Earnings Labs

Compass Minerals International, Inc. (CMP)

Q2 2020 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 6, 2020

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day everyone and welcome to the Compass Minerals Second Quarter Earnings Conference. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Ms. Theresa Womble Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead ma'am.

Theresa Womble

Management

Good morning and welcome to our call today to discuss our second quarter results and rest of 2020 outlook. We will begin with prepared remarks from our CEO, Kevin Crutchfield; and our CFO, Jamie Standen. Joining in for the Q&A session are Brad Griffith, our Chief Commercial Officer; as well as our Chief Operations Officer, George Schuller. Before we get started, let me remind everyone that the remarks we make today represent our view of our financial and operational outlook as of today's date August 5th, 2020. These expectations involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially. A discussion of these risks can be found in our SEC filings located online at investors.compassminerals.com. Our remarks today also include non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. You can find reconciliations of these items in our earnings release or in our earnings presentation both of which are also available at our Investor Relations website. With that housekeeping out of the way, I now turn the call over to Kevin.

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

Thanks Theresa and good morning everyone and thanks for participating today. As reported yesterday in our earnings materials, we posted very strong second quarter 2020 results with both operating earnings and EBITDA growth well ahead of expectations. This was achieved through robust year-over-year sales volume growth across all three of our business segments and strong execution within our operations. And year-to-date 2020 cash flow from operations totaled $233.9 million up nearly 110% compared to last year's first half. The strong performance we accomplished in the quarter achieved in the face of COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates not only the essential nature of our products, but also the resilience of the core markets we serve. Of course none of this would have been possible without the deep commitment of our employees to safely serve our customers' needs and execute on our strategic initiatives. And I'd like to take a moment to thank them for all they contribute toward the success of our essential business. From those who work in our underground mines our packaging and processing facilities or who have been working remotely at our customer service or corporate support functions, I've been deeply inspired by the commitment they've shown to our customers and our company. The ongoing threat of this global pandemic has required careful analysis and implementation of numerous additional protocols across our operating platform to ensure the safety and health of our people. Their well-being remains our paramount concern. Because of the efforts of our employees, we've been able to maintain production across our global operations in order to meet customer demand for our products. While our U.K. mine was idled for a portion of the second quarter due to a combination of lower expected demand due to the mild winter there and the U.K. government's recommendation for COVID-19 spread…

Jamie Standen

CFO

Thanks Kevin and good morning everyone. I'll start on slide 9 with some comments on our consolidated results before discussing our segments, our outlook and then a few balance sheet items. This was a very strong quarter for us given the second quarter is typically our lowest earnings period. We delivered strong sales volume growth across all three segments. And excluding the FX translation impact on our Plant Nutrition South America results, we delivered revenue growth across all three segments as well. Operating earnings rose significantly and our EBITDA results increased 44% compared to the second quarter of 2019. These results combined with the strong first quarter earnings and the U.S. tax refund we received earlier this year, generated free cash flow of $191 million more than double the first six months of 2019. As indicated in the EBITDA bridge on this slide, strong Salt segment performance in the second quarter was the primary driver for the better year-over-year results overall. We discuss these results on slide 10. Second quarter 2020 Salt segment revenue increased 8% year-over-year as an 18% increase in highway deicing sales volumes and an 11% increase in highway deicing selling prices from prior year results more than offset a 9% year-over-year reduction in Consumer & Industrial sales volumes. A bit of April snow, as well as customers purchasing their minimum deicing contract volumes bolstered the improved highway deicing results, while a decline in sales of non-deicing salt products due to COVID-19-related impacts depressed Consumer & Industrial sales volumes in the 2020 second quarter compared to prior year. In addition to increased highway deicing sales, lower logistics and production costs helped us double our operating earnings and deliver a 46% increase in adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of 2020 compared to prior year. Per-unit logistics cost…

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

Thanks, Jamie. I want to take another moment to emphasize that we are making important progress on our journey to build a company consistently able to deliver value for all of our stakeholders. For the rest of 2020 and beyond, the key factors for us to deliver this value start with the health and safety of our employees and our communities. With or without the current pandemic this is critical. Second, we're an essential business providing critical inputs across a wide range of markets, most of which are resilient throughout the economic cycle and that is largely the case now. Our employees have demonstrated great agility in meeting our customers' needs during this challenging time. This is a key proof point that we're getting better at execution and growing those capabilities, which we expect to continue building with our enterprise-wide optimization effort. And as these benefits are reflected in our future earnings, we expect to continue improving our balance sheet and earn the right to explore additional growth opportunities for our businesses, be they organic or otherwise. I'm extremely pleased with the progress we've made thus far and excited for what lies ahead for Compass Minerals. Now, I'd ask the operator to open up the session for questions. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we will take our first question from Mark Connelly with Stephens.

