Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Albemarle Corporation Q4 2020 earnings conference call. I would now like to hand the conference to our speaker today, Meredith Bandy, VP of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Please go ahead, ma'am.
All right. Thank you, Joelle, welcome to Albemarle's Q4 2020 earnings conference call. Our earnings were released after the close of the market yesterday, you'll find the materials posted to our website under the investor relations section at albemarle.com. Joining me on the call today are Kent Masters, Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Tozier, Chief Financial Officer. Raphael Crawford, President Catalyst, Netha Johnson, President Bromine, and Eric Norris, President Lithium, are also available for Q&A. As a reminder, some of the statements made during this call, including our outlook, expected company performance, expected impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and proposed expansion projects, may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Please note the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in our press release. That same language applies to this call.
Please also note that some of the comments today refer to financial measures that are not prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation to these measures to GAAP can be found in our earnings release and the appendix of our earnings presentation, both of which are posted to the website. Now I'll turn the call over to Kent.
Thanks, Meredith. Thank you all for joining us today. On today's call, I will highlight recent accomplishments and discuss our strategy to capitalize on the very attractive long-term growth trends we see for our businesses. Scott will give more detail on our results, outlook, and capital allocation. I'm pleased to say that Albemarle reported solid Q4 results, including net sales of $879 million and adjusted EBITDA of $221 million, both of which were at or above the high end of our previous outlook. I'm also encouraged by the rebound we began to see in the second half of the , particularly for bromine and lithium.
We expect to generate full year 2021 net sales of between $3.2 billion and $3.3 billion, and adjusted EBITDA of between $810 million and $860 million, both up from 2020 results. As I'm sure you're aware, earlier this month, we completed a $1.5 billion capital raise. The proceeds of this offering provide the financial flexibility to execute our long-term strategy, including the acceleration of high-return growth projects. Now, if we turn to slide five, we have a clear strategy to drive sustainable value for our shareholders. Albemarle has four primary strategic objectives. First, we will grow profitably. We have identified and planned a portfolio of low capital intensity, high return projects. These projects lever our diverse world-class resources in both lithium and bromine.
Over the past five years, we have built the internal team and capabilities to execute these projects on time and on budget. In addition, we have the long-term commercial relationships with customers that are required for these projects. We are working to ensure that we are aligning with their strategic requirements while achieving adequate returns for our shareholders. Of course, the majority of our growth will be in lithium, but at the same time, we will be investing in our bromine projects. This will include highly efficient brownfield projects with attractive returns and short paybacks. I'm sure Netha would be happy to give you more detail when we get to Q&A. Second, we will maximize productivity. Over the past year, we have optimized earnings and cash flow generation across our business, including our very successful sustainable cost savings program.
Operational discipline is essential for generating cash flow and supporting growth, and we will not take our eyes off the ball, even as we move into an accelerated growth phase. Third, we will invest with discipline, focusing our capital investments on our highest return opportunities. Just as we have in the past, we will actively assess our portfolio for opportunities to unlock shareholder value. We will also continue to maintain our investment-grade credit rating and support our dividend. Fourth and finally, we will advance sustainability across our businesses, which is a core value for Albemarle. Our aim is to increase sustainability throughout the value chain, from the resource to the end use of our products. Most recognizably, we develop lithium products that enable the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through the adoption of battery electric vehicles.
Our catalyst business contributes to sustainability by helping refiners produce cleaner transportation fuels, and our bromine products contribute to consumer safety by preventing fires in electronic equipment. With continued regulatory changes, advancements in technology, and investments in infrastructure like charging stations, the current environment is ideal for a step change in EV adoption. We are seeing this play out in the acceleration of global EV sales led by rebounding demand in China and new demand in Europe. Global EV sales increased 45% during 2020 and are expected to increase by over 70% in 2021. On the right-hand side of the slide, you see demand projections for lithium over the next five to 10 years.
Based on our internal estimates, we believe demand will reach more than 1.1 million tons by 2025, up from around 300,000 tons today. This is slightly higher than third-party projections from industry analysts like Benchmark Minerals, Roskill, and the CRU Group. As you can see, the consensus is that the industry expects to see significant growth in the coming years. As the industry leader in lithium, Albemarle is able to take these external estimates, internal forecasts, and discussions with our strategic customers and suppliers to generate a detailed demand forecast. On slide seven, you see other metrics we use to gauge the future of the lithium market. While Albemarle's demand outlook for lithium is above third-party estimates, our outlook is below some of the more ambitious targets from automotive OEMs.
For example, Tesla's vision of 3 terawatt-hours of battery production by 2030 would translate to roughly 2.3 million tons of lithium. That means that Tesla's demand alone would exceed estimates for the entire market. Additional regulatory impacts, for example, if the U.S. decides to adopt more European-like EV incentives, would be incremental to our estimates. Total lithium demand is expected to grow by about 30% per year from 2020 to 2025, led by lithium consumption in electric vehicles, which is expected to grow by 47% per year. Two other trends support lithium demand: increased adoption of battery electric vehicles and larger battery size. Battery electric vehicles and larger battery size improve the consumer experience with longer driving ranges, and innovation in batteries is also driving shorter charging times. It's important to note that this outlook does not assume a major shift in battery technologies over the next five years.
