SunCoke Energy, Inc. Stock

Thank you for standing by. My name is Dale, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the SunCoke Energy Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Sharon Doyle, Investor Relations Manager. You may begin.

Thanks, Dale. Good morning, and thank you for joining us to discuss SunCoke Energy's Third 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 now 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 third quarter results. I want to share a few highlights before turning it over to Shantanu to discuss the results in detail.

We are extremely pleased with our third quarter results with strong consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $76.9 million. Both of our operating segments delivered excellent performance. Domestic Coke benefited from a favorable mix of contract and spot coke sales and favorable coal-to-coke yields, while Industrial Services benefited from 1 additional month of Phoenix results compared with the prior year period and higher terminals handling volumes.

We also announced this morning that we reached a settlement agreement related to our 2025 claim against Algoma Steel. The agreement was executed in October, and we can confirm that we were made whole.

Turning to capital allocation. Earlier today, we also announced a quarterly dividend of $0.12 per share payable to shareholders on December 1, 2026. This is our 29th 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.

Our operating segments continue to perform strongly and consistently. Based on our year-to-date results and outlook for the remainder of the year, we expect to modestly exceed the high end of our full year 2026 consolidated adjusted EBITDA guidance range of $250 million to $265 million.

With that, I will turn it over to Shantanu to review our third quarter earnings in detail. Shantanu?

Thanks, Katherine. Turning to Slide 4. Net income attributable to SunCoke was $0.25 per share in the third quarter of 2026, down $0.01 from the prior year period. The benefits from our operating performance and the insurance recoveries from the 2023 Jewell flood event were offset by the absence of capital investment tax credits recorded in the third quarter of 2025. Excluding that item, the underlying earnings performance improved materially. While the insurance recovery was a substantial benefit to our net income and earnings per share during the quarter, the majority of the recovery proceeds were attributable to property damage and therefore excluded from adjusted EBITDA.

Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2026 was $76.9 million, an increase of $17.8 million from the prior year period. Domestic Coke increased by $7.1 million, primarily driven by a change in the mix of contract and spot coke sales and favorable coal-to-coke yields, partially offset by lower coke sales volumes due to Haverhill I's shutdown.

Industrial Services increased by $13.9 million, primarily driven by 1 additional month of Phoenix results compared with the third quarter of 2025 and higher terminals handling volumes. Corporate and other expenses increased by $3.2 million, driven by higher employee-related expenses.

Moving to Slide 5 to discuss our Domestic Coke business performance in detail. Third quarter Domestic Coke adjusted EBITDA was $51.1 million, and coke sales volumes were 875,000 tons compared to $44 million and 951,000 tons in the prior year period. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by a change in the mix of contract and spot coke sales and favorable coal-to-coke yields, partially offset by lower coke sales volumes due to the Haverhill I shutdown. We are pleased with the excellent performance from our coke operations, and with a solid outlook for the remainder of the year, we are well positioned to achieve the high end of our full year 2026 Domestic Coke adjusted EBITDA guidance range of $172 million to $178 million.

Now moving on to Slide 6 to discuss our Industrial Services results. Our Industrial Services segment generated $32.1 million of adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter of 2026 compared with $18.2 million in the prior year period. The increase primarily reflects 1 additional month of Phoenix results compared with the third quarter of 2025 and higher terminals handling volumes. Third quarter terminals handling volumes were 6.4 million tons, and steel customer volumes serviced were 5.9 million tons. Our Industrial Services segment continues to perform very well, and we now expect to exceed the high end of our full year 2026 Industrial Services adjusted EBITDA guidance range of $110 million to $115 million.

Now turning to Slide 7 to discuss our liquidity position for Q3. SunCoke ended the third quarter with ample liquidity of approximately $276 million. Gross leverage was 2.34x on a trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA basis. Net cash provided by operating activities during the third quarter was $94.8 million. We used $53.5 million to pay down our revolver balance, spent $20.9 million on capital expenditures and paid $10.1 million in dividends at the rate of $0.12 per share. We also received $6.9 million of insurance recoveries related to the 2023 Jewell flood event.

SunCoke has a strong track record of generating steady free cash flow, and we expect the trend to continue through the balance of the year. Year-to-date, we have reduced debt substantially while simultaneously increasing our free cash flow outlook to $180 million to $185 million, which reflects the impact of the settlement agreement with Algoma. As Kathleen 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.

As we look ahead, we continue to be confident in all aspects of our business. Our long-term coke business is 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.

Our Industrial Services segment is also well positioned going forward. Phoenix is performing as we expected, and 2026 will benefit from a full year of Phoenix adjusted EBITDA. We also see solid market conditions at our terminals and are focused on growing both our Phoenix and logistics businesses.

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 plan to continue returning capital via the quarterly dividend approved by our Board, which has always been well received by our long-term shareholders. Our focus is also on profitable growth opportunities to further reward our long-term shareholders.

This commitment to maximizing value for all stakeholders means operating and investing in our assets in the best and most efficient way possible to support our customers and to further grow the business. Based on our strong year-to-date performance and outlook for the remainder of the year, we now expect full year consolidated adjusted EBITDA to modestly exceed the high end of our guidance range of $250 million to $265 million. In addition, we are increasing our free cash flow guidance to a range of $180 million to $185 million.

Let's go ahead and open up the call for Q&A.

Your first question comes from the line of Nathan Martin of StoneX Financial.

Can we get some more details on the settlement agreement with Algoma that was reached this month? Katherine, I know you said you were made whole, but what was the amount? And then how will that impact the fourth quarter results?

Thanks for the question. You can appreciate that this is a confidential settlement. And beyond that, we don't talk about the economics of specific customers or specific contracts.

What I can say is that we're really pleased with the resolution of the matter. We were made whole, and the impact of the relationship that we have with Algoma as it related to both the steps that we took to mitigate the effect of the contract rejection and the settlement itself is totally reflected in the guidance for 2026.

Okay. So any of the previous kind of working capital headwinds you've talked about there, all that has been reflected now that you have the settlement in place?

That's correct.

Okay. Got it. And then somewhat related, does SunCoke still expect the insurance proceeds from the turbine failure at Middletown to arrive sometime here in the fourth quarter?

So great question. We're obviously really pleased that the turbine returned to service in May, and power resumed, and everything is working just as we expected. The claims process for the turbine may not be complete at the end of 2026. This may go into early 2027. So as a result, the insurance recovery for the turbine is not included in our guidance. If we receive payment for the claim in 2026, we will significantly exceed the high end of our guidance range.

Okay. Got it. Because previously, it was, I think, included in your guidance range. So is it almost the case that the -- maybe the Jewell proceeds you got there have kind of offset potentially the proceeds you originally expected from Middletown?

No. So Nate, on that, as I mentioned, the Jewell proceeds, a significant chunk of that is excluded from adjusted EBITDA. We received total $8.7 million from the Jewell proceeds -- from the Jewell flood event, only $1.8 million of that in adjusted EBITDA. The remainder $6.9 million, as I mentioned, is running through the net income, but it's not included in adjusted EBITDA. The increase in the guidance as we are guiding towards the modestly exceeding the consolidated adjusted EBITDA guidance, that's driven by the performance, along with the Algoma settlement.

Okay. So that Algoma settlement is basically potentially going to offset any delay in the insurance proceeds from the turbine failure?

