Alpek, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV:ALPEK/A) Q2 2022 Earnings Call

0:01 Good morning, welcome to Alpek second quarter 2022 earnings webcast. My name is Anton Fernandez and I am honored to assume my new role as Alpek investor relations officer. Today I have the pleasure of being joined by your CEO, Pepe Valdez, and our CFO, Jose Carlos Pons. This presentation is divided into two parts. First, Pepe and Jose Carlos will comment on Alpek's second quarter performance, recent events, and updated guidance figures. Afterwards, we'll move on to Q&A. Please note that the information discussed today may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's future financial performance and prospects, which are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially and the company cautions the market not to rely unduly on these forward-looking statements.

0:53 Alpek undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. I'd like to remind everyone that today's webcast is being recorded and will be available on our website at alpek.com. I will now turn the call over to Pepe.

1:17 Thank you, Anton. We're happy to have you as the new IRO. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I am very pleased to mention that in the second quarter, Alpek continued to navigate 2022 successfully. Margins were more robust than expected across all key products in our portfolio, which supported the company in achieving record quarterly highs for both comparable and reported EVDA. Let's begin with a review of the main topics we will cover today. First, Alpek significantly surpassed financial performance expectations for the second quarter, as José Carlos will review in greater detail later in this presentation.

2:09 Then, we will discuss the conclusion of the OCTAAL acquisition and the added value to our portfolio. We will give an update on Corpus Christi polymers. Forward, we will cover the recent SBTI approval. And finally, we will provide revised 2022 guidance for the earnings report released yesterday. Let me provide some context for the second quarter results. These past few months have been marked by sustained inflationary pressures. Meanwhile, Asian integrated polyester reference margin averaged $410 per ton for the quarter, higher than expected, and only 2% lower than the previous quarter, with the spread between Chinese and Asian margins narrowing to $93 per ton.

3:08 North American polypropylene reference margin, however, experienced an unexpected quarterly increase, averaging 39 cents per pound, 3% higher quarter on quarter due to tight market conditions. Also in North America, EPS average reference margin declined by 14 cents per pound during the second quarter due to higher raw material prices, but nonetheless remain at strong levels. At this point, Jose Carlos will take over and go into more detail regarding the specific impact of these changes on financial results.

3:50 Thanks, Pepe. And thank you all for being here with us today. I would like to highlight some of Alpek's main achievements during the quarter. Overall volume increased to 1.26 million tons. Record quarterly comparable levita of $369 million, with both the polyesters and plastic and chemical segments posting their highest quarterly figures ever. Leverage increases slightly to 1.2 times due to the octal acquisition. Delving deeper into volume, Alpek reached 1.26 million tons this period, 4% higher than in the previous quarter. This was due to the sustained high demand and of course the inclusion of the best business from Octalia. If we exclude the incremental volume from the recent acquisition, volume decreases slightly by 2% quarter on quarter and was flat year on year as a result of a scheduled maintenance at one of our sites.

4:47 In the polyester segment, volume was 1 million tons, 5% higher quarter on quarter, largely to sustain high demand and the recently incorporated bed sheet and bed resin facilities from Octal. In plastics and chemicals, volume was 2% lower quarter on quarter due to the fact that the increase in EPS volume was offset by a slight decline in the polypropylene volume. Moving on to raw material price dynamics, average spot print crude oil increased to $113 per barrel, 16% higher than in the previous quarter, largely due to the effects of inflationary pressures. US reference paraxylene prices increased by 41%, much greater than the rise in crude oil. and in plastics and chemicals, propylene prices remain stable, averaging 61 cents per pound, a 4% decrease when compared to the previous quarter.

5:48 Switching over to EBITDA breakdown for the quarter, We can see that the total comparable levy that reached $369 million, a record figure, and was 11% higher than in the previous quarter. This was primarily due to better than expected margins from our main products, as well as a strong volume across both segments. Reported levy that was $507 million, 11% higher quarter on quarter. This result also included a non-cash inventory gain of $80 million and a positive carry-forward effect of $73 million. If we look at results by key segments, Poliestra Compago Levita was $218 million, 13% higher quarter-on-quarter and 113% higher year-on-year, making this the strongest quarter ever for the segment.

