Earnings Labs

Century Aluminum Company (CENX)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 29, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Third Quarter 2014 Earnings Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Now I'll turn the conference over to Mr. Peter Trpkovski. Please go ahead.

Pete Trpkovski

Management

Thank you very much, Paul, and good afternoon everyone, welcome to the conference call. Today's presentation is available on our website at www.centuryaluminum.com. We use our website as means of disclosing material information about the company and for complying with Regulation FD. I would also like to remind you that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements related to future events and expectations, including our expected future financial performance, results of operations and financial condition. These forward-looking statements involve important known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements. Please review the forward-looking statements disclosure in today's slides and press release for a full discussion of these risks and uncertainties. In addition, we've included some non-GAAP financial measures in our discussion. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the appendix to today's presentation and on our website. And now, I'd like to introduce Mike Bless, Century's President and Chief Executive Officer.

Mike Bless

President

Thanks very much, Pete, and thanks to all of you for joining us this afternoon. If we could just move along to Slide 4 please, like to give you a quick update of the last couple of months since we spoke with you in late July. We are pleased with the company's progress this quarter and the plans are generally operating well. That having being said, Hawesville did continue to struggle during the quarter with the aftermath of the power modulations, that we experienced in the spring and early summer. As you recall, we spoke to you about this during the July call. Good news is that we’ve seen very good improvement during the last couple of weeks but the situation is getting back to very near normal. And in a few minutes I'll summarize the operational issues we faced during the quarter and Rick will give you some detail on the financial impact that they had during this third quarter. So quick here now on the slide, let me give you a summary of some of the major developments over the last couple of months. We were really pleased last week to have announced the signing of an agreement to purchase the remaining interest in Mt. Holly, I'm sure everybody saw that. As we said time and time again, this is a superb plant in virtually every area. It's got a great focus on safety first and foremost with a record of excellent results to prove that. It's got a high quality group of employees and a great management team. And they’ve been producing excellent production efficiencies at an attractive controllable conversion cost. Last year we’d spoken with you about the good value added mix of the plant. And importantly, Mt. Holly progress in a great local community and…

Rick Dillon

Management

Thanks Mike. Before we get into our third quarter financial performance, let’s review some of the details of the recently announced acquisition. I’m on Slide 7 of this presentation. As Mike noted we're acquiring [50.3%] (ph) interest in Mt. Holly for $67.5 million, subject to certain adjustments, with the deal anticipated to close in the fourth quarter at the end of November. There's an earn out provision that could result in an adjustment to the purchase price, up or down based on the movement in the Midwest transaction price from July 2, 2014 to December 31, 2015. The maximum adjusted cash price under this provision of the agreement is $90 million and a minimum adjusted price is $55 million. The acquisition also includes an adjustment to put the parties in the economic division that Century had 100% of Mt. Holly as of October 1st. The cash adjustment will be based on the results of the business over the measurement period from October 1, 2014 through the closing date. The calculation and settlement will happen post closing as detailed in the agreement. Lastly there is a working capital adjusted mechanism related to the partnership. However, this mechanism excludes alumina, and the related liabilities, finished goods and trade receivable. It's important to remind everyone that this partnership has historically operated as holding business so we are anticipating a networking capital investment post closing. Pursuant to the agreement our Alcoa fund serve the current existing liabilities to the partnership that closing estimate $11 million. We anticipate additional working capital need of approximately $10 million to fund alumina and other costs in the months following the close. Both parties have agreed to fund their respective share of the gap pension liability for Mt. Holly. In addition, we will provide the incremental fund required by…

