Well, for our next fireside chat, we have Michael McMurray, Executive Vice President and CFO of LyondellBasell, and in the crowd, joined by a fantastic IR team, David and Nikki. So Michael's been CFO since November 2019, and joined LyondellBasell after an 11-year tenure at Owens Corning, where he was CFO for over seven years. He spent 21 years in various positions with Royal Dutch Shell, and, Michael helped LyondellBasell navigate LyondellBasell through the lows of the COVID-19 pandemic and led the way to top line and EBITDA recovery post-pandemic. So here to tell us more about Lyondell's businesses and long-term growth opportunities, please welcome Michael McMurray, who I know has some opening comments he'd like to share.
Thank you, Patrick, and good morning, everyone. And good morning, and good afternoon to folks maybe following along online as well. So I wanted to use just a few materials and prepared remarks to, I think, set some necessary context. So again, welcome. So thanks for having us here today, Patrick, and thanks to all of you for joining us on the webcast as well. As usual, we ask that you review our customary language around our usage of forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures are found in the appendix to this slide deck, which is also available on the lyb.com website. So moving on to the third quarter. So we reported third quarter results at the end of October.
This slide provides some of the details on our recent performance. Quite frankly, you know, we think we delivered resilient results amidst dynamic market conditions in the third quarter. In the third quarter, we delivered record results in our I&D business, driven by exceptional oxyfuel margins. I'd say since that time, we have seen seasonally slower demand across most of our businesses, largely in line with expectations, probably a little bit more margin compression in oxyfuels than we originally anticipated. Again, I'll do more on the outlook here in a few moments. Now, I'm super proud and super pleased, you know, with the company's ability to generate free cash flow. Really, really good actions, you know, across all of our businesses and maintaining working capital.
So, you know, we have maintained our investment-grade balance sheet and strong shareholder returns with very efficient cash conversions during these challenging, challenging times. Cash from operating activities going back over the last year, $5 billion. The balance sheet, as most of you know, is in great shape, you know, with a debt to EBITDA calc of about 1.6 and sitting on $2.8 billion of cash at the end of the quarter. And then again, in regards to conversion, converted 102% of EBITDA into cash over the last four quarters. At our Investor Day in March, we, we said that over the long term, we would expect that to be 80%, as it has been over the past.
Then again, we remain committed to returning a significant amount of that cash to our investors. Looking back over the last year, about $2 billion in dividends and share repurchases, over the last 12 months. We have made a lot of progress at advancing our strategy. Our team is making great progress with that strategy that we introduced to investors this past March in New York City. I'm really pleased with how the strategy is bringing clarity and focus to our direction, both within the company, but also with including stakeholders, including our investors. You know, from my perspective, I think our—t he three pillars of our strategy is driving focus, and I think it will drive differential growth and value creation.
Despite kind of current market conditions, we are not letting it, you know, kind of distract us or slow us from making progress. Then, just as a reminder, allow me to kind of quickly remind you all of the three pillars around our strategy and how we're making progress. The first pillar is around growing and upgrading the core. We believe in the future of our core businesses, and we will grow and upgrade these businesses to improve overall profitability. We are making rapid progress on our Value Enhancement Program, so super, super pleased. I'll talk more about that as well in a few moments.
Then, you know, our new world-scale PO/TBA facility that came up earlier this year, came up, you know, at a great time from a market perspective, when oxyfuel margins are incredibly strong and higher cost propylene oxide capacity is being rationalized by our competitors. And then we are, you know, extending our refining operations to no later than the first quarter of 2025, so that's not new news. But, you know, the plans to develop that site are progressing quite well. And then, you know, we continue to optimize and take decisions around our portfolio. You know, earlier this year, we exited the Australian polypropylene business. In the third quarter, we announced the closure of a small polypropylene asset in Italy, Brindisi.
You can expect that we will continue to be focused on optimizing our portfolio going forward. Clearly, I think this, you know, shows that we've been kind of in action, you know, including the announcement that we have with the strategic review that's going around our I&D business as well. The second pillar is around building a profitable Circular and Low Carbon Solutions business. This is really to drive our leadership in circularity and address the significant demand for sustainable materials and by building out a comprehensive business model with new technologies, upstream sources of recycled and renewable feedstocks, and downstream relationships with our customers and brand owners, we think that's pretty powerful. Again, I'll go into that in a little bit more detail here in a few minutes.
