伊士曼化學 (EMN) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the First Quarter 2024 Eastman Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. This call is being broadcast live on the Eastman website, www.eastman.com.

大家好，歡迎參加 2024 年第一季伊士曼電話會議。今天的會議正在錄製。本次電話會議正在伊士曼網站 www.eastman.com 上現場直播。

I will now turn the call over to Mr. Greg Riddle of Eastman, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

現在我將把電話轉給伊士曼投資者關係部門的 Greg Riddle 先生。先生，請繼續。

Okay. Thank you, Lydia, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. On the call with me today are Mark Costa, Board Chair and CEO; Willie McLain, Executive Vice President and CFO; and Jake LaRoe, Manager, Investor Relations.

好的。謝謝你，莉迪亞，大家早安，謝謝你們加入我們。今天與我一起通話的有董事會主席兼執行長馬克‧科斯塔 (Mark Costa)；威利麥克萊恩 (Willie McLain)，執行副總裁兼財務長；以及投資者關係經理 Jake LaRoe。

Yesterday after market close, we posted our first quarter 2024 financial release and SEC 8-K filing. Our slides and the related prepared remarks in the Investors section of our website, www.eastman.com.

昨天收盤後，我們發布了 2024 年第一季財務報告和 SEC 8-K 文件。我們的幻燈片和相關的準備好的評論都放在我們網站 www.eastman.com 的投資者部分。

Before we begin, I'll cover two items. First, during this presentation, you will hear some forward-looking statements concerning our plans and expectations. Actual events or results could differ materially. Certain factors related to future expectations are or will be detailed in our first quarter 2024 financial results news release, during this call, in the preceding slides and prepared remarks and in our filings with the SEC, including the Form 10-K filed for full year 2023 and the Form 10-Q to be filed for first quarter of 2024.

在我們開始之前，我將介紹兩件事。首先，在本次演示中，您將聽到一些有關我們的計劃和期望的前瞻性陳述。實際事件或結果可能有重大差異。與未來預期相關的某些因素已或將在我們2024 年第一季財務業績新聞稿、本次電話會議、前面的幻燈片和準備好的評論以及我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中詳細說明，包括我們提交的10-K 表格（全年）。

Second, earnings reference presentation excludes certain noncore and unusual items. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and other associated disclosures, including a description of the excluded and adjusted items, are available in the first quarter 2024 financial results news release. As we posted the slides and accompanying prepared remarks on our website last night, we will now go straight into Q&A.

其次，獲利參考列報不包括某些非核心及非常規項目。 2024 年第一季財務業績新聞稿中提供了與最直接可比較的 GAAP 財務指標的對帳以及其他相關揭露，包括對排除和調整項目的描述。由於我們昨晚已在我們的網站上發布了幻燈片和隨附的準備好的發言，現在我們將直接進入問答環節。

Lydia, please let's start with our first question.

莉迪亞，請讓我們從第一個問題開始。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question today comes from Vincent Andrews of Morgan Stanley.

（操作員指示）我們今天的第一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Vincent Andrews。

Mark, if I could ask you on the France project, could you talk a little bit about what you think the scope of the timing delay might be? It sounds like they're still committed to going forward there, but have some issues to iron out on the customer and the cost side. So what type of timing delay are we talking about? And what's your confidence that both of those issues will be resolved?

馬克，如果我可以問您關於法國項目的問題，您能否談談您認為時間延遲的範圍可能是什麼？聽起來他們仍然致力於繼續前進，但在客戶和成本方面還有一些問題需要解決。那麼我們談論的是哪種類型的時間延遲？您對這兩個問題都能夠得到解決有什麼信心？

Thanks for the question. Overall, we're incredibly excited about the circular platform, excited about how we're operating the first plan, proving out this technology works and have a lot of engaged customers and also excited about long view with the DOE grant and Pepsi contract that gives us a lot of confidence.

謝謝你的提問。總的來說，我們對循環平台感到非常興奮，對我們如何運作第一個計劃感到興奮，證明這項技術是可行的，並擁有很多忠實的客戶，同時也對能源部撥款和百事可樂合約的長期前景感到興奮，這些撥款我們很有信心。

And we believe long term, the European market is going to be structurally, an extremely attractive market to serve. But there are sort of two issues we're working with that we mentioned in the prepared remarks. There's a sort of regulatory uncertainty and there's just continuing to do the work we always do in dealing with inflation and getting the CapEx number where it needs to be for a good investment. And on the CapEx, we feel good about how we can manage that. So it really comes down to customer contracts and EU policy.

我們相信，從長遠來看，歐洲市場在結構上將成為一個極具吸引力的市場。但我們正在處理我們在準備好的發言中提到的兩個問題。存在某種監管不確定性，我們只需繼續做我們一直在做的工作，應對通貨膨脹，並將資本支出數字控制在良好投資所需的水平。在資本支出方面，我們對如何管理它感到很滿意。所以這實際上取決於客戶合約和歐盟政策。

And what I'd say is the European Union has been far ahead of the world on recognizing both the carbon issues in this world, the climate change and having aggressive policy of that and also recognizing that they've got a packaging waste problem like we do everywhere else and wanting to have a policy that drives the brands, suppliers, the market to sort of address that packaging waste, which also includes a lot of carbon emissions.

我想說的是，歐盟在認識到世界碳排放問題、氣候變遷以及採取積極政策方面遠遠領先於世界，同時也認識到他們面臨著與我們一樣的包裝廢棄物問題其他地方也都在這麼做，希望制定一項政策，推動品牌、供應商和市場解決包裝廢棄物問題，這也包括大量的碳排放。

And so they developed a policy that is quite comprehensive, that has some reduce, reuse goals that will be -- sort of help the problem, but really focused on how do we get all of this material recycled. And it's still being finalized, but they've got aggressive targets like 25% content in beverages next year in '25 and everything being at 30%, very high local recycling rates required in Europe, EPR taxes on people who don't do it, strict definitions of what is a recyclable polymer, et cetera. And so all that, I think, is headed to be in policy and makes sense.

因此，他們制定了一項非常全面的政策，其中提出了一些減少和再利用的目標，這將有助於解決問題，但真正關注的是如何回收所有這些材料。目前該政策仍未最終確定，但他們已經制定了積極的目標，例如明年飲料中的25% 含量，其他所有飲料的含量都達到30%，歐洲要求的本地回收率非常高，對不這樣做的人徵收EPR 稅對可回收聚合物的嚴格定義等等。所以，我認為，所有這些都將成為政策，而且是有意義的。

But there was one recent change that created some uncertainty on how the brands can achieve the recycled content targets. And there's a problem they face especially as you go from this year to next year, which is they're only recycling about 12% of PET back to bottles at the food grade level. They've got to be at 25% next year, so they will struggle to achieve that pretty significantly as well as there's some WTO issues that come up around imports. And they changed policy from requiring everything to be made from local material to allow imports to be included.

但最近的一項變化為品牌如何實現再生內容目標帶來了一些不確定性。特別是從今年到明年，他們面臨的一個問題是，他們只能將大約 12% 的 PET 回收再利用到食品級瓶子中。明年他們的進口額必須達到 25%，因此他們將很難實現這一目標，同時也面臨一些與進口相關的 WTO 問題。他們改變了政策，從要求一切產品都採用本地材料生產變成允許進口。

Now they put a bunch of restrictions on what imports would qualify around how it's being made from a sustainability point of view as well as all these standards. And there's still a lot of complexity and trying to understand that, but it would probably make it very difficult to import for most countries in these equivalency requirements. And it really creates a huge amount of complexity, both for the implementation of policy as well as -- and achieving the goals of high recycling rates and really issues around consumer brand equity when you're using imports, right?

現在他們從永續性的角度以及所有這些標準對進口產品的生產方式施加了一系列限制。而且仍然存在許多複雜性，需要努力去理解，但這可能會使大多數國家很難導入這些等效要求。這確實帶來了巨大的複雜性，無論是對於政策的實施，還是對於實現高回收率的目標，以及在使用進口產品時圍繞消費者品牌資產的問題，對嗎？

Because when you bring imports into the country, you're replacing local demand for recycling, which increases incineration, which also violates the carbon emission goals of the European Union. The recyclability targets, which is your material considered recyclable requires a very high recycling rate in the European Union, which is also a problem. And then consumers don't want to be solving China's waste problem. They want to see policy driving up recycling locally to address the local problem.

因為當你將進口產品帶入該國時，你就取代了當地的回收需求，這會增加焚燒量，這也違反了歐盟的碳排放目標。可回收性目標，即被視為可回收的材料在歐盟需要非常高的回收率，這也是一個問題。但消費者不願意解決中國的垃圾問題。他們希望看到政策推動當地的回收利用，以解決當地的問題。

So this creates some uncertainty and it really goes back to why we had the circular contracting model of we're in this business to be a service provider to the brands to solve their plastic waste problem. We're not getting back in the commodity business. So we're sticking to our guns as we've told you we would around long-term take-or-pay contracts that provide stable margins. And so we're still highly engaged with customers, still very much working with this, but this has slowed down the discussion on how to structure these contracts in this market context.

所以這造成了一些不確定性，這實際上又回到了為什麼我們採用循環承包模式，我們從事這項業務是為了成為品牌的服務提供者，解決他們的塑膠垃圾問題。我們不會重返大宗商品業務。因此，我們會堅持自己的立場，正如我們所說的那樣，我們會堅持提供穩定利潤的長期照付不議合約。因此，我們仍然與客戶保持密切聯繫，仍然在努力解決這個問題，但這減緩了在這種市場背景下如何建立這些合約的討論。

I'd also note that we are targeting a lot of applications that can't even use mechanical recycle material because of performance requirements in the package. And long term, mechanical recycling won't work anyway because it's going to degrade without chemical recycling sort of keeping it refreshed. So we're very confident in the long-term market structure. We believe this is a facility that should get built, but we've got to stick to our milestones and our requirements around getting the contracts in place like we told you we would do.

我還要指出的是，由於包裝的性能要求，我們針對的許多應用甚至不能使用機械回收材料。從長遠來看，機械回收無論如何都行不通，因為如果沒有化學回收來保持其更新，它就會降解。因此，我們對長期市場結構非常有信心。我們認為這個設施應該建造，但我們必須堅持我們的里程碑和要求，就像我們告訴你的那樣，簽約。

Okay. And what about on the cost side of the equation? It seems like you're still working on that as well.

