Earnings Labs

Calumet, Inc. (CLMT)

Q1 2013 Earnings Call· Wed, May 8, 2013

$32.10

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the First Quarter 2013 Calumet Specialty Products Partners, L.P Earnings Conference Call. My name is Shanteley and I will be your facilitator for today’s call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host for today, Mr. Noel Ryan. Please proceed sir.

Noel Ryan

Management

Thank you, Shanteley. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the Calumet Specialty Products Partners first quarter 2013 results conference call. We appreciate you joining us. Leading today’s call is Jennifer Straumins, our President and COO will provide an update on our business and the opportunities for growth, as we look ahead to the remainder of the year and beyond. Next Pat Murray, our Chief Financial Officer will provide detail on our financial performance during the first quarter. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. Before we proceed allow me to remind everyone that during the call, we may provide various forward-looking statements within meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such statements are based on the beliefs of our management as well as assumptions made by them and in each case based on the information currently available to them. Although our management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable neither the Partnership, its general partner nor management can provide any assurances that the expectations will prove to be correct. Please refer to the Partnership’s press release that was issued this morning, as well as our latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a list of factors that may affect our actual results and could cause them to differ from our forward-looking statements made on this call. With that, I would like to hand the call over to Jennifer.

Jennifer Straumins

President

Thank you, Noel. Our net income for the first quarter was $46 million, a decline from $51.9 million in the year ago period. Our first quarter results include $24.5 million of noncash unrealized derivative gains versus $26 million of noncash unrealized derivative gains in the first quarter of last year. Adjusted EBITDA as defined by our credit instruments was $80 million for the first quarter of 2013 compared to $69.7 million in the first quarter of 2012. On April 22nd, we increased our quarterly cash distribution for the 11th consecutive quarter to $0.68 per unit or $2.72 per unit on an annualized basis for the quarter ended March 31, 2013 on all our outstanding limited partner units. As we indicated in our press release issued this morning, our first quarter performance was negatively impacted by operational reliability issues at our Shreveport refinery going into our turnaround that we completed during February. The impact of these issues really accounts for the majority of the shortfall versus what the Street anticipated our earnings being. These issues have been resolved and that facility is currently running on plan during the second quarter. And although, we typically do not provide refinery level guidance, we do want to note that Shreveport is operating at more than 40,000 barrels per day, which is slightly above the historical level for this time of the year. On the refining side of the business, we continue to benefit from a number of positive macro tailwinds as we transition into the second quarter. The Gulf Coast 3/2/1 crack spread has proven resilient and just over $27 of barrel on a second quarter to-date basis. While the structural dislocations and the price of WTI versus competing crude oils continues to benefit our strategically located refineries with access to cost advantage crude…

Pat Murray

Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Jennifer. We believe the non-GAAP measures of adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow are important financial performance measures for the partnership. Adjusted EBITDA is defined by our debt instruments worth $80 million for the first quarter of 2013 as compared to $69.7 million for the same quarter last year. The partnership’s distributable cash flow for the first quarter was $26.4 million as compared to $39.2 million for the same period in 2012. The increase in adjusted EBITDA quarter-over-quarter was due primarily to a $50.2 million increase in gross profit partially offset by $22.8 million of increased selling, general and administrative expenses, $6.2 million of which was non-cash amortization expense and an $18 million decrease in realized derivative gains. We encourage investors to review the section of our earnings press release found on our website entitled non-GAAP financial measures and the attached tables for discussion and definitions of EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow, financial measures and reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measures. Gross profit by segment for the first quarter of 2013 for specialty products and fuel products was $63.2 million and $71.2 million respectively compared to gross profit of $66.5 million and $17.7 million respectively for the same period in 2012. The decrease in specialty products segment gross profit of $3.3 million or 5% quarter-over-quarter was due primarily to a decrease in the average sales price per barrel of lubricating oils and lower sales volumes for lubricating oils, solvents and waxes. These reductions to gross profit were partially offset by additional gross profit generated from our Montana and Royal Purple acquisitions. The increase in fuel product segment gross profit of $53.5 million quarter-over-quarter was due primarily to incremental gross profit generated from the Montana and San Antonio acquisitions access to cost advantage crude…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Brian Zarahn of Barclays. Please proceed.

