Cleveland-Cliffs Inc.
Q2 2015 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 29 Jul 2015

[Operator:]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Michelle and I am your conference facilitator today. I would like to welcome everyone to Cliffs Natural Resources 2015 Second Quarter Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. The company reminds you that certain comments made on today’s call will include predictive statements that are intended to be made as forward-looking within the Safe Harbor protections of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although the company believes that its forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Important factors that could cause results to differ materially are set forth in reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q and news releases filed with the SEC, which are available at the company website. Today’s conference call will also available and being broadcast at cliffsnaturalresources.com. At the conclusion of the call, it will be archived on the website and available for replay. The company will also discuss results excluding certain special items. Reconciliation for Regulation G purposes can be found in our earnings release, which was published this morning. At this time, I would like to introduce Kelly Tompkins, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

[Kelly Tompkins:]

Thank you, Michelle, and thanks to everyone for joining us on this morning’s call. I’m joined today by our Chairman, President and CEO, Lourenco Goncalves. I’ll kick off the call with a review of our second quarter results and related financial commentary before turning it over to Lourenco for his remarks. Last quarter and my first call as Cliffs CFO, I stressed the importance of focusing on what we can control in this challenging business environment, including maintaining ample liquidity. As I review our results, certain metrics stand out, considering the challenging market conditions we have been operating in this past quarter. Let me state right out of the gate that Cliffs has ample liquidity as we ended the quarter with cash and available capacity on our ABL facility in excess of $600 million net of existing letters of credit commitments. As for our results this quarter, I’ll begin by addressing the single biggest item that negatively impacted this quarter results, namely a significant reduction in one of our customer’s hot band steel price estimates. In short, based on quarter end input from one of our major formula based customers whose pallet supply agreement is heavily influenced by their selling price of hot band steel, our customers’ estimate for hot band price has dropped by approximately $60 per ton, compared to the estimate in the first quarter. This adjustment resulted in a cash margin and EBITDA hit of about $20 million in the quarter. As we have noted before, this price is not tied to any publicized price such as AMM or Plat, but rather the actual selling price of our customers and product. Throughout the year, we adjust the forecasted price based on information provided by our customer and provisionally book our revenues accordingly. After the end of the quarter, our customers’ updated forecast for their prices was substantially lower than the prior quarter. To put this quarter’s price in context, our current hot band estimate is approximately $150 per ton lower than our estimate at this time last year, or about $6 per ton on the overall revenue rate between years. If we had not been presented with this forecast change, our realized revenue per ton this quarter would have been about $83 per ton, right in line with our previous guidance. Moving on, we have revised our sales and production guidance down to reflect the current nominations we have on hand from our clients. Given our existing inventory on hand, we have the opportunity to optimize working capital and still meet our current sales forecast. We expect sales of about five and half million tons in the third quarter, with the remainder coming in Q4. Importantly, we have been able to maintain our cost guidance despite these additional volume cuts, with much credit owed to our operating teams who continue to do outstanding work on our operating costs. Lourenco will have further comments on this in a few minutes. As we move into the height of the shipping season during the second half of the year, we should see most, if not all of our working capital usage reversed. And to further bolster our cash position, we expect to receive in the next few weeks an anticipated $160 million federal tax refund. In terms of our capital expenditures and SG&A expenses during the second quarter, I can assure you that both continue to be managed closely. Including our coal operations, cash capital spending dropped to $19 million this quarter, a 70% reduction when compared to last year second quarter. It’s worth noting that included in our $100 million to $125 million CapEx guidance is approximately $25 million related to our remaining coal operations, which if divested would further reduce our overall CapEx spend. Our second quarter SG&A expenses were $31 million, down 25% from the prior year second quarter expense of $41 million. As conditions dictate, we will continue to adjust our overall SG&A expense to make sure it matches our US iron ore strategy and operating footprint and would expect some reduction beyond this year. For 2015, we are maintaining our annual SG&A guidance of $120 million. One point regarding interest expense worth noting before I turn the call over to Lourenco, as we’ve guided to 2015 interest expense of around $235 million, please note that this includes both cash interest and non-cash deferred charges and discount amortization. The cash flow impact on a full year basis is approximately $205 million. With that I’d like to turn the call over to Lourenco for his prepared remarks.