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Eastman Chemical Company (EMN)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Fri, Jul 29, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Please standby, we're about to begin. Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Eastman Chemical Company's Second Quarter 2016 Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. This call is being broadcast live on the Eastman website at www.eastman.com. We'll now turn the call over to Mr. Greg Riddle of Eastman Chemical Company Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Gregory A. Riddle - Vice President-Investor Relations & Communications: Okay. Thanks, Ron, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. On the call with me today are Mark Costa, Board Chair and CEO; Curt Espeland, Executive Vice President and CFO; and Louis Reavis, Manager-Investor Relations. Before we begin, I'll cover two items. First, during this presentation, you will hear certain forward-looking statements concerning our plans and expectations. Actual events or results could differ materially. Certain factors related to future expectations are or will be detailed in the company's second quarter 2016 financial results news release and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Form 10-Q filed for first quarter 2016 and the Form 10-Q to be filed for second quarter 2016. Second, earnings per share and operating earnings referenced in this presentation exclude certain non-core costs, charges, and gains. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and other associated disclosures, including a description of the excluded items, are available in the second quarter 2016 financial results news release that could be found on our website, www.eastman.com, in the Investors section. Projections of future earnings also exclude any non-core, unusual or non-recurring items. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark. Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, everyone. I'll start on slide three. I'll begin my comments with strategic highlights for the second quarter and first half of…

Operator

Operator

Yes, indeed. [Operator Instruction] And we'll take our first question from Mr. Frank Mitsch from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Frank J. Mitsch - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Good morning, gentlemen. Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning.

Frank J. Mitsch - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Mark, obviously, a large part of the reduction in 2016 outlook is related to Chemical Intermediates. And obviously, you're in the process of trying to monetize some of the crackers as well as other parts of that portfolio. Given the fact that you were hitting a rougher patch than expected earlier in the year in the Chem Intermediates business, how is this impacting your outlook on when and what value you can execute a transaction? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Frank, I'm going to start and let Curt finish. We're obviously pushing as hard as we can in this process. It's a pretty dynamic time with what's going on with a lot of very temporary challenges in olefins, especially ethylene, as part of the package what we're divesting. You've got a lot of stranded ethylene in the market today in the U.S. When you look at it, ethylene prices here, almost $0.20 a pound lower than the globe. So, it's pretty disconnected. So, we have to make sure that we think about the long-term value of this business and get an appropriate price. We do have engaged buyers who are very seriously considering it but we're working through the steps of it. Curtis E. Espeland - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. So, if I could add, again, as we mentioned there have a number of management presentations that have occurred, and there again are active conversations going on. But as you already mentioned, Frank, we recognize it's currently tough economic environment or environment with ethylene margins right now. So, really in order for this to really progress, our belief, it really requires two strategic parties, buyers or sellers that understand the long-term value of olefins and the value of the quality of assets that we have. So, my sense is everyone is kind of looking at that way but we'll see how it plays out. In regards to timing it's still a top priority for us. We've got a great team working on it but we'll just have to be disciplined as we go through the process and it will still take a greater part of this year to see how this plays out.

Frank J. Mitsch - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Terrific. And in terms of the outlook approaching or could be down 10%, what sort of olefin margin are you embedding in that forecast, i.e., are you assuming second quarter levels or are you assuming June levels? Are you assuming July levels? I just want to try and get a baseline there as to what is embedded in that outlook. Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, Frank, you just summarized the problem of forecasting olefins. You pick a week and you can have a different answer. There's a lot of volatility going on right now. As I mentioned, on the olefin side, we're seeing – especially ethylene but as well as propylene being fairly depressed in the U.S. relative to what's going on outside the U.S. So, even though oils improved, we haven't really seen a logical improvement of those olefin prices. And that's been a disappointment in the second quarter and we certainly revised our outlook for the rest of the year to reflect the current conditions that have been in the sort of June, early July timeframe when we built our forecast. I would also note that while the olefin prices haven't gone up much, the propane prices and ethane prices have, especially propane. So, they have tracked up with oil with the significant improvement in global export capacity to get the propane out of the country. So that's created some compression here that on a long-term basis, I don't think it plays out. I don't think you have ethylene and propylene stranded in the U.S. forever. There is, obviously, not enough derivative capacity to monetize that monomer in the globe, but that will come online like many people have already discussed. And this disconnect will get closed and we will go back…