That's kind of what is contemplated in the guidance.

Okay. Got it. That's helpful, Shantanu. I appreciate that. Maybe just looking at the Industrial Services segment, great quarter there. I think last quarter, we talked about how even the new higher full year guidance still kind of assumed a slowdown in the second half versus the first half. I think you said levels probably a bit more like the first quarter levels. Clearly, volumes for both the terminals business and Phoenix remained elevated.

So now, I guess, you're expecting to exceed the high end of the full year guidance range. But can you help us frame the magnitude there? I mean, is it reasonable to expect fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA looks similar again to the third quarter, just given strong demand? We've got higher export thermal volume and prices as well. Just how should we think about that?

So great question, Nate, on that. Again, right, like as we have talked about, the Industrial Services segment is the segment where there is the most volatility in our business, right? So if the steel mills are running really hard and if there is a lot of bulk products moving through the rivers, bulk product moving out of the U.S., you see additional volumes and additional profitability come through that.

As we think about Q4, what is in our guidance today, both our full year volume guidance for terminals as well as for Phoenix, we expect to exceed the $24 million and the $22 million that we laid out at the start of the year, right? That's a given.

Now to your question of what is the magnitude of Q4, again, there is a little bit of uncertainty, but the expectation is as we go into the holiday period of Thanksgiving and Christmas, the steel mills are going to slow down, they shut down their volumes a little bit. Same thing on the -- a little bit on the terminals side. Not to that extent, but you see that a little bit on the -- in the Q4 where the volumes are a little bit lighter than Q2 or Q3, right? So if you want to think about what Q4 looks like, I would say somewhere closer to Q1 or in between the Q1 and the Q3 range would be my expectation for Industrial Services segment in Q4.

Okay. Got it, Shantanu. And then just to confirm, I'm assuming, just given where export thermal coal prices are today, that you guys are expecting you should receive the price kicker there at Convent?

Yes. So if you recall, we changed our kicker. Instead of being an export coal-driven, it's more the New Orleans price-driven. Now that price has come up as well. Given kind of what's happening in the U.S. export market, the coal is moving. So we are getting the kicker, but it's a different kicker versus what it was previous -- in the previous years.

Your next question comes from the line of Henry Hearle of B. Riley Securities.

I guess, just on the Domestic Coke business, adjusted EBITDA per ton came in at $58.40, which is your strongest in recent quarters. How would you attribute the improvement between the contract and spot sales mix shift, and then also the coal-to-coke yield benefit?

Henry, thanks for the question. So there are timing differences when you move quarter-to-quarter where the mix between what you're shipping in a quarter, what is contract versus spot versus what is spot changes. So in Q3, obviously, there was a bigger portion of contract coke going out versus the spot coke, and that's why you see the adjusted EBITDA per ton being higher.

And as for coal-to-coke yields, right, that has some seasonality in it where Q1 and Q4 being our cold and wet quarters, you historically see higher yields in Q2 and Q3 versus Q1 and Q4. So I would say both of these factors kind of played into it. But obviously, the contract versus spot coke mix is a bigger factor versus the yield if you're comparing quarter -- previous quarter to this -- previous year quarter to this year quarter.

Got it. And then looking towards 2027, I believe you have a couple of contracts expiring in December of this year, 2026. Are you confident that those will be extended going forward? Just any color there would be great.

So we're in active discussions if you're thinking about the Javelin contract at CMT and the contract with U.S. Steel Nippon at Granite City Works. We're in active discussions with both of those parties and expect to move forward with them in 2027. Obviously, we can't say more at this point in time.

But overall, if you're thinking about 2027, we expect to have a strong finish here to 2026, and Shantanu has sort of walked through some of the nuances of that. So Q4 being a bit softer, but overall, very strong finish to 2026, and we have good momentum going into 2027.

With no further questions, that concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Katherine Gates, President and CEO, for closing remarks.

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

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

Thank you. I'm sorry.

lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. I would like to ask a question during this time, so we press star or follow button number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. We'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 Suncok Energy's second quarter 2026 results. With me today are Catherine 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. 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 Catherine, 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 our 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 12 cents 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. As previously discussed in our first quarter earnings call, we are running at full capacity and sold out for the full year. We are also running at a full capacity 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 to $265 million. With that, I'll turn it over to Shantanu to review our second quarter earnings.

earnings in detail. Shantanu. Thanks, Catherine. Turning to slide four. Net income attributable to Suncorp was 15 cents per share in the second quarter of 2026, up 13 cents 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 cold to coke yields, partially offset by lower Coke sales volumes due to the Haverhill One shutdown and higher employee expense accrual driven by the company's strong financial performance. Moving to slide five 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, to improved operating conditions, partially offset by lower Coke sales volumes due to the Haverhill One 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 quarter half of the year and are increasing our full-year domestic coke adjusted product guidance range to 172 to 178 million dollars now moving on to slide six 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 IEPs. outlook for the second half of the year. Now, turning to slide 7 to discuss our liquidity position for Q2, Suncorp 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. 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 to $260 million. During the quarter, we used $6.5 million for debt pay down, spent $15.9 million on CapEx, and paid $10.2 million in dividends at the rate of $0.12 per share. Runco has a strong track record of generating steady free cash flow, and we expect the trend to continue throughout the year. As Catherine 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 Catherine. Thanks, Shantanu. Wrapping up on slide eight. 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 three pillars of Indian Harbor, Middletown and Jewel Foundry, which have consistently delivered excellent performance and results. With our Haverhill 2 and Granite City Coke making contracts in place and all spot glass and foundry Coke sales finalized were 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 to $265 million.

Let's go ahead and open up the call for Q&A. Thank you. If you have a question, please press star 1 in your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star 1 again. Your first question comes from the line of Henry Hurl of B. Reilly Securities. Your line is open.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Just to start off, in the domestic code this year, for 10 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 the drivers to achieve this higher yield up for 10 in the second half of the year?.

Thanks, Henry. Yes, there are a couple of things in there. First, you know, 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. 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. Thanks, Shantanu. And then I believe your terminal handling volumes increased almost 20% quarter over quarter.

was kind of the main driver or drivers of that significant step up? So, you know, this was really an extraordinary quarter for the terminals, you know, 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 price. 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. And so those things have all converged to really create a very, very strong second quarter for us.

Understood. Thank you, Catherine, for that color. I think in your prepared remarks, you said that terminal volumes are expected to see strong performance in the second half. 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, you know, 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.

Got it. Understood. I'll turn it over. Thanks, guys, and continued best of luck.

Thank you. Thanks, Andre. Your next question comes from the line of Nathan Martin of the Benchmark Company. Your line is open.

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. 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, just to get the dots back down. 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, you know, conservative 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, Catherine 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 volumes. you know, 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, you know, 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, slack. 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. bid in the Q2 and which should normalize out in Q3 and Q4. And that's why kind of, you know, the full year guidance of 110 to 115 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 with Just to Do Without for years 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, you know, with respect to the synergies that we expected to realize and we discussed, you know, previously the 5 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 2020. So certainly with respect to the integration of the business and the cost side of it, we are right where we expect it to be. Operationally, things are just the same level of discipline, reliability, and rigor that we bring to Koch and Terminals we brought to Phoenix. 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. you know, 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, 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 operations.

excellence coupled with the mill's strong performance. Catherine, I appreciate that. And then maybe another question as it relates to Covenant. 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. You know, 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, two months out of the three this quarter. And that price, you know, 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 as a 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, you know, 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 coal 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 five months of the year, right? So roughly, if you can extrapolate that, model that out, that's kind of the insurance proceed 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. Yes.

