PBF

Good day, everyone. Welcome to the PBF Energy First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants have been placed on only listen mode. And the floor will be open for questions following management's prepared remarks. If anyone should require operator's assistant during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Colin Murray of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Angeline. Good morning and welcome to today's call. With me today are Matt Lucey, our President and CEO, Mike Bukowski, our Senior Vice President and Head of Refining, Joe Marino, our CFO, and several other members of our management team. Copies of today's earnings release and our 10-Q filing, including supplemental information, are available on our website. Before getting started, I'd like to direct your attention to the safe harbor statement contained in today's press release. Statements that express the company's or management's expectations or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements intended to be covered by the safe harbor provisions under federal securities laws. Consistent with our prior periods, we'll discuss our results excluding special items, which are described in today's press release. Also included in the press release is forward-looking guidance information.

For any questions on these items or other follow-up questions, please contact Investor Relations after today's call. I will now turn the call over to Matt Lucey.

Thanks, Colin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. Indeed, today is a moment. With the disruption in the Middle East, the world is in greater need of the products we produce, and therein lies the momentous opportunity for our company to perform and reward our shareholders for owning such critical infrastructure. Within PBF, the spotlight is squarely on Martinez. We are bringing Martinez back online and will shortly be supplying the California market with our full capabilities. This could not be coming at a better time for the West Coast and California markets. There are three main areas of focus in terms of the restart of Martinez: the cat feed hydrotreater, the alkylation unit, and the FCC. The cat feed hydrotreater and alk are up, and both are running. With the FCC, we expect to be making finished products this weekend.

While the rebuild effort was completed in February, there is no question the restart took longer than expected. It was critical for us to ensure that all the work accomplished at Martinez over the last 14 months was capped off with a safe restart. Moving on to the broader environment, the events in the Middle East have caused the largest disruption ever in the oil markets. The effects are indeed dramatic and constructive for PBF. Initially, approximately 15 million barrels per day of crude and 5 million barrels per day of product were trapped inside the Strait of Hormuz. The loss of crude barrels was most acutely felt in Asia, but the shortages have cascaded to other markets.

80% of the crude flowing through the straits was destined for Asian refineries, and those refineries in turn supplied products to many markets, including the U.S. West Coast. As refining runs in Asia have been rationed due to lack of inputs, the loss of products has affected every market. Compounding this impact, the products stranded in the Arabian Gulf have tightened markets in Europe and subsequently the Atlantic Basin. In the near term, the markets will continue to adjust in real time to demand signals for both crude and products. Global pricing will dictate trade patterns. Increasingly, markets are calling for both U.S. crude and U.S. products to meet demand. While the U.S. has been somewhat insulated, there are signs that demand is being impacted globally by both pricing and supply issues.

It has never been more evident that U.S. refining is critical infrastructure, and this is most apparent in regions like the West Coast and East Coast that are short refining capacity and rely on imports from unstable sources to meet demand. It'll take some time for trade patterns to normalize both during and post the conflict in the Middle East. Refining fundamentals should remain strong throughout, supported by tight refining balances coupled with low product inventories around the world. Prior to this event, refining balances look constructive, and the inevitable restocking should provide a favorable backdrop for quarters to come. PBF remains focused on controlling the aspects of our business that we can control. To be successful and enhance value for our investors, we must operate safely, reliably, and responsibly, and we must do it as efficiently as possible.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike Bukowski.

Thank you, Matt. Good morning, everyone. Before updating on the progress of our refining business improvement program, I'll provide a few comments on first-quarter operations and our Martinez refinery status. Outside of the West Coast, our refining system ran reasonably well. All of our refineries navigated record cold temperatures with minimal disruptions. On the West Coast, as Matt mentioned, Martinez is in the final stages of its phased restart. The process to restart has been methodical and required many levels of safety and process checks to ensure that all equipment was correctly manufactured and installed before we introduced hydrocarbons. The cat feed hydrotreater and alkylation unit have been operating and producing finished products as well as the intermediates required for the startup of the fluid catalytic cracking unit this weekend. The Martinez team and a supporting cast too numerous to mention worked tirelessly to get us to this point.

