Albemarle Corporation

Hello and welcome to Albemarle Corporation's Q4 2025 earnings call.

I will now hand it over to Meredith Bandy, Vice President of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Thank you and welcome everyone to Albemarle's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Our earnings were released after market closed 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 Neil Sherry, Chief Financial Officer. Mark Mummert, Chief Operations Officer, and Eric Norris, Chief Commercial Officer, 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 strategic initiatives, may constitute forward-looking statements. Please note the cautionary language around forward-looking statements contained in our press release and earnings presentation, that same language 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. For the fourth quarter, we reported net sales of $1.4 billion, up 16% year over year, with double-digit volume growth. We also delivered adjusted EBITDA of $269 million, up 7% year over year, reflecting strong growth in energy storage and significant cost and productivity improvements. Turning to the full year. We achieved net sales of $5.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $1.1 billion. As expected, these results were at or above our previous outlook considerations. Significant cost and productivity improvements, volume growth, and sales channel mix contributed meaningfully to our full-year performance. We are providing an update to our lithium demand outlook to incorporate stronger lithium demand growth for stationary storage. As a result, our estimated range for global 2030 lithium demand is up 10% versus our previous forecast. That brings me to our new full-year 2026 outlook. We are using the same methodology as we have the past two years, providing outlook ranges for various lithium market price scenarios. This year, those ranges reflect both our operational improvements and higher lithium pricing. We are also targeting additional cost and productivity improvements of 100 to $150 million and stable capital spending in 2026. As a result, we see the potential for meaningful positive free cashflow at current lithium pricing. Since 2024, we have successfully executed actions to reduce costs and capital intensity, generate cash and enhance financial flexibility. In 2025, we achieved approximately $450 million in run rate cost and productivity improvements and reduced capex spend by 65% year-over-year. In January 2026, we closed the sale of our stake in the EuroCat joint venture. We now expect to close the sale of a majority stake of Ketchin to KPS Capital Partners in the first quarter, slightly ahead of our initial schedule. Together, these transactions are expected to generate approximately $660 million in pre-tax proceeds, improving financial flexibility, streamlining our operations, and enhancing focus on our core businesses. As we turn to slide 5, yesterday we announced the difficult but necessary decision to idle operations at our Kimmerton lithium hydroxide plant to improve financial flexibility and preserve optionality. Unfortunately, recent lithium price improvements alone are not enough to offset the challenges facing western hard rock lithium conversion operations. This action is expected to be accretive to adjusted EBITDA beginning in the second quarter with no impact to sales volumes. Our investments in top-tier mining resources at Greenbushes and Wajana and our exploration interests in Western Australia remain important components of Albemarle's strategy and are not impacted by the decision to idle operations at Kimberton. Now, I'll turn it over to Neil to discuss recent results and outlook. I will then cover recent market trends and growth before we open the call for Q&A.