ATI INC 10-Q

Item 3. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk As part of our risk management strategy, we utilize derivative financial instruments, from time to time, to hedge our exposure to changes in energy and raw material prices, foreign currencies, and interest rates. We monitor the third-party financial institutions which are our counterparties to these financial instruments on a daily basis and diversify our transactions among counterparties to minimize exposure to any one of these entities. Fair values for derivatives were measured using exchange-traded prices for the hedged items including consideration of counterparty risk and the Company’s credit risk. Our exposure to volatility in interest rates is presently not material, as nearly all of our debt is at fixed interest rates. Volatility of Interest Rates. We may enter into derivative interest rate contracts to maintain a reasonable balance between fixed- and floating-rate debt. The Company has a $50 million floating-for-fixed interest rate swap which converts a portion of the Term Loan to a 4.21% fixed rate. The swap matures in June 2024. The Company designated the interest rate swap as a cash flow hedge of the Company’s exposure to the variability of the payment of interest on a portion of its Term Loan borrowings. The ineffectiveness at hedge inception, determined from the fair value of the swap immediately prior to its July 2019 amendment, was amortized to interest expense over the initial Term Loan swap maturity date of January 12, 2021. Any gain or loss associated with this hedging arrangement is included in interest expense. At March 31, 2023, the net mark-to-market valuation of the outstanding interest rate swap was an unrealized pre-tax gain of $1.5 million, comprised of $1.3 million in prepaid expenses and other current assets and $0.2 million in other long-term assets on the balance sheet. Volatility of Energy Prices. Energy resource markets are subject to conditions that create uncertainty in the prices and availability of energy resources. The prices for and availability of electricity, natural gas, oil and other energy resources are subject to volatile market conditions. These market conditions often are affected by political and economic factors beyond our control. Increases in energy costs, or changes in costs relative to energy costs paid by competitors, have and may continue to adversely affect our profitability. To the extent that these uncertainties cause suppliers and customers to be more cost sensitive, increased energy prices may have an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition. We use approximately 6 to 8 million MMBtu’s of natural gas annually, depending upon business conditions, in the manufacture of our products. These purchases of natural gas expose us to the risk of higher gas prices. For example, a hypothetical $1.00 per MMBtu increase in the price of natural gas would result in increased annual energy costs of approximately $6 to $8 million. We use several approaches to minimize any material adverse effect on our results of operations or financial condition from volatile energy prices. These approaches include incorporating an energy surcharge on many of our products and using financial derivatives to reduce exposure to energy price volatility. 32 At March 31, 2023, the outstanding financial derivatives used to hedge our exposure to energy cost volatility included natural gas hedges. Approximately 75% of our forecasted domestic requirements for natural gas for the remainder of 2023, approximately 50% for 2024 and 10% for 2025 are hedged. At March 31, 2023, the net mark-to-market valuation of these outstanding natural gas hedges was an unrealized pre-tax loss of $5.6 million, comprised of $0.2 million in prepaid expenses and other current assets, $0.3 million in other long-term assets, $5.0 million in other current liabilities and $1.1 million in other long-term liabilities on the balance sheet. For the three months ended March 31, 2023, natural gas hedging activity increased cost of sales by $1.8 million. Volatility of Raw Material Prices. We use raw materials surcharge and index mechanisms to offset the impact of increased raw material costs; however, competitive factors in the marketplace can limit our ability to institute such mechanisms, and there can be a delay between the increase in the price of raw materials and the realization of the benefit of such mechanisms. For example, in 2022, we used approximately 70 million pounds of nickel; therefore, a hypothetical change of $1.00 per pound in nickel prices would result in increased costs of approximately $70 million. While we enter into raw materials futures contracts from time-to-time to hedge exposure to price fluctuations, such as for nickel, we cannot be certain that our hedge position adequately reduces exposure. We believe that we have adequate controls to monitor these contracts, but we may not be able to accurately assess exposure to price volatility in the markets for critical raw materials. The majority of our products are sold utilizing raw material surcharges and index mechanisms. However, as of March 31, 2023, we had entered into financial hedging arrangements, primarily at the request of our customers related to firm orders, for an aggregate notional amount of approximately 3 million pounds of nickel with hedge dates through 2024. The aggregate notional amount hedged is approximately 5% of a single year’s estimated nickel raw material purchase requirements. These derivative instruments are used to hedge the variability of a selling price that is based on the London Metal Exchange (LME) index for nickel, as well as to hedge the variability of the purchase cost of nickel based on this LME index. Any gain or loss associated with these hedging arrangements is included in sales or cost of sales, depending on whether the underlying risk being hedged was the variable selling price or the variable raw material cost, respectively. At March 31, 2023, the net mark-to-market valuation of our outstanding raw material hedges was an unrealized pre-tax gain of $1.2 million, comprised of $1.5 million in prepaid expense and other current assets, $0.1 million in other long-term assets and $0.4 million in other current liabilities on the balance sheet. Foreign Currency Risk. Foreign currency exchange contracts are used, from time-to-time, to limit transactional exposure to changes in currency exchange rates. We sometimes purchase foreign currency forward contracts that permit us to sell specified amounts of foreign currencies expected to be received from our export sales for pre-established U.S. dollar amounts at specified dates. The forward contracts are denominated in the same foreign currencies in which export sales are denominated. These contracts are designated as hedges of the variability in cash flows of a portion of the forecasted future export sales transactions which otherwise would expose the Company to foreign currency risk, primarily the euro. In addition, we may also hedge forecasted capital expenditures and designate cash balances held in foreign currencies as hedges of forecasted foreign currency transactions. At March 31, 2023, we had no significant outstanding foreign currency forward contracts.