Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Q1 2026 earnings conference call. I am Matilde, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Christian Kullmann, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Thanks everybody for joining our first quarter earnings call. Today marks another special call for Evonik Industries. I have not only one, but two CFOs sitting next to me. Thanks a lot to you, Claus. Over the last seven months, you have navigated our finance organization confidently through rough waters, especially in crisis times like these. Your decade-long Evonik experience has proven once again to be incredibly valuable. This experience was also appreciated by capital markets, as we had two good earnings calls with you so far, and I'm confident we'll have another one here today. You're not gone, but you will return to Singapore and continue to head our Asian operations. Welcome Michael. I'm looking forward to at least the next four years together.
We have a lot of challenges ahead of us, for sure. With your vast experience across industries, companies, and roles, you will for sure make a difference for us. I have no doubt that when my renewed contract ends in 2030, we'll have jointly created a different Evonik, a much better positioned and much more profitable company. With that, ladies and gentlemen, let's jump into today's agenda. Claus will start with our Q1 results, and I will then take over for the outlook. Claus, stage is yours.
Thank you, Christian. Thank you for your kind words as well. As much as I enjoy sitting here with you, I am now looking forward to be back full-time in Singapore and Asia again. Asia is the center of our future growth, this is, in these days, I think even more important than ever. Michael, welcome to Evonik. I am happy that you decided to join us, I am looking forward to good teamwork with you. Let's have a look at the first quarter of 2026. Adjusted EBITDA came in at EUR 475 million with this slightly above our expectations at the beginning of the year. This result was supported by continued self-help measures. For example, we counted 410 employees less end of March compared to end of last year.
Of course, the main driver was a better operating performance in March after January and February had continued on the weak levels of last year. However, with the stronger than expected March, or without the stronger than expected March, we would have still delivered our guidance for Q1. After the war in the Middle East broke out, we started to see volumes picking up only in late March. This was likely not an improvement in underlying demand. We believe this was rather pre-buying with customers aiming to secure volumes and potentially avoid price increases in the future. This was visible mainly in Advanced Technologies, the segment that clearly beat our and your expectations. Next to pre-buying, we also see notably weaker competition right now. For example, in crosslinkers. PA 12 was strong in Q4 already and continued this trend in Q1.
In Q1, we saw only minor pricing benefits as we have a certain delay in price adjustments. Q2 is looking more promising on the pricing side. Our cash generation was strong in Q1. Free cash flow was at EUR 183 million. This is almost on prior year level, despite clearly weaker earnings. Support came also from customer payments and from a take or pay contract that we terminated about one year ago. We had recorded the corresponding earnings last year in Q1 and Q2. We also received a couple of customer prepayments and co-finance for investment projects. Net working capital was about EUR 100 million outflow, very similar to Q1 2025, and in line with our usual seasonality. Chart seven, when you look to it, shows how we are positioned in the current Middle East war environment.
There are a lot of disruptions in global supply chains and chemical production. First and foremost, this impacts companies that are heavily export-oriented and that are predominantly rely on feedstocks from the Middle East. These are mostly local players directly in the region and also in Asia. With our global setup, in which we source and produce local for local, we are relatively better positioned with the one partial exception of methionine in Singapore. Our production and our customer deliveries are secured and to a high degree also out of Singapore. There's always, let's say, fluctuation and changes which we have to take into consideration. We have also a balanced product mix, portfolio mix of specialties and more upstream products. This is also a great help right now.
This means we will likely see a good Advanced Technologies and a better-than-expected C4 performance in the short term. Beyond quarter two, the disruptions bear the risk of other effects, or more specific, the risk of inflation-led demand weakness. More details on this now from Christian in the outlook. Christian, back to you.
Thanks, Claus. It's a pleasure for me now to convey you, the audience, with some more bits and pieces about what is going on. I'm sure that is what interests you the most, our expectation for the second quarter and the full year. Ladies and gentlemen, given the steep increase in input costs, we are pushing hard to pass these through to our customers, and it is working. Consequently, we see strong price momentum in many businesses right now. At least in April, pre-buying is continuing, so we'll likely see higher volumes in the second quarter. That all sounds great, but please keep in mind, though, we will also have significantly higher input costs and increased supply chain risks. Especially when looking at methionine, we have volume limitations from the force majeure in Singapore, plus a plant maintenance shutdown in one of the two Singapore plants in April.
