塞拉尼斯 (CE) 2018 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the Celanese Second Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note, this event is being recorded.

早安，歡迎參加塞拉尼斯 2018 年第二季財報電話會議。（操作員指示）請注意，此事件正在被記錄。

I would now like to turn the conference over to Surabhi Varshney. Please go ahead.

現在我想將會議交給 Surabhi Varshney。請繼續。

Thank you, Brandon. Welcome to the Celanese Corporation Second Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Surabhi Varshney, Vice President, Investor Relations.

謝謝你，布蘭登。歡迎參加塞拉尼斯公司2018年第二季財報電話會議。我叫 Surabhi Varshney，投資人關係副總裁。

With me today are Mark Rohr, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Scott Richardson, Chief Financial Officer; and Todd Elliott, Senior Vice President, Acetyl Chain.

今天與我一起的還有董事長兼首席執行官馬克·羅爾 (Mark Rohr)、首席財務官斯科特·理查森 (Scott Richardson) 和乙醯鏈高級副總裁托德·埃利奧特 (Todd Elliott)。

Yesterday afternoon, Celanese Corporation distributed its second quarter 2018 earnings release via Business Wire and posted slides and remarks about the quarter in the Investor Relations section of our website.

昨天下午，塞拉尼斯公司透過商業電訊發布了 2018 年第二季財報報告，並在我們網站的投資者關係部分發布了有關本季的幻燈片和評論。

Today's presentation includes statements about expectations for the future results and plans that are forward-looking statements. Actual results might differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. And additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to materially differ can be found in the posted materials.

今天的演示包括對未來結果和計劃的預期陳述，這些陳述是前瞻性的。實際結果可能與此類前瞻性陳述中預測的結果有重大差異。有關可能導致實際結果出現重大差異的因素的更多信息，請參閱發布的材料。

We will also discuss non-GAAP measures, information about which, including reconciliations to their comparable GAAP measures, are posted in the Investor Relations section of our website. Form 8-K reports containing all these materials are available on the SEC's EDGAR system.

我們也將討論非公認會計準則指標，有關該指標的資訊（包括與可比較公認會計準則指標的對帳）均發佈在我們網站的「投資者關係」部分。包含所有這些資料的 8-K 表格報告可在美國證券交易委員會的 EDGAR 系統上取得。

We'll begin with introductory remarks from Mark Rohr and then take your questions.

我們將首先由馬克·羅爾 (Mark Rohr) 作介紹性發言，然後回答您的問題。

Thanks, Surabhi, and welcome, everyone, listening in today. Our prepared comments were published yesterday, so I will be brief and then turn the call over for your questions. We delivered strong consolidated results for the quarter with GAAP earnings of $2.52 per share and record adjusted earnings of $2.90 per share. Robust pricing across product lines resulted in net sales of $1.8 billion with adjusted EBIT margins of 26.6%.

謝謝，蘇拉比，歡迎大家今天的收聽。我們的準備好的評論已於昨天發布，因此我將簡短發言，然後將電話轉交給大家提問。本季我們取得了強勁的綜合業績，GAAP 每股收益為 2.52 美元，調整後每股收益為 2.90 美元。各產品線的強勁定價帶來 18 億美元的淨銷售額，調整後的息稅前利潤率為 26.6%。

All 3 businesses, the Acetyl Chain, Engineered Materials and Acetate Tow, grew adjusted EBIT year-over-year. The earnings growth along with a focused effort to convert those earnings to cash generated contributed to our highest-ever free cash flow of $500 million in the quarter.

乙醯基鏈、工程材料和醋酸絲束這三項業務的調整後息稅前利潤均較去年同期成長。獲利成長以及將獲利轉化為現金的專注努力，促成了我們本季自由現金流達到歷史最高水準 5 億美元。

We repurchased approximately 900,000 shares and distributed roughly $73 million in dividends this quarter. For the remainder of the year, we expect Engineered Materials to continue delivering steady growth by extending the success of the pipeline model and executing on M&A.

本季我們回購了約 90 萬股股票並發放了約 7,300 萬美元的股息。在今年剩餘時間內，我們預計工程材料業務將透過延續管道模式的成功和執行併購繼續實現穩定成長。

In the Acetyl Chain, we expect market momentum to carry through the third quarter before normal seasonality in the fourth quarter and first quarter impact that business. We do not see the recent tariff disputes as having any material effect on our business.

在乙醯基鏈領域，我們預計市場動能將持續整個第三季度，然後第四季和第一季的正常季節性將對該業務產生影響。我們認為最近的關稅爭端不會對我們的業務產生任何實質影響。

And with that, we are raising 2018 expectations for adjusted earnings to the range of $10.50 to $10.75 per share with free cash flow generation in excess of $1 billion.

因此，我們將 2018 年調整後收益預期上調至每股 10.50 美元至 10.75 美元，自由現金流產生量將超過 10 億美元。

Thank you, Mark. (Operator Instructions) Brandon, please open the line for Q&A.

謝謝你，馬克。（操作員指示）布蘭登，請開立問答專線。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Mike Sison with KeyBanc.

（操作員指示）我們的第一個問題來自 KeyBanc 的 Mike Sison。

First question on the Acetyl Chain, you talked about a lot of outages in 2Q. Can you maybe give us a little bit more feel on the regions where that happened? And then do you expect the utilization rate to stay at 90% for third quarter?

關於乙醯鏈的第一個問題，您談到了第二季發生了很多停電事件。您能否向我們詳細介紹一下發生此事的地區？那麼，您預計第三季的利用率會維持在 90% 嗎？

Yes, let me start this, and I'll turn it over to Todd Elliott -- let him give more color, but we were -- I think in the last call, we gave a perspective that we were in the mid-80% utilization rate. We have seen that push up to the 90% kind of range this quarter, and we expect that to move back down towards the mid-80% range as we go through the back half of this year. Todd, would you like to add color to that and maybe some comments?

是的，讓我開始這個話題，然後我會把它交給托德·埃利奧特——讓他給出更多的細節，但是我們——我想在上次通話中，我們給出了一個觀點，即我們的利用率處於 80% 左右。本季度，我們看到這一比例上升到了 90% 左右，我們預計，到今年下半年，這一比例將回落至 80% 左右。托德，你想對此進行補充或發表一些評論嗎？

Yes. I mean, we continue in an overall theme of a continuing improvement in utilization rates, and this really goes back over the last couple of years. We continue to see solid demand growth across multiple end uses. Demand growing at about 3% to 4% per year across all these different end uses. Limited supply, frankly, limited supply since the overbuild back in the '09, '10 and '11 period. So we've seen a steady march up in operating utilization rates, and we put that in the mid-80% level ending last year and through most of this year. And to your question, there have been multiple effects from a combination of Chinese energy reform, environmental reform late last year through the first part of this year, plus a whole series of unplanned outages in multiple regions over the course of the year. So that's pushed up instantaneous operating utilization rates up around the 90% range certainly in Q2. So some of that will moderate, I think as we look out, but continued good environment.

是的。我的意思是，我們繼續保持利用率持續提高的整體主題，這實際上可以追溯到過去幾年。我們持續看到多種終端用途的需求穩定成長。所有這些不同最終用途的需求每年增長約 3% 至 4%。坦白說，供應有限，自 2009 年、2010 年和 2011 年期間過度建設以來，供應一直有限。因此，我們看到營運利用率穩定上升，我們認為去年年底和今年大部分時間的營運利用率都處於 85% 左右的水平。至於您的問題，中國的能源改革、去年年底到今年上半年的環境改革，加上今年多個地區發生的一系列非計劃停電，產生了多重影響。因此，這肯定會將第二季的瞬時營運利用率推高至 90% 左右。因此，我認為，隨著我們觀察，其中一些情況將會緩和，但良好的環境仍將持續。

Great. And then Mark, when you think about your outlook for this year, you're awfully close to your 2020 goals already, it seems on an EPS basis. What's the best way to think about, I guess, earnings progression into '19 and to '20 given how strong 2018 has turned out?

偉大的。然後馬克，當你考慮今年的前景時，從每股盈餘來看，你已經非常接近 2020 年的目標了。鑑於 2018 年的強勁表現，我認為如何最好地預測 2019 年和 20 年的獲利成長？

Yes. I think in May, we put forth a view that we would generate about $30 per share equivalent of earnings over 3 years, $9, $10 and $11 per share. I think we're higher than that number now. So I would look at it kind of that way that, that somewhere between $30 and $33 per share sum cumulative over that period of time is what I would think. How that actually flows through, Mike, on a quarter-to-quarter basis is really hard for me to quantify in that. So we got off to a good start. We're going to finish very strong, probably closer to $12 than $11, in that range and we'll be somewhere I think in the high between those as we enter next year. But again, it's a bit hard to call that specifically. It's easier to call the full 3 years than it is next year.

是的。我想在五月份，我們提出了一個觀點，我們將在三年內創造每股約 30 美元、9 美元、10 美元和 11 美元的收益。我認為我們現在的數字已經高於這個數字了。所以我會這樣看待這個問題，我認為那段時間的累積總額在每股 30 美元到 33 美元之間。麥克，實際上，按季度來看，這一過程如何進行，我很難量化。因此我們有了一個好的開始。我們將以非常強勁的價格結束這一階段，可能更接近 12 美元而不是 11 美元，我認為，當我們進入明年時，我們將處於這兩個價格之間的高位。但同樣，具體地稱呼這一點有點困難。稱滿三年比稱明年還容易。

Our next question comes from Ghansham Panjabi with Robert W. Baird.

我們的下一個問題來自 Robert W. Baird 的 Ghansham Panjabi。

I guess, first off, following up on the last question, the mid-80% utilization rate up to 90%, was that delta purely because of China curtailments, either temporary or permanent? Or was there some other meaningful outages there?

我想，首先，繼續回答最後一個問題，利用率從 80% 左右上升到 90%，這種變化是否純粹是因為中國的減產，無論是暫時的還是永久性的？或者那裡還有其他一些有意義的中斷？

No, that was a global -- that's a global spin.