Mark Connelly

Analyst · Stephens

Thank you. Two things. First, Brad, you recently said that you were please with the way Compass approached the bid season. So I was curious if you could give us a sense of what you saw and whether there were any big surprises this year the – last year we had some places where you didn't see a lot of bid competition. So I'm curious, how this bid season progressed. And then the second question on, I don't know, maybe this is for Jamie. I'm curious if you have any sense of how much of a pull-forward you might have seen? Because, it looks like acres are going to be up nicely in the second half. So some producers that we're talking to are figuring that, even though they did pull some sales forward, it may not pull down their overall results very much in the next quarter, so just curious, if you have any visibility on those.

Brad Griffith

Analyst · Stephens

Yeah. Hi Mark, this is Brad. I appreciate the question. I would say to characterize the season, it's certainly been competitive. As Kevin and both Jamie pointed out, in their comments, RSGs we would estimate to be down in the mid-teens. We're about 75% of the way through, so we're not done yet. Am I pleased? I am. Our bid team has decades of experience, backed by analytical tools that really help us approach each bid, in a very process-driven disciplined manner. And the goal of each one of these bids is optimize, the production tons that we have that are now really from Goderich mine with a degree of consistency, where we're producing more tons utilizing the same inputs. So it's obviously my team's job is to put those tons in the right places. As I reflect on the season, are there surprises? There's always going to be surprises. There are going to be markets that make perfect sense. And we estimated it perfectly through our analytical tools and knowledge and historical context. And there'll be others that are probably more surprising. But yeah, it's certainly been more competitive. I think, obviously our production coming online, our competitors having inventories a weaker winter. As we say, a good early winter and a sustained winter is a key catalyst for pricing and volumes. And obviously we didn't really have a lot of that coming into the season.

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

Just one other thing Mark too if I might add, I mean one of the key things that we talked about for us was as Goderich had its issues over the past couple years, we've begun to import a fair amount of tons. And the goal this year was not to rely on these imports. And to Goderich's credit the operating team up there, they've done a good job of delivering that and getting Goderich back on track. And putting us in a position to grow our market share back to kind of what was really ours to start with. So we're really just clawing back ground that we used to own anyway. And then in recognition of what we're seeing in the market, that's why we decided to curtail some production at Cote Blanche to try to better balance that out. But as Brad said, look we're really pleased with -- we always love higher prices. But at the end of the day, the strategy for us has been getting Goderich back on track. And kudos to the team there for getting it headed, in the right direction. But Jamie you want to hit Mark's second part?

Jamie Standen

CFO

Yeah. Mark, I think you were referring to Plant Nutrition North America and SOP and the pull-forward. Is that right?

Mark Connelly

Analyst · Stephens

No, no, no. I'm thinking about, Latin America because we certainly are seeing in other crop inputs some pull-forward from farmers flush with cash. And I know your comments didn't reflect that so much. But with acres in Brazil looking like they might be up, I'm just really curious, how those two things might be balancing. And also whether your Brazil mix is shifting to more direct because of that.

Jamie Standen

CFO

Yeah. Well maybe Brad can add some color on that. But we --it's hard to have perfect visibility on, how that's going to unfold throughout the rest of the season. Obviously very pleased with our volumes, but it's difficult to say the order of magnitude there. But it's a significant amount where we saw a lot more higher-value products purchased in the quarter. Now, we're going to push hard. And try to deliver and look back and say, "Well, it wasn't pull-forward. We hit these numbers better." But we're just cautiously optimistic that, some of those have been bought. And we won't be able to kind of hit the second half that we thought, because they were pulled forward. I don't have a good figure for you in terms of how big that is. But it was -- we believe it is sizeable, which is why we haven't changed our full year volume guidance there in South America. Brad, did you want to add a little color on the direct?

Brad Griffith

Analyst · Stephens

Yeah. I think you summed it up, Jamie. I think, the other thing I would mention on our direct-to-farm team, we call it the B2C team Mark, and that team continues to perform at an exceptional level. And so even through the pandemic where we've had salespeople who have had a more challenging time accessing their accounts for their customers because some of the municipalities and the states have really shut those things down our team has continued to use digital means to reach their customers. We just wrapped up our eighth installment, eighth annual installment of NutriExperts, which is the -- some of the world's leading thought provokers on specialty crop nutrition and crop nutrition; two-day program we had over 350 key crop advisers from Brazil in attendance. And that program continues to get rave reviews from the crop consultants. So I've been very pleased with how the team has adapted to the environment that they're in right now. We're seeing customers begin to sort of open up and welcome us back to their farms, but it's slow going in Brazil as you might expect based upon the cases in country.

Mark Connelly

Analyst · Stephens

Sure. No, I can appreciate it. It's very tough this quarter to get a sense of the pull-forward. I appreciate your help. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

All right. We'll take our next question from Vincent Anderson with Stifel.

Vincent Anderson

Analyst · Stifel

Good morning. Nice job on the quarter. My first question was for Kevin. Just any major takeaways, I think this is your first full annual maintenance shutdown at Goderich under your leadership, so any takeaways there? And then, kind of, tied to that was any of the lower CapEx guidance coming out of Goderich and if so what was -- what drove that decision?

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

Yeah. Why don't I take it at a high level and then pass it off to George to make a few comments about Goderich. We've got a lot of great things going on up there but I think -- and echo George sentiments here that we would characterize the maintenance shutdown at Goderich as being -- having been very, very successful. It was very detailed, very planned out. They got everything done that they planned to do. And look as it relates to capital we always estimate upfront. And then as we manage our way through this pandemic, we're trying to limit spending to that that is absolutely critical. Because Jamie he's watching our balance sheet along with myself very carefully to make sure that in the event we had something unexpected occur with this pandemic that we're in good shape to be able to absorb a body blow like that. But George would you want to add any comments to the Goderich shutdown just Goderich in general how things are going up there?

George Schuller

Analyst · Stifel

Yeah sure. Thanks Kevin. Again appreciate the question there Vincent. Yeah, a little bit more on what Kevin said, I mean when I look at the annual shutdown that we had, I would say it was a real success. Some of the major things that we've actually done during that process were, we were actually setting ourselves up for the new Eastern mains that Kevin spoke about earlier. So it's some of that transition we had in that area. Also we had the compaction that we talked about in the last quarterly meeting setting that up some of the belt lines and some of the transition areas. So again when you look at it, we're still spending a lot of capital at Goderich. When you look at where it's at, it's very selective capital but some of the things that we're seeing in our shutdown is our life cycle management trying to understand in real good detail, our miners, our FCTs what type of maintenance do they need annually what do they need monthly. And not to say they haven't done that in the past but to put some real good rigor and timing around how we're going to actually do that on a year-on-year basis. So look I thought it was extreme success. I would always go back to safety. We didn't have any injuries during that period of time. There's a lot of work going on. So I'm pretty excited about where we are and where we're heading for in the future. Thanks Kevin.

Vincent Anderson

Analyst · Stifel

That's very helpful and encouraging. If I could turn back to bid season just a little bit more detail. That's a pretty significant outperformance on volumes. I guess, the question would be specifically are the importers besides yourself losing a lot of that share? Is there any encouragement from the East Coast winter being also exceptionally poor last year? And then finally, did you notice any change in Kissner's bidding under its new ownership this year?

