Good day, and welcome to the Calumet, Inc. third quarter 2026 financial results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to John Kompa, Investor Relations for Calumet. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Keith. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Calumet's third quarter 2026 earnings call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. With me on today's call are Todd Borgmann, CEO, David Lunin, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Bruce Fleming, EVP Montana Renewables and Corporate Development, and Scott Obermeier, President Specialties. You may now download the slides that accompany the remarks made on today's conference call, which can be accessed in the IR section of our website at calumet.com. Also, 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 would like to remind everyone that during this call, we may provide various forward-looking statements.
Please refer to our press release that was issued this morning, as well as our latest filings with the SEC, for a list of factors that may affect our actual results and cause them to differ from our expectations. As we turn to slide three, I will now pass the call to Todd.
Thanks, John. Good morning all, and welcome to today's call. The third quarter was an exceptional one for Calumet. The company generated $347 million of Adjusted EBITDA with Tax Attributes, and our deleveraging and growth strategy is accelerating by years. Both our specialty and renewables businesses are producing stellar results at the same time, anchored by $248 million of Adjusted EBITDA in our Specialty Products and Solutions segment, and a record $80 million at Montana Renewables in its first full quarter of operation since the Set 2 RVO was set earlier this year. The market gave our industry an opportunity this quarter, and we are seeing years of positioning allowing us to make the most of it.
An integrated specialty system built on advantaged crude, domestic crude, and world-class customers, a renewable platform that is now ramping at the right time, continued demonstration of our industry-leading commercial excellence platform, and a growing culture of operational reliability that is both increasingly evident in our results and also provides a real opportunity to further extend our performance. Financially, we are converting these results into permanent value. In the past four months, Calumet has retired roughly $265 million of debt, saving approximately $26 million of annual cash interest, and we expect to continue this trend going forward, which has been at the heart of our strategy for some time now. Let us turn to slide four. At quarter end, consolidated net leverage stood at approximately 3x , down from over 9x at the beginning of last year.
Net recourse leverage at the restricted group was approximately 2.3x after paying down nearly $550 million of recourse notes and revolver borrowings over the same time period. After our most recent debt call, we have $175 million of 2028s outstanding, and also look ahead to the 2029s that become callable at par in January.
Every bond we retire converts high-cost interest into free cash flow, and that compounding is the value driver that transfers this growing cash flow stream from large debt payments to lasting shareholder value. Turning to slide five, we will talk about the specialties market. You have heard others in industry citing U.S. refining utilization in the high 90s, the highest since 2019, and distillate cracks near record levels. Fuels and specialties are different markets, but what is common right now is they are both extremely short supply globally, and it will take serious time to normalize.
How long that is a question we get a lot. While it is impossible to predict, the durability of the market is certainly something that has been proven time and time again on the specialty side. Currently, more than 10% of the world's paraffinic base oil capacity is damaged or offline, a third of Middle Eastern capacity from the Iranian conflict, and roughly a third of Europe's Group I capacity through the Russia-Ukraine war. This is physical plant damage, not a short-term trading decision at the hydroprocessing complex. It takes quarters to repair, recommission, and requalify. Even once that capacity returns, the supply chain has to rebuild inventories that have been drawn down for most of the year. Supply chains refill slowly, and they refill at prices that incentivize it.
As we have talked about previously, a lot of the globally impacted capacity is in the Group III market, which we do not directly produce. But with our paraffinic lubes selling at roughly $200 a barrel over WTI, and our solvents selling at over $100 a barrel to WTI, we see that it is an interconnected specialties market. When you see global crudes trading at huge premiums to domestic crudes, and shipping costs sometimes adding another $20 a barrel, it is clear that this is an infrastructure and supply chain story. Meanwhile, demand has not blinked. We posted our eighth consecutive quarter of specialty sales volumes above 20,000 barrels a day. Some may remember that this used to be a real accomplishment on the commercial side, and we now think of the 20,000 barrels a day of specialties as a floor.
This is the combination of our commercial team's continued success, selling every barrel that can be produced, and also the result of the smaller reliability investments that have been made, which we are excited to continue. Quite frankly, during recent periods, our commercial team could have recognized higher margins in the spot markets, but we are focused on the long term and will continue to support our loyal customers, many of whom have been with us for decades. Calumet remains on the right side of every one of these global dynamics. Our crude is domestic, nearby, and readily available. Because we are fully integrated from crude, we capture the full intermediate value uplift that non-integrated producers are paying up for in a scarce intermediate market. What we will not point to this quarter is a new long-term norm. The underlying structure that produced this one does not resolve quickly.
