PBF Energy Inc.

Everyone, and welcome to the PBF Energy Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open to your questions following management's prepared remarks. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Colin Murray of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Debbie. Good morning and welcome to today's call. With me today are Matt Lucey, our president and CEO, Karen Davis, our CFO, Tom Nimley, our executive chairman, and several other members of our management team. Copies of today's earnings release and our 10-Q filing, including supplemental information, are available on our website. Before getting started, I'd like to direct your attention to the safe harbor statement contained in today's press release. Statements in our press release and those made on this call that express the company's or management's expectations or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements intended to be covered by the safe harbor provisions under federal securities laws. There are many factors that could cause actual results that differ from our expectations, including those we describe in our filings with the SEC. Consistent with our prior periods, we'll discuss our results today, excluding special items. In today's press release, we described the non-cash special items included in our quarterly results. The cumulative impact of these special items decreased third quarter net income by an after-tax amount of $65 million, or 50 cents a share, primarily related to a change in the fair value of the contingent considerations associated with the Martinez acquisition, loss on extinguishment of debt, and exit costs associated with the early termination of the inventory intermediation agreement. Also included in today's press release is further guidance information related to our expectations for the remainder of 2023 operations. For any questions on these items or follow-up questions, please contact Investor Relations after the call. For reconciliations of any non-GAAP measures mentioned on today's call, please refer to the supplemental tables provided in today's press release. I'll now turn the call over to Matt Lucie.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining the call. Today, PBF reported another quarter of strong results, our third strongest quarter in our history, I believe, driven by robust, refined product markets that dominated most of the quarter. Our refineries ran reasonably well with no major planned outages at any of our facilities during the quarter. Now that we're in the shoulder season, we've seen gasoline cracks come off, but as expected, diesel margins have remained robust as inventories are tight. Despite the recent pullback in gasoline, we expect that prices will stabilize and compound cracks, on average, will remain above previous mid-cycle levels as they are today. The pricing environment will continue to remain volatile, However, PBF is well positioned to respond to these market conditions with our high complexity, high conversion, refining footprint. With respect to capital allocation, our core principle is to create a competition for capital in which capital flows to its highest and best use. As we've stated previously, our first priority was to strengthen and simplify our balance sheet. We operate in a cyclical business, and a strong balance sheet is imperative in managing the inevitable market cycles. At this point, we have an investment-grade balance sheet that ranks among the strongest in our peer group. With balance sheets substantially behind us, PBF will continue to weigh investments in growth against returning capital shareholders and our allocation of excess cash. A year ago, we reinstated our dividend. This week, our Board approved a $0.05 per share increase in the quarterly dividend to $0.25 per share. Going forward, further potential dividend increases will be evaluated on an annual basis. In the fourth quarter of 22, we announced a $500 million share buyback program and then increased the authorization to $1 billion in May. From inception of the buyback program in December through today, we have deployed $590 million in cash, repurchasing 14 million shares, or 11% of the shares outstanding. Going forward, we expect to remain active in buying back shares. The ultimate level of buyback activity will be determined by the excess cash generation of our business, coupled with a rigorous evaluation of reinvestment opportunities relative to share buyback economics. Investments in growth will be disciplined and will leverage PBF strengths. We have no plans to get bigger for the sake of getting bigger. Diversification will not be pursued for the sake of diversification. Our goal is to leverage our core strengths and assets and expertise to make investments in complementary businesses with compelling risk-return ratios. A perfect example of this blueprint is our investment in St. Bernard Renewables, where we leveraged an idled asset and our expertise in fuels manufacturing into a compelling renewable diesel joint venture with a world-class partner in ENI. Turning to Renewable Diesel, we are pleased to announce that in the first full quarter of operations, St. Bernard Renewables has reported positive earnings. We continue to line out operations post-RDU startup in June and the PTU startup in late July. We did advance a catalyst change on the RDU into the fourth quarter as we work to optimize the assets. We are more than pleased to have gotten to this point working alongside our joint venture partner, E&I Sustainable Mobility, as we continue exploring opportunities to expand our partnership. Furthering PBS participation in the future of energy, the U.S. Department of Energy recently selected Mach 2 project as the regional hydrogen hub that will receive funding under the IRA. Although there is still a lot of ground to cover, we are pleased to be part of the consortium that will advance this project and ultimately supply hydrogen as a clean energy transportation fuel. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we're in the midst of planned maintenance at torrents on the FCC and outlation units, and we're doing additional work on the Martinez Flexi-Coker. The Flexi-Coker work was unplanned, and the downtime from both Torrance and Martinez will impact fourth quarter capture rates on the West Coast. The good news is that Martinez work should be complete in the next week or so, and Torrance work should be complete before the end of the month. As we saw from activity early in the quarter, commodity markets will continue to be volatile. The global refining system, and PBF in particular, We'll be nimble in adapting to market conditions. Before I turn the call over to Karen, I want to repeat the tailwinds that we currently see for PBF. First, our complex, predominantly coastal coking refining system is well situated for the current marketplace. Second, maybe most importantly, the transformation of our balance sheet is now complete. We have reduced or extended our gross debt. We bought in the intermediation agreement. And as of today, we have essentially extinguished our outstanding rent obligation. We've reinstated, now increased our dividend, implemented a share repurchase program, and are now producing renewable fuels, and have also been selected as part of the growing hydrogen economy with the Mach 2 project. These are all tailwinds that PBF has had direct hand in creating and will help drive long-term value. With that, I'll turn it over to Karen.