Good day, everyone and welcome to the First Quarter 2021 Minerals Technologies Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded. And at this time, I would like to turn the call over to Erik Aldag, Head of Investor Relations for Minerals Technologies. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Lisa. Good morning, everyone and welcome to our first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Today's call will be led by Chief Executive Officer, Doug Dietrich and Chief Financial Officer, Matt Garth. Following Doug and Matt's prepared remarks, we'll open it up to questions. I'd like to remind you that beginning on Page 15 of our 2020 10-K, we list the various risk factors and conditions that may affect our future results. And I'll also point out the safe harbor disclaimer on this slide. Statements related to future performance by members of our team are subject to these limitations, cautionary remarks and conditions. Now I'll turn the call over to Doug. Doug?

Thanks for the introduction, Erik and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining today's call to discuss our first quarter 2021 results and I hope you're all staying safe and healthy. I'll take you through the sales and operating highlights of our strong start to the year and touch on current market trends. I'll then turn it over to Matt to review our financial results in more detail and discuss our expectations for the second quarter. I'll finish up the call today by outlining the progress we're making with a broad range of growth initiatives. Last year, our teams throughout the world worked hard to efficiently operate our facilities, protect our employees, serve our customers and simultaneously position us to capitalize on the recovery. As a result of these actions and our continued focus on responding to this dynamic environment, we are well positioned to leverage the momentum from the end of the year to deliver a strong first quarter. Before going through the quarter highlights, I wanted to share that we'll be discussing our business results today in three operating segments rather than four. As detailed in our earnings release last night, we have realigned our Energy Services segment and combined it with the Environmental Products -- product line in Performance Materials. I'll take you through this further when I speak about our growth highlights. Our first quarter performance was highlighted by sales and operating growth in every segment. Specifically, we drove solid geographic growth in our core product lines, increased volumes through capacity expansions and new PCC satellite start-ups and improved sales from recently commercialized value-added products. In addition, we continued with our proactive operational measures including pricing and productivity improvements and overhead cost control all of which drove income and cash flow higher compared to last year.…

Thanks Doug. I will review our first quarter results, the performance of our segments, as well as our outlook for the second quarter. Now let's begin by reviewing the first quarter results. Overall sales in the first quarter were 5% higher sequentially and 8% higher than the prior year as the majority of our end markets remained strong and each of our segments grew sales versus the prior year. Remember that we combined the Energy Services segment into Environmental Products within the Performance Materials segment this quarter. Operating income was $58.8 million or 1% higher than the prior year. As Doug mentioned, operating margins improved across the majority of our businesses as shown in the margin bridge on the bottom right of this page. However, a few discrete items impacted our overall margin in the quarter. First, our Environmental Products and Building Materials businesses have yet to experience a meaningful recovery due to ongoing project delays and COVID related restrictions. Lower contribution from these businesses had an unfavorable impact on our margin of approximately 80 basis points in the quarter. Second, while our underlying corporate expenses were stable, we experienced higher than usual mark-to-market adjustments related to the change in stock price during the quarter. This is a normal adjustment we make every quarter and we are calling it out today because of the size of the variance, which was approximately $3.5 million year-over-year. Adjusting for these impacts the rest of MTI grew operating margin by 60 basis points over the prior year. Continued pricing actions more than offset inflationary cost pressures on raw materials, energy and logistics. In addition, we continue to drive productivity with a 6% year-over-year improvement in the number of hours worked per ton. Going forward, we expect operating margin to expand as our project-oriented businesses…