不，那是全球性的——那是全球性的旋轉。

And how would you -- how would that parse out China specifically?

那麼您如何－如何具體分析中國？

Well, I think you should look at China -- Todd (inaudible) me. We should look at China as having a steady -- sort of a steady erosion, small bits of erosion to the overall capacity utilization over the next 3 years and not the kind of short-term impact we have of the units being up and down like we've had this time.

嗯，我認為你應該看看中國——托德（聽不清楚）我。我們應該將中國視為一種穩定的——一種穩定的侵蝕，未來 3 年內整體產能利用率將出現小幅下降，而不是像這次一樣，受到產量上下波動的短期影響。

Yes. I mean, most of the curtailment that we've seen has occurred during the winter months, end of year, start of new year. So we saw that into '17, start of this year in '18. Just the overall utilization picture in the mid-80% range is pretty healthy just to begin with. And then you overlay curtailments, adjustments that we've been describing. And then on top of that, there have been a series of unplanned outages that really go back to last year and...

是的。我的意思是，我們看到的大多數減產都發生在冬季、年底和新年伊始。因此，我們在 2017 年和 2018 年初就看到了這一點。從一開始，整體利用率就處於 80% 左右的水平，這已經是相當健康的了。然後疊加我們一直在描述的削減和調整。除此之外，還發生了一系列意外停電事件，這些事件實際上可以追溯到去年…

Most of those are out of China.

其中大部分來自中國以外。

But even in other regions, I mean, in Asia and I don't want to name competitor names, but other parts of the world. And those have contributed to push up further, up close to 90%. So it's a combination of things that keep us hovering in the mid-80-plus range. And again, that's been a supportive environment.

但即使在其他地區，我的意思是在亞洲，我不想說出競爭對手的名字，而是世界其他地區。這些因素進一步推高了漲幅，接近 90%。所以，是多種因素共同作用的結果，導致我們的收入一直徘徊在 80 多一點的範圍內。再次強調，這是一個支持性的環境。

Okay, terrific. And for my second question, I guess, on tariffs. You cited the potential for incremental growth opportunities given the shift in trade flows, which, correct me if I'm wrong, seem specific to Acetyls, but is there any risk for growth for Engineered Materials in regions such as Asia? How are you sort of thinking about tariff risks specific to EM?

好的，太棒了。我的第二個問題是關於關稅的。您提到了貿易流向轉變帶來的增量成長機會的潛力，如果我錯了，請糾正我，這似乎是針對乙醯基的，但在亞洲等地區，工程材料是否存在成長風險？您如何看待新興市場特有的關稅風險？

No, we don't -- I mean, we don't see it as a real risk. I mean, the tariff concept is one of -- it's sort of in and out of the U.S. and the punitive tariff is in support of that. We have a very global network. And to be honest, most of the material we make in China stays in China. And we have the ability to import into China from most regions of the world. There are a few cases where we're moving materials from the U.S. into China and then on the EM side and on the one hand, but it's not a lot. And the other part of that we should have the ability to price most of that out. So we don't see a material effect of this. And I'd go -- I'll be so bold to say I think our network is so unique and our ability to supply locally is so strong that there could be some advantages that surface if this becomes permanent.

不，我們不這麼認為——我的意思是，我們不認為這是一個真正的風險。我的意思是，關稅概念是一種──它在美國境內和境外，而懲罰性關稅就是對這種概念的支持。我們擁有一個非常全球化的網路。說實話，我們在中國生產的大部分材料都留在中國。而我們有能力從世界大部分地區進口到中國。一方面，有些情況我們會將材料從美國運往中國，然後再運往新興市場，但這種情況並不多。而另一部分，我們應該有能力將大部分成本定價出來。所以我們看不到這會產生什麼實質的影響。我想說——我可以大膽地說，我認為我們的網路非常獨特，我們的本地供應能力非常強大，如果這種情況成為永久現象，可能會出現一些優勢。

Our next question comes from Bob Koort with Goldman Sachs.

我們的下一個問題來自高盛的鮑伯·庫爾特。

I was curious maybe, Todd, you could talk a little bit about a remark that you gave some more insight into some of the regulatory issues that are confronting companies in China. And I think the way to read it is most of those are slanted towards a benefit for Celanese, but I was particularly intrigued by the comments around parks and maybe some additional closures and requests for voluntary curtailments. Can you give us a little more granularity on what you see happening over the next couple of quarters? And whether that makes you a beneficiary or perhaps you're compromised a bit by the exchanges?

托德，我很好奇，你能否談談你對中國企業面臨的一些監管問題的一些看法？我認為，解讀這些評論的方式是，其中大多數都傾向於為塞拉尼斯帶來利益，但我對有關公園的評論以及一些額外的關閉和自願削減的要求特別感興趣。您能否向我們詳細介紹一下未來幾季的情況？這是否會使您成為受益者，或者您是否因交易而受到一定損害？

Yes, I think the chemical park policy is pretty interesting, and this is going to affect multiple provinces. And look, we're studying these as we go and trying to be engaged in Beijing and elsewhere to understand. I mean, the one -- the Shandong province changes is pretty fresh. Shandong ended 2017 with 199 parks. Their target is to approve only 75 parks plus 10 specialty chemical parks. So you think about what is that, 114 take-out parks as you look forward, and it's one of the first provinces to set standards for future chemical park design and all the regulatory environment. We think that will affect our broad industry going forward. We believe it will. We think it already is affecting when you consider the change in park dynamics and then the relocations and permitting required. But this is -- it's evolving, and we've got to understand it and study it and assess it as we go forward. The one other no asset, I think we've mentioned before, with the winter season effects relative to energy, gas versus coal, and other steps on the environmental side as well. We were actually approached this summer in Nanjing by the municipal EPA. This goes back about 4 weeks ago, where they've requested not only Celanese, but multiple companies in the park to reduce operations by 50%, citing a target to reduce ozone. Again, those are their words, not ours. And not required, we ultimately did not have to do anything, but it's pretty interesting that, that outreach occurred in the middle of the summer. And then only days ago, also in Nanjing, 14 different companies in our park there in Nanjing were brought into a meeting. And another request was made to reduce electricity consumption, citing summer season, peak season for electricity. So it's just a series of these sort of heightened steps to work that energy balance and then going forward, like the park reference, the environmental picture for China going forward. We think it's going to have an effect ultimately. And as we said during Investor Day, kind of cull out maybe a couple of percent utilization change by the end of the decade.

是的，我認為化工園區政策非常有趣，這將影響多個省份。瞧，我們正在研究這些問題，並試圖與北京和其他地方合作來了解情況。我的意思是，山東省的變化相當新鮮。2017年，山東省共有公園199座。他們的目標是僅批准75個園區和10個專業化工園區。所以你想想那是什麼，展望未來，有 114 個外賣園區，它是第一批為未來化學園區設計和所有監管環境制定標準的省份之一。我們認為這將影響我們整個產業的未來發展。我們相信它會的。我們認為，當您考慮到公園動態的變化以及所需的搬遷和許可時，它已經產生了影響。但這是不斷發展的，我們必須在前進的過程中了解它、研究它並評估它。另一個無資產，我想我們之前已經提到過，與冬季對能源、天然氣與煤炭的影響有關，以及在環境方面的其他措施。今年夏天，南京市環保局實際上已經與我們進行了接觸。大約四周前，他們不僅要求塞拉尼斯，還要求園區內的多家公司減少 50% 的運營，以減少臭氧。再說一遍，這是他們的話，不是我們的話。這不是必需的，我們最終不需要做任何事情，但有趣的是，這種外展活動發生在夏季中旬。就在幾天前，同樣在南京，我們南京園區的 14 家公司參加了一次會議。另外也提出了減少電力消耗的要求，指出夏季是電力高峰期。因此，這只是一系列類似加強的步驟，以實現能源平衡，然後向前發展，如公園參考，以及中國未來的環境圖景。我們認為它最終會產生影響。正如我們在投資者日所說的那樣，到本世紀末，利用率可能會發生幾個百分點的變化。

Bob, for us, we have a phenomenal relationship. One, we're in one of the best parks that's there, the Nanjing Park. We have a great, great relationship as do the other companies in that park with the park leadership. So I think you should look at this as being a cooperative kind of process for companies like ours. And so it's never been to our disadvantage to support and work with these folks, and I wouldn't expect that to be the case in the future. It does, however, reflect, as Todd said, this continued erosion of the weak and outlying kind of businesses that are there and the continued evolution of those away from the -- away from operations.

鮑勃，對我們來說，我們的關係非常好。首先，我們位於那裡最好的公園之一，南京公園。我們和園區內的其他公司都與園區領導階層保持著非常良好的關係。所以我認為你應該把這看作是我們這樣的公司的一種合作過程。因此，支持和與這些人合作從來不會對我們不利，而且我也不認為將來會出現這種情況。然而，正如托德所說，它確實反映了現有弱勢和邊緣企業的持續侵蝕，以及那些遠離營運的企業的持續演變。

And Mark, if I might ask on TCX, you've done a pretty good job of conditioning us to expect not much there. Now you've got some sort of transaction. Can you give us a sense of the scale of that? And does it make sense if given Todd's fairly bullish view on acetic acid operating rates in the industry, will it make sense for any companies to convert some acetic to ethanol capacity?

馬克，如果我可以問一下關於 TCX 的問題，你已經很好地讓我們對那裡沒有太多的期待了。現在您已經獲得了某種交易。您能讓我們了解一下它的規模嗎？如果考慮到托德對行業中醋酸開工率的相當樂觀的看法，那麼任何公司將部分醋酸產能轉換為乙醇是否有意義？

Yes, well, I think we were not able to, as Celanese Corporation convince the Chinese government to go to synthetic ethanol as a source. And you're well aware, Bob, of the money that was invested years ago on that, the energy we put into that. So this asset, we shut down the asset, we've written off the asset. We have a great partner in Chengzhi that is there at the park with us. They're our provider of raw materials for the acetic acid business, and we've worked with them collaboratively on a number of deals that just haven't worked out yet. This has been one that we kind of jointly surfaced and started working on. They have an interest of really trying to promote synthetic ethanol. They're very well connected politically. And so we think that is a better approach than us trying to go it on our own. So we have, in essence, sold the assets and then we've got a LOI to -- lot of work we have to complete just to sell the assets to them for a nominal amount. There's no real money involved in that. And we're contributing our TCX technology through a joint venture. And with them in that joint venture, the intent is to promote ethanol from synthetic uses. And our interest in that, of course, is to be the acetic acid provider for that. So that's where we are and you should think that this is just -- we put this out as not the holy grail of success for acetic acid but rather, it's one more step that we believe will further keep pressure on this market in Asia. And if we're successful with this, we think as we end this decade next, we should be seeing some acetic acid volumes -- some material acetic acid volumes heading this way.

