Good day everyone, and welcome to the third quarter 2022 Minerals Technologies earnings call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Erik Aldag, Head of Investor Relations for Minerals Technologies. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Jenny. Good morning everyone, and welcome to our third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Today's call will be led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Doug Dietrich, and Chief Financial Officer, Matt Garth. Following Doug and Matt's prepared remarks, we'll open it up to questions. I'd like to remind you that beginning on page 15 of our 2021 10-K, we list the various risk factors and conditions that may affect our future results. I'll also point out the safe harbor disclaimer on this slide. Statements related to future performance by members of our team are subject to these limitations, cautionary remarks, and conditions. Now I'll turn the call over to Doug. Doug?
Thanks, Erik. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. Got quite a bit to go over today, so let's get started. First, I want to quickly mention that MTI celebrated its 30th anniversary this week. We debuted as a public company in 1992 with revenue of $400 million. Over the past 30 years, the company has grown and transformed into a global specialty minerals leader with operations in 38 countries and revenues of over $2 billion. I want to congratulate all employees of MTI, past and current, for their dedication and contributions to this journey. Now a quick outline for today's call. I'll begin by walking you through our financial results for the third quarter and provide some context to put our results into perspective.
I also want to walk you through the execution of our growth strategy and give some examples of how we're positioned to continue to drive higher levels of growth and performance. Finally, I'll share some perspectives on what's happening around our end markets and our near-term outlook. Matt will share details of our financial results and our outlook for the fourth quarter. Let's start with a recap of the quarter. Our track record of growth continued in the third quarter, with sales up 22% on a constant currency basis to $542 million. Each of our segments realized double-digit sales growth reflective of our efforts to position the company on a higher growth trajectory.
In general, this is one of the more challenging quarters from a market and cost perspective, and the risks to our guidance that we highlighted during our second quarter call came to pass. We saw softer than expected demand in Europe, higher energy costs, and a sluggish rebound in China. Foreign exchange rates were also a more significant drag on sales and earnings. Going into the quarter, we expected some moderation of inflationary pressures, but we ended up experiencing the highest inflationary period of the year. Despite these challenges, the majority of our product lines performed well. Our pricing actions more than offset the higher inflation and our acquisitions delivered, all of which offset the market weakness we experienced and resulted in operating income of $67 million, 6% higher than last year. I'll also note that we recorded special items in the quarter.
One was a reserve established to cover ongoing talc-related litigation. Given the current environment of talc product litigation, we felt it was prudent at this point to reserve for potential additional costs. Matt will outline this and the other charges in more detail later. Excluding these special items, earnings per share was $1.35, continuing our trend of year-over-year earnings growth. We also moved quickly in the quarter and took steps to strengthen and enhance the flexibility of our balance sheet by refinancing our debt and extending maturities out through 2027. Overall, this was a strong quarter for MTI, although it played out a bit differently than we expected when we last spoke to you. The team continues to take advantage of the opportunities presented to us, as well as navigate the challenges we face around the globe.
Focus, discipline, and agility are the characteristics that describe our team. Same characteristics are what make MTI well positioned to continue on our strong track. Now let's move to the next slide, where I'll take you through the sources of the broad-based growth we realized in the third quarter. MTI's growth strategy focuses on three key areas, positioning our businesses in faster-growing markets and geographies, accelerating the development of new products and technologies, and the acquisition of companies that help advance these efforts. Through the execution of this strategy over the past several years, we've built a portfolio of businesses which is more resilient, with a greater mix of sales to non-cyclical and growing markets that is positioned for continued growth. Once again, in this quarter, we saw the impact of this strategy.
Sales increased 22% over last year, with broad-based growth driven by the three pillars of this strategy. Let me take you through each in more detail. Our success in market positioning is highlighted by the build-out of our consumer-oriented product lines and the positioning of our more industrial businesses in faster-growing regions. Sales from base volumes and mix improved by 6% this quarter. Our less cyclical consumer-oriented markets led the way with our Household & Personal Care product line growing 16% over last year, driven by growth in Pet Care and our Edible Oil Purification business. We continue to position our industrial product lines in faster-growing geographies and utilize our applications expertise to drive the penetration of our core technologies in these markets.
We've steadily grown sales in the Asia foundry and paper and packaging markets, and sales there this quarter, excluding China, increased by 7%, driven by a 13% growth in India, as our PCC and Metalcasting business continue to strengthen positions in their respective markets. We maintain our focus on offsetting the inflation we're experiencing. Pricing actions added 13% to our overall sales this quarter. Our ability to price is derived from the value we provide to customers every day. Our base technologies, applications expertise, and pricing structure work in tandem to ensure we continue to deliver sustainable value for our customers. The second pillar of our strategy, which is delivering results, is accelerating the development of new products and technologies.
Innovation is alive and well at MTI, creating new solutions for our customers, solutions that save them money, enhance the performance of their products, reduce their environmental footprint, and eliminate or recycle waste streams. Our newest products continue to contribute more meaningfully to our top line, adding three percentage points to our organic growth in the third quarter. In fact, sales of new products are up 48% year-to-date versus last year and now make up 14% of MTI's total sales, up from 11% last year. Our newest innovations address a variety of needs in markets that touch millions of lives every day. A few examples include in Fabric Care, our newest hueing particle additive is the application of a technology that makes whites whiter and colors brighter in dry laundry detergent.
