Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Westlake Chemical Corporation Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2015 Earnings Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' remarks, you will be invited to participate in a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, February 23, 2016. I would now like to turn the call over to today's host, Dave Hansen, Westlake's Senior Vice President. Sir, you may begin. David R. Hansen - Senior VP-Administration & Head-Media Relations: Thank you and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Chemical Corporation's fourth quarter and full year 2015 conference call. I am joined today by Albert Chao, our President and CEO; Steve Bender, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and other members of our management team. The conference call agenda will begin with Albert, who will open with a few comments regarding Westlake's performance during the fourth quarter and the full year of 2015, followed by a perspective – a current perspective on the industry. Steve will then provide a more detailed look at our financial and operating results. Finally, Albert will add a few comments, concluding comments and then will open up the call for questions. During this call, we refer to ourselves as Westlake Chemical. Any reference to Westlake Partners is to the master limited partnership, Westlake Chemical Partners LP, and references to OpCo refer to our subsidiary Westlake Chemical OpCo LP, who owns certain Olefin facilities. 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…

Thank you. Our first question is from Jim Sheehan of SunTrust. Your line is open.

Hi. This is Jason Freuchtel filling in for Jim today. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Good morning.

Yeah. Just curious, what is your expectation for the amount of capacity that could be shutdown in Europe to comply with the mercury cell regulation? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: There's some discussions of approximately close to a million tons of capacity could be reduced. But as you know, people are still doing plants, so we don't know until near the end of the year on what – how much capacity will be shut down in Europe.

Okay. Thanks. And it sounds like you're going to have some planned maintenance outages for your Olefins segment. Are you going to have any planned maintenance outages occurring in 2016 for your Vinyls segment? Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: We have those sprinkled all throughout the year and none that I would call out specifically. But as you know, we have a number of plants in Europe and the Americas and so none that I would call out as unusual.

Okay, great. Thank you. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're welcome.

Thank you. And the next question is from Frank Mitsch of Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.

Good morning, gentlemen. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Good morning.

The discussion of the planned turnarounds and unplanned turnarounds impacting Q4, I know that you had guided, back in Q3, for $25 million worth of impact. What did that actually come out to be? Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: $19 million impact.

All right. Terrific. And I'm looking here at the screen, and I'm looking at Westlake stock trading back at levels where it was three years ago. How do you think about, Albert, weighing the balances of buying back your own stock at these levels versus M&A? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, certainly we look at all the options to create value for shareholders, and through further expansion, organic and inorganic, means to create value.

And with the shares trading back down at these levels, does that start to make the buying back a more attractive proposition than M&A? Or not? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We're looking at both. As you know, we have – the board has authorized us dollars to buy back our shares, as well as looking at expanding our business footprint.

Okay, great. And then lastly, where do we stand with respect to the pipeline dispute with Eastman? When would you expect a resolution for that to occur? Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Frank, we have issues that are still in the court system, and it's impossible to know when we'll get a resolution. So there's really no way for me to give you specific guidance on that.

I wasn't looking for the day of the week, Steve, I was looking for the quarter or the half-year. But you're saying that it's a... Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: It's hard for me to give you specific – even quarter guidance, Frank. And so I would just say, it could possibly be later this year, but with that degree of certainty, I couldn't even say, it's really in the hands of the courts.

All right. Thank you so much. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're welcome.

Thank you. The next question is from Aleksey Yefremov of Nomura Securities. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thank you. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Morning. Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Morning.

I had a question on U.S. polyethylene market. If we look at the premium versus Asian polyethylene market, this premium seems to have been erased in the recent months. Do you think there are – what do you think are the reasons for that? And how do you see this premium or discount evolving over the rest of 2016? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, certainly with the volatility in crude oil prices, it has affected global polyethylene, including the U.S. polyethylene prices. And, depending on what oil price will do in the coming months, it could change as well.

I guess, as a follow-up, do you think there was anything specific to the U.S. market that caused prices to fall more than in Asia in the last few months? Or this is a temporary phenomenon? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, as you know, that people do purchase less products when they see oil price coming down, feedstock coming down, and they will buy more products when oil prices are moving up. The demand, as we said earlier, is still quite good in the U.S., and the U.S. economy is still growing, probably one of the best economy in the world. And we continue to see demand growing in 2016. So, it's made of buying (24:39) changes as well as the oil dynamics.