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Thank you, Kelly and thanks for everyone for joining us on this morning’s call. Looking over the past year, we are executing our strategy with discipline. Against the backdrop of a brutal market for iron ore and coal, we continue to resolve all the issues left to us by the previous regime, while making the tough decisions needed to ensure Cliffs long-term prosperity. Among those decisions, the most important one was to exit the eastern Canadian iron ore business by means of a well-planned and executed CCAA filing. Further, the inclusion we made of Wabush in the CCAA process should facilitate a more comprehensive restructuring and sales process of both the Bloom Lake Group and the Wabush Group and a more complete exit from Canada. The Wabush fillings also mitigated approximately $135 million in liabilities associated with the Wabush Group, which contributed a substantial gain for the quarter. For the last three months, as part of the CCAA proceedings, our Canadian entities have been involved in port supervised sales process. Binding bids for our Canadian assets were due July 16 and we are now evaluating the various proposals received. The process is on schedule and further information is available on the monitor’s website, which has been published in our recent SEC filings. During the Q&A portion of the call, Kelly and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the CCAA process. We have also moved forward with the divestiture of several other assets, such as the next to impossible sale of the chromite assets in the Ring of Fire and the sale of the three coal mines that constitute Logan County Coal. As for the remaining coal assets, Pinnacle and Oak Grove, we continue to work diligently with interested buyers towards a deal, which we expect to announce in the very near future. Another significant accomplishment of this past year was the successful replacement of the overly restrictive, covenant heavy revolver line of credit, which if maintained, would have precluded us from making several important moves. The revolver was replaced with a much more user friendly ABL and supplemented with senior notes issued with no restrictive payment basket. Let me repeat that. Our senior notes have no RP basket restriction. With that, we control our destiny and our use of cash, not the banks, not the bond holders. Now turning to the quarterly results, our Asia-Pacific iron ore generated adjusted EBITDA of $17 million. Continued cost reductions in this segment have been essential and our Australian team has definitely delivered. During the month of May, we ceased operations at the Windarling site and currently only operate out of two sites, Koolyanobbing and Mount Jackson. In addition to increased efficiencies and lower mining costs, we are also benefiting from an aggressive headcount in reduction effort. We saw the full benefits of these actions during the month of June when our cash production cost was in the $28 per ton range. To the extent the currency bond pricing environment persists, we will continue to pursue further cost reduction opportunities in order to stay cash flow positive, as we have done so far this year. Now, let’s move on to the results for the US iron ore business. As Kelly noted earlier, there was on adjustment this quarter for one of our customer contracts that ties to their realized hot-rolled steel pricing. Despite this unfavorable adjustment, we were still able to report adjusted EBITDA of $77 million in the US iron ore segment, helped in large part by our impressive cost reduction. While our 21% EBITDA margin is not as good as what we reported in the previous three quarters, it is still a sign of a strong US based business when compared with all other US players, including the steel mills, the service centers and the pellet supplier currently operating in bankruptcy. Our cash production cost of $56 per ton is the lowest we have seen in years out of this segment and confirms Cliffs’ position as the most efficient, high quality pellet producer in the country. Besides our relentless focus on cost reduction initiatives ranging from maintenance and repairs and reduced headcounts to decreased overtime and profit sharing costs, we have also been helped from reduced energy rates related to both natural gas and diesel fuel. During the second quarter, we saw our blast furnace clients reduce their nominations. Only yesterday, the mills filed an anti-dumping lawsuit that should bring their sales and consequently their production back up in the second half of the year. However, our clients have not yet increased their nominations. In view of the current customer nominations we have in hand and our current inventory levels, we will be temporarily handling production at our United Taconite facility. We will execute the idle of UTAC in a manner to ensure that we can promptly bring production back as soon as the level of demand from our clients justifies that. Bottom-line, as the absurdly high rates of imported steel penetration reverts back to normal levels and our clients’ blast furnaces return to normal operating levels; we expect to be able to adjust our production and our sales volume accordingly. And importantly, let me reiterate, despite the reduction in production tonnage, we are maintaining our previously guided cost expectations. We remain highly confident in our USIO centric strategy, despite this compressed, yet is still strong EBITDA margins. The US is the place that Cliffs belongs and where we will be long-term. With the very real prospect of growth that lie in serving the electric arc furnace market, Cliffs will prosper and be stronger, supplying both blast furnace and EAF steel makers in the united states. China on the other hand may just be seeing the very beginning of a long debilitating hangover and we want to avoid that as much as possible. Our decision to exit eastern Canadian thankfully reduced our overall exposure to the very volatile seaborne iron ore markets. And our aggressive cost cutting in APIO has enabled that business to remain profitable. The actions of the ROA majors have the clearly stated intent to first create the impression of oversupply, and second, if not stopped by their respective board of directors and shareholders, proceed to actually oversupply the market until no other miner in the world can even give their iron ore to the Chinese. China does not need any more low iron content, iron ore as a major source of pollution and our US market does not need any more subsidized imported steel fed by bad ore. As this unfolds, the next few years or even the next two or three years could be very painful for those that bet the firm on China. Luckily, we have the ability to separate ourselves from this catastrophe before it’s too late and focus on a US market whose worst days are likely behind us. Finally, I would like to send a word to all Cliffs’ employees who are working day in and day out to build the future of this great American company. You have done a great job and I thank you all very much for that. Because of your great expertise in this business and your phenomenal execution against a backdrop of the worst market conditions ever, we will be here at Cliffs well after each one of the naysayers are long gone. Spreadsheet specialists and computer screen wizards do not know a good pellet from a bad one and have never built a pellet plant within a realistic budget and against a real type timetable. As this first year has passed, a second one will pass as well. With the actions we have taken and the discipline of the implementation of our strategy, we are fully prepared to prosper and to be here for a long, long time. With that, I’ll turn it over to the operator to direct the Q&A part of the call.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Michael Gambardella of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