My thanks to all involved in the project. Additionally, while Martinez operations were being restored, Torrance underwent a turnaround early in the first quarter, and with that event complete, has a clean runway for the remainder of 2026. I'm happy to report that we're seeing progress from our RBI program. We achieved our 2025 target of $230 million of annualized run rate savings. This goal includes approximately $160 million of OpEx reductions against our 2024 benchmark and is incorporated in our full 2026 budget. While the ongoing Martinez process is causing some noise, with the first quarter results, we are very comfortable in meeting or even exceeding our stated targets.

While we are improving our maintenance and operational efficiency and reducing energy consumption, our main priority will always be to focus on safe, reliable, and responsible operations across our system. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Joe Marino for our financial overview.

Thanks, Mike. For the first quarter, excluding special items, we reported adjusted net loss of $0.88 per share and Adjusted EBITDA of $68.7 million. Our discussion of first quarter results excludes the net effect of special items, including $11.5 million in incremental OpEx related to the Martinez refinery incident, a $106.5 million gain on insurance recoveries, a $313 million LCM inventory adjustment, a $9.4 million gain relating to PBF's 50% share of SBR's LCM adjustment for the quarter, and approximately $9.4 million of charges associated with the RBI initiative, as well as other items detailed in the reconciling tables in today's press release. PBF results reflect several unfavorable conditions that manifested in the first quarter, both operationally and commercially.

Capture rates for the quarter were negatively impacted by West Coast operations, a higher flat price environment increasing the headwind of low-value products, higher RINs expense, and derivative losses recognized in the quarter. These capture headwinds more than offset benefits from the improving jet-to-diesel spreads and certain crude diffs. Operationally, our Torrance Refinery was in planned turnaround during January and February, while our Martinez Refinery restart was delayed. We built up inventory levels in the first quarter, primarily in anticipation of the planned restart of Martinez. This occurred as global pricing for hydrocarbons surged on the back of the conflict in the Middle East, resulting in losses in our typical hedge program. Our results for the quarter reflect an aggregate derivative loss of a little over $200 million.

Approximately half of this loss related to unrealized amounts expected to be mostly offset in the second quarter as the physical barrels run through our refining system. The $106.5 million gain on insurance recoveries related to the Martinez fire is a result of the fourth unallocated payment agreed to and received in the first quarter. This brings our total insurance recoveries to $1 billion net of our deductibles and retention, including the amounts received in 2025. Important to note, while the bulk of the spending related to Martinez is behind us, the claim is ongoing, and we expect to recover incremental funds as we continue to work with our insurance providers towards potential additional interim payments and finalization of the claim in an expeditious manner.

Shifting back to our normal quarterly results discussion, also included in our results is an approximate $8 million EBITDA benefit, excluding LCM impacts, related to PBF's equity investment in St. Bernard Renewables. SBR produced an average of 16,700 barrels per day of renewable diesel in the first quarter. SBR's production was as expected, but results reflect the impact of improving market conditions in the renewable fuel space with the finalization of the RVO in March. With the setting of the 2026, 2027 RVO, the market's now the ability to stabilize and should result in favorable margins.

PBF cash used in operations for the quarter was $324 million, which includes a working capital draw of approximately $340 million, mainly due to movements in inventory and the impact on our net payable position as a result of rapidly moving commodity prices. On our last call, we mentioned our expectations for elevated first-quarter CapEx and working capital outflows primarily related to Martinez restart and normal seasonal inventory patterns. The capital spending for the Martinez rebuild is essentially behind us. We expect working capital to normalize as operations restart in full. Cash invested in consolidated CapEx for the quarter was $320 million, which includes refining, corporate, and logistics. This amount excludes first quarter capital of approximately $189 million related to the Martinez incident.

On the surface, the Q1 figure might be slightly higher than expected, and this is because it includes approximately $100 million of net carryover from 2025 that had not been cash settled at year-end. The balance is our normal quarterly incurred amount, including the turnaround at Torrance. Given that and the noise related to the Martinez rebuild, it would be helpful to more broadly consider the 2025 and 2026 capital programs over a two-year period.

