Green Plains Partners LP (NASDAQ:GPP) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Craig Irwin: Thank you for that. So my follow up question, I mean maybe this one’s for Devin. But last week I was in DC, meeting with lobbyists from the oil and renewable fuels industry and a couple people suggested that the delay of the credits that we’re looking for, the language from treasury is related to changes that were made in the Greek model or potentially made in the Greek model. The disadvantaged green gas in particular. And they’re suggesting that there’s an open dialogue about the Greek model, whether or not it needs to be revised. The original model was right. Can you maybe just give us color on why you’re confident this is likely to be finalized by the end of the year? Is there anything in the potential changes that may have happened that would impact the carbon credits, the way you look at it, or SAF or anything related to ethanol?

Todd Becker: Go ahead, Devin. Real quick there.

Devin Mogler: Yes, Craig. So we’ve heard the exact same thing. They’re looking at the renewable natural gas at tweaking the green model for that. Ultimately, we think they will arrive at something that we can play in. We’ve heard all the indications from the administration is that they want ethanol and soy-based feedstocks to be able to play in sustainable aviation fuel. We’ve heard that from the President. He’s actually going to be in Minnesota tomorrow. He may comment on the topic there. So while the timing does slip and they are still looking at updating the Greek model, we are confident that there will be a place for us to play there.

Craig Irwin: Perfect. Thank you. Thanks again for taking my question.

Todd Becker: Appreciate it. Thanks.

Operator: The next question is from Ben Bienvenu with Stephens. Your line is open.

Ben Bienvenu: Hey, thanks. Good morning.

Todd Becker: Good morning.

Ben Bienvenu: Todd, I wanted to pick up on your commentary that you offered around the contribution from Tharaldson and then the five MSC facilities. You talked about the $80 million to $120 million to next year’s EBITDA. Can you help us think about kind of what determines the range there? Is it the ramping and scaling of production or something else?

Todd Becker: Yes, I mean, it’s a little bit of timing. It’s a little bit of just watching the spreads between corn and soy and what will happen there. When we think about 560 million gallons converted plus Tharaldson gets us to 640 million gallons and we look at let’s call it a – what we kind of guided early at $0.15 a gallon that gets you right in the middle of the range. So just kind of we’re watching the ratio of corn against soy meal. What we are doing is looking at that and then saying what markets? We get – the values for export sometimes are better than domestic and the values for domestic are sometimes better than export. But some of it is also this volatility we’ve seen in the soybean meal basis as of late.

It’s come back roaring back. And 60 Pro is not even included in that at this point. So we just put in a range around it. But the middle of the range is kind of that $0.15 a gallon that we kind of outlined as a contribution, and then we go from there.

Ben Bienvenu: Okay, great. Super helpful. My second question is on the Clean Sugar Technology. And you talk about commissioning of Shenandoah and the overwhelming demand that you’re seeing there, which is really encouraging. As you think about potentially expanding that production, can you talk a little bit about your appetite for the pace of doing that? And do you think you would be in a place to self fund that as some of your other CapEx projects start to wind down as we head into 2024 and your cash flow picks up from some of the investments you’ve made already?

Todd Becker: Yes, I think where we look first is obviously Shenandoah, which is the easiest expansion, and we’re working with customers to look at that. We got to make sure that, relatively speaking, all of what we need resources locally are there from electricity, through gas, water, all those type of things. But where we’ll look after that, that’s an easy one to fund. Where we’ll look after that is what’s the next best plant to build in? Is it a Nebraska plant on a pipeline? Or is it going to be one of our plants that really aren’t on, don’t have a carbon solution? Maybe like a Madison or an Obion at this point? So we’ll look at that when we look at cash generation. What we’ve learned this quarter now and then going into the fourth quarter is, we’re really set up well for free cash flow generation to start to help self fund.

Although we still have a lot of cash on the balance sheet and we’re generating more. But we see how we set our balance sheet up with low debt levels, relatively speaking, high cash levels. You saw our rate is still sitting around 7% in a high rate environment, new capital is much more expensive. So we would start to say, what can we fund off the balance sheet? What assets do we have if we needed to finance anything? But beyond that, free cash flow generation should take care of, I would say plant number two very easily over the next 12 months to 18 months as we start to look at where that should be.

Ben Bienvenu: Okay, great. Very good. Thanks. Best of luck.

Todd Becker: Thank you.

Operator: The next question is from Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Unidentified Analyst: Yes, hello, good morning. This is actually [indiscernible] stepping in for Adam. I was wondering if you could provide some color on the corn basis and how’s that impacted your margins in this quarter and what would be your expectation going forward?

Todd Becker: Yes, with us today we have Grant Kadavy. He’s our EVP of Commercial Operations. I’ll let him give a quick comment on the corn basis and what he’s seen. I wanted to introduce everybody to Grant. He’ll be on future calls as well and we’ll get him introduced to all of you. But Grant now runs all of our marketing and all of our proteins anytime, anything commercializes, it’ll move under him and he runs our commercial operations across the platform. So Grant, real quick on the corn basis.

Grant Kadavy: Sure. Good morning. Thanks for the question. During the third quarter, we did see the transition from old crop to new crop. So we did see a material decrease in the overall corn basis. Heading into the fourth quarter into the new crop season, I would say we’ve seen more of a normalization of corn basis during harvest and then the potential for a more normalized scenario through the balance of the year.

Unidentified Analyst: That’s super helpful. And as a follow up, if I could ask on your outlook for ethanol exports, where will be your expectations going forward?