Genesis Energy Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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February 13, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Genesis Energy expects to hit a pivotal inflection point in mid-2025 when its major capital program wraps up, allowing the company to generate free cash flow above sustaining costs and begin rapidly deleveraging and returning capital to unitholders.
  • Offshore Pipeline Transportation is projected to deliver 20%+ sequential growth in 2025, as the Shenandoah and Salamanca developments start mid-second quarter and resume volumes from previously impacted fields.
  • Marine Transportation is forecast to post record earnings in 2025, driven by near-100% utilization, steady to rising day rates, and structural supply constraints from vessel retirements and limited new builds.
  • Soda and Sulfur Services segment margins are likely to remain flat year-over-year in 2025 amid persistently well-supplied soda ash markets and mixed global demand, delaying price recoveries until 2026.
  • Genesis targets about $700 million in adjusted EBITDA for 2025 and ~$800 million for 2026, with sustaining costs of $600–625 million, using excess cash flow to pay down debt, retire preferred stock, and improve leverage.
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Earnings Conference Call
Genesis Energy Q4 2024
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Greetings and welcome to Genesis Energy Fourth Quarter 2024 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 anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Dwayne Morley, Vice President, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Dwayne Morley
Dwayne Morley
VP of Investor Relations at Genesis Energy L.P.

Good morning and welcome to the 2024 Fourth Quarter Conference Call for Genesis Energy. Genesis Energy has four business segments. The Offshore Pipeline Transportation segment is engaged in providing the critical infrastructure to move oil produced from the long-lived world-class reservoirs in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico to onshore refining centers. The Soda and Sulfur Services segment includes trona and trona-based exploring, mining, processing, producing, marketing, and selling activities, as well as the processing of sour gas streams to remove sulfur at refining operations. The Onshore Facilities and Transportation segment is engaged in the transportation, handling, blending, storage, and supply of energy products, including crude oil and refined products. The Marine Transportation segment is engaged in the maritime transportation of primarily refined petroleum products. Genesis's operations are primarily located within Wyoming, the Gulf Coast states, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Dwayne Morley
Dwayne Morley
VP of Investor Relations at Genesis Energy L.P.

During this conference call, management may be making forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The law provides safe harbor protection to encourage companies to provide forward-looking information. Genesis intends to avail itself of those safe harbor provisions and directs you to its most recently filed and future filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We also encourage you to visit our website at genesisenergy.com, where a copy of the press release we issued this morning is located. The press release also presents a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures. At this time, I'd like to introduce Grant Sims, CEO of Genesis Energy, L.P. Mr. Sims will be joined by Kristen Jesulaitis, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Legal Officer, Ryan Sims, President and Chief Commercial Officer, and Louie Nicol, Chief Accounting Officer.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Thanks, Dwayne. Good morning to everyone, and thank you for listening to the call. As we mentioned in our earnings release this morning, we are now just a few short months away from reaching the inflection point when we will complete our current major capital spending program, be a short time away from a notable step change in realized segment margin, and most importantly, be in position to generate cash from operations in excess of the cash costs of running and sustaining our businesses. Needless to say, this moment has been a long time coming, and while we've had a few hiccups along the way, we remain on schedule. I get more and more encouraged with the long-term prospects of Genesis as each day passes.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Instead of dwelling on what could have been in 2024, I would rather focus my comments here today on what lies ahead for the remainder of 2025 and beyond. We remain encouraged with what is in front of us and are confident we are well positioned to deliver meaningful sequential earnings growth over 2024, driven primarily by mid-year startup of our new contracted offshore volumes and strong structural tailwinds in our marine segment, even if we see static performance from our other two segments this year relative to last. Our offshore segment is expected to see significant growth in offshore volumes and segment margins associated with our two new contracted developments, Shenandoah and Salamanca. They remain on schedule, with first production from both developments expected in the second quarter.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Based on recent conversations with both operators, we could see volumes from each development ramp very quickly to, if not above, their originally expected high cases. When combined with the eventual resumption of the volumes from the fields that were negatively impacted last year, which we are now told should occur over the next several months, we should be positioned to deliver upwards of 20-plus% sequential growth in our offshore pipeline transportation segment in 2025. Our Marine Transportation segment is again expected to deliver record results in 2025, driven in large part by more days on the water, as they say, for our offshore fleet relative to 2024, and steady to increasing day rates across all classes of our vessels. The macro story marine remains constructive. We see reasonably steady demand.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