We ended the quarter with $542 million in cash and approximately $2.3 billion in debt. At quarter end, our net debt to cap was 36%, and our current liquidity is approximately $2.4 billion based on current commodity prices, cash, and borrowing capacity under our ABL. Our net debt increased in the first quarter due to planned capital expenditures, continued spend on the Martinez restart, and working capital outflows primarily related to a build in inventory. Going forward, inventory should normalize as operations ramp up, and we should see a resulting tailwind in working capital cash flows. Additionally, with our capital spend for the Martinez rebuild predominantly behind us, we expect to further progress on Martinez insurance claim and receive additional payments. Once realized, these factors alone should principally offset the increase in net debt experienced in Q1.

Maintaining our firm financial footing and a resilient balance sheet remain priorities. As we look ahead, we expect to use periods of strength to focus on reducing both our gross and net debt. Operator, we've completed our opening remarks, and we'd be pleased to take any questions.

Thank you. In a moment, we will open the call to questions. The company requests that all callers limit each turn to one question and one follow-up. You may rejoin the queue with additional questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using a speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we follow the questions. The first question comes from Manav Gupta with UBS. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I want to start a little bit on the global macro side. The way we are seeing things, Matt, is, 2Q and 3Q are a tale of two halves: those who have the crude and who can run and those who don't have crude, and they may have the best kit out there, but they don't have crude. And you are in this category where you have half the crude, and you can run. Can you help us understand, given the relatively low U.S. nat gas price and availability of crude, does that mean that U.S. refining has an advantage over most of their global peers at this point of time?

Manav, I don't think there's any question on that. I think the outlook for the second quarter and the third quarter look extraordinary, only because the world is gonna be in desperate need of our products. As you say, we're insulated from a natural gas perspective. Heck, we're insulated from a physical security perspective. We have the best steel globally with a very stable workforce. Indeed, we have access to crude. Obviously, the pricing on crude is determined on a global basis. When you stack up the U.S. industry compared to the rest of the world, it stands out. When you look within the U.S., I think particularly PBF's coastal complexity is incredibly well-positioned within that.

Perfect. Thank you so much. A quick follow-up here, and this is a question we have pretty much got all morning. What gives you the confidence that this time Martinez will be able to restart within probably a week or so, and there will not be any further delays? Thank you.

I'll turn that over to Mike.

The delays that we saw over the past couple of months were primarily focused on the process to verify the equipment, make sure it was constructed and installed properly. Now we're at the point now with two units up in operations. We always had a phased start up. It was always gonna be the cat feed hydrotreater. It was always gonna be the alkylation unit. Those two units started up without incident. They were got up safely. We're essentially, you know, if you make the analogy of a football game, we're in the fourth quarter on the process on the FCC. The unit is heating up. We're a day or so away from putting feed in the unit, so it's very close. We've got all the checks that we've done.

We've passed a lot of the major hurdles that you typically go through in an FCC startup. That gives us the confidence.

The frustration of the duration is certainly understandable, but the alternative simply wasn't considered in terms of rushing through anything. All the steps that were taken were done in the name of caution and safety, and reliability. It obviously was an extraordinarily large disruption, and as such, it took a bit longer. That being said, we're here on the precipice of this whole incident being behind us.

Thank you so much. All the best for second quarter.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Alexa Petrick with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Good morning, team, thank you for taking our question. We wanted to ask on the East Coast dynamics, that region looks tight from a product perspective, but there's also a lot of moving pieces around crude access, freight rates. Can you just talk about the exposure there and how you're seeing capture rates shake out?

It was in my comments. I mean, whether you're talking about the East Coast or West Coast, you're relying on imports, how critical our infrastructure is within those pads. It's highlighted. It gets highlighted every couple of years, whether it's through hurricanes or, you know, other events, whether when Colonial went down, clearly, in this event, now with the global market completely disrupted. Our assets are running well. They, like I said, they have access to crude, I think we'll be rewarded handsomely for operating them reliably over the coming quarters. Tom?

