Westlake Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Westlake Corporation second quarter 2026 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. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, August 4th, 2026. I would now like to turn the call over to today's host, Jeff Hawley, Westlake's Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer. Sir, you may now begin.

Thank you, Dana. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Corporation conference call to discuss our second quarter 2026 results. I'm joined today by Albert Chao, our Executive Chairman, Jean-Marc Gilson, our President and CEO, John Bocht, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Steve Bender, our Special Advisor to the President, 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 Jean-Marc, who will open with a few comments regarding Westlake's second quarter performance. Jean will then discuss our financial and operating results, after which Jean-Marc will add a few concluding comments and will open the call up to questions. References to income from operations, EBITDA, Net income and earnings per share on this call exclude the financial impact of the identified items. As such, comments made on this call will be in regard to our underlying business results using non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures is provided in our earnings release, which is available in the investor relations section of our website. 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 Forum 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, 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 second 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, August 4th, 2026, 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 Jean-Marc Gilson. Jean-Marc?

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone.