And Chemicals Conference at Bank of America. I'm pleased to host a fireside chat with Ecovyst's Nate Connor, Director of FP&A, Treasurer Mike Feehan, and Aaron Kazinski, Assistant Treasurer. Over the past few years, Ecovyst has made a substantial transformation from PQ Corp, including the $650 million sale of Performance Materials, a.k.a. Potters, to the Jordan Company in December 2020, the $1.1 billion sale of Performance Chemicals to Cerberus, Koch Minerals, in August 2021. Ecovyst now reports in two segments, Ecoservices, that's sulfuric acid regeneration services business, which basically sells strong acid, which weakens in the customer's process, and the customer turns the weak acid to Ecovyst to re-strengthen it and resell that regen acid to the customer again, and Advanced Materials and Catalysts, which manufactures catalysts for the manufacture of polyethylene and methyl methacrylate, the monomer to make PMMA, which is better known as Plexiglas.
The Zeolyst JV with a partner, Shell, which manufactures hydrocracking catalysts used in refineries, among other catalyst products. Ecoservices represents roughly 75% of LTM EBITDA and Advanced Materials and Catalysts, around 25% of EBITDA. That's roughly split evenly between Silica Catalysts and ZI and the ZI JV. Now, yesterday, you probably are all aware, Ecovyst announced that the board has initiated a strategic review of its Advanced Materials and Catalysts segment in order to maximize shareholder value. That review is expected to be complete in mid-2025, and that the company won't make any additional comments about the strategic review until its work is complete and/or further disclosure is warranted. On an LTM Q3 basis, if I've done my sums correctly, Advanced Materials had sales of $105 million and EBITDA of $32 million.
The ZI JV, on a 50% basis, had sales of $136 million and EBITDA of $35 million. As a reminder, this session is being webcast. So as we go through the fireside chat, if you'd like to ask a question, you're more than welcome. Just if you would, just wait for a microphone to come up so that the webcast can hear your questions. With that, I'll start off.
Thank you for having us, Roger.
Absolutely. So your 2024 Ecoservices EBITDA guidance was $195 million-$205 million, essentially flat with 2023 EBITDA of $200 million. And it looks like your sales may well be flatter year over year as well. Is it fair to say that volumes are up nicely, but that there was spread compression or maybe higher maintenance costs that are essentially effectively equally offsetting the higher volumes?
Yes, that's absolutely correct. I think you know, Roger, in our Ecoservices business unit, the top line isn't a great indicator because sulfur prices pass through dollar for dollar. But we have seen nice volumes in both our regeneration and virgin business units this year. We're happy with the growth there. From a profitability standpoint, that has been offset by the planned maintenance, both regular turnarounds as well as our reliability program, which we outlined in our investor conference last November.
Interesting. Okay, and driving the volumes at Ecoservices, is that mainly driven by higher refinery throughput?
On the regen portion of our business, yes. That's higher volumes through the alkylation units in the refineries. I think you know that's where the sulfuric acid is used as a catalyst to produce that blending component of alkylate. So we are seeing nice volume increases there with regulatory issues as well as demand for higher-grade gasolines, so premium-grade gasolines. Yes.
With gasoline prices and oil prices where they were, is there still the drive to push more alkylate through these refineries?
There is. The alkylation units in refineries are historically some of the most profitable units in the refineries. And the United States is really net short in alkylate producing capabilities. So it's highly profitable for the refiners. And we see them run their alkylation units at very, very high operational levels.
Okay. And you talked about spread compression and Ecoservices being one of the factors. What has caused that?
Obviously, 2023 was not a great year for us. You'll remember last year when we were down here, we were talking about a lot of unplanned maintenance at our facilities. So we instituted a reliability program to ensure that those issues don't reoccur. And that's part of some of the depressed margins that you'll see on a year-over-year basis. Also, from a turnaround standpoint, we take turnarounds at our regeneration and our acid facilities, usually in conjunction with the large refiners. And we did have one more turnaround this year than in previous years. So that'll impact the margin as well.
Okay. So you're referring to margins. I was thinking it was spread compression. What I meant by that is price raw material. But I think you're correcting me in saying that it's not really that. It's more the turnarounds and the maintenance outages, which to me is sort of like part of the conversion costs, operating costs, and sort of as opposed to price raw material.
