Ecovyst - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, everyone. My name is Beau, and I will be your Conference Operator today. Welcome to the Ecovyst fourth quarter 2025 earnings call and webcast. Please note, today's call is being recorded and should run approximately 1 hour. Currently, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone. If you would like to remove yourself from the queue, press star two. When posing your question, we ask that you please pick up your handset to allow for optimal sound quality. Lastly, if you should need operator assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Gene Shiels, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Gene Shiels (Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Ecovyst's fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. With me on the call this morning are Kurt Bitting, Ecovyst Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Feehan, Ecovyst Chief Financial Officer. Following our prepared remarks this morning, we'll take your questions. Please note that some of the information shared today is forward-looking information, including information about the company's financial and operating performance, strategies, our anticipated end-use demand trends, and our 2026 financial outlook. This information is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results and the implementation of the company's plans to vary materially. Any forward-looking information shared today speaks only as of this date. These risks are discussed in the company's filings with the SEC.

Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures mentioned in today's call with their corresponding GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and in the presentation materials posted in the investor section of our website. I'll now hand the call over to Kurt.

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

Thank you, Gene, and good morning. Overall, we are very pleased with our fourth quarter results and the execution of our strategic objectives. In terms of financial results, strong sales volume for virgin sulfuric acid and favorable contractual pricing for regeneration services contributed to a solid quarter. As a result, we delivered full year 2025 Adjusted EBITDA above our guidance, despite the impact of unplanned and extended customer downtime on regeneration volume during the quarter. The fourth quarter was also a significant quarter in the context of our ongoing portfolio transformation. We completed the divestiture of the Advanced Materials & Catalysts segment earlier than expected for a sales price of $556 million, utilizing $465 million of the net proceeds to pay down our term loan, leading to a net debt leverage ratio of 1.2 times at year-end.

This transaction has transformed the company, initiating a new focus to drive progress by delivering reliable sulfur solutions for clean fuels and critical materials. In 2025, we began executing on our capital allocation strategy with the acquisition of the Waggaman sulfuric acid assets for approximately $40 million and repurchased just under $50 million of common stock. We enter 2026 with a strong balance sheet and significant liquidity that we believe positions us well to continue our capital allocation priorities directed at growth, both organic and inorganic, and the continued return of capital to our stockholders. Turning to the demand trends on slide five. Our demand outlook for 2026 remains positive, underpinning the volumetric growth we anticipate for both virgin and regenerated sulfuric acid, and we expect favorable contractual pricing for regenerated sulfuric acid and stable pricing for virgin sulfuric acid.

In 2025, U.S. refineries underwent extensive maintenance, including our customers. This year, we expect our refining customers to run at high utilization, benefiting from favorable outlet economics. With less planned customer downtime than in 2025, we anticipate higher sales for our regeneration services in 2026. We are also anticipating higher sales of virgin sulfuric acid in 2026, with demand growing in mining, which accounts for 20%-25% of our sulfuric acid sales, and with the incremental contribution of the Waggaman sulfuric acid assets we acquired last year. However, we remain cautious about the near-term outlook for the nylon applications and some of the industrial applications we serve. Our sales into the nylon end use account for approximately 20%-25% of our virgin sulfuric acid sales.

For 2026, we currently expect sales into the nylon end use to be relatively flat compared to 2025. While the balance of our industrial exposures are diversified, further weakening of macro factors could translate into softer demand in some areas. The integration of the Waggaman sulfuric acid production assets acquired in May of last year has enhanced our supply network, allowing us to meet anticipated growth and demand for this year. Looking ahead, we anticipate that mining demand for sulfuric acid, especially for copper, will continue to increase to support energy infrastructure and data center development. Furthermore, as many traditional high-grade ores are depleted, solvent extraction, electrowinning, processing of copper, which utilizes sulfuric acid for mineral extraction, is expected to become more prevalent. Ecovyst is well positioned to support expanding mining applications.

Accordingly, we are investing approximately $20 million in growth capital in the Gulf Coast region for projects aimed at increasing storage capacity and improving rail logistics, thereby strengthening our ability to serve the evolving needs of the mining industry. Lastly, the long-term outlook for our Chem32 ex-situ catalyst activation business remains positive, with future growth supported by the recently completed expansion at our Orange, Texas site. I'll now turn the call over to Mike, who will review our financial results.

