Operator
Operator
Hello and welcome to the LyondellBasell Teleconference. At the request of LyondellBasell, this conference is being recorded for instant replay purposes. Following today's presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session.
LyondellBasell Industries N.V. (LYB)
Q4 2020 Earnings Call· Fri, Jan 29, 2021
$71.35
+0.46%
Same-Day
+1.15%
1 Week
+8.75%
1 Month
+25.71%
vs S&P
+22.64%
Operator
Operator
Hello and welcome to the LyondellBasell Teleconference. At the request of LyondellBasell, this conference is being recorded for instant replay purposes. Following today's presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session.
David Kinney
Management
Thank you, operator. Hello, and welcome to LyondellBasell's fourth quarter 2020 teleconference. I'm joined today by Bob Patel, our Chief Executive Officer; and Michael McMurray, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin the business discussion, I would like to point out that a slide presentation accompanies today's call and is available on our website at www.lyondellbasell.com. Today we will be discussing our business results while making reference to some forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. We believe the forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions and the alternative measures are useful to investors. Nonetheless, the forward-looking statements are subject to significant risks and uncertainty. We encourage you to learn more about the factors that could lead our actual results to differ by reviewing the cautionary statements in the presentation slides and our regulatory filings, which are available at www.lyondellbasell.com/investorrelations. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures, together with other disclosures, including the earnings release, are also currently available on our website. Finally, I would like to point out that a recording of this call will be available by telephone beginning at 1:00 PM Eastern Time today until February 28 by calling 800-846-0305 in the United States and 402-998-0543 outside the United States. The passcode for both numbers is 6541. During today's call, we will focus on the fourth quarter and full year results, the current environment, our near-term outlook and provide an update on our growth initiatives. Before I turn the call over to Bob, I would like to call your attention to the non-cash lower of cost or market inventory adjustments or LCM that we have discussed on past calls. These adjustments are related to our use of last-in first-out LIFO accounting and the recent volatility in prices for our raw materials and finished goods inventories. During the fourth quarter, we recognized pre-tax LCM benefits totaling $147 million compared to LCM charges of $163 million during the first nine months of 2020. During the third quarter, we recognized a non-cash impairment charge of $582 million related to our Houston Refinery. Comments made on the call will be in regard to our underlying business results, excluding the impacts of the refinery impairment and the LCM inventory adjustments.
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Thank you, Dave, and good day to all of you participating around the world. We appreciate you joining us to discuss our fourth quarter and full year results for 2020. Let's turn to Slide 3. 2020 was unlike anything we have ever seen or experienced, oil price volatility, a global pandemic and an associated recession. To call this year unprecedented would be an understatement. So before we get into the results today, I want to take a few minutes to provide some context around our approach to navigating the past year, because I think it speaks well to who we are as a company and the character and talent of our team. Early in the year, as it became clear that the virus is becoming more widespread, our leadership team established three guiding principles for the short term; number one, protect our employees and communities; two, keep our commitments to our investors; and three, take actions to strengthen the company for the future. In past earnings calls, I've talked about some attributes of our culture; operational and commercial excellence, cost management and capital discipline. These qualities served us particularly well during 2020 as we bolstered liquidity by rapidly accessing capital markets, minimizing working capital and efficiently generating cash. Importantly, we honored our commitment to an investment-grade credit rating and continue to fund dividends and capital investments with cash from operations. As we review our results today, I hope the outcome of these priorities and the benefits of this culture will be clear. Beyond the strategy itself, I also want to take a moment to acknowledge our global team that delivered our results. These individuals, both those who were able to work remotely and those who continue to work on the front lines at our manufacturing sites form a strong and nimble team. They have my sincere and deepest gratitude. If the pandemic reinforced anything, it is the value of our products and industry in serving modern society's needs. Knowing that the materials produced by our plants go into end products like face masks, medical gowns and COVID-19 test kits, our team took immediate action to ensure our manufacturing sites would continue to supply our customers, while prioritizing the safety of our workforce. I'm very proud to say that not only did we continue to operate reliably, but to date there have been no cases of workplace virus transmission among our employees.