Right. I think, as you know, we have good price protections to pass through inflationary pressures in our business, especially on the Ecoservices side of our operations. So in that regeneration, these are all governed by long-term contracts anywhere from 5 to 10 years that have price escalators in there. So from a, I'll say, an EBITDA margin standpoint, what you're seeing there from a compression is our investments in that planned maintenance as well as an incremental turnaround on a year-over-year basis.
How often do you turn your plants around? And it sounds like you'll turn your plant maybe when the associated refineries turn their plants. But how often is this a once a year, every other year, every three years? What's the typical turnarounds of a particular plant that you have?
Typical cycles are usually 18 to 24 months, depending on what unit inside of our operations needs maintenance. But as I mentioned, a lot of the refiners really view us as a utility. We're taking a byproduct that they don't necessarily have storage for in their spent sulfuric acid. We regenerate it and provide fresh acid back to them. So we do sync those up very closely with the major refiners.
And I know that, I guess, some refineries can use HF in the alkylation, and sulfuric acid appears to be winning that battle. But is that even getting better from your standpoint with the PFAS, or it's really, yes, it's fluorine, but it's not really there. That's not really contributing to any of the PFAS in the local waterways or anything like that.
I wouldn't necessarily say it has anything to do with PFAS. I think it's more of, obviously, the issues that come along with HF. Sulfuric acid's just kind of a better process.
Got it. Excuse me. So your 2024 Advanced Materials and Catalysts EBITDA guidance is $65 million-$70 million, down 12% at the midpoint versus 2023. Is this mainly at ZI or Silicas? You've talked about both in the recent calls, but.
Sure. Primarily in the Zeolyst joint venture. I think on a year-over-year basis, what you'll see is 2023 was a peak hydrocracking year for reset of those fixed bed catalysts. We also this year have seen some pressure in our emissions controls catalyst sales with the delay of some new regulations, emissions regulations, as well as a slowing in the sustainable fuels as regulations get pushed back there, and some of the investment spending in sustainable fuels we've seen slow over the last six months. That's really been the contributor in advanced materials and catalysts.
Right. And I started reading that MD&A and listened to your calls. And I was kind of surprised because it seems like all the other chemical comps I talked to, sustainability and emission control seem like where the trend is going. So when I see that I'm going, it's kind of confusing because I said, "Well, what's going on here?
Sure. We still think there's a great growth story in sustainable fuels. If you look at some of the sustainable aviation fuels blending mandates in Europe, we see large aviation partners here in the United States, United and Delta pushing for sustainable aviation fuels. We think there's still a great story there. However, it's going to take a while for all of the logistics to work itself out.
Okay. So to get to that 2024 Advanced Materials and Catalysts EBITDA guidance at the midpoint, Q4 has to generate about $31 million of EBITDA, meaning it has to do a lot of heavy lifting. How do you bridge that given the segment's first three quarters in 2024? What are the puts and takes to say, "Okay, Q4," because you just gave the guidance. So what's driving it?
A lot of, I'll say, larger, and we've talked about this in the past, event-driven orders. I think if you look to the history of recent years, specifically last year, where EBITDA in Advanced Materials and Catalysts increased from $16 million in Q3 to $27 million in Q4, you see a lot of timing in some of these order cycles. We remain confident in our guidance.
Got it. There does seem to be a seasonality, but it's not a typical seasonality. For most chemical companies, Q4 is a weak period.
Right.
When I look back over your past Q4s, that's definitely not the case in this segment. What's driving that?
A lot of it is just based on end-user timing. And I would say the mix of our orders, specifically with hydrocracking catalysts, we can see large $10 million-$20 million orders at any given time. So it's really the lumpiness and event-driven nature that we've talked about in our earnings releases and past conferences.
I'm sorry, are you saying that when a hydrocracker, they change a catalyst, that's a $10 million-$20 million ticket?
In some cases, it can be. Yeah.
That's a big ticket.
They're significant orders. Yeah.
Okay, and that explains also the lumpiness.
Yes, it does.
All right. Let me see if we just answered this. So maybe a slightly different take. So Zeolyst JV has been hard hit with the catalysts for sustainable fuels and emission controls, as you just mentioned. Are refineries de-emphasizing these initiatives? You talked about just a minute ago, the regulations are sort of being delayed, and maybe that's the answer. Or is it refineries are saying, "You know what? The property isn't there yet for this, so I'm not going to focus. I'm not going to spend the money on the catalyst if I can't get the return yet." Or is it many of those things?
