Good morning, and welcome to Alpek's second quarter 2021 earnings webcast. I'm Alejandro Elizondo, Alpek's Investor Relations Officer, and today I have the pleasure of being joined by our CEO, José de Jesús Valdez, and our CFO, José Carlos Pons de la Garza. This presentation is divided into two parts. First, Mr. Valdez and Mr. Pons will provide commentary on Alpek's second quarter 2021 performance and an update on relevant events. Afterwards, we will move on to Q&A. Please note that the information discussed today may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's future financial performance and prospects, which are subject to risks and uncertainty. Actual results may differ materially, and the company cautions the market not to rely unduly on these forward-looking statements. Alpek undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
I'd like to remind everyone that today's webcast is being recorded and will be available on our newly redesigned webcast located at alpek.com. I will now turn the call over to Mr. José de Jesús Valdez Simancas.
Thank you, Alejandro. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining us. I hope you are all well, you are all doing well. Today, I am excited to share with you that Alpek has delivered yet another strong quarter amid a booming global economic environment. During the second quarter, in addition to achieving record volume highs, we achieved our highest month ever in terms of comparable EBITDA. Let's start by reviewing the main topics that will be discussed in today's webcast. First, Alpek has greatly surpassed financial performance expectation for the second quarter. José Carlos will review this in greater detail. Second, Alpek made large strides in its long-term growth strategy by acquiring CarbonLITE's rPET facility. Third, Alpek has continued to make progress in its ESG efforts. Fourth, we will provide additional insight into our revised 2021 guidance as per the earning report released yesterday.
Providing some context for this quarter result, the increase in the amount of people getting vaccinated against COVID-19 has improved market confidence and therefore continued strengthening the global economy. This stronger economic activity has generated rising demand for petrochemical products, including PET. As such, during the second quarter, Asian integrated polyester reference margins further improved to an average of $356 per ton. It was much higher than Alpek's revised guidance figure of $285, which was based on the supply-demand balance expectations prevalent at the end of the first quarter. Similarly, the market has experienced a stronger demand for polypropylene.
Apologies, we had technical difficulties. We will now continue the call.
Similarly, the market has experienced a stronger demand for polypropylene. This has kept this product inventory levels low in North America, thereby extending the positive effects of the Texas polar vortex on margins. In the second quarter, margins continued to strengthen to an average of $0.47 per pound. We believe this tendency has the potential to carry over into the third quarter. At this point, I would like to turn the call over to José Carlos, who will go into more details regarding the positive impact of this event on our financial results.
Thanks, José de Jesús Valdez Simancas, thank you all for being here with us today. I want to begin by highlighting the company's outstanding performance throughout the quarter. Alpek achieved a total volume of 1.2 million tons, a record high for any second quarter period in our history. Comparable EBITDA of $225 million as a result of record second quarter volume and higher than expected PET and polypropylene margins, as discussed by José de Jesús Valdez Simancas. A leverage reduction to 1.3x , as last 12 months EBITDA significantly increased, and strong results offset CapEx and dividends in the quarter. Turning our attention to volume, Alpek reached 1.2 million tons this period, setting a record for any second quarter in our history, and achieving an 8% increase year-on-year. In the polyester segment, volume was 1% higher versus the figure for last year due to a strengthened demand.
Volume decreased by 5% versus the previous quarter, as a severe drought in Altamira temporarily affected our PTA production rates. In Plastics and Chemicals, volume increased by 45% year-on-year, mainly due to demand strength across the segment, as well as incremental volume from the Styrenics business we acquired in the United States last year. This figure exceeds our highest-ever Plastics and Chemicals volume, set in the fourth quarter in last year. It is important to remember that 2020 figures were adversely affected by shutdowns in the construction and automotive industries at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. If we exclude our recently acquired EPS sites, volume would have been still 25% higher versus last year. Moving on to raw material price dynamics.