Michael McMurray
Management
Thank you, Bob, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 7, and let me begin by highlighting our track record of improving cash conversion. The benefit of efficient cash conversion becomes more apparent during periods of economic downturns when liquidity provides defense against risk from volatility and uncertainty. Over the past year LyondellBasell converted 88% of our EBITDA into $3.4 billion of cash from operating activities. As a result of the challenging market dynamics in 2020, our business teams took aggressive actions in managing inventories to drive free cash flow and maximize liquidity to release more than $300 million of cash from working capital. We are pleased to report that despite the downturn, we've fully funded $1.4 billion in dividends and our $1.9 billion capital investment program through cash generated from operating activities in 2020. The $4.20 per share of dividends paid by our company during the year extends LyondellBasell's track record of consistently paying and increasing our base dividend over the past 10 years. Let's continue to Slide 8 and review further details of our cash generation and deployment throughout the year. As you can see, we increased the amount of cash in our balance sheet by approximately $1.4 billion during 2020, to end the year with $2.5 billion in cash and liquid investments. Cash from operations fully funded a small amount of share repurchases in the first quarter of 2020 as well as the full year's dividends and capital expenditures. In 2020, we accessed very attractive debt capital markets to extend maturities of existing debt, fund acquisitions and bolster liquidity. These borrowings increased gross debt by $3.9 billion relative to the prior year. A portion of the new bonds funded the $470 million equity contribution for our joint venture with Bora in China, and the $2 billion acquisition of our 50% share of the Louisiana integrated polyethylene joint venture with Sasol. We incurred about $70 million in pre-tax cost due to our fourth quarter refinancing activities. We ended the year with $5.2 billion of cash and available liquidity that enabled us to reduce the balance of our term loan by $500 million in January of 2021. We will continue to prioritize deleveraging over the course of this year, which should allow us to further strengthen our investment grade balance sheet.
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Thank you, Michael. Let's turn to Slide 10, which illustrates our quarterly profitability over the past five quarters. Unlike a typical year where LyondellBasell's business portfolio would follow a seasonal trend with peak earnings occurring midyear, the pattern seen in 2020 are reversed with higher profitability in the first and fourth quarters. The rebound in profitability since the second quarter has been remarkable as the global economy proceeds on a path to recovery. EBITDA in the final quarter of 2020 was $1.3 billion, the highest for any fourth quarter since 2017, and more than $375 million higher than the prior quarter. The trajectory supports our belief that pandemic-driven reductions in demand for our products bottomed during the second quarter. Our Olefins and Polyolefins segments served strong consumer-driven demand for packaging and non-durable products throughout the year, while our Intermediates and Derivatives and Advanced Polymer Solutions segments benefited from improving industrial sector demand for durable goods during the second half of the year. We have only seen modest recovery in the demand for transportation fuels. Our Refinery and Oxyfuels & Related Products businesses continued to experience headwinds from excess capacity and slack demand due to persistently low global mobility. While we would naturally prefer to see strength in all of the markets we serve, the geographic and end-market diversity of our product portfolio continues to provide offsets that help to dampen business cycles. Let's turn to Slide 11, and look at the latest thoughts from consultants on the global polyethylene business cycle. Industry consultants have forecasted that capacity additions, especially in China, could outpace global demand over the next four years. These predictions seem reminisce in the forecast from consulting reports published in 2016 depicted by the dotted blue line, which predicted global operating rates would get due to the capacity…
David Kinney
Management
Hello, Amanda, are you on mute?
Operator
Operator
Can you hear me, sir?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes, we can.
Operator
Operator
Our first question comes from Steve Byrne. Your line is open.
Steve Byrne
Analyst
Yes, thank you. On the topic of sustainability, I'm curious to hear your estimate of your - can you hear me okay?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes. Yes. Go ahead. There is a bit of background noise. Amanda, perhaps this is on your side. Go ahead Steve.