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

Okay. Got it. All right. I'll leave it there. Appreciate the time, everybody. Best of luck in the second half.

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

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

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

This live transcript is auto-generated without human intervention or review.

[Call has ended.]

Good day, and welcome to the Q1 2026 SunCoke Energy, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sharon Doyle, IR Manager. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Nick. Good morning, and thank you for joining us to discuss SunCoke Energy's first 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 now 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 first quarter results. I want to share a few highlights before turning it over to Shantanu to discuss the results in detail. We're pleased with our performance in the first quarter, delivering consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $56.5 million, reflecting strong operational execution. Our Industrial Services business performed well during the quarter with sequential improvement in terminals handling volumes and with Phoenix performing to our expectations.

As discussed on our fourth quarter 2025 earnings call, our coke plants were impacted by severe winter weather and the Middletown turbine failure. Earlier today, we also announced a quarterly dividend of $0.12 per share payable to shareholders on June 2, 2026. This is our 27th consecutive quarter announcing a 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. We had strong operating cash flow generation of $72.7 million and ended the quarter with ample liquidity of $262 million.

As previously discussed, we are running at full capacity and sold out for the full year. With the continued seamless integration of Phoenix, the resumption of power production at Middletown and continued strong operational execution, we are confident we will achieve full year 2026 consolidated adjusted EBITDA within our guidance range of $230 million to $250 million. With that, I'll turn it over to Shantanu to review our first quarter earnings in detail. Shantanu?

Thanks, Katherine. Turning to Slide 4. Net loss attributable to SunCoke was $0.05 per share in the first quarter of 2026, down $0.25 versus the prior year period. The decrease was primarily driven by higher depreciation expense, the shutdown of our Haverhill 1 cokemaking facility, severe winter weather and the lower power sales due to Middletown turbine failure, partially offset by lower income tax expense. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2026 was $56.5 million compared to $59.8 million in the prior year period. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the impact of severe winter weather on our coke operations, lower power sales from the Middletown turbine failure and the shutdown of Haverhill 1, mostly offset by the addition of Phoenix.

Moving to Slide 5 to discuss our domestic coke business performance in detail. First quarter domestic coke adjusted EBITDA was $35.3 million and coke sales volumes were 842,000 tons compared to $49.9 million and 898,000 tons in the prior year period. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by severe winter weather impacting our operations, lower power sales due to the turbine failure at Midtown and lower coke sales volume due to the Haverhill 1 shutdown. While we experienced a slow start to the year, we are already seeing improvement in our coke operations in the second quarter with more favorable weather conditions. We are confident we'll make up the lost production from the first quarter during the balance of the year. Additionally, we are expecting power production to resume at Middletown late in the second quarter. We are reaffirming our full year domestic coke adjusted EBITDA guidance of $162 million to $168 million.

Now moving on to Slide 6 to discuss our Industrial Services results. Our Industrial Services segment generated $26.2 million of adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter of 2026 compared to $13.7 million in the prior year period. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the addition of Phoenix results, partially offset by a change in mix of products handled at the terminals. First quarter total terminal handling volumes were 5.6 million tons, representing a substantial improvement versus the fourth quarter of 2025. Steel customer volumes serviced were 5.6 million tons in the first quarter. We expect our Industrial Services segment to continue delivering strong results throughout the balance of the year and are reaffirming our full year 2026 Industrial Services adjusted EBITDA guidance range of $90 million to $100.

Now turning to Slide 7 to discuss our liquidity position for Q1. SunCoke ended the first quarter with a cash balance of $104.4 million and revolver availability of $158 million, representing ample liquidity of $262 million. We generated strong operating cash flow of $72.7 million during the quarter, mainly driven by a reduction in coal and coke inventory and used $26 million for debt paydown. We spent $17 million on CapEx and paid $10.7 million in dividends at the rate of $0.12 per share this quarter. 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 will turn it back over to Katherine.

Thanks, Shantanu. Wrapping up on Slide 8. As always, safety is our first priority. Our excellent safety performance in 2025 has continued into the beginning of 2026, and the 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 Jewel Foundry, which have consistently delivered excellent performance and results.

With our Haverhill I and Granite City cokemaking contracts extended 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 contribution and improvement in market conditions at our terminals. Our efforts will continue on the seamless integration of Phoenix, maintaining the strength of our core businesses as well as assessing new growth opportunities across all of our businesses.

As always, we take a balanced yet opportunistic approach to capital allocation. On the back of our steady and healthy cash flow generation, our focus will remain on utilizing our free cash flow to support our capital allocation priorities. We will use excess cash to continue paying down our revolver balance with the goal of gross leverage below 3x by the end of 2026 and beyond. 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 we'll make capital allocation decisions accordingly.

We are 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. 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 guidance range of $230 million to $250 million. With that, let's go ahead and open up the call for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The first question will come from Nathan Martin with the Benchmark Company.

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. Just to start out, within the Domestic Coke segment, adjusted EBITDA per ton, I guess, roughly $42, obviously below the $48 to $50 per ton full year guidance that you guys just reiterated. What was the main driver or drivers there? How much of that was lower power sales maybe at Middletown? And then can you guys help us bridge kind of that full year range as we move throughout the rest of the year?

Yes. Nate, I mean, as we mentioned, the two main factors of us performing lower versus kind of our full year guidance is the winter weather impact to our operations and the Middletown turbine impact, right? And they were both very comparable, right? And if you recall, when we gave out our -- when we were in the Q4 2025 earnings call, we talked about that this quarter is roughly $10 million off versus kind of the run rate. So I think that still holds true from that perspective.

And then looking forward, as we mentioned, the Middletown turbine is expected to be back in late Q2. So you will see that impact through majority of Q2 with no power production there. But then we should be able to make that back up in Q3 and Q4. So you should see a much significant improvement in Q3 and Q4 as the power production comes back up.

Appreciate that, Shantanu. Is it fair to consider the Middletown impact in 2Q could be roughly half of that $10 million to maybe $5 million headwind or so in the second quarter?

That's kind of in the ballpark, yes.

Okay. Great. Appreciate that. And then maybe shifting to the Industrial segment. It looks like revenues were flat to actually slightly down quarter-over-quarter. However, adjusted EBITDA was actually up about, what, $3 million, $3.5 million. So are there any cost savings or efficiency gains there we should think about driving this? I know you guys previously called out potential opportunities to improve things within Phoenix or maybe it's related to the improvements on the terminal side. Just any additional color would be helpful there.

Yes. So on the terminal side, as we lined out, you're comparing Q4 '25 to Q1 '26, right? And we are seeing significant improvement in the volumes that we are handling at terminals. And we expect the kind of the market environment to continue and to continue to improve for the rest of the year. So we are much very hopeful and kind of that kind of our plan reflects that, that terminals will continue to improve and do well through the rest of the year. So there is improvement coming from that.

