GrafTech International Ltd.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Graf Tech fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call and webcast. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you need assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, February 3rd, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mike Dillon, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Graf Tech International's fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. On with me today are Marcel Kessler, Chief Executive Officer, Jeremy Halford, Chief Operating Officer, and Tim Flanagan, Chief Financial Officer. Marcel will begin with opening comments. Jeremy will then discuss safety, sales, and operational matters. Tim will review our quarterly results and other financial details. Marcel will close with comments on our outlook. We will then open the call to questions. Turning to our next slide. As a reminder, some of the matters discussed on this call may include forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, performance, trends, and strategies. These statements are based on current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by forward-looking statements are shown here. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, and these slides include the relevant non-GAAP reconciliations. You can find these slides in the investor relations section of our website at www.graftex.com. A replay of the call will also be available on our website. I'll now turn the call over to Marcel.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Graftex's fourth quarter earnings call. 2022 was a challenging year. Geopolitical conflict, high levels of inflation, supply chain pressures, and economic uncertainty impacted global markets and the steel industry. This has negatively impacted demand for graphite electrodes and continues to do so. In addition, the temporary suspension of our operations in Monterrey, Mexico in the fourth quarter affected our business. These factors, along with a substantial shift in mix from LTA to non-LTA volume, will have a significant impact on our 2023 business performance. However, With the determination and resolve of our talented Graf Tech team, we are confronting these challenges head on. And we remain optimistic regarding the longer term outlook for the business and our ability to deliver shareholder value. I would like to highlight several points. First, our Monterey facility has restarted and is running well. We are pleased to have reached an agreement in November that allows for the restart and we remain confident in our ability to achieve a full resolution of this matter. The impact of the suspension on our sales volume in the first half of 2023 will be significant though. However, we will be well positioned to fully meet our customer needs as well as we enter the second half of the year. and we expect to meet all our remaining LTA commitments throughout 2023. Second, we are taking proactive actions. These include closely managing our operating costs, capital expenditures, and working capital levels, proactively reducing our production volume to align with the near-term demand for graphite electrodes, and making targeted investments to further improve our strategic positioning and support long-term growth. Third, as a result of our disciplined capital allocation strategy, we have a strong balance sheet and ample liquidity to navigate the near-term challenges. Lastly, electric arc furnace steelmaking and demand for graphite electrodes are expected to experience accelerating growth in the medium to longer term. GrasTech's sustainable competitive advantages remain intact, These include three of the highest capacity electrical manufacturing facilities in the world and our substantial vertical integration into petroleum needle coke. As such, we are well positioned to capitalize on long-term demand growth. I will now expand on my comments regarding our operations in Monterrey, Mexico. As we have previously reported, in September of 2022, inspectors from the environmental authorities for the state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, visited our facility and issued a temporary suspension notice. In mid-November, we announced that our efforts towards the resolution resulted in an agreement with the authorities that allowed for the conditional lifting of the suspension notice and the restart of the facility. The lifting of the suspension notice was subject to a completion of certain agreed-upon activities and we are well on track to accomplish all aspects of the condition. We expect the full resolution of this matter and we continue to expand our engagement with the authorities in the State of Nuevo León and the community in the area. At the same time, we continue to pursue the risk mitigation activities related to pink stock that we discussed on the previous earnings call. These include the full restart of our St. Mary's, Pennsylvania operation, as well as other alternatives for the production of pinstock. While we are encouraged to be working towards final resolution of the situation, the negative impact of the suspension on our operating performance in the first half of 2023 will be significant. Although production of electrodes and pinstock began immediately upon the lifting of the The required manufacturing time for our products is generally several months. As such, the rebuilding of our pink stock inventory will take time. In addition, on the commercial front, the timing of the suspension coincides with the critical timeframe to secure customer orders for the first half of 2023. As a result of the uncertainty caused by the suspension, during this contract negotiation window, our ability to enter into new customer commitments for the first half of 2023 was limited. As a result, we estimate our sales volume for the first six months of this year will be approximately half of the level we reported in 2022, with the largest negative impact materializing in the first quarter of this year. As we move into the second half of 2023 with replenished pinstock inventory, we will be much better positioned. We expect our second half sales volumes to recover as we move past the Monterey suspension-driven uncertainty and as we anticipate a gradual improvement in market conditions. Importantly, we continue to expect to meet all of our remaining LTA commitments throughout 2023. We will provide more detailed comments on our outlook during this call. But first, I want to thank the entire Grafstech team, and in particular, all our employees in Monterey, for their ongoing efforts to address this situation and to continue to focus on moving our business ahead. And I also want to thank our customers for their ongoing support and understanding. With that, let me turn the call over to Jeremy.

