Welcome everyone, and thank you for taking time to join us for Indorama Ventures 2023 and 4th quarter results briefing. My name is Vikash Jalan, Vice President for Investor Relations and Planning at IVL. Joining me today, we have Mr. DK Agarwal, Deputy Group CEO and Group CFO, and Diego Boeri, Chief Executive Officer for Fiber Segment. A quick disclaimer that this meeting is being recorded, and a replay of this session will be available on our website after the meeting. We have made a few assumptions and estimates on future trends for industry and business, which are based on our analysis of available information at this part of the point in time. So with that, I now invite Mr. Agarwal to share business and financial highlights for the full year and 4th quarter before we open up the floor for Q&A. Over to you, please, Mr. Agarwal.
Thanks, Vikash. Good evening, good morning. We really appreciate you being on the Friday weekend, long weekend, so sorry for this delayed, analyst meet. So let's begin with this slide, which is an overview of the macroeconomic environment and the key external factors influencing our performance. You know, 2023 were disappointing results for us. Full year results were impacted by the challenging macroeconomic environment characterized by Russia-Ukraine conflict, inflationary pressure, high interest rate, and sluggish economic growth, particularly in Europe and China. Our results in Europe got substantially affected, also in Brazil. Manufacturing activities in Europe are still contracting, as you can see from the slide, a bit at a slower pace while the US moves into neutral territory. China's underperformance is primarily driven by the housing sector and other domestic issues as China opened post-COVID. Supply chain normalization following the disruption after 2022 led to an unprecedented destocking.
Now, this destocking happened due to interest rate increase and normalization. This was further exacerbated by high interest rate environment, a slower-than-expected recovery in China, and poor demand in the European market. A sign of a slowdown in this destocking trend is observed at the beginning of 2024. You can see on the right-hand side the freight index. The recent conflict in the Red Sea has led to rerouting of the major shipping lines extending the Asia-European journeys by 18-20 days. This reroute has resulted in a container shortage and, again, a surge in shipping costs as reflected by the Shanghai Freight Index, as you can see on the graph above. You can see how much the Shanghai Freight Index increased.
Global core CPI began to decline towards the end of 2023, signaling a cooling of inflationary pressure, albeit remaining elevated, giving central banks little reason to rush on rate cuts, as you might have observed. Moving to the topic of energy prices, strong crude oil prices and normalized gas prices sustained the U.S. shale gas advantage, and that's why our American performance is fantastic and lowered energy costs. Despite sustained high oil prices, the average Brent crude oil price for this year stood at $83 per barrel compared to $101 per barrel in 2022, resulting in inventory loss in 2023. So that is what has happened in the macroeconomic factor. Now, let me take you through the highlights for the year of IVL for 2023.
IVL's EBITDA for 2023, reported EBITDA, stood at $1.1 billion, a year-on-year drop of 53%, adjusting an inventory loss of $115 million, and extraordinary items of $48 million. Core EBITDA was $1.3 billion, which is a year-on-year drop of 44%. What exactly has driven this? Normalization of the supply chain, a decline in crude oil prices, and high interest rates resulted in destocking across all business segments, leading to lower year-on-year volume sales of 4%. Our revenue went down by 17%, which is in line with the crude oil drop, actually. Destocking, high feedstock prices in the West due to gasoline blend value, a compressed Chinese benchmark margin for polyester value chain due to significant capacity addition in China, and weaker global economic activities led to a decline in margins.
However, we are pleased that with management actions, we were able to preserve cash by lowering our CapEx and working capital by nearly $789 million, as against the $500 million targeted. We continue to deliver on our transformation agenda with the Olympus 1.0 program and unlocked an incremental efficiency gain of $78 million in 2023 versus 2022. Despite the challenges faced in 2023, we have taken several measures to counterbalance the external pressure and, hence, achieved a positive free cash flow of $149 million after paying a dividend of $185 million to the shareholders. Concurrently, TRIS maintained a rating of AA- with a stable outlook, reflecting our efforts to strengthen our business and financial profile and relying on our platform, the robust platform which we have.
We have taken non-cash impairment of the Corpus Christi assets for $308 million, net of tax $243 million, due to escalating project costs, delays, and present market conditions. That's a non-cash impairment. Go to the next slide. It's important to understand what happened in 2023 versus 2022. This gives you big buckets. Comparing 2023 versus 2022 results, adverse external conditions resulted in reduced volumes and spreads, leading to a decline in EBITDA. Nevertheless, our proactive decision-making and agile management actions enabled us to preserve cash and achieve efficiency gain and cost improvement. As I mentioned, we were able to achieve cash conversion and conservation of $789 million ahead of our target of $500 million announced earlier at the beginning of 2023. This was achieved through a combination of lower CapEx by $276 million and reducing the working capital cycle by 9 days, resulting in $500 million plus.
EBITDA, as you see on the slide, was impacted by $0.32 billion on account of lower volumes, 4% down year-on-year. If you see this volume loss, it's primarily gone into Europe, where we had a volume drop by 18%-20%, particularly in Europe, primarily driven by destocking across industries, inflation-led high interest rate environment, slower recovery in China, as I mentioned, and weak EMEA demand. Now, if you go to the second bucket, EBITDA was further impacted by $1 billion on account of lower spreads. The impact from the drop in the integrated PET spread was nearly $720 million, a year-on-year decline due to a decline in China benchmark price, a year-on-year reduction of $105 million per ton, higher feedstock in the Western markets, and lower premiums due to supply chain normalization.
The addition of new capacity in China resulted in a decline in benchmark prices, margins, and IOD downstream spreads were impacted on account of destocking across the board, but particularly impacting the premium margin products such as crop solutions, which give you a better margin. Fiber margins were compressed, especially in the lifestyle vertical. If you go to the other bucket, on the positive side, we had a lower year-on-year energy cost of $250 million, net of a hedging loss of $103 million because we had this hedging loss as we hedged 50%. We captured an incremental run rate gain of $78 million through operational excellence under the Olympus 1.0 program. Project Olympus 1.0, actually, as you know, has allowed a structural and disciplined approach to continuous cost and commercial innovation that is crucial for our business to remain in the first quartile position.
Our continued focus on cost optimization and operational efficiency has translated the run rate efficiency of $527 million in 2023 versus $449 million in 2022. So this gives you what happened exactly in 2023 versus 2022. This is an interesting graph to look at from 2018 to 2023, what is exactly happening, how cyclical the business has become. If you look at across the cycle performance of IVL from peak to peak now, this is a performer. This means that all these assets were there if in 2018 and 2019, and that's why it's a performer comparison, taking into account the acquisitions which we have done. So on peak to peak from 2018 to 2022, our portfolio delivered an EBITDA of $130 per ton, as you can see. Similarly, when we see from trough to trough, since the 2020 COVID year to 2023, we delivered EBITDA of $120 per ton.