好的。那麼成本方面又如何呢？看起來您還在致力於此。

I mean inflation, I think, has been an issue for every project out there that I've seen in our industry. The supply chain crisis has driven up the cost of everything from labor to equipment, et cetera. So all projects have had some amount of escalation to it. We have a good plan to get the capital to where it needs to be on the Longview plant, and we have developed a plan on how to get the capital down on the French plant.

我的意思是，我認為通貨膨脹是我們這個行業中我所見過的每個項目面臨的問題。供應鏈危機推高了從勞動力到設備等所有環節的成本。所以所有項目都經歷了一定程度的升級。我們有一個很好的計劃來將資金投入到朗維尤工廠所需的地方，我們也制定了一個計劃來將資金投入法國工廠。

But it's going to take a little more work on some of the elements of doing that. And so while we're working on getting these contracts, we're taking that extra time to continue working on reducing the CapEx. But we feel that we have a pathway to manage that issue.

但要做到這一點，還需要在某些方面做更多的工作。因此，在我們努力獲得這些合約的同時，我們會花費額外的時間繼續努力降低資本支出。但我們認為我們有辦法解決這個問題。

Our next question comes from Aleksey Yefremov of KeyBanc.

下一個問題來自 KeyBanc 的 Aleksey Yefremov。

Mark, just to follow up on this, do you have any idea to what degree this delay in France could maybe help you load the Kingsport facility for specialty applications?

馬克，只是想跟進一下這個問題，您是否知道法國的這次延遲在多大程度上可以幫助您為金斯波特工廠提供特殊應用？

So we have a lot of different flexibility. That's the beauty of how we manage all of our polymer lines in how we optimize value. Today, we do it from Tritan to copolyesters to medical PET. And every line we have built, the ones in France as well as the Texas project, we'll have the flexibility to make both PET and specialty products. So we're always going to optimizing value and mix. That's the heart of our business model, and we're very good at doing it.

因此我們具有許多不同的靈活性。這就是我們透過優化價值來管理所有聚合物生產線的美妙之處。如今，我們的產品範圍從Tritan到共聚酯再到醫用PET。我們建造的每條生產線，無論是在法國還是在德克薩斯項目，都能夠靈活地生產 PET 和特殊產品。因此，我們始終致力於優化價值和組合。這是我們商業模式的核心，我們非常擅長做到這一點。

So in that sense, it doesn't really matter which project gets built first. We'll sort of optimize value between specialty and PET as we sort of build out our sort of our global position. The first plant is already very much focused on specialty applications. So we'll be driving into Tritan, into cosmetic packaging, into shrink packaging, into a variety of different applications and levering that up. And there's things we're working on to expand and extend the capacity on the first plant as we get it up and running while we sort of work on building the second and third plants.

因此從這個意義上來說，哪個項目先建成並不重要。隨著我們逐漸建立全球地位，我們將優化專業產品和 PET 之間的價值。第一家工廠已經非常專注於特殊應用。因此，我們將把 Tritan 引入化妝品包裝、收縮包裝等各種不同的應用領域，並加以利用。在我們正在建造第二和第三家工廠的同時，我們正在努力擴大和擴展第一家工廠的產能。

And so whichever plant gets built first between Texas and France, we'll optimize value between PET, which we have the contract with Pepsi on and specialty to maximize value as we build out the portfolio.

因此，無論在德克薩斯州和法國之間先建成哪家工廠，我們都會在PET（我們與百事可樂簽訂了合約）和特種產品之間進行價值優化，以便在我們構建產品組合時實現價值最大化。

And on the annual guidance, a nice beat in Q1. You have a lot of details in the press release. But in general, a strong start of the year, why not raise the full year? Did anything change in the rest of the year to keep the guidance the same? Or is it more conservatism than anything else?

在年度指引方面，第一季業績表現良好。新聞稿中有很多細節。但整體來說，今年開局強勁，為什麼不提高全年業績呢？今年剩餘時間是否發生了任何變化以保持指導不變？或者它比其他任何東西都更具保守主義？

It's more of the latter. When you -- we're very proud of the beat we had in Q1 and the fact that it was volume driven, which is the key element of the challenges we had last year, frankly, the whole industry had last year, to see that volume come back better than expected, gives us confidence, especially because it came back in the specialties, which is where our highest value is generated for the portfolio. So we feel good about that.

後者的情況更多。我們對第一季的業績感到非常自豪，而且業績是由銷量驅動的，這是我們去年面臨的挑戰的關鍵因素，坦率地說，去年整個行業都看到了這一點交易量的回升好於預期，這給了我們信心，尤其是因為它在專業領域的回升，這是我們為投資組合創造的最高價值。因此我們對此感到很高興。

And as you look at our guidance, clearly, we have confidence in AM and AFP, and we have confidence in Fibers doing better. CI is always a little uncertain. But the main reason we're -- didn't upgrade the range is it's the first quarter. There's a lot of macroeconomic uncertainty out there, a lot of geopolitical uncertainty that we're all living with every day.

當您查看我們的指導時，顯然，我們對 AM 和 AFP 充滿信心，我們對 Fibers 的表現充滿信心。 CI總是有點不確定。但我們沒有升級範圍的主要原因是這是第一季。我們每天都生活在許多宏觀經濟不確定性和地緣政治不確定性之中。

And we wanted to really stick to our approach in January, which is this is an economy-neutral forecast, right. We're not projecting fundamentals getting better in the back half of the year to deliver this range. We're also not projecting -- underlying demand is going to get worse in the back half of the year. We're saying it's neutral. We believe fundamentals will get better into the back half, and that would be upside in our forecast. If you have concerns about geopolitics, then there's some sort of -- there's risk to the midpoint of our forecast. But at this stage, I think it's just prudent to be a little cautious until we see how things develop.

我們希望在一月份堅持我們的做法，這是一個經濟中立的預測，對吧。我們預計下半年基本面不會好轉並實現這一範圍。我們也沒有預測今年下半年潛在需求將會變得更糟。我們說它是中性的。我們相信，下半年基本面將會好轉，這將是我們預測的上行空間。如果您對地緣政治有擔憂，那麼我們的預測中點就會存在某種風險。但在現階段，我認為謹慎一點是明智的，直到我們看到事態如何發展。

The next question comes from Duffy Fischer of Goldman Sachs.

下一個問題來自高盛的達菲費雪。

Can you just give us some more details around the methanolysis plant that's been running, let's say, for a month now? I'm sure some stuff you can't. But things like what's the premium looking like? What's the breadth of feedstock that you've been able to run through? Maybe just kind of an update on how the plant's running and how you would expect it to ramp from here over the next couple of quarters?

您能否向我們介紹一下已經運行一個月的甲醇分解工廠的更多細節？我確信有些事情你做不到。但是溢價看起來是什麼樣的呢？您能夠處理的原料範圍有多廣？也許只是關於工廠運作的更新，以及您預計未來幾季工廠的產能將如何提升？

Sure, Duffy. It's great to get that question because we're really excited about having this first plant up and running. This will be the world's largest chemical recycling facility, and we're really excited to show the world what's possible, not just in generating earnings and growth for our owners, but in solving a pretty significant environmental problem.

當然，達菲。很高興收到這個問題，因為我們對第一家工廠的建成和運作感到非常興奮。這將是世界上最大的化學回收設施，我們非常高興向世界展示它的可能性，不僅能為我們的業主創造收益和成長，還能解決一個相當嚴重的環境問題。

And we're really excited that we're on spec with the material and we're serving our customers. It's pretty amazing when you look at basically garbage going into the front of the plant and sort of on-spec material coming out the back end. And it is a very complicated technology and plant. So it is nontrivial to start up compared to if you're building a commodity asset.

我們非常高興我們按照規格提供了材料並為客戶提供服務。當你看到垃圾進入工廠前部而符合規格的材料從後端出來時，你會覺得非常驚訝。這是一項非常複雜的技術和設備。因此，與建立商品資產相比，啟動它並不容易。

The good news is that we have fully confirmed that the process chemistry works, which was always the biggest question that I think people had and we can confirm that's working. We've validated all the unit ops are functioning as designed. It can run continuously. So we feel really good about the sort of design and the structural aspects of the plant.

好消息是我們已經完全確認該工藝化學有效，我認為這一直是人們最大的疑問，我們可以確認它有效。我們已確認所有單位操作均依設計運作。它可以連續運作。因此，我們對該工廠的設計和結構方面感到非常滿意。

The challenge has been just on getting the plant to run reliably. And we're certainly about 4 weeks behind schedule as we mentioned in the prepared remarks on that front. And really, we're still focused on reliability. So we haven't moved into a broad feedstock slate or ramped up the capacity a lot until we've actually addressed some of these mechanical issues.

挑戰只是如何讓工廠可靠運作。正如我們在這方面的準備好的發言中所提到的，我們確實比計劃晚了大約四周。事實上，我們仍然注重可靠性。因此，在實際解決一些機械問題之前，我們不會採用廣泛的原料或大幅提高產能。

So all the issues we're facing have nothing to do with the process chemistry. It's literally mechanical issues. Some of it was in the beginning, construction errors, leaks and improperly installed equipment. We believe we've addressed most of those issues -- actually, all of those issues at this stage.

所以，我們面臨的所有問題都與製程化學無關。這其實是機械問題。有些問題出現在初期，包括施工失誤、洩漏以及設備安裝不當。我們相信我們已經解決了大部分問題——實際上，現階段我們已經解決了所有問題。

Then there's been sort of more-than-normal early failure of some pieces of equipment like instrumentation, valves and some other equipment. This is not unique to us. We see all of our peers having the same challenge globally where just equipment wasn't as made as well as we would hope in the supply chain crisis. And we're all sort of dealing with these kind of sort of annoying little issues. They're simple to solve, but they just slow you down as you have to sort of pause to address them.

然後，一些設備（如儀器、閥門和其他設備）出現了比正常情況更早的故障。對我們來說這並不是唯一的事。我們看到，全球的所有同業都面臨著同樣的挑戰，在供應鏈危機中，設備的製造並不像我們所希望的那麼好。我們都在處理這類令人煩惱的小問題。這些問題很容易解決，但它們會減慢你的速度，因為你必須停下來解決它們。

And we've also had some reliability issues on rotating equipment, especially pumps. And that is a little more complicated. It's a mixture of quality -- quality of assembly, some design issues and some operating learning. We've done a total root cause analysis on that. We feel we have a very clear understanding of what's causing it, and we're very close to completing all the actions we need to address those issues.

