Calumet Specialty Products (NASDAQ:CLMT) Partners LP (NASDAQ:CLMT)报告称，2024年第一季度业绩良好，重点关注战略增长和运营效率。在财报电话会议上，首席执行官Todd Borgmann强调了公司向C-Corp结构的转变，预计将在未来60天内完成，使Calumet能够吸引大型机构投资者和被动指数基金。
该公司报告调整后EBITDA为2160万美元，并强调其减少债务的承诺，已偿还了2025年票据中的5000万美元。Calumet的蒙大拿可再生能源(MRL)和MAX SAF项目扩建也进行了讨论，对市场需求和竞争优势的前景持乐观态度。
Calumet预计，其旗下的C-Corp corp .将在明年上市反转将在60天内完成，预计这将扩大其投资者范围se。
该公司在2024年第一季度产生了2160万美元的调整后EBITDA。
莫ntana Renewables的生产和销售都有所改善，该公司预计第二季度将表现强劲。
Calumet专注于减少债务，并已偿还了2025年发行的5000万美元票据。
MAX SAF项目正在扩大对能源部贷款流程充满信心。
Calumet没有向Mo增加债务的计划纳塔纳可再生能源及其公司考虑到时间当市场上涨时，部分净值化条件有利。
该公司澄清说，其可持续航空燃料(SAF)是由牛脂而不是菜籽油生产的，并且可以调整产量以市场需求为导向。
Calumet是乐观的关于C-Corp转换后投资者的未来参与。
这家公司是。相信正EBITDA公司莫的贡献可再生能源将在短期内实现。
该公司承认行业合理化面临挑战，包括工厂关闭和农作物价格暴跌对可再生柴油和生物柴油市场的潜在影响。
Calumet预计，随着高成本生产商的退出和新法规的实施，行业利润率将回升。
该公司认为，新兴的储蓄基金市场波动较大，但政府对此很感兴趣，这表明存在竞争格局。
第一季度，由于库存成本和原料价格上涨，营运资金增加，Calumet计划在随后的几个季度使其正常化。
Calumet表示，他们可以灵活地在产品组合中增加牛脂的使用。
该公司的氢气工厂表现良好，在4月份达到了每天1.2万桶的满负荷运转。
Calumet会走的继续跑莫只要他们是低成本的生产商，就可以满负荷生产，确保EBITDA为正预计随着时间的推移而改善的贡献。
Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP(纳斯达克股票代码:CLMT)的一些财务指标反映出，该公司已经度过了一个充满挑战的经济环境。根据InvestingPro的最新实时数据，截至2024年第一季度，该公司在过去12个月的收入基础为41.5亿美元。尽管2024年第一季度收入略有下降3.0%，但Calumet的毛利润为4.162亿美元，毛利率为10.03%。
InvestingPro Tips显示，Calumet背负着沉重的债务负担，正在迅速烧钱，这与文章中提到的公司专注于债务削减是一致的。此外，该公司的估值意味着它的自由现金流收益率很低，而且在过去的12个月里没有盈利。然而，分析人士预测，该公司今年将实现盈利，这给潜在投资者带来了一线希望。
考虑Calumet的投资者应注意，该公司不支付股息，这可能会影响那些寻求固定收入的投资者的投资决策。从更积极的方面来看，Calumet在过去五年里表现出了强劲的回报，表明了长期增长的潜力。
对于那些希望深入研究Calumet财务状况的人来说，InvestingPro提供了额外的提示和见解。目前有6个以上的InvestingPro技巧可供CLMT使用，可以访问:http://k1.fpubli.cc/file/upload/202405/12/k5qufn5bmoy。读者可以使用优惠券代码proonews24，获得一年或两年一次的Pro和Pro+订阅额外10%的折扣，该服务提供对Calumet等公司的全面分析，帮助投资者做出明智的决定。
接线员:大家早上好，欢迎来到Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP 2024年第一季度业绩电话会议。[操作说明]也请注意，今天的事件正在被记录。现在，我想请Calumet公司投资者关系部的John Kompa发言。先生，请讲。
John Kompa:早上好。谢谢你，杰米，谢谢你今天参加我们2024年第一季度的财报电话会议。今天和我一起主持电话会议的是公司首席执行官Todd Borgmann;首席财务官大卫?鲁宁;布鲁斯·弗莱明，蒙大拿州执行副总裁/可再生能源和企业发展;Scott Obermeier，执行副总裁。您现在可以在我们的网站calumat.com的投资者关系部分下载随今天电话会议发言的幻灯片。此外，这次电话的网络广播重播将在几小时内在我们的网站上提供。翻到幻灯片2和3，你可以看到我们的警示性声明和税务披露。我想提醒大家，在这次电话会议中，我们可能会提供各种前瞻性陈述。请参阅今天上午发布的合作伙伴新闻稿以及我们向美国证券交易委员会提交的最新文件，了解可能影响我们实际结果并导致其与我们预期不同的因素列表。说完了，我现在把电话转给托德。
Todd Borgmann: Thanks, John and welcome to Calumet's first quarter 2024 earnings call. We have a number of items to discuss today as we enter what we expect to be a spring and summer full of strategic value-creating catalyst here at Calumet. Let's turn to Slide 4 and I'll start with an update on our C-Corp conversion. In short, the conversion remains on track and we are optimistic that we'll complete the process in the next 60 days. This process has moved quickly and I'm thankful to the general partner, conflicts committee, employees, attorneys and everyone else involved for a thorough negotiation and efficient process to-date. During the first quarter, we announced the completion of the conversion agreement. We filed the S-4 with the SEC. And upon final feedback, we'll distribute the proxy and schedule an investor vote. We continue to be optimistic about the opportunity this conversion provides for Calumet and our unitholders. Our current shareholder base is comprised of our general partner, insiders, a small group of loyal and significant deep value investors and a broad set of retail investors. It's a good, stable investor base but it lacks large institutional investors and passive index funds. Passive investment strategies now make up over 50% of the public equity market, yet they own almost 0 Calumet as most indices can't hold MLPs by Charter. From a pure technical trading lens, this conversion is arguably one of the most important strategic steps the company has ever taken. Since we initially announced the conversion, we've seen an increase in our average daily trading volume of a little over 20%. The trading volumes are still quite illiquid compared to most publicly traded companies and this conversion is a major milestone in removing that burden. For example, Calumet C-Corp peers typically have 20% to 30% of their shares outstanding held by passive indices. And again, we have almost none. The ability to add significant demand to the investor pool is exciting in itself but we think it's compounded with the fact that Calumet presents a compelling opportunity to larger active institutional investors. We've been on the road talking to this group since our announcement. And like I mentioned with passive indices, our MLP status put most of this group practically off limits. Of course, this all changes post conversion. The next near-term priority is taking the last step in demonstrating the competitively advantaged position Montana Renewables. With the construction behind us, our start-up year in a rearview and old expensive feed process, we believe financial demonstration of the top-tier position that Montana Renewables holds is the next step in capturing the value of MRL for our unitholders. Third, we're deep into the DOE loan process which we hope will unlock our MAX SAF expansion soon. And last, we continue to demonstrate the uniqueness and wide moat that exists in our specialties business. I'll hit on each of these items further but let's first move to results on Slide 5. In the