Earnings Labs

Alcoa Corporation (AA)

Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Tue, Apr 25, 2017

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Alcoa Corporation First Quarter 2017 Earnings Presentation and Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to James Dwyer, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

James Dwyer - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thank you, Amy, and good day, everyone. I'm joined today by Roy Harvey, Alcoa Corporation Chief Executive Officer; and William Oplinger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After comments by Roy and Bill, we will take your questions. As a reminder, today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements relating to future events and expectations that are subject to various assumptions and caveats. Factors that may cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these statements are included in today's presentation and in our SEC filings. In addition, we have included some non-GAAP financial measures in this presentation. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the appendix to today's presentation. Any reference in our discussion today to historical EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA, for which we have provided reconciliations and calculations in the appendix. Finally, a note on financial statements methodology. Because Alcoa Corporation commenced operations as a standalone public company on November 1, 2016, the financial statements are combination of financials carved out from Alcoa Inc. prior to November 1, 2016, and actual results of Alcoa Corporation thereafter. For example, the fourth quarter 2016 results include October on a carve-out basis, and November and December actual results. Similarly, the first quarter 2016 results included in the presentation are entirely on a carve-out basis, while the first quarter 2017 results are entirely actuals. With that, here's Roy.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thank you, Jim. Welcome to our call to review Alcoa's first quarter results, our first full quarter as a standalone publicly traded company. Looking back at the last three months, we're pleased with what we've achieved in the first quarter. We had strong financial performance, and we also made strides towards our strategic priorities, we still have much to accomplish, but we are on the right path to meet our goals this year. Turning to some of the highlights of this last quarter. We generated adjusted net income of $117 million or $0.63 per share. From an adjusted EBITDA point of view, excluding special items, company profits rose 59% sequentially as our employees drove higher pricing to the bottom line. All three segments increased profits and margins, plus, we've closed the quarter with a healthy cash balance. As for our market, we're maintaining our stable outlook for 2017, but raising expectations for global aluminum demand growth. Using refreshed assumptions, our full-year outlook of $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion in adjusted EBITDA excluding special items remains unchanged, and we continue to target $50 million in net performance improvement this year. Lastly and importantly, we continued to execute on our three strategic priorities to reduce complexity, drive returns and strengthen the balance sheet. It's been a very busy quarter, but one that demonstrates our commitment to simplify our overhead structure. We've streamlined our segments, and we'll be doing the same with our administrative locations. In addition, the recent rating by Fitch underscores our strengthening balance sheet. With that, I'll turn it over to Bill, for a closer look at the first quarter financials.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thanks, Roy. I'll quickly run through some of the details of the results. As Jim said, it's important to remember that, prior to November 2016, all financials were prepared on a carve-out basis. First-off is our GAAP quarterly income statement, which includes all special items. Revenues increased to $2.7 billion, improving $118 million sequentially, and $526 million year-on-year on higher alumina and aluminum prices. Net income attributable to Alcoa Corporation was $225 million, or $1.21 per share, improving $350 million sequentially, and $435 million year-on-year. The gain on sale of our Yadkin Hydro Power assets in North Carolina drove other income of $100 million, and in accordance with the terms of our separation agreement, Arconic received the sale's net cash proceed. Let's take a look at the special items in the quarter. Special items this quarter total a favorable $108 million after tax. And as I mentioned, the main special item is the Yadkin gain on sale of $120 million. For some smaller, unfavorable special items, restructuring and other charges are $9 million driven by costs related to our curtailed Wenatchee smelter. Remaining special items include energy contracts, mark-to-market and a small favorable discrete tax item. Now, let's look at adjusted EBITDA and the full income statement after special items. Adjusted EBITDA excluding special items is $533 million in the first quarter, up $198 million sequentially, and $354 million year-over-year. Net income attributable to Alcoa, excluding special items, was $117 million or $0.63 per share. Some key points; margin expanded as cost of goods sold grew slower than revenue. Revenue was up both sequentially and year-on-year on higher alumina and aluminum prices. SG&A and R&D decreased sequentially and year-on-year. For items below the EBITDA line, other income and expenses, unfavorable at $25 million, primarily due to foreign currency translation effects.…

