All right. I think we're ready to go here. I don't think I can physically get back here. Okay. Anyway, I'm Doug Harned, Bernstein's Global Aerospace and Defense Analyst. Great to have with us again, Kim Fields now, both Chairman and CEO of ATI Materials. With that, I think we'll get started. I think to start, maybe you can just tell us a little bit, give us a little bit about where ATI stands right now and what you're looking at in terms of priorities.
Yeah. It's been fantastic. It's a material-constrained market. It continues to be constrained. Demand is coming across the confluent of all of our markets. We continue to see strong demand in all of the areas that we have differentiated materials. Jet engines continue to grow, with OE and the next-gen engines, double the content on the LEAP and the GTF. Aftermarket continues to be really strong. It's running at like 2X of where we historically are, so 50%-60%. Again, that really leverages where we've got differentiated capabilities and materials, and great partnerships across all the platforms. That's really good. You layer on top of that defense, the defense growth that we're seeing, in things like missiles, nuclear naval, and then rotary and fixed-wing aircraft. Those continue to grow and obviously, we're continuing to have conflicts around the world.
Specialty energy, which again, leverages those differentiated materials, demand, that structural demand that's increasing, and those customers are looking at their supply chains in a very strategic way, similar to some of our aerospace and defense. Lots of opportunities for us to continue to grow and leverage that capability and partnering with our customers.
We'll get into all this, but it's interesting to have you describe it that way because a year ago you did not. A year ago, it was so much aero, then, which it still is, right?
Yeah.
All of these other things are a little more dynamic, perhaps, than they were a year ago.
It is, yeah. The demand is higher. I'd say I think we focused our portfolio a bit more. If you look at aerospace, defense, and then specialty energy, that's 80% now of our market. You can see that in some of the growth that we've had over the last six to 12 months. We've started to reprioritize those assets towards those three core strategic markets, and less so, yes, in industrial, which we talked about last year, but also electronics and medical.
Yeah.
Because there's just the high-value opportunities that demand continues to grow.
Anything, since, as you're looking, we're well into Q2 now, anything you want to update after your Q1 results?
Yeah. I think the one update I'd say is demand continues to be strong. We haven't seen any changes with our underlying demand from our customers. In fact, if anything, I'd say there's been an increased urgency for materials, especially as pressure on the engine OEMs to keep pace with the airframe ramp. With Boeing, they're continuing to increase their production and doing well. Airbus clearly continues and want to get to 75. The last few weeks, there's some discussion around, hey, maybe there's a slowdown. I had three separate CEOs of companies across these markets call me and say, "Kim, if you have any openings, anybody pushes out, cancels, I will buy that, I will contract it. Of course, you love me best, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, everybody is still looking for material. I think from a quarter standpoint, operationally, production and supply chain are going well. Our cost position is good, we're in a good spot.
One of the things that a lot of your counterparts here have talked about, we've gotten into this discussion about the aero aftermarket customers and the risk of a slowdown. Airlines, a lot of them are having a hard time with high fuel prices. I will say, so far, when, whether it's GE, Howmet, or, none of them have seen anything that's indicated a degradation of demand. Have you? As you look at the world now, is there anything on the aftermarket side where you're going, in this timeframe, that's when I might have a concern?
Yeah, I'd say today we have seen no slowdown, no change whatsoever. In fact, as I said, people are kind of clamoring and saying, "We'll take any open capacity" and are having a sense of urgency about getting that. From an aftermarket standpoint, the retirements, as they're taking out less fuel-efficient planes, those have the older engines in them. It's actually a good thing for ATI. You get more cycles on that next-gen engines where our content is 2X, where we are on the legacy engines.
Sort of LEAP versus CFM56.
Exactly
2X. Yeah.
Yeah. LEAP and GTF are where we're going to have 2X, more than 2X, of the content. Again, the more cycles, the more shop visits those have, the better it is for ATI in the long term. To your point, I am monitoring the situation. There seems to be no impact yet, like you said, to the industry or to the airlines, but as fuel prices continue either to increase or even the longevity of this, I anticipate that we may see some impact, but to date, I haven't really seen anything yet. Continuing to monitor. I don't know, every day I wake up and the war is over, and they've got a new peace deal going.
Yeah, I haven't checked in the last hour.
Yeah, I was going to say, the last hour, I don't know.
Not really.
By the end of the day, it's off the table.
Not really sure.
Then we're bombing. I don't know. We'll see.
Your jet engine, your sales rep 12% in Q1.