first quarter, we generated $21.6 million of adjusted EBITDA. We had previously communicated that the quarter was marked by a rate ramp-up and inventory drawdown at Montana Renewables and a successful turnaround at Shreveport, both of which impacted results within our expectations. The one negative expectations was the magnitude of the seasonal weakness experienced in the Northern Rockies as both gasoline and asphalt realizations were lower than normal. Every year, the Montana retail asphalt racks closed for the winter and our asphalt sales mix shifts to 100% wholesale. This past winter, that occurred as normal but a huge increase in WCS costs created a major price lag. As we sit here today, we're seeing retail asphalt sales start to pick back up as the paving season supported by our polymer-modified asphalt plant will be full steam ahead in June like normal. Let's turn to Slide 6 and talk about Montana Renewables. In past calls, we've talked about the significant milestones MRL has accomplished as it turned from an idea into a leading SaaS and renewable diesel business in a few short years. The next milestone is demonstrating a clean financial quarter. As we talk today, we've been operating for 5 months since the December restart. Each month has improved sequentially as we've ramped up rates, increased SAP production, reduced our feedstock carbon intensity and work through the old expensive feed. A primary advantage point for Montana Renewables is our access to a host of feeds and ability to utilize our leading pre-treatment technology to switch quickly to whatever market opportunities exist which simply was not an option when our tanks are full. We expect industry feedstocks to price at CI parity over-time, at least in the clearing house on the Gulf Coast. But as we have often discussed, the various speed classes, including tallow, corn oil and vegetable oil, rotate among themselves and we can take advantage of that. This optimization value is driven by a short local supply chain and it started to help again in March as demonstrated by moving back into the black financially and it's now unconstrained as we have cleared the backlog of inventory built in the second half of last year. Of course, the current question outstanding for all participants in our space is the market environment which we track using the index for renewable diesel margins made from soybean oil. This index has become the standard industry benchmark in RD. A couple of weeks ago, we hosted an Analyst Day in Great Falls and industry outlook was the primary topic of the conversation. In fact, the slides and script from that event are on our website for anyone who would like to go deeper. Staying on Slide 6 and looking at the right-hand chart, we show the renewable diesel industry capacity as a supply stack based on total net cost and we overlay the normal index margin across the top. This top line margin is the regime that's governed the industry margins historically, at least until September of last year. In its normal regime, renewable diesel players expect to see a fairly steady index margin around $2 a gallon. We've talked about this in the past, so I won't go too deeply into it here. But the premise is that the incremental competitor sets the market price. We specifically think that the incremental player is the group of small-scale bio-diesel plants that run soybean oil. And this group typically requires an index margin of about $2 per gallon to be cash flow positive. However, for the last few quarters, industry has observed a lower index margin of around $1 per gallon. Although we expect that to be a temporary condition, it is already doing lasting damage to farmers, biodiesel and even some renewable diesel producers. How did this happen? Historically, EPA has set the RVO to incentivize all forms of renewable energy and raised it annually to capture any increase in renewable supply. In that normal regime, all elements of the margin equation, the LCFS, Diesel [ph], the BTC, REN and the price of soybean oil, must interact in a way that incentivizes the incremental player to produce or else the mandated renewable volumes will not be achieved. In contrast to this, EPA has set a 2023 to 2025 RVO at a level that's substantially below the industry's production capacity. For example, the industry's capacity is well above 6 billion gallons per year but the EPA RVO was set at an implied level of 4.5 billion gallons. This challenges all biomass-based diesel producers and we're seeing both biodiesel and renewable diesel producers being forced to close and reduce rates. Many has said that the level was set this way because it was difficult to predict reliability of start-ups in this new industry and questions existed about the ability to source feedstock. With most of the large start-ups either now up or coming out this year and the feedstock situation clarified, we think that it's logical to revert to the now proven and normal methodology of including all production capacity in the RVO. After all, the original statutory demand for renewable fuels was to have reached 35 billion gallons per year by 2022 and the country has fallen well short of that plan as we're just over halfway there. In fact, closure and rate reduction announcements made so far this year have the industry moving backwards, not forwards. We need every drop of renewable fuels production capacity available plus a lot more to ultimately achieve our objectives. In short, the EPA should increase the RVO. Regardless of index margin, competitive advantage depends on total cost structure. The index margin will lift or lower all boats, the competitive advantage in this space is driven by access to a free treater, advantaged logistics costs, economies of scale, a flexible feed slate, product yields, specifically SaaS and access to the right end markets. On the P&L, these items all met together to represent everything between the industry's soybean index margin and EBITDA. In other words, the breakeven level to the soybean index is a function of a company's operating cost, SG&A, logistics costs and relative yield and CI differences to the soybean index. Right now, we believe this breakeven EBITDA level is about $0.85 a gallon for Montana Renewables which we think is best-in-class. Ultimately, we think our costs will be closer to $0.65 a gallon as we continue to gain efficiencies which is the gist of our original guidance of $1.35 a gallon of adjusted EBITDA in a normal regime of a $2 per gallon index margin. As I mentioned earlier, we do expect this normal regime to return but that will require the RVO to be adjusted to incentivize the energy transition as it has historically. The next catalyst for Calumet will stay in the MRL category is our MAX SAF expansion. Of course, this is directly tied to the DOE loan process which is in the late stages and continues to progress well. We're going to refrain from sharing too much more on this project until we get to the finish line with DOE but we're incredibly excited about it. SAF is a tremendous opportunity for the world for our industry. It's the only proven way to materially reduce emissions in the harder day airline sector and it's an area that is brand new and creates meaningful upside. Just recently, the U.K. issued a SaaS mandate starting in 2026 and growing from there. Japan, Singapore and India have also issued mandates are in the late stages. And the United States-Grandstaff challenge calls for 3 billion gallons by 2030 and 35 billion gallons by 2050. Not only is this a new world of opportunity for SAF but the SAF supply also impacts the renewable diesel balances and margin outlook. To illustrate that, simply reference the RD supply stack chart mentioned earlier, add another 3 billion gallons to the existing RVO employed demand and you'll see that if the Grandstaff challenge is met by conversion of renewable diesel plants which is the only demonstrated proven option, we're once again in a scenario where demand, including all existing biodiesel can't be met by current supply. Needless to say, not only is SAF a tremendous advantage for us right now, it's also an opportunity that will transform the underlying fundamentals of renewable diesel in a positive way as industry volumes grow. Let's transaction back to specialties for a minute and then I'll hand the call to David. At our recent Analyst Day, we opened with more info on specialties than we provided in some time and the feedback was that while we've all been focused on a new Montana Renewables, we haven't spent as much time talking about the rock-solid specialties business we have at Calumet and the growth that the team has delivered over the past few years. We've mentioned before that our specialties business has seen 5 straight years of margin growth which is a major accomplishment. This has been a combination of a data-driven approach to commercial excellence, an asset base and market reach that is incredibly agile, a culture of innovation and a differentiated appreciation and service of customers. It's these things that allow us to both weather storms as we saw during COVID and capture the upside of the extremely strong markets we've seen over the past couple of years. The current market is in between these 2 extremes. Back during peak margin times, we highlighted that the increase in specialty margins from the historic $40 per barrel range was about half market and half a function of our commercial focus. I think the specialty margins have bounced between $60 and $70 a barrel over the past few quarters. We're seeing that in a more mid-cycle environment, this expectation was appropriate. The other thing we've mentioned in the past is the investment and reliability. We've made meaningful progress over the past couple of years and still have room to go as we recently entered the third year of the plan. In the first quarter, we saw an example that we expect to see more of as we continue to fortify our operations. 2 of the past 3 years, we've had winter storms that have paralyzed not only our Louisiana facilities but a lot of Gulf Coast infrastructure. This past winter, we had a similar event. And while we experienced a few days of downtime, lessons learned and improvements made allowed the plant to restart in days as opposed to having an event that would impact us much further. With that, I'll turn the call over to David.
