Renewable Energy Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:REGI) Q3 2018 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Renewable Energy Group Third Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to introduce your host for today's call, Mr. Todd Robinson, Treasurer. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter 2018 earnings conference call. With me today are our President and CEO, Randy Howard; and our CFO, Chad Stone. Also on the call to answer questions are Brad Albin, our VP of Manufacturing; Eric Bowen, our VP of Corporate Business Development and Legal Affairs; and Gary Haer, our VP of Sales and Marketing.

Let me cover a few housekeeping items before I turn the call over to Randy. First, I would like to remind everyone that this call is being webcast and is available at the Investor Relations section of our website at regi.com. A replay will be available later on our website this afternoon. The webcast includes an accompanying slide deck, which will appear automatically with the webcast, but you will need to advance the slides manually as we prompt you. For those of you dialing in, the slide deck can be downloaded along with the earnings press release in the Investor Relations section of our website. If the deck does not appear, please click refresh, and it should be available for download. If you're on the webcast, it should appear automatically.

Now turning to slide two.

(Forward-Looking Cautionary Statements)

Today's discussion also includes non-GAAP financial measures. We believe these metrics will help investors assess the operating performance of our core business. Please see the press release or the appendix to the accompanying slide deck for a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure.

Also, let me remind you about the BTC and how it impacts the comparisons we will discuss today. As you know, the Biodiesel Mixture Excise Tax Credit, or BTC, was made retroactive for 2017 on February 9, 2018. The net benefit of that reinstatement was reflected in our GAAP financial statements for the first quarter of 2018. Because the credit relates to our 2017 operations, our adjusted operating results reflect an allocation of the net benefits of the credit to our 2017 results quarter-by-quarter. This makes year-over-year comparisons more sensible. Chad will give a bit more detail on this when he reviews our financial results.

With that, let me turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Randy Howard. Randy?

Thank you, Todd, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call. REG had another very positive quarter to bolster our already strong financial performance in the first half of the year. Adjusted EBITDA was well within our forecast before accounting for risk management. We continue to operate our fleet at high efficiency and are