Our Pet Care business has developed new low-dusting cat litter, which keeps households cleaner, and we recently introduced new cat litter box fragrance boosters. Our Specialties product line has commercialized more efficient bleaching earth products that further extend the shelf life of edible oil. We also have several new innovations for our industrial markets. In Metalcasting, we've secured new sales for our low-emission green sand bond blends, which reduce emissions in the casting process. We've deployed new high-durability refractory materials in Europe and are currently commissioning our first SCANTROL automated refractory application and laser measurement system here in the United States. We commercialized two new coated ultra fine Specialty PCCs, which are specialty additives that provide critical viscosity control to our customer's product. These are just a few examples of the breadth of new product development occurring across the company. The third pillar of our strategy is acquisition.
The addition of mineral-based companies with value-added technologies has been a key contributor to our success. Over the last four years, we've acquired four companies that support our strategy, representing nearly $300 million in sales. Three of them were aimed at building out our Pet Care business, which as a result, is now the largest product line in the company. We maintain a pipeline of attractive consumer and industrial-based opportunities that we feel fit our strategy, and we have the financial strength to execute on them if they become actionable. Before we move on, I wanna point out the bottom of this slide, what is graphically and literally our foundation. The ability to innovate, develop leading technology platforms, and the expertise and know-how to apply our technologies in our customers' products and processes.
The strength and longevity of our vertically integrated and unique mineral reserve positions around the world. The engagement and support of our employees who support our values and culture of operational excellence. We build on this foundation every day to drive value for our customers and shareholders. Now I'll take you through some dynamics that are playing out across our end markets. As I mentioned earlier, the economic environment continues to evolve, and we saw several market shifts in the third quarter. I wanna take a few minutes to share our current view of our end markets and the near-term outlook for our major product lines. Like most, our company is not immune to macroeconomic factors. The decisions we've made over the past several years have placed our company in a stronger position than it's ever been to weather economic challenges and continue to deliver consistent growth and performance.
This slide shows our market outlook by product line. Noted a couple of additional items on the slide. The blue section in each circle represents the amount of each segment's sales that are consumer-oriented and more directly driven by consumer behaviors. Also, next to each product line, we've listed the percentage of MTI sales that each product line represents. Let's start with our Performance Materials segment. This is our largest segment, and you can see that approximately half of its sales are consumer-oriented. Starting from the top, Household & Personal Care, our largest product line, has a solidly positive market outlook. It continues to benefit from favorable consumer trends and strong sales from our newest products. This product line includes Pet Care, Fabric Care, Health & Beauty, and our Oil Purification products, along with other non-industrial specialties.
In general, this product line serves end markets that are more closely tied to consumer staples, enabling it to better sustain sales levels through economic cycles. Furthermore, we're strongly positioned on the private label side of both the Pet Care and Personal Care markets. Private label brands are a growing category across the consumer packaged goods. They also tend to perform well when customers are looking for ways to save at the store shelf and make more economical choices. Demand for household items like pet litter, over-the-counter active skincare products, Fabric Care additives, and edible oils are poised to grow over the longer term, driven by increases in population and the general rise in global income. Next is Metalcasting. This business also has a solid market outlook through the fourth quarter and is benefiting from strong automotive, heavy equipment, and infrastructure casting demand in North America.
China foundry market has been much slower this year. However, we saw an increased demand late in the third quarter and expect this improvement to continue. Further out, we're well-positioned to continue to penetrate foundry markets around the world with our leading technologies and see ample runway to continue our growth trajectory. Our environmental products business, which has historically been driven by industrial landfill lining systems, has a growing focus on consumer drinking water and municipal cleanup efforts. We have a balanced view of this business into the fourth quarter. We see strong markets for our water remediation products like FLUORO-SORB, which targets PFAS contamination in ground and drinking water, and continued solid demand for our offshore water filtration and well testing.
The other factor giving a more balanced outlook is that we will experience the typical seasonal reduction in the number of landfill lining projects as we move into colder months. Our building materials product line primarily serves commercial construction and infrastructure end markets. We have a cautious outlook here, where we have seen a general slowdown in the European construction market that will likely extend into next year. Project pipeline for North America, however, remains relatively strong at least through the fourth quarter. Now let's move into Specialty Minerals. We have a balanced outlook for our Paper PCC business. Volumes will continue to grow in India from our latest satellites, and North America volumes will remain strong, driven by high paper machine utilization rates. We also see a modest near-term recovery in China, which will likely extend into next year.
Offsetting this, we see continued softer conditions in Europe due to generally weaker economic conditions and higher energy prices. Our Specialty PCC and Processed Minerals product lines serves construction, auto, and consumer markets. We see continued favorable trends in the consumer segment, solid demand for antacid and food and beverage calcium fortification applications. Additionally, both Specialty PCC and Processed Minerals products continue to benefit from strengthening auto production, which should keep demand relatively solid through the fourth quarter and into next year. This, however, is balanced against a less favorable outlook for sales into residential construction materials. In Refractories, we have a balanced but perhaps cautious outlook going into the fourth quarter.