Brian Zarahn - Barclays

Analyst · Barclays. Please proceed

Hi, everybody it’s Brian. Given the impact of Shreveport in the first quarter and then I guess RINs for the remainder of the year, any thoughts on distribution coverage in 2013?

Jennifer Straumins

President

Our distribution target coverage ratio has not changed the 1.2 to 1.5 times and even given some of the weakness in this quarter we are 1.6 times on a trailing 12 month basis, so we will - our policy is to have our Board of Directors look at our forecast and look at our actual results every quarter and make those decisions but at this point in time our strategy has not changed.

Brian Zarahn - Barclays

Analyst · Barclays. Please proceed

And then on the - switching to the North Dakota refinery seems like it’s making good progress. Any updates to your cost estimates or in any potential earlier in the service date in fourth quarter 2014?

Jennifer Straumins

President

No, we just broke ground at the end of March and about 80% of the project is a fixed bid project - fixed bids, I would anticipate if they were cost overruns, so it will come at very end of the project.

Brian Zarahn - Barclays

Analyst · Barclays. Please proceed

And then is still - the timing is still reflected…?

Jennifer Straumins

President

Timing’s still early fourth quarter of 2013 – 2014, I'm sorry.

Brian Zarahn - Barclays

Analyst · Barclays. Please proceed

Okay. And then on Royal Purple making obviously good contributions, can you talk a little bit about the growth opportunities you see at Royal Purple.

Jennifer Straumins

President

We see a tremendous amount of growth opportunities at Royal Purple. We are - we’ve got about 15 open sales positions there right now, we’re really trying to expand our geographic diversity we’re trying to expand internationally. We are working with Walmart to put our products in all the Walmarts in the United States later this year, early next year and good cross-selling opportunities between Royal Purple and products coming out of Calumet packaging down the Shreveport are phenomenal and we’re just barely beginning to touch on some of those.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of TJ Schultz of RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed.

TJ Schultz - RBC Capital Markets

Analyst · TJ Schultz of RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed

I guess just on the crude by rail out of Superior beyond what you want to get to Shreveport, where are you heading to third parties and what type of volumes. And then going forward is it going to make more sense for you to take crude down to Shreveport or to other destinations?

Jennifer Straumins

President

I think long term it may make more sense to go to other destinations, and we’re heading east with those barrels and we really - we’re not going to disclose who our customers are but going east the turn time on the railcar is several days shorter than it is going to Shreveport and we’re treating the Shreveport refinery like a third-party customer at this point in time and based on the output of our LP model and our other incremental crude opportunities for Shreveport that’s how we make the decision as to whether we sell the barrels to third parties or use them internally. We do have some contracts with third parties for barrels and then sell some on a spot basis to third parties as well.

TJ Schultz - RBC Capital Markets

Analyst · TJ Schultz of RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed

Can you talk about any traction you’re getting with potential more midstream focused projects whether it be the potential for crude sourcing in the Bakken or utilizing some of the excess storage capacity at Elmendorf?

Jennifer Straumins

President

We’re working on both of those things there - we’ll have a lot more to say about that I hope if everything goes according to our plan and in June our Analyst Day we’re coming very close to having some defined projects in that space so if you can just bear with me a little while longer.

TJ Schultz - RBC Capital Markets

Analyst · TJ Schultz of RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed

Not, a problem. On the RIN estimate I think you said $8 million to $10 million per quarter, what price does that assume for the RINs and what are you’re seeing out there right now on RIN pricing?

Jennifer Straumins

President

That assumes around $1 per RIN and they’ve been trading anywhere from $0.80 to $1.20.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Cory Garcia of Raymond James. Please proceed.

Cory Garcia - Raymond James

Analyst · Cory Garcia of Raymond James. Please proceed

I appreciate all the color you guys have given on the subject and I was little bit touchy right now but the - did in fact and I apologize if I missed it, did you guys actually recognize a cost for the RINs credits during this past quarter?

Jennifer Straumins

President

11.

Cory Garcia - Raymond James

Analyst · Cory Garcia of Raymond James. Please proceed

Okay, so $11 million. And is there I guess taking a step back are you looking at any blending or marketing initiatives maybe going further downstream that would maybe mitigate some of this RIN exposure?

Jennifer Straumins

President

We are looking at that, we do have a bio diesel facility in our Dickinson plant so that will help offset some of the RIN requirements that we’ll have. We’re like everybody else - this took us by surprise and we’re trying to get our plan together.

Cory Garcia - Raymond James

Analyst · Cory Garcia of Raymond James. Please proceed

Yeah, absolutely.

Jennifer Straumins

President

We’re - what we’re disclosing is worse case scenarios.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Smith, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please proceed.

Jason Smith - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Jason Smith, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please proceed

Jennifer, I just want to touch on San Antonio again I mean how is that integration process going and I know I think Pat you gave some numbers around the earnings from the new assets in the quarter I mean how is San Antonio specifically performing and are you guys finding other incremental synergies there since you’ve had a few months to work on that plant?

Jennifer Straumins

President

San Antonio is more or less breakeven at this point in time; their real contribution is going to come when their finished gasoline project gets done. And then they’ve got a small expansion project and we plan on making about 3000 barrels a day of solvents out of that facility to help augment the solvents produced at three of our other locations. So that’s really where the big upside is going to come from. The synergies you - there are some feedstock synergies there are more of a marketing synergy story with San Antonio but we have to be making finished gasoline before we can start to realize that.

Jason Smith - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Jason Smith, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please proceed

Are you still running LLS price to crude there right now?

Jennifer Straumins

President

We’re running Eagle Ford there and Eagle Ford priced.

Jason Smith - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Jason Smith, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please proceed

Got you. And a quick one for Pat I think the SG&A rate was obviously up this quarter. Last quarter you had guided to an annual run rate of kind of the fourth quarter number annualized is that still a good number, is that inching higher now?

Pat Murray

Chief Financial Officer

I think there is obviously a little bit of cost in the first quarter related to consulting expense and some professional fees related to acquisition activity. But I still think if you combine the two this quarter I think, we’re in the 35 range. I think that those are still pretty good numbers. We see a little bit of onetime here. But I think it’s important to keep in mind that we’ve added a lot of people we’ve added three, really three new refineries so this cost in absolute terms are going to be certainly a much larger and Royal Purple is a brand organization. We’ve a lot of additional selling expenses there and increased advertising. So, I still think that these types of numbers that you have seen over the last couple of quarters are still good guidepost.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Peterson of MLV & Co. Please proceed. Michael Peterson - MLV & Co.: Good afternoon everyone. Couple of questions and follow-up to things that have been already been discussed. First one regards cost of sales, can you provide anymore insight into whether those cost hit whether they would buy segment or kind of what drove, what seem to be the driver on the negative variance this quarter?

Jennifer Straumins

President

I think the cost of sales variance is really just outright. Crude costs and added site on a delivered crude basis on the site by site basis all performed within historical variances. Michael Peterson - MLV & Co.: Okay, okay so nothing, nothing abnormal within those cost.

Jennifer Straumins

President

Yes. Michael Peterson - MLV & Co.: Okay, okay. Jennifer, can you give us a little more insight into some of the reliabilities at Shreveport whether they were equipment process related feedstock or logistics?

Jennifer Straumins

President

It was processing equipment that was - that come down for maintenance and anytime you push a turnaround maybe little longer than you should you can have some issues and those issues of all now being repaired and Shreveport is running very, very well. We’ve got a great team of people down there, who are contributing everyday to make sure our plant does assess. Michael Peterson - MLV & Co.: Does this event in anyway change your expectation on a go forward basis in terms of maintenance cost? Or is this something that should have been done maybe last quarter perhaps or does it meaningfully change your forward out look on further maintenance?

Jennifer Straumins

President

It does not and really what drove it because we’ve had a couple of power outages late in the fourth quarter that impacted some equipment (inaudible) to turnaround. So, it wasn’t the turnaround was a quarter behind it. It was, we just had to instead of maybe on another situation if you are nine month away from a turnaround you would have come down for a little while to fix that equipment but that we just went along knowing that we were going to be coming down for turnaround.

Operator

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions in the queue and I would like to turn the call back over for closing. Pleas proceed.

Jennifer Straumins

President

Thank you. Thank you operator and thank you all for joining us on today’s conference call. If you haven’t already done so we do encourage you (inaudible) for upcoming Investor Analyst Day. We, Calumet had a great year and half and we’ve got a lot of really positive forward momentum so still to come so we’re excited to see everybody and tell you what I’ll give you a little more detail on what we are working on. And if you have any additional questions in the meantime please contact me or Director of Investor Relations Noel Ryan and he can be reached at 3173285660. Have a great day everybody.