Earnings Labs

Teck Resources Limited (TECK)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 11, 2016

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Transcript

Executives

Management

Gregory A. Waller - VP-Investor Relations & Strategic Analysis Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Ronald A. Millos - Chief Financial Officer & Senior VP-Finance Scott R. Wilson - Treasurer & Vice President Ian C. Kilgour - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President Raymond A. Reipas - Senior Vice President-Energy Andrew A. Stonkus - Senior Vice President, Marketing and Sales Marcia M. Smith - Senior VP-Sustainability & External Affairs

Analysts

Management

Ralph Profiti - Credit Suisse Securities (Canada), Inc Wilfredo Ortiz - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Brian Hsien Yu - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc. (Broker) Justine Fisher - Goldman Sachs & Co. Greg Barnes - TD Securities, Inc. Oscar Cabrera - Bank of America Merrill Lynch Michael F. Gambardella - JPMorgan Securities LLC Lucas N. Pipes - FBR Capital Markets & Co. Alex Terentiew - Raymond James Ltd. (Broker) Richard C. Yu - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker)

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Teck Resources' Q4 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session. This conference call is being recorded on Thursday, February 11, 2016. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Greg Waller, Vice President, Investor Relations & Strategic Analysis. Please go ahead. Gregory A. Waller - VP-Investor Relations & Strategic Analysis: Thanks so much, operator. And good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us this morning for Teck's fourth quarter and full year 2015 results conference call. Before we start, I'd like to draw your attention to the forward-looking information on slide two. This presentation does contain forward-looking statements regarding our business. However, risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to vary. Teck does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement. And I'd also like to remind you when we go to the Q&A session that we do have a number of members of our management team dialing in. So we may pause or we would sort out who will be taking your question. And at this point, I'd like to turn the call over to Don Lindsay, our President and CEO. Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Greg. And good morning, everyone. I'm going to start with an overview of our annual results followed by our fourth quarter results and then Ron Millos, our CFO, will provide additional color from a financial perspective. And as usual, we'll conclude with a Q&A session, where Ron and myself and additional members of our senior team would be happy to answer any questions. So, the commodity cycle continues to provide a very challenging environment. Prices have declined further to levels that…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The first question is from Ralph Profiti from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Ralph Profiti - Credit Suisse Securities (Canada), Inc: Good morning and thank you. Don and Ron, you touched on this briefly, but does the MD&A disclosure describe most or all of the risks to greater requirements for letters of credit in 2016 and 2017? And if so, where do they come from? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Ron, I'll let you start. Ronald A. Millos - Chief Financial Officer & Senior VP-Finance: It's certainly – well, we haven't issued all the risks, normally puts in our AIF, Ralph, and that normally gets filed in early March. But certainly we're looking at the disclosure that will be required on that. Ralph Profiti - Credit Suisse Securities (Canada), Inc: Okay, great. Scott R. Wilson - Treasurer & Vice President: Ron, it's Scott. Perhaps I could add that all of the letter of credit requirements that we are aware of are disclosed in the financial liquidity section of the news release. Ralph Profiti - Credit Suisse Securities (Canada), Inc: Okay, got it. Thank you. Just maybe more of a housekeeping question. There is C$40 million in major enhancements in the coal business for 2016, which you described as mine life extension. Can I assume that that excludes investment in water treatment? And if so, can I get an update on what's the remaining CapEx and perhaps a little bit of a help on the timing for that spending? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: All right. Ian? Ian C. Kilgour - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, sure. The major enhancements are essentially sort of pit extensions at the Elkview and Fording River mines. We're preparing new mining areas for operation and that will occur throughout the year. That include things such as electricity access, water management, impairments, top soil stripping that sort of thing. And there is some water treatment in expenditure this year, which is essentially preparation for our second water treatment plant at Fording River. Ralph Profiti - Credit Suisse Securities (Canada), Inc: That's great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Wilfredo Ortiz from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Wilfredo Ortiz - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Yes, Good morning, gentlemen. Could you please elaborate a little bit on the potential options that you are considering as far as strengthening the liquidity? Are these options including equity issuances, new secured debt, to extend maturities, further asset sales and if any of the above, like in what sort of order would you rank them depending on how things are evolving and your accessibility to each options? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. So, I just want to say upfront, issuing equity is not an option, that is – our main objective is to go through this severe down cycle without issuing any equities so that on the other side of the cycle we can position ourselves to have excellent share price performance when we will have more production per share, including Fort Hills than we had before. We looked at a number of assets internally, primarily non-resourced assets because we wanted, again, hang on to all of the key resources that we have, which is in contrast to some of our competitors. Infrastructure assets as you know tend to trade at much higher EBITDA multiples than a diversified mining company is ever going to trade. So we see some real potential there with some of the things that we have and we've had quite a few inbound calls increase as to expressing their interest and those kind of things. So we are kind of working through the options on that. We had great success with the streaming deals as you've seen and there is potential to do more of that. Although we're not looking it at the moment because we do have over C$6 billion of liquidity at the moment and our objective is to have the company ex-Fort Hills to be cash neutral. And some of these are kind of complicated transactions, so we're not rushing to do them. In terms of, I think part of your question was secured debt. You will be aware of the options that we have there, the ability to do it and that really depends on how the world unfolds going forward. But it is not something that we want to do. And so if we can get through 2016 as we've described without ever touching the US$3 billion credit line and finishing the year with C$500 million in cash or better with Fort Hills then almost finished, I think we will be through the worst of it and looking forward to the normal results of a down cycle where investment, of course, drives up and production shuts down. Meanwhile global growth kind of continues to mud along on an upward trend and maybe not as high as in some years, but in the long-term eventually demand exceeds supply again and commodity prices rise and the whole show starts again. So we're looking forward to that day.