是的，我認為我們沒能做到，因為塞拉尼斯公司說服中國政府採用合成乙醇作為原料。鮑勃，你很清楚我們多年前為此投入了多少資金、多少精力。因此，對於這項資產，我們已關閉該資產，並已註銷該資產。我們在誠誌有一個很好的合作夥伴，他和我們一起在公園裡。他們是我們醋酸業務的原料供應商，我們曾與他們合作過一些交易，但尚未成功。這是我們共同提出並開始著手解決的問題。他們確實有興趣嘗試推廣合成乙醇。他們在政治上關係很好。因此我們認為這比我們單獨嘗試要好得多。因此，我們本質上是出售了資產，然後我們得到了意向書——我們必須完成大量工作才能以像徵性的價格將資產出售給他們。這其中並不涉及真金白銀。我們正在透過合資企業貢獻我們的 TCX 技術。他們成立合資企業的目的是推廣合成乙醇。當然，我們對此的興趣是成為乙酸的供應商。這就是我們現在的處境，你應該認為這只是——我們把它當作乙酸成功的聖杯，而不是我們認為的進一步對亞洲市場施加壓力的又一步。如果我們成功了，我們認為在下一個十年結束時，我們應該會看到一些乙酸量 - 一些物質乙酸量朝著這個方向發展。

Our next question comes from P.J. Juvekar with Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗銀行的 P.J. Juvekar。

So Mark, you're shutting down tow capacity in Mexico. I believe that's about 2% to 3% of global capacity. Could that tighten up the market temporarily? And my second question related to that is, have you looked at this new Juul product, that's a new type of e-cigarette that has taken off so quickly? Do you think that could potentially impact cigarette demand?

馬克，你正在關閉墨西哥的拖車能力。我認為這大約佔全球產能的 2% 到 3%。這能暫時收緊市場嗎？我的第二個問題是，您是否了解 Juul 的這款新產品？它是一種迅速風靡的新型電子煙？您認為這可能會影響香菸需求嗎？

Well, I'm going to answer your first question asking you to repeat it saying because I missed it P.J., you're breaking up a bit. But no, there is no material impact to, as your math noted, to global capacity utilization in terms of our pulling off. It's just the ability to right size our asset base with the customers we have and create productivity as a result of that. That's all you should read into that. And would you mind repeating your second question? I'm sorry.

好吧，我要回答你的第一個問題，請你重複一遍，因為我錯過了 P.J.，所以你有點分心了。但正如您的計算所示，就我們的完成而言，對全球產能利用率沒有實質影響。這只是根據我們現有的客戶來適當調整我們的資產基礎並由此創造生產力的能力。這就是你應該讀到的全部內容。您介意重複一下您的第二個問題嗎？對不起。

Yes. So there's this new Juul product. Juul is a new type of e-cigarette that has taken off very quickly. And cigarette companies seem to be worried about Juul. I was wondering if you had a view on that.

是的。所以就有了這款新的 Juul 產品。Juul 是一種新型電子煙，發展非常迅速。而菸草公司似乎對 Juul 感到擔憂。我想知道您對此有何看法。

I'm looking around the room, and I think we're all pretty -- we're not prepared to answer that question with any kind of knowledge. So no, it's not been a subject of discussion between ourselves and the -- our customers that are out there. But we'll take a look at that.

我環顧房間，我認為我們都很茫然——我們還沒有準備好用任何知識來回答這個問題。所以，這不是我們和我們的客戶之間討論的話題。但我們會看一下。

Okay. And in Engineered Materials, can you discuss your pipeline for the second half and you mentioned that at the -- at your Investor Day that if you don't do any M&A, your margins could improve from current levels. Just talk about the pipeline and where could margins go with or without M&A?

好的。在工程材料方面，您能否討論一下下半年的計畫？您在投資者日上提到，如果不進行任何併購，您的利潤率可能會比目前的水平有所提高。只談通路，無論有沒有併購，利潤率會如何？

Yes. So I think -- well, first off, there's going to be M&A. We're continuing to promote that. We're active in the marketplace, and we'll continue to bring in businesses. So you shouldn't have a view that M&A is going to materially change over the next several years in that business. So it's continued pressure from that. The one I'm most interested in today is 8% margin, just to give you a reference point on that. So you're going to keep having that pressure on the overall margins. We have a good pace underway in the mid-700-ish kind of new projects this last quarter, so we should be able to press 3,000 at the end of the year, maybe a little short of that, but that kind of range. One of the things that Sutton has been doing with the team is we're rolling out sort of a EM Strategy 2.0, so a subordinated strategy. But it's a -- it's how we approach the market and particularly around how we focus our effort in new projects, and that's taken on more of a program focus. So by that, I mean, as we're looking at the areas where we -- of all the projects we do where we have the highest margin, we think the highest ability to translate, and we're moving our resources more in that area. So I'll use medical as an example. We gave an example of a medical kind of application earlier for you guys, and we're seeing tremendous upside potential by having this machine focus a bit more. We think that's going to give us a chance as we end this year and next in spite of some pretty tough impacts of the M&A to start -- [you saw many stable in that margins] and hopefully, start pushing the margins up.

是的。所以我認為－－首先，將會有併購。我們將繼續推動這一點。我們在市場上很活躍，我們將繼續吸引企業。因此，你不應該認為未來幾年該產業的併購將會發生實質變化。因此，壓力仍在持續。我今天最感興趣的是 8% 的保證金，只是為了給你一個參考點。因此，整體利潤率將繼續面臨壓力。上個季度，我們在 700 個左右的新專案中進展順利，因此到年底我們應該能夠實現 3,000 個的目標，也許比這個數字略少，但也在這樣的範圍內。薩頓與團隊一起做的一件事就是推出 EM 策略 2.0，也就是從屬策略。但這是——這是我們如何進入市場，特別是我們如何將精力集中在新項目上，而這更集中在項目上。所以，我的意思是，當我們審視我們所從事的所有專案中利潤率最高的領域時，我們認為這些領域的翻譯能力最強，並且我們正在向這些領域投入更多的資源。所以我將以醫療為例。我們之前為你們提供了一個醫療應用的例子，我們看到透過讓這台機器更加集中註意力，它具有巨大的上升潛力。我們認為，儘管併購一開始會給我們帶來一些相當嚴峻的影響，但在今年年底和明年，這將為我們帶來一個機會——[你會看到利潤率趨於穩定]，並希望開始提高利潤率。

Our next question comes from Frank Mitsch with Wells Fargo Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自富國證券的弗蘭克米奇 (Frank Mitsch)。

Just to follow up on that last question on M&A, you reiterated that you want to do $1 billion in buybacks between now and 2020. You did $100 million this quarter. You've got great free cash flow. How do we think about the order of magnitude buybacks versus M&A for Celanese over the next couple of years?

為了跟進關於併購的最後一個問題，您重申希望從現在到 2020 年回購 10 億美元。本季你的營收為 1 億美元。您擁有豐厚的自由現金流。我們如何看待未來幾年塞拉尼斯的回購與併購的數量級？

Well, they are -- I mean, they're kind of disconnected. We -- as we outlined in May, a fair amount of excess free cash flow. And even with the $1 billion of buybacks, that was still there. So we don't see -- we don't think we have to slow down in either one of them and if I was going to steer you, I'd steer you to higher levels in both as we're going through the next several years.

嗯，他們是——我的意思是，他們有點脫節。正如我們在五月所概述的那樣，我們有相當數量的過剩自由現金流。即使回購了 10 億美元，這種情況仍然存在。因此，我們認為我們不必在任何一個方面放慢腳步，如果我要引導你們，那麼在接下來的幾年裡，我會引導你們在這兩個方面都達到更高的水平。

Mark, in keeping with the higher levels steering. Obviously, you raised the guidance by about $1.50. According to our model, about 1/3 of that came in this quarter on the Acetyl side of things. What are some of the assumptions for the back half of the year that have changed, for you to lead to that higher guidance?

馬克，要跟上級領導的指示。顯然，您將指導價提高了約 1.50 美元。根據我們的模型，本季約有 1/3 來自乙醯基方面。對於下半年的業績預測，有哪些假設發生了變化，導致您給予更高的預期？

Well, I think as we roll through this and we're getting -- everything's getting traction, I'll mention a few things that we've been able to overcome and address that have supported our higher guidance. One is that we -- this machine continues to work very, very well and it's in the face of, if I can say that, pretty steep pressure in the short term on raw materials and energy. And so we've had to push a lot of pricing, and it's a real testament to the quality of the portfolio that we've been able to do that and not really suffer tremendously in volume or anything else. So we wanted to -- in some ways, we kind of wanted that environment to really demonstrate to ourselves that we really have the power that we thought we would have. And that's been a pretty good story. The ability of the industry to accept and support the kind of level of pricing that Todd and company are seeing out there has also been good. I mean, we're not seeing people run for the woods. We're seeing demand stay pretty good in that. We're not seeing big substitution. I'm looking at Todd when I say that. But -- so even though it seems like these are big horrific moves, from our point of view, they're not that big. It's just the culmination of lots of little small things that have got us to this point. And the customer acceptivity of it's pretty good. We're driving about $40 million year-over-year of internal price being transferred to downstream businesses. And for the first time in I think our history, we've been able to get that through to all those businesses. So we've not seen a deterioration of our margin because of recalcitrance on the parts of other markets out there accepting that, that drive. So those things just tell me that the level of value that we generate in this business, plus or minus a little bit, is okay, is good. And that gives us the ability to step out and be pretty confident of higher levels as we end this year. I'm going to roll into that. I made a comment about fourth and first. We've done a lot of work in this regard and we see typically 3% to 7% margin fall -- I mean, not margin, but volume falloff in the fourth quarter and also the first quarter. So I think low seasonality impacts of -- seasonality impacts from coatings and then Chinese New Year kind of thing. And last year, we didn't have that. So Frank, I believe this year, we'll have it, is kind of my gut in it. It happens almost every year. And if you roll that through, that could be maybe a $50 million kind of impact for that business if you look at a little bit of volume, a little bit of price, a little bit of turnaround in there. So that's what you see kind of baked in our numbers. So a good strong third and then a step back a bit in the fourth. And as you look at next year, I think it will be the same. We'll start a little bit slower in the business, and then I think we'll be right back into some pretty powerful levels like we've been running so far this kind of year-to-date.