Thank you, Marcel, and good morning, everyone. I'll start my comments with a brief update on health and safety, which is a core value at Draft Tech, as people are our most important asset. We ended 2022 with a total recordable incident rate that, while continuing to place us among the top operators in the broader manufacturing industry, did not meet our high standards nor our performance levels of the past two years. Safety is and must be fundamental to everything we do, as getting health and safety right leads us to doing business right. For this reason, improvement in our safety metrics will be a key point of emphasis with our internal teams in 2023, as we remain steadfast in working toward our ultimate goal of zero injuries. Let me now turn to the next slide for an update on steel industry trends as additional context for our fourth quarter results and our outlook commentary.

During the fourth quarter, we saw further softening of key performance indicators for the steel industry.

Global steel production, excluding China, in the fourth quarter of 2022 was approximately 194 million tons, representing an 11% decline compared to the same period in the prior year. Global capacity utilization rates declined to 61%, commensurate with the lower production. While we continue to see steel industry trends that vary by geographic region, the disparity lessened somewhat during the fourth quarter. Conditions in Europe remained relatively weak, although we started to see the stabilization of certain trends in the quarter, which is driving European HRC prices higher, reaching $822 per ton as of last week. In the U.S., utilization rates softened further in the fourth quarter, hitting a low near 71% late in the quarter, but have since begun to recover as demand prospects appear firmer due to improved auto production and construction spending, among other factors. U.S. steel mill utilization rates have trended higher since the end of the year and are currently slightly above 73%. Turning to our fourth quarter performance, Our production volume was approximately 29,000 metric tons, representing a 36% year-over-year decline and a 22% sequential decline from the third quarter. The suspension of our Monterey operations was the primary driver of the declines. In addition, toward the end of the fourth quarter, we began to proactively reduce production at our European manufacturing facilities, most notably our facility located in Pamplona, Spain, to better match production volume with graphite electrode demand and to manage high energy costs more efficiently. While the impact on our fourth quarter production levels was modest, we expect to reduce our production volume from our two European facilities to approximately one-third of their capacity for the first half of 2023. Turning to sales, our fourth quarter sales volume of approximately 28,000 metric tons represented a 37% decline from the same period in the prior year and a 22% sequential decline from the third quarter. The impact of the monoray suspension, along with lower demand for electrodes, drove the declines. Fourth quarter shipments included 19,000 metric tons sold under our LTAs at a weighted average realized price of $9,400 per metric ton. and 9,000 metric tons of non-LTA sales at a weighted average realized price of $6,100 per metric ton. This non-LTA pricing represented an increase of 22% compared to the fourth quarter of 2021 and was slightly above the average for the third quarter of 2022. FX had a favorable impact on the sequential price improvement during the quarter, reflecting recent declines of the US dollar, most notably compared to the euro, as a portion of our sales are denominated in foreign currencies. Factoring all of this in, net sales for the fourth quarter of 2022 decreased 32% compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. As we look at the first quarter of 2023, reflecting the headwinds that we discussed, we anticipate our total graphite electrode sales volume will be in the range of 15 to 18,000 metric tons for the quarter. Further, As you know, the terms of most of our LTAs ended in 2022, and our mix shift has shifted more to non-LTA business. Lastly, regarding our top line outlook for the first quarter of 2023, we expect our weighted average non-LTA pricing to remain comparable to the 2022 full year average of approximately $6,000 per metric ton. Let me now turn it over to Tim to cover the rest of our financial details.