[Michael Gambardella:]

Good morning Lourenco. I have a question just in terms of you are cutting your guidance somewhat on production in the USIO, but you’re also talking about the potential for the US industry to pick up production with some of the trade cases and just the premiums I guess being down in the US and pricing will extract some of the imports to much lower level than other locations. But are you seeing any signs from your customers yet of pick up in production?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Yes I do. Thanks for the call, Michael -- thanks for the question Michael, but yeah, the answer is yes. We are seeing some signs. However, the trade cases are -- they basically filed the last one yesterday and we are expecting for the one on hard-roll. So they haven’t officially revised their nominations yet. So based on current nominations on hand, we have enough inventory to take care of the existing business, but we do expect those nominations to go up during the second half and as soon as that happens, we will revise our guidance accordingly. But at this very point, that’s what we have on hand. I’m a realistic guy. I never promise what I can’t accomplish.

[Michael Gambardella:]

And just in terms of -- we kind of -- I think everyone would agree imports are heading down, whether from the trade cases or the lower prices here in the US. But in terms of the domestic producers in the second quarter with scrap prices down, we saw steel dynamics, sheet shipments up 24% I think. New core was up 12%, but X and AK were relatively flat, modest increase. Do you see that continuing into the third quarter and many is gaining share and how does that impact you?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Like I said, based on the nominations we have on hand, that’s what we can at this point commit in terms of volumes of shipment. But even price affected our guidance going forward. If things go the right way, that guidance will go up as well as far as the impact of hot-rolled price. But at this point, that’s what we have, Mike. And hope is not part of my strategy. Facts are. We are dealing day in and day out with situations like cash flow, like being down debt, like taking care of business, like staying in business, taking away all threats of about the long-term viability of this company. So we are comfortable actually with the current guidance, but the upside is clearly a possibility and I believe that’s very concrete at this point. But it’s still – I think that we don’t have one yet.

[Michael Gambardella:]

Thank you very much. Keep it up.

[Operator:]

The next question comes from Brett Levy from CRT Capital. Your line is open.

[Brett Levy:]

Hey Lourenco. Hey Kelly. Let me ask, I’m going to quote Jim Wainscott directly from yesterday’s AK call. He says in addition to continuing his relationship with Magnetation that he’s got significant other folks wanting to supply him and that sort of thing, sort of the eyes obviously would look towards you guys as a likely source of increased interest potentially given that situation. But can you just talk about the competitive environment sort of what you’re seeing from Essar Minnesota as a potential new competitor? And then also talk a little bit about your opportunities among the EAF producers, where you see the end use as being most a source of demand for additional clips iron ore pellets.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Okay. It is a big question about a lot of things, but let’s try to address all of your points, Brett. First of all, competition in the marketplace. At this point we have one supplier for merchant pellets in the US market and that’s Magnetation. Their cost structure is well-known and took them to bankruptcy. So that’s a fact. We don’t need to say anything beyond that. As far as the quality, you should ask that to Jim Wainscott because he is the one using the Magnetation pellets and I’m a competitor so I will not comment on the quality of the pellets that are produced from [indiscernible] instead of from a real mine. As far as Essar Minnesota, it is still a thing that’s under construction and until they produce the first pellets, they are not a competitor. They are just a pretense competitor. So I don’t see any threat coming from that place. As far as supplying the EAF, that’s our future. We are going to in the next couple of years to be a company supplying blast furnaces and EAF steel makers through their DRI facilities through a combined DRI efforts with [indiscernible]. We are very excited about the current development that has been done together with a manor mini mill, Nucor and we are very excited with the steps that we’re taking together, but that’s all I can have to say at this point.