At the same time, we continue to see net supply reductions in the market, driven by the limited number of new barges being constructed while more and more older barges are being retired. We believe these structural indicators will persist in marine for quite some time and should support steady to marginally improving financial performance from our marine transportation segment throughout 2025. As we sit here today, we expect the challenging macro conditions in the soda ash market we saw in the back half of last year to persist into 2025, at least in the early part of the year. The combination of a well-supplied market and a mixed demand picture outside China is expected to keep a lid on soda ash prices, especially in our export markets.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

While current prices are undoubtedly below the cash costs of high-cost synthetic producers, particularly in China, we expect the market continues to need a combination of further supply rationalizations and resumption of historical demand growth to ultimately help prices recover. I'll give a little more color later in my prepared remarks, but we are encouraged that these necessary supply reductions are starting to occur, and they will no doubt help tighten the market as we move through this year and into next. Given this market backdrop, however, and despite an improving operating performance and implementing certain cost savings initiatives, we expect the segment margin from our soda ash business to be at or near what we generated in 2024. Kind of a sideways year until we get to 2026, when we would otherwise expect prices to recover and more closely reflect at least the cash cost of the marginal suppliers.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Similarly, we expect our legacy refinery services business and our onshore facilities and transportation segment to also perform in line with their performance last year. While we would rather see all of our businesses hitting on all cylinders, our path forward remains crystal clear. Even with this anticipated sideways action year over year in a couple of segments in 2025, we will begin to harvest accelerating amounts of cash above and beyond the cash cost to operate and sustain our business, and we will use to strengthen and simplify our capital structure. We are committed to not pursuing any capital-intensive projects for the foreseeable future.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

We expect to use this excess cash flow to pay down debt in absolute terms, opportunistically redeem or retire our high-cost convertible preferred, both of which will lower the cash costs of running and sustaining our business, and look to return increasing amounts of capital to our unitholders in one form or another, all while managing our bank-calculated leverage ratio to our long-term target. We remain confident that the path we are on will allow us in the years ahead to deliver long-term value to everyone in the capital structure. With that, I'll touch briefly on our individual business segments. As mentioned in our earnings release, several of our producer customers continue to experience mechanical issues that are affecting multiple fields that are connected to our offshore infrastructure.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

We can now report that three out of the total of only 21 available deepwater rigs working in the Gulf of Mexico are now actively working on restoring production from these affected wells. We are told by the operators that such remedial intervention activities should be completed over the next several months. As we have mentioned in the past, the affected producers and operators continue to reiterate they expect no long-term negative impacts to the underlying reservoirs, and they fully expect volumes to return to levels consistent to what they were producing prior to the mechanical issues cropping up. More importantly, our offshore construction projects are expected to be totally complete in the next few months.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Our team is preparing to start the final stages of construction, which will primarily consist of lifting the SYNC pipeline off the seafloor and connecting it to the Shenandoah floating production system once it is installed at its final location. The Shenandoah FPU set sail from South Korea in mid-December and recently arrived in Ingleside, Texas, thus completing its 18,000-mile journey in less than two months. After completing its final outfitting and safety checks, it is expected to move to its final location in advance of first production in the second quarter. Similarly, the Salamanca production facility is also nearing completion. In fact, I visited the Salamanca FPU earlier this week for its christening and can confirm it is very close to being complete and is really quite a sight to see.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

