Huntsman - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 results missed on both revenue and EPS vs consensus: revenue $1.458B vs $1.497B estimate, and adjusted diluted EPS -$0.20 vs -$0.12 estimate; GAAP diluted EPS was -$0.92 driven by $124M restructuring/impairment and plant closing costs. Estimates marked with an asterisk below; Values retrieved from S&P Global.*
• Segment pressure persisted: Polyurethanes EBITDA fell 61% YoY, Performance Products -30%, Advanced Materials -13% YoY; volumes and pricing were weak, with muted seasonal uplift and a Rotterdam turnaround headwind.
• Management reiterated cost actions (workforce reduction ~10%, multiple site closures) and cash discipline; free cash flow improved to $55M vs $5M YoY; liquidity stood at ~$1.3B.
• 3Q25 outlook: adjusted EBITDA guidance ~$55–$85M total (PU $35–50M, PP $20–30M, AM $40–45M; Corporate ~-$40M); capex expected $180–$190M for 2025 at the lower end; dividend maintained at $0.25 per share for Q3.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Free cash flow improved materially: $55M in Q2 vs $5M YoY, supported by working capital actions ($100M primary working capital delta).
  • Advanced Materials delivered more “normalized” earnings; solid demand in power helped offset aerospace headwinds; margins at ~17% with Q3 guidance $40–45M.
  • Inventory and cash management actions generated positive cash flow; management emphasized balance sheet protection and cost discipline.

• What Went Wrong

  • Pricing and volume pressure: Polyurethanes ASP down ~5% YoY and volumes down ~2%; muted construction seasonality and competitive pressure in Europe.
  • Large restructuring/impairment and plant closing costs ($124M) drove GAAP operating loss (-$120M) and diluted loss per share (-$0.92).
  • Equity loss from the China MTBE JV and Rotterdam turnaround weighed on results; CEO cited inventory reductions costing ~$25M of EBITDA in Q2.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thanks and welcome to the Huntsman Corporation's second quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Ivan Marcuse, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Development.

Ivan Marcuse (VP, Investor Relations, and Corporate Development)

Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Huntsman's second quarter 2025 earnings call. Joining us on the call today are Peter Huntsman, Chairman, CEO and President, and Phil Lister, Executive Vice President and CFO. Yesterday, July 31, 2025, we released our earnings for the second quarter 2025 via press release and posted it to our website, huntsman.com. We also posted a set of slides and detailed commentary discussing the second quarter of 2025 on our website. Peter Huntsman will provide some opening comments shortly. We will then move to the Q&A session for the remainder of the call. During the call, let me remind you that we may make statements about our projections or expectations for the future. All such statements are forward-looking statements, 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 for more information regarding the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the projections or expectations. We do not plan on publicly updating or revising any forward-looking statements during the call or during the quarter. We will also refer to non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income or 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 at huntsman.com. I'll turn the call over to Peter Huntsman.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Ivan, thank you very much, and thank you all for joining us. Our second quarter results were not unexpected and came in about where we thought they would. We did see a nice rebound back to what we would see as more normalized earnings from advanced materials, offsetting the disappointing sluggishness of construction activity and tariff uncertainty, especially in polyurethanes. As we step back and look at the macro condition, it appears that the volatility caused by tariff and trade disputes over the past few months is starting to dissipate, at least as of 12 hours ago. I believe that inventories remain very low in most of our downstream supply chain, while consumer confidence seems to be muted. We look into the third quarter; we see neither reason to panic nor to be overly optimistic.

However, long term, we do anticipate an improvement in construction and perhaps some gradual change as China seems to be focusing more on their overcapacity. Our focus will continue to be on our balance sheet. To this end, we will continue to be extremely prudent on spending capital beyond our normalized run rate of safety, maintenance, and reliability. We remain focused on our cost structure and making sure that our business expenses are in line with market conditions and our cash generation. Our aggressive inventory and working capital focus allowed us to generate positive cash flow in the second quarter. This cost us about $25 million of EBITDA in the second quarter. This charge was offset by reduced bonus accruals and other smaller one-time benefits. This inventory impact will be less in the third quarter, again offset by bonus accruals.

As markets improve or raw materials drop in value, we want to make sure that we're in a position to take advantage as soon as possible. We will operate our business to create value over volume to the extent that we can. We continue to review our asset portfolio and engage with shareholders. The last thing we want to be doing is sitting around waiting for things to get better. Over the next few quarters, we will see usual seasonality, but also the possible influences of higher tariffs and duties for MDI coming into North American markets, a possible interest rate cut, the benefits of more of our cost reductions falling to the bottom line, and hopefully a greater focus on prices over volume. In short, we will manage our balance sheet as effectively as possible while also pushing for better P&L outcomes.

