Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Q2 2023 earnings conference call of Evonik Industries AG. Throughout today's recorded call, all participants will be in a listen only mode. After a short introduction by the management, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. Please press the Star key followed by Zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tim Lange, Head of Investor Relations.
Thank you very much. Good morning from our side here in Essen. With me, Christian and Ute for our. I know at some point it would happen. On the second call already. With me are my most favorite CFO, Maike, and my most favorite CEO, Christian, for the Q2 earnings call. With that, I hand over directly to Christian and Maike.
Thanks a lot, Tim. Yes, of course, he's our best, highly ranked, and well gifted head of investor relations ever, so it is forgiven. Thanks. Welcome also from my side, and thanks for being with us today. Exactly one month ago, on July 10th , we already published preliminary results. You are aware of the key financials, and there was only limited news today, and we will keep our introduction rather short and crispy. I will briefly review the current environment and the situation at Evonik, and how we act in response. Maike will give you further details, mainly on Free Cash Flow, cost management, and our outlook for this year. Ladies and gentlemen, let's jump right into it and start with chart number five.
For the start into the year, we all had hoped for an accelerating recovery in the course of the year. This is state nothing more than a hope, and Evonik is no exception here. We all have seen similar crises before, the financial crisis in 2008, or the Corona one in 2020. This crisis is more severe and especially longer lasting than any other crisis before. For five quarters now, we have been confronted with persistently weak demand and destocking by our customers. There are no signs of recovery yet. What is different this time as well, in both previous crises, there have been several businesses in our portfolio that have proven quite resilient. Many of our Specialty Additives, our businesses, like the catalysts and care solutions, have seen more or less stable EBITDA.
In this particular crisis, virtually all of our businesses are equally affected by weak volumes and especially by customer destocking. For Evonik, specifically, what comes on top is an unprecedented earnings decline in our Animal Nutrition business. You could call this an unfortunate coincidence or simply pretty damn bad luck, because animal nutrition is typically unaffected by macroeconomic trends and downturns. Over the last two crises, it has even improved earnings, or from a different point of view, it shows you that and how, that and how much any market is impacted by high inflation and customer destocking these days. The animal feed market, which has been characterized by steady and very healthy volume growth for decades, is now expected to show only modest growth for two years in a row. As far as I can remember, this is for sure unprecedented.
At the same time, assigned prices have been falling until recently, while prices for key raw materials, such as propylene and ammonia, have increased. As a result, our earnings in Animal Nutrition, which have only shown an average year-on-year swing of below EUR 100 million over the last five years, are now 80% below the long-term average this year, which means close to break even in some months. This is, of course, pretty severe, but it might present an upside chance going forward, especially if you take the right steps and measures. We have to improve our cost position, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what we do. By running our essential amino acid business with a leaner organizational structure and by improving our raw material supply in the U.S.
We will reduce our cost base by EUR 200 million by 2025. EUR 100 million of that will be realized in 2024 alone. Prices are bottoming out. Prices have even improved by a couple of cents since the end of the last quarter. Following of our two recent price increases in June and in July, raw materials like propylene or ammonia are coming down, and volumes have picked up nicely over the recent years... Sorry, over the recent months, forgive me, already. In the first quarter of this year, In the first half of 2024, the necessary partial closure of our Singapore plants will effectively take out close to 10% of total market capacity for six months. Competitors have recently taken out capacity as well.
While also the methionine market will remain challenging, there is a fair chance that our earnings in this business will recover from the current absolute trough level. That is all for me. Now, now, dear Maike, it is your show. It is your turn to give and to show the right answers to the short-term challenges of this year.
Thank you very much, Christian. Yes, our environment is extraordinary. It is important to focus all our activities over the next months on two things: cash generation and cost discipline. Our progress in both areas is already evident in the first half of the year. On free cash flow, despite declining profits of more than EUR 600 million, we were able to keep free cash flow almost stable. Lower bonus payments for the previous year, and a significantly lower cash outflow from Net Working Capital, helped by lower prices and lower sales, even led to an increase in operating cash flow compared to last year. Last, less CapEx spend in H2, which is this year, more H1 weighted, and continued tight Net Working Capital Management, similar to last year's H2, will result in strong cash generation over the next six months.
We are also making good progress on our contingencies. By the end of June, we are fully on target for the EUR 250 million of cost savings. We have achieved a run rate of 40% so far. Existing measures will ramp up further in H2. For example, the effect of our hiring freeze will be multiplied with every day and every open position, and we will intensify our efforts and implement further measures for the remainder of the year. Before I come to our outlook, let me just mention the impairments we have booked on our half year's financial statements. EUR 300 of the EUR 400 million was in Animal Nutrition and is reflecting the current trough earnings in methionine and a rather conservative view ahead. Another EUR 80 million was in silica.
In Europe, the substantial increase of energy costs for precipitated silica has put pressure on the competitive environment and on our margins. In the US, the site-specific increase of supply costs for raw materials, combined with a currently sluggish demand and more competitive environment, have forced us to impair two assets. With these impairments, we have de-risked our balance sheet, just like we did with our EBITDA outlook. For the latter, we now expect continued demand, continued demand weakness without any recovery throughout H2. Based on this assumption, we expect Q3 to be around the same level as Q2. Similarly, for Q4, we expect the usual year-end seasonality of around -20% versus Q3. This will bring us pretty much in the midpoint of our EUR 1.6 billion-EUR 1.8 billion guidance range.
Contingencies, lower raw material costs, and the full availability of our PA 12 capacities will give us support in H2. The ambition level for our confirmed free cash flow outlook is higher with full intention. We aim to hold the tension level high across the whole organization for the remainder of the year. With the help of increased CapEx discipline and the lower CapEx guidance of EUR 850 million in cash inflows from net working capital, the cash conversion is targeted to develop towards 40%. With that, I hand over to Christian again.
Thanks for that, Maike. Ladies and gentlemen, will the environment remain challenging for the rest of the year? Most likely, yes. Have we implemented the right measures to face this environment early and proactively? Yes, of course. We can do more. Guess what? Yes. On top of the contingency measures in place, and based on our assumption of no recovery in the second half of this year, we are now rolling out measures to adjust our capacities to the ongoing weak demand situation. We will reduce overtime accounts. We'll utilize our global production network to mothball single sites temporarily. We are starting with the Germans call it Kurzarbeit, short-term work at selected sites.
As always, we are learning from this crisis. One thing is already clear, even crystal clear. The strong cost awareness across all divisions and functions is only the starting point to make us better, to make us faster, and to make us a more resilient company well beyond the current crisis. With that, thanks for your attention and your time so far, and now we feel prepared and are ready to take your questions. Thanks a lot.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star, followed by One on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press Star, followed by Two. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to Two questions only. If you are using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press Star, followed by One at this time. One moment for the first question, please. Our first question comes from the line of Ranulf Orr with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, good, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. My first one is just on the EBIT guidance for the full year. I was wondering if you could help with the bridge. You know, I think midpoint of guidance implies around EUR 840 million, kind of similar to 1H. You do, as you say, have things improving, you know, two PA 12 plants, cost savings, lower raw materials. Kind of what's the offset on what's getting worse? That's the first one, please. Secondly, just on the impairments, and particularly Animal Nutrition, could you provide some more details around your forward assumptions behind this? Should we take it to mean you no longer see the market recovering to the historic mid-cycle levels?
Thirdly, just net debt, that jumped by nearly EUR 8 billion Q-on-Q. How do you see this progressing from here? Please, can you remind us what sort of maximum leverage you're comfortable with? Thank you very much.
All right, I start with EBITDA full year guidance phasing for H2, and maybe also some more detail on where we are, Ranulf. Maybe starting with the group. As I mentioned before, we have really de-risked EBITDA and our outlook for the whole year, assuming clearly no further recovery. Of course, on the one hand, for now, no recovery is visible. July and start of August are similarly low level as previous. What we, of course, on the one hand, on the other hand, see is that, what you mentioned, there are some underlying facts that should help us. Maybe starting with what seems still to be negative. We have reached the bottom in terms of destocking in Q2. The underlying demand will remain weak.
The contingencies will continue to ramp up. That's what you mentioned. We will take out fixed costs and capacities where we can to adjust the no-growth scenario. Raw material costs are, of course, falling. PA 12 capacity will be available, and Methionine prices are likely bottoming out in Q3. The de-demand has been good over the recent months. What I can do is by division, I think Specialty Additives, we have mentioned everything. Smart Materials is the actually PA 12 capacities that are coming into the market. Nutrition & Care, Q3, you are right, will be clearly better than Q2. Performance Materials, well, there we see a further declining butadiene prices, so we might face some headwind.
The phasing actually, that's what we mentioned before, is that we see 30% or so lower in Q4 versus Q3. If you just do the math, it's, yeah. I don't know, Michelle. It's, it's around EUR 400, EUR 450 or so to Q3 and EUR 370 or so around Q4. That's just high level. With regards to the impairment, Animal Nutrition, I hand over to Christian.
Thanks a lot, Maike. In respect of the assumptions for our impairment of Animal Nutrition, it is to say first that we do refer to the trough earnings level as it is as of today and maybe also going forward. This is, as you know, that's a very conservative assumption. It is a conservative guess. That is reflecting, to keep it up, it is in a nutshell, it is reflecting the current trough earnings in Methionine and to address it actively with our new operational model, we refer to the current situation. I guess that is the answer to your question.
I will please help us with the third one. I think you asked for the current net debt level. Is that correct, or the current balance sheet level?
Yeah, no, I was just noted that it stepped up significantly quarter-on-quarter. Where does it go from here?
Yeah.
What kind of leverage is, is acceptable for you going forward?
Okay. I know I'll take over again. Yes, you are, you're totally right. The net financial debt rose to EUR 4.1 billion at the end of Q2, which is the usual seasonality. We phase bonus payments and dividends in Q2. If you compare that, for example, for to 2022, we had last year EUR 2.8 billion mid-year, and then we lowered our financial debt again to EUR 3.1 billion, EUR 3.2 billion at year-end. Very, very clearly, we are monitoring our balance sheet very closely, and it has an extremely high priority today. That's what I mentioned in our call today. Evonik is financially solid. Liquidity is strong. We have cash and committed credit lines, and we don't have any bond maturities before Q3 2024.
Our credit ratings outlook were confirmed by Standard & Poor's and Moody's. To be very clear, the total leverage will stay or will improve to, from where we are now to where we are going forward. We don't have, so far, and no interest in M&A M&A deals. Again, balance sheets and net financial debt is very high on our list.
Right. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Chetan Udeshi with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks, morning. I was just going back to your quest, comment earlier about, more capacity available in PA 12, but I'm just curious, is there enough demand to fill that capacity? Can you comment on how do you see your, some of your order books in general, for, for that additional capacity that is now available in, PA12? How quickly should we think about from a, from a monetization and, earnings uplift, perspective? The second question was just maybe tied to the previous question, just around Q3 versus Q2 across divisions. If I heard Maike, you correctly, you said the Nutrition & Care, Smart Materials, and Specialty Additives will be clearly up versus Q2 in Q3, but, PM will be down. What about the T&I business?
Because you had a positive number there, when typically you have quite a sizable negative. Is it going to turn negative again in Q3? Maybe it's worth also just talking about what is going on with that T&I line, because usually it is like high double-digit million, and now it's sort of positive. Just curious, what is, what is driving that? Thank you.
Hi, Chetan. I take the first question about PA 12, and to give you a market and somewhat implant update. Maybe as a starter, the demand. The demand for PA 12 is still intact, and that is on a pretty, on a pretty attractive level. If you think about EV vehicles, in auto, in, in, in the auto industry, if you think about PA 12 cooling lines in this respect, here we do see a pretty good demand, that is for sure. You should be aware of the fact that, as of today, we have not seen any new competitor capacities in the market. I guess the announcement of production start of new capacities in Singapore is from Arkema. There is, there's an overview, and the... There's no marketable grades.
We have seen, as of today, no marketable, marketable grades from the Chinese. Taking all this in consideration, and not to forget about the tightness, about the tightness in the market, which is definitely to continue through the remainder of the year. Taking all this in consideration, I am quite happy having a chance to give you this kind of answer, and by having done so, I convey to Maike.
Thank you very much, Christian, and good morning, Chetan, also from my side. You asked about the extraordinary level of what you see in T&I and others. Yes, you are absolutely right. T&I used to report a quarterly-adjusted EBITDA between -EUR 30 million and -EUR 50 million in the last years. We have a couple of specific effects showing now in this quarter. There is, on the one-hand side, the contingencies that are, of course, especially in the others, and also in the T&I part, are supporting the EBITDA. Contingencies are roughly in a low double-digit million EUR on group level, and a large part, of course, of this are in T&I and others. We have the release of the bonus provision.