Advanced battery technologies like solid-state batteries could potentially increase lithium intensity later this decade. Since 2015, we've nearly tripled our nameplate conversion capacity to 85,000 tons per year. Later this year, we expect to complete two major projects, which we refer to as Wave 2. Wave 2 consists of our La Negra 3 and 4 project and Kemerton 1 and 2 projects, which will more than double our current capacity to 175,000 tons per year. Over the last five years, we engaged with our customers with long-term volume commitments to execute this portfolio of projects. Now, with this new acceleration in demand, customers are asking us to repeat the model. Our next two waves of expansion could once again more than double our nameplate capacity. With lower capital intensity, we expect these projects to generate very attractive returns.
The identified and planned Wave 3 projects would add 150,000 tons of annual capacity over the next three to five years. This third wave includes a conversion plant in China, which would be part of our MARBL joint venture, a smaller expansion at our Silver Peak asset in Nevada, another plant in China on a new mega site, and Kemerton 3 and 4, a brownfield project in Australia. We also have identified opportunities for a fourth wave of projects. These could include further expansions in Australia, China, and Southeast Asia, and the potential to restart the mine and expand our conversion facility at Kings Mountain in North Carolina. Wave 4 also includes options to support customers looking to localize supply. For example, by converting carbonate to hydroxide near the battery manufacturer. Before we continue, let me update you on our Wave 2 projects.
The La Negra 3 and 4 enables us to add lithium carbonate capacity at the very low end of the cost curve. The project remains on track for mechanical completion in mid-2021. Kemerton 1 and 2, our new lithium hydroxide conversion plant in Western Australia, is on track to reach mechanical completion late in 2021. Kemerton is core to our hydroxide capacity in line with expected strong long-term market demand. Both of these projects will add significant commercial lithium sales beginning in 2022 following commissioning and customer qualification processes. As we move from Wave 2 to Wave 3 projects and beyond, we expect an estimated 40% reduction in capital intensity to support compelling economic returns. We can achieve these capital efficiencies and returns for three key reasons. First, we are able to leverage our experience in project execution by building standardized plants with economies of scale.
For example, we expect new hydroxide plant would be a standard 2 trains or 50,000 tons per year, similar to what we are building at Kemerton today. Second, in many cases, we're moving from greenfield to brownfield economics. Just as today, we're moving from La Negra 1 and 2 to La Negra 3 and 4, likewise, we'll move from Kemerton 1 and 2 to Kemerton 3 and 4, and so on. As with Kemerton, the focus will be on building what we call mega sites. Standardized, large-scale plants able to support multiple trains for lithium conversion. Finally, we'll be buying or building additional facilities in low-cost jurisdictions, as we did when we successively acquired and then expanded our Xinyu facility in China in 2016.
Before I turn it over to Scott to review recent results, I'd like to acknowledge all the hard work by our Albemarle team to continue to operate during the global pandemic, as well as their ability to achieve significant progress on our long-term strategy. A year ago, when my predecessor laid out our 2020 strategic objectives, I don't think any of us could've imagined how the year would play out. Despite all the challenges, our team has delivered. We set ourselves up to grow profitably, keeping our major lithium capital projects on track for 2021 completion. We maximize productivity, achieving $80 million of sustainable cost savings in 2020, 60% above our initial targets. We demonstrated financial discipline, completing our 26th consecutive year of dividend increases and maintaining our investment-grade credit rating throughout the pandemic-related downturn.
Finally, we improved the sustainability of our businesses by establishing baseline environmental data and improving our reporting and transparency. I'll now turn the call over to Scott for a detailed review of the 2020 financial results.
Thanks, Kent, and good morning, everyone. Albemarle generated Q4 net sales of over $879 million, a decrease of about 11% compared to the prior year, but at the high end of our previous outlook. This reduction was primarily due to reduced prices in Lithium as expected coming into the year, and reduced volumes in Catalysts offset by improvements in Bromine. GAAP net income was $85 million. Adjusted EPS of $1.17 excludes a pension mark-to-market loss due to lower discount rates. As Kent stated, adjusted EBITDA was $221 million, above the high end of our previous outlook. Turning to Slide 13 for a look at adjusted EBITDA by business segment. Lithium's EBITDA declined by $17 million versus the prior year. Pricing was down about 20% in the quarter due to contract pricing adjustments agreed in late 2019, as well as product mix.