Thanks, Jeremy. Net income totaled $50 million in the fourth quarter for a 20% net income margin and resulting in 20 cents of earnings per share. Adjusted EBITDA was $80 million, a decrease from $183 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, reflecting the lower sales volume and higher year-over-year costs. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 32% in the fourth quarter. Let me expand on costs. For the fourth quarter, we experienced a year-over-year increase of 47% in cash COGS per metric ton, which represented a 20% sequential increase compared to the third quarter of 2022. This resulted in a cost per metric ton average of nearly $5,200 for the fourth quarter of 2022, with this metric excluding depreciation and amortization, as well as the cost of goods associated with byproduct sales and other non-cash factors. As we've indicated, during the fourth quarter, we continued to feel the impact of global inflationary pressures that we experienced throughout the year, most notably for certain raw materials, energy, and freight, as we sold higher-priced inventory during the quarter. This inflation accounted for approximately half the 20% year-over-year, or sorry, 20% quarter-over-quarter increase. The balance was due to the accelerated The balance of the change was due to the accelerated recognition in the fourth quarter of approximately $11 million of fixed costs related to our Monterey operations that otherwise would have been inventoried if we were operating at normal production levels. As we look ahead, we project our cash costs per metric ton for the first quarter of 2023 to be flat to up slightly compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. While we expect those two quarters to represent the peak of our recognized cost curve, we anticipate only a slight moderation in our cost per ton for the balance of 2023. Therefore, we're projecting a year-over-year increase in our cost per metric ton in the range of 17% to 20% on a full year basis for 2023 as compared to 2022, which averaged $4,300 per ton. As we look forward, in addition to our ongoing focus on cost management, we expect market pricing for certain key elements of our cost structure to decline in the medium to longer term, including but not limited to energy and decant oil. For these reasons, and with sales volumes expected to return to more normalized levels beginning in the back half of 2023 and for the full year of 2024, we are optimistic that our cost per metric ton will improve significantly as we move beyond the current year. Turning now to cash flow. In the fourth quarter, we generated $50 million of cash from operations and $23 million of adjusted free cash flow, with both measures decreasing compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, reflecting lower net income. Moving now to slide nine. Our gross debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was 1.7 times as of December 31st, compared to 1.6 times at the end of 2021. On a net debt basis, we ended the year at a ratio of 1.5 times. During the quarter, our total liquidity increased $27 million to approximately $462 million, consisting of $135 million of cash and $327 million available under our revolving credit facility. As we move into 2023, we continue to manage our working capital levels. We expect to be free cash flow positive for the year and do not anticipate the need to borrow against our revolver. We remain confident we have ample liquidity between cash on hand and availability under our existing credit facilities. Now turning to slide 10. Maintaining a prudent and disciplined capital allocation strategy remains a long-term priority. With the unanticipated suspension of Monterey, we elected not to pay down debt or repurchase stock in the back half of 2022. However, a significant portion of our cash flow generation in the first half of the year was utilized for those purposes. In 2022, we reduced our term loan balance by $110 million, bringing our cumulative debt repayments to more than $1.2 billion since the start of 2019. During 2022, we also returned $70 million to our stockholders in the form of stock repurchases and dividends. Additionally, we invested $72 million in our capital assets, while also preserving a significant portion of our cash flow generation in the second half of the year to increase our liquidity. For 2023, we're focused on maintaining a disciplined capital allocation strategy, including certain targeted investments, such as the restart of our St. Mary's operation, as Marcel referenced earlier. For the full year, we expect our capital expenditures to be in the range of $55 to $60 million, including investments to support our future growth expectations. Let me now turn it back to Marcel for his perspective on the outlook.

