Commercial Metals Company (NYSE:CMC) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And as I indicated, we believe we will be producing commercial grade products within the fourth quarter. But I’ll add a slight caveat to that and say that, first we’re going to be commissioning rebar, but then we will follow that with the commissioning of merchant product. And so, while we’re ramping our rebar output, we will have to take time on the mill to commission the merchant products. And that will be going on simultaneously. And so, I think once we get through the next couple of months with the cold and the hot commissioning, then I think we can give you a better update on specifics in terms of our volume expectations. And so, I think that it will have some impact in this fiscal year, we’ll see some commercial volume flow out of that facility, but it will be a much greater impact into 2024.

Philip Gibbs: Thanks so much. And then just a follow-up on net working capital. What should we be expecting there in the back half of the year in terms of source or use certainly scraps moved up, but you might have some excess inventory with the outages, so trying to parse all that out? Thanks so much.

Paul Lawrence: Yes, Phil, you’re exactly right. What we had, typically we use working capital or working capital is a use of cash in the first quarter and it’s usually a relief through the last three quarters of the year. This year with the increasing scrap environment, it resulted in the second quarter being a use of cash again. As we look forward and certainly at the moment seems scrap is looking relatively stable, we would expect that we’ll revert back to the typical trend of working capital being a release. And as you mentioned, yes, we should have a release here in the coming quarter with respect to getting the outage and the pre placed inventory that I spoke of liquidated into cash as we collect those receivables. So we should see elevated working capital releases for the coming two quarters.

Philip Gibbs: Thank you.

Paul Lawrence: Thanks, Phil.

Barbara Smith: Thanks, Phil.

Operator: And our next will come from Lawson Winder with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Lawson Winder: Good morning, Barbara and Paul. Thank you for your time today and for fitting me in. Maybe just on Tensar. I believe the expectation is a run rate of about $65 million, could you maybe provide a little color on like the timeline and cadence to get to that level?

Barbara Smith: Yes. I mean, I would say we’re on track for the $60 million range, probably the lower end than the higher end of that for this fiscal year. But we haven’t entered that busy season yet and — but all the signs are really, really encouraging there.

Lawson Winder: Excellent. And maybe just a market question, since the end of the quarter or more in the last month, have you detected any noticeable increase in rebar imports from regions other than Turkey to the U.S? Thanks.

Barbara Smith: Turkey is the largest factor and there are ebbs and flows from the various importing countries from time to time. Algeria is one that I would note and those mills — some of those are Turkish mills. And so, they’re really — we kind of lump them into Turkey impact. So I would say Algeria is making — taking up some of the slack with the earth quake disruption that took mills down in Turkey, where they can, of course, but there’s not any meaningful impacts that we’re seeing.