好吧，我認為隨著我們度過難關，一切都會受到重視，我會提到一些我們已經能夠克服和解決的問題，這些問題支持了我們的更高指導。一是，我們——這台機器繼續運作得非常好，而且，如果我可以這麼說的話，它在短期內面臨著原材料和能源方面相當大的壓力。因此，我們不得不大幅提高價格，這確實證明了我們的產品組合的質量，我們能夠做到這一點，而且在數量或其他方面並沒有受到太大的影響。因此，從某種程度上來說，我們希望這種環境能真正向我們自己證明，我們確實擁有我們所認為的力量。這是一個非常精彩的故事。業界接受和支持 Todd 和公司所見的這種定價水準的能力也很好。我的意思是，我們沒有看到人們逃往樹林。我們看到需求保持良好。我們沒有看到大規模的替代方案。當我說這話的時候，我正看著托德。但是——儘管這些舉動看起來非常可怕，但從我們的角度來看，它們並沒有那麼嚴重。正是許多小事的累積才讓我們走到了今天這一步。而且客戶接受度也相當不錯。我們正在推動約 4000 萬美元的內部價格同比轉移到下游企業。我認為，在我們的歷史上，這是我們第一次能夠將這個理念推廣到所有這些企業。因此，我們並沒有看到我們的利潤率因為其他市場不願意接受這項措施而下降。所以這些事情告訴我，我們在這個業務中創造的價值水平，或多或少，都是可以的，是好的。這讓我們有能力邁出新的一步，並對今年年底達到更高的水平充滿信心。我要進入那個狀態。我對第四和第一發表了評論。我們在這方面做了很多工作，我們通常會看到 3% 到 7% 的利潤率下降——我的意思不是利潤率，而是第四季度和第一季的銷量下降。因此，我認為季節性影響較小——塗料的季節性影響以及中國新年之類的因素。而去年，我們還沒有做到這一點。所以弗蘭克，我相信今年我們會實現這個目標，這是我的直覺。這種事幾乎每年都會發生。如果你把這個數字算下來，如果你看一下交易量、價格和周轉情況，這可能會為該業務帶來 5000 萬美元的影響。這就是您在我們的數字中看到的情況。因此，第三局表現強勁，但第四局稍微落後。展望明年，我認為情況還會一樣。我們的業務起步會稍微慢一些，然後我認為我們會回到一些相當強勁的水平，就像我們今年迄今為止一直在運行的那樣。

So is it fair to say that you continue to expect EM to be strong, but the majority of the upside in terms of the guidance raise is more tied to some of the positives that you're seeing on the Acetyls business?

那麼，是否可以公平地說，您繼續預期 EM 會表現強勁，但就指導上調而言，大部分上行空間更多地與您在乙醯基業務中看到的一些積極因素有關？

Yes, the EM has been a straight-line business for us and I think for our investors. We expect EM to generate the kind of numbers we threw out, plus $100 million per year EBIT. And I think that's the machine we've got, and that's what we're focused on. And so I think that's going to be the real Steady Eddie there that we've got. We have plenty of M&A activities there that we continue to work as well. I think the story with the chain business should really be that, hey, none of this should be a surprise to anybody, and the market receptivity to the higher valuation today has been good, which gives us confidence that it has the ability to carry on for a fair period of time.

是的，對我們和我們的投資者來說，新興市場一直是一項直線業務。我們預計 EM 會產生我們預測的數字，外加每年 1 億美元的息稅前利潤。我認為這就是我們所擁有的機器，也是我們所關注的重點。所以我認為這才是我們所擁有的真正的穩定艾迪。我們在那裡有很多併購活動，我們也將繼續進行這些活動。我認為連鎖業務的故事應該是這樣的：嘿，這一切對任何人來說都不應該感到意外，而且今天市場對更高估值的接受度很好，這讓我們有信心它有能力持續相當長一段時間。

Our next question comes from Duffy Fischer with Barclays.

我們的下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的達菲·菲舍爾。

A question just back on acetic acid. As you look at the returns if -- for new capacity for you with lower capital costs and for competitors. What's the likelihood over the next year that we get some announcements around some new greenfield or significant brownfield expansions in acetic acid?

剛才又問了一個關於乙酸的問題。當您查看回報時—對於您和競爭對手來說，新產能的資本成本更低。明年我們收到有關乙酸新綠地或重大棕地擴建的公告的可能性有多大？

Yes. Duffy, we look out and we've kind of shared this with you guys. We've shared a bit of it in May. We look out over the next several years, we're adding about 450,000 tons of capacity that Todd has underway between acetic acid and VAM. But to be very honest, it's going to be adequate we think for the market the next couple of years with some of the efforts we have underway to unlock some molecules and things like that. So we think the market is probably kind of okay. When you look beyond that though and that's the kind of time frame you should be looking at, when you get in the '20s, there could be the need for some incremental capacity. I don't think this business supports a full-on greenfield site with all the kind of subordinated -- I mean, secondary investments associated with doing that. So I would be really surprised if there was that kind of announcement. I would, however, say from my point of view that with our cost to do a brownfield expansion, especially in Asia and some areas like that, combined with our ability perhaps to have productivity justify that, in other words, the ability to shutter some other assets that aren't necessarily as economically advantaged as we would like them all to be, then I think we have a pretty compelling story that we could perhaps put forth at that period of time. So Todd, you want to make any comments on this?

是的。達菲，我們很關注，並且已經與你們分享了這一點。我們在五月已經分享了一些內容。我們展望未來幾年，我們將增加 Todd 在乙酸和 VAM 之間的約 45 萬噸產能。但說實話，我們認為，透過我們正在進行的一些努力來解鎖一些分子和類似的東西，這對於未來幾年的市場來說已經足夠了。所以我們認為市場可能還不錯。然而，當你把眼光放遠一點，這就是你應該關注的時間範圍時，當你進入 20 年代時，可能會需要一些增量容量。我認為這項業務不支持全面建設綠地，以及所有與此相關的次級投資——我的意思是二級投資。所以如果有這樣的公告我會感到非常驚訝。然而，從我的角度來看，考慮到我們進行棕地擴張的成本，特別是在亞洲和一些類似的地區，加上我們可能通過生產力來證明這一點的能力，換句話說，我們有能力關閉一些其他資產，而這些資產並不一定像我們所希望的那樣具有經濟優勢，那麼我認為我們有一個非常引人注目的故事，我們或許可以在那個時期提出來。那麼托德，你想對此發表什麼評論嗎？

Yes. I mean, that configurability, I think that's what you are referring to, we do think it's an advantage. And we'll keep looking at that and assessing the options there. As Mark mentioned, we're letting 150,000 tons of new VAM capacity in Clear Lake that will start up in Q4. I was just there this week. So that's on track to be ready at the end of this quarter -- or sorry, end of this year. We have 150,000 tons on top of that on VAM through technology debottlenecks, so that will be deployed across all 5 VAM units. We've got the first technology packages installed in Bay City, Texas. We saw that this week. That's already generating yields up around 5-plus percent on top of the output there. So that will be deployed across all 5 VAM units. So that's 300,000 tons of additional capacity already kind of baked in and planned forward to support our 3% to 5% volume growth target that we outlined in May. Then a small step on acetic acid, 140,000 tons that we mentioned also in May, bring that on by 2020. And then back to Mark's point, we just continue to look at unique ways to consider highly configurable steps that are capital-efficient and kind of marched out over time that meet the customer needs.

是的。我的意思是，可配置性，我認為這就是您所指的，我們確實認為這是一個優勢。我們將繼續關注這個問題並評估其中的選擇。正如馬克所提到的，我們將在 Clear Lake 推出 15 萬噸新的 VAM 產能，並將於第四季投入使用。我本週剛去過那裡。因此，它將預計在本季末（或抱歉，今年年底）準備就緒。透過技術突破瓶頸，我們在 VAM 上擁有 15 萬噸產能，這些產能將部署在所有 5 個 VAM 裝置上。我們已經在德克薩斯州貝城安裝了第一批技術包。我們本週就看到了這一點。這已經使產量提高了約 5% 以上的收益。因此它將部署在所有 5 個 VAM 單元中。因此，我們已經計劃增加 30 萬噸產能，以支持我們在 5 月提出的 3% 至 5% 的產量成長目標。然後，我們在乙酸方面邁出了一小步，140,000 噸，我們在 5 月也提到過，到 2020 年實現這一目標。然後回到馬克的觀點，我們只是繼續尋找獨特的方法來考慮高度可配置的步驟，這些步驟具有資本效率，並且隨著時間的推移可以滿足客戶的需求。

Our next question comes from John McNulty with BMO Capital Markets.

下一個問題來自 BMO 資本市場的 John McNulty。

So, I guess, the first one, Todd, I believe in your kind of prepared remarks last night, you spoke to a quadrupling of the network activations. I guess, assuming that, that's essentially turning customers on, which I think that's kind of roughly what it is, I guess, can you characterize the type of relationships that those open up, whether they're kind of really just, hey, look, you've got a great global platform and when there's an issue because of an outage, we'll take you on spot, or if these are longer-term type relationships? I guess, how should we think about like the benefit of that conversion on these network activations?

