L. Benjamin Ederington - Westlake Chemical Corp.
Management
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Chemical Corporation Third Quarter 2016 Conference Call. I'm 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 in the third quarter 2016, followed by our 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 concluding comments, and we will open the call up to 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 olefins 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 to risks or uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially based upon many factors, including the cyclical nature of the chemical industry, availability, cost and volatility of raw materials, energy and utilities, governmental regulatory actions and political unrest, global economic conditions, industry operating rates, the supply demand balance for Westlake's products, competitive products and pricing pressures, access to capital markets, technological developments and other risk factors discussed in our SEC filings. This morning, Westlake issued a press release with details of our third quarter 2016 results along with the schedule of transaction-related and non-recurring items that we will be discussing in more detail. These documents are available in the press release section of our webpage at westlake.com. A replay of today's call will be available beginning two hours after completion of this call until 11:59 PM Eastern Time on November 15, 2016. The replay may be accessed by dialing the following numbers. Domestic callers should dial 1-855-859-2056. International callers may access the replay at 404-537-3406. The access code for both numbers is 96221252. Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, November 8, 2016, and therefore, you're advised the time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay. I would finally advise you that this conference call is being broadcast live through an Internet webcast system that can be accessed on our webpage at westlake.com. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Albert Chao. Albert?