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

Operator (participant)

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your headset before pressing the star keys. Due to the interest of time, we ask that each analyst limit themselves to one question and one follow-up. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Kevin McCarthy with Vertical Research Partners. Please proceed.

Kevin McCarthy (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you and good morning. Peter, would you comment on MDI utilization rates in the second quarter and how you see those progressing into the third quarter for the industry as well as Huntsman?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Yeah, much to add, Kevin. Very good question. It's something that we struggle with because there's not a great deal of information as to how people are running their plant and what capacity they're running their plant. Obviously, with the tariff situation and so forth, the product that was coming into North America from China, that product is either being scaled back in capacity or going into other markets. We're not seeing a lot of that product showing up in Europe, which is something that some of us feared a couple of months ago would be the case. It really is quite a fluid question. I would say that by and large, the industry is operating somewhere in the low to mid 80% range. That's going to probably be a little bit higher than that in North America, perhaps a little bit lower than that in China.

I believe that's about where we are today.

Kevin McCarthy (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Patrick Cunningham with Citi. Please proceed.

Patrick Cunningham (VP and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Can you give us an update on how your order books have progressed in July? I think we're hearing some mixed signals on, you know, if things are stable or if things are getting worse in July. What are some of the conversations you're having from larger customers in auto and building and construction, given the recent tariff implementation?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

I think that stable would probably be the best singular description as to what we're seeing across the board. There are some pockets here and there, just anecdotally. I think that there are a number of truckload orders, rail, which would tell you people are ordering just in time, which would tell you that inventories are probably lower than usual. In my personal opinion, I believe that the supply chains are pretty thin right now. People in times of uncertainty, especially where the overall energy market, the energy structure is down from where it was six months ago, are probably not going to be holding a lot of inventory on the expectation that the energy costs will be coming down, chemical costs and so forth. I think that it's very thin right now, and people are kind of ordering just what they need for the next 30 days or so.

Right now, I'm not seeing a pickup that would give me a great deal of optimism. Conversely, I'm not seeing a big drop-off in any one area that would give me pessimism.

Patrick Cunningham (VP and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great, very helpful. Peter, you seem to be optimistic on potential China supply rationalization, but it seems there's still pretty healthy capacity build expectations in MDI. Where do you see this potentially having the most significant impact in terms of the key chains or what it might mean for Huntsman's earnings levels going forward?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

As we think about Chinese capacity and so forth, China, where you have the greatest concentration of production, continues to be our most profitable market for MDI. Our business in China is performing quite well in comparison to North America and very well in comparison to Europe. I think that there's a combination probably of volume discipline, pricing discipline, and what have you. We're also seeing some greater trade movements and so forth. At the time, as we look at the first six months of this year, we've seen Chinese imports into North America of MDI virtually stop. For some reason, we've seen imports coming in from Europe of all places increase. That's not offsetting each other one for one, obviously. There are some rather unusual trade patterns. By and large, I don't think there's anything terribly surprising taking place right now.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Thanks from the line of Jeff Zekauskas with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed.

Jeff Zekauskas (Stock Analyst)

Thanks very much. I think earlier in the call, you said that utilization rates in polyurethanes were in the low to mid 80%. Is that where your utilization rates are?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

I'm not sure that we're too dissimilar from, you know, it'd probably be, we run our plants in China at pretty high rates because we've got good market demand there. The automotive sector in China continues to perform quite well, and everything else is pretty stable. I wouldn't say that it's growing through the roof. Europe obviously continues to struggle, and in North America, we're probably running in the mid 80%, give or take a few percentage points. I'm not sure that we're terribly different than most of our peers.

Jeff Zekauskas (Stock Analyst)

What are your utilization rates in Europe?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Those would probably be around 80%.

Jeff Zekauskas (Stock Analyst)

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Frank Mitsch with Fermium Research. Please proceed.

Frank Mitsch (President)

Good morning. Hey Peter, what are your latest thoughts on the dividend?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Frank, this is obviously something that our Board looks at very carefully, and they look at it not just on a quarterly basis. We have discussions on a monthly basis. We look at the steps that we're taking around cash generation as a company, demonstrated from this last quarter. As we look into the second half of the year, we have further steps that we'll be taking on cash generation and so forth. We feel that we're in a pretty good place right now. We obviously want to be at a place where perhaps at the top of the cycle, people are saying, well, you ought to be doing more, and at the bottom of the cycle, people, it probably will be on the higher end, given the volatility of our portfolio.