Again, double-digit EUR million effects and largely, or a large part, again, on the-... PNI and, and others. We have some smaller effects, such as a higher utilization and high efficiency of our power plant in Marl with the new, with the new setup. We have the release of the holiday provisions, which we show in June. We have the downward correction of leasing fees for our new gas power plant. This all explain a positive deviation also from our pre-release. You asked also, Tita, about Titan, about the upcoming quarters, as they will continue to be supported actually, because contingencies will stay and also the bonus level, the smaller or the lower provision builder will stay.
We assume that it should stay much less negative than the past in Q3 and Q4, and so overall, resulting in a much better outcome for the full year as well.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Gunther Zechmann with Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Christian, Maike, and Tim. Two questions from my side, please. Firstly, we're now in August. You said, Maike, that there's no recovery currently visible. Could you talk us through the moving parts since the profit warning a month ago, please? You mentioned the business lines a bit already, maybe geographically, anything to highlight as well, and what order books look like for September, please. Secondly, your superabsorbent business is now classified as an Asset Held for Sale, which under IFRS, I think, means that a divestment in the next 12 months is very likely. Could you please provide us with an update there? Thank you.
Okay, I can. Yes. Gunther, good morning. I can start with the outlook by division. Also asked, I think, about the regions.
Regions.
Thank you. The regions, and then, receive with regards to the, to the accounting issue, Asset Held for Sale, I can answer, and then Christian takes over. Good. Maybe starting again by division, Specialty Additives. What we see overall, Q3 is very similar Q- to Q2. The destocking is easing, especially in Coatings. However, we don't see any demand recovery there, rather some downside risk from automotive and U.S. The raw material costs are falling, as we mentioned, so we aim to maintain pricing as long as possible. Going to Smart Materials, Q3 should be better than Q2, somewhere, we assume between Q1 and Q2. As mentioned before, the full PA12 capacities are coming now into the still tight market, for more material available, and we see a high utilization rate of the plants.
All other businesses, actually, we assume that there are no signs of improvement, and we don't see any improvement, as we mentioned in July and beginning of August yet. Silica and Silanes business lines continue to be burdened by high material costs. Nutrition & Care, I think Christian mentioned everything about Animal Nutrition already, and Health Care will, as usual, have a stronger second half of the year. There, there is the usual seasonality, which goes towards Q4. Performance Materials, we, on the one hand side, see declining butadiene prices, and this reflects still a continued bearish downward demand and prevailing oversupply, actually, unfortunately, in all regions. The inner demand remains poor and there might be some inventory devaluations possible. MTBE prices remain still positive and are quite high.
Also superabsorbent business continues with a very nice demand and improving prices. That's this. Regarding the regions, starting with China and Asia, we see a very slow recovery, and actually, no material improvement in demand, especially also for the expensive and durable goods. goods and, especially construction, is still in crisis. You have heard that probably before, quite often, and that is waiting on the rest of the economy. Unemployment, especially for younger people, seems to become a real issue, and only the automotive part, and there, especially the electric vehicles, are doing well across Asia. We expect there, a cautious consumption pattern to remain for the months ahead. Regarding the U.S., the economy was better for longer, so now it's the last to also come down.
We see a softer environment, or we saw already a softer environment in Q1. Now this has further weakened in Q2. We don't really see a positive dynamic in any key end market. Neither coatings, nor construction, durable goods, all very, very low. The monetary tightening is starting to impact the credit growth. Last but not least, Europe is bumping along the bottom. Especially Germany here, is still dampened by rising inflation, reduced consumer spends in many countries, and cautious consumer behavior, we see that persists. This is basically our only region. Maybe Asset Held for Sale versus continued, Discontinued Operations. The accounting part here, yes, you're right. Usually, you change your balance sheet, the, the position on your balance sheet, either on a Discontinued Operations or Asset Held for Sale.
These are, you can choose in between these two. That is now accounting specifics, and I'm sure you don't want to go too much into detail there. If you want to, happy to, to discuss. It's actually simply not big enough to reclassify it to a Discontinued Operations. Having said that, where are we with regards to the divestment? Maybe Christian wants to say a word.
Yeah. Hi, Gunther. I could keep it short, and I could keep it crispy. First of all, you know, the divestment process we have started to sell Baby Care is really progressing well. That is for sure. We have good negotiations with several parties, and they are pretty well ongoing. Having said this double point, we do expect the signing of our Baby Care business in the course of this year.
Thank you.
Pleasure.
The next question comes from the line of Matthew Yates with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. A couple, if I can. The first one, just to follow up on, on that Baby Care comment, and perhaps more broadly, in terms of the Performance Materials portfolio. You, you mentioned potentially a Baby Care agreement, before year-end. What about the residual assets in, in that division? What is the timeline for tackling that? How are you thinking about use of proceeds? I heard earlier you say that the balance sheet is a fairly high priority. Should we assume that any proceeds you're going to get from disposals go into debt repayment and dividends, rather than necessarily, using that, that capital for acquisitions and then CapEx? The second question, on the Additives division, and in particular about pricing.
We've seen that multiple parts of Oxeno portfolio have come under pressure from global competition and, and Europe's relative position on the cost curve. With raw material costs now falling, like you've alluded to, are there pockets of the additives portfolio where you would expect to have to give back pricing, either because of competition or, or contractual structures? Thank you.
Okay, hi, good morning. I take the question about our Performance Materials division. As you know, Functional Solutions, we have got the closing end of June. Here, this is fully done. First. Second, we do expect signing of Baby Care in the course of this year. Third, that is precisely your question, it was about the C4. The Performance Intermediates, as you know, the carve-out here has been completed as planned. The business is now operating under a new name. It is now called Oxeno. We have now started to tackle a very precise and concrete analyzing and monitoring of the M&A markets very closely, very precise, to create a value enhancing, that is of most relevance.
It is not about, you know, a certain point of time, it is of value enhancing, a value enhancing start of this divestment process. In a nutshell, value enhancing start, that is what we are tackling. That is why we do monitor and analyze situation very precise. Then let's see when to start the divestment process. With this, I hand over to Maike.
Yeah, good morning, Matthew. Also from my side, you asked what will we do with the proceeds of the divestments. Actually, as I mentioned before, we will be extremely disciplined. There will be a debt reduction. I think this is, for now, these are the, not the times to go in big M&A deals, but really clearly focus on the balance sheet, debt reduction. We will stay extremely disciplined on our CapEx numbers. Again, I think that's not the time now to dream about big M&A deals. Matthew, you asked about the pricing... Okay, I, I do pricing as well. Sorry.... We, we do, we both do wanted to, to do the, to do the answer. I talk about Specialty Additives and Smart Materials, both actually stay pricing positive.
On group level, prices turn negative actually on Q2, which is driven by Animal Nutrition and C4, but Specialty Additives and Smart Materials stay positive. Against increasingly, increasingly tough comparables, in Q2 2022, where they were at 18+ , +18 and +21%, actually, and also despite the weak demand trends. We accepted volume less losses to keep the pricing high. Going into H2, of course, well, that's what you saw as well. The raw material prices will decline, and this is also where we should see prices to start falling, but we assume that that should not have any negative effect on margins in Specialty Additives and Smart Materials. I think that answers-
Thank you. Thank you both.
The next question comes from the line of Andreas Heine with Stifel. P lease go ahead.
Yes, thanks for squeezing me in. Actually, it is on the costs and the CapEx side. The contingency measures for this year, they are supposed to be temporary, but introducing them in the second half, this higher speed, I would assume that quite a bit of that should stay in 2024. Could you outline how you see the cost position going forward and cost measures, except the methionine, which you already mentioned, into next year? The same basically for CapEx. You mentioned that you have to temporarily shut down and most for capacity, so it's probably and also not the time to think about capacity expansions. You reduced your CapEx budget during this year twice and are now at EUR 850.
Is that a kind of number we should then also think of for the next, let's say, one to two years? If I may squeeze in a third question, at the bottom of this methionine cycle, were you still positive on EBITDA level? Thanks.
Hi, Andreas. Let's start with the contingencies. First of all, our aim is, our goal is getting savings in this year of EUR 250 million. These are short-term measures, short-term initiatives to support the current earning situation. Depending on how the next year is going to go, of course, that goes without saying, we to talk about additional measures that we. Now here it's worthwhile to mention, those additional measures we can and will establish, and they will be, in other words, extended in comparison to those we have already in place. For example, not refilling positions, that is what will lead to a reorganization, a canceling of processes and tasks. Positions might be redundant permanently.
