You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: COVID-19 remains a constant in our daily work and home lives.
Our team has been able to rapidly adapt to a very dynamic situation, and I sincerely appreciate their ongoing efforts to deliver the products and services we provide to our customers around the world.
For the third quarter of 2020, our combined adjusted EBITDA was $218.5 million as our Global Ingredients platform continues to be resilient.
Our health, nutrient and bio energy businesses continue to prosper and make the necessary adjustments to keep our momentum for a record 2020 and set the stage for even a better 2021.
Our fuel segment and our food segment showed improvement year-over-year and grew sequentially to the second quarter of 2020.
Overall, we continued to see an improving and positive trend on our gross margin percentages across our business lines.
As I talked with you back in May, we continue to work diligently on cost control measures and widening our gross margins, thus improving our returns.
Our USA team has done an exceptional job.
As expected, our Feed segment for the third quarter declined from the strong performance we had in the second quarter as protein prices in the third quarter moved lower sequentially compared to Q2 and prices for Q3 2020 were also lower when you compare them to 2019.
With the positive upward movement in the grain and oilseed complex, we are experiencing a better pricing environment for our protein products and for our fats and oil products in the fourth quarter.
And this should provide a positive catalyst heading into 2021.
In the food segment, there was a nice recovery of hydrolyzed collagen sales for the quarter.
We're in the process of commissioning our third new collagen peptide production facility in Presidente Epitacio, Brazil as we speak, which broadens our ability to supply this on-trend food ingredient to our customers worldwide.
The food segment, led by Rousselot, the Number 1 collagen provider in the world, is poised to provide meaningful earnings growth in 2021.
The fuel segment performance was significantly better than a year ago, both in our international green energy businesses and at Diamond Green Diesel.
Diamond Green Diesel achieved a $2.41 per gallon EBITDA margin on record sales of 80 million gallons for the quarter.
We recorded $96.4 million of EBITDA, which is Darling's share of the joint venture.
The energy market did show some improvements from a demand standpoint during the quarter.
Although oil and diesel prices remained significantly lower than the same time a year ago, diesel is currently trading $0.80 a gallon under Q4 of 2019.
On the positive side, the green premium we are able to capture for the renewable diesel has offset the majority of this downward price in the current environment.
And we expect that Diamond Green will sell between 55 million and 60 million gallons of renewable diesel in the fourth quarter and should average between $2.30 and $2.40 a gallon for those gallons sold.
On a year-to-date basis, Darling has generated $627 million of combined adjusted EBITDA for the Company, putting us on pace to finish what most everyone considers to be a challenging year with record results.
We currently believe that we can finish 2020 with combined adjusted EBITDA between $800 million and $810 million.
We certainly believe this gives us a solid platform as we move into 2021 for what we believe will be a transformative year as the 400 million gallon expansion, or what's known as DGD 2, comes online in late 2021.
If you've not had a chance to look at our refreshed corporate website or read our 2020 ESG report, I encourage you to do so.
Our ESG team did an excellent job in publishing our 2020 fact sheet, which gives us an exciting story to build on as we move forward.
It outlines our goals and initiatives and how Darling will play a significant role in the decarbonization of our planet.
For Darling, we take great pride in our green leadership position in the world, and we plan to do our part in conserving water, energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions directly and indirectly by our DGD business producing more low-carbon renewable fuels for the world to consume.
I will touch base on a few of the highlights for this quarter and year-to-date.
Net income for the third quarter of 2020 totaled $101.1 million or $0.61 per diluted share compared to a net income of $25.7 million or $0.15 per diluted share for the 2019 third quarter.
For the first nine months of 2020, net income was $252.1 million or $1.51 per diluted share compared to $70 million or $0.42 per diluted share for the same period of 2019.
As Randy mentioned earlier, our gross margin continues to show improvement as we reported 24.9% for the third quarter of 2020 compared to 22.5% for the same period in 2019 as net sales increased $8.5 million and cost of sales and operating expenses decreased $14.6 million.
