Hello, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2022 Calumet Specialty Products Partners, LP Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. It is now my pleasure to introduce Head of Investor Relations.
Good morning. Thank you for joining us today for our third quarter 2022 earnings call. With me on today's call are Todd Borgmann, CEO, Vincent Donargo, CFO, Bruce Fleming, EVP, Montana Renewables, and Corporate Development, Scott Obermeier, EVP, Specialty Products and Solutions, Marc Lawn, EVP of Performance Brands, and Stephen Mawer, Executive Chairman. You may now download the slides that accompany the remarks made on today's conference call, which can be accessed in the investor relations section of our website at www.calumet.com. Additionally, a webcast replay of this call will be available on our site within a few hours. Turning to the presentation, on slide two, you can find our cautionary statements. I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, we may provide various forward-looking statements.
Please refer to the partnership's press release that was issued this morning, as well as our latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a list of factors that may affect our actual results and cause them to differ from expectations. As we turn to slide three, I'll pass the call to Todd. Todd?
Thanks, Brad. To our attendees, welcome, and thank you again for joining the call. Calumet continues to demonstrate that our strategic vision of creating two leading, highly competitive businesses is becoming a reality. Our specialties business is performing superbly and proving its capability. Montana Renewables is in completion and growth mode, and we'll provide a detailed update of our SAF renewable hydrogen and renewable diesel launch in a few minutes. With respect to the third quarter, let's turn to slide four. Our third quarter adjusted EBITDA of $127 million is the second-best quarter we've seen at Calumet, despite our Montana plant taking a planned turnaround for most of the quarter. Of course, the commissioning of Montana Renewables marks a significant milestone for Calumet as our vision becomes a reality, and we enter the renewable diesel business.
Since our last earnings call, we've also expanded our MRL product offering by adding sustainable aviation fuel to the mix. Our SAF was quickly contracted, and not only are these sales at a premium to renewable diesel, but once our engineering modifications are complete in early 2023, MRL should be the largest SAF producer in North America. It was less than one year ago that we announced the initial funding of Montana Renewables, and we're proud of what the team has accomplished here in such a short amount of time. In the time that it took to stand up MRL, our specialties team has redefined what this unique business is capable of. This year alone, the business has generated $330 million of adjusted EBITDA and produced the best two quarters in company history.
This is a combination of a favorable market, a competitively advantaged business, and a step change in execution across the board, one where our ops and commercial teams have maximized the value of optionality that sets our integrated platform apart. The heart of our advantage is our Northwest Louisiana specialty complex, and specifically, our Shreveport facility. Here, we produce products for third-party sale. We make feedstocks for our solvents division, base oils and waxes for our Penreco and Paralogics brands, lubricants for our Performance Brands segment, and we gather intermediates throughout the system and upgrade them into finished fuels. In the third quarter, we processed over 51,000 bbl of feed per day through this facility, a 40% improvement versus 2021 and more than 10% higher than any annual period we've seen.
Further, the Northwest Louisiana team has now delivered two turnarounds this year, one at Shreveport and one at Princeton, both on time and on budget. This step change in execution has been fundamental to advancing the key strategic initiative of deleveraging organically at the same time Montana Renewables was advancing. At this time last year, our debt-to-EBITDA ratio was over ten times. At the end of the third quarter, it was four times. Not where we want to ultimately be, but we're on pace to reach our destination quickly. I thank the Shreveport team for their tireless commitment. They developed a plan to change the culture, improve our capability, and invest capital wisely. Early in the year, we talked about capital investment in Northwest Louisiana.
We've been thrilled with these investments so far, and we'll continue to do that in a disciplined way as we further integrate and widen our competitive moat that's underpinned by industry-leading flexibility and optionality. Montana Renewables has quickly become a reality. A mere 355 days ago, we secured project funding from Oaktree and formally launched what's become known as MRL. Over the past year, we formed a strong partnership with Warburg Pincus and turned that project into both a business and a growth platform positioned for the future. During this time, we've seen our hypotheses tested, and we've learned a lot. Our hypotheses regarding the advantages of location, the overcompeted and increasingly expensive market for UCO, likelihood that canola would gain EPA approval, and how RD margins ultimately work were all viewed as outside the mainstream a year ago.