Yeah. I mean, I would just, you know, add in terms of what we've seen, particularly, you know, over the last, you know, several reporting weeks, right? You know, where we're seeing, you know, draws across the country. You're at a situation also where even in the past couple in the past month or so, right, where in terms of the U.S. has been exporting product, not just off of the Gulf Coast, but out of the East Coast as well. We're at a situation where inventories have been depleted and obviously depends upon how long the disruption in the Straits of Hormuz continues, right? You know, the longer it goes, obviously we stay in a very point of friction.

On the flip side of it is that, you know, when we would look at it, you know, in terms of, you know, resolution in terms of the conflict, you then potentially also have, you know, OPEC in a fractured state with the announcement of UAE, you know, looking to depart the organization. I think that all sort of fits within the sort of constructive outlook and a situation where in terms of markets that are deficit product, it is going to be, you know, challenging in the short term to find that resupply from any other region, because it certainly would appear at this point that, you know, Asia is buying the minimum amount of crude that they can purchase to basically satisfy their local demand or the region's demand.

There's no expectation that they're going to be continuing to pull crude from the Atlantic Basin to then resupply, just in terms of the sheer amount of time that that takes and the uncertainty in terms of what could happen during that 60, 90, 120-day supply line.

Importantly, also for the East Coast and the West Coast, with the Jones Act being put on the shelf for a period of time, we're actually able to run non-traditional crudes to the East Coast. We'll be running some WTI and some other U.S. barrels on the East Coast during the second quarter. We'll have access to the crude. At the end of the day, as we said in the comments and Tom highlighted, the world's going to be desperate for our finished products.

Okay, that's helpful. Our follow-up is just on capital allocation. Any more color you could provide on the optimal capital structure with Martinez back on and elevated margins? How should we just think about that cash flow generation being used?

I'll hand it over to Joe. Just one overriding sort of 10,000-foot comment I would make, consistent with all the comments that we've made for the last number of years. When there are periods of excess cash flow generation, we will look to our balance sheet first. As just a core business model, how we run our business in terms of driving to a very conservative balance sheet. Obviously, it's a cyclical business; it's a capital-intensive business, during periods where the cycle is against us, we have that balance sheet to lean into. That's requisite on times where we are generating excess cash, where we return the balance sheet to our expectations. Joe, any other?

Yeah, no, I would reiterate that. You know, we do maintain our always look at our capital allocation framework, comprised of the three pillars of invest in the business, invest in the balance sheet, and shareholder returns. As Matt indicated, if current market conditions persist, you know, we'll have an opportunity here to accelerate de-levering as a means of transferring value from debt to equity, which would be a priority in the near term. You know, we did lean into the balance sheet in the last 12, 24 months, and I think we'd be looking to get back to levels we had, you know, coming into 2025.

Okay, that's helpful. I'll turn it back. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Joe Laetsch with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, Matt and team, and thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask on the West Coast, can you just talk about what you're seeing from a local crude pricing and availability standpoint here? Are those barrels pricing off of ANS right now? Is there any competition that you're seeing from Asia pulling barrels away?

I'll make a comment and hand it over to Paul. You have to appreciate our position on the West Coast. We've talked about this a fair amount in regards to we've spent a lot of time talking about products and, you know, 300,000 barrels a day of gasoline and jet that needs to be imported to meet demand. You know, to the degree you bring in those products, you know, you have to be able to attract those products from the rest of the world, and the logistics to get there are significant. On the crude side, we talk about it less. We've seen an increase on California production with some production coming on over the last quarter.

Importantly, PBF has its own pipeline infrastructure with our M 70 pipeline delivering to Torrance. The crude pricing in California is particularly interesting because, you know, if you look at pricing of crude around the world, the California production coming out of the valley is some of the most attractively priced crude in the world. We have our own proprietary line that is bringing it to our refinery in Torrance. I feel like that's gonna be a real competitive advantage for us going forward. Any other comments, Paul?

I mean, on the indigenous crude, it prices against ICE. That's the format it trades on. It trades at a discount because of the quality. It's a very heavy sweet barrel, high TAN material, somewhat captured because it can't go offshore. It trades at a pretty good discount to ICE, which is obviously a pretty good discount to ANS. As far as the pull on from Asia, the Asian program did pull a lot of ANS away from the West Coast in the current trade periods and the next trade periods. It's a good supplement to some of the Arab grades that have been lost for those guys. We're seeing a pretty good pull.