我們在旋轉設備，特別是泵浦方面也遇到了一些可靠性問題。這有點複雜。它是各種品質的混合體——組裝品質、一些設計問題和一些操作學習。我們對此進行了全面的根本原因分析。我們覺得我們對問題的原因有了非常清晰的了解，並且我們即將完成解決這些問題所需的所有行動。

So I'd say from a mechanical point of view, we feel very good about where we're at. The plant's running. Our priority right now is serving customers, which we're doing. And we're just in the phase of ramping up production and sort of expanding our feedstock slate to sort of try out those issues.

因此我想說，從機械的角度來說，我們對目前的狀況感到非常滿意。工廠正在運作。我們的當前首要任務是為客戶提供服務，我們正在這樣做。我們正處於提高產量和擴大原料範圍的階段，以嘗試解決這些問題。

But the 70% of the op of the plant is a monomer called DMT and that's always clean, no matter what. So the process chemistry around sort of viewing impurity really is just about EG, which is a smaller part of the plant. So as we ramp up, test that other material, we feel very good about supplying customers this year because their demand that we're projecting is not close to capacity of this plant. And so we've got plenty of ways to keep them served and supported.

但該植物的 70% 成分是名為 DMT 的單體，無論如何，它都是乾淨的。因此，圍繞觀察雜質的製程化學實際上只與 EG 有關，而 EG 只是工廠的一小部分。因此，隨著我們增加產能並測試其他材料，我們對今年的供貨感到非常滿意，因為我們預測的需求並未接近該工廠的產能。因此，我們有很多方法可以為他們提供服務和支援。

So we still forget about the $75 million of EBITDA that we've got out there as having a pathway. It's obviously a little more challenged with how we've had a slower start, but we feel good that we can achieve it for the year.

因此，我們仍然忘記了我們已經獲得的 7500 萬美元 EBITDA 作為途徑。顯然，由於我們起步較慢，這對我們來說是一個更大的挑戰，但我們對今年能夠實現這一目標感到很高興。

What I'd say as far as progression goes, our plan was always to do what we're doing right now is run at a steady state to make sure mechanically everything is fine, then you ramp up as well as start broadening the feedstock, which we'll be doing through this next quarter. So we'll have a lot more to tell you about that when we get to the second quarter call.

就進展而言，我們的計劃始終是先穩定運行，確保機械上一切正常，然後再逐步擴大產量，並開始拓寬原料範圍。因此，當我們進行第二季電話會議時，我們會告訴您更多有關此方面的資訊。

Great. And then in the market, it seems like there's been an inordinate number of PDH unit issues over the last couple of quarters. Maybe just bigger picture, how has that impacted your business? You obviously take a lot of propylene, make derivatives. But do you see that as a positive or a negative across your whole portfolio?

偉大的。然後在市場上，過去幾個季度似乎出現了過多的 PDH 單位問題。也許只是從更大角度來看，這對您的業務有何影響？你顯然需要大量的丙烯來製造衍生物。但您認為這對您的整個投資組合來說是積極的還是消極的呢？

Well, first and foremost, the sort of propylene derivatives are predominantly going to show up in CI as far as the value goes, but there are propylene derivatives that go into AFP as well as AM. So there's parts of the propylene stream that goes across a whole integrated complex.

首先，就其價值而言，丙烯衍生物主要出現在 CI 中，但也有丙烯衍生物出現在 AFP 和 AM 中。因此，丙烯流的各部分貫穿整個綜合設施。

When the outages occur, and the price of PGP goes up, that's good for us, obviously. But it's always a question of how does PGP move relative to the price of propane that gets us to that spread. And through the first quarter, we certainly saw PGP move up, but we also saw propane prices come in much higher than expected. So those sort of netted out to some degree.

當發生中斷並且 PGP 的價格上漲時，這顯然對我們來說是件好事。但始終存在一個問題：丙烷價格相對於丙烷價格如何變動，才能達到這個價差。在第一季度，我們確實看到丙烷價格上漲，但我們也看到丙烷價格遠高於預期。因此，這些在某種程度上是互相抵消的。

And as we go into this quarter, those spreads look like they're going to contract a bit from the first quarter with the way PGP prices have come off as outages have been resolved. So it's the nature of these olefin businesses where there's a certain amount of up and down in spreads and that's just factored into our guidance.

進入本季度，隨著停電問題的解決，PGP 價格已經回落，價差看起來將較第一季略有收縮。因此，這些烯烴業務的本質就是價差存在一定幅度的上下波動，而這已經計入我們的指導中。

Our next question comes from Frank Mitsch of Fermium Research.

我們的下一個問題來自 Fermium Research 的 Frank Mitsch。

Mark, I do appreciate the color on what's going on in France. And I'm trying to reconcile how the consumer brand companies that are out there, they're making promises about what percent they're going to have recycled by what year. And reasonable minds believe that they're not going to hit those targets. And so here is an opportunity to get on board with recycled content with you and yet it seems like they're waiting for government subsidies or mandates or something before they sign contracts.

馬克，我確實很了解法國發生的事。我試著調和現有的消費品牌公司如何承諾哪一年會達到多少比例的回收。理智的人都認為他們無法實現這些目標。因此，這是一個與您合作使用回收內容的機會，但他們似乎在等待政府補貼或授權或其他東西，然後才簽訂合約。

I mean the -- it almost seems hypocritical on their part in terms of making these statements. So it begs the question, how committed are they in terms of recycled content? And given where we are right now, how do you feel about the potential of -- if things don't work out the way that you anticipate, walking away from the France project?

我的意思是──他們發表這些言論似乎幾乎是虛偽的。那麼，問題來了，他們在回收內容上有多投入呢？考慮到我們目前的狀況，如果事情沒有按照您預期的方式發展，您對於放棄法國計畫的可能性有什麼看法？

So one, every customer we have that we're meeting with, I think, is highly committed to addressing the recycled content question and making sure that they're making their packaging with higher rates of recycled content. And frankly, many of the top brands have 100% goals on a lot of their packaging. They're way above any sort of regulatory policy that's out there. So I don't think there's any lack of commitment that they know this is important.

因此，我認為，我們會見的每一位客戶都非常致力於解決再生材料問題，並確保他們生產的包裝具有更高的再生材料率。坦白說，許多頂級品牌在其許多包裝上都設定了 100% 的目標。它們遠遠超出了現有的任何監管政策。因此我認為他們並不缺乏承諾，因為他們知道這很重要。

I do think there's a reality which is there's a significant lack of recycling infrastructure in this world and in mechanical recycling today, and I think most of the brands understand that a lot of what they do in packaging, mechanical recycling, won't even work properly. So the need for chemical recycling is absolutely necessary in the long term. There's just -- I haven't run anyone who thinks that both mechanical and chemical aren't necessary.

我確實認為，現實情況是，當今世界和機械回收領域嚴重缺乏回收基礎設施，我認為大多數品牌都明白，他們在包裝、機械回收方面所做的許多工作根本行不通適當地。因此，從長遠來看，化學回收是絕對必要的。只是——我還沒遇過認為機械和化學都不必要的人。

So demand condition is very clear. The question is how do they meet those conditions, right? And at the moment, there's been a ramp-up if you go look at the data of inwards of our PET into the U.S. and Europe that is affordable. And that's a way for them to manage cost and hit their targets in the short term.

所以需求狀況非常明確。問題是他們如何滿足這些條件？目前，如果你看看我們出口到美國和歐洲的 PET 數據就會發現，進口量正在增加，而且價格是可以負擔的。這是他們管理成本並在短期內實現目標的一種方式。

The dilemma for that is it doesn't really solve the actual problem, which is you, as consumers, European consumers, want waste out of their environment, right? They don't want to be a solution to China's trash problem, right? So they've got to work their way through that on the economics versus what the real goal is, which is addressing local recycling.

問題在於它並不能真正解決實際問題，即作為消費者，歐洲消費者，你們希望將廢物排放到環境中，對嗎？他們不想成為解決中國垃圾問題的方案吧？因此，他們必須在經濟層面解決這個問題，而不是只關注當地的回收問題。

And so as they're sort of in a situation of where our PET prices are relatively low right now and imports are available versus the long term, which regulation is certainly going to drive a requirement for higher recycling rates within the U.S., within Europe, how do they sort of make those choices and decisions?

因此，由於目前我們的 PET 價格相對較低，而且長期來看進口量充足，因此法規肯定會推動美國、歐洲提高回收率。

So it's just taking us longer to work through these contracts. I'm confident in the end, these brands will focus on what is the correct thing to do for the U.S. and Europe sort of waste issues, but it's just taking us longer to negotiate the contracts than we expected.

所以我們只需要花更長的時間來完成這些合約。我相信，這些品牌最終會把重點放在如何正確解決美國和歐洲的垃圾問題上，但我們談判合約的時間比預期的要長。

I appreciate that. I mean it seems like a slam dunk. You guys seem to be the best game in town for them to get to that chemical recycling, which is superior to mechanical recycling and yet it's taking a little bit slower.

我很感激。我的意思是這看起來像是一次灌籃。你們似乎是他們實現化學回收的最佳選擇，化學回收比機械回收更優越，但速度稍慢一些。

Just one other question. In the prepared remarks, you talked about a Patagonia partnership where you're recycling it's unusable apparel. Unusable apparel, what is that? Is that like off-spec products? And is this something that -- can you provide a little more color on that? And is this something that you're looking to expand with other consumer brands?

還有一個問題。在準備好的演講中，您談到了與巴塔哥尼亞 (Patagonia) 的合作夥伴關係，回收其不再使用的服裝。無法使用的服裝，那是什麼？這算是不合格品嗎？這是什麼情況——您能提供更多詳細資訊嗎？您是否希望與其他消費品牌一起拓展這項業務？

It's a great story. And Patagonia is by far the leader like Europe around recycling. Patagonia has a take back program. So it's an active program with their customers to say when you're going to -- instead of throwing your garment away, your fleece vest or whatever it is you have, drop it off at a store and we'll take it back, so it doesn't end up in landfill. So it's actually a genuine circular program to prevent textiles being thrown away.