Thanks Matt. Before opening the call to Q&A, let's take a few minutes to highlight the progress we continue to make with our strategic growth initiatives. As I touched on earlier, our portfolio of consumer products which represents approximately 25% of our total sales remains a key part of our growth strategy. And we delivered double-digit sales increases in these core businesses. We continue to see opportunities to organically grow them. Geographic expansion of our core product lines is one of our growth strategies. And Asia is a key region for that growth. The first quarter sales in Asia increased 33%, with all of our major countries contributing. This was driven by a broad base of businesses, new PCC capacity coming online at our sites in China and India, continued penetration of our greensand bond products and an expanding customer base in fabric care, pet care, and edible oil purification. A specific highlight in the quarter was our PCC growth where we signed a contract with Pulp and Paper for a 50,000-ton satellite in China which should be operational in the second quarter of 2022. 200,000 tons of new production capacity that came online at the end of last year in China and India will further contribute to volume growth this year as they fully ramp up. We're also on track to commission two additional satellites this year, totaling over 70,000 tons one for a packaging application in Europe, and another for a standard PCC plant in India. For the past several years we've invested in developing new technologies for treating industrial wastewater and other environmental water challenges. Our FLUORO-SORB product that addresses PFAS contamination is one example of these newer technologies. As I mentioned earlier, we realigned Energy Services into Environmental Products. With this combination, we will accelerate the…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Mike Harrison with Seaport Global Securities.

Hi, good morning. Congrats on the nice start to the year. The Household and Personal Care business, I think most people associate the pet care business there as being the biggest piece. And maybe you can talk about the strength and opportunities you're seeing there, but it sounded like you're seeing growth in other areas. You mentioned fabric care, health and beauty maybe some of the edible oils or other food and beverage applications. Maybe talk a little bit more broadly about what's driving the strength in HPC?

Sure. Thanks, Mike. So let me start off and then I'll probably pass it off to Jon Hastings to give you a little bit more color there. Yes, the Household and Personal Care business, the largest portion of that business is pet care. And as you know we've been investing in both organically and inorganically growing that portion of that segment to that business. We see a lot of opportunities to continue to invest organically, specifically there. But we've also invested a lot in – not a lot but we've invested in our other product lines there, which as you mentioned edible oil purification and in fabric care. And those are starting to expand not only from our traditional geographies but also into Asia the big area for them and beyond that. So yes, we are investing in those. We see a lot of opportunities to grow them organically. I don't know Jon, do you want to give – is there anything you can give more color in some of those product lines and how we're seeing that traction going forward?

Sure. Happy to Doug. Hi, Mike. A couple of things start with edible oil purification. One of the reasons that we're able to grow is we have a very unique deposit – mineral deposit in Turkey that we've been able to mine. We built a plant. We've run all sorts of trials with customers. And over the course of the past couple of years, we've continued to expand that business, as they see the value in that unique mineral deposit. That business continues to grow. Just year-on-year first quarter, we doubled the size of the business to the prior year and that was even up from the prior year before that. So customers are recognizing the value and they continue to see excellent application of the mineral and we continue to grow. In addition, if you look at our Personal Care business, we continue to invest in and expand our capability of supplying personal care products around the world but predominantly here in the United States. Those again are unique technologies that the customers really enjoy and apply to their specific uses and we continue to grow that business. Pet care you know, pretty well. We're expanding in different geographies, some new markets. We continue to expand with new channels including ecommerce. We introduce new SKUs and new innovation products all the time and we continue to grow more than twice the market growth. All sorts of different opportunities. Fabric, I'll wrap up with fabric, we have a business that mainly goes into dry laundry detergents. And as those markets continue to grow in different areas of the world, we supply the products out of several different plant sites. And again, we continue to experience the benefits of the technologies and linking up with some of the key producers of the laundry detergents. So again, a variety of different reasons for growth but I hope that provides a little clarity.

Mike, I'm just going to add one last thought there. And that is when we talk about Personal Care, everything that Jon just mentioned is we have a fundamental capability in the company. Many of these are bentonite-based products, they're technologies that are around the adaptation of that mineral or a tangential technology that's come from that adaptation of that mineral to personal care, to edible oil purification, pet care, fabric care. So they stem from a really deep foundation in the company to be able to supply these products in this kind of market. And that's why we feel investing in it organically, even inorganically is something that really fits well with the company.

All right. And then over on the metalcasting side, I think you mentioned that the semiconductor shortage and maybe other supply chain issues is something that is an area of caution on the outlook there, maybe talk in a little bit more detail, if you've seen a meaningful reduction in foundry demand at this point, or kind of how they're running and approaching the auto business?