We did see some softening in this business in the third quarter, with North American steel utilization rates moving from 79% to around 76%, which is where we expect them to remain through the fourth quarter. The European steel market also slowed through the third quarter, and we could see further softening into the fourth. We secured several contracts for our new SCANTROL devices, our latest innovation that is delivering higher value for our customers, which will add incremental sales and profits next year. These devices are representative of the innovation happening in this business that has fundamentally transformed it for higher levels of profitability. In summary, the business environment has certainly changed from where we began the year. Shifting economic and market conditions, persistent inflation in this environment.
Despite all of this, we have a positive or balanced outlook for 80% of the company's markets through the fourth quarter, and we remain on track for another record year of earnings. We do recognize that the environment can change rapidly, but our focus, discipline, and agility are characteristics of our team that enable us to continue to successfully navigate what lies ahead. Our portfolio of businesses is much different today. More balanced, and it's structured to deliver consistent, solid, relative growth and performance through economic cycles. With that, I'll pass it over to Matt to review the financials in more detail. Matt?
Thanks, Doug, and hello, everyone. I'll take you through the third quarter results, the performance of our segments, and I'll also share our outlook for the fourth quarter. Finally, my remarks, we will turn the call over for questions. Now let's review the third quarter results. Third quarter sales were $542 million, 15% above the prior year and 22% higher on a constant currency basis. Starting with the sales revenue bridge on the left, top left, you can see that foreign exchange impacted growth unfavorably by 7 percentage points for $33 million. Acquisitions contributed 3% to the overall growth in sales, driven by Concept Pet, our new Specialty PCC assets, and approximately one month of incremental sales from Normerica.
Our continued selling price actions drove sales higher by 13% over last year and improved volume and mix added 6% to sales, driven by higher Metalcasting volumes, continued growth from new contract wins in Refractories, higher levels of activity in our project-oriented businesses, as well as an increase in sales from new products. Operating income in the third quarter, excluding special items, increased by $4 million over the prior year to $67.2 million. We continued to implement selling price increases during the quarter amid the persistent inflationary environment. As Doug mentioned, the $51 million of inflationary cost increases was the highest level we have experienced in any quarter this year. You can see in the operating income bridge on the lower left-hand side that our selling price actions exceeded the inflationary cost increases by $8 million.
Offsetting this was $2.6 million of unfavorable foreign exchange and another $2.6 million of other costs, including SG&A wage inflation and other operational costs. Now turning to the right side of the slide, the sequential sales bridge shows that sales were lower by 1% on a constant currency basis. Continued selling price actions were offset by slower demand in Europe, softer steel market conditions, and typical seasonal foundry maintenance outages. Adjusted operating income was lower by 9% sequentially, driven by volume and unfavorable foreign exchange of $2 million. We experienced inflation of approximately $4 million higher than we expected at the start of the quarter due to significant energy cost increases in Europe. As you can see, we were able to fully offset the additional inflation with price adjustments.
Relative to the guidance we provided at the start of the quarter, our operating income was impacted by softer demand than expected in Europe and China and unfavorable foreign exchange. Now let me share a reconciliation of reported EPS to adjusted EPS. Third quarter reported earnings per share were $0.41. During the quarter, the company recorded special items of $38.7 million, primarily consisting of $31.1 million for litigation costs and $6.9 million for debt extinguishment costs related to the refinance. The litigation costs were incurred to defend against, opportunistically settle, and establish a reserve for claims associated with certain talc products from the Barretts Minerals Inc. subsidiary. The company's position is that all talc products sold by Barretts Minerals are safe, and these claims are without merit.
We have a relatively limited number of cases, but they do require legal preparation and the proper response, hence our decision to prudently set aside a legal reserve to resolve them. Now let's review the segments in more detail, starting with Performance Materials. Sales for the Performance Materials segment were $290 million in the third quarter, an increase of 16% versus the prior year and 24% higher on a constant currency basis. This sales growth was driven by strong demand for consumer-oriented products, continued selling price actions, as well as strength in Metalcasting, particularly in North America. Sales in Household, Personal Care & Specialty Products increased by 16% compared to prior year and were 1% higher sequentially. Pet Care acquisitions and higher sales in our Personal Care and Edible Oil Purification businesses drove the growth compared to prior year.
Sales in our Metalcasting business were 17% higher year-over-year as a result of strong volumes in North America. Sales were 4% lower sequentially on the previously mentioned maintenance outages at our North America foundry customers. We did see a modest improvement in China volumes. However, the improvement lagged our expectations and volumes remained below prior year levels. Environmental product sales grew 20% versus the prior year on strength in remediation, wastewater, and filtration activities, but were 12% lower sequentially due to the timing of projects. Building material sales were slightly lower year-over-year and sequentially, as higher levels of project activity in North America were more than offset by slower activity levels in Europe.
Operating income excluding special items was $38.2 million and represented 13.2% of sales, 20 basis points above the prior year and sequential quarter as pricing actions offset inflationary cost pressures. The segment largely met our expectations for operating income in the quarter as strength in the Household & Personal Care product line and North America Metalcasting offset the slower than expected rebound in Metalcasting demand in China. Now looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we are entering a seasonally stronger period for Pet Care in both North America and Europe. In Metalcasting, we see continued strong demand in North America and improvement in China, with the rest of the Asia region remaining strong. Meanwhile, we are entering a seasonally slower period for our environmental, commercial construction, and drilling products businesses.
