Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining today's Century Aluminum Company Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Regan, and I'll be your moderator today. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, Ryan Crawford with Century Aluminum. Please proceed.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the third quarter conference call. I'm joined here today by Jesse Gary, Century's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Peter Trpkovski, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. After our prepared comments, we will take your questions. As a reminder, today's presentation is available on our website at www.centuryaluminum.com. We use our website as a means of disclosing material information about the company and for complying with Regulation FD. Turning to Slide 1. Please take a moment to review the cautionary statements with respect to forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures in today's discussion. And with that, I'll hand the call to Jesse.

Thanks, Ryan, and thanks to everyone for joining. I'll start today with a note on safety before turning to our Q3 operational performance, including our time line for resuming full production at Grundartangi. I'll then update you on some of our key strategic initiatives, including progress on the Mt. Holly expansion project, our Hawesville strategic review and our new U.S. smelter project before concluding with a discussion of the outstanding global market conditions that we are operating in today. Pete will then walk you through our Q3 results and our Q4 guide and provide an update on the receipt of our fiscal year 2024 45X payment from the government, which occurred shortly after quarter end. I'll then end the call with an update on our capital allocation plans. Safety is core to everything we do here at Century. Every so often, the company is faced with extraordinary events frequently outside of our control that give us an opportunity to live up to our words and demonstrate our commitment to these core safety values. As everyone knows, on October 28, Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica as one of the strongest hurricanes to ever make landfall in the Atlantic Basin. I'm proud to say that through the dedicated planning, hard work and readiness of our Jamaican team members, Jamalco weathered this catastrophic storm, protecting the refinery from any significant damage and most importantly, without suffering a single injury. Not only did the team secure the well-being of the facility and our employees, but then immediately began to provide assistance to the surrounding communities, providing potable water to local towns, villages and hospitals following the storm. We will continue to work with the government of Jamaica and our partners at Claredon Alumina Partners to identify areas of need and provide support where…

Thank you, Jesse. Let's turn to Slide 7 and review our Q3 performance. On a consolidated basis, third quarter shipments totaled approximately 162,000 tonnes, a decrease from the prior quarter due to brief operational instability at Mt. Holly and the Grundartangi transformer failure. Net sales for the quarter were $632 million, a $4 million increase primarily due to higher realized Midwest premium, partially offset by lower shipments. For the quarter, we reported net income of $15 million or $0.15 per share. Our adjusted net income was $58 million or $0.56 per share, excluding exceptional items. Adjusted EBITDA was $101 million for the quarter, mainly driven by the increased Midwest premium price, partially offset by lower volumes and product premiums at Mt. Holly in the quarter. Moving on, we continue to make progress on improving our balance sheet during the quarter. Liquidity increased to $488 million, up $125 million quarter-over-quarter, and our cash balance stood at $151 million. The significant increase in liquidity and cash metrics reflects receipt of the proceeds from refinancing our senior notes, which was finalized in July. We recently used the proceeds to pay off the remainder of the Icelandic castthouse facility as intended. Net debt was $475 million, a slight increase from prior quarter due to a normal working capital build I will discuss later. As Jesse mentioned, we were pleased to receive our fiscal year 2024 45X payment of approximately $75 million from the IRS in October, which will help to significantly lower our net debt amount in Q4. Despite some lower-than-anticipated production output this quarter, our core financial performance remains strong and demonstrates the underlying strength of our business. Now let's turn to Page 8, and I'll provide a breakdown of adjusted EBITDA results from Q2 to Q3. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter…

Thanks, Pete. As we begin to look forward to 2026, the business is well positioned to generate significant cash flows over the balance of this year and throughout 2026. For instance, if you were to take our Q4 outlook and just update for spot metal prices, our expected adjusted EBITDA generation would increase by approximately $45 million to $220 million. The incremental Mt. Holly restart tonnes should further increase profitability starting in Q2 2026. In addition to strong EBITDA generation, we had $220 million in Section 45X receivables at the end of Q3, and we received our 2024 45X refund amount of $75 million in October. At these levels of EBITDA generation and the anticipated receipt of cash against our 45X receivables over the coming months, we are well positioned to reach our net debt target of $300 million early in 2026. We are already well above our liquidity targets. Per our capital allocation framework included in the appendix, once we meet our capital allocation targets, we will continue to first allocate capital to our sustaining capital projects and identified organic growth projects. A good example here is our Mt. Holly expansion project that should be complete by the end of Q2 2026. In line with our standard practice, we will provide updated guidance on sustaining and investment capital spending for 2026 on our February call. As we have cash flows beyond our capital needs, we will continue to be opportunistic but disciplined with M&A opportunities like our acquisition of Jamalco in 2023 and otherwise look to begin to return excess cash to our shareholders. As we approach our net debt target, we thought it would be useful to provide some further guidance on the types of capital returns that we would anticipate once we have met our targets. While we are not announcing any actions today, we have started to assess our options, including listening to shareholder feedback that we receive from time to time. This feedback has been overwhelmingly in favor of the share buyback program as a means of returning capital to shareholders. We expect to come back to you all with further details and announcements as we move into 2026, including the amount and timing of any potential share repurchase programs. Thanks to everyone for joining us today, and we look forward to taking your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Nick Giles of B. Riley Securities.

