Century Aluminum Company (NASDAQ:CENX) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

But obviously, people saw those Use drugs coming. So, we started to see a little bit of demand impact going in even before the strike started. But now there’s certainty there. We think that should help to pick up. Aerospace demand has also been very strong here in the U.S., which is a real nice tailwind for us. And then as interest rates come down, we should see some recovery in building construction as well.

John Tumazos : If I could ask one more and I apologize. Sometimes I try to ignore Washington as the government or discussing could you explain these strategic tax credits a little more or maybe again because I hadn’t been studying them. with the benefit to Century on a full year basis when they’re codified, would it be closer to $1 million or $10 million or $100 million or more just give us an accrued range or order of magnitude.

Jesse Gary : Yes. Thanks, John. As I said before, until we have those regulations come out, it’s very difficult to quantify exactly what will be included in cost of production. But you can go back to the law itself and see what it lays out is that a tax credit — production tax credit equal to 10% of cost of production of these critical minerals. So, you can get a look at that. But until we have the regulations, we’re not going to estimate what that credit could be.

John Tumazos : So that could be 10% could be $0.15 a pound for your U.S. output. No problem. Thanks, John.

Operator: Our next question is from Katja Jancic with BMO.

Katja Jancic : Maybe starting with Jamalco. Can you provide any preliminary views on how we should think about CapEx for next year?

Jesse Gary : Well, in line with our normal cadence, Petra, I think we’ll wait to give any 2024 guidance until our Q4 call. So yes, we’ll come back to you with that in February.

Katja Jancic : Okay. And what would be — can you just say what the maintenance CapEx typically would be?

Jesse Gary : Sorry, could you repeat that?

Katja Jancic : Sorry. If you could maybe provide what the maintenance CapEx for Jamalco would be the typical maintenance?

Jesse Gary : Yes. Again, we’ll go ahead and give those numbers on our Q4 call. What we did talk about last time was that we expected basically second half 2023 CapEx for the refinery to be in the $10 million to $20 million range. What I said in my prepared remarks, we expect to be coming down on the low end of that range for the rest of the year. that includes both the maintenance CapEx and some investment CapEx, including the restoration of the high-efficiency boiler that I mentioned. So, if you’re just looking for some general provisions that gives you a sense, although again way to guide for 2024 until that Q4 call.

Katja Jancic : Okay. And maybe I missed this on the European credits. Is there further credits you can monetize? Or how should we think about that?

Jesse Gary : What we did is we monetize the excess credits that we had that have been allocated to us for free. With the agreement to repurchase them before they’re due in 2024. So, we’ve monetized what are available to us for that hurts. But I think the best way to sort of think about that going forward is to relate it to our overall working capital optimization programs. So, we do — we will continue to have those ETS credits granted on an annual basis as part of the regulatory scheme. And so, what our intention would be to continue to optimize that working capital, namely the EUA credit continuously over time as an additional source of

Katja Jancic : Okay. And maybe just 1 more, if I may. On Mt. Holly, if you were — if you did decide to increase operations to full capacity, what would the CapEx required be? And how long would it take you to do that?