[Brett Levy:]

And then the next one, any curtailments kind of on Lake Michigan or anywhere else? How are you concerned about future volumes from your major customers?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

I’m sorry. Can you repeat the beginning of the question?

[Brett Levy:]

There’s people who have sort of idle blast furnaces or cut down the size of their overall businesses, it may or may not be a threat to your long-term contracts.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Look, like I said, we are working with the nominations we have in hand right now and they are basically reflecting the current situation of our blast furnace customers. If that changes, it will change for the better. Do we have anything in hand right now? No, we do not. But with the trade case, that’s what we expect, but we are making all of our calculations, all of our projections and all of our forecast for the worst case scenario. And that’s the worst case scenario that I am putting on paper, on the press release and I’m talking about in this conference call.

[Brett Levy:]

All right, thanks very much, Lourenco.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

You’re very welcomed Brett. Good luck with your new position at CRT.

[Brett Levy:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

The next question comes from Kevin Cohen from Imperial Capital. Your line is open.

[Kevin Cohen:]

Good morning and thanks for taking the questions. I guess Lourenco going back to your comment about Cliffs controlling its own destiny and this is probably a little bit of a Kelly question as well, but when you think about minimum liquidity the company needs to maintain on hand and taking into account current prospective industry trends, do you think there is a logic to the company perhaps continuing to repurchase debt in a secondary market or do you think the better use of excess liquidity to the extent there is any, is to keep that on the balance sheet?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Kevin, thanks for asking the question. It’s always our pleasure to speak with you. Look, like I said during my prepared remarks, we control our destiny as far as the use of cash, not the banks, not the bondholders. So we’ll make that decision at the time that we’ll make that decision. All options are open. I had to work very hard when I was issued the bonds to keep it free flowing out of basket, because I want this way. That’s the way it was. I want the markets to expect the unexpected. That’s the way Cliffs will survive. I know it’s a tough battle here. I knew coming in. I was already invited to come in. I came in because I wanted and the shareholders elected me to come here. But a difficult war like that will take a lot of difficult decisions and I’m ready to take them at the right time. So I’m not going to give you that.

[Kevin Cohen:]

And then as it relates to the $160 million of cash and flow from the tax receivable, any contemplation on the use or proceeds there or just cash in the balance sheet for now?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

That’s a good chunk of dough and it’s going to hit soon. We were expecting to receive that more toward the end of the year, but our financial folks here at Cliffs are very good. The tax group did a phenomenal job in expediting things so this cash will come very soon. We are expecting the check to be received here in the next few weeks. How I’m going to use that cash, I’m not going to tell you.

[Kevin Cohen:]

And then just the last question, thanks for the patience. When you think about the coal asset sale and the general tone in commodities, it sounded like you had an optimistic tone about being able to divest the remaining two mines. Is there anything new in the marketplace that gives you that confidence or keeps you confident on that front?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Well, so far since I joined Cliffs, there was only one meaningful transaction in the coal markets and that was the sale of Logan County for cash and nobody was expecting that one. So one more time, stay tuned because we are working hard to get the deal done for Oak Grove and Pinnacle.

[Kevin Cohen:]

Thanks very much and good luck as always.

[Operator:]

The next question comes from Timna Tanners from Bank of America. Your line is open.

[Timna Tanners:]

Good morning. Hey guys, I really appreciated the insights into your contact pricing that we got this quarter in light of the HRC component and the major customer that you detailed, but I just wanted to understand a little bit better. I didn’t realize this was so lumpy when they come up with the updated forecast. Can they – can you help us understand? Is it possible that they might have a price recovery would again raise that and you could raise your assumptions or how could we see this trajectory if we were to expect prices to increase by the end of the year? How could that affect your realization?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

You perceived well. We were surprised as well. We historically we haven’t seen in this company -- I’m not even talking about just the time I’m here. That’s just one year, but our folks here at Cliffs they were surprised by the depth of the variation between one quarter and the other. That was extremely unusual. However, it goes both ways. As soon as we have a walkover and I’m sure that there’s still new are not filing anti-dumping lawsuits just because they would like to have funding in Washington DC, it’s because they need to recover their prices badly because Q2 was not good for any of the blast furnace that reported for four and we are tied by the hip with him. They go up, we go up. They go down, we go down. The fluctuations in the hot rolled prices will affect us positively if they pushed prices up as we expect them to do.

[Timna Tanners:]

And they gave you their forecast next what, 12 months, next quarter for hot rolled and what they’re charging their customers? Is that how it works?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

I will let Kelly answer that, Timna. Please Kelly.