David Lunin: Thanks, Todd. Turning to Slide 7, our SPS business generated $41.8 million of adjusted EBITDA during the quarter. As mentioned, we successfully completed our planned turnaround in Shreveport on-time and on budget and we've seen a string of successful turnarounds here which continues to give us confidence in our ability to execute on our capital plan. The turnaround took us offline for approximately 7 days. And while back in the beginning of the year, we didn't expect to see much of an impact to the financials from this. We went into the turnaround with a little lower inventory than originally planned. So it did cost us between 200,000 and 300,000 barrels of sales. On the commercial side, our team continues to deliver. We saw crude price increase $8 per barrel during the quarter. The related lag is the majority of the decrease we saw in specialties material margin for the quarter. Price increases have now been passed through. The crude price increase also impacted asphalt margin in addition to a seasonally weak winter. Moving to Slide 8. Our Performance Brands segment generated $13.4 million of adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. In this segment, we drove year-over-year volume growth of approximately 13%, reflecting excellent execution by our commercial team. Our first quarter 2023 adjusted EBITDA also increased by approximately 17.5% or $2 million year-over-year when considering that the prior period reflected a $5 million insurance benefit. With the business on solid footing today, we remain focused on continuing to grow our core industrial business lines, particularly in mining, power and marine applications. We also continue to remain excited at the opportunities we see as we view the specialties business as one whole business as opposed to 2 individual segments. Both STS and Performance Brands have benefited from leveraging the ingrained commercial options that exist in these businesses. Turning to Slide 9. Our Montana business, we recorded a loss of $14.5 million of adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. We've talked about the old expensive feed and how full inventory tanks block the ability to optimize speeds for some time now, so I won't rehash that here. Progressing through the old feed during the quarter, along with making sequential month-over-month improvements in essentially every facet of the operation allowed us to close the quarter with positive adjusted EBITDA in March at MRL. And halfway through the second quarter, operations are holding strong. It's no surprise that industry index margins isn't helping any of us in RD at the moment but we do continue to expect a clean quarter in Q2 and are focused on continuing to demonstrate the competitive advantages we have in this business. While we do that, we'll wait for industry margins to recover, we continue to believe that industry margins should improve as higher cost producers shut down or cut back break, the new LCFS levels solidify. And ultimately, the industry starts to gain information on new RVO levels to take into account the new production that's been added to the industry. As these steps occur, we expect industry margins to regain fundamental support levels and ultimately rise to the historical approximately $2 a gallon level that we've seen persist steadily for years. Turning to our CMR business. The first quarter started out with an extremely soft local gasoline and asphalt market in Montana. In fact, while we don't break out Montana Renewables and CMR businesses just yet, I can say that of the approximately $14.5 million of negative EBITDA in Montana and Renewables segment, the vast majority of the loss came from the legacy CMR business in Q1. Historically, Montana's asphalt plant is the most seasonal of our assets as it's highly dependent on wholesale, asphalt and local gas demand. While we typically expect around breakeven results in Q1 that then historically improve as we gear up for the local paving season and spring and then accelerates in the summer, the first quarter was tougher than normal. While wholesale asphalt margins are always less than retail, Q1 impact was exacerbated by a rapid run-up in WCS prices which further compressed margins. Production was also reduced due to a minor maintenance issue and results were negatively impacted by a $4 million utility surcharge that stemmed from a number of negative 30 degree days and lower in January. In closing, let's move to Slide 10. We've highlighted a number of key catalysts in what we expect to be a transformative year for Calumet that are intended to support our strategy of maximizing value for unitholders. First, our C-Corp conversion remains on track to close mid-year. As we've said before, we believe our story is an interesting one for all investors and we're excited to prove the ability for a broader set to be able to invest in the Calumet story, plus this conversion allows index inclusion which will help support broader demand for our equity. We are extremely focused on also demonstrating the competitive advantage of our Montana Renewables business, driven by our superior logistics advantage and location. Again, we saw consistent improvements throughout the quarter across all relevant metrics, production, sales, cost, staff and continue to make improvements into Q2. As Todd stated, our work continues on securing a DOE loan which supports the final investment decision on our MAX SAF expansion project. Discussions are active and advancing. Finally, we remain committed to reducing our debt levels and we repaid $50 million of our 2025 notes earlier in April. We believe we have a number of levers to continue to delever over time, including test generation of our proven specialties business, the potential monetization of MRL, portion of MRL or upside potential from MRL's anticipated cash generation. Operator, that concludes our prepared remarks. We'd now like to open the line for questions. If you can remind the callers of those instructions. Thank you.
