Huntsman Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 22, 2024

There are 14 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to the Huntsman Corporation's 4th Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded.

Operator

At this time, I will now turn the conference over to Ivan Marcuse, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Mr. Marcuse, you may now begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Huntsman's Q4 2023 earnings call. Joining us on the call today are Peter Huntsman, Chairman and CEO and President and Phil Lister, Executive Vice President and CFO. Yesterday, on February 21, 2024, after the U. S.

Speaker 1

Equity markets closed, we released our earnings for the Q4 of 2023 via press release and posted it to our website, huntsman.com. We also posted a set of slides and detailed commentary discussing the Q4 of 2023 on our website. Peter Huntsman will provide some opening comments shortly, and we will then move into the question and answer session for the remainder of the call. During this call, let me remind you that we may make statements about our projections and expectations for the future. All such statements are forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

And while they reflect our current expectations, they involve risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. You should review our filings with the SEC filings for more information regarding the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these projected and expectations. We do not plan on publicly updating or revising any forward looking statements during the quarter. We will also refer to non GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, lower loss and free cash flow. You can find reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings release, which has been posted to our website huntsman.com.

Speaker 1

I'll now turn the call over to Peter Huntsman, our Chairman, CEO and President.

Speaker 2

Ivan, thank you very much. Thank you for joining us this morning. Last evening, we released our prepared remarks for the Q4 2023 results. Before opening the call to questions, I'd like to take a few minutes and share with you our latest plans and views as we enter the second half of the first quarter. At the outset, I remind you that we have complete financial results for the month of January, but still have 2 more months until we know the full results of the Q1.

Speaker 2

I'm also still a bit haunted by the ghosts of a year ago when many of you and most companies were projecting 2023 to have a weak beginning, but a very strong second half. 2nd half proved to be nothing short of a disaster. Let me begin by saying by sharing with you our 5 main goals for this year. First, we will be this will be a year wherein we will recover some lost sales from 2023. A year ago, we showed strong pricing discipline early in the year and in many cases, we held the line and kept pricing from falling faster than they otherwise would have.

Speaker 2

In some cases, we lost business competition who were pushing volume over value. Going forward, we will be pushing much needed price increases in most of our product ranges, but we will also be negotiating to get back some of that lost volume. Our second priority will be to improve our free cash flow generation. This will be at the top of our incentive pay targets for 2024. We will do this through a continued focus on working capital, controlling both indirect and direct costs and moving more volume and higher prices.

Speaker 2

Our third priority is to maintain discipline in our cost structure. We will complete our previously announced cost reduction programs in each of our divisions and our corporate functions. We will also be focused on offsetting projected 3% to 4% inflation increases. Our 4th priority will be to continue as we have for the past several years assessing our portfolio on an ongoing basis to ensure that we are the best owners for the businesses and assets that we have. We will continue to look for M and A opportunities to expand our more differentiated downstream businesses.

Speaker 2

Lastly and most importantly, we will invest to continue improving our environmental and safety stewardship and our operating reliability. This focus on managed risks will also apply to our investment grade balance sheet. Our Board of Directors remains committed to returning cash and value to our shareholders. To this end, we will be raising our dividend by 5% a share to $0.25 a quarter. While we do not plan to buy back any shares in the Q1, we look forward to restarting our buyback program as soon as market conditions warrant.

Speaker 2

As I said at the beginning, it is still too early in the quarter to make bold predictions. However, the order patterns that I'm seeing in most areas of the world tells me that in most of our divisions, we have seen the end of a very long period of inventory drawdowns and prices and volumes look to be gradually improving. With the restarting of China's economy post New Year celebrations, I feel more optimistic than I did at year end and see more proverbial green shoes than I have over the past 12 to 18 months. We have a lot of recovery before us, but I believe we're taking the right steps in the right directions. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

And with that, operator, why don't we open the line up for any questions? Thank

Operator

And our first question today comes from the line of Mike Sison with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 3

Hey, good morning. Peter, volumes in polyurethanes seem to have stabilized a bit in the 4th quarter. How do you think volumes sort of unfold in the Q1? You you sort of mentioned that order patterns look a little bit better? And then when do you think you will we can see an inflection point for growth in 2024?

Speaker 2

Well, I think that again, you're going to continue to see a gradual improvement throughout the Q1, both in pricing and in volume. When I look at it on a prior year basis, I would imagine we'll probably be seeing an improvement in the Q1. Again, just looking at order patterns today and so forth, probably around mid single digit sort of growth. And that's going to be pretty much across the board. We're looking for growth to take place, as we've seen the cessation of de inventorying in North America around housing and construction.

Speaker 2

And in China, we continue to see a bit of a rebound in construction, but mostly in automotive and mostly as we look at infrastructure projects. And in and mostly as we look at infrastructure projects. And in Europe, I think we'll just see a continued gradual recovery across the board in Europe.