Yes.
How should we think about it? Do you expect to stay in this double-digit growth level, or could that even be higher?
Yeah. We are thinking about, for the full year, that will be in kind of that mid to upper teens level, and I've got the bias to the upside on this. Demand, as I said, is very strong. On the aftermarket, we're continuing to see that the upgrade packages, the durability issues, corrosion issues continue to be strong on top of LEAP's now starting to come into their shop visits here. We're seeing that as well as GTF.
Yeah.
We're pretty heavily involved with that, with Pratt, and helping them with those accelerated shop visits. That's 40% of our revenue, and I do think that that bias is to the upside for the year.
Well, yeah. That's 40% of your revenue, and then I think your aftermarket is, like, 40% something of that revenue.
Right. Yeah. It's about half. It's about half of that.
When you look at the aftermarket, I think it's an interesting dynamic right now because you've seen all the life extensions on CFM56s, V2500s, even GE90s. Those are, I would assume, kind of the core of your aftermarket work. As you say, you've got LEAPs coming in. They're coming in typically. It's just now where they're really coming in for full performance restoration shop visits.
Yep.
Is the work that you do, if you're coming in for sort of these early partial shop visits, does that have much impact on you, or does it really accelerate once you get into sort of the full heavy checks?
We do the disks in the hot section. I shared that for the jet engine. There's seven alloys that are used by all the OEMs.
Yeah.
We are sole source supplying five of those. The sixth one we share with a competitor. The seventh the OEM makes. Typically, when they're coming in for a shop visit, this is one of the first areas they're looking in that hot section. Are they having to replace a blade? Do they have to replace the disk? Typically, they are taking those disks out.
Okay.
They're very heavily stressed.
Even on the LEAP, I mean.
Even on the LEAP, they're still doing upgrades.
The GTF, yes. Absolutely.
Yes. Yeah. To be honest, for those, I think they're still material constrained. They're making their own material. Those, I think, they're not able to do the full shop visit when they're coming in. They're doing what they have to replace, and then they might have to come in another year.
Yeah.
18 months after that. Those continue, and that high rate continues with that. Even on the LEAP, they're seeing design changes that they're doing for lifing, corrosion, some durability with hot, sandy environments. Those are all in those first stage HPT disks that we make out of that powder-
Yeah.
...alloy through our isothermal forgings.
Yeah.
Again, really highly differentiated. There's only two of us in the world making these parts and these materials, and so the demand continues to be really strong. When I look at their charts, as you said, you can see how maybe those upgrades start to come down. The LEAP visits and the shop visits start to come up, and so we never really have a dip. It just continues to grow.
Yeah. The content is going to grow on the LEAP substantially pretty soon, I think.
Yes. The content on the LEAP, we're already talking about next generation. These powder alloys are the most differentiated, and they're what's allowing them to run those engines hotter, more efficiently. We're at the table, and some of those seven are new development alloys for the next generation engines.
Okay. That's a little ways away right now.
That is. We're plenty busy, as you said.
Yeah.
Like I said, we're looking at that upper teens, and to the high side. I think that growth will continue. We're making some strategic investments backed with customer co-funding and aligning to that demand. As I look out for the rest of this decade, material constraints is going to continue, I think, to be a theme.
On the GTF, if you go back a couple of years, that was a much less important program for you, right?
Sure. Yeah.
They've certainly had challenges in their own material. How has your role on the GTF progressed over time? How does that compare now to the amount of content on a LEAP? Which has been kind of I think of it as kind of bread and butter for you guys for-
Sure.
...quite a while.
Yeah. If you think about engine, I'd say historically, to your point, we were probably the heaviest content on the Rolls-Royce engine, so maybe around 40% from a part standpoint, a forging standpoint.
Yeah.
LEAP was probably closer to, like, 35%, so neck and neck.
Yeah.
Pratt's come up to be even. If you look at the three, we start to be even between the three with the GTF. It's been a great story at how, with these alloys, a lot of these started out as co-development, joint technology agreements, and the technology teams are embedded within each other. When this issue came up with Pratt, we were already part of their supply chain. We were already providing parts. They came to us and said, obviously, everybody heard about the issue, it was big news. They said, "We need to ramp up very quickly, and we can't wait for capacity or capital."
Yeah.
We looked across, and in kind of an innovative way, we shared all IP, we opened up the boundaries and said, "If this was under one roof and one set of assets, how would we optimize to get the most out?" That's how we were able to triple and quadruple what we were doing historically with them to help them ramp very quickly.
