SunCoke Energy, Inc. (NYSE:SXC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Lucas Pipes: And in light of the strategic process that U.S. Steel is running, has there been more or less activity since August?

Katherine Gates: We have continued to move forward. The activity remains the same.

Operator: The next question is from Nathan Martin from The Benchmark Company.

Nathan Martin: Just maybe 1 more, Katherine, on the Granite City GPI opportunity. Can you talk about maybe any of the biggest hurdles kind of remaining there on those negotiations?

Katherine Gates: I would just say, in saying it was complex, I mean, whether we’re talking about the capital, we’re talking about the siting, we’re talking about all of those elements of it, those things just take time. They are absolutely things that we can work through but they do take time.

Nathan Martin: Okay. Got it. Maybe shifting over to the Domestic Coke segment. Obviously, you maintain your expectations for full year adjusted EBITDA at the high end of the range. If my math is correct, that only implies EBITDA of around $49 million in the fourth quarter to get you to that high end of the range which would — should be down about $15 million quarter-over-quarter. So I guess the question is, given all your coke sales are finalized, I’m wondering what are the headwinds you see in the fourth quarter that caused you to believe maybe a sequential decline like that is possible? Or maybe are you baking a little bit of conservatism into your guidance?

Katherine Gates: I appreciate the question. Yes — no, we’re really pleased with our year-to-date performance and we have a significant amount of planned outage work in the fourth quarter. That’s contemplated in our guidance. And I think we’ve said before, certain of our planned outages are largely expensed. And so this is really — it’s not dissimilar to, for example, last year and some of our other fourth quarters, Nathan. And it’s — actually it’s why we don’t give quarterly guidance. But with those planned outages and this planned work, we still remain well positioned to achieve the high end of our guidance range.

Nathan Martin: So Katherine, just maybe a little bit more on the planned outages. Are those going to affect adjusted EBITDA per ton? I mean, clearly, your sales volume guidance stayed around 4 million. So I guess that doesn’t necessarily get affected much. How does that kind of affect the operations output?

Katherine Gates: So with these outages, there’s higher O&M when they occur. It does affect our EBITDA per ton but that’s fully contemplated in our guidance. It was contemplated at the beginning of the year.

Nathan Martin: Okay. Maybe I’ll move over to the logistics business. I mean there, I guess you did adjust your full year guidance to the low end of the prior range which actually looks like it would imply a $5 million or so quarter-over-quarter EBITDA increase. Would be great to get your thoughts maybe on some puts and takes there in the fourth quarter. Also curious what you guys are assuming for full year throughput. I think original guidance was 22 million tons, with maybe 10 million from CMT. Is there any updates on that front?

Katherine Gates: So with respect to what we’re seeing for fourth quarter, as Mark mentioned, the API2 price adjustment is recovering for us. So that’s part of what you’re seeing coming through. And then we do expect to see higher volumes on logistics.

Shantanu Agrawal: To add to that, Nate, on a full year basis, our guidance was 10 million — approximately 10 million tons for CMT and approximately 12 million for other logistics business. So we are going to be a little bit short of that on a full year basis. So if you look at kind of what we have performed earlier in the year that’s kind of what Q4 is going to look like. But overall, the volumes will come in a little bit short but we are guiding towards the lower end of the EBITDA guidance.

Nathan Martin: Okay. Yes, Shantanu, that’s kind of what’s going to be my next question. So that makes sense that you may be a little short on a shipment guidance standpoint. I guess it would also be helpful, though, if you guys could give some more color around the split between coal shipments and other shipments at CMT. That was kind of the bulk of the quarter-over-quarter decline it looked like from a shipment perspective. Is it more weakness in coal? Or is it some of the other products you guys are moving through the terminal?