Valero Energy Q4 2021 Earnings Report

Valero Energy EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.47
• Consensus EPS: $1.79
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.68
• One Year Ago EPS: -$1.06

Valero Energy Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $35.90 billion
• Expected Revenue: $27.92 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$7.99 billion
• YoY Revenue Growth: +116.20%

Valero Energy Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2021
• Date: 1/27/2022
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, January 27, 2022
• Conference Call Time: 4:31PM ET

Valero Energy (NYSE:VLO) is an international energy company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Its primary business is refining crude oil into transportation fuels and other products, including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, asphalt, lubricants and petrochemical feedstocks.

Valero operates refineries and related facilities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and markets its products through wholesale and commercial channels in North America and other international markets. The company also exports refined petroleum products and supplies customers in the transportation, industrial and energy sectors.

In addition to conventional refining, Valero produces ethanol and renewable diesel and has expanded its lower-carbon fuels operations, including sustainable aviation fuel initiatives. The company was formed in 1980 and takes its name from the former Valero Energy Corporation, a subsidiary of Coastal States Gas Corporation. Valero is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol VLO.

Valero Energy Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Valero delivered Q4 net income of $1 billion, reversing a loss of $359 million in Q4 2020 and generating record refining segment operating income of $1.3 billion.
• Positive Sentiment: The ethanol segment set a new high with $474 million of operating income, driven by strong prices, robust demand and low inventory levels.
• Positive Sentiment: Diamond Green Diesel Phase II commenced ahead of schedule and on budget—raising annual renewable diesel capacity to 700 million gallons—with Phase III now expected online in Q1 2023.
• Positive Sentiment: Financial discipline was maintained, with $1.3 billion of long-term debt reduced, $4.1 billion in cash on hand and a net debt-to-capitalization ratio of 33% at year-end.
• Positive Sentiment: Management remains optimistic on refining margins for 2022, citing low global product inventories, strong demand and capacity rationalization.

Presentation

[Operator]

Greetings, and welcome to Valero's fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Homer Bhullar, Vice President, Investor Relations and Finance. Thank you. Please go ahead.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Valero Energy Corporation's fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. With me today are Joe Gorder, our Chairman and CEO, Lane Riggs, our President and COO, Jason Fraser, our Executive Vice President and CFO, Gary Simmons, our Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, and several other members of Valero's senior management team. If you have not received the earnings release and would like a copy, you can find one on our website at investorvalero.com. Also attached to the earnings release are tables that provide additional financial information on our business segments and reconciliations and disclosures for adjusted metrics mentioned on this call. If you have any questions after reviewing these tables, please feel free to contact our investor relations team after the call. I would now like to direct your attention to the forward-looking statement disclaimer contained in the press release.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

In summary, it says that statements in the press release and on this conference call that state the company's or management's expectations or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements intended to be covered by the safe harbor provisions under federal securities laws. There are many factors that could cause actual results to differ from our expectations, including those we've described in our filings with the SEC. Now I'll turn the call over to Joe for opening remarks.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Thanks, Homer, and good morning, everyone. We saw continued improvement in our business during the fourth quarter, with refining margins supported by strong product demand. In our system, we ended the year with gasoline demand at pre-pandemic levels and demand for diesel actually higher than pre-pandemic levels. We also saw a significant jet fuel recovery as domestic and international travel opened up, increasing from approximately 60% of pre-pandemic levels at the beginning of the year to approximately 80% at the end of the year. Product inventories were low as a result of the refining capacity rationalization that's taken place in the last two years and weather-related impacts from Winter Storm Uri and Hurricane Ida. On the crude oil side, OPEC Plus increased production throughout the year with improving demand, supplying the market primarily with sour crude oils, resulting in wider sour crude oil discounts to Brent crude oil.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

As a result of all these dynamics, we saw a steady recovery in margins throughout the year, particularly for our complex refining system. In regards to our ethanol segment, ethanol prices were near record highs in the quarter, supported by strong demand and low inventories. Strong margins coupled with solid operational performance across all of our segments generated record quarterly operating income for our ethanol segment and record overall fourth quarter earnings for Valero. I am proud to say that 2021 was our best year ever for employee and process safety. In fact, we've set records for process safety for three consecutive years. These milestones are a testament to our long-standing commitment to safe, reliable, and environmentally responsible operations. Despite the pandemic and weather-related challenges in 2021, our growth projects remained on track.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

We started up the Pembroke Cogeneration unit in the third quarter of 2021, which provides an efficient and reliable source of electricity and steam and enhances the refinery's competitiveness. In addition, the Diamond Green Diesel expansion project, DGD Two, commenced operations in the fourth quarter on budget and ahead of schedule. The expansion has since demonstrated production capacity of 410 million gallons per year of renewable diesel as a result of process optimization above the initial nameplate design capacity of 400 million gallons per year. This expansion brings DGD's total annual renewable diesel capacity to 700 million gallons. Looking ahead, the DGD Three project at our Port Arthur refinery is progressing ahead of schedule and is now expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2023.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

With the completion of this 470 million gallon per year plant, DGD's total annual capacity is expected to be 1.2 billion gallons of renewable diesel and 50 million gallons of renewable naphtha. BlackRock and Navigator's large-scale carbon sequestration project is also progressing on schedule and is still expected to begin startup activities in late 2024. Valero is expected to be the anchor shipper with eight ethanol plants connected to this system, which should provide a higher ethanol product margin. The Port Arthur Coker Project, which is expected to increase the refinery's utilization rate and improve turnaround efficiency, is expected to be completed in the first half of 2023. On the financial side, the guiding framework underpinning our capital allocation strategy remains unchanged.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

We remain disciplined in our allocation of capital, which prioritizes a strong balance sheet and an investment-grade credit rating. In 2021, we took measures to reduce Valero's long-term debt by approximately $1.3 billion. We ended the year well-capitalized with $4.1 billion of cash and $5.2 billion of available liquidity excluding cash, and our net debt to capitalization was 33%. We continue to honor our commitment to stockholders, defending the dividend across margin cycles, and delivering a payout ratio of 50% in 2021. And as recently announced, the board of directors has approved a quarterly dividend of $0.98 per share for the first quarter of 2022.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Looking ahead, we remain optimistic on refining margins with low global light product inventories, strong product demand, global supply tightness due to significant refining capacity rationalization, and wider sour crude oil differentials. We also remain optimistic on our low carbon businesses, which we continue to expand with the growing global demand for lower carbon intensity products. We've been leaders in the growth of these businesses and maintain a competitive advantage with our operational and technical expertise. In closing, our team's simple strategy of pursuing excellence in operations, deploying capital with an uncompromising focus on returns, and honoring our commitment to stockholders has driven our success and positions us well. So with that, Homer, I'll hand the call back to you.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