Mike Feehan (CFO)

Thank you, Kurt. Good morning. We closed out the year with a solid financial performance in the fourth quarter, delivering full year Adjusted EBITDA of $172 million, ahead of our previously provided guidance. As a reminder, with the divestiture of the Advanced Materials & Catalysts segment at the end of the year, the results for the business are reported in discontinued operations for all periods. My comments this morning pertain to the reported results from continuing operations. Our strong fourth quarter results were driven by continued sales growth in both volume and pricing, resulting in Adjusted EBITDA of $51 million, 8% ahead of the prior year. We generated $78 million of free cash flow, of which we used $20 million in the fourth quarter for share repurchases.

With the proceeds from the sale of the AM&C business, we paid down $465 million of our term loan, resulting in a 1.2x net leverage ratio, leaving $265 million of available liquidity. Diving a bit deeper into the numbers, fourth quarter sales were $199 million, up $51 million or 34%. Excluding the $28 million impact of higher sulfur cost passed through in price, sales were up 15%. In the fourth quarter, regeneration services sales volume continued to be adversely affected by unplanned and extended customer downtime. However, this was more than offset by higher sales of virgin sulfuric acid, including the contribution from the acquired Waggaman assets and favorable contractual pricing for regeneration services.

The 8% increase in Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter reflects the favorable volume and price impact at the sales level, partially offset by higher planned fixed manufacturing costs, including incremental costs of the acquired Waggaman assets. While the Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased 630 basis points compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, this reduction primarily reflects a significant increase in sulfur costs, which we passed through with no material impact on Adjusted EBITDA. The pass-through effect accounts for approximately 500 basis points of the period-over-period decrease in margin. Turning to the Adjusted EBITDA bridge, I will highlight the major components of the change in Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. As previously noted, sulfur costs in the fourth quarter were approximately $28 million compared to the year ago quarter, with the pass-through having no material impact on Adjusted EBITDA.

Our price cost impact was a positive $8 million for the fourth quarter, primarily driven by favorable contractual pricing in our regeneration services business. While we had lower regeneration services volume in the quarter due to unplanned and extended customer downtime, higher volume from our virgin sulfuric acid asset sales, including the contribution from our Waggaman acquisition, drove the nearly $6 million volume benefit in Adjusted EBITDA. Other costs increased approximately $11 million, with the majority of which reflect incremental fixed costs associated with the acquired Waggaman assets, along with higher planned manufacturing costs associated with general inflation. As we move to cash and debt on the next slide, for the year, we generated adjusted free cash flow of $78 million, which included both continuing and discontinued operations.

We utilized our cash generation to execute on our capital allocation strategy, including the $41 million acquisition of our Waggaman sulfuric acid assets and share repurchases aggregating $47 million for the full year. We currently have approximately $183 million remaining under our share repurchase authorization. Part of the divestiture of the Advanced Materials & Catalysts segment, we used $465 million of the net proceeds to pay down our term loan, resulting in outstanding debt of $397 million and net debt of approximately $200 million, leading to a net debt leverage ratio of 1.2x and $265 million of available liquidity.

With our significantly reduced leverage, our ample liquidity, and in light of our historic cash generation capability, we believe that we have significant flexibility as we look to fund our growth initiatives, both organic and inorganic, and continue to return capital to shareholders through an active share repurchase program. Turning to our 2026 outlook, as Kurt noted, our expectation for 2026 include higher sales volume for both virgin sulfuric acid, driven by higher projected mining demand, and higher volume for regenerated sulfuric acid, as we expect less customer downtime compared to 2025. However, we remain cautious about the near-term outlook for global macroeconomic activity, and the potential for weakness in some industrial applications for virgin sulfuric acid and sales of oleum grades used in the production of nylon precursors. We also anticipate continued favorable contractual pricing in regeneration services.

Sulfur costs are expected to be up significantly this year, with an estimated pass-through impact on sales of approximately $125 million compared to 2025. With the higher expected volume, price, and the pass-through of higher sulfur costs, we currently anticipate full year sales to be in the range of $860 million-$940 million. As we have previously discussed, we expect higher turnaround activity at our manufacturing plants in 2026, in part due to the addition of the Waggaman assets. Given the scope and number of turnarounds planned for the year, we expect turnaround costs to be higher by approximately $80 million in 2026.