The operational landscape in the recent years is marked by continuous disruption. Now, this is a good example. In 2018, we saw the China ban the PET waste imports, which notably enhanced polyester profitability due to a shortage of feedstock at that time, and you see $147 per ton. At the end of 2019, we had an unforeseen COVID-19 pandemic that emerged as a black swan event, setting further economic shockwaves where crude oil dropped to an average of $42 a barrel in 2020, and if you remember, it actually became negative sometime. COVID-19 disrupted the supply chain in 2021 and 2022 and led to a significant increase in container freight costs. IVL got benefited with our domestic footprint in multiple countries.
A significant restocking happened because people were worried about the supply chain disruption in fear of disrupting the supply chain and the entire value chain, causing improved margins and volumes. So we had a very strong, and you can see in 2022, we had $158 per ton. In early 2022, we also witnessed heightened geopolitical tension with the Russia-Ukraine war, leading to demand contraction in Europe and high energy prices. As the supply chain started to normalize post-COVID, in the second half of 2022, we saw significant destocking across the value chain, further exacerbated by high interest costs. This was witnessed throughout 2023 and negatively impacted our performance in contrast to 2022. What do we see in 2024, 2026, and what are we doing?
In 2024, we anticipate around a 4%-5% increase in volumes with destocking, having bottomed out across most product categories as interest rates declined from their 2023 peak and modest improvement in margins. However, the management actions there are some strong management actions. We view some of the Western assets' competitiveness to be a longer-term concern and are therefore assessing our asset footprint in our CPET and fiber segments. This includes the make-or-buy decision as well as geopolitical rebalancing towards Asia. The combination of our strategic value review will be completed in the first half of 2024, and together with our previously announced footprint actions, ensuring supply-demand balance is appropriate in our core markets for the current macroeconomic conditions while also ensuring our customers have assets of scale to high-quality, innovative polymer, recycled PET, and fiber.
These management actions will enable our ability to achieve an appropriate return on capital for the value delivered to customers. Fixed and variable cost management and operational performance initiatives will give a major boost from the footprint optimization. So what we are trying to do here is, try to optimize the high-cost fixed assets and drive operating rates to nearly 90% mid-2024 to full operating rates in 2026. So what you are seeing is that in 2024 to 2026, we anticipate growth in volume, improvement in the quality of earnings, which you can see from 2024 to 2026 in the graph above, where we plan to deliver $125 per ton EBITDA.
I just want to mention here that we have not considered any spread or margin improvement here except that in the U.S., because of the contractor resetting, we have taken a drop in the margins and a marginal increase in the China benchmark. So basically, this $125 per ton is from more management actions, putting the assets in the right portfolio. So these are all the actions which we are taking. This will be driven also by the easing of destocking because there will be volume growth, marginal improvement in benchmark margins, and significant management actions, as I said, improving cost structure and quality of earnings. We will provide details of these actions on the Capital Markets Day on 5th March, 2024, and we hope you attend the same. Next. Now, this is IVL 2023 versus 2022. Now, let's see how IVL results in 2023 in a little more detail.
IVL delivered FY23 EBITDA of $1.12 billion reported EBITDA, a decline of 53% year-on-year from the peak performance of 2022, and a core EBITDA of $1.3 billion, which is a decline of 44%, which is negatively affected by inventory loss of $115 million versus inventory gain of $76 million. So we had inventory gain in last year and loss in 2023. As mentioned earlier, 2022 witnessed a record earning supported by strong volumes and margins due to supply chain disruption despite high energy costs and high feedstock costs in the West. The year 2023 saw a volume decline of 4% year-on-year, predominantly in European markets, as I mentioned, creating a negative impact of $320 million year-on-year driven by the unprecedented destocking trend that began in the second half of 2022. CPET EBITDA dropped by 61% year-on-year to $553 million, reported.
However, core EBITDA dropped by 51% to $657 million, a decline in year-on-year volume of 5.5%, lower China benchmark spreads, higher feedstock in the West, and lower spread premiums due to supply chain normalization led to the drop in performance. IOD EBITDA dropped by 41% year-on-year to $440 million. However, core EBITDA dropped by 34% to $478 million, a decline in year-on-year volume of 6.1% on a pro forma basis by including one extra-quarter performance of Oxiteno in 2022. You know, we acquired Oxiteno in April 2022, so the volume drop we have considered based on pro forma was 6.1%. A decline in premium margin products, as I mentioned, like Crop Solutions and higher imports in South America, led to the drop in performance. Fiber EBITDA dropped by 54% year-on-year to $107 million. However, core EBITDA dropped by 41% to $124 million.
A marginal decline in year-on-year volume of 1%, but a compressed margin due to competition from China, particularly in lifestyle, lower order demand in the West, and normalizing demand for hygiene post-pandemic led to a drop in the performance. However, energy costs lowered by $252 million, net of a hedging loss of $103 million in 2023. Now, let's look at what reasonably happens. There have been a variety of factors playing, like destocking, margin reduction, elevated costs, and import pressures. If you critically look at this slide, you will see that geographically, results declined across all three seasons, but Europe swung from positive $316 million to $73 million, which is $389 million. Naturally, Europe is getting impacted due to cheap imports coming from Asia and high energy costs still lower than 2022. So you have cheaper and higher feedstock costs in Europe.
Regional disparity in aromatics pricing, as I mentioned, continues to be wide, bringing significant cost pressure and import competition in the West due to normalization of the supply chain. Unprecedented low China benchmark spread in polyester value chain due to substantial China capacity addition impacted margins across Asia and EMEA. Operations in America, however, as you can see, performed relatively better, and particularly if you split North America and South America, North America did pretty well, performed relatively better in CPET but were impacted in IOD downstream due to destocking and imports in South America. Actually, in Brazil, if you look at from $350 million, our performance dropped to $110 million because it also, the pricing of the product, particularly in CPET, is then based on import parity, and IOD downstream, letting this, in Brazil basically is the crop solutions drop in other downstream businesses.
Intermediate results were impacted due to plant maintenance, while MTBE, because of the gasoline blend, remained very strong. If you look at Q4 2023 alone, EBITDA impacted by $74 million, swinging from an inventory gain of $24 million in the Q3 and an inventory loss of $50 million. So it's a swing of $74 million for the Q3 at gain and the Q4 at loss. The quarter witnessed a decline in volume, mainly in CPET business, from seasonality across the regions. However, EMEA saw year-on-year improvement due to reduced energy costs and narrowing feedstock disparity. American performance was further affected by seasonal softness. Normally, in the Q4, the MTBE spread is lower because of the blending, and plant turnaround of the Canadian PTA plant. Asia's performance on core remained stable, as you can see.
The performance of individual segments, now we will discuss in the next slide. So this gives you a reasonable breakup. Now, if you look at CPET, CPET delivered an EBITDA of $553 million in 2023, a decline of 61% year-on-year, but excluding inventory loss of $82 million, and there was a gain of $94 million in 2022 in extraordinary items, the segment core EBITDA declined 51% year-on-year to $657 million. So the core EBITDA is $657. As I mentioned earlier, 2022 was a peak year due to higher margins led by supply chain disruption, which helped in securing higher premiums. The headwind began from the second half of 2022, where the industry witnessed demand slowdown and heavy destocking, which carried over into 2023.