Thanks, Joe. For the fourth quarter of 2021, net income attributable to Valero stockholders was $1 billion or $2.46 per share compared to net loss of $359 million or $0.88 per share for the fourth quarter of 2020. Fourth quarter 2021 adjusted net income attributable to Valero stockholders was also $1 billion or $2.47 per share compared to an adjusted net loss of $429 million or $1.06 per share for the fourth quarter of 2020. For 2021, net income attributable to Valero stockholders was $930 million or $2.27 per share compared to a net loss of $1.4 billion or $3.50 per share in 2020.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

2021 adjusted net income attributable to Valero stockholders was $1.2 billion or $2.81 per share compared to an adjusted net loss of $1.3 billion or $3.12 per share in 2020. For reconciliations to adjusted amounts, please refer to the financial tables that accompany the earnings release. The Refining segment reported $1.3 billion of operating income for the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to a $377 million operating loss for the fourth quarter of 2020. Fourth quarter 2021 adjusted operating income for the Refining segment was $1.1 billion compared to an adjusted operating loss of $476 million for the fourth quarter of 2020.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

Refining throughput volumes in the fourth quarter of 2021 averaged 3 million barrels per day, which was 483,000 barrels per day higher than the fourth quarter of 2020. Throughput capacity utilization was 96% in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to 81% in the fourth quarter of 2020. Refining cash operating expenses of $4.86 per barrel in the fourth quarter of 2021 were $0.46 per barrel higher than the fourth quarter of 2020, primarily due to higher natural gas prices. The renewable diesel segment operating income was $150 million for the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to $127 million for the fourth quarter of 2020. Adjusted renewable diesel operating income was $152 million for the fourth quarter of 2021.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

Renewable diesel sales volumes averaged 1.6 million gallons per day in the fourth quarter of 2021, which was 974,000 gallons per day higher than the fourth quarter of 2020. The higher operating income and sales volumes were primarily attributed to the startup of Diamond Green Diesel expansion project DGD Two in the fourth quarter. The ethanol segment reported record operating income of $474 million for the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to $15 million for the fourth quarter of 2020. Adjusted operating income for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $475 million compared to $17 million for the fourth quarter of 2020.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

Ethanol production volumes averaged 4.4 million gallons per day in the fourth quarter of 2021, which was 278,000 gallons per day higher than the fourth quarter of 2020. As Joe mentioned earlier, the higher operating income was primarily attributed to higher ethanol prices, which were supported by strong demand and low inventories. For the fourth quarter of 2021, G&A expenses were $286 million, and net interest expense was $152 million. G&A expenses of $865 million in 2021 were largely in line with our guidance. Depreciation and amortization expense was $598 million, and income tax expense was $169 million for the fourth quarter of 2021.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

The annual effective tax rate was 17% for 2021, which reflects the benefit from the portion of DGD's net income that is not taxable to us. Net cash provided by operating activities was $2.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021 and $5.9 billion for the full year. Excluding the favorable impact from the change in working capital of $595 million in the fourth quarter and $2.2 billion in 2021, and the other joint venture members' 50% share of Diamond Green Diesel's net cash provided by operating activities, excluding changes in DGD's working capital, adjusted net cash provided by operating activities was $1.8 billion for the fourth quarter and $3.3 billion for the full year.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

With regard to investing activities, we made $752 million of total capital investments in the fourth quarter of 2021, of which $353 million was for sustaining the business, including costs for turnarounds, catalysts, and regulatory compliance, and $399 million was for growing the business. Excluding capital investments attributable to the other joint venture members' 50% share of Diamond Green Diesel and those related to other variable interest entities, capital investments attributable to Valero were $545 million in the fourth quarter of 2021 and $1.8 billion for the year.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

Moving to financing activities, we returned $401 million to our stockholders in the fourth quarter of 2021 through our dividend and $1.6 billion through dividends in the year, resulting in a 2021 payout ratio of 50% of adjusted net cash provided by operating activities for the year. And our board of directors recently approved a regular quarterly dividend of $0.98 per share, demonstrating our sound financial position and commitment to return cash to our investors. With respect to our balance sheet at year-end, total debt and finance lease obligations were $13.9 billion, and cash and cash equivalents were $4.1 billion. The debt-to-capitalization ratio, net of cash and cash equivalents, was 33%.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

In the fourth quarter, we completed a series of debt reduction and refinancing transactions that together reduced Valero's long-term debt by $693 million. These debt reduction and refinancing transactions, combined with the redemption of $575 million floating rate senior notes due 2023 in the third quarter, collectively reduced Valero's long-term debt by $1.3 billion. At the end of the year, we had $5.2 billion of available liquidity excluding cash. Turning to guidance, we expect capital investments attributable to Valero for 2022 to be approximately $2 billion, which includes expenditures for turnarounds, catalysts, and joint venture investments. About 60% of our capital investments is allocated to sustaining the business and 40% to growth. Approximately 50% of our growth capital in 2022 is allocated to expanding our low carbon businesses.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

For modeling our first quarter operations, we expect refining throughput volumes to fall within the following ranges. Gulf Coast at 1.66 million barrels to 1.71 million barrels per day, Mid-Continent at 395 thousand barrels to 415 thousand barrels per day, West Coast at 185 thousand barrels to 205 thousand barrels per day, and North Atlantic at 430 thousand barrels to 450 thousand barrels per day. We expect refining cash operating expenses in the first quarter to be approximately $4.80 per barrel. With respect to the renewable diesel segment, we expect sales volumes to be approximately 700 million gallons in 2022. Operating expenses in 2022 should be $0.45 per gallon, which includes $0.15 per gallon for non-cash costs such as depreciation and amortization.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

Our ethanol segment is expected to produce 4.2 million gallons per day in the first quarter. Operating expenses should average $0.44 per gallon, which includes $0.05 per gallon for non-cash costs such as depreciation and amortization. For the first quarter, net interest expense should be about $150 million, and total depreciation and amortization expense should be approximately $600 million. For 2022, we expect G&A expenses excluding corporate depreciation to be approximately $870 million. That concludes our opening remarks. Before we open the call to questions, we again respectfully request that callers adhere to our protocol of limiting each turn in the Q&A to two questions. If you have more than two questions, please rejoin the queue as time permits. Please respect this request to ensure other callers have time to ask their questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad at this time. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. As just mentioned, we are asking you to please limit yourself to two questions before rejoining the queue for any additional questions that you may have. Once again, that is star one to register a question at this time. Our first question today is coming from Theresa Chen of Barclays. Please go ahead.