接线员:女士们，先生们，现在我们开始问答环节。今天第一个问题来自富国银行的罗杰·里德。
罗杰·里德:我想我应该再深入一点。托德，你提到了5个月。现在你们已经很好地运行了MRL并且通过了不利的原料。你能给我们更多的细节，也许是劣势到优势原料的过程，然后只是一个简短的氢单元如何工作的概要，因为这是去年秋天关闭的挑战的一部分。
Todd Borgmann:我先开始，然后我们跳到Bruce。我认为通过旧原料工作的主要优势是双重的。第一，很明显，它更贵。自RVO设定以来的过去6个月里，我们看到价格迅速下跌。RINs引领了价格的下跌，我们也看到了原料的下跌。所以装满以前购买的库存和合同对我们来说是一个主要的不利因素，我们很高兴能够摆脱这种情况。我认为第二个影响是我们在蒙大拿州可再生能源的主要优势或前沿优势之一，就是能够非常迅速地转换并利用更多折扣的供应，更低的CIC，正如你所说的，具有更高SAF收益率的供应。我们有能力在第四季度改变，而第一季度的结果可能会与我们看到的大不相同。我们看到其中一些在3月份开始重新开放。如果你看一下我们的饲料供应，饲料供应，你会看到我们去年整个冬天都在购买植物油因为那是我们的合同，那是我们的储罐里的。当我们完成这些工作时，我们可以灵活地在混合物中加入更多的油脂。所以很高兴我们拥有了这一切，我们有充分的能力进入第二季度。至于氢气工厂，它一直运行良好。我们在12月重新开始。显然，并非一切都是完美的。我们的行动还处于初期阶段。但话说回来，我们每个月都在进步。如果你看了我们今天早上发布的一些新闻稿和投资者信息，4月份的时候，我们已经全速运转了。我们每天的产量是12000桶。对我们空军基地的进展感到非常高兴。就像我说的，有能力切换信号保持我们的优势。总而言之，我对我们所取得的成就和目前所处的位置非常满意。布鲁斯?
布鲁斯·弗莱明:我认为这是非常彻底的。我要补充的是，这个网站的机械可用性非常好。去年8月，我们意外地将利率下调了一半，当然，这已经过去了。但在此期间，大约有65万桶石油通过铁路运往美国。所以我们不得不降低火车每天的费用，然后你必须把它放松，然后把它转回来。这些不是像管道网络那样的瞬间移动。
罗杰·里德:在认识到MRL的启动问题时，我有另一个问题，季节性因素，我们对现金流产生的期望是什么，在夏季的几个月里，可能会降低营运资本?考虑更广泛的现金流和自由现金流预期。
布鲁斯·弗莱明:罗杰，又是布鲁斯。我想说，首先，它是正的。你认识到我们去年建立了花费我们现金的库存，然后我基本上只是说我们正在拉它，这是正确的。我认为我们将达到一个正常化的水平，不过，或者已经有了一个正常化的水平，完成了推出旧的饲料。这是旧饲料质量，旧饲料价格和旧饲料量，对吧?所以我不认为展望未来，我们计划让流动资金流动起来。
罗杰·里德:我想我的意思是更广泛的公司。
布鲁斯·弗莱明:好的。的歉意。我给了你核磁共振成像的答案。我会让大卫做重点标记。
大卫·鲁宁:也许我就在这里滔滔不绝了。我认为整个组织也是如此，对吧?第一季度吸收的大部分营运资本来自蒙大拿州可再生能源公司。这是旧饲料高于正常库存水平的一个功能，比我们在当前市场上看到的更昂贵，我们必须在这些原料进入时支付费用。这是标准化的。我们还看到利率大幅上升。随着利率的连续上升，正如我们所说的，你必须替换这些原料，你需要提前购买更多的原料。就像布鲁斯说的，我们会看到一些流动资金的波动。我们在第一季度的资产负债表上有太多的东西。我们将在第二季度看到一些回升，我们认为在那之后会达到正常水平。
接线员:下一个问题来自瑞银集团的Saumya Jain。
Saumya Jain:我猜你认为蒙大拿州在24年第二季度和今年总体上的杠杆率是多少?你在削减债务方面进展如何?