Both effects are limiting our volumes and hence our ability to fully capture the attractive price environment. All in all, we will record at least EUR 550 million of adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter. This is a significant improvement, both versus this year's Q1 and last year's second quarter. I guess this is a strong message in these days. Honestly, I can hear you say, "Can't it get even better?" Ladies and gentlemen, that is hard to say right now, as things change quickly. We are using the term at least. You can see we are aiming to strike a balance between, on the one side, optimism and, on the other side, the necessary caution given volume uncertainty towards the end of the quarter. Into third quarter and beyond, that uncertainty is increasing.
It is plausible that rising inflation can lead to end customers' demand softening. Consequently, demand for our products could fall again, possibly even amplified by destocking after current pre-buying. This could lead to lower utilization and hence could weigh on our performance in the second half of this year. And I guess that goes without saying, none of these developments are certain. We take a balanced view. Let me say a balanced view with confidence. In the short term, there are clear opportunities. Everybody at Evonik is working hard to capture as much of these opportunities as possible. Our outlook for the second quarter feels well underpinned by these. To the second half of this year, risks might increase. Against this backdrop, ladies and gentlemen, we confirm our outlook for the full year 2026.
Adjusted EBITDA is to come in between EUR 1.7 billion and EUR 2 billion. We know that many of you see our earnings at the high end of this range or even above. I guess, I hope, you will understand that given we just reported on the first quarter and given all the uncertainties around for the second half of this year, it would really not be prudent to get too enthusiastic already now. With a better first quarter on the year, the risk profile for the outlook is obviously developing into the right direction. With a confirmed EBITDA outlook, we also reiterate our cash flow guidance. You know we deliver cash in all weathers. With a good start into the year underpinning our 40% conversion target.
Second quarter will see support from year-over-year lower cash out for bonus payments, and our balance sheet will be supported by our new dividend policy. Given custom price inflation, net working capital could temporarily turn into a headwind in the next few months. As a weaker second half is a possibility, the year-end effect is really hard to predict right now. Thanks so far for your attention, and now we are happy to take your questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. You'll hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from the line of David Symonds from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you. Yes, David from BNP. A few questions, please. Could you give an early view of the May order books versus what you saw in April? That's number one. Related, but sort of slightly different. If you're seeing pre-buy continuing, how can you tell the difference between pre-buy and share gain? Have you had customers telling you they're stocking up or indications that stock levels are rising? Finally, could you talk about the mechanism of price increases in methionine? How much of the increase you'll see in 2Q versus how much is coming through later in the year on contracts, et cetera? Thank you.
Yeah. David, thank you very much for your questions. The order book question goes to Claus. Also the pre-buying indication to Claus, we continue with the methionine question with Christian.
Okay. Good morning, David. Order books for me are still looking good. We had a good order book in April. We don't have the final numbers of April yet, but it shows also a further improvement compared to March. We also see a strong order book in May. Beyond May, it's so already difficult to say because there's also a tendency right now to place orders late or change orders. That's currently order book for the next month, looks pretty good. Identify pre-buying is of course difficult. We have so many different business lines, as you know. We have a lot of markets, different markets. In general terms, speaking is we don't believe that there is a fundamental improvement in the economy.
Whatever we see right now, there is only two options. Either it's pre-buying or we gain market share. From that point of view, we have also both components. We know in certain areas we have a split of where we leave 80% really pre-buying, but also a touch of market share gain because we are in certain areas able to supply where others are not. One prominent example is, for example, our Oil Additives business line. Here we have, we are really in a very favorable position to be capable of supplying where some others are not. Like I said, this is now a mixture of pre-buying and some, let's say, market share gains. However, having said this, the vast majority, we believe, is a pre-buying effect.
Okay. I take care I'm answering the question about methionine. Let's keep it like this. 2026, as of today, is the third year in a row where we will have much better than expected methionine performance. Looking into the second quarter, I dare saying that we will have a pretty good methionine business, which is well underpinned already. Looking forward, it could be that let's keep it from the market perspective, methionine shortage could last also into the third quarter. In a nutshell, for our outlook, the business is much better than at the beginning of the year that our assumption has been during the beginning of the year. Maybe some color about the background for it.
For sure, we are market leader, not only in terms of production, but especially with regards to our global setup, because we are the one and only methionine player having one world-scale capacity in each and every growth region. In Europe, in the U.S., and in Asia area in Singapore. Having said, this current situation proves again how valuable this kind of methionine positioning for us is. In other words, that is really helpful in underpinning our position of, let me say, having a good raw material access, which leads to a good position of fighting potential supply disruptions. You should keep in mind that from the second half of this year, our methyl mercaptan backwards integration of our capacity in the U.S. in Mobile, Alabama, will ramp up.
