Kaiser Aluminum Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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April 24, 2025
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Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Kaiser Aluminum Corporation First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. At this time, participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ms.

Operator

Kim Orlando with Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Kimberly Orlando
Senior Managing Director at ADDO Investor Relations

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Kaiser Aluminum's First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. If you have not yet seen a copy of our earnings release, please visit the Investor Relations page on our website at kaiseraluminum.com. We have also posted a PDF version of the slide presentation for this call. Joining me on the call today are Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Keith Harvey and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Neal West.

Kimberly Orlando
Senior Managing Director at ADDO Investor Relations

Before we begin, I'd like to refer you to the first four slides of our presentation and remind you that the statements made by management and the information contained in this presentation that constitute forward looking statements are based on management's current expectations. For a summary of specific risk factors that could cause results to differ materially from the forward looking statements, please refer to the company's earnings release and reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's annual report on Form 10 ks for the full year ended 12/31/2024. The company undertakes no duty to update any forward looking statements to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the company's expectations. In addition, we have included non GAAP financial information in our discussion. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in the earnings release and in the appendix of the presentation.

Kimberly Orlando
Senior Managing Director at ADDO Investor Relations

Reconciliations of certain forward looking non GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP financial measures are not provided because certain items required for such reconciliations are outside of our control and or cannot be reasonably predicted or provided without unreasonable effort. Any reference to EBITDA in our discussion today means adjusted EBITDA, which excludes non run rate items for which we have provided reconciliations in the appendix. Further, slide five contains definitions of terms and measures that will be commonly used throughout today's presentation. At the conclusion of the company's presentation, we will open the call for questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Keith Harvey.

Kimberly Orlando
Senior Managing Director at ADDO Investor Relations

Keith?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Thanks, Kim, and thank you all for joining us for a review of our first quarter twenty twenty five results. Turning to slide seven, we're off to a strong start to the year. Despite ongoing volatility driven by recent trade policy actions, our end markets are tracking in line with the expectations we outlined in February, and our full year outlook has improved with our solid first quarter results. Operationally, we continue to drive positive results for our stakeholders with strengthening demand and effective cost management. A major focus for us is on optimizing overhead across the business, staying true to Kaiser's core principle of being a low cost producer.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Additionally, we benefited from a favorable move in metal pricing, which Neil will expand on shortly. Overall, we're encouraged by the strong momentum we've established and remain confident in our ability to sustain it through the balance of 2025. A major component of the progress we are making is bringing to market two major investments, which are instrumental to planned growth in several of our key end markets. First, our fourth coating line at our Warwick rolling mill is currently undergoing commissioning and will be moving into the customer qualification phase soon. This line plays a critical role in both our growth strategy and for the broader market, where demand for our products remains high and supply remains constrained.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Our customers are eagerly awaiting these coated products, and we are fully committed to meeting that demand as fast as possible while upholding the exceptional quality standards that define Kaiser across all its end markets. Second, our Trentwood Phase seven investment project is progressing smoothly. Equipment has arrived on-site and the team is currently conducting prep exercises to facilitate a seamless installation. The Trentwood team has mastered this process over the course of six major expansions over nearly two decades, expanding our aerospace and general engineering heat treated plate capacity by greater than 2.5 times. The timing for this investment is ideal as our key end markets are expected to recover over the next several quarters.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Together, these investments mark the next phase of growth for Kaiser. We expect the result of these projects to drive a step change in our EBITDA and margin performance that we've previously outlined for the coming years along with the continued pace of deleveraging. Next, I'd like to address the topic of tariffs. In the near term, we believe Kaiser is well positioned to navigate market volatility in the current environment. Our geographic footprint and supply chain are predominantly North American, and our contracts are designed to be metal neutral.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

We're already seeing upside in end markets where uncertainty of supply and rising import fees and costs have increased demand for domestic products. Additionally, our own supply lines have been reviewed and are well diversified, providing us with ample flexibility. Overall, we believe the current trade policy discussions taking place should have a neutral to modestly positive impact on Kaiser. We will remain nimble and act diligently on these issues as trade negotiations continue to evolve. Longer term, reshoring is a trend we've been focused on since the COVID-nineteen pandemic, and we're witnessing credible and tangible signs this is occurring.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Our geographic footprint gives us a strong advantage. And with the largest product offering of highly engineered aluminum products in the market, we are very well positioned to grow alongside our valued customers. Now let me turn the call over to Neil for more details on our first quarter results. Neil?