I think it's a combination of all those things, really. The carbon credits, we've seen vastly reduced prices on the carbon credits, as well as just some, I would say, slowing in new projects as well as existing projects. I think everyone believes in the growth story of sustainable fuels. We obviously have to decarbonize. So the growth is there. It's coming with new technologies. I think sometimes you see some timing issues.
Got it. So in your EBITDA bridges that you show, which are very helpful, sort of the other items, but the capital O has been a big mover for price for 2024 year to date. Are there any large pieces in other? For instance, is that where the maintenance turnarounds are coming in?
Yes. That's exactly where they are.
All right, so that's what's going on with the other.
Correct.
Okay.
Yeah. That's the maintenance turnaround and the planned reliability initiatives that we've spoken about in the past.
Got it. All right. So we talked about the turnarounds in Ecoservices. Silicas and the Zeolyst JV, do they have big turnarounds, or is it not?
Typically not. The larger turnaround expense comes within the Ecoservices industry. I mean, you're basically making a product that eats the equipment that makes it, right? So that's the larger ticket items.
But it's not carbon steel, is it? I hope.
No.
No. Maybe need to pay for the tantalum. All right. Is it fair to say, though, that when you do a maintenance turnaround, that the impact on sales and volume at least is relatively minor since you're able to produce and put into inventory products so that it doesn't have a direct impact?
Yes. So what you'll see us do is you'll see us build inventories ahead of a turnaround. And then, as I mentioned, we partner very closely with the large major refiners to ensure that when we bring our facilities down, they're typically down for maintenance as well.
Great, so for maintenance and turnaround costs, do you expense as incurred, or do you capitalize and amortize?
It really depends on the nature of the turnaround and what's going on at the facilities. I think you've seen us in our Ecoservices business unit expand our volumes, capability, or capacity internally when we do those turnarounds. So as we replace large pieces of equipment to increase our capacity and our throughput, obviously, that would be capitalized. But some of the other items are expense, and you see that roll through.
Got it. And that goes into EBITDA, I'm assuming.
Exactly. Yes.
What would be a typical cost, whether capitalized or expense, for a typical Ecoservices plant turnaround? So hundreds of single-digit millions, or is it double-digit millions, teens?
Typically, single-digit millions. I think we've talked about a range of approximately $2-$4 in the past. Now, that is a very, very loose guideline. It really depends on which plant is coming down as the mix of turnarounds will impact that on a year-over-year basis. We see higher cost turnarounds at places like our California facilities, Martinez and Dominguez, than we would at a facility in the Midwest or the Gulf Coast.
So your stock price has been quite volatile on news like earnings this year. Do you have a, or does the board have a plan to try to moderate the stock price volatility?
Well, I think, obviously, with the announcement yesterday of the strategic review, the board and the management team, and I think we've been quite vocal about this over the past three years, did not feel that the stock price is reflective of the quality of the two businesses, both Advanced Materials and Catalysts and Ecoservices. So we're 100% focused on increasing the shareholder value there.
Got it. Do you think there's sort of a minimum size you need to be to stay a public? I mean, it's easy to stay a public company, but.
Sure. Any comment on that from my part would be pure speculation. I'll leave that to the equity analyst.
Fair enough. Sort of how do you think about positioning the business for growth?
We think both of our business units, both Ecoservices as well as Advanced Materials and Catalysts, are extremely well-positioned for growth. And I would point you to the investor day of last year. The management team is 100% committed to executing on the growth strategy that we outlined last year in both of the business units. So in the marketplace, we haven't seen the stock price respond to that in the last year, which is obviously part of the announcement yesterday.
Okay, so you never say never, but any inorganic big transformational acquisition, well, anything can always come, is not necessary for growth. You can grow with what you have.
Yes. We feel like there is a good organic growth path in both of the businesses. Now, that's not to say that we aren't always looking at an M&A pipeline for both the businesses as well.
What input have you had from the rating agencies? Sort of in their view, what needs to transpire to see a ratings upgrade, say, from Moody's?