Volumes were higher than expected due to a combination of improving demand and customers fulfilling their full-year contract commitments. Cost savings helped offset the impact of lower prices. Bromine's EBITDA was up about $7 million. The increase was due to higher volumes and higher pricing. Bromine is overall a good news story. The business has essentially rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. In Q4, they benefited from higher demand, customer restocking, and some short-term supply-demand imbalances for both raw materials and finished goods. Catalysts EBITDA declined by $53 million, primarily due to lower volumes. This business continues to be the most challenged of the three due to ongoing travel restrictions, as well as reduced refinery capacity utilization and margins. Fluid catalytic cracking, or FCC volume, improved sequentially, but remained down compared to the prior year quarter.
Hydroprocessing catalyst, or HPC volumes, were also down with a tough comparable relative to an unusually strong Q4 2019. Our corporate and other category EBITDA decreased by $8 million due to a mix of slightly lower Fine Chemistry Services results and slightly higher corporate costs. The FCS business is contract-driven and can vary quarter- to- quarter. Full-year results were very strong compared to history. Comparing the full year to Q4 , you can see it and get a sense of the rebound we started to see in the second half of 2020, particularly for lithium and bromine. We are pivoting capital allocation to prioritize high-return growth projects to align with strategic customer demand and maintain our leadership positions. We remain committed to preserving the financial flexibility necessary to fund growth and to maintain our investment-grade credit rating.
We'll also continue to support our dividend, although dividend growth may be lower than the historical average while we build out the next wave of growth projects that will enable high-return opportunities. Finally, we will pursue a disciplined and thoughtful approach to investments, including M&A and joint ventures. As we've said in the past, the most likely M&A you'd see us do would be bolt-on acquisitions of lithium conversion assets in cases where buying allows us to grow more quickly and generate better returns than building. We are finalizing the sale of our Fine Chemistry Services and Performance Catalyst Solutions businesses and expect to update you in the coming months. Let's turn to Slide 15 for a look at our balance sheet. The primary use of proceeds from our equity offering is to accelerate profitable growth.
The 90% or about 90% of the proceeds are for lithium growth, with most of the remainder for enhancements to our bromine business. The returns on these projects are highly attractive, and we expect to generate returns at least two times our weighted average cost of capital at mid-cycle pricing. These are large, long-dated projects with a bulk of incremental spending in 2022 through 2025. In the meantime, instead of holding the proceeds as cash, we plan to de-lever, which will reduce interest expense and cash drag on the balance sheet. This will enable us to use cash and debt capacity to fund investments as they are approved. Our long-term target net leverage ratio remains two to two and a half times adjusted EBITDA. Pro forma for the offering, we are below that range. Expect to increase our leverage as needed to accelerate growth and deliver returns to shareholders.
Overall, we expect 2021 results to improve year-over-year. For the total company, we expect net sales to be higher year-over-year as our businesses continue to recover from the events of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA of between $810 and $860 million also suggests potential upside compared to 2020 due to higher net sales and ongoing cost savings. We expect CapEx to be slightly higher year-over-year as we begin to execute our accelerated growth projects. As I mentioned earlier, the bulk of that spending for these projects will be in 2022 to 2025. Net cash from operations is expected to be lower due to higher cash taxes and higher inventories as we start up the two new lithium plants. Expectations for adjusted diluted EPS of $3.25 to $3.65 is lower than last year due to higher taxes and depreciation, as well as the increased share count.
Due to the recent severe winter weather, we have temporarily shut down four of our U.S. plants. Our Bayport, Pasadena, Magnolia, and Baton Rouge plants have been down since Monday. Once it is safe to do so, we will restart these facilities. This situation is still evolving. At this point, we expect some impact to Q1 results and potentially Q2. It's possible the weather will have more of an impact than what is currently included in this outlook, and we'll update you if there are any material changes. Let's turn to slide 17. Lithium results are expected to be relatively flat compared to 2020. We expect slightly higher volumes with the restart of North American production late last year, as well as modest efficiency improvements. As usual, we expect volumes to be back-half weighted for lithium.
At this point, we still anticipate slightly lower pricing, depending on full-year average realized pricing for carbonate and technical-grade products. Our new contract structures provide increased flexibility to increase price in response to improving market prices. Lithium costs will be slightly higher year-over-year, related to the start-up costs associated with La Negra and Kemerton, partially offset by continued cost and efficiency improvements. As Kent discussed, the long-term growth story for lithium is intact. In catalyst, we expect 2021 results to be flat year-over-year, including higher PCS earnings. We expect a decline in North American refining catalyst volume. This is primarily a result of one customer who recently indicated that they would deselect Albemarle's catalyst due to our public support for electric vehicles.
Longer term, we are continuing to position the catalyst business to grow in emerging markets and capitalize on our strengths as a global specialty chemicals producer in the crude to chemicals market and the renewable fuels market. Raphael can give more color on the challenges and opportunities we see for our catalyst business during Q&A. In bromine, we expect full-year 2021 results to improve modestly with continued economic recovery and a return to sold-out plants. Our ongoing savings initiatives should offset the impact of inflation. Looking ahead, we see steady demand increases for our flagship fire safety products, driven by new technology trends like 5G and electric vehicles. I'll turn it back to Kent to review our strategic objectives for 2021.