And then on the Phoenix side, obviously, right, like kind of this is our second full quarter of running Phoenix under the SunCoke umbrella. And as we go through the remainder of the 2026, we expect to see some more of those synergies come through. There are some of the drag costs, right, like we are implementing kind of the software kind of merging them together. So there is some drag cost of that. But as you get through rest of the 2026, you should see some cost improvement in Phoenix, and that is built into our guidance for Industrial segment.

Okay. Got it. And then those costs, just jumping to SG&A for a second. Was that kind of behind the increase there in the quarter? Was that the IT, I think bonus expense items that you previously mentioned as well? And how should we think about SG&A kind of going forward?

No. So in 2025, the accrual for the bonuses are different for '25 versus '26 given the performance of the company, and that is the main driver of the difference in SG&A.

Should we expect it to kind of repeat at that level, Shantanu? Or will it kind of come back down a little bit from the first quarter?

Q1 2026 should be the run rate for the rest of the year.

[Operator Instructions] The next question will come from Henry Hearle with B. Riley Securities.

To start off, I wanted to ask, to what extent could your logistics terminals be a beneficiary of the Section 303 DPA determination on the coal supply chains and export terminals? And then could you guys pursue potential DoD funding as well?

Yes. Thanks for your question. I think as we look ahead, we really -- we see the market, as Shantanu said, improving throughout the year, and we've already seen that quarter-over-quarter. I don't think that those are going to be drivers to additional throughput necessarily. I mean, I think we'll have to see. But when we give our guidance with respect to Industrial Services and with respect to the performance of the terminal specifically, we really are looking at market conditions. And as we look back in time, there's been various regulatory initiatives over time. But at the end of the day, it really seems driven by demand primarily internationally for coal.

Got it. And then are you guys able to share specifically what percent or what share of the volumes at CMT are thermal export tons?

So Henry, going forward, we -- like since it's one segment, the Industrial Services, we are not kind of breaking out. We are giving one number for our terminals and one number for like the Phoenix business, the steel customer volume service. But if you go back and look at historical data where we used to break out, the ratio should remain the same. That should kind of give you a good guidance on what those numbers are.

Got it. And given the conflict in the Middle East over the past couple of months, have you seen a kind of sizable increase in those export thermal tons? Would that be fair to say?

We -- it's a good question. We are seeing certainly some higher pricing in the market, and that is leading to higher demand, and that is part of how we look at the market as getting stronger as we move forward throughout the year, we don't see any signs of that weakening. And so we've seen higher demand due to the higher prices. So yes, there's definitely sort of a flow-through from that conflict and the focus on coal in light of the challenges that we're seeing on the oil and gas side.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Katherine Gates for any closing remarks.

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

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Good day, and welcome to the Q4 2025 SunCoke Energy, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Shantanu Agrawal, Vice President, Finance and Treasurer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks, Nick. Good morning, and thank you for joining us this morning to discuss SunCoke Energy's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 results as well as 2026 guidance.

With me today are Katherine Gates, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Mark Marinko, 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'll open the call for Q&A. If we don't 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 a reconciliations to non-GAAP financial measures discussed on today's call.

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

Thanks, Shantanu. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Before we get started, I'd like to congratulate Mark on his previously announced retirement. Mark has been instrumental in guiding SunCoke through critical phases of our evolution including the recent acquisition of Phoenix and the entire SunCoke team wishes him the best in his retirement.

I would also like to congratulate Shantanu Agarwal on his well-deserved appointment as Chief Financial Officer. Shantanu has acquired deep knowledge of SunCoke's business during his 11 years at the company. He is ideally situated to continue our focus on financial discipline, operational excellence, strategic growth and creating long-term value for shareholders.

I want to share a few highlights from 2025 before I turn it over to Mark to review the results in detail. First, I want to recognize another year with remarkable safety performance. SunCoke, excluding Phoenix, ended the year with a total recordable incident rate of 0.55. Safety is our first priority, and I'd like to thank all of our employees for their continued commitment to exceptional safety performance.

Turning to our financial results. We delivered consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $219.2 million. These results reflect the addition of Phoenix for 5 months as well as lower terminals handling volumes driven by market conditions. The Domestic Coke segment was impacted by the change in mix of contract and spot coke sales, coupled with lower economics on the Granite City contract extension and the breach of contract by Algoma.

We have extended our Granite City coke making contract with U.S. Steel through December 2026 at similar economics to the 2025 extension. We have also extended our Haverhill II contract with Cleveland-Cliffs through December 2028 with key provisions similar to the previous contracts.

In addition, we have the new take-or-pay coal handling agreement at KRT that began in the second quarter of 2025. We will benefit from a full year of that contract in 2026. We also made great progress on our capital allocation priorities in 2025 with the acquisition of Phoenix. The integration is progressing well, and we are excited for the growth potential in this business.

In 2025, we also returned approximately $41 million to our shareholders via our quarterly dividend. We expect to continue our quarterly dividend throughout 2026.

With that, I'll turn it over to Mark to review our fourth quarter and full year earnings in detail. Mark?

Thanks, Katherine. Turning to Slide 4. The fourth quarter net loss attributable to SunCoke was $1 per share, down $1.28 versus the fourth quarter of 2024, primarily driven by onetime items totaling $0.85 per share net of tax, including a noncash asset impairment charge, primarily due to the closure of Haverhill I, site closure costs were primarily related to Phoenix operating sites and restructuring and transaction costs, primarily related to the acquisition of Phoenix.

Fourth quarter net loss was also impacted by lower coke sales volumes in the Domestic Coke segment due to the breach of contract by Algoma. Our full year net loss attributable to SunCoke was $0.52 per share, down $1.64 versus the full year 2024. The decrease was primarily driven by onetime items totaling $0.97 per share net of tax, including a noncash asset impairment charge, primarily due to the closure of Haverhill I, acquisition-related transaction and restructuring costs and Phoenix operating site closure costs.

Full year net loss was also impacted by the change in mix of contract and spot coke sales. Coupled with lower economics on the Granite City contract extension in the domestic coke segment, partially offset by lower income tax expense driven by capital investment tax credits. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter 2025 was $56.7 million, down $9.4 million versus the prior year period. The decrease was mainly driven by lower coke sales volumes due to the breach of contract by Algoma, lower economics on the Granite City contract extension and lower terminals handling volumes due to market conditions, partially offset by the addition of Phoenix Global.

On a full year basis, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $219.2 million, down $53.6 million versus the prior year. The year-over-year decrease was primarily driven by the change in mix of contract and spot coke sales, lower economics on the Granite City contract extension, lower coke sales volumes due to the breach of contract by Algoma and lower terminals handling volume due to market conditions, partially offset by the addition of Phoenix Global.

Turning to Slide 5 to discuss the year-over-year adjusted EBITDA variance in detail. Our Domestic Coke business delivered full year adjusted EBITDA of $170 million, down $64.7 million from the prior year period. Results were impacted by the change in mix of contract and spot coke sales, the lower Granite City contract extension economics and the Algoma breach of contract.

Our Industrial Services segment, which includes the former Logistics segment and new Phoenix Global business delivered full year adjusted EBITDA of $62.3 million, representing a year-over-year increase of $11.9 million. The increase is primarily driven by the addition of Phoenix Global, partially offset by lower terminals handling volumes due to market conditions.