Speaker 3

Got it. And then if volumes do recover, what do you think needs to happen to shore up sort of either pricing or profitability? And maybe give us a thought on what the polyurethanes segment should be able to do longer term in terms of sort of margins and earnings power?

Speaker 2

Well, I think MDI, I've not seen anything structurally that has changed in MDI. This is a mid to upper teens sort of business during its normalized basis. And when you see MDI capacity utilization, usually somewhere in the mid to upper 80s, particularly the upper 80s pushing 90%, you're going to see pricing power. And I think the industry today globally is somewhere in the low 80s percent capacity utilization with a little bit of an improvement over what we've seen in previous quarters. I'll remind you that the last quarter we're talking about global operating rates being probably in the mid season.

Speaker 2

So we are seeing a bit of an uptake there. And but we need to see sustainability. Again, last year at this time, we were talking about a stronger second half of the year and so forth. And I think that what's going to be important this time or this year is that we just see a long steady recovery in volume and allowing us to recover the pricing as well. And I would say that across the board in virtually all of our

Operator

Mr.

Speaker 3

This is James Cannon on for Josh. Just looking at AM, you called out volumes down again against weaker year over year comp. I was wondering, is there any impact from the ongoing BLR rationalization? Or is that pretty much done at this point?

Speaker 2

No, I don't think that we've seen any impact from a BLR rationalization. I mean, in our case, we're seeing a little bit of fluctuation in order patterns on aerospace and so forth. But I wouldn't say that any of those are really material trends. A lot of that's just going to be timing on year end inventory. And as you look at something like aerospace or in automotive, how many parts are in the OEM supply chain or car companies shifting from EVs to hybrids to ICE and that'll cause some disruption on a quarterly basis.

Speaker 2

But I don't see anything in Advanced Materials that would give me any concern about order patterns or sales.

Speaker 4

If you think about it, less than 10% of our Advanced Materials portfolio now is BLR. We've deselected an awful lot over the years focused on the higher margin businesses and that generates less than 5% of the profit. It's not our focus from a portfolio perspective.

Speaker 3

Okay, thanks. And then just on the Aerospace, there was an incident earlier in the quarter that led to the FAA limiting production at the major aircraft manufacturer. Is there any impact on the Q1 guide from that?

Speaker 2

No, no. And I would just remind you, it goes without saying, we didn't have anything to do. I mean, our products and so forth had nothing to do with that manufacturing problem that Boeing had. So, no, I don't yes, as we look at it overall, we don't see any impact in the Q1 because of that.

Speaker 4

Yes. And if you think about it, our exposure is in general into wide body aircraft, into the relevant aircraft is less than 5%. So it's again, for any recovery that we have, it's all focused on the wide body material that we sell into that end market.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of John Roberts with Mizuho. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 5

Thank you. You decided that you're going to restart smaller Geismar unit. Maybe it didn't sound like that was maybe quite justified yet. Maybe that should come a little bit later, but maybe you could talk about where you think that volume is going to go?

Speaker 2

Yes. That's 100,000 tons of volume, roughly 250 £1,000,000 And so we're looking at that sort of volume being a relatively small percent increase in the overall scheme of things. I would just say too that as we look at restarting that, it does take you time to restart an asset like this, probably could take as long as throughout the entire quarter going into the Q2. The Q2 is usually pretty strong demand for OSB, CWP, insulation, our building materials. And just because we're operating that line doesn't mean that we're going to put all 130,000 tons into the market on day 1.

Speaker 2

That will be gradually be fed into the market as the market needs it and so forth. But we looking at today's order patterns, what we're hearing from our customers and so forth, we feel that we need to start that asset up.

Speaker 4

John, we've been operating globally at between 75% to 80 percent, the market's in the low 80s. So that should give you some indication that we're simply moving up to the market levels.

Speaker 5

Thank you. And then is the Boeing situation affecting your epoxy supply chain

Operator

at all?

Speaker 2

No, we're not seeing any issues today on that. What noise I would remind you that we're supplying our customers that then supply Boeing or in some cases, our customers supply an OEM that supplies Boeing. And what impact that may have if Boeing were to slow down production and so forth, we may not fill it for a quarter or 2. But no, I don't see any reason today. We're certainly not seeing anything that would impact that.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 6

Thank you. Good morning. Peter, just on MDI, what would it take to return to mid cycle operating rates in MDI? And is there a path forward to a peak later in this decade?

Speaker 2

I think that as we look at we kind of look at the 3 regions. I think that as we look at the U. S. Housing market, I think that a recovery in housing to be at that 1.5 to 1.7 kind of where we were just a few years ago, which I think is still well below the $2,000,000 level that people are saying it's kind of a sustainable rate. If we look at housing, that recovery of housing and I think, again, it's what was really painful over the last year and a half was the de inventorying that took place.