Great. Thanks. That's helpful. On the Refining Business Improvement Program, can you just talk about how that's progressing? I understand the $230 million was achieved in 2025. Can you just talk a bit more about the path to the $350 million by year-end 2026?

Well, sure. I'm just happy to report we're on path, but Mike, why don't you give?

Sure. Yeah. The way we structured the program is, we took the run rate savings that we had achieved last year. That was $230 million. That included capital. So just from an OpEx perspective, it was $160 million. We put that into our budget, and then the first quarter, we are right on that plan right now. You'll see as the quarters go by an increase in savings from quarter-to-quarter as other savings initiatives are implemented as well, so that by the year-end, we would expect to achieve those savings.

Thank you. That's helpful.

Thank you. The next question comes from Paul Sankey with Sankey Research. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Can you hear me okay?

Can hear you fine, Paul. Good morning.

Great. Hi. You've talked a lot about around these questions, but if I could just sort of keep digging a bit here, please. Matt, can you just say when Martinez is gonna be completely up and running all units, best guess? Did you say that's happening? Then, can we talk a little bit, you've said some interesting stuff about how the crude slate is changing. For example, you mentioned the Jones Act allowing you to take WTI. I was wondering, for example, is that WTI price at Cushing? You know, can we dig a little bit into how your crude slate is changing, given the whole Hormuz situation? Again, you've addressed this, but are there major issues where, for example, jet fuel, how are you dealing with that?

Is that getting exported? Can we kind of go through what the next two months will look like? I think the current market is guaranteed to be here for the next two months. If Hormuz starts opening up, I assume that all of that will reverse, but any longer-term comments would be helpful as well. Thanks.

Okay. There's a lot.

I know.

Just in regards to Martinez, as we said, essentially we expect literally over the next couple days. We'll be very, very pleased to get there. As soon as this weekend, we should be up with all our units up and running, which is good news. Again, frustrating on the duration, but very, very good news looking forward. In regards to running non-traditional crudes, everything has been disrupted, and the size and scale of this disruption is hard to imagine.

I just keep coming back to, at the end of the day, there's a lot of interesting conversations about crude, but at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is products. The disruption to the product market is extreme, and we're best positioned to capitalize that throughout the country, but particularly, our coastal markets. When you look at our base operations, and sort of the daily impacts, the U.S. East Coast is probably impacted the most in terms of what crudes it's running. Paulsboro historically ran, you know, Aramco barrels. We've been able to make adjustments there. To a great degree, Chalmette, Toledo certainly and the West Coast is running what it traditionally ran.

I don't think we're gonna give you quite the detail you're looking for in terms of exactly how WTI is pricing. I commend you for trying. I mean, at the end of the day, like I said, I just go back to products, products. To the degree that we can reliably produce them, we will be handsomely rewarded because they're in desperate need.

Fair enough, Matt. It was worth a try. Thanks.

Paul, it's Tom. I would just jump in. I mean, I think, you know, certainly for us in terms of, I mean, your comment, you know, the, you know, maybe the next two weeks, two months or certainty, right? I mean, is that I think as we look at the sort of acute problems that the market's been dealing.

We're going through. It really depends upon just really how far you are from the Strait of Hormuz, right? Asia felt all these, you know, the pinch points soonest, then it cascaded more so into the European product markets, and then it's now filtered into the U.S. market or the Americas. We're certainly seeing that on products and particularly in terms of what gasoline has done over the last several weeks in terms of, you know, catching up. 'Cause initially, this was just a crude problem and a distillate problem and a jet problem, right? You know, now in terms of the balances, now it's a gasoline problem. Therefore, also if, you know, Strait of Hormuz opens, right?

It is going to be a situation where the recovery is going to happen soonest in terms of how far are you from Straits of Hormuz, right? Obviously, the Americas are the furthest away from the Straits of Hormuz. In terms of that's the sort of commentary relating around sort of months, quarters, et cetera, in terms of the recovery time.

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that the Jones Act is helping you. Brilliant. Or not or lack of it. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Paul.