I think that for the time being, we feel comfortable with where we are, but at the same time, we don't have our head buried in the sand, and it's not going to be something that we would be paying a dividend if it's going to be materially harmful to our balance sheet.

Frank Mitsch (President)

Understood. How much longer, given all the actions you're taking on the cash side and on the balance, and shoring up your balance sheet, how much longer do you think at this level of earnings? Do you think, do you feel, how comfortable do you feel through the end of 2025? Is this a 2025 decision at this level of earnings? Is this a 2026 decision at this level of earnings? Obviously, the assumption is, as you indicated, that near term, no reason to panic or be optimistic, but long term, you see things improving. I'm just curious as to how long you feel you would tolerate it at this level of earnings.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Frank, it's a very good question. That's a question with very limited visibility on earnings that we have right now, given the volatility around tariffs and, you know, in pricing discipline and so forth. It's just something that we will be looking at on a quarterly basis. As we look at probably between now and the end of the year, I think that we have, I wouldn't say that we've got a very good picture, but I think we've got a fairly decent picture as to where we are. I think a dividend is not just a short-term sign of how you feel about it, but it's also a long-term sign.

I think that if we, you know, if we get into, particularly into early next year, and we see that there's another muted cycle or a global recession, a muted cycle on construction, for example, or we're in a global recession, then, you know, things have gotten worse and don't appear to be getting any better. I think the board will make appropriate decisions. At this point, when we look at our cash generation, what we're working on, where our focus is, and, you know, where we think the overall company is going, we feel that we're in a good position.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

Vincent Andrews (Managing Director)

Thank you. Good morning. Peter, I wonder if we could talk about what you think trade finality means and what your customers think. In other words, can we get to a point where the trade war is somehow resolved? What does that mean? Does it mean we have agreements with all these countries, including China, and that's it? We all know what things are, and that's the moment where life goes on and people go back to purchasing and so forth in a normal manner? Do you think there's always going to be some uncertainty within the current construct just because these things can keep changing, they can keep evolving, or people don't abide by it, so that we're going to wind up staying in a more cautious purchasing and customer behavior period for a longer period of time, even if there's any sort of resolution?

How are you thinking about it, and what do you hear from your customers?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

You are asking me, and I mean this with absolutely no disrespect, but you are asking me to get into the head of the administration presently in place, which I think is an impossible analysis. I would say broadly that the U.S. economy and our customers, our suppliers, our biggest issue is volatility. If we are going to pay higher tariffs, if there are going to be duties, if there are going to be barriers, whatever, let's figure out what they are. Let's work around them, work through them, work with them, do what we need to do. It is just, it is kind of like with raw material prices. I can live with $100 crude oil. I would rather not, but we can if we know that is going to be the new normal or something close to that.

What is very difficult is when you have a market that goes from $100 to $30 to $100, and you are dealing with massive working capital changes and so forth. That is not unlike trade policies. Particularly with the long supply chains that we have around the world today, it is very volatile. Now, when you look at the case of Huntsman and the impact on Huntsman, by and large, as a company, we do not move a lot of products overseas. Trade does not impact this company all that much. Trade barriers and trade duties. With our raw material suppliers, most of our raw materials are supplied within region. We do not hear a lot of noise from our raw material suppliers. I think from our raw material side, not a big deal. From ourselves, not a big deal. Now I get down to our customers.

Automotive, completely all over the place. We look at the trade in aerospace and the impact that is having from one negotiation to another. You look at the supply chains that are going into the construction materials market, timber from Canada and everything. The customers, the further downstream you go, the greater volatility there is. The closer you get to the consumer, you are going to see even greater volatility and uncertainty. I am not sure anybody really benefits from that volatility. The consistent message I hear, not just in the U.S. but around the world, is whatever it is going to be, let's get to that point, let's figure out what it is, and we can deal with it. I believe that is ultimately where we are going to be headed.

Vincent Andrews (Managing Director)

Okay, thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of John Roberts with Mizuho Securities. Please proceed.

John Roberts (Managing Director)

Thanks. Peter, the prepared remarks mention advanced materials as the primary focus for bolt-on acquisitions. I don't expect that you'd be making any bolt-on acquisitions near term, but are you no longer interested in Huntsman Building Systems, HBS, as an area long term?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

I think I learned from my father a long time ago, you never say never in the area of M&A, but at the same time, you do have to have a strategy. You can't just look and buy anything that is available. I think that as we look at where we want to be moving as a company, we want to be able to take advantage of adhesives. We want to be taking advantage of aerospace, lightweighting, energy conservation. As we look at our most stable lens of our business, as we go down, we look at electronics, we look at elastomers, as we look at our adhesives, lightweighting, carbon fiber, composite materials, and so forth, those are all areas, I think, for us that we've been able to build a nice platform, and we'd like to continue to do that.