Thank you, Albert. And final question, if I may. Could you tell us your view of the short-term outlook for polyethylene pricing, February, March and maybe next few months? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, if you read the industry consensus, they see some weakness in the first month or two (24:58), but also there's an industry announcement of $0.05 price increase, which is now for March, March 1. And again, depending on the price of oil volatility at that time, it will have an impact on the price increases.

Thank you very much. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're welcome.

Thank you. The next question is from Don Carson of Susquehanna Financial. Your line is open.

Thank you. Albert, a question on the chlor-alkali outlook. We've seen some sloppiness in caustic, but a couple of producers, I don't know if you joined it, have announced price increases. How do you see the chlor-alkali market playing out? And, not to ask you about consolidation, but do you think that – I mean, are you looking at taking any capacity out of the marketplace going forward? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, we have two of the newest membrane chlor-alkali plants in the U.S. industry. So we're very efficient. As you know, we are moving into the building season, so there's more demand for chlorine or PVC that result in more production of chlor-alkali and – which means there's more supply coming on to the market. And depending on the global economy, the demand for chlor-alkali may or may not be meeting the supply. So time will tell and...

And then you've got a good view into the Asian market. What's your view on how much operating rates have come down there? I know that's opened up some caustic export opportunities for U.S. producers. Traditionally, you haven't participated that much in caustic exports. Is that something you're starting to do now? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We do not export much caustic at all. But I think the Asian economy is still weak, in China especially, so there's potential for lower production of PVC and chlorine and could be lower production of caustic.

Okay. Thank you. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're welcome.

Thank you. The next question is from Arun Viswanathan of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hi. This is Dan DiCicco on for Arun. Thank you for taking my question. Could you guys just give us your thoughts on ethylene and polyethylene prices for the second half of the year following the heavy turnaround season here in the U.S.? Basically, will there be enough demand to sustain any sort of price increase once the season comes to a close? Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Well, as you know there is a big turnaround coming up March, April, May time period, and the people's view of ethylene price will go up. And however, on the polyethylene side it's more of a function of oil prices, and the volatility of oil will determine which direction the polyethylene price would go.

Okay. Thank you. That was helpful. Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: You're welcome.

Thank you. The next question is from David Begleiter of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning. Albert... Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, David.

Good morning. Albert, ethane price keep on drifting lower. When do you think the reduced drilling activity, increased exports back half of this year and the new ethylene crackers in 2017, 2018 materially impact ethane prices going forward? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: That's a good question. I think there's about 500,000 barrels of rejection in ethane today. So at least for the immediate future, even with the increase in ethane export with the terminals as well as the bottlenecks coming up, there should be ample supply of ethane. But going forward, 2017, 2018, 2019, it depends on the oil price and gas drilling as well as on the new – demand from the new ethylene plants.

Very good. And just lastly, post the current expansions in Calvert City and Petro 1, what's the next two-year, three-year, four-year plan for your ethylene capacity going forward? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, our engineers are very smart. They always find a little creep here and there, but I think the major expansions should be finished by then.

Thank you very much. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're welcome.

Thank you. The next question is from Hassan Ahmed of Alembic Global. Your line is open.

Good morning, Albert and Steve. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning.

Obviously, there are these lingering stares in the marketplace about China, particularly on the currency side of things. So if we were to paint a picture where indeed the PBOC went out and devalue the currency, keeping in mind that obviously naphtha is dollar-denominated as would natural gas be out there, but obviously Chinese coal is local currency-denominated. What are your thoughts regarding – if such a devaluation were to happen, I would imagine that would have a pretty dire impact on PVC prices in particular, keeping in mind how much exposure they have to sort of the whole carbide process? I would love to hear your thoughts about that. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I think you're right. I think the higher U.S. dollar currency compared with other currencies, especially China, would put a headwind against the U.S. export of petrochemical products. And we have to have a more competitive position in order to compete in China.

Sure. But I would imagine it'd be a disproportionate impact on PVC versus, call it, ethylene, polyethylene. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're absolutely right. While 80% of Chinese production of PVC still come from coal, and coal price has been dropping a lot in China and it's denominated in RMB. So from that sense they're more competitive.

Very helpful. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Dollars stay high with the crude oil prices.

Thanks so much. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're welcome.