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Thank you, Keith, and good morning, everyone. Before I begin, I'd like to remind everyone that effective January 1, we changed our inventory valuation methodology from last in, first out, or LIFO, to weighted average cost. We believe this change better reflects the physical flow of inventory and changes in metal cost. For comparability purposes, we have recasted our 2023 and 2024 results to reflect the weighted average cost methodology for those periods. Therefore, all year over year comparisons to year end 2024 for this presentation and going forward will be based on these recasted results.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Please refer to our press release issued on April 2 for further details on this matter. I'll now turn to Slide nine for an overview of our shipments and conversion revenue. Conversion revenue for the first quarter was $363,000,000 a decrease of approximately $4,000,000 or 1% compared to the prior year period. Looking at each of our end markets in detail, aerospace and high strength conversion revenue totaled $121,000,000 down $16,000,000 or approximately 12%, reflecting a 10% decline in shipments over last year. As indicated, during our year end earnings call, we expected our shipments to be impacted in the near term from disruptions stemming from commercial aircraft OEM order patterns, which affected the entire supply chain.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

While commercial aircraft OEM demand was down, our business jet, defense and space demand remained strong. Packaging conversion revenue totaled $127,000,000 up $9,000,000 or approximately 8% year over year on an improved mix of higher value added products. Conversely, our shipments declined 9% due to a reduction in bare products as we begin to pivot towards higher volumes of coated material, work to finish commissioning our new roll coat line and begin qualifying products with our customers. Aside from this short term nuance, the underlying demand for our products remains strong and we are working closely with our customers to prioritize production and deliveries as we move through this transition. General engineering conversion revenue for the first quarter was $84,000,000 up $3,000,000 or 4% year over year on a 12% increase in shipments.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Broader market factors specifically around trade policies and their potential negative impact on import availability created a favorable environment in this end market driving higher demand and solid pricing. Our long standing commitment to the delivery of high quality Kaiser Select products along with industry leading service continue to support our customers and garner a premium in the marketplace. And finally, automotive conversion revenue of $32,000,000 increased modestly by 2% year over year on a 9% decrease in shipments, primarily due to improved product mix of higher value added products. Additional details on conversion revenue, shipments by end market applications can be found in the appendix of this presentation. Moving to slide 10, reported operating income for the first quarter was $41,000,000 After adjusting for non run rate costs of approximately $2,000,000 reductions, our adjusted operating income was $43,000,000 up $18,000,000 year over year.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Our effective tax rate for the first quarter was 25% compared to 23% in the first quarter of twenty twenty four due primarily to the timing of certain tax credits. For the full year 2025, we continue to expect our effective tax rate before discrete items to be in the low to mid-twenty percent range under current tax regulations. Additionally, we anticipate that 2025 cash tax payments for federal, state and foreign taxes will be in the 5,000,000 to $7,000,000 range. Reported net income for the first quarter was $22,000,000 or net income of $1.31 per diluted share compared to net income of $18,000,000 or $1.12 net income per diluted share in the prior year quarter. After adjusting for non run rate charges of approximately $2,000,000 adjusted net income for the first quarter twenty twenty five was $24,000,000 or adjusted income of $1.44 per diluted share compared to adjusted net income of $10,000,000 or adjusted income of $0.62 per diluted share in the prior year period.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Now turning to Slide 11. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $73,000,000 up approximately $19,000,000 from the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of conversion revenue improved approximately five fifty basis points from the first quarter of twenty twenty four to 20.2%. The improvement in adjusted EBITDA was driven by improved pricing and mix of higher value added products approximating $3,000,000 as well as an increase in metal lag gain of about $16,000,000 from the prior year period. The increase in the metal lag gain was driven primarily by spike in Midwest transaction price following the announcement for increased aluminum tariffs earlier in the quarter.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Furthermore, we continue to drive operational improvements by optimizing efficiencies, leveraging recent capital investments, executing strategic metal sourcing initiatives and maintaining a disciplined approach to cost management across the business. Now turning to a discussion of our balance sheet and cash flow. On 03/31/2025, total cash of approximately $21,000,000 and approximately $555,000,000 of borrowing availability on our revolving credit facility equated to a strong liquidity position of approximately $577,000,000 There were no borrowings under our revolving credit facility as of the quarter end and it currently remains undrawn. As a reminder, our senior notes interest costs are fixed at $48,000,000 annually and we have no debt maturing until 2028. As of the end of the first quarter, our net debt leverage ratio improved to 3.9 times from the 4.3 times at year end, tracking towards our target leverage ratio of two to 2.5 times.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Turning to capital allocation. We generated solid cash flow from operations of $57,000,000 during the first quarter with our capital expenditures totaling $38,000,000 resulting in a free cash flow of approximately $19,000,000 For the full year 2025, our capital expenditures are projected to be in a range of 120,000,000 to $130,000,000 including some remaining costs for the fourth coating line project at Wort and completion of our Phase seven expansion at Trentwood. As both projects are nearing completion or are well underway, we do not anticipate any material impact on our guidance from trade policy discussions. As a result, we expect to generate more than $100,000,000 of free cash flow for the full year of 2025, driven by the relatively low capital expenditures and reduced working capital demand across the portfolio, which will drive further reduction in our net debt leverage. Finally, on April 15, we announced that our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.77 per common share, reinforcing their confidence in our long term strategy to drive increasing profitable growth and maximizing stockholder value.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

