Good morning. My name is Rob, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to The Chemours Company third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again press the star one. Thank you, Jonathan Lock, Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer. You may begin your conference.
Thanks, Rob, and good morning, everybody. Welcome to The Chemours Company's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Mark Newman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sameer Ralhan, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we start, I'd like to remind you that comments made on this call, as well as in the supplemental information provided in our presentation and on our website, contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as described in Chemours' filings with the SEC. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events that may not be realized. Actual results may differ, and Chemours undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements as a result of future developments or new information.
During the course of this call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful to investors evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of non-GAAP terms and adjustments are included in our release and at the end of our presentation. As a reminder, our prepared remarks, a full transcript, and an audio recording, plus our earnings deck, have been posted to our website alongside our earnings release. This morning's call will focus purely on Q and A. With that, I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Mark Newman. Mark?
Thank you, Jonathan. I hope everyone is doing well today, and I appreciate you joining us. Despite increasing macroeconomic uncertainty, our quarterly performance showcases the strength of our structural growth strategy. We remain committed to improving the earnings power of TT through the cycle, attaining secular growth in our TSS and APM businesses, and managing and resolving legacy liabilities while returning the majority of our free cash flow to shareholders. In the long run, we expect these four priorities to generate significant value for our shareholders. With that, operator, let's open it up for questions.
At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Duffy Fischer from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Yes. Good morning, guys. Can you hear me?
We can hear you. Go ahead.
Okay. Great. First question is just, when you look at the magnitude of the slowdown you've seen so far, maybe compare that to 2019, the last time you guys had a TiO2 slowdown. At that point, you know, the portal wasn't fully developed. How would you expect, you know, basically the contract business versus the portal business to handle this slowdown vis-à-vis last time when I think your volumes were down kinda double the market, if we go back to 2019. Your price held in better than the market price. Can you juxtapose that period, you know, kinda with an infancy of your new program versus now that you've kind of matured it and what you think you'll see from it this time?
Yeah. Hey, Duffy, that's a great question. Listen, in 2019, you know, that was more of a story of share loss as we were implementing TVS. You know, we've regained that share and then some, you know, with the implementation of Ti-Pure Value Stabilization. Really what we're seeing, you know, in Q3 and as we go into Q4 is the combination of a lot slower demand. You know, as we said earlier in the year, about 80% or so of our business was contracted. You know, we expect that ratio to stay, you know, roughly in line. It varies from quarter to quarter.
Our contracted business is good, and obviously the value proposition with TVS is, you know, we respond to the market demand signals of our customers and, you know, we're seeing that, you know, across the portfolio. As we said in our guide in September, we're really seeing this more so in Europe and in Asia, specifically in Mainland China. Volumes and demand continue to do well in the Americas, North America and Latin America. So really what we're seeing is a response to much lower demand. The way I kinda think about trying to compare it is one is, you know, the demand has come off pretty significantly in a very fast way, and I think a number of the coating companies have alluded to that, especially as they look through to Q4.
We're responding to that by idling production, and we're also, at the same time, you know, running through higher cost inputs that we bought earlier in the year through our P&L. You have all of these things kinda coming together. I think, you know, to compare periods, I would advise folks to look at, you know, sort of a rolling 12-month performance on our TiO2 business, which we expect to be much better, with TVS, even with some of the high cost inputs that you know we're running through in the next couple of quarters.
Great. I think most of us can track unit margins, you know, price and, you know, kind of current raw materials. Can you help us for the next couple of quarters, how much extra above market COGS you're gonna run through on a unit basis because of that high price stuff you bought earlier this year? Does that anniversary kind of into Q1? The other part that's a little bit tricky is as you ramp down your plants, how should we think about the incremental cost per unit from, you know, things like absorbed overhead or just kind of running at less than optimal operating rates?
I'll ask Sameer to comment here in a minute, but clearly, you know, we've been off of our target margin in TT and expect to be off in our second half, more so as we adjust production to meet demand. You know, in our view, we would expect volumes to bottom somewhere between the end of Q4 and into Q1. You know, with that in mind, we'll adjust our production schedules accordingly, you know, to better match demand with production. Clearly, as we come into year-end, you know, we're focused on bringing down some of our own finished goods inventory from a cash perspective. Maybe with that, I'll ask Sameer to comment.
Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Duffy, for the question. Look, as you kind of look at the cost side, Mark said, right, we are lining up production with the demand in TiO2 business, and that means a lot of things, right? First is the cost side just from running the operations should come down. We are working with our suppliers as well to see what makes the most sense ultimately to create value for both of us over the longer term. We have started seeing some positives on that end.
From a timing perspective, as you're gonna look at, look, I think these higher costs sitting in the inventory overall are gonna probably run through towards the end of the Q1, and we should start seeing the benefit in as we're gonna hit the coating season in Q2.
Great. Thank you, guys.
Thanks, Duffy, and congrats on the new role, man.
Your next question comes from the line of Arun Viswanathan from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks. Thank you for taking my question. Good morning. Just following up on the guidance, I guess, a little bit. It sounds like you know you were able to reiterate the full year. I guess, given your comments just now on TiO2, it sounds like more of that is coming from upside in TSS and APM. Could you just flesh that out for us as well? Thanks.
So, you know, TSS and APM are having a great year. In fact, if you would snap the line at the end of September, and that would have been our year, we would have had record years already in these two businesses. Clearly, our secular growth platforms are working. In TSS, you know, you'll see both price and volume year- over- year as we continue the rollout of Opteon. You know, we look at, you know, better marketing of our products globally. On APM, you know, we have a lot of excitement around our growth story here, both in areas of advanced electronics like semicon, with so much work being done on a U.S. supply chain in this area, and globally, actually, with the demand for chips.
You'll have seen, you know, our recent announcements on hydrogen. You know, these businesses are growing at double-digit rates, you know, while we have some fade in our less strategic lines in the company. The way I think about the company today is clearly TT is going through an adjustment as we deal with lower demand, but the team's really focused on the cost side and bringing our inventories into line here in the next couple quarters. On TSS and APM, we're singularly focused on achieving our growth. We've seen, you know, record quarters so far this year, and we would expect that growth to continue into 2023.
I think, you know, we're going through a bit of a transition where clearly our TSS and APM businesses are generating more earnings while we structurally adjust our TT business for the demand. You know, that's reflected in our guide for the full year.
Okay, thanks for that. Just as a follow-up then on APM, you know, given that, you know, we have been hearing some slowdown in electronics, especially in China, are you seeing any of that? It sounds like you expect the strength to continue in 2023. What makes Chemours' business a little different, maybe to mitigate some of that weakness?
Listen, you know, I'd say certainly there's a lot going on the semicon infrastructure that's driving, you know, demand near term. We see double-digit demand growth over the next several years in this area. You know, there might be some moderate slowing in terms of overall chips, but in terms of our book of business, you know, we had another record quarter in Q3. I'll maybe ask Sameer to make some additional comments.
Yeah, Arun, you see a lot on the consumer electronics side. Consumer electronics, yes, but that's a smaller portion for us. We are a lot heavier into the infrastructure side. As Mark said, that's where, you know, once a project started, they typically get through. The demand on that side stays pretty strong.
Thanks.
Your next question comes from the line of John McNulty from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe I can start out on the two specialty businesses. The APM segment, I think all year long, you've kind of spoken to your capacity constrained a bit and yet the volume seemed to kind of get unlocked a bit this quarter. I guess, can you help us to understand that? Then for the TSS business, I know you've kind of said, "Hey, don't bake in these margins. They're kind of running pretty hot. You know, we've got some pretty high costs coming through the pipe in terms of raw materials." Other than the seasonal dip that we would normally see from, say, the first half to Q3, seems like they're hanging in pretty well.
I guess, can you help us to understand what's going on there?
Yes
if we should be expecting a bit more of a dip, as we kind of look, you know, into Q4 and then into 2023?
John, thanks for acknowledging these two great specialty businesses in our portfolio. Clearly TSS is we pointed to a seasonally weaker Q4, so we want folks to make sure we understand that we sell less refrigerants in the middle of the winter. But other than that, this is a multi-year secular growth business. On APM, we have been the team has done a really nice job under Denise's leadership of unlocking capacity in our highest value product lines and leveraging scarce inputs to really enhance our customer and product mix throughout the year. A lot of work happening there.