That is another, let me say, kind of tailwind for our methionine. On the other side, the level of uncertainty is high, and therefore, it is prudent to say that we should not ignore that in the midterm normalization of prices, we should expect. In a nutshell, second quarter, we'll see good methionine rates could also last into the third quarter, and then let's see what is going to happen. And we should not put a blind eye on the potential, let me say, crisis normalization which could occur. So far from my side.
Thanks. That's really helpful. It was also just to understand the amount of methionine pricing, which is on contract versus spot. The spot prices that we see having materially increased, how much of your business is on those spot prices and we'll see the benefit in Q2, and how much might come through later if prices hold up?
David, I can read you. David, I hear you, and I could read you really from the bottom of my heart. Would it be prudent here to talk into the details? I guess it would not. As you know, as you know, the spot prices are not at all the contract prices. If the spot prices get up, the contract prices will follow, but not to this kind of extent. You should keep in mind, as you know already, because you're a mezzanine professional, that there is always somewhat like a time delay, from the, let me say, from the increase of the spot prices, and then you have the respective or similar or running this direction, contract prices.
I can really read you and please give me the chance to answer the question in the way I have done. Thanks a lot.
Much appreciated. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Anil Shenoy from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you so much for taking my questions. The first question is on the methionine market again. I was just wondering if you could give us a sense of like what percentage of methionine capacity may be disrupted because of the raw material unavailability in Asia. Again, on similar lines, if these Asian operations stay disrupted, I mean, if the Strait of Hormuz were to open tomorrow, how long do you think these Asian operations may stay disrupted? Any color on the disruptions in the methionine market would be very helpful. That's my first question.
The second question is there any chance, and this is generally for the group, that the benefits from the Asian disruptions that you're seeing be permanent? I'm asking this because a couple of companies have said that, given the Asian disruptions, they're trying to get longer-term contracts with the customers, and customers would ideally be willing to pay premium if they're secured of volumes throughout the year. Are you seeing I mean, when you negotiate your contracts with your customers, would you be thinking from this point of view? Thank you.
Thank you, Anil Shenoy. Christian Kullmann is taking the methionine one and Claus Rettig maybe on the long-term implications if structurally something has changed in the industry. Should I start? Thanks a lot. Sometimes I do feel like the methionine pope of the company, happy to take your question. First of all, by thumb rule, 80% of the crude oil of gas from the Arabian Gulf is transferred to Asia, which means, in other words, the impact of the supply chain of methionine capacities in Asia overall is heavily impacted by this. Second, we, talking about our capacities in methionine, are largely covered for the coming months, but not fully. That is why we have declared a force majeure for our capacities in Singapore, which is still ongoing.
We are largely covered, but for the coming months, but not to the full. You have asked how we would assess, how we would judge upon if the war in the Middle East would come to an end, how long would the impact last? Would that mute, would put pressure on the supply chains? Honestly, I'm not an owner of a crystal ball. So far, if I would give you, with all the cautious of a German, give you some ideas about, I think for sure several months. Could I come closer to it? Maybe when we will meet, in August, giving you our second quarter numbers and figures. That is, let me say, best assumption for sure several months plus. With this, I hand over to Claus.
Good. Good morning, Anil. Yeah, your question was, are some of the benefits of the disruption permanent? Generally speaking, we don't like disruptions. It's not good for the business. We rather prefer to have a normal open market, no disruptions, fair competition. Here it's, the question is right now, of course we look into what is changing because of this disruption. It's another one that's pointing in towards more regionalization, supply chain, security. Of course it has another impact that companies think about this, I think well, more even more in-intensive than in the past, but it's still in the general direction.
That's why we believe the strategy we have put in place many, many years ago, 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 in the world, be in the region for the region, which we have not fully mastered yet, but to a certain degree, of course, to is the right way to go. That's one thing, let's say answering your question. It is underlining our strategic approach. When I go to a little bit more specific, there are of course, some areas where we see it. Right now, we know supply security is playing a bigger role, again, also in pricing. We also know from the past, what we know, COVID is not that long ago, it fades out. This element plays a role, but over time it fades away. We would not bank on this.
