Westlake Chemical Partners LP

Good afternoon. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Westlake Chemical Partners first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, you will be invited to participate in a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, May 5th, 2026. I would now like to turn the call over to today's host, Jeff Hawley, Westlake Chemical Partners Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Kelly. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Chemical Partners first quarter 2026 conference call. I'm joined today by Albert Chow, our Executive Chairman, John Mark Gilson, our President and CEO, Steve Bender, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and other members of our management team. During this call, we refer to ourselves as Westlake Partners or the Partnership. References to Westlake refer to our parent company, Westlake Corporation, and references to Opco refer to Westlake Chemical Opco LP, a subsidiary of Westlake and the Partnership, which owns certain Oliphant's assets. Additionally, when we refer to Distributable Cash Flow, we are referring to Westlake Chemical Partners MLP Distributable Cash Flow. Definitions of these terms are available on the partnership's 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. We encourage you to learn more about the factors that could lead our actual results to differ by reviewing the cautionary statements in our regulatory filings, which are also available on our investor relations website. This morning, Westlake Partners issued a press release with details of our first quarter 2026 financial and operating results. This document is available in the press release section of our webpage at wlkpartners.com. A replay of today's call will be available beginning two hours after the conclusion of this call. The replay can be accessed via the partnership's website. Please note, that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, May 5th, 2026, and therefore, you are advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay. I would finally advise you that this conference call is being broadcast live through an internet webcast system that can be accessed on our webpage at wlkpartners.com. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Jean-Marc Kilson. Jean-Marc?

Thank you, Jeff, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our first quarter 2026 results. In this morning's press release, we reported Westlake Partners' first quarter 2026 net income of $14 million, or 40 cents per unit. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, our first quarter sales and earnings benefited from a higher third-party average sales price that was offset by slightly lower production and sales volume. The stability of Westlake Partners' business model is consistently demonstrated through our fixed-margin ethylene sales agreement, which minimizes market volatility and other production risks. The high degree of stability in cash flow when paired with the predictability of our business has enabled us to deliver the long history of reliable distribution and coverage. This quarter's distribution is the 47th consecutive quarterly distribution since our IPO in July 2014 without any reductions. Before I turn the call over to Steve, I want to provide some thoughts on our CFO transition. As you may have read, on April 20th, we announced that on June 15, John Baxt will join Westlake Corporation and Westlake Partners LP as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. John brings experience from the oil and gas, packaging, and building product industries, as well as investment banking to Westlake, and we look forward to him joining the partnership. On June 15th, Steve Bender will transition to the role of Special Advisor and will continue to report to me as he supports the transition. We anticipate that Steve will participate in the second quarter earnings call in August. And with that, I would like to turn our call over to Steve to provide more detail on the financial and operating results for the quarter. Steve?

Thank you, Jean-Marc, and good afternoon, everyone. In this morning's press release, we reported Westlake Partners' first quarter 2026 net income of $14 million, or 40 cents per unit. Consolidated net income, including OPCO's earnings, was $82 million on consolidated net sales of $306 million. The partnership had distributable cash flow for the quarter of $18 million, or 51 cents per unit. First quarter 2026 net income for Westlake Partners of $14 million, was $9 million above the first quarter of 2025 partnership net income due primarily to higher production and sales volumes as a result of last year's planned turnaround at Petro 1. Distributable cash flow of $18 million for the first quarter of 2026 increased by $13 million when compared to the first quarter of 2025 due to higher production sales and sales volumes and more maintenance capital expenditures as a result of last year's Petro One planned turnaround. As compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, net income for Westlake Partners in the first quarter of 2026 declined by less than $1 million due to lower production and sales volume that was mostly offset by higher third-party average sales price. Sequentially, our trailing 12-month coverage ratio improved to one times from 0.8 times reflecting the aging out of the impact of the Petro-1 turnaround that occurred in the first quarter of 2025. Additionally, our operating surplus improved by $1 million as we achieved a coverage ratio above one in the first quarter. Turning our attention to the balance sheet and cash flows, at the end of the first quarter, we had consolidated cash and cash investments with Westlake through our investment management agreement totaling $81 million. Long-term debt at the end of the quarter was $400 million, of which $377 million was at the partnership. The remaining $23 million was at OPCO. In the first quarter of 2026, OPCO spent $6 million on capital expenditures. We maintained our strong leverage metrics with a consolidated leverage ratio of approximately one times. On May 4th, 2026, we announced a quarterly distribution of 47.14 cents per unit with respect to the first quarter of 2026. Since our IPO in 2014, the partnership has made 47 consecutive quarterly distributions to unit holders, and we have grown distributions 71% since the partnership's original minimum quarterly distribution of 27.5 cents per unit. The partnership's first quarter distribution will be paid on June 1, 2026, to unit holders of record on May 14, 2026. The partnership's predictable fee-based cash flow continues to prove beneficial in today's environment and is differentiated by consistency of our earnings and cash flows. Looking back since our IPO in July of 2024, we have maintained a cumulative distribution coverage ratio of approximately one times, and the partnership stability in cash flows, we were able to sustain our current distribution without the need to access capital markets. For modeling purposes, we have no planned turnarounds in 2026. I'd like to turn the call back over to Jean-Marc to make some closing comments. Jean-Marc?