Here you have to expect somewhat more from us in as such, that we will focus on structural initiatives to become slimmer, to become faster, and to become more efficient in our administrational areas. Here, that means we are constantly monitoring and forecasting our utilization rates to see how we can manage, how we can manage our sites globally for the next, give or take, six to eight months. That is what we will have in mind. Having said this, that is what will definitely help us, for example, to manage our global capacities and our maintenance in a better way. That will also be, let me say, supportive. We will reduce overtime accounts. That is what, Maike has already talked about over the next months.
We will start to utilize our global site network and take out some capacities for several weeks. About Kurzarbeit, you know, that is how the Germans do call it, about short-term work. We will have also here some initiatives. That is what we have started. As of today, we hear that it's only tackled for the tinier sites, that is an option, too, to see how we can manage situation in respect of our cost positions in future in a better way. With this, I guess I hand over to Maike.
Yes. Good morning, Andreas, also from my side. The CapEx increase, now sustainable level, what you asked is, well, that, of course, depends now on what we will see in 2024. You know that Evonik is very conservative, and depending on what we will see in 2024, going forward, we will, let's put it like this, adjust the CapEx level definitely accordingly to a very conservative level. methionine, EBITDA is still positive. We will see that on the one hand side. That's the positive part. We see that we have really we seem to reach the bottom level of the trough, and the Q3 volumes are starting now to pick up. We see the increasing market demand, demand in Asia.
We see increasing order activity since the announcement of the Evonik signing shutdowns in Singapore. 10%-12% of the global production capacities are missing or will be missing in Q4. Adecco in France is going out of the market. CJ in Malaysia with 60 KT, and also NHU seems to be again delayed. Prices should bottom out, and this is, of course, why EBITDA should still stay positive.
Thanks a lot.
I hope that answered your questions.
It did. Thanks.
The next question comes from the line of Jaideep Pandya with On Field Investment Research. Please go ahead.
Thanks. I just have one question regarding the Methionine, actually. Your competitors are increasing capacity in Asia, you know, quite meaningfully over the next three, four years. I assume you are now in a sort of cash cow mode, and you want to shed market share. I mean, what is the long-term strategy here from you guys? I mean, do you want to sort of run this business for cash or, or optimize it? Eventually, would you want to partner with somebody who has deep pockets and wants to invest in the long run? The second sort of follow-up to that is, you know, apologies for asking this from a 2024 point of view, but if you consider price increases, you put through the raw material cost deflation as well as the cost savings.
Should we think that Methionine earnings should grow in the region of sort of EUR 150 million-EUR 200 million next year, and come towards that midterm average of EUR 300 million? Or do you think that it's gonna take at least more than 12 months to achieve that, given the demand cycle? Thanks a lot.
Thanks a lot for your question. First of all, Methionine is a commodity-oriented business, we at Evonik, to steer this business, in as such. That means it is all about becoming, defending your position as cost leader, which is translating into different measures, we have in place. We have initiated, we have started, for example, taking EUR 200 million out of it, to better our cost positions by this EUR 200 million, From until 2025, and EUR 100 million will already strike in this year, first. Second, by decent and disciplined debottlenecking in our sites in Singapore, and by the building up of the material makeup time capacity in the United States of America, we better our cost position additionally. Why do we do this?
In a nutshell, because for Evonik, Methionine is an attractive cash contributor in this respect. Focusing on cost management by taking costs out, focusing on bettering our cost positions by decent, disciplined, debottlenecking, and by bettering the cost positions of our production facility in the United States, taking both in consideration, it will remain and stay as attractive cash contributor for Evonik Industries. I guess that was the strategic part of your question. With this, I dare to hand over to Maike.
Okay, yeah, the, you ask about how will Methionine develop? Maybe giving you an idea on what we see and actually also what we do not see yet is, on the one hand side, we mentioned the cost savings, the $250 million cost savings. Going forward, $100 million, we should see $100 million already in 2024. Raw materials coming down, and so if you put all these topics into the mixer and blend it, put it like this, let's see. It's of course, early for 2024 to really give you a complete idea on the amount, the actual amount, but we will hope for some tailwind.
All right, thank you.
This was the last question for today. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Tim Lange for closing remarks. Tim?
Thank you very much. Out there at the line, thank you very much, Maike and Christian, for today's call, and I'm sure we will again speak soon.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded. You may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining. Have a pleasant day. Goodbye.