West Griffin
Analyst · Wells Fargo
Thanks, Tim. Before getting into the details of our quarterly performance, first, allow me to take a moment to walk everyone through some of the more meaningful metrics regarding our liquidity and leverage. The continued improvement in our adjusted EBITDA figures is starting to be reflected in our current metrics. While there is still much room for improvement, I can safely say that our efforts are slowly, but surely, providing added stability to our business and returning our balance sheet to healthier levels than what you have seen in the recent past. Slide eight shows the substantial improvement in our credit metrics. Our leverage ratio, as represented by our debt to trailing 12-mont EBITDA, has been on a steady decline since last year and now is currently 7.7 times as of the end of the quarter. While we have shown marked improvement in that regard, we remain committed to reducing this leverage metric even further with the ultimate goal of managing our leverage at a level that is far more sustainable for our business in the longer-term. Our fixed charge coverage ratio, as shown on the bottom right side of the slide, has steadily improved over the last three quarters and now sits at 1.5 times. Lastly, our liquidity, as measured by the availability on our revolver plus cash, continues to exhibit the kind of stability that is needed to manage our business effectively. This liquidity has remained stable in spite of the seasonal buildup in inventories to support the asphalt business. Now that we are in the heart of the asphalt season, we should see inventories decline during the next quarter as inventories are converted to cash. Last quarter, we spoke briefly about some of the efforts we were taking to provide stability to our liquidity through an inventory financing arrangement at our Great Falls, Montana refinery. During the most recent quarter, we were able to apply a very similar type of inventory financing arrangement at our larger Shreveport, Louisiana refinery. While these arrangements have provided incremental benefits to our liquidity, their primary focus is to de-risk our liquidity and the business at large. Slide nine shows the significant improvement in our adjusted EBITDA. The June 2017 quarter was better in all of our business segments than the same period in 2016. And two out of the three segments were better than our first quarter this year. You should note that the adjusted EBITDA of $180 million for the first half of 2017 is higher than the adjusted EBITDA realized over all of 2016. Clearly, we're off to a good start this year. Digging into the segments more specifically, the adjusted EBITDA from our core Specialty segment was $67 million compared to $59 million last year and marked a 14% increase in contribution to EBITDA, the most that the business has produced since 2012. The results were helped in part by the timing of the decline and the cost of crude feedstock and tighter supply across some of the key markets and pricing adjustments in the first quarter. Additionally, the Branded and Packaged division saw a 19% increase in sales volume relative to the same period last year, and again, had a record quarter in terms of both sales volumes and margin contribution. Adjusted EBITDA for the Fuels segment was $34 million compared to just $19 million over the same period last year, which was almost an 80% improvement. As Tim said, we had some planned downtime at Superior for a turnaround, which somewhat limited these results as well. Lastly, our Oilfield Services segment generated $0.5 million in adjusted EBITDA, an improvement of $8 million compared to the second quarter of last year. Now, allow me to put our adjusted EBITDA results in context compared to the first quarter of this year as there were a number of factors that impact our numbers on a quarter-by-quarter basis. We saw meaningful improvement in EBITDA generation from both the core Specialty segment and Oilfield Services segment sequentially, while results from our Fuel segment were relatively flat to last quarter. For our core Specialty segment, the $67 million in adjusted EBITDA was meaningfully stronger than the $46 million generated last quarter. The segment showed strong gross margins, influenced by a general decline in crude environment, combined with the full impact of price adjustments taken during the first quarter, tighter market supply and the impact of self-help. While sales volume decreased marginally, a dynamic to be expected when market pricing moves higher, we continued to show sequential growth in key areas, particularly within our higher value Branded and Packaged division. Fuels EBITDA was down slightly from $37 million in the first quarter to $34 million in second quarter, due mainly to Superior's planned downtime, a tightening of light/heavy crude differentials, lower WTI/WCS differentials, and higher market pricing for RINs throughout the period. These headwinds were somewhat offset by seasonal sales