As the global economy continues to strengthen, demand for refined products has kept rising, leading to an increase in average spot Brent crude oil to $69 per barrel, 13% higher than in the previous quarter. Correspondingly, U.S. reference paraxylene prices also increased by 12% versus last quarter. In plastics and chemicals, propylene prices averaged $0.67 per pound, an 8% decrease when compared to the previous quarter, but rising to $0.74 per pound in June. This rise in prices towards the quarter end generated a positive inventory adjustment and a carryforward effect across both of our business segments. Switching over to our EBITDA breakdown for the second quarter, we can see that comparable EBITDA was $225 million, 11% higher quarter-on-quarter as Alpek experienced record second quarter volume, and PET, polypropylene, and EPS margins were significantly higher than expected.
Reported EBITDA was $273 million, 268% higher year-over-year, as this result also includes a non-cash inventory gain of $18 million and a positive carryforward effect of $29 million. In terms of results by key segment, we can see that polyester comparable EBITDA was $102 million, increasing by 14% quarter-over-quarter. Our results largely benefited from our rising average Asian integrated PET margins to $356 per ton. At the same time, plastic and chemical comparable EBITDA was $120 million, an increase of 23% quarter-over-quarter, since polypropylene margins increased by 46%, as the effects from the Texas polar vortex have persisted, and thus inventories remain low. With regards to free cash flow generation, net working capital investment decreased by $6 million, as feedstock price increases during the quarter were more than offset by an improvement in supplier trade terms.
CapEx total $132 million and was mainly allocated towards acquisition of CarbonLITE's rPET facility. Free cash flow totaled $90 million as strong EBITDA more than offset this quarter's CapEx. Alpek also paid out a dividend of $128 million, which had been approved during the annual shareholders meeting held in March. Finally, regarding our financial position, Alpek's net debt at quarter end increased marginally to $1.25 billion. Last 12 months EBITDA increased sharply this quarter, resulting in an improved leverage ratio to 1.3x net debt to EBITDA, more than in line with investment-grade requirements. If considering net debt to comparable EBITDA, we can also see that Alpek has further improved this ratio to 1.7x . Thank you, everyone, and I will now turn the call back to Pepe.
Thank you, José Carlos. Switching over to our most recent events, Alpek made important strides this quarter on the fostering a circular economy pillar of its long-term growth strategy. On June 7th, the company announced its acquisition of CarbonLITE's state-of-the-art PET recycling and pelletization facility in Reading, Pennsylvania, in the U.S., for $96 million on a debt-free basis. This site is one of the largest integrated rPET facilities in the Americas, meaning it is equipped with a solid state polymerizer designed to produce food-grade pellet, the rPET format needed to enable fully circular bottle-to-bottle recycling. With this acquisition, Alpek has grown its total rPET output capacity to 282,000 tons, reaffirming its position as the largest PET recycler in the Americas and achieving the company's target of supplying its customers with 25% rPET content before 2025.
The company expects to conclude commissioning and begin production in the third quarter of this year. Moving on. Regarding ESG, a topic that has continued to climb higher on our agenda in recent years, Alpek during 2020, was able to increase rPET infrastructure, as mentioned earlier. Redefined its dynamic materiality matrix, identifying the most pressing ESG topics for our stakeholders. Reduced scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 8.7%. Reduced total water consumption by 7.7%. Today, I'm proud to report that as a result of these actions, we have been included in the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores and S&P DJI's S&P/BMV Total Mexico ESG Index. Participants in this index have shown a commitment to ESG as part of their ongoing decision-making, which has historically translated also into higher returns for investors.
