 1 was supposed to achieve, have they been achieved?
spk08: Yes, they have. And there's a couple critical pieces that were involved in Phase 1 that are delivering that quality, primarily the new leveler. which gives us much better control and levelness of the product. We also have a new descaler, which descales the plate as it comes out of the reheat furnace before it hits the first rolling operation, the four high. So those two new pieces of equipment especially have delivered significantly better surface quality and profile of the plate.
spk13: What's the reasonable expectation then for when you will be able to get a higher realized price for that improved quality product?
spk08: Well, it'll still be some months, probably the earliest, the second half of this calendar year. You can appreciate that we have some amount of work to do with our current base of customers and any new customers that we want to work with given our difficult startup over the second half of last calendar year. We're working very hard on that now. We're restocking or repopulating our stocking program so that we have heavy runners in terms of specific dimensions of plate. We have those on hand ready for quick delivery. and we are working through and with the intention of eventually eliminating any remaining backlogged orders that built up over the startup from phase one.
spk13: And Mike, just lastly, just to be clear, what's the reasonable expectation for sort of the net margin improvement that you could realize when you are actually in a position to get a higher price?
spk08: You know, that's difficult to give you a specific number, because there's a lot of kind of moving pieces within that. But obviously, we're going to want to bias our ratio of plate and strip as much as we can to the plate side and take advantage of that historically high spread between as-rolled plate and hot-rolled coil. I think looking at last week's CRU number, that That spread stands at $657, which is against a historical spread of $150, between $100 and $200 usually over the years. Now, how much incremental above that can we get with kind of the higher margin part of the plate market kind of remains to be seen, but it's our intention to position ourselves in that area.
spk10: That's great. Thank you.
spk15: And our next question comes from the line of Ahmad Shah with Beacon Securities. Please proceed with your question.
spk20: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess just one for me on the CapEx shift for the EAF. I noticed about 25% kind of spilled over from fiscal 23 to 24. Can you give us a little bit more color on that, please? Okay.
spk08: Yeah, I think at a high level the main reason is because even though the overall timeline and completion date of the project has not moved or slipped, within that timeline there's certain components of the way the project is unfolding that have moved. I think a very good example of that is the erection of the building, the main steelworks building that we're building. Originally, the original project schedule contemplated starting that building in October of last year and kind of being heavy into the erection of it, you know, through the current period. As we reworked the project and confirmed, you know, all of the different components of the project completion, we moved the erection of that building to beginning this month, actually. I think our first pillar is Our column is going above ground today. So obviously the cash flows associated with that building to that contractor have shifted into this quarter versus beginning in the last quarter. And then as a part of that, you know, we've got all this built component and machinery sitting in the build shops in various parts of the world, whether it's Thailand or Europe. And, of course, we've been over there and done all the factory acceptance testing. But originally in the project schedule, we contemplated shipping that equipment here as the building comes up. And now that the building is coming up a few months later, there's no need to ship it on the original schedule. We'll ship it a little bit delayed so that the cash flow is associated with that. because that's largely triggered upon shipment move to the right as well. So kind of all of that is happening within the overall project schedule, but the overall timeline has not shifted. Does that help?
spk20: Yeah, that's very helpful. And I noticed maybe on your MD&A, there is some commentary around discussions with the Ministry of Energy for securing power for the full EF transformation program. Any positive or progress development there that transpired since the last quarter, given the change in the disclosure?
spk08: Yeah, we've had a lot of interaction with the ministry, with the local utility entity, PUC, with the provincial power provider, Hydro One, and the provincial grid operator. So there's a lot of stakeholders or entities that we are in pretty much constant contact with them. I think the support we've seen has been overall very, very positive. There's nobody in the province from the political or the ministerial level that isn't a very strong supporter of this project. It moves the province exactly right. the direction it wants to move in terms of reducing CO2 emissions. So we've gotten great support from that perspective. Of course, they are responsible for the stability and the performance of the overall grid, so they're very mindful of what the new load in Sault Ste. Marie will mean for overall grid stability and robustness. So we continue to have those conversations with them because not only do we look to be a future – customer of the grid, but we want the grid to be very stable as well. So we'll work with them and make sure that everything we're doing to bring all this demand online keeps the grid very stable.