這是一個很棒的故事。巴塔哥尼亞在回收利用方面與歐洲一樣處於領先地位。巴塔哥尼亞有一個回收計劃。所以這是一項積極的計劃，他們讓顧客知道，當你要把衣服、羊毛背心或任何你有的東西扔掉時，把它送到商店，我們會把它拿回來，所以它不會被填埋。所以這實際上是一個真正的循環計劃，旨在防止紡織品被丟棄。

The second largest source of plastic waste in landfills or incineration are textiles after packaging. It's a huge problem. And so they are truly forward-leaning when it comes to anything environmental way ahead of anyone else, and they really do their science on it. So they're taking back all these garments and then we're shredding them and recycling them and putting it back into fibers, in this case, Naia fibers, for some of their products. So it's a genuine circle for the textile industry.

垃圾掩埋場或焚燒場中塑膠垃圾的第二大來源是包裝之後的紡織品。這是一個很大的問題。因此，他們在環境問題上確實比其他任何人都具有前瞻性，並且確實在這方面進行了科學研究。所以他們回收所有這些服裝，然後我們將它們粉碎、回收並重新製成纖維，在本例中是 Naia 纖維，用於他們的一些產品。所以這對紡織業來說是一個真正的循環。

So it's a program we certainly want to expand and do with other companies. If you think of all the fast fashion brands out there where the whole business model has been centered on buy things and then throw it away and buy new things, with the regulations that are coming in Europe around that waste, which is the next round after packaging regulation as well as the consumer pressure on waste that exists here as well, this is another great circular story.

因此，我們當然希望擴大這個項目，並與其他公司合作。想想那些快時尚品牌，它們的整個商業模式都是圍繞著買東西然後扔掉再買新東西，而歐洲正在出台關於浪費的法規，這是繼歐洲之後的下一輪包裝監管以及消費者對浪費的壓力也存在於此，這是另一個偉大的循環故事。

And we can take ultimately this back into the -- our CRT to make Naia fibers or we can take the textile back into the polyester plant to make polyester fibers, chips for polyester fibers. So it gives us a lot of opportunities to work on there.

我們最終可以將其送回 CRT 來製造 Naia 纖維，或者我們可以將紡織品送回聚酯工廠來製造聚酯纖維和聚酯纖維切片。因此這為我們提供了許多在那裡工作的機會。

These are complicated programs. I wouldn't say that the volume is going to be particularly high anytime soon. But it is a model that has to be developed to build a future where we have waste out of the environment. And with the new technology, when you think about the Texas project, 90% lower carton footprint, almost close to a zero carbon footprint plan. And that's extremely compelling not just on the waste side, but on the decarbonization side. So we're very excited about what we can do for the marketplace.

這些都是複雜的程序。我不會說交易量很快就會變得特別高。但我們必須開發這個模型，以便未來我們可以不再將廢棄物排放到環境中。而有了新技術，想想德州的項目，紙箱足跡減少了 90%，幾乎接近零碳足跡計畫。這不僅在廢棄物方面，而且在脫碳方面都極具吸引力。因此，我們對於能為市場所做的事情感到非常興奮。

Our next question comes from David Begleiter of Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題來自德意志銀行的 David Begleiter。

Mark, on the Longview project, if you could reach FID in Q3, what's the time line from there for construction and start-up?

馬克，關於 Longview 項目，如果您能在第三季度達成 FID，那麼從那時開始建設和啟動的時間表是怎樣的？

Yes, that would have a plant sort of coming online in the second half of 2027.

是的，該工廠將於 2027 年下半年投入營運。

And would the cost -- how would the cost compare to Kingsport?

其成本——與金斯波特相比如何？

The capital costs are different. The methanolysis unit will be much cheaper than the Kingsport plant to build because there's a lot of sort of lessons we learned as we've shared in past calls around how to sort of be more effective in building the plant, right? So we certainly don't intend to have the construction issues that we ran into, and there's a lot of learning both in the construction as well as operating the plant now that gives us much better insight on how to improve some aspects of the plant, all of which will make the plant cheaper to build.

資金成本不同。建造甲醇分解裝置的成本將比建造金斯波特工廠便宜得多，因為我們在過去的電話會議中分享很多關於如何更有效地建造工廠的經驗教訓，對吧？因此，我們當然不想再遇到現在遇到的建設問題，而且現在我們在工廠建設和運營方面都學到了很多東西，這讓我們對如何改進工廠的某些方面有了更好的了解，所有這些都將降低工廠的建設成本。

So we feel good about that part of the plant coming in lower than Kingsport by a meaningful amount. But the difference is Kingsport had a huge amount of polyester lines and all the infrastructure for handling materials into the plant and out of the plant that we could leverage as well as energy infrastructure that was already in place here that was leverageable, we didn't have to add energy and steam infrastructure.

因此，我們很高興看到工廠的部分成本比金斯波特工廠低了不少。但不同之處在於，金斯波特擁有大量的聚酯生產線和所有用於處理進出工廠的材料的基礎設施，我們可以利用這些基礎設施，以及這裡已經存在的可利用的能源基礎設施，而我們沒有必須增加能源和蒸汽基礎設施。

So when you go to the Longview plant or the France project, the methanolysis one part is cheaper, but you're adding polymer lines, you're adding -- and you have a lot of infrastructure you need to build around this facility that doesn't exist in either of those locations. So the total capital cost turns out to be higher.

因此，當你去 Longview 工廠或法國項目時，甲醇分解部分比較便宜，但你正在添加聚合物生產線，你正在添加——並且你需要在這個設施周圍建造大量的基礎設施，而這並不't存在於上述任一位置。因此總資本成本會更高。

Fortunately, we've got great incentives with the DOE grant, that $375 million is extremely helpful in supporting the economics of the project, offsetting inflation and paying for this add of scope that we did to the plant with this thermal battery and solar facility that allows us to get to that 90% reduced carbon footprint I mentioned.

幸運的是，我們得到了美國能源部撥款的巨大激勵，3.75 億美元對支持該項目的經濟效益、抵消通貨膨脹以及支付我們在熱電池和太陽能設施上增加的資金非常有幫助。提到的減少90%的碳足跡。

And then the French plant, same thing. It's cornfield, so there's infrastructure you're having to add that's sort of more. And there, you've got a biomass steam plant you're building as opposed to leveraging existing energy infrastructure at the Tennessee site.

然後是法國工廠，也是同樣的事情。這裡是玉米田，所以你需要添加更多的基礎設施。而且，你正在建造一個生質蒸汽廠，而不是利用田納西州現有的能源基礎設施。

So it is a -- each project is quite different in scope in what it's building, and both projects have a lot of incentives to support it. We haven't disclosed the full amount from France, but it's an attractive amount of support as well. I mean I have to say, the French government through everything has been incredibly supportive on incentives, on permitting, helping make sure the policy makes sense in Europe as much as they can. So we really appreciate all their support and everything that they've done to enable that project.

因此，每個專案的建設範圍都非常不同，並且兩個專案都有很多激勵措施來支持它。我們還沒有披露來自法國的全部援助金額，但這也是一筆很有吸引力的援助金額。我的意思是，我必須說，法國政府始終在激勵措施和許可方面給予大力支持，盡可能幫助確保政策在歐洲合理。因此，我們非常感謝他們的支持以及他們為實現該專案所做的一切。

And Mark, if I could ask just on Fibers. And obviously, strong top line driven by Naia. I read your prepared comments. How should the top line trend in Fibers as you move through the rest of the year?

馬克，我可以只問關於 Fibers 的問題嗎？顯然，Naia 推動了強勁的營收成長。我讀了你準備好的評論。今年剩餘時間內纖維業務的營收趨勢將如何？

I think that the Fibers trend from a volume point of view is a bit less in the back half of the year than the first half. So volume and earnings will be a little bit less in the back half of the year. And it's just timing of customer orders. It's sort of normal. We've always talked about this business. The order pattern of the customers is a little bit unpredictable across the year. So it's just that.

我認為，從數量的角度來看，下半年的纖維趨勢比上半年弱一些。因此，今年下半年的銷售和收益將會略有減少。這只是客戶訂單的時間。這很正常。我們一直在談論這個生意。全年來看，客戶的訂單模式有點難以預測。原來如此。

But the textile side will continue to grow and provide earnings growth. The tow volume obviously, as I just said, will come off a bit, and the back half will be a little bit lower in the first half.

但紡織業務將繼續成長並提供獲利成長。正如我剛才所說，牽引量顯然會有所下降，後半部會比前半部低一些。

Our next question comes from Jeff Zekauskas of JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Jeff Zekauskas。

What's the depreciable life of the Kingsport methanolysis plant?

金斯波特甲醇分解裝置的折舊年資是多少？

The depreciable life, you can just think about around 20 years for the Kingsport facility. And honestly, that would be true for each of the large circular recycling plants that we're building.

對金斯波特工廠來說，折舊年限大約是 20 年。老實說，對於我們正在建造的每個大型循環回收工廠來說，情況都是如此。

Great. And in terms of the volume growth in the quarter, Additives & Functional Products shrank 1%. Which of the subcategories declined in volume in the quarter? And in Advanced Materials, where you were up 4%, how would you compare what happens in Specialty Plastics to interlayers to performance films? Did they all grow? Did some of them shrink?

偉大的。從本季的銷售成長來看，添加劑和功能產品下降了 1%。本季哪些子類別的銷量下降？在先進材料領域，你們的銷售額成長了 4%，你們如何比較特種塑膠、中間膜和高性能薄膜領域的情況？它們都長大了嗎？其中一些縮水了嗎？

Sure, Jeff, and nice compound question. You got two segments in one. So on AFP, we were sort of net down 1%, which I'd call mostly flat. And there are meaningful moving parts on that, Jeff. Coatings and care chemicals actually had very good growth sequentially into the first quarter. And then we had much lower specialty fluid bills and heat transfer fluids. And those two sort of offset each other.

當然，傑夫，這是一個很棒的複合問題。您在一個片段中得到了兩個片段。因此，就 AFP 而言，我們的淨跌幅約為 1%，我將其稱為基本持平。傑夫，這其中有著有意義的活動部分。塗料和護理化學品在第一季實際上實現了良好的成長。我們的特殊流體和傳熱流體費用就低得多。這兩者有點互相抵消。

Ag was its own unique dynamic, right? So year-over-year, there's still destocking relative to last year, so demand's down. But we did see more-than-expected sequential improvement in ag demand from Q4 to Q1, which was just less -- it turns out they didn't need to destock as much as they thought. They had confidence about the ag season this year. So in North America, I would say, destocking is over.