Moreover, this year we began Project Evergreen, an effort geared towards analytically defining the KPIs, targets, and action plans we need to continue to improve on all of our material issues. We plan to unveil these targets and initiatives later this year. Finally, regarding our outlook for the remainder of 2021, and after a careful review of the factors that led ALPEK to revise its guidance last quarter, the company once again has decided to provide updated guidance figures and key assumptions. A stronger than expected PET demand and margins, as well as the one-time benefits generated in the plastic and chemical segments by the polar vortex, continued into the second quarter. In the polyester segment, ALPEK expects the continuation of strong demand, with Asian integrated margin now expected to average $300 per ton for the year and normalizing at $285 per ton in the fourth quarter.
In the Plastics & Chemicals segment, the strength in polypropylene margins is also expected to continue late into August, increasing annual reference margins to $0.36 per pound. Moreover, margins at the end of the year are also expected to be higher, as the entry of production capacity last year was well absorbed by an increase in demand. Our new guidance figures are based on an average Brent crude oil reference price of $70 per barrel for 2021, up from $63 under our previous guidance, as demand for refined products has further increased without a corresponding increase in supply. Based on these assumptions, guidance for overall comparable EBITDA in 2021 is now set at $765 million and at $880 million for reported EBITDA, as well as we still expect to end the year with a net positive inventory adjustment and carry forward effect.
Guidance for CapEx is also being raised to $250 million to reflect the recent acquisition of CarbonLITE rPET facility, which was only partially included in our original guidance. Overall volume remains unchanged as performance across both segments continues in line with our original guidance. As always, I would like to thank our team, customers, and suppliers for another great quarter. I would also like to thank all of you for your attention today. I will now turn the call back to Alejandro to open the webcast for your questions.
Thank you, Pepe. At this time, we will now move on to the Q&A portion of our webcast. To ask your question live, we ask that you raise your hand virtually through the Zoom application. We will call on participants in the order that hands are raised. Alternatively, you may also type your question through the Q&A function of this application. We will attempt to cover as many questions as time allows. Our first question comes from Luiz Carvalho with UBS. Luiz, your audio has been enabled. Please unmute yourself and proceed with your question.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you well, Luiz.
Thank you. Hi, Pepe. Hi, José Carlos. Thank you for taking the question. If I may, three quick questions here. The first one, if you can provide an update on Corpus Christi. That would be great. The second one is, you reviewed the EBITDA guidance upwards, and as a consequence, that opens room for potential dividends. Just would like to understand a bit more on the capital allocation front. Third, if you have any update on Alfa restructuring and how this would impact potentially, I would say, Alpek in terms of the access to the company. Thank you.
Okay. Well, Luiz, good morning. First, on CCP, there's basically no news from what we have discussed during the last meeting. Idea is to finalize all the FEED and the contracts or bidding contracts with different EPC companies to be ready to start construction early next year. Basically no change in what we have been mentioning before. Relative to CapEx-
No, capital allocation. Yeah.
dividends, right?
Yeah. Capital allocation and dividends.
Yeah. Regarding dividends, well, the ALPEK and Alfa board, it's more Alfa on this situation, but they will decide, I think, during the next two months. The amount of dividends that should be paid. Of course, a consideration will be made at the higher than expected cash flow results for this year. We don't have yet a number that we could share with you. In terms of the ALPEK spin-off, I think as we mentioned before, the spin-off is not necessarily something that we see in the very short term. It's a process that will take time. Again, on that front, we don't have any new information to share with you.
Okay. Thank you. Congrats on the results.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ben Isaacson with Scotiabank. Ben, your audio has been enabled. Please proceed with your question.
Great. Thank you. Can you hear me okay?
We got you, Ben.
Great. I have two questions. I'll ask them one by one, if I may. First one, with the petrochemical cycle looking like it's near peak, investors are starting to focus more on those companies that can still deliver controllable EBITDA growth over the coming years. Some of the feedback that we've received recently on Alpek is that your leverage is very low, and possibly falling further, and perhaps limiting controllable EBITDA growth over the midterm, which could lead to investors switching out of Alpek into more growthy names. Can you discuss the balance between funding a more aggressive growth strategy from the balance sheet versus the need to maintain an investment-grade credit rating? Thank you.