[Theresa Chen, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays]

Morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Joe, I'd like to revisit, you know, your comments earlier about the refining margin outlook through 2022. I mean, clearly we seem to have a pretty positive setup with leading global inventories and significant amount of refining rationalization that's happened since and even, you know, slightly before the pandemic began, while demand continues to recover and remain resilient. So, you know, looking through the rest of this year, can you just give us a sense of puts and takes on the variables that could detract from this thesis, either risk to the downside or upside from here?

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Sure, Theresa. Thanks a lot. Why don't we let Gary take a crack at this?

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

Sure, Theresa. You know, if you look, I mean, I'll just kind of go through some of the things we're seeing in our system. You know, we saw a good recovery last year, both gasoline and diesel, and even good recovery in jet fuel demand, and we expect that rebound to continue through 2022. We started the year, gasoline demand off a little bit from what we would expect. Some of that is just seasonality. Even, you know, if you go back to 2019, where we were in 2019 at this time of year, we're off about 7% with the spike in COVID cases and also some weather impacting gasoline demand as well. I would tell you already our seven-day average is only off about 3% of where it was in 2019.

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

It looks like this latest surge in COVID cases. We're already coming out of it. And so, you know, with where gasoline inventories are, very bullish gasoline moving forward. As you already pointed out, we expect to see gasoline demand back to 2019 levels, which was close to peak gasoline demand, and we'll be trying to feed that demand with significantly less refining capacity. So we expect the gasoline markets to be very tight. When you move to diesel, of course, diesel inventories are not only low in the United States, but they're low globally. Diesel demand actually in our system has been about 7% of where it was in 2019. So some of those factors, in particular weather, that are negatively impacting gasoline are actually having a positive impact on diesel demand.

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

We see very strong diesel demand, and we actually don't see a clear path in the near future to be able to restock those inventories, you know, with turnaround activity that's occurring in the industry, along with the rationalization that's occurred. So for us, you know, both gasoline and diesel look very constructive moving throughout the year. Jet demand will be the unknown. Our expectation is that as we get through this wave of COVID, much like we saw last year, domestic air travel will pick back up fairly rapidly, but it'll be a longer period of time before international travel picks back up. So although we expect to be close back to 2019 levels by the end of the year, probably not fully recovered.

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

I think to me, you know, when you talk about the wild card, really the wild card for this year was what happens in the crude markets. Obviously, a lot of tightness in the crude markets today, certainly having an impact on differentials. And so for us, you know, it's kind of when do we see OPEC begin to ramp up production? As global oil demand picks up, we would expect OPEC to increase production. A lot of that will be medium and heavy sour barrels, which would be constructive to wider differentials moving throughout the year as well.

[Theresa Chen, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays]

That's great color. Thank you. So I got to ask the capital allocation question. You've been so consistent on your messaging as well as execution around this. With the progress that you've made on re-reducing debt, generating free cash flow for the past couple of quarters and generally positive momentum on the near term refining outlook, are we at an inflection point where we may soon see a step-up in cash return to shareholders?

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Jason?

[Jason Fraser, Executive Vice President and CFO at Valero Energy]

Yeah, this is Jason. I'll take that. You're right, we've made good progress on our goals. We had said when we started coming out of this situation, we rebuild our cash to target keeping more on hand around $3 billion. We've done that. We had $4.1 billion at the end of the year. We also said we're really gonna start working on delevering. In the third and fourth quarters of last year, we did two delevering transactions, paid off about $1.3 billion net. Brought our net debt to cap down to 33% at the end of the year. Our goal is to ultimately get back to our 20%-30% long-term target we've had. The pace is gonna depend on margins and cash generation.

[Jason Fraser, Executive Vice President and CFO at Valero Energy]

Getting on to buybacks and the return of cash to shareholders, as you said, you know, things are looking better now. For 2021, the payout was 50% with just the dividend and some minimal buybacks related to the employee plans. But with the margin increase in the fourth quarter, and they're continuing to be strong during the first quarter so far, if this pattern of recovery does continue, we do anticipate we'll be doing buybacks this year to meet our target. And we feel we can both continue to our pattern or our goal of having aggressive debt paydown this year and also meet our shareholder return commitment via projects, via buybacks, I'm sorry. We definitely don't think they're mutually exclusive, and it's all driven by our framework and targets we've had in place for several years.

[Theresa Chen, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays]

Thank you.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Thanks, Theresa.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Manav Gupta of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

[Manav Gupta, VP and Director at Credit Suisse]

Thank you, guys. My first question was on DGD. What we are seeing out there is a number of projects getting delayed, long lead equipment not getting through. Everybody is kind of lagging. You are an exception. Your project keeps moving forward. I know you always tell me you have the best people, but besides best people, what else are you doing right, which is allowing you to move the timeline forward versus everybody else going backwards?

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Wow. Well, I don't know. Should we even say anything?

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

I'm still gonna say we have the best people. As Homer Bhullar was saying. No, we also completed Diamond Green Diesel too, right? We have a really good understanding of what the project execution looks like. We have the same business partners that are primarily executing Diamond Green Diesel Three. We've been able to really improve the schedule. You know, we've built two of these, and we're in our third, and it's just a really good team all the way around, not just our people and our business partners as well. We also do permitting. We permit these even better, so just across.

[Jason Fraser, Executive Vice President and CFO at Valero Energy]

Yeah, Lane, there's been a lot of lessons learned as we went through one, and so, I mean.

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

All right. That's what I mean. We've built one. We just finished two, and we've learned all through all those things. We are definitely. You know, we have the advantage of being an early mover in this space.