Steve Byrne
Analyst
Okay. The - what fraction of your polyethylene volumes are sold in their end markets, where customers are asking for some type of a sustainable product? I'm curious to hear your view, whether this is a push by your initiatives or is this being pulled by the end market customers that you're selling into? And of that fraction, how would you split it into the three buckets that you're working in? You have the mechanical recycling JV with SUEZ, you have the pyrolysis molecular recycling project, and then you also have the bio-based feedstock project with Neste. Which of those three do you think are really driving us? Or do you think those end market customers are really above the line?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Thank you, Steve. Good morning. First of all, in terms of how much of our polyethylene demand our customers are asking for sustainable products, I mean, if you think about our sales of polyethylene more than half of it goes in the packaging, whether it's flexible or blow molded bottles or those sorts of things. So I think it's safe to say more than half, probably close two thirds over time, we'll want to have sustainable products as part of the mix that we sell them. In terms of their preference, for food packaging, clearly, the molecular recycling would be the most desirable because essentially what we're doing is we're creating new feedstock and producing FDA approved resin. So our molecular recycling will be the most important development as we look at the next five to seven years, but I think mechanical recycling will continue to play a role. And that's where we're capturing the near-term opportunities. And as you know, we have a molecular recycling pilot plant that we built in Italy. We're working - I had a review with my R&D team, in fact, this week, and they are working diligently to perfect the technology and get to semi works as soon as possible.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Bob Koort. Your line is open. Bob Koort, your line is open.
Bob Koort
Analyst
Thanks very much. Bob, I was hoping you could give us an update on how the commercialization of your two new JVs is progressing, and maybe some milestones there?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes, so good morning, Bob. Things are going very well. So I'll start with Bora. We have - we've stacked up in the marketing side, both sales and customer service. We have a full-fledged organization. Local leadership in China ramping up our marketing efforts to sell more directly rather than through trading activities. So we're selling 100% of the polymer output over there in Bora, and things are going quite well. I will tell you it's increased our visibility on the market and demand trends. And so all the things we thought would occur when we had a bigger presence. We're starting to see that. Sasol JV, we're operating the facility as part of the agreement. We have - the site manager is a LyondellBasell employee. He was a site manager of one of our sites here in Houston. The marketing of the products is just part of our usual marketing that we do on other polyethylene grades that we already producing. So my sense is that the integration has been very seamless. And both JVs are really now part of the system.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Arun Viswanathan. Your line is open.
Arun Viswanathan
Analyst
All right. Thanks for taking my question. Good morning. I guess I just wanted to get your thoughts on, again the polyethylene market as well as the polypropylene markets. So in polyethylene, I guess, conditions have definitely held up a lot better than what lot of us had thought. And now with the durables, market kind of recovering. I guess, do you expect maybe a little bit of give back in Q2 as operating rates pick up, and we see little bit more supply coming to the market? Or do you expect kind of price resilience? And then in polypropylene, maybe similar questions we've seen a real surge in monomer. And so how does that kind of translate to your outlook for polymer pricing and margins downstream? Thanks.
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Good morning, Arun. Both are very tight. So let me talk about polyethylene first. Speaking for ourselves and inventory is still very low. In fact, we're looking for opportunities to build back some inventory, but because demand is so strong, we're not able to do that. On the pricing front January price increase discussions are essentially finished and the implementation of the increase is going to occur. The next increase for February is on the table and likely there will be very good discussion about that as well. If you think about markets being tight in January, typically as we go into the spring, we see a seasonal uptick in demand. And so I think that supply-demand fundamentals are going to remain tight through the first half of the year for polyethylene. And polypropylene, similarly, as you said, propylene prices run up quite a lot. But inventories are still low, we're struggling to build inventory because demand is so good. And as you said about durables, probably applies more to polypropylene. As the economic recovery really takes hold in Europe and U.S., I think we're going to see probably more pool from durable goods end uses. So we're quite constructive of about both frankly. It looks tight through the first half of the year. And the other thing I would add is, there is quite a bit of downtime on - a planned downtime in the industry for crackers. So that's going to keep monomer prices probably high through the first half of the year. There is also a very large PDH turnaround here on the Gulf Coast. So that will keep propylene pretty strong through May, I would imagine.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Vincent Andrews. Your line is open.