Given the typical seasonality, we expect segment operating income to be lower by approximately $4 million sequentially. In addition, there continues to be uncertainty in Europe, and we could see continued slowing industrial markets and additional inflationary cost increases. Now let's take a look at Specialty Minerals. Third quarter sales in the Specialty Minerals segment were $166 million, an increase of 13% compared to prior year and 18% higher on a constant currency basis. Global PCC sales were higher by 14% versus last year, with paper PCC up 9%, driven primarily by contractual selling price increases. Sales in Asia were lower than prior year on soft conditions in China and weaker than expected demand in Europe due to increasing economic challenges in the region related to energy costs.
Specialty PCC sales were 40% higher year-over-year, driven by continued strong demand in North America, higher pricing, and the asset acquisition in the fourth quarter of last year. Processed Minerals sales also grew year-over-year, rising by 9%. Operating income in this segment, excluding special items, was $16.9 million and represented 10.2% of sales. Softer demand in Europe, higher energy costs, and higher operational costs impacted results by $3 million against our expectations. In addition, this segment absorbed $21 million of raw material and energy inflation in the quarter, and we've been passing this cost through to our customers in price adjustments. As you're aware, some of these costs are passed through on a contractual basis, and there is a lag as to when these adjustments will take effect and improve margin. Now looking to the fourth quarter.
In Processed Minerals and SPCC, we are entering a seasonally lower period for our construction end market, but we are seeing volumes to the automotive market remaining strong. We also expect our paper PCC business to have a similar quarter sequentially. Overall for the segment, we expect operating income to be similar to the third quarter. Now let's move to Refractories. Refractory sales increased 13% versus the prior year, and sales grew 20% on a constant currency basis on the continued ramp-up of new business volumes and higher pricing to cover inflationary cost increases. Sales were 8% lower sequentially due to softer global steel market conditions and resulting lower utilization rates. Operating income was $12.4 million, roughly $1 million lower than anticipated, and margin remained strong at 14.5% of sales.
Performance was impacted by higher energy costs in our manufacturing location in Turkey, unfavorable foreign exchange, and softer than expected steel market conditions. Now looking ahead, we expect a strong fourth quarter for laser equipment sales. We see North America steel market conditions remaining at similar levels to the third quarter. However, we anticipate some softening in Europe. In addition, we see continued higher energy costs for our Turkish operations. The net effect of this will result in operating income approximately $1 million-$2 million lower sequentially. Now let's take a look at our debt and liquidity. We completed a refinancing of our revolving credit facility and Term Loan B during the quarter, which extended maturities from 2023 and 2024 out to 2027.
As a result of the refinancing, our overall interest rate was reduced by 50 basis points, and our fixed to floating ratio remained roughly 50%. Cash from operations for the quarter was $30 million, and we deployed $19 million of capital expenditures. While we expect a strong fourth quarter free cash flow of around $70 million, inflationary factors have increased our working capital. As the inflationary pressures abate, we see working capital releasing and a return to more normal levels of cash flow. Overall, our liquidity remains very strong at over $400 million. Now let me summarize our outlook for the fourth quarter. Demand remains strong in our consumer-oriented product lines and solid across most of our end markets in North America, although note that we do see the typical seasonality in our construction end markets.
In Asia, we see continued modest improvement in China with stable conditions elsewhere in the region, which should benefit our Metalcasting and PCC businesses. In Europe, we expect industrial market conditions to remain soft, and we could see higher energy and related input costs as we move into the winter months. Overall, we expect operating income to be around $60 million, which would be 10% above last year, and EPS of $1.20. From where we sit today, the fourth quarter reflects continued year-over-year growth driven by ongoing execution of our strategic growth initiatives and solid operating performance. Today's guidance equates to full year EPS of around $5.40. This is 8% growth versus 2021 and a testament to the resilience of our portfolio and the perseverance of our team. With that, let's move to Q&A.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure to, your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach your equipment. Again, please press star one to ask a question. Our first question comes from Daniel Moore from CJS Securities.
Thank you.
And please-
Doug, Matt, thanks for taking the questions.
Hi, Dan.
Good morning. Let me start with Performance Materials. If we just maybe talk about volume versus pricing for, you know, both Household & Personal Care and Pet Care and this kind of same question for Metalcasting, what you saw in Q3.
Sure. Matt, you wanna take that or?
Yeah, absolutely. I think, Dan, when you take a look, the team did a really good job in continuing to drive price. If we break it down for the segment, you know, we're still net kind of $5 million ahead of the inflationary factors that they had seen. You are seeing very good year-over-year volume growth across Metalcasting, the Pet Care business that's helping to drive that, and also other components of HPC and that specialty business where the team has been making advances. Might be good, Jon, if you wanna give some color on some of those components.
Sure. You wanted to highlight Specialty, Matt?
Sure.