And now I'll turn the call back over to Keith to discuss our 2025 outlook. Keith?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Thanks, Neil. As we look ahead to the remainder of 2025, our outlook for all of our end markets remains consistent with the outlook we provided during our February call. Starting on Slide 13 with aero and high strength. The commercial aerospace supply chain is showing signs of regaining health. Large commercial aircraft production is off to a better start in 2025 with new aircraft orders and deliveries having rebounded, fueling even stronger backlogs than before.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

For Kaiser specifically, steady customer order flow gives us confidence that any potential impact from short term inventory imbalances or delays of certain deliveries due to trade related actions will have minimal impact on our performance. Activity remains steady at strong levels in our defense, space and business jet applications, just as it has for several quarters. Let's move on to packaging on Slide 14. We are commissioning our new roll code line, after which we'll begin customer qualifications and the process of ramping production with the expectation of reaching full run rate levels late in the second half of twenty twenty five. This is fully in line with the expectations we shared on our February call.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Importantly, the timing of this significant investment is highly favorable following four consecutive quarters of constrained capacity products with the present North American production footprint unable to meet rising market demand. We are committed to bringing our new capacity online as quickly as possible to meet our customers' growing needs. Turning now to General Engineering on Slide 15. We saw strong momentum in General Engineering demand throughout the first quarter. In our long products, we remain encouraged by the steady improvements we are seeing in our order books, even with inventories in the supply chain remaining at historic low levels.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

For heat treated sheet and plate products, we have been benefiting from trade related uncertainty, which is driving demand toward Kaiser and other domestic supply. Additionally, we expect the completion of our Phase seven expansion project at our Trentwood Rolling Mill in the second half of this year will enable us to meet the growing needs of our customers for general engineering heat treated plate demand well into the future. Finally, turning to automotive on Slide 16. We remain well positioned in automotive. While it represents a smaller portion of our overall business, our strength lies in the specific platforms we serve, which are primarily SUVs and light truck end use application.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Our geographic footprint and alignment with these high demand segments support ongoing stability and resilience market despite the expectation for North American industry production to be flat to down modestly in 2025 versus last year. Now turning to our summary outlook on Slide 17. Given the recent market volatility, it's important to remind you of our philosophy and how we manage our company. First, we manage for the long term, which means quarterly results may be lumpy at times and progress may accelerate or pause as determined by market conditions and our resulting actions. Through it all, we will manage as we always have, with a long term strategic focus on our served end markets with differentiated products and services that meet or exceed the needs of our customers.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Second, we maintain a disciplined approach allocation to secure and improve our position with our customers to meet their growing needs and deliver long term solid returns for our shareholders. And finally, we work diligently to minimize the risk to the overall business in any environment with a mantra that we manage for, not through economic diversity, which is the driving force for our focus on cost, preferred market positions, and financial strength with dynamic liquidity management. With that, our market outlook for 2025 remains unchanged at this time. We continue to project 5% to 10% growth year over year in conversion revenue for 2025. Additionally, we are raising our full year 2025 EBITDA expectations 5% to 10% above our recasted 2024 adjusted EBITDA of $241,000,000 Reiterating that earnings in the second half of the year, excluding the metal lag tailwind in Q1, will be growing as our new investments come online.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

With that, I will now open the call to any questions you may have. Operator?

Operator

Thank Our first question comes from the line of Bill Peterson with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

Yes. Hi. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking the questions. I have questions on the end markets, but first, I want to ask about margins and maybe the guidance before that. So I guess, first of all, excluding the metal lags, what drove the quarter on quarter margin progression?

