塞拉尼斯 (CE) 2013 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Celanese Corporation Q3 2013 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time.

(Operator Instructions)

As a reminder today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for this conference call, Mr. Jon Puckett, you may begin, sir.

Thanks, Kevin. Welcome to the Celanese Corporation third-quarter 2013 conference call. My name is Jon Puckett, Vice President of Investor Relations. With me are Mark Rohr, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Steven Sterin, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The Celanese Corporation third-quarter 2013 earnings release was distributed via Business Wire on Friday, October 18 after market closed. The slides for the call and our prepared comments for the quarter were also posted on our website www.Celanese.com in the Investor section.

All of these items have been submitted to the SEC in a current report on Form 8-K. As a reminder some of the matters discussed today and included in our presentations may include forward-looking statements concerning for example, Celanese Corporation's future objectives and results. Please note the cautionary language contained in the posted slides. Also some of the matters discussed and presented, include references to non-GAAP financial measures. Explanations of these measures and reconciliations to the comparable GAAP measures are included on our website www.Celanese.com in the Investor Relations section as applicable.

This morning we will begin with introductory comments from Mark Rohr and then field your questions. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mark.

Thanks, Jon and good morning with everyone. Our prepared remarks were released with the earnings last Friday, so I'll keep my comments brief and open the line for your questions. For the quarter we're pleased to report adjusted earnings of $1.20 per share, that's the highest level of earnings we've had this year.

As most of you know, throughout the year we focus on items we control to create value for customers and shareholders and this quarter was no different. Our earnings came through on strengths of efforts to penetrate sophisticated markets, good operational reliability, and Celanese specific productivity initiatives. Our segment income margin expanded 240 basis points year-over-year and 110 basis points sequentially. The sequential improvement was driven by less turnaround activity in Aceteyls, improved margins in Industrial Specialties, and consistent result in Consumer Specialties. Engineered Materials was slightly down due to the impact of a turn around in our Middle Eastern affiliate, which we partially offset by continuing to penetrate the auto market.

Strong earnings generated operating cash flow of $232 million and adjusted free cash flow of $117 million. We deployed this cash spending $96 million on share repurchases and doubling the dividends of $0.72 per share annually. Even with these actions we ended the quarter with $1.1 billion on our balance sheet and we remain well positioned to pursue our capital deployment strategy. As we take our early view of 2014, we are approaching next year focused on Celanese specific initiatives that will yield approximately $100 million in incremental earnings.

These initiatives are broken down into three areas of focus. One is improved operational efficiency, which we expect will contribute approximately $45 million to earnings in 2014. The second is creating upstream and downstream raw material and mix benefits, which we anticipate to deliver approximately $25 million in 2014. And the third, is translating innovation into earnings, which we expect to drive about $30 million of earnings next year. We are optimistic that our hard work and success in 2013 provides us with momentum to grow 2014 earnings consistent with our long-term objectives. So with that, I'll now turn it over to Jon for Q&A.

Thanks Mark. Kevin let's go through the queue.

(Operator Instructions)

Our first question comes from David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank.

Good morning.

Good morning, David.

Mark very good cost control in the quarter, SG&A was down 14% year over year and quarter over quarter. How much of that is sustainable, how much will be given back as you continue to grow moving forward?

Well, I think you should look at this as annual kind of numbers, David, so what we're doing is taking steps to continue to drive sort of our efficiency of operations and so rather than break it out and look individually at this, I think if you look at it from an annualized basis we hope to translate that into a run rate as we go into next year.

And Mark, looking at 2014 you didn't mention any organic volume growth or managing benefits in the year-over-year bridge. Do you still expect those to be benefiting earnings growth next year?

Well, I think there's a lot of ups and downs so, yes, we do anticipate some business improvements in some areas. Having said that, we've got things like pension headwinds and other items that are likely to roll through, so net-net I think those things wash out, David, as we go into next year.

And just lastly, in Acetyl Intermediates, Q4 versus Q3, will there be less turnaround activity, and if so what will the dollar impact be?