Mike Bless

President

Thanks, Rick very much. If we could turn to Slide 12 please, as Rick said I just want to give you a quick sketch of what we’re working on in this next couple of months and then we want to get right to your questions. Obviously the finalization of the Mt. Holly transaction is at top of the list. We expect the closing at the end of November or certainly by the end of the quarter. We are currently engaged in discussions with customers and suppliers regarding 2015 business as you would expect. We are preparing for the normal integration activities relating to employees, financing business systems and other matters. Most important, during these next couple of months, we’ll be keeping the folks at Mt. Holly working safely and motivated during this period of uncertainty due the power contract. I don’t want to make, this is a real, real challenge. We faced the exact same issue at Hawesville and Sebree, before those power contracts were approved before last. The [indiscernible] results will now be – starting discussions as I said on the post 2015 power contract. The complex issues which we are dealing is a different situation than Kentucky but many of the underlying concepts are the same. Though the expiry date is 14 months away, we think it's in the best interest of all parties to get this done with the real sense of urgency. And in that respect, we’ll begin meeting with all the key constituencies in the near future. Difficult for us to gage at this point exactly what the successful structure will look like, we’ve done a lot of work and firmly believe that a solution exists that should satisfy all parties. As I said before, the plan simply isn’t viable at the levels that were…

Pete Trpkovski

Management

Thanks Mike. And Paul now, can you facilitate the Q&A session.

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much. (Operator Instructions) And our first question will come from Sal Tharani with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Sal Tharani - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Thank you. Can you just give us a little bit of color on how to model the minority interest going forward?

Mike Bless

President

The minority interest, you speaking about Mt. Holly -

Sal Tharani - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

No. I mean, what you have been - since last quarter we’re seeing a minority interest in the P&L, the income statement -

Mike Bless

President

I'm sorry Sal, that relates to our investment in our anode plant in China, BHH, and that’s kind of a hard one too to model Sal, because BHH basically has two businesses. One is the supply to Grundartangi to ourselves, and the other is the supply for the local China market. And of course the supply to Century in overall has been relatively constant but the China market as you well know is a much shorter term market, it goes up and down and up and down. So, I'm not trying depth question, that is a tough one here I wouldn’t – we can’t give you any sort of parameters to model in there.

Sal Tharani - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Okay. Also the electricity contract at the Mt. Holly, I understand it is in a different structure which is MISO versus what you had in Kentucky. What are the options you have, are there more than one power suppliers in the state or is it like Kentucky where you had only one supplier?

Mike Bless

President

It’s the other way around of course. So, Kentucky is MISO where you were buying on the market, in Mt. Holly – Mt. Holly is in a – I will put quotes around the word “market”, it’s in a market as referred to as VACAR, which stands for Virginia and the Carolina obviously. It’s not an organized market in the true sense but MISO as you can’t go to your screen and look at the price for VACAR, it’s a bilateral market. So the answer to the question is there’s a lots of suppliers in VACAR but you’ve got go and do individual deals with them rather than buying from the market. For example, the deal into which we entered now almost 2.5 years ago that expires in 14 months. That was obviously a one-on-one transaction. The supplier there, the generator, the place from which the power is coming happens to be actually outside of VACAR, it happens to be coming from a natural gas power generator in the state of Alabama and obviously it’s transmitted to us by the local power provider. But it’s - to your question perhaps, its quite a different situation than as Kentucky which is in MISO.

Sal Tharani - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

And your goal is to deal with the same company which is supplying right now?

Mike Bless

President

Don’t know, Sal. Truly it could be one, it could be the actual power provider, public service company of South Carolina, Santee Cooper, and we’d be very pleased to reach a result with them that makes sense for both parties. It could be a third party like the one which we’re dealing today or different ones. We’ve had inquires in context from watts, or it would be a combination, in fact today it is a combination I should say, I said majority, we get three quarter-ish of our power from that system resource and the rest from the historical power provider and a solution like that for the post 2015 could well make sense. It’s just, it’s too early to tell what it’s going to be.

Sal Tharani - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

I have just one more Mike, you gave this $11 million EBITDA if you would have own Mt. Holly’s 50%. What would it be if you had the same electricity price as Kentucky also during the quarter?

Mike Bless

President

I'm not going to say that other than to say lower.

Rick Dillon

Management

A good – electricity price is a good deal higher, the EBITDA would be a good deal higher.

Sal Tharani - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Okay. Great, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question in queue will come from Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Jorge Beristain - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Good afternoon guys, Jorge with DB. My question is, are you seeing or what is it that’s giving you confidence that you would be able to successfully renegotiate the power at Mt. Holly? Could you give us any indication of changing community support or government support or any kind of green shoes you could talk to?