Vincent Andrews
Analyst
Bob maybe just to follow up on the polyethylene demand. In one of the slides, the capacity utilization slide, you put the scenario out there where demand could grow 7% in 2021. And I'm just wondering if you could bridge us between the sort of 4% expectation and what would get it up to 7%. And within that, as a follow-up to one of your earlier comments on sort of expecting the normal seasonal improvement in demand in the second and third quarter, does the COVID environment minimize that at all with everybody at home, and what have you or do you think we'll still see the same seasonality in demand? Thanks.
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Sure, Vincent. So, first of all, what we were trying to illustrate with that chart is that it won't take much for the operating rates to just go flat from here, 3% additional demand in one year. Now, typically in recovery years, we've seen demand growth above trend line in the first year or even two post recessions. To your question about how do you bridge the 4 to the 7, first of all, in polyethylene, here in the U.S. the pipe market has been very, very weak. And if there is an infrastructure bill as oil and gas starts to come back a bit, I think that could help demand growth here in the U.S. and likely if there's infrastructure spending in Europe in China, I mean you could really see that market contribute to bringing the 4 to 7. The other is --there still enough durable goods content or industrial demand or for example like industrial bulk containers. As industrial activity picks up, I think, we'll see recovery or higher demand rates for polyethylene. So I don't think it would take much to get to the 7%. And when you factor that in, it looks like operating rates could stay elevated through over the next few years.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Mike Sison. Your line is open.
Mike Sison
Analyst
Nice end of the year. Bob, it sounds like Schulman worked out really well, I guess, similar to our brands, so hopefully enjoyed the season. But are there any other opportunities for bolt-on acquisitions? Your balance sheet is in good shape, maybe to add to that advanced materials segment.
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes. So we are pleased with how the APS segment has really evolved. What I'm most pleased about is that the integration is essentially complete. And so now as we face into recovering markets, the increase in volume should increase earning will see those synergies go straight to the bottom line. And that's really ahead of us. So the best is in still in part of us for APS, hopefully the same for our brands. In terms of bolt-on acquisitions, yes, I mean, we're out - we now that the platform is essentially set. It would be very natural if we could find opportunities to bolt-on and add to the segments that are most attractive to us. So we're keeping a watchful eye for that and we'll keep you updated. But given the kind of acquisitions that are possible, the size will be very modest, and it will be more about just roll-ups.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Kevin McCarthy. Your line is open.
Kevin McCarthy
Analyst
Yes. Good morning. Bob, with regards to propylene, the three explanations that we often hear for supply constraints are low refinery operating rates, PDH outages and a light feedstock mix yielding diminish quantities of propylene co-product. Can you speak to those and your view of the sustainability of this tightness in propylene monomer? It's not often we see prices rise $0.22 a pound over a two month period. And so I'm just curious to hear your view on that.
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes, Kevin, it's kind of reminiscent of like 10 years ago when we used to see a lot more volatility, and generally when propylene gets close to being sold out any outage causes these kinds of burst in price. I would add a fourth item to your list, which is very robust demand for the derivatives of propylene, not just polypropylene, but the other propylene derivatives, cumene and derivatives and so on. So we've really had a strong pull from all propylene derivatives, which has helped. I think until the PDH outages or turnarounds are behind us, I think we're going to have tightness in propylene. The other thing is propane is very far out today, so - as economic feedstock. So maybe if propane cracking returns in the summer when propane gets cheaper, you could see a little bit more propylene supply. But my sense is that we have a pretty tight propylene market, probably through May.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Jeff Zekauskas. Your line is open.