6:44 This was due to solid volume and resiliency of the Asian polyester reference margins, which remained higher than expected, averaging $410 per ton. Excluding incremental levita from the new pet business, polyester-comparable levita would have esteemed being higher than the first quarter. In plastics and chemicals, Compara Bolivar also set a new quarter record of $147 million, a 3% increase quarter-on-quarter and a 22% year-on-year. This was mainly due to increasing polypropylene margins stemming from limited supply, which led to tight market conditions, as well as stronger-than-expected EPS margins. With regards to free cash flow generation, networking capital investment increased by $238 million, largely due to rising raw material prices during the quarter. CapEx totaled $678 million and was mainly allocated to the hotel acquisition.

7:46 This resulted in a negative free cash flow of $535 million, as record EBITDA was more than offset by strategic CapEx. Finally, I want to discuss the company's financial position during the second quarter. Alpex net debt increased to $1.78 billion, and last 12 months EBITDA also increased to $1.5 billion, resulting in a leverage ratio of 1.2 times net debt to EBITDA. That concludes my comments, and I will now turn the call back to Pepe.

8:21 Thank you, Jose Carlos. Let us review the recent events. As per the announcement sent out in May, Alpek concluded the octal acquisition earlier than anticipated, first assuming operational control as of June 1st this year. This includes a main facility with both PET sheet and resin plants in Salalah Free Zone in Oman, PET sheet recycling facility in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a PET thermoform packaging facility in Saudi Arabia. These assets bring Alpek into the PET sheet market, which has an estimated annual growth rate of 6% and allow it to serve increasing demand for its PET resin businesses.

9:09 The strategic locations I just mentioned also facilitate the lower cost procurement of raw materials, as well as access to existing and new clients across the Americas, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Europe. Furthermore, the addition of PET sheet to our portfolio brings opportunity for us to vertically integrate it into our existing PET facilities in the future. And very importantly, octal DPET proprietary technology for PET sheet will generate a problem with approximately 25% lower carbon footprint than the rest of the industry. which is very exciting to us as it brings us further along in our ESG goals.

9:58 We are excited to welcome Octal's management and employees into our team. Earlier this week, the company announced that the three partners of Corpus Christi Polymers, Indorama Ventures, FENC, and APEC will resume construction of the PTA PET site in August of this year, with an expected completion date in early 2025. CCP will function as an independent tolling company whereby each partner will procure its own raw materials and have access to one-third of the annual capacity, which is 1.1 million tons and 1.3 million tons of PET and PTA, respectively.

10:46 For Alpek, this is equivalent to approximately 367,000 tons of PET and 433,000 tons of PTA. This is expected to be the most competitive site in the Americas and will allow Alpek to continue supplying increasing customer demand It's a strategic location in the U.S. Gulf Coast would also facilitate competitive raw material procurement and lower distribution costs, as well as raise scalability across Alpek sites in the Americas. On July 7, Alpek announced that it has received approval from the Science-Based Target Initiative, SBTI, for its ESG target related to carbon emissions reduction. The SBTI's target validation team has classified the company's Scope 1 and 2 target ambition and has determined that it is in line with limiting warming to well below the two degrees Celsius trajectory, which guarantees the company's effort to combat climate change.

11:57 As part of the science-based target, the company has committed to reduce one, absolute scope one and two greenhouse gas emissions by 27.5% by 2030 from 2019 base year. to scope three emissions by 13.5% within the same timeframe. This reaffirms Alpek emissions reduction target as feasible and well aligned with the Paris Agreement. Alpek is confident that by transitioning to fully renewable electricity sources, improving its energy usage, and generating emission-free steam, among other initiatives, it will be well on track to meet its targets and continue its path towards carbon neutrality by 2050.

12:53 And finally, regarding the outlook for the remainder of 2022 and based on the stronger than expected margins that we have seen this year across the three products in our portfolio, the new PET business we just acquired and our results thus far, particularly for plastics and chemicals, APEC has revised its guidance upwards. Our new guidance figures are based on the following key market and business assumptions. And number one is average Brent crude oil reference prices of $100 per barrel unchanged from previous guidance. Ancient integrated PET reference margins of $370 per ton for the whole year, which considers an average of $330 per ton for the remaining of this year.

