Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Bob Tax Wilcox Q2 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. On the right hand conference over to your speaker today, Megan Wilson, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Sadie, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises' second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. I'm Megan Wilson, Vice President of Investor Relations at B&W. Joining me this afternoon are Kenny Young, B&W's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Lou Salamone, Chief Financial Officer, to discuss our second quarter results. During this call, certain statements we make will be forward-looking. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in our Safe Harbor provision for forward-looking statements that can be found at the end of our earnings press release and in our quarterly report on Form 10Q filed this afternoon and our Form 10K that is on file with the SEC, and provide further detail about the risks related to our business. Additionally, except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. We also provide non-GAAP information regarding certain of our historical results to supplement the results provided in accordance with GAAP. This information should not be considered superior to or as a substitute for the comparable GAAP measures. A reconciliation of historical non-GAAP measures can be found in our second quarter earnings release published this afternoon and in our company overview presentation filed on Form 8K this afternoon and posted on the investor relations section of our website at babcock.com. With that, I will turn the call over to Kenny.

Thanks, Megan. Thanks, everyone, for joining, and good afternoon. We're actually pretty excited to be on the call today discussing our second quarter results. You know, our results for the second quarter of 2021 really demonstrates the momentum of our strategic direction, including our clean energy initiatives and cost reductions. actions and a very strong parts and services platform. This momentum is reflected in our bookings and our increased pipeline, driven by our international expansion and presence, as well as strong demand and new project opportunities for our renewable energy and environmental solutions, including Climate Bright, our decarbonization platform. We achieved another strong quarter of bookings with $168 million in the second quarter of 2021, which is a 100% improvement compared to the second quarter of 2020, and ended the second quarter with $500 million in backlog. Importantly, and keep in mind that generally speaking, our backlog does not include our shorter lead time, parts, and services. Across all of our segments, we are seeing our proposal and engineering activities increase and are continuing to pursue a robust overall pipeline of now more than 6 billion of identified opportunities through 2024. The launch of our Climate Bright decarbonization platform in May is propelling the development of an exciting pipeline of carbon capture and hydrogen combustion opportunities As our customers seek solutions to address some of the world's most urgent climate objectives, including carbon dioxide and methane reductions. As we continue to make progress in converting our pipeline to bookings, we are progressing and anticipate booking three to five renewable energy new build projects in 2021. We're reaffirming our previously stated target of 70 to 80 million of adjusted EBITDA in 2021 based on our current visibility. And our second quarter performance reflects our steady progress to achieve our EBITDA targets with consolidated adjusted EBITDA of 15.1 million, which aligns with our internal expectations for 2021. This is a seven-fold improvement compared to the second quarter of 2020 and a 78% increase compared to the first quarter of 2021. As we previously indicated, our normal cyclical performance typically shows increasing profitability from Q1 to Q4 each year, and we anticipate Q4 will be our strongest quarter of this year based on anticipated or forecasted bookings. We also closed a new four-year senior financing agreement in June, which further demonstrates the confidence our lenders and shareholders have in our growth strategy. The reduction of our total secured debt by over $347 million in 2021 and our improved capital structure have positioned us to grow across all segments as we invest in our climate-bright technology platform, pursue innovative technology agreements such as our recent exclusive long-term energy storage license option with the U.S. Department of Energy and continue to evaluate potential acquisition opportunities. Turning back to our Climate Bright Technologies platform, we are excited about the suite of revolutionary decarbonization technologies designed to help utilities and industry aggressively combat greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Through advanced research and development, combined with joint efforts with U.S. Department of Energy and various universities, B&W has unparalleled experience in clean energy solutions, backed by more than 90 active patents for carbon capture alone, and has the expertise and technology to lead the world's next industrial revolution towards a zero-carbon future. Our climate bright solutions include, for example, our breakthrough bright loop technology to produce hydrogen, steam, or syngas from a variety of fuels or feedstocks while isolating CO2 for capture or for other industrial purposes. This includes the production of green hydrogen while simultaneously isolating CO2. This technology does not have the same overhead or parasitic load requirements as other carbon capture technologies, which results in a higher efficiency that expands B&W's industrial presence. This technology has the potential to change how industries worldwide use combustion technology. Our Solbright regenerable solvent technology, which is designed to deliver economical and efficient carbon capture across a range of industries, Solbright is our post-combustion carbon capture technology and can be applied to a wide range of industrial or utility boiler technologies to capture CO2. Our Oxibright combustion process, which is a solution for CO2 isolation and sequestration applications for industrial and power generation facilities, and uses an innovative integration of pure oxygen to produce sequestration-ready CO2. And lastly, our BrightGen, our hydrogen combustion technology, which is currently in operation in multiple refineries and industrial facilities around the world and provides zero carbon energy generation. We are currently working on close to 20 potential Climate Bright projects to determine the best carbon capture solution based on customer-specific needs, and as I said, greater than our expectations, we anticipate booking climate bike projects in the coming months. Finally, we are continuing to explore a significant number of attractive targets for investments or acquisitions in both emerging technology and mature markets. Currently, multiple investments or acquisition opportunities are in advanced due diligence phases, including three renewable or emerging technology opportunities that are in exclusive negotiations. In addition to opportunities within emerging technology markets, we continue to explore acquisition opportunities within the thermal services sector with the potential to achieve immediate synergies and higher margins, leveraging the strength of our experienced management team. We remain dedicated to increasing shareholder value through both organic and inorganic growth while driving a worldwide transformation to a green environmental future. Let me turn the call over to Lou now to discuss a few of our financials for Q2 of 2021. Lou?