Thanks, Scott. Albemarle finished strong in 2020, and we are excited about the opportunities ahead of us in 2021. We will continue to execute our long-term strategy. The successful completion of our wave two projects and investment decisions on new expansion projects in lithium and bromine. We are also working with customers to reach commercial agreements for a majority of new capacity prior to investing. We will continue to maximize productivity with operational discipline across our businesses, including cost reduction, lean principles, continuous improvement, and project execution excellence. We expect to achieve $75 million of productivity improvements in 2021. We will be disciplined stewards of capital, investing in high return growth, maintaining our investment-grade credit rating, and supporting our dividend.
Finally, we will continue to implement and improve sustainability across our company, including setting near-term goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at our existing operations and exploring science-based target options for all three of our businesses. With that, we'd like to open up the call for questions. Joelle, over to you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Good morning. Kent, on recycling in lithium, when do you expect this to become a bigger part of the market, and what will be Albemarle's role in lithium recycling going forward?
Yeah. I'll start with that, maybe Eric can give a little bit more detail. We've got activities around lithium, but we expect that to be a number of years out before it becomes a major business. Basically, there has to be enough lithium in the market for it to run its life cycle in a vehicle and then come back for recycling. I think our role in that, we'll have to look at those business options, but when you see lithium being recycled, there's a component of that that looks a lot like our conversion facility. We would anticipate that we would play in that, but it's a number of years out before that comes to fruition. Eric, anything you want to add there?
Sure, Kent. David, I'd add that we have a number of efforts already with existing customers both in the U.S. and in Europe, who are very focused on investing in recycling capabilities. In some cases in Europe, it's part of the EU Battery Directive. Those targets within EU, for example, are still being set and being discussed. The industry is offering its views on technology, as are we, when it will be ready. As Kent pointed out, we're doing some novel process development and linking it into how we might run our conversion plants or adapt those plants and those designs for that capability. It is early days, but Albemarle is really well-positioned with its customer base and its spread across the various cathode technologies and with our global footprint to really take advantage of that trend as it develops in the next decade.
Thank you. Eric, just on your wave three projects you list on slide eight, when should we expect a formal announcement on which project will be moving forward, how would you rank order these projects right now in your mind as likelihood of moving forward first?
Yeah, I think the order that we listed them, that's kind of our order. We expect to see a China facility would be the first thing that we would move on. We're working on that, investigating it, doing planning around it now, but it's at a point where it could be an acquisition, and then an acquisition usually has some element of work to it before it really becomes an Albemarle facility or a greenfield plant. We're working on that now, and we'd probably come to a FID on that late 2021, depending on whether it's an acquisition or a greenfield.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Benjamin Kallo with Baird. Your line is now open.
Hey, thanks for taking my question. Maybe just taking a step back, could you talk a bit about just visibility in your lithium sales as we move into the next year? We see all these announcements from big auto OEMs and then smaller startups. Can you talk about how your salespeople attack those companies and then your lead time to that? Maybe weaving in next year going from, I think, the streets at like $850 million this year to over $1 billion of EBITDA next year. Not to ask for guidance for 2022, just can you give us some puts and takes for growth in 2022 with both volume and then how you think about pricing as well? Thank you.
Morning, Ben. This is Eric Norris. First in terms of the visibility we see near term, which I think was your first question. We have two approaches we take, right? One is exactly what Kent described in the call, which is a macro to micro approach of modeling demand, and that has led us with some of the announcements you've referenced to increase our demand outlook on a macro basis. A big part of that is what happens on the ground with our salespeople. Our strategy has been and will continue to be to use contracts to secure long-term volumes. That requires a discussion with the customer to commit anywhere from three to five years, and a discussion that follows that into the details of what they are looking at from a specific chemistry, location, and quantity point of view.
I'd characterize our visibility as quite reasonable and good in that regard, giving us the certainty we need to expand and positioning us well in the market to grow with the additional resources we have. Maybe you could repeat your second question.
My second question was just the Street is modeling about 20% growth, and it's mostly coming from lithium from 2021 to 2022. Can you talk about the puts and takes that we should think about without having to give guidance, but the volume you're bringing on and how we should think about that versus pricing that maybe rebounds as you move to new contracts?
Yeah, Ben, this is Scott. I'll take that question. As you look into 2022, the volumetric growth coming from lithium with the startup of La Negra 3 and 4 and Kemerton 1 and 2 is clearly the highlight for that year. However, we do see continued recovery in refining catalysts as transportation fuels and refinery utilization continues to improve. Potentially some additional growth in bromine as some of those early growth projects come to fruition and we're able to place that into the market. I think we're well-positioned going into 2022 to see very meaningful and high return growth in that year.