What we are looking right now is in certain other areas where we will certainly have an impact. Biodiesel is something that is delayed. Our alkoxides business is not doing in the U.S. and in Europe as we predicted. Here we see now, and we see a trend that this legislation will come in place faster, put more biodiesel into diesel to become less dependent on oil-based diesel. In Asia it's already happening. Indonesia has just increased the mandatory amount of biodiesel that has to be put in place, and Malaysia is thinking about this as well, even though they have already high degrees. Gives you an element. This will be a permanent thing to the benefit of our alkoxides business.
Our membrane business will also benefit because here we have the membranes for biodiesel plants, for biogas plants, sorry. Also here we really see a pickup, much more interest now to use waste gas and purify it with our membranes. Another permanent element. Last but not least, our Oil Additives group is also helping customers right now. You know, maybe you have read base oil, high quality base oil is becoming short, especially because a super big plant of Shell in the Middle East has been is out of production right now. Here we help customers to reformulate and by doing this, to use our additives. We have elements that will be permanent, and we will have others that are not permanent.
Sorry to say there's no general answer for your question. There will be some benefits that we are going to keep and others will go back to normal when it's over.
Yeah. Thank you so much for the answers. It's actually very helpful. Thank you.
We now have a question from the line of Martin Roediger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks for taking my three questions, please. The first two are on the guidance for the second quarter. Firstly on Oxeno and the expanding spreads in the C4 chain, is it possible that Oxeno will contribute a large part of the EUR 75 million sequential earnings increase from EUR 475 million in Q1 in EBITDA to the guided minimum EBITDA of EUR 550 million in Q2? In connection with Oxeno, there are hopes by some market participants that Oxeno could reach record earnings this year. Do you agree on that bullish expectation? Secondly, the role of methionine for your guidance in the second quarter. It seems that methionine did not have a very strong Q1, partly because of the force majeure in Singapore and some other things you mentioned already.
Would you agree that due to the rising volumes and the rocketing prices for methionine in April and May, that a large part of the EUR 75 million sequential earnings increase between Q1 and Q2 will come from methionine? The third question is on the free cash flow of EUR 183 million in Q1. This includes the EUR 20 million cash inflow from the termination of a take or pay contract from Q1 20 25. Why did it last one year to receive that cash? Beside that, can you disclose the amount of the other two items which supported free cash flow, i.e. the customer prepayment and the customer co-financing of investments? I would like to know what the underlying free cash flow was. Thank you.
Thank you, Martin. Christian will start with more general comments on the Q2 outlook and including methionine. Claus Rettig then takes the Oxeno part and the comments or your questions on the free cash flow.
Okay. Hi, Martin. Good to hear you. Let's keep it like this. First of all, at least EUR 550 million of EBITDA means at least EUR 500 million of EBITDA. That is for sure a significant improvement if I compare it to first quarter of this year and second quarter of last year. Having said so, I would say it is, as mentioned, a balance between optimism on the one side and the necessary caution on the other side. Coming now closer to your question, all of our three segments will likely see an earnings rise if I compare it to the first quarter. That will be, as you know, mainly driven, unsurprisingly for sure in Advanced Technologies. Here we have seen a continued pre-buying on a good level in April.
In nutshell, April, I dare saying, was quite sexy. Now is it exclusively because of methionine? No, not at all. Look at our crosslinkers businesses. For example, look at PA 12. Here we have a really strong outcome in methionine. Of course, you're right saying during the first quarter methionine was, let's say, quite okay. Then by the increase of demand, by the increase of the prices, we have started to benefit from this from the last days of March. As mentioned, there is a certain delay between spot on the one and then contract prices on the other side. Here we will see a better, definitely better second quarter in respect of methionine. Is it the only and exclusive growth pillar for Evonik in those days? No.
No, no, no, no, not at all. Here we are well-positioned and are in a good amount of different pockets of growth. By having said so, I hand over to Claus.
Let me continue with another element that of course contribute to Q2 and rest of the year. You asked for this, what is the Oxeno part doing? Maybe one comment before I go into Oxeno. Please don't underestimate the also huge increase. Don't get misguided by pricing only. We have a lot of cost increases on the raw material side. That has to be really taken into account. We have not seen our pricing effect fully yet, but we also have not seen the cost effect fully yet. Having said this, come back to Oxeno, your Oxeno question. Oxeno, we expect, of course, an improvement. However, yep, that will also contribute to our guidance, no doubt. Will it come back to record level?