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

It's a lot to unpack in there. The -- so just a little bit of background on the imports. I mean, I think we enabled -- in large part, we enabled importers to kind of come into the market just given the issues that we had at Goderich in particular production-wise. And then as we continue to improve up there and we've improved a lot over the last year, but I think we have that much to go. Again, this market will begin to rebalance. And I just don't see the importers' ability to stay competitive in the market, especially when you look at when we get Goderich where we want it to be where it's going to be on a volume basis and a cost basis. So I think that it probably takes a couple of seasons for that to balance out. And we're not focused on running the importers out. We're focused on playing for the long-term up here, because this is a 60- to 100-year mine and we're getting it set up now for that. So we're playing a long game. And importers they can come, they can go whatever they want to do. But I think over time what you'll see is this market kind of rebalance with Goderich being the premier low-cost supplier there. And then in terms of did we see any encroachment into our served market from the folks over in the East that had suffered a more mild winter than even we did? The answer to that question is no. No, no, just absolutely not. And then the last question I just -- probably just going to let that one go. I don't really want to comment on our competitors' behavior. We saw pockets of hot competition, everybody trying to get their tons placed. And a lot of it played out as you would expect, but we did have some areas that were pretty competitive. But again, we're real pleased with where we ended up. We've got a little bit more to go. And our game is to try to optimize our production and optimize the profit margins thinking about it more on a netback basis as opposed to a gross price basis, because that's what really matters at the end of the day. Thanks for the question.

Vincent Anderson

Analyst · Stifel

Yeah. So I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Chris Parkinson with Credit Suisse.

Chris Parkinson

Analyst · Credit Suisse

So just to clear up as one the first question. Can you just talk about the margin differential between the incremental increase at the Goderich production versus the imported products year in years past? And how should we think about the differential versus 11% lower prices just in terms of like netbacks and profitability? Can you give us any framework there? Thank you.

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

You'll take that one?

Jamie Standen

CFO

Yes, yes. So we've historically talked about kind of the $15 million of incremental cost related to import salt back in 2019 and that was going across years. We had about $5 million or $6 million of that cost that was in the first quarter really more like $5 million. There's been about $6 million year-to-date. That's -- it is a significant impact to the tons that we sell. We were selling on an import basis. But you could think of it as I'd say roughly five or eight points, it can be pretty easily if you want to think about that differential.

Chris Parkinson

Analyst · Credit Suisse

Got it. And just a corollary to the last question, we're obviously on top of the increase of 8% awarded bid volume growth versus your comments, I guess is a negative 15% decline in RFQs. Can you just talk a little bit, if and once again [Technical Difficulty], but can you just talk about any additional shipment strategy if at all in terms of your addressable market perceptions? Just given you did have weaker winter in the East Coast obviously not a focus of your markets as well as your let's say 12 to 13 focused markets in your snow index in the Midwest. And just how you're thinking about that on an aggregate basis versus let's say how you're looking at it pre a lot of the issues at Goderich? Has there been any change in perception there? Or is it just trying to go back to kind of where you were? Thank you.

Jamie Standen

CFO

Yes. Chris, we were having a little trouble hearing you there. I don't know if it's on our end or yours. But we don't see it much differently and it is going back. Like I said, we couldn't pick up a lot of that question. There was a lot there. But when we look at the market as a whole our served market, the East Coast primarily served by imports over there a couple of other players in between, but we don't see the market changing that much. And I'm sorry maybe if you had a better signal I could answer that a little bit better, but I don't really have anything more to add there.

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

No. I mean I guess as we think about our market we can reach it from Cote Blanche, we can reach it from Goderich and what we'll do is as Goderich gets better and better its reach gets greater and greater and there's probably some areas outside of the traditional served market that become more interesting for us with the passage of time. We're not going to approach those overly aggressively, but we just try to optimize our portfolio on a cost basis to optimize around margins. I'm not sure if that answers your question Chris again because as Jamie said it broke up pretty badly about halfway through there.

Chris Parkinson

Analyst · Credit Suisse

If you can hear me you did get the question. Thank you very much.

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

Okay. Alright, good. Thanks.

Chris Parkinson

Analyst · Credit Suisse

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We will next go to Joel Jackson with BMO Capital Markets.

Joel Jackson

Analyst

I'd like to follow up on the same discussion. I mean if you think in kind of high-level language on bid season pricing here. Well Kevin you came in and you did a strategic assessment and you talk about how it looks like you're playing a long game here and the strategy is to get Goderich back on track. And this is the year to try to push Goderich harder and to do that I guess you have to win more volume push out imports. If we talk about, I don't know $5, $6 a ton lower pricing on the portfolio on the highway deicing portfolio, can you talk about what kind of cost improvements whether it's from freight from Goderich how do you make that up? Like it seems like you have analytical models but in some of the states it seems like you bid so low, it would be hard to be more profitable on the mix you have now through bid season. I don't know if that made sense there but I'm trying to figure out how do you overcome such a large price decrease? What do you have to get out of Goderich and freight cost to make it all make sense?

