HF Sinclair Corporation (NYSE:DINO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Todd from Piper Sandler.

Ryan Todd: Maybe I will follow-up on Manav’s shout out there for the R&D business. Congrats on the underlying margin improvement there. Throughput and sales remain at relatively low utilization rate. Can you walk through where you are in the process of increasing utilization up to normalized levels, whether hydrogen sourcing is still limiting factor? How you are making progress on the process of extending time between catalyst turnarounds, improving product yield, et cetera? So maybe just a little more granularity on where you are in the process of getting that where you want it to be?

Tim Go: Ryan, we are pleased to show that renewable diesel business is profitable this quarter. We think we have turned the corner here. Let me ask, Steve Ledbetter, our commercial lead to talk about it.

Steve Ledbetter: We are also encouraged, as you are, by a positive quarter. There is a few things that helped us deliver the positive quarter. The first was really looking at our feedstock and optimizing the low CI acquisition and putting that into our sites, taking advantage of our pre-treatment unit. We had improved yield performance throughout the quarter. And then, to be honest, selling out into the markets during the highest part of the margin cycle of the quarter, as well as taking some OpEx levers and pulling those. Those are all part of the path forward. We were somewhat limited by hydrogen availability. But we have just finished coming out of a [CAT] change at Artesia and we took the opportunity to go improve our hydrogen availability at our large SMR there at Artesia. Let me hand it to Val on hydrogen availability and operational improvements.

Valerie Pompa: As we have stated before, we continue to invest in our hydrogen systems at all of our plants, particularly in Artesia. We have just completed the SMR. We made upgrades in our turnaround in the CCR and we are starting to see the benefits from those in our Renewables business as well as Refining.

Ryan Todd: And maybe, just shifting gears on the Refining side to the West Coast, real strong margins and strong cash flow and profitability there in the quarter. Can you talk about what you are seeing out there in terms of market dynamics? And if you look forward to the start-up of [TMX] next year, how will that, if at all, impact your ability to source advantaged crude at the Puget Sound refinery?

Steve Ledbetter: I think, we enjoyed the cracks in the margin environment in Q3 on the West Coast. We see some softness coming in particularly in gas, but it’s normal and and seasonal through this next quarter and the first quarter. But overall, we think that there is going to be a length in particularly with [RD] coming into the West Coast, but we think there will be a bit of short structure on both gas and jet, and we look to take advantage of that. As far as TMX coming on, when that happens, we think it will compress some of the differentials, particularly when they call for line fill temporarily. But as that line gets up and running reliably, we believe that it will put more barrels out on the water and actually give us a bit of an advantage for our refinery in the Pacific Northwest.

Tim Go: And Ryan, let me just follow-up and say, we believe our Refining portfolio continues to be a strategic advantage and competitive advantage for us, just in terms of the markets we serve and the demographics that we serve in our markets. The West Coast, in particular, I would say is a beneficiary of this integration effort that we have been focused on here over the last six to 12 months. We have a — with the Sinclair and the legacy Holly frontier assets in the West, with the addition of Puget Sound, we really believe that that is a underappreciated portfolio that we are continuing to unlock the potential of and you are going to continue to see good results come out of the West.