Yes it's about the same, flat.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, David.

Kevin next question?

Your next question comes from Duffy Fischer with Barclays.

Yes, good morning. On the charge for the Middle East turnarounds, can you walk through what exactly is that $15 million? Is that cost you sent them, is that foregone dividends back to you, or is that your pro rata share of missed EBITDA?

Yes, it's probably not quite that high but probably north of $10 million. Those are the actual costs. Our share of the costs of the turnaround, you also tend to have inventory draws, which you have double costs in your P&L during that period as well, so that's what that represents.

Okay. And then Mark on the AEM and into autos in particular, you highlighted volumes were down for auto builds 13% in Europe, 9% in the US, but your volumes were only down 2%. How much visibility do you have into inventory in the chain? Is there a chance that maybe some inventory was being built and that's why your numbers were better than what the auto numbers were?

We don't think so. If you look at, I mean inventory in terms of days of backlog, if anything they've been trending, its gotten tighter. So I'm looking at Steven to make sure I don't give you some wrong data, but the data I've looked would tell me that especially in Europe, inventory is tighter. So, no, we don't think that's the case. We're able to track our success in autos on a product-by-product, customer-by-customer kind of basis, so we tend to be moving into the vehicles that are moving the most of.

Great, thank you guys.

Thanks, Duffy. Kevin let's move to the next question?

Our next question comes from Laurence Alexander with Jefferies.

Good morning.

Good morning, Lawrence.

I guess first the $45 million tail wind from plant operations that you're expecting in 2014, is that a reasonable run rate or do you see us increasing over time?

Well, I think there's a combination of the things, part of that is better operations, Lawrence. We've had a run here late last year and early this year of more operating upsets than we would like to have, so part of it is taking steps to minimize the likelihood of that occurring in the future and that's well under way by our manufacturing team. Another part of it deals with some consolidation or rationalization opportunities we have to become more efficient in the manufacturing process. That part would be ongoing, so I would suggest maybe half of it or so is something you could kind of think of as a run rate contribution over time.

And how's the -- could you give a little bit more detail on TCX volumes or margin trends?

Well, we're running our plant in China. It's running quite well. Having said that, we're at contemporary low prices on ethanol, so there's not much contribution out of that asset today. [Come in] we're working now with PetroChina, we're very encouraged by that activity, we're trying to secure land in Indonesia which is an agonizingly slow process. So there's still a lot of encouraging activity going on, Lawrence, but again, you shouldn't see that as being a material contributor to the Corporation in the near term.

And then just lastly on the other activities line, as you look out over the next three, four years anything that will drive significant lumpiness in that?

Yes, actually, if you look historically that's quite a lumpy category, mostly because you've got your pension accounting going through there, so when interest rates change you tend to see higher expense there, higher or lower expense. So yes, when we get into next year and we get some of the certainty around things like pension and that, we'll give you a sense of what the lumpiness looked like, but yes, it's pretty volatile.

But the $100 million bridge that you're thinking of for next year, that's after taking that into account or that's before it?

It is, no, it's taken into account, those many headwinds that would be in there.

Perfect, thank you.

Thanks, Lawrence. Kevin, let's move to the next?

Our next question comes from John McNulty with Credit Suisse.

With regard to the methanol facility you're in the process of ramping up, can you give us an update on where we are with that, the permitting, construction, et cetera, and if that's coming in line as expected?

Yes, John, we have got all of the major equipment on order. We're very pleased it's come in at or below budget relative to that. The engineering is well under way. We started doing some off-site fabrication. We have two of the three permits, the last permit is waiting on the federal government, and so far that's not a problem but we're starting to get a little bit anxious that they are taking a fair amount of time getting that done, so right now everything is still fine and we'll keep you guys posted if we get to a point where that start up is impacted at all.

Great, thanks. And then with regard to the MOU with PetroChina, I guess maybe you could walk us through how we should be thinking about the road markers along the way and maybe how we should be thinking about news flow out of that venture, if you will.