Operating income improved $67.7 million in the third quarter 2020 as compared to the prior year, reaching $127.5 million for the third quarter and totaled $356.6 million year-to-date 2020 compared to $182.5 million for the 2019 period.
In addition to the improved gross margin, the improvement in operating income benefited from a $59.1 million increase in Darling's equity and net income from Diamond Green Diesel.
SG&A expense was higher by $6.4 million in the quarter, partially attributable to the higher cost related to COVID-19, certain insurance increases as we recently renewed our coverages across the business, and higher benefits more than offsetting lower travel cost.
Interest expense was $18.8 million for the third quarter of 2020 compared to $19.4 million for the prior-year period.
We currently project quarterly interest expense to be approximately $15 million per quarter over the next several quarters.
The Company reported income tax expense of $4.8 million for the three months ended September 26, 2020.
The effective tax rate is 4.5%, which differs from the federal statutory rate of 21% due primarily to the biofuel tax incentives; the relative mix of earnings among jurisdictions with different tax rates and discrete items, including the recognition of a previously unrecognized tax benefit; and the favorable impact of certain US Treasury regulations issued during the quarter.
For the nine months ended September 26, 2020, the Company recorded income tax expense of $43.1 million with an effective tax rate of 14.5%.
Excluding discrete items, the year-to-date effective tax rate is 18.2%.
The Company also paid $24.9 million of income taxes as of the end of the third quarter.
For the remainder of the year, we project the effective tax rate to be about 20% with cash taxes for the year totaling approximately $35 million.
For the three and nine months 2020, Darling's share of Diamond Green Diesel's earnings was $91.1 million and $252.4 million as compared to $32 million and $94.4 million for the same period of 2019.
A reminder that there was no BTC in place to recognize during 2019 until the fourth quarter.
Capital expenditures of $184.9 million were made for the nine months of 2020 as we continue to take a disciplined approach during the pandemic prioritizing compliance and safety needs of the business and our reduced capex spend.
Now, turning to the balance sheet, in the third quarter, we were successful in amending and extending our $1 billion revolving credit facility with favorable terms.
The amendment extends the maturity date of the revolving credit facility under the credit agreement from December 16, 2021 to September 18, 2025.
In addition, we paid down our term loan balance by $145 million to a new balance of $350 million outstanding at the end of the quarter.
With our improved financial results and the paydown of the term loan B, our bank covenant leverage ratio for Q3 was 1.93 to 1.00.
We continue to make progress toward achieving an investment grade rating.
Our liquidity remains very strong with approximately $934 million available under our revolving credit facility at the end of Q3, providing strategic flexibility, while at the same time, maintaining a very solid capital structure.
As I mentioned earlier, our share of the 2020 DGD earnings should be approximately $330 million based on the ranges I laid out for you.
With the strong performance of Q3 and prices for our products improving as we work through the fourth quarter, we believe we can produce EBITDA of approximately $470 million to $480 million in 2020 in our Global Ingredients business.
That is back in line with the guidance we were anticipating back in February of this year pre-COVID.
The permitting process for these types of facility is no easy task.
Once approved, construction should begin immediately, putting DGD 3 in a position to be operational in early 2024.
We understand that there is concern with oversupply of renewable diesel and potentially a shortage of low-carbon feedstocks in the future.
Our simple answer is, we plan to take advantage of the first-mover position.
We have to be the largest low-cost producer of renewable diesel in North America.
While others are trying to figure out how to build or convert existing 80-year-old refineries to renewable diesel, we continue to focus on building new facilities with the lowest operating cost structure, the latest technologies, incorporating the trade secrets we've learned over the last seven years of operating our plants.
Darling's vertically integrated supply chain will continue to provide DGD with superior low-cost feedstock, which enhances that first-mover advantage for DGD.
This was especially challenging for diligence given COVID-19 protocols, but our Euro team did a nice job.
And we expect, even while small, this acquisition to strengthen our already successful Belgian system and immediately be accretive.
With that, let's go ahead, Matt, and open it up to Q&A.

user
compname reports q3 earnings per share of $0.61.
q3 earnings per share $0.61.

assistant