Albemarle Corporation

Hello and welcome to the Q3 2022 Albemarle Corporation Earnings Conference call. My name is Alex and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you'd like to ask a question at the end of the presentation, you can press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, you may press star 2. I'll now hand over to your host, Meredith Bandy, Vice President of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Alex, and welcome, everyone, to Albemarle's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Our earnings were released after the close of market yesterday, and you'll find the press release and presentation posted to our website under the investor relations section at albemarle.com. Joining me on the call today are Kent Masters, Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Tozier, Chief Financial Officer, Raphael Crawford, President of Catalyst, Natha Johnson, President of Bromine, and Eric Norris, President of Lithium, are also available for Q&A. As a reminder, some of the statements made during this call, including our outlook, guidance, expected company performance, and timing of expansion projects, may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Please note the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in our press release and presentation. That same language applies to this call. Please also note that some of our comments today refer to non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation to GAAP financial measures can be found in our earnings release and the appendix of our earnings presentation. Lastly, I would like to highlight that in January, we plan to host a webcast to provide our full year 2023 guidance and new five-year targets for our restructured businesses. With that, I will turn the call over to Kent.

Thanks, Meredith, and thank you all for joining us today. On today's call, I'll highlight our third quarter results and achievements. Scott will provide more detail on our financial results, outlook, balance sheet, and capital allocation. I'll then close our prepared remarks with an update on our structure and our strategic growth projects. We had another excellent quarter as Albemarle continues to benefit from the demand for lithium ion batteries driven by the energy transition. This plus growth in bromine drove a strong third quarter. We generated net sales of $2.1 billion or more than two and a half times the prior year period. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA of $1.2 billion or approximately five times the prior year period continued the trend of EBITDA increasing significantly outpacing sales growth. We are tightening our previously raised 2022 outlook and reaffirming our expectation to be free cash flow positive for the year. Scott will review the key elements of our outlook and his remarks. In October, we completed the acquisition of the Chenzhou Lithium Conversion Facility in China. This, along with the mechanical completion of the Kimmerton 2 lithium conversion project in Australia, has us on track to more than double our lithium conversion capacity this year. In response to the growth opportunities ahead of us, we announced during the quarter a new segment structure that is expected to take effect in January of 2023. We are realigning our core lithium and bromine businesses into Albemarle Energy Storage and Albemarle Specialties. Additionally, we completed the strategic review of the Catalyst business. After our work, we determined that the best course was to hold the business as a separate entity with a separate brand identity. Going forward, this business will be known as Ketchin. After the founder of the refining Catalyst business, a callback to the business's proud history of innovation and sustainability. Now I'll turn the call over to Scott to walk through our financial.