Good day, and welcome to the AdvanSix second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press s tar then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then t wo. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Adam Kressel, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Dave. Good morning and welcome to AdvanSix second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. With me here today are President and CEO, Erin Kane, and Senior Vice President and CFO, Michael Preston. This call and webcast, including any non-GAAP reconciliations, are available on our website at investors.advansix.com. Note that elements of this presentation contain forward-looking statements that are based on our best view of the world and of our business as we see it today. Those elements can change and the actual results could differ materially from those projected, and we ask that you consider them in that light. We refer you to the forward-looking statements included in our press release and earnings presentation. In addition, we identify the principal risks and uncertainties that affect our performance in our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K as further updated in subsequent filings with the SEC.
This morning, we will review our financial results for the second quarter of 2022 and share our outlook for our key product lines and end markets. Finally, we'll leave time for your questions at the end. With that, I'll turn the call over to AdvanSix's President and CEO, Erin Kane.
Thanks, Adam, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your continued interest in AdvanSix. As you saw in our press release, AdvanSix delivered robust second quarter results, capping off a strong first half of 2022. Let me share a few highlights on slide three before Mike covers the details of our financials in a moment. The second quarter results reflected top and bottom line growth sequentially and year-over-year. Strong commercial performance to meet customer demand more than offset higher inflation as well as lower sales volume, primarily due to unfavorable weather conditions driving a reduction of in-season fertilizer demand.
The strength and advantage of our business model and diverse product portfolio and the continued execution to our long-term strategies again enabled us to both navigate the challenges of supply chain and logistics disruptions, escalating raw material inputs and inflationary costs, as well as to capitalize on resilient underlying demand opportunities to deliver results this quarter. A healthy $78 million of free cash flow generated in the quarter reflects the quality of our earnings and supports our continued reinvestment in the business and return of cash to shareholders. This includes opportunistic share repurchases through July, as well as our announced 16% increase to our quarterly cash dividend for the third quarter. Our integration of U.S. Amines is also progressing very well as expected, adding additional value to our portfolio. We continue to make meaningful progress on our sustainability initiatives and performance.
We will soon publish our Annual Sustainability Report, which highlights many of the ongoing initiatives happening around the organization integrated with our overall strategy. I encourage you all to take a read through it. Earlier this week, we were proud to announce that AdvanSix was recognized as a three-plus company with three or more women directors by 50/50 Women on Boards. This recognition reinforces our commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion at all levels. Our diverse end market exposure and competitive cost advantage provides resiliency, particularly in a global macro environment that is evolving real-time. Looking forward, we expect continued healthy North America demand for nylon and chemical intermediates, as well as favorable underlying agriculture and nitrogen and fertilizer industry fundamentals into the 2023 planting season.
In this environment, we are highly focused on executing what is in our control, including driving superior operational and commercial performance to meet the evolving needs of our customers, building capabilities to strengthen our innovation and portfolio resiliency, and enhancing our capital deployment. We are focused on driving best possible outcomes for our business in the current set of industry conditions and remain confident in our ability to target significant earnings growth in 2022 and build sustainable long-term shareholder value. With that, I'll turn it over to Mike to discuss the financial details.
Okay, thanks, Erin, and good morning, everyone. I'm now on slide four, where I'll highlight the second quarter 2022 financial results. Overall, strong commercial execution supported significant sales, earnings, and cash flow growth. Sales totaled $584 million, up 33% compared to last year. Pricing was favorable by 32%, comprised primarily of 26% higher market-based pricing driven by our ammonium sulfate and nylon product lines. This was partially offset by lower pricing in chemical intermediates, driven primarily by acetone as we expected. To a lesser extent, raw material pass-through pricing contributed to 6% of top line growth following a net cost increase in benzene and propylene. The acquisition of U.S. Amines added approximately 5% to sales as well.