This is Fedor Shabalin Selin on Nick Giles. And thanks for detailed report. I wanted to start with Mt. Holly. So if we were to isolate the Mt. Holly restart, which is roughly 50,000-plus tonnes, is it kind of safe to assume that this could generate in excess of $60 million in EBITDA at spot prices? And on the CapEx side, how much of CapEx has been already spent to date? And when would we expect you to achieve full run rate? You mentioned it starting Q2 and finish restart by June, if I correct, 2026, does it assume 100% utilization at this time?

Sure. Thanks for joining the call. This is Jesse. Yes. So we're, as I said, well on track with the Mt. Holly restart, and we started the initial hiring and started some of the initial capital spending. But CapEx spending to date has been relatively minimal. You'll see more of that come in, in Q1 and Q2. In total, as we said before, the total project should be somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million project spend. In terms of the additional EBITDA that we generated from the project, so you'll start to have units coming on in Q2 and then should be at full run rate starting in Q3. Once it reaches full run rate at spot prices today, the additional volume should generate about $25 million in additional EBITDA per quarter.

This is helpful. And it would be great to get some additional perspective on how you're thinking about capital allocation. You already mentioned this. So your liquidity and net debt are roughly even amounts above your stated targets. So you're kind of indirectly at your target in some sense. And at what point will we consider high capital returns? And would you prefer buybacks or dividends? And then on the M&A side, would downstream opportunities be on the table?

Sure. So yes, as I mentioned, we have been -- given the significant cash flow that we have today and that we see generating going forward, especially when you consider the lagged payments of those 45X payments that are on our books, and just to note again, we did receive the first tranche of those 45X payments from 2024 fiscal year of $75 million in October. So you'll see that come through in our Q4 results. We do think that we will be in a position to reach those net debt targets in 2026. Once we do, we've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and we spent a lot of time talking with our shareholders, and there is a clear stated preference for buybacks. And so as we think about it today, that's the most likely form of capital return once we do reach those targets.

Our next question comes from the line of Katja Jancic of BMO Capital Markets.

Maybe starting on Iceland. Did you say the repairs will take 11 to 12 months, but there is potential for you to accelerate the restart of the potline?

That's right, Katja. So we're proceeding on 2 paths. The first path is the full replacement of those transformers. And there, we'll have to wait for the new transformers to be manufactured and then shipped to Iceland and then installed and then restart, and that's in that 11- to 12-month time line that I gave. At the same time, we're investigating whether the damaged transformers can be repaired. And we're hopeful that, that will be the case, but we have additional work to do to prove that out. If we are able to follow repair path, we would still order the new transformers, but the repair transformers would allow us to bring production back online several months in advance of that 11- to 12-month time line for replacement.

Okay. And then on the insurance side, so would insurance cover for if the potline stays down for 11, 12 months, will insurance cover fully those 11 to 12 months? Or are there any restrictions?

Yes. Our expectations today is that our policy limits are high enough that they will cover both the property and business interruption costs of the outage up to and including that 11- to 12-month time line that I gave. Of course, we have deductibles, the deductibles on the policy of $15 million. But above that, we will -- we expect to fully recover the losses.

Okay. Maybe shifting to Hawesville. When do you think given the extension of the review process, are you think -- is there any time line when you think we could get a final decision?

No time line. As I said, we've had a really good process from the beginning. But over the course of Q3, we did have a new surge of interest. And so we decided to then extend that time line to allow that new interest to come in and do some due diligence on the site. It's very positive interest, I'll say. And so we want to give them time, and we're working with them to proceed sort of as quickly as possible, but it's difficult to give an exact time line at this point.

And does the review still include a potential restart?

Yes. As we've always said, our goal here as part of the strategic review process is to see what the interest is in the site and what the potential value of the site is. And then we'll compare that versus the economics of a restart, and we'll make the best decision for our stakeholders.

Our next question comes from the line of John Tumazos from Independent Research.

Of course, it's always hard to predict costs and there's uncertainties in hedging. But given how good things are right now, can you lock in the $110 larger billet premium with contracts, so it's certain next year? Are you able to hedge the Midwest premium that was $0.87 the other day. There are futures. And would you increase your LME metal hedging?

Thanks, John. No change to our overall hedging policy. So as we've said all along, the main portion of our hedging program, and you can see the details on Slide 17 of the presentation, is to offset market power price risk that we have at Sebree. And so as you see from that slide, we've got about 22% of the megawatts for Sebree hedged for fiscal year 2026. And then we'll generally sell a little bit of metal, both Midwest premium and LME against those power price hedges to lock in some margin for Sebree. And the amounts that you see in the appendix are about normal for that program going forward. Aside from this, we did enter into a little bit of Midwest premium hedging when we made the decision to do the Mt. Holly expansion project and to lock in those returns that we've laid out for you where we expect the cost of that project to be fully repaid by the end of 2026. But other than that, our expectation is to remain exposed to the metal price and to offer that exposure to our shareholders. Now John, you did mention billet. In the U.S., we operate on an annual contract for our billet sales. And so most -- the vast majority of our billet sales in 2026 will be locked in at those prices that I quoted earlier for full year 2026. We do tend to leave a little bit of billet exposed to market prices throughout the year to pick up some spot exposure, but the vast majority of that will be locked in at those premiums that I gave earlier.

Jesse, the different news networks were suggesting yesterday that some of the Supreme Court justices might rule against Trump's tariffs. And of course, the 50% aluminum is very helpful to Century. And then 9 of the 23 presidential elections, off-year elections, the President's party has lost 40 to the House of Representative seats since 1934 is playing with political statistics noodling. So there's a chance that things don't stay this well from a regulatory standpoint. Do you think this is a good time to sell the company?

John, this one is pretty clear. The Supreme Court case relates to what are called the IEEPA tariffs or sometimes known as the Reciprocal tariffs only. They do not relate to the Section 232 tariffs, which are where the steel and aluminum tariffs are under. The Section 232 tariffs have already been upheld in court and will not be impacted by the Supreme Court case pending on the IEEPA tariffs.

So let's just say my thesis is wrong. Do you think this is a good time to sell the company anyway?

No, John, the company is not for sale. We are very excited about our prospects. We're excited about the cash flow generation that were available to show our shareholders. We're excited about our growth opportunities at Mt. Holly with the positive strategic review process, with the greenfield project as well as the increasing demand we're seeing across the United States. So our focus is really we're going to continue to try to produce aluminum as profitably as possible, supply units into the U.S. and European markets and continue to execute on our strategic plan.

We have a follow-up question from Nick Giles of B. Riley Securities.

This is Fedor again. My question is kind of a continuation of John's topic. So the [indiscernible] have been indicating very, very tight domestic inventories, which has supported stronger Midwest pricing. So -- and if prices continue to strengthen, do you think that could influence the administration's decision to keep 232 in place with no exclusions? And then on the other side, if we saw a Canadian exclusion, for instance, how do you think about Midwest premium? I know that Canada is not a marginal [indiscernible] into the U.S., but I have to imagine there would be some downside risk.

Fedor, I think it's important to step back and look at the purpose of the Section 232 tariffs, which was to increase U.S. domestic aluminum production to meet national security needs. And when we look at the program and the response of industry, it's really doing just that, and Century is proud to be doing its part. So just to name a few of those projects that are coming online, the Mt. Holly restart project that we're implementing and will be up by mid next year will, by itself, increase U.S. production by 10% from levels today. So that's a significant increase. And then we've announced our own greenfield project and one of our competitors has announced their own greenfield project and together, along with the Mt. Holly restart, that would triple U.S. aluminum production by 2030. So I think that the tariffs are working as intended. They're driving industry to reinvest in adding production here in the United States and adding American aluminum jobs here in the United States. So the program seems to be working. And I think the administration has been quite clear that they'll continue to do their part and keep the tariffs in place with no exemptions and no exceptions going forward.

And promise, if you allow me to squeeze the last one. It was great to see new power agreement with Santee Cooper for Mt. Holly, where you have cost of service-based rates. And I wanted to ask about Sebree, where you're exposed to Indy Hub. What is the appetite to book incremental hedges for '26 and '27, especially given the expectations for increased electricity demand from data centers in this region?

Yes, we also were very excited about the Mt. Holly contract. That's a very long extension for us, gives us very good line of sight into next decade and was one of the keys in enabling us to restart production there. So we're really excited about what's to come at Mt. Holly, very good smelter, very profitable in today's environment. At Sebree, likewise, the plant is operating excellent. We continue to invest in that plant. And we've been operating now under this market-based power contract for over a decade. And we've become very comfortable with the way it works. And we think over time, it's been the most cost-effective power contract actually that we have in our entire system. Now as I mentioned earlier, we do some risk mitigation with that, and we've generally been hedging those power prices about 20% to 30% of our exposure on an annual basis. And we think that's a pretty good percentage of the overall power risk for us to lay off and puts the smelter in a good place to continue to be profitable and operate well through the cycles. So we're comfortable with that hedging program at that level. Of course, we'll always be looking and opportunistic, but we expect to continue our hedging programs as we have in the past as we move forward.

There are currently no questions at this time. So I'll pass it back over to management for any closing or further remarks.

Thanks, everyone, for joining the call. At Century, we're really excited about the end to 2025 and what's to come in 2026, and we'll continue to execute to the best of our abilities. Thanks all. Look forward to talking to everyone in February.

Thank you. That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.