Hi, Dan. Specialty, we've got a nice balance of unique product positions. Certainly we've got our Personal Care, which we talk about, embedded in that business. We also, you know, have talked at length about edible oil. Both of those are growing.
We look for opportunities to continue debottlenecking our plants to push more capacity through. As demand continues to grow, we have the ability to serve. We've got other specialty segments as well. We're in human health, we're in ag, we have a segment called Advanced Performance Additives. We're also in drilling products for both oil and gas and water well drilling. It's a wide variety, and certainly, you know, we've got growth across the entire portfolio. This is predicated on, you know, our strategy. Our strategy, you know, very consistent across the company, but, you know, it's really playing out in Specialties. It's geographic growth, it's growth through innovation. We have about 50% of our new products in this segment going through that specialty business.
A lot of factors, you know, all coming together with great demand and well-positioned with high-value products.
Yeah. One other thing, Dan, you know, as far as Metalcasting goes, if you take a look, what we talked about was on a regional basis, really good performance in North America. Again, Jon, has talked about the mix of end markets that we serve there, with automotive continuing to trend well, but those other markets performing very well among our customers. China, what we had talked about is, yes, it wasn't as strong as we expected, but we did see a nice uptick in the third month of the quarter, so in September, with really nice demand coming back into place. That helped to really set some of the directional trajectory that we were looking at for the fourth quarter of continued improvement in Metalcasting.
If I could add to that, Matt, we do see. We track our daily sales, and what we've seen in Metalcasting, daily sales in Asia, ever since May, every month has increased. You know, we had a nice increase, like you highlighted in September. Going into Q4, again, we see that demand continuing to increase. A little slower than what we expected, but still very well positioned. We're not sleeping there. You know, as the markets have been slow, that team, and we've got a great leader, great team, and they're positioning with customers and we've won some new customers, so our share positions are continuing to increase with our blended products and our positions with those customers.
You kind of read my mind. I was gonna just dig into Metalcasting, given the strength of the outlook that you described, and maybe get a sense of how much is, you know, increased penetration or, you know, so as to weigh share gains versus positive market outlook.
Yeah. We're seeing, Dan, this is Doug. As Matt and Jon kind of mentioned, volumes are still remaining very strong in North America. We see, you know, that automotive demand, heavy equipment, is gonna continue to drive volumes through the fourth quarter and we see into next year. I think China is the weakest spot of the year so far. However, the uptick that we saw in September is gonna, we think, continue, you know, at a moderate pace. It's not gonna rebound. We don't see that drastically, but it's gonna continue to grow through the fourth quarter and into next year. A lot of that is coming from, you know, our positioning, and you mentioned price before.
Our ability to price is coming somewhat from our ability and our applications of these green sand bond products, our blended products in China. As they become much more of a staple to, you know, more modern casting processes, you know, our ability to drive more value and therefore continue to drive more price is behind that. We're positive on that both the Pet Care and the Metalcasting, as we showed from that slide going into the fourth and into next year.
Perfect. Maybe one more, just digging down into the edible and purification oils. Any sense for, you know, kind of what run rate revenue we're at? You know, just who are your primary customers? Is it larger CPGs? Is it smaller niche companies? Where are you gaining the most traction, and is it mostly North America or pretty well-balanced in North America and Europe, since we're hearing more about that quarter in, quarter out? Thank you.
Yeah. These are. Our business is largely in Europe right now. Our production and sales are in the Europe region for edible oils. You know, that's grown from, you know, zero a couple of years ago as we ventured into this market. We're growing, you know, as I probably discovered, we're probably in the $20 million-$25 million range, growing very quickly, as I mentioned this quarter. You know, customers are large ag, you know, oil producers. We're talking Bunge's, others of the world like that. Big ag customers that are into soybean and oil production. We've seen our business grow along with them.
As I mentioned, we've developed some new products, very high efficient purification products, which helps them, you know, in their processes, process speed, their capacity utilizations, and therefore also in, I guess I'll call it purifying or cleaning up the oil to levels that extend shelf life. You know, real value for them, an efficiency value for them, and a nice premium product for us. We'll continue to look to expand that business. Jon mentioned debottlenecking. We've done a number of investments to continue to maximize the asset utilization for what we've invested in, and we're also looking to continue to invest in that business, so that we can grow at this pace along with our customers.
Very helpful, Doug. Yeah, it does. I will jump back within it, maybe one or two follow-ups. Thank you.
Thanks, Dan.
Our next question comes from Mike Harrison, Seaport Research Partners.
Hi, good morning.
Hi, Mike.
Was hoping that we could dig in a little bit on the margin performance, particularly in Specialty Minerals and Refractories. I guess, first of all, on Specialty Minerals, it seems like you've kind of taken a step back in terms of that price cost recovery trajectory. Maybe just flesh out in a little bit more detail what you guys were seeing in terms of cost, and maybe how we should see margin track over the next couple quarters, as those higher costs are passed through, in some cases contractually.
Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna start off, and then I'll give it to Matt to give you some more details. This is definitely, and has been all year, the segment and the product lines that have been impacted the most from currency, from energy inflation, raw material inflation, number one. Number two, it's you know as we talk about all the time, this business has the most contractual nature to its sales. In that, in those contracts, you know the timing of our ability to pass through pricing. What you saw, we've seen this year, as we've seen persistent inflation, persistent energy, we absorb that in our income statement until we can pass that through, and that lag can be three months, six months.