spk20: Got it. So if I gather correctly, positive development, but still too early to make any assumptions about earlier timeline for full EAF production than we previously discussed, right?
spk08: Correct. But I would note that Regardless of the developments of grid power and the local 230k volt line, part of our project involves the installation of two new turbine generators at our Lake Superior power plant, and that'll give us 115 megawatts of internal generation. And that, combined with the available power we're already taking off the grid, will allow us to proceed with startup without any type of delays.
spk20: Yeah, for sure. No, that's great, Colin, and thanks again, guys.
spk10: Yep.
spk15: Our next question comes from the line of Ian Gillies with DFL. Please proceed with your question.
spk21: Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my follow-up. Excuse me. With respect to the remaining items to be ordered for the EAF and the $50 million contingency, do you see anything in those remaining items that need to be ordered that have undergone significant inflationary pressures since the initial cost estimate, or is that $50 million contingency still looking like a very healthy amount in the context of estimated total project cost?
spk08: That's a great question, Ian. No, we haven't seen any specific inflationary-based contingencies or escalations that we are expecting. But the contingency is there almost to be spent, if you will. We're not going to be disappointed or we're not going to make short-sighted decisions in order to protect the remaining contingency. It's there for unseen areas of factors of cost, and that's what we'll use it for. So we do expect to contract out the remaining scope of work for this project at that $170, $175 million range, but if it happens a little higher, then that's what the contingency is there for.
spk21: No, that's helpful. That's the last thing for me. I'll turn the call back over. Thank you.
spk08: You're welcome. Thanks, Ian.
spk15: And we have reached the end of the question and answer session, and I'll turn the call back over to Michael Garcia for closing remarks.
spk08: Okay. Thank you again for your participation in our third quarter fiscal 2023 conference call and for your continued interest in Algoma Steel. We look forward to updating you on our results and progress when we report our fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2023 results this spring.
spk15: And this concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. Thank you.
spk01: you Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.
spk15: Hello, and welcome to today's conference call to discuss Algoma Steel's fiscal third quarter 2023 financial results. My name is Shamali, and I'm your operator for today's call. At this time, I'd like to hand the call over to Mike Maraca, Treasurer and Investor Relations Officer for Algoma. Mr. Maraca, please go ahead.
spk05: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Algoma Steel Group, Inc.' 's financial and operating results conference call for the fiscal third quarter ended December 31st, 2022. Leading today's call are Michael Garcia, our Chief Executive Officer, and Rajit 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 are 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 a presentation on our financial and operating results to accompany today's prepared remarks. The slides for today's call can be found in the Investors section of our corporate website. With that in mind, I would ask everyone on the call to read the legal disclaimers on slide two of the accompanying presentation and to also refer to the risks and assumptions outlined in Algoma Steel's financial statements and management's discussion analysis for the full year ended March 31st, 2022. 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 third quarter financial statements have been prepared for the three months ended December 31st, 2022. Please note all amounts referred to on today's call are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call to conduct a question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Michael Garcia. Mike.