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thank you, Bill. To start, I'd like to touch on our fundamental outlook for Bauxite, Alumina and Aluminum. We continue to expect our markets to remain stable in 2017. For Bauxite, we still see the market in relative balance, anticipating the Chinese will continue to stockpile bauxite strategically throughout this year, while in search of new sources of high-quality, consistently-delivered material. The announced winter Alumina and Aluminum curtailments, as well as the extension in the Malaysian bauxite export ban through June 2017, lead us to a tighter range for Chinese stockpile growth throughout this year. At the BMO Conference, we spoke about the potential for government-driven winter curtailments in China. Since that time, the winter curtailment plan has been altered by the Chinese Ministry for Environmental Protection, resulting in changes embedded in our latest outlook. As such, for Alumina, we are still forecasting the market to be in a relative balance, albeit slightly longer than previously anticipated. In addition to the expectation of MEP curtailment, we continue to see strong global demand and relatively little competitive capacity available to restart. For metals, we are maintaining our outlook of a modest surplus for 2017. We are raising our demand forecast both in and outside of China. In China, we have upwardly revised our demand growth figure from 6% to a range of 6.5% to 7%, driven by encouraging news in the transportation and construction markets, which are the two largest aluminum consuming sectors. In the World ex-China, we are upwardly revising our demand growth estimate from 2% to a range of 2.5% to 3%, driven in part by improved semi-fabricated products production in Europe and continued strong demand growth in North America. As a result of these regional trends, we are revising global demand growth from 4% last quarter to a…

Operator

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. The first question comes from Andrew Quail at Goldman Sachs. Andrew Quail - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Afternoon, Roy and Bill. Thanks very much for the update, and well done on a very strong quarter. Hey, just – I only got one question, it's on cash and just on free cash flow. If I look at the working capital which you guys did touch on, what's more normalized going forward? Obviously, it's almost $370 million hit this quarter, which obviously understates your cash flow. Can you guys just give us some guidance of where you'd be happy with going forward, and if that's going to reverse in say, Q2 or in the second half of 2017? And then following on from that, on cash, is that you guys, obviously spending off a lot of cash. Can you talk about capital allocation going forward, maybe Roy, and just let's say, what's the preference for you guys with any excess cash that you guys generate?

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Yeah. So Andrew, let me take – comment on both of those. We did consume cash in working capital in the first quarter. I can't get to your $300 million, but I'm sure Jim can step you through the numbers later, but we did consume cash. That is not unusual for us, and we typically recover cash during the course of the year, as we bring working capital back down. We would be targeting to keep our days working capital similar to where we ended, at the end of Q4. And I think from a days' basis, we ended Q4 at around 13 days of working capital. We would be targeting to do that same level in the fourth quarter of this year. Now, the reason why I expressed it in the days basis is because, I don't know where prices will be in the fourth quarter, and that impacts revenue and AR and payable. So just generally, we would anticipate bringing working capital down, recovering the burn that we had in the first quarter, and getting back to around the 13 days basis. I'll address your second question around capital allocation. I've been pretty clear, so I'll just reiterate it again. Primary use of cash for us is to, first of all, sustain the assets. Second of all, we make mandatory contributions to the pension and OPEB plans. Beyond that, we would be looking to delever more, and so we've got a couple hundred million dollars of pre-payable debt down in Brazil, and increase – potentially increase the spend on return-seeking projects. So that would be the rank order of capital allocation going forward.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

And Andrew, just to connect that with our three key strategic priorities, too. You think about number two and number three, driving returns and making sure that we have the right projects in place and projects that are strong enough in all markets to have an endpoint that generates value for our shareholder, and then strengthening our balance sheet, right? I think, Bill, said it very well, but we're focused as we generate extra cash to make this company future safe, but also to find how do we generate more earnings into the future.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thank you, Andrew. Andrew Quail - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Dave Gagliano at BMO Capital Markets.