Great. Thank you, guys.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Christopher Kapsch with Loop Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. On the upward revisions to your 2025 lithium demand forecast, you pointed obviously to EV penetration and the mix of EVs, larger batteries as the drivers. I'm just wondering if you could provide color on the outlook from a hydroxide versus carbonate standpoint. I'm just curious if the upward revision is tied mostly to higher energy density EVs and therefore more skewed towards hydroxide.
Morning, Chris. Relative to the demand question, the mix, it is weighted towards hydroxide. If you look at the market today, we see it being sort of a 30/70 split. By the 30% hydroxide, that would be that value. If you look out to 2025, and there's going to be some error bars on this, of course, but it's about 60/40, 60% hydroxide. The large part of the growth is in hydroxide, high nickel chemistries. It's not to say there isn't growth in carbonate for more conventional technologies like LFP. To enable the growth targets of the Western OEMs in particular, and the range they're looking for in energy density, it's going to be hydroxide. That's true even in 2021. The rate of growth we see for demand in 2021 is incrementally higher for hydroxide than it is for carbonate.
As you know, Albemarle is well-positioned no matter which way it goes, because we have capacity coming on. We're doubling our capacity in both product lines. As we roll forward and look at wave three, the predominance of that is going to go towards hydroxide for the reasons I just referenced.
Got it. That's helpful. The follow-up is regarding your comments about your contracts, which sort of are seemingly on sort of a perpetual renegotiation right now. What you mentioned, the ability to lift prices higher, I'm curious if there's also a floor in the renegotiated contracts and if it applies to both EV supply chain customers and industrial-grade customers also. Then just any color on just the tone of the conversations given that the world kind of has changed over the last three to six months, if it feels like the leverage has shifted back from them to the suppliers given maybe concerns about security of supply. Thanks.
Yes. I'll start with that, and then maybe Eric gives some color. I'm not sure. I think for the industrial customers, the long-term contracts are mostly in the EV market. When we talk about our long-term contracts, that's about the EV market, less so on the industrial side. I don't know if the leverage really has shifted, but it has changed the tone of the discussions. We still sit with our long-term prices above the spot market, even with the moves that we've seen, but there's less pressure on those contracts. It's not that there's no pressure on those contracts, but there's, I would say, less pressure. If that trend continues, it will kind of move in the same direction. Eric, you want to top that off?
The only thing I would add, Kent and Chris, is that these contracts, you've characterized them, Chris, as if they have been perpetually negotiated and that they may be one size fits all. That's the change. We did make an adjustment, a concession, as the market pricing collapsed a year ago. Now we're moving into restructuring these contracts based on customer needs. There are going to be some that are going to look like spot, and that's going to be, as Kent pointed out, some of those contracts in the TG area and perhaps in the China market. There's others that are going to be like the old variety, but the vast majority is going to be variable-based pricing that reflects some market index, a global index, not necessarily just China.
That's positioning us well as we go into an improving market from a price standpoint to benefit from a growth standpoint.
Very helpful. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Laurence Alexander with Jefferies. Your line is now open.
Good morning. I guess two questions. First, on the recycling comments earlier, is the message that you'll engage in significant recycling when the returns are double your WACC, or is it that you are engaging in a significant amount of R&D to try and position yourselves for when that market develops? Are you subsidizing the market, the development to some extent? Secondly, can you speak to the trends in conversion costs as specs change at the automotive OEMs? Are the costs rising or falling over the next few years?
Yeah. On recycling, I would say it's really we're investing in R&D process, but we're talking to customers about what a business model might look like. It's really an early phase of that, and we're investing at this point and trying to figure out what the business model would look like and what our role would be in that. We're also investing in R&D to kind of get us there. We're not sitting and waiting till we get the returns that we expect. Kind of the biggest driver for that is there's not going to be lithium that's coming through the life cycle to feed recycling processes for a number of years. I'm sorry, the second question?
Just with respect, as auto OEMs or as the battery specs are evolving, are the conversion costs rising or falling? Is it becoming tougher to meet those specs?
Yeah. The specs are evolving, but I don't know that processing costs are really going up. We're driving hard on productivity to try and drive those costs down. There are, in some cases, some steps that we've modified in order to meet some of the specs around crystallization. I don't think it's driving the cost up at this point, but it's probably offsetting some of our productivity gains. As it gets more sophisticated, but we get better at making it, a lot of that's about process control. We are looking at one step in the process that we have to add in, which would add a little bit of cost, but I think at a minimum, we'd offset that with our productivity.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Harrison with Seaport Global Securities. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning. Wanted to ask about the lithium business. Your pricing and mix, you said, was down 20%. Typically, I think about pricing as flowing through pretty directly to the bottom line, and so that 20% decline would've been something like $80 million of an EBITDA headwind, yet your EBITDA was only down $18 million. How did you make up that fairly significant difference? It doesn't look like volume would've been big enough to make that up on its own.