It will take rebuilt plants and refilled inventories, and that is a 2027 and beyond story. Looking at our own facilities, Calumet's well-positioned to meet the market need. We just completed a major turnaround at Shreveport on time and on budget in early November. We limped into this turnaround as we tried to hold off as long as we could, given the market, and we are excited about our increased volume potential as we close out this year and step into 2027. During this turnaround, we took some steps to further harden reliability on a little less than half of our units, and late next year, we will do the same on the rest. Let us turn to slide six and talk Montana Renewables, which delivered a record $80.4 million of adjusted EBITDA with Tax Attributes 80% in the quarter.
That is $1.86 a gallon, and quite frankly, we left a little on the table. Many will remember the significant power outage Great Falls had in April, and while we thought we had fully moved beyond that, we found some lasting catalyst damage during this quarter, and we dialed back rates and SAF just a bit to ensure we hit the scheduled downtime we have in November to tie in our MaxSAF assets. This tie-in has now begun, and we have timed this to line up with the winding down of the retail asphalt season. The timing decision discussed last quarter worked out well, as CMR captured $41 million of EBITDA during the third quarter. In the renewables market, we are seeing the RVO continue to work exactly as designed. Biomass-based diesel production across the industry continues to remain strong, and the agriculture complex is crushing more crop than ever.
We laid out this policy thesis a year ago, and it has turned into the industry consensus. American capacity is back online, putting American feedstocks to work and producing more diesel in a time when the world needs it. Our view of the long-term balance has not changed. Over time, the market settles around what it takes to incentivize the marginal biodiesel producer, and Montana Renewables is advantaged across that entire range, with its top quartile cost position, feedstock and product flexibility, and a strong geographical footprint. We are adding to that advantage with our recently announced expansion, and let us turn to slide seven and visit this project.
In September, we unveiled the improved MaxSAF expansion plan, which included the amended DOE loan guarantee, the six small controllable steps, and the economics, which were roughly 70% of the originally expected benefit, or $137 million, or less than 15% of the originally planned phase two capital. Further, yesterday we announced the last element of this project, which was the completion of the CMR lease for the related critical assets MRL will use in the accelerated expansion and an associated amendment to our deal with our partner, Warburg Pincus. David will review that, and I want to thank Warburg Pincus for their partnership. We're four years into this investment, and they've been agile, brought real industry perspective and expertise, and together with the DOE, we've created a transaction that positions MRL significantly better than the originally contemplated MaxSAF project did.
The next step of this expansion is tying in the lead CMR equipment, including our hydrotreater. This began this week as planned, and we're expecting to be back online this month to increase rate, improve our naphtha yields, and ramp up SAF production with our new SAF polishing process. As discussed last quarter, this dual-stage SAF polishing service will allow Montana Renewables to process SAF at lower severity than the industry standard cracking service, allowing us to generate SAF while minimizing volume loss in naphtha production.
This underpins our path to reach an 80 million annual gallon SAF run rate by year-end, 120 million plus by spring, 120 million to 150 million by the end of 2027, and ultimately to 200 million gallons in 2028. In addition, we'll capture and sell RIN-generating renewable NGLs, significantly reduce our water usage, and creep up throughput to 17,000 barrels a day throughout the project.
SAF receives a lot of the limelight, and we're excited about the level to which these other steps widen our competitive advantage as well. Higher volumes bring more margin and economies of scale. Capturing propane and butane and selling them into renewable markets to generate a RIN is a tremendous upgrade. And making all of our products with an enhanced pretreatment unit that provides even more feedstock flexibility than we currently enjoy are long-term differentiating advantages. Before I hand it to David, one more thank you. This quarter asked a lot of our people. The Calumet team carried a record pace at nearly every site. Our two largest sites did so while planning a major turnaround and project, and our commercial team continues to demonstrate what makes them so special. We're grateful for the 1,600 employees that are executing every day and driving these results.
With that, I'll turn the call over to David.
Thanks, Todd, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to slide eight and talk about our Montana Renewables segment. Before I get into the financial details, I wanted to walk through our announcement from yesterday. We announced that in a connected deal with the Department of Energy, Warburg Pincus, and Calumet have agreed on a lease structure between CMR and MRL for the equipment and a revision to the MRL Warburg agreement. This deal will provide an expected $30 million annual lease payment to CMR from MRL for the use of the equipment necessary for the MaxSAF expansion. Accordingly, Warburg's preferred rated return on their investment will increase to 11.5% and their equity position will decrease from its current 13.2% of common equity in MRL to a warrant to purchase 8% of MRL's common equity at a $750 million equity value strike price.
