Tronox Holdings plc

Good morning and welcome to the Tronox Holdings first quarter 2026 earnings call. All participants are in our listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, we'll conduct a question and answer session. To ask a question at this time, you'll need to press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Jennifer Gunther. She's Sustainability Officer, Head of Investor Relations and External Affairs. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to our first quarter 2026 conference call and webcast. Turning to slide two, on our call today are John Romano, Chief Executive Officer, and John Srivastava, 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.toronox.com. Moving to slide three, a 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 filings. 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 U.S. 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 four, but before turning to our first quarter highlights, I want to address the situation in the Middle East. First and foremost, we offer our thoughts to those affected. Since the conflict began, the safety of our employees has been our top priority. With respect to our operations in Saudi Arabia, our teams continue to operate safely and responsibly throughout the quarter, and I want to recognize their focus and professionalism during this challenging period. While the situation remains fluid, we're seeing significant impacts across the chemical sector and specifically the TIO2 industry. While various costs such as natural gas, diesel, freight, and insurance are rising, One of the most meaningful cost increases has been sulfur and sulfuric acid. I mentioned on our Q4 earnings call that sulfur prices in China had increased approximately 160% since the end of 2024 due to supply tightening and demand increases. Now that figure is almost 300% as the conflict has exacerbated impacts to the industry. This is having significant impacts on TIO2 producers that produce sulfate TIO2 predominantly in China, where approximately 80% of the production capacity is sulfate technology. This challenge is not only increasing costs, but also availability, which we believe will have a negative impact on Chinese producers' ability to produce and ship TIO2, the extent of which will depend on how long the conflict lasts. While many TIO2 producers are challenged by various aspects of the recent conflict, With our broad geographic footprint and more than 90% of our capacity being chloride technology, Tronox is well positioned to reliably supply our customers despite the challenging geopolitical backdrop. We'll review this in more detail throughout the call. Turning to the quarter, we delivered a strong and better than expected top-line performance and achieved EBITDA above the mid-point of our guidance. Volumes exceeded our expectations across both TIO2 and Zircon. with CIO2 reaching its highest Q1 level since 2022 and Zircon delivering its strongest performance since Q4 of 2021. This is the result of disciplined commercial execution, enhanced customer engagement, and the strategic positioning of our products in key markets supported by our global presence. We continue to see meaningful structural benefits from anti-dumping measures in protected markets, particularly in Europe, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia. With the announcement of anti-dumping investigations against Chinese T02 in the UK and Australia, we hope to build on the gains we are seeing in countries that have already acted to strengthen their domestic producers. These measures are having a significant impact on trade flows and positive volume trends for Tronox. Combined with our global footprint and reliable supply, this allowed us not only to serve our customers effectively, but also capture the upside as the supply dynamic shifted. While Asia-Pacific volumes were impacted by the temporary stay on duties in India, performance in the region was more resilient than we expected, reflecting the value customers place on Tronox as a key supplier to the region. On pricing, we saw a clear inflection during the first quarter. TIO2 price actions took effect as planned, and we announced additional pricing actions and targeted surcharges that are beginning to roll through in the second quarter. Zircon pricing was stable in Q1, and the announced price increases for Q2 are being implemented as communicated on our last earnings call. Planned and unplanned production curtailments in the industry have led to tighter supply dynamics, supporting price momentum, which we expect will continue throughout the year. From a cost perspective, we continue to see the benefits from actions underway. including our cost improvement program, which remains on track to deliver $125 to $175 million of run rate savings at the end of 2026. These benefits help to offset a portion of the headwinds we faced during the quarter, including higher sales volumes, pulling forward sales of higher cost inventory. That was the direct result of deliberate actions we took late last year to preserve cash and manage inventory, some of which continued into this year including lowering operating rates and idling two mines in one of our furnaces in south africa in q1 we ramped up operating rates at our pigment plants to meet the increased demand for our products which we will touch on a bit later in the call in addition we saw higher cost inflation late in the quarter as the conflict in the middle east impacted raw material prices our commercial team has implemented increases through surcharges though there will be a lag between when these take effect versus the more immediate impact to our operations. We will continue to assess cost headwinds and take the necessary targeted actions as needed to avoid margin erosion. We continue to prioritize free cash flow and working capital efficiency, reducing inventory by approximately $75 million in the quarter. Due to our strong commercial performance, we upsized our AR securitization facility by $25 million in the quarter and added an additional $20 million earlier this week. We expect free cash flow to improve in the second quarter, largely offsetting the seasonal cash use in Q1, and we expect to deliver meaningful positive cash flow for the full year 2026. I'll speak to our expectations for the second quarter and the full year in more detail in the call, but for now I'm going to turn the call over to John to review our financials for the first quarter in more detail. John?