In 2023, the segment experienced a 6% year-on-year decline in volume, primarily driven by global destocking impact across the industry and a combination of subdued demand and import pressure in the EMEA region. Additionally, the mothballing of our Portugal PTA plant due to poor economics reduced our PTA sales. Margin compression due to reduced integrated PET margins in China, lower freight rates, and PET capacity expansion in China. Additionally, higher feedstock costs due to wider disparity in aromatic pricing impacted our margin in the Western Hemisphere. This has been a big issue of the higher feedstock prices. Despite margin pressure, IVL maintained premiums over the industry benchmark due to our global presence and resilient domestic supply chain capability, a unique strength of CPET, which led to above-average margins in 2022, and you will see that in the next slide. We continue with our strategic focus on recycling footprint expansion.
In 2023, we have added 45 kt of new recycling capacity in Indonesia and Brazil, and we expect improved results in recycling in 2024 with better utilization of assets, improved operational efficiency, and a full-year impact of the new capacity addition. With lower gas prices, our energy costs reduced year-over-year by $124 million, net of a hedging loss of $50 million. Now, I've come to the Q4. CPET delivered in the Q4 a reported EBITDA of $71 million, an increase of 260% year-over-year because Q4 2022 was very weak, but a decline of 51% quarter-over-quarter with an inventory loss of $49 million versus a gain of $20 million in the last quarter in extraordinary items.
Q4 2023 core EBITDA was $129, as you can see in the bottom of the slide, a decline of 5% year-on-year and 7% quarter-on-quarter. Energy hedging loss amounted to $13 million in a particular quarter. If we look at different businesses in CPET, integrated PET posted a core EBITDA of $109 million in Q4 2023, a decline of 14% quarter-on-quarter. Overall volume experienced a 5% quarter-on-quarter decline to set 2.16 million tons due to seasonality and Canada PTA plant turnaround, which was a, you know, seasonal plant turnaround in winters. Despite persistent pressure from China's excess capacity, integrated PET China benchmark spread saw a slight movement from $115 in Q3 2023 to $134 in Q4 2023 from a combination of industry rationalization. So Q3 had very bad margins.
Then there was an industry rationalization that happened, reduced operating rates by Chinese players as they were losing money, and the spreads had reached unsustainable levels. Further anti-dumping duties and production measures were introduced in Europe on Chinese imports in November 2023 with ongoing evaluation for similar measures in certain countries. Mexico actually has recently initiated anti-dumping duties on China. Specialty chemicals posted a Core EBITDA of -$3 million, an improvement of $10 million quarter-over-quarter, and improvement in profitability was primarily due to higher volume of our specialty product NDC in the U.S. after plant turnaround in Q3 2023 as well as due to lower utility and fixed costs. Packaging posted a Core EBITDA of $22 million, marginally down 9% quarter-over-quarter. The packaging performance remains firm and solid with the opportunity to unlock growth potential in emerging economies going forward.
Looking ahead, we see adverse impacts are bottoming out, as we see improvement in the margins. We anticipate volume growth with the ease of destocking, organic growth, and recycling expansion. We believe the current benchmark integrated PET spread is not sustainable and anticipate a gradual recovery going forward. With anti-dumping duties and other trade barriers in markets like the EU, Mexico, India imposing BIS, and other, IVL premium spread over China's benchmark is expected to widen, which tends to benefit IVL since the majority of our operations are situated outside of China. We believe gasoline demand will begin to stabilize going forward post-COVID activity, coupled with global balancing of refinery production. The regional average price disparity will narrow but not go to the original level, aiding our Western polyester business with lower feedstock costs. So that gives you a good feel about CPET business.
Now, this is a premium slide. As you can see on the first chart on the left, despite a compressed industry margin, IVL has managed to uphold a strong premium over the market, and we are giving you from 2018, 2017, to 2023. Even with a compressed benchmark in 2023, we were able to maintain our integrated PET spread at the same level in 2018, which was a peak. If you can see the premium, IVL has been able to improve our premium over the benchmark from $90 in 2018 to $190 in 2023 due to geographically diversified footprint, local price premium, trade barriers, strong customer relations, and the capability to offer recycled material as a distinguished factor.
However, if you see in the middle, comparing 2018 to 2023, there is a significant decline in the EMEA, which is because of the cheap imports, high feedstock prices, and energy prices being high, and the overall demand because of the geopolitical situation. While America, you can see, remains robust with a premium market position and new acquisition of Brazil post-2018 by IVL. But as I mentioned, Brazil had a significant impact in 2023 versus 2022. Asian business got impacted from significant benchmark margin compression through new addition of capacity in Egypt, and India supported the performance. So this is just giving you a comparison of 2018 to 2023. As mentioned, our European operations were negatively impacted by a combination of high energy costs and import pressures due to lower supply chain costs. Regional disparity in aromatic pricing widened, bringing significant cost pressure and import competition in the West.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict caused a significant energy cost increase. With this factor, our EMEA IPET, you can see, has contributed negative EBITDA in 2023. The North American market has remained resilient, although with some negative impact from a compressed benchmark margin and high feedstock costs. So this gives you a comparison of what happened in 2023, even versus. So IVL enjoys the significant premium over benchmark spreads as we are protected in many markets from the Chinese dumping because of trade barriers. Go to the next slide. Now, coming to IOD, in 2023, the IOD segment delivered an EBITDA of $440 million, a decline of 41% quarter year-on-year. Excluding inventory loss and extraordinary items, the segment core EBITDA declined 34% to $478 million. Volume decreased 7% year-on-year on a performer basis, as I mentioned, mainly in downstream business.
Downstream business IOD was impacted due to destocking in most of the end market, sluggish economic activities, high interest rates, slower China recovery, and pressure from imports. With lower gas prices, our energy costs in IOD reduced year-over-year by $83 million, net of hedging loss of $42 million. If we look at downstream and upstream, integrated downstream, in 2023, integrated downstream delivered $302 million of core EBITDA, a reduction of 42% year-over-year. Downstream spreads were impacted on account of destocking across the board but particularly impacting us in the premium margin products and import pressure for commodities in South America post-supply chain normalization. So this was particularly noticed a lot in Brazil, that the earnings dropped quite a bit.
Sales volume and margin drop was particularly in the Crop Solutions and housing-related business, that is, propylene oxide , as well as in ingredients used in soaps and detergents, that is, oxide chemicals. So oxide chemicals have been suffering in 2023 versus 2022. LAB and solvents. Ethanolamines' profitability was actually comparable year-on-year, so that remained reasonably stable. Intermediates in 2023 delivered $176 million in core EBITDA, a decrease of 16% year-on-year, primarily from MEG in America. U.S. MTBE spreads slightly improved from $623 in 2022 to $651 in 2023, driven by the ongoing robustness in Oxiteno value and gasoline demand. Our integrated MEG business continued to maintain shale gas advantage over Asia because Asia is naphtha-based. However, Asia benchmark spreads remain suppressed at an unsustainable level. Benchmark China integrated margins in 2023 were softer by 6% year-on-year amid lackluster growth of polyester.