布鲁斯·弗莱明:嗨，萨姆亚，我是布鲁斯。大部分我都听到了。你问的是蒙大拿的杠杆和债务削减。我要让大卫和托德来处理公司层面的债务定位。在不受限制的子公司中，杠杆是市场保证金的函数。托德讨论了由于PPA的一些措施，这是人为降低的，我们希望这能正常化。业内有很多人猜测，游戏行业正常化的速度有多快。我不认为我们比其他人有更好的水晶球，但我们预计所有这些都将在今年年底前清除，就可再生能源的正常市场状况而言。对于化石燃料，在特种沥青方面，第二季度和第三季度通常是全年现金流的主要贡献。这是一个比以往美国平均水平更强烈的季节性市场。所以我们预计，所有这些事情的总和在时间上有点不确定，但在晚秋之前肯定是标准化的。
Todd Borgmann:是的。Saumya，如果我可以——你问我，我特别考虑了MRL的杠杆和负债。我不认为有任何增加债务的计划，资本结构的任何变化都将与你将拥有的交易相吻合。所以我不会期望有任何结果。我不能对我们正在做的任何事情给出指导，因为这种对话正在进行中。所以对我们要有耐心，但不要期望在那里承担某种增量债务，除非它与能源部贷款有关，MAX SAF扩张。然后在更广泛的层面上，Calumet专注于去杠杆化。因此，任何来自运营的现金都将用于偿还母公司的债务，这就是我们对合并后集团去杠杆化战略的看法。
大卫?鲁宁:时机成熟时，蒙大拿州可再生能源公司也会从中获利。
接线员:下一个问题来自美国银行的格雷格·布罗迪。
格雷格·布罗迪:我只是想问，我不知道你能说什么因为你说你不能说太多但是关于扩建项目，你能告诉我们更多关于潜在规模的信息吗?我想你也谈到了核磁共振成像的结果。这是我们下个季度的预期吗?
布鲁斯·弗莱明:嗨，格雷格，我是布鲁斯。我将开始。至于结果，我就不提这个问题了。但在MAX SAF上，我们已经使用了一个每天18000桶的外部占位器很多年了。我们对即将交付的产品处于最低水平或低端感到非常满意。所以我认为我们今天早上可能不需要重新引导，但是对已经存在了一段时间的18000人非常满意。
Todd Borgmann:是的。我认为人们的期望仍然是，蒙大拿可再生能源公司将继续发展。David在准备好的发言中提到了部分的EBITDA分割。显然，我们无法给出具体的数字，但第一季度的绝大部分损失来自蒙大拿冬季遗留的沥青业务，我们预计这一业务将会恢复，蒙大拿可再生能源应该会在第二季度单独剥离。
格雷格·布罗迪:明白了。然后我知道还没有人问RIN的问题，所以我就带着它进来。我知道有一个合理的——我有一些来自第五巡回法院的好消息。你能告诉我们最新的情况吗?接下来会发生什么?
布鲁斯·弗莱明:还是布鲁斯，我先开始，然后看看有没有人想补上。所以整个行业仍然在努力通过环保局的彻底逆转，当然，在他们的管理上。这些诉讼从联邦地区法院开始。其中一些已经合并到dc电路中，但不是全部。所以在第五巡回法院也就是我们什里夫波特案所在的地方，现行的规则是环保局的撤销是不恰当的，它违反了法律违反了行政记录他们将它发回环保局进行交易。所以我们基本上是在等待环保局的消息，看他们会怎么做。蒙大拿的业务是在直流电路中。这是合并案件之一。口头辩论已经举行，我们都将等待法庭的裁决。我们的观点是，出于同样的原因，它可能与第五巡回法院相似，但这只是猜测。律师告诉我们，这是下半年最有可能的，当我们得到公布的判决和DC电路。这有帮助吗?
格雷格·布罗迪:是的。然后是蒙大拿州的决定如果结果对你有利我们会再次回到环保局。对吗?
布鲁斯·弗莱明:是的。这不仅仅是卡吕梅特的问题。有很多公司都在同一领域。实际上是在第11巡回法院，涉及到其他一些案件等等。所以我认为舞台已经合理地为政治家准备好了，比如温和的引导，把各方拉回到一起。我确实注意到，大约一个月前，泰斯特参议员立即提出了一项法案来清理其中的一些问题。
格雷格·布罗迪:接下来是两个问题。你能不能。我知道你这个季度偿还了库存贷款，中介贷款。这是否改善了你的借贷基础?到今天为止情况如何?然后在债务方面，我听到了你将如何处理25的答案但是你能提醒我们使用MRL的现金来帮助你偿还债务的灵活性是什么在某种程度上是有灵活性的吗?
布鲁斯·弗莱明:是的。所以如果你回到去年，我们实际上有3个库存融资设施，一个在MRL，一个在CMR，一个在什里夫波特。为了完整起见，在CMR，我们将库存添加到ABL中。然后我们再融资——这是去年，在蒙大拿的工厂。然后我们再融资的一个在1月中旬关闭的是什里夫波特工厂。它的工作原理与之前的非常相似。我想说，这可能会略微改善我们的流动性。所以它不是很大，但在边际上，它对我们来说是一个更好的设施。第二个问题是，是的，有能力让现金回流到母公司。它是否非常明确地表达出来，无论是我们如何与现有合作伙伴分享的红利。
格雷格·布罗迪:明白了。澄清一下借款基数。今天的借款基数是多少，季度末是多少?只是想弄清楚你的流动资金是多少。
大卫·鲁宁:是的。因此，本季度的流动性约为2.12亿美元。借款基础为5.64亿美元，但总贷款规模约为6.5亿美元。所以它远远超过了2亿美元的可用流动资金。
接线员:下一个问题来自Cowen的杰森·加贝尔曼。
Jason Gabelman:我想先谈谈MRL的盈利过程。我认为在过去你已经讨论过它是一个2024年的事件但只是给出了你对可再生柴油边际环境的近期前景的一些评论，你仍然认为它是一个2024年的事件还是你认为如果你把货币化一点，可能会有更好的机会产生更多的收益?