Now they're being proven out and even becoming conventional. In the case of MRL, they provide unique competitive advantage. We've overcome other challenges too. Like everyone, we scheduled materials through the peak of the global supply chain crisis, managed through a tight labor market, and fought inflation across the board. Our project timeline has been aggressive, and we ultimately commissioned the units within a few weeks of the planned date. I'd like to recognize the tenacity of our team that's made this a reality. Delivering a schedule-driven project in this environment is a tremendous accomplishment. From here, our focus is pointed towards operating this new unit and completing the hydrogen plant and pretreater, which provide the scale and feedstock flexibility that underpin our economics. As excited as we are about renewable diesel, the growing energy around SAF provides a new added growth platform.
In a few short months, we've pivoted to take advantage of this rapidly emerging opportunity. In the first quarter of next year, we'll be the largest SAF supplier in North America. We have contracted 2,000 bbl a day or 30 million gal a year to a blue-chip offtaker, and that volume is contracted at margins substantially higher than renewable diesel. Like our RD experience, demand for SAF was oversubscribed, and interestingly enough, this deal was in the works prior to the Inflation Reduction Act being signed into law a few months ago. Prior to the IRA, SAF was a niche market supported largely by private jet demand. The IRA creates an incentive for producers to develop new technologies and generate more supply to meet increasing demand from commercial airlines.
We believe this will create a growth trajectory similar or better than we've seen in renewable diesel, and we're perfectly positioned to be a first mover in the high-growth West Coast and Canadian markets. The similarities between RD and SAF don't stop there. Many in industry have adopted our view that the RD market should see relatively steady margins over time. Biodiesel volumes are necessary to meet market demand, even if all announced RD projects were built, and renewable diesel has innate yield and cost advantages relative to biodiesel. We believe that in order to ultimately meet long-term industry SAF demand, new expensive technologies are going to be required. Like biodiesel, those technologies require financial and technical certainty to get off the ground. One could deduce that the IRA bill projects what its enabling incentive might be.
With our technology, SAF could be manufactured more economically than through these new technologies. RD producers that have invested in the ability to produce SAF could expect a lasting advantage, and Montana Renewables is expected to have an additional transportation cost advantage relative to its Gulf Coast competition. Warburg Pincus, our partners in MRL, have been even more impactful than we expected. In just a few short months, they've helped us expand our thinking, and their experience in decarbonization continues to be a force multiplier. We believe this alliance with such a strong and global partner helps us cement our position as the leading independent SAF and renewable diesel producer in North America. Jointly, we continue to work with Lazard as they evaluate inbound investor interest, specifically from strategics and increasingly with regard to SAF. Later, we'll talk a bit more about the SAF opportunity.
Before we go there, I'll turn the call over to Vince to walk us through the segments. Vince?
Thank you, Todd. Let's turn to slide six. Our Specialty Products and Solutions business generated a record $131.7 million of adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter. This type of performance requires a combination of a strong market, exceptional execution, and an advantaged underlying business. Our specialty material margin of $93.93 per bbl is the highest ever, which is a combination of rapidly falling feedstock prices and continued focus on executing commercially. Additionally, we continue to see strength in the fuels market, especially for distillates. Our integrated platform allows us to ramp up diesel fuel production in environments like these, and at the same time, sell a large percentage of our specialty products into markets that are highly correlated to diesel fuel, providing a commercial optionality that is highly valuable.
Ultimately, in order to capitalize on this margin environment, we have to run well, which we did. We had great operational performance and production across our SPS facilities during the quarter, and Todd hit on some specific examples earlier. The whole network turned in exceptional production. Additionally, our discretionary capital investments within this segment, and specifically Shreveport, continue. We are experiencing the benefits of these low-risk, high-reward investments through improved efficiency, reliability, and optionality that increases our advantage going forward. Moving to slide eight, our Performance Brands business generated $8.5 million in adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. Performance Brands is beginning to see a turnaround from the headwinds we have faced for more than a year now. Our price increases are gaining traction, and as we have discussed in previous quarters, we are finally starting to see our raw material costs stabilize.
Costs still increased versus the prior quarter, but the magnitude of the increase was less than pricing, especially late in the quarter. Our supply chain is not perfect, but there too, we continue to trend in the right direction. This quarter, our largest supplier lifted a force majeure that had been in effect for 18 months. At this point, our largest ongoing supply challenge is grease, which is a significant growth opportunity for us. Given the multiple challenges of the past year, narrowing it to grease is a welcome step forward. We expect to see some normal seasonality in the business as we head into the winter months, but we are excited, at least for the time being, to see a semi-return to normalcy for this business. Moving to slide 10, our Montana business had a busy quarter with the planned turnaround and renewable diesel conversion.
