Celanese Corporation

Hello, and welcome to the Celanese Q3 2023 Earnings Calling Webcast. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may press star one at any time to be placed in the question queue. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Brandon Ayosh, Investor Relations.

Please go ahead. Thanks, Kevin. Welcome to the Celanese Corporation's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Brandon Ayash, Vice President, Investor Relations, and with me today on the call are Lori Ryarkirk, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Richardson, Chief Financial Officer. Celanese distributed its Third Quarter earnings release via Business Wire and posted prepared comments on our Investor Relations website yesterday afternoon. As a reminder, we'll discuss non-GAAP financial measures today, You can find definitions of these measures as well as reconciliations to the comparable gap measures on our website. Today's presentation will also include forward-looking statements. Please review the cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements, which can be found at the end of both the press release as well as the prepared comments. Form 8K reports containing all of these materials have also been submitted to the SEC. Before opening it up for your questions, let me turn it over to Lori to provide a few introductory comments.

Thanks, Brandon. So we've done and announced a lot recently. So I just wanted to take a minute or two to emphasize again exactly what we are all working so hard to achieve at Celanese. I can confidently say that at no point in our history has there been a greater opportunity for Celanese to deliver significant earnings growth as in the next few years. In the acetil chain, we continue to enhance our earnings power and optionality with projects like the acetic acid expansion at Clear Lake, and the methanol expansion, also at Clear Lake, which will dramatically strengthen our sustainable product offerings. Of course, in engineering materials, we continue to integrate and synergize the M&M acquisition, which transforms EM into the preeminent global specialty materials provider. This important and valuable work has been made more challenging in a demand backdrop that remains exceptionally weak and volatile. Our visibility into future macro conditions is limited. Regardless, our teams have worked tremendously hard to deliver three consecutive quarters of earnings growth since closing the M&M acquisition and to position us to meaningfully exceed our full-year objective to reduce net debt by $1 billion in 2023. The work has not been easy, and I sincerely thank each of our employees for their individual contributions and dedication. Quite frankly, while the work is moving forward at pace, The macro environment has temporarily amassed some of the underlying financial benefit of our actions to strengthen our business. But we remain resolute in continuing to take decisive and controllable actions. Our most recent actions, including the announced changes to our leadership team and manufacturing footprint, are evidence of our ongoing commitment to drive earnings growth and execute against our delivery plan. The purpose behind the changes I've made in our executive leadership team is to enhance the alignment of our individual strengths and experience to accelerate and deliver on the many value-enhancing opportunities before us. Scott, Chuck, and Ashley are exceptionally well-prepared for their new roles, and I am confident these changes will immediately enhance the value we drive as a collective leadership team. I speak for our leadership team and broader selling needs in saying we are fully engaged and committed to delivering on the opportunities before us. With that, Kevin, let me turn it back over to you to open it up for questions.