13:48 based on expected normalization and solid demand of the product. We also consider a slower decline than previously expected for North American polypropylene and EPS margins. Volume capex remain unchanged as both are currently in line with the original guidance. Based on these assumptions, guidance for overall comparable EBITDA for 2022 is now set at $1,475 billion. As always, I would like to thank our team, customers and suppliers for helping Alpek reach new heights. I would also like to thank you for your attention today.

14:36 I will now turn the call back to Antón to open the webcast for Q&A.

14:42 Thank you, Pepe. At this time, we will now take your questions. To ask your question live, we ask that you raise your hand virtually. We will call on participants in the order that hands are raised. Alternatively, you may also type your question through the Q&A function. We will attempt to cover as many questions as time allows. The first question comes from Luis Carballo from UBS. Luis?

15:11 Hi, Pepe. Hi, Jose Carlos. Anton, can you hear me well?

15:16 Very well.

15:17 OK, thank you. So two questions from my end. First of all, congrats on the results, very strong. The first one is with regards to the PTA and PET spreads looking forward, right? during the third quarter, at least the first month, we're still seeing the companies being able to pass through the prices. We are seeing somehow a decrease in terms of the feedstock cost. So just trying to understand the dynamics now and looking to the fourth quarter, I mean, seasonality plays a bit against in terms of demand, but just trying to get a better sense in terms of how you're seeing the supply demand and the spreads for the remaining of the year and 2023.

16:02 And the second question is, if you can provide a bit more details about COPORS Christie project, what are the next steps and what we can expect in terms of potential impact on the spreads as well, looking forward. And of course the outback participation with that. Thank you.

16:24 Well, Luis, regarding your first question, as I mentioned, PET spreads in both in China and in Asia have been stronger than we anticipated for the original guidance and the budget. During the first quarter, and we will talk mostly about the Asian preference price, more so than China because I do believe the Asian Margin has more impact in our operations than the Chinese. With Chinese in most of our markets, we have anti-dumping duties. We will talk about Asian prices to simplify the discussion.

17:17 During the first quarter this year, the Asian prices were $420. During second quarter, the Asian prices were $410, so a very slight 2% decrease, lower than what we were expecting. Now, for the third and fourth quarters, we are assuming that this margin is going to go down to $330. To $330, from $14 to $330. Again, as we start this month, margins are still higher than that, but which I believe we're just trying to be conservative because in terms of supply demand, when you look at the numbers, there is, in theory at least, enough supply to meet the demand at a global level. So that's why we are assuming this whole $330, which would be the normal margin that we have seen during the previous four or five years. That 330 comes from those numbers.

18:32 There have been, as you know, restrictions based on the pandemic and things like that. But we still assume that that's going to be the margin. Now, of course, this is also held by logistics. Logistic costs are higher than previously, and that's helping a little bit. On the other hand, we do have a challenge with the prices of raw materials, of paraxiling in particular, in North America. During the last couple of months, prices of paraxylene in the US in particular have been much higher than the prices of paraxylene in Asia. And that's due to the fact that gasoline prices, and particularly gasoline margins over crude, have been very, very high. Sab De Cv Ord And that has increased the opportunity cost for the for the silence that are the main fiscal for the fallout sign.

19:37 So as a result of that, we have experienced very high prices of PX during the last two months. And although we believe that they are going to normalize during the next during the next month, particularly as the summer driving season ends, we are also considering that factor for having those $330 margin, just in case that this Reductions in price in North America take longer. Again, that's basically the reason that we're seeing the margins where they are. Next year, we still believe that the supply demand, particularly when you look at North America, are going to remain healthy.

20:29 And we do hope that margins will be a little bit better than normal still for 2023. OK, so I hope that answers your first question. With regards to Corpus Christi, well, Corpus Christi, I think already mentioned, we are going to go ahead with the construction. We're taking a significant time. to finalize engineering, to make sure everything is ready to go without interruptions and without creating productivity issues in the project that were a factor why the high cost overruns were experienced in the last couple of years. So we feel confident that we do have a budget that is very realistic and doable. And again, based on that, we've given the green flag to start next month. And we expect to finish at least mechanical completion by the end of 2024.

21:33 Three partners are 33%, 33.3% each. and well yeah the increasing capacity is going to be significant but we have to remember that nowadays there is close to 1 million tons of PET that are being imported into North America so again I think with the growth in the market plus the fact that that some of those imports can be replaced, we do believe that the new Corpus Christi capacity will be allocated into the US market without creating a big disruption in the market.