Well, that is an extremely good question, which has no easy answer. I think for all, as we have mentioned, of course, maintaining investment grade has always been important. When we have had opportunities, M&A in particular, that present themselves, and let me remind you of the acquisition of Brazilian assets back in 2018, we've taken the growth opportunities with confidence that, if anything, our leverage ratios will increase only in the short term. While I do agree that at some point in time there is a certain conflict that you have to balance both alternatives, my opinion is if we continue to find attractive growth opportunities, we will pursue those. Of course, being very careful also with the leverage. It could be a factor, but I do believe that, and particularly now that we have such a strong balance sheet, I think we can accommodate both.
Thank you for that. Let me ask my second question. You've given updated guidance on 2021 EBITDA. Thank you for that. Now that we're more than halfway through 2021, the sell side, the buy side, are starting to focus on 2022. Now, I know it's a bit early to provide guidance right now, but can you just talk about how you see prices or margins, PET or PP, developing in 2022? Really what we're trying to figure is what kind of EBITDA sensitivity should we be thinking about? I just see that EBITDA estimates for next year are all over the place, and it may do the company a disservice without some more guidance.
Well, I have to say that it is difficult at this point to make a forecast for 2022, but we believe that margins for most of the products, and except for polypropylene, where margins have really been extremely high, I think margins in most of our other products will be very similar to this year or could even have an improvement. Let me explain a little bit. On top of the cycle and everything, there is a factor that has been helping our margins that was not considered when we set the prices of the products at the end of last year for our contracts into this year. I'm talking particularly PET and prices for North America, which is by far our largest market. That has to do with the freight rates, ocean freight rates.
Ocean freight rates, as you are all aware, have increased significantly over the last year. In order for us to assess how the margins will look into this year, we do have to have a better feeling of freight rates again for 2022. Our expectation today is that this will allow, at least again in PET, which is our largest product, North America, this will allow for an important increase in margins next year. The improvement in margins that we have experienced in Asia this year have not been translated into higher margins for North America PET. They have been translated for higher margins, particularly in our South American region. In the largest volume, which is North America, they were not, let's say, relevant this year.
Hopefully for next year, as I mentioned, even if margins in Asia go down a little bit, we still have the impact of freight, which could be quite considerable. Again, we are optimistic in terms of margins for next year for PET. We are neutral on EPS. In volume, in both cases, we are optimistic that we will be able to operate the plants at capacity, in both cases, styrene and polyester. In fact, we do hope that next year we will be able to improve our production versus the existing year. We have faced a lot of issues this year that should not be repeated into next year. We had, I think José Carlos mentioned briefly, the drought we experienced in Altamira, which took away a lot of volume. We have had a couple of shutdowns, some of them unplanned.
Again, for next year, margins of PET, we see an improvement overall. Not necessarily talking Asia, but overall margins in PET, we see them improving, volume improving. In EPS, margins neutral or steady, stable. Volume continues to be strong. The big question for us at this point in time is polypropylene. We see, again, the volume quite stable. In terms of margins, in case of polypropylene, yeah, we do expect them to go down. As we did mention also today, the level of supply-demand that we are expecting for North America 2022, relative to what we were seeing last year, is much better. I do believe that the margins will come down, but perhaps we'll be able to keep a reasonable margin.
Can I just ask one more very quick question? You've talked about freight rates being a much more important story this year, I see that. When I look at your asset portfolio, I could be wrong, but I believe outside of the Americas, you have the Wilton site. I'm not sure how many other plants you have outside. Does that mean that maybe you're going to look more towards investing overseas now to try and arbitrage out those high freight rates? Or are you still focused from an M&A point of view on the Americas?