Sales volume decreased approximately 4%, driven primarily by unfavorable weather, driving a reduction of in-season fertilizer demand and lower production output, limiting supply of nylon resin and chemical intermediates compared to the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was $105 million, an increase of approximately 32% versus the prior year. I'll walk through the key year-over-year variances on the next slide. Adjusted earnings per share of $2.30 was up approximately 40% versus the prior year. Finally, free cash flow reached $78 million and nearly doubled from the prior year. Cash flow from operations increased roughly $44 million year-over-year, primarily due to higher net income and a favorable impact of changes in working capital. CapEx of $18 million increased roughly $7 million year-over-year, reflecting the timing of maintenance spend as we expected. Now let's turn to slide five.
Here we highlight a few of the key drivers of our second quarter Adjusted EBITDA performance year-over-year. Pricing of raw materials was a $57 million benefit as we once again drove strong commercial execution to capture higher pricing. Tracking our key variable margin drivers, performance in ammonium sulfate on a net price over natural gas and sulfur basis continued its positive trend year-over-year, reflecting the strong underlying ag environment, as well as our ability to drive value above and beyond the sharp increase in input costs. Caprolactam and nylon over benzene were up year-over-year as well, reflecting continued tight industry supply while demand remained healthy, particularly in North America. Lastly, chemical intermediates reflected a continued moderation in acetone over propylene spreads compared to historically high levels seen in the second quarter of 2021 as we expected.
Planned plant turnarounds were an approximately $3 million favorable benefit year-over-year. In the quarter, we also saw a roughly $23 million unfavorable impact from increased plant spend, primarily driven by utilities due to higher natural gas prices and an increase in non-raw material inflation, primarily on transportation costs. Lastly, volume and other items were approximately $12 million unfavorable in the quarter. Lower sales volume versus the prior year was partially offset by the contribution from the U.S. Amines acquisition and a reduction in SG&A costs. Now let's turn to the next slide. On the left side of page six, we've once again highlighted the drivers of the second quarter 2022 free cash flow generation, which was supported by higher net income and the favorable impact of changes in working capital, partially offset by higher income taxes payable.
Working capital was a roughly $50 million source of cash in the quarter. Accounts payable represented approximately $70 million of that total, partially offset by an approximately $24 million use of cash from accounts receivable, reflecting the increase in linearity of sales. The benefit from accounts payable reflected the significant increase in the price of raw materials, as well as some timing of purchases. We do expect roughly half of this amount to reverse in the third quarter, primarily due to the timing of cumene payments. I would highlight that over the last 12 months, our free cash flow yield is roughly 15%, which reflects the healthy cash flow generation and quality of earnings of our business, our business model delivers. On the right side of the page, we've depicted our capital deployment since 2020.
As we navigated through the COVID environment in 2020 and 2021, we were highly focused on managing our cash and debt levels, supporting a significant pay down in debt and driving our net- debt- to EBITDA leverage ratio below 1. We have ramped up our deployment in 2022, including an increased run rate on organic capital investments in the business, the acquisition of U.S. Amines for an estimated net purchase price of approximately $97 million, and roughly $17 million of cash returned to shareholders through roughly $10 million of share repurchases and $7 million of dividends paid. As Erin mentioned earlier, we announced a 16% increase in our quarterly dividend to $0.145 per share payable on August 30th, and we repurchased an additional $2.5 million of shares in July.
Our balance sheet is as healthy as it's ever been, a positive in the current environment. We continue to execute a disciplined and balanced capital allocation strategy that we believe is a value enhancer to our core strategies and a key focus to support attractive total shareholder returns. With that, let me turn the call back to Erin.
Thanks, Mike. I'm now on slide seven to discuss each of our key product lines. Starting with nylon. We've seen price raw spreads modestly improve in the second quarter sequentially relative to the first quarter of 2022, led by North America and Europe. The global cost curve has remained steep in this current energy environment, with input costs continuing to rise, which has supported spreads relatively in line with marginal producer economics. In North America, where we primarily participate, we have seen pricing and spreads fare better, as reflected in the global composite seen on the chart here, outperforming the Asia benchmarks on a year-over-year basis. From an end market perspective, the North American market dynamics remain largely consistent to what we have seen in the past several quarters, including resilient demand and snug industry supply conditions. Residential construction markets have slowed with the rise in interest rates.