spk08: Thank you, Mike. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. As we always do, I would like to begin my remarks by addressing Algoma's top priority, which is the safety of our employees. At Algoma, safety is non-negotiable and is firmly rooted in our corporate values, where with every decision, every action, and every day, we will work safely with teamwork, integrity, and a deep care for our people, their families, and the environment. Our continued dedication has led to a significant improvement in our lost time injury frequency rate, over the past decade. We will continue to work diligently as we relentlessly pursue our goal of achieving zero workplace injuries. Next, I'll cover key events and milestones during our fiscal third quarter and subsequent to its end. I will then turn the call over to Rajat for a deeper dive into the numbers before closing with an update on market conditions and our strategic investments set to deliver long-term value for all of our stakeholders. Our performance in the third quarter was largely in line with our pre-announcement on January 9th, 2023. Shipments of 458,000 tons were sequentially higher, though still below our normal run rate as we completed commissioning of our plate mill modernization phase one. Our overall financial results also reflected lower pricing in the third quarter. Steel prices for hot-rolled coil have recovered meaningfully since early November and plate pricing has maintained a significant price premium. While commissioning of the plate mill modernization phase one was a challenge in the second half of calendar 2022, it's important to highlight the reasons for the project and the value delivered from it. Our plate mill is the only discrete plate mill in Canada, and it produces a full range of high-quality rolled and heat-treated plate products. including the widest plate manufactured in Canada. Our products can be tailored for high strength abrasion resistance and military applications among a wide range of other end uses. Completion of phase one will now deliver enhanced capabilities, including improved surface quality and shape. Importantly, plate shipments return to normalized levels by the end of the third quarter, and we expect shipments in calendar 2023 to be consistent with historical production levels. The next phase of our plate mill modernization project, phase two, will focus on increasing mill throughput and is expected later in 2023. As we outlined on our last quarterly call, we will be mindful of market conditions before commencing phase two, and we will be laser focused on utilizing lessons learned from phase one in its implementation. Looking forward on the cost side, we expect a quarter-over-quarter improvement on cost of goods sold per ton as we return to normal production levels. It should be noted that we continue to experience some headwinds on account of higher-priced purchased coke. Our demand for coke at the blast furnace outstrips our production capacity, requiring us to supplement with purchased coke. In an effort to mitigate this, we are focused on operational improvement initiatives at our coke-making facilities to increase throughput. We anticipate to complete these improvements over the next few months, providing additional internal coke production by the end of fiscal Q1 2024. As previously disclosed, we have a long-term contract with a third-party coke producer, which provides us with the coke needed to maintain still production at normalized levels. The fiscal third quarter was also characterized by a volatile market for steel and raw material inputs, which continued to impact realized prices and costs. Pricing reached 2022 lows in early November before recovering through the end of the quarter and into 2023. During the quarter, we continued to advance construction of our transformative electric arc furnace project, which remains on budget and on time for our planned mid-2024 startup. Piling and foundational work is largely complete. Cranes are in position and the first structural steel components are being raised as we speak, an exciting milestone in the project. On the capital allocation side, we declared our regular quarterly dividend of U.S. 5 cents per share and we remained active under our normal course issuer bid program. Now I will pass the call over to Rajat to go over the financial results of the third quarter. Rajat?