In reality, first of all, the freight rates, I think this might be an issue of couple of years, one, two years, three years, perhaps. I don't see this as a long-term issue. Again, it's not a strong enough reason to change our strategy. I would say that, in general, even today, most of the markets we supply are supplied locally or domestically. In that sense, the increase in freight rates is mostly helpful for our performance.
Right.
In general, we price our products at the import parity prices of these products coming from other regions. If the freight were to continue high, I'm not saying I believe that, at least not for a longer period of time, if they were to continue being higher, that would be helpful and allow us to improve our margins. It does not have an impact in our decision making in terms of M&A.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Ben. Our next question comes from the line of Nikolaj Lippmann with Morgan Stanley. Nick, your line has been unmuted. Please ask your question.
Hi. Good morning, gentlemen, everyone. Thanks for the call and for taking my questions. Congrats on these incredible numbers. Three questions. One, molecular recycling versus mechanical recycling. You clearly hit the ground on the mechanical side, and you're doing great progress. What is the current thinking with regards to molecular recycling initiatives within your organization or what you're seeing in the marketplace? Any kind of reflections on that would be highly appreciated, number one. Number two, back to Corpus Christi and the new capacity. You're growing volumes in PET by about 8%. How would you feel if some of your partners there would not be prepared to push forward? Would you be interested in taking perhaps a larger stake in the Corpus and thus increase your exposure to a virgin product?
Finally, can you give us an update on the caprolactam business? I remember you were facing some supply issues there. How is that doing? Thank you very much, and again, congratulations.
Thank you, Nick. Chemical versus mechanical recycling. I agree with you. Mechanical recycling has, for the most part, been the largest route existing today. A lot of different technologies, different companies, working very hard, investing a lot of money on the chemical recycling front. We are very close to some of them. We're very close to several of them. The truth is that the chemical recycling has proven more difficult than what everybody expected. I do believe that eventually there will be a process that will succeed, but it's going to take time. That's why, although we are active on the chemical part of the equation, the chemical recycling, we still believe that in order for us to satisfy our customers' needs in 2025, we have to do that mostly with mechanical recycling.
In the longer timeframe, as I mentioned, I do believe, of course, chemical recycling will play an important role. Chemical recycling should be less sensitive to quality of bottles being used, so they have that advantage. You can use a lower quality feedstock, which is important because, as you know, the biggest challenge today for recycling is getting the feedstock. The feedstock is very limited, and of course, with the right quality. As, again, demand for used bottles continues to grow, I think the quality of some of the bottles that are left, so to speak, are going to be compromising quality, and that's when I think chemical recycling is going to be very important.
As I say, as far as we know, there are many good ideas, there are a lot of people working pilot plans and everything, but we have not seen really anything that will tell you, okay, this is the one technology that is going to leave this chemical recycling. I think we still have to wait a little bit. In the case of Corpus, yes, I hear your question about our partners don't wanting to proceed. At this point, we are not there. From what we know, all of the partners are interested in pursuing the project. I think with the good performance of the demand on the PET side over the last months, I think, in fact, I could say most of us are more committed to the project, in the sense that, certainly, demand looks better.
Whether one of the partners would not like to proceed, I think at this point it's a very hypothetical question, Nick. We will consider that when it happens.
Got it.
Margins for caprolactam have been improving as of recently. We have been operating our plant at relatively low capacity. Again, I assume you are familiar, but with this polar vortex that we experienced in February, there was a big dislocation in the prices of the raw materials, and in this particular case, benzene. Benzene normally has a certain relationship, pricing benzene in North America, price of benzene in Asia. They are correlated. Very similar prices, perhaps with a difference in freight rate at the most. During these past months, we saw a very, let's say, high difference, a very large difference, which has kept those operating these benzene prices being higher, or significantly higher in North America, again, as a result of the supply because of the polar vortex. For that reason, we have operated the plant at low capacity.
Last month, the prices became very much aligned, and this month that is still continuing. We are increasing the rates gradually of caprolactam. That's the situation.