That was second part of the question. Absolutely not. Here, I think what we feel in the market is really over-exaggerated. There are many reasons for this because in the old days, we had different kind of raw material contract in place. We have also had, at these times, a full load demand, which we don't have now. Now we have, of course a better spread on the naphtha side, no doubt. We will benefit from this. On the other hand, we also have minuses because give you one example, we sell also quite a bit of material to the Middle East from Oxeno. That's not happening anymore. The MTBE market is not as strong as before because in summer, usually MTBE is mixed with naphtha. If you put more naphtha into the fuel, you need more MTBE.
There is not enough naphtha, that's not happening. I don't want to go into much detail, but basically, you cannot just take the old numbers of Oxeno in many, many years ago because there was also full-blown demand behind it. Now we have the naphtha spread helping us, but we also have some demand components. Butadiene is short in Asia. We of course have butadiene that is helping us, but we also have other elements, like I just said, having the contrary effect. Cutting a long story short, Oxeno will contribute. Will it go to record levels or near them? Absolutely not. Cash flow question you asked about the contract we had, which we'd, let's say resolved or take or pay contract. There was some dismantling involved.
We don't disclose any kind of details here. I think the number you mentioned is not correct. Cash flow part is smaller. Also for the, let's say, prepayments of investments is nothing unusual. We have this all the time. You also have seen that we have quite a high level of investments, CapEx. Yeah. That goes always hand in hand. High CapEx, but it's of course lowered by payments of customers, but they are shown in different buckets, and that has to be taken into account. I think we still believe we have a very strong underlying operational cash flow. I hope that's good enough.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Tom Wrigglesworth from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much for the opportunity. Two questions if I may. Just coming on to the kind of competitive landscape that you see, you know, noting, could you just highlight where you felt more strongly the reduction in Asian exports? You know, any comments around the finding on that would be very useful. On the other side of that, are you now seeing any inputs drying up into Europe that you use or any of your products in Europe that you're now being asked to ship to Asia because pricing's more compelling in Asia than Europe? I'm just trying to get a sense of the flows of chemicals that you see, noting the feedstock constraints in Asia. Second question, if I may, is on SYNEQT.
Can you share with us the timeline that you have for, you know, for any potential strategic review here? Clearly, it looks like regionalization of assets is becoming more valuable, which might suggest, at least to our eyes, that the value of SYNEQT is going up, not down, and the threat of further de-industrialization in Europe is reducing, not increasing. Yeah. Any thoughts there would be very helpful. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Tom. Claus will start with the trade flows and Asian competition that we
will not see right now, and then Christian will comment on SYNEQT.
Good morning, Tom. Let me try also this very complex question because it's very, very different market segment and product by product. Generally, you see, as you know, freight costs went up quite a bit. It's not only the freight cost went up, availability of freight is also a topic. This alone affects all the shipments from China. That's an easing factor in general terms. I think we pointed out some areas already, like our business. We see quite a pickup in, well, let's say a much weaker competition from Asia. That is something that is transferred into better pricing in Europe. This would be a specific one. methionine, I think Christian pointed out quite a bit already.
Here, the pricing increase is, of course, a question, that comes supply demand. There's less supply. Most of the capacity, besides ours is sitting in Asia, there is less supply from Asia on that side. In other areas, we don't see a bigger impact besides the more general one I just mentioned. We have specific areas where we can really point out crosslinkers, which was really And I think we reported on this in the last meetings, was suffering quite a bit from heavy competition in Asia. This is softening, that's the most pronounced one besides the methionine one.
Okay. Hi, Tom. I take the one about SYNEQT, maybe as a starter. I'm not on your page arguing that the infrastructure, the industry, the industrial infrastructure in Germany is coming tremendously under pressure. Why? First of all, we do have the Infrastructure Investment Initiative from our government, which is helpful. Second, if you look a little bit more into the details of SYNEQT, you will see that two gas steam plants and a good amount of, let me say, piping and net are elements of SYNEQT. In this respect, it is even becoming more attractive because this is what we need in Germany and in Europe all the more to provide the industry and the inhabitants with a sufficient amount of energy and electricity.
In detail, as you know, here we talk about EUR 1 billion of revenues. Here we talk about roughly EUR 200 million of EBITDA. It is, let's say, well-placed and it's in a stable, year-over-year stable positioning, stable development. Having said so, carve-out is done, successfully done, and we have not taken any decisions what to do next. As you know, we are still evaluating several options for the future, JV, cooperation, straight divestment, and I will provide you as soon as possible when we have taken a decision, but as of today, we have not taken one. Thanks a lot so far for your question.
