Livent Corporation

Good afternoon, and welcome to the second quarter 2023 earnings release conference call for LiveEnt Corporation. Phone lines will be placed on listen-only mode throughout the conference. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer period. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Daniel Rosen, Investor Relations and Strategy for LiveEnt Corporation. Mr. Rosen, you may begin.

Great. Thank you, Josh. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to LiveEnt's second quarter 2023 earnings call. Joining me today are Paul Graves, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Gilberto Antoniazzi, Chief Financial Officer. The slide presentation that accompanies our results, along with our earnings release, can be found in the investor relations section of our website. Prepared remarks from today's discussion will be made available after the call. Following our prepared remarks, Paul and Gilberto will be available to address your questions. Given the number of participants on the call today, we would request a limit of one question and one follow-up per caller. We would be happy to address any additional questions after the call. Before we begin, let me remind you that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning specific factors, including but not limited to those factors identified in our Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Information presented represents our best judgment based on today's information. Actual results may vary based upon these risks and uncertainties. Today's discussion will include references to various non-GAAP financial metrics. Definitions of these terms, as well as a reconciliation to the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP, are provided on our investor relations website. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Paul.

Thank you, Dan. Good evening, everyone. As always, we have a number of important topics to cover with you today. Liven reported another strong financial performance in the second quarter, and we continue to see very healthy demand from our customers amid a fairly resilient broader lithium market environment. The company is also reiterating its full year 2023 financial guidance after previously raising projections with our first quarter results. This year's anticipated record performance is highlighted by adjusted EBITDA projected between $530 and $600 million. Progress at Namaska Lithium, an integrated 34,000 metric ton lithium hydroxide project in which Liven is a 50% shareholder and operating partner, continues to advance. After completing its detailed engineering phase earlier this year, and receiving Namaska board approval, the company is pushing forward with construction and plans for first sales in 2025 in the form of spodumene concentrate. We've provided cost estimates for development of the integrated project, as we will discuss. Namaska Lithium also signed its first customer agreement, which was announced with Ford Motor Company in the second quarter. Ford will be an important and strategic partner as both companies and Livent share a commitment to the development of a sustainable and socially responsible North American battery supply chain. During the second quarter, Livant and Allchem announced a proposal to combine in a merger of equals transaction to create a leading global lithium chemicals producer. In addition to reiterating the highly compelling logic for the transaction, we will highlight the progress made since signing and the key milestones to expect as we approach targeted transaction close by around the end of calendar year 2023. Finally, Livent recently published its annual sustainability report for 2022. We will touch on key accomplishments for the company, as well as our unwavering belief that lithium will continue to play a critical role in supporting a low-carbon future. Before going into more detail on Livent's business updates, I will turn the call over to Gilberto to discuss our second quarter performance as well as our reiterated full year 2023 financial guidance.