GrafTech International Ltd.

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to Graph Tech's third quarter 2026 earnings conference call and webcast. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Mike Dillon, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to Graphic International's third quarter 2026 earnings call. Thank you for joining us. Joining me on the call are Tim Flanagan, Chief Executive Officer, and Rory O'Donnell, Chief Financial Officer. Tim will begin with opening comments on our key strategic initiatives. Rory will then provide color on our quarterly results, outlook, and other financial matters. After closing comments by Tim, we will then open up the call to questions. Turning to our next slide. As a reminder, our comments today 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. The factors that could cause actual results different 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.graftech.com. A replay of the call will also be available on our website. I'll now turn the call over to Tim.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. The third quarter marked another important period for Grafitech as we continue to advance the commercial, operational, and strategic initiatives designed to improve our long-term profitability and strengthen our competitive position. We are particularly encouraged by the progress we are making on the pricing front. As higher-priced customer commitments reinforce our confidence that we've reached an inflection point in our realized pricing. During the quarter, we also announced significant steps in our strategy to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of our manufacturing footprint through the planned closure of our Monterrey, Mexico facility. These actions, together with our ongoing efforts to improve our cost structure, advocate for fair trade, and capitalize on emerging market opportunities, reflect our commitment to taking decisive steps to strengthen GrafTech's financial performance. We also remain confident in the longer-term fundamentals of our end market. supported by improving steel industry conditions across many of our key regions, the continued transition towards electric arc furnace steelmaking, and the growing strategic importance of synthetic graphite. This morning, I'd like to begin with an update on our strategic priorities, followed by our perspectives on the steel market and broader industry environment. I'll then discuss safety before turning the call over to Rory for a review of her financial results. On the commercial front, Our disciplined commercial approach is beginning to produce tangible results. During the third quarter and early in the fourth quarter, we continue to secure customer commitments at higher price levels than those secured in earlier periods this year, reinforcing our expectation for meaningful improvement and realized pricing in 2027. Restoring graphite and our customers. As we've seen in prior industry cycles, changes in the balance between supply and demand can result in relatively rapid and significant movements in graphite electrode pricing. While the timing and magnitude of any recovery will depend on market conditions, we believe the combination of improving commercial momentum and actions to better address industry over capacity create the potential for meaningful price recovery. To put our recent pricing progress in perspective, Market pricing continued to decline early in 2026 before beginning to recover during the second quarter, on the heels of the price increase we announced in March. Since then, we have seen sustained improvement in prices reflected in new customer commitments. However, because of our realized pricing reported to date in 2026 reflects commitments that were primarily entered into in prior periods, those improvements have not yet translated into our quarterly results. Our weighted average realized pricing was approximately $3,900 per metric ton in the third quarter, essentially flat with the second quarter. However, based on our current order book and the timing of shipments against these higher priced commitments, we expect a mid-single digit percentage increase in realized pricing in the fourth quarter. Looking ahead to 2027, we are seeing positive to reinforce our confidence in the pricing momentum we are building. Importantly, our objective is not simply to achieve near-term improvement in pricing, but to establish a more sustainable pricing environment. We believe our efforts to better align production capacity with underlying demand, together with the value customers place on reliable, high quality supply, provide important support for that objective. We remain focused on securing commitment that appropriately reflect the value of our differentiated products, technical capabilities, and reliable supply, while maintaining discipline in how we allocate our available production capacity. We look forward to providing a more comprehensive update on our 2027 commercial position when we report our fourth quarter results early next year. Beyond our own commercial progress, we are also seeing positive industry developments. In China, graphite electrode prices have increased throughout the year. supported in part by higher raw material costs. At the same time, Chinese graphite electrode exports have declined approximately 10% year-over-year. Taken together, we view these developments as further indications that the prolonged period of low industry pricing is beginning to change. We are also seeing strengthening conditions in the petroleum needlecoat market. Needlecoat prices have steadily increased throughout the year, reflecting a combination of high raw material costs and evolving supply and demand conditions. At the same time, interest in our own needle coke production capabilities is growing amongst potential customers serving various end markets. Historically, needle coke and graphite electrode pricing have been closely correlated with an average spread between the two of approximately $4,000 per metric ton over the past 20 years on an inflation adjusted basis. Therefore, We believe the strengthening needle coke market provides another catalyst for higher electrode pricing, while vertical integration positions graph tech favorably as these market dynamics evolve. Second, with respect to our manufacturing footprint. In the third quarter, we announced the planned closure of our graphite electrode manufacturing facility in Monterrey, Mexico. This represents an important step in our efforts to optimize our manufacturing network Thank you for joining us today. We have taken meaningful actions over the past several years to improve our cost structure and operational efficiency. However, given the continued imbalance between industry supply and demand, we determined that further action was necessary. Following the phased wind down of Monterey, customer requirements currently served by that facility will transition to our manufacturing operations in Calais, France and Pamplona, Spain. The transition of connecting pin production Thank you for joining us today. through a more competitive manufacturing footprint while preserving the differentiated product capabilities and technical expertise that are central to Grafitec's value proposition. We expect the initiative to strengthen our cost structure, improve operating efficiency, and reduce future capital requirements. We are managing the transition carefully with a focus on safety, maintaining supply continuity, and meeting our customer commitments. I also want to reiterate our support for the employees impacted by this