Thank you. The next question comes from Doug Leggate with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. I can't tell you how happy I am to hear you talk about translating value from debt to equity, we'll take that one offline. My two questions, fellas, first of all, I'd like to maybe dig in a little bit on capture rate. At the simplest level, we've all been through these kind of spikes before, maybe not quite like this. When you see extraordinary margins, the risk I think is that the market takes those extraordinary margins and assumes capture rate remains the same of those margins. You guys talked about headwinds, you talked about RINs, obviously, you talked about crude slate. I wonder if you could just dumb it down and say, well, how do you anticipate your capture rate on these extraordinary margins to trend?

Will it be the same? Will it be higher? Will it be lower? That's my first one. My second one is real simple on business interruption, and maybe it's just a balance sheet question. You, you haven't really given us a lot of disclosure on how much of the current balance sheet is still a net positive that will go away. In other words, when you pay out the remainder of the repairs netted against how much you actually still get in the door for business interruption. At the root of my question is, you've been offline during extraordinary margins in the West Coast. You were supposed to come back up in December. Do you still get business interruption in the first quarter? I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Okay. Sure. Capture rates in extraordinary periods of time, which we clearly are in, it'll be very difficult for you, quite frankly, for the investment community to pinpoint capture rates as you have a lot. Obviously, flat price, RINs, and massive basis differentials that are swinging wildly on a daily basis. Indeed, you know, jet on the West Coast today is trading over $1 the NYMEX distillate mark. It'll be very difficult task to bring precision to capture rates in these extraordinary periods. Capture rates by definition, are rules of thumb. In this period of time, rules of thumb don't necessarily equate perfectly.

We'll try to be as helpful as we can in that regard, navigating you through. There are obviously lots of puts and takes. At the end of the day, I keep coming back to products, products. The physical price for our products will be evident as we go because of how short they are at the moment. Yes, and on top of that, you know, the last barrel in the plant may look expensive compared to historic sort of runs. Again, the product prices are gonna carry that. In regards to BI, indeed, our coverage does extend into this year.

You know, we will continue it to work with the insurance companies who've been very good partners. I've said that I think on every single call. I'll turn some of the insurance stuff over to Joe Marino. Indeed, it wasn't your question, but again, the addressing the balance sheet and transferring that wealth from leverage into equity is a core principle of how we run this business. Let there be no confusion on that. Any other comment on the insurance side?

I'd just say given the fact that the claim is ongoing and the insurance proceeds we've received to date have not been allocated, can't really give you any more detail on the breakup between BI at this point. We'll say that, you know, importantly, the rebuild costs are substantially behind us at this point, and we do expect further, you know, progress payments on the insurance side through the end of the claim.

Terrific, guys. Thanks for the answers. Appreciate it. I understand there's no precision here, but nevertheless, I appreciate the color.

Thank you. The next question comes from Phillip Jungwirth with BMO. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. The turnaround schedule for the year originally contemplated Martinez hydrocracker in 2Q. Is this at all impacted by the later restart or just what's the status here? What all would this turnaround entail or imply as far as crude throughput for the facility?

Yeah, we've been working that. Obviously, well, you know, per our last call, we were talking about that in the second quarter. We're working through that now. I would say there's a high degree or a high probability that that turnaround that we actually move that towards the end of the third quarter. That hasn't been completely finalized yet. They have to go through, you know, a number of checks. Again, safety, reliability, responsibility, you know, running responsibly is sort of the prerequisite for everything. We're working through that, but I expect that work will be pushed out towards the end of the third quarter.

Okay, great. Then, can you talk a little bit about SBR and the outlook here? I mean, we don't get a ton of detail on profitability, but clearly the margin profile for RD has improved. Any color as we head into 2Q? Then separately, just how are you viewing your RIN exposure currently, net of SBR?

All right. SBR, look, it's a happy moment. There's no doubt one of the reasons we invested in the project in the first place. The prospects, the outlook for SBR is quite strong today. It's quite honestly the strongest it's ever been since we've been up and operating. The first quarter had a positive EBITDA, the outlook going forward, and we just completed a catalyst change. The outlook going forward looks very, very constructive. To some degree, it holds the story together for PBF as the hedge against RIN prices that we didn't have three years ago. You know, we're very pleased to have SBR in our portfolio.