The conversations with both the ratings agency has been very well. I think we're covered by S&P as well as Moody's. We were upgraded with S&P earlier in the year. Moody's is very comfortable, I think, in their rating in our last conversations with them. They really like what's happened from the deleveraging standpoint as well as the exit of the private equity overhang in the stock. Conversations, obviously, from a rating standpoint, I think they'd always like to see leverage lower. We continue to work on that. We've thrown out two and a half times is really our leverage target and continue to work towards that. Then I think it's just back to your point on size. Obviously, at under $1 billion in annual revenue, I think they'd like to see the top line grow there as well.
Right. Do you have a, I guess yesterday's announcement puts it all in the flux, but do you have a ratings target that you would like to be?
Not necessarily a ratings target. I think what we've seen is we always have felt that the, I would say, our credit trades a little bit higher than the ratings that have been placed on it. We get a lot of good feedback from the people that hold our debt. And I think you saw that earlier this year in our successful repricing of our just under $900 million term loan B. So had a great response to that in June of this year. And debt continues to trade very well. Last few weeks, it's back over par again.
When was the last time you talked to either of the agencies? I mean, let me put it this way. Was it in the last few weeks, if you know? I'm trying to get at that.
So we typically have detailed conversations with both S&P and Moody's on a quarterly basis.
Okay.
Yeah.
I don't know if you want to talk about it. Have you talked to them specifically about this latest announcement?
We haven't.
Okay, so don't know how they come out on that?
No.
Okay. Any questions from the audience? All right. Maybe we'll call it there. I've gone through my list. So thank you very much.
Thank you, Roger.
Very much appreciated.
It's a pleasure.
Appreciate it.
It's always great to be here with you.
Got it. Packaging sectors at Bank of America, and have the pleasure of seeing a presentation with SNF, and with us today is Group CFO, Luc Fourchet, and U.S. Head of Finance, Mark Feehan. SNF is a global leader in polyacrylamide, or called PAM for short, and a key component in cleaning and treating water, and is also used to improve oil and gas production. Luc, we'll first make a presentation of the company, and then we probably have time for some Q&A. Luc?
Thank you, Roger. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Luc Fourchet, CFO of the company, and I will present to you the company, the first part, then a financial update and a Q&A session. A first company overview. SNF is a world leader of polyacrylamide, which is a water-soluble polymer. It has been founded in 1978. We are just about five billion U.S. dollars sales with over 8,000 people.
We have a, we are the dominant player with 56% of market share, and we are experts in water chemistry. The three main properties of what we do, our polyacrylamide, is to change the property of water. So wherever the water is used, basically our products can be used. The first term is flocculation. It's a way to separate solids and liquids. It's mainly used for wastewater. The second property is drag reduction. It's mainly used in the fracking industry. And the third property is viscosity modification. It's mainly used in enhanced oil recovery. As I said, what we do is we treat the world's water, either by cleaning, recycling, or saving water. We are either saving water or reducing the carbon footprint of our end customers.
We are cleaning the water for one billion people of the planet. In terms of what our products are doing for the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals for the United Nations, our main two SDGs are SDG number six and 13, so clean water and climate action. For climate action, it is mainly a reduction of the energy consumption of our customers. 93% of our total products are directly aligned with SDGs. We also invest a lot in reducing the emissions of our global footprint from our plants. When we compare to peers, we are between two times and 50 x better than the competitors. We are rated by EcoVadis. We have been upgraded to Platinum earlier this year. We are also rated by Moody's Solutions. We also invest in our people.
In terms of work-related injury rates, we are close to one time, which is one of the best results of the industry. In terms of objectives, we have two targets for Scope 1 and 2, a reduction by 30% by 2030. And in terms of Scope 3, by 15% by 2030 also, and to be carbon neutral by 2050. We are also certified ISCC. It's a mass balance approach in order to be able to sell to our end customer biomass or recycled products that are certified. It's a way also not to change your production lines and to be able to resell those end products. In terms of global sales by market and by geographies, North America is by far our dominant market with 41% of our total sales. Then you have Asia Pacific, 25%, Europe, and Middle East and Latin America after.
In terms of markets, our core markets are water treatments. If you combine municipal and industrial, it's just over 40% of our total sales. Then you have oil and gas, 25%, mining, paper, 11%, and then specialties. In terms of competitive landscape, we have about 56% of the global production capacity of the world, and we have more than five times larger than the first competitor. You have four Western competitors. The first one is in Europe, in Finland, and the second one is in the U.S. You have also a lot of competitors, but much smaller in China, and we are dominant in all the other parts of the world, between 50% and 70% in the world. Our largest market share being in North America. Our product portfolio includes about more than 1,000 products, and we have more than 1,700 patents worldwide.
