Broadwind, Inc. (NASDAQ:BWEN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Justin Clare : So first one, I wanted to ask about the capacity that’s available at the Abilene facility here, given the change to the long-term agreements. So it looks like you have capacity that’s at least part of your capacity is open for Q1 and Q2 of 2024. Just wanted to see, do you still have time to fill that capacity at this point? Or is it really Q3 and Q4 that you’re going to be booking into? So trying to get a sense for what the utilization could be at that facility. And then maybe if you could just comment on the demand in that region because it seems like it’s been fairly strong recently. So maybe you can just speak to what you’re seeing.

Eric Blashford: Yes, I think you’re right. And if we would take this 20% capacity utilization and spread that ratably over the year, that would be good, I think, to model. We’re still working out some specifics with our customer, but that would be good to model. As far as how quickly we could replace that capacity, I think as we talked before, 20 weeks in the short, maybe 26 weeks in the long term as far as lead times. So I think we’d be booking into the latter part of Q2, 3 and 4. But I do think we’re going to see some demand in that market, especially towards the latter part of 2024 for production in ’25. And just a reminder what I said earlier, what we’ve seen recently and it’s quite public. There’s been a lot of announcements from certain EPCs and certain developers that because of interest rates that are much higher now and some inflationary costs that are higher right now and some supply chain delays, which frankly we haven’t seen many of, but they have, it’s causing them to ask for higher power purchase agreements from utilities because their projects are being squeezed from a financial return standpoint.

We’ve also seen more interconnection delays than we had thought we were going to see. But you’re right, that southern market, that Texas, Oklahoma market still remains a strong market, notwithstanding some of these interconnection delays and the interest and inflation aspects that I mentioned. We still believe that the long-term impact of the IRA is going to be felt kind of post 2024, and that’s a hot market literally for wind, and I think it will remain that way in the future.

Justin Clare : Got it, okay. That’s really helpful. And then just shifting to the Manitowoc facility. Can you comment on if you’ve seen any meaningful shift in demand at that facility, even looking into 2025? How are customers —

Eric Blashford: Yes. What I’ve seen, as I mentioned, I thought things were going to tend to move from the south to the north. That tends to be typical. There’s a pendulum swing that seems to go north to south depending on states’ appetite for supporting renewables or whatnot. I think it is starting to move north. We have seen several, what I would call, meaningful inquiries for that capacity, the northern capacity at the northern plant, Justin, for, I would call late third, fourth quarter of ’24. So it’s coming back, activity, quoting activity, interest is increasing, but I certainly don’t have any orders to report at this time.

Justin Clare : Got it, okay. And then maybe just 1 more here. You mentioned in the prepared remarks, AR had ticked up here in Q3. It sounds like there was a change in the terms with a particular customer. Can you talk about what that — what the change might have been there? And then should we be anticipating AR moving lower in Q4 as you collect on some of the receivables generated in Q3?

Tom Ciccone: Yes. As I said in the prepared remarks, I think we have an expectation in Q4 that our operating working capital will decrease. I think that’s — that we could just leave it at that. I think that’s — we don’t think there’s anything else meaningful there.

Operator: We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call back to Eric Blashford for closing comments.

Eric Blashford : Well, thanks, everyone, for joining. We appreciate your interest and look forward to coming back to you after Q4 to talk about our Q4 results. Have a great day, everyone.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.

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