Speaker 2

It wasn't necessarily that housing dropped to 900,000 units or something like we saw during the Great Recession. It was a massive amount of de inventory that took place and how much inventory was in the system when that de inventory started. So I think in North America, it's going to be a lot around housing. I think that as we look at Europe, it's going to be excuse me, as we look to Asia, it's going to be around a continued pull that in automotive. For us, both ICE and particularly EV have been very strong end markets for us in urethanes in China.

Speaker 2

China continues to improve as we have pointed out in the last couple of quarters as it would. But we're certainly not seeing from an overall macro point of view, the 5%, 6% growth that we've seen in past years. So I think that's going to be important. And then Europe, I think Europe is going through, particularly in Germany, something of a deindustrialization right now. And I think Europe needs to find instead of courses to do they want to continue this insanity that they're going through or do they want really have policies and priorities that are going to encourage manufacturing and where they're going to be going in that area.

Speaker 2

But Europe for us in building materials, insulation, light weighting, automotive and so forth, those are of those are doing fairly well right now. We're seeing a gradual recovery in automobiles and so forth, insulation, but we need to see more coming out of Europe. So again, I think all of those indicators are going in the right direction right now gradually, some faster than others. We just need to see it sustainably keep moving in that area.

Speaker 6

Very helpful. And just how should we think about the ramp in earnings from Q1 to Q2 for the total company?

Speaker 2

I'm sorry, the ramp of earnings in Q1, Q2 for the entire company?

Speaker 6

Yes, the ramp from Q1 to Q2 EBITDA for the company.

Speaker 2

Again, I think that that will be a factor of what we see in continued growth and pricing discipline, largely across the board. But we would assume that as we continue to see an improvement in demand and the continued improvement in pricing, that we'll see an improvement in earnings as well. Yes, we're not

Speaker 4

going to guide to Q2 right now. Dave, we've got the Q1 guidance, but we would expect a seasonal

Operator

Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 7

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Just to piggyback on the last question, your polyurethanes segment, you're expecting better margins in the Q1. Should we think about that level of MDI margins in Q1 as sort of the baseline for 2024? Or could those margins dip again in Q2 because we now see benzene rising, for example, maybe you won't have enough pricing?

Speaker 7

But do you feel comfortable that at the very least that Q1 level of MDI margins would not slip lower?

Speaker 2

Well, I'd like to say that we have that much control in pricing for the entire year and that we have that good of forecasting. But as we look at and I'm focused right now as to how Q1 is ending and how Q2 is going to be starting. And as I look right now at some of the broader indicators, Europe were out with a price increase effective March 1 €250. These are public announcements of €250 a ton. Chinese on the post New Year's, which ended just this past week.

Speaker 2

We've seen a pretty strong demand both in volume and in pricing that's been publicly reported of around $150 a ton. In the U. S, we'll be pushing for a $400 a ton price improvement in HBS now and in our Huntsman Building Solutions. We also have some formula pricing in the U. S.

Speaker 2

And we'll be pushing for other price increases as well that are not public, so across the board. Now a lot of that's going to be setting. Last couple of days, we've seen benzene continue to be quite volatile. And we've got to make sure that our prices stay above the wave of raw material price movements. But by and large, we're finishing Q1 in a much stronger position than we started Q1 on a pricing basis.

Speaker 2

And I would say that again, some of that improvement, that optimism I talked about in my prepared remarks at the very beginning, Literally, we've seen that really starting to come just in the last couple of days. So we see some of the actions that have taken place in China and so forth. So again, some good optimism going into the Q2. I feel like it feels like we've got the wind in our sails. But again, we've unfortunately, we've seen that before

Speaker 7

On Europe specifically, do

Speaker 2

Yes, pardon?

Speaker 4

Yes, Alexi.

Speaker 7

In Europe specifically, do you see any benefit from lower imports of material from Asia in either polyurethanes or Performance Products?

Speaker 2

I think we'd always be happy to see fewer imports and more, just as a rule of thumb. So, yes, I think that would be the case, yes. Yes.

Speaker 4

I mean, we've seen a little bit of a slowdown, Alexi, if you look at where we are today in February versus quarter 4 in terms of imports from Asia just because of the Red Sea, you'll get as good as ours as how temporary that actually is.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 3

Hi, this is Adam on for Arun. Thanks for taking my question. Looking into second and third quarter, looking at polyurethanes and wondering other than some of the items you've just outlined, what might you think are some of the upside drivers beyond seasonality for that segment? Thank you.

Speaker 2

I believe it's going to just be a continued growth in demand, stability in raw material prices and discipline in finished product pricing. It's just getting back to the basic fundamentals. A little bit of restocking would also help. I think that inventories are very low and throughout polyurethanes as well. We'll be completing our cost savings program throughout 2024.

Speaker 2

So we'll see some of the benefits of that fault at the bottom line.

Speaker 3

Great. Thanks for that. And looking at ag and amine destocking, when you think some of the negative impacts from that might start to subside?

