Thanks, Marvi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Ferroglobe's Third Quarter 2024 Conference Call. I want to apologize for the delay. Our operator had technical issues with their phone line so we apologize. Joining me today are Marco Levi, our Chief Executive Officer; and Beatriz Garcia-Cas, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started with some prepared remarks, I'm going to read a brief statement. Please turn to Slide 2 at this time. Statements made by management during this conference call that are forward-looking are based on current expectations. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements can be found in Ferroglobe's most recent SEC filings and the exhibit to those filings, which are available on our website at ferroglobe.com. In addition, this discussion includes references to EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted gross debt, adjusted net debt, and adjusted diluted earnings per share, among other non-IFRS measures. Reconciliations of non-IFRS measures may be found in our most recent SEC filings. Marco?

Thank you, Alex. Thanks for joining us on the call today. We appreciate your interest in Ferroglobe. Q3 was another solid quarter. We reported adjusted EBITDA of $60 million, up from $58 million in the prior quarter, driven by higher realized pricing, improved spreads in manganese alloys and lower energy costs. On contracted volumes, prices usually lag indexes by two or three months, depending on the product. However, end market demand remains muted and pricing continues to soften, which as discussed last quarter will put pressure on our fourth quarter results. Given our results to date and current outlook, we are reaffirming 2024 guidance of $150 million to $170 million. We expect to benefit from improved ferrosilicon volumes and prices in the US, as a result of the ferrosilicon trade cases we initiated earlier this year. This favorable decision by the US Department of Commerce resulted in duties on all ferrosilicon imports from Russia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Brazil. More specifically, in June, the US imposed anti-dumping and countervailing of duties of 283% and 748% respectively on all ferrosilicon imports from Russia. For Brazil, Kazakhstan and Malaysia, preliminary anti-dumping duties up to 22%, 6% and 9%, respectively were announced on November 1. These actions will greatly reduce the imports of artificially low price ferrosilicon and level the playing field benefiting local producers such as Ferroglobe. As a result of these new policies, we expect to see an improvement in the U.S. FeSi market in early 2025, as inventor in the channel is cleared and new orders are placed. Our flexible footprint provides resilience enabling us to manage with the short-term environment effectively and adjust production to match current demand. Part of this adjustment includes curtailing production in France, approximately one month early to maximize the rebate from our French energy agreement.…

Thank you, Marco. Before I go through our third quarter results, I will provide an update on the share repurchase program. During the quarter, we purchased approximately 117,000 shares at an average price of $4.22. The modest approach with our buyback program is a result of the current uncertainty in our end markets. As we begin to see signs of improvement and better visibility, we plan to become more proactive. Our first priority is ensuring that we maintain a strong balance sheet to make sure that Ferroglobe is well-positioned to withstand the downcycle that we are currently experiencing and also have the ability to invest in growth markets such as solar and electric vehicles, as these opportunities materialize. In addition to our discretionary buyback program, we set up a 10b5 program, allowing purchases during a closed window, if certain criteria are met. As a reminder, we need $120 million to $150 million of cash to operate our day-to-day business. In 2025, our €35 million SEPI loan in Spain is due in two payments, with the first half due in Q1 and the remainder in Q2. Please turn now to Slide 10, for a review of the income statement. Sales decreased 4% in the third quarter to $434 million. During Q3, we saw lower volumes across all three segments, with stronger silicon metal and manganese alloys prices partially offsetting weak demand. Raw materials and energy consumption for production remained flat, with a Q2 at 59% of sales primarily driven by higher energy compensation in France. Staff costs increased $5 million in the third quarter to $72 million primarily due to profit-sharing arrangements in Europe. Adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter was $60 million versus $58 million in the prior quarter. During the quarter, we earned approximately $20 million from our 2024…

Okay. Thank you, Beatriz. Moving to the key takeaways on Slide 15. We had another strong quarter with an adjusted EBITDA of $60 million, as our realized manganese alloy and silicon metal prices improved over the second quarter. The favorable US ferrosilicon anti-dumping decision is final regarding Russia and preliminary for Brazil, Kazakhstan and Malaysia. We expect the successful trade action to provide Ferroglobe with a strong tailwind in the US in 2025 and beyond. We are managing our production to match the current demand and are proactively controlling expenditures. As a result of lower interest rates and positive forecasts for steel and aluminum, we anticipate better market conditions in the second half of 2025. We continue executing our capital return policy for ongoing dividends and share repurchases. Operator, thank you. We are ready for questions.

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions [Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Lucas Pipes with B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, operator. Good day, everyone. Marco my first question is on the US expansion that you had mentioned in the prepared remarks. Could you provide a bit more color as to the cost the capacity? I think you mentioned time line in regards to permitting but if you could reiterate some of those comments that would be helpful. Thank you very much.

Yes Lucas, thanks for the question. We confirm that our expansion will take place brownfield as we firmly believe that the expansion brownfield is going to be definitely very, very competitive. Our estimate is that the CapEx required is between 30% and 50% lower than a greenfield. We are excited about it because we have technology available that allows us to believe that we our investment is going to be extremely cost competitive due to the size of the furnace or the furnaces that we're going to put at our location. We have not decided yet about the location. But we are – as we apply we are applying for permits at least at two of our locations in US and we are in the middle of the work to apply for the permit. All this work on average lasts about 18 months. And then it takes us about two years to build the brownfield capacity based on our requirements. We have not decided yet either about the location or the capacity addition that we are going to put in place. But the expectation is that we are going to start up new capacity latest at the beginning of 2028.

That is very helpful. And Marco just to go back on the capacity figure for this. Any ballpark that you could point to as kind of out for one from – would be helpful to get a bit better understanding.

Yes. I mean what we have in mind is minimum 60,000 tons, but it could be bigger depending on the technology that we choose.

And in terms of the capital cost per ton of capacity is there a rule of thumb to think of for this specific development?

I can give you a market indication $200 million.

Okay. Thank you for this. Turning a little bit more to the near-term outlook. Some movement on working capital expected in Q4 if I heard it right. But I wondered if you could maybe just put everything together for Q4 between kind of market conditions pricing working capital where would you expect to end the year from a free cash flow perspective? Thank you very much.

Yes. Beatriz will answer this question.

Hi, Lucas. Thank you for the question. I think on Q2 we already announced a release of working capital. We confirm the release of the working capital in Q4. The size of this release could be I'm talking overall working capital around 15 million -- 1-5. This is what we expect at the moment.

Okay. And the operational market outlook for Q4 how would that factor into expectations?

Yes. So as you know we are idling our plants in France for Q4, right? So we have been building in working capital in Q2 and in Q3 right -- sorry in Q3. And we're going to be releasing it in Q4 2024 as we need to sell from our inventories, right? And of course this has the -- the benefit of that is the benefit on the energy where we were expecting initially to get 40 million. You remember at the beginning of the year this is what we said. Now we are seeing that as a result of this early idling of our plants in France we're going to be going up to 60 million for the year.

Okay. Marco, Beatriz thank you so much for all the color. To you and the team continued best of luck.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Martin Englert with Seaport Research.

Well, good day, everyone.

Hello, Martin.

Within the silicon-based alloy segment there was slight movement in volumes so they were essentially flat quarter-on-quarter, year-on-year but the fixed cost absorption was cited as an issue. Margins were fairly compressed. Can you provide more detail on that? Is there some dynamic with differing volumes and fixed cost trends across your regional footprint that prompted this? Or was there something else behind it?

I can start addressing this question and then Beatriz feel free to add comments. The market in Europe for the bulk of ferrosilicon which goes to steel -- I'm excluding considerations on foundry now -- is defined by like I said the very flat demand at low level. And in Europe the price -- further price erosion is driven by increased -- continuously increased imports not only from Kazakhstan that I always mentioned, but also from Egypt for example or Iran. So there is -- there are massive imports of ferrosilicon standards in Europe that combined with a weak demand drive price erosion. And indeed in my speech I mentioned that the price level in this quarter has already reached the lowest level that we have seen in the last four years. So definitely margin compression. In US there is a different dynamic. I would say that the market is rather -- steel market is rather flat in US. And the -- but there are still inventories, like we mentioned in the last quarter of important materials, including Russia, that prevent the price to recover and our sales to develop. So being in these two situations in US and Europe, we have reduced our production. And from there our cost of absorption has gone up. I don't know Beatriz if there is anything else that you can add.

No, you're saying all the maybe the only comment to add Martin is, as I was mentioning to Lucas the year-end benefit has been benefiting silicon and manganese business right? But not so much the silicon-based alloys business because we have only a small plant in France Plc that produce the ferrosilicon products and part in Laudun. So the positive benefit of the energy has not been impacting the cost as on the other two business. And therefore, this impact on the fixed cost -- lack of fixed cost absorption.

And margin compression like you're saying.

Plus the margin compression, yes.

Are you able to provide a little bit more color on -- the volumes were largely flattish. It seems -- correct me if I'm wrong but the activity in both the EU and U.S. from a demand perspective is largely flattish but you noted production is lower. For ferrosilicon are you able to share what the change in production was quarter-on-quarter within the US or North American footprint versus the Europe footprint?

For these details Martin we need to go back to our numbers and give you the right production rate. I don't have them with me now.

Okay. That's fine. We can circle back on it. I do appreciate the color. Pivoting to the US ferrosilicon import tariffs that we have seen do you feel that the tariff levels are sufficient to properly protect the US market? And are they kind of aligned with where you expected they might shake out? And then in addition to that, if you can just play out your expectations for how this is going to impact the market from a price volume perspective if we look forward into first half 2025?

Well, we need to separate the topic here, because if we talk about imports from Russia everything has been already decided and the total fees are far beyond our expectations, right? So, a 1000% fee was totally unexpected, but this is real. And if you look at the volumes in 2023 sold by Russia to the US are about looking at imports 70,000 tons so about 30%, 35% of the consumption of the steel industry in US. So this is a fact, is there and these volumes will have to be supplied by somebody else local producers and other producers. When we talk about Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Brazil, there are some predetermined conclusions but they are not final. So I am not like the famous blogger in US who pretends to know the decisions of the authorities. I wait for the authorities to tell us, what are the final decisions about the injuries of Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Brazil. What I can tell you is that, these three countries in 2023 accounted for another 70,000 tons of ferrosilicon supplied to the US. And for sure, there will be measures taken towards these three countries. We have to understand the size and still understand the impact. Another information I can confirm that we have acquired two new contracts on ferrosilicon standard in US for 2025, contracts which are significant. But I assume that also the purchasers are waiting for the confirmation of the duties on these three countries to make their decisions on 2025.

For the two new contracts maybe combined, is there a range of volume that you would anticipate annually gaining from these?

Well, like I said, I don't want to refer to specific contracts. Like I said, there are significant volumes. We are talking about thousands of tons. But lacking the final decision of the authorities which is due in November, the customers are waiting for finalizing the negotiations for 2025. So I don't have a defined growth number for our sales of ferrosilicon in 2025 yet.

Okay. Understood. Given your comment just a few seconds ago about not wanting to provide the detail which I understand on the contracts, but can you provide anything else you noted with a Middle Eastern new silicon contract? Is that correct?

Yes. This is related to silicon metal and the startup of silicon -- one silicon production, large silicon -- polysilicon production unit in the Middle East. We are being invited to the table and we have got part of the business. And this goes to the fact that our volumes of silicon metal are completely traceable and this has been given us the opportunity to win some additional new business in the Middle East totally related to solar.

For the Middle Eastern project, can you remind me of the polysilicon capacity at that plant?

100,000 tons as far as I know, which will ramp up during 2025.

Okay. Excellent. I appreciate all the detail. Thank you very much and good luck.

Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back over to Marco Levi for closing remarks.

Thank you, Marvi and thank you for pronouncing my last name correctly. Appreciated. Combined with the benefit of FeSi import duties into US, we expect better overall market conditions to materialize in the second half of 2025 as the full effect of interest rate cuts and destocking begin stimulating demand next year. Thank you again for your participation. We look forward to hearing from you on the next call. Have a great day.