Jeff Zekauskas
Analyst
Thanks very much. Bob I was just wondering if you could discuss business conditions in Olefins and Polyolefins in Europe and maybe compare them to what they were like in 2019? That is - what is it about the European market going into 2021 that seems to be so strong? And do you see that sustainably strong?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Sure. Great question. So as you've probably read Jeff that there has been higher incidence of COVID in Europe, lockdowns in various countries, but we've not seen significant impact on demand for Polyolefins. So Polyolefins demand has been has been still very resilient. If you look at EAI across the board and, of course, a lot of that Europe, if you think about our volume - if you compare Q1 '21, how our book is building compared to Q1 '19, we expect that ethylene is going to be up about 15% from Q1 '19 to Q1 '21, polyethylene up 17%, polypropylene up 12%, Q1 '19 to Q1 '21. So it really points to very resilient demand. And as you look forward into the turnaround season, very heavy turnaround season also in Europe, in fact, in April, about 13% of the ethylene capacity is expected to be offline on a planned basis. So I mean, I think we could see tightness through a good bit of the first half of the year based on demand hanging in there even when there spike of COVID rates in various countries. And as the vaccine is distributed, I would think, all of that will settle down and the demand growth we should see year-over-year.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Duffy Fischer. Your line is open.
Duffy Fischer
Analyst
Yes, good morning guys. First question just around polyethylene capacity globally. So how much of effective new polyethylene capacity do you think ran in 2020 versus '19? And then does that number get bigger or smaller on your numbers as we go into 2020? And then the second one is, with Shell Pennsylvania plant, when that comes on, just because of its geographic advantage to some customers, do you think that will be more disruptive than an average plant that would start up in the Gulf Coast?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes. So Duffy, your first question, 2020 was a pretty heavy year for start-ups. So, including our new Hyperzone Polyethylene plant here in La Porte, I think '21, at least based on the schedules that we've seen that are publicly available, '21 should be lighter. And then in '22, we'll see more expansions come through. And that's what's reflected in that supply demand graph on Page 11 of our earnings materials on our slides. So I mean, I think, again, if you go back to what we talked about in the prepared materials, if we have recovery kind of growth in '21, at 7% or something, I think we essentially can absorb what's coming globally. Your question about the Shell plant that we'll start up in Pennsylvania, yes, I mean, certainly there will be temporary dislocation. They'll have to - they will find their way into the market, they'll export some product. But much like when, for example, Sasol started up, there was a quarter - there was a - for quarter, for a month or two, when these large plant start-up. But eventually as long as kind of the overall demand is such that the supply is needed, it tends to find its way to where the demand is. So I don't expect a massive disruption, but I would imagine we'll see some bumps when they do start up.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Hassan Ahmed. Your line is open.
Hassan Ahmed
Analyst
Bob question around two commodities, one on ethylene. As you take a look at the cost curve right now, who would you think is setting the ethylene price? And only reason I asked that is that obviously we've seen a major escalation in the price of Chinese coal? So that's one part. And the other question is around styrene. It seems Q4 volumes are very strong. What are you guys seeing in the near term as far as the styrene market goes as well?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Okay. So first of all, your question about the prices that are - you're right, the coal price has gone up quite a lot. So I would say CTO and MTO are probably setting the price. It's quite close. And given the high level of demand for ethylene derivatives, some MTO-based ethylene is still needed in China. So I would say those are the price setters. And your second question about styrene. We've already seen styrene come back off again. So we had really nice period in November or early December, but styrene has come back off. I think the way to think about styrene is when all the units are running, the margins will be pretty weak in styrene. Think when there are outages, we could see some improvement, but we're not expecting a lot in terms of contribution from styrene in 2021.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from PJ Juvekar. Your line is open.
PJ Juvekar
Analyst
Bob, this strong pricing in polyethylene in December, January and February, three sort of unseasonal months, is that driven by global inventory build, if underlying demand is flat sequentially from 3Q to 4Q? And if it is - that inventory build, usually converters try to buy ahead of this price increases. So I guess my question is, are they trying to scramble to buy right now? And if they buy too much, do we end up with too much inventory in second half? Thank you.
