Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the GrafTech Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Friday, July 26, 2024. I’d like now to turn the conference over to Mike Dillon. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Ace. Good morning, and welcome to GrafTech International's Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. On with me today are Tim Flanagan, Chief Executive Officer; Jeremy Halford, Chief Operating Officer; and Catherine Delgado, Interim Chief Financial Officer. Tim will begin with opening comments. Jeremy will then discuss safety, the commercial environment, sales and operational matters. Catherine will review our quarterly results and other financial details, and Tim will close with comments on our outlook. We will then open the call to questions. Turning to our next slide. As a reminder, some of the matters discussed in this call may include forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, performance, trends, and strategies. These statements are based on current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by forward-looking statements are shown here. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures and these slides include the relevant non-GAAP reconciliations. You can find these slides in the Investor Relations section of our website at www. graftech.com. A replay of the call will also be available on our website. I will now turn the call over to Tim.

Thanks, Mike and good morning and thank you for joining GrafTech's second quarter earnings call. Let me start by saying that we operate in a cyclical industry and we find ourselves in a challenging part of the cycle for our business and more broadly for our industry. Graphite electrode demand remains weak, industry-wide capacity utilization rates remain low and consequently cost per ton are high. At the same time, pricing discipline in the inventory has been somewhat sacrificed to support volume. Against this backdrop, GrafTech, and we believe most others in our industry are operating their electrode business at losses or low margins. We think these dynamics are well understood. We also believe it's well understood that these dynamics are not sustainable. We don't control all of these underlying forces, particularly the macro or the actions taken by others, but we do control our response and our actions. We are engaging with our customers with a relentless focus on meeting their needs. We are adding to our customer value proposition. We are investing in technical capabilities and offerings. We are aggressively cutting costs without compromising quality, safety or the environment. We are managing our working capital and capital expenditure levels. We've reduced our production capacity. We are proactively managing production to balance supply and demand, and we are actively pursuing opportunities to diversify our business and support long-term growth. At the end of the day, we are focused on controlling the controllable. We set out a plan at the beginning of the year to do just that, and we are executing against that plan. I'm proud of our team's efforts and thank them for their continued dedication. All of this said, we don't recognize -- or we recognize that this won't translate into immediate recovery from a financial performance perspective.…

Thank you, Tim and good morning, everyone. Before I provide an industry update, I'll start by briefly expanding on Tim's comments about our safety performance. Safety is a core value at GrafTech and with a year-to-date recordable incident rate that shows significant improvement over our solid performance in 2023, we’re pleased with the ongoing momentum. Sending our employees home safely at the end of every day is our most important priority, and I’d like to join Tim in commending all of our team members for their focus on this objective. Let me now turn to the next slide to discuss the commercial environment. As Tim indicated, we operate in a cyclical industry and currently find ourselves in a challenging part of the cycle, reflecting a constrained global steel industry. Earlier this week, the World Steel Association published their most recent steel production statistics. On a global basis, steel production outside of China was approximately 212 million tons in the second quarter of 2024, which was essentially flat to the prior year. The global steel capacity utilization rate outside of China also remained flat at 69%. Looking at some of our key commercial regions. For North America, steel production was down 5% in the second quarter on a year-over-year basis reflecting a slight dip in what has been a relatively stable steel region. Steel output in the EU increased 3% although it remains well below historical production and utilization rates for that region. These dynamics within the global steel industry has in turn resulted in persistent challenges in the commercial environment for graphite electrodes. Specifically, industry-wide demand for graphite electrodes has remained weak with challenging pricing dynamics persisting in most regions. To expand on pricing, the graphic electrode industry continues to suffer from low-capacity utilization. Despite the weak demand environment, we…

Thank you, Jeremy. For the second quarter of 2024, we had a net loss of $15 million or $0.06 per share. Adjusted EBITDA was $14 million in the second quarter compared to adjusted EBITDA of $26 million in the second quarter of 2023. This decline reflected lower weighted average pricing and the continued shift in the mix of our business toward non-LTA volume. These factors were partially offset by an 18% year-over-year reduction in cash cost on a per metric ton basis. In addition, second quarter results included a $9 million benefit related to the final award in a long-standing LTA arbitration. And as this represented a reimbursement of legal fees and other related expenses, it was recorded as a reduction in selling and administrative expenses. Now let me expand on the topic of our cash cost of goods sold. As shown in the reconciliation provided in our earnings call materials posted on our website, our second quarter 2024 cash COGS per metric ton were approximately $4300, which was in line with our expectations for the quarter. Contributing to the 18% decline on a year-over-year basis was a benefit of $6 million in the second quarter or approximately $230 per metric ton, reflecting the portion of the lower cost of market inventory write-down recorded in prior periods that was related to the inventory sold in this quarter. However, the majority of the year-over-year cost improvement reflected two key drivers and let me provide some color on each one. First, as part of addressing key elements of our cost structure, our efforts related to variable costs are already yielding benefits. Specifically, our technical and operational teams continue to work on engineering cost out of our manufacturing processes without compromising quality and performance. Additionally, we’re aggressively working with our existing supplier base…

Thanks, Catherine. To summarize our comments on the quarter and year-to-date results, while we're not satisfied with this level of performance, GrafTech continues to deliver on our stated outlook and initiatives to control the controllable. We are pleased with the team's execution and remain confident in our ability to manage the near-term headwinds. And further there are many reasons for optimism about the longer-term prospects for our company as we look ahead. While we remain cautious on the near-term steel industry trends, as we have mentioned, cyclical downturns eventually come to an end. World Steel Association's most recent short-term forecast on global steel demand calls for low to mid-single-digit percentage increases in 2025 for nearly all of our key regions, including the EU, the Americas, the Middle East and in Africa. Longer term, as I noted earlier, decarbonization efforts are driving a transition in the approach to steelmaking with electric arc furnaces continuing to increase the share of total steel production. Based on updated production statistics published last month by the World Steel Association, the EAF method of steelmaking accounted for 50% of global steel production outside of China in 2023, an increase from 44% in 2015 with market share growth in nearly every region. And this trend of EAF share growth is expected to continue. We are tracking approximately 200 announced projects from steel manufacturers regarding plans for new EAF facilities or expansion of existing facilities. Outside of China, these projects are expected to result in over 170 million metric tons per year of new EAF steel production capacity coming online by the end of the decade with much of this growth concentrated in our key commercial regions. This in turn, is expected to drive incremental demand for graphite electrodes. In fact, 170 million metric tons of EAF steel…

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen we will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Bill Peterson from JPMorgan. Go ahead.

Yeah. Good morning team. Nice job on the continued efforts on the cost side. Although you mentioned before, the guidance does imply a step-up in costs through the back half of the year, you discussed the downtime. I believe you also may have seasonal energy impacts in Europe. But I guess, first on these outages, how long are these outages planned to be? And then taking into account the shutdowns and maybe potential energy impacts, how should we think about the cash cost at an absolute level in the third quarter and then the fourth quarter? Should we assume higher in the third quarter than declining in the fourth quarter? How should we think about the cost from here?

Thanks. We'll split that up. I will start talking about the shutdowns and then Catherine can talk a little bit about the financial impact. So the shutdowns are typically two weeks to three weeks. We do it on a little bit of a rolling basis through the plants in order to make sure that we have some amount of staff on site, so that we can respond to any customer demands that may change over the course of the shutdown. And so I’d generally anticipate that for Europe, I think two weeks to three weeks for most of the operating action there. In Seadrift, it will be something similar focused primarily on the calcination portion of the plant. And so again, think of roughly three weeks for that as well. But let me hand it over to Catherine to talk about the financial question.

Thank you, Jeremy. Yes, Bill. So we have maintained our full year cost reduction estimate of a mid-teen percentage points decrease from the level of 2023, which was 5,500. So as I indicated earlier, for the second half of this year, we expect a little bit of a sequential uptick versus where we landed for the first half. Now -- and I mentioned that earlier, seasonally higher energy costs for our European facilities in the second half of 2024 will be a factor. And the benefit from the utilization of the previously recorded lower up cost of market inventory write-down was certainly more heavily weighted toward the first half of 2024 than it will be for the second half. And then lastly, as we spoke about with Jeremy, we have the impact of the planned maintenance shutdown on the absorption of our fixed cost. But overall, I think the key point to keep here in mind is that on a full year basis, our overall cost structure is moving in the right direction, reflecting the actions we are taking. And we would anticipate further after in 2025 that our costs would continue coming down.

Okay. Thanks for that. Spot pricing fell another $100 per ton. So, I guess less pronounced decline this quarter. However on your commentary, it sounds like the competitive dynamics are still challenging, pricing remains challenging. So, I guess, how does the spot pricing decline compared to the latest needle coke prices you've been seeing? And I guess, what are your directional pricing expectations both for your product, as well as needle coke from here?

Thanks, Bill, and good morning. I appreciate the questions. From a pricing perspective and I think we said it a couple of times in our prepared remarks, right the competitive market, and it continues to be a competitive market given the overall dynamics around supply and demand. And therefore, you're seeing that reflected in the spot pricing or the non-LTA pricing that we reported this quarter. I think those pressures are going to continue and they're going to persist. But one thing I think you have to keep in mind, and we start to lose a little bit of visibility around pricing this time of year, as the order book is largely locked in place and there is less volume being transacted broadly speaking. But right now, I think our view is that challenging pricing is going to persist, and we will have a better read on that as we get into the negotiations with customers here in the third and fourth quarter. On the needle coke market, I would say we are still trading sideways compared to where we were in the second quarter, somewhere in or around that $1,100 to $1,300 range depending on the grade of coke in the market. So, the needle coke side has stabilized in many respects. But we'd hope to see that start to trend in the right direction, as you start to see demand pick up with maybe some better demand numbers out of the steel industry heading into 2025.

Great. Thanks for that. And just a bit of housekeeping. So adding back the $9 million SG&A, but I guess taking into account other actions you've been taking belt-tightening and other maybe productivity initiatives. Can you level set us on how we should think about SG&A for the third quarter and then trajectory there on?

I mean SG&A will remain at the run rate that you've seen. If you look at the first half of the year, excluding that $9 million benefit, I think we're seeing the impact of our rationalization activities, and this has started to show in our underlying cost for the second quarter in SG&A. We would expect that run rate to continue over the rest of the year.

Okay. Thanks I’ll pass on.

Our second question is from Alex Hacking from Citi Research. Please go ahead.

Hi, just to quickly follow up on the pricing outlook. Based on your comments, it sounds like this realized spot price would be weaker in the second half of the year than the first half of the year. Is that a fair assumption? Or am I reading it too negative?

I mean I think we continue to see challenges in the pricing. Also, what's going to play into that is mix, right, and where we're delivering tons on a relative basis, right, because that average -- that price, the $4,300 plus that we reported is an average over all of the regions that we ship to. So, I wouldn't sit here and say that we think there's a real rosy outlook for pricing as we look into the back half of the year, but mix will play into it as well.

Okay, thanks. And then I guess Bloomberg and some other media have reported that the company is working with advisers considering various different options to improve liquidity. Could you maybe comment on that if you're able to kind of what's under consideration and what would be the time line? Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks for that, Alex. And maybe let me start by just reiterating the comments that Catherine made on the liquidity front. We ended the quarter with $121 million of cash and a little more than $111 million of availability on the revolver. So, $230-plus millions of total liquidity here at the end of the second quarter, and again, don't feel or don't see a need or a use of the revolver and feel good about the cash position for the foreseeable future. But I guess, more specifically to your question, right, I think we've tried to be proactive since I joined the company in November of '21. I think we've tried to be proactive with our capital structure around refinancing the revolver, refinancing the term-loan. And we continue to have conversations with advisers in various fronts around our capital structures and trying to be proactive. And I think that's a prudent move for any company and organization regardless if you're in the downside of a cycle or the upside of a cycle. I think we're always looking at our existing capital structure. Beyond that I'm not going to comment on market speculation or rumors that are coming out of the media.

Okay, thanks. I’ll leave it. And jump back in the queue.

Okay, thanks Alex.

Our next question is from Andy Jones from UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi. Just on a bigger picture question on the structure of the industry. I mean if -- we've clearly seen this significant downside in pricing. I don't think it is there would be too much pushback on your comments about the demand growth that will come from greater EAF penetration in Europe and the US and probably elsewhere. But on the supply side, there is overcapacity issue clearly persists. What in your view can be done to change that in your core markets? I mean, are we -- is there any prospect of any sort of import protection coming at any point in the near future or any discussion about it? Or any of your competitors talking about or likely to be taking out capacity soon? Or what in your view, can be done by the industry to actually help to sort of correct the course of the year because it is a pretty ugly price chart when you look at it on Bloomberg. Thanks.

Thanks for that, and I will try to touch on all the points. And maybe let's start with how we view market recovery both in the shorter-term and then into the medium and longer-term. And it's really driven kind of by four things. One certainly is an improvement in demand, in particular, in the EU. I think if you look at EU steel production levels are probably down 20% from the peak back in 2021. So any sort of meaningful uptick in EU demand will help, especially us, given our geographical footprint. But I would say just the western electrode industry more broadly. And two I think the continued growth of EAFs. We talked about the 170 million tons of new capacity coming online over the balance of the decade. Some of that is front-end loaded and we'll start to see new mills come online in the geographies in which we have a significant presence here over the next couple of years. That continued growth and the move to some of the new products we are offering will help on the demand front as well. You mentioned supply reduction. Supply reduction and supply rationalization is an important piece and really could be the thing that is a catalyst for near-term reaction or impetus for pricing to change. We started back in the first quarter in February, when we announced the idling of St. Mary's and the rationalization of our footprint and we took down 24,000 tons of production. We felt that, that was the right step for us at the time. We've since seen one of our competitors take about 24,000 tons out of their footprint and announce the potential to take 24,000 tons out of their footprint. I mean I think those are the moves that are needed when…

Yeah. That make sense. And on the policy side, do you see any proposals or any measures that have been tabled either in the EU or on the US side that would potentially be strict imports from markets like China?

So just to level set right, if you look at the landscape as it exists today, in the US, there are trade restrictions on Chinese imports ranging from 25% to 150%. The EU has restrictions on both Chinese electrodes and Indian electrodes. Chinese I think 23% to 75% and then the Indians are a little bit smaller at 7% to 15%, depending on the size and the grade. So, there are trade restrictions in place, and we think they do have an impact, and they work as they exist today. I think everybody is always looking much like we see our customers on the seal side trying to protect their markets. I think we are no different in terms of looking for opportunities to strengthen our domestic position and support our businesses and the geographies that we operate in. So, beyond that, I can't really comment on status and where that stands, but certainly something that everybody is always looking at.

And just finally any risks that you see around the fact that, I guess, in the EU, there's been some move from some right wing populist parties making progress in various countries, obviously in the US. I guess with Trump presidency it looks a bit more likely. I mean, could we see rollback on some of the proposed sort of decarbonization initiatives and subsidies for EVs and things like that, that you see as a material risk to the electrode market in the medium term, if that penetration might slow down, for example, in Europe?

I've made it a habit of not trying to predict political outcomes, my entire career, so I'm not going to start now certainly. But yes, I mean, I think the impact on policy and regulation is something we keep an eye on. Again I think we believe that the decarbonization story and the electrification of the auto fleets, both in Europe and the US, is a real story and those trends will continue. I'm sure we will continue to see twists and turns along the way, as how it all comes to market. But just the chart continues to go up and to the right. It may not be an exactly straight line, but we still see this as the path we're heading to longer term. And I think all of that is constructive for our business.

Okay, thank you very much.

Our next question is from Abe Landa from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for let me ask some questions. Maybe just to start off, just to further press on liquidity. You kind of reiterated that you expect it to remain adequate for this year. But I guess what do you think about maybe planning to obtain it? Maybe some additional liquidity for 2025. Is that something you look to prior to the annual selling season in the fall? Or would you kind of wait until you see some more visibility there?

Thanks for that, Abe. I mean, again reiterating where we sit today from a liquidity position, we feel good about our liquidity. If you look at the first half of the year, we used $54 million of cash. So, let us call it on average, $27 million a quarter. So, we feel good about where our cash position otherwise is right now. We continue to look at our crystal ball going into the future and try to see what '25 and beyond looks like. But again, I think we feel good about where we sit. Obviously, that will continue to be informed by conversations with customers and economic indicators and steel indicators that we continue to monitor. But otherwise, we're good with where we sit today.

Okay. And then thanks for that color on your lower cost or market of the inventories. Do you have a dollar amount? I know you are kind of did it on a per ton basis. But do you have a dollar amount in 2Q in the first half? And maybe what do you expect that impact in 3Q in the second half of the year?

Yes. Thank you for the question. As we indicated in our remarks the second quarter impact of the utilization of the lower cost to market reserve was about $230 benefit to our cash COGS. And it was somewhat in the $200 range in the first quarter of this year. So as we move now into the second half of the year we would expect roughly about half of that benefit only on a per metric ton basis, so call it about $100 per metric ton. That would be the expectation for the second half of the year.

And if we were to kind of reverse out in the second quarter, that $230 you kind of get up $4,550, give or take. And you kind of alluded to some potential improvements into 2025. I mean, I guess what is your ability to kind of improve from that, call it $4,550 per metric ton level. Like what additional actions can we take beyond kind of the go-forward run rate?

The biggest component over time on the cost is really our fixed cost absorption and ultimately volume levels increasing across our manufacturing sites, higher production levels. Our variable costs we are making really very good progress on it this year. And if we expect it to stick this would remain into 2025 as well. So overall, we'd say the most important parameters going forward will be the production level in terms of helping our fixed cost absorption.

And Abe, I’d just add to that. I mean -- and we've talked about this on past calls, and despite the challenges we're facing right now, we continue to invest in our business, right? And part of those investments are projects that help improve our overall cost position. And one of the projects in particular that we've talked about, and it's not only – it is a good ESG story because it's reducing natural gas consumption, but it certainly helps our cost position in Pamplona as well. We will continue to make those sort of investments in our plants and think that this is a little bit of a road map for us to continue to drive cost out of our system. Yes, there's a capital cost to it, but those are the things that we have to do to continue to be competitive and also position us for the long-term and our views around the long-term positioning of the company.

Thank you. And then maybe just my last question. You had a competitor maybe last quarter was indicating that they expected the prices of pet needle coke to increase in the second half of this year. Is that -- I know it is early in the quarter, but is that something you're seeing? Or do you share that view? And kind of it are related, like what's the capacity that Seadrift is running at today? That's it for me.

So I think on the broader needle coke market, as I stated before, I think it is relatively flat at this point in time. But again that is somewhat, I'll call it -- stale data because it's typically about a month old when we see it. But I do think, we will start to see maybe as early in the back half of '24, but certainly as we get into '25 that you'll start to see more of a pull on needle coke demand not only from higher utilization rates because we continue to expect volumes to go up from our perspective, but also on the EV side right, as supply chains start to get organized and more work is being done to align to kind of some of the 2027 kind of key milestones that the OEMs and others have. So again, crystal ball aside, we expect needle coke prices to continue to go up from this point as they have been trading sideways for a quarter or two now. And Seadrift utilization, we are probably running commensurate with where the electrode plants are right? We are matching Seadrift production with what our demands or internal needs are right now.

Thank you very much.

We have Kirk Ludtke from Imperial Capital. Please go ahead.

Hello Tim, Jeremy, Catherine, Mike, thank you for the call. Appreciate it. With respect to the shift towards EAF, I'm curious, I know it's -- you've got forecast through the end of the decade, but I'm curious, can you quantify how much will come online in the very near term, say, second half of this year and 2025?

I mean I don't have exact numbers year by year. I think we could probably get those to you offline in terms of what we are tracking. But certainly, I think there is a number of projects here domestically in the US that we know are coming online. A few mills I anticipate to ramp up here and strike their first arc in the back half of '24, and would see fairly good production levels in 2025 but we can get that to you offline.

Okay. And anything in China. You mentioned the shift from 10% to 15%. Are there -- is there anything happening at the plant level that might suggest that this time it is different?

Yes. I mean other than the Chinese government saying that this time they are serious and it's going to happen. I think it's too early from that announcement really to see a change in operating levels and rates. I think we haven't seen a significant uptick in operating rates here over the last month or two, but I think time will tell. But ultimately, I think if China wants to continue to be a more active engaged in kind of the world economy right, the decarbonization efforts need to be real and they need to act upon those. So hopefully, this time around we will see better action. So I'll couch it as cautious optimism at this point in time.

Got it. Thank you. I appreciate it. And then -- and I know you are not providing guidance, but directionally, it seems as though spot pricing sequentially is weaker. You've got the downtime scheduled for the third quarter. It seems as though sequentially, earnings will be down between the second and the third quarter and then maybe rebound in the fourth. Is that directionally accurate?

I mean I think you've captured kind of at least what we've said around pricing direction as well as Catherine's discussion around the lumpiness of our costs. So yes, without providing guidance, I think you're fair.

And with respect to the energy cost, is that just the seasonality of energy? Or do you have contracts that are rolling off that we should try to think through?

Yeah. I would describe it as seasonality, right? I mean different markets have different incentives at various times. The summer season is a high energy use season in certain jurisdictions. So, it is not unusual to see higher prices as we go into the third quarter.

Got it. Thank you. And then last question. You have access to all the cash. There is no limitations on you moving cash around to service debt?

No, that's correct.

Got it. I appreciate. Thank you.

Thank you. And our last one will be Arun Viswanathan from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I hope you guys are well. So I just wanted to understand kind of the path forward here. So it looks like if you remove that gain maybe $9 million or so, you would be at like a $5 million run rate of EBITDA in this quarter. Do you see kind of a path to maybe the $25 million to $50 million level? And the reason I'm asking is because you are going to be, I guess, volumes could be increasing which could lower your production costs, then you do have continued roll-off of the LTAs. So just wondering if we kind of assume kind of a normal [$4,500 or so, $4,000] (ph) or so on the cash cost per ton level, what kind of volumes can you get to? And what does that really mean for EBITDA? Maybe you can just help us give us some breakpoints on that journey. Thanks.

So again, we don't provide a lot of guidance, and I'm not going to sit here and start speculating about next year. Other than I think we are laying the groundwork with our customers in all the work that we've been doing, and we've been saying this ever since Q4 of 2022 that we are confident that we'll continue to claw back our market share. And yes, maybe we went down in the elevator and we are climbing back up on the stairs. But we will continue to drive forward and get market share back as we head into 2025. So, while we expect modest increases in volume this year, I would think it's fair to continue to expect increases in volume as we head into 2025. And Catherine commented on the cost side where the moral of the story is, the cost trend is going in the right direction from '23 to '24, and we expect that to continue from where we sit today heading into '25. So, a lot of the things that we can control and that we can drive are progressing as we would expect and as we've been saying, they would. The question that remains, the uncertainty and the question that I can't answer for you today is what does pricing look at like next year? And we won't know that until we start engaging more fulsomely with our customers here in the late third quarter and early fourth quarter, as we get into contract negotiations. So hopefully, that helps at least give you a little bit of direction as the way we see '25. And I think that trend just continues because some of the bigger drivers around EAF and steel demand, as well as needle coke demands really start to come into play as we get more into '26 and beyond. So hopefully, that gives you a little more visibility or at least a sense of how we're viewing kind of the recovery and kind of the growth curve for the business as we look out here over the mid-term.

Maybe I could just ask a follow-up in a slightly different way. So, would you say -- would you agree that the market has bottomed? I know it has on a -- maybe it has on the volume front. But again with your LTAs rolling off, I know pricing won't necessarily -- also, it's probably not bottomed per se on an average realization basis. But would you say that prices have bottomed from an overall spot basis?

Arun, much like not speculating on political outcomes, I think I'm going to refrain from calling a bottom. It usually doesn't work well for most folks. But I mean, again I think you are seeing some stability. I would certainly think that now that we are six months to almost six months removed from our announcement of reducing capacity in St. Mary's. Again, I mentioned one of our competitors come out and they've taken action around their production capacity. I stated before, I don't think that all of the Western producers operating at losses or kind of thin or single-digit margins is a sustainable business. And certainly, if we think about how essential we are to the production of steel in EAF, right, it is not really sustainable for our customers either, right? So, at some point in time, you have to see some better pricing support across the industry. And again, whether that's through higher demand, more supply rationalization or just better overall demand and economic conditions, we do see things returning back to more normalized conditions as we move through -- into '25 and beyond, so.

Okay, thanks. And then just lastly, you spoke last time about some improved commercial actions that you are taking, some initiatives to win back some share. And maybe you noted this time laying the groundwork with a lot of customers. So where are you on that journey? Have you actually gotten any customers back? And do you feel like that's also kind of bottomed and heading higher as far as your kind of share gain recovery?

Yes. I mean I would absolutely – and I don't know how I call it customer bottom, but I would say that we continue myself, Jeremy, Inigo Perez, our Head of Sales continue to engage with our customers on an in-person basis and we've been doing so throughout this year, and we'll continue to do so because I think it's important that we continue to articulate to them not only the value proposition that we think we offer that we've talked about on this call. But also to make sure that the products that we are delivering to them meet their specification and needs and that we're thinking about ways to help them improve their business and their cost competitiveness. And really, the technical services we provide them, all the value-add that we think we can provide to that is truly a differentiator from our competition. So, I think that is paying dividends. And I think most importantly, and maybe somewhat different than in the past is really articulating to them that these are partnerships. These are long-term relationships, and that's what we want. We don't want customers who buy from us one quarter and we don't see them again for a couple of years, right? We want customers that are concerned about our business because we are concerned about their business and that we're willing to invest in those partnerships for the long-term health of both companies. So that is resonating. I think that message is being well received, and we'll continue to see that dividend being paid as we look out into '25 and beyond.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks Arun.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I will now hand the call back over to Mr. Flanagan for closing comments.

Thank you, Ace. I would like to thank everyone on this call for your interest in GrafTech. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Have a great day.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen. And this concludes our conference call. You may now disconnect.