Ag 有其獨特的動態，對嗎？因此與去年同期相比，庫存仍在減少，因此需求下降。但我們確實看到第四季與第一季相比，農業需求較上季改善超出預期，只是幅度較小——事實證明，他們不需要像他們想像的那樣大量去庫存。他們對今年的農業季節充滿信心。因此我想說，北美的去庫存階段已經結束。

There is still some residual destocking, competitive dynamics for our customers, not us, but for our customers, going on in Latin America. So there's still some of that destocking to come to an end in the future. But the vast majority of our business is focused on North America. So for us, we're feeling pretty good about the ag business and how it played out.

在拉丁美洲，仍然存在一些剩餘的去庫存現象，這對我們的客戶來說是一種競爭態勢，不是對我們，而是對我們的客戶而言。因此，未來部分去庫存進程仍將結束。但我們的絕大部分業務集中在北美。因此對我們來說，我們對農業業務及其發展感到非常滿意。

Regarding AM, we had a very strong recovery in the durable space. So sequentially, sort of durables were up 15% from Q4. They're up significantly relative to last year. So that was a great improvement. We saw also shrink in cosmetics sequentially grows. Shrink, up 15% and cosmetics also had a good sequential growth. So those were all good, but there's still a lot of destocking offsetting some of that growth in medical. That's still going on.

就 AM 而言，我們在耐用品領域實現了非常強勁的復甦。因此，耐用品銷量較上季上漲了 15%。與去年相比，它們有了大幅成長。這是一個很大的進步。我們也看到化妝品的縮水持續成長。收縮，增長15％，化妝品也實現了良好的環比增長。這些都是好的，但是仍然有大量的去庫存抵消了醫療領域的部分成長。這種事還在繼續。

And there's a tough comp on the performance film side. Last year, we had a very strong loading of channels in China orders. And with the auto markets basically being flat globally, but down in China, the demand was not nearly as good in performance films this year as it was last year against that tough comp. And the interlayer part was sort of flattish with builds.

在表演影片方面，競爭非常激烈。去年我們中國通路的訂單量非常強勁。由於全球汽車市場基本持平，而中國汽車市場卻出現下滑，因此與去年相比，今年高性能薄膜的需求並不理想。且夾層部分有點平坦，有結構。

Our next question comes from John Roberts of Mizuho.

下一個問題來自瑞穗的約翰羅伯茲。

Sounds like the new Kingsport plant at the EBIT level will be modestly above breakeven in the second half. Do you still expect to get to corporate average or higher EBIT margins for that facility? And what happens with the other segment here as Kingsport moves out of other and you begin spending on Longview?

聽起來金斯波特新工廠的息稅前利潤在下半年將略高於損益兩平點。您是否仍期望該工廠的息稅前利潤率達到公司平均或更高？那麼當金斯波特退出其他市場並開始在朗維尤投入資金時，其他市場的情況會如何？

Thanks for the question. Just as a reminder, as we've highlighted earlier, we're on a pathway to the $75 million in incremental EBITDA. I would point out, obviously, in 2023, we had a net investment in the other and an expense of roughly about $25 million. So you can think about EBITDA growing from roughly consuming 25 to about 50 positive for the year.

謝謝你的提問。提醒一下，正如我們之前強調的那樣，我們正朝著 7500 萬美元的增量 EBITDA 邁進。我想指出的是，顯然，在 2023 年，我們對另一項業務的淨投資和支出約為 2,500 萬美元。因此，您可以想像，今年 EBITDA 將由大約 25% 增長至 50%。

As we've highlighted, it took us a little longer to start up here in Q1, and that's the reason that other ran over on the EBIT view. As we transition into the second half, we expect mostly all of the EBITDA growth to occur in the second half, and that would be primarily within Advanced Materials, and that's also why you see our confidence in the range that we provided for AM overall. As I look at it in total, basically, the EBITDA is still about 2/3 Advanced Materials, 1/3 in other for the full year.

正如我們所強調的，我們在第一季的啟動時間稍微長了一點，這就是為什麼其他人對 EBIT 觀點持不同看法的原因。隨著我們進入下半年，我們預計大部分 EBITDA 成長都將發生在下半年，而且主要集中在先進材料領域，這也是我們對 AM 整體提供的範圍充滿信心的原因。從整體來看，基本上全年的 EBITDA 仍約為先進材料的 2/3，其他的 1/3。

On the margin basis question, I would say it's above segment average margins on both EBITDA and EBIT basis in Advanced Materials.

關於利潤率基礎問題，我想說，先進材料業務的 EBITDA 和 EBIT 利潤率均高於分部平均利潤率。

The next question comes from Kevin McCarthy of Vertical Research Partners.

下一個問題來自 Vertical Research Partners 的 Kevin McCarthy。

Just a follow-up on Advanced Materials. Mark, it was nice to see your quarterly results. And I guess, if I look at the annual guide, you're looking for a 40% growth rate at the midpoint versus 2023 annual EBIT for AM. So maybe just if we zoom out the lens, your last couple of years have been kind of dislocated for that business. You're now seemingly coming back and regaining traction into a better place.

這只是對先進材料的後續報導。馬克，很高興看到你的季度業績。我想，如果我看一下年度指南，您會發現中間點的成長率為 40%，而 AM 的 2023 年年度息稅前利潤則為 40%。因此，如果我們縮小鏡頭，也許過去幾年你的業務就有點脫節了。現在你似乎已經回歸正軌並重新進入更好的狀態。

What is your view of the likely growth rate? Or how do you see the puts and takes for that segment over the next couple of years? You had a few years where you did north of $500 million. Now you've got some methanolysis-related earnings flowing into the segment as was just discussed. So how do you see the glide path for AM in '25 and '26? Maybe some color there would be helpful.

您認為可能的成長率是多少？或者您如何看待未來幾年該領域的發展前景？有幾年你的收入超過了 5 億美元。正如剛才討論的那樣，現在有一些與甲醇分解相關的收益流入該部門。那麼您如何看待 AM 在 '25 年和 '26 年的下滑路徑？也許一些顏色會有幫助。

Sure. So first of all, we're extremely happy to have Advanced Materials back on a track of sort of recovering out of an extremely bad demand environment and getting back on track to deliver very attractive growth and very attractive margins for our owners.

當然。首先，我們非常高興先進材料業務重新回到正軌，從極其糟糕的需求環境中恢復過來，並重回正軌，為我們的所有者帶來極具吸引力的增長和極具吸引力的利潤。

At the end of '22 and '23 was obviously sort of the worst demand environment we've ever seen. When you think about how demand came off and that we had over 5 quarters of destocking, along with very low demand in all the discretionary markets, whether it be B&C or durables or even destocking in great markets like medical, I mean, we clearly didn't -- every market destocked out except for auto through the entire year last year. So the volume/mix headwind -- because those were also the highest value markets, was pretty significant.

2022 年和 2023 年底顯然是我們所見過的最糟糕的需求環境。當你考慮到需求如何下降，我們經歷了超過5 個季度的去庫存，以及所有非必需品市場的需求都非常低迷，無論是B&C 還是耐用品，甚至醫療等大型市場的去庫存，我的意思是，我們顯然沒有't——去年全年除汽車市場外，所有市場都去庫存了。因此，由於這些也是價值最高的市場，因此產量/產品組合阻力相當大。

So getting volume back, which is just destocking this year. Remember, we're not guessing any improvement in this forecast for end market growth in the discretionary markets. We're going to, as we've guided, start recovering earnings in a pretty substantial way versus last year.

因此，恢復交易量，也就是今年去庫存。請記住，我們並未猜測這項預測對於非必需品市場的終端市場成長會有任何改善。按照我們的指導，與去年相比，我們的收益將開始大幅回升。

So as you look forward into '25 and '26, we believe we'll certainly get back above where we were in 2021 and continue to grow from that, right? So we don't have any market growth yet in this outlook for this year. So that's upside as the markets stabilize and recover. You've got just getting started on the Kingsport methanolysis plant where the asset utilization is quite low and the volumes are not that high this year. So you've got the fill-out of that plant creating a lot of value so that you can take that $75 million to $150 million of EBITDA and that still has additional upside from there, but that's just in '25.

因此，展望 2025 年和 2026 年，我們相信我們肯定會回到 2021 年的水平之上，並繼續增長，對嗎？因此，從今年的展望來看，我們還沒有看到任何市場成長。因此，隨著市場穩定和復甦，這是有利的。您剛開始金斯波特甲醇分解工廠的運營，該工廠的資產利用率相當低，而且今年的產量也不是很高。因此，該工廠的建成將創造大量價值，從而可以將 7,500 萬美元的 EBITDA 提高到 1.5 億美元，並且仍有額外的上升空間，但這只是在 25 年。

We've got wins going on in our traditional innovation model in other parts of Specialty Plastics that's creating growth. We've got circular economy driven growth in eyewear with our renew recycled loop for all the eyewear companies. And you've got automotive continuing to deliver innovative growth above market. They'll do that this year, and they'll keep doing that as we go forward.

我們的傳統創新模式在特種塑膠的其他領域也取得了成功，並帶來了成長。我們為所有眼鏡公司提供更新的回收循環，以循環經濟推動眼鏡產業的發展。汽車產業持續實現高於市場的創新成長。他們今年會這樣做，並且在未來還會繼續這樣做。

So you've got all these different sources of volume growth that help get back above 2021 and keep going. You've got asset utilization tailwinds that will come with us, especially in the methanolysis plant, which is a pretty large chunk of new costs into this year relative to last year and then leveraging that.

因此，您擁有所有這些不同的銷售成長來源，可協助您重返 2021 年以上並繼續前進。您將獲得資產利用率的順風，特別是在甲醇分解工廠，與去年相比，今年該工廠的新成本佔了相當大的一部分，然後我們將利用這一點。

I would say, on the spread side, I would assume things to be relatively neutral. So we got our margins to an attractive level to support investment in this business from some of the challenges that we had as we caught up to inflation. And prices will probably come off a bit over time in line with how raw material and energy costs are coming off a bit.

我想說，就利差方面而言，我認為事情是相對中性的。因此，我們將利潤率提高到一個有吸引力的水平，以支持對該業務的投資，以應對我們在應對通貨膨脹時遇到的一些挑戰。隨著原材料和能源成本的下降，價格也可能逐漸下降。

So I would say, as you think about the modeling, I wouldn't assume an expansion or contraction in spreads. I would assume that we've got attractive margins now and you're leveraging all that volume against those margins to create a pretty attractive earnings growth.

