Genesis Energy (GEL) Misses Q2 EPS by $2.76, Revenues Miss

Genesis Energy (NYSE: GEL) reported Q2 EPS of ($2.82), $2.76 worse than the analyst estimate of ($0.06). Revenue for the quarter came in at $388.47 million versus the consensus estimate of $484.49 million.

Grant Sims, CEO of Genesis Energy, said, "As we said in our first quarter call, we believed Genesis, and most other energy and industrial companies, would be facing generational economic headwinds from the widespread demand destruction resulting from shutting down large portions of the world’s economies to slow the spread of Covid-19. This turned out in fact to be the case, especially for us in our Sodium Minerals and Sulfur Services segment. Nonetheless, during the quarter we still managed to reduce total Adjusted Debt (as defined in our existing senior secured facility) by approximately $33 million.

In recent months, we have focused on taking the steps necessary to improve our financial flexibility and be cash flow positive even in such a difficult operating environment:

• We reduced our quarterly distribution resulting in approximately $200 million in annual cash savings to be used principally to reduce debt;
• We amended our agreements with GSO Capital Partners to allow us to delay the capital expenditures associated with our Granger Optimization Project by up to twelve months;
• We received permission from our banks to use revolver capacity to purchase up to $340 million of our outstanding senior unsecured notes;
• We implemented cost savings initiatives that are expected to generate approximately $38 million in annual savings beginning this quarter; and
• We amended, with the unanimous support of 19 banks, our senior secured credit facility to be able to add back $13.5 million in one-time charges associated with the $38 million of annual savings from our cost savings initiatives, to increase our Consolidated Leverage Ratio Covenant to 5.75X through 1Q 2021 and to lower our Consolidated Interest Coverage to 2.75X through 1Q 2021, both of the latter as defined in our existing senior secured credit facility.

During the quarter, were it not for a $4-5 million negative effect to Offshore Segment margin from Tropical Storm Cristobal, our businesses performed as expected with the obvious exception of Sodium Minerals and Sulfur Services. Our historical refinery services business was negatively affected as mines in South America were mandated to be either closed or operated at significantly below capacity in order to address the spread of Covid-19. Most of such restrictions have subsequently been lifted, and generally speaking, we would expect our sales of sodium hydrosulfide to recover rather quickly as we go through the remainder of 2020.

Beginning in May and accelerating into June, our domestic and international customers for soda ash began cancelling orders for the remainder of the year as they adjusted to the demand destruction associated with Covid-19 for their final products in which soda ash is used. In fact, since our last earnings call, we have received cancellations of orders for slightly more than 300,000 tons through the rest of this year alone. This physical demand destruction dwarfs the downdraft to our soda operations experienced during the financial crisis of 2008-2009. To respond to such imbalance, we made the decision to cold stack (meaning we could return to normal operations in 3-6 months) our existing operations at Granger, currently our highest cost facility, resulting in a reduction in our supplies to be sold by some 550,000 tons on an annual basis. We know other domestic producers have also reduced supplies, and we are aware of a major synthetic producer in China shutting down as the worldwide market for soda ash adjusts to the current environment. Additionally, we delayed our Granger expansion project by a full year and currently expect to bring on a fully expanded Granger facility in late 2023 at a full expanded capacity of 1.2 million tons a year and optimized such that it will join our Westvaco facility as one of the most economic soda ash production facilities in the world. The market for soda ash can tighten very quickly as demand recovers along with increases in economic activity, especially given the supply responses we have already seen.

The pace and scope of the recovery in the world’s economies is unfortunately not abundantly clear and could well extend into 2021. However, based upon the steps we have already taken, we believe we are well positioned to weather the storm regardless of duration and will still be cash flow positive and be a net payer of debt this year and in subsequent years.

For the full year of 2020, we would expect Adjusted Consolidated EBITDA, as defined by our banks and used to calculate compliance with our covenants, to be $570 to $610 million, or generally in line with current street expectations of around $600 million.

More importantly, from our perspective, is the recognition of the significant operating leverage we have to produce increasing financial results in future periods as the world’s economies re-open. There is no doubt that the demand for soda ash will ultimately rebound and that we will benefit from being one of the world’s largest and lowest cost suppliers of such a critical industrial component. Additionally, we confirmed during the quarter the anticipated timing of several major offshore projects which are already contracted to our expansive infrastructure in the central Gulf of Mexico. Argos (formerly Mad Dog 2) and the King’s Quay FPS (Khaleesi, Mormont & Samurai fields) are still scheduled for first production in late 2021 or early 2022 and early to mid-2022, respectively. These two fields alone, which required almost zero capital from us, are expected to generate well in excess of $100 million of annual segment margin to us when ramped up to anticipated full production.

While challenges certainly remain, given the steps we have already taken and given our lack of future capital requirements, we believe we have positioned the company to comfortably live within its means and be able to harvest the benefits of its operating leverage from known and contracted opportunities as well as a general recovery in industrial activity worldwide.

I would like to once again recognize our entire workforce, and especially our miners, mariners and offshore personnel who live and work in close quarters during this time of social distancing. I am extremely proud to say we have safely operated our assets under our own Covid-19 safety procedures and protocols with no impact to our business partners and customers with limited confirmed cases amongst our some 2,000 employees. As always, we intend to be prudent, diligent and intelligent and focus on delivering long-term value for everyone in our capital structure without ever losing our commitment to safe, reliable and responsible operations."

For earnings history and earnings-related data on Genesis Energy (GEL) click here.

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