[Manav Gupta, VP and Director at Credit Suisse]

Perfect, guys. My second follow-up very quickly here is, looks like your partner is moving ahead with kind of an acquisition which would give you guys more used cooking oil, more animal fats. At this stage, I think there was a plan at some point to get in more animal fats from internationals to feed DGD Three. How is the feedstock situation looking for DGD Three? Are you very close to what you would need when DGD Three is up and running in terms of feedstock now?

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Yeah, Manav, this is Martin. You know, obviously our plan is to continue to feed DGD One, Two, and Three with waste feedstock. We feel good about that. The feedstock market's tightened up relative to soybean oil. We knew that was coming. With the startup of DGD Two, we changed trade flows. We've moved everything around, and that's had an impact on the market. Frankly, when we contemplated DGD Two and Three, we expected feedstock to appreciate relative to soybean oil, and we expected carbon pricing to appreciate. You know, we're kind of where we expected to be here. Yeah, the feedstock situation, you know, it's a moving target, but it's all tied to global GDP growth. You know what?

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Just to sum it up, yeah, we expect to be able to feed it.

[Manav Gupta, VP and Director at Credit Suisse]

Thank you for taking my questions.

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

Thanks, Manav.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Phil Gresh of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

[Phil Gresh, Senior Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan]

Yes. Hi, good morning.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Hi, Phil.

[Phil Gresh, Senior Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan]

I just want to start with Hey, hey, Joe. The Gulf Coast refining margins in the fourth quarter were the best since 2015, if I have that right. They're even better than 2019 when we were talking about IMO 2020 and feedstock advantages and things like that. I was just curious if there's anything more to elaborate on about the strength of the Gulf Coast margins that we saw in the quarter and how you think about the sustainability of that.

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

Yeah. So I think in a lot, typically in the Gulf Coast, when we see stronger capture rates, it's tied to feedstock optimization. And so certainly we've been doing a lot around some of those fuel oil blend stocks and running more of those in our system, which has helped support higher capture rates.

[Phil Gresh, Senior Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan]

Got it. Okay. Second question, just to follow up, on some of the commentary there on renewable diesel. The gross margins there, you know, down sequentially. It sounds like you expected some of that. You know, the capture rate, the indicator there was, you know, I think a bit lower than maybe some had expected. Were there any transitory factors there, in your opinion, in the quarter as you started up phase two? Whether it's with feedstock or other factors, or is this how you think about kind of a run rate moving forward?

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Sure, Phil, this is Martin. Margin capture in 2021 was all about the feedstock price. In the first half of 2021, feedstock prices were low relative to soybean oil, which resulted in some really high margin capture. In the fourth quarter, the prices were high relative to soybean oil, and that gave us a lower margin capture at 75%. With the startup of DGD Two, you know, we're gonna have tighter prices for a while. We expect feedstock to be around soybean oil going forward for the immediate future, and then we'll see how that plays out in the next few months after that. We expect it to be right around soybean oil, which would infer closer to 100% tight margin capture. That's what we experienced throughout 2019.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

If you go back and look at those numbers, we averaged right around 100% margin capture. That's kind of how we expect things to shake out in the next few months.

[Phil Gresh, Senior Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan]

Great. Very helpful. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Roger Read of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

[Roger Read, Senior Energy Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Yeah. Good morning, everybody.

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

Hi, Roger.

[Roger Read, Senior Energy Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Joe and team, thanks. I want to come back, if possible, to the crude tightness comments. You know, just, you know, what you're seeing in terms of differentials, what you'd expect, and then, you know, are we highly dependent here on OPEC putting more oil in the market, or is there some other factor at work? One of the reasons I ask is some of the closures that we saw on the refining side tended to be a light sweet unit. So if, you know, physical demand is down on that side, is that also accounting for some of the tightness in the differentials?

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

Yeah, Roger, it's Gary. I think, you know, there's a number of factors that contributed to the tightness, not, you know, simply OPEC. We saw the winter weather have an impact on heavy Canadian production from Western Canada. We had disruptions from supply in Ecuador. You know, there's been the pipeline issue between Iraq and Turkey that took barrels off the market. So a number of factors. You know, we think going forward, again, not only getting the OPEC production ramping up.

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

We expect to not only see the Western Canadian production come back, we actually think it'll grow with some of the logistics projects coming back on. Most of that production that was off the market is coming back. In addition to that production coming on the market, the OPEC production growing will take some of the pressure off the crude markets and certainly pressure off the crude differentials.

[Roger Read, Senior Energy Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Thanks. Thanks for that. Then my unrelated follow-up question is coming to you, Jason. Like the insight on the possibility of getting back to a more normal cash returns model in 2022. I was curious, though, given the significant improvement in working capital in 2021, are we at risk of seeing some of that reverse in 2022? You know, or when you think about the outlook, do you assume a neutral working capital event and maybe we should assume something going the other way?

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Well, our movements in working capital generally follow flat price. When we're forecasting, we just assume neutral working capital as our basis.

[Roger Read, Senior Energy Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Just a quick reminder, if prices go up, positive. Prices go down, it's gonna eat working capital.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Right. That's right.

[Roger Read, Senior Energy Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Prashant Rao of Citigroup. Please go ahead.

[Prashant Rao, VP of Equity Research at Citigroup]

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to circle back on the capital allocation piece a little bit. You've done a great job reducing debt. Looks like you'll be able to take another chunk out this year. You've got high balance sheet cash, and sounds like, you know, you're very positive on buybacks. I just sort of wanted to ask about the dividend. I know it might be a bit premature at this point, but given that we're looking at what could be an above mid-cycle year in earnings, you know, you've gotten debt controlled and the yield is starting to come in currently just, you know, annualized a little bit under 5% and could be tighter than that as the share price continues to work.

[Prashant Rao, VP of Equity Research at Citigroup]

Is taking a hard look at the dividend something that you might think of this year, or is it too soon to start talking about that?

[Jason Fraser, Executive Vice President and CFO at Valero Energy]

Yeah, this is Jason. It's probably a little soon given what we just came through, but we always look at it, you know, our commitment is to have a sustainable dividend with a yield at the high end of our peer group, and that's where it is now. You know, where the peers are and the market is, we think it's in a good place.

[Prashant Rao, VP of Equity Research at Citigroup]

Okay, perfect.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Prashant.

[Jason Fraser, Executive Vice President and CFO at Valero Energy]

Yeah.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Prashant, you remember at this time last year, there was a big question on sustainability of the dividend, right? A lot can change in a short period. Now, you never questioned it. You always had faith. Anyway, it's interesting how things come around.