If you combine monomers and polyacrylamide, it's about 90% of our sales. But when you combine the shape and the uniqueness of the products, you have an almost infinite combination of products for polyacrylamide. So even if it's one polymer, the products you can manufacture from it are almost infinite. In terms of distribution channels, we used to sell through resellers. So back in 2005, about 60% of our sales were done through resellers. And now it's the reverse. We sell more and more direct, with about two-thirds of our sales through direct. When you look at our raw material cost position, a good proxy is propylene. We don't source directly propylene, but acrylonitrile and acrylic acid, which are two products derived from propylene. So on the left-hand side, you can see the evolution of this propylene price since 2018.
All our price increase, we have implemented to the end markets. This is a small bubble on the top of the left-hand side. On the right-hand side, you can see the sales by types of contracts. Most of our sales are done through price list, 42%, and the second type of contract is through formula-based, where you have an automatic pass-through of our raw material cost evolution to our selling price. When you look at our top 10 customers, they only account for about 14% of our sales, and no single customer accounts for more than 2% of our sales. Out of those top 10 customers, the bulk of them are in the oil and gas industry, more than 60%. There are more and more direct customers. In terms of global footprints, we have plants.
We have eight main manufacturing sites: two in the U.S., one in Europe, two in India, two in China, and one in South Korea. And from those plants, we serve all around the world our customers. In terms of production capacities, the bulk of it is in Asia and the U.S.A. and then Europe, very much in line with our sales share. This is just a picture of our main production sites, so the eight of them. So they are mainly designed by one engineering team that designs all our plants worldwide. And so they're pretty much like all over, all the same, all over the world. And when we have a new technology, we deploy it very easily all over the world. The second slide is about our satellite sites. We have some in Austria, Indonesia, Brazil.
In terms of currency exposures, this global footprint brings us a natural edge in terms of exposure. Euro only accounts for less than 20% of our exposure, and by far, U.S. dollar is our main currency, which accounts for about 50% of our exposure. We are very strong worldwide thanks to chemical and engineering expertise based on the best spent in R&D of the total industry. We spent about 1.5% of our total sales. We have a team of more than 600 people, and we are pioneers in soft sustainable chemistry with a bioenzymatic chemical process. In terms of CapEx plan, we try to implement about 100,000 tons of new production capacity every year in the world, and so you can see that from 2021, where we were at 1.3 million tons of capacity, we will be at 1.7 million tons at the end of 2025.
We try to expand in all geographies of the world. This concludes the company overview, and now let's look at the financial update. When you look at the historical sales growth over the past 20 years, we have grown by more than 10% on a CAGR basis. The company has very much evolved a lot since 20 years. In 2005, we were about EUR 600 million-EUR 700 million euro company, and now we are at EUR 4.5 billion. A dramatic evolution with mainly the oil and gas also a new market for us that started about at that time. In terms of profitability, we have increased also over the last 13 years a lot our EBITDA. The CAGR over that period is about 12%. We were more in the margin about 14% in 2012 to 2014. The last two years have been very strong with a margin close to 20%.
If you look at the last couple of years of sales variation, you can see we had in 2022 a very strong year with + 36% of total sales, mainly coming from a price impact. In 2023, we had a decrease of our sales by minus percent, but mainly driven also by Forex and price, and when you look at now the first nine months of this year, we are about a flat total sales in euros, but there is a positive volume of + 5.5% offset by a negative price and Forex exchange. Volume growth has started back, so we are quite happy with that, and we have experienced a growing quarter since the beginning of the year. In terms of volume variation by markets, the size of the bubble is the size of the market for S&F.
You can see that all our markets have grown for the first nine months of the year. Water treatment has been quite good, around 4% and 5% volume growth. Oil and gas has also grown, especially in the fracking. The only market that has decreased is enhanced oil recovery, -6% to -8%, but mainly driven by one of our large customers in Asia Pacific, and the fastest growing market for us this year has been mining and specialties. If you look at sales variation by geographies, you can see that the main geography that has grown for us has been Europe with +8%. This does include FX plus price impact. When you look at the margins by quarter, and on the left-hand side, this is by year.