Yeah. This is Scott. I would point to, there is volume growth in the quarter on a year-over-year basis, but also we're seeing the results of our productivity actions from a cost perspective. That's been a big focus that we started in 2019 as we're trying to maximize the productivity and not only have the world-class resources that give us low costs, but also have low-cost operations. We're seeing the benefits of that very clearly in the Q4 . We'll see benefit of that in 2021 as well, both on the cost basis, but also we're seeing some volumetric growth just from the yield enhancements and improvements that the engineers are able to get out of our plants. All pointing in the right direction for us.
I would add to that. Those productivity improvements, they flow through. It's much more difficult to get them on flat volumes. As we get volume growth, those really start to show up. There'll be new facilities which will then kind of redo the playbook on productivity again. I think as volume grows, those really show up more.
Understood. Okay. Then over on the catalyst side, you mentioned the change in customer order patterns affecting maybe the cadence of the year. I wanted to dig in a little bit on this customer that deselected you guys because of your support for electric vehicles. Do you see that as kind of a one-off happening with a specific customer, or are there other customers where you see this coming into play going forward?
Yeah. Difficult to predict the future, but we kind of see it as one customer took exception and we're going to work pretty hard to gain their confidence and get that customer back. They've kind of taken a different view at the moment.
All right. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Great. Thanks for taking my question. Curious on the pricing outlook. You commented that maybe your overall pricing would be down a little bit year-over-year in 2021 versus 2020, and we have seen some initial improvement in pricing, I guess, in certain markets. Maybe you can just give us your thoughts on how price in both carbonate and hydroxide evolves through the year as you see it and maybe if there's any regional differences between China and North America that'd be helpful. Thanks.
I'll make a comment and Eric can add some color. I think we see the same numbers that you're seeing around spot prices. They have moved China spot prices. We sell little to no volume in China on a spot basis. It's not directly applicable, but it is indicative of the market. We've not really seen prices change outside of China. The contract prices we haven't really seen, but as I'd said earlier, it lessens the pressure on our discussions with customers. It's not as much downward pressure as we had seen, say, Q2 , Q3 of last year because those spot prices have turned up. We'll just have to see how it plays out during the year. At the moment, the spot prices are still below our contract prices. It's not like a sea change.
If it continues to move that could give us some upside. At the moment, those prices are still below our contract prices.
I'd add to that, Arun, that the prices in China that you're seeing are largely carbonate and have largely inflected in the past two months. It's an encouraging sign, but a bit early to extrapolate that to the world. As Kent pointed out, our business is biased to more world or ex-China prices than in China prices. Most of our outlook is around carbonate and TG products, not around necessarily battery-grade hydroxide, which is relatively flat in this outlook. It's an encouraging sign, and the way we've got our contracts structured, should it continue, broaden, and deepen over time, that trend, then we're in an extremely good position to benefit from that going forward, and we'll just continue to watch it.
I would say from where we are today, it's not a matter of if prices inflect upwards broadly, it's just a matter of when. 2021 is a transition year. I think as we go forward in the future years, it's going to get pretty tight.
Great. Thanks for that detail. Maybe you could also offer your thoughts on maybe a little bit longer term. You noted that it is going to get pretty tight. Would you expect pricing to kind of head back towards prior peaks that we saw in 2017 and 2018? Also maybe you can just comment on that as it relates to spodumene as well. Thanks.
Yeah. I would say, we're predicting the future, right? This industry's really only been through one down cycle, so we're coming off that. We don't anticipate that prices move back to the peaks that they were before, but we don't know that. I think I'll leave it at that.
Yeah. On spodumene, because of what's happened in China, the reason we believe prices have spiked in China is a fundamental shortage now of available carbonate inventory and available spodumene supply and inventory. What that's meant is now prices have started to inflect upward for chemical grade spodumene, which should that trend continue, will provide more supply into that market to meet that need. What that all means from a future standpoint, as Kent said, the calculus, too hard to say given the maturity of this market, and we'll continue to watch.
Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to bridge the wave 3 on slide eight with sort of the plans from when you did the MARBL JV. Just looking back at that slide, you were going to build 2 stages of 50,000 tons of LCE at Wodgina, and it was going to be $1.6 billion split between the two parties. Doesn't seem like you're still planning to do that at Wodgina. What's changed and why? That $1.6 billion number as it relates to two 50,000 ton plants, is that still a good approximation of what it would cost in Australia? Presumably it's less in China. Just if you could just help us bridge that'd be very helpful.
Yeah. I guess our plans around the MARBL JV have evolved, so the initial conversion is the Kemerton 1 and 2 . As we see it today, the second conversion facility and the second 50,000 would be in China. That would be probably that first project that we were talking about in the wave 3 projects.
Okay. Well, presumably that's going to come in at less than the Australian CapEx cost that you had envisioned. Is that correct?