spk02: Thanks, Mike. Good morning, and thank you all for joining the call. Our fiscal third quarter results, while challenging for the operational reasons Mike alluded to, came in line with the guidance for shipments and EBITDA provided in January. I'll remind you again that all numbers are expressed in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. However, our functional currency is the US dollar. For the third quarter, we reported a net loss of 69.8 million or 64 cents per diluted share compared to net income of 123 million or 92 cents per diluted share in the prior year quarter. With the decline attributable to weaker steel market condition as well as lower than expected shipments, due to the commissioning delays at the plate mill. Now let me summarize the key drivers of our performance. We shipped 458,000 net tons in the quarter, down 17% as compared to the prior year quarter. As we previously disclosed, delays experienced during the commissioning of a plate mill modernization project had the largest impact on shipments. Net sales realization average 1116 per ton down 38.9% versus the prior year period. The decrease versus the prior year level primarily reflects weaker market conditions during the quarter relative to record pricing levels seen during the prior year period. This resulted in steel revenue of $512 million in the quarter down 49.3% versus the same quarter of last year. On the cost side, Algoma's cost of goods sold averaged $1,157 per ton in the quarter, up 22.3% over the prior year period. This includes approximately $100 per ton of cost attributed to previously disclosed operational challenges flowing through inventories. Further cost pressure comes from higher prices for key input, including metallurgical coke, natural gas, alloys, and scrap. as well as the impact of lower shipments. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was a loss of 35.9 million as compared to 457.3 million in the prior year comparable quarter. The year-over-year decrease was driven primarily by the decline in realized steel pricing and lower shipment volumes. From a cash flow perspective, cash flow from operating activity was a use of 128.6 million in the quarter compared to cash generation of $318.4 million in the prior year comparable quarter. The main drivers include lower EBITDA and a significant investment in the working capital in the quarter as we continue to build both raw material and work-in-progress inventories given seasonal inventory build and lower than normal production volumes. For context, our inventory position as of December 31, 2022 stood at $912 million versus $616 million in the same quarter of the prior year. This nearly $300 million increase in inventory was partially attributable to higher prices and exchange variation. However, approximately 55% of the variance relates to higher inventory quantities. We expect to gradually release this excess inventory in the coming quarters, which will add to our liquidity levels. We finished the quarter with $245 million of cash and equivalents on the balance sheet, and our asset-backed credit facility was undrawn with $239 million in availability. As an update to EF project spending, through the end of the third fiscal quarter ended December, we have spent approximately $220 million on the EF project and issued letters of credit of US $48 million securing fabrication and delivery of key components. While this aggregate spending level is lower than originally anticipated for the quarter end, it is primarily due to timing differences in fabrication and erection of EF building and the delivery of offshore equipment. These timing differences do not affect the critical part of the completion of the project, and we remain on time and on budget for a mid-2024 startup. To date, approximately 70% of the total EF investment amount has been contracted with fixed price commitments with the balance still to be contracted. Supporting the remaining items to be contracted, we maintain approximately 50 million of available contingency. We expect to spend approximately 70 to 80 million on the EF project in the fourth fiscal quarter. Putting this all together, I would like to highlight a few points. As of December 31st, Algoma's net working capital plus cash total $1.15 billion, and we have full access to our undrawn AVL facility. We have a conservative and prudent approach to our balance sheet with virtually no long-term debt except for attractive government financing. We have access to an additional $168 million of funding available on the SIF facility, which is supporting the development of the EAF. All this together puts us in a strong position to advance on our strategic capital initiatives, including the transformation to EAF, which we expect to deliver improved operational performance, enhanced cash flow, and EBITDA through the cycle and reduce earnings volatility. I'd now like to turn the call back to Mike for a market update and closing remarks.
spk08: Thank you, Rajat. Now turning to the North American steel market, 2022 was marked by significant volatility in pricing. Highs that were reached in March around the start of the Ukraine war quickly reversed, testing various support levels through the summer and fall before bottoming in November. We are encouraged by the recent price improvements in hot rolled coil and continued robust plate pricing. Key market indicators, including extended lead times and a strengthening forward curve, support our expectation of improved performance in calendar 2023. Our order book, supported by a significant portion of contract sales, shows consistent demand for our product, including sales to the automotive, construction, oil and gas, and other steel-intensive industries. And from a global perspective, price dynamics and trade measures continue to reduce the attractiveness of imports into our North American markets. For the fiscal fourth quarter, we expect sequentially higher shipment, more consistent with our normal operating levels, and in combination with current steel pricing, we expect sequential improvement in net sales realizations and EBITDA performance. That said, we continue to experience pricing pressure on our key inputs, including metallurgical coke, coking coal, alloys, and general inflationary increases on other goods and services, which will have an effect on margins for our product. In calendar 2023, we expect to benefit from normalized and consistent operating performance, labor stability, a strong and flexible balance sheet, and great support from our government partners and our community. We expect this year to yield a combination of improved operational results and accelerating progress on our transformative EAF investment. As the market is showing signs of greater stability, we expect to generate significant free cash over the longer term, which supports our two main capital improvement programs, the second phase of the plate mill modernization and the EAF investment. Our focus remains on prudent financial discipline maintaining full operating capability and completion of our EAF project, ushering in the next era for Algoma Steel and providing long-term value creation for our stakeholders. As the world transitions towards a more sustainable future, it will continue to need steel for decades to come. At Algoma, we are building on our proud 120-year-plus history to serve our customers today while simultaneously becoming one of the lowest cost producers of green steel in North America. We are very excited for our company and employees and look forward to what the future holds. Thank you very much for your continued interest in Algoma Steel. At this point, we would be happy to take your questions. Operator, please give the instructions for the Q&A.