Finally, our corporate and other expenses, which includes results from our legacy coal mining business and Brazil Coke making business were $13.1 million, an increase of $800,000 year-over-year.

Turning to Slide 6 to discuss capital deployment in 2025. We generated operating cash flow of $109.1 million in 2025. Net cash provided by operating activities was negatively impacted by 2 items: number one, the accounting treatment of a portion of Phoenix Global's acquisition price; Phoenix's management incentive plan and transaction costs, cash payments totaling $29.3 million were included in the acquisition price but flowed through our operating cash flow as a use of cash. Number two, the $30 million impact from the breach of contract by Algoma, representing the total outstanding accounts receivable and coke and coal inventory on the books at year-end. Without the impact of these 2 onetime items, our operating cash flow would have been approximately $59 million higher.

Net borrowing on our revolver was $193 million, cash acquired from the Phoenix Global acquisition was $24.3 million. And after factoring in the $29.3 million flowing through operating cash flow, the net purchase consideration for Phoenix was $295.8 million.

Capital expenditures came in at $66.8 million, which is slightly below our revised guidance of $70 million due to the timing of CapEx payments. We also returned capital to our shareholders in the form of $0.48 per share annual dividend, which was a use of approximately $41 million of cash. We ended 2025 with a cash balance of $88.7 million and $132 million of availability on our $325 million revolver, resulting in strong liquidity of approximately $221 million.

Now I'd like to turn to our expectations for 2026. Slide 8 lays out our SunCoke's historical adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow generation, annual dividends paid per share and gross leverage. SunCoke has a strong track record of generating steady free cash flow, and we expect the trend to continue with the addition of Phoenix Global. Our deliberate and careful capital allocation decisions over the last several years have strengthened our balance sheet and financial position while continuing to reward our long-term shareholders. We refinanced our debt and prioritized deleveraging in the midst of COVID-19 which allowed us to significantly lower our interest expense, resulting in higher free cash flow conversion. We expanded both our foundry market presence and participation in the spot market -- spot blast coke market during '23 and '24, while our terminals expanded both their customer base and their services.

With our leverage target and sight, we prioritize return of capital to shareholders by establishing a quarterly dividend and increasing net dividend each year for 3 years in a row. While our 2025 results reflect the challenging market conditions we operated in during the year, we still generated positive free cash flow for the year. We anticipate meaningful recovery in 2026 with an optimized coke fleet, extended coke-making contracts at Granite City and Haverhill II, improved market conditions for our terminals and a full year of Phoenix Global.

With deleveraging as our priority, we plan to use excess free cash flow to pay down the outstanding borrowing on our revolver and anticipate 2026 year-end gross leverage around 2.45x., comfortably below our long-term target of 3x. As Katherine mentioned earlier, we also intend to continue utilizing our free cash flow to reward our shareholders with our regular dividend, which is reviewed and approved on a quarterly basis by our Board of Directors.

Moving to 2026 guidance summary on Slide 9. We expect consolidated adjusted EBITDA to be between $230 million and $250 million in 2026. Domestic Coke adjusted EBITDA is expected to be lower by $2 million to $8 million, primarily driven by approximately 220,000 lower contract blast coke sales tons. With the closure of Haverhill I, our revised capacity is now 3.1 million blast furnace equivalent tons. We will be running at full utilization and are sold out for the year.

Industrial Services adjusted EBITDA is expected to be higher by $28 million to $38 million in 2026, primarily driven by a full year of Phoenix Global and our expectations for improvement in market conditions for our terminals. Corporate and other expenses are expected to be higher by $5 million to $9 million, primarily driven by normalized employee bonus expense and Phoenix integration-related IT costs. We expect 2026 corporate expenses to be comparable to 2023 and 2024 spending.

Moving on to Slide 10 to discuss Domestic Coke segment in detail. In 2026, we expect our Domestic Coke adjusted EBITDA to be between $162 million and $168 million, with sales of approximately 3.4 million tons, which includes contract, foundry and spot blast coke. We have optimized our coke fleet with the closure of Haverhill 1 operations due to the breach of contract by Algoma. The approximately 500,000 ton reduction in coke production and sales represent our lowest margin tons. As a result, we expect a modest increase in the domestic coke adjusted EBITDA per ton in 2026. Our revised total domestic coke blast furnace equivalent capacity is now approximately 3.7 million tons.

We have extended our Granite City coke making contract through December 31, 2026, at similar economics to the 2025 extension. We have also extended our Haverhill II contract through December 2028 with similar economics to previous contracts and will provide Cleveland-Cliffs with 500,000 tons of coke annually. Our coke fleet will be operating at full utilization in 2026. We have approximately 3 million tons contracted under long-term take-or-pay agreements and the remaining capacity is sold out for the year between the foundry and spot markets.

Finally, we are experiencing a slower-than-normal start to 2026. Our Middletown coke plant experienced a turbine failure during a planned outage, which is impacting power production. This is an insured event, and we expect the turbine to be back in operation midyear. Additionally, the severe winter weather we all experienced over the last few weeks has impacted several of our operations as well. The impact of these events is reflected in our 2026 guidance.

Moving to Slide 11 to discuss Industrial Services in more detail. 2026 Industrial Services adjusted EBITDA is estimated to be between $90 million and $100 million. Our outlook for 2026 reflects our expectations for improvement in market conditions. We will have a full year of Phoenix Global in our results for the year. As our terminals handling volumes are largely market-driven, our current guidance assumes improved market conditions in 2026. We have included partial synergies in our 2026 guidance and expect to continue recognizing synergies in 2027. We expect approximately 24 million tons of terminals handling volumes and approximately 22 million tons of steel customer volumes serviced.

Moving to Slide 12. Once again, we expect consolidated adjusted EBITDA to be between $230 million and $250 million. Our Domestic Coke segment is expected to deliver adjusted EBITDA between $162 million and $168 million, while the Industrial Services segment is expected to deliver between $90 million and $100 million in adjusted EBITDA. We anticipate CapEx in 2026 between $90 million and $100 million, driven by a full year of Phoenix CapEx requirements. We expect 2026 operating cash flow to be between $230 million and $250 million, and our free cash flow is expected to be between $140 million and $150 million.

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

Thanks, Mark. Wrapping up on Slide 13. As always, safety is our first priority. We're coming off of another year of excellent safety performance and the team remains committed to maintaining strong safety and environmental performance in 2026. Robust safety and environmental standards sets SunCoke apart and are central to our reliable delivery of high-quality coke and industrial services.

In 2026, our focus will be on utilizing our free cash flow to support our capital allocation priorities. We will use excess cash to pay down our revolver balance with a goal of gross leverage below 3x by the end of 2026 and beyond. We also plan to continue returning capital to shareholders via the quarterly dividend.

In addition, our efforts will continue on the seamless integration of Phoenix, maintaining the strength of our core businesses as well as assessing new growth opportunities across all areas of our business. As always, we continuously evaluate the capital needs of the business, our capital structure and the need to reward our shareholders, and we'll make capital allocation decisions accordingly. We continue to see SunCoke being well positioned for long-term success. We continue to invest in our Coke and industrial services assets to ensure that they are safe, efficient, reliable and environmentally compliant, putting SunCoke in the best position to grow and diversify our customer and product base.

Finally, we're pleased to share that we plan to host a virtual Investor Day on Thursday, February 26. We're looking forward to discussing the recent developments at SunCoke and having some one-on-one conversations.