Wilfredo Ortiz - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Great, thank you. And a second one, if I may. As far as, you mentioned in Quebrada Blanca of being cash flow positive as of the fourth quarter. At what point would you consider perhaps shutting it earlier than the end of its mine life or any of the other assets should they become cash flow negative, how long would you wait to shut anything? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. We look at those decisions all the time as I am well aware my competitors do and so two or three key points on that. One is, first, the management team under Dale Andres and Ian Kilgour, our Chief Operating Officer, have been really intensely focusing on the QB issue and I think they've had some pretty reasonable success, such that cash cost looks like they're going to be below C$2, so that's sort of a good news story number one. Number two is that we look at QB as the combined entity of QB1 and QB2, and obviously a lot of the – if I call it infrastructure assets are kind of linked to the next project. The workforce of course is very important and so having some continuity there as we finish the permitting process for QB2 is important just in the overall relationships with the regulators in Chile and all the other stakeholders and employees. So, we certainly wouldn't shut it down very lightly, and then there is a cost of shutting down. Of course the cost as you shutdown and there is the care and maintenance value shutdown and then if you want to start up again, there is a cost to that too. So we look at all the factors at the moment we are carrying on and stressing getting the cost down so that it's cash positive, which is one of our key objectives.

Wilfredo Ortiz - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Brian Yu from Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Brian Hsien Yu - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah, thanks, good morning. Don, I think you had touched on, the plans are not touched, but you had addressed plans for 2016. I was wondering if you could talk about 2017 with expectation and in 2016 with C$0.5 billion of cash in the presentation slides you go through some of the letters of credits that's maturing and bonds. Is there other things we can look for in 2016 actions you guys might take in anticipation of some of these maturities in 2017 assuming that there is no major recovery in commodity prices? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Right. So, yes, there are things that you would look for. I think you can assume that we will either execute on one of these options that we've been describing. We're certainly as I said, examining them closely and putting ourselves in a state of readiness to act if commodity prices do not increase, so that when we get to the end of 2016, beginning 2017, I would like to have more than the C$500 million, in fact I'd like to have whatever it takes to finish Fort Hills and finish Fort Hills without ever having drawn on the credit line. In terms of the maturities, in terms of our bonds, the first maturity is in January, US$300 million and then the next one in August of 2017, US$300 million as well. In terms of the other credit line, the C$1.2 billion, you can assume that sometime during the course of the year we would have our normal discussions with the banks. We would usually do that in Q2 and whether we ask them to extend or whatever kind of discussion as we haven't decided yet. But, in the normal course, you have to have your 2016 budget finalized, the three year production forecast established and these are all the information the banks would be looking to ask for when we go to extend. So, we've just finalized most of that now. So we will have those conversations in the normal course. So we keep a very, very close relationship with the banks as you can imagine and we've had positive feedback. So we'll go through that and you'll probably see some sort of announcement during the course of 2016 on that as well.

