Earnings Labs

Arq, Inc. (ARQ)

Q2 2020 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 11, 2020

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Transcript

Ryan Coleman

Management

Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us today for our Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Results Call. With me on the call today are Greg Marken, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer and Treasurer; and Chris Bellino, Chief Accounting Officer. This conference call is being webcast live within the Investor section of the website and a downloadable version of today’s presentation is available there as well. A webcast replay will also be available on the site and you can conduct -- you can contact Alpha IR Group for Investor Relations support at 312-445-2870. Let me remind you that the presentation and remarks made today include forward-looking statements as defined in Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act. These statements are based on information currently available to us and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual future results, performance, and business prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to those factors identified on slide two of today’s slide presentation, in our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as expressly required by the securities laws, the company undertakes no obligation to update those factors or any forward-looking statements to reflect future events, developments, or changed circumstances or for any other reason. In addition, it is very important to review the presentation and today’s remarks in conjunction with the GAAP references in the financial statements. So with that, I’d like to turn the call over to Greg.

Greg Marken

Management

Thanks, Ryan, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning. Before we begin, I’d like to introduce our Chief Accounting Officer, Chris Bellino, who is joining me on this morning’s call. Chris has been with ADES for five years and has been invaluable to us serving in a variety of roles during that time. She will continue to join me on earnings conference calls as I serve in the Interim CEO role. I’d also like to give a brief update on our mitigation efforts related to the pandemic. We are proud to continue to operate as an essential service provider and are focusing on things within our control to respond appropriately to the economic disruption resulting from the crisis. Our number one priority will always be our employees’ health and safety, and we have taken measures to protect our team. We have updated safe workplace protocols and are continuing to offer our employees the ability to work-from-home where it is possible. When it became apparent to us that our operations could be interrupted, we sequestered certain operating plant personnel to build inventory balances in advance of any potential disruption. Our goal was to ensure that we would have sufficient inventory to properly serve our essential customers in the event that the plant were to experience a COVID outbreak and require a temporary pause in our operations, which has been seen throughout the country in certain manufacturing environments during this pandemic. Thankfully, we have not experienced this type of event to-date. However, these actions have allowed us to continue to meet our customers’ needs and we remain in frequent contact with these customers to ensure that they meet their emissions control and purification requirements. We also took steps to protect our financial position. We evaluated our capital structure and all…

Chris Bellino

Management

Thank you, Greg. Let’s turn to slide four for the financial review. Starting with earnings from equity method investments, the second quarter earnings from equity method investments totaled $8.2 million, compared to $20.9 million for the second quarter of 2019. First half earnings from equity method investments were $16.4 million, compared to $42.6 million for the first half of 2019. The decreases during the second quarter and first half are mainly the result of lower earnings from Tinuum Group, resulting from decreased aggregate coal-fired power generation, higher depreciation on all Tinuum Group RC facilities as a result of a reduction in their estimated useful lives during the third quarter 2019. The decrease is also result of Tinuum Group previous restructuring of its RC facility leases with its largest customer. This decreased net lease payments and equity earnings beginning in Q3 of 2019. Also contributing to the declines was the impact of point-in-time revenue recognition of certain RC contracts by two new in group during 2019 19 compared to the current year. Moving on to revenues, net loss and net income, the second quarter consolidated revenue was $11.5 million, compared to $15.6 million in the second quarter of 2019. First half revenue was $23.7 million, compared to $34.9 million in the first half of 2019. The decreases in revenue were primary the result of lower consumable revenue and lower volumes that were negative impacted by low coal-fired power dispatch and overall decreases in power-generation driving reduced demand, as well as lower royalty income. Second quarter royalty earnings from Tinuum Group totaled $3.3 million, compared to $4.2 million for the second quarter of 2019. First half royalty earnings from Tinuum Group were $6.4 million, compared to $8.4 million for the first half of 2019. Royalty income is based upon a percentage of…

Greg Marken

Management

Thank you, Chris. Turning to slide five, you can see our expected future Refined Coal cash flows. Based on the 20 invested facilities and cash distributions received during the second quarter, we are updating our expectation of after-tax cash flows to ADES to be between $100 million and $125 million to the end of 2021. Tinuum continues to remain in active discussions with potential tax equity investors in our pipeline. As I mentioned, this total does not include two previously announced July transactions, which we expect to add between $5 million to $7 million of additional cash flows to this total. Exclusive of a tax credit extension, we have just six quarters remaining with Refined Coal business. As such, Tinuum must taking appropriate steps to adjust its cost structure, while ensuring that their assets reliably produce Refined Coal. Naturally, we are also responding and we’ll look to lower our cash cost dedicated to the Refined Coal segment. Slide six reflects the opportunities we have identified and continue to execute against for our activated carbon assets. As we have discussed in prior calls, we had always underwritten declining coal dispatch in our assumptions when we acquire the activated carbon assets. However, the rate of decline in both 2019, and again, thus far in 2020 has been faster than our initial expectations. This declining aggregate coal-fired dispatch has prevented us from filling our Red River plant to greater capacity with power generation volume. In response, we have proactively accelerated our focus on other adjacent market opportunities. We have done significant work since the acquisition of Carbon Solutions in December of 2018 to respond to this changing landscape. We have talked about some of the non-power generation industrial applications for activated carbon, where we have gained traction with our products. This success we…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And there are no questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Greg for closing remarks.

Greg Marken

Management

Thanks again everyone for joining the call this morning and for your continued support. Stay healthy and we look forward to providing our next update.

Operator

Operator

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