22:25 That's our perception today. From previous, I guess, calls or conversations with you, we have mentioned to you that we have been expected in the medium term growth for PET in particularly North America somewhere between zero and 1% per year, and I'm talking here of mostly virgin PET. And I think we have also increased our expectation a little bit. We now see emerging PET with perhaps a growth somewhere between 2% and 3% per year. So that would also help to accommodate the new capacity of the Corpus Christi plant.

23:09 Okay, not clear. And if I may, just a quick follow up, how do you think that this may impact your, you know, the dividend plans, I mean, for 2024 because of the CapEx related to the project?

23:28 Well, yes, we, you know, the total investment we mentioned for this project, is going to be around $300 million over the next two and a half years. And to be honest, of course, it's going to be an important investment, but I don't think that will imply any restriction on the dividend payments that we have planned. I think we will be able to go ahead financing the project and at the same time pay dividends, particularly if the results remain as strong as they have been.

24:15 And the leverage is also at the 1.2 level after the octal acquisition. So I share with you that we feel comfortable or so to say, or so to speak, our target level for leverage is more around the 2.0, and we are at 1.2. So we believe there is room to go ahead with this project and to pay dividends without exceeding this 2.0 net debt to EVDA figure.

24:50 Okay, clear. Thank you very much, Pepe and Jose Carlos. Anton, thank you.

24:55 You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Luis. The next question comes from Nikolai Liebman from Morgan Stanley. Nick, your audio has been enabled. Please unmute yourself and proceed with your question.

25:09 Hi, good morning. Thanks a lot. Thanks for the call. Congrats one more time on these absolutely incredible numbers. Now, I have two questions pertaining to recycling and ultimately sort of entry barriers to the industry. Number one, it's what degree are you working on trying to establish a recycling standard for the industry together with both your peers and brand owners? And number two, very much for you, Pepe, I really appreciate your comments in the past pertaining to the different alternatives in chemical recycling. I was wondering if there's anything new to share in respect to that. And also, when we think about the corpus plant, It's so big that if you decide with your partners to have a standard of chemical recycling baked into part of that, it almost becomes the industry standard.

26:02 So my question is, one, do you plan to have any kind of recycling capacity as part of that nominal capacity, one? And two, would you prefer to have a proprietary technology? or would you wanna work with your partners like you're doing with InterX to have a similar standard between you and your partners in the project? Thank you very much and again, congratulations.

26:27 Well, I think in terms of recycling, our main objective, really more than having a proprietary technology and trying to take advantage of the market. I think our most important or biggest concern is to make sure that we recycle as much product as possible. And I do not believe that today that you're going to have a standard recycling. I think you're going to see a lot of very different technologies. coming into the market. Eventually, when the dust settles, you might all converge into a sort of standard technology, which hopefully will be the most effective.

27:18 But right now, there are many ways of recycling, mechanical, chemical. Even in chemical, there are several different routes. And I think all of them work, to be very honest. What I see as the biggest constraint for increasing in a significant way the recycling content of our products is the collection of used bottles, the collection of bales of bottles. That's the most, again, challenging test. You can have the best technology, chemical, non-chemical, but the real difficulty lies how are you going to get the basic, you know, the feedstock to run those plants.

28:08 And that is something which we are working with different groups to try to make sure that we increase that. If you do have enough feedstock, I would dare to say that even with the technologies that are existing today, I mean, we should do a very good job at increasing recycling content to somewhere between 25, even 50%. So again, our concern is not so much to develop, at this point, to develop technology that would separate us from the rest of the industry. And in fact, we are very open to cooperation with our peers, as you mentioned, and other parties. I mean, in some cases, cooperation with companies that have nothing to do in the PET business. A lot of the new ideas or the new players have nothing to do, are not existing players into the Virgin PET arena. So that's, again, not our priority. Our priority is to make sure that this works.

29:10 And again, From my perspective, of course, we are working in different technological routes with different people. But the key for me is how are we going to make sure we can collect more bottles? And I will make an important point now. And now after we acquired the octal business, it's now not only the challenge to collect more bottles, how do we collect also more thermophores? so that we can also recycle those. So we continue to work in that. And as I say, I'm a little bit less concerned with technology than with the fact that we do have to significantly increase the collection if we want to make an important change for the industry.