Well, we have two very active teams working and I guess a way that I kind of measure these things is the seriousness of which they're taking it, so Chairman Joe, whose cranked up this organization and they are working it very actively. We just had a large group looking at the asset we have in Nanjing and getting very comfortable with the technology and the opportunities there. We've set a hard milestone for next August, kind of we'll call it a project milestone, so I would hope as we get into next year there will be some ability to communicate on how that's going and what the future looks like.

Great, thanks very much for the color.

Thanks, John.

Kevin, let's move to the next?

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

With respect to Nanjing, you mentioned that it's running quite well. Can you give us some color in terms of the operating rates there?

Well last time I looked we were running 85% or 90% capacity, so that kind of level.

Alright, terrific. And then obviously the share buyback stepped up fairly significantly here. Can you talk about what sort of pace we should be anticipating Celanese to do here in Q4 and as we enter into 2014?

Well, I think we've communicated to you that broadly we communicated our interest to continue to be in the market as it makes sense, so I think you should expect us to continue to take advantage of the cash we have on hand and buy back some shares over time as it makes sense.

Okay, so similar pace is not out of the question then?

Not out of the question.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Frank. Kevin let's move to the next question?

Our next question comes from Kevin McCarthy with Banc of America Merrill Lynch.

Yes, good morning. Mark, according to the trade press one of your competitors will be shuttering some VAM capacity in the United Kingdom. Can you talk about industry operating rate in aceteyls, and would that action have any influence on your own asset footprint in the region either positively or negatively?

Well, I think the problem with VAM is that it's operating as best we can tell by 70% global capacity so there's not an acute shortage of that material. I think that asset shutting in Europe could tighten that market a little bit, so maybe there will be a little bit of favorable movement on that, but it's hard for us right now, Kevin, to see anything that anyone can do to dramatically impact that market.

Okay and then shifting gears, if I may to Engineering Plastics, you've highlighted a number of expansions at Polyplastics, KEPCO, and Ibn Sina. I guess two related questions. How would you characterize the expected rate of demand growth for POM resin let's say over the next three years, what's this good structural rate of growth to think about? And then can you talk a little bit about your typical contract structures with the larger buyers and how frequently you would typically reprice that product?

Well let me, when you look at POM as a whole, it's still a dramatically under-utilized polymer, so I'll give you some ranges there. Just if you look in auto, the gaps between for us the highest use and the average use is about four times and that's roughly 40% of our business. If I look at it in the extreme case in the emerging economies, it's 2x, 3x, 4x, depending on who you're talking to, so there's tremendous upside potential in transportation broadly speaking for these molecules.

There's also movement to use more of our kind of Engineered Materials and even things like aerospace, so we're quite bullish on the ability to grow volumes in this business, but it will be specified volumes. So we feel pretty comfortable with both those sites coming on. The Malaysian site of course will be on early next year and the Saudi Arabian site is going to be on I believe in 2016 or something like that, 2016 or 2017 so it's a ways down the road.

Okay. Thank you.

Pricing, the comment I'd make on pricing is if it's specification materials, individual pricing negotiation for that and we have the ability to move price if we need to through the term of that contract. If it's in a heavily commoditized market, for example, zippers, then it's not so much a contract as it is on the [incremental] sales.

Okay, thanks very much.

Thanks, Kevin. Kevin, let's move on to the next question?

Our next question comes from Bob Koort with Goldman Sachs.

Mark can you talk about NAI, sequentially you had some profits up, but you didn't have the same bogey of the turnaround in raw material problems so I guess it would suggest underlying profits still shriveled a bit sequentially, so what was going on there given some of the volume comments you had?

Yes, that's a good observation, Bob. What we saw is we saw some strengthening in Asia and we saw weakness in some of the derivatives, the higher value derivatives in Europe, and so the net impact of that was is base business absent the turnaround probably shrank a little bit.

