Darling Ingredients Inc. (NYSE:DAR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Adam Samuelson: Yes. So Randy, in your prepared remarks, you kind of talked about making sure that to consider the kind of balance — the earnings might shift between feed and Diamond Green depending on kind of where prices are and where the RD margins are. And so I’m just trying to get a sense, the full year EBITDA guidance is minimum of $1.10 a gallon. And you talked about upside in the second quarter because fat prices have come down, and that will accrue into DGD. But I just — I mean, am I wrong to think that spot margins certainly in the first quarter are comfortably north of that $1.10 a gallon? And so I’m just trying to get a sense of kind of where kind of quarter-to-date margins have been tracking. And it would seem like that’s trending in the right direction for the — into the second quarter based on kind of some easing feedstock prices. And then I’ve got a follow-up on the feed business.

Randall Stuewe: Okay. No, it’s a fair question, Adam. And you’re reading the breadcrumbs really well there. The — ultimately, as we look at Diamond Green Diesel margins, remember, the $1.10 we put out there is what we believe the competitive advantage is that 1, 2 and 3 have against any other producer today. I would — if you want to see the advantage, look at HollyFrontier DINO’s RD gallons and earnings for fourth quarter. So there it is, again, as we show people what we do for a living. Number two, yes, the margin — spot margins are better than what they — we’re getting for the full year. Remember, Diamond Green Diesel 1 was down for a catalyst turnaround here February 3. It’s back up at capacity. But — so at the end of the day, we’re getting up, that’s back online.

Number 3 is still in the process of getting up to the full rate and where we believe it can go. And our partners, Valero, mentioned on their call logistic challenges. I mean, clearly, there’s no secrets out in the world. We got a lot of cars sitting down there waiting to unload and to get up to rate there. And so ultimately, at the end of the day, we’re going to pick up incredible momentum in the Diamond Green Diesel system throughout the year. The other piece that I want to kind of put out there to let everybody noodle on is you can’t be bearish fat prices if you’re bullish renewable diesel capacity. It just doesn’t work that way. And so at the end of the day, you’ve got to pick or choose the craps table where you’re going to place your bet here.

Is that RD capacity coming online, then you got to get bullish fat prices, which is bullish our base ingredient business. If you don’t believe that capacity is coming online, then there’s adequate fat to run number 3 and all of this, and we’ll be running full waste fats at great margins. So end of the day, people have to decide what they truly believe here. What we’ve proven is $1.40 a gallon in Q4. And as I said before, the numbers do the talk. And so let’s go to the Feed segment, Adam.

Adam Samuelson: Okay. That’s really helpful. So then in Feed, I was hoping you can kind of just break down a little more the contribution from Valley and FASA in the fourth quarter. Kind of from the K, it implied that the net loss of Valley seems to have actually gotten bigger in fourth quarter, and maybe there’s some accounting noise kind of in there. But can you help us think about kind of the earnings contribution in Feed? It seemed like it degraded through the quarter in part because of the fire and the capacity, but kind of — and what that implies going through the first quarter.

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