Yeah. On top of it now, you've got Boeing is on the OE side, so the other half of your business. You're saying Boeing ramp. When you look at the Boeing ramp today, and I kind of throw Airbus in it too, but more Boeing. Boeing's had a lot of inventory, and they've had a lot of engines. We heard some yesterday that at least on the engine side, that inventory's been worked down. For you all, when you look at the demand on the OE side, should we assume that that's kind of moving with that Boeing production rate now? Is that fair?
Yeah, I think, the way I'm looking at it for this year is the first quarter, we still have some variability due to that inventory normalization. For the most part, even as recently as this week, talking with them, I'd say across their product forms, they are pretty aligned. There is one product form around that they continue to have a little bit more inventory because they bought more. There are other forms that we have that we're seeing increased demand, primarily because they really had to disintermediate their supply chain. They were buying finished parts before from Russia.
Oh, yeah.
Now they're buying billet, and it's got to go to forging. It's really changed how they're thinking about their inventory, and so that is at an accelerated level-
Okay
...for things like landing gear, is one area where we're getting a lot more share. We're qualifying new products to help support them.
Yeah.
For the most part, it's two halves. As we leave this first half and we go into the second half, we're going to be pretty aligned with their production, their pull rate, and we'll start to see that growth gradually start to increase.
Okay, that's interesting. That's all the old VSMPO work, right?
They're still working through some of the plates and some of those things that they had bought quite a bit of, and they're still aligning that. I'm encouraged by the progress they're making on their production ramps.
Yeah.
They're burning through it pretty quickly.
Yeah. Okay. That's great. When you look at all this, if I go to the engine side rather than landing gear for the moment. You've got high demand in the aftermarket, and it sounds like it's more sand in the LEAP than I would have thought. You've also got this strong OE demand. How does that work in terms of your ability to deliver with capacity? Because you've sort of got a double stress here on what you need to do.
If you take these other markets, defense and energy, so the gas turbine, those are coming straight to the same asset. You're right. We are seeing a lot of demand, and a lot of pull. To your point, as Boeing continues to ramp, that pressure's going to even get greater. A lot of the focus that we've been doing the last couple of years, I've been talking with you about, is how do we invest in discrete downstream assets to debottleneck, to increase our flow? We've done a lot of work in the last two years around equipment reliability and spending more money on maintenance and spare parts, using some AI tools that have really helped us hone our repairs. We're seeing a lot of increased throughput.
Just this last quarter, our yields in one of those differentiated alloys I talked about for the engine-
Yeah.
...hit the same level we were at in 2019. Our employees are coming up the learning curve. We're getting back to that stable production, those quality and productivity levels, and we're making some discrete investments that, again, are aligning with our customers for these proprietary materials.
If I were to think about this, I'll use this one because it's pretty real. If I'm sitting at Airbus and I'm complaining about getting engines, are you guys like, "You're not the problem." Right? The stress down in that supply chain, I just wonder across the board, people get singled out a lot.
Sure.
Are you able to respond and deal with both of these growth markets? I mean, it's a good problem to have, but-
For sure.
...it's a challenging one, right?
Yeah. Well, in that particular situation, and in both instances, we're not the problem, but we're the solution.
Okay.
I shared those seven alloys. Five of them we make sole sourced. That sixth one, we really got the opportunity because the other supplier wasn't able to meet the demand needs.
Yeah.
We were able to step in.
Very quickly ramp from a low level in December to a kind of 5X for the year now is our outlook. Again, we're helping. Now in the GTF situation, they're making-
Yeah.
...their own material, but I know there is a lot of interest and desire for them to dual source so that they don't ever get themselves in that situation again. We have the capability.
Yeah.
We do all these other alloys, we have that capability. There's that opportunity in the future. To your point, the team's done a fantastic job. I'm going to give them a lot of credit on these alloys, these powder alloys, because they went in, we didn't come into the year with a lot of capacity, and they worked on productivity and changeovers and yield and equipment upgrades, and pretty rapidly, in a three-month period of time, we were able to double the output on this alloy to really help the engine guys meet that demand from the OE. Can we do that every quarter? I don't know.
We're going to keep pushing that envelope and making sure that we're taking advantage of it, and then partnering, like that nickel investment I shared a quarter or two ago.
Yeah.
That is very strategic and very focused on these particular alloys with customer co-funding to support them.
Well, for those of us, can you give us a little bit of a picture of what differentiates you in a way that, me included, I may not understand all of the technology behind this? If you can do an easy version-
Okay, sure.