However, recovery in commercial continues where Nylon 6 carpet has a strong presence. We've also seen packaging and engineering plastic resins demand remain steady. We know this portfolio is more sensitive to consumer demand, particularly for our engineered plastics resins. While we expect regional demand on balance to remain healthy, we are monitoring for signs of slowdown in areas like consumer durable goods. Moving to ammonium sulfate, strong underlying ag fundamentals alongside elevated energy input costs drove significantly higher nutrient values in the second quarter on a year-over-year basis. As we shared previously, we did experience a compressed season due to weather, which led to in-season demand declines for most plant nutrients across much of the U.S.
Despite some heightened macro uncertainty in the near term, overall underlying agricultural industry fundamentals remain favorable heading into the 2023 planting season, supported by, among other items, crop prices, stocks-to-use ratios, nitrogen fertilizer supply, as well as continued duties on imports from China. Key crop prices, although lower in recent weeks, remain higher year over year and likely to move higher in support of positive farmer economics. Underlying this is historically low stocks-to-use ratios, which support the continued need for robust planted acres this upcoming season. Overall nitrogen fertilizer supply has remained tight and raw material input costs remain historically high, steepening the industry cost curve and constraining product availability in Europe. Other supply constraints globally further include export limitations and restrictions in various regions.
Overall, while we navigate through a seasonal reset here in North America, the fundamental support continued robust fertilizer demand and pricing going forward into 2023. Lastly, turning to chemical intermediates. Industry realized acetone prices over Refinery- Grade Propylene costs improved sequentially in the second quarter on continued balancing of acetone supply and demand. Pricing in the small, medium buyer market, which is reflective of roughly 1/3 of the domestic industry, declined significantly on a year-over-year basis as expected. As you may recall, pricing reached its highest levels of 2021 at the start of the second quarter last year amid continued tight supply and demand balance in the U.S., with planned and unplanned downtime impacting supply across the value chain. Despite the year-over-year decline, pricing currently remains at healthy levels relative to history.
This comes at a time when acetone demand downstream for our full intermediate product portfolio, which serves a diverse set of end markets and customers across building construction, auto paints and coatings, solvents, agrochemicals, electronics, and pharmaceuticals, among others. Let's turn to slide eight. Our outlook for the remainder of 2022 remains largely consistent to what we have shared previously. We continue to target significant year-over-year earnings growth for the full year 2022 on top of what was an outstanding year in 2021, supported by the strength of our integrated business model and diverse end market exposure. Despite some macro uncertainty, demand is expected to remain healthy across our nylon and chemical intermediates product lines, and we do expect those favorable underlying agricultural industry fundamentals to continue into the 2023 planting season.
We are also efficiently integrating the U.S. Amines business into our portfolio and expect the deal to deliver year one earnings accretion. There are two items that we've discussed previously as key considerations to our expected sequential performance in the third quarter relative to the second quarter. First, our ammonium sulfate fertilizer does experience quarterly sales seasonality, reflecting both geographical and product sales mix considerations based on the timing and length of the growing seasons in North and South America. As a reminder, the North America planting season runs from July through June. The new field season typically begins in the third quarter and proceeds sequentially into the following spring, which is the peak period for fertilizer applications for key crops.
As a result of this typical pattern, North American ammonium sulfate demand and pricing, particularly for our higher valued granular products, are typically strongest in the first half of the year through application for the spring crop, and then decline into the second half. As we have shared in prior years, historically, we've seen a sequential consideration of $10 million-$15 million higher COGS on average in the third quarter relative to the second. However, in 2022, given the pricing environment and demand dynamics, we anticipate the seasonality impact to be above the higher end of the historical range. A second consideration that we've shared previously is the expected impact to pre-tax income from plant turnarounds.