And then last week, we announced the final investment decision on our first commercial scale MoReTec unit, which is a 50 KTA advanced catalytic recycling plant to be built in Cologne, Germany. So took FID week before Thanksgiving with our, with our board here at The Houstonian . S o kind of putting this, putting this all together, you know, we think that our, our actions are aligned with our path towards 2 million tons of recycled and renewable polymers, which would represent about 20% of our market share for both polyethylene and, and polypropylene on a 2022 basis, and then delivering at least $1 billion of incremental EBITDA by the year 2030. And then lastly, our third, third pillar is around stepping up performance and culture.
We are a best-in-class operator, which is evidenced by both our cost discipline and our safety results. Now we are putting similar focus or equal focus on enabling a value creation mindset, and I do believe our people have the ability to think two-dimensional. We made significant progress last October in streamlining our organizational structure to improve overall line of sight. Then we are leveraging the structure of our VEP program to drive commercial excellence and improve customer focus. Then lastly, Torkel is making solid progress in transforming the performance of the APS segment. Then, you know, you roll all this together, and we think this has the potential to create, on a cycle average basis, incremental EBITDA of about $3 billion.
Now, to talk in a little bit more detail about our circularity and low carbon solutions business, just to remind you about a few points. Again, we are targeting a 20% market share with a comprehensive strategy. And again, that market share is on the basis of our 2022 market share for both PP and PE. Again, we're confident that we can grow this business to be a contributor of $500 million of EBITDA by 2027, and then again, $1 billion of incremental EBITDA by 2030. And we think by 2030, this is a $25 billion+ total addressable market. And we are leveraging our existing asset base in our Houston and Cologne hubs.
We actually think our approach is differentiated, both from a technology perspective, how we're going after and approaching feedstocks, and then also our downstream customer relationships. We're expanding our participation both up and down the plastics value chain, and you would have seen this as evidenced by a number of smaller announcements that we've made around various partnerships in that space. Getting close, Patrick. Sorry. Dave made me do it. In addition, we're reducing the carbon intensity of our products, which is in line with our sustainability goals. We're providing tailored solutions for our customers by leveraging the unique capabilities of our APS segment to upgrade our mechanical recycling portfolio.
And then again, most importantly, we are building a business that provides these solutions at scale to progress towards our 2030 goal to sell 2 million tons of recycled, renewable based polymers annually. And again, let me point out again, this is a relatively low capital intensity business. You know, we said at our Capital Markets Day that we expect, you know, that between now and 2030, that this business will consume about 15% of our capital plan. You know, maybe a smidge more, but then delivering $1 billion of incremental EBITDA by 2030. So do the math, simple math. Those are pretty compelling returns. Now, to talk a little bit more about our Value Enhancement Program. So I'm very, very pleased overall with our progress thus far.
This is a cultural shift, and it's igniting passion at our manufacturing sites to unlock significant recurring value. So, you know, we launched the program last year. We announced targets of $150 million for this year, 750 exit run rate by 2025. And then we've upgraded current year to $200+. And again, let me be clear, this is not a cost-cutting program. Cost-cutting programs tend to deliver one-time, short-term impacts. This is a continuous improvement process to systematically drive value, with a comprehensive focus on investments for value creation. And again, I'm really pleased with the impact of the overall level of engagement at our sites. And as I said before, we're tracking ahead of plan, expect you know $200 million+ for 2023. Now— I'm almost done, Patrick.
So maybe a few comments just on market, which I suspect people are probably interested in. So, I expect challenging market conditions to persist for the remainder of the year, and then particularly for the fourth quarter, you know, seeing seasonally slower demand across most businesses. You know, in the Americas, pricing is expected to be supported by increased polyethylene exports and stable demand, so that's good news. Although integrated polyethylene margins will be constrained by new market capacity. In Europe, markets are expected to remain highly challenged, and so we're seeing weak market demand, you know, coupled with, you know, kind of volatile feedstock and energy costs, and which will continue to compress margins, for the foreseeable future. And then in China, I guess markets are improving, albeit very slow.
In some part driven by some of the stimulus initiatives. But again, progress has been painfully slow, and it's super important to us going forward. Maybe just a bit of color on some key segments. So from a consumer packaging perspective, I would say that demand is slow but steady, and again, supported by consumer industrial packaging markets. But our customers and our customer's customers continue to keep their inventory levels very low, so they're buying very, very cautiously. You know, from a building and construction perspective, markets are also slow. Not a huge surprise, but we're watchful for the potential benefits in the U.S. enabled by the stimulus actions from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act.
And in automotive, continue to see demand for, automotive production should continue to gain momentum as we go forward, and then the strike really didn't impact our results, not anything to speak of. And then on an oxyfuels and refining perspective, you know, Oxyfuel margins have declined significantly since the third quarter. I think you all heard me say probably a little bit more than what we were anticipating. S o kinda they're down to levels seen in the second half of 2023. And then also we're seeing lower gasoline cracks, so the gasoline cracks are actually quite low and higher butane feedstock costs. And then distillate inventories are expected to remain on the low end of seasonal averages, and gasoline inventories have risen with the end of the summer driving season.
And then again, you know, LyondellBasell will continue to optimize our well-positioned assets across the globe, and we'll continue to match capacity with demand. We will continue to be very, very disciplined. So in closing, let me summarize our outlook and our strategy. So I think our third quarter results demonstrated resilience in challenging markets. This was driven by the diversity of our portfolio that benefited from exceptional oxyfuel margins during the quarter. You know, we continue to achieve outstanding cash conversion and remained disciplined in our capital allocation to deliver high returns for our shareholders. T hen in the fourth quarter, we are seeing seasonally softer demand across most of our businesses. A gain, LYB is positioned to deliver resilient results despite these conditions, overall.
And then to close things out, I wanna emphasize that we are confident that we have the right long-term strategy, and that we're not allowing current business conditions to slow our progress. Our Value Enhancement Program is unlocking value at an accelerated pace, and we're excited to provide an update on our progress in 2023 during our fourth quarter earnings call, so we'll give more visibility to the actuals that we actually delivered, this year. And then finally, we're making steady progress to deliver a more profitable and sustainable growth engine for LyondellBasell. With that, Patrick, I'll turn it over to you for our Q&A session.
Great, that was very helpful. I.
Did I? We're good.
That was very helpful. Y ou know, I think, you know, when we look across, you know, sort of near-term market outlook, you know, really seems like everything is remaining challenging from an end market perspective. You know, even things like oxyfuels, which helped you deliver the record quarter in 3Q, you know, declined very significantly. So—a nd we have, you know, low visibility, near-term seasonality.
Yep.
Where, where is the setup maybe most positive? And I appreciate you talk about a value chain or an end market there, but where do you see the setup as most positive for next year? Is there potential restock? Is there areas which might be capacity constrained, or what's the, you know, outlook for next year?
Yeah. I mean, and so, you know, I'd say as we sit here today, you know, we're relatively cautious, and we're kind of manning the levers, you know, very, very closely. Again, we did a really good job in managing working capital over the last couple of quarters, and that'll continue to the fourth quarter. You know, there aren't a lot of incredible bright spots. I'd say things are generally slow, but steady.
Yep.
You know, it's a little concerning still because, you know, there are a number of kind of macro indicators that are pointing in opposite directions, and so it kind of makes it harder to predict. You know, I've been in business for 35 years. I've done many a business plans. The LRP and the business plan that we went through this year was probably one of the more challenging.
Yep
The more challenging ones, and we had lots of vigorous debates among the management team, but also our board of directors, just because there is so much uncertainty. But on a net-net basis, you know, I expect our company and most businesses to improve, see improved demand and improved earnings next year. You know, I think from a margin perspective, probably the two headwinds that I'd call out, and it won't be a surprise to anybody, would be refining and oxyfuels.
Yep.
But I'd say aside from refining and oxyfuels, we're hopeful that we can improve margins, you know, in all other businesses. And then, our expectation is for better demand overall, but probably more weighted towards the second half of the year versus the front half of the year. So we're pretty cautious near term.
Got it. And then just, you know, maybe starting with, you know, polyethylene, you know, integrated margins have been challenged from, you know, higher feedstock costs, you know, very low demand, continued oversupply in the Americas. You know, maybe, you know, talk a little bit about, you know, some of the recent pricing strength and export trends. You know, is there a risk that maybe there is some sort of reversal or deceleration there, and we could get additional margin declines into the first half of next year?
So there's always that risk, Patrick.
Yes.
I wouldn't.
Yeah
So I wouldn't say there's never that risk. But, I mean, I'd say a couple things. You know, over the last, you know, couple of months, 2, 3, 4 months, the export volumes have been quite encouraging. The latest month, they were as high as about 48% of overall production, if my memory serves me correctly. But that has been supportive for domestic pricing. And then, you know, ethane more recently has given us a bit of relief as well. So, you know, ethane's down to kind of call it $0.20-$0.21 a gallon. So that's a very attractive place. The oil gas ratio is very attractive, and while we didn't make progress on the October price increase here domestically, we did in August and September, $0.03 each.
You know, I mean, things are okay.
Any confidence in November price increase, or?
It's too soon.
Too soon to tell?
Too soon to tell. And that's, you know, that's a time that's a little bit more difficult when, you know, things are seasonally weak. Quite frankly, I think stable is good.
Got it. And then just, you know, maybe, you know, you mentioned you see, you know, demand potentially getting better in the second half, you know, is it safe to say that most of the sort of maybe year-on-year margin improvement would be, you know, relatively loaded into the second half of next year, or?
Yeah, I think it's kind of a tale of two halves, you know, from being better next year versus this year. I do think that when, you know, I think consumers, and then more importantly, our customers kind of get more confidence in the outlook, we're actually gonna see a restocking event, I think which will be, you know, very attractive. I think when that moves, it'll have pretty good momentum.
Got it. Got it. And then maybe just, just shifting quickly to, to polypropylene. I think both, you know, near and long term, there's, there's been some challenges there. Maybe there's some pricing strength just on, you know, higher, you know, feedstock costs that we're.
Sure.
Seeing right now. And then long term, you know, there's this, you know, threat of, you know, China continuing to add new capacity. So maybe what's your outlook there for the next 12-18 months? You know, is there gonna be enough demand to absorb, you know, what we've seen, some pretty tremendous capacity additions there?
Yeah, I mean, I think at the— I mean, to be honest, at the end of the day, so the market, I mean, over time, will absorb. But, you know, there are, you know, fourth quartile assets in this space, that need to come out, not, not, not too different than the decision that we took.
Right. Right.
with our Brindisi, Italy asset here, more recently. So, yeah, it's a good business overall long term. A little challenging, you know, with supply additions near term, but things will rationalize.
Got it, and then just, you know, in terms of, you know, asset rationalization, you know, you took the actions in Italy, you know, maybe just, you know, focusing on Europe first, you know, how do you, how do you view the fundamentals there near term and, and cost competitiveness? Y ou know, they're looking to take out, you know, other potential assets there as well.
Yeah, I mean, so the one thing I'd say, maybe kind of going back high level, you know, is that we, you know, we have a new strategy. You know, part of that strategy is very focused on portfolio optimization. If you've followed the company for any period of time, we have been kind of in action the most, I think in a long time, from kind of pruning— overall pruning the portfolio in the last two years versus probably the previous ten.
Yeah.
You know, we could go through a number of decisions and actions that we've taken. I think, you know, rest assured, we're looking at our European portfolio hard. You know, it's very challenged from an earnings perspective. Near-term dynamics are challenging, but then, quite frankly, this is my point of view, this is not the company's point of view. I'm worried about the longer-term deindustrialization of the European continent if politicians and regulators in Europe don't start driving some different decisions.
That's helpful. And then maybe just, you know, the bright spot in the I&D business is, you know, the new PO/TBA asset that you've added. So, you know, this sort of offsets some of the planned maintenance you had on your PO/SM assets.
Yep.
Can you maybe talk about, you know, how we should think about operating rates for, you know, both sides of the PO/SM and, and PO/TBA, you know, into next year and, you know, if we can start to see some earnings expansion from that side of the business?
Yeah, so really, really good question. So, I mean, a couple things to kind of point out, and so, you know, that business is largely run on a global basis.
Yep.
And most of those—a lot of those products kind of flow on a global basis as well. Now, during you know, during this year, you know, when markets were challenging and when costs in Europe were particularly high, and then if you think about, you know, kind of our two technologies that we have within the I&D space, which is PO/TBA and PO/SM . So PO/TBA, you know, kind of the by-product is oxyfuels, which is doing really well.
Right.
On PO/SM styrene, which is not very good.
Yeah.
So we were trying to run our PO/TBA assets as hard as possible and then idling or curtailing the PO/SM assets. So, Dave, we guided fourth quarter to 70%, right? 75%, and it was 70% in the third quarter. Thank you for that. But no, I mean, that asset came up at a great time. You know, quite frankly, it exceeded our expectations, you know, from a performance perspective in its first year of operation. You know, from a cost-competitive point of view, and especially with folks that use, you know, chlorine and their PO manufacturing process, I mean, it's well placed.