Then obviously behind that, you know, we've approved some expansion investments that are going in that, you know, will really put these high growth businesses in overdrive, you know, starting in 2024 and beyond, you know. I'd say the team's done a really nice job, you know, unlocking capacity on existing assets, biasing the mix, and that's really driven both variable margin and EBITDA margin. On TSS, you know, we outside of the seasonality, that business continues to perform very well, both from a growth and a pricing perspective. Lots of innovation happening in this business as well. You will have read recently of the award that we received from AHR with respect to our Opteon XP41.
You know, we continue to show that we can really drive earnings here based on the growth in Opteon and our customer centricity in both in all markets around the world. Sameer, I don't know if you have any additional comments.
Yeah, Mark. I think you covered all the points. I think on the margin side, only other point I would make is as we kind of get into the Q4, we are gonna see some of the raw material cost inflation again as some of these things just kind of flow through the pipeline into the inventory. I think in the Q4, we are gonna see some of the impact. Also in Q4, the regional mix changes. I just wanna point to that as well because as we exit the Northern Hemisphere and the business moves more towards a little bit heavier on the Southern Hemisphere side, the margins tend to be a little lower on that end given the product mix. You're gonna see a little bit of that as you kind of move into Q4 as well.
Got it. Okay. No, that's helpful. Then maybe I can just ask a follow-up on the Titanium Technologies platform. I mean, it looks like just the implied guidance is when you kind of triangulate between APM and TSS, it kind of looks like, you know, TT is coming in, you know, with EBITDA that's gonna be two digits instead of three. So somewhere in the, I don't know, $80 million-$100 million range, maybe even a little bit lighter than that in the fourth quarter. I guess when you get through the heavy costs that you have with the high cost ores and maybe running lighter for destocking, I guess how big of a jump up can you get as you get into like the Q 2and Q3 next year?
Like, I mean, can we see kind of, is it relatively steep, or is this something where you gradually grind higher? Because it does seem like TT is coming in at levels that admittedly we weren't sure we would see again.
Yeah. Again, John, I think your observation on the math is not far off. I would just say our view is, you know, we wanna do the right thing long term for the business by adjusting production schedules against demand. Clearly, you know, as Sameer alluded to, we're still working through on the P&L, you know, higher cost inventory that we bought early in the year. The focus of this team, you know, is to get this business back to our 25% target margin over time. That will take a little time from where we are today and certainly where we exit the year. The team is singularly focused on achieving that. Clearly, you know, we are gonna have a couple of rough quarters here as we adjust production schedules.
If you look at the earnings over sort of a trailing 12-month basis, you know, these are a lot better than prior lows that we've seen without TVS. The other point I would make is, you know, when I look at our TT business and the quality of our assets, the fact that we're tied to, you know, the U.S. energy supply versus European and our book of business on TVS, you know, I feel like in terms of weathering the turbulence, you know, we're well set up here versus, you know, some of our competitors. I think you should put that in the mix as well.
Got it. Thanks very much for the call. Appreciate it.
Your next question comes from the line of Mike Leithead from Barclays. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks. Good morning, guys.
Hi, Mike.
First question, I just kinda wanted to follow up on the last one just on the implied Q4 earnings outlook. Can you maybe just walk through high level how you're thinking about the split between the segments? Then related to again the last question, maybe you could help us frame just kinda what might be seasonal or transitory like that high cost COGS that are running through maybe over the next quarter or so versus maybe what we should expect carrying into the early part of next year, just given where the macro is.
Mike, you know, we don't guide by segment or by quarter really. What I'd say is, you know, our full year guide that we provided in September still stands, and we expect to be within that guidance range. Clearly, I think we're acknowledging, as we have in our materials that, you know, we're going through a bit of an adjustment on TT, and really it's trying to align our production schedules with demand in a way that, you know, allows us to finish the year with better inventories on our own side. We would expect this demand decline to bottom, you know, in the next couple of quarters, probably as we go into Q1 of next year. You know, we're gonna have a couple quarters here with TT where we're making these adjustments.
By the way, this team was very focused when the market was very tight on meeting customer needs, and we did achieve very high delivery to promise. I have no doubt that this team being now more focused on the cost side, you know, will make real progress as we go into next year.
Fair enough. Secondly, the recent $200 million capacity expansion in Fayetteville, I was just hoping maybe you could give us a bit more color, just relative size of expansion, how far along that extends your ability to serve the market, and if you're willing to give anything in terms of IRR or payback periods.
Yeah. I'll start with the last question. These are very high return projects well in excess of our cost of capital. These are great expansion projects to do. You know, we've said that we expect the electrolyzer and fuel cell membrane market to be somewhere between $2 billion and $3 billion by 2030. This announced capacity, you know, we would expect to come online late in 2024, early 2025. Based on a lot of the announced expansions, you know, we'll be hitting the market, you know, in stride at a very good time. As I said earlier, you know, when you look at the APM results, you're seeing the impact of that team liberating capacity on existing assets on high value markets like membrane.
You know, that will continue through next year actually through this new capacity coming online. View this as a very significant increase in our membrane capacity, consistent with our goal of continuing to have a very meaningful share in being a market leader in membranes.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Matthew DeYoe from Bank of America. Your line is open.
Morning. Is there any risk that you won't be able to debottleneck certain fluoropolymer products, kind of given community pushback? I know the Wilmington Cape Fear piece and at least the press in that region hadn't been too positive as it relates to potential expansion in Fayetteville. Is that kind of the Fayetteville expansion? Is that happening elsewhere? Is there any reason why you maybe couldn't get that done?
As we see things today, Matt, we're quite confident that we will get it done. You know, we continue to have very good engagement with the local DEQ and the local community. You know, this debottlenecking is sort of within our permitted capacity today. I wouldn't expect us to have any issues whatsoever.
Understood. It's early, but if we think about price next year for TSS or at least kind of the cadence as we move through the year, you'll have Opteon price concessions to auto OEMs. I usually think about it starting as somewhat negative. Will you have continued roll-through on the legacy HFC side that will keep price up? Or should we think about it as flat? How does that look now, I guess?
Clearly we had, you know, with the adoption of the AIM quotas earlier this year, you know, we've had, you know, very good pricing activity consistent with a quota mechanism. We're not expecting that we would have, you know, the same kind of year-over-year price change that we saw going into the quota mechanism. Clearly, there's a step down as we go into 2024, you know, which, you know, will provide, you know, a different market dynamic. We expect this business to continue to have, you know, good pricing and good volume growth with the rollout of Opteon. Sameer?
Yeah. Thanks, Mark. Mark, there's other couple of things I would add as you kind of think about the pricing and the mixes of the businesses, also the aftermarket side of the business as that's.
Mm.
As the Opteon adoption happens and Opteon, you know, is expanding, we should see an expansion on the aftermarket side as well, which is at a higher, a little better pricing and better margin for us. That should be helpful as we're gonna move forward.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Josh Spector from UBS. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. This is James Cannon on for Josh. Thanks for taking my question. I was just wondering if you could give some color on the volume declines in the titanium business. How much of that is on the contract or the flex business? Whether or not you're seeing any pricing pressure or pushback on some of the negotiations there.
Yeah. You know, I'd say, as we have said, the majority or about 80% of our business is contracted. I'd say, you know, with the volume decline, it's really reflecting, you know, the decline in demand of our contracted customers. As you saw in our release, you know, prices remain relatively flat, you know, sequentially. The way I kinda think about that is, you know, we continue to see good price activity on our contracted book. But clearly spot prices, which we have on our flex portal, you know, have come off from prior highs. I would say that's the kind of volume price mix that you're seeing in the quarter.
Yeah. The only other point I would make, James, is as you kind of think about the volume equation, I would think a little bit more from a regional perspective rather than from our channel perspective. As Mark said in his opening remarks and earlier as well, it's Europe and Asia where we have seen the majority of the volume decline. North America is holding up, and Latin America has been a pretty good market for us as well.
Okay. Great. On the APM side, we talked about the capacity expansions there. If we were to assume the growth rates that you're seeing pan out, could you quantify how much additional capacity could be needed by 2030?
Yeah. Certainly as it relates to membranes, you know, this will serve our needs for the foreseeable future. You know, as we look out from here today, you know, I think I've said this before previously, you know, we think a CapEx envelope for the whole company of somewhere between $400 and $450 is a pretty reasonable estimate to support our growth aspirations in all of our businesses, especially APM and TSS. The significant capital expenditure we're making on best-in-class abatement technologies to achieve our corporate responsibility commitment of reducing fluorinated organic compounds by 99%, 99.9%.
you know, I think there's no worry in my mind that, you know, we'll get meaningfully outside this CapEx envelope across our three businesses as we move forward in time.
Okay. Great. Thank you, guys.
Your next question comes from the line of Hassan Ahmed from Alembic Global Advisors. Your line is open.
Morning, Mark and Sameer. You know, just wanted to revisit, you know, some of the comments you made about the volumes in TT. You know, 8% sequential declines in volumes. When I compare and contrast that to what I'm hearing from some of your competitors, arguably, you know, with a European sort of bias, you know, those volume declines sequentially are as high as 25%. I'm just trying to understand, you know, if you could give me some color around what the market looks like right now demand-wise. Are you doing materially better than the broader market and the like?
Hassan, good morning. That's a great question. Clearly, you know, when we look at our regional mix, you know, we're probably more exposed to North America than some of our competitors who have a bigger exposure to Europe. You know, to the earlier comment of seeing a you know pretty dramatic fall off in volumes in Europe and Asia, especially mainland China, I think that works into the equation. As some of the other analysts have commented, clearly, you know, we would expect you know more dramatic volume declines going into Q4 to really adjust our production schedules. You know, to what we're seeing, again, in Europe and in Asia Pacific.
You know, I kinda look at this over Q3 and Q4, you know, to sort of get more in line, you know, with where the market is. Clearly our regional mix, you know, is more biased to North America, one, and two, you know, our production mix is also very biased to North America, where I think we can benefit, you know, for example, as natural gas prices and other input costs come down.
Very fair. As a follow-up, you know, more on the lines of, you know, the overall portfolio. I mean, obviously you guys, you know, continue to show us the growthy nature of the APM business, the TSS business. You know, fortunately or unfortunately, you know, again, the industry, yourselves included, have done a great job in, I guess, reducing the cyclicality with TVS, but, you know, it's pretty clear that it remains there. How are you thinking about the overall portfolio as it sits right now? I mean, is there some thought process of maybe a broader split between the growthier side of the business and the more cyclical side?
Yeah. Hassan, I would say I'm very focused and this leadership team is singularly focused on the four strategic priorities. We think those four focus areas, you know, will generate significant shareholder return over time. This is a bit of a marathon, not a sprint. Clearly, you know, we remain focused despite sort of the near term headwinds in TT on this longer term strategy. I think we've never said that there's any sort of deep commercial tie between our fluorine business and our TT business, so I think we've always been clear. As it relates to any restructuring, clearly that's something that we would work on with our board at the appropriate time, but certainly no intention to move down that path today.
Very helpful, Mark. Thank you so much.
Your next question comes from the line of Vincent Andrews from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Hey guys, this is William Tang on for Vincent Andrews. Thanks for taking my question here. Should we expect, I guess, TiO2 EBITDA margins to kind of remain below that 20% range as long as kind of overall market demand is relatively weak? I know you talked about your goal of getting back to kind of 25% EBITDA margins in the TT business. You know, what outside of maybe, you know, pricing or and volume recovery, what are the things that kind of need to happen in order to get there?
Yeah. William Tang, this is Sameer Ralhan. I'll kick off. Essentially as you're gonna look at the margin, as Mark Newman said, right, you know, Q4, and as you're gonna get through Q1, we'll get through the high priced inventory that we have. I think that's once we get through that, we'll be in a much better position. Overall, from a margin perspective, yes, pricing, those things are low. At the same time, we are aligning our production along with the demand as well. That should be helpful in getting the margins in a better position as well. I think that's the way you should look at it. Our goal is to get into the low- to mid-20s% over time. That's, you know.
As we're gonna give you the 2023 guide, we'll be giving you more, some sort of view around what the margins may look like for 2023.
Gotcha. Okay. Then, I guess given the weaker TiO2 demand that we're seeing, what are you guys seeing kind of upstream in the ore market? Are you seeing a kind of significant amount of kind of further loosening in the S&D there?
Yeah. Look, I mean, I think, as I said earlier, right, Will, we've been having very active dialogue with all of our suppliers, all our strategic suppliers on with respect to aligning the production with the demand and what that means in terms of the cost for us as well. Because ultimately we wanna be driven to improve a win-win situation for everyone. Yes, we've started seeing some movement on that side as well, which is in the positive direction for us.
Got it. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Laurence Alexander from Jefferies. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. This is Kevin Estok on for Laurence. My first question is just, I was wondering what your perspective is on inventory levels on your customers heading into winter compared to, like, normal levels. My second question is, so if interest rates stay elevated, I guess wondering if at all how that affects how you think about your margins, like, required for margins to expand in TiO2.
Hey, Kevin. You know, I wouldn't say inventories are elevated across the board for sure. But if we just focus on TiO2 for a moment, clearly the slowdown in Europe and China has been quite dramatic. I think our end customers are adjusting their inventory levels accordingly.
In the Americas and especially North America, you know, I'm of the view that, you know, inventory levels are in line with where our end customers want them. In fact, I would say as we prepare for the coating season, there could be even some inventory builds in anticipation of a robust coating season. I just wanna remind everybody that, you know, the U.S. consumer remains very strong. You know, while we're seeing the impacts of, I would say, higher energy pricing on the European consumer and the COVID lockdowns in China, you know, we are seeing very robust North American customer activity and end consumer activity. You know, our expectation is, you know, we haven't really seen any meaningful change in our North America book. In fact, year-over-year, we're seeing growth still on a revenue basis.
I just want us to make sure we keep that in mind.
Got it.
Your next question comes from the line of Roger Spitz from Bank of America. Your line is open.
Thank you, and good morning. I wonder if you would consider hazarding a guess for the global TiO2 industry, what you think 2022 growth or decline might be versus 2021, if you have any preliminary thoughts what 2023 versus 2022 could look like, a snapback or what have you?
Roger, I, you know, read some of the analyst reports in terms of the overall industry. You know, I suspect based on how weak the second half has been, there is some suggestion that we could be down a couple percentages as an industry this year on volume. As it relates to next year, obviously we'll start the year with a weaker first half, but the projection for next year would really depend on sort of the overall global macro assumptions, which I think are still emerging.
Got it. When you say in your remarks that you've idled TiO2 capacity, can you give, you know, any sense of what percent of your total capacity? Just so I understand, when you idle capacity, are you taking down, idling some lines at plants versus, say, you know, for a time idling an entire plant, like saying, "Well, Asia is weak. Let's idle all of the Taiwan facility for a time"?
Roger, we don't disclose that information. We consider that, you know, something that we wanna keep close to the vest. We have the flexibility of taking down individual lines at our plants. As you know, our plants are quite large relative to our competitive set. You know, when we idle a line, that could be equivalent to a competitor idling a plant, given the size of our facilities. That should help you sort of dimensionalize, you know, when we say, you know, we're taking some idling. You know, one of our lines, you know, is quite significant.
Roger, just Sameer, I'll just add to that, as you kind of think about our plans, right? As you kind of think about the flexibility with respect to the ore mix that we can use, we can flex our capacity quite a bit and optimize our cost structure based on the market conditions with that strength of the technology as well.
Got it. Just one last one on this one. When you do idle a line at a facility, from a physical and cost standpoint, is it onerous, or is it relatively easy and not terribly costly, when you do that?
Roger, this is something our team knows how to do very well. We, you know, I would say our TT team, it's one thing they're really great at, is manufacturing. They know how to simultaneously bring a line down, take cost out of the system, but be ready to bring that line back up very quickly based on market demand. Think of this as a very flexible approach. Clearly, as we design Ti-Pure Value Stabilization, we had in mind our manufacturing flexibility, both from an ore and a line loading perspective. We're just following our playbook, which has proved very successful over time.
Thank you very much for that. Appreciate it.
There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Mark Newman, I turn the call back over to you for some final closing remarks.
Thank you, Rob, and thank you all for joining us today. You know, as I thought about the increasing uncertainty in the global macro environment, you know, I'm very thankful for the high caliber team we have here at Chemours that's staying focused on meeting the needs of our customers and running our business as well. As we've covered today, you know, we are going through some transitionary issues on TT as we adjust production to meet demand. We're also very focused on capturing the full growth potential of TSS and APM. We're doing that at a time when, you know, we're growing earnings year-over-year. We're generating a lot of cash. In fact, this will be the third year that we've generated over half a billion in free cash flow. We sit with relatively low leverage.
You know, we're ready for what's coming at us in the next couple quarters, whatever that may be. I want you to understand that we all remain focused on our four key strategic priorities to create long-term shareholder value. I thank you again for your interest, and we'll be in touch.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.