Westlake Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Westlake Corporation third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, you will be invited to participate in a question and answer session. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, November 3rd, 2022. I would now like to turn the call over to today's host, Jeff Hawley, Westlake's Vice President and Treasurer. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Corporation conference call to discuss our results for the third quarter 2022. I'm joined today by Albert Chow, our President and CEO, Steve Bender, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Roger Kearns, our Chief Operating Officer, and other members of our management team. During the call, we will refer to our two reporting segments, performance and essential materials, which we refer to as PEM or materials, and housing and infrastructure products, which we refer to as HIP or products. Today's conference call will begin with Albert, who will open with a few comments regarding Westlake's performance. Steve will then discuss our financial and operating results, after which Albert will add a few concluding comments and we'll open the call up to questions. Today, management is going to discuss certain topics that will contain forward-looking information that is based on management's beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to management. These forward-looking statements suggest predictions or expectations and thus are subject to risks or uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in Westlake's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2021 and other SEC filings. We encourage you to learn more about these factors that could lead our actual results to differ by reviewing these SEC filings, which are also available on our investor relations website. This morning, Westlake issued a press release with details of our third quarter results. This document is available in the press release section of our website at westlake.com. We have also included an earnings presentation, which can be found in the investor relations section on our website. A replay of today's call will be available beginning today, two hours following the conclusion of this call. This replay may be accessed via Westlake's website. Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, November 3rd, 2022, and therefore you are advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay. Finally, I would advise you that this conference call is being broadcast live through an internet webcast system that can be accessed on our webpage at westlake.com. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Albert Chow. Albert?

Thank you, Jeff. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us to discuss our third quarter 2022 results. In this morning's press release, we reported net income for the third quarter of 2022 of $401 million, or $3.10 per share, on sales of $4 billion. We're all keenly aware of the changes in the global economic conditions, with rising interest rates, high energy prices, and decelerating growth across our end markets. that have occurred since mid-year 2022. During the third quarter, our earnings were pressured by high energy costs, particularly in Europe, decelerating industrial and construction activity, and inventory stocking by our customers. Westlake has proactively taken steps to navigate these market uncertainties to align our production to meet demand and prioritize higher value products. our energy and feedstock advantage in North America, where over 85% of our global production capacities positioned, provided opportunities to reach export markets as domestic construction and building demand for PVC in the U.S. slowed. Thus, our product portfolio with a concentration in North America continues to leverage the benefits from the structural cost advantage in feedstocks fuel, and power. This cost advantage, combined with ability to scale our operations to meet market conditions, puts Westlake in a good position to navigate through this challenging economic environment. Slowing demand for PVC and building products tighten markets for chlorophyll and does improve the markets for caustic soda. As a leading chlorophyll producer in North America, Pricing strengths in Cossack Soda positioned us to capture strong margins in this quarter, partially offsetting lower margins in our other products. Our leading positions in large diameter PVC pipe and fittings continue to perform well in the third quarter and is well situated to benefit from government spending in infrastructure projects for years to come. I will now later turn our call over to Steve to provide more detail on our financial results for the third quarter 2022.