SunCoke Energy, Inc.

Hello and welcome to the SunCoke Energy's second quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. We'll now turn the conference over to Sharon Doyle, Investor Relations Manager. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and thank you for joining us this morning to discuss SunCoke Energy's Second Quarter 2026 Results. With me today are Katherine Gates, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Shantanu Agrawal, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This conference call is being webcast live on the Investor Relations section of our website, and a replay will be available later today. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. If we do not get to your questions on the call today, please feel free to reach out to our Investor Relations team. Before I turn things over to Katherine, let me remind you that the various remarks we make on today's call regarding future expectations constitute forward-looking statements. The cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements in our SEC filings apply to the remarks we make today. These documents are available on our website as are reconciliations to non-GAAP financial measures discussed on today's call. With that, I'll now turn things over to Katherine.

Thanks, Sharon. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on today's call. This morning, we announced SunCoke Energy's second quarter results. I want to share a few highlights before turning it over to Shantanu to discuss the results in detail. We're very pleased with our second quarter results, with strong consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $69.6 million. Our industrial services segment delivered the highest adjusted EBITDA since the acquisition of Phoenix, with substantially higher handling volumes at our terminals as compared to the prior year period. Our domestic coke segment benefited from favorable coal-to-coke yields, and the Middletown turbine was returned to service, with power production resuming in May. Earlier today, we also announced a quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share, payable to shareholders on September 2, 2026. This is our 28th consecutive quarterly dividend. While the dividend is evaluated on a quarterly basis by our board, We expect the dividend to continue as part of our well-balanced capital allocation strategy. As previously discussed in our first quarter earnings call, we are running at full capacity and sold out for the full year. We expect continued strong operating performance for both business segments, and with a solid outlook through the second half of the year, we are increasing our full year 2026 consolidated adjusted EBITDA guidance range to $250 to $265 million. With that, I'll turn it over to Shantanu to review our second quarter earnings in detail. Shantanu?

Thanks, Katherine. Turning to slide four. Net income attributable to SunCoke was 15 cents per share in the second quarter of 2026, up 13 cents versus the prior year period. The increase was primarily driven by the addition of Phoenix results and higher terminal handling volumes. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2026 was $69.6 million compared to $43.6 million in the prior year period. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the addition of Phoenix, higher terminal handling volumes, and favorable cold to Coke yields, partially offset by lower Coke sales volumes due to the Haverhill One shutdown and higher employee expense accrual driven by the company's strong financial performance. Moving to slide five to discuss our domestic Coke business performance in detail, Second quarter domestic Coke adjusted EBITDA was $42.5 million and Coke sales volumes were 878,000 tons compared to $40.5 million and 943,000 tons in the prior year period. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by favorable cold to Coke yields due to improved operating conditions, partially offset by lower Coke sales volumes due to the Haverhill 1 shutdown. We are pleased with the improvement in our coke operations during the second quarter and with the return of power production at Middletown earlier than anticipated. We expect this strong operational performance to continue throughout the second half of the year and are increasing our full-year domestic coke adjusted product guidance range to $172 to $178 million. Now, moving on to slide six to discuss our industrial services results. Our industrial services segment generated $34.4 million of adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of 2026 compared to $7.7 million in the prior year period. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the addition of Phoenix results and higher terminal handling volumes. Second quarter total terminals handling volumes were 6.7 million tons and steel customer volumes serviced were 5.8 million tons. We are increasing our full year 2026 industrial services adjusted EBITDA guidance range to $110 million to $115 million driven by continued solid outlook for the second half of the year. Now, turning to slide seven to discuss our liquidity position for Q2. SunCoke ended the second quarter with a cash balance of $42.7 million and revolver availability of $164.5 million, representing ample liquidity of $207 million. Net cash used in operating activities was $27.2 million and was negatively impacted by the timing of approximately $65 million of cash receipts at the quarter end, which were subsequently received in July. We expect operating cash flow to normalize over the remainder of the year and are increasing our full-year operating cash flow guidance to $240 to $260 million. During the quarter, we used $6.5 million for debt pay down, spent $15.9 million on CapEx, and paid $10.2 million in dividends at the rate of 12 cents per share. Suncoke has a strong track record of generating steady Thanks, Shantanu. Wrapping up on slide eight.