Got it. Can you share roughly the contribution you have from this product line in 2021?
You asking caprolactam?
Yes.
As I said, we had the plant down for most of the beginning of the year. It's been relatively irrelevant.
Got it. It could be a factor for next year, but so far this year, it just hasn't been there.
Exactly.
It's an upside.
You could see that as an upside.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Nick. Our next question comes from the line of Andres Cardona with Citi. Andres, your audio has been enabled. Please unmute yourself and proceed with your question.
Good morning, Pepe, Jose Carlos. Congratulations for the results. I have two quick questions. The first one. Let's say 2021 has been a very unusual year, right? I wonder if you can remind us or guide us about how should we think about minority interest, in particular at the Plastics & Chemicals segment, and if you can flag if there is other relevant minority interest. In particular, I would like to understand how much of the $270 million of the recurring EBITDA of the segment belongs to third parties. The second question is, if you may be able to provide some color about the assumption for polypropylene for 2021, and where are the margin nowadays for both polypropylene and integrated PET margins?
Okay. Look, you're asking the assumptions of polypropylene for 2021?
Yes.
For what we have in the guidance, you mean? Or
For the new guidance, yes.
Oh, okay. Well, let me transfer this call to José Carlos.
Yes, thank you. Basically, as you remember, we started the year with a very low expectation for margins in terms of polypropylene. The more that we see the development, the margin is in the neighborhood of $0.18 per pound. We're actually expecting, as Pepe says, today as we speak, it's better than that. As we see it on an average for the year, and especially for the year-end, it will average out at around $0.18 per pound. I believe your second question, I'll just answer that one because it's a data point, that's the minority interest within Plastics & Chemicals. We have a JV on our polypropylene division with LyondellBasell. It is a 50/50 JV. We have a JV with BASF in Polioles, our specialty chemicals. Those are the only minority interests there.
The one that has a little bit more relevance is Indelpro for polypropylene, as polypropylene represents roughly half of our Plastics & Chemicals EBITDA, depending on the year, Andres.
Thank you, Alejandro.
Thank you, Andres.
José Carlos.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Leonardo Marcondes with Itaú. Leo, your audio has been enabled. Please unmute yourself and proceed with your question.
Hi, guys. Can you hear me well?
Yeah, we got you.
Sure. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is maybe a follow-up from the previous question on the 2022 figures. Just try to get a stance on potential risks on margins for the next year. I would like to know if you guys are seeing any capacity addition in the main markets for both PET and polypropylene that could likely impact margins next year. My second question is regarding the recent acquisitions that Alpek has made. For the NOVA Chemicals acquisition, it should start contributing with margin during the second half of this year, right? I would like to know if it is everything on pace with that, and also if you guys could share a little bit more on the contribution you guys expect for the CarbonLITE acquisition for this year and maybe next year. Thank you.
Well, in terms of new capacity additions, in North America, we don't expect any new PET or polypropylene capacity. The last addition we saw in polypropylene North America was the Braskem facility that started up at the end of 2020. As I mentioned also during this presentation, demand of polypropylene in the U.S. this year has grown approximately 500,000 tons, I mean, for the year. The new Braskem facility, the capacity was 450,000. Pretty much what that is telling us is that the supply-demand balance should be very similar to what it was in 2020. Okay? You could expect margins too similar to margin 2020, just based on the supply-demand factor, okay? In case of PET, as I mentioned, there is no new capacity. I already mentioned that in fact, we're short of capacity there until Corpus Christi starts up.
Yeah. Of course.
Again, and I mentioned also regarding margins of PET, that we do believe that in PET, there will be an improvement in margins in North America. Polypropylene, again, they will go back from very high margins this year to a more normal margin, similar to what we saw 2020. That will be at this point our forecast. We will review this in more detail and incorporate that in our guidance for 2022 later. That's in general how we see things. Contribution, EBITDA for CarbonLITE. We, I would say at this point, it will not be very relevant, let's say over the next 3-6 months because we're just in the starting of phase. Once the plan is up and running and assuming everything's going well, we do believe the EBITDA will be $15 million-$20 million per year.