Thank you, Steve. We are pleased with the partnership financial and operational performance during the first quarter. Solid operating rates at OPCOS ethylene facilities during the quarter resulted in a quarterly coverage ratio of 1.0x. Turning to our outlook, the conflict in the Middle East has significantly disrupted the global supply of oil, chemical feedstocks, and polymers. Resulting supply concerns are prompting global chemical customers to source more material from North America in response to the conflict. which is supporting higher demand and prices for North American ethylene. While most of OPCOR's ethylene volume is contracted to Westlake at a fixed margin of 10 cents per pound, margin for the approximately 5% of production that OPCOR typically sells to third parties is benefiting from higher selling prices as a result of the factors I just discussed. Turning to our capital structure, we maintain a strong balance sheet with conservative financial and leverage metrics. As we continue to navigate market conditions, we will evaluate opportunities via our four levers of growth in the future, including increases of our ownership interest of OPCO, acquisitions of other qualified income streams, organic growth opportunities such as expansions of our current ETLN facilities, and negotiation of a higher fixed margin in our ETL and SACE agreement with Westlake. We remain focused on our ability to continue to provide long-term value and distribution to our unit holders. As always, we will continue to focus on safe operations, along with being good stewards of the environment where we work and live as part of our broader sustainability efforts. Thank you very much for listening to our first quarter earnings call. Now I will turn the call back over to Jeff.

Thank you, Jean-Marc. Before we begin taking questions, I'd like to remind you that a replay of this teleconference will be available two hours after the call has ended. We'll provide instructions to access the replay at the end of the call. Kelly, we'll now take questions.

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of James Altschul of Aviation Advisory Service, Inc. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my call. In your prepared remarks, you mentioned that you anticipate you're seeing, I believe, increased margins on the 5% of your sales to third parties as a result of the war. and thus the increased interest in sourcing your products from a North America-based supplier. Did we really see the impact of that in the first quarter because the war started at the end of February? I'm not remembering exactly when the price of oil started to jump and the shipping was intercepted. Are we going to see a more significant impact in the second quarter?

Yes, it's a very good question. And I will say that as a result of the run-up in ethylene pricing, we did take the opportunity in the first quarter, in March, to actually sell more third-party ethylene volumes than would be normally the case. We typically try to take opportunities to maximize the margin in this business when we see opportunities like this. And we did sell more volume in the first quarter than might be typically done as an example last year's first quarter. And it did improve the margins associated with the business as a result of doing so. As we look into the second quarter, if we see opportunities of this nature and continue to see elevated ethylene, we'll continue to do so.

Okay, but I'm looking at the income statement, and it says on the revenue, the figure for third-party sales is a few million less than the comparable quarter last year, because that's sales, not margin.

Yeah, and so, again, just the impact of only one month of activity. I do expect that if the ethylene remains as elevated as it has been recently, you'll see more of a positive impact in the second quarter.

Excellent. Thank you very much.

You're quite welcome.

Thank you. I am showing no questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Jeff Hawley.

Thank you, Kelly. Thanks, everyone, for participating in today's call. We hope you'll join us for our next conference call to discuss our second quarter 2026 results.

in today's Westlake Chemical Partners first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, this call will be available for replay beginning two hours after the call has ended and may be accessed until 1159 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. The replay can be accessed via the partnership website. Goodbye.