Frank J. Mitsch - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll move to our next question from David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. Mark, on acetate tow, your other main competitors, we talked about similar aggressive pricing actions in the industry and competitors chasing volume. If it's not you and it's not them, it's obvious Solvay and maybe DYCELL. How are number three and four players causing so much problem in this industry? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Dave, I guess this question might come up and, obviously, there's been a lot of commentary in the industry already with investors about what's going on in the space. And so, I've spent a lot of time trying to put my thoughts together, and I think there's a number of things that are important to be clear about, both in the market context and what our strategy is. So, let's start with demand. First of all, nothing's changed in our view about tow demand for this year and moving forward. Outside of China, continues declining, 1% to 2%. We still believe that the primary issue in China this year is inventory destocking of tow where they had way too much inventory in tow and we think that will run its course this year. There remains some uncertainty about what that will turn into next year because while I think tow destocking will be over, we still don't have clear understanding of what's going on in cigarette demand in China. And so, there's chance of some continued destocking there. But when you put it all together, our view is tow imports into China next year will be sort of flat to potentially modestly up. Regarding our specific performance versus our competitors, as you can see through the first half of this year in the data, we are obviously taking a bit more of a hit in volume than…

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Very helpful, Mark. Just one more quick question for you and Curt on the buybacks. What's the trigger to accelerate the buybacks in the back half of the year heading into 2017? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, if you look at the timing of the buybacks plan, also we have good visibility to our free cash flow. We know our free cash flow will be a little stronger second half of the year than the first half. And so, we also then will know we're on track to be able to complete the deleveraging, the total $500 million this year. And so, we are accelerating our share repurchases, and that acceleration is occurring as we speak.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

We will take our next question from Vincent Andrews from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Vince, are you there? Gregory A. Riddle - Vice President-Investor Relations & Communications: Ron, go ahead and move on to the next, please.

Operator

Operator

Okay. You know what, I apologize. He is still in the conference. Go ahead, Mr. Andrews. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Vincent Stephen Andrews - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hello? Hello? Hello? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hi there. There you are. Vincent Stephen Andrews - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Sorry about that. Sorry. It's Friday. In Chemical Intermediates, you referenced a few products that (37:00) oversupply and sort of exacerbating the pricing issue with the energy cost. I'm just curious, when you look at those supply and demand balances, as we get into 2017 and into 2018, is there incremental capacity coming in those products, or are we going to see the worst of that S&D balance this year and as demand grows over the next couple of years, things should tighten up a bit. How is that going to play out? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Great question. From what we see right now, we think the price pressure is upon us, based on those capacities. I don't think we see any increase in those pressures in any significant way. There is incremental capacity being brought on always in these kind of products. But unfortunately, the prices are now down to what I think is cash cost for the different relevant Asian players that we face. So, we've sort of reached the bottom, as long as oil stays in the sort of $40 range. Obviously, if oil drops into the $20s, you're going to see additional pressure. Curtis E. Espeland - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And if oil goes up, we'll get benefits as well. Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. If oil goes up, as many expect, that…

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Aleksey Yefremov from Nomura Securities. Please go ahead.