You can see the big increase of the EBITDA margin over the last two years has been driven by the gross profit margin expansion from 34% to over 40%, which explains why we have experienced very high EBITDA margins over the last eight quarters. In terms of cash flow, the company reinvests all the cash flow generated by the operation inside the company. In 2023, so on the left-hand side, you have the EBITDA, and on the right-hand side, you have the net debt variation. You can see that we were able to decrease the net debt position by EUR 200 million in 2023. We generated a lot of cash from operation, over EUR 700 million. For the first nine months of this year, we are about flat with net cash from operating activities in line with cash for investment.
We did two acquisitions in the third quarter of this year, mainly in the U.S. for the fracking industry. In terms of balance sheets, we have a balance sheet just over EUR 5 billion, mainly on the assets side driven by property, plant, and equipment, and current assets. On the liability side with equity. Equity has grown on a CAGR basis faster than all the other components over this period from 2013. In terms of liquidity position, we have a liquidity over EUR 1 million, mainly coming from our own drawn facility and about 40% from our cash. In terms of maturity of our debt profile, we have four bonds that mature between 2026 and 2030. We have a good maturity of our debt profile. We will more likely refinance our next bond sometime next year.
In terms of rating by agencies, we are rated by both S&P and Moody's. We are double B plus and Ba1. And as you can see, since 2010, our rating has grown quite a lot, and we are very satisfactory with current ratings. And the net leverage of the company is about 1.6 x right now. In terms of last slide, so just a summary of our strategy. In terms of operating leadership, we want to stay focused on polyacrylamide thanks to a very strong chemical and engineering expertise that will permit us to stay with a low-cost advantage compared to our competitors. We want to also invest not only in polymer but also in monomer. And we will do that with a reduced carbon footprint. In terms of financial policy, as I said, we will still reinvest all our cash flow from operating activities inside the company.
We will adapt the CapEx plan in line with our operating cash flows in order to keep a moderate leverage of the company and maintain a high level of liquidity. This capital structure is enabled through irrevocable trust, U.S.-based, where there are no shares that can be sold to anyone. So that permits us to have this very sound financial policy. So that was my last slide. So I'm now happy to answer any questions.
Thank you very much. We appreciate that, and if you have questions, just raise your hand, but maybe I'll start it off. I'm going to speak directly into the mic here, and maybe you said this, but year-to-date volume is up 5.5%. In Q3, 7%. And there's a slide there with the bubbles with the different sectors. But just from a higher level, I mean, isn't industrial production and fracking activities been slowing down this year? And yet the volumes have been still moving up very readily. So what's the disconnect that I'm missing?
In the fracking, in those numbers, you also have the acquisition we did in the third quarter. So we did PFP and ACE. And we include those in the volume growth.
But that was a needle mover, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.
No, it's in the 6% fracking volume growth you could see on the bubble.
All right.
A part of it is coming from those acquisitions.
Okay. So.
But for us, fracking is doing quite well. We have a dominant position, and we don't see too much decrease. It's quite flat.
So excluding the acquisitions sort of on a same-store basis. What would you say the volume growth has been?
I would say zero minus, but close to zero.
Close to zero. Okay. So it is the acquisition. Wow. Your gross profit just continues to rise. And the gross margin is highly stable at 41%-42%. Is this a story of higher volumes? Is it favorable fixed cost absorption from the higher production throughput and a complete lack of spread compression? What's been driving those very high gross margins?
So gross profits, it's before production costs and SG&A. So it's mainly coming from raw material cost position and the selling price. So it's a good tailwind. We have benefited from 2022, a very large price increase. So especially in Europe, where the margins were very low, we benefited from that, I would say, extraordinary raw material condition to increase dramatically our prices. We are still benefiting a bit of those large price increases.
Have you talked about your operating rate overall? I know you keep reinvesting in the business, so you obviously have a lot of headroom, but what's your average fleet operating rate?
For CapEx?
No, no, no, no. Are you running your plants full out or 80% of capacity?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Utilization rate is about 80%. 80%.
Okay. And is that where you like to be? You want to keep growing ahead of building capacity ahead of it to keep that?
We do it also geography by geography. So when it comes closer to 85% or 90%, before that, we invest in a new line in order to absorb this higher utilization in order to come back to 80% or 75%. So it depends geography by geography.