Brian Hsien Yu - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, great. And then second question is on Fort Hills. From your prior presentation, I think you guys had indicated that high $30s WTI type of price that that project could break-even on a free cash flow basis. With everything that's happened in the market, is that still a right number to think about in terms of free cash flow break-even? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. So on this question, I always point out that you have to look at more than just the WTI oil price. You got to look at the differential and of course the exchange rate which is a very, very important variable. I think one thing I'd point to is Suncor, obviously, a mature operator and you can – in public information see what its cost are. And that was with the older original operations and we all think and Suncor is of course the operator that Fort Hills being a newer project and with all the learnings that's gone into design will actually be better than what they're doing. So we think that – it will be cash positive by the time it comes into production, which is really – it's almost two years from now before you get to first oil, December 2017 is the schedule. So that's a lot of time for changes in the oil price to occur. So we'll look forward to that day.

Brian Hsien Yu - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

All right. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Orest Wowkodaw from Scotia Bank. Please go ahead.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Just coming back again to the letters of credit, is there anything you can do to reduce that requirement at QB2? I mean that's consuming a lot of that available line. I don't know if there is some kind of provision to buy that out given that you're not going to need the power for a long time at QB2. And just, again, how worried should we be in terms of that maturity date on that US$1.2 billion line of June 2017. Should we just view it as a normal course type of annual renewal because obviously if that doesn't renew, it would consume a fair amount of your US$3 billion line, if required? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So on the latter question, I would say we're viewing it as normal course and that's the nature of our discussions with the bank so far. On the first question, I will turn that over to either Scott or Ron. Scott R. Wilson - Treasurer & Vice President: So the first question related to our ability to lower the letter of credit requirement at QB2, that's a contractual issue with the power developer there and as long as our credit ratings are below investment grade, we are obligated to provide the letters of credit that have been posted. And just as a reminder, the US$1.2 billion facility, although it was put in place prior to Teck's investment grade credit ratings being reduced, in discussions with the banks et cetera at that time, the stability of investment grade was certainly there. And so this facility is very much acting as it was intended to. And so, the letters of credit on that will likely remain outstanding as long as we are non-investment grade.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst

And what happens in the event that QB2 never gets built? Scott R. Wilson - Treasurer & Vice President: There would be our obligation on our part and we would look to lay that off in the market.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst

I see. And just so I understand in terms of your other uses for the letters of credit. Is the only – so the only potential increase that you can see this increase around Fort Hills from C$93 million to C$650 million in the next couple of years? Scott R. Wilson - Treasurer & Vice President: Those are the only letters of credit that we are contractually required to provide and as a clarification on the Fort Hills, that's the maximum amount that we would be required to provide. We had discussions with various counterparties on Fort Hills and some of them require letters of credit and some of them have not. And so, the disclosure that we have indicates the maximum amount that we would have to post, but at this stage, it's looking as though that amount would be somewhat less.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, thank you. And just again if I could return to Fort Hills, maybe ask the question in a different way. Are the partners – how are the partners thinking about starting up Fort Hills if the oil price environment remains where it is today i.e., do you plan to actually start the project if it would be free cash flow negative, in operation? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I may get Ray to comment, but I'd just say upfront, it is a theoretical question and we've all sort of asked it ourselves, but it's such a long time before we get that it's really hard to answer. So far, we've had very good alignment with the partners and people are working well together. I actually had breakfast with Steve Williams and Patrick Pouyanne just a couple of weeks ago and we're very pleased with how the project is going. So, at this point, we would just carry on. Ray, do you have anything that you could add to that?