Speaker 2

I'm sorry, the destocking around what?

Speaker 3

Ag chemicals and amines specifically?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think we feel that most of the destocking, at least what we're seeing in our amides products, we're not that exposed to agricultural products and chemicals. So I don't want to comment on anything on the ag side more just out of we're just not exposed that much there. So I really don't track that. But with most of our amines, as we look again, as we look at the volume improvements that we're seeing quarter on quarter, I think that we've seen the vast majority of the destocking that is that's taken place has come to an end.

Operator

Next question is from the line of Kevin McCarthy with Vertical Research Partners. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 8

Yes. Thank you and good morning. Peter, I wanted to come to the 5 goals that you outlined at the top of the conversation. And I was particularly intrigued by your 4th point of assessing the portfolio, making sure you're the best owner for all of your assets, etcetera. Obviously, we've seen some significant divestitures over the last 5 years or so.

Speaker 8

Do you have in your mind potential to part with any businesses that are bigger than a bread box? Or are you referring to maybe potential for more surgical changes in the portfolio? Maybe any updated thoughts on where you'd like to drive the portfolio from here would be helpful?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think that we need to just continue to look at the entire want to we want to stay exactly what we are today forever. And as we look at those areas of the business that are particularly impacted by higher energy costs in Europe, I think that we need to step back and we need to ask ourselves, how do we structure those businesses for the next 5 or 10 years or next 20 years, where we're going to be in a competitive position. The markets changed quite a bit in the last couple of years when it comes to pricing dynamics, when it comes to geopolitical shifts and energy policies and so forth. And I think we've got to continuously ask ourselves, are we best positioned to own these assets?

Speaker 2

Are they in the right places? Do we have the right supply agreements or even partnerships? And see where we go from there? But again, I would I think it'd be I think it'd be the wrong move if we came in one morning and said everything's perfect and there's no need to look. If we could trade some of our assets and obviously I'm not going to get into which of those assets they'd be, But if you could trade some of those assets for less volatile, higher margin assets, I know that's a lot easier said than done.

Speaker 2

But I think we probably have approved some of that over the last couple of years as we've divested of our textile effects and TiO2 and some of the more commoditized intermediate chemicals and so forth, oxides and glycols and so forth. And we bought assets that have been put into our advanced materials, our downstream urethane and spray foam businesses. We look at those sort of changes. I'd like to see that going forward.

Speaker 8

That's really helpful. And then second, Peter, if I may, I wanted to ask about your view on China. I think you made a comment that you're more optimistic today than you were at year end. Year end was not too terribly long ago. So I'm just kind of curious, is it to do with a little bit of MDI uplift that you referenced earlier?

Speaker 8

Or are you seeing other signs in China that are more encouraging to you, more green shoots? Maybe you could elaborate a little bit on the regional outlook there.

Speaker 2

Yes. I'm not sure that my views necessarily have changed all that much. I always get a little bit leery when you go into Chinese New Year's because it seems like you come out of it and you're either off to the races or it seems like things just the New Year's ends and things just remain lethargic. And that's kind of what we've seen over the last 2 years or so. China is struggling through COVID and then a rather lethargic recovery in the last year.

Speaker 2

I see them coming out of this new year just in the last week. And again, I don't want to base the whole year on weeks of demand and pricing and so forth. But I think what we're seeing in market conditions in real time, Kevin, is we're seeing a better rebound, if you will, after the Chinese New Year than we've seen over the last 2 or 3 years. And this is kind of the China that we were used to a couple of years ago. So again, I'm not saying that these guys have changed drastically, but I do think that the pickup that we're seeing in our particular business on EVs and as we look at some of the demand that is picking up in China in particular, it feels like it's real and it continues to see a gradual steady improvement.

Speaker 4

And Kevin, for context, about 15% to 20% of our sales are into China and less than 10% into property, which has obviously been the big headline coming out of China and how far that's fallen.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question. Hi.

Speaker 3

This is Turner Henricks on for Vincent. I'm wondering if you can walk us through price cost and other considerations underlying your guide and that margins will move higher in the Q1 within Performance Products specifically?

Speaker 2

Yes, I think that as we look at Performance Products, we continue to see a gradual recovery in the construction markets. That's going to be an improvement from anhydride and the unsaturated polyester resin chain as you kind of move downstream in North America. We'll see a volume will be higher in our means products as well. And that goes into everything from spray foam. And we're seeing prices are stable to improving in this business.

Speaker 2

So, yes, I think again, performance products we're going to see a gradual improvement and I hope that that builds momentum throughout the year.

Speaker 3

Great. Thanks for the color. So you've mentioned that you anticipate stronger pricing in the Q1 in polyurethanes. Could you walk us through what you're seeing in each region as it relates to polyurethanes pricing and what you're expecting for underlying supply and demand?