Thank you.
We now have a question from the line of Chetan Udeshi from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Morning. I was just trying to understand, you know, your comment that the EUR 25 million uplift in EBITDA you got for Q1 ahead of your guidance was from pre-buying in March. I was just quite curious. You know, if I look at your volumes in Q1 as a whole, they're down 2%. If I just do some math, you know, the pre-buying probably contributed + 2% in March. The point I'm trying to get to is how bad was start of the year that, you know, even after pre-buying, your volumes are still down 2% year on year. Second, is there an element of inventory write-up that may have contributed to Q1 EBITDA upside as well?
You know, we're struggling to see that, come through from the volume, point of view in terms of the reported numbers. Thank you.
Thank you, Chetan. Both points go to Claus.
Yeah. Good morning, Chetan. You have to always consider when you take the volume on a company level that we have super different businesses in terms of volume. I think I, in my introductionary words, I said we would have reached our guidance without the pre-buying. That gives you a feeling for what it really is, the additional part in March. It was not necessary for us to have the pickup in the end of March to reach our, to, let's say, reach the guidance. It was only responsible for what the over-delivery was. We had no write-ups of inventory in March. Also here, we did not support it.
We had a very, let's say a very soft start of our Oxeno business, which is big in volume. We also have a very soft, let's say, start of our hydrogen peroxide business, which, but only for the base part of the business going into the paper market. These are big volume elements that contributes to the volume piece. This maybe is misleading when you look to the volume part of the start into the year. I hope that answers your question.
That's clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Georgina Fraser from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I just have one, and it's a bit theoretical, and I'm still trying to figure out how to phrase it. If we do end up in an environment where we have such inflation that we see demand destruction, is there a chance that capacities have been affected by shortages and too high feedstock prices in Asia don't come back online in the second half of the year? Like, if Evonik was facing that situation, what would be the conditions for ramping your capacities back up that you would need to see? Thank you.
Yeah, Georgina, thanks. I think this can probably go to Claus Rettig. The question, if I get it right, is will capacities be permanently shut down, right, if there's demand destruction? What did I get that right?
It's more like, why would capacities be rushing back to the market if we're in still a very weak environment with inflation? I think there's this assumption that we'll see a normalization of supply as soon as the street opens, and everybody working hard to bring capacities back. I mean, to some extent, you also need the economic conditions to bother doing that, and we were already in such a weak starting point at the beginning of the year before the conflict. What's the risk that, yes, we have more permanent or longer-lasting shutdowns because of economic conditions, not just shortages? Thank you.
Okay.
Sure.
Yeah. Yeah. Morning, Georgina. I hope you are well because you are sitting in the Middle East, right? From that point of view, let me try to give, let's say, our, maybe my thoughts, I have to say. Right now, I think this kind of crisis is leading just into the opposite direction, no? When you look to where is the biggest overcapacity in the market, it's clearly China. The profit margins, when you also look to the last statistics in the markets, went even further down. Three years in a row, profitability went down. This sooner or later leads also to consolidation. There's even the government in China, when you look to the latest 15th Five-Year Plan, there is active measures to take old plants out.
The pricing peak right now, of course, is just doing the opposite. Even weaker ones can still live if they have material, but this will go away. If, let's say theoretically now we have inflation that's suppressing demand later, then I think you are right. I would think the weaker ones will be forced to move out. Also in our methionine area, we know there are some very weak players that are not capable of surviving. Right now, this is, of course, super difficult to judge how that is playing out. Yes, if the second order effects are, from our point of view, not only inflation.
When you look right now, there's a big debate on the farming side, that the fertilizers are so expensive that farmers cannot buy them, and they considering not to plant crops. Later down in the year, we will see problems in these areas. There's not enough food being provided, and this is just one of the second-order effects that we are going to see. From that point of view, super difficult to judge. Can only say for us, what we have, we don't see any one of our plants being in that situation that this would become a question for us.
Thanks a lot, Claus.
Thank you very much.
Sorry. Thanks a lot, Claus. Having said so, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our call for today. Claus, from the bottom of the heart and in the name of our company, thanks a lot for taking helm in the meanwhile and for your outstanding commitment. It's a great pleasure to have you and to have you as our CEO in Asia. Michael, next time it is your turn. I appreciate very much to having you at and on our side. So far, thanks a lot for your attention. Take care and hope to see you soon in person. Goodbye.
Bye-bye.
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