Yes. We supply the automotive industry through a variety of products both in our Minerals, Specialty PCC through automotive, rheology modification for sealants, of course through our foundry products and around the world. Right now we haven't – we're keeping our eye on it. We've seen some impact I think from right now a lot of the supply chains are very thin downstream. We know the automotive makers are continuing to build in inventories of those and we're seeing that continued pull-through in our foundries and through our minerals based businesses. That said, we are also aware of some of the commentary. And we've seen a couple of shifts, a couple of days taking out. What we do see and what we do know right now is that, if this becomes a little bit more of a challenge here in the second quarter, we think that will be short-lived and that will be made up through the sort of the back half of the year. So it's a little hard to predict. The best knowledge that we have right now is what we've given you in our current forecast. But we're keeping our eye on it, but we think, if anything if that comes through the second we'll just be made up in the back half of the year.

All right. And then maybe one for Matt. The free cash flow was obviously very nice in the first quarter here. Maybe some thoughts on the cash flow, free cash flow outlook for this year compared to the $175 million you did last year?

Yes. I mean, Mike and good to talk to you. And typically, when we come into a year, we tell you we're targeting about $150 million of free cash flow. Obviously, a very strong start to here in 2021. But as we look through the rest of the year, we continue to think that the $150 million is a good target. Embedded in that would be around $80 million to $85 million of CapEx. That's about $20 million higher than what we did last year. And really that CapEx is being directed towards the very strong growth opportunities we have across the businesses. As we've talked about in our performance review here today, a lot of our product lines are in either a sold-out nature or a very strong demand nature. And so being able to make investments that are paying off quickly and our high-return in ourselves is really what the priority of that cash flow is and how we're deploying it thus the increase in CapEx here this year.

All right. Sounds good. Thanks very much.

You’re welcome.

Our next question comes from Rosemarie Morbelli with Gabelli Research. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning everyone.

Hi, Rosemarie.

Looking -- still looking at your consumer-oriented product lines pet is the largest business, but you are obviously growing the other categories. Is the margin difference substantial between pet, and for example, edible oil? My best guess is that that would be the lower margin?

Well, without getting specifically into the margins they're all strong margins. I would say, yes, there's some differences, but there's also -- there's some differences by product category by region. Our positions are different, whether you're talking about some bulk products versus some very high specialty products in Europe. I would say, our edible oil purification is a very specialized product. It's a very high value product. I'll leave it at that. And so I would say, that's probably on the higher end of the spectrum in that segment, but there's a range of them. And I will tell you that they are improving. We've made significant progress with all of them in terms of our investments of productivity, our investments in efficiencies around the production, but also in driving what we feel is the value-added pricing of each of them. And so we're continuing to move those margins north and we still think that through additional scale and those investments that we intend to make we can drive that even further.

Thanks. Still staying with Turkey and the bentonite mine that was a higher quality bentonite than what you had somewhere else high-purity and whiteness and so on. Did they -- when you acquired it, did they have anything other than pet care applications, or have you been developing the other applications from scratch from that particular resource?

Well, let me talk about, we have a very high-quality bentonite around the world. And so but I think you're referring to our Sivomatic pet care acquisition.

Right.

That did come with those mines in Turkey. It is a very -- from a color standpoint very white and that leads to what we've done in terms of bringing that as a premium product into the pet care market. So we've actually developed that very premium white market in Europe. And so yes, the Bleaching Earth products that is a mine that MTI has had and we've developed this Bleaching Earth product around the uniqueness of that mineral. But we also have mines elsewhere in the world that can support similar applications. So it just happens that, we're basing it on those mines for now and that's helped us grow not only throughout Europe, but also in that edible oil through new broader markets that I mentioned through Southeast Asia and into Asia. So it's well positioned to help us continue to expand that customer base like we did in the first quarter.