You look at something like polyurethanes, and of course, within our polyurethane business, we have elastomers. We have some of those applications. Those that are further downstream, those businesses are the best performing parts of our polyurethane business today. I don't want to sit here and say that we'd never do anything in polyurethanes, but if we do, it would probably be something that would complement that end of the business more so than the more volatile and commodity side of things.

John Roberts (Managing Director)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

David Begleiter (Managing Director)

Thank you. Peter, do you expect the tariffs we now have on Chinese MDI to lead to, at some point, a new U.S. MDI plant? Not by you, but maybe a competitor?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

I can only give you... Okay, I will tell you it will not lead to a new plant by Huntsman. At least not while I have anything to do with managing the company. What competition decides to do, I have no idea. I personally believe that there's more than enough MDI in the world today, and we'll be just fine. If you put barriers up around the U.S. on imports, let's remember that the U.S. also exports its MDI into markets, for instance, into Latin America, into Canada, and so forth. You've got to, you've also got to realize that if you're putting imported materials that are going into Latin America and Canada and so forth, there's less export from the U.S.

I think that a lot of people can make a mistake by just drawing a circle around the United States and somehow thinking that that's going to be this fortress, that what's in the United States stays within the United States, and nothing can penetrate it from Europe or anyplace else. Like I said, trade's a messy subject, and I think presently the world's got plenty of MDI capacity, it doesn't need any more.

David Begleiter (Managing Director)

Got it. Just one more on aerospace. We are seeing production rates increase. I know there's a mix for you guys with why buy versus never buy. When do you expect the stronger build rate cycle to impact your business specifically?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

I think it'll probably be in the next, you know, within the next couple of quarters, next three, four, five quarters. The reason that you've got to make sure that you understand the difference between deliveries and build rate. When an airline says that we're delivering eight airplanes, for example, without getting into any particular airline, how many of those airplanes have been sitting already built and have been sitting on the tarmac waiting for FAA or European inspections and certification? How many are planes that were built months or quarters ago? How many of those planes were built this month? When you say that there are eight planes that are being delivered, I want to make sure that we're focused on the build rate versus the delivery rate. I like to see the delivery rate up because the airlines need to move inventory.

You go up to the Boeing field, you can just look at it on Google Earth. They've got literally scores of 777Xs, next generation of planes that aren't even flying yet. They've got scores of these things that have been sitting there for years waiting for federal certification. That's going to be an important application for our materials when that plane is being fully built. You're going to have to clear out a lot of stock before you get to what I would consider to be a normalized run rate. Sorry, it's a laborious answer, but there is a difference between the number of planes that are delivered and the number of planes that are manufactured and the inventory of those planes that are sitting about waiting to be finished, certified, and sent to customer.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Salvator Tiano with Bank of America. Please proceed.

Salvator Tiano (Equity Research Analyst)

Yes, thank you very much. Firstly, I want to go to the closure of the maleic anhydride facility in Europe. If you can tell us a little bit about what was your process and how things unfolded there, mostly because when you started the strategic review, you mentioned that you explicitly undertook this action because you received unsolicited interest in the facility. What happened, I guess, in the meantime, and you decided to shut it down instead?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

We originally looked at it to see if there would be a better owner of that facility than us. We looked at options of selling it and we looked at options of keeping it. You know, we reviewed, I think we reviewed every option imaginable. The last thing you ever want to do is be in a position where you're having to close an asset. When we looked at the reliability of that facility and the cost of that facility, the lack of competitiveness in the European market, we determined that the facility was unsellable, and we made the decision to shut it down. Not our preferred decision, obviously, but one that we felt we have no alternative given the overall market conditions and so forth that were there.

Salvator Tiano (Equity Research Analyst)

Sal recognized that for maleic anhydride, 85% of the cost of maleic anhydride is butane. That's going back into the high energy costs which exist in Europe, and we don't see those materially changing going forward, hence the decision that Peter outlined. All right. If I may ask, Scott, about the future of your European footprint, not on a little bit more downstream polyurethanes, but on the core MDI Rotterdam facility, I mean, there's a bunch of PO shutdowns, a number of them more likely to come as well. At what point do you think that European demand may permanently be impaired for MDI, and there may not be enough demand for your own facilities there?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

I think that we have either the lowest or among the lowest production sites in Europe, and I believe that that site is going to be competitive relative to other European producers for some years to come. If we get to a point where we can't justify the operations of our European facility, I think that there'll probably be other facilities that will come to that conclusion before we do. However, we do continue to look at all of our operating costs there. We look at our operating viability. As I see longer term, as I see today, that's a very limited vision. As I see today, that's a site that we're going to continue to operate, and it's a segment of the market and polyurethanes that we're going to continue to feed.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Josh Spector with UBS. Please proceed.