decision. The Monterey team has made important contributions to GrafTech over many years and we're committed to treating our colleagues with respect and supporting them throughout the transition. Taken together with our ongoing manufacturing productivity and cost reduction initiatives, this action represents another meaningful step towards establishing a more sustainable foundation for long-term profitability. Following the wind-down of operations and permanent removal of graphite electrode production capabilities at Monterey, we intend to pursue the sale of the property and have already begun preliminary activities in preparation for a potential transaction. Any proceeds from a future sale would provide additional opportunity to support our liquidity position and reduce our outstanding debt, consistent with the requirements of our loan documents. Third, with respect to trade policy. We continue to advocate for fair trade and more balanced competitive conditions across the graphite electrode industry, including through our supportive trade proceeding in key commercial jurisdictions. As we discussed last quarter, the U.S. Department of Commerce has been investigating imports of large-diameter graphite electrodes from China and India. Since our last call, Commerce has issued its preliminary anti-dumping determinations. While we were disappointed with the preliminary outcome It's important to emphasize that the investigation is not yet complete. The information submitted by the Indian respondents remain subject to verification by commerce and the final determination is expected during the first quarter of 2027. We will remain actively engaged throughout the remainder of this process and continue to support efforts to address unfair trade practices that undermine the competitiveness of domestic graphite electrode manufacturing. More broadly, we believe appropriate trade enforcement Finally, with respect to emerging opportunities, we continue to believe that the growing strategic importance of synthetic graphite presents attractive longer-term opportunities for graph tech. As we've discussed previously, graphite electrodes are essential to electric arc furnace steelmaking, which we expect to benefit from the continued transition towards more sustainable methods of steel production. At the same time, demand for high-quality synthetic graphite petroleum needle coke is expanding into applications beyond traditional steelmaking, including battery materials, energy storage, and certain defense and industrial applications. These trends are reinforcing the importance of reliable, high-quality supply chains, particularly in North America and Europe. GRAFTECH's vertical integration into petroleum needle coke extends manufacturing capabilities and expertise in graphite and carbon science provide a differentiated foundation from which to pursue these opportunities. An example of our progress in this area, which we're quite excited about, is a collaboration with Antora Energy that we announced in September. Antora develops thermal batteries designed to provide reliable energy supply for industrial applications, such as AI data centers. And our collaboration is focused on leveraging our manufacturing capabilities at our St. Mary's, Pennsylvania facility to support this technology. Although still in its early stages, this represents tangible progress in our efforts to leverage existing assets and technical capabilities to develop new revenue opportunities. We continue to engage with prospective customers and strategic partners and policymakers to evaluate opportunities that leverage our existing capabilities and infrastructure. While these opportunities remain at various stages of development, we believe they offer an attractive potential to diversify our business over time and create additional value from our assets. In summary, we are making progress on several important fronts. Pricing momentum is building, and we are taking decisive steps to improve our manufacturing footprint and cost structure, and we continue to position GrafTech to benefit from longer-term growth opportunities. We believe these actions will strengthen our competitive position and enhance our ability to generate improved earnings and cash flow as industry conditions recover. With that, let me turn to the broader steel market. Turning to slide five, let me spend a few minutes discussing the broader steel market, as steel industry fundamentals remain the primary driver of long-term graphite electrode demand. Overall, we continue to see improving trends across several of our key regions, supporting our expectation for modest growth in graphite electrode demand during 2026. Through the first two months of the third quarter, global steel production, excluding China, Thank you for joining us today. Taken together, these trends reinforce our view that the steel industry fundamentals outside of China are gradually improving, providing constructive foundation for graphite electrode demand. Turning to slide six. Beyond the improving conditions we're seeing today, several potential catalysts could support additional growth in steel demand over the coming years. These include infrastructure investment, higher defense spending, investments associated with the energy transition, and Jeremy Flanagan. The World Steel Association is projecting finished steel demand growth outside of China of approximately 1.5% in 2026, accelerating to 4% in 2027. We view this anticipated acceleration as an encouraging indicator of improving industry fundamentals with positive implications for graphite electrode demand. Specifically in Europe, which remains one of our most important commercial regions, we see important developments aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of regional steel production. As we discussed last quarter, the implementation of the European Union's carbon border adjustment More broadly, we believe these catalysts will drive increased regional steel production over time and support our view that graphite electrode demand outside of China will increase at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 3% in the coming years. While the pace of improvement will depend on broader economic and market conditions, we believe that these demand drivers, combined with other strategic actions we are Before turning the call over to Rory, I'd like to briefly discuss an area that will always remain our highest priority, which is safety. I've always believed that no business objective is ever more important than ensuring our people return home safely at the end of every shift, and I am proud of the continued focus our employees have demonstrated across their global operations. Through the first nine months of 2026, our total recordable incident rate was 0.47. While this is above our full-year 2025 performance, it remains substantially below the levels we experienced several years ago, reflecting the meaningful progress we have made in strengthening our safety culture. We recognize that maintaining a strong safety performance requires constant attention and a commitment to continuous improvement. Safety must remain embedded in every aspect of how we operate, rather simply than a metric being reported each quarter. On behalf of our leadership team, I'd like to thank all of our employees for their dedication to operating safely while delivering for our customers every day. Their commitment is the foundation of everything we accomplish as a team. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rory to review our third quarter results and our outlook in greater detail.