Okay. And still staying on the bentonite, you mentioned that you were developing quite a few new products bentonite-based. Can you give us a little more detail on what those new products might be or end market applications?

Yes. Sure. We -- again, we're with our bentonite reserves around the world, and obviously, the technologies and the capability of the company to adapt it to different end uses. One I just want to highlight, this quarter we've launched a couple of new -- I know it's different we haven't talked about it, but some drilling products. And why that's important is because we've seen some really strong customer feedback from our latest products in the drilling area. And when I talk about drilling, I'm talking about large tunneling infrastructure drilling, but also horizontal directional drilling. And we've taken some feedback from customers. There's challenges out there around the world and we've adapted some new products to them and recently launched them and the feedback has been very positive. So we think that highlighting not only the capabilities around pet care and around foundry I wanted to bring a little bit more to some other areas of the company that we focus on that we can adapt our bentonite-based products to deliver more value. And that was one example. Other examples I mentioned today in water treatment. We talk a lot about our FLUORO-SORB product for wastewater treatment or that particular PFAS wastewater issue. We've got other technologies behind similar to that type of PFAS, but other contaminant issues that we've been developing. And they're all surrounded with the technologies that we have in the company. So we've got a nice portfolio. I mentioned 300 different products, $800 million potential in value, but they're around a broad range of things. Continuing to improve our core products, but developing new ones and infrastructure drilling around our wastewater treatment, which we think is a big area that we can grow into as a company. And that's also behind combining the technologies of not only the mineral technologies, but the processing technology that we have in Energy Services that we think that two of those together are really going to bring a nice portfolio of opportunity to us.

Thank you. That's was very helpful.

Our next question comes from Dan Moore with CJS Securities.

Hi. Good morning. This is Brendan on for Dan. Just wanted to ask about the monthly cadence of your revenue and demand recovery this quarter and then anything you can speak to about April as well?

Yes. As we came into the year, I think, I mentioned that the first quarter typically we have some seasonality. We actually didn't experience that seasonality here in the first quarter. Those businesses that are impacted year-after-year from that seasonality are your Performance Minerals business, your Performance Materials business where you get some slowdowns in customer demand, as well as some changes in the mining picture that we have in those businesses. Demand remained strong throughout the quarter coming in from January at a very good rate from the fourth quarter. I think if you recall what we said in the fourth quarter about the first quarter is that we had very strong momentum. That did continue at a nice ratable rate across January, February and March. What you are starting to see and I think Doug talked about it a bit, you are seeing some of the movement in the demand for metalcasting just based on one or two days from some of our customer. Most of that did continue through in our forecast that we're giving you so you have that there, but for the rest of the portfolio, you see a very strong look here in April, that momentum is continuing. At the same time like I said, you saw in the project-oriented businesses, a pickup coming in March. And that is going to be what we're going to see happening in the April, May, June timeframe to help offset some of those things we talked about that are going to take place in the Refractory segment where you're going to have some relines because some customer revenue is going to come out. Same thing temporarily, same thing is going to happen in your Paper PCC businesses when the paper mills take outages. So those revenues are ramping up in the project-oriented businesses. The rest of the portfolio remains very strong outside of those couple of temporary items that are going to keep sales in a similar basis to where we are in the first quarter.

Sounds good. And then could you speak more on any signs that you are seeing a recovery in demand and the two that you called out the Environmental Services and the Building Materials?

Yes. I mean, I think, in March we told you -- sorry I just told you here in this presentation, you're starting to see some of those projects that we have our products on starting to pick-up. Decisions to be made to begin that commercial construction activity where we participate would be in that underground waterproofing through the envelope. So you're starting to see those projects begin to be let and that is helping some of the COVID-related delays that we have seen are now releasing. So people are getting back on to the project site and that is helping to drive those volumes in those businesses.