As always, safety is our first priority, and our team remains committed to maintaining strong safety and environmental performance throughout the year. Robust safety and environmental standards set SunCoke apart and are central to our reliable delivery of high-quality Coke and industrial services. We continue to be confident in our operations for 2026, with our profitable, long-term Coke business underpinned by the three pillars of Indian Harbor, Middletown, and Jewel Foundry, which have consistently delivered excellent performance and results. With our Haverhill 2 and Granite City Coke making contracts in place and all spot glass and foundry Coke sales finalized, we're sold out for the full year. We also maintain a positive outlook for our industrial services segment. 2026 will benefit from a full year of Phoenix adjusted EBITDA as well as solid market conditions at our terminals. As always, we take a balanced yet opportunistic approach to capital allocation. Our focus will remain on utilizing our free cash flow to support our capital allocation priorities, including paying down our revolver balance. We also plan to continue returning capital via the quarterly dividend as approved by our board, which has always been well received by our long-term shareholders. We continuously evaluate the capital needs of the business, our capital structure, and the need to reward our shareholders, and will make capital allocation decisions accordingly. We're committed to maximizing value for all of our stakeholders, which means operating and investing in our assets in the best and most efficient way possible. We will continue to focus on maintaining the strength of our core businesses, as well as assessing new growth opportunities across all areas of our business. Overall, we see the strong fundamentals of our business and expect our 2026 results to be reflective of that. We are confident that we'll be able to deliver full-year consolidated adjusted EBITDA within our revised guidance range of $250 to $265 million. Let's go ahead and open up the call for Q&A.

Thank you. If you have a question, please press star 1 in your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star 1 again. Your first question comes from the line of Henry Hurl of B Reilly Securities. Your line is open.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Just to start off, in the domestic Coke business year, just EVA per ton was roughly 48.4, which is still slightly below your revised higher full-year guidance of 51 to 52. Could you help us and walk through the drivers to achieve this higher EVA per ton in the second half of the year? Thanks.

Thanks, Henry. Yeah, there are a couple of things in there. First, you know, the Middletown turbine came back online late part of May. So we still did not have the full benefit of the Middletown turbine power generation for the full quarter. So you're going to see that in the third and the fourth quarter, the full turbine power generation from Middletown. And the other piece which is also included in the second half of the year is the insurance recovery proceeds. which we lost not having the turbine during the first half of the year. That is also built into our guidance for the second half.

Got it. Thanks, Shantanu. And then I believe your terminal handing volumes increased almost 20% quarter over quarter. What was kind of the main driver or drivers of that significant step up?

So this was really an extraordinary quarter for the terminals, as we've said. And I mean, we see really a shift in the end of last year and even the beginning of this year. We saw that mismatch where you had higher domestic pricing for coal versus internationally. That has certainly shifted. I think that there's... supply chain concern and energy concern with respect to the war in Iran that's probably driving some of these prices higher. When the prices go higher, we see that higher volume come through the Gulf. And so those things have all converged to really create a very, very strong second quarter for us.

Understood. Thank you, Katherine, for that color. And I think in your prepared remarks, you said that terminal volumes are expected to see strong performance in the second half. Does that mean further growth or kind of remaining at those 2Q levels?

Yeah, very good question. So we see the second half as being strong, but I would refer to it as being strong as opposed to extraordinary. So The second quarter, really several things converged across all of our terminals to give us those really high volumes that we're very, very pleased with. So we feel very good about the second half, but I would expect those to normalize to what I would consider to be our normal kind of strong results in the second half. And that's really reflective when you look at the guidance that we're giving for industrial services on a full year basis.

Got it. Understood. I'll turn it over. Thanks, guys, and continued best of luck. Thank you. Thanks, Andre.

Your next question came from the line of Nathan Martin of The Benchmark Company. Your line is open.

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. Congrats on a strong quarter.

Maybe just digging in a little bit more on that last question.

You did raise, obviously, industrial services segment guidance by what looks like about 18 million or so at the midpoint. It actually implies, I guess, average, Jessica Bedard backed down to about $26 million a quarter in the back half. So am I thinking about that correctly, just trying to, again, reconcile the implied half-over-half decline, or is there maybe some conservatism built in? I think you guys had previously guided to terminal volumes of 24 million tons and then Phoenix volumes of 22 million tons. Is that still what you're seeing for that segment, or any other thoughts there would be great?

Yeah, thanks, Nate. That's a great question. So a couple of things. I think one thing in what happened in Q2, Katherine mentioned, right, we saw a significant amount of volumes come through in the terminals this quarter, right? And if you look at our Q1 was pretty strong as well in the terminals with the 5.6 million you know kind of volumes and we did 6.6 million volume this quarter so I would say the run rate for the second half is somewhere in the middle of that you know more closer to Q1 I would say And then the other piece which really, really impacted and helped us in Q2 was some extraordinary kind of, you know, slag sales that we did on the Phoenix side of the business, which helped drive the number in Q2. These are more seasonal things that, you know, it happens in one quarter. You know, you're handling the slag and then you sell those products. and many more.

Thinking that $60 million with Just to Do Without per year is a good way to think about that, or have you been able to institute some cost savings initiatives, et cetera, or higher sales that might see some upside there?

So with respect to the synergies that we expected to realize, and we discussed previously the $5 to $10 million of synergies, we have already achieved that this year, and we have a good portion of the synergies this year. but we would expect to see full synergies in 2027. So certainly with respect to the integration of the business and the cost side of it, we are right where we expect it to be. Operationally, things are just the same level of discipline, reliability and rigor that we bring to Coke and terminals we brought to Phoenix. So we're seeing that strong operational performance and coupling that with the mills and how they've been performing. And you've seen that across the board in terms of results from our customers. We're having a very strong year for Phoenix. So I think that thinking about our original sort of 60, 61 million as sort of a baseline when we announced the acquisition of Phoenix, that is the baseline. you're certainly seeing stronger performance this year due to our operational excellence coupled with the mill's strong performance.

All right, Katherine, I appreciate that. And then maybe another question as it relates to Covenant. Did you guys receive the price kicker there for the quarter based on where the FOB New Orleans index was? And then are you seeing any benefit in the second half with those prices still elevated because of what's going on in the war in the Middle East?

Yes, that's a great question. Yeah, you know, we changed the price index last year and it's FOB New Orleans. We did see the favorable impact of that, not to a great extent. We did see some impact, I think, two months out of the three this quarter. And that price, you know, it's a mix of how the domestic producers are doing as well as kind of what the market looks like in Europe. So we expect to see some benefit in Q3 as well. But it can change pretty quickly.

Okay. Got it, Shantanu. And then I just wanted to come back to the domestic Coke side. You mentioned that insurance proceeds from Middletown are partly at least driving some of the and higher expected adjusted EBITDA per ton in the back half. How much are those proceeds and how should we think about how that flows through?

So, Nate, we are not like laying out, you know, because it's just one plant and how much energy we're going to produce. But if you think about it, what we said was in Q1, the impact of the Turbine, and the impact of the weather, the weather impact on Indiana Harbor and our other coke plants was around $10 million, right? So, and then we did not have power, you can think about it the way is that we did not have power for five months of the year, right? So roughly, if you can extrapolate that, model that out, that's kind of the insurance proceed that we need, that is built into the second half of the year.

Okay, so maybe we're thinking $5 million, kind of half that number, something like that, since part of it was weather.

That was just Q1, right? And that continued into a good part of Q2 as well.

Okay, got it. All right, I'll leave it there. Appreciate the time, everybody. Best of luck in the second half.

Thank you.

With no further questions, I will now turn the call back over to CEO and President Katherine Gates for closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us this morning and for your continued interest in Suncoke. Let's continue to work safely today and every day.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.