30:03 That's very clear. I'm sorry if I missed it, but are you planning to have a recycling

30:09 Part To That Corpus Plant Or Will That Be 100% Virgin Or As You Have You Do You Have Yet To Have Sorry Do You Get To Have To Make That Decision No Nicola I Think We All Want To Have A Recycle I Mean Recycle Capabilities There We I Think Their Technologies That Are Available For That Are Relatively Developed Already But Again Until We Have More a collection, we cannot commit to a specific project there. I think the desire is there to utilize a plan for recycled product. But again, we do have to have the collection first.

30:59 And remember something. You can do recycling. I mean, you can recycle PET going through the plant, or you can recycle PET without interfering with the operation of the plant. And we are really working very hard with our customers. Believe it or not, some of our customers are telling us that they probably prefer our pellets than SPT. Because they want to have the flexibility. The problem with the SPT technology is that so far, there's some limit to process 25%, something like that.

31:45 And in some cases, our customers want to have the flexibility where they can produce certain products with 50% of recycled content or even more, even 100%. So they do want to have that flexibility. It might be that they want to do certain products 100% and certain other products 25% or even less. So we have to also align these very well with the needs from our customers. But yeah, I mean, the point is, yeah, the plant, of course, is capable of recycling. And all of the partners certainly agree that we would like to do that.

32:26 Thank you very much. Again, congratulations, Pep and everyone.

32:29 Thank you.

32:30 Thank you.

32:32 And for your question, Nick. The next question comes from Alejandro Samacona from Credit Suisse. Alejandro, your audio has been enabled. Please proceed with your question.

32:45 Hi, Pepe, Jose Carlos Anton. Thank you for taking my questions. A couple of questions here. The first one on OCTAL. In the press release, you mentioned that the revised guidance includes 120 million US dollars for EBITDA contributions from OCTAL. That's roughly 205 million analyzed EBITDA and much higher than the 85 mentioned in the last conference call. So the question is, what would be a normalized figure for Octal's contribution going forward? And also, if you can mention what was the mix between cash and debt to pay for this acquisition? Thank you.

33:35 Okay. Well, Alejandro, I think you're right. I think we mentioned in the original press release like, what was it, a month and a half ago when we announced the acquisition, yeah, that the guidance, we were increasing our guidance like 120 million. I think since we have revised that a little bit higher, And part of the difference versus the 85 that we originally mentioned, part of the reason has to do with the fact that the acquisition came one month ahead of time. We were assuming that the acquisition would be finalized by the end of June. It was finalized, as you know, by the end of May. So we have one more month. So that increased the guidance by itself.

34:21 And the other reason was that... that, of course, the margins that we are seeing now are higher than we expected. And in fact, I will tell you that the contribution from OCTAL in second half of this year is going to be more important than the 120. I think in the new guidance, we are assuming like 140 for OCTAL. And I have to say that we still see a significant upside.

35:02 Okay, Pepe. And going forward, what would be a normalized EBITDA contribution from this?

35:07 Well, you know, the number we based our evaluation on was, you know, the EBITDA gradually going down to, I think, to a little bit over $100 million. But again, I mean, the latest, and this is not the guidance, but the latest estimate we're having is this year the EVDA of this company could surpass the $300 million. Perfect. Thank you.

35:44 Thank you, Alejandro. Thank you for your question. Our next questions come from Luis Gomez from Compass. Lucia Gomez, sorry, for Compass. Lucia, your audio has been enabled. Please proceed with your question.

36:07 Hi, Pepe, Jose Carlos, and Anton. Can you guys hear me? Yes, very well. Thank you. Hi, how are you? Good. Very good. I mean, congrats, as Nick said, on another great quarter. Just two questions there. I mean, one is, I guess, a follow up on what Luis was saying about, you know, normalized margins for the second half. Just wondering on the Asian side, I mean, you mentioned kind of your assumption is 330 per ton. But as I go beyond this year, and if I think about normalized, whatever that means, because it's tough to have a normalized number ever. But as we move forward in terms of Asian margins, in terms of polypropylene margins, in terms of freight costs, I mean, at some point they will obviously normalize.