All in, this structure provides MRL the assets it needs to expedite the expansion and save roughly $1 billion of capital compared to the original plan, while also providing CMR a fixed cash flow stream to these key assets and simplifying the capital structure to provide maximum strategic flexibility for Montana Renewables going forward. Moving on to the financials. Montana Renewables segment reported Adjusted EBITDA with Tax Attributes of $110.6 million. Todd covered MRL's $80.4 million at 100% in its first full quarter following the initial phase of the MaxSAF expansion and a strong index margin environment. We're proud of that performance and our first full quarter of showing the financial capability of the business. On the refining side, CMR delivered the outsized seasonal quarter we foreshadowed with $40.8 million of Adjusted EBITDA as it captured peak asphalt season and the elevated fuels margins ahead of the reconfiguration.
As part of that reconfiguration, the hydrotreater, hydrogen plant, and naphtha splitter moved to MRL under the $30 million lease, and CMR will continue to operate, produce high-quality retail asphalt, and retain all of its employees. Moving to slide nine, we see that Specialty Products and Solutions segment Adjusted EBITDA was $248.1 million, more than triple the prior year's $80.2 million. Specialty material margin reached over $108 per barrel versus $62 a barrel a year ago, and fuels and asphalt margin were almost $38 a barrel. Execution matched the market. This was our eighth consecutive quarter of specialty sales above 20,000 barrels per day, and we achieved it while deliberately extending Shreveport's production runway ahead of the turnaround that began in October. The turnaround has been completed and positions Shreveport to run safely, reliably, and full into 2027.
Turning to Performance Brands, Adjusted EBITDA was $9.1 million, down from $13.2 million in the prior year period. The team continued to deliver on volume growth with a healthy 6.8 million gallons versus 6.3 million gallons sold a year ago. The story is unchanged from last quarter. Input costs rose faster than our retail channel pricing could follow, as that channel carries a typical 60- to 90-day price lag. Pricing actions are flowing through now, once again, which have been a recurring theme this year. As soon as input costs stabilize, we'd expect margins to normalize as the increases have been implemented. Of course, the same input cost moves squeezing Performance Brands is a major contributor to our SPS segment, and with SPS production roughly 35x the size of Performance Brands, that's a trade we'll take every quarter.
Additionally, offsetting some of those cost headwinds with a $7 million insurance claim related to Winter Storm Uri that was realized during the period. In closing, we enter the fourth quarter with real momentum. Specialties pricing remains strong. The Shreveport turnaround is now complete. Montana Renewables enters the quarter fully operational and will complete its tie-in in November, and the balance sheet is stronger than it has been in this company's modern history. Our job from here is to run safely, reliably, and full, complete the reconfiguration at Great Falls, and keep converting earnings and cash flow into reducing debt and interest expense, and thereby continuing to build permanent shareholder value. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions.
Yes, thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. Anytime your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw it, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble the roster. And today's first question comes from Conor Fitzpatrick from Bank of America.
Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. The midterm elections have come and gone, and it looks like control of federal and state arms of the government have changed in a few places. I was wondering maybe if you could give an update or possible outlook on how SAF voluntary demand in the U.S. might be affected. There was kind of a wave of voluntary airline company-level mandates that had happened in the last kind of political upcycle for the fuel. I was wondering how that unfolded last time, and maybe it could unfold possibly going forward. And then, does it change the policy environment for LCFS expansions in new states as well? Thanks.
Hey, Conor. It's Bruce. I'll take a shot at that. The view from here is that these are bipartisan initiatives. Both administrations, both sides of the aisle have been supportive of RVO directions. They know that that ties back to ag policy. In terms of the voluntary SAF, I think that's probably also a bit independent of which
which party is in the driver's seat. They have both been supportive through, for example, the PTC. We expect that to continue.
Okay. Thanks. I see in the slides you still have an estimated 10% or so of specialty products capacity offline globally. It looks like a lot of it in the Middle East. If you look at different consultants' estimates, some of the specialty products refinery damage is six-plus months to repair. I was wondering, even if we see a ceasefire or peace in the near term, how long a market short could outlast that just because of the damage across the world? Thanks.