And wanted to ask a little bit more on this $100 million, you mentioned that there was a potential $100 million, so should I read that to mean the expected value is somewhere less and the top of that range is a $100 million?

Well, no, I think that's -- a couple of you guys asked us to make sure we comment early on this, so we spent some time going through the preliminary plans and this is a number that we came up with summing up our actions that are out there. I think we'll update this in the first quarter, Bob, and right now we feel pretty good about those numbers.

What I can't tell you right now since we've not finished it is a detailed review of all the other puts and takes commercially that occur and I mentioned one just like pension headwinds. We won't know that until we get close to the end of this year and a flash on that could be as much as $30 million, which we kind of anticipate we have to have to find other ways to offset that. So our objective is to go out and incrementally create at least $100 million and we've outlined a way that right now we're trying to do that.

Should I view that $100 million as having some sort of magic governor where if the end markets are healthier you don't have to be quite as aggressive in these actions and if they are weaker then you have to be more aggressive?

Well, yes, I think that's probably fair.

And then lastly, do you have some sense that you can share with us about how many of the sites you mentioned non-integrated sites possibly being vulnerable to some strategic action. Is there a long list of those? Is it a short list?

It's fairly short. It's a couple.

Got it. And my last one I appreciate the time, you guys and I believe your competitors have put through some price hikes in consumer. We didn't see any price change this quarter. How long until we might see those if they're successful?

That's a next year kind of event. And in that segment, there's a little bit of a lag in that because volumes are always low the first part of the year, so it's quarters two, three, and four next year.

Terrific. And thanks again for the new format on the conference call. Really do appreciate it.

Great. Thanks, Bob. Kevin let's move to the next question?

Our next question comes from Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley.

Thanks and good morning, everyone. I had to hop off for a minute so I apologize if this has already been asked, but do you have a view on where your turnaround activity is going to be in 2014 versus 2013?

Vincent I'm sorry, what activity you said?

Turnaround activity. So you had substantial turnarounds this year and I'm curious how that comps against next year.

Yes, well actually the first quarter and the second quarter we have a couple big pokes in the eye for next year, so yes, the first half of the year you're going to see a couple big turnarounds.

So that will be an incremental headwind relative to 2013?

It's both yes and no. So, yes, in terms of contemporary operations like sequentially, no, I think if you look at it from the full year because we had some outages last year or this year.

Okay, understood. And then could you just remind us of the issue on land in Indonesia and sort of the bottleneck that you're in there, what are the sort of specific dynamics there and what can you do to overcome them?

Well there's six different ways you can have ownership of land in Indonesia, and so getting the clear title is unbelievably difficult. The piece of property that's been targeted by the design team, which includes Pertamina, has 32 owners, and so the process of going through and properly getting their permission and getting a sales price is just very onerous. So we're in the middle of doing that and I'm sure you say, well Mark why don't you go find a piece of land that has one owner, I don't think it exists.

Maybe just a last quick one on the -- what was the thought process behind increasing the dividend again so quickly? What sort of triggered that versus the decision you made during the second quarter?

Well, we had been as you know very vocal about a desire to get our dividend up into the pack, and that's something many of our shareholders have wanted us to do. And what we realized in that process is that where everybody out there was doing the same thing we were doing, raising dividends, double digit, so you never get there. So we decided it was better for us to take the step and get in the pack, and now that we're in the pack we'll continue to grow dividends as you would expect us to annually.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thanks, Vincent. Kevin let's go to the next question?

Our next question comes from Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan.

Good morning.

Good morning, Jeff.

Did you guys reaffirm your 2013 guidance of 12% earnings growth?

Jeff, you can go back to it, we never gave a 2013 guidance of 12% earnings growth. What I gave was a long-term compound average over five years expectation of that, and so that is still the long-term expectation.

Well maybe another way of putting it is how is the fourth quarter looking relative to the third quarter?