David Francis Gagliano - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Great. Thanks for taking my questions, and for the – another clear presentation. I just actually have a couple of questions related to a couple of the slides in the appendix or appendices, whatever. First one, slide 25, it shows how the volumes flow through the Aluminum value chain. This is as of 1Q. It also showed at – you showed at 4Q as well. It says 12% of Bauxite goes to third-parties, 30% (sic) [70%] of Alumina goes to third-parties. My question is, where should we expect those third-party percentages in both Bauxite and Alumina to be, say in the next one and two years? That's my first question.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Dave, that's great question. And let me start from the back of the chain and work backwards. We will – on the Alumina side, we will continue to creep our Alumina refinery. We would typically try to get to a 1% to 2% creep per annum. We've been very successful at creeping those facilities over the years. And as we would creep, most of that would go to external customers, if you assume that our smelting base stays the same. And the reason why I say, if you assume the smelting base stays the same, that would drive your next logical question to what will we be doing with smelting over the next year or two. And at this point, we are evaluating as we always do, our smelting portfolio on the conditions that we have today. And seeing if there's anything we want to do from a strategic perspective on smelting. If we then work backwards into the Bauxite side, we have said that, we will grow our external Bauxite business by around 10 million metric tons over the next four to five years. That would be on top of the roughly 6 million metric tons that we sell to customers in 2017. So, that would change those numbers to a higher percentage for third-party over the next four to five years.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

And Dave, just to add one point too, remember that we're always transferring at market price. And the more external sales we have for Bauxite, the better we can make sure that price really reflects the market. So as we think about how we creep forward those sales, and we see the mix between internal and external sales, I think, you're going to see a lot of consistency behind the markets that we earn in each of those segments.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

And to bring it back to this quarter, we actually saw an increase in prices between our Bauxite and our Alumina business in the first quarter versus the fourth quarter, because we've seen bauxite pricing go up over time, and so we adjusted that to try to put it on at arm's length of a basis as possible.

David Francis Gagliano - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Then, I've a follow-up with a couple of pieces to it. First, on the comment you made about the smelting capacity and evaluating strategic or we mentioned the word strategic in there. I'm wondering, given we've seen price increases obviously lately, what are you thinking with regards to the strategic. More closures, more curtailments, restarts, divestitures? How should we be thinking about that comment?

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Yeah. And that comment wasn't meant to lead you anywhere in specific. You know, having followed us for years, we do a regular review of our entire smelting portfolio and our refining portfolio. When prices were way down, we were consistently curtailing and closing facilities, when it did not make sense to run those. At today's pricing level, we're running the analysis and trying to determine whether it makes sense to restart facilities. And, in the case of potential restarts, as you well know, we'd be looking at what do we think of metal prices, what's going on with currencies, can we get a mid to long-term power supply solution. Those are the big inputs. So, it wasn't meant to give you anything that would surprise you. It's an analysis that we run on a monthly basis to see whether we would make more money running facilities than having them curtailed.

David Francis Gagliano - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

All right. That's perfect. Thank you. And then just a last related part of that question. Are you thinking about restarts along the Alumina side as well? 2.3 million tons, I think, of curtailed Alumina capacity at Port Comfort. Is that also being considered?

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

We look at all the capacity that we have idled and we take a good hard look at it. I think Bill hit on just the right set of criteria that we use. So we absolutely look at it. And when and if we make an announcement, we would let you know.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Right.

David Francis Gagliano - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets

Okay. Thanks very much.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thanks, Dave.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thanks, Dave.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Evan Kurtz at Morgan Stanley. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hey, Roy, Bill, Jim. How're you doing?

James Dwyer - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Hey, Evan.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Evan.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Good. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: So just a real quick one first on aluminum pricing. Is there any way you could provide us with the realized aluminum price in the quarter similar to what we used to get from the combined company? Is that something that's going to be disclosed going forward?

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Should be on – I mean, it will be in the Q. So yes, we can provide that for you and it will be in the Q. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. Great. And then next question just on pension and OPEB. I noticed that there was a pretty big step up in mandatory cash if you go out past 2017. And just kind of thinking some of this through, it seems like we're in an environment where interest rates are rising. I assume that most of those mandatory cash contributions are based on MAP-21. So that's falling since you're going through the 20-year average and taking out high interest years and placing them with low interest years. Is there an opportunity there to petition for getting back on a spot interest rate system where you're able to actually wage your discount rate and maybe reduce some of those mandatory cash contributions and/or reduce your pension/OPEB liability as interest rates rise, assuming they do over the next few years?

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Yeah. So the biggest driver of the increase in the pension contributions – and I would note that OPEB contributions are not being projected to go up at this point, but it's really being driven by pension. We had a difficult 2016 when it came to asset returns. Our asset returns were down in the U.S. pension, were down about 5%. And so that is the biggest driver in the 2018 and 2019 increase in pension contribution that is projected to occur. As far as going off the interest rates today, I mean, we're looking at all the different alternatives, Evan. And if we can find out a way to potentially lower those projected future cash contributions, we will take advantage of it. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. Thanks. I'll hand it over.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Timna Tanners at Bank of America.

Timna Beth Tanners - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America

Yeah. Hey. Good afternoon, guys.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Hi, Timna.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Hi, Timna.

Timna Beth Tanners - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America

So I wanted to just be a little more oblique about the guidance for the year. And if we think about the puts and takes, it seems like since last quarter, Aluminum is stronger and Alumina is weaker. So I want to delve into Alumina a little bit more, and in particular, there's been a lot of concern about caustic prices going up and new capacity coming on more quickly in China being front-end loaded relative to the Aluminum capacity in China. Can you address a little bit more your views on the Alumina market? Why it's more bullish than Aluminum given that it's been weaker? And also, address the caustic issue and any measures you might be able to enact there to control those costs? Thanks.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Sure, Timna. Let me hit a few pieces of that and then Bill can chime in as well. So when we think about the dynamics in China. I think you've seen pretty significant changes over the course of 2016 and then coming into 2017 as well on the Aluminum and Alumina fronts, but particularly on the Alumina front from prices below $200 up to a sustained high that just started to come off. And so, at this point what we see is that pretty much every refinery in China is operating. So the good news there is that you don't have additional capacity to come online outside of some of the expansions that have been talked about. But the bad news is, is that you've got every refinery operating. So you're starting to generate a good amount of production. At this point, as we look at what's happening in the market, we continue to see relative strength in marketing. We're sitting around $305 per ton outside of China, but we've seen weakness just slightly inside of China. We also have the impact of a couple smelters having operational problems. And so that generated a little bit of a pause in the Alumina market to try and find where it's going. Now, when we think about the announcements, particularly concerning the environmental reductions during the winter months, those are targeted both for Aluminum and Alumina. However, what we see is that, we still have consumers for each of the shipments that we have from an Alumina perspective. So I think, the market right now is waiting to see what happens with some of the reductions from an Aluminum standpoint, and then the knock-on impact from what happened in Alumina, I think, the Aluminum side gets a lot of press and a lot of coverage. I also think there's a lot of work going on the environmental side on Alumina as well. So similar to my comments during the presentation, I think we're at a moment of cautious optimism because of so many programs that seem to be constructed at this point, but still haven't seen the tonnage reductions on the ground in China, yet.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

If you let me, I can address the caustic question.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Great question, Timna. Caustic is up substantially year-over-year. Caustic is up 40% from a year ago, probably another 15% just from the prior quarter, from the fourth quarter. As you know, our caustic flows through on a lagged basis, so we don't see that impact immediately. But in China, specifically, many of the dynamics that are impacting our industry are also impacting the chlor-alkali industry. Specifically, we believe China is getting serious around the environmental impacts of many of their heavy industries, and we're seeing Chinese caustic prices rise quicker than U.S. Gulf Coast caustic prices. We take advantage of our ability to arbitrage between the two. But locally in China, the environmental and transportation restrictions, we believe could potentially have some impacts on caustic availability in the third quarter of this year.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

So, just to bring that back to an Alcoa Corp. perspective, we've seen what have been more cost pressures from a caustic standpoint in China. We do see knock-on impact outside of China, but our ability to arbitrage does give us an advantage there. The other important advantage, and I'll start in Alumina, is that, the bauxite that we use tends to drive a lower cost of consumption. Hence, rising caustic prices affect everybody, but it helps to drive us down the cost curve, because of lower caustic consumption. Now, I'm also going to make an advertisement for our Bauxite business, which is, we actually sell bauxite that allows you to low – allows a customer to lower their cost of consumption, and that increases the value of our bauxite to a potential customer. So for us it's obviously a headwind, as we see caustic prices starting to come up, but it also helps to play into our strategic advantage, both in our Alumina and our Bauxite businesses.

Timna Beth Tanners - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America

Got you. So just pulling that all back together to that guidance that you gave, is it a fair assessment of the reason that the guidance is flat? Is it, while aluminum is up; alumina is down, and caustic is up? Are there other big moving parts if I'm looking top level at the lack of a guidance change?

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Yeah. I'd say, remember that when we look at the $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion in EBITDA, all we're really changing for the market impacts of the currencies, and then alumina and aluminum prices. So we continue to hold to the $50 million net performance target. Within that, there is a higher increase in caustic prices, and we expected, but we're planning on offsetting that with some of the overhead moves that we've made as an example. So we hold to the $50 million, and reflecting what's happening in the external environment. So since the end of the fourth quarter when we reported fourth quarter earnings, what we've seen is exactly what you've said, aluminum prices have increased, alumina prices have come off to a certain extent, and the Aussie dollar has also strengthened. So the mix of those things mean that our guidance essentially is unchanged, even though the mix is coming from different segments. And so, like Roy said, just versus prior guidance, alumina was up $105, so we went from $1,795 to $1,900. Alumina, I believe we're at $335, and we've taken it down to $305. There are loads of things that change within other factors, for instance, higher raw material costs, which will make that $50 million challenge that we've laid out for ourselves harder to achieve. But at this point, we've committed to achieve that, and maintain the $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion EBITDA level.

Timna Beth Tanners - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America

Okay. Good stuff. Thank you very much.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thanks, Timna.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Justin Bergner at Gabelli & Company. Justin Laurence Bergner - Gabelli & Company: Hi. Good afternoon, Roy. Good afternoon, Bill. Thank you for taking my questions.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thank you.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Good afternoon, Justin. Justin Laurence Bergner - Gabelli & Company: I just wanted to start-off by clarifying a few things. On the EBITDA bridge, I think, it came out a little bit fast, but can you just talk about the energy headwind of $18 million, what drove that and how that's going to sort of vary in future quarters? Was that sort of in line with your expectations or a little bit larger than what you're expecting?

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Yeah. So really, two big impacts on the energy piece in the first quarter. We made a decision to the most of our ability down in Brazil to shift megawatts from the first half to the second half of the year. We looked out. We saw that pricing was pretty low in the first half. And we are able to shift an amount of our energy to be sold into the second half. That decision impacted us by about $15 million on a sequential quarter basis in Brazilian energy sales. And we hope to pick that up in the second half of this year. And at this point, that decision's looking pretty smart, because second half prices are higher than first half in Brazil. In addition to that, there's some slightly higher natural gas prices and oil prices in the Alumina segment. That's an additional $5 million. But the biggest impact on a sequential quarter basis was that decision to shift megawatts into the second half of the year. Justin Laurence Bergner - Gabelli & Company: Okay. And then in terms of the higher natural gas and oil prices, that $5 million in the quarter assuming it sort of persist, that's something you also need to offset as part of your annual framework?

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Yeah. Remember, our annual framework is $50 million improvement on a net basis, not a gross basis, on a net basis; outside of everything other than metal prices, alumina prices, and currency. So on this bridge, everything to the right of currency for the full year we're targeting a $50 million improvement. As you've heard us talk already today, some higher caustic costs or some headwinds, some higher energy costs or a little bit of headwind, but we're still going after that $50 million net improvement. Justin Laurence Bergner - Gabelli & Company: Okay. Thank you. Another question is, in terms of your production guidance for the year, when I sort of combine the old segment reporting into the new segment reporting, the Aluminum, I guess, production number or shipment number is unchanged at 3.2 to 3.4 Mmt shipment guidance for annual Aluminum, is sort of consistent with the prior guide under a different framework?

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Actually, it should be a little bit lower. So, if you go back and add our guidance on Cast Products and Rolled Products, if you add those two, I think, you would get a slightly higher amount than 3.2 to 3.4 Mmt, I think by about 200,000 tons approximately. And the reason is, is our Casting business sells into our Rolling business. And therefore, when we look at this purely from an external basis, we would be bringing that down a little bit. So you can't simply add the old Cast Products, the old Rolled Products, because Cast Products sell to Rolled Products, hence why we took that down. Nothing structural. It's not like we're envisioning the market getting worse, it's just a matter of how the segments get put together. Justin Laurence Bergner - Gabelli & Company: Okay. And then in terms of the segments that have been collapsed into the Aluminum segment, I guess, you gave detail on the profitability of North American Rolled Products and the EBITDA for the Brazilian Hydro assets. I just want to make sure that those are sort of the two pieces of disclosure you provided. Are those the ones that you're going to consistently provide? And are you going to speak to sort of the rest of the power business or sort of keep that wrapped into the Aluminum segment?