Thank you, Tim. We remain confident in our ability to overcome near-term headwinds and are optimistic about the longer-term outlook for our business. We have been taking actions to best position GraphTech for the future. These include remaining disciplined with all our operating costs and capital expenditures, as well as our working capital. As an example, a reduction in temporary staffing and the implementation of hiring restrictions resulted in a reduction in our workforce during the fourth quarter of 2022. As Jeremy pointed out, we are proactively reducing production at our European Electro Manufacturing Facilities to approximately one-third of their capacity to align our production volume with our near-term outlook for graphite electrode demand. We are making targeted investments to further improve our competitive positioning and to support long-term growth. This includes the full restart of our St. Mary's, Pennsylvania operation. With the actions we are taking, we will emerge stronger to benefit from longer-term demand growth. We continue to expect the steel industry's efforts to decarbonize will drive a continued shift to electric arc furnace steelmaking supporting long-term demand growth for graphite electrodes. Factoring in announcements of planned EAF capacity additions by steel producers and estimated production increases at existing EAF plants, this could result in an incremental annual graphite electrode demand outside of China of 200,000 metric tons by 2030. We also anticipate the demand for petroleum needle coke, the key raw material we use to produce our graphite electrodes to accelerate driven by its use in lithium ion batteries for the growing electric vehicle market. In fact, based on estimates for growth in EV sales and battery pack sizes, this could result in global needle coke demand for use in battery applications increasing at the compound annual growth rate of over 20% through 2030. we view the growing demand for needle coke as another positive long-term trend for our business, as higher demand should result in elevated pricing. Our sustainable competitive advantages, including our substantial vertical integration into petroleum needle coke production through our C-drift facility, are critical differentiators and foundational to our ability to meet our customers' needs. To that point, we are very encouraged by recently having entered into several new multi-year electrode sales agreements. This reflects our customers' confidence in our ability to reliably deliver high-performing products. In closing, our investment thesis remains intact. Graftex possesses an industry-leading position, a distinct set of capabilities and competitive advantages, and a talented and dedicated team that is committed to serving our customers. For these reasons, I remain confident in our ability to deliver shareholder value. That concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the call for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. First question comes from David Cagliano at BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask a clarification question to the prepared remarks just now. Was the comment made that St. Mary's is fully restarting?

Is that what I heard? Yes, that's correct. Okay.

Can you talk a little bit about the reason why St. Mary's is totally restarting at this point, what the CapEx is associated with that restart, and what the volume expectations and the timing of that ramp up in volumes are expected to be?

Yeah, sure. I mean, the logic behind it really comes down to establishing a second complete value stream for the production of PINs. And so with that, we kicked that project off immediately after the initial suspension in Monterey, and we've been working to restart those assets and to complete the permitting process. All of this is in fact going extremely well for us. The capex that it's going to take will be minimal in the nature that it won't be incremental to the CapEx that we've planned for this year. And so it will all be managed within a typical CapEx budget for the year, so it won't be anything extraordinary in that regard. The timing of it is that it is permit dependent, but the state of Pennsylvania has been incredibly responsive to our requests in that regard so far. So I would expect that we should be able to say that we're producing there by the time we have our next earnings call.

Sorry, I just want to clarify one thing. So, so all that had previously been communicated, but I thought when you said, or when the comment was fully restarting St. Mary's, I thought that meant, you know, into graphite electro production again, is that not correct? We're still just talking about pins, right?

Well, we're, we're, but what's different from what we've done historically is that we're actually producing the pin stock in St. Mary's. So that, that will be the complete value stream. is being produced there, which could also be used for electrode production if economically feasible to do so.

But Dave, to your point of your question, our intent is not to bring additional electric capacity to the market right now. We're allowing us to have the redundancy in pinstock and also eliminate some of the movement of pinstock from Monterey to St. Mary's, which hopefully longer term on a cost basis will be beneficial to us.

