SunCoke Energy Inc (SXC) 2026 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Hello, and welcome to the SunCoke Energy second quarter 2026 earnings call. (Operator Instructions)

I'll now turn the conference over to Sharon Doyle, Investor Relations Manager. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us this morning to discuss SunCoke Energy's second quarter 2026 results. With me today are Katherine Gates, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Shantanu Agrawal, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This conference call is being webcast live on the Investor Relations section of our website and a replay will be available later today. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A.

If we do not get to your questions on the call today, please feel free to reach out to our Investor Relations team.

Before I turn things over to Katherine, let me remind you that the various remarks we make on today's call regarding future expectations constitute forward-looking statements. The cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements in our SEC filings apply to the remarks we make today. These documents are available on our website, as are reconciliations to non-GAAP financial measures discussed on today's call.

With that, I'll turn things over to Katherine.

Thanks, Sharon. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on today's call. This morning, we announced SunCoke Energy's second quarter results. I want to share a few highlights before turning it over to Shantanu to discuss the results in detail. We're very pleased with our second quarter results with strong consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $69.6 million.

Our Industrial Services segment delivered the highest adjusted EBITDA since the acquisition of Phoenix, substantially higher handling volumes at our terminals as compared to the prior year period. Our Domestic Coke segment benefited from favorable coal-to-coke yields, and the Middletown turbine was returned to service with power production resuming in May.

Earlier today, we also announced a quarterly dividend of $0.12 per share, payable to shareholders on September 2, 2026. This is our 28th consecutive quarterly dividend. While the dividend is evaluated on a quarterly basis by our Board, we expect the dividend to continue as part of our well-balanced capital allocation strategy.

As previously discussed in our first quarter earnings call, we are running at full capacity and sold out for the full year. We expect continued strong operating performance for both business segments, and with a solid outlook through the second half of the year, we are increasing our full-year 2026 consolidated adjusted EBITDA guidance range to $250 million to $265 million.

With that, I'll turn it over to Shantanu to review our second quarter earnings in detail. Shantanu.

Thanks, Katherine. Turning to slide 4. Net income attributable to SunCoke was $0.15 per share in the second quarter of 2026, up $0.13 versus the prior year period. The increase was primarily driven by the addition of Phoenix results and higher terminal handling volumes. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2026 was $69.6 million compared to $43.6 million in the prior year period.

The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the addition of Phoenix, higher terminal handling volumes, and favorable coal-to-coke yields, partially offset by lower coke sales volumes due to the Haverhill I shutdown and higher employee expense accrual driven by the company's strong financial performance. Moving to slide 5 to discuss our Domestic Coke business performance in detail.

Second quarter Domestic Coke adjusted EBITDA was $42.5 million and coke sales volumes were 878,000 tons compared to $40.5 million and 943,000 tons in the prior year period. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by favorable coal-to-coke yields due to improved operating conditions, partially offset by lower coke sales volumes due to the Haverhill I shutdown. We are pleased with the improvement in our coke operations during the second quarter and with the return of power production at Middletown earlier than anticipated.

We expect this strong operational performance to continue throughout the second half of the year and are increasing our full-year Domestic Coke adjusted EBITDA guidance range to $172 million to $178 million. Now moving on to slide 6 to discuss our Industrial Services results. Our Industrial Services segment generated $34.4 million of adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of 2026, compared to $7.7 million in the prior year period. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the addition of Phoenix results and higher terminal handling volumes. Second quarter total terminals handling volumes were 6.7 million tons and steel customer volumes serviced were 5.8 million tons.

We are increasing our full-year 2026 Industrial Services adjusted EBITDA guidance range to $110 million to $115 million, driven by continued solid outlook for the second half of the year. Now, turning to slide 7 to discuss our liquidity position for Q2. SunCoke ended the second quarter with a cash balance of $42.7 million and revolver availability of $164.5 million, representing ample liquidity of $207 million. Net cash used in operating activities was $27.2 million and was negatively impacted by the timing of approximately $65 million of cash receipts at the quarter end, which were subsequently received in July. We expect operating cash flow to normalize over the remainder of the year and are increasing our full-year operating cash flow guidance to $240 million to $260 million.