36:57 And just wondering, as you look forward, what is that number in terms of margins and freight costs that you use? going forward. What does that mean in terms of potential normalized EBITDA now that you kind of include, just to get a sense, because this year, I guess you're going to do 1.5 billion almost in EBITDA, but there's a lot of additional EBITDA that comes with the cycle. So just to get a sense on the new form of everything you have, how does that number look like perhaps for 2023 and beyond? That'll be my first question. And then I guess somehow related to that, it goes to the discussion about the dividends. Because as you correctly pointed out, I mean, you guys would like to be closer to two, but you're closer to one now, actually.

37:48 And it might go even a little bit lower than the 1.2 you have now. So just wondering, how do I reconcile that from the Thank you.

38:31 Look, first your question is about normalized EBDA. Normalized EBDA, I think if you look at history, I think you could expect that the Asian margins that today are over $400 could eventually come back to, I would say, $270, $300. I don't know how long it will take to get there, but it could. So that's a possibility. And that is a number that sometimes we use in financial projections. So in the high $200s, I would say it's normalized for PET resting in Asia, which will be low $200s for China. Okay. Today, again, and that's why your question is so difficult.

39:26 Today, today and today means today. The margin in China is 369. The margin in Asia is more than $450. So, but eventually, I mean, that's a number that we could say that Asia could go back to sort of, you know, high 200s from where it is today. The in terms of the I mean impact in over every day which this year as you say is going to be around 1500 I mean 1.5 billion I mean the numbers could tell you that we could go Down if everything goes back. I mean not not only PT, but also polypropylene and also EPS if all the margins go back to historical levels You know in in in in difficult times I mean to to the low level of historical levels the margins go back there uh well you know we could probably say that uh over every DA with existing business we have could go back down to like a 1 billion okay those are the numbers we see assuming assuming no corpus Christi assuming no new projects So that's the range that we consider that could eventually get there. So that to say, OK, if that is the case, well, yeah, we do the low leverage

40:59 close a relatively strong EVDA even after normalization. And I will add something else that is very important for you. I mean, when you look at our leverage ratio today of 1.2, You have to consider that we do have, right now, a very high level of working capital. Our working capital, as you talk of normalization, or wherever I would normalize, let's say 1.5 to perhaps 1, but if that does happen, most likely we're going to be able to reduce our investment in working capital by around $600 million. So the debt you have today, which is 1.77, will go down to 1.1.

41:49 So again, EBITDA goes down, but debt goes down significantly also because of lower working capital. And then you have room because you have very low leverage. So that is to say that, yes, we do believe that the board, not we, are going to declare an extraordinary dividend in the October board meeting. Or at least, I think the management will want to recommend to do that.

42:28 That's a great answer, Pep. And I guess my last question, kind of also a follow-up on that. on the incorporation of the million tons coming from Corpus Christi. I know you mentioned there's about a million tons, roughly speaking, that are coming from imports, but do you think is it going to be 100% of those imports being displaced and going somewhere else? Or do you feel that in order to accommodate that extra capacity, there will be some high cost capacity in North America? that will probably stop producing? Or how do you see that rebalancing as you bring it on?

43:07 I do believe you're right. I think some of this new capacity will come from natural growth of the market. Some of it will come from replacing imports, and some of it, you're right, might come from shutting down, how do you say, very high cost capacity. I think it's going to be a combination of those three factors. Growth, lower imports, and perhaps some of the least efficient plants being shut down.

43:42 Great. Thanks a lot for your answers, and congratulations again, guys.

43:45 You're welcome.

43:47 Thanks for your question. The next question comes from Pablo Ricardo from Santander. Pablo, your audio has been enabled. Please proceed with your question.

43:59 Hi, good morning. I don't know if you can hear me now. Yes, we do. I have two follow-up questions on Luis, questions on the Corpus Christi project. I don't know if you can remind us your CAPEX credit you have for the project. And the second one is, I believe you had an agreement with Jacobs to manufacture the plant that was ahead of the pandemic. I don't know if that agreement continues.

44:26 Well, Jacobs became a new company. It's a new company now. It's not Gold Jacobs. It's called Whirly. But yes, they are the construction manager of the project. They are very familiar with it and they are very involved. Okay? And on your first question, I will ask Jose Carlos to answer that.