For IVL, MEG serves as an integrated component in our CPET segment, and we are running our MEG capacities mainly to fulfill captive needs and long-term contracts. Management actions, one of the management actions being considered, is to consolidate MEG production between our three sites in the Americas to increase operating rates and lower fixed and variable costs in order to reach a break-even EBITDA and better in 2024 and beyond. So this is one of the other management actions which we are working on. If we look at Q4 2023, IOD delivered reported EBITDA of $100 million, which was up 7% year-on-year. Q4 2022, as you know, IOD EBITDA included license income of $24 million against $2 million this quarter.
So without license income, the IOD reported EBITDA increased from $69 million in Q4 2022 to $98 million in Q4 2023, representing an increase of 42% year-on-year. Excluding inventory losses and extraordinary items, the segment core EBITDA was $112 million. However, volume increased 4% quarter-on-quarter with some easing of destocking in many product categories. In intermediates, energy hedging loss of $10 million for the quarter and $42 million for 2023. If we look at downstream, in Q4 2023, downstream portfolio delivered $87 million of core EBITDA, an increase of 90% quarter-on-quarter. Reported EBITDA was $74 million, lower with the extraordinary items. Here, margins substantially improved from pricing excellence, favorable product mix, and the easing of destocking in certain products. These factors collectively contributed to enhanced performance across both North America and South America.
If we look at core EBITDA per ton, improved to $40 per ton against $136. So we are seeing that, downstream recovery in the volumes, which is getting reflected as the destocking is getting completed. Integrated intermediates, this vertical yielded core EBITDA of $25 million and reported EBITDA of $26 million. As you know, seasonality plays a role here. U.S. MTBE spreads declined from peak Q3 2023 to $512 from $892. However, it remains robust due to continued strong gasoline demand and low feedstock prices. Although integrated MEG spreads have shown improvement quarter-over-quarter from $314-$355 due to improved ethylene spread, it remains challengingly low at an unsustainable level, delivering negative EBITDA, and that's where we are taking action for MEG. How do we see going forward? We are seeing modest recovery in IOD downstream volumes and margins as destocking eases.
And you know, the supply chain disruption which is happening is also putting better demand. MTBE margins continue to hold strong due to high Oxiteno value and lower feedstock prices. So that gives you some idea about what's happening in coming quarters. Next slide. The fiber performance has been difficult in 2023, continues to be subpar, where all three verticals are underperformed to its potentials, primarily due to weak demand and persistent overcapacity in all markets. High costs, primarily in Europe, remained a key challenge, and the segment has crafted a thorough action plan to optimize the asset footprint over the coming years to improve the quality of funding. In 2023, the fiber segment delivered an EBITDA of $107 million, as you can see, a decline of 54% year-over-year, and a reported EBITDA of $124 versus $212, which is a decline of 41%.
If we look at mobility in 2023, while the mobility showed promising signs of development with an uptick in automotive production, it did not fully benefit from the growth because of lower replacement tire volumes in the West. The replacement tire space has been relatively weak, indicating room for improvement. The hygiene sector, you know, had a very strong demand in post-COVID, but the market is currently facing the dual challenge. You have excess capacity built during the pandemic and normalized consumer prices. And also, we had higher polypropylene prices. In lifestyle, despite remaining solid volumes, the lifestyle vertical has faced challenges, primarily driven by overcapacity being built in China, leading to increased exports and subsequent margin competitions in the markets where we operate. In India, BIS certification is expected to support volumes and spread in 2024.
If we look at quarter results, the fiber segment delivered an EBITDA of $16 million, $6 million reported, and a core of $18 million, which is a year-on-year drop, a decline of $18 million, primarily due to lower volumes and margins. Mobility delivered an EBITDA of $12 million and a core EBITDA at $19 million for the quarter. Mobility business margins were stable, and sales volume benefited from strong OEM demand, but replacement tire demand was weak. Hygiene posted an EBITDA of $5 million and a core EBITDA of $3 million, declining 78% quarter-on-quarter basis due to lag loss from higher polypropylene prices. Overall volume increased from higher demand, mainly in the US and Europe. Lifestyle, as you see, reported EBITDA was negative, $11 million, against a positive EBITDA of $10 million, so that was a major challenge for us.
This primarily came from a $10 million swing from inventory gain of $5 million in the Q3, and we had inventory loss of $5 million in the Q4 and change in core performance. So fibers remains challenging because of the cheap imports from Asia, but as the BIS is getting implemented in India and we have significant volume there, we should benefit going forward. So looking ahead in fiber business, we have implemented a volume recovery strategy, strategically securing contracted volume with brand owners. Domestic market protection measures in various countries like India, Indonesia, and Brazil will serve as valuable safeguards, especially when market conditions improve. This proactive approach underscores our commitment to navigate the challenges and capitalize on opportunities positioning ourselves for sustained success in the foreseeable future. So a lot of work is being done in the fiber business.
Now, in response to the current challenging environment, we have taken aggressive steps, as I mentioned, to reduce working capital and exceed our cash conservation target. As you can see, we reduced the working capital by nine days, leading to a cash conversion of $513 million per working capital, and we reduced the Capex by $276 million with optimization of our maintenance Capex for $138 million, and growth Capex we reduced by another $137 million. Looking ahead in 2023, our focus on conserving more cash through Capex optimization remains unwavering. The temporary halt, as you can see, of the Corpus Christi project exemplifies management's proactive approach in optimizing Capex amid changing circumstances. These strategic decisions have enabled us to preserve cash and generate Free Cash Flow in the face of macroeconomic challenges. So cash remains a very important focus at present.
At the end of 2023, as you can see, our gross debt is $7.4 billion and net debt of $6.8 billion, the leverage ratio of net debt equity at 1.31 and DSCR at 1.27. High liquidity at $2.4 billion at the end of December 2023, which comprises cash and cash under management plus unutilized credit lines, so we have good war chest. Effective finance costs for the year 2023 were at 5.31%, which is an increase of 1.29% over 2022. This increase is driven primarily on account of 42% of debt with benchmark at floating rates in U.S. dollars, Thai baht, and euro, while around 58% of debt remains with fixed price. So 58% fixed, 42% floating. Natural hedge on forex with our global manufacturing footprint in 35 countries.
Our debt and assets are directionally in the same currency, providing us a natural hedge, as you can see. However, at this time, we increased a little bit Thai baht debentures due to lower interest rate as they are of long-term investments. Financing is very important, so what we have done, we have committed term sheet for $750 million of debt refinancing, for which documentation is in progress and will complete in the first half of 2024. The debt being refinanced has an average maturity profile of more than five years and at lower spreads. Further, we have committed term sheets of $400 million to refinance debt maturities in the first half of 2025. The debt being refinanced has an average maturity profile, again, of five years at lower spreads.