Brendon, I'm going to just add a couple of things. One is, I think, our kind of as you termed it the cadence of our sales this year is quite a bit different than normal, right? And I think you're probably seeing that across from many other companies. We had expected a bit of a slowdown seasonally with weather that happens in construction, residential construction. But I'll tell you with supply chains where they were, with the automotive our demand through the first quarter has been was very strong. And we see that continuing through the second. There is some typical things we'll see with some shutdowns of paper mills for maintenance items those are going to be typical this year. But as we go back what we see going on now is even through today with the strong demand we're seeing across our businesses we still haven't seen that rebound in several of our product lines. And we call them our project-oriented product lines, but we see them building through the second quarter and actually see that strength even stronger in the back half of the year. And a lot of our offshore environmental products a lot of our offshore oil drilling we see a much stronger back half of the year. That's offshore usually comes back later than onshore and we see that actually rebounding through the second and even more strongly in the back half of the year. The same thing with our building, waterproofing and those environmental projects. So a little bit different. Usually that's a very strong second and third. And actually we think that's all, kind of, shifting out and the seasonality has kind of blended through this year. But we think that momentum is gaining through the second and we actually think that that's going to continue through -- potentially continue through the back half of the year. A little different this year.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from David Silver with CL King. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi. Good morning. I was hoping to maybe start with a couple of questions on your PCC business. And in particular I was hoping that D.J. or Doug might be able to provide kind of a snapshot of your new project pipeline or your new project funnel. I forget how you characterize it. But with the global economy reopening and a lot more activity in a number of industries I mean is this the -- is this the type of environment where we might see a quicker pace of project decisions? Just maybe if you could highlight what's in the project funnel and based on your experience in other cycles is this the type of environment where maybe the cadence at which customers complete their due diligence and decisions get made is maybe a little bit quicker paced? Thank you.

Okay. Thanks, David. Yes, let me pass that to D.J. Monagle. I think, he can give you some insights on kind of current paper market conditions and our pipeline of opportunities.

Thanks for the question, David. So in general, I'd say that just to give you kind of the backdrop, we're seeing demand increase. We're seeing extremely strong operating rates in the US, which is helpful, and a lot of pull, especially, from Asia for interest in our products. So as I translate that strong demand what balances that demand is when you shift to us there's some risk of change. But -- so the value is there the risk of change is still there but we are seeing increased pull. If I were to give you some further dimension behind that. What we're seeing in particular things like the [indiscernible] paper project where a Chinese papermaker approached us and we were able to convert that into a signed agreement in a relatively short time. We've got a couple of more conversations that we're having with folks in that same sort of light offering that same sort of economic value equation. And one of the things that they're getting ready for is they see a major papermaker like Chenming putting out a higher quality paper in the region and they want to be more competitive both from a quality standpoint and the economic standpoint. By the way, another tailwind on that is very high pulp prices right now which are helping our value equation. So strong demand in China and that continues. Strong demand in India as well that continues. And these are what I would say traditional PCC applications in printing and writing grades. We are seeing some pull also in China for some of our new packaging offerings. And -- but that's a little earlier stage in the development. The other thing in terms of our pipeline, I'd say in the other areas around the world not China and India is there's been some trials and some pull for a new variant of our NewYield product. This is a product that we're having good trials with. And this helps a customer release some environmental pressures, provides a high-value pigment that we're able to do more than just help them with the cost equation. And we've got advanced trials in that and I would hope that we're able to commercialize at least one of those soon in particular in Europe. Then further back in the pipeline, I would say, most of the stuff that's early stage is about some of our penetration into packaging. And those are traditional PCC projects, but also a couple of new products that we're trying to capitalize on and get into the market.

If I could just follow-up on a couple of points. So first of all, I'll be stealing your risk of change comment. I kind of like that description. But you mentioned the U.S. market and some time ago you secured a restart, I guess, the Phoenix paper project in Kentucky. I was wondering if maybe you could just provide a real quick update on the progress there and whether that trend towards restarting domestic capacity might continue? And then secondly, on your packaging comments, would you say that the packaging opportunities you see are more a continuation, I guess, of the linerboard area of packaging, or are you potentially pursuing additional subsectors, I guess, within packaging grade papers? Thank you.