Speaker 2

Well, again, some of the broader things that we're seeing in China, I would just say that we're seeing around $150 a ton improvement. China, unlike Europe and the U. S, we'll set up we'll set a price out. China moves really almost on a daily basis on your base and more commoditized polyurethanes, your downstream urethane blends and more differentiated urethanes are usually going to follow that macro movement in pricing. But as we see pricing today in China, we see that up around $150 a ton improvement over what we've seen in the past couple of weeks.

Speaker 2

And as we go to Europe, again, we're out with a $2.50 a ton improvement in Europe. And again, when I say that, that's not to say that you take all of our volume and put $2.50 a ton of that. Some of that will be effective March 1, some of it will be a little bit later than that. Some of it depending on contracts and so forth in place, maybe more, maybe less than that $250,000,000 But directionally, that's where we see pricing going in the European market. And that's obviously is very much needed, particularly in the European market.

Speaker 2

In the U. S. Market, again, we're seeing a number of areas. With the splitter that we have in place, we see kind of more of a fragmented base in Europe. We sell a lot internally through down through the Huntsman Building Solutions.

Speaker 2

We have a bunch of our product that's on pricing formulations and so forth, where we're able to pass through raw material volatility and increases. And we have some that are just on standalone contracts with prices that we negotiate on a quarterly or monthly basis. But we are pushing for a broad price increase on the North American market as well in MDI. And to your

Speaker 4

question on utilization, we'd still expect it to be in the low 80s in the first quarter. We're not up to the seasonal highs of construction in the Q2. And as we said earlier, the polyurethanes industry really needs to get into that 85% plus utilization before you see a real inflection point when it comes to supply demand.

Operator

Our next questions come from the line of Mike Harrison with Seaport Research Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 9

Hi, good morning. Good morning, Mark. You noted that you were maybe seeing some additional opportunities to improve the cost base. And I was just curious, are those additional actions that could be taking place above and beyond $60,000,000 worth of incremental savings that are part of the restructuring program that's been in place for several quarters? Or were you just saying that there's still some actions that you need to take in order to achieve those incremental savings?

Speaker 4

Yes, Mike. Hi, it's Phil. I think we've guided to approximately $60,000,000 year on year. That includes some of the actions that we'll be taking during the course of this year. We are looking at manufacturing efficiency.

Speaker 4

And honestly, outside of just the cost base, we're looking at working capital as well. I think we're cognizant that in any recovery, working capital, there should typically be an outflow when it comes to cash. And I think there's some more work for us to be done, particularly around inventory days where we can offset some of that. We'll also continue to finish off our European restructuring project as well as a small amount to do there as well. And quite frankly, we still got to make sure that we're offsetting about $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 of inflation every single year.

Speaker 9

All right. And then the other question I had is on the And I guess what needs to happen from a commercial or offtake standpoint before you decide to move forward with construction on that larger scale facility? And then the second piece of that is, I apologize if you've already said this, but what could the cost of that 5,000 ton Mirallon facility look like?

Speaker 2

Well, the 30 ton facility, which would be the largest facility of its type that is producing the carbon nanotube product, This will be the largest facility in the world. We believe we have a very competitive cost basis. And the key to this is the lower you can get the cost, the more applications you can get into. We're presently working right now with everything from concrete to car tires, EV batteries and structural products. Right now, we're able to sell as much as we're able to make of the product.

Speaker 2

But the product right now to cover the costs are going to very high end applications into satellites and NASA applications and so forth. As you come up with larger scale capacities, we're going to be able to widen the product availability, the value and the number of applications that go into. The next phase of that expansion will be taking place next year. We believe that we'll be starting up a 30 ton reactor. We'll be starting it before sometime in the middle part of this year.

Speaker 2

And we feel that we should have sufficient data from that to initiate the larger expansion, which will be in 2025. At that point, I think that we're that next expansion really is what I would consider to be a commercial size reactor, that if you want to go larger than that, you're just putting in multiple reactors of that size. So really coming, I think, to the end in the next year or 2 of being able to seed the product, being able to qualify the material and then being able to mass produce the material that economics that should make this a very hopefully a very successful add on to the rest of the business.

Speaker 4

In terms of cost, Mike, think about all of that investment that Peter described, the 30 tonne, the 5 kilosan in the tens of 1,000,000, maybe $30,000,000 to $40,000,000 It's all contained within the capital program that we've outlined and contained within the $200,000,000 that we've guided for this year's capital program.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Frank Mitsch with Fermium Research. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 10

Thank you so much and good morning. Peter, I want to come back to the comment on Performance Products where you indicated that you anticipate a gradual improvement. As I look at that sector, the decline over the past several quarters has been wasn't gradual, it was fairly significant. And in fact, the volume declines were pretty horrific between the period of Q3 2022 Q3 2023. We got back to relatively breakeven here in the Q4.