You can see what is our debt reduction post-financing and pre-financing, and we are putting our debentures in the market for $10 billion, which will be closed by 7th March. TRIS has reaffirmed our AA-rating with a stable outlook in October 2023 in the midst of ongoing volatile geopolitical and weak macroeconomic environment. We have a diversified source of financing in types of financial markets and currency mix. In addition, we have been in the forefront of sustainable financing for $2.4 billion, which represents around 32% of debt outstanding. So there has been a lot of focus on the sustainable finance. The management has taken steps to deliver through an increase in free cash flow from improvement in financial performance, working capital optimization, controlled Capex and opex, asset optimization, divestment, and realized value. We will talk about this in subsequent slides. Next slide.
So this is an interesting slide. Details we will unveil at CMD. Today, IVL has created a solid platform with leadership in a sustainable and growing market. The focus over the next three years will be on the continuous improvement of the quality of earnings through enhancing the quality of our assets, our processes, and our organization. As mentioned in the last release, the company is conducting a strategic review of all business segments with the aim to deliberate, unlock further value, and stringently review our capital allocation to conserve cash and lower fixed costs. Each business segment has identified an area of business focus with a detailed and resource-action plan to remain vigilant on this front. We are reviewing our strategic option to prepare ourselves for the next era of growth. What does the four-pronged strategy talk about? Asset optimization.
This means getting rid of the assets which are creating negative cash flow, monetizing and carving out a few assets, value unlocking through various strategic options, and leveraging Olympus 2.0 for continuous efficiency improvement. This action will bring value and improvement to the quality of earnings we expect in 2024 to 2026. So we are targeting to bring down our net debt to EBITDA to below 3, improve ROCE to over 12%, creating healthy positive economic value added, and Olympus 2, which is basically, the transformation, you know, rationalizing the footprint, improving the efficiency. We are targeting efficiency gain of $450 million. As I mentioned, details of the plan will be shared at the Capital Markets Day on 5th March 2024, and we really look forward to meeting to spell out these strategies which we are. So thank you very much. I think that's the last slide, right?
Then we can now take your question. You can keep that slide. Yeah.
Thank you, Mr. Agarwal . So, audience, you can ask questions. The event is all virtual, so you can raise your hand, and then we can queue up and invite you for the questions. I don't see any hands raised at this time. So you can also unmute yourself, and you can also ask questions. Okay. I can see that Bank of America Kanasarn Thananunniwat , can you hear us? Can you ask your question, Kanasarn Thananunniwat ?
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, VK, for the thorough presentation. A few questions. First off, can you elaborate more on what you're going to do with MEG in the US to say you have consolidated those assets, right? Can you explain a bit more? And what about the cracker that you have there?
The second question is, can you add more color on the Capex and monetization that you just mentioned? Thank you.
Thank you, Kanasarn Thananunniwat . So MEG optimization, as you know, MEG has been a very challenging business causing negative EBITDA. We have three plants in Port Neches and one plant in Clear Lake. So we are working on how can we optimize so we can reduce the fixed cost and also the variable cost to improve the profitability. However, as you know, the MEG, if you can bring the slide of MEG, the margins of MEG, as you can see, had started improving. The middle shows that Asia-integrated PET spreads are very, very low, although they have started recovering now because they are making significant cash losses. The green shows how the Asian spreads are improving.
So certainly, we are seeing a lot of improvement in the spreads, but we want to make sure that this optimization happens so that we can reduce the overall fixed cost and improve the variable cost. On the right-hand side, you see the global MEG cash cost curve. Naturally, ethane is the most cost-competitive to make MEG where we stand. Our Clear Lake cracker, Lake Charles cracker, and both Port Neches crackers are operating very well. Lake Charles cracker operating rate has been 75%. As you know, the crack margins have not been great if you go to that lean. Shale gas advantage still remains very high. You know that gas prices actually really collapsed to $1.95, and the ethane prices dropped. So ethane cost in the United States remains quite good.
You can see the middle, the crack margin still remains very poor, and that is because of the utilization rate. If you see on the right-hand side, we have tried to add up how much capacity got added in the United States, 32 million tons versus 12 million demand. So the operating rate was only 81%. This is the global. And you can see in America, it is 80%. But now, as the capacities are slowing down, there's no capacity getting built. It's very expensive. The operating rate will go 84%. So this will certainly improve the crack margin. Your question was carve out monetization. So there are two parts. Monetization is one, some known core assets we have which we would like to dispose of. I will try to give you detail more in the CMD. That will create some cash of $300 million.
The carve-outs we are looking at, as this may be, certain businesses have as a sum of parts, the valuations are better if they are listed elsewhere. So we'll provide you more details. This will help because, naturally, net debt over EBITDA to drop to lower than 3x, we certainly are raising significant cash by carve-outs. So we are involved in those discussions, and we'll give you more details in the Capital Markets Day if it helps you. Yeah?
Thank you. I have a follow-up question that you mentioned about the end of destocking, in particular for the detergents and crop solutions. Are you seeing the trends continue which will impact or possibly impact Altamira unit or Brazilian unit? And the second question is, the Asian integrated PET spread has started to move up. Is that a function of capacity cuts in China?
And whether or not would that continue if ADD, as you mentioned, has been implemented, or do you think that the Chinese might increase the rate when the spread has started going up? And are you seeing the seasonality in the Q2 going to be the same as that of last year? Thank you.
Thank you. So, Kanasarn Thananunniwat , first on IOD downstream, we are certainly seeing improvement in the sales from Q1. Destocking, we believe, has really come to an end. So we are seeing crop solutions demand coming back. Home and personal care has been actually reasonably strong and even solvent now. Also, the supply chain disruption because there was certain competition pressure in Altamira, which should help to improve. Coming to the second question on your integrated PET spread, if you can bring the slide, you're right. The integrated PET spreads have improved.
This slide shows you how the Chinese PET operating rate is today 86%. On the right-hand side gives you the slide that what is the average spread. Yes, as soon as the capacities were getting built, Q3, 2023, there was a significant drop in the spread. Now we have seen January, February, the spreads improving on the bold line on the top, which you can see. This is because certain capacities have been rationalized in China. As you can see in the bottom, 75% of the capacity is owned by four players. So, naturally, when they make cash losses, it doesn't make sense. So they are shutting down some of the lines which were not cost-effective, and that's why we see some improvement in the margin happening.
Chinese PET exports also, you can see that because China actually can't export to many countries because of the trade barriers. So there, you can see even in 2023, their exports were limited to 4.6 million tons. So certainly, the worst is behind us. We see gradual improvement. Seasonality will play a role. If you can go to that next slide where how our sales composition is to explain to you what is happening on 2024 sales of our IVL, you can see that America, as you saw, the results are very strong. Europe, since there was no anti-dumping duty earlier, now the anti-dumping duties have come. Then there is a supply chain disruption of this Red Sea crisis. So only 20% of our sales are impacted by Chinese imports. And Southeast Asia is 9%, which, of course, enjoys better margin.