You know, years past, that happened both up and down, and we'd absorb in the, you know, kind of hundreds of thousands of dollars of kind of range. What you're seeing this quarter is, you know, in the millions. Matt will describe those types, but I want you to know that they do get passed through contractually. There is this delay. It weighs on our current quarter. We see that in our margins, but then in about three months, probably January, a lot of this gets moved through into our customers. Now, those margins will rebound, and they'll rebound when, you know, as inflation starts to plateau, our pricing catches up contractually, and you'll see those margins rebound significantly. Matt, do you want to give some details of the.
Yeah. That's exactly what we spoke to. I mean, take for instance, again, we talked about it in the prepared remarks. We saw about $21 million in inflation in that segment alone, and out of which I said was probably $2 million-$3 million that, you know, we will come with a lag on it. We will capture that. If all else stays equal, Mike, that goes back to sort of recovering and establishing the margin. I think the broader point, and I know you talked about Refractories as well, but let's just step back for a minute and talk about the company's journey over the past two years. Coming out of 2020, we absorbed $75 million of inflation in 2021. So far in 2022, we've absorbed about $135 million in inflation.
That's $210 million inflation in two years. Although we've captured most of that in pricing, that in itself is dilutive to margin by about 200 basis points. The company generating around 14.5% back in that early 2020 timeframe, you know, now this quarter, around 12.5%, 12.4%. 200 basis points of that difference is the dilution in the margin from passing through these inflationary costs. That speaks to, one, the great work by the team to capture those costs, pass them through. Two, if you'll recall, we came into this year expecting about $40 million of pricing. That $40 million was to catch up on inflationary costs from 2021, but also $20 million to reestablish our margin.
We'll continue to work on that as we go forward, again, capturing those inflationary costs, yes, but then reestablishing our margin based on all the things that you heard Doug talk about, the great position of our products, the great position and technical capability we have with our customers, and also introducing new products. That's what gives us the confidence that as those inflationary factors start to play out, about 35% of the company has contractual lags in that pricing. That will come, and the teams are working on the other 65% to reestablish that margin as we move forward.
All right. Then, over on the Refractories segment, you mentioned a couple times the higher costs that you're seeing in Turkey. Maybe give a little bit more color on what you're seeing there. Then also curious on the MgO market in terms of the raw materials that you're using in Refractories. I believe that you stocked up on some of that material before we saw big price run-ups, and I'm just curious kind of where you're seeing how you're seeing the cost structure for Refractories raw materials play out as we get into 2023.
Sure. The cost increases that you saw in Refractories this quarter was as you mentioned in Turkey, it's energy related. We do produce our own magnesium oxide. We buy magnesite ore and sinter it ourselves in Turkey, and this supplies roughly, you know, 35%-50% at times of our base raw material production for Europe, our refractory production in Europe. That cost came in energy as we sinter, you know, we're moving that through in pricing to customers. That was a large increase that we saw through the quarter. Magnesium oxide prices in general, we do source from around the world. We source from China. We source from other regions.
Last year, you're right, we did take advantage of some lower pricing in the market, and we stocked up. That was done for two reasons. One, we found some good opportunities for pricing, and also we wanted to buy ahead of, if you remember, the Olympics that were in China to make sure that we loaded everything out of the country before that potential disruption. We've largely used through that, but again, we're in a position now where, given the conditions in China, we're starting to see some good pricing, taking advantage of things, not just in magnesium oxide, but in other raw materials. Therefore, we're looking at making some opportunistic purchases this year to extend us into next year.
You know, there are some areas that we are seeing some pass-through of inflation. We're taking advantage of them, but I think the vast majority of what we saw in the quarter and what we think we're gonna probably see in the fourth quarter is energy related, and energy related here in the United States and in Europe. That help, Mike?
Yeah, very helpful. Thank you. My last question is on the talc litigation. I'm curious, you know, if you can let us know how many cases were settled and how many cases are still pending. I'm also curious of the $31 million charge, how much of that is a cash impact, and how much of that is a reserve that is a non-cash expense for now?
Yeah. Let me take you first through the charge. Clarify that. As Matt mentioned, there's three components to that. It's both defense costs in the quarter, some settlement costs, and then a reserve to establish. Let me outline a little bit for you in talc. I think I mentioned on the last call that talc's about a $50 million business for us, and the cases that we have against the talc business right now are against our legacy cosmetic talc. Cosmetic talc has been, you know, $2 million-$3 million, a tiny piece of that business, a very small piece of the company. We discontinued those products in 2016. Because of that, we have a relatively limited number of cases.
You know, we've been defending ourselves over the past several years, actually. I mentioned that on the last call that we've been incurring more litigation costs, and as we went into the quarter, we made the decision to settle several of them. Also, you know, looking at the litigation environment in general, we said, "Well, look, we have about 450 remaining cases against the company." We wanted to take a look at that, and make sure that we assessed any potential future liability that that holds given our litigation strategy. We felt it was prudent to take the reserve this quarter. It's a portion of that $31. Now, I don't wanna break out for you the components.