因此我想說，當你考慮建模時，我不會假設利差會擴大或收縮。我認為我們現在的利潤率很吸引人，而且你們正在利用所有的銷量來抵消利潤率，從而創造相當有吸引力的獲利成長。

And then just as a brief follow-up, I think your commentary cited some new application wins in Advanced Materials. What are those? And do you see yourself as gaining share relative to competitors' broader market growth rates?

然後作為一個簡短的後續問題，我認為您的評論引用了先進材料領域的一些新應用成果。這些是什麼？您是否認為自己相對於競爭對手的更廣泛的市場成長率而言獲得了份額？

Yes. The model of this business has always been growing above end markets because you're winning in applications relative to some other material, right? And that's been true for Tritan forever as well as our copolyesters. So I'll just give you a couple of examples. One, we're growing a lot in hydration bottles in China. It wasn't a market for us. They're using Tritan, and we're seeing growth in those kind of products.

是的。這種業務模式一直在終端市場之上成長，因為相對於其他材料而言，你們在應用方面更勝一籌，對嗎？這對 Tritan 以及我們的共聚酯一直都是如此。我僅舉幾個例子。首先，我們在中國的水瓶業務成長迅速。這不是一個適合我們的市場。他們正在使用Tritan，我們看到此類產品正在成長。

We're seeing -- getting into a broader set of applications with Black & Decker on their tools. Their first launch with Tritan was really successful and now they're expanding into a broader set of tools. We have a new product for shrink packaging that's patented. That is a recycled code 1 product, so it's fully recyclable where the historical products were not. So that's gaining a lot of traction for us both in volume and margin as we just win with a more recyclable product. Obviously, recycled content would add more value to it.

我們看到 Black＆Decker 在其工具上獲得了更廣泛的應用。他們首次推出的 Tritan 非常成功，現在他們正在擴展到更廣泛的工具系列。我們有一種已獲得專利的收縮包裝新產品。這是一種回收代碼 1 產品，因此它是完全可回收的，而歷史產品則不能。因此，這為我們在產量和利潤方面帶來了很大的吸引力，因為我們憑藉更具可回收性的產品獲得了勝利。顯然，回收的材料會為其增加更多價值。

So there's always these wins we have in all kinds of places in the portfolio that sort of has allowed us to deliver attractive growth. And as much as we're very excited about methanolysis, and that is a huge prior of capital deployment and innovation effort, we wanted to remind investors that our core model is still active and winning business every day, and we're adding methanolysis on top of that.

因此，我們在投資組合的各個環節都取得了成功，這使我們能夠實現可觀的成長。儘管我們對甲醇分解感到非常興奮，這是資本部署和創新努力的巨大先行者，但我們想提醒投資者，我們的核心模式仍然活躍，每天都在贏得業務，我們正在添加甲醇分解最重要的是。

The next question comes from Patrick Cunningham of Citi.

下一個問題來自花旗的帕特里克·坎寧安（Patrick Cunningham）。

You seem to be fairly confident that we're reconnecting the primary demand levels here. Did you get the sense that any of the volume improvement in the first quarter came from maybe some modest restocking? I know I have heard the potential that, that's happening on -- from paints and coatings producers or maybe there's people building safety stocks ahead of geopolitical disruption. So I'm just wondering if you've seen any of that in the first quarter and the expectations into 2Q?

您似乎非常有信心我們正在重新連接這裡的主要需求水平。您是否覺得第一季的銷售成長可能來自於適度的補貨？我知道我聽說過這種情況可能發生——來自油漆和塗料生產商，或者也許有人在地緣政治動盪之前建立安全庫存。所以我只是想知道您是否在第一季看到了這些情況以及對第二季的預期？

I'd say on the margin, there's probably a bit of restocking that's occurring. I mean it's almost impossible to really know the answer to that question. When you get into destocking or restocking, your customers are not exactly that clear on what's going on. But I can definitely point to a few examples where Red Sea logistics concerns would cause some -- has caused some customers to buy ahead of that risk in a few places, as an example.

我想說，在邊緣上，可能正在發生一些補貨現象。我的意思是幾乎不可能真正知道這個問題的答案。當你進入補貨或去庫存階段時，你的客戶並不十分清楚到底發生了什麼事。但我可以肯定地指出幾個例子，紅海物流問題會導致一些——例如，已經導致一些客戶在一些地方提前購買以應對風險。

But at this stage, I think it's really hard to call lack of destocking, a little bit of restocking or maybe even a little bit of market growth. I mean there's just no way to know precisely what that is. But I can tell you, it's not a material driver of our earnings at this stage based on what we know from the customers. We're not seeing large orders come in where people are restocking in some sort of noticeable way.

但在現階段，我認為很難說沒有去庫存，或者有少量補庫存，甚至可能有少量市場成長。我的意思是沒有辦法確切地知道那是什麼。但我可以告訴你，根據我們從客戶那裡了解到的情況，這不是我們現階段獲利的重要驅動因素。我們並沒有看到人們以某種明顯的方式補貨，出現大額訂單。

Got it. That's helpful. And then just on the expanded scope for the Longview facility, is the funding you're receiving there from the DOE simply just offsetting that expanded scope? And how should we think about economic returns given this expanded scoping? And would you expect additional premiums? Or maybe are we reliant on some price for carbon abatement in the future?

知道了。這很有幫助。那麼，關於朗維尤設施擴大的範圍，你們從能源部獲得的資金是否僅僅用來抵銷擴大的範圍呢？那麼，在範圍擴大的情況下，我們該如何考慮經濟回報？您還期望支付額外的保費嗎？或者也許我們未來要依賴某種價格來實現碳減排？

Patrick, thanks for the question. The DOE program, as it's designed, basically provides a series of cash payments based on what we negotiate there that basically is providing an investment offset to the CapEx as we move along. So yes, the way I look at it is a direct offset to the capital. Basically, it will be progress payments across the almost 3 years of construction. So you've got that matching. And it's up to $375 million, as we've talked about.

派崔克，謝謝你的提問。按照設計，DOE 計劃基本上根據我們協商的內容提供一系列現金支付，這些支付基本上為我們推進過程中的資本支出提供投資抵消。是的，從我的角度來看，這是對資本的直接抵銷。基本上，這將是近 3 年建設期間的進度付款。因此您已經得到該匹配。正如我們討論過的，這筆金額高達 3.75 億美元。

We're currently negotiating those exact terms of the award, but we're targeting to have a lot of sight to that over the next 3 to 6 months. And it is definitely an offset to the additional -- as we talk about thermal batteries, as we think about the green energy source that this will offset that as well as the additional inflation on that. So it's back to -- and we're confident that we'll have greater than 12% returns on the project.

我們目前正在就該獎項的具體條款進行協商，但我們的目標是在未來 3 到 6 個月內對此有一個大致的了解。這肯定會抵消額外的影響——當我們談論熱電池時，當我們考慮綠色能源時，這將抵消這一點以及由此產生的額外通貨膨脹。所以一切又回到了——我們有信心該專案的回報將超過 12%。

I think it's too early to tell on the sort of premiums associated with decarbonization. It's very clear, people are willing to pay premiums for recycled content. It has very -- like product safety, plastic waste in the environment is a very emotional issue for consumers, and they're really, really not happy about it. And so they're not happy with the brands about it, and they're putting pressure on their politicians to address it.

我認為現在判斷與脫碳相關的溢價類型還為時過早。很明顯，人們願意為再生材料支付高價。它與產品安全、環境中的塑膠廢物一樣，對消費者來說是一個非常情緒化的問題，他們對此非常非常不滿意。因此，他們對品牌的做法感到不滿，並向政客施加壓力，要求他們解決這個問題。

Carbon is still not exactly clear what premiums people are going to get for just decarbonization. So I think there's upside as -- as it becomes a cost to carbon as policies start getting implemented on that front, but we're not assuming any premiums associated with the carbon side of things in our core economics. But we are going to -- we are, as we go forward with this project now that it's very compelling, see what the value is with consumers on that front -- I mean, with the brands.

關於碳，目前還不清楚人們僅僅透過脫碳就能獲得什麼樣的回報。因此，我認為存在上行空間——隨著政策開始在這方面實施，它成為碳排放的成本，但我們不會在核心經濟中假設與碳排放相關的任何溢價。但是，隨著這個非常引人注目的項目的推進，我們將看看它對消費者（我的意思是，對品牌）的價值。

The next question comes from Josh Spector of UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀的 Josh Spector。

I had two questions I wanted to ask on volumes. So on my math, when I look at the first quarter, volumes versus 2019, it was -- it appears to be your easiest comp. You were up 3% year-on-year. So the first piece is, how do you think the year-on-year comps on volumes progressed through the year? Do you do better or worse on where that comp is versus the 2019 baseline?

我有兩個關於卷的問題想問。因此，根據我的計算，當我查看第一季的交易量與 2019 年相比時，這似乎是最容易比較的。與去年同期相比，成長了 3%。因此，第一個問題是，您認為全年銷售量年增率如何？與 2019 年基準相比，您的表現是更好還是更差？

And related to that, I guess, there's a lot of choppiness in some of the numbers. Where would you say your core volumes are in your plans for the year versus 2019? Thinking about that in terms of what's the benefit if you see a stronger demand improvement or a full reconnection versus just improvement?

與此相關，我想，有些數字有很大的波動。與 2019 年相比，您認為今年計畫中的核心銷售在哪裡？考慮一下，如果您看到更強勁的需求改善或完全重新連接而不是僅僅改善，會帶來什麼好處？

Sure. So I think it's easiest to sort of separate our revenue portfolio between what are stable end markets and what are sort of discretionary end markets. The stable end markets have consistently sort of grown through 2019 to now at very modest rates, call it, 2% to 3%, whether it's medical, personal care, et cetera, those kind of markets.

當然。因此，我認為最簡單的方法是將我們的收入組合分為穩定的終端市場和可自由支配的終端市場。穩定的終端市場從 2019 年到現在一直保持著非常溫和的成長速度，大概在 2% 到 3% 之間，無論是醫療、個人照護或其他這類市場。

But there was a dislocation that even in those markets, there was destocking last year that played out, depending on the market 1, 2, 3 quarters to sort of finish their destocking in those markets. And then they've reconnected back to sort of demand and are growing again, which is true for this year, medical being sort of the worst, ag and medical being the most stable markets that had the biggest destocking because of fears of not having inventory in '21 and '22.