[Kelly Tompkins:]

Timna, they give us at the end of each quarter what their hot rolled pricing is and we make our own internal adjustment based off that, but it’s, if you will kind of a rolling quarterly look and then we chew it up at the end of the year. To Lourenco’s point, there’s certainly upside potential as much as there was this time with the downside.

[Timna Tanners:]

Got you, okay. And then the other question I wanted to ask was just to understand on the EA upside, my conversations lately with Steel Dynamics and Gerdau suggest that they’re expecting scrap prices to stay low forever and aren’t as concerned about finding an iron ore alternative. I just want to know besides new coal DRI facilities, is there still chatter of other alternatives that we had been hearing in the past? I just don’t know what the updated thinking is outside of the publicly traded companies.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Timna, as far as scrap and DRI, I think it’s about time for the analysts to understand that for the mini news, it’s not just a matter of cost. It’s a matter of market. It’s a matter of the ability to do things that they can’t do and produce products that they can’t produce and address markets that they can’t address, they stay on with scrap. Let alone the fact that the availability and the quality of good scrap has been deteriorating quickly in the United States. So going towards iron substituted – I’m sorry, scrap, iron base and scrap substitutes, is not only a matter of cost, even though cost will be always a factor, no doubt about it, but it will be a matter of being able to address a more valuing use, to address markets that will pay more for value-added. And that’s what Nucor and you mentioned Steel Dynamics -- I haven’t been discussing with Gerdau recently, but I believe that would be the same approach that they need to go after iron substitutes like Nucor is already going, like Steel Dynamics is interested in doing as well and hopefully we’ll become a client when we put our DRI facility here in the Great Lakes area. This is an opening, a market for them that will be very important as they sell to more sophisticated and highly paying clients. For us it’s a matter of growing our business here in our market. We are the ones that can do that. We have the iron ore. We have the technical competency to develop the product and the process and we have the partnership with Nucor at this point that we are very excited about. That’s the way I see it.

[Timna Tanners:]

Okay, thank you.

[Operator:]

The next question comes from Aldo Mazzaferro from Macquarie. Your line is open.

[Aldo Mazzaferro:]

Hi, good morning Lourenco. I just had a couple of random questions also here. On the coal side, there was a big earnings number. I know it’s discontinued operation, but can you break that down a little bit for us and say how do you generate that kind of income?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Remember that discontinued operations includes coal, but includes other things as well. That one came from the inclusion of Wabush into the CCAA thing and when we did that, we had some liabilities that were reverted into gain. I will let Kelly explain that in a little more detail. Kelly, please.

[Kelly Tompkins:]

Sure. Aldo, what Lourenco laid out is basically the case and there will be additional detail on our 10-Q which will be filed later today. But in short, the deconsolidation of Wabush and the reversal of Wabush liabilities is what contributed substantially to driving that gain this quarter, offset by coal’s discontinued ops, which took away from some of that game. But that detail will be laid out in the 10-Q, but suffice it to say it’s driven by the Wabush liability reversal.

[Aldo Mazzaferro:]

That reversal was probably a noncash item then, right?

[Kelly Tompkins:]

Yeah, for the most part.

[Aldo Mazzaferro:]

And then Kelly, one separate question for you too. On the working capital, I missed a little bit of what you said. I know you’ve used working capital in the first half a little bit around $235 million. Did you say you’re going to reverse that in the second half or will it be in the third quarter?

[Kelly Tompkins:]

Yeah, Consistent with this seasonality, the business Aldo, we would see a reversal of that working capital, certainly more so in the fourth quarter, but we’ll start to begin that reversal in Q3 with just the velocity of receivables and obviously the action we’ve taken to work off the inventory will also contribute to it.

[Aldo Mazzaferro:]

Right and then that tax refund would be additional to whatever you do in working capital, is that right?

[Kelly Tompkins:]

Correct. Yeah, it's baked into our overall cash flow guidance but it would be in addition to the working capital benefit.

[Aldo Mazzaferro:]

Okay, thank you.