Aleksey Yefremov - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning. Thank you. In your Advanced Materials, you averaged about 5.5% volume growth in the first half. Is this about the level that we can expect in the second half? And also, what is sort of organic growth going forward in the segment? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Advanced Materials is just a phenomenal success story for us last year and this year. And what I love about it is what you just highlighted. It's a volume and mix-driven story. It's not some temporary expansion on price relative to raws. So we feel great about how we're building on last year's tremendous growth this year. And we do expect volume growth to continue in a similar level in the second half of this year, and we'd expect unit volume growth to continue into next year. But it's really important to highlight, it's not about the absolute volume growth, it's all about the mix. So, while we're having double-digit growth in really high margin, great innovative products like acoustic interlayers, heads-up display, Tritan, our whole Performance Films business, our core copolyester are growing slower than the average that have lower margins. And so, you're really getting a great mix improvement in every quarter on top of just good overall solid volume growth. Curtis E. Espeland - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And if I could add, the margins you're seeing from the businesses are the kind of margins you would expect given the investments being made with this business.

Aleksey Yefremov - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you. And maybe back to Fibers. How far down this road of price cuts is the industry for committing 2017 contracts? Is there still time, do you think, to sort of – for the industry to pull up and be more rational? Or I guess, in other words, has there been significant volume committed at lower prices for 2017? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I'd say where we are – the customers were quite smart in sensing that the industry had excess capacity. It's been a great industry for 10 years of consistent earnings growth for us and incremental improvements in margins. Over the last five years, we've been increasing price. And with the excess capacity, I think customers are smart and they sense an opportunity and they started contract discussions early to see what kind of price improvements they could get. And some people responded and we're defending. And so, I think that that's – that horse has left the barn as far as 2017 goes. We're going to see prices come down at our large customers. But I do think that positive side of the story is they also put a high value on stability and security supply and are looking for long-term commitments in contracts with suppliers that are committed to being in the industry for the long-term. And we stand out as the most committed given our integration and scale so that I think it will work well for us as we try to maintain our market share position. And so, these long-term contracts, if this is the way it continues to play out will also provide needed stability for our customers on price and supply. And, of course, it also helps us provide stability to us, too.

Aleksey Yefremov - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Jim Sheehan from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

James M. Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning. In the tow business, do you see any opportunities for strategic combinations or joint ventures or would antitrust issues preclude anything like that as being a possibility? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I think we've looked at it for ourselves of course and given we're the largest merchant supplier in the industry it's unlikely we could do anything. I think in a flat to declining industry, you can make a case for consolidation and get it approved when a couple of other competitors want to come together. In theory, any combination of the other three competitors is possible, based on our look at it, but it would obviously be a comprehensive process with the antitrust agencies to make sure that there'll be no harm to customers, but I think it's possible. Whether or not it happens is, obviously, out of our control and we'll have to see what our competitors choose to do.

James M. Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Great. And could you comment on how your propane hedges roll off next year? And how you see propane supply/demand? And just generally, how do you see propane factoring into your earnings for 2017? Curtis E. Espeland - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: So, I'll answer the hedge first. On the hedge, nothing has dramatically changed and our outlook of the impact of the hedge is net of the currency. We said that impacts around $0.60 a share and we think about half of that will still roll off next year. But we'll have to see how propane moves around a little bit. But generally speaking, we still expect that benefit next year. Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I'd note that that hedges and that comment, so that's both propane headwind being rolled off as well as the currency hedge benefits coming off. On the outlook for propane and propylene, I guess, what really matters is the cracking spread relative to propylene and ethylene. Our view is the market is already reconnecting propane to global values with all the export capacity that's readily available in the U.S. So, I think you're seeing that now with our propane prices improve through the second quarter and even as oil has come off recently, you've seen propane prices follow it down. So, it just depends on your view on oil and you can get a view of what you think propane is going to do next year. The bigger question is, what I already discussed which is, what our ethylene and propane prices can do to you especially ethylene as they've been stranded and disconnected. I mean, it's really significant when you think about ethylene in Asia in the mid-$0.40 range, and we're in the mid-to-high $0.20 range in ethylene x 700 million pounds of ethylene that we sell. It's just that product line. You do the math and whatever you think that delta should be and you can get to some very large earning numbers that it's been a headwind for us relative to what we expected at the beginning of the year.