With the favorable volume and price impact at the sales level, partially offset by higher manufacturing and transportation costs, including additional turnaround costs, we expect full year Adjusted EBITDA to fall in the range of $175 million-$195 million. With our capital allocation strategy to continue to grow our business, we are opportunistically investing growth capital in 2026, including the funding of a number of projects to debottleneck assets and accelerate organic growth. These include the ongoing expansion of tank storage and adding additional rail capacity in the Gulf Coast. As a result of these growth projects, we expect higher capital expenditures this year will be approximately $20 million higher, resulting in a range of $80 million-$90 million.

As a result of the higher growth capital spending, as well as an expected $10 million increase in working capital, driven by the impact of higher sulfur costs on inventory and accounts payable, and the associated pass-through impact on sales and accounts receivable, we expect adjusted free cash flow to be in the range of $35 million-$55 million. With the significant reduction in our term loan, we expect interest expense to be approximately $18 million-$22 million in 2026. With our current cash balance and expected free cash flow generation, we plan to continue to execute on our capital allocation strategy, driving value for shareholders through growth opportunities and further share repurchases in 2026. We move to the next slide, I'll provide some directional guidance by quarter for next year.

As you will recall, our results for the first quarter of 2025 reflected significant planned customer downtime, as well as higher level of planned turnaround activity at our sites. While we have an active turnaround schedule in the first quarter, increasing our expected turnaround costs, with three of our seven planned turnarounds, we do not expect the same negative impact on sales volume for the customer downtime. For the first quarter, we expect continued favorable contractual pricing, we expect increased volume for virgin sulfuric acid. As a result, we expect first quarter Adjusted EBITDA to be up $8 million-$13 million compared to the first quarter of 2025. As has been our usual practice, our presentation slides include some commentary around our quarterly directional guidance for the balance of the year.

We expect the second and third quarters to be peak quarters for Adjusted EBITDA, consistent with historical experience, driven by high alkylate demand and regeneration activity during the summer driving season. We have also provided our current expectations for turnaround cadence by quarter for the year. As we have previously noted, the cost for individual turnarounds can vary by site and scope, and the timing is subject to change. I'll now turn the call back to Kurt for some closing remarks.

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

Thank you, Mike. We are extremely pleased with our progress in 2025. I want to thank my Ecovyst colleagues for their efforts in supporting our customers, delivering on our commercial objectives, and for their contributions as we continue to implement our strategic plan. In a challenging demand environment, our business demonstrated resilience in 2025. Sales of virgin sulfuric acid increased, in part driven by the acquisition of our Waggaman sulfuric acid assets. As the integration of the Waggaman site continues, we are benefiting from the positive network effect Waggaman's assets have on the reach and capability of our supply chain.

Our regeneration services business was adversely affected by a significant number of unplanned and extended customer outages in 2025, the favorable business fundamentals of our regeneration services business remain unchanged in terms of demand driven by high refinery utilization, the critical role we continue to play in our customers' production of alkylate, and the value represented by alkylate economics. In 2026, we are expecting growth for both our virgin sulfuric acid sales and for our regeneration services business, with stable pricing expected for virgin sulfuric acid and continued positive contractual pricing for regeneration services. As we look beyond 2026, we believe the demand outlook remains positive for all of our businesses.

The divestiture of the Advanced Materials & Catalysts business at year-end represents a transformative event in our ongoing portfolio optimization. As we move forward, driving growth for the Ecoservices platform, we will do so with a more stable and predictable business profile, a significantly strengthened balance sheet, and with a cash generation capability and liquidity position that we anticipate will provide for significant capital allocation flexibility. This year, we are increasing our capital budget to support targeted organic growth projects that we believe will enhance our capabilities in servicing customers. Key initiatives include expanding Gulf Coast storage and optimizing logistics, which will strengthen our service offering for mining clients. These projects are scheduled for completion in the first half of 2027. We plan to take a disciplined approach towards inorganic growth, prioritizing accretive acquisitions that extend our reach to customers and end segments.

Concurrently, we remain committed to returning capital to stockholders through an active share repurchase program. In 2025, we repurchased approximately $50 million in common stock. During the first quarter of 2026, we plan to continue this strategy with additional repurchases totaling between $25 million and $40 million. As the year progresses, we expect to execute our capital allocation strategy consistently. In summary, our focus this year will remain on driving profitable growth, positioning Ecovyst for future opportunities, and optimizing value for the benefit of our stockholders. At this time, I will ask the operator to open the line for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Mr. Bitting. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do have a question, please press star one at this time. To leave the queue at any time, you can press star two. Once again, that is star one to ask a question. We'll go first today to John McNulty of BMO Capital Markets.