所以，我想，第一個問題，托德，我相信你昨晚準備好的發言中提到了網絡激活量增加了四倍。我想，假設這基本上就是在激發客戶的興趣，我想這大概就是這樣，我想，您能否描述一下這些關係所建立的類型，它們是否真的只是，嘿，看，您有一個很棒的全球平台，當出現故障導致的問題時，我們會立即為您服務，或者這些是長期關係？我想，我們應該如何看待這種轉換對這些網路活化的好處？

Yes. Just to recap, what these are, I mean, this is when we gather data from many, many sources around the industry, process that data and try to distill that into insights. And we have 2 or more insights and connect that with what we believe is the leading network, acetyls network in the industry. We operate that network, look for options that emerge out of that and then activate something. So that could be a combination of things. In the second quarter with 250 activations versus about 50 last year, most of those were price activation, right? That's where most of those were. So that's a combination of working out there in multiple geographies, multiple product lines, many, many different cases, different customers to activate different price changes in the quarter. There were several on the supply side, frankly, that within our own network and moderating, increasing, changing, shifting our own network to produce more or less depending on the region as well. The other piece there is on the supply chain side. So this is a combination of sourcing or moving product from region A, B or C to best serve our global customers and also take sort of the best network-optimized movements to support our business. So these can move around. They can be different sources or different types of activations depending on what's going on. But it really is supported by the broadest network that we believe is out there and really working those nodes and working those degrees of freedom to help the business generate value.

是的。簡單回顧一下，我的意思是，這是我們從行業中的許多來源收集數據，處理這些數據並嘗試將其提煉為見解。我們有兩個或更多的見解，並將其與我們認為是行業領先的網絡——乙醯基網絡聯繫起來。我們經營該網絡，尋找由此出現的選項，然後啟動某些選項。所以這可能是多種因素的綜合作用。第二季度有 250 次激活，而去年只有 50 次左右，其中大多數是價格激活，對嗎？那裡就是其中大部分。因此，這是在多個地區、多條產品線、許多不同情況、不同客戶中進行的工作的組合，以在每個季度激活不同的價格變化。坦白說，供應方面有好幾個方面，在我們自己的網路內，並且根據地區不同，調節、增加、改變、轉移我們自己的網路以增加或減少產量。另一部分是供應鏈方面。因此，這是從 A、B 或 C 地區採購或運送產品的組合，以便為我們的全球客戶提供最佳服務，並採取最佳的網路優化措施來支援我們的業務。所以這些可以移動。根據發生的情況，它們可以是不同的來源或不同類型的活化。但它確實得到了我們認為存在的最廣泛的網絡的支持，並且真正地運作那些節點並發揮那些自由度來幫助企業創造價值。

John, I think the way I would kind of characterize this, too, is that we're students of our own business models and we're students of the industry. And we put this in place -- Todd's team put this in place as a method of really assessing our effectiveness in really creating opportunities and finding opportunities and acting on those opportunities, so we can measure the effectiveness of that. And it's been a really good process for us because what we found is that we can -- as we can increase our degrees of freedom, we can enhance further our opportunities to drive profit. And so whether that's different logistics systems in places, contractual arrangements, whatever those things might be, it just gives us a chance to continue to support this market. And we think a very positive way for our customers with a lot of degrees of optionality to give them the best product at the right time at the market-competitive price for them. And so that's been the work we've done there.

約翰，我認為我也會這樣描述這一點，那就是我們是我們自己的商業模式的學生，也是這個行業的學生。我們實施了這項措施——托德的團隊實施了這項措施，作為真正評估我們創造機會、尋找機會和利用這些機會的有效性的方法，以便我們能夠衡量其有效性。這對我們來說是一個非常好的過程，因為我們發現，隨著我們能夠增加自由度，我們能夠進一步增強推動利潤的機會。因此，無論是不同地方的物流系統、合約安排或其他什麼，這都為我們提供了繼續支持這個市場的機會。我們認為，透過多種可選方式，我們可以為客戶提供非常積極的方式，在適當的時間以具有市場競爭力的價格為他們提供最好的產品。這就是我們在那裡所做的工作。

Got it. Okay. No, that's definitely helpful. And then I guess another question, just, I know you said in terms of the tariffs, it sounds like there's really not a lot of exposure there. I guess, one question I had though, with all the noise around the tariffs and with all the end markets that you indirectly end up touching, have you seen any demand-related reactions from some of the tariff noise that's out there, particularly in China? Is it having any impact in terms of how kind of the end customers for your products react or are consuming the products right now? Or are you too far away from kind of the end customer to actually see it at this point?

知道了。好的。不，這絕對有幫助。然後我想問另一個問題，我知道您說過，就關稅而言，聽起來那裡確實沒有太多的曝光。我想，我有一個問題，考慮到有關關稅的所有噪音以及你最終間接接觸的所有終端市場，你是否看到一些關稅噪音對需求產生的反應，特別是在中國？這對您的產品的最終客戶的反應或當前產品消費方式有何影響？或者您距離最終客戶太遠，目前無法真正看到它？

No, it's having -- I mean, it actually is having 0 impact -- on companies like ours, there's no impact. On our customers, there's no impact. And it's not even a subject of discussion. I think if you're Harley-Davidson and you're selling 70,000 bikes into Europe, and it's a $2,500 charge per bike then you're talking $70 million, $80 million, whatever the number is, then that's an impact. But that's not our business model. So I think this is a political charade to some extent. I mean, you've got leaders of countries kind of badmouthing one another over it. But practically speaking from a commercial point of view, we don't see nor do I think many multinationals will see huge impact of this swirling around, is my kind of spin on that. Again, unless you are very succinct, very focused, one product line that may get -- with no ability to produce outside the U.S., maybe it would [bleed up a little bit]. So no, we don't see it as a big deal.

不，它——我的意思是，它實際上對我們這樣的公司沒有任何影響，沒有任何影響。對於我們的客戶來說，沒有影響。這甚至不是一個討論的主題。我認為，如果你是哈雷戴維森，你向歐洲銷售 70,000 輛摩托車，每輛摩托車的費用為 2,500 美元，那麼你說的是 7000 萬美元、8000 萬美元，不管這個數字是多少，這都會產生影響。但這不是我們的商業模式。所以我認為這在某種程度上是一場政治鬧劇。我的意思是，各國領導人會因此互相詆毀。但實際上從商業角度來說，我們沒有看到，我也不認為許多跨國公司會看到這種漩渦的巨大影響，這是我對此的看法。再說一次，除非你非常簡潔、非常專注，否則一條產品線可能會——沒有能力在美國以外生產，也許它會[有點失血]。所以，我們不認為這是什麼大問題。

Our next question comes from David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank.

我們的下一個問題來自德意志銀行的 David Begleiter。

Mark, on Acetate Tow, can you give us an update on any strategic options you're pursuing here? And is that still a very high priority? Or is it maybe less a priority given the performance of the rest of the businesses?

馬克，關於醋酸絲束，您能否向我們介紹一下您正在採取的戰略選擇的最新情況？這仍然是一個非常重要的優先事項嗎？或者考慮到其他業務的表現，它可能不再是優先事項？

Well, I mean, I won't give you any direct color. I think we continue to look for ways to make sure that business has stable earnings, and we've had a good first half of this year with regard to that. We'll be flat year-over-year. So you can do the math on that. We'll be down a little bit in the second -- in the next 2 quarters, which is pretty typical for that business being they're front end-loaded. So our view is really how we make sure we keep this business flat, '18, '19 and '20. The Ocotlán shutdown was a piece of that. It gives us a chunk of that $50 million that we were going after to cushion that business, but it's only a chunk. Our first priority is to continue to focus in and take those steps necessarily -- necessary for us to self-generate that $50 million of cover that we think this business needs to make sure it's flat as we go through these next 3 years. That's the highest priority, David, and where we spend most of our energy and effort. Second to that is, we continue to look for ways to work with others to unlock additional synergies, and we've not reached a point we can talk about any of those yet. And I'll -- so the secondary kind of consideration for us is not -- certainly, not the end of the world if those don't work out, but we're hopeful we can find a way for one of those to work out. The last thing I'd say is strategically it is very much our strategy to make this topic de minimis. And we want to do that not by reducing earnings in it, but by maintaining earnings and also then growing business elsewhere. So it's becoming a smaller and smaller portion of our free cash flow. And if you set aside the dividend from China, which in itself is pretty secure, and we think for a very long period of time, you're getting in now to a business that's certainly less than $200 million of contribution into what's going to be well over $2 billion of EBITDA this year. So we think we're heading all 3 of those in the right direction.

嗯，我的意思是，我不會給你任何直接的顏色。我認為我們會繼續尋找方法來確保企業擁有穩定的獲利，今年上半年我們在這方面取得了良好的成績。我們的業績將與去年同期持平。所以你可以對此進行計算。在接下來的兩個季度裡，我們的收入會略有下降，這對於前端投入較大的企業來說很典型。因此，我們的觀點實際上是如何確保 2018 年、2019 年和 2020 年業務保持穩定。奧科特蘭的關閉就是其中的一部分。它為我們提供了 5000 萬美元中的一部分，我們原本希望以此來緩衝這項業務，但這只是一小部分。我們的首要任務是繼續集中精力並採取必要的措施——這對於我們自行籌集 5000 萬美元的保險金是必要的，我們認為這筆保險金需要確保在未來 3 年內保持穩定。大衛，這是最優先考慮的事情，也是我們投入大部分精力和努力的地方。其次，我們將繼續尋找與其他方合作的方式，以釋放更多的協同效應，但我們尚未達到可以談論任何這些方式的程度。所以，對我們來說，次要的考慮不是——當然，如果這些沒有成功，世界也不會末日，但我們希望能夠找到一種方法來讓其中一種成功。我最後要說的是，從策略上講，我們的策略就是盡量減少對這個主題的關注。我們想要實現這一目標，並不是透過減少其中的收益，而是透過維持收益並發展其他業務。因此，它在我們的自由現金流中所佔的比例越來越小。如果你把來自中國的股息放在一邊，這本身就相當安全，而且我們認為在很長一段時間內，你現在進入的業務肯定不會超過 2 億美元，而今年的 EBITDA 將遠遠超過 20 億美元。因此我們認為我們正朝著正確的方向前進。

And Mark, you touched this earlier, but in terms of these high prices in acid and VAM, you mentioned no demand destruction or substitution yet, but are you concerned at some point you might see some? And at what level do you think that might occur?