James M. Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mike Sison from KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Good morning, guys. Mark, when you think about your portfolio, I think you've done a nice job moving it in the right direction, but you still have about a-third of it circling quite a bit here. Does it make sense to look at more acquisitions? And what percent of your portfolio do you think you need to be able to offset these headwinds over time? I mean, is it more like an 80%, 90% of your portfolio of specialty or what do you think you need to do to get more stable? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Mike. Certainly, we're committed to driving our portfolio towards specialty as hard as we possibly can, and you do that through multiple things. We've done, I think, some excellent acquisitions, large ones like Solutia and Taminco and some bolt-ons as well. And we paid reasonable prices for them and are going to get attractive ROICs relative to weighted average cost of capital. And, frankly, those acquisitions were intentional. We always knew we had challenges in Fibers and olefins at some point in the future. We intentionally chose not to build crackers and PDH unit because we were convinced five years ago that that industry would overbuild. And we're intentionally diversifying our portfolio with the strength of the cash that we had at the time in olefins and fibers, into a more attractive long-term market where we can innovate. So, I think that part of the strategy is great and on track. And of course, we've always been a disciplined seller of underperforming businesses. We've sold off $300 billion of revenue from PET, the polyolefins, et cetera, in the past and we're trying to get rid more of it now in this current process, on the bulk ethylene…

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Great. And then, Advanced Materials has been a bright spot this year. Operating income is up 14% in the first half. You mentioned that it should grow double digits in 2016. Will you have double-digit growth in the second half of 2016? And if so, what do you think will drive that? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. I think we're going to continue to have rate of growth through the rest of the year in its volume and mix. It's just a continuation of the story we've been delivering for a long time.

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jeff Zekauskas from JPMorgan.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Curtis E. Espeland - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Can you remind me how much is your pension funding this year? And I would imagine your pension liabilities will grow given the interest rate environment that we're in. And so, do you have any sort of guesstimate for how your pension funding might change next year or in future years? Curtis E. Espeland - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: So, Jeff, I'll answer those in reverse order, if you don't mind. First of all, we do anticipate lower discount rates. And so, if you just give a $0.01 for every 25 bps that the discount rate lowers in 2016 that's roughly a $50 million increase in our liability for our pensions. If you expand that globally about $90 million. And so, if you take current discount rates, there's probably about a 75 bps, 80 bps decline. So, you're looking at maybe a couple of hundred million increase in your pension liability. But it's only July so we'll see what the next five months hold. As it relates to pension funding, we contributed about $100 million last year. I suspect it will be between $50 million to $75 million this year.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Got it. Great. And then, for my follow-up, in the Additives & Functional area, can you remind me which product lines are growing in volume and which ones are shrinking? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Sure, Jeff. So, overall, the segment net had a 2% volume growth for the second quarter. And what we're seeing is very strong growth in tire additives, especially Crystex. Great recovery there and we're doing really well with our customers across the globe there. And then anti-dumping tariffs on tires are really helping us out as we have a stronger position outside of China and we're benefiting from that shift to the U.S. Coatings are growing with the market consistent with our customers. And as you think about adhesives, it's also – has modest growth. All that success is being offset to some degree by decline in energy markets, which has been double-digit. We have some products that go downhaul into that space, and industrial construction, which is where fluid is going. And so, we're obviously seeing a pretty drop in the construction cycle in China when it comes to chemical plants and demand is off there.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you so much.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Laurence Alexander from Jefferies.