...of what differentiates you guys in this area, that would be great.
Yes. I'll start broadly and then talk maybe more specifically, and you stop me if I get too technical. If you think about it, those super alloy nickels that are used in the hottest section, if you think of a pyramid, that's at the very highest level. Decades of work. A lot of these had joint technology agreements where we worked and developed it together. The engine guys said, "Here's what we need for the specifications," and we developed the technology, and that is all kept internal to us, not even shared with the engine guys. Those, very difficult alloys to make. They're powder. There's only two companies in the world, well, three if you include GTF, but that provide and create-
GTF meaning Pratt itself.
Pratt. Right.
Yeah.
They make their own powder. There's only three that make that in the world. Because of the issue that Pratt had with the GTF, the cleanliness, the quality control are very, very difficult and stringent to maintain. The other areas we do, the isothermal forgings that we make that then go into the disks, there's only two people in the world that do that today. We're in a great position where we're a main supplier to all the platforms, and we're continuing to do that. Then you look at premium quality titanium, which is being used in engines. That has rapidly, our backlog has gone up. Our lead times are gone out. There's a great demand for that. We've just brought that new asset on that we invested out in Richland, Washington, that we're in the process of qualifying, that has that capability.
The last one is our zirconium and hafnium, which again, go into nuclear products, commercial, and defense. Also are used as alloy additions, master alloys for some of these other alloys. Again, that system works together to create a very differentiated type of product offering that we can provide to our customers.
Well, given that and what we just talked about the pressures of demand, the aftermarket, OE. You and I talked about this a fair amount last year. When you're in a position like this, you've got long-term contracts. How do you take advantage of the pricing opportunities here?
Yes. I would say, these contracts are structurally much different than they've been in the past. We have margin accretion opportunities as we look at the surcharges and pass-through escalation mechanisms that we've been able to build in. To your point, I think the important thing to remember for folks is any time a customer comes and says, "We need a different product," or, "You have 80% share, we want you to go to 100% because maybe our other supplier isn't meeting our full needs. We need to go all caps. We need more material than your cap." That gives us an opportunity to open up that contract, and in some cases, not even just that one, maybe another one is saying, "Okay, you need this." We need price here. We need different terms.
We need surcharges and pass-throughs. It allows us, even within that contract and that framework, to make sure that we're getting price and we're getting value. In this market, with capacity constrained as it is, and I don't see that changing for the rest of this decade-
Yeah.
...maybe into the next one, there's a great opportunity for us to continue to get that value that we're creating for our customer.
Yeah.
It continues to happen. Like I said, I go to every air show. I know you've been going to them, too. I go there every year, and I think this is the year we're just going to all celebrate and say, "Okay, we've got it. Everything is flowing and moving along." It never changes. This year's not going to be any different because I'm already seeing people coming in knowing, "I need this. I've got this crisis. I need you to do more. Can you do this?
Yeah.
What would have to be true for us to do this?" The opportunities continue. To your point, it's a good stress. There's a lot of stress for the team.
Yeah.
I will say, we've got a fantastic group that has really risen to that challenge and figured out ways to be creative in partnering with our customers.
When you look at it, what are the margin expansion opportunities here?
You're going to see, as you look at our margins through the year, a continual improvement. AA&S, our segment, has been in the upper teens for the last three quarters. That's really a result of all the work we've been doing the last few years around portfolio optimization.
You're going to continue to see that. On the HPMC side, on the aerospace side and engine in particular, we're able to capture price. We're getting mix and expanded share and content on these engines. Then we're also seeing the benefits of the utilization and cost out that we're doing, one around quality and also on productivity. All three of those, when combined then with some of the strategic investments that we've announced, is really giving us an opportunity to expand those margins and increase the profitability of the products that we're doing.
If we switch to defense, and a lot of the growth, I think on the defense side you've had, it's been on the AA&S side.
Yes.
Can you talk about what's driving that growth?
I think one of our benefits and strengths is the breadth of our defense portfolio. We're on several key programs and areas that the administration is prioritizing. A big one is the naval nuclear program. That's about half of our defense revenue today. I just announced a big contract that we signed for $1 billion, and that was a renewal of a prior contract where we're a sole source supplier. That's about 2X what it's been historically.
Okay.
Just to give you some perspective.
What is that on specifically?
It's going into the naval nuclear program, for a classified program. I can't give you too many details on that.
Okay.