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes. Good question. I mean it is - the price strength has been somewhat unusual. But I think, the supply side, so we looked at carefully with the hurricanes that came through the U.S., there were some unplanned outages in Europe, there was just enough to really firm up the market. Speaking for ourselves, we can barely keep up with orders let alone allow any kind of pre-buy. So our team is essentially under pretty strict instructions to not allow pre-buy because we simply don't have the inventory to do it. We're just trying to meet the demand for customers. And many customers are saying, hey, if you're three days late, we're going to run out of product. So I think we find ourselves in a really tight environment. And I think if there is some softness, let's say in February, I can tell you for us, we're going to take the opportunity to selectively build back inventory and get ready for the spring season, which we expect to be robust like usual.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from David Begleiter. Your line is open.
David Begleiter
Analyst
Thank you. Bob, how are you thinking about Refining and Oxyfuels profitability as the world comes - gets back to normal? And '22, if it is a normal year, how do you think about the return to earnings of those two businesses?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes, I mean, we're looking forward to and both are contributing again. It's been, as you know, a pretty challenging period. In Oxyfuels we had trouble moving the volume. It's just the margins and have been essentially zero. So part of what I think we - how you should think about LyondellBasell is that recovery and the related earnings are still in front of us. So as driving recovers, we don't even need air travel to recover back to the original or pre-COVID levels. If driving recovers with vaccinations and more domestic travel, we could really see both Refining and Oxyfuels contribute in the second half. And I think that's part of the earnings growth story as vaccinations become more common.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Jonas Oxgaard. Your line is open.
Jonas Oxgaard
Analyst
I was wondering about your feed slate, propane spike and the relative profitability seems to have flipped very rapidly. So question is what does that do to your Q1 margins? And how is your feed slate evolving here?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes. It's good question. So we're really minimizing propane if cracking any at all. We have kind of what we call a barbell feed slate today, it's ethane and it's liquids. So gasoline, naphtha still look decent. And so we're either in ethane or with the other end of the spectrum. And both are profitable given where propylene is and butadiene - you know it's come off a little bit, but still hanging in there.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Alex Yefremov. Your line is open.
Alex Yefremov
Analyst
So I've noticed, typically U.S. exports about half of produced polyethylene. When global freight rates went up, it didn't seem to hurt U.S. polyethylene supply-demand dynamics, but only help that. Could you explain why?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
So, first of all, I mean, I think you have to look at overall demand globally. And if the demand is such that the supply is needed, we find ways to get to meet the demand. Our - so you may be referring, a little bit to the container dislocations and so on. For us, we've not really been impacted by that much. We have long-term contracts. We've been able to continue our exports, primarily down to Latin America and Mexico, but also to Asia. So our exports have been uninterrupted and not really impacted by the spot freight rates or container rates. So we continue this business as usual for us.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Frank Mitsch. Your line is open.
Frank Mitsch
Analyst
Bob, I wanted to come back to the polyethylene Slide 11, you mentioned that 2020 global demand growth was 4%. You guys sold 8% as I do the math between the U.S. and Europe. So could you talk about your operating rate? I mean, obviously, some of that is a Hyperzone capacity that was added. But I was wondering where you're operating rates were and if you could say that relative to the industry average in the sector? And as I'm looking at this chart, is this factoring in any delays whatsoever in terms of Chinese capacity? Or are you factoring in what the press releases have said there?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes, so good morning Frank, or good afternoon. We - so, operating rates in the second half of the year for us in polyethylene were essentially unconstrained. We ran as much as we could. We had some unplanned downtime in Europe and the U.S., but we've essentially been running full since about July-August timeframe. And we expect to do that for the foreseeable future. And, yes, the volume growth was related to Hyperzone operating for part of the year. Your question about the supply side, on that chart on Page 11, we have not put any delays in for Chinese capacity. So it's essentially - we're assuming it's going to come on as advertised in IHS. It's really - that's to illustrate the impact of 7% growth versus 4% growth. How close we are to really having absorbing all of the capacity that's in front of us if we just have one year of more typical economic recovery type growth at 7%.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from John Roberts. Your line is open.