It's hard for me to say, Jeff, as much as I'd like to, there's a lot of puts and takes that we're seeing in the industry out there. On the good side, we just had some big orders that rolled in. On the bad side, we've had some folks tell us things they've scheduled they're going to go ahead and run-off inventory and push it out into next year, so I'd be remiss if I forecasted a number there. If you push me I think the number that you guys have for us for the full year is a reasonable number.

And in terms of CapEx for next year, is it likely to be closer to $500 million or closer to $400 million or something in the middle?

Probably a little bit in the middle. If you roll in all of the things we have going next year, we have two big projects, we're doing a lot of work on methanol, but my gut is probably it's a bit overstated what we'll actually spend next year in that. We're doing a lot of work in Narrows, Virginia, rebuilding the power system there, that will occur. So I think between $450 million and $500 million is a number.

Okay, and then lastly, do you expect an earnings contribution from ethanol next year in that if you're running at 85% or 90% utilization you're not making very much. Does that change next year?

Right now, it's very heavily dependent on what ethanol pricing in China and Asia does, Jeff, and right now, I'd say we're not counting on the contribution from that. No material contribution.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Jeff.

Thanks Jeff. Kevin let's move to the next question?

Our next question comes from Chris Nocella with RBC Capital Markets.

Great, thanks guys. Last week another chemical company had pretty encouraging things to say about Europe and Asia. As you mentioned, higher volumes there for emulsions for your business. Can you give us a broader sense of what you're seeing in those regions on the economic front?

I think certainly there's more optimism in Europe today than there was six months ago. I think Merkel's reelection is playing a big role in that. We are seeing some pretty good builds in autos as an example. In Europe we're seeing pretty good activity, although it's slow to start -- it was slow to start in coatings and those areas. So I think generally Europe is feeling better about itself than it was earlier in the year.

In Asia, it's really a mixed bag. China is probably sequentially a little better. It seems to be getting its footing, it's certainly not getting -- we can't see it getting worse I guess is what I'm saying in China. Korea and Japan remain okay. India is the weak spot and India has sort of a ripple effect on all of Southeast Asia, so I think we're ending the year in both of those regions maybe a little better than we started the year is how I would characterize it, Chris.

And you started your plant in Frankfurt not so long ago. Can you give us a sense of how long until you hit full utilization there and what incremental margins could look like if this ramps a little bit higher?

We're running pretty close. It's a plant that has tremendous theoretical capacity but it's very much mix dependent, and by mix is how you compound the product in the back end of it, and right now we're shifting that mix more and more to more specific and specialty grades, which kind of derates the plants a bit, so we're certainly not operating at capacity but we're probably getting pretty close I think.

Okay, just one more for me if you don't mind. On fuel ethanol in China, last quarter you mentioned you were in discussions with some other parties besides PetroChina, so maybe can you just discuss where you stand versus three months ago in some of those discussions?

Yes, we continue to -- there are a number of interested parties out there, but what we need is we need someone to step up and take on the major project, and right now we think PetroChina is the most likely company to do that inside of China.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Chris. Kevin let's go to the next question?

Our next question comes from Hassan Ahmed with Alembic Global.

Fairly recently within AI, you guys announced a series of price hikes. Just hearing your commentary it seems you continue to see that market fairly oversupplied. So I mean is it fair to assume that those initiatives were more to offset higher costs?

Well no, I think our costs for the most part have been pretty, I'm looking at Steven, have been pretty flat.

Gone up a little bit.

I think we're still trying to shore up and establish what the floor of that business is. We're out there trying to -- that's what we're trying to do, we're just trying to establish a good floor.

Understood, now just sort of carrying on with that, one of the silos obviously within sort of earnings contribution or incremental contribution for 2014 is a reduction of raw material costs, right? $25 million, you talked about upstream and downstream efficiencies. Now as I look at the broad sort of raw material exposures you have, it's essentially methanol, natural gas, and ethylene, so are you guys expecting some reductions in the prices of those commodities or is it something beyond that?