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Good morning. I had two questions. First, just want to connect two of the responses earlier. The comments around 8% to 10% growth next year, do you need the areas in your Intermediates business to stabilize for that to happen? Or you've seen enough lever and thought you can get to 8% even if the current pressures spill over into next year and the bottoming out process is pushed out? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. We're assuming that the world stays similar to the way it is today. So, oil stays in the 40s, economy continues to grow slowly and there is a modest improvement in oil prices next year relative to this year, but not anything material. And with those conditions, we believe Chemical Intermediates can grow earnings over this year. You have to remember that you got a net $0.30 of share tailwind of the hedge, when you back out currency that's $0.40 of propane hedges coming off and a $0.10 headwind in currency, net $0.30, and a lot of that, that tailwind flows in to Chemical Intermediates, 80% roughly. So, you've got that tailwind. And you've got what we think is a bottoming out situation right now in pricing and behavior by our competitors. And so, we're not assuming some dramatic recovery next year. Curtis E. Espeland - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And if I could add, don't forget, we've also announced the additional cost actions because given the challenges of Fibers potentially being down 10% to 20% next year, we don't want to sit idle. And so, we're taking the additional cost actions plus, we expect good strong free cash flow next year and the ability to deploy that in a balanced way across debt and share repurchases.

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

And secondly, if and when energy markets recover, what do you see is the lag effect for your business to recover? And is your operating leverage in any way diminished by the cost-out actions you've taken? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: The cost actions certainly don't diminish anything. We are very committed to innovation. The only way we actually deliver long-term growth, long-term margins for our shareholders is innovate. That's true, I think, of any company in this industry, if you don't innovate, your products get commoditized. That's just a fact of life. So, our cost reductions are not – we have a very bright line where we're not going to cross that. But we are going to push our cost reductions to the limit. And I'd also note, we are already at very low cost. And we already stretched our Functional scale capability tremendously with the large number of acquisitions we've done. So, we feel good about where we are, but you can always push for more, and that's what we're going to do. When it comes to the overall market dynamics as we go into next year, I think we're set up well to grow our businesses through volume and mix in the specialties, and hold our margins. And I think, Chemical Intermediates, the situation, we hope is stabilizing, as long as oil doesn't take another big step down.

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from P.J. Juvekar of Citigroup.

P.J. Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Yes. Hi. Good morning. Mark, you talked about C2 chain being weak. I have a question on C3 chain. Propylene prices were generally stable in second quarter, around $0.30. Are the propylene derivatives still falling, or have you seen some stabilization? Can you just talk generally about the C3 chain? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. I think the C3 chain, I think we've talked about it to some degree already which is, propylene prices seem to have stabilized right now, but they're not improving as oil improved, as much as propane did. So you've seen some compression in that spread. And if you look at it year-over-year, obviously, there is tremendous compression in propylene to propane spread versus a year ago in the second quarter, as well as how we view the next couple of quarters. But I think that over time, it will go back to a more normal relationship. Propylene is a little bit artificially depressed by all the excess supply of PDH out there. But end of the day, propylene price is going to get set out of Asia, particularly probably China, and it's going to either be PDH, methanol, or to olefins or NAFTA, all of them connected to oil. So, once we get enough derivative capacity out there to turn all this propylene into something, I think you start getting back to some more normal relationships of propylene to propane, with wherever oil turns out to be.

P.J. Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

You talked about your portfolio transformation. A lot of investors think the portfolio is a bit too complicated for them to understand. I know you're divesting ethylene. The longer this transformation takes, your multiple is getting impacted in the meantime. So, can you give us a sense of timing on what you're thinking about this transformation, and when do you think you can sort of feel like you've done it? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. So, roughly, this year, two-thirds of earnings will come from AM and AFP, which is a dramatic change, if you look at who we are today versus five years ago. So, I think we've made huge progress on altering our portfolio and it was intentional, as I said. Obviously, we didn't expect the accelerated pressure in Fibers and Chemical Intermediates we're experiencing at the moment, So I thought I had a little more time to sort of grow the specialties relative to those two segments. But I do think we're doing everything we can, and we're cutting costs aggressively to offset the margin compression we're facing in Fibers and CI as much as we can. And I think oil will recover to some degree at some point, and that will give us a big tailwind relative to some of these businesses. So I think – this is a really tough year for us, obviously. I'm not happy about it. We're doing everything we can, on every front, to make it as good as possible. But right now, we got to organically grow. We got to divest what we can and returning cash to shareholders. And I think that is going to be a compelling story, if you look at how we can perform in that context relative to this year going forward and relative to, I think, many of our peers. So, we're on the right track. We just got to keep driving it.