Mike Bless

President

Thanks Jorge, it’s a good question. We think we will have that kind of support but our confidence is based solely in the economics at which we have looked. And as we’ve dissected the various analogies that are relevant to try to come up with, what kind of structure makes sense and from what, what type of sources as I just said to Sal. And its strictly based on that. It’s not based on those kind of extraneous things which could be important, but we certainly wouldn’t have the confidence that we do, if we didn’t believe that the base market economics made sense. As I said, there are uncertainties. We had no certainties in Kentucky when we terminated Hawesville power contract and when we agreed to buy Sebree. But obviously we wouldn’t be moving forward with the acquisition of Mt. Holly if we didn’t have a reasonable confidence that there’s a way through.

Jorge Beristain - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

And just given all the proliferation of natural gas in the U.S. just getting sort of like on site independent power producer, is that something that’s even legally possible?

Mike Bless

President

On-site you mean building the generator?

Jorge Beristain - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Yes. But having a third party do it.

Mike Bless

President

I mean we’ve had people approach ITPs approached us to do exactly that, I guess I’d say that could be a longer term solution but right now there is excess natural gas power as Rick said, the price I haven’t seen it today but the spot price was 367, a 370 yesterday. And there is capacity and excess generation that are out there. And so that’s a good idea and we’ve had some enquiries on that but the big blocks of available capacity that are out there right now its just a question of how you are obviously structure and negotiate the right deal.

Jorge Beristain - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Great. And so if I could just clarify as well, on the EBITDA just to clarify the $11 million incremental EBITDA that you would have made, that would be assuming for the full third quarter consolidation of the 50%?

Mike Bless

President

Yes, correct.

Jorge Beristain - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Okay. So, the annualized is 44%?

Mike Bless

President

Sure. At the third quarter prices, yeah.

Jorge Beristain - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

And, so one last question if I may. Just on your comments about the supply demand globally obviously where ex-China everything is cleaned up nicely but the restart of some of these Chinese smelters is a concern and we’re seeing this in the steel market as well, but in steels there has been some talk of maybe China taking away export rebates and I understand that the aluminum side there, they’re moving up the value chain to export semis, could you comment, are the semis also facing an export rebate? And is that something that you’ve heard if that could be taken as a way for the government sort of rein in rogue exports?

Mike Bless

President

You're asking excellent question in my opinion. So, a couple of years ago, I can’t remember what the couple was, but we can all go back and look, the duty regime on both primary and semi-fab on the other hand was the same. And then they changed it, and this was prior three or four years ago, it wasn’t down in my head and everybody – and a lot of the production moved to semis. And a lot of the semi-fab stuff is not semi-fabricated products in the classical sense of the business, it’s- to be blunt people getting around, paying the arbitrage and the duties and making a very minor quote unquote value added improvement to a primary product to qualify as unwrought – as semi-fab. And so, perhaps to your point, there’s been some rumors that the government obviously is well aware of this that they might move to kind of correct that arbitrage there, but we’re not – long-winded answer – we’re not aware of anything sort of in the imminent offering.

Jorge Beristain - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Perfect. Thanks very much.

Mike Bless

President

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question in queue will come from Timna Tanners with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Timna Tanners - Bank of America

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Yeah, hi good afternoon, guys.

Mike Bless

President

Hi, Timna.

Timna Tanners - Bank of America

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

So, I’m going to ask one question on Mt. Holly and then – I am hoping you can provide us some help on all the other moving parts – but on that high, I want to just clarify that it also adds to NOLs and can you use your existing NOLs? Is that fair?

Mike Bless

President

Rick, go ahead.

Rick Dillon

Management

It wouldn't add to our existing NOL. They have NOLs of their own that we can use in Mt. Holly.

Mike Bless

President

But I suppose, Timna maybe guessing at the inference in the last part of the question, it will increase the base of taxable income against which we can use the NOLs that we have.

Timna Tanners - Bank of America

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Okay. All right, thank you.

Mike Bless

President

Sure.

Timna Tanners - Bank of America

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Any idea why it - is there anything you can share with us in terms of why Alcoa decided to divest it's stake? Anything you can say on that?