但即使在這些市場中，去年也出現了去庫存的情況，這取決於市場 1、2、3 個季度來完成這些市場的去庫存。然後它們又重新回到了需求上，並再次開始增長，今年的情況確實如此，醫療市場的情況最糟糕，農業和醫療市場是最穩定的市場，由於擔心沒有庫存，它們的去庫存量最大在' 21和'22年。

On the discretionary markets, as everyone knows by looking at housing data or automotive build data, well, harder to see it but appliances, electronics, et cetera, same story. Demand is, relative to 2019, not great. We're at a 28-year low in existing home sales in the United States. B&C construction in China is off dramatically, still -- and also a lot in Europe. So B&C prior demand is extremely challenged.

在非必需消費品市場上，眾所周知，透過查看房屋數據或汽車生產數據，很難看出這一點，但家電、電子產品等的情況也是一樣的。與 2019 年相比，需求並不大。美國現房銷售量正處於 28 年來的最低水準。中國的 B&C 建設仍然嚴重落後——歐洲的 B&C 建設也落後很多。因此B＆C的先前需求受到極大挑戰。

When you think about the materials world, existing home sales to something -- to Eastman is more important than new homes, because of all the appliances, electronics, more painting, et cetera. So that market is very challenged. It will come back. It's obviously, I don't think coming back this year, but that's upside to getting back to what is normal from where we are now and then growing from there. So there's a pretty big gap there relative to '19.

當你思考材料世界時，現有房屋銷售對伊士曼來說比新房銷售更重要，因為現有房屋銷售包括各種家用電器、電子產品、更多油漆等等。所以這個市場面臨很大的挑戰。它會回來的。顯然，我認為今年不會回來，但這對於恢復到我們現在的正常狀態並從那裡開始發展是有好處的。因此與 19 年相比，差距相當大。

When it comes to auto, same thing, there's a huge backlog of increasingly older cars that need to be replaced around the world. And first is semiconductors limiting the ability for consumers to buy cars, then interest rates now slowing down the rate of buying cars, but the demand for that will certainly recover and be a significant amount of upside for us. Same thing with durables, big shift to service lifestyle post COVID. At some point, people rebalance back to some blend of buying material, discretionary items and seeing Taylor Swift.

就汽車而言也是一樣，世界各地需要更換的老舊汽車積壓量越來越大。首先，半導體限制了消費者購買汽車的能力，然後現在的利率減緩了購買汽車的速度，但汽車需求肯定會恢復，這對我們來說是一個巨大的上行空間。耐久財的情況也一樣，疫情過後，服務生活方式有了巨大轉變。某種程度上，人們會重新回歸到購買物質、非必需品和觀看泰勒絲的節目的混合模式。

So I think that all those are still well below sort of '19 levels in one form or fashion relative to where they should be. So as you look at this year, and the way our guidance is built, all we have is a lack of destocking, some innovation-driven growth, starting to deliver real value out of methanolysis, stable markets being okay.

因此我認為，從某種形式或方面來看，所有這些都仍遠低於應有的水平。因此，回顧今年，以及我們的指導方針制定方式，我們所擁有的只是缺乏去庫存，一些創新驅動的增長，開始從甲醇分解中提供真正的價值，穩定的市場還不錯。

And all that recovery that I just described is upside to '25 and '26. I'm not about to tell you which year it's going to happen, but there's certainly a lot of upside in places that are most challenged are also our highest value markets from a margin per unit basis. So as those markets went down, it was a significant headwind. As those markets come back, it's going to be a significant tailwind.

我剛才描述的所有復甦都對 25 年和 26 年有利。我不會告訴你它會在哪一年發生，但從單位利潤率來看，在面臨最大挑戰的地方肯定有很多上行空間，也是我們價值最高的市場。因此，隨著這些市場的下滑，這是一個巨大的阻力。隨著這些市場的復甦，這將成為重要的順風。

I appreciate that. I guess if I try to wrap that all together, I mean, I struggle with if your volumes for 2019 versus 2018, are you flat? Are you down high single digits just considering the two offtakes? Is there a way to quantify that at all?

我很感激。我想，如果我嘗試將所有這些放在一起，我的意思是，我很困惑，您 2019 年的銷量與 2018 年相比是否持平？僅考慮兩次銷售，您的損失就高達個位數了嗎？有沒有辦法可以量化這一點？

I don't have that answer for you and that -- at a sort of integrated company basis. We look at everything on a market-by-market basis. And so what I told you is sort of how to view it. Half the revenue is very stable and growing. Half the revenue has a huge amount of upside at very high value. And I'm not going to try and quantify that on a weighted average basis.

我無法給你這個答案，而且這是在某種綜合公司基礎上的。我們根據每個市場的具體情況來審視一切。我告訴你們的是如何看待它。一半的收入非常穩定且正在成長。其中一半的收入具有巨大的上漲空間，而且價值非常高。我不會嘗試根據加權平均值來量化這一點。

Our next question comes from Laurence Alexander of Jefferies.

我們的下一個問題來自傑富瑞（Jefferies）的勞倫斯·亞歷山大（Laurence Alexander）。

Given the feedback you're hearing from customers around the recycling plans now that you've started one off and you have -- you're making progress on the next two. And also kind of that consumers increasingly see that alternatives are available, is that changing the way you think about you're managing the balance sheet and the cadence of projects over, say, the next 5, 7 years?

從您從客戶那裡聽到的有關回收計劃的反饋來看，現在您已經開始了回收計劃，並且在接下來的兩項計劃上也取得了進展。而且消費者越來越多地看到了可用的替代方案，這是否會改變您對管理資產負債表和未來 5 年、7 年專案節奏的看法？

I don't think so. I just want to make sure I understand the question correctly before I try and answer it. We have three -- we have -- the normal core business that has maintenance, right? So there's always CapEx around that, call that in the $350 million range. And then there's always specialty investments we're making in growing our capacity to serve all the different specialty markets we have, which has always been part of our core model, and that takes you to -- with maintenance, $500 million to $600 million range on CapEx.

我不這麼認為。我只是想確保在嘗試回答之前我正確理解了這個問題。我們有三個 - 我們有 - 正常的核心業務，包括維護，對嗎？因此，資本支出總是在這個範圍左右，大約在 3.5 億美元左右。此外，我們一直在進行專業投資，以提高我們服務所有不同專業市場的能力，這一直是我們核心模式的一部分，這將花費你——包括維護費用在內，5 億到 6 億美元左右在資本支出方面。

When you go beyond that, then you're starting to make choices around how much am I doing in share repurchase versus how I'm deploying capital to the circular economy. Obviously, we've got one plant behind us at this stage. So there's a question of when you build France and Texas, how do you stagger them? Are they going to be right on top of each other? And how the CapEx for those two programs, net of incentives sort of add together.

當你超越這一點時，你就會開始選擇我在股票回購方面做了多少以及我如何將資本部署到循環經濟中。顯然，現階段我們已經有一家工廠了。因此存在一個問題，當您建造法國和德克薩斯時，您如何錯開它們？它們會緊鄰彼此嗎？這兩個項目的資本支出扣除激勵措施後如何加在一起。

And we believe we have a balance sheet and a cash flow in place to fund all that. So we don't have to take on debt to do it, just to answer that question. And how we're going to -- I mean, by just nature, I think, as opposed to intention, these projects will end up staggered one way or another. It would be extremely unusual if they both start at the same time just based on getting permits and contracts and everything else. So they'll be staggered to some degree. That's all factored into our analysis about how we work through '25 and '26.

我們相信，我們擁有資產負債表和現金流來為所有這些項目提供資金。所以我們不需要承擔債務來做到這一點，只要回答這個問題。我們將如何——我的意思是，我認為，與意圖相反，這些項目最終將以某種方式交錯進行。如果他們僅僅因為獲得許可證、合約和其他一切而同時開始，那將是極不尋常的。因此他們會在某種程度上感到震驚。這一切都已納入我們對如何度過25年和26年的分析中。

I don't know if you want to add to that, Willie?

我不知道您是否想補充一點，威利？

Yes. So what I would just say is we're confident that we can keep a strong investment grade balance sheet through that. You're seeing that as we updated our guidance on capital this year of being $700 million to $750 million, and expecting share repurchases of $200 million to $300 million.

是的。因此，我想說的是，我們有信心透過這種方式維持強勁的投資等級資產負債表。您會發現，我們已將今年的資本指導價從 7 億美元更新至 7.5 億美元，並預計股票回購額為 2 億美元至 3 億美元。

And as Mark has outlined, we've always been agile between our growth investments and then using any excess cash for bolt-ons, and then returning cash to shareholders. We will continue to be disciplined in that capital allocation, and we expect to generate the cash flow to fund our strategy.

正如馬克所概述的，我們一直在成長投資與使用過剩現金進行附加投資以及將現金返還給股東之間保持靈活。我們將繼續嚴格控制資本配置，並期望產生現金流來資助我們的策略。

Our next question comes from Mike Sison of Wells Fargo.

下一個問題來自富國銀行的麥克·西森。

Nice start to the year. Mark, when you think about maybe a '26, '27 sort of longer-term earnings potentially, your methanolysis facility in the U.S. is ramping up well, it sounds like. And if you add that -- the potential scale up there plus potential volume, is there sort of an EBITDA potential you think you can get back to or get above? I think you peaked about $2.2 billion in '21. Just framing up what the earnings potential is if volume does recover in the next several years.

今年的開始很好。馬克，當您考慮 26 年、27 年的長期盈利潛力時，聽起來您在美國的甲醇分解設施正在順利發展。如果您加上這一點——潛在的規模加上潛在的數量，您認為 EBITDA 潛力是否可以恢復或超過？我認為你的收入在 21 年達到了頂峰，約為 22 億美元。如果未來幾年銷量確實恢復的話，獲利潛力是多少。

Mike, let me start with last year, we had $1.6 billion of EBITDA. This year, our guidance is at $1.8 billion. And what I would say, as we've talked about normalized, that's going to be north of $2 billion. As we think about adding $150 million to $200 million for the Kingsport plant, that puts us in that $2.4 billion range.