Yeah. Absolutely. It'll be quite a bit less than a Western Australia plant.
Okay. If I could also ask, what is the plan in terms of the Wodgina facility, I believe is in care and maintenance mode right now. Do you intend to leave it like that, or do you anticipate bringing it back online at some point this year?
Well, I don't know about this year. We just have to see how we evolve as the Kemerton project comes on. We accelerate growth. Wodgina is in our plans for being a resource. It's a very good quality resource. It's there. Off the top, I don't want to commit to when we bring that resource on. It would be as we start into these phase three projects is when we would need that resource.
Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin McCarthy with . Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning. This is Corey on for Kevin. As it relates to the bromine business, at your 2019 Investor Day, you talked about expecting new resource discovery and expansion of offshore drilling. Obviously, things have changed. How has your view of the market changed, and can you talk a little bit more about your U.S.-based bromine expansion?
Yeah, I think in terms of our view of the offshore oil market, I think it's muted slightly. We do see oil prices recovering, which we know with the lag time of six to nine months is going to be good for our business going forward. In terms of the U.S. expansion, it fits right along to the corporate strategy of accelerating our lower capital intensity, higher return growth projects. Magnolia, for example, it's great jurisdiction for us. We've been there for decades, we know those assets well. That really lends itself to investments that have a quicker return and a higher return, those are the ones we'll leverage as we grow this business going forward.
Thank you. If I may follow up, sort of pivoting here on divestitures. It sounds like you're close on Performance Catalysts. Do you have any expectations regarding aggregate proceeds and timing? With lithium recovering and equity raises recently, would you consider separating the balance of your catalyst business at some point?
Yeah. FCS and PCS, we're on the same track that we were. It's gone slower. COVID slowed us down, but I'd say we're back on track, but they're not done yet. As we said in the prepared remarks that we'll kind of let you know when we get closer or those deals get signed. On Catalysts, we still think that we're kind of the best owners for that business. We've been in that business for some time. We add value. We've taken a hit over COVID-19. The miles driven being down and refinery utilizations and all of those issues. We still think we like the strategy of becoming more in crude to chemicals, moving toward Asia as we move, and we still like the products we have and the innovation we have in that business. We think we're the best owners of that business for today.
We don't have immediate plans around divestiture of Catalysts. They're a core part of our businesses. The three businesses we have in the portfolio are all core for us.
Understood. Thank you very much for your reply.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeffrey Zekauskas with J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open.
Thanks very much. You're bringing on 50,000 tons at Kemerton, 30 of which is yours, and you're bringing on 40,000 tons at La Negra. You said that demand's going to be really strong for electric vehicles over a three-year period, much stronger than people thought before. As a base case, how many tons do you expect to sell out of those two units in 2022? I know it takes time to ramp up. Of the 40 and the 30 that's yours, as a base case, how much will you sell in 2022?
Yeah. Eric, if you want to look at some detail on that, I would think as we bring those plants on and ramp them up, we'd expect to be selling kind of half of each in the first year.
Half each in the first year.
That's fair. Yeah. If you look at, we have an example, Jeff.
Sure
In growth mode, we've done this one other time before as part of wave one with Xinyu II, and that plant came up a little north of 50%, but it was a brownfield facility with much of the existing infrastructure in place from the acquisition we'd made prior to that. Kemerton is greenfield. Considering that, 50% feels reasonable, and the same with La Negra as well for 2022.
Right. For my follow-up, is there any volume or EBITDA benefit from either of these two projects in 2021? I guess the rock for Kemerton has to come from Talison Greenbushes because the other, the Wodgina mine is sleeping. Is that correct? Is that not correct? What's the effect on 2021?
Yeah. I don't think you're going to see much in 2021. I mean, we've got increased costs because we're commissioning and bringing those on.
Yeah.
If we could accelerate and get a little bit of sales, it'd be offset by those costs, but I wouldn't be planning on benefit in 2021. Initially, it is most likely we'll feed the Kemerton from the initial phases with Talison product.
Okay, great. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from P.J. Juvekar with .
Yes. Hi, good morning. Currently in China, the carbonate prices are higher than hydroxide prices because of comeback of the LFP batteries. Do you think that's a trend or it's an anomaly that may not last? Secondly, just on pricing, you had given sort of 15% concessions on certain contracts in 2020. The expectation at the time was in 2021, those contracts will go back to original pricing. Did that happen on those contracts?
On the first question, P.J., good morning, it's Eric here. The delta on carbonate and the inversion of carbonate being higher than historically hydroxide's a buck or two lower. We think that's a dislocation of a rapidly responding China market, which is largely carbonate and not a long time trend. It's important to understand that a lot of the hydroxide market is supplied by low-cost brine producers, of which Albemarle is one, converting to hydroxide, which is what we do at Kings Mountain. Without that supply, there's not enough market, there's not enough volume for the marketplace. The point is that the economics say that there has to be that incentive for those producers to go to hydroxide. We expect that to revert, and we are obviously very well-positioned in both product lines to participate. P.J., your second question was what again, please?