Mike Bless

President

No. We don't assume, we don't know and maybe would never speak for a partner like them – a very good in long term partner or any third party.

Timna Tanners - Bank of America

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Of course, that's fair. I mean, still, you have so many moving parts right now between expansion at Grundartangi and the top still at Helguvik and Ravenswood, so as far as some of these other projects end, you clearly have made the decision to make the investment anodes but can you help us prioritize or give us a timeline on when to start thinking about potential other projects?

Mike Bless

President

As I said we were hoping to no promises, and it will depend, we’re not going to rush it of course for a February call with you guys, but I would –we would hope as we go through our business planning process here finalizing over the next 60 days and including detailed discussion with our board toward the end of the year. So as to conclude on at least one of these value added investments because we are – the strong opinion that the market is there and so that would - we’d be able to talk with you about that in February when we release earnings. There's a couple on the docket right now, in size they could range from – in terms of CapEx from a couple tens of million to a couple, couple, couple, couple, couple, couple tens of millions, that's kind of the zip code of the CapEx that we’re looking at. And you can guess the market I think we’ve talked in the past the markets at which they’re – at which they’re targeted.

Timna Tanners - Bank of America

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Okay. So, between like value add or between expanding smelter capacity or -

Mike Bless

President

I am sorry Timna, value add, value add, value add, everything right now we’re talking about value add, there’s no – other than, I should say the Hawesville expansion project, multi year at Grundartangi that we commenced three years ago or so and that’s continuing on pace and we’ll have another chunk of new capacity at Grundartangi come online in 2015, again, we’ll give you all those forecast in February. But other than that there is no, you shouldn’t expect any imminent announcement of any major hot metal capacity expansion.

Timna Tanners - Bank of America

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Okay. Helpful. Thank you very much.

Mike Bless

President

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question in queue will come from John Tumazos. Your line is open.

John Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research

Analyst

Hey Mike, thanks for taking the question.

Mike Bless

President

Hi, John.

John Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research

Analyst

Can you elaborate on your double-digit output growth expectation for China for next year? Some people were concerned that the economy is slowing there over at the Indonesian some will give up their bauxite? In particular – and I apologize, I’m very naïve and I just read the IAI data and believe it, but I know you guys are smarter. If you take the August IAI data for [Engit] (ph) and multiply it by 1.94, the reported alumina output was 1.7% too little and the September Engit data went up to 2% output but the alumina output went down a little bit. So, September the difference was about 4%. Do you think the alumina supply is more than the IAI reports or the Engit output is less or both is obviously the kind of need to converge to make sense?

Mike Bless

President

Yes, John I am going to – I am not going to get the fork down – I am going to quick kick on third down, I just don’t know, we haven’t this sleuthing to which you refer there. And so – I don’t know where you’re missing or is – I am going to have to with apologies – I don’t know, it’s an interesting one, so we’ll go – Pete will go and see if we can track it down but we just don’t know. On your broader question, I mean, I think the pieces that you’re espousing is a good one and if I can repeat it or at least get – assume I am right, the pieces is to the extent that consumption, the demand is going to moderate 6% to 8% level that’s in the base case forecast at least going to which we look, shouldn’t production and also moderate down to immediate as you well know John of all people, that hasn’t necessarily always been the case in China but as a nice - we’ll sign up your pieces there, it’s a nice thought. Who knows, at this point we’re giving you what we think is sort of the consensus for what it's worth in the marketplace.

John Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research

Analyst

So Mike, apology to bear with me one more question. I talked to a very nice 1 million ton container board company in China, they have very good equipment, speaker English and I can understand – they pay dividend on the NYSE. They were told in 2017 for their steam boiler in the providence that’s just North of Vietnam to switch to natural gas from local coal and of course the natural gas only comes from Russia, and the local coal is cheaper, it's like three, four fold increase. In your intelligence, do you see any issues about electricity supply?

Mike Bless

President

No. John, we don’t. Our anode plant is - I don’t know if it’s in the same providence, I think if we chose at that order, Vietnam or [indiscernible] but we haven't heard or come across that kind of information, but thank you for it, we actually have a Board meeting in China, my colleague Jesse Gary, General Counsel next Monday and Tuesday in China. So, we’ll put that on the table for our partner to.

John Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research

Analyst

Thank you for bearing with my confused questions.

Mike Bless

President

Thanks John. Appreciate it.

John Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question in queue will come from Paretosh Misra with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Paretosh Misra - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Thank you. I was just trying to see if you could provide what was the EBITDA impact because of the operational issues at Hawesville during third quarter?

Rick Dillon

Management

Sure, for Hawesville as we talked is about $5 million of negative impact on EBITDA associated with the pot relining under absorption there. And then we have – you mentioned 2,000 tons of lost production as well which could give us an offset - roughly $1 million or $2 million of EBITDA as well, both in the two outputs.

Paretosh Misra - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

The second one is also Hawesville, right?

Rick Dillon

Management

Correct.

Paretosh Misra - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

And then, did you say –and I am sorry if I missed that – that there were some direct sales in Iceland that were not included in third quarter results?

Rick Dillon

Management

Yes. We talked about shifting from totaling to direct, the phenomena that we saw and what happen – and the important notice is going to happen, we’re open to that on the quarterly cut off, is that our direct sales title transfer happens - occurs at the floor and not at our facility. And so we’re at risk of having cut off issues that we saw at the end of the third quarter –didn’t happen at the end of second quarter and is purely due to the timing, it was about 3,500 tons with a title transfer in the subsequent month.

Mike Bless

President

Just to give you a little bit of background. It's the subtlest of changes, but as Rick said you have to get the revenue recognition right. And so, in the tolling contracts the title transfer occurred and occurs – I think the revenue gets recognized literally the minute that the product is produced, as the Engit comes up, the casting line and gets palletized, then the revenue gets recognized because contractually that's when the customers owns it. Whereas as Rick correctly says, he says that toward it's, China visualize it – half a mile away is where those pellets get put in containers and shoved on a ship. And so it’s just literally -- it’s just happens then of the last day in the quarter and where that all was. So historically before we move to direct sales, production always equals shipments because of what I just said and now you can just have timing differences.

Paretosh Misra - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Got it. Okay. This probably will show -- this will show up actually in fourth quarter results?

Mike Bless

President

Sure.

Paretosh Misra - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

And then lastly on the SG&A side, it sounded like there were some one-off items, what’s your expectation for SG&A in the fourth quarter?

Rick Dillon

Management

Sure. Generally speaking, our SG&A is actually pretty consistent. The one-off items you speak of where we had about million roughly back up in base expense well over a million and then some transaction cost associated with the deal. So we expect our SG&A not anticipating any other one-offs to be fairly consistent [along these items] (ph).

Mike Bless

President

As you remember, we’ve said and it’s been as Rick correctly says consistent. The GAAP SG&A has been about $10 million a quarter of which about $2 million is non-cash. So, our cash SG&A is $8 million, $8.5 million, $10 million is the GAAP, this quarter as you saw it was $12 million and the $2 million delta versus the $10 million is exactly as Rick just said. One is just the vagary of the accounting for our stock compensation units, which just Rick marked up and get marked down based on the quarter end stock price that’s obviously non-cash and then most of the risk as Rick said was just spending on getting the transaction with or without going negotiated. The $2 million is the answer to your question. It would unusual it weren’t a one-off.

Paretosh Misra - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Right. Okay, understood. Thank you.

Mike Bless

President

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We’ll have a follow up in queue from Sal Tharani. Please go ahead. Sal Tharani – Goldman Sachs: Thank you. Can you give us a little color on what advantage do you get, monetary advantage when you move from tolling to direct sale, is just a premium you don’t share or is there other benefits in that?