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

Is this a matter of fixed cost absorption? And then for the guidance, if we think about the midpoint of the value added revenue and EBITDA guidance both up, I guess, 7.5% at the midpoint. That would imply year on year sort of flat margins at 16.5% and then stepped down, I guess, quarter on quarter into the back half of the year. So how should we think about the cadence and the trajectory of the I guess, in terms of margins through the balance of the year?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Okay. Hey, good morning, Bill. Hey, thanks for the question. So I think one of the things we want to make pretty clear on our outlook and how guidance, we knew that we had made an inventory change, a way that we look at that. And the reasons we did that is through an analysis, we really felt that weighted average cost, it really better reflected, you know, the management of inventory physically through our business and a more timely recognition of market price changes.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And we recasted that and our recasted numbers really helped prove that analysis out. And you'll see the queue in the queue comparison of how had we stayed on LIFO, what the numbers would have looked like, especially in the first quarter as related to what we proved. So that was the change that took place and metal just happened to move in that quarter and the average over that period was relatively high and we had a tailwind on that. And so we wanted to call that out and say, okay, that transpired. But getting back to the core part of the business, when you're looking at it, the the the quarter came in as we expected and perhaps a little better than we expected given the challenges that took place, you know, with all the tariff discussions and all this.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And just to give you a little bit of insight into that, when when President Trump came out with the the full blown tariffs, we took a deep dive in the whole company. And I think those were the could be the worst case at the time. And we really convinced ourselves that our supply chain is well positioned. We have flexibility. We most of our business as we said was focused on North American.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

So that gave us a lot of confidence in that whatever we're going through right here is really going to be neutral to positive for Kaiser Aluminum. And then we saw that in the order structure that took place during the quarter. We started to see business start to navigate our way where historically it may have gone to imports and other things. So overall, we believe that situation bodes well for Kaiser. Now from a margin perspective, Bill, if you go back and you look and we stated that the journey was recovering back to mid-20s of our business, the mid-twenty percent margin.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And we're we're at about 16 and a half now. You know, again, we haven't initiated the investments yet. They are just coming online. And as we start to deploy those, you know, the the the crucibles of what we said the returning back to that still hold true. So we see 300 to 400 basis points for the entire business coming up once we hit that full run rate.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

We're starting to see metal, the metal supply situation that we expected to deliver 150 basis to 200 basis points. That started to normalize and recover into the first quarter with metal spreads that they were. So that's still on track. And then we'll start getting back into the aerospace recovery with the new investment and then back to getting another additional 100 to 200 basis points on getting back the efficiencies in the operation. So it still holds true.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

We're still focused on delivering up to the mid-20s, mid to high 20s on the margin, on the result on the pace of that. Right now we look at to be in the 16% to 17% some type margin, but that could expediate itself as soon as we deliver these investments and start supplying that business.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

Yes, great. Thanks for that comprehensive answer. I'd like to kind of walk through some of the end markets here and maybe starting with packaging. And I think you already were alluding to some of this. But I guess how should we think about the shipments when we think about the first quarter being down?

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

I think you talked about deprioritizing bare products and focusing on coated. But do we assume a similar focus on coated and value added continuing in the third quarter the second quarter and then into the back half of the year. And I guess for this, I think you might have mentioned, but the 300 to 400 basis point, does this include the new packaging contracts kicking in during this course of this year into next year?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

It will, Bill. And it really starts to accelerate in 2026. So we have new contracts. But as you know, we're finalizing a couple of major contracts. We've made good progress during the quarter and bringing those to fruition.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

But when we start delivering, you will start to see and as our outlook has given, we've stated some pretty hefty increases in our conversion revenue and you will really start to see that ramping up in the second half of the year. We had pretty good improvement from the conversion revenue in the first quarter. That's on existing contracts and really just starting to gravitate to more in the first quarter of the higher margin coated. That really will start to come online in the second half. We talked in the second quarter, it's really going to be about proving the line, getting those customer qualifications and then as quick as possible start to delivering product to customers.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And so we're confident of that demand. We're confident of the need. We're not meeting the needs of those customers yet. We want to hit that and we will. But you'll start seeing that ramp up in the second half very strongly as regards to packaging.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

Okay. Thanks for that. And then maybe thinking about auto real quick, some of the third parties are talking about light auto production down high single digits. I know you're on certain platforms, but I guess what gives you confidence that the trucks and SUVs can remain somewhat insulated? And maybe if there is further weakness or weaker than you're expecting, what kind of downside protection do you have in some of your auto contracts?