Todd Borgmann:嗨Jason，我是Todd。我先开始，看看布鲁斯会不会加入。我们认为这是一个机会。我们已经非常明确地表示，我们希望将蒙大拿可再生能源的一部分货币化。这是我们公司整体去杠杆化战略的一部分。所以这仍然是最重要的。与此同时，如果市场不支持，短期内也没有什么特别紧急的事情要做。所以我们要做的是平衡风险回报。如果行业利润率保持在现在这样低的水平，市场空间和投资者的眼光存在问题，我们的资产没有得到适当的价值，那么你是对的，在这种环境下进行交易将是愚蠢的。话虽如此，我认为有了一个干净的第二季度，我们可以证明蒙大拿可再生能源的竞争优势，在这个领域脱颖而出，开始看到一些指数利润率的回报。随着投资者不仅对可再生柴油越来越有信心，而且最终对我们在SAF的先行者地位越来越有信心，你可能会看到有人伸出手来，希望更快采取行动，而不一定要在一段时间内看到完美的行业利润。因此，我们将在这方面保持机会主义。我们非常专注于减少债务。因此，我们不想过于贪婪，但与此同时，我们最终关注的是股东价值。所以我们喜欢这种平衡。
贾森·加贝尔曼:然后财政部最近发布了40左右的指导意见，SAF贷款机构到2025年的税收抵免。我只是想知道这会对你的能力产生怎样的影响。我知道有一些独特的基于植物油的原料，你在现场运行了相当数量的菜籽油。
布鲁斯·弗莱明:我们所有的SAF都是由牛脂生产的。
杰森·加贝尔曼:好的。在MAX SAF的情况下，这也是正确的吗?
布鲁斯·弗莱明:我们可以。考虑MAX SAF的最佳方式是一个产量灵活性项目。我想确保我们的投资者都明白，这不是一个巨大的分岔决定，我们要么有柴油，要么有SAF，我们将像炼油厂一样，我们将能够在这两种馏分产品之间平稳、灵活地切换，我们将跟随市场。
杰森·加贝尔曼:好的。但我想问一下，你对40B的理解是，如果在财政部的指导下，用油菜籽生产员工，油菜籽不会产生太大的价值吗?
大卫·鲁宁:杰森，是的。我不想在这里装模作样但你在假设我们把SAF卖到哪里了。我不会做这样的假设。世界各国刚刚在短期内设定了SAF目标。仅在新加坡、英国和欧盟之间，每年就有3.83亿加仑的SAF，而这是不存在的。因此，贸易流动重新安排的方式是一种投机行为。我们的兴趣是非常非常战术的。我们与加拿大接壤。我们说的是加拿大的油菜籽。今年夏天，我们已经看到50%的产品转向北方。从经济学的角度来看，我们必须克服交替的倾向。现在，如果世界要求比现有的SAF桶更多的强制性混合量，这对价格就有影响。所以我们认为将会出现巨大的脱节。我们认为，新兴的储蓄基金市场将出现很大波动。我们认为，有一些证据表明，各国政府正在相互竞争，争取成为实现这一目标的国家。然后再靠近一些，像伊利诺斯州这样的州强制，抱歉，强制用错了词，像伊利诺斯州SAF贷款税收抵免这样的州激励，每加仑1.5美元。如果你是伊利诺斯州的纳税人，你可以通过其他操作来使用它。所以在接下来的一段时间里，会有很多鸭子的脚在水面下划动。
贾森·加贝尔曼:如果我能在能源部的贷款过程中挤出第三个快速的例子。我知道你能说的有限但你现在还在向能源部提供项目相关的信息吗还是说完全由他们来决定?