Rick Dillon

Management

So, there’s a couple, each moving in different ways, Sal. Remember what the tolling fee is, it’s simply the metal price minus an implicit negotiated alumina value. And so, one thing going against this of course – and if you negotiated those two things on the same day we talked about this last fall when were talking about our approach to tolling versus direct sales as the first toll expired. If we negotiated those things on the same day putting the premium aside for a second, the economics would be exactly the same because the tolling fee is just the value of a metal minus the alumina. The fact of the matter is of course that those tolling deals were put in place a long time ago, that first one in the late 90s when the [indiscernible] was started up and that’s the alumina price were couple of 100 bps below where they are today. So, that of course goes against the census like marking our alumina – regular way alumina cost up or down – in this case up as the market moves. Going the other direction is as Rick correctly said is the premium. So, at the time again 15 years ago we negotiated with the counter parties a fixed premium that we would get and they would get everything above that and back in those days, we didn’t feel like we were giving away very much because what we were getting was pretty close to what the actual number was back in the day and of course premiums have run on and on and so as Rick said we’re only getting a portion of it and so that’s -- those are the two things you’re kind of seeing there as we’re moving from the tolls to the direct sale. Sal Tharani – Goldman Sachs: Got you. And Mike, guess is that because where the premiums are overall even if you lose them on the alumina side, overall economics is beneficial for you to go direct?

Mike Bless

President

That’s an excellent question. So, as you remember we said – can’t remember whether this was in the fourth quarter last year or in the first quarter once we had increased deals, but we said, at the time, it just was a complete coincidence of course, so at the time when we looked at the economics of the expiring toll with the economics of the new direct sales, those two offsetting things the increase in the premium and obviously the premium was much lower at the time versus the new alumina cost was literally a push, it was like within $1 million on all that volume when we did the math. Now today alumina prices have continued to rise, but premiums have risen proportionally more and so you can draw your own conclusion, but it was literally a push at the time, a year ago we were negotiating the first end to that first toll. Sal Tharani – Goldman Sachs: And I have one more question on the alumina, and I am sure you have probably spoken about it in the past. Just give us a color, you buy alumina in Kentucky and you buy alumina in Grundartangi, how are these set up? Are these connected to all-in-aluminum price or is this API index of just LME price? Can you give us some color? Prices are rising so we just want to keep an idea of how to offset the LME increase in the aluminum price versus the alumina price.

Rick Dillon

Management

No problem, Sal. So, in the U.S. it’s all – and it’s all on just the LME price, not on the final price of course. It’s all percentage LME. In Iceland this year that’s just concluding was mostly percentage LME. There was a small dose of index and I don’t have an answer for you in for 2015 yet because we’re currently literally in the period where we’re negotiating with the counterparties what 2015. You know how these deals work, right. They are multiyear deals but there is a re-pricing every year within a min, max range on the percentage LME and that’s what we’re negotiating right now. We’ll have some good guidance for you on that in Feb. Sal Tharani – Goldman Sachs: Got you. Because most of the aluminum companies – when you listen to Alcoa’s call yesterday trying to move these contracts to the API index, API contract and I am just wondering is that something you may end up doing eventually?

Mike Bless

President

Yes. We may well, that’s an excellent question, and we’re looking at it hard and so I’ll leave it at that. The answer is, yes. Obviously you lose the – we tend it to call it a natural hedge, but you lose pardon me, the linkage between let’s call it your second largest cost and the value of your -- or most of the value or at least historically most of the value of your finished products. But, yes. You could see us moving to more of an index buyer on alumina. Sal Tharani – Goldman Sachs: Great, thank you very much.

Mike Bless

President

Thanks, Sal.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Paul Massoud with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Paul Massoud - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst · Stifel. Please go ahead

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask a little bit about future investments. Obviously you mentioned the demand has picked up because of both aerospace and auto, and on the auto side if you believe some of the third party estimates that are out there we really haven’t seen the steep part of the demand curve just yet. But, over time it seems that a lot of the volumes that's going to be going in the industry, it’s going to be coming from packaging machines, I am just curious, as you look out of investments in the future, is moving into the mid-stream business something that you consider? Has that come across your radar?

Mike Bless

President

No. Good question, we don’t feel like, we like to do what we think we can – where we think we can add them – and that’s not a mid stream business. We’ll supply those mid stream guys. So, body sheet obviously is one of the markets that’s going to be growing. There’s a severe shortage of slab which would be the primary product, “value added” product that goes to those guys and so that you can reasonably conclude, I am sure that’s one of the markets that we’re looking at hard.