I wanna, you know, a portion of that $31 is that reserve for these potential future liabilities, but I don't wanna give you that. That's part of our litigation strategy. As far as cash flows, you know, a portion of the cash flows in the third quarter, within our cash flows will be a bit more in the fourth quarter, but the bulk of it is non-cash that will be set aside for, you know, resolving these cases as going forward as Matt mentioned. That help to mention it for you?
That's very helpful. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from David Silver at C.L. King.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you. I think I'd just. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to just go back to the talc question for just a moment. Maybe just to clarify, of the cases at issue here, are the parties all focused on, I guess, the cosmetic use of talc, or is there some litigation that might be related to industrial, you know, or non, you know, non-cosmetic use of the product? Just what is the range of, you know, the parties who are, you know, filing the suits? Just what parts of the talc business are at issue? Okay, I'll stop there. Thanks.
Yeah. These are cosmetic talc applications, as I mentioned. Small, very small portion of the talc business, not the industrial application. They're all associated with lung issues. That's where I'll stop there. That help?
Okay, great. Thank you for that. Next question I think I'd like to ask is about the PCC businesses. They showed a very nice, you know, revenue gain sequentially and whatnot, and year-over-year, double-digit. I was just wondering if you could characterize, you know, a little more detail the source of the increase. In particular, I'm wondering if there are some new project or new satellite plant startups in there, or if it's just higher utilization from your existing network. In other words, what it seems like there's a lagging price effect. Maybe if you could just talk about the source of the double-digit, you know, year-over-year increase. Thank you.
Yeah, sure. I'll start, and then I'll pass to D.J. to give you some more details. Look, we've seen, as you know, we've built a number of PCC satellites in India. We've got a new one ramping up in China over the past several years. What we saw in the quarter is, you know, really just the stronger volumes from those new satellites. You also see, you know, strong demand in Europe. I'll tell you, utilization rates, paper machine utilization rates are very high in the United States. You know, we are selling just about every ton of PCC we can make here in the United States. That's behind that. A little bit slower in China. You know, but we still see a really strong pipeline of opportunities.
I'll let D.J. kind of highlight more of those and some of the business development activities.
Glad to, Doug. David, a couple of things. Regarding new satellites, nothing really significant yet. What you're gonna start seeing in this quarter and really ramping up in the early part of 2023 is the new satellite that we had previously mentioned, Baiyun. It's about a 50,000-ton satellite. In January, we're gonna have another satellite turn on in India. Then just a reminder, we had announced last year a major new product for us in packaging, white packaging, and that is a GCC satellite in China, and that is still on track to kick in on the second half of next year. Those are all things in building, in commissioning, things to come.
On top of that, I look at the pipeline. There's pretty significant pipeline that's still underway. It's reasonable for you to think it's about 15-20 sort of discussions that are going on, split between Asia and Americas and Europe pretty evenly. In Asia, it's traditional PCC plus some penetration in the packaging. In the Americas and Europe, it tends to be these newer products, these environmentally focused products and packaging. That's kind of where the pipeline is evolving to. But in terms of what you're seeing now, the big part of it, as Matt mentioned, is price, with still more to come to recover on that energy. Then the volumes on those projects will start kicking in really early part of next year.
Hope that gives you the color.
Yeah, no, thank you for that. If I could just follow up quickly, but you know, from your experience, D.J., does the prospect of like a slowing global economy, let's say, impact the capture rate for these new project opportunities? How do customers typically, you know, respond, you know, to a slowing economy when they're considering, you know, a new satellite project or a packaging conversion?
In general, it creates more opportunity for us. Certainly, the urgency of the conversations cranks up during these periods. There are two things driving that. The first thing is most of the customers look at it as a chance to reposition and upgrade on their quality. The second thing, especially when you're dealing with these energy prices, we've had big price increases, but it's against the increases that they're seeing in their pulp. It's against the increases that they're seeing in drying their paper, and our products help with both of those parts of the value equation. I would say that what I've been experiencing most recently is an increase in interest on the traditional products and our newer products.
That's what's still holding out now.
Okay, great. I did have one more question on within Performance Materials on environmental products in particular. Second quarter and third quarter together, that's over $100 million of revenue from that product line. I mean, that's historically a very strong, you know, trend. Just a couple of questions about that. First, could you just kind of speak to, let's say, the backlog or the order book for, you know, new environmental products-based project work? Then secondly, if you could just give us an update on FLUORO-SORB sales and, you know, beta testing and development like that would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, sure. Let me start, and then I'll give it to Jon. We have seen some really good growth in this business. I, as I mentioned, you know, several years or for several years, this is our environmental products business has been, you know, based on lining systems, so Geosynthetic Clay Liners for municipal and industrial landfill use. Over the past couple of years, we've spent a lot of time and innovation in more water applications, remediation applications, and our PFAS product, our FLUORO-SORB products, is one of those outcomes. We are moving this business, and we've seen a tremendous amount of growth in the on the water side of things, and even more so looking at you know, drinking water applications. A lot of our newest technologies are on that remediation.