Thank you. The next question is from Brian Maguire of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Brian Maguire - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Brian Maguire - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Albert, I was wondering if you could tell us how much of the caustic soda price increase that was announced earlier in the quarter, was realized in 4Q; and how much you expect to get realized in 1Q? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So various industry players announced a caustic price (31:26) increase between (31:26) $35 and $70 per dry short tons and as the conditions warrants. So we believe there'll be some additions coming up probably February or March period. But as I said earlier, there's also more demand for PVC during the building season. There's more chlorine production and more caustic production. And depending on the global economy, that may or may not help caustic price to stay high. Brian Maguire - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay. And we've heard some chatter in the industry about some increased discounting going on in the PVC and polyethylene markets at the start the year in the order of $0.02 to $0.03 a pound. Can you kind of confirm if you had participated in some of those discounts that have made their way into the market for 2016? And do you see increased discounting out there being a material driver of pricing downward in 2016? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: During the year end, as you know there are a lot of contracts renewals and negotiations going on, and there were pressures of prices with the way that the oil price has come down during the end of the year. So there has been a non-market adjusted discount for the industry. Brian Maguire - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay, great. And then could you just lastly just talk about your own inventory levels? I know you talked about some of the production outages and then the upcoming turnarounds. Where does that kind of leave you on the inventory front? And do you expect to be running a little bit higher inventory for the next couple of months, until you get through the turnaround? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're talking about polyethylene or PVC? Brian Maguire - Goldman Sachs & Co.: More polyethylene. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Polyethylene, I think inventories overall (33:15) producer side is somewhat on the low side of converters. And you are right that people are building inventory for the upcoming turnaround on ethylene side. So I think supply/demand were pretty good, at least in the first quarter-ish. Brian Maguire - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay. Thanks very much. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're welcome.

Thank you. The next question is from Jeff Zekauskas of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Thanks very much. Are you putting your share repurchases on hold, now that you're contemplating the Axiall transaction? Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Jeff, of course as we think about this, we always have to assess what information we have in the marketplace. And so we always have to balance what knowledge we have of any transaction or any market knowledge that the broader market doesn't, so we have to assess that on an ongoing basis.

So you don't feel financially constrained then? That is, there's no cash flow dynamic that you feel restricts your purchase of your own shares? Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: No. I think you can see, with the cash balances that we have as we ended the year, and the liquidity we have with our other facilities, there's no liquidity issue here. It's just making sure that we are very transparent of the marketplace, as always the case, in any transaction we undertake with securities.

Can you talk about price changes in the domestic PVC market, or what you might expect in the coming months? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes. There's potential weakness in January of PVC, probably potentially down $0.01 a pound. But after, that they are price increase announced of Feb, March. And as I said earlier, with the building season starting, there's a good chance that the price, some of the pricing increase will go through.

If I can try one question, which is not exactly on the mechanics of the Axiall transaction, can you talk, at least in general terms, about how putting together Westlake and Axiall would change or improve your sort of PVC chlorine cost there (35:33) building products envelope? In a sort of – can you talk in a little bit more detail about the strategic motivation of the transaction? Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Jeff, for this call, we'd like to keep the questions and the answers in this call really focused to the earnings. And certainly, if you'd like to have that discussion at another time, we can do that. But for this call, we really want to focus on just the earnings for the quarter and for the year.

Okay, great. Thank you so much. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're welcome.

Thank you. And the next question is from David Wang of Morningstar. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I was wondering if you can discuss the project economics of how a greenfield ethylene cracker will look at this point. I think you guys are probably doing the right thing with just going with the brownfield expansions. But a lot of your competitors seem to still have a lot of greenfield projects set to come online over the next couple of years, and I'm wondering if you have this view of returns or – the likelihood that these will come to fruition? Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Certainly. The fact that we're doing debottlenecks for brownfields, we can get returns back much faster than the greenfield. Typical greenfield, from initial idea to fruition, takes approximately four years to five years. So a lot of things could happen in four years to five years and the investment, not only the ISBL, but the OSBL working capital, is quite substantial. So we elected to have a lower risk debottlenecks and get returns much faster.

All right. And with the new capacity adds that you guys had come online, what would be your sustaining capital going forward, after these projects get wrapped up? Mark Steven Bender - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: So we'll get back to – once these debottlenecks occur in 2016 and 2017, we'll get back to more normal maintenance capital levels. And so, as I say, that's a couple hundred million dollars typical run rate. And so, once we get back to that level, absent any energy savings-related projects or such, we'll get back to that kind of range.

All right, great. Thank you. Albert Yuan Chao - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're welcome.

Thank you. David R. Hansen - Senior VP-Administration & Head-Media Relations: Okay. Operator, it sounds like we have concluded the call. We are very appreciative of you joining us today for our call. We hope that you'll be able to join us again for our next conference call to discuss our first quarter 2016 results. We bid you all a good day. Thank you.