Hey, Conor. This is Scott. I think we agree with what you mentioned and what has been published out there. We view the impact globally as not a quick fix, right? A lot of the damage, as we are talking base oils in particular, plus other refining, Middle East, as you mentioned, but also Russia. A lot of refinery impact in Russia and base oil impact there as well. So, our outlook is certainly this is going to be a tighter market for longer, because it is going to take time to get rebuilt and then replenish global supply chains.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Amit Dayal with H.C. Wainwright.
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Congrats on the solid quarter. Just to follow up on the prior question, are you seeing similar strength in margins and volumes from specialty for 4Q so far as you did in 3Q?
Yeah, this is Scott. I would say yes, that our outlook here for the fourth quarter, which normally has seasonality to it, so it is normally a little bit slower quarter for specialties. We have seen demand, customer demand remain durable. I think there is a lot of attention, a lot of focus, a lot of prioritization around business continuity, security, and supply of raw materials. Certainly at this time in the quarter, we still see demand solid and strong.
Amit, Scott, I'd pile on a little bit here with just our ability to produce ramping up in the fourth quarter. We obviously had the Shreveport turnaround, and that one's behind us, and we're pretty excited about our ability going forward. When you think about third quarter volumes, we were quite literally limping into that turnaround. We were running in the mid-40s as far as thousand barrels a day, buying a little bit of base oil on the market to supplement what we were making. I think coming out of that turnaround now, there was a lot of really good work done, and we're expecting to be running in the 50s of thousands barrels a day, making our own feedstocks.
Not only do we expect the market to be strong, like Scott said, we're excited to see our ability to just meet it continue to increase.
Thank you, guys. On that Warburg transaction, did you say $750 million at 8% equity, and is that for the MRL asset or is that for Calumet, Inc.?
No, that was at the MRL asset. The way it worked was, today, or I guess prior, Warburg had 13.2% of dollar one equity in Montana Renewables. In the future, they'll have 8% warrant or option to purchase 8% of Montana Renewables at a $750 million equity strike price. Hopefully that clears that up.
Yes. Thank you, Todd. That's helpful. Just the Performance Brands seems to be lagging a little bit relative to the other segments. Last quarter, you said there will be some catch-up. Is that still on the table, or is there some other sort of overhang for that segment?
Yeah. This is Scott. When we think about the Performance Brands segment, a couple things. One, overall, we've been really pleased. I mean, our volumes are up again this year. We've been on a really good growth trajectory. I think that the challenge is, as we've mentioned before, there is generally a 90-day price lag out there. What's gone on over the last four to five months is just the business continuing to chase pricing up, or costs up, I should say. But we've been successful in pushing through increases, but there's just this lag. Until input raw material costs stabilize, it's a little bit of just chasing after our cost increases.
One other quick comment that David alluded to in his prepared remarks, obviously, it's a big headwind for Performance Brands and chasing the cost increase up, but on the SPS side, obviously, it's super beneficial.
Yeah, understood. Thank you, guys. That's all I have.
Thank you. The next question comes from Josiah Knight with Goldman Sachs.
Hey, good morning, team. Thanks for taking our question. Maybe just on the CMR asset tie-in announced yesterday, can you just walk us through the moving pieces and how this agreement will enable MRL to increase SAF volumes and total throughput?
Yeah, sure. I will start, and let's see if Bruce jumps in. We have laid out the multiple steps of the MaxSAF expansion, and the first step's underway right now. So immediately, what's happening is the hydrotreater, the naphtha splitter from CMR, and the hydrogen plant, 5 MMSCFD hydrogen plant, are being tied into MRL. So right off the bat, that's going to allow a couple different things, right? It's going to allow us to reduce naphtha yield with the naphtha splitter, improve the price on the remaining naphtha that we do have. The rest will be blended into renewable diesel, and it will allow us to activate or enter into this new SAF polishing service that we have talked about the last couple quarters that we think really just a lasting advantage on production costs around SAF. Then, of course, hydrogen is the rate limiter of throughput.
We are going to put that extra 5 MM to work at MRL and increase throughput 1,000 barrels a day as well. So, that's the first step. Then there's a handful of other steps that will occur over the next couple years. One of the other assets that's being leased or will be available next year is the asset that will help us capture the renewable propane and renewable butane out of the stream in Montana Renewables and sell that. So, it's a multi-part lease. Basically, MRL has the ability to use everything they need that's been identified in the MaxSAF expansion so far. So, yeah, hopefully that helps understand the first step.