馬克，您之前提到過這一點，但就酸和 VAM 的高價格而言，您提到目前還沒有出現需求破壞或替代的情況，但您是否擔心在某個時候可能會看到一些情況？您認為這種情況會在什麼程度上發生？

Well, I think what I would -- the way I'd characterize this is, I don't think the price is very high. I think it's adequate. And I say it because if you look at it from a point of view of the average producer out there, they're not making our margins even today. Methanol is north of 400, maybe 500 in China. Coal prices are up and yada, yada, yada. These guys are not raking in tons and tons of profit. And we've seen recently that the bad debts out there in China and the negative consequences of these enterprises, these big state-run enterprises failing is pretty horrific. We -- so the first position I'd take is price is not that high, it's at what it should be kind of level. We've not seen any indication and don't believe that there's any real, going to be any real impact on consumption of the materials. If you look at the role that acetic acid as a derivative plays in the -- in the product game, it's kind of de minimis. Higher oil prices, I think, directionally helps that, David, I'll say that. So yes, if oil prices drop back to $20 a barrel or something horrific like that, then that -- then you could get some substitution to oil basis again maybe. But I think in the sweet spot we're in now, which is oil $60 to $80, coal under the pressure it's under, the fact that from a grassroots basis, there's not -- still not a lot of great return in this business, we think we're kind of in a pretty sweet spot. We should stay there for some period of time. And I don't really see a lot that would knock us materially off of that.

嗯，我想我會這樣描述：我不認為價格很高。我認為這就足夠了。我之所以這麼說，是因為如果你從普通生產商的角度來看，他們甚至到今天都沒有賺到我們這樣的利潤。在中國，甲醇的價格在 400 以上，甚至可能在 500 以上。煤炭價格上漲等等。這些人並沒有賺取大量的利潤。我們最近看到，中國的壞帳以及這些企業、這些大型國營企業倒閉所帶來的負面後果相當可怕。我們——所以我首先要考慮的是價格沒有那麼高，它處於應有的水平。我們沒有看到任何跡象，也不相信這會對材料消費產生任何實際影響。如果你看一下乙酸作為衍生物在產品遊戲中所起的作用，它的作用是微不足道的。我認為，油價上漲在方向上有助於實現這一點，大衛，我會這麼說。所以是的，如果油價回落至每桶 20 美元或類似的可怕水平，那麼——那麼你也許可以再次獲得一些石油基礎的替代品。但我認為，我們現在處於一個最佳價位，即油價為 60 至 80 美元，煤炭承受著壓力，事實上，從基層來看，這個行業還沒有太多的豐厚回報，我們認為我們處於一個相當理想的價位。我們應該在那裡待一段時間。我確實沒有看到太多因素會對我們造成實質打擊。

Our next question comes from John Roberts with UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀的約翰羅伯茲。

In the Engineered Materials segment, is there a way to think about how much of the raw material inflation is just transfer pricing from the Acetyl segment? And how much is external pressure that you're facing?

在工程材料領域，有沒有辦法考慮原物料價格上漲有多少只是來自乙醯基領域的轉移定價？您面臨的外部壓力有多大？

Yes, John, I would characterize it as almost all external pressure. So there's not a lot of transfer price impact in the EM from the upstream side.

是的，約翰，我認為幾乎全是外在壓力。因此，上游的轉移價格對新興市場的影響並不大。

Okay. And then is there a way to think about the contribution of network activations to the Acetyl segment? Is there sort of a base level of fee income or a base level of margin contribution that you think that provides, above which then we have the -- just the market ups and downs on top of that?

好的。那麼有沒有辦法思考網路活化對乙醯基段的貢獻呢？您認為是否存在某種費用收入或保證金貢獻的基準水平，高於該水平，我們就會受到市場波動的影響？

No, John. It's no. It's not -- I mean, a lot of these indirectly will have 0 contribution for, just, for that one activity. But it has -- it avoids something on one end. So no, we don't break those down by dollar per nodal activity contribution.

不，約翰。不是。事實並非如此——我的意思是，其中許多間接地對那一項活動的貢獻為 0。但它確實——它在一端避免了某些事情。所以，我們不會依照每個節點活動貢獻的金額來細分這些金額。

Our next question comes from Laurence Alexander with Jefferies.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jefferies 的 Laurence Alexander。

Two questions. One, on Engineered Materials, can you discuss whether the average project sizes are getting bigger or smaller or if there's any particular trend in how customers are responding to your initiatives? Are they giving you different types of problems? But also just a broad -- back to the question about the bridge for 2019, you often have -- or in years past, you've had multiple levers that you could pull to sort of try and keep roughly on, call it, a 10% kind of CAGR. In the back half of the year, you'll be at about a $10 run rate. Is that the way to think about the business and then you maybe get fly ups? Or do you see enough sort of internal levers to pull, that Acetyls' profit can be flat year-over-year in 2019?

兩個問題。首先，關於工程材料，您能否討論平均專案規模是變大還是變小，或者客戶對您的計劃的反應是否有任何特定趨勢？他們給你帶來了不同類型的問題嗎？但也只是一個廣泛的 - 回到關於 2019 年橋樑的問題，你經常有 - 或者在過去幾年裡，你有多個槓桿可以拉動，以嘗試保持大致的複合年增長率，稱之為 10％。在今年下半年，您的營業額將達到約 10 美元。這就是思考業務的方式嗎？然後你可能會獲得成功嗎？或者您是否看到了足夠的內部槓桿作用，使得 Acetyls 的利潤在 2019 年能夠與去年同期持平？

Yes, I think what I'd like to say on that is that and I don't want to not answer your question, but I'm kind of going to do that, Laurence. We're already looking hard at next year. So from a seasonality point of view, it's a little bit ahead of schedule. And when we get into next quarter and next quarter's call, we're going to devote a lot of that call to next year. Having said all that, when we look at the increase in year-over-year, this modest increase in Todd's business, I think what you're going to see this year is you have -- you've had -- you're going to have a strong front end and a little bit weaker back end of it, which is really driven most prominently by, I think, seasonality rolling in like it historically normally does, plus the big VAM turnaround outage and things like that. It's going to impact us in the fourth quarter. And I think you'll see a similar kind of start. So next year is going to be maybe a little bit more back end-loaded than front end-loaded, if I could say that. But when I look at it, again, I'll just simply say that I don't think if you build it from the base up, I don't think coal is going to change in China. I don't think the environmental regulation is going to change in that part of the world. I don't think methanol is going to materially change with the arbitrage that's available between coal, methanol and ethylene there. So I think that fundamental raw material and demand base of that business is going to stay the same. From a consumer demand, Todd's laid that out, I think, with a lot of specificity in May. We've never seen that move around a whole lot. So whether that's 2% or 3%, it kind of doesn't necessarily matter a lot in this scheme of things. And so our business is going to run capacity utilization moving over time towards 90%. So I think we're in a period of time where we're going to have, and I think it's a long period of time, a very good business at the kind of profitability levels we used to see back in the mid-2000s -- so in the early 2000s is what I think we're in for. And so there should not be any reason for us not to be able to continue to grow earnings with that early -- over this period of time. But again, if it's 30% going to 33%, it doesn't necessarily mean the same as we had in '09, '10 or '11. I think it could be a little bit flatter next year than that '09, '10 or '11 we had projected for us in our Strategy 3.0 rollout.

是的，我想我就此想說的是，我不想不回答你的問題，但我還是會這樣做，勞倫斯。我們已經在認真展望明年。因此從季節性的角度來看，這比計劃提前了一點。當我們進入下個季度並召開下個季度的電話會議時，我們將把大部分時間投入到明年的會議中。話雖如此，當我們看一下 Todd 業務的同比增長，即適度增長時，我認為今年你會看到，你將擁有 - 你擁有 - 你將擁有一個強勁的前端和一個稍微弱一些的後端，我認為這最主要的原因在於季節性因素像歷史上通常那樣滾動，再加上大型 VAM 週轉中斷等因素。這將對我們第四季產生影響。我認為你會看到類似的開始。因此，如果我可以這麼說的話，明年後端負載可能會比前端負載稍微多一點。但當我再次審視這個問題時，我只想簡單地說，我認為如果從基礎開始建設，中國的煤炭不會改變。我認為那個地區的環境法規不會改變。我認為甲醇不會因為煤炭、甲醇和乙烯之間的套利而發生實質變化。因此我認為該業務的基本原材料和需求基礎將保持不變。從消費者需求來看，我認為 Todd 在五月已經非常明確地闡述了這一點。我們從未見過這種現象發生。因此，無論是 2% 還是 3%，在這種情況下都不一定有太大關係。因此，我們的業務產能利用率將隨著時間的推移達到 90%。所以我認為我們正處於一個將會有非常好的業務的時期，而且我認為這是一個很長的時期，我們將處於一個非常好的業務的時期，處於我們在 2000 年代中期所見過的盈利水平——所以我認為我們將處於 21 世紀初。因此，我們沒有理由不能夠在早期階段繼續增加收益。但同樣，如果從 30% 上升到 33%，這並不一定意味著與 2009 年、2010 年或 2011 年的情況相同。我認為明年的成長可能會比我們在策略 3.0 推出時預測的 2009、2010 或 2011 年稍微平緩一些。

Yes. And just to take your first question, Laurence, about project size, I think we've been pretty clear. Our sweet spot is in the few hundred thousand dollar range in terms of projects, and we're not seeing that materially changing. The power of our model is being really disciplined in the types of projects that we work on. And if things get too small, the potential value of us putting efforts there becomes de minimis. On the flip side of that, larger projects tend to be a bigger lift to be successful. And so we're very focused on improving our win rate, and so keeping our project size kind of in the area where we've proven successful is critically important for us.