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

Well so number one, again, we're in this for the long haul. This is not an optimized season by season. It's been very important I think given the attention that Goderich has gotten and the issues that it's had to allow it to progress on its plan back towards restored health consistency profitability etcetera. So taking your argument maybe to an extreme one could have said, Well we need out of Goderich for six weeks or two months or something. I just didn't think that was prudent nor did George when they're on such a nice run and making such a nice progression. Because again we're thinking about this over the -- over the very long-term. And what's going to drive pricing year-on-year is the kind of weather that we have. So we don't have any control over that. What we can control is what our mines look like? How they produce? What their safety record is their productivity? How we allocate capital to them etcetera? And then over the long term based on what we see the perceived difference in supply and demand we'll moderate accordingly. So I don't have any regrets at all about the position that we took. In fact I'm quite pleased with where we've ended up thus far. And we'll just take it winter-from-winter from here. Do you have anything you want to add to that Jamie?

Jamie Standen

CFO

No, I just -- I mean I think that remember net prices are up 14%. We've got an environment where we expect cost to be falling. And over the last three years net price is up 14%. So we're very well positioned to go forward and as Kevin said every bid season has a life of its own and we're running this business over the long-term and that's all.

Joel Jackson

Analyst

That's helpful. So my follow-up is looking at Goderich, so getting it back on track the things that you're looking at, if you want to try to push another one million tons or whatever it's going to be can you talk about how you're going to get there? Like do you have to look at the equipment? Do you have to bring back drill-and-blast? Do you have to do a hybrid model of drill-and-blast and continuous mining to really shove out that volume over the next couple years? Does that add on more cost? Do you need to add on more bodies? Is that why you need to push for more volume for fixed-cost absorption? Can you talk about the interplay in all of that?

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

Yes. So let me again hit it at a high level and ask George to add some additional color. Number one and this is really important, we haven't added additional inputs at Goderich. Inputs are the same output is higher. So that means efficiency is getting greater, costs are falling. Over the long-term, we will want to moderate our fleet up there. But as we've talked about, we're trying to get the Eastern roadways developed because that's the artery for the next 50 years at that mine and get these new rooms set up. But you could expect over the course of the next few years that our production fleet is going to look different than it has in the past with these newer CM46s et cetera. So, again, it's a work in process. We are on the right trajectory. We still have a long ways to go. We didn't get into this fix overnight. We're not going to get out overnight, but I'm very pleased with the progression. And I think this would be a good opportunity for George to add some color, because he's all over this thing on a daily basis with the team up there.

George Schuller

Analyst · Stifel

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Kevin. And just to add a little bit of color there. I'll try to temper my enthusiasm here, but Kevin laid it out pretty well. When you – lots of the change that we've seen over the last year, a lot of folks think it's equipment, it's people, it's anything like that as Kevin highlighted. It's really – it is around operational efficiency. It's understanding maintenance. It's taking a look at, how we operate our shifts. It's all about our people. It starts with safety. And every time I talk about this lots of times everybody is looking for a silver bullet, I guess, I would call it. But when you look at it, it's not one thing. It's multiple things really in succession that are driving the improvement at Goderich. As I said, we started with our people, again, a great team up there great resource. So again, when you look at it, I'm pretty excited about where we are. I don't see that, in the future. I think what we'll continue to do is see how we optimize that, with looking at the equipment we have. I'd say maybe getting more out of it. We might even look at what we do to potentially reduce unit and increase – and I say reduce a unit, but actually take some metal out of the operation itself, so we don't actually have to put in additional FCTs and additional miners. As Kevin said, the 46s are really pounding out the tons. So hopefully, that added a little bit of color Kevin. Thank you.

Joel Jackson

Analyst

Just on the question, I was asking, do you have to reintroduce drill-and-blast to get to the volume targets you want?

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

No, no absolutely not. We may do it opportunistically from time to time, because we've got no issue with drill-and-blast on a limited basis, but it would be opportunistic as the situation presents itself. But no, we do not have to do it, to get where we need to be absolutely not.