Speaker 10

So the question is, obviously, a lot of that has to be destock. If we're back to a period of underlying demand, why would we not see these double digit declines on volumes flip to being double digit increases on volumes and so forth? Can you help me understand gradual versus something more significant in terms of recovery?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think that as we look at the amount of restocking that is taking place, I believe that when we go back and we look at where the markets were a little over a year ago, We were having a very difficult time fulfilling customer orders. And I think customers when we started to work through the bottlenecks, customers had very high inventories of our product in their supply chains. And I think that was really across the board. I mean, we had trouble getting blowing agents and for our building solutions, our spray foam, we had trouble producing enough amines.

Speaker 2

When you saw the boomeranging effect of the economy post COVID, I think that there was the supply chains built up too much inventory and there was a concern that there wasn't going to be enough production, there wasn't going to be the logistics were not in place and pricing was going to go through the roof. And a lot of our customers, almost across the board, whether it was an oriented strand board or particle boards or insulation materials, amines, whatever. I think they built unnecessarily large amounts of inventory. Now when the markets turned, I think that it turned certainly more suddenly and took longer to de inventory than all of us anticipated or maybe some of us didn't anticipated the sort of a drawdown. I don't think so.

Speaker 2

I mean, I would look across the entire chemical industry. We all hit it about the same magnitude, same time, maybe off a quarter here and there. Now, does the market bounce back at the same magnitude that it came down? I don't believe that it does, because I don't think most people today are worried about where they're going to be getting product next quarter. They're seeing prices gradually improving.

Speaker 2

They're seeing there's plenty of capacity out there. Demand isn't going through the roof. And so I think that the recovery or the restocking is going to be gradual. It's of volatility. If we saw the restocking take place as fast as the destocking, prices margins would go back up and probably collapse just as much.

Speaker 2

So I hope that there's a little more reason that go reasoning that goes into this restocking. I think it's going to be gradual and it's going to be throughout the year.

Speaker 10

Understood, understood. You did highlight obviously the high cost of benzene, but we've certainly gotten a nice respite bit on natural gas, not only here in the States, but also in Europe. What's the impact on Huntsman? What can we expect to see with respect to that flowing through the P and L?

Speaker 2

Well, I think that you'll see the impact of that throughout the second quarter, a little bit at the end of the Q1. As you see, again, it's not necessarily natural gas, but it's the hydrogen, it's the CO that is made from natural gas, the hydrogen and obviously it's a raw material for our utilities and our boilers and so forth. And that will some of that will be in real time, some of it will be in pricing and the impact that will be in the next quarter. So again, it's great to see these low prices. I wish we saw the same sort of drop in the European markets.

Speaker 2

Europe is still about 5 times higher than its cost today, but it's natural gas. And obviously, China is more based on coal than it is natural gas. That's usually pretty stable and pretty low.

Operator

Our next question is coming from the line of Matthew Blair with Tudor, Pickering, Holt. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 11

Thank you. Good morning. Peter, one of your five goals was to improve free cash flow generation and in the prepared remarks list out a few different levers here, things like reduced incentive comp, but higher turnaround spend. I think your free cash flow conversion in 2023 was only in like the low single digits. Do you have a target for 2024 that you could share on free cash flow conversion?

Speaker 2

Yes. I would just say that when we talk about the improvement in our free cash flow, I'll let Phil is quite anxious to make a comment here. But when we talk about the incentive pay, I didn't say that we would be cutting incentive pay to help cash flow. I said that our incentive pay would be tied to the generation of cash flow. So I hope that came out clearly.

Speaker 2

This is the highest portion of our incentive pay for senior managers this year is going to be on achieving our cash flow targets and objectives.

Speaker 4

Yes. So free cash flow is clearly going to be better in 2024 than 2023. Therefore, consequently, the conversion ratio is certainly going to be better year on year. And I think we highlighted some items to consider. CapEx will be $30,000,000 lower.

Speaker 4

Restructuring cash will be $30,000,000 lower between pension and incentive comp that we pay out in 'twenty four, the 'twenty three performance combined will be about $35,000,000 lower overall. We still do have outstanding the Praxair lawsuit that we won quite a while back against Linda. And so look, we're just going to be very disciplined when it comes to cash flow. Hitting the cycle average 40% free cash flow conversion ratio that we've targeted, that's going to be difficult in 2024 as we continue to recover overall. But quite frankly, again, we're going to be clearly better than we were in 2023.

Speaker 2

Yes. And I would just say, when we look at on a normalized basis, that 40% free cash flow conversion rate, I would still say that that's where this company ought to be during a normalized economic period. I don't see that number having

Speaker 11

changed. Sounds good. And then regarding the U. S. Construction market, at least on paper, housing starts were pretty good in the Q4 of 2023, up 6% after some big declines earlier in the year.

Speaker 11

Did you see that come through in your Q4 results and polyurethanes was just pretty soft due to weakness in other regions? Or should we be thinking about a lag if housing starts to improve in 1 quarter, maybe it takes like 1 or 2 quarters for that to flow through to Huntsman?

Speaker 2

Yes. Let's remember that the time from permitting to purchasing to building inventory, the impact of that entire supply chain is not an instantaneous issue. And companies today are looking at where they're going to be in 2nd quarter and in some cases, 3rd quarter. They're looking at what the demand is going to be and projected to be. We'll see things like mortgage rates will have an impact on how much inventory and pre buying OSB and installation customers will be doing.

Speaker 2

So there are a lot of variables. But again, as we look at it, we step back and we look at it from a macro point of view, from what we're hearing from our customers, the early indications that we're seeing, our indication internally, as Tony said, it's time to restart our line in Geismarck and gradually start bringing that into the market and we believe that's going to be needed to satisfy demand. So that should tell you as much of our view going forward.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Hassan Ahmed with Alembic Global. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 3

Good morning, Peter.

Speaker 12

In the sort of prepared remarks that you guys posted overnight, for the polyurethanes segment, you guys talked about, I believe it was like a 6% volume gain in Europe and you talked about some market share gains out there as well. Can you talk about the dynamic that's transpiring over there with regards to this?

Speaker 2

Yes. I would just remind you that we had our facility down earlier in the year. So when we talk about where we were a year ago and where we were even a quarter ago, it's pretty easy comps to beat. So I'd like to think that Europe is expanding GDP 6% per quarter. It's going to continue like that.

Speaker 2

But again, there's I think there's some fundamental issues around Europe on the broader economic perspective when you look at energy and industrial policy. But as we look at our customer base in Europe, we don't see it getting any worse. We see if anything, there's perhaps a building tendency for restocking. And as we look at our facility there, it's running well. And we're continuing to see stability and gradual improvement there.

Speaker 2

And hopefully, effective March 1 here, we'll be successful in price increases.

Speaker 12

Understood, understood. And just sticking to the polyurethanes segment, I mean, obviously, EBITDA margins in Q4 were around 1.5%, call it near breakeven. And you guys are relatively sort of low cost, downstream integrated and the like. Could you talk a bit about the global cost curves? I mean, I'd like to think that a large chunk of the industry is loss making right now.

Speaker 12

How sustainable is that really? Should we be seeing sort of curtailments now and pricing increases in theory that would ensue thereon after?

Speaker 2

Well, it's I mean, just going around the world, the lowest cost producers globally right now are in China. And you've got low energy costs in China with the amount of coal that's being consumed and the coal based economy largely. And that's going to be where you've got the largest newest facilities. And so you're going to have the lowest cost coming out of China. 2nd on that, that cost curve is going to be the U.

Speaker 2

S. I believe our positioning in the U. S. Is that I'm not going to sit here and say that we are the lowest cost producer in North America, but I would be surprised if anybody is lower than us. I don't know the exact economics of our competition, but I think between our reliability and the size of our facility and so forth, we would be among the lowest cost producers in North America.

Speaker 2

And I would say that when I look at the profitability in North America, while it's improving, these are not long term sustainable margins. We need to see better market conditions, pricing and demand. And then when I go to Europe, Europe is 1 cold winter or 1 valve pipeline or 1 import terminal problem away from an energy spike as we've saw in the summer before Putin's invasion, as we saw in the winter of Putin's invasions. We've seen since then where energy prices can spike up 5, 10 times in a very short period of time. So Europe needs to figure out what their energy policy is going to be and it have an economy that size based on the means of propulsion that Columbus used 700 years ago is insane.

Speaker 2

And they've got to figure out what they're going to do from an energy point of view and from an industrial point of view and what they're going to do to compete. When you look at the margins over the last 2 years in particular, I think that I publicly have said it, if I haven't, then I should. We haven't made strong cash flow out of Europe in almost 2 years. That's unacceptable and it's unsustainable. So if we're in that position, even if our competition, I believe, again, in Europe, we may not be the lowest, but I bet we're very close to the lowest cost producer.

Speaker 2

There's no way that an MDI company is operating at European market economics today and says we're making a strong return on capital and we're proud of what we're doing today. Europe, just so yes, Hassane, I'm happy to where the direction that the markets are going, demand is picking up, pricing is picking up. I don't mean to get on a tie right here, but we've got a long way to go. And there's a lot of work that needs to be done. And I think we're heading in the right direction, but I still Europe probably has to be more worried than the U.

Speaker 2

S. And Asia.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Salvator Tiano with Bank of America. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 13

Thank you very much. I just want to come back to the U. S. MDI market first. So firstly, it seems like you have some pretty steep price increase.

Speaker 13

You mentioned correctly, if I heard correctly, around $400 a ton in the U. S. But some trade publications even last night are still differentiating between U. S. And European and Asia conditions saying the demand and supply are much, much looser here.