spk15: Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. And one moment, please, while we pose for questions. Our first question comes from the line of David Ocampo with Coremark Securities. Please proceed with your question.
spk14: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Rajat, I was hoping we could touch a little bit on the working capital, particularly as it relates to the inventory. You called out that 55% of it is due to higher inventory levels. I was wondering if you could break that down between potentially How much of it is related to unfinished slabs versus, say, higher inventory levels of iron ore?
spk02: So on a very high level, let's say 40% will be in whip and finished, and the balance will be in rest of the raw materials, so roughly 40%, 60%.
spk14: Okay. And then on the work in process or in progress, is there potentially a catch-up in shipments that we could expect that sort of unwinds in calendar 23?
spk02: Yeah, we should, as we start reducing our and finish, we should expect that to flow into the flow into the shipments over the next, let's say, couple of quarters.
spk14: Okay, that's good. And then on the plate mill modernization phase two component of it, should we expect any downtime if you guys do decide to go forward with this for the end of the year? How should we think about any disruptions to your production levels as you move forward with that next phase?
spk08: David, this is Mike. So The phase two implementation of the plate mill modernization project involves two components. One component is to bring online the new inline high-capacity shear. That will replace a small undersized shear that's there currently and replace most of the gas flame cutting that we need to do. in the facility, anything under two inches. That portion of phase two does not require any mill downtime. So as we're doing that, we can continue to produce both plate and strip. The small amount of cutting that would be done on the small shear we'll do with an outside processor. The other component is the replacement and the upgrade of drives on the four-high stand and the hot mill. That does require an outage. Currently, that outage will be approximately 40 days of production, or you can think about roughly 60,000 tons of both plate and strip. And that's kind of what that outage looks like currently. And again, the timing for... The outage, the shear work and the finishing end work will begin in May, take approximately five months. Again, no impact to ongoing operations. And then the 40-day mill outage for the drive upgrade has not been scheduled with a final implementation date, and that will depend on both market conditions and our readiness for the or the down. Does that help?
spk14: That's extremely helpful. That's all the questions I had. I'll hop back in the queue, guys. Thanks.
spk15: Our next question comes from the line of Ian Gillies with DFL. Please proceed with your question.
spk21: Morning, everyone. Morning, Ian. I just wanted to start on the volume side. As you think about it from a business planning perspective, are you anticipating pretty standard volumes across all the quarters this year? Do you think we should be thinking about it as a build through the year, given that there is still a little bit of ancillary repair and maintenance work left to be completed?
spk08: Yeah, thanks, Ian. So we anticipate it to be pretty standard, other than the plate mill outage that I spoke about, which we haven't decided when exactly we'll take that it should be relatively standard and somewhat equal across the four quarters with maintenance kind of spread evenly throughout the steelworks.
spk21: Okay, that's helpful. Switching gears to the pricing side, obviously there's been two increases by one of your competitors in the last, call it 11 or 12 days. Are you able to provide any initial feedback from how your customers are feeling about these price increases and how you're thinking about that in the context of current market conditions?