Josh Spector (Executive Director of Chemicals Equity Research)

Yeah, hi, good morning. I wanted to ask in advanced materials, you cited power and industrial markets helping lift the EBITDA in the quarter. Curious how much of that you'd frame as structural improvement. It seems like maybe that's the case in power versus pull forward to some cyclicality there, and what's being baked into 3Q. Thank you.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

I think what we saw in the second quarter was a more normalized run rate rather than a one-time basis. As you continue to see power, I think we'll continue to be a very stable platform. I think aerospace is going to continue to improve. The build rates start stabilizing more, given my earlier comments and so forth. Again, that's not to say that you won't see a bit of volatility, but certainly nothing like what we're seeing in the other divisions. I'd say that as you look at second quarters, we look into the third quarters, we said in our prepared remarks, you'll see a little bit of seasonality. This is largely a European business, and Europeans have a tendency to take a few days off in August. You might see a bit of impact on that.

Josh Spector (Executive Director of Chemicals Equity Research)

Makes sense. If I could ask quickly for Phil, you had a $7 million benefit in performance products from what appeared to be an accrual reversal or something of that sort. Was that expected in 2Q? Is there anything else like that to call out in the 3Q?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

No, I would say a reversal of a loss contingency accrual related to our U.S. operations, Josh, that we had in performance products. I think we've called out as well in the second quarter that we did take a negative impact from asset utilization related to the reductions in our inventory. That was offset by the release of our bonus accruals as we obviously reassessed our bonus accruals for the year. As you move into quarter three, I think each of those three items will roughly balance themselves out, and you won't have a significant impact between Q2 and Q3 related to those.

Josh Spector (Executive Director of Chemicals Equity Research)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Mike Sison with Wells Fargo. Please proceed.

Mike Sison (Managing Director)

Hey, good morning guys. Peter, when you think about China, you know, they talked about involution. Is there a good amount of capacity there that could or maybe should be looked at and maybe taken out that could help the supply-demand situation we're in now?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Very good question. I think, you know, China is, I've heard more in the last 30 days than having been there in the last couple of two or three weeks ago. More discussion in country, certainly than I hear out of country, about the government looking at overcapacity, looking at older facilities. As I look at the MDI situation in China, most every facility in MDI in China is not only very good technology, but is also some of the largest scale, largest, best integrated facilities that are integrated all the way up to, you know, energy production, ethylene production, coal production, all the way down through the line. I think that there will be a number of closures that will take place in the chemical industry over the next year, two or three.

I do not believe that that will be the case for MDI, particularly if you compare the competitiveness of those facilities with, you know, 30, 40, 50-year-old facilities that are operating in Europe that are subscale and having to struggle with much higher raw material costs and supply chain costs and so forth.

Mike, one area we are looking at is during venturing China on MDI has been significantly under pressure. It could be that over the coming years, there could be some of the older MDI producing facilities that come out, but that'll be over a number of years.

Mike Sison (Managing Director)

Got it. Maybe a longer term question, Peter. We've been in this trough for quite some time, and maybe it takes a little bit longer to get to a higher EBITDA number for the company. Do you still feel good that there is pretty good upside in EBITDA to a mid-cycle, a longer term? How do you sort of think about getting there? What needs to happen?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

I think that as you look at it, you know, we always like to go back and look at past cycles and say that we're repeating. We certainly can repeat the cycles, but the reasoning that goes behind the cycles, whether it's an active war, whether it's energy volatility, whether it's an implosion or an explosion, two different things. In the housing market, the number of unsold homes today are almost where they were in 2007 and 2008, but for completely different reasons. Therefore, I think that the outcome of this cycle will, the timing of it, and the reasoning behind that outcome will be completely different. As you look at the other thing that's unique about this cycle is that we've got kind of three major economic blocks in the world, and all three of those are being hit for different reasons. The U.S.

around, in my opinion, at least as it relates to this segment of the chemical industry, it's largely around interest rates and affordable housing. I believe that that is something that will be addressed, can be addressed, and it could happen very, I'm not going to say overnight, but with interest rates, if you saw a meaningful change in interest rates, something that economists and, quote, the experts have now been talking about for what, three, four years, I think you could see quite a rapid recovery in North America. That would, I think, take us to normalized levels of MDI, again, not over the course of a quarter, but certainly over the course of a year or something where you're getting much closer to a normalized rate.

As I look to China, in the excess capacity they have in China and the ability to stimulate consumer spending in China, largely from the rebound of an implosion that took place in their housing markets, again, for completely different reasons than what we saw in the United States, and what we're seeing in the United States. They're now in probably their fourth, going into their fifth year of what I would consider to be a lack of consumer confidence being driven largely by the implosion that you saw in housing value and overcapacity that was built and to some degree to try to counteract the economic benefits of that housing issue. I think longer term, China is going to continue to be a very competitive place. They have a very competitive energy. They've got a vibrant, well-educated workforce. I think that China recovers.

Europe is going to continue to be in an area of volatility, but it will find, look, Europe's just not going to disappear. It will find its areas of competitiveness, whether it's in aerospace, whether it's in electronics, whether it's in renewable energy and so forth. They'll continue to benefit. There will be a lot of economic dislocation from Europe as they deindustrialize. A lot of that will end up in North America, the Middle East, or in China. There will be this reselling, but I don't see the tide coming back for the same reason at the same time in all regions. Of course, you will see a recovery, and you will see for new capacity to be built in this industry to feed future demands. You're going to have to see higher prices, higher margins, and that will precipitate a cycle and it's a cyclical return.

That element of a recovery has always been the same in past recoveries as to the reason why you see the recovery. Sorry, that was a long rambling answer, but yes, I believe that there will be a recovery. I think that we'll get back to those normalized levels, probably in the U.S. and in China sooner than in Europe. I see no reason why we wouldn't be able to do that. When we do that, we'll have an even more competitive cost structure that will return even more to the bottom line. We've learned how to operate the company at a lower cost, with lower inventory, stronger working capital discipline.

We've got further downstream capacities that are filling out in Geismar, Louisiana, new capacities and catalysts and so forth that have been built and completed and now going into market and performance products and chip cleaning technology and so forth and performance products coming into the market. Not only will we see the recovery, but we'll also see some new opportunities from past investments to capitalize on that.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Hassan Ahmed with Alembic Global. Please proceed.

Hassan Ahmed (Senior Equity Analyst)

Morning, Peter and Phil. I just wanted to stick to the theme of recovery, however far it is. In your prepared remarks on the polyurethane side of things, you mentioned that sequentially volumes were up around 3%. Typically, Q1 to Q2, you see an 8% to 10% sort of uptake in volume. I'm just trying to get a sense of how far below normal volume levels are we, just to get a better sense of as and when that recovery happens, how much higher these volumes can actually go.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Yeah, I think that for the most part, when we look to, when we take out kind of one-time contracts and business that we won in the same quarter, you're probably looking at somewhere between 5% and 8% that I would say is kind of missing in the numbers. That typically is around housing and construction. We saw an incredibly anemic housing and construction market this year. I don't think we've seen anything like this since COVID and since the Great Recession before that. I think there's a great deal of uncertainty around people wanting to commit to what is usually the largest purchase in their lifetime during times of market volatility and uncertainty, and also with higher interest rates. I'm very hopeful that those markets will recover early this next year and will be in a much stronger position this next year.

We definitely, the single biggest impact in the second quarter that was, I think, I'm not going to say surprised us because we were talking about this on our last call, was the utter lack of seasonality that we typically see at this time around construction.

Hassan Ahmed (Senior Equity Analyst)

Understood. Very helpful. As a follow-up, in the prepared remarks for polyurethanes, you guys talked about how through the course of the quarter you saw a more intense competitive environment in Europe. I guess you mentioned driven by domestic producers. Can you just expand on that? Do you see any sort of resolution around that in the near term as well?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Unfortunately, I don't see a great deal of resolution around that. We pushed very aggressively in the second quarter, as we did in the first quarter, as we did in the quarter previous to that, for better, higher pricing margin expansion in Europe. I believe that, I can't, again, I don't know what the decision of our competitors are, but it seems like people are putting volume over value. They're moving volume at any price, sort of a thing. Surprisingly, in Europe, that is today our highest cost urethane production in the world and our lowest value of MDI in the world. You kind of got both sides are hitting you.

Hassan Ahmed (Senior Equity Analyst)

We continue to focus on the announcements we made, getting our cost base correct, and all of the activities that we're doing, including closing some of our facilities there, and then work within the competitive environment that's existing.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Yeah, 85%, 9% of our cost reductions right now across the company are focused in this market.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Aleksey Yefremov with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Aleksey Yefremov (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning. Peter, I was hoping you could deconstruct for us polyurethanes segment price declines of 5% year over year this quarter. You just talked about Europe, was this the sole reason for this decline? Were other regions particularly bad or good? Also, from the perspective of just polymeric MDI versus systems, were these pieces better or worse than the 5%?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Yeah, I think that we did see a price fall from the first going to the second quarter. We started off the second quarter, the beginning of the second quarter, particularly in China, where we'd gone from about RMB 18,000, RMB 18,500 down to about RMB 15,000. What's that, a 20%, 15% to 20% drop in price from the end of the first quarter going into the beginning of the second quarter. We came out of that quarter with stabilization, a bit of an increase through the quarter and stabilization as we look into the third quarter. I think that we're hoping that we'll see some price increases in China with that stabilization getting better. In the U.S. and in Europe, we're just seeing some very competitive pricing dynamics in place. A lot of people chasing little volume.

Aleksey Yefremov (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Aleksey, if you were looking at the 5% year on year, which I think you are in our press release on polyurethanes, you go back to this time last year, it was about RMB 18,000 for polymeric, and today we're at about that sort of RMB 15,500, RMB 16,000, so you've seen a drop of 10% to 15%. It's mostly in the polymeric area. You would have had some pressure on system prices, some on MDI variants, but in general, the move that you've seen is polymeric MDI related.

As you said, those 14 million U.S. MDI offshore, or at least it could be sort of tariff-related repercussions. Do you know if those obvious views have just continued to me and maybe moved to Mexico or Canada, or it's been pretty steady?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Yeah, so Alex, I think you're asking about the trade flows there and whether some product instead of coming into the U.S. moves into Mexico or into Canada. Look, I think we'd said, yeah, I think we'd said if you looked through the first sort of six months of the year, clearly the imports coming into the U.S. are considerably lower. There'd be some which would have gone into the Canadian business, into the lumber business there, a little bit into Mexico. Mexico is not an enormous market here at all, and mainly driven by automotive and furniture, actually, where in general you have to spec in. As we said in our earlier remarks, what we've been watching is that whilst the imports have dropped off from China, the European imports into the U.S. have actually increased in that time.

That, coupled with a lower demand environment, those three elements combined have led to a pricing environment which is relatively stable, rather than say the increases that I think the industry had hoped for.

Aleksey Yefremov (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, like I said, my apologies, your call was kind of breaking in and out, and Phil coming from the UK is used to listening to Scots and Irish and so forth, so he's better at stuff like this.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

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

Arun Viswanathan (Equity Analyst)

Great, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask about two things. First off, I understand that, obviously, Huntsman, it's not the view that the world needs another MDI plant, especially under your leadership, Peter, but I guess others may not necessarily feel that way. Is there anything else that, potentially, what's kind of the pushing point when others get to the same conclusion that you do? Maybe if you could frame that in whether it be cost per ton or pricing or anything like that. Similarly, on epoxies in your advanced materials business, there's been some exits by others in the BLR market. Does that affect your sourcing at all, or what can you share there? Thanks.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

I think that on the BLR side, I'll take that first. On the BLR side, I think that we've got plenty of suppliers. We have seen some higher cost facilities that have cut back or slowed down. There's plenty of BLR on the market, and I wouldn't assume that that's going to impact our earnings on our advanced materials at all, the few that have exited. On MDI capacity, I just, I simply can't imagine what takes place in a board room when people decide they're going to take $1 billion, $2 billion and invest it in something that's going to take five, seven years to build in a product that we're swimming in today.

I don't know, maybe they got a crystal ball as to where we're going to be in the decade from now, but I guess I could see the rationale that the Chinese have had over the last couple of decades as they've wanted to become more independent, self-sufficient. I get that, but I look at the growth rates and so forth across Europe and North America and even China today. I just don't see any justification for that. I can't speak to the rationale that would go into a decision like that.

I really don't think there's a reality. None of the Western manufacturers, as far as we know, have announced any new capacity, major capacity additions, and major plans. There may have been some debottlenecking, but nothing from a major new plant perspective.

Arun Viswanathan (Equity Analyst)

Right, but I guess I'm just curious, would they and yourselves get to a place here where that utilization rate remaining in the low 80% or high 70% is just not acceptable and would force some closures? Do you foresee that happening? Would it make sense for you guys as well? I guess not just given your position on the cost curve, but do you foresee any supply takeout materializing that way?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Yeah, I believe that there are some very high cost facilities in Europe, but that's just from information that I read publicly. I would have thought that would have happened before now, but it hasn't. Chemical facilities by and large are very expensive to shut down. In Europe, it's very problematic when you have to deal with government authorities and so forth. It's particularly in Europe, it's expensive, and particularly in sites where you've got four or five other chemical companies that are dependent on your operations, you're dependent on their operations, and you may be able to or want to shut down, but you've got 15, 20-year supply agreements and offtake agreements and shared site costs and so forth. In a lot of these, it's a tough and very expensive decision to just simply walk away.