[Prashant Rao, VP of Equity Research at Citigroup]

It's true. It's like a different world altogether, right, Joe?

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Yes, sure is.

[Prashant Rao, VP of Equity Research at Citigroup]

Just another quick question. Ethanol, obviously historically high performance here. This is the best quarter we've seen since you've been reporting quarterly results out of ethanol. Just wondering a little bit about the strength carryover. I think, you know, when we discussed this a couple months back, you know, there was some cautious read across as to what happens in 2022, given how volatile the ethanol market is and all the puts and takes. I was just wondering if big picture, how to think about where we are level set entering 2022 to think about what the cadence might be there. Some of that strength carrying over, but also there's a lot going on in terms of policy, gasoline demand, a whole bunch of factors there.

[Prashant Rao, VP of Equity Research at Citigroup]

I just wonder if we could get some color and maybe a little bit of clarity as to how we should be thinking about that, you know, as we look into 2022.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Sure, Prashant, this is Martin. Well, obviously, fourth quarter was a great quarter for ethanol. When you look at it, what really set that up is third quarter, the margins started off really weak, and we were also at end of crop year corn, so that just wasn't enough corn available in the industry. It was pretty very low stocks. There was a lot of run cuts, a lot of early maintenance taken, and the plants really didn't rebound. I'm talking across the industry, I'm not talking just Valero, and get rates back up until early October. Rates exceeded. I mean, in early October, rates exceeded the five-year averages. What was interesting is even with high rates, inventory just never built.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

When you have a low inventory situation, that leads to high margins, and that's what we saw. Now the last few weeks of the year and the first few weeks of 2022, we've had significant inventory build, so the margins have come off dramatically. That being said, you know, we're still probably where we typically are in the first quarter for ethanol margins. I think, you know, what we always are looking at ethanol now, though, is the longer term, and that's the carbon capture that's gonna provide a great opportunity for us, both from the 45Q and the LCFS. Also we're starting to produce more and more gallons of cellulosic ethanol from corn fiber. We're optimistic about both of those.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

We're also, you know, just confident that ethanol is gonna remain a part of the domestic fuel mix. We expect higher octane blends in the future, namely 95 RON, which means more ethanol blending. Globally, the renewable fuel mandates are gonna drive export growth. We feel really good about ethanol going forward. Maybe not this quarter, next quarter, but in longer term, we feel really good about ethanol.

[Prashant Rao, VP of Equity Research at Citigroup]

Makes sense. Thanks so much for the time. Appreciate it. Turn it over.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Doug Leggate of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Doug Leggate, Managing Director and Head of US Oil and Gas Equity Research at Bank of America]

Hey, good morning, everyone. Happy New Year, Joe.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Thanks, Doug. Same to you.

[Doug Leggate, Managing Director and Head of US Oil and Gas Equity Research at Bank of America]

Joe, I'm sorry. I'm gonna hit the capital allocation question one more time, maybe a slightly different angle. Excuse me one second. Excuse me. The balance between dividends and.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

There you go, COVID.

[Doug Leggate, Managing Director and Head of US Oil and Gas Equity Research at Bank of America]

Yeah, I got something going on. The balance between dividends and buybacks is really what I'm kind of focused on here because, I mean, you could easily buy back +5% of your stock. That's a pretty healthy dividend growth for an ordinary business and never mind your business. I'm just kinda curious how you think about the balance going forward as you reconsider the right level of debt, perhaps, and the right balance between that 40%-50% cash allocation to cash returns between the dividend and the buyback. I know it's a broad question, but I'm just kinda curious how you think. You know, I guess what's behind this, Joe, is in years gone by, there's been criticism of buybacks at a high price level.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Yeah.

[Doug Leggate, Managing Director and Head of US Oil and Gas Equity Research at Bank of America]

I'm wondering if the buyback is more a tool to manage the dividend burden going forward.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Yeah. No, Doug, it certainly would be. When you think about where the yield's been, particularly last year, I mean, if we'd been flush with cash last year, we'd have bought back a ton of shares, but we weren't.

[Doug Leggate, Managing Director and Head of US Oil and Gas Equity Research at Bank of America]

Right.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

You're right. It is a double-edged sword, right? We end up with good cash flows and typically a high stock price all at the same time. That's why it's hard to create a formulaic approach to how we look at doing this. You know, I think Jason's laid it out. You know, coming out of COVID, we had a very specific set of priorities that we wanted to put in place, and I think he covered those. What I'll do is, you know, look, we got a good strong CFO. We'll see what he thinks here. You got anything you'd like to share?

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

Yeah, no. Everything you said was accurate. We have to have a balanced dividend because as we've proven through the last downturn, we're gonna defend it in the downturn. You have to be wary of making it too high. The buybacks give you the flywheel.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Yep. Doug, I wouldn't say. I mean, we always look at the dividend, and we'd like to increase it. I think there's a time when it'll be right to do that. It's a burden that we've been able to carry. You know, certainly it's easy in a good margin environment like we have today, but in the down margin environment, as Jason said, we defended it and I mean, it was a bit of a load, but we're committed to it, and we just don't wanna get overextended.

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

Yeah. It's well-positioned.

[Doug Leggate, Managing Director and Head of US Oil and Gas Equity Research at Bank of America]

Yeah.

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

Versus the peers. You know, our first step is to look versus our peers. We're committed to be up near the top of the end, and as long as we're the highest, you know, that's that box is checked.

[Doug Leggate, Managing Director and Head of US Oil and Gas Equity Research at Bank of America]

Yeah, guys, I wanna be respectful to everyone else and, you know, I'm gonna take my second question on the same topic if you don't mind, because I'm looking at, for example, what some of the Canadians have done. Think about asset companies that have long life sustainable assets. Obviously, your business is very, you know, similar to that in some respects in terms of the annuity nature. I wonder then whether some folks did question your dividend last year. Not us, I might add. Why then wouldn't you use your balance sheet, take your balance sheet to a much stronger level so that kind of concern can be taken out of the investment case? In other words, why is 20%-30% the right level?

[Doug Leggate, Managing Director and Head of US Oil and Gas Equity Research at Bank of America]

Why not go lower given the shock that we all saw in the past year? I'll leave it there. Thanks.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

No, Doug, that's a fair question. I can tell you that's one of the things that Jason and Homer are looking at, you know, consistently. The capital markets were very accessible last year, even in the downturn. Rates were so attractive that we were able to really do a good job of financing the business through this. But you know, again, you just never really know. Jason?