As Todd mentioned, we are excited to have moved into the operating mode at MRL. Even with the plant being in turnaround for much of the quarter, we did generate $11.3 million in adjusted EBITDA, partly due to the ongoing improvements we have been seeing this year in differentials for heavy Canadian crude as WCS WTI discount was approximately $20 per bbl in the quarter, and partly due to the exceptional product margin environment that continues to be strong even by PADD 4's high standards. The legacy plant is fully running at 12,000 bbl per day, and as we have stated, we expect this reconfigured facility to generate approximately 60% of the adjusted EBITDA of the historical plant performance, even though we are running at 40% of its capacity.
With that, I will turn the call back to Todd to talk in more detail about MRL and for concluding remarks. Todd?
Thanks, Vince. Now let's get deeper into Montana Renewables on slide 11. Our feedstock is sourced, our plant's commissioned, the throughput expansion that renewable hydrogen provides is expected shortly, and our pre-treater will open the full universe of feedstocks. Our plant's full of feedstock, and we will quickly turn that to cash. At one point, feedstock availability was the most frequently asked question we received. Since then, MRL's feedstock advantage has proven to be a massive differentiator, and we believe that's a lasting advantage. Feedstocks for initial startup were secured months ago. Local suppliers like the idea of shortening their supply chains with a high-security offtaker like MRL. Our supply chain has been proven as transloading sites are working and rail cars are turning.
Many of the same suppliers who are providing treated feedstocks now will be supplying the untreated feeds when our pre-treater is complete in a few months. The pending approval of canola further differentiates MRL, as there's enormous volumes in our backyard that are incrementally exported to Asia. Something we haven't discussed much is the emerging potential of camelina oil. Camelina is high on our radar. It's a non-food feedstock that's currently grown in Montana. Camelina has intrinsic value to farmers as a rotational cover crop. It also has an extremely low carbon intensity, and the crop continues to gain momentum as a future juggernaut in the renewable fuels feedstock space. For Montana Renewables, that couldn't happen in a better place. As mentioned earlier, we've contracted 2,000 bbl per day of SAF, which is part of our initial yield, and that makes us the largest North American SAF producer.
On the bottom of slide 12, you'll see these initial volumes, all of which have been sold at a premium to renewable diesel. Immediately, we have an option to stretch the current SAF output, and we'll fine-tune that as the plant completes its initial performance testing. Thereafter, we can capitalize for greater SAF production, which we and our technology licensor estimate could be up to 15,000 bbl a day. Preliminary engineering work has begun on this project, and its world-class position has generated considerable interest from strategic investors. On the right half of this slide, we see a map of the West Coast major airports and SAF hubs in relation to Montana Renewables. To many of you, this map might look familiar as we viewed something similar for RD. Location underpins so much of our competitive advantage at MRL, whether it's renewable diesel or SAF.
As all of you with refining and transportation fuels knowledge know, location is the one competitive advantage that withstands the test of time. MRL's proximity to end product markets is exceptional. We serve renewable markets on the West Coast with direct BNSF rail access, and we're perfectly positioned to support the continuously growing low-carbon markets in Canada. Recently, we've seen that location as more than just an advantage in freight expense. The strong, stable spread margins that we see in the RD business are vulnerable to backwardation for anyone with long supply chains. We believe the same is true for SAF. In a highly backwardated market like we're in right now, the price received for fuel is significantly less next month than it is if you can reach end market in the current month.
We've heard more about this issue recently as backwardation has steepened, and with our shorter supply chains, we expect to largely avoid this challenge. In summary, slide 13 puts everything in one place. Right now, we're focused on ensuring we take the time to understand the nuances of operating our RD unit that only come with experience. We really don't generate much EBITDA until we gain the scale and feedstock flexibility that are coming soon. Right now, the temperature is 30 degrees lower than the November average in Great Falls, so we're taking it slow. From there, the focus is on getting the pre-treater and hydrogen plant stood up. It's at this point that Montana Renewables is expected to deliver financially. Next year, we'll be focused on operating the full plant, optimizing our feedstock advantage, and quite possibly finalizing a SAF expansion. All in, it's been a busy year.
We're excited about the future. We're proud of what's been accomplished thus far, and we believe the foundation is set for Montana Renewables as a leading growth platform in SAF and renewable diesel. With that, let's turn it back to the operator for Q&A. Operator?
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. Once again, to ask a question, press star one one. Our first question comes from the line of Carly Davenport with Goldman Sachs.