We continue to expect a range of $32 million-$37 million in 2022, with the larger of our Hopewell turnarounds, roughly $26 million-$30 million of that total, scheduled for the third quarter. Operationally, we continue our focus on safe, stable, and sustainable performance while driving less variability in utilization rates, which in turn drives improved customer experience and higher returns for the business. For the full year 2022, we continue to expect CapEx to be in the range of $95 million-$105 million, with an increase to our spend run rate in the second half of this year as we install equipment and execute projects within our unit operations during our turnaround activities.
Lastly, we expect our effective tax rate for the year to be approximately 24% and now anticipate cash pension contributions to be in the range of $15 million-$20 million compared to approximately $18 million in 2021, which will bring our defined benefit plan to nearly fully funded status. Let's turn to slide nine to wrap up before moving to Q&A. We believe that AdvanSix offers a compelling investment thesis, and there are a number of factors supporting robust performance and attractive returns for the business and our shareholders over the short, medium, and long term. First, our integrated value chain and business model, supported by our unique combination of assets, provides inherent competitive advantages.
Our scale, make versus buy economics for key intermediates, location here in the US, and ultimately, the technology and chemistries we practice provide significant value and diversify our business. As industry cost curves deepen globally, we are in a strong competitive position. As a reminder, approximately 50% of our business is on formula or index-based contracts, where changes in raw materials are contractually passed through to customers with very little lag. The second core factor is our leading product portfolio aligned to diverse end market applications. While scale and cost underpin our position, we strive to differentiate through our strength and execution with strong channels to market to provide security of supply, best-in-class delivery and quality, and we continue to develop capabilities to solve future customer challenges.
With digital transformation all around us, the need for chips and electronics is translating to demand generation for our high purity solvents within chemical intermediates. With global population growth continuing to expand, the world will have to produce a significantly higher amount of food annually than we do today. This will require more prescriptive use of nutrients to drive crop production as sustainably as possible to efficiently use our global arable land. There is also a need globally to address food waste and spoilage, where our position in nylon barrier packaging comes into play. We have substantially increased the earnings power of this business with our focus on through-cycle profitability.
Our differentiated product portfolio focused on high purity applications, high-value intermediates, and differentiated nylon is now over $200 million in annual revenue, growing at GDP+ rates, with margins that are twice our average base business growth margins, supporting an enhanced sales mix. Disciplined investments in our current asset base also continue to accrue long-term benefits in throughput and profitability, and we continue to evaluate an over $50 million-dollar pipeline of high return growth and cost savings projects that focus on improving rate, yield, quality, and cost. Lastly, our enhanced capital allocation framework provides upside and optionality for further value creation. Mike discussed earlier our healthy balance sheet, and we will continue to maintain prudent leverage levels in the current environment. We are targeting accretive M&A for bolt-on opportunities, providing growth and synergies.
Reflecting our confidence, we've also stepped up our return of cash to shareholders with today's announcement of the dividend increase alongside opportunistic share repurchases. When put all together, our strategies continue to support expectations for AdvanSix's long-term sustainable performance. With that, Adam, let's move to Q&A.
Thanks, Erin. Dave, can you please open the line for questions?
Yeah. We will now be going into the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Vincent Anderson with Stifel. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah, good morning.
Good morning.
Is there anything to read into the higher sales growth in nylon relative to Caprolactam again this quarter? Just given they're both effectively priced off benzene.
Nothing to read into there, Vincent. I would highlight that, you know, we do continue to benefit from pass-through pricing in nylon on the top line. Certainly the top line sales growth was achieved, you know, again, with a keen focus, you know, aligned to the regional supply-demand dynamics and, you know, to really capture the inflationary input costs and an increasing focus on value-based pricing. You know, the Caprolactam side has probably more formulaic and the nylon has a bit more freely negotiated pricing.
Okay. No, that's good. Actually just kind of carrying that line of thinking, you know, over the last few years, you've generally been able to grow through headwinds in areas like automotive, presumably just through higher and higher adoption of the new products you've brought to the market over that time. If we see kind of yet another round of headwinds for areas like automotive, like some of your peers are pointing out, you know, how much confidence do you have in your current, you know, pipeline of leads to keep up that relative performance?
Yeah. You know, again, the focus here for nylon has been around mix optimization, enhanced portfolio resiliency. You know, again, we have sales into fiber and filament. You know, here again, we continue to see recovering demand in the commercial and hospitality markets. You know, that is a key area in which we continue to play and is an important consideration as we move forward and certainly ensure that value chains have the right inventory to supply there. You know, in packaging, again, our demand has remained resilient there. You know, key barrier and durability performance characteristics. We see that continuing.
You know, as you point out in engineered plastics, this is an area where, you know, we're working closely with our compounding customers in the auto, consumer durables, and electronic subsegments. I think we have been much more diversified in the past in our focus, predominantly on the independent compounders to win. So broader reach. We do have dedicated teams now, dedicated technical service folks and technical marketing. So I think we are in a position to, as always, you know, navigate through that, but recognizing that we'll have to watch for, you know, signs and signals here of slowing growth. You know, certainly recognize that, you know, there are regional factors at play.
While the North America region has fared favorably in the recent past, that we have to be cognizant of the global considerations, which is probably where you know a little bit of what you're seeing in some of the other larger compounders as they think about the global dynamics that are happening in Asia and Europe.
Okay. No, that's helpful. Turning over to fertilizers, I mean, we saw a pretty sharp reversal in prices, pretty standard seasonally, probably had some help from the tough North American spring. If we're looking forward into the coming winter, it's not like things have really gotten much better from a supply side perspective. I'm just wondering, you know, if you're willing to share anything at this stage about how you're thinking about approaching the pre-buying season, just given where prices are today versus where they were quite recently and kind of your outlook for supply demand into early next year.
Yeah. Great question as always, Vincent, here. You know, we opened our fall season, you know, targeting price levels consistent with our typical methodology, you know, as we look at nitrogen nutrient values and our sulfur value proposition. You know, certainly as you noted, you know, the industry and the value chains are working through the seasonal reset, you know, coming off of, you know, a lighter spring. You know, with us, I would say we're focused on the underlying fundamentals into next spring season. You know, again, as we discussed earlier, we do think it is highly supportive of strong planted acres, robust nutrient values on supply, demand, and energy input costs, the likely appreciation of crop prices. I would say it's a bit early for us to assess.
I mean, this is a market that can move in, you know, in weeks. I think as we proceed forward, we'll certainly be prepared to share our thoughts as we report our Q3 earnings later in the year.
Okay. That's fair. If I could actually just tack on a procedural question then to that. Can you maybe walk us through exactly how your fill season operates? Is this you basically posting, you know, a price and just seeing who will take it? Or do you accept bids and then you will decide later if, you know, how much of that volume you wanna commit? Just kinda maybe walk us through procedurally how that works.
Yeah. It's more, you know, probably straightforward. We post our open prices. Here again, that's out there. We're in the mid- to high 400s, again, consistent with our typical methodology. And we begin building our order book, right? You know, we effectively watch how that fills up. You know, we can extend the consideration year on year, right? There are a lot of factors that go into it, but you know, we are accepting orders and moving forward into the fall season.
Okay, excellent. Thank you.
Our next question comes from David Silver with C.L. King. Please go ahead with your question. Oh, sorry. Hang on. Okay. Go ahead, David.
All right. Am I coming through now?
Yes. Yes.
You are.
Yeah.
Okay, great. I just wanted to mention I had to join a little bit late, so I apologize if I'm gonna be making you repeat yourself. There's been a question, I think, about nylon related to benzene, and there's been a question about, I guess, the impact of, I guess, the still very elevated natural gas situation in Europe and certain other markets. You know, I'm wondering from your perspective, Erin, if you see the exceptionally high natural gas costs in Europe, not so much affecting fertilizer production, I think that's pretty well established, but what are you seeing on the nylon and caprolactam side? In other words, you know, a lot of at least a couple of nylon producers there have highly integrated production complexes, multiple products.
You know, at the beginning or near the beginning is ammonia. You know, Germany is obviously one market, but there are some others. Is it your opinion that this unusual natural gas situation in Europe is going to reduce the global supply of nylon? Or can the producers kind of alter their global networks to offset it? I mean, you know, pluses and minuses, but how do you see the supply for nylon and caprolactam responding to the current situation in natural gas and maybe any other raw materials?
Sure. Thanks for that question, David. You know, as you note, certainly, you know, natural gas energy right across the board has steepened, you know, all the cost curves. Europe is the marginal producer for caprolactam at this time. Certainly, you know, coupled, as you note, with the energy supply considerations, have impacted their operating rates and I would say are also beginning to influence trade flows globally. Caprolactam operating rates in the U.S. by comparison are around 90%, whereas they sit probably closer to 60% in Europe and about 65%-70% in Asia. You know, when we think about the regional, you know, structures, in nylon, the U.S. is primarily balanced. Europe is structurally long.
We would note that the current cost structure is much higher than potentially landed imports from Asia. I think we are at a point of watching for where, you know, typical trade flow positions could shift depending on how the demand signal evolves and certainly with the global networks and the global, you know, overcapacity that sits naturally in caprolactam and nylon that, you know. I think as the dynamic plays out in Europe, volumes could flow in different directions to compensate.
Okay, great. If I could follow up, I think on the comment that was made about the $50 million kind of discretionary list of projects that you could tackle. I was wondering if you might be willing to share, you know, a little bit of color on where those opportunities might lie. I mean, as I recall, Shortly after you became public, you launched the $150 million dollar program that was, I guess, focused, you know, on your legacy facilities. I'm guessing some of the next wave of discretionary spend might focus on, you know, your acquired assets or maybe some targeted areas in new product development. Any color you might share would be helpful. Thank you.
Sure. I think you're, you know, thinking about it right. Certainly as we have shared, we talk about a number of large projects out of the gate, out of our original pipeline. The size of projects now tend to be, you know, smaller in nature. You know, at our core facilities, they are focused on things like energy, cost, yield. We continue to refine our outlook on a roadmap for expanded granular ammonium sulfate conversion. We continue to refine projects that will allow expansion of the sales growth over time in products like our cyclohexanone, you know, solvents and high-purity solvents there. As you say, we've been hard at work on a pipeline of opportunities for the U.S. Amines acquisition.
Certainly part of our ability to target that doubling of, you know, EBITDA in the next three to five years will require some projects as well. Again, these will be, you know, smaller in nature. You know, they won't be sort of the $20 million-$30 million as they sit today and continue to work themselves through the engineering process. I think it's again a nice way for us to drive growth, but also just sort of core base underlying earnings.
Okay, great. Last question would be about capital deployment. I personally was very pleased to see the increase in the dividend. I tend to believe that'll reduce the volatility of your stock over time, you know. I'll probably eat those words tomorrow or the next day, but over time, I think, you know, shareholders will reward you for that. But I wanted to pick up maybe on the comment about quote-unquote "opportunistic" share prices. You know, your stock really moved within a wide range over time. I'm just wondering if you have some rules of thumb or some guideposts that you might offer on what AdvanSix considers, you know, opportunistic in the context of share repurchase. Thank you.
Yeah, I would say, you know, David, we're gonna, as you point out, deploy an opportunistic approach. Obviously, there are other considerations around when we could do the share repurchases, you know, the amounts, you know, subject to, you know, certain reviews and information we have. That is a consideration for sure. You've seen what we've done. We've certainly disclosed the amounts and the share prices that we repurchase at. You know, I think from there, that could help give you sort of a guidepost on how we think about things going forward. Again, we're just gonna continue to be opportunistic.
There are times where, you know, our share price does move around due to, you know, various different factors, and certainly we like to have that opportunity to be opportunistic. We certainly have, you know, roughly $50 million of remaining authorization left to deploy and to use, and that will be our approach, and you'll continue to see that going forward here.
All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. Our next question comes from Charles Neivert. Please go ahead with your question.
Morning. Morning, guys.
Morning.
Quick question. Is there any opportunity to move some of the fertilizer product to Europe instead of South America? I mean, given Europe's exceptionally high cost and probably cutting down a lot of the base products, you know, that are based off of ammonia and natural gas, or at least cutting back production significantly. Does that open any opportunities for Europe? If Europe were a market, would it take the granular or the more standard product, you know, the more standard product?
Yeah, it's certainly something to watch. Charlie, at current, Europe does and has historically, you know, exported a portion of its ammonium sulfate both into North America as well as into, you know, the South America market. You know, certainly as you know, operating rates have drawn back, we've seen that, you know, perhaps tighten up a bit. But we continue to, you know, look at the opportunity. It is predominantly more of a, I would say, granular-oriented market, you know, given the investments that Fibrant and others have made over time to, you know, create that higher value form.
Certainly something that we will, you know, continue to explore, you know, particularly as we look at, you know, the Chinese growth of sales of caprolactam into places like Brazil, right? Where, you know, perhaps they're not even covering nutrient values, you know, as a consideration. You know, probably limited imports historically, but as you say, dynamics could change, right? We'll stay nimble and agile and are looking at it.
Right. Then sort of associated with that, have you seen any issues in Europe, again, since caprol is sort of, if you walk it back, you know, has some natural gas feedstock to it, has that affected their ability to produce at all, and therefore, again, given maybe potential opportunities going forward? Or is it just basically lifted global pricing because their cost structure is now so high and that ultimately might become a help?
Yeah. Certainly, they've declined in their utilization rate. You know, we see from the trade statistics certainly that they've pulled out of, you know, export markets, in a pretty significant way in certain places. I think the question is, will it tilt any further? You know, certainly with Asia's supply being in the middle of the cost curve, that gets back to a little bit of the commentary earlier where, you know, they those pounds can get into Europe, you know, below the manufactured cost. As the global dynamic for demand plays out in the next couple of months, you know, we're gonna have to watch to see what that does. It certainly lifts global prices.
You know, as we've talked in the past, that global clearing price really gets set in Asia, and that's one that we have to watch closely as we proceed going forward.
Okay. In the last few weeks, maybe even less, there has been a really significant drop in the price of sulfur. Clearly, you know, that's sort of part of the system you guys have to deal in. Is that gonna give you any benefit, and to what degree? You know, or is there basically an automatic pass along for that price drop? Because I think it was pretty significant.
Yeah, no, we have seen a significant reduction in the pricing of sulfur. Now keep in mind, sulfur, when you look at it, you know, sequentially from the first quarter to the second, it was up 70%. We, you know, we're just going backwards from what has been a significant inflationary environment. You know, in the second quarter, year- over- year, sulfur was up like 150%. You know, big numbers here. From what we've seen here, the price appears to have peaked here in the second quarter, and it is coming down sharply in the third. You know, some of that is fertilizer demand, you know, coming down a bit here, as well as, you know, the demand from China reducing as well.
It's, you know, right now it's dynamic, I would say. You know, certainly the production of sulfur and the supply of sulfur has been pretty steady while, you know, we're starting to see the demand here tail off a bit. We'll watch it. I mean, it, sulfur is a, you know, key consideration with respect to our, you know, raw materials, right around that sort of 8% or 9% of our total direct material. It is also incorporated as part of some of our formula contracts as well. There would be an offset, but it, you know, it's moving quite rapidly and we'll continue to monitor it very closely.
Okay. On a completely different area, you guys talked about nylon packaging, and I know it's a sort of a nice business for you guys. Given some of the movement in recycling and, you know, those programs, and in some cases, companies like Dow and others have talked about trying to be more consistent with these multi-layer packages and things like that, so that a package is easily recyclable. Is that gonna present any issues for nylon if it's sort of part of a larger packaging system? Is it just typically done on its own, not in layers, and therefore recycling is not really, you know, other people's recycling issues and changes in packaging is not gonna be an issue for you guys?
No, it is certainly a long-term trend that we have to watch and dive deeply in with our customers, Charlie, just given the macro considerations. I mean, nylon can be used by itself, right? It also is used in multi-layer packages as well. One of the reasons behind our launch of our post-industrial recycled 100% PIR resin was to help our customers in this space, you know, meet some of their targets as well. Again, as we dive into innovation for circularity, innovation in this area. You know, again, nylon is further up relative to the amounts used compared to a number of the other core large, you know, resins and films, but, you know, something that, you know, we'll have to certainly watch over the long term.
Okay, thanks very much. I'll pass on.
Our last question comes from Vincent Anderson with Stifel. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah, thanks. I just wanted to ask a couple of quick ones on costs. I guess just first, are you seeing any meaningful increase in cumene adders just given where octane prices have gone? Or is this market still pretty stable aside from the benzene and propylene pass-through component?
Yeah. A majority of our cumene is under contracts, and typically, they're either one-year or multi-year agreements. The adders are determined at the time of the contract, you know, finalization. We're highly contracted coming into this year. However, when you look at it from a spot perspective, you know, certainly given the, you know, sort of the tightness we've seen overall in the marketplace, cumene adders on a spot basis have, you know, gone up. Again, we're primarily active really with our contracted suppliers, and that's where we get a majority of our cumene. We don't necessarily feel that spot movement.
Obviously, as we go forward here, we'll continue to, you know, interact with our suppliers with respect to contracting and work through the, you know, the adders going forward as we, you know, as we approach those renewals.
Okay. Perfect. You know, I assume you don't want to break out the utility versus gas dollar increase in that earnings bridge. Maybe if you could just talk about the structure of your utilities contracts. Are those, you know, kind of annually negotiated? Or are you just kind of paying some kind of large customer rate, and maybe a reliability premium? Can you just talk about what?
Yeah. Sure. The pricing of the utilities is. It's, you know, really mostly driven by natural gas. There is also electricity rates in there as well. As you can imagine, Vincent, our plants are pretty energy intensive and subject to moves. What you saw really in the second quarter, when you look sequentially at what natural gas prices did, they were up, you know, roughly 50% from Q1 to Q2. That does get reflected in our purchase costs with respect to natural gas for utilities and flows through our plant spend. That is a variable component.
What we've done is we've worked very hard to make sure that, you know, across our product lines, we have that in front of us, and we're doing everything we can to, you know, for the sort of non-formula customers and the spot business, push as hard as we can to make sure we recover, you know, those utility costs, which is, you know, what we're doing. In addition to any other non-material inflation, we also saw inflation on transportation costs as well in the quarter, which we are working here to actively recover through, you know, the commercial actions we've seen.
That's how we're managing the inflation and we're, you know, doing a good job getting through it and being able to get those costs, you know, covered here through, again, the commercial actions we're taking.
Okay, great. Yeah. It sounds like just think of it as natural gas and not worry too much about the pure-
Yeah.
[audio distortion] . Okay. Last one, I promise. We don't talk too often about phenol, but you have some merchant tons, and those spreads to benzene look like they've exploded recently. I'm just wondering if you could give us a little bit of insight there.
Yeah. Most of our phenol, again, we're a much smaller player, given the fact that, you know, nearly 80% of our phenol is produced for downstream, you know, consumption into Hopewell, for both caprolactam nylon and higher value derivatives. You know, our contracts here and the customers we serve are on formula contracts. So certainly I think on a spot-oriented basis, which perhaps some of the larger players would be participating in, you know, that could be the case. But we think about our sales as being predominantly contracted, and those contract considerations would have been set in the fall of last year.
Okay. All right. Helpful. Thank you.
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Erin Kane, CEO, for any closing remarks.
Thank you all again for your time and interest this morning. We delivered robust results in the first half of 2022, and are hopeful you share our excitement about the opportunities that lie ahead. We are executing to a set of focused priorities, all of which are aligned to driving the critical measures that underpin achieving durable free cash flow yield and top quartile conversion, compelling returns on capital, and attractive total shareholder returns. It's certainly an exciting time at AdvanSix for all of our key stakeholders. With that, we'll look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Stay safe and be well.
The conference has now concluded.