During the quarter, we used $6.5 million for debt paydown, spent $15.9 million on CapEx, and paid $10.2 million in dividends at the rate of $0.12 per share. SunCoke has a strong track record of generating steady free cash flow, and we expect the trend to continue throughout the year. As Katherine mentioned earlier, we intend to continue utilizing our free cash flow to pay down debt, as well as to reward our long-term shareholders via dividends, which is reviewed and approved on a quarterly basis by our Board of Directors.

With that, I'll turn it back over to Katherine.

Thanks, Shantanu. Wrapping up on slide 8. As always, safety is our first priority and our team remains committed to maintaining strong safety and environmental performance throughout the year. Robust safety and environmental standards set SunCoke apart and are central to our reliable delivery of high-quality coke and industrial services. We continue to be confident in our operations for 2026 with our profitable long-term coke business underpinned by the 3 pillars of Indiana Harbor, Middletown, and Jewell Foundry, which have consistently delivered excellent performance and results.

With our Haverhill II and Granite City coke-making contracts in place and all spot blast and foundry coke sales finalized, we're sold out for the full year. We also maintain a positive outlook for our Industrial Services segment. 2026 will benefit from a full year of Phoenix adjusted EBITDA, as well as solid market conditions at our terminals. As always, we take a balanced yet opportunistic approach to capital allocation. Our focus will remain on utilizing our free cash flow to support our capital allocation priorities, including paying down our revolver balance.

We also plan to continue returning capital via the quarterly dividend as approved by our Board, which has always been well received by our long-term shareholders. We continuously evaluate the capital needs of the business, our capital structure, and the need to reward our shareholders, and will make capital allocation decisions accordingly. We're committed to maximizing value for all of our stakeholders, which means operating and investing in our assets in the best and most efficient way possible. We will continue to focus on maintaining the strength of our core businesses, as well as assessing new growth opportunities across all areas of our business. Overall, we see the strong fundamentals of our business and expect our 2026 results to be reflective of that.

We are confident that we'll be able to deliver full-year consolidated adjusted EBITDA within our revised guidance range of $250 million to $265 million. Let's go ahead and open up the call for Q&A.

(Operator Instructions)

Henry Hearle of B. Riley Securities.

Just to start off, in the Domestic Coke this year, adjusted EBITDA per ton was roughly $48.4, which is still slightly below your revised higher full-year guidance of $51 to $52. Could you help us and walk through the drivers to achieve this higher EBITDA per ton in the second half of the year?

Thanks, Henry. Yes, there are a couple of things in there. First, the Middletown turbine came back online late part of May. So we still did not have the full benefit of the Middletown turbine power generation for the full quarter. So you're going to see that in the third and the fourth quarter, the full turbine power generation from Middletown.

And the other piece, which is also included in the second half of the year, is the insurance recovery proceeds, which we lost, not having the turbine during the first half of the year. That is also built into our guidance for the second half.

Got it. And then I believe your terminal handling volumes increased almost 20% quarter-over-quarter. What was kind of the main driver or drivers of that significant step up?

So this was really an extraordinary quarter for the terminals as we've said. And, I mean, we see really a shift in the end of last year and even the beginning of this year. We saw that mismatch where you had higher domestic pricing for coal versus internationally, that has certainly shifted. I think that there's supply chain concern and energy concern with respect to the war in Iran that's probably driving some of these prices higher. When the prices go higher, we see that higher volume come through the Gulf.

And so those things have all converged to really create a very, very strong second quarter for us.

Understood. And I think in your prepared remarks, you said that terminal volumes are expected to see strong performance in the second half. Does that mean further growth or kind of remaining at those 2Q levels?

Yes, very good question. So we see the second half as being strong, but I would refer to it as being strong as opposed to extraordinary. So the second quarter really several things converged across all of our terminals to give us those really high volumes that we're very, very pleased with. So we feel very good about the second half, but I would expect those to normalize to what I would consider to be our normal kind of strong results in the second half. And that's really reflective when you look at the guidance that we're giving for Industrial Services on a full-year basis.

Nathan Martin, The Benchmark Company.