Hi, this is Nicolette Slusser on for Carly Davenport. Thanks for taking the time. The first question would just be on broader capital allocation and how Calumet is thinking about potential for shareholder returns over the coming quarters as you progress through continued leverage reduction.
Yeah, we're excited about, you know, the upward potential of our units, obviously. You know, first things first, we're focused on getting this business up and running and generating cash, which, like we said in the call, we think happens kind of early spring next year. From there, we'll continue to pursue the strategic delevering, which has been kind of priority number one now for a long time. Looking forward, you know, we try not to get too far ahead of ourselves. We like the cash generation potential of the MRL business, obviously. Our specialty business continues to generate a lot of cash, and it looks like, you know, for the foreseeable future that that continues to be the case. You know, we'll manage it accordingly.
Okay, great. Thanks. Then just a follow-up there on Montana Renewables, and if you can talk a little bit about what else is kind of outstanding to get the renewable hydrogen plant and pretreatment unit online, as it relates to the asset.
Hey, Nicolette, this is Bruce. Yeah, we're operating on a small site. You know, from the beginning, and we've talked about this, the sequential commissioning of the discrete projects was part of our approach to efficient execution. Last summer, we completed the logistics segregation into the two trains, the crude oil processing and the renewables. We're presently commissioning the renewable diesel, which in the past we've called the hydrocracker when it was in fossil service. Hydrogen should come up next month and pretreater after that. Basically, you know, through the winter, we're gonna finish the complete commissioning. Slide 13, which I should note has not changed in a long time, is telling you what that looks like in terms of throughput. I'll echo Todd's sentiments earlier.
I'm proud of the Calumet team having held the line on schedule here. That was our metric. That's what we set out to do, and knock on wood, you know, we're bringing it home.
Okay, great. Thanks for the color there.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Amit Dayal with H.C. Wainwright.
Thank you. Good morning, guys. Congrats on the execution. Just with respect to MRL, should we expect? You know, you've indicated fourth Q for MRL, Montana Renewables is gonna be flat from an adjusted EBITDA perspective. Will that continue potentially into 1Q 2023 as well, or will you have some of the SAF and RD starting to contribute already by then?
Oh, Bruce, we're not hearing you. Sounds like we're missing Bruce here. He's actually off-site. I'll take a shot at it, Amit. You know, obviously there's two steps to cash generation. The first one is scale with the hydrogen plant. That happens before the pretreat. I think you're right. You know, we don't expect full cash flow until we get both the scale and the pretreater online. We'll do a little bit better. We expect to do a little bit better than flat kind of, you know, early in the quarter as late in this year, kind of early next year as we get kind of hydrogen plant fully tuned out.
You know, we'll obviously kind of just like we're doing with the RDU, creep up the learning curve on pretreat, those types of things. I don't think Q1 will be totally flat, but you're right to assume that, you know, the large earnings power starts after both pretreat and hydrogen plant are up.
Understood. Thank you for that. You know, just from the monetization perspective, right? I mean, this has been out there in terms of the renewable diesel optionality that is on the table. You know, with specialty, the SPS segment and the Performance Brands segment now, you know, showing this level of performance, are you reconsidering, you know, some of these options, you know, that, you know, have been in discussion previously? You know, just the organic cash flow seems pretty strong, you know, and your deleveraging efforts seem to be, you know, moving in the right direction with this support. Just wondering how we should think about, you know, the options in front of you from, you know, what you have put out there with respect to the renewable diesel and the SAF business.
Oh, you're back, Bruce?
I am. Sorry, I don't know what happened. Amit, I'll take the Montana Renewables part, but I'm gonna invite Todd to also color that a little bit at the corporate level. We set out a year and a half ago to launch this business and I think there was a series of questions, which we addressed along the way from analysts and investors. As each one of those got satisfied and as the value proposition became more clear, we shifted our thinking a bit. The capstone on that was when Warburg Pincus came in and backed the venture at an enterprise value mark of $2.25 billion. That was a pre-commissioning number. We were pretty happy with that accomplishment.
We need to focus on getting this up safely and delivering what we've promised to the market. At that point, Montana Renewables is standalone. It's self-funding. All of the things that we talked about for future growth, expansion, SAF, Montana Renewables can do that on its own. We don't think that we need to monetize any of our ownership in order to deliver the business plan. That makes it optional. Calumet was founded as a partnership. The general partner thinks in terms of partnerships. At the moment, we're very interested in the strong inbound that we're getting on SAF and a couple of other strategics who have been waiting for us to de-risk this by getting it turned on.