大卫·鲁宁:几个月前我们进入了承销业务。我有理由相信我们已经宣布了。这个过程已经取得了很大进展。我想我就讲到这里。
接线员:下一个问题来自高盛的尼尔·梅塔。
尼尔·梅塔:我非常喜欢你展示的关于可再生柴油和生物柴油成本曲线的幻灯片。按照目前的价格，很多东西都不在这个范围内。所以我很喜欢你的观点，你认为如果我们不巩固LCFS和RINs，我们是否看到了行业合理化有助于使市场达到平衡，这周我们看到了一些证据。但任何关于这方面的观点都会很好。
布鲁斯·弗莱明:当然。我将开始。有几件事要记住。首先，我们已经看到了行业的合理化。在过去的六个月里，我们关闭了四家生物柴油工厂。令人惊讶的是，我们现在有了一个可再生柴油生产商，他们又开始生产化石燃料了。这些都是不可持续的，一些事情将会发生。所以会有更多的闭包。我们会让环保署重新设定RVO，我们会让农作物价格继续下跌。如果你查看芝加哥证交所大豆油价格的历史，你会发现它在过去18个月里下跌了50%。这些将会在某个地方引起监管部门的反应。因此，人们猜测的只是谁在何时、以多快的速度行动。但是现在，需要明确的是，环保局已经成立了一个委员会，要求现有的整个北美工业必须达到65%的利用率。这绝对会根据这个成本堆栈来排序玩家。
托德·博格曼:尼尔，我想我要补充的是，布鲁斯的观点是，我们远远低于基本面的供应水平。因此，我们还没有看到关闭的速度达到我们需要平衡曲线的速度。如果你看45亿加仑，你会说，嘿，这应该是固定的。大型生物柴油能满足这个需求吗?目前的指数利润率远低于该集团产生现金所需的水平。我们经常听到的一件事就是对冲是如何发挥作用的。当你考虑到一个作物周期和一个夏季的对冲时，我们可能会有一点不理性和日常决策随着它的发展，这群人将不得不做出不同的经济决策。就布鲁斯所说的农作物价格或其他边际要素的相反反应是必须的否则我们就看不到持续的生产。
尼尔·梅塔:托德，我很欣赏你一开始对C-Corp转换重要性的评论。我当然同意这个观点。你能否分享一些投资者的观点，你是否认为，当你四处走动，与人们交谈时，当你转变为C-Corp时，有可能会有更多的参与。然后再次提醒我们到达那里的门槛是什么2024年中期仍然是最好的参照点。
Todd Borgmann:是的，你说对了。所以，是的，2024年中期仍然是时间线。在这个过程中，我们做了很多检查。这是一个非常有效的过程。我们提交了S-4表格。所以我们会拿出最后的修正案。我们会安排一个单位持有者投票。这是完成这项工作的两个主要步骤，这给了我们信心，这是在短期内完成的。从投资者的角度来看，他们对MLP的限制相当积极，也让人大开眼界。如果我们回过头来看，mlp不受欢迎已经有一段时间了。在某个时间点，这个决定会在普通合伙人和冲突委员会等人之前做出。我认为，我们可能没有意识到的是，由于特许状，许多投资者根本无法投资于mlp。所以我们采访过的很多机构都说，我们真的很喜欢Calumet的故事，他们一直在关注这个故事。我知道这是一个催化剂驱动的故事，也知道我们对两个长期基本业务和增长轨迹的支持。但我们真的没能在这方面投资。所以我认为他们现在正在做工作，深入了解这个名字。它们不是在转换日突然发生的灵丹妙药，我们的交易流动性是原来的五倍。但我们确实期待一些新的机构投资者的加入，他们以前不可能投资，但愿意加入我们的行列，我们将从被动型指数中获得帮助。这些东西已经变得相当大了。现在50%的股票市场都是被动策略持有的这是一笔惊人的资金，是Calumet无法获得的投资资金。
接线员:下一个问题来自H.C. Wainwright公司的阿米特·达亚尔。
Amit Dayal:考虑到目前对指数利润率的压力，我们应该如何看待你们的MRL使用策略，至少在短期内是这样?
布鲁斯·弗莱明:阿米特，我是布鲁斯。我只想指出，如果我们是低成本生产商，我们将会满负荷生产。
阿米特·达亚尔:好的。理解。这正是我想听到的。然后关于第二季度的表现，你认为MRL继续对EBITDA水平有一点拖累，或者你认为你应该看到MRL至少在短期内有一点更多的支持?
大卫·鲁宁:我们认为它将继续保持积极，对吗?我们在第一季度看到的以及我们在3月份通过积极的EBITDA强调的是，我们在2月和1月看到了来自旧饲料建设的持续压力，这在3月份开始发生变化，并持续到4月份。因此，我们当然会继续期待蒙大拿可再生能源的EBITDA贡献为正。就像我们在分析师日上提到的供应堆栈一样，EBITDA的数量将是更广泛的指数利润率如何改善的一个函数。我们认为，短期内，我们的EBITDA基本上会比大豆指数利润率低0.85美元/加仑左右，而且随着时间的推移，这种情况将继续改善。因此，如果我们看到指数利润率保持在目前的水平，我们肯定处于正的EBITDA领域。随着整个夏天的改善，我们的EBITDA也会随之改善。就像Bruce说的，最关键的一点是我们在堆栈的正确位置。因此，鉴于市场低于基本面应该显示的水平，市场将会趋于理性，这就是市场的行为。最终，我们由此产生的EBITDA将继续增加。
接线员:女士们先生们，今天的问答环节到此结束。我想把讲台交给Calumet的投资者关系部的John Kompa来做总结发言。
约翰·康帕:谢谢，杰米。我谨代表Calumet管理团队，感谢大家今天上午的时间，感谢你们对公司的持续关注。周末愉快。再次感谢你，非常感谢。
接线员:女士们，先生们，今天的电话会议到此结束。感谢您出席今天的报告会。您现在可以断开线路了。
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