Paul Massoud - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst · Stifel. Please go ahead

Okay. Great, and then maybe – I know you didn’t really mention much of that and I assuming there’s not a lot update but I mean if you could just talk a little bit about Helguvik, if there are any updates there? And then in just – I am thinking about the investments that you have talked about, I mean should we take from that the assumption that Helguvik is becoming less and less likely and therefore you’re starting to look at other areas that are probably more attractive in growth rather than just sort of sitting on?

Mike Bless

President

No, Paul. There is not a lot of update to give just to your specific question on Helguvik right now. There’s been a lot of work and a lot of discussions taken place, but rather than just say that to you, we prefer to say whether it’s actually been a development and so there’s no material development, but they really stand on their own. Helguvik we consider still to be a superb investment, assuming we can get the power finalized – the quantum of power obviously and returns that makes sense for us. So, they’re really independent. All you’re seeing now is that, we got opportunities on the value add side. There right now the market is really short of those products and so we’re going forward and especially they are in regions where there’s not a lot of – there’s not a lot of primary metal capacity that can be converted to these products and that’s why the stuff is coming from places like Russia and from the Persian Gulf into Europe and into North America. Helguvik is totally separate. We still are doing whatever we can reasonably to make that happen. We just don’t have any substantive update for you today.

Paul Massoud - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst · Stifel. Please go ahead

Well, thanks again.

Mike Bless

President

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thanks. We also have a follow up in queue from Paretosh Misra. Please go ahead.

Paretosh Misra - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Thank you. One last one on Ravenswood, is there anything to look forward over the next few months? Any kind of key dates, key meetings?

Mike Bless

President

Well, there are meetings all time, the date or the thing that you might see I suppose, if that’s what you’re looking for is – at some point of time we would have to make a filing with - West Virginia Public Service Commission and that's, they’re going to test whether in most [TSEs] (ph) that would be a reasonably public thing they post it on their website. One of my colleague Jesse is, said up and down now and so that’s something that you would see if we got to the point where - which will help you to do as I said by the no later than end of the year that were in a position to make a filing. I think that would be quote unquote thing you would see.

Paretosh Misra - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Great. Good luck with everything.

Mike Bless

President

Thank you very much. Appreciate the question.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Also a follow up from Jorge Beristain. Please go ahead.

Jorge Beristain - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Hi, guys. Just under the worst case assumption that things at Mt. Holly were not renegotiable on the power contract, what would be the shutdown cost and exit cost of that smelter?

Mike Bless

President

We don’t have an estimate on that. We’ve looked at it to the best of our ability I suppose thus far. It wouldn’t be very different from the answer we gave you for Hawesville. The biggest risk would have been as you remember at Hawesville and would have been at Mt. Holly, if we hadn’t provided the termination notice. And so, there’s no demand charge, there’s no fee payable to the power company after December, 2015, if regrettably as you say we won’t able to reach an agreement with them. So it would be the normal settlement of the totaling liabilities and contractual liabilities. Kentucky was in $10 million or $20 million range and you wouldn’t see very different – we believe here at Mt. Holly but we – as you can tell we haven’t done a lot of thinking about that because we were focused on in our opinion where we should be focused, which is getting across 2015 power deal.

Jorge Beristain - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Understood. Great, thanks very much.

Mike Bless

President

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

We also have a follow up from Sal Tharani. Please go ahead. Sal Tharani – Goldman Sachs: Hi, one more. Just a housekeeping, if I were to model Mt. Holly unless that you buy that $67 million, what depreciation should be used?

Mike Bless

President

That’s a tough one. It depends on the purchase accounting, Rick, I guess, and how the purchase price is allocated to the assets. So, you want to take a stab at that.

Rick Dillon

Management

It’s too soon for us to give you that. Especially at this purchase price and the moving parts, I know you have a good estimate.

Mike Bless

President

It really is, as you know Sal, depends upon how you allocate the price of that based on a appraisal – valuation that you’re doing and that's a tough one. Sal Tharani – Goldman Sachs: Okay. That's fine. Thank you very much.

Mike Bless

President

Thanks, Sal.

Operator

Operator

At this time there is no additional questions. Please continue.

Mike Bless

President

We thank you all for joining us this afternoon. And we look forward to speaking with you in February, if not before. Take care.