是的。勞倫斯，就你的第一個問題，關於專案規模，我想我們已經說得很清楚了。就專案而言，我們的最佳投資範圍在幾十萬美元的範圍內，而且我們並沒有看到這種現象發生實質的變化。我們的模型的力量在於，它對於我們所從事的專案類型有著嚴格的要求。如果事情變得太小，我們付出努力的潛在價值就會變得微乎其微。另一方面，專案規模越大，成功的幾率就越大。因此，我們非常注重提高我們的成功率，將我們的專案規模保持在我們已經證明成功的範圍內對我們來說至關重要。

Our next question comes from Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的文森特安德魯斯。

Two questions. First, just quickly, do you have an organic volume number for Engineering Materials this quarter?

兩個問題。首先，請問您知道本季工程材料的有機銷售數字嗎？

No, we don't. And broadly speaking, we think that half of our volume growth is organic and half of it is through M&A in that process. And we don't parse out -- there is another part of that equation if we were going to -- eventually if we're going to parse out, we'll have to give you, which is how much material we lose in terms of leakage, volumetric leakage that occurs in this business, which is not linear. But if you think of a rule of thumb of 50-50 is as good as we can get with it.

不，我們不知道。廣義上講，我們認為我們的銷售成長有一半是有機成長，另一半是透過併購實現的。我們不會分析——如果我們要分析的話，這個等式還有另一部分——最終如果我們要分析的話，我們必須給你，也就是我們在洩漏方面損失了多少材料，這個行業中發生的體積洩漏不是線性的。但是，如果你認為經驗法則是 50-50，那麼我們就能得到最好的結果。

Okay, very good. And then just in the acetic chain, I'm just trying to understand sort of the bridge sequentially because I see sales were down, but obviously seg, the profit was up. So that, that implies some type of cost benefit. So was it just a question of lower ethylene contract prices being a little bit stickier? Or what sort of was the dynamic that allowed that to play out?

好的，非常好。然後就在乙酸鏈中，我只是試著按順序了解橋樑的種類，因為我看到銷售額下降了，但顯然利潤上升了。所以，這意味著某種成本效益。那麼，這是否只是乙烯合約價格較低導致價格更具黏性的問題呢？或者說是什麼樣的動力使得這種情況發生？

I think we're shaking our heads a little bit. You're talking about the first quarter to second quarter or second quarter to end of the year? What...

我想我們有點搖頭。您說的是第一季到第二季還是第二季到年底？什麼...

Sorry. First quarter to second quarter, your sales are down in 2Q versus 1Q, but your profits are up. So I'm just trying to understand what happened on the cost line.

對不起。第一季到第二季度，您的銷售額與第一季相比有所下降，但利潤卻有所上升。所以我只是想了解成本線上發生了什麼事。

Yes, I would focus on the price side as really being the major contributor to our earnings performance in the second quarter. I mean, that's really the story, is the combination of utilization rates, pricing, margin increase. Raws are relatively flat, frankly, and have been most of the year.

是的，我會關注價格方面，因為它確實是我們第二季獲利表現的主要貢獻者。我的意思是，這確實是故事，是利用率、定價、利潤率成長的結合。坦白說，Raws 的表現相對平淡，並且今年大部分時間都是如此。

We had some turnaround activity in the year, in Q2 that wasn't in Q1. That may be part of that's driving that.

我們在今年第二季採取了一些扭轉局面的舉措，而第一季則沒有採取這些舉措。這可能是推動這一現象的部分原因。

Okay. All right. So nothing in particular?

好的。好的。沒什麼特別的嗎？

No.

不。

Our next question comes from Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets.

我們的下一個問題來自 RBC Capital Markets 的 Arun Viswanathan。

Just wanted to clarify on Acetyls here. You've entered kind of a newer level of earnings power in the business, and it sounds like you do see kind of a positive supply-demand balance for the next several years. So, I guess, are you actually expecting earnings to kind of continue at this level and trajectory? And what would be kind of 1 or 2 swing factors or 2 or 3 swing factors that would prevent that from happening?

只是想在這裡澄清一下乙醯基。您的企業盈利能力已進入一個新的水平，而且聽起來您確實看到了未來幾年的供需平衡。那麼，我想，您是否真的預期收益將繼續保持這種水平和軌跡？那麼，有哪 1 或 2 個或 2 或 3 個因素可以阻止這種情況發生呢？

Well, these are big-volume businesses, product moving around the world, so it can't move day-to-day in that process. What we said in May is that we think this is a 20% margin business and -- through the thick and thin of things, and that's still what we kind of believe. We believe we're in this 3-year period, we're going to be averaging net 20%, maybe a skosh above that through that period of time. But certainly, you can go through a short-term swing if raw materials prices really spiked up or [kellion] sales really fell off. You can find your sales move around a little bit, but we think, yes, we think we've reset that margin from a mid-teens level to a 20% level. And we don't see a reason why that 20% level, and that's our margin, not industry margin. We don't see why that level shouldn't be -- shouldn't exist throughout this 3-year period. And we believe we can set the stage for that to continue beyond that period through a series of smart investments and cooperative support agreements we can put in place. So we're pretty comfortable that this business is going to stay pretty tight for a fairly long period of time.

嗯，這些都是大宗業務，產品在世界各地流通，所以在這個過程中它不能每天都流通。我們在五月就說過，我們認為這是一個利潤率為 20% 的業務，無論發生什麼情況，我們仍然這麼認為。我們相信，在這 3 年期間，我們的平均淨利潤將達到 20%，甚至可能略高於這一水平。但可以肯定的是，如果原物料價格真的飆升或[kellion]銷售量真的下降，你就會經歷短期波動。您可能會發現銷售額略有波動，但我們認為，是的，我們認為我們已經將利潤率從十幾歲的水平重置為 20％ 的水平。我們不明白為什麼這個水準是 20%，這是我們的利潤率，而不是產業利潤率。我們不明白為什麼這一水平不應該在這 3 年期間存在。我們相信，透過一系列明智的投資和合作支援協議，我們可以為這一進程在未來繼續下去奠定基礎。因此，我們非常有信心，這項業務將在相當長的一段時間內保持緊張。

Great. And on the earnings trajectory over the next several years. So if you expect this to kind of remain in a similar level, would you be in a position to use capital deployment whether it's in the form of buybacks or M&A to kind of keep you on that trajectory of 10% or 12% earnings growth? And on that note, I mean, you highlighted some potential debt capacity at your Investor Day, have you further thought about that and deploying that kind of cash?

偉大的。以及未來幾年的獲利軌跡。因此，如果您預計這一數字將保持在類似水平，您是否會利用資本配置（無論是回購還是併購形式）來保持 10% 或 12% 的獲利成長軌跡？關於這一點，我的意思是，您在投資者日強調了一些潛在的債務能力，您是否進一步考慮過這一點以及如何部署這種現金？

I'll make a few comments, and I'll ask Scott Richardson as well to step in here. But yes, when you look at it, we don't have any pulse rate in terms of anxiety about whether we can predict earnings to the nth degree like I think all you guys would like us to. We're just focused on generating the earnings, and we'll happily trade off or do whatever we need to do in the process or period to period to make that sort of happen on a gross basis. What I'd look at this as, as a view that we think this business is -- has reset a bit sooner than we anticipated, probably advancing it by 9 months or so of what we kind of anticipated in our 3-year plan. So we think that if you look at it out there in 2020, we'll be closer to 12% than 11% in that number. So we think this profit is going to, for the most part, stay with us through that period of time but it could ebb and flow a little bit as we go through that period. So I don't know if I'm really answering your question. But I think for us, we feel like whether it's $30 cumulative over that 3-year period, or $33 cumulative, it's kind of, not to be flippant about it, it's kind of indifferent to us. We think we're going to be in a period of very, very good and strong solid earnings, and we'll do our best to project for you just how that's going to flow as we get further along.

我會發表一些評論，我會請斯科特·理查森也參與其中。但是的，當你看到它時，我們並沒有任何關於是否能夠準確預測收益的焦慮，我想你們都希望我們這樣做。我們只專注於創造收益，並且我們很樂意在流程中或一個時期內權衡或做任何我們需要做的事情，以實現整體收益。我認為，我們認為這項業務的重置比我們預期的要早一些，可能比我們在三年計畫中預期的時間提前了 9 個月左右。因此我們認為，如果以 2020 年來看，這個數字將更接近 12%，而不是 11%。因此，我們認為，在大部分情況下，利潤將伴隨我們度過這段時期，但隨著我們度過這段時期，利潤可能會有所起伏。所以我不知道我是否真的回答了你的問題。但我認為，對我們來說，我們覺得無論是在這 3 年期間累計 30 美元，還是累計 33 美元，都有點，不要輕率，這對我們來說都無所謂。我們認為我們將進入一個盈利非常非常好且強勁穩健的時期，並且我們將盡力為您預測未來盈利將如何發展。

Yes. And I would just add, I mean, it's critically important for us to be disciplined stewards of how we utilize that cash flow. And we have a prioritization of uses of cash that we really stick to and organic growth in our business as being first and looking at attractive investments, second; and then being very consistent, being a consistent increaser of the dividend and then of buying back shares. And depending on the timing, some of that cash flow and where the M&A pipeline is, there may be times at which we fluctuate on the levels that we deploy in each of those areas. But that's really kind of how we look at it strategically.

是的。我還要補充一點，對我們來說，嚴格管理如何利用現金流至關重要。我們對現金的使用有優先順序，我們堅持將業務的有機成長放在第一位，其次是尋找有吸引力的投資；然後是持續增加股息，然後是回購股票。根據時間、部分現金流和併購管道的位置，我們在每個領域部署的水平可能會出現波動。但這確實是我們從戰略上看待這個問題的方式。

Great. And last one is just, you discussed the possibility of a methanol investment. Maybe you can just discuss that further? And also, your possibility of potentially separating the businesses. Is there still a large dyssynergy component that you would be concerned about? Or are you working to minimize that?

