Century Aluminum Company (NASDAQ:CENX) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call February 23, 2023 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Peter Trpkovski - VP, Finance & IR

Jesse Gary - President and Chief Executive Officer

Jerry Bialek - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Shelly Harrison - Senior Vice President, Finance and Treasurer

Conference Call Participants

David Gagliano - BMO Capital

John Tumazos - Very Independent Research

Lucas Pipes - B. Riley Securities

Operator

Good afternoon. Thank you for attending today's Century Aluminum Company Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Megan and I will be your moderator for today's call. [Operator Instructions]

I will now like to pass the conference over to our host , Peter Trpkovski with Century Aluminum. Peter, please go ahead.

Peter Trpkovski

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the conference call. I'm joined here today by Jesse Gary, Century's President and Chief Executive Officer; Jerry Bialek, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Shelly Harrison, Senior Vice President of Finance and our Treasurer. After our prepared comments, we'll take your questions.

As a reminder, today's presentation is available on our website at www. centuryaluminum.com. We use our website as a means of disclosing material information about the company and for complying with Regulation FD.

Turning to slide one. Please take a moment to review the cautionary statement shown here with respect to forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures contained in today's discussion.

And with that, I'll hand the call to Jesse.

Jesse Gary

Thank you, Pete, and thanks to everyone for joining. I'll start off today by quickly reviewing our 2022 performance Before discussing the improving market conditions we have seen so far in 2023. Jerry will then take you through the details of the fourth quarter and full year results. And then I'll finish with an update on Grundartangi cathouse project.

Turning to slide 3, 2022 was a very volatile year in the commodity markets. Aluminum prices reached 30 year highs in the spring, driving strong financial performance across Century's businesses in Q1 and Q2. However, market conditions deteriorated over the back half of the year as high global inflation was met with rising interest rates, resulting in a significant strengthening in the U.S. dollar and pressuring aluminum prices downward. At the same time, the war on Ukraine and resulting energy crisis drove power prices to unsustainable levels across the world.