I think all of that is a long way around to saying that we really like our position, but we still think a complementary strategic partner would make a lot of sense. It's in Calumet's DNA to operate that way.
Yeah, maybe I'll add on there a bit, Amit. I think, you know, like we said, we look at this very opportunistically as the parent, you know? We had a process going before with Lazard. We talked about that. I shouldn't say fully ended, but as far as a process with a set deadline, you know, an end date, that ended with the Warburg Pincus deal. Lazard remains retained. They're out there. They're very opportunistic. Like Bruce said, they're taking inbound. Inbound honestly has picked up with SAF. We don't feel a rush, you know, but there could be an opportunistic, you know, deal here that we could consider. I think we'll just take it one step at a time.
Well, that's helpful, guys. Thank you so much. That's all I have. I'll take my other questions offline. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. That's star one one. Our next question comes with Bank of America.
Hey, good morning, guys.
Morning, Greg.
Just maybe talk a little bit more about what you're seeing on the demand side. Are you seeing any slowdown on the industrial side or the consumer, or are you seeing resilience?
Hey, Greg, Scott Obermeier. You know, I'd say on a macro level that we're aware of a lot of these forward indicators signaling a more challenging economic environment. We also are starting to see some typical year-end seasonality across both industrial and the consumer side. All in all, Greg, I mean, we're seeing a continued, you know, pretty solid demand overall. I think as we look forward, you know, we view Q4 into Q1 with overall pretty solid demand. I think we'll see some of our prices regress a little bit towards some normalization, but we're pretty bullish overall, and the business is running well.
You mentioned how SPS benefited from the decline in crude, I believe, in terms of helping your margins. Could you help us understand how much that enhanced your margins?
Yeah. I think if you look at the margin chart. This is Todd, Greg. The margin chart and the material on the SPS slide, you can kind of see a pretty steady level over the past four or five months. You saw kind of in Q1 a little bit of a dip when crude ran up about $30 a bbl. You saw the exact opposite happen here when crude ran down about $30 a bbl. You know, it's hard to quantify exactly, but I think the way we like to look at it is assume that steady line is kind of the normal. We expect to be able to maintain that in the current market looking forward.
I'd say the pop above that steady line that we're seeing in the third quarter is large part crude related.
Got it. Then on the Performance Brands side, you talked about how a lot of the force majeure is behind you. The one remaining supply side is grease. I know you were expecting some delay in terms of being able to improve your pricing relative to improvement in crude prices. That's obviously come down a bit, but I'm curious. It sounds like you're telling us what 3Q was a reasonable expectation going forward for what type of EBITDA we should expect. But how do we. Am I misinterpreting that, or should we expect that to improve?
Hi, Greg. It's Marc Lawn . Couple of things. Let me sort of disassemble that question just into a few component parts. As Vince mentioned, we're still seeing inflationary pressures on the business, albeit at a reduced rate. The speed at which we're catching up with the pricing is the bit that we've seen come through there during the third quarter. Grease is one that we keep an eye on very carefully. We're doing a lot of work around trying to stabilize further the grease market. Demand is strong there and continues to be. It remains strong, and that's not just a North American issue, it's a global issue, which gives us opportunity. As you look forward, there isn't any indication in the short range that we're gonna see a material change based on what we know at the moment.
Albeit we still think that there's still an element of catch up. While we've caught up an element on price lag, that's still not all the way through. Some pricing was still going into play as late as the second and third week of September, for example. There's still some compounding benefits there that we would expect to see rolling through.
I appreciate that color . Just last one for you. I know there's some timing around bringing the proceeds from your different Montana Renewables facilities. Are you providing guidance as to how much we should expect to come in from those facilities in the fourth quarter in terms of enhancing liquidity down there?
Well, I think a good rule of thumb is, you know, we built inventory with feedstock that was around $50 million, that's kind of just sitting there in the tanks. The supply and off-take deal in the ABL will combine to fund the inventory, and we'd expect that much back here as we progress through the quarter.
Okay. Thanks for the time, guys. I appreciate it.
Thank you, Greg.
Thank you. I'll now hand the call back over to Head of Investor Relations, Brad McMurray, for any closing remarks.
Yeah, thanks. On behalf of the management team here in the room and really all of Calumet, thanks for your time and interest here this morning. We appreciate your participation on the call and everyone have a great rest of the week. Thanks.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.