Your contracts that were reset in 2020 are lower, and they were expected to go back to their original price in 2021. Did that happen?
Recall what we've done. Our strategy has been to migrate these contracts to benefit from a recovering market price. We have converted several of them over and struck new ones based upon a market reference price, either in all or in part, it depends on the customer. We'll do the remainder this year going forward. That's our strategy. Our strategy is to take advantage of the inflection of price, not to go back to a fixed price in the past necessarily, although there are some customers who are asking for that, right? It's not a one-size-fits-all answer, but the aim is to benefit from a recovering market in prices in terms of how we structure those contracts.
Eric, if I heard you right, are you saying that your contracts are going to be more sort of dependent on price or maybe more variable pricing as opposed to like a fixed annual price?
That is correct. It will vary. Look, I can give you examples of some customers who want a fixed price. They want the stability. We're not going to agree to that unless it's well above market. That's one segment of the customer base. Another segment, and a big chunk, wants some variability to say that they're able to move with the marketplace relative to their competitors or other sources of supply they buy. As a result, those contracts will have that kind of a market-based component to them, either collared or in part for their volume or for a large part of their volume. The degree to which we give that flexibility also dictates how much of a commitment we make to them as well.
The more spot-based a customer wants to be, the less likely we're going to commit to them long term and use that as part of our justification for expansion. There are some caveats there in our value proposition, but that's how we're approaching things. All of this is going to allow us, we believe, to really improve our overall mix on a price and profitability basis as the market price recovers.
Great. Thank you for that.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Bob Koort with . Your line is now open.
Thank you very much. I wanted to explore a little bit more on the MARBL integration with how you plan your lithium expansion. A couple of questions there. What would be the transfer price from Talison to the Kemerton MARBL JVs, and why pursue the Chinese expansion in concert with MARBL if you could get 100% of it, and now you have the financial wherewithal with the accommodating equity markets to fund that kind of expansion? Why share that? Why not keep it all for your shareholders?
Yeah. I would say the short answer on that is that was in our original agreement that we would do two of the 50,000 tons, and then the next one we expect to do would be the one in China. That's part of the JV. The JV was done because, one, to get the resource for the Wodgina mine, we have that, and also their expertise in mining to help us on that side. Because we're more of chemical processing expertise on our side, and they bring the expertise on the mining side. That's kind of the logic behind overall, and that's part of the original deal that we did with them. We're committed to doing another project, another conversion project with them.
Okay. Maybe if I could get an answer on the transfer price from Talison, also your new La Negra project is going to use a thermal evaporator. Can you talk about what that does to the cost structure out of La Negra three and four versus the capacity that's already there in one and two from a cost curve standpoint? Thanks.
Yeah. On the transfer price, it's a kind of established market price. We are following Australian tax rules around that. I would say it's a market price, arm's length market transaction around that. The thermal evaporator, it was a return project that's driven by financials, but probably just as much around sustainability. It allows us to operate without water or much less water than we were using before. That's an area where water is tight. The cost of that, I think the returns were good. I don't recall exactly what they were. I don't know that they were extraordinary, but the benefit was also around from a sustainability perspective as well.
Great. Thanks a bunch.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Sison with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.
Hey, guys. Good morning. Just one quick question on your 2025 forecast. Do you and the sort of pundits believe the industry can sort of support that by then? How much capacity do you hope to have online by 2025 to support that growth?
I can't speak for the industry. Part of as we see acceleration in EV adoption, that's kind of what has moved us in this current pivot toward accelerating our growth plans. The goal was that we kind of maintain our share in there. Eric, maybe you want to talk about the capacity in 2025. I don't have that number in my head.
Well, I think a rule of thumb way to think about our capacity growth and the plans that we've put forth for wave 3 and for wave 4 to sustain our leadership and grow with the market is it's going to be hydroxide weighted, the growth. We already commented on that earlier in an earlier question. It's going to require, as you get out into the middle part of the decade, us bringing at least 50,000 tons to market a year of hydroxide. That is what that plan, if you look at the details, would enable into the middle of the decade and beyond. Approximately speaking, you're talking about 150,000 tons of growth a year in the market price or in that neighborhood, Mike, and our bringing on 50. That's the kind of pace we're looking at.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Kent Masters for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you, Joelle. In closing, Albemarle is well-positioned to capitalize on long-term growth trends for all three of our core businesses. We have built the capabilities to accelerate low capital intensity, higher return growth. At the same time, we will continue to control what we can control. That means, first and foremost, focusing on the health and well-being of our employees, customers, and communities. It also means building operational discipline and sustainability into all aspects of our business, including manufacturing, supply chain, capital project execution, and customer experience. We remain confident in our strategy, and we will modify execution to position Albemarle for success. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.