Algoma Steel Group Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Algoma Steel Group Inc. Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Should anyone require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Laura Devoni, VP of Human Resources and Corporate Affairs. Thank you, you may begin.

Good morning everyone and welcome to Algoma Steel Group Inc.'s third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. My name is Laura Devoni, Vice President of Human Resources and Corporate Affairs, and I will be moderating today's call. Leading the prepared remarks are Rajat Marwah, our Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Moraca, our Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, this call is being recorded will be made available for replay later today in the investor section of Algoma Steel's corporate website at ir.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. Reconciliations of these measures to the most direct comparable IFRS measures are included in our press release, MD&A, and earnings presentation. 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 disclaimers on slide two of the accompanying earnings presentation and to also refer to the risks and assumptions outlined in Algoma Steel's third quarter 2026 management's discussion and analysis. Please note that our financial statements are prepared using the US dollar as our functional currency and the Canadian dollar as our presentation currency. Please also note that 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, Rajat.

Thank you, Laura, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss our third quarter 2026 results. As always, I want to begin with safety. This quarter asked a lot of our people. In a matter of weeks, our teams restarted the melt shop after a power disruption, commissioned a replacement turbine at the Lake Superior Power Plant, and bought EF Unit 2 to First Arc. Sending every employee home safely every day is just as important to us as any of those milestones. I'm proud of the discipline our teams showed through our demanding quarter. Our results for the third quarter came in line with the guidance we provided earlier this month, and our underlining performance improved again. Volumes reached a low point of our transition as we completed the planned tie-in work for EF Unit 2 and worked through the outage at Lake Superior Power. Before I get into the details, I want to highlight three key themes. First, our results. We shipped approximately 145,000 tons and delivered adjusted EBITDA within our guidance range at negative $14 million. Excluding the capacity utilization adjustment and last quarter's insurance settlement, adjusted EBITDA improved by approximately $19 million from the second quarter, our second consecutive quarter of underlying improvement delivered on lower volume, which Mike will walk you through shortly. Second, trade performance. We shipped 105,000 tons of plate, approximately 73% of total shipments, and more than we shipped in the third quarter of last year. Average net sales realization rose to $1,510 per ton, up 11% from the second quarter on high steel prices. As Canada's only producer of discrete plate, we continue to see healthy demand for infrastructure, construction, and defense customers. Plate volume moderated from our record 125,000 tons in the second quarter, reflecting the outage and planned plate mill maintenance. Third, the transformation. We restored full generating capability at Lake Superior Power on September 30th. And prior to quarter end, we completed first arc testing at EF Unit 2. On October 9th, we achieved our first commercial production of steel from the new EF, a major milestone for Algoma and the result of years of disciplined execution by our employees and contractors. EF Unit 2 is now ramping and part of our regular production schedule. Our focus now turns to ramping the combined EF platform to higher capacity. Let me expand on the outage because it shaped much of what we saw during the quarter. On August 17th, one of the two turbines at Lake Superior Power detected an abnormal condition and was automatically taken off. The remaining turbine was not affected. LSB supplies electricity to our mill shop, so we temporarily suspended EF production to address this. We quickly worked with the independent electricity system operator on interim operating arrangements and restarted the EF on August 29th. Since the restart, those arrangements supported sustained production, including during planned work on the provincial electricity system. On September 30th, We commissioned a newly acquired replacement turbine restoring full generating capability at LSB. I want to thank the ISO and Hydro One for their support through this period. Our actions now leave us in a stronger position. We have exercised our option under our existing service agreement with GE to bring a leased turbine into service while the affected turbine is repaired. We expect installation to be completed in the fourth quarter and we do not expect it to interrupt steel making operations. Once the lease turbine is in place, the newly acquired turbine will serve as a ready spare, adding equipment redundancy and strengthening the reliability of our power system. After repairs to the affected turbine are complete, we expect the additional generating equipment to give us further operational flexibility and the potential to expand power generating capacity in the future. We used the downtime to pull forward plan maintenance and to advance commissioning work of our second year. On the broader market environment, steel prices moved in our favor in this quarter for both plate and coil products. Plate remains the core of our mix, where we hold a unique market position. Canadian coil pricing has also improved, and we expect to increase our coil sales through the fourth quarter and into 2027. as we ramp EF production and as market opportunities allow. Direct tariff costs fell to $18 million in the quarter, down from $90 million a year ago as US shipment volumes declined by 83% from the prior year quarter. The 50% US Section 232 tariff on steel imports from Canada remains in place. These conditions continue to reinforce our Canada-centric Plate First strategy and we are running the business for the market as it stands today. On the policy front, I want to recognize the federal and the Ontario governments for last week's announcement to protect Canada and Ontario steel industry. The measure creates a new joint steel action fund to help the industry diversify production towards the steel products Canada will need. Prioritize Canadian steel in public procurement through the Buy Canada and Buy Ontario policies strengthen enforcement against unfair traded imports, and establish a joint Canada-Ontario steel task force. Diversification is central to our own strategy. A transition to electric arc furnace steelmaking and a Canada-centric plate-first mix are about supplying more of the steel Canada needs from Canadian loads. Together, they strengthen the domestic market our plate-first strategy depends on, particularly in infrastructure and defense. We look forward to continuing work with both levels of government on our diversification initiatives. We are thankful for that continued support as we finish this transition and build a stronger, more sustainable Canadian steel industry. I will now turn the call over to Mike for a closer look at the financials. Mike?