This is because of the right-hand side. All the countries have taken action for anti-dumping duties. You see the U.S., there is no Chinese cargo goes. India, still, there is a lot of Chinese cargo goes. But BIS, this is a quality certification which will get implicated by the middle of 2024, which will put stoppage of Chinese imports because they need certification which is not there. And European anti-dumping duties started from November. Japan already has. Brazil has. So certainly, this will benefit. Just to give you a little bit on the freight side, this is a disruption which is happening. This is the Shanghai Freight Index. You can see in 2022, when COVID was there, how much your CFI, which is an indicator, went to 5,112.
Then you suddenly see demand normalization happening, and space containers, you know, the freights came down to the pre-COVID level, actually, in spite of high energy cost. Now, recently, post-Red Sea crisis, the index has gone up. The right-hand side gives you some of our relevant markets where freights have gone up significantly in February. Now, this has all recently happened. European main ports have increased from $32 to $124, East Coast to $239, West Coast to $195, and Turkey and Brazil. So this has just recently happened. Another important is, if you can bring that graph, what is happening in the Red Sea? Because Singapore to, say, China to Rotterdam, it was going through the Suez Canal. Now, it cannot go anymore. You must have listened to many disruptions which are happening. Everything has to go through Cape of Good Hope.
Now, Cape of Good Hope has improved this, increased the cycle time by nearly 18 days. This means vessel capacity is reducing. Now, this is all vessels are going through. So there is a shortage in Europe, which has certainly improved the European PET spreads at present. We are not showing Panama Canal here because of El Niño also. Panama Canal, which serves the East Coast, there is also a disruption. But these are temporary. I hope these things get resolved. But right now, this is the disruption which is happening in the marketplace. Hopefully, that answered your questions.
Thank you, Kanasarn Thananunniwat . So next, I can see Mayank from Morgan Stanley. Can you please unmute and ask your question, Mayank?
Thanks, Vikash. Thanks, Dilip, sir, for the comprehensive presentation.
First question, sir, was more related to the US operations and slide 10 that you kind of talked about on the premium of Asia versus the US for PET. Obviously, there have been resets in terms of pricing in the US for 2024. So if you can just highlight what will be the new spreads that we could be potentially looking at, how much is the reduction in contract pricing and margins for 2024 over 2023 in the US? Because your competition has guided for a pretty tough outlook in the US on PET as well. So if you can just talk about your view on how you are seeing things on the US PET side. Thank you.
Thank you, Mayank. So very good question. So you see this premium of $190 which we got in 2023 because Europe was negative EBITDA totally.
So Europe was in terrible mess because, as you saw, the freight cost was lower. And similarly, in Brazil, as I mentioned, because the freights were lower. So $190 is not United States. It's a combination of all the sales which we do, okay, including United States, Europe, and Asia. You're right. The U.S. will have lower margins because the contracts have been reset. We have some legacy contract. So there may be a $75-$80 million impact of that. But actually, it will much more get compensated by gain in Europe and American spot prices also. There are American spot prices that have gone up. So we believe that our blended spread premium will still remain $190 per ton, lower in United States, a little bit better, or same in Mexico, but much better in Brazil and Europe. So it's a combination of all.
So it's not only North America. So our diversified footprint will certainly help us in this.
Interesting, sir. So just to follow up on this because $82 million impact on the US because of the reset in contracts. So can you just share a bit about how much of the contracts are getting impacted for 2024? How much volumes out of the total are getting impacted under the legacy contracts which are shifting to new pricing?
So it's 24% is the legacy contract, 56% which got nearly impacted. So what I'm telling you is about the overall impact because that is the impact of Oxiteno disparity. So that is where the contracts were reset at lower prices. But there are certain contracts which are still being discussed.
So we think the combination of Americas America will have some negative impact, United States, but then it will get compensated from Brazil because Brazil has been significantly impacted last year due to two reasons. One is Oxiteno disparity and the freights in Brazil because Brazil pricing is totally done based on import parity. And now, with the freight increases, Brazil will have much more improved results. So I hope that answered your question. So, of course, if our competitors depends on what market mix you have, right? That plays an important role.
Fair enough. And the second question was on the CapEx slide that you had. So if you look at, I think, your growth CapEx even for 2024 and 2025, it looks like it's running at a rate of around $500 million still. Any reason of why this number is still that high?
Is it because of the challenges you talked about in the market and the cash conservation strategy?
So this includes $150 million of Oxiteno deferred payment. Of course, in 2023, we cut a lot of maintenance CapEx. So $320 is the maintenance CapEx. I think we have a little bit here conservative with $430. We certainly will be able to do better than this as we did last year. And the growth CapEx is only $250 if you see in the dark line. So growth CapEx is only on Mocksville completion of the project, which is our new line, state-of-the-art line in Mocksville for hygiene business, and also some recycling in India because, you know, in India, as you know, the regulations are coming, and recycling has a very significant demand of recycled PET. So that is the major. But no other major growth CapExes we are doing.
Certainly, you're right. Maintenance will be lower as we will rationalize. We will revise the numbers as we come back to you. As you saw in last year, 2023, we only spent $320 million. We are trying to keep cash conservation always. That would be the focus.
Yeah. Just the last question was more related to net debt. You said that the net debt is actually now this year is higher than the last year, and you had a positive free cash flow. Just wanted to understand what's going on on the net debt side or why has it gone up with a positive free cash flow?
You exactly pointed out correctly. You know, we are reporting in dollar, and Thai baht was very strong at the end of 34.2.
So when you convert into dollar actually, in Thai baht, the debt has come down, right? But when you convert into dollar, it has actually on a particular point because that exchange rate was high, you know?
Excuse? The reason I was saying is it's a good $250 million delta.
Yes, yes. So one is translation impact, and second is also some operational lease because of IFRS, which we need to put as a debt, you know, which was earlier as a finance lease because of the new regulations. So that came in. But that is reclassification, you can say. But we can provide you the bridge. Yeah.
And I think on that point itself, I think if you look at the Q4 run rate of your interest cost, it's running north of 6% gross interest cost.
You think after the refinancing that you highlighted on this slide 14, you will be able to reduce it, or the increase will be, or how much will be the increase post the refinancing on the total debt portfolio on your cost for 2024?
So our financing cost in 2024 is expected to be the same as 2023, which will be around $450 million, right? $440-$450 million. The benchmark spreads because, you know, there was floating and fixed. Certainly, the effective finance cost will be slightly higher, but overall debt, as it will slightly come down, and also Thai baht ratio will increase. So we expect the finance cost to remain the same as 2023, 2024. We have assumed certain cuts in the second half of 50 basis points. That is the assumption at present.
Got it. Clear. Thank you.
You remember, this also includes amortization of finance costs when you refinance. It also includes that part of the cost. Yeah.
Thank you, Mayank. I can see Yupapan from Thanachart. Can you ask your question?
Hi Ka. Thank you for your presentation. So my first question would be regarding the Corpus Christi. I'm not sure whether you have mentioned how much the remaining book value of the asset is. And do you expect to put any more CapEx into Corpus Christi?
So actually, we have stopped all the three partners stopped the construction of Corpus Christi. The residual value is around $310 million after impairment of $308 million. What we are going to do is that we are going to reassess the execution strategy of all the three partners and how can we bring the overall project cost in a controllable manner.