That's super helpful. The follow-up is on the balance sheet. Net leverage is now 3x , which is nice to see. I guess maybe for the remaining $175 million of the 2028 notes, any updated commentary or any color on how you guys are thinking about that and the 2029s and your longer-term debt targets?
Yeah. It's David. I think our plan continues to be the same. Use cash generated across all our businesses to reduce high-cost capital. So, right in front of us is the 2028. There's $175 million outstanding. We'll use cash generated from operations and continue to chip away at that. Right behind those notes are the 2029s, which become callable at par in January of 2027. We continue to have a ramp. We're excited about the $260 million we've already paid down and the additional $26 million or so of interest that that'll save us on an annual basis. Strategy will remain the same.
Got it. Makes sense. Turn it back. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Jason Gabelman with TD Cowen.
Yeah. Hey. Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to go back to the updated agreement and just trying to understand what the cash outflows are now from MRL to both the parent, and then to Warburg as well. Is it simply just kind of as I look at slide eight, adding up the intercompany instruments at like $40 million, the $30 million lease payment, and then the 11.5% on the pref units to Warburg? Is that what's flowing out on an annual basis from MRL, or is it a bit more nuanced than that?
Yeah. Jason, I think you're close, but let me just clarify a bit. There's both services, ongoing service provided under the MSA, and MRL will continue to pay Calumet for those. You can think about that as shared services, employees, utilities, essentially op costs, and those will continue in normal course, and nothing's changed there. Related to the lease, that's a $30 million annual payment. The op costs related to those assets will be handled by MRL. And that's what I think about as the kind of immediate cash flow that's going to come out in normal course. The interest rates that are described on the kind of intercompany financing arrangements, as well as the Warburg arrangement, those are PIKing, and those will continue to PIK until project completion, just under the loan guarantee agreement.
Got it. Okay. That's helpful color. And then the Warburg's discretion, do you need to have mutual agreement to do that?
No. It's their warrants. They'll have the right to exercise them like any other warrant.
Okay. Got it. On the near term on Q4, given it sounds like there was a bit more maintenance activity, both at Shreveport and with the MRL tie-in, are you able to provide guidance on throughput expectations for the quarter?
Hey, Jason. I think you could think about both of those as a little bit less than a month. So, the Shreveport turnaround was a big one. It is behind us. It was a good chunk of October, and like we were saying earlier, back on now. Montana Renewables and CMR, that tie-in just began, and that will be back on. It will not be all of November, but last week or so of November. So, I think conservatively, if you said a month for each of those, that would be a bit overshooting, but it is a good chunk of the month.
All right. Great. I will leave it there. Thanks for the answers.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Gregg Brody with Bank of America.
Morning, guys. Just to turn back to the specialty materials business. How should we think about I think some folks have tried to ask this. Just curious if, can you guide to where you think the proper margin is during this period of supply constraints? Then ultimately, do you think this changes your long-term view on where mid-cycle should be for this business?
Hey, Gregg. Thanks for the question. I think, as Scott said, we're expecting margins to remain pretty similar here for the foreseeable future. We're certainly not calling for $250 million of SPS to be the new norm forever type of thing. It's certainly a little bit of an elevated market, no doubt. But we're also not seeing that come down in the near term. There will be a slow creep over time. Hard to predict exactly when that creep would occur. But kind of like we talked about earlier in the Q&A and in the script remarks, we don't see that happening in the near future, just given how much infrastructure's offline and how long it's going to take to respond to that.
I think kind of going forward, other than the turnaround that we just talked about in Shreveport for a month, you should be in the seasonality that Scott mentioned earlier, although we haven't really seen any yet. You should be thinking that what we did here is pretty reasonable to look at going forward. As far as the mid-cycle, I do think that our mid-cycle has increased. Hard to put a specific dollar amount on that, but it's increased in two ways. One, in a huge way on cash generation, right? When you think about just the amount of additional cash that we're unlocking through the accelerated deleveraging, I think our ability to generate cash flow in this business is substantially higher in the mid-cycle than it was when we had all of the debt on the balance sheet going forward, or looking backwards.
I'd say just our reliability and some of the smaller reliability investments that we've made, we expect those to continue to pay and, quite frankly, continue to get better. I mean, if we thought about before our mid-cycle levels, we'd certainly look at going forward, even outside of the current margin environment, to be building on that with some of the improvements that we've made just in the base reliability. Then obviously, we've talked about before, we've also got some pretty interesting and exciting growth capital in the specialty business, which we haven't spent any on in many years. That'll be adding to the mid-cycle as well, and we'll put some of this excess cash flow to good use there.