I think that you're at that point where I can't imagine there are not companies today that are looking at those economics and decisions.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from a line of Mike Harrison with Seaport Research Partners. Please proceed.

Mike Harrison (Senior Chemical Analyst)

Hi, good morning. Wanted to see if you could give us some color, Peter, on the comments that we're seeing European MDI being imported into North American markets. Can you just explain what's driving that, and do you expect that to persist into the second half?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

I've got to be honest with you. I can't imagine in my wildest dreams why somebody would do that. I don't sit in the boardroom. I'm not mocking the question. It's a very good question. I can't imagine that you're taking some of the most high-cost MDI produced in the world and shipping it, paying the cost of duties and everything else. I don't know. I don't know why somebody would do that, but it's been done. That's the market.

Mike Harrison (Senior Chemical Analyst)

No, I actually print out the printed remarks, and I wrote down WTF next to that comment that you made in the remarks there.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Yeah, I've written that more than once.

Mike Harrison (Senior Chemical Analyst)

My other question is just on the MTBE joint venture. You said there was a loss in the second quarter. Is any improvement expected to materialize in the second half? Maybe just give some color on what you're seeing in terms of MTBE margin dynamics. Thanks.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

I think typically MTBE does its best in the driving seasons, which is usually the end of the first quarter, second quarter, through the third quarter, and gasoline blends, octane values, and the cost of raw materials. I think I have a very good knowledge of MTBE in markets where they're going for the next 24 to 48 hours. I would say between now and the end of the year, it's going to be a struggle to see it get much better.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Lawrence Alexander with Jefferies. Please proceed.

Laurence Alexander (Analyst)

Hi, this is Kevin McCarthy on for Laurence. You guys touched on the rate cycle a bit, but I just wanted to delve into that a little bit. I guess just wondering, from an amount of rate cuts, how much do you expect it would take to basically turn to construction and consumer durable end markets a bit? Would you say maybe it would take 75 basis points in 2025, maybe 75 in the first half of 2026, maybe causing some green shoots in construction by the back half of 2026, and then consumer durables at 2027 at best?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Monetary policies really are not my area of expertise. I'll probably defer to Phil on that, but I would just say that it's probably two issues. It's not just how much is taking place, but also the direction in which it appears to be going. If you see a small rate cut of 25 bps, I'm not sure that's going to catalyze the economy. If that's going to be the first of, you know, two or three expected rate cuts coming, I think that that could be a very substantial catalyst. At this point, there's just not a whole lot of visibility that the Fed's giving.

A key impact that we always watch is you've got the Fed funds, right? What's that doing for longer-term yields? Ultimately, how is that feeding into the mortgage rates themselves? We've seen a bit of a disconnect, as we know, between where 10-year yields currently sit. We're looking at all of those factors. They all need to come down and then get some greater stimulation in construction and move from there.

Laurence Alexander (Analyst)

Okay, great. Thank you.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Thank you. Operator, I think we're getting near the top of the hour, so why don't we take one more question?

Operator (participant)

Yes, sir. The next question comes from the line of Aaron Weisbrod with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed.

Aaron Weisbrod (Managing Director)

Good morning. Thank you for the time. I just wanted to quickly touch on the balance sheet again. It looks like there was additional funding on the revolver during the quarter. Despite their cash flow result and acknowledging the commentary thus far on the dividend and end balance sheet, is it just fair to assume that any potential cash shortfall in the second half of the year would be plugged by additional revolver borrowings, or are there any other considerations currently being entertained, perhaps issuing new debt to shore up liquidity at some point this year?

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Yeah, Aaron Weisbrod, thanks for the question. Thanks for being on the call, Matt. We're not looking at any new debt issuings in the second half of the year. I think you're probably aware of where we sit from a maturity standpoint, which is our revolver. Matures in May of 2027. We've got our securitization facilities as well, and then our longer-term bond maturities of 2029, 2031, 2034, which is helpful, frankly, in the current trough environment overall. Look, on a cash flow basis, the last 12 months, we generated $150 million. We did bring in $40 million from our Chinese joint venture liquidation. Theoretically, over the last 12 months, we covered the $170 million of dividend. We'll focus on our cash-generating activities in the second half of the year here and manage everything accordingly.

We recognize where we are from a credit rating perspective, and we'll manage within the sub-investment grade rating category that we are.

Aaron Weisbrod (Managing Director)

Thank you.

Peter Huntsman (Chairman, CEO, and President)

Thank you.

All right, thanks, Joel. We can end the call now.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Enjoy the rest of your day.