Congrats on a strong quarter. Maybe just digging in a little bit more on that last question. You did raise, obviously, Industrial Services segment guidance by what looks like about $18 million or so at the midpoint, but it actually implies, I guess, average adjusted EBITDA back down to about $26 million a quarter in the back half. So am I thinking about that correctly, just trying to again reconcile the implied half-over-half decline, or is there maybe some conservatism built in? I think you guys had previously guided to terminal volumes of 24 million tons and then Phoenix volumes of 22 million tons.

Is that still what you're seeing for that segment or any other thoughts there would be great?

Yes, thanks, Nate. That's a great question. So a couple of things. I think one thing in what happened in Q2, Katherine mentioned, right, we saw a significant amount of volumes come through in the terminals this quarter, right? And if you look at our Q1 was pretty strong as well in the terminals with the 5.6 million kind of volumes, and we did 6.6 million volume this quarter.

So I would say the run rate for the second half is somewhere in the middle of that, more closer to Q1, I would say. And then the other piece which really, really impacted and helped us in Q2 was some extraordinary, kind of, you know, slag sales that we did on the Phoenix side of the business, which helped drive the number in Q2. These are more seasonal things that it happens in one quarter. You're handling the slag and then you sell those kind of slag into the market. It just depends on the timing.

So that helps quite a bit in the Q2 and which should normalize out in Q3 and Q4. And that's why kind of the full-year guidance of $110 million to $115 million makes sense from that perspective.

Okay, that's some good color, Shantanu. I appreciate that. I mean, with Phoenix, are you guys still thinking that $60 million of adjusted EBITDA for the year is a good way to think about that? Or have you been able to institute some cost savings initiatives, et cetera, or higher sales that might see some upside there?

So with respect to the synergies that we expected to realize and we discussed previously the $5 million to $10 million of synergies, we have already achieved that this year. And we have a good portion of the synergies this year, but we would expect to see full synergies in 2027. So certainly with respect to the integration of the business and the cost side of it, we are right where we expected to be.

Operationally, things are just the same level of discipline, reliability, and rigor that we bring to coke and terminals we brought to Phoenix. So we're seeing that strong operational performance and coupling that with the mills and how they've been performing, and you've seen that across the board in terms of results from our customers, we're just, we're having a very strong year for Phoenix.

So I think that thinking about our original sort of $60 million, $61 million as sort of a baseline when we announced the acquisition of Phoenix, that is the baseline. But you're certainly seeing stronger performance this year due to our operational excellence coupled with the mill's strong performance.

Katherine, I appreciate that. And then maybe another question as it relates to Convent. Did you guys receive the price kicker there for the quarter based on where the FOB New Orleans index was? And then are you seeing any benefit in the second half with those prices still elevated because of what's going on in the war in the Middle East?

Yes, that's a great question. Yes. We changed the price index last year and it's FOB New Orleans. We did see the favorable impact of that, not to a great extent. We did see some impact, I think, 2 months out of the 3 this quarter.

And that price, it's a mix of how the domestic producers are doing as well as kind of what the market looks like in Europe. So we expect to see some benefit in Q3 as well, but it can change pretty quickly.

Okay, got it, Shantanu. And then I just wanted to come back to the Domestic Coke side, you mentioned that insurance proceeds from Middletown are partly at least driving some of the higher expected adjusted EBITDA per ton in the back half. How much are those proceeds and how should we think about how that flows through?

So, Nate, we are not like laying out because it's just one plant and how much energy we're going to produce. But if you think about it, what we said was in Q1, the impact of the turbine and the impact of the weather impact on Indiana Harbor and our other coke plants was around $10 million, right? And then we did not have power. You can think about it the way is that we did not have power for 5 months of the year, right? So roughly, if you can extrapolate that, model that out, that's kind of the insurance proceeds that we need that is built into the second half of the year.

Okay, so maybe we're thinking $5 million, kind of half that number, something like that, since part of it was weather.

That was just Q1, right? And that continued into a good part of Q2 as well.

With no further questions, I will now turn the call back over to CEO and President, Katherine Gates, for closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us this morning and for your continued interest in SunCoke. Let's continue to work safely today and every day.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.