volume growth, improved crack spreads, and our ongoing self-help initiatives. In Oilfield Services, adjusted EBITDA improved to $0.5 million, which compared favorably to the prior-quarter loss of $4 million, driven by incremental, but steady increases in growing rig counts, a key barometer for the outlook of this business. Our average rig count in the second quarter increased approximately 145% compared to the same period in 2016. Slide ten clearly shows that both operating cost improvements as well as margin improvements drove much of the benefits year-over-year. As I just outlined, healthier margins were derived across all three of our segments. The bridge was also helped by an improvement in operating cost within our Fuel segment, driven in part by lower market RINs prices compared to last year and lower maintenance costs across our system. In addition, the company benefited from $14 million in additional EBITDA from our self-help efforts and the elimination of losses from our Dakota Prairie joint venture, which was a $7 million drag on EBITDA in the second quarter of last year. The reciprocal to these games is reflected in the two most meaningful detractors in this EBITDA bridge and an unfavorable change in LCM inventory adjustment of $37 million and an expected, but temporary, decline in sales volumes, driven in part by the Superior turnaround completed during the quarter, as well as some declines in specialties that came in tandem with higher pricing. Lastly, SG&A was also higher, in part due to bonus accruals and additional contract workers employed by Anchor to meet higher rig volume. Slide 11 shows meaningful improvement in our cash position relative to where we stood last quarter. The largest component to this improvement, stemming from our inventory financing arrangements that we spoke about earlier on the call. Allow me to outline some of the details for those who are unfamiliar. Given that our borrowing base can shift significantly due to swings in crude prices, we have again engaged with Macquarie, an investment bank, to help de-risk our liquidity through a unique, but straightforward financing arrangement. We've effectively sold almost all of our inventory at Great Falls and now Shreveport to Macquarie, from whom we will buy back the inventory, which has the effect of putting the commodity price exposure to them for the period of time which they hold the inventory. This financing arrangement added $71 million in cash during the second quarter. From an accounting perspective, this is a financing arrangement. And although we have technically sold our inventory, we will continue to show it on our balance sheet and recognize the proceeds from the financing arrangement as liability. The proceeds from the inventory financing, combined with the improved operating cash flow of $58 million, were used to pay down our revolver by $39 million and help fund seasonal increases in working capital of $43 million related to asphalt inventory builds in preparation for the summer asphalt season. With capital spending of $13 million and other marginal uses of cash, our final cash position for the quarter amounted to $27 million. Slide 12 shows that we are lowering our projected capital spending for 2017. Year-to-date, we have incurred roughly $33 million of capital projects, including the planned downtime at our Superior refinery that took place in the second quarter. On a run rate basis, we're spending less on CapEx than we did last year, and materially left than we had in years past. Originally, we had forecasted to spend between $120 million and $140 million on capital projects during 2017. However, given our expectations regarding the timing of future turnaround and maintenance activity across our facilities, specifically shifting Montana's turnaround to 2018, we are marginally lowering our expected range of capital spending to between $110 million to $130 million for the year, with the midpoint of that range largely in line with last year's levels. The residual between our year-to-date capital spend and our forecasted range includes the typical annual maintenance and minor turnaround spend we do every year, as well as an allocation associated with some of our projects attractive growth projects we alluded to earlier. We continue to make meaningful progress on our financial fronts. We're showing that our strategic decision-making is providing stability to our balance sheet and our business overall. We are growing the profitability across the business segments, reducing risk to our liquidity, and we continue to be targeted and judicious regarding how we spend precious capital. Additionally, we continue to work diligently with our Board of Directors, constantly assessing potential pathways to de-leveraging our balance sheet and returning Calumet to a leverage level that is sustainable in the longer-term, not just for the business we have now, but for the business we're on our way to becoming. Now, with that, I'll turn it back to Tim.