PBF Energy Inc.

webcast. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for 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 that 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, Savannah. Good morning and welcome to today's call. With me today are Matt Lucey, our President and CEO, Karen Davis, our CFO, 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 forward-looking statements intended to be covered by the state PARVA provisions under federal securities laws. There are many factors that could cause actual results to differ from our expectations, including those we describe in our filings with the SEC. Consistent with our prior periods, we will discuss our results today, excluding special items, which are further described in today's press release. Also included in today's press release is further guidance information related to our expectations for third quarter 2024 throughput. For any questions on these items or follow-up questions, please contact Investor Relations after today's call. For reconciliations of any non-GAAP measures mentioned on today's call, please refer to the supplemental tables provided in the press release. I'll now turn the call over to Matt Lucey.

Thank you, Colin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. As we mentioned in our press release, While earnings for the quarter were a disappointment, we were able to maintain our strong cash position coming out of the quarter. As backdrop, second quarter market conditions represented a bit of a break from typical seasonal patterns, with rent-adjusted crack spreads declining almost $10 a barrel from the beginning of the quarter to the end. We also saw tightening crude diffs, and headwinds on the coproduct side. Earlier in the quarter, we completed maintenance in the East Coast and MidCon. However, each of these efforts extended past our original plans, primarily to increase scope, which was discovered during the turnarounds. Unfortunately, the extended work overlapped with the highest product margin periods early in the quarter. Additionally, we performed a planned turnaround of the Martinez hydrocracker from early May through the end of the quarter. A consequence of our extended turnaround activity on the East Coast and the Mid-Con was a decrease in the high-value product yield and inventory builds during the early part of the quarter. This resulted in decreased realized margins for the quarter as the feedstock builds were subsequently consumed as operations improved and products were sold into the weaker market. Again, despite the disappointing earnings, we were able to maintain our strong cash position through the quarter by reducing the elevated working capital position to normalized levels by the end of the quarter. We are pleased that all this is behind us. Our assets are running well today. Looking ahead, We have completed the majority of our planned maintenance for the year, and our last turnaround is expected to commence in the fall at Chalmette. Safe, reliable operations of all our assets remains our primary focus. Building on that foundation, we continue to prioritize capital allocation toward the opportunities that promote the greatest long-term shareholder value. We continue to demonstrate our commitment to return cash to shareholders with approximately $100 million of share repurchases in the second quarter. In addition, our board of directors approved the payment of our quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share. Longer term, we remain constructive on the global refining market. Global capacity, including the new additions, and refined product demand remain tightly balanced. In the immediate term, demand looks okay, nothing spectacular nor terrible. But importantly, we are seeing utilization across the sector come off its highs, and as a result, both crude differentials and cracks are now improving. With that, I'll turn it over to Karen.