You asked a lot of questions, Tristan. The last one was related to consensus for 2025. And I would just — and free cash flow. I would just point out for everyone on the call. So for the last two years, unfortunately, Sinton has been negative from an EBITDA perspective. And Mark said on the call this morning that we will be EBITDA positive in the first quarter and thereafter, that’s a significant swing in just earnings itself just as it relates to the ramp-up of Sinton. In addition to that, you have the four value-add flat roll lines that are coming online in 2024, which are significant additional opportunity for contribution to earnings on the value-added side as well as that’s where the demand is today is in the painted products and the Galvalume products.
And then if you couple that with the fact that we’ve been increasing and will continue to increase volumes in our metals recycling segment, both related to the collection of nonferrous scrap, specifically aluminum and to help service our steel mills on the ferrous side of the equation. And then finally, in 2025, we will be starting our aluminum mill, midyear is the current forecast. So that’s contributing to earnings, as Mark mentioned, not we believe through cycle earnings of $650 million to $700 million. So I think everybody maybe needs to take a step back and kind of look at the opportunities that we have from an earnings perspective. And yes, we do expect to generate cash in 2024, and we expect to continue — we plan to continue with our share repurchase program.
Mark Millett: Just one added point. Although we are disappointed with the CapEx creep there at Sinton. We are very, very confident — I mean, sorry, sorry, in Columbus aluminum. We’re confident that that’s the final creep, but it has no impact to schedule. To be honest, it is going at a breadth taking place, absolutely phenomenal job by the team down there. And there’s no doubt we’ll be up and running midyear of ’25.
Operator: The next question for today is coming from Carlos De Alba with Morgan Stanley.
Carlos De Alba: My question is on the aluminum project. I don’t know if you could maybe give a little bit of color as to what extent have you been able to contract some of the volumes that will come online in mid-2025? And what type of pricing mechanism or structure even at just high level and on a qualitative basis, have you been able to use to implement in those contracts, if you have done so?
Mark Millett: Thank you, Carlos. The commercial team, in all honesty, has only been put together over the last, I would say, two months. They’re very, very active with our customer base and all honestly, we all are at every level. And the reception is incredibly high. And I would suggest that we have total confidence that we’re going to be able to support the ramp-up in ’25 into ’26.
Carlos De Alba: And if I may ask on the — what is the expected ramp-up and EBITDA contribution for the four quarter lines? I mean, I think two of them will start in the first quarter.
Theresa Wagler: As far as the ramp-up, I’ll let Barry address how quickly they ramp up. I would tell you from a financial perspective, the coating lines, they are in totality, all four, around $600 million and they tend to have a 2.5 to 3-year payback. So it’s very nice returns.
Barry Schneider: Yes, this is Barry. I’d just like to add the teams, the personnel are in place. They’ve been training, building the lines. That’s our culture to be part of the construction. So the teams are already very familiar with the equipment. Two of the lines have actually run first coils, one at Heartland, the paint line and a coating line down in Sinton. So that’s great news. That’s always exhilarating for the teams to get that point. The next two lines are in hot commissioning now, and we anticipate those running first coils in the March time frame. So the ramp-up, keep product for them, we’re pretty aggressive in what we do typically, and we anticipate these will be contributing to our customers here in the near future.
I envision prime sales in Q1 from the two lines that have run first coils, and we see all four of the lines making and shipping salable goods into the marketplace in Q2. So we anticipate our experience and our culture will allow these startups to be very, very seamless. And we’re very responsible to our customers to make sure the product that’s leaving is nothing less than the best they expect from us.
Mark Millett: When you think about the four lines or particularly the two lines in Sinton, obviously, it’s going to expand our value-add sort of product portfolio down there and enhance the margin directly there. But as importantly, it will allow us to fully utilize the downstream lines. So yes, the team has done a phenomenal job on the hot side. The — you’re going to see great gains there through increased utilization. As Barry said, we’re knocking on 75% utilization today in January and 80% is right around the corner. But downstream, when you take that product, you pickle it, you put it through the time mill and other lines. Having the additional what is 300,000, 400,000 tons of downstream. That’s going to allow probably loading of those downstream lines and obviously a dilution of the cost structure. So it’s a very, very important and effective impact to some here in the next three or four or five months.
Operator: Your next question for today is coming from Timna Tanners with Wolfe Research.