I'm confident the Salamanca FPU will long be a great case study of the benefits of repurposing an existing offshore platform to serve as a new production facility that will likely last for many more decades to come. The carbon footprint of the refurbished facility is estimated to be some 70% less than a new build, was cheaper than a new build, and importantly, accelerated the date of first production by some 12-plus months. The Salamanca FPU too will be setting sail from South Texas to its final location in the Gulf of Mexico in the very near future and remains on schedule for first production in the middle of the year.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

We continue to believe these two new standalone production facilities and their combined almost 200,000 barrels of oil per day of incremental production handling capacity will ramp very quickly and will likely reach their anticipated production levels by the end of the year, if not significantly sooner. In both cases, the operators continue to anticipate producing at rates materially higher than our take-or-pay levels or perhaps even higher than their original high-end internal expectations when they sanctioned the projects. As we have mentioned in the past, these two new floating production facilities are also expected to serve as host platforms for additional future subsea developments or tieback opportunities, which could sustain or increase these cash flows to us for years and years into the future.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

In addition to the Monument Field, which is a sanctioned subsea tieback to the Shenandoah FPU that is expected to start production in the fourth quarter of 2026, Beacon announced, the operator announced in December, that it's sanctioned the next phase of development at Shenandoah, known as Shenandoah Phase Two. Activities associated with this Phase Two include the drilling and completion of two additional wells in the Shenandoah Field. Beacon estimates that the activities from Shenandoah Phase Two will be conducted between 2025 and 2028 and will add approximately 110 million barrels of oil-equivalent P50 reserves. Additionally, Beacon and its partners are advancing plans to facilitate the development of the Shenandoah South Discovery, located in Walker Ridge 95 and water depth ranging from 5,800-6,000 feet.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

The field's proximity to the Shenandoah FPU will enable a cost-efficient subsea tieback development to be accomplished by a three-mile flow line and dedicated riser connection to the Shenandoah FPU. Shenandoah South is expected to include the drilling and completion of two wells, with initial production from the first well expected to occur in the second quarter of 2028. Beacon estimates a total of 74 million barrels of oil-equivalent of P50 reserves for Shenandoah South. While Beacon and its partners have not yet made their final investment decision on the Shenandoah South project, it is yet another example of the multitude of opportunities that exist once a new floating production unit is installed and connected to our offshore infrastructure.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

When taken together, the Shenandoah, Shenandoah Phase Two, Monument, and Shenandoah South developments are estimated to be able to produce nearly 600 million barrels of oil-equivalent P50 reserves, with 100% of the oil production dedicated to our new SYNC, lateral, and expanded CHOPS pipeline. Truly a remarkable opportunity set for the next decade around this one new asset connected to our offshore infrastructure. Turning now to our soda and sulfur services segment, I'm pleased to report that the operating issues we experienced at our Westvaco production facility in 2024 are now behind us, and that our Granger facility has recently been performing at or above its design capacity. Our team is constantly looking for opportunities to optimize our operating performance, and I'm confident these efforts will contribute towards more steady production levels moving forward.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

As we mentioned last quarter, and in response to current market conditions, we have also recently made a concerted effort to focus on the cost side of our business. As a result of these efforts, our team has identified numerous opportunities, and we have since started to implement several initiatives to reduce our fixed and marginal operating costs in the business. We continue to believe that the combination of improved operating performance and a lower overall cost structure will allow us to meaningfully benefit when the broader market fundamentals improve, which they will, and they always do. As mentioned in our release, the global soda ash market remains relatively consistent with last quarter, with global demand being mixed and most markets remaining well supplied. Furthermore, inventories in China and the availability of exports therefrom remain elevated from recent lows.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