John McNulty (Managing Director, Chemicals Analyst)

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on a solid year. Just wanted to dig into Waggaman, the Waggaman opportunities a little bit more. You've had the asset for a bit of time. You've made some investments in it. I guess, can you help us to think about how much capacity that's freed up for you and as a result, how much growth you could necessarily get without having to put in much capacity or incremental capacity? Because it sounds like you're even further trying to unlock some flexibility with the storage increase and the rail increase. I guess, can you help us to contextualize all this?

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

Sure. Thanks for, thanks for the question, John. The Waggaman sulfuric acid assets that we added last year, of course, added, you know, roughly around 10% of volume to the overall, the overall network. It came along with its own customer book and sales, which we're obviously servicing. Where we're really seeing, I think, the positive network effect is, you know, it's a, it's a force multiplier, really, with our Gulf Coast network, where just it, you know, all the sites now can, you know, can back each other up in terms of turnarounds and so forth, and enable themselves to take advantage of additional opportunities that they may have had to pass on, you know, if they, if they were on their, you know, on their own.

It's, you know, filled the cracks in terms of the supply network and allows us to take advantage of more opportunities. It also comes, and I think we talked about it last year, it has, it's our only site that has a deep water vessel dock. You know, we actually did export a ship of sulfuric acid there. It's, you know, it adds a lot of capability to our overall site. As we move forward, the way we look at our Gulf Coast network and the investments that we're making is we're clearly wanting to, we see the rising tide on the mining demand, so we're making additional investments that we talked about on our logistics and storage capabilities, which are gonna be Houston-based.

The Waggaman assets, and the production that that brings, allows us to service more of the Gulf Coast assets with that plant and focus the Houston, production more to the west. Does that make sense?

John McNulty (Managing Director, Chemicals Analyst)

Yeah. Completely. That definitely helps. I guess on the regen contract pricing lift that we should be thinking about in 2026, I guess, can you help us to quantify that a little bit? Sounds like, I mean, you were getting some benefits in 2025. It sounds like that's a continual kind of repricing, how should we think about the lift in 2026?

Mike Feehan (CFO)

Yeah, John, thanks for the question. This is Mike. Yeah, it's gonna be a similar lift. You know, I think as we've talked in the past, you know, every year, the contractual, you know, agreements that we have, you know, start to roll off. It's usually between 15% and 20% a year, just depends on the size of the customers and how they shape up. You know, with basic costs going up, you know, with the inflation and how the contracts are structured, you know, with indexing and other factors, it does provide a benefit. It is a continued benefit similar to what we saw this year, that we're gonna extend into next year. Again, it just depends on timing of when some of those customer contracts come up and when they're put in place.

John McNulty (Managing Director, Chemicals Analyst)

Got it. Thanks very much for the color.

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

Certainly.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll go next now to Patrick Cunningham of Citi.

Patrick Cunningham (Vice President, Senior Analyst)

Hi, good morning. Just, you know, regarding the weakness that you're citing in industrial applications, nylon, you know, obviously, we've seen some pretty promising indicators with U.S. PMI inflecting, and maybe nylon's bottoming out. Are there any specific, you know, applications that you wanna call out or factors that you would highlight, which is giving you some caution here?

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

No, I don't-Patrick, thank you for the question. I don't think there's anything specifically. As you know, you know, sulfuric acid is the most widely used chemical in the world, and, you know, it's our basket of what we call industrial uses, you know, spans a very wide spectrum of folks, you know, using it for anything from, you know, chlor-alkali production to nylon to, you know, other petrochemicals. There's a lot of different things and a lot of different drivers there. We just see some caution in some of those areas. I don't think it's, you know, overcaution or, you know, real worry.

It's just, you know, we serve as such a wide and diverse basket of folks there that could be impacted by any of the global, things going on between tariffs or, you know, some of the downturns and some of the chemical end markets. It's just a kind of such a general sense of caution in that space. For us, you know, our biggest one is, as you referred to, nylon, as we've clearly pointed out, is, you know, we expect to be roughly on par with where we were in 2025, so we don't really project any degradation there.

Patrick Cunningham (Vice President, Senior Analyst)

Perfect. Then just, you know, as you think about, you know, CapEx or, you know, investment on a go-forward basis, seems like there's a lot that you may want to do or need to do to meet long-term mining demand. I guess, how do the economics of, you know, greenfield versus debottlenecking, compare to current acquisition multiples for existing virgin facilities?