So let me try and take them in the sequence with which you offered them up David. So, first off, happy about the way Wickliffe came on. It's come on strong and we're seeing good volumes and it's indicated in all the comments that Matt had made regarding our growth. What I would tell you is, I don't see a lot of restarts. So what we see happening is 95% operating rates in North America, demand over the short term, probably increasing as schools and folks come back to work, we'll have to see how that shapes up. But certainly, as we get into the fall, we would expect an increase, somewhat of an increase in demand. That demand might be offset by greater imports. So that is a calculation that we see going on across the board in the industry. What we are also seeing though and this is going to dovetail into the packaging comment. International paper converted their Selma operation last year to -- from printing and writing grades to a packaging grade. We were able to help in that transition as they offered a new premium or white top linerboard. So because we had a PCC plant on site, we were able to modify our product to help with their strategic goals. We see a similar thing going on in North America at a place like Jackson, Alabama where PCA, or Packaging Corporation of America, has announced that they'll be converting those machines from free sheet opportunities to a packaging opportunity. And it remains to be seen exactly how we'll be able to assist them in that. But they've got the strategic capability that we offer them to go into those white top linerboard grades. We are seeing, in terms of our broader packaging portfolio, we're…

So David, back to you original question, sorry to interrupt. I think your real question is the environment different today for an improvement or a speed of opportunity capture? I think in some ways similar in some ways, yes it is different. And I think we've done that, because we've broadened our product offering, our portfolio from not only just base filler, which is improving. We have a number of opportunities for just those because of the conversions and the cost savings and quality requirements that are needed in the market. We have also new technologies around packaging and our environmental solutions. And as our customers are challenged with those -- with higher quality grade packaging as D.J. just mentioned, but also the environmental challenges, we have those technologies too. So I think we've positioned ourselves to put ourselves into place to capture more. And I think our pipeline of opportunities, if you asked that to D.J., has grown because of that. And so, yes, I think we are well positioned to accelerate on new opportunities on a broader range of areas.

Okay. That's great. And then, maybe, I do have kind of an M&A or capital deployment related question. So in the past several weeks, the topic of outside interest in Elementis has kind of cropped up again. And there are some similarities with the new suitor, there are some differences, etcetera. But I'm just wondering, Doug, if you could comment on kind of the M&A pipeline that you see. And again, whether the -- you used opportunity capture. But is the environment one where you think valuations might be elevating or rising and therefore some of your pipeline opportunities might be just out of your comfort zone in terms of valuation, or maybe if you could just characterize at this stage how you see the opportunity set and the overall environment valuation and the willingness to deal as you see it. Thank you.

Sure. Well, look, I commented acquisitions are going to be a way that we see able to grow the company. We've got a nice portfolio of things that we've been looking at that we think fit with our strategy and our growth strategy, and things that we feel are core to what we do and that we feel we can extend value wise. That said -- and again many of those are in our core product lines, they deal with our core minerals or they're tangential and adjacencies to what we do, but pretty close to a market that we currently serve or a mineral that's of a technology that we're very, very comfortable with, that's deep into our kind of culture of the company. That said, I think, two things have happened. I think, there's been -- there's a lot of money out there. So I think that could play to higher valuations. But I also think that through the past year, companies may have made some decisions about things they want to keep and they don't want to keep. And so, I think we'll watch. And so, I think there might be some opportunities that come up, things that as people decide that now is the time that we ought to be moving on from these that -- and we'll be looking at those that might fit us. Of course, as I mentioned, we're going to be disciplined in what we feel we can deliver value for. And if things get too heated then that's okay. We keep very disciplined about how we're going to approach M&A and how we're going to deliver value for that cash, because we have options for that cash. We have options to put that money into ourselves and we have plenty of opportunities to grow organically. We've talked about many of them today. We have opportunities for shareholders in terms of direct returns. And we -- when we see good opportunities for M&A that we think have the highest return value we'll pursue those.

All right, that’s great. Thank you very much.

Thanks, David.

We'll take our next question from Silke Kueck with JPMorgan.