John Roberts
Analyst
You indicated that the balance sheet focus was going to be on debt reduction. Would it be helpful to your credit metrics if the Sasol option came earlier to you and you get full access to the cash flow there? Or would it be better if that comes later given you got to focus on getting your debt down right now?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes, John, I mean, I think, clearly, our focus is to get the debt down now. I don't think that option is going to come sooner. So I think it's a very low probability. Given kind of the earnings profile, I think we could manage, but I don't think that's a plausible scenario. So our focus in terms of capital allocation is debt reduction, first and foremost the modest increases in the dividend and then perhaps buybacks, but those are pretty far away I think.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Matthew Blair. Your line is open.
Matthew Blair
Analyst
Bob could you talk about your net long ethylene position in the U.S.? Are you able to capitalize on this recent spike up in spot ethylene? And then also, have you started to explore ethylene just given the startup of some new export facilities?
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes. So, Matthew it's our Sasol acquisition. There has been - we've been fortunate with the timing because ethylene values have gone up, and we've increased our merchant position as a result of acquiring half of that facility. We are not exporting, but we have benefited from the increase in spot price. First and foremost, as you know, has a spot price moves that impacts the contract negotiations. So contract price has been moving up. Most of our formulas have spot contract plans. So we benefit that way. And some of - quite a bit of Sasol volume does have spot sales in it. So we've been able to capitalize on this improvement in ethylene margins that I think we'll probably be persistent through most of the first half of the year because of this very high unplanned turnaround schedule starting in March.
Operator
Operator
And our last question comes from John McNulty. Your line is open.
Bhavesh Mahesh Lodaya
Analyst
This is Mahesh Lodaya up for John. When we look at the volume recovery for polypropylene, we are back to a close to pre-pandemic levels. However, we are obviously still going to see demand recovery from some of the key autos, commercial construction in some of those end markets. So how much of the pre-pandemic base demand has now recovered? And then how much of new permanent ongoing demand was created by the pandemic itself? Thank you.
Bhavesh Patel
Management
Yes. Great question. So I'm going to give you statistics for the first part of your question, and then I'll talk kind of qualitatively about the second half. So if you look at our polypropylene volumes, I'll tell you how Q1 '21, we think is shaping up compared to Q1 '19. In the U.S., we're likely up 14% from Q1 '19 to Q1 '21, and in EAI, up 12%. Another sort of data point is that polypropylene demand in China grew about 10% from 2019 to '20. Now, your second question about pandemic-related, certainly the masks and the medical gowns and all of that, it's been pretty important driver. And frankly, I think even after vaccinations are more widespread, use of masks will still be pretty and I think for most of this year and maybe even into next year. So it's - I don't have a number for you on what percent of the growth was accounted for by the masks. But if I were to estimate, maybe 1% to 2% of the growth is related to masks of the 14% that I mentioned for the Americas polypropylene growth.
Bhavesh Patel
Management
All right. So I think that was our last question. I'd like to just offer a few closing remarks before I let you all go. Thank you for hanging in there. So first of all, with the completion of 2020, you've seen the resilient performance from our company through the first significant downturn since our emergence back in 2010. Our fourth quarter results have given you a preview of our increased earnings power. Going into 2021, we have more assets, strong order books, tight markets and rising economic activity. All of which should provide confidence for continuing improvement into the first quarter. While much of our industry is scheduling high levels of second quarter maintenance, LyondellBasell's planned downtime for 2021 is relatively light. Our assets are ready to capture improving seasonal demand, Refining and Oxyfuels businesses are poised to benefit from increased mobility during the second half of the year. I think all of this positions us well to increase cash flow and continue to strengthen our balance sheet as we work our way through 2021. So thank you for your interest in our company and we look forward to updating you in about 90 days. Have a great weekend.
Operator
Operator
That concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may disconnect at this time.