Speaker 13

So what are you seeing that's making you quite more optimistic than, I guess, trade consultants here? And also on the Geismar startup in Q2, can you discuss a little bit what will be the cost associated with that? And what is the minimum operating rate that you need to run-in order to be profitable on an EBITDA or an EBITDA level?

Speaker 2

Yes. When we talk about the $400 a ton, I will just remind you, that's what we're shooting for in our HBS business. So we take our own MDI internally, we transfer it to HBS, we price out it in market and then we sell that to customers. And we're seeing we've been public. And I only want to talk about price increases that we have that are public.

Speaker 2

As we think about what the trade is saying versus what we're saying, well, the difference yes, what the difference is between those. One sells paper and one sells product, and we sell product. And so I can only comment on what we're seeing, what our customers are seeing, the feedback we get from our customers and reality on pricing. Trade publications, I think, are a good snapshot on the macro basis. But I wouldn't say right now that MDI in the U.

Speaker 2

S. Is long and sloppy in pricing. I'd say, if that were the case, we wouldn't be shooting for the price increases and pushing for the price increases that we are. And I apologize, I forgot the latter part of your question. I think

Speaker 4

it's just confirming. Yes.

Speaker 2

I think just to

Speaker 4

sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 13

Just it was the second unit on Geismar, either will be any cost in Q2 associated with the start up and if and what's the minimum operating rate that needs to be that you need to run to be profitable on an EBITDA or an EBITDA basis?

Speaker 4

We will just as we said, we will just bring that on slowly, make sure that we operate appropriately above 50% levels. So I mean, you know these plants below those levels, then they tend to glue up. So to operate them efficiently, we'll bring those on, but we'll bring it on slowly and we'll make sure that we're profitable in what we put into the market.

Speaker 13

Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Patrick Cunningham with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 6

Hi, good morning. This is Eric Zhang on for Patrick. You've done a lot with polyurethanes on the cost optimization front. Where do you think EBITDA margins can get to this year with maybe a modest volume recovery and ferroprices? Thank you.

Speaker 2

I'd be reticent to throw out a margin number because I know whatever I say, I'm either going to be too high or too low. But I do think that we'll be moving throughout the year. Hopefully, again, unless we see a massive amount of restocking that happens very suddenly, which I'm not anticipating, but I think that we're going to see a gradual improvement throughout the year. And I hope that we finish the year much closer to our normalized levels of EBITDA than when we started the year. I know that's a superfluous answer, but I think at this point, again, we've got the results of January and it's just simply too early in the year to make a year production.

Speaker 4

And as we said, cycle average margins, if you go back over the last 10 years, this is a mid teens, mid teens plus margin business.

Speaker 6

Got it. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Operator, I think we'll take one more question. I think we're nearing the top of the hour and assuming anybody else is with us.

Operator

Yes. We have a question from line of Laurence Alexander with Jefferies.

Speaker 2

Good morning, Laurence. Good morning. Just want to revisit the portfolio optimization comments. What's the 3 scale of your business a limiting factor in what you do? Or is the focus really just on return on capital volatility, kind of what value is reflected in your share price versus the fundamental value.

Speaker 2

Can you just help clarify how much scale constrains what you do?

Speaker 4

Yes. So I mean you're talking about the fact, Laurence, that we've sold down our TI2 business, our spindletop business, so the intermediates business, our textile effects business and we've got a $6,000,000,000 company today. Again, I think we'd rather that we were adding on bolt on acquisitions to and grow the business both organically and inorganically over time. And those inorganic investments would come around, particularly around Advanced Materials. And as Peter said earlier, you may look at some small parts around the edge well in terms of whether we're the best owner or not.

Speaker 4

But to the point, we come in and we look every day, are we the best owner? Can we generate an effective return from the portfolio in the long run? And you are correct, we're absolutely looking at the return on invested capital versus our cost of capital.

Speaker 2

I would just say, Laurence, and I hope I don't get ahead of myself in saying this, that we do run the risk. If we were to look at selling a big chunk of the business today without the acquisition of something else. We run the risk of getting too small here and I think that's not something that we want to entertain either. But that shouldn't preclude us from doing something big if we can replace it with something big and continue to shift and change the portfolio. I think I've again, I publicly have said, if you go back and you look at the history of Huntsman, every 5 years, at least, there's been a major addition, a major divestiture, something that has fundamentally changed that I believe has made us a stronger company, whether it's a sale going back 15 years ago of our base chemicals businesses, 10 years ago of our TiO2 and some of our basic pieces and so forth and more recently in the last 5 years of our intermediates and textile effects.

Speaker 2

And I think at the same time being able to buy the right assets to replace those or if we can't find the right assets, we're going to return cash as we did this last year with the sale of the textile effects business. We're going to return cash to shareholders. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we've reached the end of the question and answer session. This will also conclude today's teleconference. You may now disconnect your lines at this time. Have a wonderful day.

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Earnings Conference Call
Huntsman Q4 2023
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