This is still a very cost-competitive asset because of its location, size, and technology. I think what went wrong is on the project cost, which we will revisit in 2025. The recurring cost will be certainly there. There will be $6 million per year, which is basically $6-$10 million, as this is mentioned, which is basically the insurance and the residual cost. But in book value, it still is $310 million left out, yeah, after the impairment.
Thank you. My second question will be regarding the rPET. I see that the recent month in January that started to pick up because of the higher freight cost. Should I expect that this should be benefit IVL margin in the Q1 as well?
I think certainly, Q1, Europe will be beneficiary. The US will be beneficiary. Brazil, as you can see, will be beneficiary.
As the situation is still evolving, as I mentioned, that the cycle time has increased. The freights are further going up as we speak for Turkey also. So this will certainly benefit. How long this situation remains is a very difficult question, when the Red Sea crisis resolves. Meanwhile, no container companies are taking the voyage through Suez. And that's why we certainly see this at least dragging up to the next 3-4 months because even if it resolves, then to get capacity back will take time. So it's a very evolving situation. It will be very difficult, but it is certainly beneficial for us because, as you saw in the previous 2021, 2022, as the supply chain disruption happens, you can price the product based on import parity. In Europe, 87% of our sales is based on contract on the market price.
And market price reflects, and I don't know whether you have the European margin slide, Vikash, that the European margin prices have certainly improved. As you can see on the green chart, EU integrated PET spread on import parity. That will help. So what you saw negative certainly will help in the whole situation.
Thank you, Ka.
Thank you, Yupapan. And Khun Ning from CGS-CIMB, can you ask your question?
Thanks, Vikash. May I ask about the IOD downstream? Which product is actually exhibit stronger margins because EBITDA improved quarter-over-quarter? And the second question is on Corpus Christi. Does the company have the option to sell the asset so that there could be some potential of a write-back? Thank you.
So the first question was IOD downstream, if I got it, with the volume improvement, right, from Q4 to Q3. We have seen home and personal care stronger.
We are seeing a little bit rebound in the propylene oxide. Ethanolamines has been stronger. However, as you can see, this slide gives you a good picture of the volatility here also that $511 million is the average EBITDA for IOD downstream for 2021, 2022, 2023. North America is $326 million and $185 million is South America. For 2023, because of destocking, as you know, we had a significant drop in the sales, nearly 8%, as I mentioned, margin compression. North America is $210 million. South America, Brazil, was most impacted from a drop to $92 million. Now, as we see destocking ending, again, this is and the Crop Solutions coming back, personal and home care remains strong. Coatings and construction are still weak, which should, I think, come back as interest rates are coming down and more construction activity.
So we certainly see IOD downstream EBITDA improving going forward. The gas prices, lower gas prices, will also help us. So we see an improvement. Second question was on Corpus Christi. Yes, that's an option available to sell your stake and realize the money. Management will continue to look at all the options for this project. So yes, that option is always available.
Thank you. Just follow up on page 11 on the Q4, EBITDA for the downstream, $74 versus $45. You said on the sideline that it is because of the better margins. I just want to understand which product.
Yeah. So the better margin you have the detail is in the it's actually a mix of Crop Solutions being better. Ethanolamines' margins have been strong, and Crop Solution sales are better. So it's a combination of three.
Personal and home care was more or less a stable margin. So you have to look at from that angle, you know, that which volumes. But we don't have exact breakup, but we can always provide you if you have them. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Khun Ning, there. And now I can see Sumit from J.P. Morgan. Can you hear us, Sumit?
Yes. Yes. Thank you so much, Vikash. Yeah. I have a couple of questions, somewhat housekeeping, but just want to understand whether the Corpus Christi impairment, does it lead to any decline in your depreciation rate? And also just want to understand whether you have any hedging outstanding with reference to the energy cost. So that's one. And the second question is specific to your mid-cycle EBITDA pattern that you mentioned around $125 over the next couple of years from around $90 where we are today.
So I just want to understand how do you construct a bridge? I mean, which products is where you are seeing improvement? And you may potentially see volumes getting cut as well, right? So how should we think about it? Thank you.
Very good. So I'll go to your last question first. $90-$125 if you can bring in. Now, Yupapan, we are taking several actions here as management actions. We actually have not improved, taken any margin increase in this because we believe we think that this margin basically, if the market remains still same, what management actions we can take to improve this? So it's a combination of two things. One is volume increase. As you can see, our volume is only 13.9. Our operating rate of the asset was 74% only. And this means that we have huge fixed costs operating all the assets.
So that's why we are looking at this optimization of portfolio, particularly high-cost assets, and improve the operating rate to 88%-99%. If you see in the graph, actually, these volumes are the end volumes, which we are going back to 2021 level. So we are very confident about the volume. So the volume is throwing nearly $570 million plus from 2023 to 2026. Second is the which improves EBITDA per ton because your variable cost comes down because you are running the assets harder, which are running and operating in lower capacity. And if you have four lines and your conversion cost per ton is lower for one particular asset, you run that higher, particularly as you know, our Egyptian and Turkish plants are very low-cost and also Polish. The second is the Olympus 2.0, which is basically rationalization.
This is reducing the fixed cost, improving the productivity, indirect procurement improvement, digitalization, value pricing, innovation. So that's exactly what we are talking of, these two buckets were in spite of having an escalation in the fixed cost of $100 million. So we're basically talking of the summation of nearly $800 million-$900 million. So that is how this EBITDA per turn, of course, if any margin improvements happens, that's a sweetener which will come up in this. So it's a sales excellence and everything. Your first question was Corpus Christi was not capitalized. So naturally, there is no decline in depreciation because it will remain the same. This $320 million, whatever is net book value, will still remain in work in progress. Second question was about hedging. What was that question?
Any outstanding hedging on Corpus Christi?
Yes. Correct. Hedging.
Any outstanding hedging on Corpus Christi?
There is no hedging outstanding in Corpus Christi. Of course, you know that we—
sorry. Not on Corpus Christi, it's on energy.
Energy, yeah. So Vikash, he asked energy. That's what I asked. Sumit will never ask this. So yes. So we suffered $100 million loss. Can you go to the energy slide? Very important. So you know we have been following 100 if you see here, in 2022, we had a significant energy cost jump of $637 million. We had a gain of $85. So net loss was $550 million. But actually, we passed on everything because supply chain disruption was so high, the freight costs were so high. In 2023, we had $355 million but $100 million loss. So $252 million were actually net impact. Now, as you know, the gas prices have come down, we think there will be a $180 million gain.
There is a hedging loss of $31 million, and the net gain will be $150 million. So $30 million is hedged loss as on today's market price. Now, this may keep changing because as the market will change. But you know $150 million, there will be incremental saving versus 2023 because of the energy prices, which hopefully we can pocket it. The energy prices have been very volatile. As you can see, in 2024, it is $1.86 per second, which never has happened in the gas because this is because of the winter being not so strong and high inventories were there, although there is some cut in the number of wells and rigs which has been announced the day before yesterday by Chesapeake Energy. So this is volatile. So we still continue to follow the policy of 50% hedge. Hopefully, that answered.
