U.S. Silica Holdings, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the U.S. SILICA Second Quarter 2023 All Links Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star and zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Patricia Gill, Vice President of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you for joining us today for U.S. Silica's second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Leading the call today are Brian Shin, our Chief Executive Officer, and Don Merrill, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you of our standard cautionary remarks regarding the forward-looking nature of some of the statements that will be made today. Some such forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events, are based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. For a complete discussion of these risks and uncertainties, we encourage you to read the company's press release and our documents on file with the SEC. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. Additionally, we've provided supplemental materials on our website in the investor section to accompany today's discussion. On today's call, we may refer to non-GAAP measures such as adjusted EBITDA, segment contribution margin, net debt, and net leverage ratio during this call. Please refer to today's press release or our public filings for a full reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to net income and discussions of segment contribution margin, net debt, and the net leverage ratio. I would now like to turn the call over to our CEO, Mr. Brian Shin.

Thanks, Patricia, and good morning, everyone. During the second quarter, U.S. Silica continued to strengthen our balance sheet and provide innovative and differentiated products to the markets and customers that we serve. We reported robust adjusted EBITDA and generated meaningful cash flow from operations in the quarter, which enabled us to extinguish an additional $25 million of debt. In executing our overall growth strategy, we remained focused on three key elements with respect to our industrial segment. One, increasing the profitability of our base business at a GDP plus rate. Two, substantially growing existing high-margin differentiated products. And three, expanding our addressable markets with new high-value advanced materials such as ever-white pigments. I will walk you through our recent progress in these areas a bit later in the call. The power and potential of our ISP business was evident in Q2 with substantial margin growth, record profitability, and a double-digit year-over-year increase in contribution margin dollars on improved pricing, reduced costs, and new product sales. In our oil and gas segment, we delivered continued strong financial performance despite lower completions activity across the U.S. oil field markets. While our volumes sold were down, pricing held up well during the quarter, and with our ability to quickly match costs to market demand, our overall oil field profit margin per ton increased sequentially in Q2. I'm very proud of the way that our teams executed during the quarter. While we delivered many outstanding accomplishments, one area that I'm particularly excited about is employee safety. Our company is on track to achieve our safest year ever with impressive performance across the board, delivering a 50% lower injury rate versus our previous best-ever performance in 2022. Our teams have made a commitment to a belief-based safety culture where we're all accountable and dedicated to live by our credo that nobody gets hurt today. On the governance side, as recently announced, we've added two new board members, expanding to eight directors in total. Simon Bates will serve as an independent member of the compensation and nominating and governance committees. Simon serves as CEO of Argos USA, and that's one of the largest cement and ready-mix concrete producers in the U.S. Jimmy Sue Smith will serve as an independent member of the audit committee. Jimmy Sue is the CFO of Coppers Holdings, Inc., a NYSE-listed company and leading integrated global provider of treated wood products, wood preservation chemicals, and carbon compounds. Both Simon and Jimmy Hsu bring extensive industry experience to U.S. silica and complement our board's broad expertise. We welcome them and look forward to the benefits of their leadership. I'd now like to turn the call over to our CFO, Don Merrill, who will discuss our financial results in more detail. Don? Thanks, Brian, and good morning.