For that program, we've been the sole supplier for decades. We've supported that program. It's highly specialized, and it does not contemplate, there's been a lot of talk around the Virginia- class and submarine, and expanding that-
Yeah.
...to two subs a year. That doesn't contemplate any type of growth like that. It's more of just the regular program for the next five years. There could be upside if we are successful at the shipbuilding, at expanding that. That's a big one. I'd say the one I'm excited about here recently is there's been a lot of demand accelerating around missiles.
Yeah.
We do have content on those, both titanium, that premium quality titanium, as well as some niobium C-103 base, which uses hafnium. That demand, the inquiries, the orders are coming in quite quickly now. It's a small part of our business today.
Yeah.
A small part of defense, but I do think that's going to be a long-lasting, durable stream as we work to replenish the stockpiles.
That's a topic that here we've been talking about a lot.
Oh, okay.
So, and we're going to-
I've heard a few questions on it.
We're going to hear more tomorrow. RTX is here tomorrow.
There you go.
Certainly Lockheed Martin talked about it, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, Anduril, all of them talked about this growth path here. For you, we know right now there are frameworks to triple and quadruple production on PAC-3, THAAD, SM-3.
AMRAAM. PrSM, you can kind of go through a lot of these. What programs are you on, and are there some that you're specifically targeting?
Several of the ones you mentioned that were on PAC-3, THAAD, Tomahawk, AMRAAM, we've got content on those. To your point, the primes have gotten a lot of pressure around missile and missile production and ramping up. We've already seen where we're on some of these programs, where people are coming in, placing orders for, they're indicating up to 6X the normal quantities that they've taken and are starting to place orders ahead of that funding coming from Washington so that they're ready from a supply chain standpoint. Like I said, it's a small part today, but we'll continue to scale and ramp as the supply chain ramps. Again, our materials are, they're bringing from a structural, high temperature structural applications, propulsion, those really unique alloys that we produce.
There's an interesting dynamic here where separate even from this new heightened demand, one of the challenges, and I'm sure you're much more familiar with this than me, but one of the big challenges here has been on solid rocket motors as an example. You've had those issues at Lockheed, you've had them at Raytheon in trying to increase those. However, let's say you magically do that. Well, you still have to get more seekers. There's a lot more to this than just one very important piece of the puzzle. Say PAC-3. Are you currently on PAC-3 and just looking at higher volumes, or are you looking at even more content on there? Everybody is going to be stretched across everything they do on these missile programs.
Right. For those missile programs, to your point, we are on those programs today.
Yeah.
There is opportunities, to your point, because they're trying to ramp so quickly for us to expand our content. We are having conversations around our whole product portfolio to see what other applications might make sense. Today, it's mainly on that premium quality titaniums. It's on C-103, which is that niobium, hafnium-based alloys that are used both for defense as well as hypersonics and space.
Yeah.
Again, to your point, there's multiple demands pulling on those supply chains.
If we flip over to space, there are very different characteristics of, at least from what I've known from the past, of the materials you're using in space applications. You talk about how you fit in there, because that's clearly a high growth market as well.
Yeah. It's another one I'm excited about. Like missiles, it's a small part today.
It's a critical part of the space industry. We're on applications like the stage 2 rockets, propulsion systems, the Draco nozzles, so we're on the fuel nozzles. It's that C-103 material that uses the niobium. It's for very high temperature applications. I think I shared with you last year, it's that second stage rocket that's glowing-
Yeah.
...in the sky. For the launch companies, we're one of the only Western U.S. suppliers that make that, and we are the only one that's qualified for any type of manned aircraft and flight, due to our consistency of our quality, the consistency of our product. They're continuing to ramp. I'm seeing forecasts that go out to-
Yeah.
...2,100 and how many launches they want to do. That's the material that in that second stage, it burns for six, seven, eight minutes, and it's not reusable. It's gone.
Yeah.
As it leaves the atmosphere. To your point, it's a very difficult alloy to make. It was developed by the company that ATI bought ultimately, and Boeing for the Apollo program. Over the last 50 years or so, there still hasn't been another company that's been able to crack the code and make it consistently like we do. There's a ton. I think there's going to be a ton of growth. It's not just that material. We're doing additive parts that we are making for all of the different launch companies. We're partnering with them, as well as some super alloy nickel products as well that go into those.
If you were to take your defense business today, and I cannot remember how the dollars right now.
It's about 10%.
Okay. You go within that, what is the mix today of applications for defense, and what do you see it in five years when you're looking at missiles and space contributing?
