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Delek US Holdings, Inc.
2/25/2025
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Robert.
Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Despite the challenging refining margin environment, which we believe was around $6 below mid-cycle in Q4 of 2024, 2024 was a transformational year for us. We have vastly improved our operational performance, made significant progress on some of our past efforts, and implemented key plans to increase the overall profitability of our company. I would like to highlight the progress we have made on our key priorities. First, safe and reliable operations. We have made great progress in improving the operations towards our company. We have successfully completed a major turnaround at KSR in the fourth quarter. Coming out of the turnaround, the refinery is showing improved operational performance. The asset is running well, and we look forward to a strong contribution from KSR in 2025. Moving to Big Spring, in 2024, we have significantly improved its reliability. We have consistently been running over 70,000 barrels per day. Looking forward, in 2025, we have no major turnaround planned in our system, and we expect to continue our improvement journey. Now, I would like to discuss some of the part strategies. In 2024, we made great progress in unlocking the sum of the parts value inherent in our assets. In September, we sold our retail asset for $390 million, and we are extremely happy with the timing and the value we received. The timely sale has allowed us to continue to progress our initiative in a tough refining environment. We have also made great progress in making Delek Logistics a strong independent midstream company levered to the growth in the Permian Basin. In 2024, we successfully executed economic swap of assets between DK and DKL. The swap will improve the profitability of our refineries going forward. At the same time, the swap brings more certainty to DKL cash flow through the contract extension by up to seven years. Our economic separation from DKL is increasing, and at the same time, the distribution DK received from DKL continues to grow. DKL also announced two accretive acquisitions to add around $100 million in third-party EBITDA. After DKL acquisition of Gravity Midstream, DK ownership in DKL has come down to 63.6%. VKL is progressing its capacity expansion in the Libby gas processing complex and expect to complete the expansion in the first half of 2025, as previously communicated. Additionally, VKL announced an FID on acid gas injection at the Libby complex in December. These steps highlight DKL's progress in becoming an attractive, high-growth, midsize, midstream company benefiting from the natural gas growth in the Permian Basin. This is reflected in the strong guidance that Dellec Logistics has provided today. Despite this great move, DKL continues to trade at discount versus its peers and very limited if any of this value is reflected in DK shares. We are in the process of taking additional steps such that the value of greater than $350 million in third-party EBITDA in DKL is fully reflected in DK share price and DKL unit price. We are confident that we'll complete the DKL deconsolidation in methodical manner and create value for both shareholder and unit holder. In 2024, we have made progress in improving overall profitability of the company. We completed our zero-based budget initiative, which allowed us to save around $100 million in cost to our system. We completed this program in the second quarter of 2024 ahead of our original target of completion by the end of 2024. Our delivery effort laid the foundation for our Enterprise Optimization Plan, or EOP. EOP aims to improve DK cash flow by 80 to $120 million per year, starting in the second half of 2025. I'm pleased to announce that we have made great progress with EOP, and now we expect to be closer to the top end of our cash flow improvement guidance. Despite our initial success, we are not standing still and look forward for further improvements our cash generation power as we progress through the year. Final piece of our strategy is being a shareholder friendly and having strong balance sheet. During the quarter, we paid $16 million in dividend and bought back $22 million of our shares. We remain committed to a disciplined and balanced approach to capital allocation. Now, I would like to make the comment about small refinery exemption. As you know, the District Circuit Court overturned the EPA denial of our small refinery exemption petition under the RFS in July of 2024. Our petitions were sent back to the EPA for reconsideration. We're optimistic that the EPA will revise its approach following the court ruling and grant us SREs. We hope the recent ruling on SREs, along with Supreme Court ruling on Chevron deference case, will reduce unneeded bureaucracy and allow for predictable approach to the SRE petition review. In closing, I would like to thank our entire team for the hard work and dedication. We are excited about the prospects of DKA in 2025 and beyond. Now, I will turn the call over to Joseph, who will provide additional color on our operations.
Thank you, Avigal. I'd like to congratulate our team on another safe, reliable, and environmentally compliant year. Our progress in hiring the right people, developing good processes, and proactively managing our equipment is well reflected in the field and is giving us a strong foundation to perform, optimize, and grow our business. In Tyler, total throughput in the fourth quarter was approximately 66,000 barrels per day. Production margin in the quarter was $6.66 per barrel, and operating expenses were $5.51 per barrel. During the first quarter, we are executing our plant maintenance in the algae unit, including an upgrade scoop, which will allow us to increase production of high-value products by approximately 500 barrels per day. For the first quarter, our estimated total throughput in Tyler is in the 65 to 69,000 barrels per day range. In El Dorado, total throughput in the fourth quarter was approximately 77,000 barrels per day. Our production margin was 56 cents per barrel, and operating expenses were $4.78 per barrel. Estimated throughput for the first quarter is in the 73 to 76,000 barrels per day range. On the strategic front, we are making good progress with our EOP initiatives, which are expected to add, by mid-year, $50 million of annual EBITDA run rate in the El Dorado integrated system. The incremental approximately $2 per barrel of net margin will support El Dorado cash flow generation through the cycles. In Big Spring, total throughput for the quarter was approximately 73,000 barrels per day. Our production margin was $5.04 per barrel, and operating expenses were $6.29 per barrel, including approximately $0.50 per barrel of winterization and maintenance special activities. Progress in Big Spring is well reflected in the numbers. Total throughput in 2024 increased over 10% compared to 2023 due to improved reliability. Cost structure is approaching our target And as important, it is mostly driven now by routine and proactive agenda rather than reactive. In the first quarter, we are replacing catalysts in our reformer and diesel hydro treater per plan. As a result, estimated throughput for the first quarter is in the 57 to 61,000 barrels per day range. In cross springs, The team successfully completed the planned major turnaround. Since startup, we have demonstrated improved crude capacity, product mix, and liquid yield recovery capabilities consistent with our plans. Total throughput in the fourth quarter was approximately 50,000 barrels per day. Our production margin was $2.71 per barrel, and operating expenses in the quarter were $5.27 per barrel. Our planned throughput for the first quarter is in the 83 to 86,000 barrels per day range. Our implied system throughput target for the first quarter is in the 278 to 292,000 barrels per day range. Moving on to the commercial front, in the fourth quarter, supply and marketing contributed a loss of $34.6 million. Of that, approximately $12 million loss was generated by wholesale marketing driven by seasonal low demand trends around our system racks. $22 million loss was attributed to supply and a negative half a million dollars contribution was generated by asphalt. In summary, we continue to execute well on the fundamentals of our business. After successfully addressing reliability gaps, our teams continue to focus on operational excellence and commercial optimization initiatives as we position ourselves for the coming gasoline season and the future cycles. I will now turn the call over to Robeld for the financial variances.
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