Ken Parks
Analyst · Evercore ISI.
Thanks, Stephen. Thanks for the question. Let’s talk about composites first and then maybe we can talk about price mix across the business. You’re correct, Composites has driven another very strong quarter delivering well. And I think, before answering the specific question, what I would say is, this is really the result of what we’ve been talking about for a couple of years, which is driving the business more towards higher value solutions for our customers and actually kind of with the environment that we’re operating in today, which is a pretty high capacity utilization environment. We’re able to focus a bit more on those higher value applications, because the market demand is so strong. As a result, what you’re seeing is this mix benefit, which is, as we deliver more of the higher value solutions as falling out in our mix calculation and you’re seeing shifting to those higher value applications, and therefore, driving positive mix. I think that’s something that’s here to stay. I mean, I think that, as we continue to ship the business, that’s really going to be a part of what we are continuing to focus on. You’ve seen it for the last couple of quarters and we would expect that to continue. On the price side, you’re correct on that as well that, we do have about two-thirds of our Composites business, which is tied to contracts and then, I would say, about a third of it, in general, is tied to spot pricing. As we moved into 2021, when many of the contracts were in the process of being negotiated, because some of them are annual contracts, we were moving into a strong demand environment and that allowed us to build in some good pricing dynamics within those contracts and then as we came into 2021, the situation even strengthened further. So what I would tell you is that on the pricing side, we are seeing the carry-through positive contract price negotiations that came through from our negotiations last year. We are also seeing equivalently good pricing on a spot basis. And I think that comes from the fact that we are benefiting from what we call our local production for local demand environment where within this environment customers are really looking for good quality solutions that are readily and closely achievable geographically. So I think that benefit from pricing comes both from the contract negotiations, as well as from the spot pricing.