In the short term, the market needs more high-cost and environmentally inferior synthetic production to come out of the market. Having said that, we have recently started to see some synthetic supply be shuttered, with the last remaining synthetic soda ash production facility in the United Kingdom ceasing operations at the end of just last month, January, reducing global supply by approximately 220,000 tons per year. Late last year, another producer announced it was reducing production by approximately 300,000 tons per year from its synthetic production facility in Spain. And just yesterday, a different synthetic producer announced it was suspending production from a 700,000-ton-a-year facility in Poland. In discussing such decision, it also stated it would be forced to consider additional production cuts at other facilities it operates in the EU if market conditions don't soon improve.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

As more and more of this high-cost synthetic supply has taken offline, we would expect a move closer to a more balanced market where soda ash prices could improve. Everything else the same, we would reasonably expect marginal improvement in prices as we progress through 2025, but almost certainly, based on historical market behavior and the supply rationalization we are beginning to see, certainly in 2026 and beyond. Regardless of when these events occur, we are confident, as one of the world's lowest-cost producers, that the steps we are taking in our operations and on the cost side will allow us to meaningfully benefit from any such recovery in soda ash prices in the future.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Our marine transportation segment performed in line with our expectations as the broader market conditions remain constrained, and we operated with utilization rates at or near 100% of practical available capacity for all classes of our Jones Act vessels. We continue to see reasonably steady demand for all classes of our vessels. At the same time, there has been limited, if not realistically zero, net additions to the market, as older vessels continue to be retired and a limited number of new barges have been built. This market dynamic doesn't turn around quickly. To conclude, we could not be more excited about 2025 and beyond and remain fully committed to reaching a special inflection point in just a few months where we stop spending growth capital, start harvesting significant and growing cash flows in excess of the cash costs of running and sustaining our business.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Along those lines, and based upon what we know today, we believe Adjusted EBITDA in 2025 will be around $700 million, and in 2026, even if there is no meaningful improvement in our soda ash business, could be around $800 million. If there is a recovery in soda ash prices in 2026, which, as I mentioned earlier, could reasonably expect based on historical market behavior and shutting down of high-cost synthetic production, that number could turn out to be conservative. The cash cost of running and sustaining our business currently is $600-$625 million per year. As we use the excess cash flow we will begin in generating later this year and accelerate in 2026 and beyond, as we use it to pay down debt and periodically redeem high-cost preferred, that cash cost of running and sustaining the business will decrease.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

That will give us even more flexibility to pay off even more debt, redeem even more preferred securities, and return even more capital to our unit holders in one form or another, all while managing our bank-calculated leverage ratio to our long-term target. Finally, I'd like to say that the management team and the board of directors remain steadfast in our commitment to building long-term value for all our stakeholders, regardless of where you are in the capital structure. We believe the decisions we are making reflect this commitment and our confidence in Genesis Moving Forward. I would once again like to recognize our entire workforce for their individual efforts and unwavering commitment to safe and responsible operations. I'm extremely proud to be associated with each and every one of you. With that, I'll turn it back to the moderator for questions.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Michael Blum with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Michael Blum
Michael Blum
Managing Director at Wells Fargo

Thank you. Good morning. So I wanted to ask about the offshore producers that continue to have challenges. Can you maybe bracket the outer bounds of outcomes in 2025? So, for example, if this production stays offline for all of 2025, how much cash flow are you sort of foregoing? And then, I don't know, if it came on, let's say, in the second quarter of this year, how much incremental cash flow would you realize for the year?

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

At this point, we are baking into the guidance that we just gave, basically what the producers are telling us, with us taking a little bit of liberty to build in some cushion in the event that it slides to the right a little bit. I'm not sure that we have ever quantified it, but it's in, I mean, I think order of magnitude, it's between $5 million and $10 million a quarter, assuming that all of it was off, but we are seeing some of it has already been rectified, and some of it is within a week or so of coming back, at least according to the operator. So, Michael, I mean, we don't really, as we sit here today, we don't see a scenario where this is a lasting issue throughout 2025.

Michael Blum
Michael Blum
Managing Director at Wells Fargo

Okay, perfect. That's super helpful. And then on the 2026 EBITDA forecast, the $800 million, does that assume a continued improvement in the marine business, or is that assumed more of a flat outlook relative to 2025?

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

I would consider it to, yeah, it's reasonably flat. I mean, so we're in a world where we're generating kind of 130, 140 or so in that business. While there could be more upside in that, that's kind of, we're just kind of penciling that in to be reasonably flat in 2026 relative to what we expected in 2025.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Got it. Thank you so much.

Operator

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our next question comes from Wade Suki with Capital One. Please proceed with your question.

Wade Suki
Wade Suki
Equity Analyst at Capital One Securities

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. First, some capital allocation, just quickly. I'm wondering if you could remind us how the banks, looking at the press, just sort of in the context of your capital return priorities.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

How the banks are looking at it?

Wade Suki
Wade Suki
Equity Analyst at Capital One Securities

Yeah, exactly, in terms of leverage.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Yeah. Our banks, which are obviously insiders and have read all of the agreements, they give it 100% equity treatment in the calculation of our compliance with them. That's not necessarily how rating agencies and others necessarily look at it. They haven't spent as much time as the inside banks have to make that determination. So for us to rapidly, we can't really or not intent on levering up to take it out because it has a double whammy, if you will, by converting equity into debt in one respect. So I think it's fair to say that our intent is to really use the excess cash flow. We're not prohibited from, in fact, we have some flexibility under our senior secured credit facilities to harvest it.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

And so as we continue to get closer to our long-term target of four turns on the bank-calculated leverage ratio, we will have the ability in future periods to potentially take it out at a more rapid pace because we have the flexibility under our covenants. But so we have the ability to deal with it, but it is given 100% equity treatment, which is the appropriate treatment from our perspective.

Wade Suki
Wade Suki
Equity Analyst at Capital One Securities

Great. Thank you. And just as we approach the sort of free cash flow inflection point later this year, can you help us in terms of how to think about the timing and maybe even order of magnitude of potential distribution increases?

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

I think that the board will evaluate that at the appropriate time. Again, I think that, as we've discussed, that in my view, but obviously the board needs to weigh in on it, is that it's likely capital allocation is going to be kind of a little bit of all of the above. But in what absolute and/or relative uses of that, I can't speak to that at this point.

Wade Suki
Wade Suki
Equity Analyst at Capital One Securities

Understood. Appreciate that. If I could squeeze a multi-part question in, one more just on soda ash, Grant, you always give us a really good color on sort of supply demand. Would you mind maybe touching on how kind of contracting season went, where you are on that front, and then maybe talk a little bit about some of the end market demand you're seeing, where the weakest areas are and areas of resilience as well? Thank you very much.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Yeah. No, I mean, contracting season went about as expected. I mean, obviously, in the environment of being in a well-supplied market, there was where we had caps and collars, and we typically would price towards the lower end of that range. But we are purposely under the belief that, or under, yeah, our belief that prices are going to rise as we go through 2025, especially, as I said, I mean, we've seen a reduction of almost 4% of the total supply outside of China being shut in, which is going to help significantly balance the market. That we went short-term as much as we could and didn't lock in low prices so that we will benefit as prices increase throughout this year.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

And then, as we get into, if we continue to see a demand recovery and especially additional removal of high-priced synthetic production from the market, then we believe that the macro fundamentals will improve and that when we go into 2026 re-contracting, that we'll be in a significantly different environment than what we were in late 2024 approaching 2025 contract season, so.

Wade Suki
Wade Suki
Equity Analyst at Capital One Securities

Great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, Daniel.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Okay.

Operator

We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to management for closing comments.

Grant Sims
CEO at Genesis Energy L.P.

Again, thanks everybody for listening in, and we'll talk to you in another 90 days, if not sooner. So thanks again.

Operator

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.

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    • Dwayne Morley
      Dwayne Morley
      VP of Investor Relations
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