[Jason Fraser, Executive Vice President and CFO at Valero Energy]

Yeah, no. That's right. One thing we do to address this is hold a higher cash balance. We also wanna have an efficient capital structure, and debt's, you know, pretty cheap right now. Going to zero debt would give you the maximum flexibility and kind of resilience, then you have the cost of a higher cost to do that.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Doug, are you proposing that we would like lever up to buy back shares or something along those lines?

[Doug Leggate, Managing Director and Head of US Oil and Gas Equity Research at Bank of America]

It's really more that so you're opportunistically positioned to lean on the balance sheet when you need to without you know the market speculating about the dividend. It's really more 'cause I think your business can support an annuity dividend discount model type of approach, but the balance sheet needs to be right sized to achieve that. Again, it was just to really try and take that volatility out of the go-forward investment case. I've taken my quota of time, Joe, so I appreciate the answers.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Oh, sure.

[Doug Leggate, Managing Director and Head of US Oil and Gas Equity Research at Bank of America]

Thank you.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Okay, we'll see you soon.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Paul Sankey of Sankey Research. Please go ahead.

[Paul Sankey, Managing Director and Lead Oil & Gas Analyst at Sankey Research]

Morning, everyone.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Hi, Paul.

[Paul Sankey, Managing Director and Lead Oil & Gas Analyst at Sankey Research]

Joe, could I ask you guys about Europe, just, you know, from your perspective as a major refiner there? What's going on as regards demand, the impact of natural gas prices, crude slates, you know, the whole bit. Thanks.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Thanks, Paul.

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

Yeah. This is Gary. You know, I guess what we're seeing in terms of demand is they're kind of ahead of where we are in recovery from the latest spike in COVID cases. If you look at our seven-day in the U.K., we're up about 10% of where we were month to date, starting to see good recovery and mobility and gasoline demand in the system. You know, again, very similar situation on diesel. ARA stocks are very low, so diesel looks very constructive as well. On the natural gas side, you know, you see some switching of crude diets as a result of the high natural gas prices, you know, still $30/MMBTU in northwest Europe.

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

You see some people kicking out medium and heavy sour grades of crude and running more light sweet. I think where we've seen it the most is optimization around hydroprocessing capacity. People idling and cutting hydrocracking capacity as a result of very high natural gas prices, which again-

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

Puts less diesel on the market and is one of the reasons why we're experiencing all the tightness around diesel that we are.

[Paul Sankey, Managing Director and Lead Oil & Gas Analyst at Sankey Research]

Excellent answer. Thank you. Could I just follow up with California? We've seen margins come off quite a bit there, but more importantly, could you talk a bit about how renewable diesel will play through in that market where you're exposed to both sides of that. I just wonder what your perspective is because we could see a situation obviously where the market gets quite challenged, I think, by renewables. Thanks.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Thanks, Paul.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Yeah. Paul, this is Martin. Well, you know, renewable diesel's held up really well from a demand side in California. It's kind of amazing to me going through COVID, what we've seen out there. Obviously, deficits have decreased and they've decreased because of less car buying or gasoline use and less diesel use. Renewable diesel, you know, for the first half of the year, and that's the latest stats we have, is running 23% of the diesel pool in California. It's you know, we're blending in an R23 statewide, which is pretty amazing. A lot of imports coming into California too of renewable diesel. It's kind of held up remarkably well.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Now you can say, "Well, maybe that's why the credit price is down." I think really the credit price has got a lot more to do with just less deficits than it has to do with additional credits from renewable diesel. You know that's a great market for us. I think you know what really got hurt demand-wise was more in Europe on renewable diesel and probably more in Canada too, with just the kind of waiting for the CFS. We expect those two to rebound and with that, you know, more demand globally.

[Paul Sankey, Managing Director and Lead Oil & Gas Analyst at Sankey Research]

Understood. Could you just throw the answer forward a little bit when you know, as we look over the next couple of years in terms of how the supply-demand balance might play out? I'll leave it there. Sorry, not to make you laugh today, Joe, but.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

You know, Paul.

[Paul Sankey, Managing Director and Lead Oil & Gas Analyst at Sankey Research]

Serious topic.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

I'll tell you what, we'll have a chance for that here pretty soon, won't we?

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Yeah.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

I think if you play it forward, there's really nothing that stops renewable diesel from, you know, you can blend it really at any rate with renewable diesel, right? There's 85% renewable diesel sold in California today. I think CARB's projections are to get somewhere around R40 by 2030. I think a lot of people think that's, that it could be higher than that. So, that's California, but you've also got other states considering LCFS. You've got the CFS in Canada that we're looking forward to by the end of this year. And the you know the Canadian diesel market's twice the size of California's market. That's gonna be a big market for us. And we expect that people will over generate credits early when they can, right?

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

That's what happened in California. There was early credit generation building up a credit bank, and we expect to see the same thing in Canada, which is good for renewable diesel demand.

[Paul Sankey, Managing Director and Lead Oil & Gas Analyst at Sankey Research]

Great. Thanks. All the best for 2022, guys. Thank you.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Thanks, Paul.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Paul Cheng of Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

[Paul Cheng, Managing Director and Global Head Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities at Scotiabank]

Hey, guys. Good morning.

[Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO at Valero Energy]

Morning, Paul.

[Paul Cheng, Managing Director and Global Head Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities at Scotiabank]

Two questions, please. First is for Martin. I think we're hearing the renewable diesel and other product seems to be getting some excitement by some of your peer, SAF. Just want to see whether the company have any interest in where the economic and what needs to change in order for the economic to be compatible with renewable diesel from your standpoint for you to be interested. If at that point, what kind of investment you will need to make in order to make the switch? That's the first question. The second question is probably for Lane. North Atlantic, the fourth quarter margin capture was really good. It was great. Just want to see if that's any one-off event.