Yeah, that's interesting. Today, within that 10%, as I mentioned, half is the naval nuclear.
Yeah.
I think that is going to continue to grow, obviously with the shipbuilding and so forth.
That in all of those programs, even though I can't know what it is, that area is well-supported.
Yes, through the Navy and through, Yes. It's supporting the, like you said, the nuclear naval program.
aircraft carriers, submarines. You think about the Indo-Pacific and that priority, so that's where the funding's coming from.
Yeah.
Yeah, those are well-supported and long-term.
Yeah.
programs that have been in place. The other piece, I'd say the other two big pieces that we haven't talked about, one is armor, which is less of a priority in the U.S. but is increasingly important in Europe. We've got relationships, we're supporting BAE, Rheinmetall, U.K. GD. We're continuing to support, and as they grow their manufacturing base and they start to ramp up production, that we'll be ramping with them.
There's no substitute in Europe for what you do.
Well, they're using titanium for weight. It has a higher strength to weight ratio than steel.
You get a much stronger, and it's usually used in the undercarriage, but now with drone warfare coming, they're really looking at how do we create the envelope, because now we have to protect from the top as well as the bottom. I do see that expanding rapidly, not just with production, but with the use within the tanks.
Okay.
The last one obviously is the jet fighters. We're on the current generations. We're getting and working on development for the next generations. That brings us to the last, which is missiles and space.
YeahX
which are about 2% today.
Yeah.
If I look out five years, if it grows, let's say maybe we're not quite as successful at our ambitions to grow 6X-
Yeah.
...over the next five years, maybe it's only 3X, that could go to 5%, 6%, 7%.
Well, yeah, you have to.
Yeah.
The problem with that is that the top line grows too.
It's going to keep growing, yes.
I guess the point here is that it's like 2% today, and that could triple in five years.
Yes.
Yeah.
Exactly. I would say, if I think about just the growth rates, defense, jet engine, we're looking at mid to upper teens, both of those I'm biased to the high side for 2026.
Yeah.
We're seeing substantial demand coming in, a lot of growth. If we're able to make it and produce it and ship it, there's a lot of demand to take that. Specialty energy is in there, and that's also in that mid-teens area as well.
Yeah.
Really strong demand. You're seeing in some of our other markets, we're redeploying the assets away from those so that we can really help support these ramps.
On airframes, going back to commercial, you talked a little bit about kind of destocking. I guess there's still excess inventory to burn down, some things not. Is that correct at Boeing?
Yeah, in one product form. I'd say for the most part, it's aligning, but I'd say as we go through the rest of this quarter, we'll have that full alignment.
Historically, Boeing has been a bigger customer, but you've gotten much more involved with Airbus over the last couple of years.
Exactly. Yeah.
Now, where are you playing with Airbus on the airframe side?
Yeah. To your point, I think I mentioned this last year, before COVID, we had just signed the new contract with Airbus and had not really even begun supplying them. As we came out, when Russia invaded Ukraine, they rapidly worked to get us qualified because they wanted that supply in. Today, we're at about 50% share on the products that we're selling to them.
Really?
When you look between Airbus and Boeing, it's pretty even. It's balanced between the two. Yeah, before COVID, we were a Boeing-GE company, and we were really focused there, and I'd say as we've looked at the portfolio and diversified both our customers and the programs-
...we've expanded that participation on these different programs and expanded the product portfolios and content that we have as well. Again, it's very balanced between the airframers as well as the engines, and we've got all of our different products participating in these programs.
Yeah, I know that even though a lot of people don't like to talk about it, the European players continued to source some from Russia, even once the U.S. companies had to completely shut it down.
Yeah.
Where does that stand today in terms of titanium that's still coming out of Russia and going into Europe? Presumably, if it hasn't, it will have to come to an end at some point.
Yeah, I know. I get questions a lot, "Well, what happens when they come back in?" I'm like, "Well, the war has to stop first for that to happen." To your point, I think there is some that's still coming in to some-
Yeah.
...of those European companies. Not in the engine. I'd say anything that has rotating parts or premium quality attached, what I have heard from them is those require on-site quality audits on an annual or bi-annual basis.
Which you can't do.
None of them can get in. Yeah, exactly. You can't get in, they can't go in and see it for themselves and judge it, there isn't anyone that's comfortable, obviously the certifications have lapsed. They're not comfortable using those because although you would think that a lot of their processes and procedures would be in place, they know some personnel has changed, until they're able to validate that, they aren't using it in those applications. Which for us, is where our differentiated materials typically go, that's why that premium quality titanium, I think, is in such high demand, is because that there's anyone comfortable buying it from there.