Okay, great. For NOVA Chemicals acquisition, it should start contributing, with margins during the second half, right? It's everything on pace with that?
The NOVA acquisition, you mean?
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, actually, the Nova acquisition has been accretive for us since the beginning of the year. In our original plan, the Nova acquisition, actually, we were going to have negative EBITDA this first year, 2021, we have had a positive EBITDA under the circumstances or the margins that we've been discussed. Again, we are having positive EBITDA, we hope we will be able to improve that for next year as we continue to reduce cost and increase volume, particularly with the specialty products of our sale. The volume of our sale has been low this first half of the year. As a result, the tolling agreement that we have in Asia that has been on hold, we just extend or renew this agreement as of last month. We shall continue to see the improvement starting in July.
EBITDA for next year should be better than what we experienced in 2021, and certainly much better than what we had anticipated in our original project.
Okay. That's perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, Leo.
Our next question comes from the line of Vanessa Quiroga with Credit Suisse. Vanessa, your audio has been enabled. Please unmute yourself and proceed with your question.
Okay. Hi. Hi, everybody. Hi, Pepe. Hi, José Carlos, Alejandro, and all the team. My question is regarding, if you can give us an update, Pepe, on the reason why Asian PET margins have remained so strong, and also what kind of visibility do you have that this strength in margins, in spreads, will reflect for your operations in North America for next year? I wonder if you are already in discussions with your customers regarding the negotiations for next year. Thank you.
Look, Asian margins have been very strong this year. I hate to bring this up. In reality, in Asia, you have to sort of look at two different margins. One is what we call the China margin, the margin in China. That has been, during the first half of the year, I would say, was stronger than expected. Right now, as we speak, that margin is pretty much in line with what we have in the guidance. It's around, today is, I saw it this morning, I think it was $220. $220, the margin in China, PET margin in China over PX and glycol. Margin in China, it was higher than the guidance during the first half. Right now, it's similar. For us, and particularly going forward, the margin that matters is not so much the Chinese margin, but the margin in Asia.
The margin in Asia, traditionally, it has been margin in China, plus $30-$40. If in China it's $220, you would expect margin in Asia to be $250-$260. Today, however, margin in Asia is more like in the $300 figure. What we have experienced in Asia is the fact that China has become more separated from the rest of the countries. Now we have an $80 difference. We believe this might persist for some time. Again, part of the reason of this difference has to do with the fact of the availability and cost of the containers in Asia, and China in particular. As containers are not available and freight rates have increased so much, the prices of PET in Asia have also gone up. I mean, in Asia, have gone up and have become different from China.
This is something that is important. We have some of our contracts, let's say with our customers, some of them were based on China prices and some of them were based on Asian prices. Going forward, I have to say that part of the important changes that we are doing for next year, we are going to move all of our contracts, and we're going to reference our contracts to Asian margins, not to China margins. That should be an important improvement for us going forward. Again, assuming that the difference between China and Asia remains at higher than usual levels. Okay? That's important. Again, China has gone back to normal in terms of margins of PET. Asia remains higher than in history because they have separated from the margins China.
Again, they can do that because they don't have the pressure of having to compete with Chinese products, as a result of higher freight rates and less availability, and less particular reliability in terms of shipments. Hopefully that gives you a more clear picture of what's happening with PET in Asia.
Yeah, Pepe, that's very clear. The feedback from customers has been that this change is reasonable?
Oh, yes.
The reference to.
Consumers are right now, Vanessa, as you can imagine, much more interested in reliability of supply than in $10 or $20 price difference. Yes, I think that all of these factors that I mentioned are, is part of the reason that we feel confident that we will be able to get an increase in our margins in most of our customers next year. It's the difference between Asia and China, and again, availability and cost of freight rates. In a way, the two go together. That's the biggest change that is helping us, I would say, move forward with increases for next year.