George Schuller

Analyst · Stifel

It's a mechanized mine – sorry, it's a mechanized mine going forward. As Kevin said, we don't – we have opportunities to do it. But again, that's not to increase production. That's to supplement or do some development areas that we currently have. So I don't see that short term or long term. Thank you.

Joel Jackson

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next question will come from David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank.

David Begleiter

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Thank you. Kevin you mentioned, Cote Blanche having lower volumes flowing through. Are there cost actions you can take there to limit the impact on those unit costs?

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

Yeah. I mean, we're doing everything we can to minimize the cost of the curtailment. But look as we all know, this is a volume game and you have a relatively high fixed-cost set of inputs. And when you cut the volume, it's going to make your unit costs look higher than it has in the past. But we're trying to minimize that and manage our way through it. We've spent a lot of time on these calls talking about Goderich, but you got to give a special call-out to the folks at Cote Blanche, who basically hit their plan day-in, day-out and do exactly what they're asked on a regular basis. So, hopefully, we'll have a good winter, and we'll be able to get them dialed back up, so we'll be at full production levels and get that full cost benefit.

David Begleiter

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Very good. And just on the premium packaged increase what's driving that increase? And how much higher margin is that product?

Jamie Standen

CFO

Can you repeat that question? Sorry.

David Begleiter

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

On the premium packaging increase you're talking about, how much – what's driving that increase and how much higher margin is that product?

Jamie Standen

CFO

Yeah. It's significantly higher margin than bulk. Think of selling massive amounts by the – more than truckload by the rail car so to speak versus selling packaged deicing. So it's a significant impact and you'll see a very a material improvement in the back half and that will come through the C&I pricing. So I'm not going to tell you exactly how much better those margins are, but they are significantly better.

David Begleiter

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next we'll go to Chris Shaw with Monness Crespi.

Chris Shaw

Analyst

Hi, good morning. If I can ask about Goderich sorry everyone is asking questions about that, but it's obviously important. But if you go back I can't remember how many years ago in the -- when Compass before Kevin you were there Compass set out in its plan to reline some shafts bring in the continuous mining equipment and there was a goal of increase volumes and -- I just want to figure out how far along are we on that process? Or is it -- am I comparing apples to oranges now? But I mean that the initial sort of I guess effort or goal to get to Goderich to higher production level and all I mean are we 90% of the way there given that we're only replacing the imported volumes this year are we just not even back to sort of where we started? I'm just trying to get a -- I've gotten kind of got lost over the years where that sort of original plan is and maybe that plan is going off. I don't know.

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

That's understandable. Yes. Look I'm not sure how much has been talked about in the past, what the targets were. I actually don't care what those originally -- what those original targets were. Because I see a different set of targets now up there. And I know I've said this on multiple calls. I think at Goderich, we'll run out of market before we run out of capacity there and capability once we get everything running exactly the way it needs to be and that's when it will -- you'll see us then begin to calibrate, okay this is a year where it needs to produce 20% less than it did last year for example. And we'll find a way to be able to manage through that from a supply-demand perspective. But given the gear that's there and getting reoriented towards this long-term mine plan I think expectations of the past are not particularly all that relevant because I see much more potential than perhaps they even did in the past. But again it's going to take a while to get there getting this new long-term mine plan developed. As we talked about we've got 2,000 feet -- I think there's an illustration in the appendix, but we've got about 2,000 feet that's developed. We're starting to transition to that chevron pattern which will be easier on the FCTs et cetera. So, as we get the mine positioned, I think it will be a very predictable, very reliable from a volume and cost and output standpoint. And then we'll calibrate volumes based on what we see developing in the marketplace

Chris Shaw

Analyst

Fair enough. And then if I could ask on the South American business. I mean I know you suspended the strategic review I guess last quarter. But what's the sort of signposting you're looking for to sort of bring that back to active status in terms of looking for an alternative home for that maybe?

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

Yes. I mean look, we'll kind of play it day by day based on what's going on in the environment. Travel is still extremely limited. Capital markets are a little better than they were there for a while, but at the end of the day I think, our pause does nothing but reemphasize the fact that we made a good decision. The team down there gets a ton of credit for the way they're executing this year and any action that we'd ever contemplate it's got to recognize the intrinsic value of those assets or we wouldn't pull the trigger on it. So, we'll decide when the time is right. And beyond that I really don't want to say too much more about it.