Yes. Absolutely. Thank you.
Thank you, Sumit. I can see Yupapan, your hands are still raised. Do you have any follow-up question?
Yes. I have one more question.
Okay. Please go ahead.
Could you please give an update on the PET supply situation in this year? How much do you expect the new capacity will come? Given that the spread is very low, do you see any capacity delay?
This is about PET capacity, right? So I think that's a fact of the story that China has added a significant capacity, and they may add another 3-4 million tons in the subsequent 2024, 2025. Question is what China will do with that extra capacity. They can't export to these markets because these markets are so protected. There is anti-dumping duty from 100% to 60%.
That's why you can see that 2023 exports, in spite of significant capacity addition, were restricted to 4.6. Another important part is that cash losses which Chinese are making. You can see on the second graph on the right-hand side that Chinese made significant losses as the integrated spreads dropped from Q3, and then they cut 2.5 million tons, and it has started moving up. So Chinese capacity has been there, as you have seen in the previous chart also. Sometimes it was 85%, 86% operating rate. So we actually, our strategy is not too much worry about China and focus on our cost optimization, our premium markets, giving solutions to customers like recycled PET as a blended product in Europe and America, and that is what is our focus.
70% capacity, as you can see on the right side, is owned by 4 players. So certainly, and each one of them has many lines. So what we have seen is that they shut down a few lines and want to improve the spreads, which we have seen in January, February also happening. So this overhang of the capacity is there in China. I must admit that there is no solution, and they will have to rationalize themselves and depend on what Chinese domestic demand comes in. And this is our game plan, that our 20% sales only impacts by Chinese imports. 80% is we sell in the market being local player. And again, you know we saw post-COVID, customers want local supplies.
We are again seeing today, as supply chain disruption happened, so we focus on our local customers, and that is the solution which we are providing. But these spreads are unsustainable. We can certainly see because China itself is losing a lot of money.
Is the new capacity have lower cost than existing player?
Actually, it's not because, as you can see, the 70%, so out of the 30%, others will get rationalized. And within 70%, also, they have lines of 400 KT and 1 million ton. So the gap between the PET plants is not that significant. There's $510 advantage because the technology has not changed much. So I think they themselves will rationalize, and we have seen one example is in Guangzhou, one plant is permanently shut down.
So you will see that rationalization happening in 30% bucket and also some lines by these four players itself.
Thank you, Ha.
Thank you. Mayank, do you have any more questions?
Yeah. Just one, just last question on the fibers business because that's where I suppose a lot of pain is going through for the last couple of years. If I look at the Q4, the EBITDA per ton was the lowest, I think, in six years, even lower than COVID levels. So can you just help us understand how much pain we could go through here, and what are you guys doing to kind of improve the EBITDA quality in this business?
Yeah. Diego, you got a chance now to speak a little bit. Okay.
I'll give you a little break.
So absolutely, it's been a very difficult year, and our team is completely committed to turn around the performance of the business in many different ways. The first thing, we have built a plan which is based on volume recovery, which is basically across all the three key markets. We have regained share. We have secured volume. We have grown our non-woven business in Asia, excuse me, in Latin America, in the Americas. So volume is a key part of our equation. We're not banking on a margin improvement, right? But we're banking on a big restructuring and turnaround program that will be based on fixed cost reduction. We have a 10% fixed cost reduction program which is active as we speak. That's very important.
We have put in place an activity to improve our commercial excellence, to improve margin by $30 million margin through value pricing, cutting the tail of the business. We have a program to turn around our operating rates performance, which is fully staffed and dedicated. And then we have also a very aggressive, we're targeting a 19-day reduction in working capital, which will give us also some more cash to finance some of our restructuring plan, which we are planning to do. So it's a combination of different activities with an improvement in significant improvement in EBITDA expected, but a lot based on our controllable actions. So we call it control the controllables in the sense it's a lot of working capital, inventory choices, and also fixed cost reduction.
There is also. We have started, and we will share more details on the fifth. We have started an asset optimization program which is looking at the footprint, particularly on the western part of the world, which is active as we speak.
Just to add, Mayank, lifestyle, as you can see, has been one of the very big factors, which is we have India and Indonesia presence. At present, the Chinese margins were very low, huge exports because we had to compete. Now, the BIS is implemented in Q4 on POY, DTY. So all this should help in turning around the lifestyle business also. So aggressive cost reduction, some improvement because this has been, lifestyle is negative. So all what Diego explained will help.
So Diego, if you were to kind of think about the rationalization of assets when you're thinking about various businesses, obviously, you'll share details on the fifth is what you said. But which segment will have the biggest hit: PET, or it will be fibers?
It is basically in the European side because, as you know, Europe has been bleeding. So it will be across. It will be in CPET. CPET.
Yeah. Got it. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Mayank.
So for all our listeners, it's Aloke Lohia. Essentially, from 74% utilization rate, you need to go back to 85+. And that means without losing any market share, they're just going to reduce the number of sites so that the remaining sites can operate at full utilization. And then that has with COMA. That has with fixed cost. That has with working capital management.
Combination is something what Diego said is within our control. That applies to all the 3 segments. There was earlier a question on MEG. MEG consolidation is basically we have these 4 lines that Diego mentioned in Texas, and we have our captive consumption as well. What the business is being asked to do is to look at that if there is 1 particular line that does not need to operate, and we can meet our market needs, our demand from the 3, that is how we can save on the cost, the fixed cost. You have the working capital related to having an idle plant. Just optimize the operations to run at 85%+ utilization without banking on margins. There will be a margin recovery, but we don't know how much and when.
But without the margin recovery, we believe that we can get back to 2022 EBITDA levels by 2026 with a much stronger balance sheet by making some of those carve-outs as well as the monetization of non-core assets. I think that is a summary of what the plan is. I think we are going to share and I believe we are going to share a lot more on Capital Markets Day. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yupapan. Mayank, do you have any more follow-ups? I don't see any other questions also on the line at this time.
None from my end, Vikash. Thank you.
Thank you. Just for Muthukumar Paramasivam, I don't know if you are still online. So just follow up on your question.
So in the Q4, the performance, which actually by application, we saw the improvement in Home and Personal Care, Crop Solutions, Energy Resources, but we did not see improvement in Construction and Coatings. So yeah. So these were the three sectors we saw the improvement.
Because the question was which is the high-margin product that is not doing well. And that is Crop Solutions. Crop Solutions. Yeah. So Crop Solutions are still, even with some improvement, but still way behind 2022.
Absolutely. Thank you. We don't see any more questions. So we can thank you very much.
Really, thank you very much. On the Friday evening up to 7:30 P.M., we really appreciate your time. Thank you very much.
And we look forward to see you in person at the Shangri-La in Bangkok on 5th of March. We'll be having our annual Capital Markets Day event.
If you got the invites and those who are overseas, if you can't make it to Bangkok, then you'll also get the online link to join online. See you.