[Paul Cheng, Managing Director and Global Head Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities at Scotiabank]

Also that between the two facility in Europe and also that in Quebec City. I mean, which is a stronger unit in terms of the margin capture in the fourth quarter? Thank you.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Okay. It's Martin. I'll get started there, Paul. You know, I think we were all looking at the Build Back Better bill and what was in that on the tax credit basis for SAF. And what we saw, that incentive level proposed in that bill was not sufficient to attract additional investment to make SAF versus the base case of producing renewable diesel with an existing unit. However, we're still progressing SAF production through our gated engineering process, and concurrently, we're developing customers. There are plenty of customers interested in SAF, but a favorable tax credit, you know, something else is gonna be required or tax credit or something else to really get over the hump to where SAF is economic to produce relative to producing renewable diesel.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

You know, that being said, you know, we're still confident that SAF production's a question of when and not if. We think the margins will eventually work, 'cause SAF's the only way to reduce the carbon intensity of air travel.

[Paul Cheng, Managing Director and Global Head Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities at Scotiabank]

Hey, Martin.

[Paul Cheng, Managing Director and Global Head Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities at Scotiabank]

This is Paul.

[Paul Cheng, Managing Director and Global Head Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities at Scotiabank]

Just, how big is the... Sorry, Nate. Just want-

[Paul Cheng, Analyst at Scotiabank]

Sure, To follow up on what Martin said. How big is the gap in terms of the incentive for you to fund SAF to be attractive enough? Compared to the renewable diesel. Also technically, what kind of investment you need to make and how big is the investment for you to make it to be able to produce, let's call it 20% or 30% in SAF?

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Yeah. On the gap, I mean, we're somewhere probably around the $0.70-a-gallon gap still, Paul, to make it economic. On the investment, we're still going through our gated process, so we don't have a number on that yet. You know, we have preliminary numbers, but we don't have a number that we're ready to share yet.

[Paul Cheng, Managing Director and Global Head Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities at Scotiabank]

Okay. Thank you. Lane?

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

All right. Yeah. What's interesting about the two refineries we have in the Atlantic Basin is Quebec is seasonally stronger in the fourth and first quarter. So, it's largely a distillate. It's a very specialized distillate-producing refinery in the way it's configured, whereas Pembroke is really more of a gasoline-producing configured refinery. That's kind of how they work out. You know, really in terms of the fourth quarter performance, it's really Quebec did really well on their margin capture. Obviously, you have the issues with around high natural gas prices over in the U.K. Obviously, that helped, you know, sort of hurt their margin capture, Pembroke.

[Paul Cheng, Managing Director and Global Head Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities at Scotiabank]

And is there any one-off item that is benefiting in the quarter or that it's just that you guys have done a phenomenal job in the operation and be able to fully capture the benefit of the market?

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

Well, I like the second answer, but it's. We ran. Yeah. You know, Quebec ran really. They both ran really well in the quarter.

[Paul Cheng, Managing Director and Global Head Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities at Scotiabank]

Okay. Thank you.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Thanks, Paul.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Sam Margolin of Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

[Sam Margolin, Stock Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Hey. Morning, everybody. Thank you.

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

Hey, Sam.

[Sam Margolin, Stock Analyst at Wolfe Research]

I wanted to just circle back to the industry capacity questions. You know, a few other analysts on the call have alluded to a lot of closures over the past 12 months. There's some third parties and some managements in the industry that are suggesting that the number of closures is even higher than any of us are aware of or any kind of report that we would see might confirm. And so, I wonder what your thoughts on that are. And then, secondly, this is a two-part question, but only one. Theoretically, where cracks are today, you would think that capacity rationalization would stop here or slow down. You know, there's other factors that may be driving some closures. If you think that this could.

[Sam Margolin, Stock Analyst at Wolfe Research]

This trend could continue based on non-economic factors. Would love your input on that too. Thanks.

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

Hey, Sam. It's Lane. I, like, we are trying to study the data right now because what we see similar issue with in terms of what where utilization is and versus closures. Again, it's just sort of what we're sort of preliminarily deciding or looking at is we think that there's probably some slowdowns that are occurring maybe because of maintenance deferrals or turnaround deferrals in the industry. We don't. That's not something we know, but it's a theory as to what you're seeing. Certainly, where margins are now, the call on capacity is pretty much max. So, you know, other than the turnarounds and the outages, you you the refinery utilization ought to be in this 90%-95% range.

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

Once you get all the DOE data worked out, make sure all the refineries you think shouldn't be in and everything, that's kind of where we see it as well.

[Sam Margolin, Stock Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Okay. Thanks so much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Ryan Todd of Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

[Ryan Todd, Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Great. Thanks. Maybe just one quick follow-up on your comments on California from earlier. I know you had talked about some of the longer term, or at least issues with Low Carbon Fuel Standard credits. Do you have a view on, you know, for the next 12 months where you think the LCFS credits go from here? You know, we've gone from 200 to 150-ish. Do you see further downside, or do you think we stabilize here?

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

You know, that's a good question. This is Martin. You know, what's difficult about this is you're always driving with your rearview mirror, right? The data lags by six months. I'm not complaining about that. It makes sense. It's a lot of data. At the end of this month, we'll get the third quarter data. I think what's interesting is when you look at it, you know, the credit price obviously depends on credit generation versus deficit generation. And COVID certainly reduced deficit generation, and it has been since the second quarter of 2020. You have to think the credit prices have been reduced by COVID.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

Then the other thing that's interesting to me is when you look at the credit generation in 2Q 2021. I'd say that it certainly surprised me to the upside. When you dig into that, there's really two line items in the credit generation that stand out. The first was that bio-CNG, bio-compressed natural gas, was 13% of all the 2Q 2021 credits, and that line item was up 190% versus 2019. Second, off-road electricity generated 9% of all credits. Now, this is off-road, not on-road, and that was up 146% versus 2019. More interestingly, on the off-road, 71% of those credits came from e-forklifts.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

When you think about the bio-CNG, the off-road, the e-forklifts, you just wonder if that pace of credit generation can continue or the infrastructure and just really it gets in the way, right? I don't know how many times you can replace your forklift to get an e-forklift, but it seems like that would run out at some point. We'll see how that shakes out. If you think about those two line items, that's what? 21%, 22% of the credits in California, for two line items there, which really were very small in the past. That's just kind of interesting data. Then the other is that biodiesel, renewable diesel, and on-road electricity credit generation as a percent of total credits were all flat for 2Q 2021 versus 2019 as a whole.

[Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development at Valero Energy]

That's just a little color. Hopefully, that helps some.