Hi. Good morning. How are you?

It’s okay. How are you?

I have a question about your guidance. And so, this is like the third quarter in a row that you're giving like flat sales guidance. And I think in the fourth quarter, you beat that sales guidance, but I don't know like $40 million or so in the first quarter you beat it by $20 million. And you're giving like flat sales guidance again. And usually, usually there's like a step-up of like $30 million or $35 million from the first and second quarter. And I understand that you started strong, and there's some shutdowns, but those happen every year. And so, why the conservative sales guidance, or is it just the very low end of what you think you plan to achieve?

No. Silke, I think what we do every quarter is try and give you the best perspective on what we see at the time. And obviously there is favorability. There's also risk in our forecast. And so we manage those as we move through the quarter. I think what you've seen over the last call it two or three quarters is a return to the markets that has been very strong. And that has helped drive volumes faster I think than what we or anyone else has been expecting. And so, yes, that plays through. Here in the first quarter, remember, and I think you just spoke to it. We typically see a seasonal impact in our first and fourth quarters of about 10% in sales. And what we just said was we didn't really see a lot of that in the fourth quarter. We didn't see it in the first quarter. And so, you're operating at a very strong rate across those businesses that are typically seasonally impacted. And so that carries through to the second quarter, right? When you would typically see that normal seasonal bump up that you just spoke about well they're already operating at that rate. The difference here in the second quarter like we spoke about, yes, you have the typical outages in Paper PCC. Those are temporary. Those are typical. You have your temporary impacts in the Refractories business where their customers are doing the relines. Listen, some of those have been pushed out, and over time they're going to need to be done. And so, you've seen in our Refractories business, those relines being pushed out. And so, now they're going to start happening. That is in the forecast. When you look at what is offsetting those, and I think this is…

Okay. Thank you for that. Secondly, like usually in the first quarter, it's normally the highest quarter for working capital use. And this year, it's -- like this year in the first quarter is relatively low. And are you able to -- and what is like noticeable is that your payables are down quarter-over-quarter. I mean, is it the case that there's like a timing issue, or are you able to just manage your working capital a little better?

Yeah. I think we've done some very good things over the past couple of years, focusing on all components of working capital. What you are seeing here in the first quarter is the fact that we've been able to improve the efficiency, pretty sizably in both our accounts receivable and in inventories. So we did last year, obviously work on our position our efficiencies in terms of both of those two categories. You're seeing that translate here into the first quarter where you typically see us draw down in some areas, but revenues are typically rising. And so the efficiency if you look at it on a days' basis has improved dramatically on a year-over-year basis.

And lastly, I was wondering how much of the price increases that you have announced in January like how much of those that you achieved? And remember that you said we are targeting 3% for PCC maybe 5% to 10% for a tug product. It was sort of like a wide range rather specialty products like 3% to 10%. Like how much have you gotten so far? And how much more you're trying to achieve for the rest of the year?

So let me grab that one. I will tell you it's -- we pretty much -- well let me go back. Some of our price increases in like paper is contractual. So we will pass through pricing. We have different contracts and refractories that we can move pricing every six months or so. I think when you're referring to some of the percentage increases, yes, we've put up prices. We're seeing conditions and new product and value for those products that we feel we can price. And I would say that we've captured 100% of that price increase of those initiatives. I'll also tell you that in some cases, we're moving pricing already three times this year right. Something that might only happen once a year in certain conditions, we're moving pricing in some product lines already three times in the first half. So it's different. I would say we've been very successful. We have very close relationships with our customers. We want to make sure that that pricing reflects the value delivered. And we also are seeing a lot of high demand for many of our products that we are accommodating. And so look I think we work closely with our customers to make sure that things are priced right. But yes, we've been -- we've done very well at making sure we capture it. And yes, that has covered all of the inflationary increases that we've seen today.

Yeah a phenomenal job. Thanks very much.

Sure. Thank you.

We have a follow-up question from Mike Harrison with Seaport Global Securities.

Hi, Mike.

Hi. Just one more and I apologize if you discussed this in greater detail already. But are there some cost benefits from putting the Energy Services business into the environmental business and kind of removing that segment structure, or is that pretty de minimis?

No. I think there's not a lot of cost synergies associated directly with that. I think though that the efficiency is associated with being able to tie in those technologies to sell new products. The more of the efficiencies we see on the commercial side also efficiencies with combining the knowledge base I think will happen. So not a lot of direct cost synergies much more on the synergies in terms of technology development joint development and on the commercial side.

Okay. And then in terms of the inflationary environment you're in, you guys I think did a good job telegraphing that you expected some seasonal increases in energy and in mining costs. Were all of those increases pretty much in line with your expectations,or did they run a little bit higher than what you were anticipating when you gave your Q1 outlook?

Pretty much in line. I think obviously the way you forecast things, it never always plays out exactly that. So I think the team has done a great job, just making sure we're keeping our eye on everything coming at us, not only just in the first quarter, but we're looking at that next quarter and all the quarters out. So we've got like I like to call it we have the headlights on and the team has done a great job. I would say areas that have been some challenging and I think you'll hear this from other companies logistics are very tight. Shipping logistics doesn't necessarily impact us. We don't export as much. We operate pretty much localized in the countries where we manufacture and sell. Logistics are challenging, but we've been working, the team has done a great job working through those items. So maybe a little bit different than we forecast, but from a total aggregate basis pretty much right on what we thought.

Okay. And then last question for me is on Refractories. It seems like that business typically has stronger margin in Q1 and then the rest of the year is more subdued. Is there something structural that causes that or is it just kind of coincidence that that seems to be the trend for the last few years?

Typically the margins are -- historically, the margins have been higher in the fourth quarter and that's because that's usually where we sell quite a bit of our Ferrotron laser equipment. And I think we've talked about this and I'm going to pass it over to Brett Argirakis who runs the business, but the past several years the business has really changed kind of its profile and how it's done and how its margin profile has expanded. And so it's not necessarily a first quarter fourth quarter anymore. It's a different structure and it's not just occurred now. It's occurred over the past several years. Brett do you want to highlight a little bit more about what you've been doing?

Sure. Thanks for the question Mike. Yes, I really -- there's a couple of factors. Of course, the steel production is critical, so you see the stronger utilization rates there's higher steel prices so that's driving those rates. And then again as Matt pointed out, the steelmakers are pushing those furnaces pretty hard to capture those steel prices. Then there's the second part of it is our ongoing business focus. This has been in place for some time over the last several years and really a key focus in product development. We've really started developing more efficient formulations that provide our customers with improved performance and really reduce cost per ton of steel. The laser equipment the laser equipment although it slowed down because of COVID, we continue to invest in that technology and that's going to come back soon because there's still a lot of customer pool. And in addition, we've done a really good job with expense control price management and manufacturing efficiencies. We're also backward we have our backward integration in Turkey with our NGO and also in our wire in Canon. So, we've become very efficient. This team has worked very well together. And then lastly, it's really the new business growth. We announced on our last call five new accounts that are -- some are green four out of five are greenfield sites and that includes refractory alloy wire and calcium wire. So really a pretty strong performance across the board from our team.

Yes, Mike one of the things we don't talk about very often but Brett just mentioned it is our vertical integration in calcium. We are the only manufacturer of calcium metal in the Western Hemisphere. I don't think people know that. But in times like this with demand and logistics and challenges around the world and moving products being able to be vertically integrated in a core product that's essential to steel manufacturers around the world that's been demonstrated to our customers. So, not only the product development that Brett mentioned our vertical integration and stability through times like this has really resonated I think with the customer base. And so we're helping bring them more value and stability and I think that's accruing to us as well.

All right. It sounds like a lot of positive dynamics there. Thanks for the color.

Thanks for the question.

And at this time, I would like to turn the call back to Mr. Doug Dietrich for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate everyone joining today and look forward to talking to you after our second quarter. Take care everyone.

And that does conclude today's presentation. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.