With that, let's go ahead and open up the call for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions]

The first question will come from Nick Giles with B. Riley Securities.

This is Henry -- here on for Nick Giles. First off, Mark, congratulations on your retirement, and Shantanu on the CFO appointment.

Thank you.

So on your last call, you discussed -- of course. So on the last call, you discussed pursuing all legal means to enforce the Algoma contract and recover any financial losses. But now with Haverhill I closed and subsequent impairment charges, could you give us some more color on the current status of litigation and what are some of the likely outcomes?

Sure. And thanks for the question. We continue to pursue Algoma in it's in an arbitration. We're pursuing all legal means to recover our losses. So we absolutely believe we have an enforceable contract. This is a clear breach of contract by Algoma, and we expect to prevail in our litigation with them.

The breach by Algoma is actually ongoing. We had sales to them in 2025 as well as in 2026. So if you think about this in terms of the amounts that are owed by Algoma and what we're pursuing, in our third quarter call, we said that we had that the impact to the working capital for the breach by Algoma could be up to $70 million, and this is in 2025. So if you look at our guidance summary, there's a deferral of cash receipt from Algoma for $30 million in 2025.

So you can see that we are actually able to do much better and mitigate that potential loss through sales to third parties and also through the turndown of our facility. So that amount that you see, that $30 million, it actually represents part, but not the full amount of the Algoma losses for the breach of contract in '25. But again, as I said, that breach is ongoing, and we are pursuing not just our losses from 2025 but also our losses in 2026.

Beyond that, I can't really provide detail on the outcome of the litigation since it is active litigation, but I'll emphasize again that this is a clear breach of contract, and we expect to recover.

The other thing that I can say that might provide some color and be helpful is that if you're looking at bridging our 2025 to our 2026 guidance, is really as a matter of coincidence, the losses from Algoma in '25 are very similar to what we would have expected to have lost in 2026. So in other words, what we would have made last year with Algoma and this year with Algoma is not meaningfully different. And so hopefully, that's helpful if you're thinking about bridging the years. But really beyond that, I can't say more because we are in active litigation.

Okay. Yes, that's very helpful. And then moving over to Phoenix Global. Are you guys still anticipating an annual EBITDA contribution of roughly $60 million in synergies of $5 million to $10 million in this 2026 guidance?

Yes, we are.

Okay. And then could you also remind us of any of the onetime integration costs that you incurred with Phoenix Global in 4Q? And then should we expect any more in 1Q of this year?

So the related just to Phoenix, the onetime is you had some site closure costs of about $3.9 million. That's really related to some international sites that during due diligence, we identified that we would like to close down. There were some transaction costs of about $600,000 as well.

Really related to the Phoenix.

That's the Phoenix side, yes.

Next question will come from Nathan Martin with The Benchmark Company.

First, I would also like to congratulate Shantanu on his upcoming promotion and of course, wish Mark well in his retirement.

The Haverhill II closure. First question there, is that permanent? Or would you guys be able to reopen if market conditions improve? And then what savings, if any, do you see on the cost side from the closure?

Sure. So the Haverhill I could be restarted, but it would require a significant capital investment and it would take about 12 to 18 months to restart. So that facility was taken down completely cold. So we would certainly be willing to restart that facility, but we would need to see a meaningfully -- a meaningful return to do it.

And sitting here today with the market conditions being what they are in Algoma's breach, we don't really see any economic value in the asset. I think it's important to note that we do not have any sort of environmental or other remediation-related costs for Haverhill I. So no reclamation, no remediation. We have some nonmaterial costs to remain in sort of compliance. But they are minimal. And then in terms of the savings that we'll see from Haverhill I we have a reduction in our workforce and obviously some other costs related to ongoing O&M for that facility.

And Katherine, assuming all those costs are incorporated in guidance already?

They are.

Okay. Perfect. Second, I wanted to touch on maybe EBITDA cadence? Like how should we think about that as we go through the year. You guys called out the Middletown turbine failure. I think that's come back maybe midyear. Obviously, the recent Arctic weather impacting operations as well. So maybe a couple of things there. Like what's the cost on the turbine?

Again, how should that impact operations and it sounds like the first half. And then additionally, like when will most of the IT integration and bonus expense items hit that you guys talked about?

Sure. Why don't I start with the weather and the turbine outage. So Obviously, you've seen this across the space. We had an absolutely brutal start to the year. So between the extreme storms, the extreme freeze, as Mark mentioned, really, all of our facilities were impacted Phoenix sites, terminals and our coke plants. And the impact was really the most acute at Indiana Harbor, which sits on a Peninsula in Lake Michigan.

And so there was significant lost production there. And you're going to see that come through in the first quarter results. But we do have the balance of the year to make that up at our other facilities. With respect to the Middletown turbine outage, so not only did that impact our fourth quarter because we had 6 weeks of lost power that was not built into our revised guidance. But we also had the entire really first half, as you mentioned, where we will have that turbine down. We will be addressing the unexpected failure. And it is an insured event, but we won't see any earnings associated with the power production at Middletown until the turbine is back up, and we have recovered the amounts that were owed for that lost power from the insurer.

So while not being able to give sort of plant-specific EBITDA, you know that we don't do. What I can tell you is that the impact from those events, the Middletown turbine and the weather that impacted the first quarter, that's going to aggregate to approximately a $10 million impact in the first quarter. And then, again, we don't expect to see the turbine up and the recoveries from the power in the second quarter. So that may help you a little bit as you're trying to build out the cadence of the year?

Yes. No, that's definitely helpful, Katherine. Appreciate that. And then maybe just related, while you're talking about the power production, is there anything we need to think about for power at Haverhill I with that being down, any losses there?

No. That facility did not produce power. So no impact.

Okay. Appreciate that. Maybe one last question. Could you kind of walk us through what's driving the expected improvement in tons handled in the industrial segment? Is this mainly the KRT expansion and the take-or-pay there, you mentioned earlier. How should we think about CMT, I believe you guys still also have some small take-or-pay there for 2016 as well?

Sure. So yes. We have built into our guidance a full year of the new contract that we began in the middle of 2025 at KRT. We're also expecting some modest recovery overall across both KRT and CMT. And you're seeing that come through in the guidance as well.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Katherine Gates, President and CEO, for any closing remarks.

Thanks. I want to thank everyone for joining us today. And again, thank the SunCoke team for their hard work and excellent safety performance in 2025. We're looking forward to speaking with everyone on the 26th. Let's continue to work safely today and every day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Good day, and welcome to the Q3 2025 SunCoke Energy, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Shantanu Agrawal, Vice President, Finance and Treasurer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks, Nick. Good morning, and thank you for joining us to discuss SunCoke Energy's third quarter 2025 results. With me today are Katherine Gates, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Mark Marinko, 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'll 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 now turn things over to Katherine.

Thanks, Shantanu. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on today's call. This morning, we announced SunCoke Energy's third quarter results I want to share a few highlights before turning it over to Mark to discuss the results in detail.

We delivered Q3 2025 consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $59.1 million representing a sequential improvement over the second quarter, although not to the extent we expected at the end of Q2. We completed the acquisition of Phoenix Global on August 1, and are pleased with the progress we've made on integration activities thus far. We expect to begin recognizing synergies in 2026. Phoenix's financial results will be reported in our new Industrial Services segment, which also includes our former Logistics segment.