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

Yeah, you know, that's a great question. I think with the way we've treated, over the, you know, over the past, I would say 10 or 15 years, the demand for sulfuric acid from the mining sector has risen, and our supply into the mining segment has risen. We've met that, through, you know, a campaign of debottlenecking our sites, from both a production standpoint as well as a logistics standpoint. We're gonna continue to do that. You know, as that, you know, that rising tide happens with the mining, we're able to stay ahead of it by making the logistics, and storage investments that we just, you know, talked about in Houston. The Waggaman acquisition was a part of that as well.

It adds additional capability and capacity into our Gulf Coast system, which enables us to further service that, you know, going forward, we're gonna kinda continue that pattern, right? Where we've got some additional debottlenecking that we can do. We can leverage more of Waggaman's production to stay ahead of the demand there.

Patrick Cunningham (Vice President, Senior Analyst)

Great. Thank you so much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We're next now to Aleksey Yefremov of KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Aleksey Yefremov (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, good morning, everyone. I just wanted to follow up on the same subject. The expansion that you're undertaking in 2026, is it tied to any specific ramp at your customers in mining or elsewhere that you anticipate? In other words, do you have contracts or some sort of indication from your customers that they'll need additional volumes this year or next that you're trying to address? Is this just a more general view that you're trying to get ahead of the growth that you anticipate, but maybe not as specific of a customer pull?

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

Thanks for the question, Aleksey. I mean, we have, we've been actually, believe it or not, the Ecoservices legacy business has been serving the mining sector since 1894. We've got really long-term relationships with some of the major mines out there. We see their forward demand, and based on what we've been doing and how we've grown with them over, again, over the last 10 or 15 years and seen that rising demand coming for, you know, for sulfuric acid, specifically as it relates to copper. You know, we're confident that the demand will be there, and, you know, we feel it's appropriate for us to add this additional capacity and logistics capacity to meet that growing demand long term.

We have, you know, obviously, long-term relationships with those customers, have been servicing a lot of these mines. You know, it's a mixed bag of additional demand from existing mines to there's actually some new projects that have come online, right? It's all, you know, it's a mixed bag of what's driving that additional demand, coming from, you know, our plants in the Gulf Coast.

Aleksey Yefremov (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. As a follow-up, how would you characterize the current state of the merchant acid market, either right now or if you have a view on 2026? Is the market sort of long, tight, or about balanced from supply-demand perspective?

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

Thanks for the question. I would say it's, you know, in a balanced, you know, a balanced position. I think we talked about in our call, we see pricing as being stable. There are certain segments of the market, as we talked about, things related to industrials, which is, you know, all over the board in terms of the different end-use applications. Some of those are up, some of those may be down. I'd say, you know, it's a push in general. Other sectors that use sulfuric, like mining, are obviously rising, so. You know, on the whole, our view, I would say at this point, and as we look at, certainly as we said on the call, as we see pricing, it's being stable. I would say it's leaning towards a balanced market.

you know, the long-term trend, certainly, as you look at things like mining, we projected, you know, growing demand there.

Aleksey Yefremov (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks a lot.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll go next now to David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank.

David Begleiter (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning. Kurt, on your full year guidance, the low end looks maybe a little conservative. What would you need to see to get the low end of the range? Conversely, what type of drivers would you expect to see to get to the high end or above that range for the year? Thank you.

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

Thank you, thank you for the call, or for the question. I think, you know, starting at the, at the high end of the range, you know, I would say if there's a lift in things like virgin acid pricing, just referring to the previous question, that comes about because of, you know, demand growing and it pushing upwards, putting upward pressure on pricing, certainly in the virgin sulfuric acid market. Our, you know, our outlook on regeneration, you know, as we talked about, there's less customer outages this year. We expect a pretty healthy year in terms of regeneration. I don't think there's really going to be tremendous movement on that because that's, you know, expected to run at pretty high utilization.

I would say upper end, it's going to be the virgin acid. You know, if there's some positivity in things like pricing or, you know, spot volumes that become available. You know, on the low end, which again, we don't expect, you know, that largely would be driven by things like unplanned customer outages, similar to what we had last year, or potentially, you know, a macroeconomic event that causes a deterioration in either pricing or volumes on virgin sulfuric acid.

David Begleiter (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Very clear. Kurt, now with the balance sheet restored to strength, how do you see Ecovyst in three-five years? Where do you want to be? Where do you want to go? From an inorganic standpoint, in terms of M&A, what could be additive to the portfolio that you're looking at today or maybe down the road? Thank you.

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

Yeah, thanks for the question. The board and the management team are obviously carefully looking at our capital allocation priorities as we focus on maximizing the value for our shareholders over the long run. You know, number one, that's going to entail us investing in organic growth as we see the opportunities in front of us. We talked about mining and other, you know, other spaces. You know, our long-term view on sulfuric acid and the sulfur molecule is that the demand for it will grow, and so we want to make investments there and continue to be a leading supplier in that space.

Number two, you know, we're looking for accretive bolt-on acquisitions, right, that make sense, that are either adjacent to us from a, you know, a chemistry standpoint or a service standpoint, so we can, you know, further service our existing customers or the existing industries that we service in a, in a better way. Growth through, you know, sensible and accretive acquisition to become bigger. Finally, you know, as we've talked about with our flexible capital allocation strategy is, you know, we still, you know, we see value in share repurchases as well as a tool, so we'll continue to lean into that.

We're really going to be, it's a flexible strategy, that allows us to, you know, push in all three of those directions, which we think can, you know, help us drive better value for shareholders over the long run.

David Begleiter (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We go next now to Hamed Khorsand at BWS Financial

Hamed Khorsand (Principal and Director of Research)

Hi, sorry if I missed this, but are you done with the investments you need to make at Waggaman?

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

Thank you for the question. Good to talk to you, Hamed. No, we've owned the site now for, you know, really about nine months, the integration is going well. We talked about it's had a certainly a positive network effect on, you know, our ability to supply our customers in the, in the Gulf Coast. There are still some, you know, there's additional investments that we want to make from a, you know, I would say, from an operating standpoint and an integration standpoint. The site is going to have a maintenance outage this quarter, where there'll be some investments made. We expect that, you know, there'll be further investments necessary, you know, in the near future as we, you know, further integrate it and try to raise the operating rate on the location.

Hamed Khorsand (Principal and Director of Research)

Okay. Then, let's say if the, this nylon or industrial end markets are as weak as you're expecting, are you able to, you know, deliver the sulfuric acid to mining that might be a little bit higher in demand, or are your contracts pretty much fixed on volume?

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

We have some, so the answer is, we've some flexibility to move around. We generally get pretty good and accurate forecasts from our customers, from not only mining and, you know, some of the other sectors in terms of industrial. You know, as we've talked about before, and I know as, you know, people have followed the company, most of our virgin sulfuric acid business is, you know, 100% supply contracts. We have very close relationships with our customers. They provide us great forecasts into what they're going to do. That helps us plan as we look at our year and say where we're going to place our volume.

If there is a downturn or something that goes on that's unexpected, yes, we do have the ability to place some additional product into different, you know, end use segments and move things around, you know, whether it's into mining or other industrial segments that may be in the Gulf Coast, we do have the ability to move that. You know, probably not all of it, but, you know, some portion thereof.

Hamed Khorsand (Principal and Director of Research)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll go next now to Laurence Alexander of Jefferies.

Laurence Alexander (Research Analyst)

Good morning. Just, can you give a sense now that, you, the higher level view on your M&A opportunity set? When you look at the sulfuric, the landscape in terms of other assets producing sulfuric acid, is there any titration in terms of the quality of the assets? Can you separate out the market in terms of the addressable versus the assets that you would just, you know, like, is it 30%, 40% of the market that you would just have no interest in, or is it basically potentially all of interest?

Kurt Bitting (CEO)

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the question. I think we have interest. You know, we're pretty broad in terms of our sulfuric acid and the end uses we service. We're, you know, we service a pretty broad swath of the market, so we're not just a regeneration sulfuric acid producer or just a virgin sulfuric acid producer like some of the others are out there. We would generally be interested in, you know, all those types of assets, 'cause we'd have use for both, since we're a leader in both, you know, in both spaces.

I would also say, you know, that extends to other sulfur chemistries as well, where we, you know, we do have some exposure in terms of, you know, making sulfur derivatives for water treatment or, you know, various things where the sulfur molecule's important, as well as services as well, where obviously the regeneration services, our hazardous waste services business, our Chem32 business is also, you know, are all, you know, very high-value service businesses that expanding further into those spaces would also be of interest.

Laurence Alexander (Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.