Alcoa Corporation

Good afternoon and welcome to the Alcoa Corporation second quarter 2021 earnings presentation and conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to James Dwyer, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good day, everyone. I'm joined today by Roy Harvey, Alcoa Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer, and William Opplinger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We will take your questions after comments by Roy and Bill. As a reminder, today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements relating to future events and expectations that are subject to various assumptions and caveats. Factors that may cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these statements are included in today's presentation and in our SEC filings. In addition, we have included some non-GAAP financial measures in this presentation. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the appendix to today's presentation. Any reference in our discussion today to EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA. Finally, as previously announced, the earnings release and slide presentation are available on our website. With that, here's Roy.

Thank you, Jim, and thank you to everyone for joining our call. Before we get started, I want to take a moment and emphasize once again that Alcoa's actions are always guided by our values. We consistently act with integrity, operate with excellence, and care for people. That is true every quarter, but it's been especially important in this past year and a half as the world has wrestled with unprecedented challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. While risks remain, vaccines have helped to move many of the world's economies forward again. I'm proud of the work that our Alcoa employees following our values have done to mitigate these risks, supporting each other, our business, and our communities. I am disappointed, however, that we had two serious injuries during the quarter, a hand injury and a case of heat stress. These are both important reminders that there are numerous everyday risks that we must consistently work to eliminate or reduce. Our most important objective is the safety of our employees. Now, let me quickly recap some of our results, which Bill will describe in greater detail. We posted our highest ever quarterly earnings per share since becoming an independent company in 2016. It's also our most profitable first half of the year in the aluminum segment. The results demonstrate that our strategic priorities are working to improve this company and deliver results. It's a very good time to be in the upstream aluminum business, and it's a good time for Alcoa, with a company that is stronger now than any time since our 2016 launch. We've made significant progress on our strategy to strengthen our balance sheet, eliminating all long-term debt maturities until 2026. Importantly, we are now well within our target range of proportional adjusted net debt. We also delivered above and beyond our previously announced target to generate cash from non-core asset sales. Although we have reached our target on this program, we will continue to evaluate other sales when it makes sense. Last month's sale of the former East Alcoa smelter site in Maryland, which had been closed since 2010, was an example of this. The new owner will use the property for a next generation data center. This too is an example of our strategic priorities working. It shows that former brownfield sites can bring economic value for our company and the communities where we used to operate. Across Alcoa, We've worked to ensure this company can succeed through all commodity cycles. When market prices plummeted last year, we were resilient because of the strategies we already had in place. Our plants remained operational and performed well. We stayed focused on the future, continuing to make improvements. Now, with stronger markets, we're capturing the benefits from much better pricing and driving it to the bottom line. While we will continue to improve our portfolio of assets, our aluminum segment saw our company's highest ever third-party realized price. Also, ongoing strength in customer demand and China's efforts to reform its industry suggest continued strength in global aluminum pricing. The metal we produce is an important material for the future and more sustainable solutions. We're ready for that future through existing low-carbon products, and the development of breakthrough technologies that we're working to bring to the market. I look forward to discussing this and more, but now I'll ask Bill to dig deeper into our financial results. Bill, please go ahead. Thanks, Troy.