Excellent call, Pepe. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Ricardo Rezende with JP Morgan. Ricardo, your audio has been enabled. Please unmute yourself and proceed with your question.
Thanks, Alejandro. Hi, Pepe, Jose Carlos. Hope you're all doing well. Actually, a couple of follow-ups on my side. First one is on the NOVA EBITDA. If I'm not mistaken, a couple of conference calls ago, you had mentioned that the normalized EBITDA of these assets should be something around $20 million a year. Just given how those assets are performing, how close are you to those $20 million a year, or you see an upside to that number? The second question, also follow-up, is related to M&A. We're mostly seeing you guys looking at the rPET assets in North America. How do you see the environment in Europe for those assets? Would that be something that you would be looking at, or the focus on rPET remains mostly in the U.S.? Thank you.
Well, let me start with Nova. I think Nova, as you mentioned, I believe our equilibrium, maybe the A, we want to call it was in the $15 million-$20 million. Remember that the CapEx for that asset was lower than $50 million. Okay? That's a normalized EBITDA. We are not there yet. I would say we are a little bit more than 50% of that. In order for us to get there, as I mentioned, we need to grow a specialty part of the business and to continue to reduce cost. Relative M&A in Europe, for rPET, as I mentioned before, we're looking at opportunities, particularly in U.K. In fact, one of those opportunities we've been looking at is very much related to a potential chemical recycling, nothing concrete yet.
In addition, we're looking at opportunities in South America, where that's something that could be complementary for our portfolio.
Yeah. We're obviously looking at rPET opportunities, particularly in the places where we have customers of virgin PET to complement our offer. That's right. In South America, and I would even say in Mexico, we're continually looking for opportunities.
Okay. No, very clear. If I may, just a third question. Sorry to bother you guys. The JV with ContourGlobal, I remember that you said that we should see an FID by the late third quarter. Does that remain the expected timeline?
We are reviewing that project as we speak. We will give update probably for the next conference.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ricardo. Our next question comes from Luiz Botero. He asks, "Great results. How is the process of proactive cultural transformation taking shape in every country? How do you see it enabling or impacting the positive result achievement in these difficult pandemic times?
Okay. Look, I think the culture is always a very important enabler of the performance of the company. I think that happens in general. In particular for us, we've embarked, particularly beginning of last year, a month actually before the pandemic started, we completely revisited, I would say, our vision, mission, and values, particularly trying to adapt the culture of the company. Not a drastic change in culture, just adapt to be open to more innovation, more teamwork. The idea of doing that, of course, is to avoid complacency in the behavior of our people. I think sometimes, and particularly when you are successful, this becomes a big challenge. When you have been successful several years, you sort of become happy with the results and stop looking for more.
The biggest push in our effort to improve culture is to what I'm saying, is do not be complacent, to be in a way, always trying to improve what we're doing. The ways to do that is by more innovation, by having more people in the company participate with ideas. Innovation is not something that we can dictate from the top up to the organization. It's not that you have five or six people that are very smart and can find ways to improve things. It's an effort that has to come from everybody. We're working very hard at making sure we improve our innovation process. Again, we've been doing this for the last two years. Again, together with innovation, the other important factor that we've recognized is that problems and challenges are more difficult every day and come from many different places.
For us to tackle those challenges in an effective way is much better if we can do that in groups, multifunctional groups. That's why we're also very much working in improving the way we operate in teams. Those two, again, factors in particular is something we're working on a lot, and I think that's going to help us maintain the continuous improvement or transformational improvements in the company.
Thank you, Pepe. That was the last question we had today. Thank you for everyone for participating in today's webcast. Rest assured, we will follow up via email if we did not get to your question. Make sure to visit our newly redesigned website at alpek.com. Have a great day.