AdvanSix Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Advance 6 second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Adam Kressel, VP, Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chad. Good morning and welcome to Advance Six's second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. With me here today are President and CEO Aaron Kane and Senior Vice President and CFO Michael Preston. This call and webcast, including any non-GAAP reconciliations, are available on our website at investors.advancix.com. Note that elements of this presentation contain forward-looking statements that are based on our best view of the world and of our business as we see it today. Those elements can change and the actual results could differ materially from those projected, and we ask that you consider them in that light. We refer you to the forward-looking statements included in our press release and earnings presentation, In addition, we identified the principal risks and uncertainties that affect our performance in our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K as further updated in subsequent filings with the SEC. This morning, we will review our financial results for the second quarter of 2024 and share our outlook for our key product lines and end markets. Finally, we'll leave time for your questions at the end. So with that, I'll turn the call over to AdvanceX's President and CEO, Erin Kane.

Thanks, Adam, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us here today for our quarterly call. As you saw in our press release, we delivered a strong second quarter with year-over-year improvement in sales, earnings, margin rate, and cash flow, and a return to targeted utilization rates across our integrated value chain. This performance reflects our collective organization's focused execution to capture commercial benefits and the advantages of our business model and diverse product portfolio. We realized a 6% improvement in sales, reflecting higher domestic nylon volumes, a robust domestic application season for ammonium sulfate, and continued strength in acetone pricing. Our disciplined capital execution continued to support long-term performance and growth, including Sustain, our sustainable U.S. sulfate to accelerate increased nutrition program. Overall, our team delivered strong operational performance, including near-record production of granular ammonium phosphate. Additionally, we returned $8 million of cash to shareholders through dividends and repurchases. Looking ahead into the second half, we continue to have several year-over-year tailwinds supporting a favorable earnings outlook, including a continued tight global acetone supply and demand environment, modestly improving North American nylon industry spreads, And we started the third quarter with a robust ammonium sulfate fill program at higher pricing levels compared to the prior year. We are highly focused on delivering the right outcomes for our stakeholders by driving superior operational and commercial performance to meet the evolving needs of our customers, building capabilities to strengthen our innovation and portfolio resiliency, and executing against a disciplined capital deployment framework. We continue to positively position the enterprise to fuel future earnings and cash flow performance in support of robust total shareholder returns. Let me now turn the call over to Mike.