spk08: Sure. I mean, I think it's difficult for me to speak for the entire market, but I think the price increases have been received relatively well by the market with an understanding that the price is moving up, and I think as we go forward into the remainder of this quarter and into the first quarter of the new fiscal year, we will start to see that displayed in our own order book and results. Our lead times are going out a little bit, so there is a matter of weeks before you know, a price increase that hits the market kind of today is reflected in, in our bookings, even if it's a new price today and we book it at that new price today, it's still, you know, six, seven, sometimes eight weeks, but more six or seven weeks before, uh, that product is produced and, and shipped and, and realized as a, uh, as revenue for us. That helps.
spk21: No, no, that's, that's very helpful. I appreciate that. Um, And then on the cost side, I have two separate questions. The first one, you made some commentary in and around coke and coal this quarter and buying from a third party. Just to clarify, is there anything unusual expected to happen in the fiscal fourth quarter relative to, say, last year on the coke and coal side? Or was that more of just a general comment that you're working on getting that cost lower over the course of time?
spk02: So coking coal, there is no change from pricing perspective between last quarter, this quarter, and going forward. I think we indicated that the pricing year over year is very similar. On the coking coal coke production, metallurgical coke production, So the change will start coming from end of the first fiscal quarter where we'll start getting more of internal co-produce, which will definitely help us on the cost side. We are not expecting significant change quarter over quarter on the cost side. We are expecting it to improve as we get into the second fiscal quarter of next year.
spk21: Okay, understood. And then, Rujat, the last one for me, there is, I think, a $19 million inventory impairment in the quarter. Are you expecting – should we expect to see much more of those sorts of items, or do you think you've largely worked through that piece?
spk02: I think it's worked through. The pricing from – From a realization perspective, it was pretty low at $600, and now when we are hovering around $900, $850 to $900, it's not there. So at $600 or $700, those were the adjustments that came through, and that reflected lower production and the cost challenges that we faced in the last two quarters. So most of it is taken care of. We should not expect You know, if the market conditions continue where they are with our production levels, we don't expect that to happen.
spk21: Thank you very much. That's helpful. I appreciate you taking all my questions. I'll turn it back over.
spk08: Thanks, Ian.
spk21: Thanks, Ian.
spk15: Our next question comes from the line of David Gagliano with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
spk09: Hi. Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to drill down a bit on the near-term outlook, if possible. We've had a few of the U.S. sheet producers report and guide pricing down quarter over quarter in the first quarter, mainly because of lags versus the price increases. Is that a reasonable assumption, and can you frame the magnitude of the decline in pricing expected on a per-time basis in the first quarter?
spk08: Yeah, I'll start, David. If you think of maybe the bottom, finding the bottom of the market in November, in November, The business we were booking at that time, the majority of it would have shipped in January. So I think that would kind of agree with what you're picking up and what you mentioned earlier. Rajat, you have any other?
spk02: Yeah, sure. So I think the expectation is – definitely to come down to some extent. For us, it's slightly different. We do have advantage of our quarterly contracts and monthly contracts, more so on the quarterly contract side, which gives us some advantage. The other big portion for us definitely will be on the plate side. we will be having higher plate volume coming into this quarter versus last quarter. So when you factor all of this in, we should see some decline, less so than what others would have faced.
spk09: Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then just shifting to the cost side, I know there's been obviously clearly commentary here, and I've I believe mentioned was, you know, expectations for cost of goods sold per ton to improve largely to the, obviously to the improved volumes, you know, although somewhat offset by these higher price, you know, for example, merchant Coke and, you know, the other input costs. Can you frame, you know, the net result of those two in terms of the quarter over quarter expectations on cost of goods sold per ton?
spk02: So I think what, you know, I'll try and see if I can provide some more clarity, but what we said is that there is a $100 per ton one-time impact that was in the cost last time, which should go away, and then we should see further improvements coming because of volume, because of lower costs of some of the input items, primarily on the R&R side, as we always see five to six months lag when the R&R hits our cost versus where the index was. So we'll see some advantages and some benefits coming from that side. On the other major cost items, whether it's coking coal, coke, we should see probably very similar impacts quarter over quarter from cost perspective. So the trajectory will be down. their cost will come down 100 plus dollars, and that's because of some of the input material as well as the high production.