[Operator:]

The next question comes from Jorge Beristain from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

[Jorge Beristain:]

Hi, good morning guys. It’s Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank. Lourenco, I guess my question is -- thanks for the very clear guidance, but I just wanted to do just a top down as to how you see generating large buckets of cash to make a dent in your net debt. If we just run through the very rough maybe a $20 per cash ton margin on USIO 20 million tons, that gives you about $400 million of EBITDA. Australia, give or take is $50 million roughly at spot or maybe up to $100 million of EBITDA. That puts your mind level EBITDA at about 450 to 500 less corporate SG&A puts you back down around 400. But your uses of cash; your interest expense in 205 and your sustaining CapEx at around 100 and change, seems to imply from a sort of operations point of view that things are very tight and inability to lower net debt. My question is, are there other opportunities besides the refund of the cash taxes? The coal sale that you mentioned is still pending at Oak Grove and possibly the buy back of your debt that’s trading at cents on the dollar. Are those the main buckets that you see as your ability to actually lower the net debt going forward? I guess more on the balance sheet moves is what I'm asking.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Look, Jorge, of course we are not at this point in this iron ore business, in the United States as we see today, we are not in a position to say we are going to be very comfortable. We have never been. This last year has been very tight as we rightly shipped here. However, we need to really understand that the current situation of iron ore in the world is unsustainable. It's not going to persist forever. You can add that it will last another year, another two years or another six months or just a quarter, but one thing we all know, the Austrians and the Brazilians will not be able to continue to finance their business, their dividend policies, their political goals within their respective countries selling -- giving iron ore to the Chinese at $50 per ton. That’s the first thing to consider. The second thing is that we have been around for a long time. I remember one report from you when you said that this is not the Cliffs of your grandparents anymore and you upgraded the price target from $100 per ton to 100 – or per share to $115 dollars per share; something like that. This market changes fast. Anti-dumping lawsuits will have an impact. Steel prices will go up. Our prices, we don’t need to tell you that because Q2 is proof of that. Our prices, our iron ore, our pellets prices are tied very, very close to the price of steel in the United States. We have to put forward and to work with projections that are pretty conservative, but things can’t get worse than that and there’s a big chance that they will get a lot better. Did I answer your question or you’re feeling like I’m not …?

[Jorge Beristain:]

I guess what I'm trying to get at is thus far you’ve been successful at acquiring your debt at a discount in the market and that has materially lowered you net debt balance. Is that where you’re thinking in terms of how you can continue to improve Cliffs’ financial position? Because on the face of it, on current market levels, it seems difficult to justify that the cash flow would come from operations. That’s what I'm trying to understand. Do you view it coming more from asset sells and sort of more debt restructuring or is there some other kind of source of cash that we should think about?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

I already talked about the operations that you’re denying, but I'm saying that it may come from operations. It’s more than expected that it will come from operations, but of course all other possibilities that we are lining up, they are all possible and they’re all in the realm of things that we are going to address going forward. We have bought debt before. We can buy again. We can do a lot of other things. We still have capacity to issue debt if we need. We have other levers to pull and we can continue and we will continue to cut costs in this business as we go forward. I don't know if Kelly wants to give any more specifics on that.

[Kelly Tompkins:]

I think Jorge you’ve ticked off the other items that are non-operating related. We talked about the tax refund, the optionality of the sale of coal, the optionality of whether or not we enter the debt market to buy bonds back at a discount. All those things are clearly there, but the fundamental blocking and tackling and managing operating cash flow is going to be critical and as the second half recovers as we certainly expect that we’ll see some improvement there. But I think you’ve hit the right levers.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

If I can add something. We have our goals on how much EBITDA we must make in this company and then we divide by the number of tons that we are going to be willing to sell in 2016 and beyond and that will give us more or less the price that we need to reach. The good news is that we have contracts that are expiring and not soon. We have a year and a half to go for the first one that will expire and we have the ability to push those prices up. We have leverage to do that. The pellet plant that is set to be being built to compete against us will not start until, my assessment, at least 2018. You’re going to see a lot of good money being put out to bed until everyone will give up on that. The other one that’s getting technical support from a private equity fund will fail as well. What you’re going to have in this market at the end of the day, Cliffs Natural Resources. Anything else I can do for you, Jorge?

[Jorge Beristain:]

Thank you. That covers it.

[Operator:]

Next question comes from Garrett Nelson from BB&T Capital Markets. Your line is open.

[Garrett Nelson:]

Thanks. The lower US iron whole sale guidance going from 20.5 to 19 million tons, I'm just trying to understand what the driver was there. Should we interpret that as a reflection of current market conditions or does it reflect customer deferral request?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

It's current nominations, Garrett. Like I said during my prepared remarks, current nominations. They haven’t reserved up their nomination. By their way, I don’t know even if they will. They haven’t told me that they will, but with the current cold ore anti-bumping lawsuit already filed with the new one of hot rolled that we expect to be filed soon, we expect that they will be selling more. They will be producing more and they will need to revise up their nomination. So far they haven’t.