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

And I guess are there any in maybe general engineering or other ones too if there's some broader weakness?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Yes. So automotive is pretty interesting for us, Bill. As I said, we're on select programs, platforms. And you could take a look at the headlines that have been taking place. So we're really across all those platforms, especially around like trucks and SUVs.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And while you may hear a certain manufacturer going down or or slowing down somewhat, you you see the other two competitors perhaps strengthening shipments on light trucks and adding capacity. So we have strong positions in the all of those and the parts that we supply really go across each one of those platforms. So and some of these are new platforms for us, Bill. So that's what gives us confidence in our outlook even knowing that the demand may soften through the year. And the other thing I'll add is on the programs, I think the last note statistic I saw was we're still about 70% to 80% of the demand is on light trucks and SUVs.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And so even if it comes down, we're going to come down on that. The other components that we have that are more broad based builder like on anti lock brake systems, you know, the valves and things for those structural components. Every car out there, whether it's an EV or an ICE vehicle is going to have analog brake systems. So the programs that we're on, you know, we could go down if the overall demand decreased. But with the if you recall, we reset prices for these products and that's coming through in our numbers in Q1.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And we have new programs that are launching. So I feel pretty confident about we should be able to weather the storm. A reminder to you and all our others, the auto is our smallest it's about 8% of our business. So we know that there's some still would be some impact, but the impact would be relatively small on us. And you brought up a good comment about general engineering.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

I'm actually feeling pretty bullish about our position on general engineering. I was a little concerned when inventory levels started to move down, but even with and sometimes we can see a month to month change with really high metal customers may try to get in orders that are that are, you know, have a high a lower metal cost. So you may see some lumpiness in month over month. But I've been tracking all of our orders on a daily basis. And the order rate continues to be good.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

I won't say it's super strong. You know, we we set it at low inventories, but we're really positioned well in this market. We bring a broad product offering to this market. We mainly service it through service centers and some select customers, right, through like semiconductor and other type of applications. And we're seeing some pretty good green shoots starting to come from that side of the business as well.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And so with what's taking place with the trade policy discussions, I actually think it's a positive multiplier for Kaiser Aluminum on the general engineering side of the business. So and the last thing, I know you didn't specifically ask it, but on the aerospace side, we said in our February outlook that we were going to see the first half probably a little slower because of the inventory and supply chain issues that some of the folks were having. That's playing out for us as we expected. But we also see production beginning to ramp back up. They're moving toward more build rates.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

So it's in line and that's the reason we reiterated our outlook for the full year. So overall, I would have to say, we came out with a great quarter from my perspective given the market environment we're in, and then we raised expectations for the full year beyond that. So in the volatile world that we're in right now, I'm feeling pretty good about where our business currently lies.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

Yeah. Actually, my last question was on Arrow. I think you largely answered it. But just to be clear, I guess, where do you think we stand in the destocking cycle in particular within commercial? Sounds like your other three parts of your aerospace are tracking at least the plan.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

Just trying to get a sense for how we should think about the trajectory and maybe exit rate this year on the aerospace side.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Yeah. Well, the great thing that's going on Bill, and it's data driven. I said in my comments, so we're starting to see the build rates grow from where they were last year. And and this is across, you know, both major airframers here. It's it's tracking as we expected.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

So for instance, on Boeing, they're they're really moving towards the 38 rate. I think in in Kelly's comments, he talked about moving to 42 before the end of the year and then moving to 47 as quick as they can next year. So that's in alignment with where we saw things beginning to ramp back up. And so I think we're probably about midway through that destocking. We expect to see continued orders.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

I think another thing from a Kaiser perspective, we on our contracts, we try to manage you know, for for the minimums and maximums that we provide. So we feel pretty confident about where we are on that. And so I think we're we're going down the path as soon as those ramp rates begin to come back. I think you're gonna see the supply chain get healthier as fast as they can ramp.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

Great. Thanks for taking, you know, all the questions we we had and, you know, lots going on. Good luck navigating this sort of challenging macro and micro. And we'll look forward to catching up soon. Thank you.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Okay. Thanks, Bill. Appreciate the insights.

Operator

Thank you. Mr. Harvey, I'm seeing no other questions. I'll turn the floor back to you for final comments.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Thank you, operator. We remain well positioned to deliver on our strategic growth plan following the largest investment cycle in our recent history. We believe strengthening market position, persistent focus on reducing costs and our steady deleveraging are going to drive improved value for all of our stakeholders. We thank you for your interest in Kaiser Aluminum and look forward to sharing our progress with you later this summer on our second quarter call. Goodbye.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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