spk09: Okay, that's helpful. And then just to wrap up the same line of questioning here, this will be my last question. When we throw it into the mix, I mean, it looks like it'll be a positive EBITDA per ton quarter. I just want to confirm you know, based on, you know, the moving parts that we just talked about, is that a reasonable expectation that you've got terms positive on a per ton basis?
spk22: Yeah, that's reasonable.
spk09: Okay, great. Thank you.
spk15: Our next question comes from the line of Anuprihar with Eight Capital. Please proceed with your question.
spk13: Yeah, good morning. I just want to ask you a couple of questions on the plate, Noah, if I could. I noticed in the MD&A, you talk about the cap back there being $135 million. Has that number increased from the $120 million you were using previously?
spk02: Yeah, it did. I think we disclosed it last quarter that the number went up just because of the delays during COVID and you know, the other pressure that we had on it with some changes that was coming. So, yeah, it went up from 120 to 135.
spk11: Can you give us an idea of how much is left to spend there on Phase 2? I think it will be around $20 to $25 million. Okay.
spk13: And we should assume basically throughput returning to normal in Q4 on the plate side? That's correct.
spk19: Yes.
spk13: All right. Okay, and just lastly on the quality. So the quality coming out of the plate mill now, is it higher than what it was before you guys started the expansion? In other words, the quality improvements that Phase 1 was supposed to achieve, have they been achieved?
spk08: Yes, they have. And there's a couple critical pieces that were involved in Phase 1 that are delivering that quality, primarily the new leveler. which gives us much better control and levelness of the product. We also have a new descaler, which descales the plate as it comes out of the reheat furnace before it hits the first rolling operation, the four high. So those two new pieces of equipment especially have delivered significantly better surface quality and profile of the plate.
spk13: What's the reasonable expectation then for when you will be able to get a higher realized price for that improved quality product?
spk08: Well, it'll still be some months, probably the earliest, the second half of this calendar year. You can appreciate that we have some amount of work to do with our current base of customers and any new customers that we want to work with given our difficult startup over the second half of last calendar year. We're working very hard on that now. We're restocking or repopulating our stocking program so that we have heavy runners in terms of specific dimensions of plate. We have those on hand ready for quick delivery. and we are working through and with the intention of eventually eliminating any remaining backlogged orders that built up over the startup from phase one.
spk13: And Mike, just lastly, just to be clear, what's the reasonable expectation for sort of the net margin improvement that you could realize when you are actually in a position to get a higher price?
spk08: You know, that's difficult to give you a specific number, Anup, because there's a lot of kind of moving pieces within that. But obviously, we're going to want to bias our ratio of plate and strip as much as we can to the plate side and take advantage of that historically high spread between as-rolled plate and hot-rolled coil. I think looking at last week's CRU number, that That spread stands at $657, which is against a historical spread of $150, between $100 and $200 usually over the years. Now, how much incremental above that can we get with kind of the higher margin part of the plate market kind of remains to be seen, but it's our intention to position ourselves in that area.
spk10: That's great. Thank you.
spk15: And our next question comes from the line of Ahmad Shah with Beacon Securities. Please proceed with your question.
spk20: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess just one for me on the CapEx shift for the EAF. I noticed about 25% kind of spilled over from fiscal 23 to 24. Can you give us a little bit more color on that, please? Okay.