Chris Shaw

Analyst

Great. That’s helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

All right. We'll next go to David Silver with CL King.

David Silver

Analyst

Yes. Hi, thank you. So I'll apologize in advance. I joined the call a little late and I had a little trouble hearing a couple of the questions as well. So, apologies if I make you repeat yourself. First thing, three months ago Jamie I believe set out a cost-reduction target for your Salt business of an incremental $2 a ton I believe lower mining cost or production cost year-over-year beginning in the second half. And there's been many questions about that -- and again I apologize if you touched on this already, but is that $2 a ton target still on track for second half? And would that -- and I apologize would that apply to Goderich only? Or does that apply to the entire Salt segment? Thank you.

Jamie Standen

CFO

Yes no, I think we mentioned in our prepared remarks that we're targeting $1 to $2 of total salt cost improvement in the second half of the year. A couple of things that are impacting that. There are a few mix issues there, but most notably the Cote Blanche curtailment is having an impact there and as well as the U.K. -- the impact of lower production at the U.K. So, yes, we still expect lower cost in the back half across all tons of $1 to $2. So you -- we don't talk about the Goderich-specific factors on a dollars per ton basis.

David Silver

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you. And then, I did have a question maybe about a strategic issue that's kind of looming in the industry and that's that the owner of Morton Salt has kind of put the asset up for sale with a timetable ideally, I think, by the end of the year. And I understand or I stipulate you're not going to be able to swallow it whole or anything, that's kind of off the table. But this is the second time the asset has been up for sale in a little over a decade. And I'm sure institutionally, you guys have done your due diligence on that asset. So a couple of things. But from an antitrust perspective, I mean, do the authorities look at the salt business all as one? In other words, one ton of salt is the same as any other? Or do they segment it by the highway deicing business versus the consumer business, versus, I don't know, the agribusiness element? And then, secondly, I mean, just noticing the stock price of the owner of that company, I mean, it really doesn't look like the stock price of the -- in my opinion is acting like they're expecting a knockout bid or anything. So from Compass' perspective, I mean, would there be an opportunity maybe to separate the business that's on the market and maybe go after the commercial or the non-deicing salt there, in other words pair up the leading deicing salt producer with the leading branded salt maker? I mean, to me that would seem like a natural pairing and would really cement your leadership position in the industry. So there's a lot there, but I'm just wondering what, if anything, can be done from your perspective in terms of strengthening your company as a result of the pending sale of the Morton Salt business? Thank you.

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

Yes. Let me address the parts that I feel comfortable addressing. When I got here, I think, or at least I hope I did, I made it clear that our top priorities are creating a culture and a system and structure here to deliver on our commitments. And we felt like just after we did our top-to-bottom assessment of the company that we weren't delivering at our full potential. And so our 100% focus has been dedicated to that, because we have a great set of, what I would call privileged or advantaged assets that weren't performing to their full potential. And there's a lot of potential here. So that's really jobs one, two and three for us. And as it relates to strategy, I mean, we’re not sitting back ignoring what's happening in the world. We do want to think about that. But I think, for us, number one we've got to be able to deliver on our commitments to sort of re-earn the right, then, to think about strategic intent, be it organic growth or inorganic growth via the means that you're talking about. I don't think there's any doubt from a Justice Department standpoint that the Morton asset is -- would be highly problematic for us. And I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure that out. But, look, to the extent that whoever ends up with that and there are assets that could fit us better than them, we would certainly be open to those conversations to build out our portfolio, to augment our portfolio, but it would have to be at valuations that we think makes sense, so strong synergies and fit with our competencies, so wide open to those in the future. But beyond that, I really wouldn't want to comment any further. But it's a good question. Thank you. And I don't know if Jamie wanted to comment on the whole HSR thing, how they look at it, because I don't really know.

Jamie Standen

CFO

No. I mean, I think, you hit it with fundamentally there would be some issues, nothing to add. Thanks, Kevin.

Kevin Crutchfield

CEO

Yes.

David Silver

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

And ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately that is all the time we have for questions. And that does conclude today's conference call. We thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.