Raymond A. Reipas - Senior Vice President-Energy

Analyst

Yeah. Thanks, Don. I'll just make a couple of points. One is the one we made earlier that we're still two years away from production start and remember production start-up isn't at full capacity, we need to ramp that up over the next 12 months. So we have a full two years to see some price recovery. The other thing I'd point out is that if you take a look at the industry and we are driving cost down across the industry and having good success at that. So we have some time to continue that and Fort Hills being a brand new asset coming up with the latest design, we are very optimistic. We'll see good cost performance out of Fort Hills. And the last point I'd make is the partners are aligned there. We do have common infrastructure that gets us to Hardisty, which is a market hub in Alberta. So we do think the partners will be aligned in their decision on operating Fort Hills.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Justine Fisher from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Justine Fisher - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Good morning. Ronald A. Millos - Chief Financial Officer & Senior VP-Finance: Good morning. Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi good morning, Justine. Justine Fisher - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hi. So, my first question is just on the discussions with the banks. You said that they are going in the normal course and I was wondering if you could update us on whether there is any discussion of giving security to the banks for that 2017 facility. I mean, I think the relationships are good there and there is no doubt that the banks would certainly continue to extend that credit but given where the unsecured credit risk of Teck is trading, have the banks at all opened that discussion of providing security to the 2017 facility? Scott R. Wilson - Treasurer & Vice President: It's not yet. No. Justine Fisher - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay. And I guess, are you kind of in the meat of the discussions or do you think you probably have to wait until you get the forecast and everything that you were talking about before and then go really in 2Q is when you will have the meat of the discussion? Scott R. Wilson - Treasurer & Vice President: Yeah. I think as Don said earlier, we just completed our budget and our three-year production forecast, et cetera and this is the sort of information that we think the banks would be looking for that discussion. In the normal course, we would look somewhere between 60 days and 90 days prior to the maturity or the anniversary of the facility so that would take it…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Greg Barnes from TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Greg Barnes - TD Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Don, I believe you were in China late last year and perhaps you could give us a sense of what you think is going on there with respect to demand for commodities in general? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I was there in November and I'm usually there about four times a year and so I am going to be there in March. So I kind of almost think that whatever I learned in November is out of date, but we track it from here as well. It depends on the commodity. Starting with steel, there is no question that steel passed its peak almost two years ago and is forecast to decline again this year. The statements coming out of the government are strongly indicative of closing down excess capacity in both steel and coal. The number that they came out with I think last night was 150 million tonnes of coal capacity would be shutdown. What hasn't been decided is, which steel plants and which coal mines will go. In terms of our customers, which are some of the major companies and some of the coastal steel plants that are new, we don't expect it to have any effect. And as you know, we have reduced the amount of coal that we sell to China to targeting 15% or less and that's really to major customers where we're already part of the blend. So we don't think it's going to have that much effect on our volume, but China being the marginal buyer that's the price and I guess it's sort of a balance between less demand because less steel will be produced, less demand for coal overall, but not necessarily less demand for seaborne high-quality hard coking coal to the key…

Andrew A. Stonkus - Senior Vice President, Marketing and Sales

Analyst

Yeah. Thanks, Don. The other thing I would add on the zinc side is that with the imports up over 50% and, as you mentioned, with the closures of the various mines, it's going to take a lot of concentrate supply out that normally go to China. So you have to look at the metal imports of the China, they were up dramatically, November-December. So, the imports of metal ore into China are going up because you don't have the source of concentrate for conversion to metal internally. So that's a key point that we'll be watching going forward. China needs zinc units and are getting their concentrates or metal and right now it's going to be on the metal side and with the galvanizing increase of about just over 3% the rate of galvanized production that's another key indicator of ongoing increased demand in China for zinc.