[Garrett Nelson:]

Okay and when do you expect to start receiving nominations for 2016?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

We’ve – Kelly, no you do that.

[Kelly Tompkins:]

Garrett, typically it would be around November, the latter part of the year; mid fourth quarter.

[Operator:]

The next question comes from Tony Rizzuto from Cowen & Company. Your line is open.

[Tony Rizzuto:]

Thank you very much. Hi Lourenco and Kelly. Good morning. I was wondering if you could update me with your thoughts on your contracts with ArcelorMittal. I was on a trip recently up there and they seem to indicate they’ve got a fair amount of flexibility and quite frankly it was more flexibility than I thought heading on to the trip. They talked about their ability to derive more tonnage at their mining operations up there and they also talked about that some of their contracts would be rolling off and they’ve got the addition flexibility to potentially supply some of their operations, who may be a little bit larger extend, notwithstanding the transportation differentials, etc. I was wondering if you can just bring us up to date with that how that currently stands, your thought process as it relates to those two very important contracts.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Did you travel to London to get this information?

[Tony Rizzuto:]

No. I did not.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

I assume you traveled to Canada, right?

[Tony Rizzuto:]

This was just on a field trip that was [indiscernible]

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

You were basically visiting the mines in Canada and they told you that they can deliver pellets to the United States. Is that what you’re saying?

[Tony Rizzuto:]

Not fully across the board. Realizing that the transportation cost can be quite onerous, but to different areas and it just seemed like there was ---

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

That’s an embarrassing question because you’re basically giving me pieces and bits of what you got, but we are a year and half away from the expiration of the contract. What you would like me to do, I'm not going to do. You are going to have to sit still, sit tight and continue to see Lourenco in action. As you have seen for a long time at Metals USA, and you are seeing for a year here, it will be fun to watch.

[Tony Rizzuto:]

Very well. I look forward to it.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Lots of people are looking forward to -- lots of people are looking forward to for Lourenco to crash to the ground. It's not going to happen. Any other questions, Tony?

[Tony Rizzuto:]

No. That’s not what my implication was. I wasn’t implying that.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

I know that. I appreciate as always. You’ve just thrown me a pretty curved ball that you know that I can’t answer, but that’s okay.

[Tony Rizzuto:]

All right. Thank you, Lourenco.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

You're forgiven my friend.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Nick Jarmoszuk from Stifel. Your line is open.

[Nicholas Jarmoszuk:]

Hi, good morning. I had a couple of questions regarding the commentary on United. First one is, are there any non-recurring expenses with the current maintenance and then what's the annual current maintenance on it?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Kelly, take care of that.

[Kelly Tompkins:]

There will be some. It’s relatively minimal. It's been factored into our cost guidance and about $10 million a month would be a rough modeling figure, but we’re -- but that’s factored in our guidance and as you heard from Lourenco, we reiterated our cash production cost guidance which assumes UTAC being down and still being able to stay sub-60.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Nick, one more thing about UTAC. One good thing about valuing UTAC is that it facilitates our development of the transformation that we need to make to the plant in order to produce the super flex pellets that should feed ArcelorMittal starting in 2017 as we shut down in park and replace the [indiscernible] pellet producer in part with another super flex pellet called [Mustang] that will be produced out of United. Well the fact that for at least for a little bit we’re going to save UTAC idle will facilitate the implementation of the change in equipment to produce that pellet and that has been a pretty interesting development together with ArcelorMittal at this point.

[Nicholas Jarmoszuk:]

So does that actually suggest that you’ve got positive progress with the Arcelor contract?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

It does. It does suggest that.

[Nicholas Jarmoszuk:]

Then the second one. In terms of being able to service Arcelor out of UTAC, does that suggest that you would be able to potentially close Empire earlier than the end of 2016, given that you’ve got lower guidance for this year? Maybe you can stockpile pellets.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Look, it’s a possibility. If we conclude everything ahead of time and we are in a position to be already to produce the Mustang pellets out of our UTAC and there’s no need to supply ArcelorMittal with the [indiscernible] pellets out of Empire. And even more important, because of the high cost of that mine, because it's a mine that’s at the end of life of mine, a cost that it’s basically being backed by the higher price that ArcelorMittal pays for that pellet, would be positive for ArcelorMittal as well, because we produce a pellet that will be as good or probably better at UTAC than the pellet that’s out of Empire, but it will also be cheaper because it’s not a mine that’s the end of life of mine. I’m giving too many details about that. We are a year and a half away so stay tuned.