I think, you know, our next call, you'll see, sort of how helpful it is. In regards to RINs, they seem to be on one-way freight train going up. RINs are upwards of, getting close to $13 a barrel. I've described the program for over a decade as being broken, which is true. Maybe nothing is more true than that, but it actually very well may break, literally, where there's not sufficient RIN generation because, of course, high RIN prices, low RIN prices, you still blend the same amount of ethanol. There is an ethanol, a blend wall. It relies on RD production and bio production.

If that doesn't meet the RVO, you could get into a situation not only is RINs dramatically in pricing the price of gasoline, where it's actually constricting supply. Because if you import, so if you go to the coast and you need to attract imports, that importer has to buy a RIN. The price that he's looking at deducts the RIN price. That sort of speaks to the requirement on the coast to be able to attract those products. If the RIN is unavailable and he can't be compliant, the product won't come. Will we get there this year? I don't know. To a great degree, it will depend on bio production and Renewable Diesel production around the world, I guess, to some degree.

The RVO, as I said, is the highest it's ever been, and completely stupid in regards to impacting the price of gasoline. The easiest lever the administration has to lower the price of gasoline today would be to address the blend wall. There are countless ways they could do that. It is what it is. As I said, we're very, very pleased to have SBR. We think it's going to be contributing nicely.

Thanks. Appreciate all the color.

Thank you. The next and final question that's Jason Gabelman with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. You discussed the Martinez hydrocracker turnaround and potential to push that out, but can you talk more broadly about the opportunity to push out maintenance later this year into next year and just how maintenance looks over the next couple of years, given we could be in a period where margins are higher for a decent amount of time here?

Yeah, higher for longer. Yeah. I'll just say in the short term, we obviously, just looking at the next couple quarters, we have a very clean runway. The opportunity is certainly extraordinary in the near term. Mike, why don't you make some comments?

Yeah. The second and third quarter are pretty clean. We do have some things coming up in the fourth quarter. We've always evaluated right around this time, actually, at moving some things around. There's some things that we may be able to do. There's some things that are kinda locked in. I'm not gonna get into specific turnarounds and the likelihood of moving them at this point. I will say that this year was probably one of our heavier turnaround years in terms of our major turnarounds. We consider a major turnaround, whether it's a conversion unit or a crude unit combined together. This is one of our heavier years in recent history in terms of the scope.

we tail off a bit in. We're a little bit later in 2027 and 2028. Specifically, I'm not gonna mention any turnarounds gonna be moved, but we do those evaluations right around this time.

Thanks. My other question is on the results for the quarter. You mentioned derivative losses impacting 1Q, I believe. You didn't quantify it. Can you talk about what that looked like for 1Q and what that maybe will look like for 2Q, or how we should think about that going forward, just given in the current environment, I think some of these derivative losses could be a bit outsized?

Yeah. We recognized a little over $200 million mark-to-market on derivative losses during the quarter. At the end of the quarter, there was about $100 million of unrealized. There's still, you know, some offsetting physical barrels that will flow through to offset that and, you know, and likely be a benefit in Q2. As far as Q2 actual, it's going to just derivative impact will depend on where prices, you know, go from here.

The derivative program, just so everyone understands, is a risk-reducing program in that we will hedge inventory that is above and beyond our normal baseline. With the disruption we had on the West Coast, at, you know, when we're entering, the, you know, February 20th or March, you know, early March, we had approximately 6 million barrels above and beyond what we normally have in our, in our portfolio. As such, we were managing the price of that. Anecdotally, I think the company did an exceptional job of sort of navigating the unprecedented volatility that we saw in managing those barrels. As our inventory works down, the need for that hedging exercise is eliminated.

I suspect, by the end of the second quarter, you're not gonna see similar call-outs. Again, it's a situation where at the end of the first quarter, you're marking those derivatives to market, even though you still have the inventory that you're then gonna realize the physical side during the second quarter.

Great. Thanks for that color. That's helpful.

Thank you. We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call over to Matt Lucey, CEO, for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Thanks again for your time and attention this morning, and we look forward to speaking with you in July. Have a good day.

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