麥克，讓我從去年開始說，我們的 EBITDA 為 16 億美元。今年，我們的預期是 18 億美元。我想說的是，正如我們所討論的，正常化後，這個數字將會超過 20 億美元。當我們考慮為金斯波特工廠增加 1.5 億至 2 億美元時，我們的投資金額就達到了 24 億美元。

And then there's upside as we think about adding the Longview project and the France project on top of that. But we're obviously highly focused right now on delivering the growth in Advanced Materials and Additives & Functional Products with the investments we've done to date. As Mark just highlighted, from an end market, ultimately, we're leveraged to a recovery in the economy now that the destocking is substantially behind us. And that's what we're focused on delivering.

當我們考慮在此基礎上添加 Longview 項目和法國項目時，就會帶來好處。但顯然，我們現在高度專注於透過迄今為止所做的投資來實現先進材料、添加劑和功能產品的成長。正如馬克剛才強調的那樣，從終端市場來看，由於去庫存化基本上已經結束，我們最終將利用這一優勢實現經濟復甦。這正是我們致力於實現的目標。

If you do look at it on a historical comp basis, it's more compelling because we sold off $175 million of EBITDA in adhesives and tires and used the proceeds of that to reduce share count, basically neutralizing what we sold off in the EBITDA. So when you get to an EPS level, the leverage of that EBITDA number that Willie just told you is much more significant on the EPS and stock price basis.

如果你從歷史比較的角度來看，它更引人注目，因為我們出售了 1.75 億美元的黏合劑和輪胎 EBITDA，並利用所得減少股票數量，基本上抵消了我們在 EBITDA 中出售的股份。因此，當您達到 EPS 水平時，威利剛剛告訴您的 EBITDA 數字的槓桿作用在 EPS 和股票價格基礎上更為重要。

Our next question comes from Arun Viswanathan of RBC.

下一個問題來自 RBC 的 Arun Viswanathan。

I had a similar question to Mike here. So if you think about your bridge to EPS, it looks like you're on the path to do about $3.60 or so in the first half and that would imply about to $4 to $4.40 for the second half, depending on where you land in the range, the midpoint to the upper end. And so that $4 to $4.40, maybe if you annualize that for next year, that's $8 to $8.80, which would kind of fall in line with your maybe 10% EPS growth targets, or 8% to 12%.

我和麥克有類似的問題。因此，如果你考慮 EPS 的橋樑，看起來你上半年的收益約為 3.60 美元左右，這意味著下半年的收益約為 4 到 4.40 美元，具體取決於你的收入水平。 。因此，如果將明年的每股盈餘按年化，那麼 4 美元到 4.40 美元就是 8 美元到 8.80 美元，這將符合您 10% 的每股盈餘成長目標，或 8% 到 12% 的成長目標。

Is that how you guys are thinking about kind of progress from here? And if that is the case, would that be mainly kind of volume recovery and maybe some methanolysis? Or how are we thinking -- you guys are feeling about kind of where you are in the evolution here with the returns and primary demand and some volume growth? Do you see that target of 8% to 12% EPS growth back in view?

你們對接下來的進展有何看法？如果是這樣的話，這主要是一種體積恢復，也許還有一些甲醇分解嗎？或者我們是怎麼想的——你們對這裡的回報、主要需求和一些銷售成長的演變有什麼看法？您是否認為每股盈餘成長 8% 至 12% 的目標又會實現？

Yes. I think you framed it well, and I think it fits into the end market lens and the leverage to the volume growth that we've seen since 2019, which is it's basically been roughly flat to slightly negative since that timeline at the corporate level and the volume/mix line.

是的。我認為你很好地闡述了這一點，並且我認為它符合終端市場的視角，並且與我們自2019 年以來看到的銷量增長相一致，也就是說，自那以後，在公司層面上，銷量成長基本上持平或略微為負。

With the combination of Advanced Materials and the leverage, we talked about how that volume/mix drops to the bottom line with the fixed cost structure that we've had in combination with the growth. In the back half of this year, we see that leverage for the application growth as well as the back half EBITDA growth for the methanolysis facility.

透過結合先進材料和槓桿，我們討論瞭如何透過結合成長的固定成本結構將產量/產品組合降至底線。今年下半年，我們看到了應用成長的槓桿作用以及甲醇分解設施下半年 EBITDA 的成長。

When we look into growth in 2025, we've talked about another $75 million of EBITDA growth from methanolysis and the application wins that we'll have there as well as we're at solidifying our contract structure on Fibers. So you can consider that stable in this period. And we will have growth as ag recovers, as building and construction recovers and AFP. And I would say we're at sort of trough levels in the intermediate space. So 10% growth at the midpoint is reasonable as we go forward.

當我們展望 2025 年的成長時，我們談到了甲醇分解帶來的另外 7500 萬美元的 EBITDA 成長和我們將在該領域獲得的應用勝利，以及我們正在鞏固我們在纖維方面的合約結構。因此，您可以認為這段時期是穩定的。隨著農業、建築業和 AFP 的復甦，我們將實現成長。我想說我們正處於中間空間的低潮水平。因此，從我們未來的發展來看，中間點 10% 的成長率是合理的。

I'd just add, AFP also has growth. We're an exceptionally low level of heat transfer fluid fills this year. We have a clear order book to that $30 million drop from '23 to '24 to recover that as we go into '25, not to mention B&C having any kind of market recovery would be upside. So there's upside in AFP, there's a lot of upside in AM, stability in Fibers, CI's at the bottom of the market. So at some point, start coming off of that and recovering from a spread point of view. So there's multiple ways you sort of combine that together to get to growth next year versus this year.

我想補充一點，AFP 也在成長。我們今年的傳熱流體填充量極低。我們有明確的訂單，以應對 23 年至 24 年期間 3000 萬美元的下降，以便在進入 25 年時恢復這一下降，更不用說 B＆C 的任何市場復甦都會帶來上行空間。因此，AFP 具有上漲空間，AM 具有很大的上漲空間，Fibers 保持穩定，而 CI 處於市場底部。因此，在某個時候，開始擺脫這種狀況，並從傳播的角度進行恢復。所以，有許多方法可以將這些結合起來，以實現明年相對於今年的成長。

Let's make the next question the last one, please.

我們將下一個問題作為最後一個問題。

So our final question comes from Salvator Tiano of Bank of America.

我們的最後一個問題來自美國銀行的 Salvator Tiano。

So firstly, I wanted to ask a little bit about the France project and setting aside CapEx and regulations. How do you see the OpEx there? And especially because I think a couple of months ago, you signed an agreement with a recycling company to import PET waste from -- as far away as Italy and Spain, which obviously, it would mean pretty high feedstock costs. So does this mean that there could be -- that the France project may have elevated OpEx because of that, firstly?

所以首先，我想問一些關於法國計畫以及擱置資本支出和法規的問題。您如何看待那裡的營運支出？尤其是因為幾個月前，你與一家回收公司簽署了一項協議，從義大利和西班牙等遙遠的地方進口 PET 廢料，這顯然意味著相當高的原料成本。那麼，這是否意味著──首先，法國計畫的營運成本可能因此而增加？

And secondly, why so far -- you haven't signed agreements with -- for more domestic supply because of things that -- in Europe with our single-stream PET recycling, it will be the ideal location. And again, you still have to go as far as France and Italy to get feedstock.

其次，為什麼到目前為止你們還沒有簽署更多國內供應的協議，因為歐洲擁有我們的單流 PET 回收設施，是理想的地點。而且，你仍然需要前往法國和義大利才能獲得原料。

So this is a large-scale project and aggregating feedstock from a wider range than just France, given the state of the current infrastructure in Europe for collection and sortation is the appropriate thing to do, right? France is a huge opportunity to improve in collections and sortation. It's part of why they want to really support this project.

所以這是一個大型項目，考慮到歐洲目前收集和分類的基礎設施狀況，收集來自法國以外更廣泛地區的原料是適當的，對嗎？法國在收集和分類方面有巨大的改進機會。這也是他們真正想要支持這個專案的原因之一。

Currently, we have about 70% of our feedstock under contract, which is a mixture of France, Germany, at least Spain, as you noted. The logistics costs were always factored into our economics for this approach to the marketplace, so that's all built in. But the last 30% is not signed because we want to work with the French government and the local municipalities across France to sort of get that feedstock closer in as they develop that infrastructure.

目前，我們約 70% 的原料都是合約貨，如您所說，這些原料來自法國、德國，至少還有西班牙。對於這種市場方式，物流成本一直被計入我們的經濟因素中，所以這一切都是內建的。以達成這一目標隨著他們開發該基礎設施，原料將更加接近。

So that's sort of where we want to go. That's why we're not signing up for any more from other places, because we're focusing on how to get more out of France for that last remainder. But that's all built in, and the actual logistics cost per kg is not significant in the economics for this plant.

這正是我們想要去的地方。這就是為什麼我們不再從其他地方簽約，因為我們專注於如何在最後剩餘的時間裡從法國獲得更多。但這些都是內建的，每公斤的實際物流成本對於該工廠的經濟效益來說並不重要。

Okay. Perfect. Then the other thing I want to clarify is about what do we expect for this year, Fibers volumes, because Q1 was down 7% sequentially. You talked about Q2 being similar to Q1 and then another step down in second half. So that pretty much seems to imply a very big annual decline, which I don't think is what we were expecting.

好的。完美的。然後我想澄清的另一件事是我們對今年的纖維產量有何預期，因為第一季環比下降了 7%。您說過，第二季與第一季類似，但下半年會再下滑。所以這似乎意味著年度下降幅度非常大，我認為這不是我們所預期的。

On the volume, what I would say is -- there's only -- we've talked about Naia growing, and we expect that to grow on the -- as the date front, we would expect, I'll call it, flat to modestly down, but we also provide intermediates and flake, and we would expect that's where some of the volume would be declining.

關於銷量，我想說的是——我們只談論了 Naia 的增長，我們預計它會在日期方面有所增長——我們預計，我稱之為持平至略有下降，但我們也提供中間體和薄片，我們預計部分產量將會下降。

On a full year basis, it gets a little complicated when you're doing -- looking at sequential and year-over-year numbers for this. The volume is relatively flat to last year when you look at it on a full year basis.

從全年來看，當你查看連續數字和同比數字時，事情會變得有點複雜。如果從全年來看，銷量與去年基本持平。

Okay. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I really hope you have a great day and a great weekend. Thank you.

好的。感謝大家今天的參與。我真心希望您度過愉快的一天和愉快的週末。謝謝。

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連線。