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Well, we're going to get that wrapped into the Aluminum segment. And part of the reason for putting these together is to get synergies and not having to do all the math between the different segments. What I can tell you is that, in the first quarter, if you look at it on a like-for-like basis, from the fourth quarter, energy contributed around $27 million of EBITDA, of which, in my comments, I said, that Brazilian energy was $11 million. Justin Laurence Bergner - Gabelli & Company: I'm sorry. In the first quarter, $27 million...

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

In the first quarter. Yeah. In the first quarter and maybe I'm confusing you, but in the first quarter, we were to look at the Energy business similar to how we looked at it in the fourth quarter, the Energy business in the Aluminum piece of the – in the Aluminum segment is around $27 million, right? Out of that Energy business, the Brazilian energy is around $11 million. Justin Laurence Bergner - Gabelli & Company: Okay. Thank you.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Good. But I will also point out that the Rolled Products business did really well in the first quarter, and they generated $11 million, which is comparable to the earnings that they generated in the first quarter of last year when they still had a hot metal business. So, very, very good rebound in our earnings in our Rolled Products business.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Novid Rassouli at Cowen & Company. Novid Rassouli - Cowen & Co. LLC: Hey, guys. Novid Rassouli with Cowen. Thanks for taking my questions. So, you touched on this earlier as far as your price forecast that are implied in your guidance, aluminum prices are moving up, alumina down. I just wanted to see this widening of the spread, how sustainable you guys think it is going forward, that's my first question.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Yeah, hard to predict, because the two move with similar characteristics, but they don't always move in concert. If you think about the beginning of this quarter, I think, you would have said that alumina prices had run up more quickly than had aluminum, because you were – essentially, you had a bunch of demand and insufficient supply to meet that. Now, as we've seen particularly in China the refiners come back up and more alumina become available in the market. I think you've started to see some of that reverse out. So when you look at it in the broader scope and you think about how those two markets had moved, we see a lot of strength in aluminum and not taking the position on whether it's the right price or not the right price, but we've seen strength in aluminum pricing over these last particularly couple weeks. And we've started to see a little bit of weakness in alumina. However, we continue to see consumers of every shipment that we have and we also continue to see the demand growth inside of aluminum as well. Though, I'd say that the prices could go in either direction, but they seem to be pretty fairly represented at this point. Novid Rassouli - Cowen & Co. LLC: Got it. And then, shifting over to third-party, I guess, shipments and sales, it looks like Alumina and Aluminum were relatively stable quarter-over-quarter and it looks like Bauxite third-party sales were down about a little over 20% quarter-over-quarter. Just curious if you could just touch on what's driving that? Thank you.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Yeah. From a qualitative standpoint, Bauxite was slower than it was in the fourth quarter for the most part, because a lot of our production sits in some pretty rainy areas this time of the year. So, you think about our MRN joint venture in Northern Brazil and our Juruti bauxite mine, both of which do give us material for third-party sales, both experienced what is a normally very heavy rain season, but even more rain than was typical. So, neither of which we expect to have impacts on the full year, but they did drive down third-party sales in Bauxite for this first quarter that we'll recover later. Novid Rassouli - Cowen & Co. LLC: Great. Thanks, guys.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from John Tumazos at John Tumazos Very Independent Research.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · John Tumazos Very Independent Research

Thank you. Could you describe the eight locations in addition to the headquarters where you streamlined it seems like a very sweeping organizational change?

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

So, John, I think you asked, if we see this as a sweeping organizational...

