REX American Resources Corporation (REX) 2026 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the REX American Resources second quarter fiscal 2026 conference call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Doug Bruggeman, Chief Financial Officer of REX American. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning and thank you for joining REX American Resources Q2 2026 conference call. With me on our call today are Stuart Rose, REX' Executive Chairman; and Zafar Rizvi, REX's Chief Executive Officer. We'll get to our presentation and comments momentarily as well as your questions. But first, I will review the Safe Harbor disclosure.

In addition to historical facts or statements of current conditions, today's conference call contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Such forward-looking statements reflect the company's current expectations and beliefs but are not guarantees of future performance. As such, actual results may vary materially from expectations. The risks and uncertainties associated with the forward-looking statements are described in today's news announcement and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q. REX American Resources assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

I'd now like to turn the call over to our Executive Chairman, Stuart Rose.

Good morning and thank you all for being here. The second quarter of fiscal 2026 was another strong period for REX American Resources. We posted the highest second quarter net income per share in our company's history at $1.06 per share. Results like these reflect the discipline of our operating teams, the strength of our commercial execution and the benefits of the policy and market tailwinds that have been building for some time. Two developments, one during and one subsequent to the quarter stand out as real markers of progress against our long-term growth agenda.

First, our ethanol production expansion at the One Earth facility remains on schedule, and we continue to expect the added capacity to come online before the end of 2026. Second, and Zafar will cover this in much more detail. We reported more 45Z credits, and we reached an important regulatory milestone on our carbon capture and sequestration project in August with the project receiving draft Class VI well permits from the US EPA.

Our balance sheet remains a genuine source of strength. We closed the quarter with no bank debt and substantial cash and short-term investments, which gives us the flexibility to fund our growth initiatives internally while we continue to evaluate the best uses of our capital going forward. I want to thank our employees across every facility for the consistency and care they bring to this business each day, shows up directly in these results.

I will now turn things over to our Chief Executive Officer, Zafar Rizvi, to walk through our operational progress in more detail.

Thank you, Stuart. Our expansion project at the One Earth Energy facility in Gibson City continue to progress on schedule, and we remain on track to complete construction of the additional ethanol production capacity by the end of 2026. This expanded capacity will strengthen our operating platform and enhance our ability to capture additional value under the 45Z production tax credit program.

Turning to our carbon capture and sequestration project. We reached an important milestones just two weeks ago. On August 17, the US Environmental Protection Agency issued draft permits for three Class VI injection wells associated with our One Earth carbon capture project. The EPA is now accepting public comments on those draft permits, and we continue to work closely with the agency as we move towards final approval. The issuance of these draft permits represents a major step forward for the project. And we are encouraged by the continued engagement and progress with our regulatory partners.

At the state level, the Illinois moratorium on carbon sequestration expired on July 1, the Illinois Commerce Commission has initiated its rule-making process and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has also begun its permitting application process. We plan to submit our application for the approximately 5-mile connector pipeline as well as the required Illinois EPA application as soon as possible. We will continue working closely with state and local regulators to obtain the remaining approvals necessary to move the project forward.

On the policy side, 45Z production tax credit continued to make a meaningful contribution to our results. During the second quarter, we recognized approximately $18.4 million in Section 45Z production tax credit income bringing the year-to-date total to approximately $26 million. The tax credit benefits flowed directly through gross profit. We believe our carbon capture project once fully permitted and operational, has the potential to further improve our carbon intensity score and increase the value we can capture under the 45Z program.

From a capital investment viewpoint, our combined investment in the ethanol expansion and carbon capture projects totaled approximately $191.2 million through the end of the second quarter.

I will now turn the call over to Doug Bruggeman to discuss our financial results in greater detail.

Thank you, Zafar. For information on this quarter's operational results, including production volumes and selling prices, please refer to our press release issued this morning.

Net sales and revenue for the second quarter were $168.5 million compared to $158.6 million in the second quarter of 2025, reflecting improved pricing across our product mix. Gross profit for the second quarter was $53.3 million compared to $14.3 million in the same period last year. This improvement reflects stronger crush margins, together with the $18.4 million of production tax credit income during the quarter, as Zafar mentioned.

Even absent the benefit of 45Z tax credits, our gross profit grew approximately 144% year over year. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $15.6 million for the quarter versus $6.2 million in the second quarter of 2025. The increase primarily relates to higher incentive compensation tied to the strength of our results and restricted stock awards issued during the quarter. Equity in income of unconsolidated affiliates was $7.2 million for the quarter compared to $900,000 in the second quarter of 2025, also benefiting from stronger industry dynamics and production tax credit contributions at our nonconsolidated facilities. Interest and other income was $3.2 million for the quarter, essentially in line with the $3.1 million in the second quarter of 2025.

Income before income taxes and noncontrolling interest was $48.1 million for the quarter compared to $12.1 million in the second quarter of 2025. Net income attributable to REX shareholders was $34.9 million or $1.06 per diluted share compared to $7.1 million or $0.22 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2025. We ended the quarter with $379.5 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, and we continue to carry no bank debt. We continue to fund our growth projects entirely from our own balance sheet.

I will now turn things back over to Zafar.

Thank you, Doug. To summarize the quarter, REX delivered its 24th consecutive profitable quarter and achieved a record second quarter on an earnings per share basis. We successfully capitalized on favorable market conditions through disciplined margin management while continuing to make important progress on our strategic growth initiatives.

Looking ahead at this early stage of the third quarter, we expect to remain profitable and anticipate that third quarter results will be better than the same period last year. Operationally, One Earth expansion remains on schedule for completion by the end of 2026, and our carbon capture project has reached an important regulatory milestone with EPA issuing of our draft permit for three Class VI injection wells.

We remain focused on completing the production capacity expansion, advancing the carbon capture permitting process with the EPA and Illinois regulatories and maintaining disciplined stewardship of our balance sheet as we evaluate additional opportunities to create long-term value for our shareholders.

Market fundamentals remain constructive at this point with continued record export demand supporting the US ethanol industry and the 45Z program providing an important contribution to our margins. We appreciate the continued confidence of our shareholders and the hard work and dedication of our teams across all of our facilities.

With that, I will turn the call back to the operator for questions. Operator?

(Operator Instructions) Mason Bourne, AWH Capital.

To start, it sounds like you've had good progress on the expansion. When you say online by the end of the year, does that mean all 50 million gallons? And do you think that 200 million is the long-term correct level for One Earth? Or could you potentially go higher than that eventually?

Mason, I think we have a step-by-step process as I have explained several times before. We are producing at this time approximately 150 million gallon and the next step will be 175 million. Once we accomplish 175 million, then we have to apply for 200 million. That's one of the requirements for EPA and Illinois EPA requirements. So we expect, hopefully, early next year, middle of that will be close to 200 million gallons we will be producing.

So it sounds like you're in discussions with the Illinois EPA on that. It's great news to see on your draft permit on Class VI well. Could you talk about any timeline expectations? The federal EPA process is a little clearer from a timeline perspective. But Illinois, I think, is -- they already have approved wells in the state. So just wondering the clarity or any thoughts you have on the timeline there?

I think our timeline is -- this is Stuart speaking. I think we do not have great clarity on it. The EPA permit, we believe, will be issued sometime within a reasonable period of time. The biggest thing we're waiting for is approval. We have a little pipeline connector about 5 miles, Illinois, we need the Commerce Commission or the Illinois Pipeline Commission to approve that one.

And that one that just ended -- as Zafar said, they ended the moratorium at the end of June. So we're able to apply for a permit, but we do not know at this time how long that's going to take, and that is the thing that will hold us up, I believe, the longest.

And then lastly, in your slide presentation, you have a note in there about potential third-party gallons. I wondered if you could talk about that. You have significant excess capacity in your wells when they get online. So is this Class VI draft permit, is that sort of a clearing event to open up discussions because the feasibility of your project has basically been signed hopefully.

Yes. We would love to have someone like direct air to CO2 project or something. But at this point in time, we have nothing imminent. But we will certainly, as you just mentioned, have the capacity to take on those type of projects. But we're mostly concentrated on getting our own project going, which if we do with the 45Z rules the way they are currently, that would add significantly to our bottom line.

(Operator Instructions) David [Leffel], DJM Investments.

My question is there's been quite a bit of news this week about the RIN credits and then exemptions. And I was just wondering how that might be impacting your thinking and, I guess, the cash flows over the next 12 to 18 months.

I think at this time, certainly, there will be some impact on RINs, but I'm not sure that will be impacted so much on ethanol sale. As you know, that ethanol export has almost a 13% increase this year, first six months and we expect that it will be almost -- it will continue to increase the export.

But there may be some impact, but I don't anticipate the major impact because most of them -- what you'll see is there is also include biodiesel RINs and also D4 and D6 both of the RINs is included in that.

So there could be some, but it's not a major -- going to be a major impact. And also, we hope that E15 will also will be in California, expected to have almost 695 million gallon consumption, and they fully approved that also at the same time.

Okay. Understood. I guess second question, given how close we are to carbon capture being approved. What is your feeling on share buybacks and capital deployment going forward is clearly most of these 45 credits are essentially based on production and don't have anything to do with the revenue lines.

We've been really, really -- I think we're one of the leaders, if not the leader in share buybacks in percentage of all the shares we've had outstanding over the years. We buy on dips. And when we buy, we buy whatever we can buy at the price we're buying at. And that's been our method of choice in distributing capital, and we certainly are doing.

The fact that we have so much capital just shows how well we're doing, and we will look either to distribute the capital that way again, there's other ways to distribute capital, and we're always looking, and we didn't mention it in the conference call, but we're always looking for either other ethanol plants to buy or something in a similar related industry that might make some sense. So again, we're well aware that we're so lucky to have so much capital.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Rose for final comments.

Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone for listening. Again, we have great locations, very good corn growing areas. We have great plants using industry-leading technology. We just had the best quarter in our company's history.

And the most important thing we have going for us, in my opinion, the best people in the industry, led by our CEO, Zafar Rizvi, and that includes all of our hard-working employees. I'd like to thank everyone for listening, and we look forward to our next conference call at the end of our current quarter. Thank you. Thank you again. Bye.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.