Well, I think the pricing is a function, I know we have the base commodity, but also your logistics and your infrastructure and how you get it to where you're getting it, so we're working that part of the equation as well to give us better access to lower cost material at whatever the market price is. We're also doing some things on energy which you excluded in that that can be pretty attractive for us, and that's changing from one energy source to another energy source, moving more towards gas in our plant sites, and a combination of those things is what translates into $25 million.

Understood, so it's not that you're probably baking in something sort of flattish with this year in terms of those raw materials?

Yes, I'm trying to recall the numbers, a few million bucks is what you're looking at. If you look at base -- we're not looking at very much base movement in cost of raw material.

Understood. Very helpful, thanks so much.

Thanks Hassan. Kevin let's move onto the next question?

Our next question comes from Andy Cash with SunTrust.

Good morning. Just regarding the one or two strategic alternatives that you mentioned, maybe at a high level you could characterize that, would it be M&A or shutdowns? Should we look forward to some restructuring cost or would there be potential gains in those transactions, or those actions?

There will not be a material gain if it occurs. I think what we're looking at today, Andy, is some pretty de minimus kind of stuff so, yes, there could be restructuring cost in there but you should -- it will be pretty modest, yes.

Okay. And then secondly if I could, over on the EVA area you mentioned some oversupply. Could you characterize how that industry is operating in terms of operating rates on an industry-wide basis and then do you think this is something that turns around in the next year or is it going to take a multi-year recovery?

It's going to take a multi-year recovery, Andy. The business is there's plenty of capacity out there right now. Where we're seeing success and I think most people in this business when they have niche products that can move in a unique way and certain applications they can manage to eek out pretty good returns. If you don't have that you're really pulling through ethylene.

Okay, thank you very much, Mark.

Thanks, Andy. Kevin let's move to the next.

Our next question comes from John Roberts with UBS.

Yes, at the end of your prepared remarks you talk about the average CapEx staying down around $400 million. But you're obviously going to be above that in the near term, so should we expect below $400 million out in 2015 or 2016 or is this a post 2014 comment?

No, no, when you get to 2016, it will be back down below $400 million.

It will be below $400 million?

Yes.

And then with respect to your comment on the TCX milestone in China next August, what specifically are you looking for at that point? Is that just having a site identified or is it having some project finance lined up, or what would be the items in the milestone for next August?

A couple aspects. The project of this is the easiest part of it. The more challenging aspect for the Chinese government really is implementing the national fuel standards in a way that supports the use of ethanol broadly. Today the fuel standards tend to be more regionally applied, provincially applied, and so there's just not a good consistent way of doing it.

So we have to go through a process working with PetroChina of validating the benefit of ethanol in fuel and I know that sounds like that's a forgone conclusion. Nonetheless, we need to walk through that process with them, we need to work with certain provinces to get acceptance of it. We need to do some trials to demonstrate it, and all that activity is scheduled over the next year.

So you might not have a site located by next August or at least publicly announced?

That's correct. We may not.

Okay, thank you.

There's no shortage of sites I'll say and that is not the problem.

Thank you.

Thanks, John. Kevin let's go to the next question?

Our next question comes from Mike Ritzenthaler of Piper Jaffray.

This is Henrique in for Mike. Regarding TCX and the deal with PetroChina, is there any risk to your plan regarding the integrity of the Management team given all of the recent scandals?

No, we feel pretty good about it. I've gotten to know Chairman Joe pretty well, and I guess the only comment I could make is what I see at PetroChina is they are taking it very seriously and all of the contact I have had with them has been totally above board and as you would expect. So, no, we don't think so.

Can you explain the difference between the margin pool and industrial ethanol and fuel ethanol?

If you look at it right now it's a little bit theoretical because there's [not a lot] fuel ethanol in Asia. But where there is fuel ethanol it's $152 a ton higher value than industrial ethanol.

Okay. Last one for us, so your 2014 growth plan, innovation bucket is a sizeable portion of that. Can you elaborate further on which products are included in that bucket, so [Qorus] and others?

