And like Doug said, we have got a lot of things out of our way today and we have got the people in place and they are doing a really good job of fine tuning all fronts of the business.
Amit Dayal: Thank you, Ben. Well, I will leave it there. I will take my other questions offline. Some of my other questions have already been discussed, so thank you so much.
Ben Cowart: Thank you, Amit.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brian Butler with Stifel. Your line is open.
Brian Butler: Hi. Good morning guys. Thanks for taking my questions.
Ben Cowart: Good morning Brian.
Brian Butler: Just on the first one, on the conventional based on the hedges that you have in place and your expectation on the downturn as well as just kind of the production for 1Q, how should we think about the EBITDA of the conventional business for 1Q assuming prices stay where they are? I mean are we positive, a little positive, a lot positive, negative?
Ben Cowart: Yes. I mean as we look at the forward curves right now, Brian, and then based on the cracks that Doug laid out, yes, I would say we are positive at the moment.
Brian Butler: Okay. And then on the CI scores, when you look at the new scores, can you give any color around maybe the magnitude of the benefit, I mean how much of an improvement are we looking at relative where the baseline is? And with that improvement, does that make RD pass breakeven on an EBITDA basis, or is it still need feedstock – other feedstock improvements?
Ben Cowart: That’s a good question. It’s about the improvement varies by feed. But it’s 20% plus improvement over the defaults, in some cases, better than that. So, it’s helpful, but I would say that while it’s – yes, it’s probably – that probably gets you pretty close to a breakeven margin with those. But I would say that in general, as fast as RINs have continued to decline, I mean we have lost another $0.40 of RIN just this quarter, so almost $0.70 a gallon since January down, right. So and we lost – who was it, James, over $1 a gallon in the fourth quarter on RINS. So, the LCFS has been depressed, and that’s certainly a factor and these CI values will help us recover a little bit more value out of that even at these levels for sure.
But the impact of that is muted because LCFS is so depressed anyway, right. So, you get a little bit higher value or more credit generation, but the credits are still worth a lot less than they were a year ago, as an example. But the real killer for RD margins right now is just the RIN performance. On D4 RINs, we were down almost – well, they are 50% off where they were between January and February. And some of that move was very violent in just a week. So, when we are trying to forecast run rates and plan our volumes against the available margin, it’s an extremely volatile next year when you add RIN moves of that magnitude within a week. So, that’s what we are facing with. So, I think the industry – I think we and the industry frankly need feeds to recalibrate to the current margins picture, pretty good amount from where they are.
They have come down a good bit from last fall, obviously, but there is more to give there or else RD margins are going to be very tough for everybody.
Brian Butler: Right. I mean I guess unless we see the feedstock come in, I mean I don’t think RINs are going to improve until we get a new RVO and that’s probably a couple of years out. It’s – sorry, if RINs aren’t going to improve and feedstock remains persistently higher than expected, is there other options for the RD infrastructure, or is it really you just got to hope these things improve and then RD starts to work?
Ben Cowart: Brian, I think that’s a good question. And the answer is yes, I mean the assets that we have had their own life prior to the investment. The investments that we have made are robust improvements and can be recaptured in a different way long-term. And so we always have options, and we constantly review those options as we look at these current market conditions.
Brian Butler: Okay. That’s helpful. And then one last quick one. On the first quarter ‘24 with all the balance sheet changes, what’s the expected interest expense now?
Chris Carlson: Yes, interest expense should run for the term, the term loan, which is the biggest portion, right at $8 million to $9 million.
Brian Butler: Okay. Thank you very much.
Ben Cowart: Thank you, Brian.
Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to the speakers for closing remarks.
Ben Cowart: Yes, operator and thank you everyone for joining the call today. We appreciate your interest in the business and we look forward to keeping you informed as we complete this quarter and come back with new information on the progress we are making here with the business. Thank you.
Operator: This concludes today’s call. You may now disconnect.
