Albemarle Corporation

President of Investor Relations and Sustainability.

Thank you and welcome everyone to Albemarle's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. Our earnings were released after the close of market yesterday, and you'll find the press release and earnings presentation posted to our website under the investor section at albemarle.com. Joining me on the call today are Kent Masters, Chief Executive Officer, and Neal Sheray, Chief Financial Officer. Natha Johnson, President of Specialties, and Eric Norris, President of Energy Storage, are also available for Q&A. As a reminder, some of the statements made during this call, including our outlook considerations, guidance, expected company performance, and timing of expansion projects, may constitute forward-looking statements. Please note the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in our press release and earnings presentation that also applies to this call. Please also note that some of our comments today refer to non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations can be found in our earnings materials. And now I'll turn the call over to Kent.

Thank you, Meredith. Starting on slide four, our full year results show continued strong volumetric growth with 2023 marking the highest net sales and second highest EPS in Albemarle's history. This highlights the focus and ability of our global team to succeed in a macro environment that remains challenging. We ended the year with net sales of $9.6 billion, up 31% compared to 2022, of which 21% was related to volume growth. Energy storage delivered 35% volumetric growth in 2023. For the full year 2023, Albemarle's adjusted EBITDA was $2.8 billion, or $3.4 billion, excluding a lower cost or market charge recorded in the fourth quarter. Excluding this non-cash charge, adjusted EBITDA was in line with our previous expectations. In January, we announced a series of proactive measures to re-phase our organic growth investments and optimize our cost structure. These disciplined actions should allow us to unlock more than $750 million of incremental cash, advance near-term growth, and preserve future opportunities. Today, we will provide our initial thoughts on our full-year 2024 earnings. To help investors model Albemarle in the current environment, we will introduce scenarios based on recently observed lithium market prices. Neil will provide more details on this in a few minutes. We remain as confident as ever in the future of Albemarle and ongoing demand for the essential elements we provide to support modern infrastructure, including mobility, energy, connectivity, and health. The secular trends of clean energy, electrification, and digitalization continue to drive growth. We are uniquely positioned to capitalize on the opportunities in our end markets, in particular lithium demand. Over the past year, we have further strengthened Albemarle's position and are committed to navigating the near-term dynamics in a disciplined manner to both support and capitalize on these global trends. I'll now hand it over to Neil to discuss our financial results.