Okay. Okay. That's where you're at, and you're half the industry, but where do you think the rest of the industry is, or the industry overall, is operating rate? You have a lot of headroom. Does everyone else have headroom, or is everyone else running a lot harder?
I think they are running a lot harder because they have not invested in this production capacity increase since decades now. And so they are trying just to maintain their position.
And are you aware of your competitors who are expanding their capacities?
Where we see the more dynamic part is in China.
Okay. So it's being the Chinese who are expanding.
But it's more small players that try to invest in a new line, but then you have another one that just go bankrupt. So it's more recycling and a lot of different new players. But it's.
What's driving the growth in China? I mean, I would think that China with domestic growth would normally be down. They would be exporting their product and hurting the rest of the market, but that's clearly not happening or doesn't seem to be happening. Is all the Chinese stuff just staying in China and.
No, no, it's about 50% of what we do in China is export.
For you or everybody?
For us.
For us.
For us. Now the Chinese domestic are much less good in export than we are. We are trying to be the best in export from China. But domestic sales in China for us is above 10% this year. So it's doing...
China represents over 10% of your sales, did you say?
No, I said our growth in China domestic is over 10%.
Oh, your growth in China growth is 10%, is over 10%.
Yeah. But it's about the. Yeah, but it's about also 10% is about the size of the China country for us.
Do they use it more in water treatment or the oil and gas or both? I mean, both, but I mean...
Industrial water treatment and oil and gas, yeah.
Okay.
And mining and paper.
And mining. Okay. And everything. All right. So that's everything. All right.
China is quite well diversified.
So how would you contrast how you go to market versus Solenis, Ecolab, and Kemira? Obviously, you're the big guy in the room. But I mean, as a big guy, are they to compete with you? Do they have to be more service-oriented than you have to be? Or what do they do differently in terms of going to market versus what you do?
We are trying to focus on just manufacturing the products, whereas they are trying to evolve more and more to a service partner-driven company. This is for Solenis and Ecolab, whereas for Kemira, they are still a manufacturing company. But Kemira is much more involved in the paper industry than we are.
Right. So the capacity chart you gave, I think, just shows Kemira as it was. They've now sold off the oil and gas business. Didn't they sell off some of their plants with that?
Yeah. All the U.S. plants have been sold with this.
Right. So shouldn't there be like another? Is that a different bar now on your graph?
The 11%, which was Kemira before this.
Okay. So this is the before this spin-off.
But they will go to 9%.
Okay. All right. So S&F itself, it's never going to be sold. It's owned by the trust or something like that, but could S&F sell pieces of itself potentially?
Potentially, yes. Subsidiary by subsidiary, but it's not what we want to do for sure.
Okay. All right. So you know what?
And then we have also covenants with the syndicated facility not to do that.
Oh, now owned. Okay. So you have covenants to stop that from happening.
Yeah.
Okay. So as far as everyone's concerned, this company is going to stay kind of exactly the way it has been.
That's the goal of the company, the strategy of the company.
All right.
And be a bigger.
Always bigger. I get that. But conceptually, the structure is the same. So have the agencies, when you speak to them, right? You're a single product company, which is always tough for them, and you're owned by a trust, which is tough for them. But have they ever talked about making you investment grade, or do you even want to be investment grade?
So yeah, more and more discussion about becoming an IG company, but so all the metrics are more and more in that route. But what is lacking is really a commitment of the management to be below a certain net leverage. And we lack the freedom of the high yield to be able to increase a bit the net leverage if needed. It would be if the market grows quite fast, we would like to take the bulk of the market increase.
Okay, so you're happy with where you are. Don't need IG. Certainly, your coupons are phenomenal. One of the, I forget which chart it was, but it was the pricing chart, right? You've got the fixed price, you've got the list price, but the other, what was that, service-driven?
Formula-based.
No, formula. Maybe it wasn't the price.
Distribution channel.
Oh, yeah, distributor, right. It's distributors. What is it? The service-based? Distributors and the service partners. The service partners. What does the service partners mean again?
So it's mainly large customers that are also competitors. It's mainly Ecolab, Solenis, Solvay.
So you're selling acrylamide or polyacrylamide to them?
Both.
Both?
Yeah.
Okay. Okay. Good. Any questions? Good. If not, maybe we'll call it there. Well, thanks very much for coming. Thank you, Mark. It's always a pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much for coming to our conference and speaking with our investor. All right.