44:54 Thank you, Pablo. Pablo, yes, you're right. We have a credit on the CapEx. It's still finalizing the numbers, but it's between $25 and $30 million. Okay, thanks.

45:16 Thank you, Pablo. The next question comes from Jacob Kim from Scotia. Jacob, your audio has been enabled. Please proceed with your question.

45:29 Hello, can you hear me? Yes, so congratulations on the results. I just had a few questions. So across your different business lines, I guess, where are you seeing strength and weakness in end user demand? And I guess as we enter a period of macro weakness, what areas of your business has the most potential to surprise to the downside?

45:54 Well, that's a great question, Jacob. And I'm very happy to answer your question. When you look at the fine at the end use of our products, all the products in the Outback portfolio, including pretty much everything, You will find that I think somewhere between 80 and 90% of our sales go to consumer markets. And out of those, a significant majority of those consumer markets are either food or beverage. So if anything I can say about our company, about Alpek, is that we have a very stable volume and we have demonstrated over the last 10 years even more that we are relatively I would say immune to downtowns in the overall economy. We demonstrated that in the 2009 period. We demonstrated that at the beginning of the 2000.

47:03 In many occasions, we have, I mean, I think in 2009, our volume went down somewhere, I think it was 1%.

47:16 De Cv Ord

47:46 because all of Octal products are going to either beverage or to food, food packaging. So again, that's not a concern. What those... What is not as stable as we would like, of course, are the margins. The margins can fluctuate depending on supply. Mostly, I would say, on supply additions. The balance between supply and demand changes significantly. But in terms of demand, the stability of demand for our products is very, very stable. Again, we don't lose sleep over that.

48:30 Understood. Awesome. Just a couple more questions. So as we see the petrochemical company evaluation levels, they seem to be moving lower, at least on the public equity side. And given your low leverage, do you see any further M&A opportunity this year, perhaps by as region or chemical chain? Or how do you foresee spending the balance, the remaining balance of the year And just last question is, you know, can you talk just a bit about freight availability and volatile rates and how that's impacting your margin outlook and logistic management? And I guess what are the risks to the business and how you're mitigating those?

49:05 Well, look, in terms of M&A opportunities, I would say we're always looking at that, regardless of whether the valuations are low. Because you say now valuations or the companies or the multiples are low. Yeah, the multiples are low, but perhaps the EBITDAs are high. So the fact that the multiple is low with a very high EBITDA does not necessarily mean that the value of the company is attractive. So we have to look at both. We have to look at not only multiples, but really we have to look at the cash flow generation of the company or the replacement value of the company as well.

49:52 So it doesn't mean that there are, what I'm trying to say, it doesn't mean there's a lot of opportunities there right now. I don't think that's the case. I think most of the companies' chemicals are fairly valued. The opportunities in the chemical industry normally come when times are very hard, which is not the case now in general. That's the best time to acquire companies. And in that sense, we are not, I mean, we're looking at things, but we are not convinced that we're going to find something attractive very soon. And the rest of your question of volatility, I don't know if José Carlos can help me with the... Well, the freight rates. Freight rates, we do believe, and in all of our projections, even in our original guidance, we are assuming that those are going to normalize.

50:45 And our assumption was that that would be happening At this point in time, actually, we thought that this second half of 2022 would be sort of normalizing. But as you know, they're coming down. But I mean, gradually, and I believe that for the time being, we still see the the the ocean freight rate higher at least uh you know until the end of the year with gradually decreases you know they it's confusing you know in in and in particular like freights to you know from asia to south america they were coming down very quickly the first half of the year and then recently they went up again so very difficult honestly i don't feel we are able or willing to forecast that. We just understand this is something that is outside of control.

51:46 We monitor that. And what we are seeing today is that, yeah, they're coming down, but still in a very gradual way. So I think they're still going to be higher than normal for the remaining at least of this year. And the big question, I don't have an answer, by the way. The big question is, at what level are they going to normalize? Are they going to go back all the way to where they were, or are they going to normalize at a higher level? That's something that will also be very important for us. Normally, in our projections, again, just as I said about the margins, we also assume in our projections that those freight rates eventually are going to go back to the historical level.

52:38 I don't know, Jacob, if that was the sufficient answer to your volatility question or if you have anything else there.

52:43 No, that was great. Yeah, thank you. Thank you both so much for your time and just congratulations once again. Okay, thank you.