Greg Barnes - TD Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Oscar Cabrera from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Oscar Cabrera - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. And just, first, a quick comment. I don't know if this was the unintended result, but the three-year guidance helps a lot. So I hope you can keep it going forward. So the first question if I may, going back to the liquidity, would it be fair to say that based on what you – some of the answers you provided, Don, equity issuance and/or securing debt would be at the bottom of the priority list and therefore infrastructure projects that you mentioned would be the preferred vehicle to increase your liquidity? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes. I really need to emphasize this. Equity issuance is not even on the list. It's not at the bottom; it's not on the list. Infrastructure makes a lot of sense because they tend to trade at higher values significantly higher values, probably more than double the multiple of EBITDA than a diversified mining company. So that's certainly at or near the top of the list.

Oscar Cabrera - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. And so there was the sale of the Waneta Dam and I believe it was like third of it, so I'm assuming that that is the one that you're referring to, and that asset went for C$825 million. So how should we think about the level of capital that you think you can get from that? And I assume the other one is one of the ports that you own? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I don't want to go into too much detail about this. I should say that transaction in 2009 power prices were higher, but there is a real scarcity value to clean power generation like that. And then, of course, the two-thirds of that dam does provide the power for Trail, so you'd have to in turn do a long-term contract of some sort. So you could sort of design a grid as to what value you could get depending on what power price you're prepared to pay, but certainly there's a lot of value there. And in terms of ports, as you've seen throughout the world, there's – with reduction in steel in China and oversupply of coal and different shutdowns in coal mines, there's the potential for consolidation on the port side of the business that could release a lot of value in different forms. It's really intriguing actually, but I don't think I can comment in much detail at this point.

Oscar Cabrera - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

No, that helps a lot. And then just one clarification, if I may. In your slide number 20 where you say that the only financial covenant is debt to debt-plus-equity of less than 50%. It does say, excludes issued letters of credit. So what are the covenants under those letters of credit, please? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Scott or Ron? Scott R. Wilson - Treasurer & Vice President: Sure. The letters of credit themselves have no financial covenants, but that debt to debt-plus-equity financial covenant is one that applies across the board because there's cross-acceleration related covenants in all of our debt agreements.

Oscar Cabrera - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

All right. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Michael Gambardella from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Michael F. Gambardella - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Good morning. Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Mike.

Michael F. Gambardella - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Just wanted to say I really appreciate all the detail you give in your report, especially the sensitivity and the waterfall charts. Those just make it easier for everyone to kind of understand what's transpired over the past year so. But if I could just go back to the Fort Hills, I heard your response to an earlier question on Fort Hills was kind of we're hoping that in two years prices go up, but what happens if prices don't go up? Or just assuming the currency situation is the same as today, pricing is the same as today, and you have your own estimates on costs, I mean, what would the Fort Hills project look like to Teck right now, two years from now? I mean, what type of negative drain would it be and what would the plan be to address that? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think it's a good question, but it's not one that we can answer at this time. It remains to be seen what the oil price will be two years from now. If it was at today's spot price, it would be probably cash negative, but we'll have to see what plans Suncor has and they're really the spokesperson on the project. And I think that when we got to that point of time 18 months to 20 months, 21 months from now then we'll look at it in detail, see what the options are and make whatever decisions are necessary. But it's pretty hard to predict at this point. So I don't want to say anything that would end up being misleading.

Michael F. Gambardella - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

And then do you have any flexibility whatsoever to kind of postpone the spending at this point just to see if market changes? Ronald A. Millos - Chief Financial Officer & Senior VP-Finance: Yeah. We really don't want to do that because the project is going very well. You got thousands of people on site, all working very productively, getting good productivity numbers, and we obviously didn't make the investment thinking oil was going to be long term in the C$20s or C$30s, and we haven't changed our view on that. It still looks like the clearing price for oil is going to be north of C$50 or even substantially higher. So it's a cyclical business, just like our other commodities and sometimes you end up building during the downturn and that usually works out quite well. Because when oil prices are lower, when copper prices are lower, coal prices are lower, investment stops and production is cut back and eventually the market rights itself and I think it will again here. So we'll just carry on.