P.J. Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Duffy Fischer from Barclays.

Duffy Fischer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. Good morning, fellows. Three questions on tow, if I could. First is, you talk about being low cost, which I think everybody would grant you. But bigger question is, how steep do you think the cost curve is, so you guys versus, say, the plant that sits at the 90th percentile of the cost curve, how big is that delta? Second question would be, how much has the low methanol prices changed the cost dynamic for your competitors, and therefore the dynamics in tow? And then the last one is, selling half of your JV back to Solvay, on the surface of it, giving a smaller competitor more capacity doesn't seem logical. So, could you walk through the logic of doing that deal? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: So, I'll take the first two, Curt will take the last one. So, in regards to the shape of the curve, we are definitely the lowest cost player. And to answer your question, the curve has flattened out a bit, because – while we're based on coal, our competitors are based on natural gas and methanol that drives their cost structure. And certainly, those prices have come down. So, in this year, it's feeling a little bit sort of flattened out relative to the past. As you look forward, coal's going to probably stay pretty low in the U.S., and natural gas prices are already moving up, and methanol prices will certainly move up with oil as well. So, I think the curve is actually going to steepen relative to us from this year going forward, is our view of sort of how that cost curve's changed and is going to go back to being steeper as we move forward. I'm not going to get into details of the steepness of the curve. What I can tell you though is, there's plenty of high-cost assets out there that are discrete standalone assets. And if someone wanted to improve their earnings and their cost position to serve their customers, that's the choice that they have to work through. Curtis E. Espeland - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: On the flake joint venture, as you know, we enjoyed the benefits of that flake joint venture for a number of years, a good partner, a good asset. But given our debottlenecking of our own low-cost flake assets and the shutdown of Workington, we're now balanced. So we didn't need that capacity off that joint venture. So, really, we agreed to sell our share to that joint venture. I think it's a good outcome for both parties, because we'd be able to match our flake to our tow capacities around the world. It gives them a low-cost flake asset. I assume that gives them some options to think about, but you need to ask them about that.

Duffy Fischer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thank you, guys. Gregory A. Riddle - Vice President-Investor Relations & Communications: Ron, let's make the next question the last one, please.

Operator

Operator

Perfect. And we'll take our last question from Mr. Bob Koort from Goldman Sachs. Robert Andrew Koort - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thanks very much. Guys, in the Chemical Intermediates, I mean, pretty jarring results to nearly make no money. I'm just curious if you look across that portfolio, it seems like there's several businesses that should be reasonably good. So, are there some reasonable loss makers in there at the moment? Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: So, Bob, I think we've called that ethylene enough and obviously that one is pretty challenged in the current economic situation. It's also important to keep in mind that while we're certainly not happy about the hedge with low oil that the margins in this business will probably be double if you extract the hedge out of this segment. So, it's certainly not good and we're not happy about it. But if you look at operating earnings before financing activity, it's quite a bit better. And we'll, by that reason, get better as the hedge rolls off over the next two years. But, certainly, we're under pressure in bulk ethylene. That's the only sort of one that is sort of in a challenged situation. The others are just much lower margins than what we'd like it to be. And as I said, plasticizers, is an example of the place that's under a lot of pressure hence our antidumping case. Curtis E. Espeland - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And Bob, if I could... Robert Andrew Koort - Goldman Sachs & Co.: (01:02:25). Mark J. Costa - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Curtis E. Espeland - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I'm sorry, Bob, just to remind you. The second quarter results do include roughly…

Operator

Operator

And that will conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.