There's a lot of titanium on wide bodies, right?
There is, yes.
How do you?
Five times. Five times more than on narrow body.
How do you contrast the profile of your airframe demand? Is it predominantly A350-787?
If you look at the titanium demand today, it's fairly balanced. Like you said, wide bodies haven't come back to the level that we were forecasting five years ago. Narrow body are much higher. When you look at it, they start to come balanced on the volume of titanium.
You're saying they're sort of balanced, narrow body to wide body?
Right. In total. In total titanium, you might have less on a narrow body, but there's so many more-
That's what I mean.
...of those. Yeah.
So the totals-
It's pretty balanced
...the, but-
Now, if wide body comes back.
That's what I was going to say.
Yeah.
Everybody's behind, right? Airbus is-
They're trying.
They're trying, right?
Yeah.
It's been a little difficult lately. Boeing says they will be 10 a month by the end of the year. That would suggest that you've got a ramp coming here, certainly on the Boeing side, and hopefully on the Airbus side. They have strong aspirations, just, I think, some operational challenges.
Right.
Would we expect to see another step up once that starts to come in?
I think as we go into next year, we are looking for that. To your point, those wide bodies use five times more titanium. We are thinking that that's going to continue. We put in that new EB melter out in Richland to help us prepare both for the PQ, the premium quality side, as well as the standard quality side. We believe that we're positioned to help support that wide body ramp as we go into the back half of this decade. That's the one area, in addition to defense and all of the other demands that are coming in, that has not come all the way back to-
Yeah.
...pre-COVID. Yeah, we're well positioned, and I think there's some other assets coming on in the industry, so I think that we're in a position to support it.
Well, let's jump over to these other markets. We've got there's a bunch of them in your portfolio.
Sure.
Can you go back to highlight the ones that you think can be material in terms of growth right now?
Yeah. I'd say it comes down to really the three big ones, aerospace, defense, and specialty energy. We haven't talked as much about specialty energy. My video, and my chat with Scott Strazik out, it came out yesterday, really that's an area that we've got increased concentration and focus. A lot of the materials we use for jet engines are similar or the same that are used in the gas turbines, that market has changed so substantially, just from a structural standpoint of very long backlogs into 2032 now. They're starting to think about their supply chain strategically, like the aerospace OEMs do. They're looking at surety of supply and access to capacity and new product development.
both on the material as well as forgings. We're continuing to expand our content and participation in our contractual relationships with those energy companies. In addition, you've got the nuclear renaissance, the refueling, the restarting, and our business out on the West Coast with the hafnium, so that naval nuclear business-
...also does commercial nuclear. Hafnium, zirconium, we're helping to support that. We're really, if you think about it, in the Western world, there's only three companies that make these products for commercial nuclear applications. The other two have captive nuclear plant arms that they're supplying. We're the only independent.
Okay.
If you think about the market and people that are looking for access, they're coming to us and bringing, in some cases, capital, because they want more capacity, they want more access to that reserve capacity so they can make sure that they've got that to support their business.
I'm curious, if we go back, industrial gas turbines. I'm trying to understand how much content you provide for those, because clearly we're looking at very strong ramps right now.
Yes.
How important is that business? If you're using a, I'd say a modern industrial gas turbine, and that technology continues to go up, temperatures continue to go up, what does that mean for you all? It was very interesting yesterday morning, because at the same time, we had GE Vernova in here.
Yeah.
We had Baker Hughes down the hall, and Howmet, which I was doing down around the corner.
Okay.
And-
Do they say the same thing?
I think so, but let's just say not everybody is willing to own up to what this growth rate could be, which you could see 20%-type growth rates in volume.
Right.
You add price onto that, and this gets to be a pretty exciting market if you have a substantial amount of content. I'm just trying to understand where you are.
Yeah.
Because I don't understand exactly what the value you would be putting into these relative to an aero-engine.
Yeah. Well, I'll start with I'm excited with you because I do think that those kind of growth numbers you're thinking about are possible as we go through the rest of this decade. We're providing similar materials that we do to the jet engine. It's those super alloy nickel products that go into the disks. We're making forge parts for blades and disks for that. There's some joint technology which, again, I'm excited because I'm seeing them thinking longer term.