52:50 Thank you, Jacob. The next question comes from Leonardo Marcondes from Bank of America. Leonardo, your audio has been enabled. Please proceed with your question.

53:01 Hi, guys. Can you hear me? Perfectly well, very well. Thank you. So thank you for picking my questions. I have two questions on my side here, and I'm sorry if you have already answered those because I got disconnected from the call for a bit. But my first question is regarding the EBITDA guidance. We see an increase of around $100 million when compared to the last guidance, when we exclude the effect of octal, right? Just wanted to understand the contribution of the plastic and chemicals segment on this change. And my second question is also regarding CCP. Uh, I would like to know if you guys have already developed, uh, the procurement strategy for the plant. I mean, uh, from where do you guys plan to source peroxylin and mag and, uh, if there is capacity for these petrochemicals in the U S and also, uh, if a part of the source should, should come from, from the spot.

54:02 Thank you.

54:05 relative to the evidence. Yeah, I do believe. Yes, the plastic and chemical division has an important contribution. Mostly, as I explained before, because the although we don't believe the margins are going to decrease somewhat from what we saw the first half of the year, they are decreasing more gradually than we have anticipated in the original guidance. That's the explanation. And so that's an important part of the, let's say, additional $100 million. As I mentioned, there's also some contribution from OCTAL. We have estimated OCTAL at 120. We raised that to 140. So it's contribution from OCTAL. But yeah, most of it is coming from the rest from plastic. a chemical division, yes, versus the original guidance again.

55:02 And in the CC procurement strategy, I will say that we are, I mean, the companies are going to buy independently the raw materials, okay? In the case of MEG, there is plenty of capacity of MEG in the U.S., Actually, there is a large MEG plant in Corpus Christi, just miles from Corpus Christi plant, which will cover more than the requirements of the plant. So that capacity is at least twice the requirements of the new plant. And as I say, it's only a few miles from the site.

55:53 And in terms of paraxylene, in paraxylene, there is also paraxylene plant in the area. And in fact, the plant has a pipe connected to that plant. But in case of paraxylene, yeah, the situation looks tighter in North America. So yeah, I think we will have to import paraxylene into North America from Middle East and perhaps Asia into the future.

56:27 That's very clear. Thank you.

56:31 Thank you, Leonardo. The next and last questions come from Vicente Falanga from Bradesco.

56:41 Thank you, Pepe, Jose Carlos, and Anton. Just to dig a bit deeper on maybe the timing for normalization of margins, in Asia. When Xi Jinping gets supposedly re-elected in November and China reopens its economy, at least that's what the market sees in terms of base case, that the lockdown decisions are political. Do you see that as more positive or negative for PT margins in terms of demand that should... bring incremental demand for PT. But on the other hand, in terms of supply, we would expect some Chinese plants that might have been operating with limited capacity would also come back. So what would be your views on the margin impact with the reopening of China? Thank you.

57:36 I think we concord with your idea. I think that there should be some normalization going forward from the perspective of plants operating, but you also have to remember that a big change over the last months has been the cost of energy. cost particularly, in some cases, power, but particularly coal and natural gas. Coal and natural gas are very important energy feedstocks in that part of the world. And I think you're familiar with the prices that they're having right now. Prices of natural gas, LNG in China and Asia. I mean, you can see prices around $30 million BTUs and at some point in time, even higher.

58:29 And same thing happens in Europe. In Europe, we've seen prices going up to $50 million per million BTU. I do believe that that is also restricting the capacity to reduce margins as quickly as you would think. It's very difficult really to say when are they going to come down. As I mentioned, our position is that we are Assuming they're going to come down anytime. And that's how we build our guidance. But same thing with the freight rates. But the good news is that they are taking longer, both of them.

59:17 But I couldn't really give you an accurate estimate of when are they coming down.

59:26 No, that's super helpful, Pepe. And meanwhile, you are delivering, right? So it's always good news.

59:32 Thank you. Thank you.

59:33 Yeah.

59:35 Thank you, Vicente. That was the last question we have time for today. Rest assured, we will follow up via email if we did not get to your question on this call. As always, I'd like to remind you that you can find both a video recording of today's webcast as well as a transcript on our website at alpek.com. Thank you all for participating in Alpek Webcast. Have a great day.