Yes, Qorus is in there probably for 15% to 20% of it. There are a number of specialty materials that are in there, which is the bulk of it. There's some cellulose acetate new products in there which is a little slice of it. More movement in emulsions and some unique applications are coming in through our VA portfolio. So everybody has got a little piece of that I guess is what I'd say, John.

Great. Thanks a lot, guys.

Kevin, let's move to the next.

Our next question comes from Nils Wallin with CLSA.

Good morning and thanks for taking my question. Regarding Celanese's penetration of autos, I think at one point, you may have said that there was about two kilos per auto and your goal is to get four to six kilos or so, so I was just curious if you would update us where you are in that trajectory and how much of that occurred in this quarter?

I don't want to give out exact numbers. But what I'll say is that year over year we're probably up 6% in our penetration, so you can use those kind of numbers and get a sense of the kind of movement that we're seeing if that makes sense. The highest vehicle we have is probably in the eight or nine kilograms per vehicle, which includes not only engineered materials but also composites, and the lowest we have is probably 0.1, so that's a sense of the range. But, yes, so if you think in terms of the two-ish kind of ballpark going to the eight-ish in an ideal sense, that's how we see our entitlement.

Okay, understood. With regard to approvals for fuel ethanol in China, are there any particular provinces where it's further along and is there any particular region where you're a lot more bullish on being able to get those approvals quicker?

Well, yes, there's some provinces that have already approved it, and there's other provinces and municipalities that are very interested in it. Beijing is one that is unbelievably interested it. So if I put forth a proposition we're worried about that, I'm really not. It's just a political process you have to go through. And I think a number of the coastal provinces are either have already approved ethanol or are very interested in it. The inland provinces, especially the ones we have coal and ethanol already are more focused around trying to continue to allow methanol to go into their fuel.

Understood. And just finally if I may, going back on the strategic alternatives for non-integrated production sites, this year you've got almost the same amount of improvement by shutting down Spondon. Should we think that the alternatives for these other plants will be significantly less than what you did on the Spondon shutdown?

There will be less than that. You should have the same kind of general broad order of magnitude.

Great. Thanks for taking my question.

Thanks, let's move to the next question Kevin and we'll have this be the last question.

Okay, our last question comes from PJ Juvekar with Citigroup.

Mark, you said you don't expect much ethanol contribution next year. Ethanol prices have come down and spreads have narrowed in China. So can you talk to us about what are the key drivers of that ethanol spread in China and what are the risks?

Well, PJ, I think what we're seeing in there is that there's a lot of ethanol available in China currently, there's been more cassava consumed. There's actually, believe it or not, there's a lot of corn as well available in China, so incrementally, they're shoving ethanol in the market.

I have a hard time believing this, but one of the bits of data we've looked at and seems to have some foundation to is the fact that alcohol sales are way down in China, and so the price of alcohol as it goes into liquor is way off as well. So the net-net of all of the things we've seen prices drop for awhile in the low $700 a ton. They are probably $740 or $750 a ton now, and that's a hard place for us to make very much money.

And when you look at the acetyl cycle in general, what are the key things you're looking for? Is it the China growth or is it capacity shutdowns by some of the high cost players?

I think it's probably the latter, although it's more in China. If you look China is really the swing market for acid, so US operations are pretty steady. There's not very much in Europe, so it really gets into China, and so there we are seeing a number of the expensive folks are starting to indicate they are throwing in the towel. So I think that's what's going to happen, PJ. But I just would urge you not to have a view that that's going to happen overnight. I think we've still got operating capacity I would guess we're operating in the high 70%s, mid to high 70%s, and that's just a long way from the inflection point you probably need, which in the past we've seen when you're above 90%.

That's helpful. And lastly can you give us the status of your Singapore plant and how it's running and utilization rate there? Thank you.

Yes, thanks, PJ. Well we're running Singapore, we continue to operate it in a way that fits our needs for our entire portfolio and I don't see that changing right now.

Okay, thanks, PJ, and thanks everybody else for your time this morning. We'll be around for questions later today.

Ladies and gentlemen this does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.