In the past, this material has really been something that we would use for the assets that if we had an opening from jet engine, we'd say, "Hey, let's make some stuff for the gas turbine market." Now, they're looking at it more strategically, as saying, "We need that reserve capacity, and we're willing, and we want to work on new alloys because we want to run these hotter and more efficiently." Like those niobium and some of the more of the exotic. I do see that this is continuing to grow, and I think the opportunity for us is not just growing from a market standpoint, but growing our content and our contractual partnerships with these big Vernovas and Siemens and energy providers.
Yeah.
As they're trying to ramp and meet their demand.
Today, what are your revenues like today?
Yeah. Specialty energy is about 10% of our revenues. It's about 60/40, so 60% gas turbines and 40% nuclear.
Okay.
I think both of them are growing.
Yeah.
We'll see if nuclear continues on the pace that it's at or if the gas turbine starts to overtake that.
Yeah, I would just expect that, nuclear is a big opportunity, but this takes a while.
It does, right. To be honest, I like that from a growth standpoint, this durable growth. We've got this short-term opportunity for us to ramp fairly quickly, I'd say in the next seven to 10 years.
Yeah.
to meet that demand, and then nuclear will continue to ramp up as these new SMRs and other things get installed.
We're talking about a lot of growth areas here. Where's your investment? How do you think about CapEx with a whole set of high-growth areas in front of you?
Yes. Well, that's where our discipline comes in, right? There's a lot of opportunities that are in front of us, and we're staying very focused on meeting our 30% return thresholds for any investments and staying very disciplined around our total CapEx investment being around net $220 million-$230 million. This year, you saw that we came out with a higher number, closer to $280 million, with $60 million of that coming from customer-funded capital. This is where these conversations are very strategic with our customers of saying, "Look, we've got more projects than we're going to fund that meet our return threshold. You're looking for this capacity to hit at a certain point. Let's partner together. If you want to do that, we're going to go ahead, and you can help co-invest and have access to, call it 10% or 20% of this capacity.
If you give us a forecast and a contract to take or pay, then you can have that. If you don't, then we're going to go and use this to meet needs within the industry. The conversation gets a little uncomfortable because then, of course, they go, "Well, of course we're going to get a better price, right?" The answer is, "No, this is where the market price is.
Yeah.
This asset is really just to help you get access to capacity. The price is still at market. I think customers recognize the value to them is if they don't have the material for, if it's a gas turbine or it's a jet engine, they're not selling the engine, they're not selling a plane. As I said, I was in Seattle this week. They had 30 777s sitting, waiting for engines. That's money sitting on the ground, and the cost of this material in comparison to that cost is-
Yeah.
...something that they're willing to do to make that sale. Lots of opportunities. That's how we're thinking about it, and we're prioritizing our investments. I think the one thing that I'm very focused on with the team is that we're not just putting capacity in, we're putting capability in. Every new investment is improving our capability to making better quality products, more productive, cost-efficient products. Some of those specific melt projects that I've talked about, they're going to be of higher quality and produce up to 2X what the same size furnace does in the vintage era. We're really looking at how do we take this investment today, yes, meet the demands, but also make sure we're upgrading our-
Yeah.
...capabilities in what we do today, as well as new technologies, like additive.
Yeah.
We've got our new additive facility down in Florida that just got security clearance, and now we're making classified parts for the defense and the space programs down there. We're continuing to drive that technology for those highly differentiated products to continue that differentiation and that moat that we've created.
Maybe to finish up here, just can you refresh us on sort of guidance for this year, including free cash flow and also how you think about it in light of all of the things you've just walked through, where there appears to be a lot of upside-
Sure.
...and I don't know how that fits into your guide.
Well, everything I've talked about is in the guide. As we've shared with some of these very targeted investments, those are all built in. It's aligned with customers and backed by customer contracts. Those are all in place. We're continuing to drive cost out, productivity improvements, so that we're getting more incremental capacity as we do that, and when we de-bottleneck, we're able to take advantage to help meet these growth and these ramps. From a cash flow standpoint, we're still very focused and dedicated to a balanced capital allocation strategy. We're making those very purpose-built investments in organic growth. We're continuing to have disciplined balance sheets. We've got a very good debt leverage ratio. We're not looking to really lower our debt levels at this point, but we're returning capital to shareholders.
Yeah.
We just got a new share repurchase authorization, $500 million. It was approved by our board. We purchased $75 million in the first quarter. With our prior authorization in this one, we still have about $545 million of authorization to go back and buy back our shares as we see that as still a good investment and a good way to bring-
...capital back to our shareholders.
Sounds good. Kim, thank you very much.