During the quarter, we also extended our coke-making agreement with U.S. Steel at Granite City through the end of 2025. With the Phoenix acquisition complete and an updated view of market conditions driving the balance of 2025, we are revising our consolidated adjusted EBITDA guidance range to between $220 million and $225 million. Our updated guidance is inclusive of the addition of 5 months of Phoenix results, partially offset by the impact of a deferral of the sale of approximately 200,000 coke tons due to a breach of contract by one of our customers.

Our revised guidance contemplates the production and storage and inventory of the 200,000 tons of coke until there is a resolution of the issue. Any changes to these assumptions could impact our guidance range. We are actively pursuing all legal means to enforce the contract.

Earlier today, we also announced a quarterly dividend of $0.12 per share payable to shareholders on December 1, 2025. This is our 25th consecutive quarter announcing a dividend. While the dividend is evaluated on a quarterly basis by our Board, we expect to continue the dividend to reward our long-term shareholders.

With that, I'll turn it over to Mark to review our third quarter earnings in detail. Mark?

Thanks, Katherine. Turning to Slide 4. Net income attributable to SunCoke was $0.26 per share in the third quarter of 2025, down $0.10 versus the prior year period. The decrease was primarily driven by the mix of contract and spot coke sales coupled with lower economics from the Granite City contract extension in the Domestic Coke segment. Additionally, an $0.11 per share impact is due to the absence of the gain on elimination of the majority of legacy black lung liabilities recorded in Q3 2024.

Transaction and restructuring costs had an impact of $0.09 per share in the quarter. These dilutive impacts were partially offset by a $0.32 per share improvement driven by lower income tax expense driven by capital investment tax credits.

Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2025 was $59.1 million compared to $75.3 million in the prior year period. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the mix of contract and spot coke sales and unfavorable economics on the Granite City contract extension in the Domestic Coke segment. lower transloading volumes at the logistics terminals and the absence of the $9.5 million gain on the elimination of the majority of legacy black lung liabilities recorded in the third quarter of 2024 partially offset by the addition of 2 months of Phoenix global results.

Moving to Slide 5 to discuss our Domestic Coke business performance in detail. Third quarter domestic coke adjusted EBITDA was $44 million and coke sales volumes were 951,000 tons compared to $58.1 million and 1,027 000 tons in the prior year period. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the change in mix of contracted spot coke sales resulting in lower pricing and lower economics and volumes at Granite City from the contract extension. Lower cold coke yields at Haverhill and a weather event at Indiana Harbor resulted in lower production volumes during the quarter as well.

While this quarter's performance didn't fully meet our expectations, we did realize modest improvement over the second quarter with sequentially higher adjusted EBITDA and coke production and sales tons. During our second quarter earnings call, we projected a more favorable mix of coke sales in the second half of the year with higher contract volumes driving improvement in the Domestic Coke segment. However, due to the breach of contract by one of our customers, we had marginally lower sales volumes in the third quarter and currently expect a significant impact to results in the fourth quarter.

For that reason, we are updating our guidance to reflect the impact of approximately 200,000 tons of unsold blast furnace coke production, which will be stored in inventory. Our full year 2025 Domestic Coke adjusted EBITDA is now expected to be between $172 million and $176 million.

Now moving on to Slide 6 to discuss our new Industrial Services segment. Our Industrial Services segment, which includes our logistics business, and our Phoenix Global business generated $18.2 million of adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter of 2025 compared to $13.7 million in the prior year period. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the addition of 2 months of Phoenix Global results, partially offset by lower volumes at our logistics terminals due to unfavorable market conditions.

Going forward, the Industrial Services segment will report total volumes handled by our logistics terminals and customer volumes serviced at our Phoenix Global sites. The third quarter total logistics handling volumes were 5.2 million tons. Phoenix customer volume service were 3.8 million tons for the 2 months included in third quarter results.

Similar to the Domestic Coke segment, the improvement in logistics business during the third quarter did not match what we previously anticipated due to persistent weak market conditions. While we expect to see further improvement quarter-over-quarter, the full year logistics business contribution is expected to be moderately lower than previously guided. We are updating our full year Industrial Services adjusted EBITDA guidance to between $63 million and $67 million, reflecting 5 months of Phoenix Global results and lower-than-expected volume improvement at logistics terminals in the second half of the year.

Now turning to Slide 7 to discuss our liquidity position for Q3. SunCoke ended the third quarter with a cash balance of $80.4 million and revolver availability of $126 million, representing ample liquidity of $206 million post acquisition.

Net cash provided by operating activities was $9.2 million and was negatively impacted by 2 items: number one, the accounting treatment of a portion of Phoenix Global's acquisition price. Phoenix's management incentive plan and transaction cost cash payments totaled $29.3 million were included in the acquisition price but flowed through our operating cash flow as a use of cash.

Number two, the timing of cash receipts of $23 million at quarter end, which was subsequently received in October. Without the impact of these 2 onetime items, our operating cash flow would have been approximately $52 million higher.

Net borrowing on our revolver was $199 million, cash acquired from the Phoenix Global acquisition was $24.3 million, and after factoring in the $29.3 million flowing through our operating cash flow, the net purchase consideration for Phoenix was $295.8 million. We spent $25.5 million on CapEx and paid $10.1 million in dividends at the rate of $0.12 per share this quarter.

SunCoke has a strong track record of generating steady free cash flow, and we expect the trend to continue with the addition of Phoenix Global. As Katherine mentioned earlier, we intend to continue utilizing our free cash flow to reward our shareholders with a regular dividend, which is reviewed and improved on a quarterly basis by our Board of Directors.

Let's move to Slide 8 to discuss our updated 2025 guidance. The summary is our full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance. We now expect domestic coke adjusted EBITDA between $172 million and $176 million, reflecting the impact of a deferral of approximately 200,000 coke sales tons. We expect Industrial Services adjusted EBITDA between $63 million and $67 million, reflecting the addition of 5 months of Phoenix Global contribution, partially offset by lower volumes at our logistics terminals due to weak market conditions.

Consolidated adjusted EBITDA is now expected to be between $220 million and $225 million. Any changes to the assumptions related to the deferral of the coke sales could impact our guidance range. We have updated our CapEx guidance to approximately $70 million, reflecting lower CapEx at our coke plants plus the inclusion of Phoenix's portion of CapEx.

Our free cash flow guidance has changed significantly due to several factors. Last quarter, we updated our free cash flow guidance to include the favorable impact from tax law changes and lower CapEx spend partially offset by transaction and debt issuance costs. We are now also expecting a $70 million unfavorable impact to our free cash flow for the full year, resulting from the deferral of cash receipts from our customers' breach of contract. This estimate is based on the information we have as of today.

As Katherine mentioned, we intend to pursue all avenues to recover our losses from this event, and it is possible that we will reach a conclusion by later this year or early next year. Additionally, the $29.3 million related to Phoenix's management incentive plan and transaction costs, which were reflected in the acquisition price are now running through operating cash flow and impacting our free cash flow for the year. We now expect free cash flow in the range of negative $10 million to 0 and expect $62 million to $72 million in operating cash flow for the full year.

With that, I will turn it over to Katherine.