Okay, great. Thanks for clarifying that part of it. It's still... You know, the commentary still leaves me a bit with the impression that there's something else to come, i.e. graphite electroproduction on the way at some point. You know, just along those lines, if that decision were to be made and to, you know, again, ramp up volumes of graphite electroproduction, what's the lead time associated with that incremental step? And when would one expect to hear an update on that part of it?

So obviously, the demand situation will drive that decision. In the current capex that we talked about, the $55 to $60 million for 2023, a capacity expansion of electroproduction is not included. So that will be beyond that 2023 timeframe. With regards to the timing it would take, Jeremy, you want to? Yeah. market demand is much, much better here than we expect. How long do you think it would take?

Yeah, we're probably talking 18 to 24 months type of a time frame to execute an expansion of St. Mary's to drive incremental volume.

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have any questions, please press star 1. Next question comes from Arun Viswanathan at RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Good morning. Good morning, Arun. I just wanted to clarify, good morning. A lot of the guidance items you guys offered. So first off, on the tons that you expect to sell in 23, did you say that that's about half? of what you sold in 22. And so I'm getting to about 155,000 ton number in 22. So that would put us around 80 for 23. Is that right?

Yes. So let me clarify that, Arun. So the guidance was we would be at roughly 50% of the first half of 22 in the first half of 23. So we did roughly 85,000 tons in the first half of 2022.

Okay, perfect. So half of that for the first half. And then the second half, though, would be comparable to the second half of 22. Is that right?

Yeah. So, I mean, I think we certainly see our ability via reengagement with our customers and the dialogue we're having with them that the back half of 23 will start to recover and look much more like a normal year for us. I'm not sure we get all the way to where we were in the back half of 21, but we certainly will be over where we were in the back half of 22.

And then you also noted that is Q1 between 14 and 18,000 tons, is that right?

Between 15 and 18, that's correct. That's what we're expecting.

Okay, great, perfect. And that 15 to 18, then... A portion of that would be long-term, and a portion of that would be spot. And so we'll use the 27 to 32 long-term, and then the rest will be made up with spot. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's the right way to think about that.

Okay. And then on the pricing side, so I guess needle coke, or sorry, electrodes, spot electrodes, you're still seeing at around $6,000. What can you offer as far as needle coke? I think last time you said it was $2,500, $2,600. Are we still in that range? Could you provide an update on electrode and needle coke pricing?

Yeah, so I would say right now in the market, we're seeing kind of on the high end for the super premium needle cokes, you're in that $2,500 to $2,600 range on needle coke. On the top end, you know, obviously the lower grades will trade in a little bit of a discount to that. I think previously we were probably closer to 2,800, so we've seen a little bit of a pullback, but I would probably describe it more as a sideways market right now than anything.

And then, thanks for that. And then on the demand side, so, you know, last year definitely in the middle of the year and second half, there was very weak demand in Europe. It sounded like maybe there's been a little bit of pickup in steel utilization rates at that 73. Is that right? And so what's your outlook from here? I mean, do you expect steel utilization rates globally to improve, maybe driven by some restocking, some infrastructure buildout, and then definitely China coming back? Or how should we think about how demand evolves from here?

Yeah. So one thing I just want to clarify is that 73% was a U.S. operating rate, not a European operating rate. So I just didn't want you to get that confused. I thought it was global.

Sorry. Thank you.

Yeah. And so then the other thing that I guess I would say is that the first month of this year is starting to give us some reasons for optimism. We're particularly seeing that on things like HRC pricing. and some of the restarts, some of the recent increases in operating rates that we've been seeing in multiple different regions. And so while still meaningfully depressed from where we were a year ago, we're definitely seeing some things that are giving us a degree of confidence that the market's coming back.