[Nicholas Jarmoszuk:]

How long is the upgrade project at UTAC to get the superflex pellets, so we can produce the superflex pellets?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

No, it’s not a thing that will take too long, but it’s a lot more of a thing that needs a lot of preparation, permitting and environmental permits, things like that that are all in the making with a lot of support and a lot of help from the government of Minnesota. I can’t thank Governor Dayton enough for all the facilitations and eliminating red tape to make us able to execute very quickly. So we’re working very well together, all together, ourselves, the clients and the government of Minnesota.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Sussman from Clarkson. Your line is now open.

[Jeremy Sussman:]

Good morning, Lourenco. Thanks for taking my question. Just following up on an earlier question, you’ve talked obviously about getting more involved on the DRI front over the next couple of years and your color was very helpful. I guess I’m wondering, in terms of potential opportunities, specifically are you looking at this more from a long term supply standpoint or would you be willing to invest some capital if the right opportunity arose? Thank you.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Jeremy, I would be happy to invest capital if I had it and let’s face it, I don’t have it. So in order to develop a new DRI facility in the Great Lakes, we are going to need capital for someone else and we’re discussing with several different interested parties that came to discuss with us about that development. I can’t give you details yet as it’s not right, but it’s in the making. In the meantime, we are going to be an able supplier of the pellet and I really appreciate the work together with Nucor because at the same token that we believe we’re doing something really good for Nucor, Nucor is doing something really good for us, because its giving us the ability to develop the perfect pellet for them, both at Coven, Louisiana and Trinidad. So we are serious about developing our ability to produce their pellets. We are going to be a supplier of their pellets for sure to Nucor and hopefully if we are able to get all things together and all the parties’ compromise and working in sync, we are going to have a new DRI facility in the Great Lakes that we’re going to be the supplier. Customers will not be a problem. They are all aware and they’re all willing to buy and there’s a lot of demand here in the Great lakes.

[Jeremy Sussman:]

That’s very helpful. Thank you very much.

[Operator:]

Our final question for today will come from Matthew Fields from Bank of America. Your line is open.

[Matthew Fields:]

Hey guys. Just wanted to ask about the reduction in iron ore sales reflected in guidance. Is the 1.5 million ton reduction coming from one customer or more than one customer?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

It’s a combination. It’s coming from the lower nomination that we have on hand from all of our clients at this point.

[Matthew Fields:]

Oaky. And then do you get the sense that it’s tonnage that the steel producers are just not producing or is it potentially getting iron from another source?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

No. they’re not producing. They don’t have that -- based on the contacts we have, they don’t have the option of getting ore from other sources. This quota is pretty strict in terms of what they have to comply as far as nomination. But like I always say Matt, when our clients suffer, we suffer with them as far as production, as far as their ability to produce their products. On the other hand, when they thrive, we thrive with them because that’s the way the contract works. But when they go up, we go up. When they go down, we go down. Unfortunately Q2 was a time that our blast furnace clients did not buy as much as we would like, but they bought at the minimal or close to the minimal tonnages that the contracts would allow them to do. But they did not buy from anyone else because that’s the way the contract is put.

[Matthew Fields:]

Okay, thanks very much. And then I just want to follow-up on I think a question that somebody, another analyst tried to ask. Regardless of where it comes from, it seems like you’re going to get a good chunk of cash coming in the door in 3Q and 4Q. What’s your priority for using that cash, whether it’s buying back debt at a discount? I know you have the $200 million in stock buyback authorization or investing in some kind of CapEx in the business. What’s your priority for using that cash? What do you think needs it the most?

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

Matt, I bought my freedom when I issued the first lean and second lean and we kept that thing we built in our fee baskets. You know how tough this is. I have been around. I know how this game is played. That’s the reason we don’t have a restriction on the RP. So I’m going to use the cash for the thing that’s better, for Cliffs Natural Resources, for Cliffs Natural Resource shareholders, for Cliffs Natural Resources employees and to hurt as much as I can the one that’s making my life miserable here, because it’s difficult enough to run this company going against all the bad perception of iron ore, all the bad perception of coal. And it is annoying to see how much a bunch of guys hiding behind the screens and doing what they are doing, trying to take down a great American company. That’s not going to happen. This company has a very, very good group of employees. They are extremely committed to make this company thrive. We just need investors to understand that. There’s nothing they can do that will derail that. Did I answer your question?

[Matthew Fields:]

Good enough. Thanks.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

No, because I’m not going to give you specifics, okay?

[Matthew Fields:]

Absolutely.

[Lourenco Goncalves:]

All right, now we’re talking. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to have this call with you. That’s the bottom. I will see you later. Bye now.

[Operator:]

Thank you everyone. This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.