Alcoa Corporation (NYSE:AA) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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We’re taking action. We’re taking the hard actions, quite honestly. Kwinana is not an easy decision. Warrick is an easy decision, but hard to accomplish safely and to do it effectively. Alumar we’re improving. We haven’t even talked much about WA bauxite permits here. That is something that was a nontrivial task to get accomplished in the fourth quarter. And it’s good to have that behind us. And then on top of that, we’re going after $100 million of cost savings, and we’re going to have that on a run rate basis by the first quarter of next year. So you can see that we are pulling every lever to take that $500 million to a much higher level and essentially prove your initial thesis incorrect.

Curt Woodworth: Okay. And what do you think cash restructuring could theoretically look like? Like in the event that you — because I think you had a comment in November that underperforming assets were $90 million negative EBITDA quarterly, right? So San Ciprian’s maybe 40% of that, Kwinana is 70%, but you still have other buckets at play to deal with. So I guess, do you expect more restructuring? And can you size potential like cash restructuring needs for the business? And then just lastly, in terms of North Myara and getting the permit for the next phase, when do you expect that to happen? Because I think there was a view that it could be concommenton with what you’re trying to do with your existing permit. Thank you.

William Oplinger: So on the permitting, we are going through a Part 4 permitting process in Western Australia. That takes time. And we are saying that we won’t be into North Mayara until at least 2027. As far as any potential further restructuring, and I’m going to let Molly answer it from a quantitative perspective, when we talk about our financial [indiscernible] operations, there are still ones in there that we are really challenging to be more cost competitive. Lista, we talked about earlier in this call. Warrick, we have a plan to get there. Portland has been repowered and is currently starting some marginal — small marginal capacity in a couple of parts at a time, but that adds marginal EBITDA. So that’s the actions that we’re taking to address those remaining financially troubled operations. Any comment from you on cash restructuring.

Molly Beerman: It is too early to have a number for San Ciprian. Obviously, we’re working toward a solution there, but there’s potential — no numbers yet.

Curt Woodworth: Yes. All right. Thank you very much.

William Oplinger: Curt, thanks for coming back to following us. Appreciate it.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Oplinger for any closing remarks.

William Oplinger: Thanks, Rocco, for hosting the call for us. And thanks again to all who joined our call. We’re excited about our initiatives, as you can hear from our voices, including the work to address key challenges and drive improvements. I think we made a lot of progress over the last 90 days. There’s an energy and enthusiasm within the company that’s driving toward solving many of these near-term and midterm problems, and we are really going after it. Molly and I look forward to speaking with you next time and until that time, be safe. Thank you.

Molly Beerman: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. The conference has now concluded. We thank you all for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful evening.

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