偉大的。最後一點，您討論了甲醇投資的可能性。也許您可以進一步討論一下這個問題？此外，您還有可能分離業務。是否仍有令您擔心的嚴重協同失調因素？或者您正在努力將其最小化？

Yes, I think the real key for us in all of our investments -- for all of our businesses is, can we make sure that we're not withholding cash for any business in that process. And I'm happy to say we've never done that, certainly since I've been here at Celanese. As we look forward, there could be more organic growth opportunities surfacing in the chain business that, that it could well serve it to be a separate entity versus a combined entity. That's not an imminent issue for us or topic, but we see this business as having a lots of opportunity to, in theory, seek investments either directly or with partnerships to grow at scope around the world and better position itself to keep its earnings growth underway without regard for a subtle change in acid price in China. So I think you should expect us in the months and quarters ahead to talk more about organic growth and organic growth opportunities in that process. I think, likewise, we're seeing -- continuing to see -- I know it's been a few months since we closed the deal, where it's continuing to see plenty of opportunities in EM. And those organic investments are also very important for us and very important for our investors to keep that business growing at the pace it's been on. So what I'll just tell you here is that it's our intention to fund both of those things and make sure we fund them -- we think we can do that today, we've been able to do that very well, it's been a combined entity at some point. If we couldn't do that as a combined entity, we would be separate entities to make sure we maximize shareholder value. Yes.

是的，我認為對於我們所有的投資——對於我們所有的業務來說，真正的關鍵是，我們能否確保在此過程中不會為任何業務扣留現金。我很高興地說，自從我加入塞拉尼斯以來，我們從來沒有這樣做過。展望未來，連鎖業務可能會出現更多的有機成長機會，使其能夠更好地作為一個獨立實體而不是合併實體。對我們來說，這不是一個迫在眉睫的問題或話題，但我們認為這項業務在理論上有很多機會直接或透過合作夥伴關係尋求投資，以在全球範圍內實現增長，並更好地定位自己以保持盈利增長，而不必考慮中國酸價的細微變化。因此，我認為您應該期待我們在未來幾個月和幾個季度內更多地談論有機增長和有機增長機會。我認為，同樣地，我們看到——繼續看到——我知道自從我們完成交易以來已經有幾個月了，我們在新興市場繼續看到大量的機會。這些有機投資對我們和我們的投資者也非常重要，它們可以讓業務保持現有的成長速度。因此，我在這裡只想告訴你們，我們打算為這兩件事提供資金，並確保我們為它們提供資金——我們認為我們今天可以做到這一點，我們已經能夠很好地做到這一點，在某種程度上它是一個合併的實體。如果我們不能作為合併實體做到這一點，我們將作為獨立實體，以確保股東價值最大化。是的。

So [you said] methanol -- just a direct comment on methanol. Methanol continues to have an attractive play for us. I think the concept of methanol, though, I would posture it more as we get to looking at additions to acetic acid when they're appropriate down the road, methanol could be a piece of that either independently with us doing it, with somebody else doing it or as a partnership.

所以[你說]甲醇——只是對甲醇的直接評論。甲醇對我們來說仍然具有吸引力。我認為，甲醇的概念，當我們開始研究將來適當時添加到乙酸中時，我會更多地提出它，甲醇可以是其中的一部分，要么由我們獨立完成，要么由其他人完成，要么作為合作夥伴完成。

Brandon, we'll take one last question and then wrap up the call.

布蘭登，我們將回答最後一個問題，然後結束通話。

Our last question comes from Kevin McCarthy with Vertical Research Partner.

我們的最後一個問題來自垂直研究合夥人 Kevin McCarthy。

Mark, dating back to your Investor Day, I think you said at that time in early May that you're exploring multiple options for a new world-scale acetic plant. Realize it's only been 2.5 months, but can you provide an update there? Is that still an active ambition on your part?

馬克，回想一下你們的投資者日，我記得你在五月初的時候說過，你們正在探索建立一個新的世界級醋酸工廠的多種選擇。意識到才過了 2.5 個月，但您能提供最新消息嗎？這對你來說仍然是一個積極的願望嗎？

Yes, it is. I think what's, what would be of interest to us is doing it in a way that I'm not dependent on new volume growth to satisfy. In other words, we would like -- we always like to do these things in a way that the productivity contribution made by this investment is sufficient to carry the investment. So Todd is working hard to find ways and options to create scenarios where we can expand in a way that from a market point of view it's incremental, from an internal point of view that the rate of return is not solely dependent on what the gross market is doing. So yes, it's still of keen interest to us, Kevin, and we're working it hard. So as soon as we get to a point where we have more details to share, we'll do that.

是的。我認為，我們感興趣的是，以一種不依賴新銷售成長來滿足需求的方式來實現這一目標。換句話說，我們希望——我們總是希望以這樣一種方式來做這些事情，即這項投資所產生的生產力貢獻足以支撐這項投資。因此，托德正在努力尋找方法和選擇來創造能夠擴張的場景，從市場角度來看，這是一種漸進的方式，從內部角度來看，回報率並不完全取決於整個市場的表現。是的，凱文，我們對此仍然非常感興趣，而且我們正在努力。因此，一旦我們有更多細節可以分享，我們就會這樣做。

And finally, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I wanted to come back to acetyls and kind of the cyclical move that -- or anyway, the move we've seen there. How would you characterize that business relative to your view of normalized earnings power? Normally, when earnings double, let's say EBITDA, in your case has doubled broadly over the last 2 to 3 years and you've got a 9 handle in the first half on the operating rate. Things started to feel pretty full. On the other hand, you've described price as adequate and you've pointed to some interesting and unusual environmental restrictions in China that really could have some legs. And so, I guess, I'm trying to parse out is, is the current level more of a new normal in your view or above normal? How would you characterize that?

最後，儘管可能重複老生常談，我想回到乙醯基和那種週期性運動——或者無論如何，我們在那裡看到的運動。從您對正常獲利能力的看法來看，您如何描述該業務？通常情況下，當收益翻倍時，比如說 EBITDA，就您的情況而言，在過去 2 到 3 年內已經大致翻了一番，並且您在上半年的營業率達到了 9%。事情開始變得相當充實。另一方面，您說價格合理，並指出中國的一些有趣且不尋常的環境限制確實可能有一定的效果。所以，我想，我想分析的是，在您看來，目前水準是屬於新常態還是高於正常水準？您如何描述這一點？

Well, I certainly think that the period that we went through, the '12 through '16 period is -- was abnormal. It was abnormal as it reflected the sub scene investment in China, in particular, and all these assets and just the crumbling of capacity utilization. And whenever you do that to any business, it gets pretty -- it just gets goofy. And so we had lot of volatility in earnings and those things. I would say through that period of time though, Kevin, we were able to predict, I think pretty accurately, where we are. So we see these changes as not being unusual. I know that may seem flippant to you guys, but we predicted this would happen and we've talked a lot about it in every -- back in '15, we talked about it. What we missed I think was probably 6 or 7 months. And that's what we missed and -- or 8 months. But it wasn't -- we didn't miss it. So I think we're in a period where this business is healthy, that's how I'd describe it. I don't think it's overpriced or it's over amped. It's healthy. And I say it because I think if you look at the largest market in the world, in China, it's still a marginal business for them. I mean, it's not -- I mean, it's certainly profitable at today's rates, but it's not crazy profitable. It's probably not even, in the Chinese market today given the costs associated with it and the environmental concerns, even attractive economically for them to reinvest. So we think that's a healthy place and a natural place for it to be. And so yes, I do expect this to change as we communicated then in May. And I do think this was a 20% -- for us a 20% margin kind of business. And I think in the Asia's markets, it's low teens to mid-teens. I mean, I think that's what you've got, a 500 or 600 basis points, 700 basis points gap between their world and our world. So I think, yes, I think, we're going to be here, plus or minus a little bit, for some period of time.

嗯，我當然認為我們經歷的時期，也就是 2012 年到 2016 年的時期，是不正常的。這是不正常的，因為它反映了特別是中國細分領域的投資，以及所有這些資產和產能利用率的崩潰。無論何時，只要你對任何企業這樣做，事情就會變得非常——非常愚蠢。因此我們的收益和其他方面都存在著很大的波動。不過，凱文，我想說，透過那段時間，我們能夠預測我們所處的位置，我認為相當準確。因此我們認為這些變化並不罕見。我知道這對你們來說可能顯得有些輕率，但我們預測到這種情況會發生，並且我們在各個方面都討論過這個問題——早在 2015 年，我們就討論過這個問題。我認為我們錯過的時間大概是 6 或 7 個月。這就是我們錯過的——或者八個月。但事實並非如此——我們並沒有錯過它。所以我認為我們正處於一個業務健康的時期，這就是我對此的描述。我不認為它定價過高或價格過高。這很健康。我之所以這麼說，是因為我認為，如果你看看世界上最大的市場——中國，這對他們來說仍然是一項邊緣業務。我的意思是，以今天的速度來看，它肯定是有利可圖的，但並不是瘋狂的利潤。考慮到相關的成本和環境問題，在當今的中國市場上，再投資可能甚至不具經濟吸引力。所以我們認為這是一個健康且自然的地方。是的，我確實希望這種情況會有所改變，正如我們在五月溝通的那樣。我確實認為這對我們來說是 20% 利潤率的業務。我認為在亞洲市場，這一比例處於低十幾歲到中十幾歲之間。我的意思是，我認為這就是你們所看到的，他們的世界和我們的世界之間有 500 或 600 個基點，700 個基點的差距。所以我認為，是的，我認為我們會在這裡待一段時間，或多或少。

We can now conclude the call. We'll now conclude the call. Thank you all for your questions and for listening in this morning. We are available after the call to address any further questions you may have. Please close the call.

現在我們可以結束通話了。我們現在結束通話。感謝大家的提問和今天早上的聆聽。通話結束後，我們仍可解答您可能有的任何其他問題。請結束通話。

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

會議現已結束。感謝您參加今天的演講。您現在可以斷開連線。