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

He asked whether you could describe. We were busy hearing the sirens, which will change now that we're not going to have our headquarters here on Park Avenue. But he asked about the eight – which the eight are and then he characterized it as a sweeping change.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Yeah. So let me – I don't have the list of the eight sitting right in front of me. But essentially, what we're trying to do is, simplify as much as possible and bring Alcoans together, so that they can work collaboratively. Now, we're not doing it in a draconian way, but we're trying to do it through time and we're trying to do it in a way that generates as much of a positive return and the ability to work together, while also not being incredible costly for us and saving us money for the long-term. So it does cover pretty much every region around the world. Obviously, one of the key one sits in New York here and we will no longer enjoy the benefits of the sirens in the background for our next earnings call. But it is very important when you think about it from what it tells the organization. It says that from an overhead perspective, we're going to continue to make tough changes and find ways to ratchet down those total overhead costs, which is what we've asked of each and every one of our plants consistently through every quarter over the past five or 10 years. And so, it touches on a large number of people. However, we are being very careful to make sure that each one of those changes makes financial sense and helps us to simplify our overhead structure.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · John Tumazos Very Independent Research

Thank you.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thanks, John.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Thanks, John.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Justin Bergner at Gabelli & Company. Justin Laurence Bergner - Gabelli & Company: Thanks for taking my follow-up. Just on uses of free cash flow. Is there a point at which your leverage sort of gets low enough that capital return becomes a more active conversation? I realize that pension funding and return-seeking capital are important. But assuming those two are satisfied, is there sort of a target leverage level at which the capital return discussion becomes more pronounced?

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Yes. Yes, there is. We essentially as we said have a number of potential uses for cash. You added one that potentially too contribute to the pension plan to help delever. Beyond that, we have a fairly restrictive set of covenants on our revolver currently. It restricts our ability to pay a dividend – a significant dividend. It also restricts our ability to do significant share buybacks. Both of those and off the top of my head, I'm sure I'll get it wrong, but I think we're restricted around dividends to around $37 million and on share buybacks to around $25 million. If we were to get to a significantly improved credit rating, and I think, we took the first step today with the coverage of Fitch that rated us at a BB+, we should be able to renegotiate that revolver and be able to get into a position where we can have more substantive conversations about returning cash to shareholders. But in the meantime, it will be a course of delevering, delevering through either the Brazilian debt or contributing to the pension plan and investing in growth projects. Justin Laurence Bergner - Gabelli & Company: Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your final question comes from Dave Gagliano at BMO Capital.

David Francis Gagliano - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital

Great. Thanks for taking my follow-up as well. Just a quick one. Slide 14, as we get into some of the details of the presentation here, and we're just doing some side-by-side versus last quarter. So, I just have a question on slide 14, which is all the financial metrics and the fiscal or the full-year 2017 outlook on those metrics. Last quarter, we had, let's see, pension and OPEB, interest, transformation and other corporate spending. This quarter, when I look, we have other corporate spending, interests, transformation and legacy pension and OPEB, but no pension and OPEB broken out. I'm just wondering if you can reconcile between last quarter and this quarter, because the numbers are significant there.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Yeah. We can do – let me give you one broad comment. If you go to page 28, I hope, it's page 28 on your deck. It's a slide that says pension and OPEB summary. We are holding the expense projection at $175 million. I believe that's the same level that we projected in January. We're holding the cash impact at less than $250 million, it's just how we have sliced and diced a little bit, Dave. We've put some of that pension back up into transformation only because, we're trying to make that transformation line very clear to people that, that is the legacy liabilities that we have, that we are going to be working to drive down over the next few years. And beyond that, if you want to get into any more detail on how some of these lines changed, you can talk to Jim. I think the only change that we had from a quantitative perspective was that, transformation and legacy pension OPEB, and then on that same page was the aluminum shipments that I addressed in somebody's prior question that if we added up Casting and Rolling, you would get a number higher and it's simply because of inter-company sales between the two.

David Francis Gagliano - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital

Okay. Perfect. That's what I needed. Thank you.

William F. Oplinger - Alcoa Corp.

Management

And we're really, Dave, not trying to surprise you at all with any of these change in numbers. They are largely completely in line with what we've shown before. So, no surprises, whatsoever.

David Francis Gagliano - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital

Right. Got it. Thanks.

Roy C. Harvey - Alcoa Corp.

Management

Great. I'd like to thank everybody for the questions. I think it was a good set of clarifying opportunities. We're pleased with our results for this first full quarter as Alcoa Corporation, and we're on a good path for the remainder of the year. That said, we still have three quarters to go. Over the coming months, you can be certain that we'll continue to find ways to reduce complexity, to drive returns and to strengthen the balance sheet, and we look forward to sharing our progress with each of you in the future. Thank you very much, and I'll turn it back over to you, Amy.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.