We think that's, you know, it's obviously a growing market. There's a number of factors there. One, obviously the consumer side of it in terms of protection of drinking water, but also the municipal side of it, which though there isn't a regulation necessarily to a level of remediation, cleanup by the government, there is municipal interest and local interest in cleanup efforts, and we've been taking part in that. A real shift toward more of the water side of things and remediation side of things. Jon, do you wanna give more detail on some of the FLUORO-SORB and the projects that we have in the backlog?
Sure. I appreciate the question. I guess, you know, think about the magnitude of what we're doing and who we're working with. First, you know, put it in terms of pilots. We've had, you know, about 100 successful pilots demonstrating, you know, the activity of the product and the success of the product. That certainly sets the stage for commercialization. We've been talking about that for quite some time. We have started to see the ramp-up of commercialization. It's broken into a couple different segments. If you think about in-situ soil stabilization, this is what we've been doing with, you know, some of the Department of Defense. We've got a major installation with a DoD site. We've had two industrial sites.
We've got two mobile filtration units that we're moving around, all generating sales and revenue. The second segment is drinking water, like Doug described. This has the potential to just be continuous business as they use the media, and we replenish the media. Right now, we've got two orders for full-scale water purification systems. That will be, we suspect, a great entry into the utility segment. Once we demonstrate full-scale commercial success, we believe others will be watching that, and we have, you know, the potential to continue to grow that. Then the last segment is landfills. During the quarter, we had two systems go in. We've got another order for, you know, another system. We've had one in place for over a year now.
Again, that's kind of our bread and butter as well. Three segments all have significant potential. We believe that what's really gonna drive this is regulation. Once regulations get in place, you know, with the technology being fully demonstrated, we'll have the ability to grow that exponentially. Hope that provides some color.
I like the word exponential. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate all the color.
Thanks, David.
I almost had to hold Jon back there on the exponential number. Yeah, no, it's some good growth there.
Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one, and we'll take our next question from Daniel Moore at CJS Securities.
Hi, Dan. Are you there? Did we lose him? Operator, did we lose Dan?
No, we still have Dan connected. Dan, your line is open. Would you like to go ahead and ask a question? Well, maybe we did lose him. Would you like to go on to the next question and possibly have Dan re-queue?
That would be fine.
Okay. Our next question comes from David Silver at C.L. King.
I'm not gonna say I had anything to do with that, but you know. Anyway, you know, when I have to get a follow-up in, I'll go to any extreme. Anyway, sorry about that. I just wanted to touch base real quickly. Thanks for laughing. That's all I could come up with on short notice, but.
It's good.
Okay. Cash flow and in particular, working capital. I would just say over, you know, the last several quarters, there has been a pretty significant build-up in the use of working capital. Certainly there's been, you know, some buffer inventories and some accommodations to supply chain issues and whatnot. I'm just wondering, you know, if I look over the last four to six quarters, I mean, the net increase in working capital build has been pretty substantial. I'm just wondering if you could, you know, two things. I mean, could you cite maybe the strategic rationale behind that? Then secondly, how do you anticipate that level of working capital progressing, let's say, over the next quarter or two? Thank you.
Sure. Yeah. Thanks, David. A few things. One, we look at it on a multitude of factors. Like you said, as we've moved through the course of the period you just laid out, we did have strategic inventories that we put in place. We've managed through some of the higher revenue periods in the second and third quarters. And then we have strategic inventories that go back in place ahead of the winter months on the mining businesses. In all of that, you need to take a look at the efficiencies. From a days on hand perspective, we're essentially flat year-over-year. So what does that tell you? It tells you that we are inventorying as we need for the revenues that we are generating.
Now, the inflationary inputs that we've been experiencing have been driving that, yes, both on the revenue side and on the inventory side. The net efficiency, so the actual units of what we're holding are pretty much in line with where they needed to be and where they've been over the past several quarters. As those inflationary factors, that's what we said in the prepared remarks, and what we've said over the past couple of quarters, is as those inflationary factors abate, that working capital will release. Remember, we kinda have sorta 60, 70-day terms. You would see that take place in that type of time lag. Two factors there for you to consider.
One, inflationary impact has been in that $70 million-$90 million range, depending on if you're going year-over-year or six quarters back. That'll work itself out on a 60-day basis once you start to see those inflationary factors stabilize.
David, I'll just add, we don't see—there's no change to the characteristic of the company in terms of its cash flow generation potential. As a matter of fact, as we, you know, continue to add product lines that we feel less cyclical, higher margin, we should enhance that going forward. I think, like you're seeing, and I think many companies are seeing this inflation being parked on the balance sheet. As it starts to play out, we will revert to normal kinda cash flow yield type characteristics.
As I mentioned, we thought that that would probably be a little bit more in the second half of this year, but as we continue to experience inflation and we continue to buy our higher raws and put them in that balance sheet, that's gonna take a little bit of time, a little more, another quarter or two to release. That's the dynamic. I don't think I see that anything behind the characteristics of the company and our historical cash generation that's changed at all.
That, that's kinda where I was, so that's kinda what I was wondering. Thank you very much. I appreciate, again, the detail.
Thanks, David.
It appears there's no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Doug Dietrich for additional or closing remarks.
Thanks, Jenny. Thanks everyone for joining the call. We do appreciate the questions and the attention today. We'll talk to you in another three months. Thanks.