Thank you. Just with the remaining legacy Montana facility, how should we think about the piece that's not part of this lease in terms of EBITDA generation and the seasonality throughout the year?
Yeah, I think it's a good question. We haven't gone too far in the guidance of what that asset can do. What I can tell you is the asphalt business has been a really nice one. We think the lease, the $30 million value for the lease, is basically kind of a reasonable range to compensate long-term for what CMR has generated. Obviously, the current margin environment is better than that, so we do expect CMR to generate positive EBITDA going forward. It certainly won't be as much as it was operating at a full refinery. So, I don't want to put a specific number on it, but it's not as high as the historic range, but it's also certainly positive.
There'll be a little bit of seasonality, just given it's going to be more heavily weighted towards asphalt, but it'll still be a positive contributor to the business.
Thank you. Is the Warburg instrument still a PIK security? Do you expect that to PIK that, or when do you think you'd start paying that?
Yeah, that's a good question. It is a PIK facility. Like we talked about last quarter, the cash in Montana Renewables will stay in Montana Renewables, although it's building pretty rapidly. We've got a few hundred million dollars built up on the balance sheet there. But that's going to stay there until the project's complete at Montana Renewables. We certainly have the ability to pay down that instrument sooner. At that rate, I'd be shocked to see that instrument around at termination or expiration long term. So, we'll see where that goes, but with the cash flow generation that we have throughout the company, it's certainly a potential use of cash to pay that, to expedite the payment of that instrument.
Just to be clear, are you saying cash from the restricted group could be used to pay that down? Or at some point, assuming you can amend the DOE agreement, you could use cash from MRL?
Either. Either, right? As we look forward and just try to reduce interest costs and kind of look at consolidated debt across the board, I think either an opportunity. We're not fixated on one path or the other right now. We'll just kind of stay focused on the market and see how things are progressing.
Got it. That presumably, that would not interfere with the paying down the debt at the holding company, the remaining 28s and the 29s, or do you think that
Correct.
You will refinance. Got it. Just as you think about that debt target at the parent, how has this agreement changed your thoughts about monetizing the asset? Any sort of updates there in terms of updating MRL?
Yeah, I don't think our long-term view has changed at all around MRL. I think maybe necessity has changed, certainly in the current margin environment. We have announced kind of the next phase of what we are doing at MaxSAF. We continue to build value there. Certainly, I would say in prior conversations, the key driver to accelerating a sale was accelerating the debt paydown at the restricted group. Obviously, that is not the only requirement right now. Right now, the requirement is, what can we do to accelerate or to optimize overall shareholder value? Look, we have created a really strong currency here at MRL, and we are going to use that to create enterprise value in whichever form it takes. Certainly, monetization remains an option. Long term, we think of that as the most likely scenario.
I would say the idea of pushing that solely to drive accelerated deleveraging of the restricted group is not a requirement. Our eyes are on maximizing shareholder value.
Got it. Does that mean that an IPO is not something you are contemplating in the near term as well?
I do not know that I would say that it is not something we are contemplating. I would say there is a lot of options there. It is certainly not something I would expect in the imminent few months, but it very much remains an option, as do other strategic options.
Great. Then just the last one, maybe you could just talk about M&A and growth capital opportunities. Probably growth capital being a little easier, but I am just curious also what the M&A environment looks like for your restricted group business and possibly Montana Renewables.
Yeah, I can tell you we look at all of it through the same lens that we just talked about, and that is max shareholder value creation. We are not going to take our eye off the ball on finishing the deleveraging, right? So I think that is the first message is, just because we have had a couple great quarters here, we still want to continue to pay down debt, and that is our number one priority and carries a huge rate of return.
But at the same time, we are generating a heck of a lot of cash, and we are going to compare all of our growth opportunities against one another, whether that is MRL growth, organic growth, CapEx, inorganic M&A. We will evaluate everything to drive shareholder value. I would just say we do not want to get ahead of ourselves, and first and foremost is completing that deleveraging.
And at the same time, we're looking forward, and we'll keep building that war chest, and when the time is right to strike on something that's hugely synergistic, we'll take advantage of that.
Great. Thanks for the time, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference over back to John Kompa, Investor Relations of Calumet, for any closing comments.
Thank you, Keith. On behalf of Todd and the entire management team, I'd like to thank everyone again for their interest in Calumet. Have a great rest of the day.
Thank you. The conference has concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.