Okay. And then just lastly, so given that comment, do you expect both needle coke and electrode prices to rise through the year? And the reason I ask is because, you know, you noted that the demand environment, you know, again, there's some potential green shoots, and then you noted the 17% increase, I think, in cost per ton for the year. And so would that, or 17 to 22, would that be in line with, kind of how, you know, so would the cost evolve with how the pricing evolves, or what kind of informs some of your cost commentary? And similarly, if you could just elaborate on your thoughts on how pricing for these two, for electrodes and needle coke could play out.

So, my thoughts here on pricing, Arun, it's quite difficult to really forecast short-term pricing, both for graphite, electrodes, and needle coke. I think what's very important, and you're aware of that, right, that there is a strong long-term link between the right pricing of needle coke and spot prices for graphite electrodes. And the long-term average spread between these two is off the order of $3,800 to $3,900. So that link has actually held very strongly over probably a 20-year-plus period. So if you look at the current spa prices around $6,000, the current needle cold pricing at least at the high end of about $2,500, we are at the spread of about $3,500 between the two. So not completely out of line between the two, but there might be a bit of upward movement that's possible here if you wanted to get back to the long-term average. I think longer term, the key message here on pricing is really, we expect the pricing for needle coats to go up as demand for that important raw material accelerates, both for graphite electrodes as well as for battery applications. And as such, we should also expect the price for graphite electrodes to go up if that spread folds into the future. And I think most importantly from my perspective here, given that we are the only large-scale producer of graphite electrodes outside of China that is integrated into that raw material, it really is of an advantage vis-a-vis our competition over time.

Okay, thanks. I'll turn it over.

Thank you. Next question is a follow-up from David Gagliano at BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my follow-up. I just had a quick question on the 2024 LTAs and the changes there and the revenues expected. The volumes didn't change, but the expected revenues went down. Can you just talk through what happened there?

Yeah, so, you know, as we note in there, the contractual volumes haven't changed and the expected revenue from those contractual volumes haven't changed. But certainly in that estimate, there's always an assumption around certain customer contracts and associated termination penalties or termination revenue as a result from those contracts. So without getting into the specifics of each of those individuals, our estimate of how much of those termination penalties we'd collect out in the out years of those contracts has come down. So that's what's driving that kind of weighted average volume or weighted average cost reduction. you know, in the 2024 timeframe.

Okay. And I don't have the info in front of me right now, but I think when I was backing into it this morning, it worked out to about a $40 million reduction, you know, versus just what was implied last quarter, which is, you know, we weren't assuming that much of a reduction, but I mean that much of a benefit, but you know, that's a pretty big drop. Is that math right? And, and is there a little more information that we can get on why it's such a big drop?

Yeah, I mean, you're definitely in the ballpark. You're pretty close at $40 million. And really, again, it's a driver of as we work with these customers, you know, the contracts have various provisions that protect our interests and their interests. As we continue to reach commercial agreements with our customers going forward, our predictions of how that may play out, you know, and what the requirements of the accounting rules are and what we should or should not disclose have changed. So we've reduced that forward-looking expectation rate. going forward. But I will say the underlying implied kind of revenue per ton is really reflective of these are the tail ends of these contracts, as most of these were entered into, again, back in 17 and 18. And so we've gotten to the tail end of the blend and extends that I think that we've talked about in the past where, you know, we extended the term of these and increased volumes over time with maybe a little bit of adjustment in price. So we're seeing the tail of these contracts work out, you know, in the out years.

Okay, great. Just my last related question on that. On a go-forward basis, are there, you know, more potential returns

revisions coming with these contracts that are left and if so can you quantify like sort of the the assumptions that are made that could change yeah no i i guess that's why that's why i added the commentary i think the the implied revenue net rate right now is really reflective of kind of the the contractual you know what the volume times the price would otherwise look like okay great thanks So, yeah, let me just add to that. Unless you have a situation where, you know, a customer is in a situation of non-performance, I don't think those change.

Perfect. Got it. Thanks.

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I will now hand the call back over to Mr. Kessler for closing comments.

Thank you, operator. I would like to thank everyone on this call for your interest in graph tech, and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating, and we ask that you please disconnect your lines.