spk08: Yeah, I think at a high level the main reason is because even though the overall timeline and completion date of the project has not moved or slipped, within that timeline there's certain components of the way the project is unfolding that have moved. I think a very good example of that is the erection of the building, the main steelworks building that we're building. Originally, the original project schedule contemplated starting that building in October of last year and kind of being heavy into the erection of it through the current period. As we reworked the project and confirmed all of the different components of the project completion, we moved the erection of that building to beginning this month, actually. I think our first pillar is Our column is going above ground today. So obviously the cash flows associated with that building to that contractor have shifted into this quarter versus beginning in the last quarter. And then as a part of that, you know, we've got all this built components and machinery sitting in the build shops in various parts of the world, whether it's Thailand or Europe. And, of course, we've been over there and done all the factory acceptance testing. But originally in the project schedule, we contemplated shipping that equipment here as the building comes up. And now that the building is coming up a few months later, there's no need to ship it on the original schedule. We'll ship it a little bit delayed so that the cash flow is associated with that. because that's largely triggered upon shipment move to the right as well. So kind of all of that is happening within the overall project schedule, but the overall timeline has not shifted. Does that help?
spk20: Yeah, that's very helpful. And I noticed maybe on your MD&A, there is some commentary around discussions with the Ministry of Energy for securing power for the full EF transformation program. Any positive or progress development there that transpired since the last quarter, given the change in the disclosure?
spk08: Yeah, we've had a lot of interaction with the ministry, with the local utility entity, PUC, with the provincial power provider, Hydro One, and the provincial grid operator. So there's a lot of stakeholders or entities that we are in pretty much constant contact with them. I think the support we've seen has been overall very, very positive. There's nobody in the province from the political or the ministerial level that isn't a very strong supporter of this project. It moves fast. the province exactly the direction it wants to move in terms of reducing CO2 emissions. So we've gotten great support from that perspective. Of course, you know, they are responsible for the stability and the performance of the overall grid. So they're very mindful of what, you know, the new load in Sault Ste. Marie will mean for overall grid stability and robustness. So we continue to have those conversations with them because not only, you know, do we look to be a a future customer of the grid, but we want the grid to be very stable as well. So we'll work with them and make sure that everything we're doing to bring all this demand online keeps the grid very stable.
spk20: Got it. So if I got it correctly, positive development, but still too early to make any assumptions about earlier timeline for full EAF production than we previously discussed, right?
spk08: Correct. Correct. And But I would note that regardless of the development of grid power and the local 230k volt line, part of our project involves the installation of two new turbine generators at our Lake Superior power plant, and that'll give us 115 megawatts of internal generation. And that, combined with the available power we're already taking off the grid, will allow us to proceed with startup without any type of delays.
spk20: Yeah, for sure. No, that's great, Colin, and thanks again, guys.
spk10: Yep.
spk15: Our next question comes from the line of Ian Gillies with Stateful. Please proceed with your question.
spk21: Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my follow-up. Excuse me. With respect to the remaining items to be ordered for the EAF, and the $50 million contingency. Do you see anything in those remaining items that need to be ordered that have undergone significant inflationary pressures since the initial cost estimate? Or is that $50 million contingency still looking like a very healthy amount in the context of estimated total project cost?
spk08: That's a great question, Ian. No, we haven't seen any specific... you know, inflationary-based contingencies or escalations that we are expecting. But we do, you know, the contingency is there almost, you know, to be spent, if you will. We're not going to be disappointed or we're not going to make short-sighted decisions in order to, you know, protect the remaining contingency. It's there for unseen reasons. areas of factors of cost, and that's what we'll use it for. So we do expect to contract out the remaining scope of work for this project at that $170, $175 million range, but if it happens a little higher, then that's what the contingency is there for.
spk21: No, that's helpful. That's the last thing for me. I'll turn the call back over. Thank you.
spk08: You're welcome. Thanks, Ian.
spk15: And we have reached the end of the question and answer session, and I'll turn the call back over to Michael Garcia for closing remarks.
spk08: Okay. Thank you again for your participation in our third quarter fiscal 2023 conference call and for your continued interest in Algoma Steel. We look forward to updating you on our results and progress when we report our fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2023 results this spring.
spk15: And this concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
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