Thanks, Mark. Wrapping up on Slide 9. While we're not in a position to give guidance for 2026 at this time, we are optimistic about what is to come next year. We continue to have a strong, 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.

Our Granite City coke plant is distinctly tied to U.S. Steel's need for Coke as well as the granulated pig iron project. Our Haverhill plant is tied to Cleveland-Cliffs, Algoma and the spot market, which remains weak. We're in active dialogue with Cliffs on contract negotiations, but have not signed a final contract yet. We'll have more to say on these plants when we give our 2026 guidance.

We continue to have a positive long-term outlook for our Industrial Services segment. 2026 will benefit from a full year of Phoenix Global adjusted EBITDA contribution. We believe the headwinds we are facing in the logistics business are transitory with modest recovery expected in the logistics business next year. As always, we take a balanced yet opportunistic approach to capital allocation.

On the back of our steady and healthy cash flow generation, we intend to continue our 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 we'll 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. Overall, we see the strong fundamentals of our business and expect our 2026 results to be an improvement over 2025.

Let's go ahead and open up the call for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question today will come from Nick Giles with B. Riley Securities.

This is Henry Hearle on for Nick Giles today. So to start off, following the deferral of the 200,000 tons, what is your level of confidence that incremental deferrals won't occur? And then also, would you be able to specify which facilities this deferral is from?

So thanks for the question. The 200,000 tons are tons that we anticipate making and putting into inventory for 2025. So as you think about the guidance that we're giving for 2025, it contemplates the production and storage of that coke. We don't talk about specific facilities and contracts in detail.

What I can tell you and what you do know is that we make and produce coke for Algoma out of our Haverhill facility. We have flexibility to produce and make coke for Algoma and other customers out of other facilities. But the customer that is in breach of contract and that is resulting in our producing and storing these tons and having the impact on our guidance for 2025 is Algoma.

Okay. And then we also mentioned that you're pursuing remedies. What do those currently look like?

So I know you can appreciate that from a legal perspective, there really is very little that we can say. What I will say is that we absolutely think that we have an enforceable contract. We are working with counsel. These are what we call long-term take-or-pay contracts. So without being able to get into litigation strategy and talk about it in more detail, it's very important to note that we think that we have an enforceable contract. We're working with counsel. We're pursuing all of our legal remedies in order to recover any financial losses that have occurred from their breach.

Right. And if the contract cannot be enforced in the off chance that happens, where do you go next?

Well, we -- I mean, we think that the contract hand and will be enforced, and we're pursuing the proper legal avenues to do that. And so what we're doing now, including the assumed production and storage of this coking inventory doesn't impact our ability to recover those financial losses. So we expect to be able to recover and we're going through the process to do that.

Okay. And then one more for me before I turn it over. So according to our math, if you annualize those 200,000 tons, you get 800,000 tons. And at $47 per ton that would be an EBITDA impact of around $40 million. And this year, you've drawn $272 million year-to-date on your revolver and you're guiding to near free cash flow breakeven. Could you please walk us through your level of confidence in retaining the dividend and liquidity going forward?

So Henry, one thing to note, the 200,000 tons, that is the total exposure left for this year to Algoma. So that's the extent of it. It's not that it's 200,000 on an annual basis or anything like that. That's just the exposure that we have to Algoma that is being currently being produced and stored and that's what kind of the disputed amount is.

And your next question today will come from Nathan Martin with Seaport Global.

It's actually with The Benchmark company, but good morning, everyone. Sticking with the Domestic Coke business for a second, can you guys talk about your strategy for 2026 that you're unable to renew Granite City and Haverhill production under a long-term contract?

Yes, absolutely. I mean we're really -- as I sort of said in my remarks, we're really optimistic for 2026. So if you think about the different pieces that we have going into the year, first, we're going to have a full year of the Phoenix results and we expect to have the synergies that we talked about when we announced the transaction. So that will be flowing through in '26.

I mentioned that when we sort of build our '26 with logistics, we see that some of the challenges we had this year in terms of just the market imbalance domestic, having higher prices than international, we had 2 customer force majeure events there. Those really caused us to be lower than what our expectations were at the time of Q2. But as we look to 2026, we see modest recovery in that portion of our Industrial Services segment.

So then when you think about Coke, you really have the pillars of the Coke business. And those are Middletown, which is a very profitable contract through December 2032. Indiana Harbor likewise through September 2035 and then you have our foundry coke business, which we continue to grow and has had very strong results for us out of Jewell.

With Haverhill, we are in active discussions with Cliffs for a contract with our anticipated coke coming out of that facility, although as I mentioned earlier, we can supply out of other locations. So that we're in active dialogue with Cliffs. If we are not able to contract for the full capacity of that plant, then we would have to obviously look at selling into the spot market or selling to others in the North American market, seaborne market, what have you. If we couldn't do that profitably, then in that case, we would have to look at rationalizing our facility.

And then with respect to Granite City, that is, as I mentioned, really a plant that's very much tied to U.S. Steel. We're in active discussions with U.S. Steel regarding the extension of that contract. But if we weren't able to extend that contract either because of they're not needing coke or not moving forward with the GPI project. In that instance, then we would not expect to continue to run that facility because it's just so tied to U.S. Steel. But as I said before, we are in active discussions with U.S. Steel regarding the extension of Granite City, we are in active discussions with Cliffs regarding the extension of what I'll call the Haverhill contract.

And as we look ahead to '26 and we think about having that full year of Phoenix results, having the modest recovery on the logistics side and then really having that for foundation of Middletown and Indiana Harbor and Jewell foundry, we expect that our results in 2026 are going to be stronger than 2025.

Katherine, I appreciate that thorough rundown. Just maybe any updates you can give on that Granite City GPI project in those negotiations you just referred to?

You just appreciate that obviously, those are -- those discussions are confidential, but they are ongoing. So we expect that we'll have more to say when we give guidance in early '26.

Okay. That's fair. Maybe shifting over to the new industrial segment. Is there any way to break out how much of the $18 million in adjusted EBITDA was specifically from Phoenix?

So kind of when we announced the Phoenix acquisition, right, like we laid out their LTM EBITDA of around $60 million on an annual basis. So that's kind of a good baseline to use like on a -- like you can divide it by 12 and take it a monthly number. So that's kind of a good proxy for what the Phoenix contribution is and going forward, right, like because it's one segment now, we look at it as like Industrial Services. They're similar businesses, logistics -- formerly logistics and Phoenix Global going forward. We are going to be reporting them together. But that's a good proxy to use for these results.

Okay, Shantanu. And then from a I guess from a customer volume perspective, right, the 3.8 million tons you guys shipped from the legacy Phoenix business over the 2 months. Is that a good run rate for a monthly call it, 1.2 million tons. So that kind of gets you to that $60 million EBITDA number you just referred to.

Yes, roughly. I mean, I think we'll give a more refined number when we give the 2026 guidance, that will be a yearly number. but it's in the ballpark, the 1.9 million tons of customer volume service, we are calling it. That's a good monthly number to get to the $60 million annual EBITDA.

Okay. Perfect. I'll pass it on. Appreciate the time everybody in best luck in the fourth quarter.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Katherine Gates for any closing remarks.

Thank you, guys, again for joining us on today's call and your continued interest in SunCoke. Let's continue to work safely today and every day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.