Michael F. Gambardella - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

I mean, what would the harm be in saying we're going to postpone right now and take the C$1 billion. If you're assuming like an equity offering is off the table, it's ridiculous in your mind and I agree. But why not take the money you're going to spend on Fort Hills, the C$1 billion and buy back shares; that seems like it's a no-brainier in your mind in terms of you don't want to – so your issuing equity down here is crazy. Why not postpone the project, take that money you intended for Fort Hills and put it in a repurchase program and then see where you are? Ronald A. Millos - Chief Financial Officer & Senior VP-Finance: Right. So I certainly understand the numbers behind the question. We on our own as a 20% partner can't postpone the project. That would have to be a unanimous decision amongst the partners. And I don't think any of the three partners really think that oil price is going to stay at these levels forever. So we think Fort Hills is going to be an excellent project. We've had all sorts of offers of financing on royalties, various things from the oil patch because Fort Hills has such a good reputation of what kind of quality asset it's going to be. So our priority at the moment is to get it finished and see if we come in on time and under budget, and they are making very good progress on that. So that's sort of where the three partners are. If for some reason the other two partners wanted to do that then that question that you've asked would be a theoretical possibility and it will be a very intriguing possibility, but it's not really on the table now.

Michael F. Gambardella - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thanks, Ron. Ronald A. Millos - Chief Financial Officer & Senior VP-Finance: It's not lost on me though, if you see what I mean.

Michael F. Gambardella - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

I understand.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Lucas Pipes from FBR & Company. Please go ahead. Lucas N. Pipes - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Hey, good morning, everyone, again. Ray and Ron, Don, I also have a follow-up question on Foot Hills and I obviously understand there's been a lot of questions on it and I understand there are still some theoreticals here. But at this point in time, I was wondering, are there fixed costs associated with Fort Hills associated with infrastructure off-take and such things that we could be thinking about that essentially would already be a sunk cost at commissioning? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Could you elaborate on that? I am just trying to think of what you mean? Lucas N. Pipes - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: So what I am trying to understand is, I mean, we can all do the math on what the cash flow is at today's oil prices. But if you have already made certain agreements for pipelines, for example, then that would be a sunk cost and that we should exclude that from the breakeven on the economics going forward. So I was wondering if you could share with us what the annual fixed commitments are for Fort Hills starting in late 2017?

Raymond A. Reipas - Senior Vice President-Energy

Analyst

Don, I can take that. Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, go ahead, Ray.

Raymond A. Reipas - Senior Vice President-Energy

Analyst

So the partners work together to develop infrastructure from Fort Hills down to the Hardisty market hub in Alberta. We are aligned on that. That is mostly newbuild facilities down there and our transportation service agreements allow us to start using those facilities when we start up Fort Hill, so that's aligned in the startup. I think part of your question, there certainly would be care and custody cost on the property should we decide not to start up and those would be a cost we'd carry as a partnership. Lucas N. Pipes - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: And is there a way to quantify that cost?

Raymond A. Reipas - Senior Vice President-Energy

Analyst

I certainly don't know the answer to that. That work hasn't been done. We're still, say, a couple of years away from startup and I don't have a number for an option where we wouldn't start up, we haven't that work. Lucas N. Pipes - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Okay. Thank you. And then, Ron, as a follow-up question. In the release, you mentioned at least C$500 million cash by the end of the year. I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more parameters around that number and how we should think about it. For example, what would you expect in terms of working capital, does that go into that C$500 million cash balance? And then also, what should we be thinking about in terms of cash taxes for 2016? Any other items would be helpful as well. Ronald A. Millos - Chief Financial Officer & Senior VP-Finance: Yeah, the working cash we think we need is somewhere in the order of C$300 million to C$400 million just around the day-to-day affairs of the business. So we got a little bit of cushion with C$500 million. On a cash tax basis, the cash taxes that we're likely to pay will be any of the mining taxes on the coal operations in British Columbia and Alberta. Not likely to be any Canadian income taxes because of the tax pools that we have. And then the taxes in the foreign jurisdictions will be the cash tax portion. And again, that will be dependent on what the commodity prices are. Lucas N. Pipes - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: And at current commodity prices, so would that be in line with 2015, any ballpark figure that you could give us? Ronald A. Millos - Chief Financial Officer & Senior VP-Finance: Yeah, generally in line I'd think. Lucas N. Pipes - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Got it. Okay. Thank you and best of luck. Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Alex Terentiew from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Alex Terentiew - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. I just have a couple of questions here on your coal business. I noticed you noted that you'll be looking to optimize production from your five other coal mines to replace the 2.25 million tonnes lost from Coal Mountain. Can you give us any idea on where these additional tonnes would come from and what would be needed to get those to the market? And a final related question. Your AIF from last year says that for Cardinal River mining beyond 2019 would require significant improvement in coal prices. Is this still what you guys are thinking and are there other mines that in a few years time could face the same situation? Ian C. Kilgour - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks. Alex, it's Ian here. In terms of replacing the production that we'll lose from Coal Mountain at the end of 2017, we'll just be doing that by incremental increases in production from our Elk Valley mines. As you know, we've got four other mines in the Elk Valley, which in fact create the bulk of their production, and we think there's some very good low capital scenarios for us to incrementally increase production there. In terms of Cardinal River, yes, the situation hasn't really changed. At this point, the end of 2019 sees the completion of the pits that are within our current mining areas and to go further would require starting a new pit somewhat further away from the industrial facilities and would require a higher coal pricing we're seeing now for us to continue.

Alex Terentiew - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst

For Coal Mountain and Cardinal River, are you able to quantify at all what that coal price would be? And, I guess, related question, is there a certain amount of time that you need to have before you – so with Coal Mountain, you suspended the Phase 2 stripping. If coal prices went up next quarter, would you be – for example, would you be able to continue mining Coal Mountain in 2018 or would there be some sort of gap? Ian C. Kilgour - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: No, we've made the decision that we won't be continuing at all, won't be commencing Coal Mountain Phase 2. That, again, is a satellite pit remote from the current industrial facilities. And it's basically more economic for us to replace that production with the low-cost incremental production from the other Elk Valley mines.

Alex Terentiew - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst

Okay. And then just one last question, if I may. BC Hydro, I think it was earlier this week or last week, announced a cost deferral program that they are offering to a bunch of the miners in the province. Is there something that you expect Teck to be participating in? And I was wondering if you could quantify the potential savings to you guys this year from that and also is it included in your guidance? Ronald A. Millos - Chief Financial Officer & Senior VP-Finance: Don, Marcia is on the call, if you want Marcia to respond to that? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Marcia, go ahead. Marcia M. Smith - Senior VP-Sustainability & External Affairs: Yeah. I am happy to respond. I would just say, at this point, we're still looking at the details of the program. The Ministry of Finance through the government of British Columbia works with each of the individual operations in the province. So we're going through that work, but we don't have any view yet on whether we'll take advantage of the program. And we have not updated – we didn't include any of those – any of the thinking on it in our releases.

Alex Terentiew - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The following question is from Richard Yu from Citi. Please go ahead.

Richard C. Yu - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So it sounds like, when you're talking about the potential infrastructure sale, you're not quite ready to do it. You kind of said you're getting into a state of readiness to do so. But I'm just wondering what is it going to take you to feel like you're not in that state, is it like a certain time if commodity prices are going to increase, what are you looking for? Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's a combination of factors. It would be in the judgment of the board whether a deal surfaces that we think is good value, that still leaves the operating assets associated with infrastructure in the right position, outlook for commodity prices. If zinc takes off like we think it will at some point, it changes the whole picture and you wouldn't need to do anything. So it's all those factors and at some point, the board will make a judgment call on whether to pull the trigger on something.

Richard C. Yu - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. Gregory A. Waller - VP-Investor Relations & Strategic Analysis: Operator, we're going to have to cap it here. We're well past our hour. So for those of you who are still on the queue for questions, if you want to contact us directly, we're certainly happy to talk to you later this morning or the afternoon your time, but we could just – we'll have to cap at this point. Donald R. Lindsay - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. So with that I'll just say thank you all for joining us on the call. And as Greg said, we're happy to answer further questions directly and we look forward to speaking with you at the end of the Q1. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Gregory A. Waller - VP-Investor Relations & Strategic Analysis: Thanks, everyone. Bye-bye.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.