[Ryan Todd, Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Yeah, thanks. That's great. Maybe just one overall, I know you've talked a lot about what you've seen generally in terms of demand, particularly here in the U.S. Any comments in terms of what you're seeing on the product export side that may indicate what you're seeing on international product demand, particularly in your primary export markets?

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

Yeah, this is Gary. I would tell you know, we're not seeing the recovery in Latin America quite as fast as we've seen in North America or the U.K. Demand is still down a little bit. We're seeing good export demand into the region.

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

I would expect in the first quarter, our exports will be down a little bit, not really an indication of demand in Latin America, but more a function of maintenance activity occurring, especially in the U.S. Gulf Coast during the quarter and really good domestic demand. But the demand is there in Latin America and our typical export markets.

[Ryan Todd, Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Great. Thanks, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Jason Gabelman of TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

[Jason Gabelman, Director of Energy Equity Research at TD Cowen]

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to dovetail off a comment that was just made about maintenance in the Gulf Coast. It looks like guidance for throughput is down quarter-over-quarter for 1Q and 4Q, about 300,000 barrels a day. Can you just discuss what maintenance activity you're gonna have on 1Q, if there are other one-time items impacting that guidance? If you think that's indicative of the industry as a whole, just given it seems like there was a lot of maintenance delayed due to COVID over the past couple years. And then, my second question is hopefully one you can answer kind of on geopolitics and what's going on with Russia. You know, Valero imports a lot of intermediate feedstock from Russia.

[Jason Gabelman, Director of Energy Equity Research at TD Cowen]

Can you just discuss maybe the margin kind of enhancement that provides and how you're more broadly thinking about both the risks and opportunities these geopolitical issues with Russia present for your company? Thanks.

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

All right. This is Lane. I'll take the first one. So, we don't really comment directly on our turnaround activity going into the quarter. The volumes are the proxy for that, so you can just sorta, you know, decide what that means. We certainly don't. We also don't comment on our peers on what we think they're doing with respect to turnarounds. It's just sort of a policy for us. Gary, you wanna talk about Russia?

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

Yeah. So, you know, obviously, we don't really know what they would entail until any kind of sanctions are announced. What I can tell you is that when we've seen things like this happen in the past in other locations, it simply results in a change in trade flows. What we would expect to happen here is some of those intermediates that we're running today will be run somewhere else throughout the world. Wherever those end up going, they'll kick out feedstocks that make it available for us to run. Certainly as a commercial team, we're looking at what those are today and making sure we have them approved in our system and are ready to run them if we need to in the future.

[Jason Gabelman, Director of Energy Equity Research at TD Cowen]

Got it. Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Connor Lynagh of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Connor Lynagh, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Yeah, thanks. Maybe sticking with major exporters, I was wondering what you guys made of the discussion around Pemex potentially ending crude exports. You know, what do you see as the implications? Do you think it's likely to occur? What do you think the implications on particularly the Gulf Coast refining industry would be?

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

Yeah. This is Gary. You know, I think Lane's been pretty public on our views on being able to meaningfully change refinery reliability and utilization. You know, he's kinda said two turnaround cycles and a lot of capital. You know, it looks like their goals are pretty aggressive. But you know, if they're able to increase refinery utilization, if the Dos Bocas refinery starts up, certainly it would decrease the amount of crude for export. Our view is that the first destinations to be cut will really be European destinations and Asian destinations for export from Mexico. If it goes further, you know, our experience has been that as they increase refinery runs in Mexico, they increase the export of high sulfur fuel oil, and that's a good feedstock for our high complexity U.S. Gulf Coast system.

[Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Valero Energy]

It actually serves as a nice complement to a lot of the light sweet grades we run in our U.S. Gulf Coast system. We've had a long-standing great relationship with Pemex, and we expect that to continue long into the future.

[Connor Lynagh, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Got it. Helpful context. Maybe just returning to the capacity question, but in a global sense. The closures, you know, obviously you had sort of a net decline in some areas and you're sort of at least in theory, flipping back to growth at a global capacity level over the next couple of years here. I mean, are you concerned about that? Do you see that meaningfully altering the to your earlier point, product flows or crude flows? Just how do you think about that impact on your margins?

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

This is Lane. I mean, we know, we read the same journals you guys do and trade magazines, and we have people that keep up with refinery closures and refineries starting up. You know, obviously, the Middle East has some refineries starting up. China has some. I guess we sort of believe that, you know, as China has this longer term plan of having larger refineries run instead of what we call those teapot refineries. At the end of the day, it's hard to really sort of just have a real strong view on where all this really heads. You know, I always go back to when you know, the Indian refinery, Reliance, was starting up, and we were concerned then, and there was all these theories it was gonna put U.S. refineries under stress.

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

We calculated that their import parity into our market. At the end of the day, what happened is most of the barrel stayed in the region. So, you know, these are difficult things to work through. What we do is we run our assets. We make sure they're competitive not only here in the U.S., but everywhere in the world. We know that as long as there's rent out there in this industry, we'll get our share of it.

[Connor Lynagh, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Fair enough. Thank you. I'll turn it back.

[Lane Riggs, President and COO at Valero Energy]

Thanks, Connor.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Bhullar for closing comments.

[Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance at Valero Energy]

Great. Thanks, Donna. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Obviously, if there's anything you wanna follow up on, feel free to ping the IR team. Thank you, and have a great week.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines or log off the webcast at this time, and enjoy the rest of your day.

Participants

Executives

• Homer Bhullar, VP of Investor Relations and Finance
• Joe Gorder, Chairman and CEO
• Gary Simmons, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer
• Jason Fraser, Executive Vice President and CFO
• Lane Riggs, President and COO
• Martin Parrish, Senior VP of Alternative Energy & Project Development

Analysts

• Theresa Chen, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Barclays
• Manav Gupta, VP and Director at Credit Suisse
• Phil Gresh, Senior Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan
• Roger Read, Senior Energy Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Prashant Rao, VP of Equity Research at Citigroup
• Doug Leggate, Managing Director and Head of US Oil and Gas Equity Research at Bank of America
• Paul Sankey, Managing Director and Lead Oil & Gas Analyst at Sankey Research
• Paul Cheng, Managing Director and Global Head Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities at Scotiabank
• Paul Cheng, Analyst at Scotiabank
• Sam Margolin, Stock Analyst at Wolfe Research
• Ryan Todd, Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler
• Jason Gabelman, Director of Energy Equity Research at TD Cowen
• Connor Lynagh, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley