Tronox Holdings plc

good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the tronox holdings plc q3 2024 earnings call at this time all lines are in listen only mode following the presentation we will conduct a question and answer session if at any time during this call you require immediate assistance please press star 0 for the operator this call is being recorded on friday october 25th 2024. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jennifer Gunther, Chief Sustainability Officer, Head of Investor Relations and External Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to our third quarter 2024 conference call and webcast. Turning to slide two, on our call today are John Romano, Chief Executive Officer, and John Cervasol, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer. We will be using slides as we move through today's call. You can access the presentation on our website at investor.tronox.com. Moving to slide three. Friendly reminder that comments made on this call and the information provided in our presentation and on our website include certain statements that are forward-looking and subject to various risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to the specific factors summarized in our SEC filing. This information represents our best judgment based on what we know today. However, actual results may vary based on these risks and uncertainties. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. During the conference call, we will refer to certain non-US GAAP financial terms that we use in the management of our business and believe are useful to investors in evaluating the company's performance. Reconciliations to their nearest US GAAP terms are provided in our earnings release and in the appendix of the accompanying presentation. Additionally, please note that all financial comparisons made during the call are on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise noted. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to John Romano. John?

Thanks, Jennifer, and good morning, everyone. We'll begin this morning on slide five with some key messages from the corner. Tronox's third quarter results demonstrated continued demand recovery compared to the prior year, though ultimately we came in below our expectations as a result of softer than anticipated market conditions as the pace of the recovery slowed late in the quarter. Orders in North America and Latin America met our expectations while demand in Europe and Asia Pacific was softer than forecast in the last month of the quarter. Our TO2 volumes declined 7% sequentially compared to Q2, outside our guidance of a 2% to 4% decrease. The lower demand, which was more pronounced in September, was influenced by short-term impacts from anti-dumping and a shift in competitive behaviors. Zircon volumes declined 12% sequentially, below our guidance of relatively flat volume versus the second quarter, due to orders that rolled into Q4 and weaker than expected demand in China. On the operation side, we successfully achieved our targeted average pigment utilization rate of approximately 80% in the quarter. However, we have not yet begun to see the benefit of the lower cost inventory flowing through to the bottom line due to the weaker than forecasted demand in the quarter. This weaker demand environment resulted in an adjusted EBITDA of 143 million. slightly below our previously guided range of 145 to 165 million, and a margin of approximately 18%. If market demand had been in line with our guidance, we would have delivered and adjusted EBITDA well within our range. We have seen continuation in demand recovery from the 2023 trough levels. TIO2 volumes are up 16% on a year-to-date basis. Zircon volumes are up 42% on a year-to-date basis, but we are now seeing a slowdown in the recovery. There are various tailwinds including interest rate cuts in the U.S., stimulus in China, and anti-dumping investigations in EU, Brazil, India, and most recently in Saudi Arabia. We firmly believe these will be a net positive in the mid to long term. In the short term, we'll need to continue to navigate the moderation we are seeing in demand. We will discuss these macros in further detail a little bit later in the call, but I'd like to now turn the call over to John to review some of the financials from the quarter in more detail.