Right. Got it. Maybe just shifting to, you know, Circular and Low Carbon. You know, I think, you know, the knee-jerk reaction it's, with a lot of these types of projects is, you know, the CapEx intensity and, you know, is there actually going to be, you know, a premium going forward? So how should we think about the economics of this business and get comfortable with incremental CapEx spend there?
Okay, no, it's a really good question. Y ou know, and, and obviously, you know, in advance of our capital markets day, we had done, you know, a tremendous, a tremendous amount of work, around this, around this business. You know, and as part of our LRP plan for this year, you know, we kind of, we updated everything and, you know, ground on it part again. And I'd say that the view, you know, there are puts and takes, but it's, it's largely, largely unchanged.
You know, this is what I call a capital light business, because, you know, we're going to be utilizing a lot of downstream assets, you know, crackers and PE assets after you produce the pyrolysis oil. So, you know, we said, you know, out of our forward capital program, kind of looking out to 2030, we expect about 15%, you know, which would be, you know, on the order of $2 billion-$3 billion and then $1 billion of incremental EBITDA by 2030 on that investment. So the return should be pretty attractive. Y ou know, I'd say so far, so good.
You know, from a pricing perspective, the demand is significant, and as you know, as we sit here today, and as we look out into the future, demand should significantly outpace supply, which should be good for pricing markets.
Got it. Got it. I t's— I mean, to be fair, I think it's gonna take a lot in terms of, you know, investment on, you know, waste collection all the way through, you know, the downstream and getting it back into the cracker. So, you know, what's Lyondell's strategy in terms of, you know, JVs, partnerships, investments to help, you know, expedite this process?
No, so that's a really—it's a really good question, and you would have seen, you know, a number of these smaller announcements.
Yeah.
So one, we're actually even investing in some competing pyrolysis technologies on a small level, 'cause we wanna kind of spread our bets. But no, to get access to plastic waste, we're having to go downstream and partner, you know, with collectors. You know, with a big partnership, where a lot of waste in Europe is burned. S o instead of burning it, it's actually, you know, the mixed-use plastic waste is actually gonna go into our MoReTec unit, but we're partnering with people to actually get access to that waste, investing in partnerships around sorting technology and the like as well. So, and we're happy to go downstream a bit, and I think that is differential in our strategy versus most others.
Got it. And I just wanna dig into the one comment, and you're investing in other potential pyrolysis oil technologies, 'cause I know in your MoReTec webinar, you talked about, you know, some of the opportunity for, you know, out licensing of your own technology. So, you know, how do we sort of, you know, balance that potential there versus maybe having to, you know, get ahead and, you know, buy out some of these pyrolysis technologies?
I'd say that we're committed and confident around our own technology, but we thought it made sense, and these are small.
Yeah
These are small investments. But we thought it made sense to kind of spread our bets. Also give visibility to what, you know, more visibility to what competing technologies are.
Yeah.
But fundamentally, we think our technology is a winner, for and really for a couple reasons. One, you can scale it, and it's a continuous versus a batch process, and that the fact that we're using proprietary LYB catalyst is one of the reasons that enables us to scale it, that enables us to run it on a continuous versus batch process. Will enable us to use less energy, 'cause it can run with less heat, and also deliver higher yields. And then, by the way, because you can run it at less heat, you can use renewable energy. So it can run off of electricity.
Got it. J ust, you know, maybe another interesting component here. You obviously had the FID on the MoReTec, first MoReTec facility. So, you know, another interesting component is the repurposing of the Houston Refinery.
Maybe talk about what the options are going to be there, and, you know, what would this involve in terms of incremental spend?
Okay. No, great. So great question. So, I mean, just as a reminder, so 700 acres on the Houston Ship Channel, you know, which is a very unique and valuable position to have. You know, there are a number of assets at that site that we think can be reused or repurposed. I mean, obviously things like, you know, office space, laboratories, utilities, but also of great importance is hydrotreating assets that are at that site that we think can be repurposed for treating the Pyrolysis Oil that comes off of the MoReTec unit. We also see opportunities to repurpose and reuse those hydrotreaters to process other sustainable feedstocks, you know, for like our Channelview site. So .
Then lastly, you know, we're part of a consortium to produce or to build a hydrogen facility, you know, with Chevron and Air Liquide. So it has the possibility of actually being selected, you know, for the government grant. We'll see. But that is also one of the options that we're evaluating as well.
Got it. Very. T hen it's hard to, it's hard to say, I mean,
Yeah
As we sit here today about spend, and I would, I would tell you that, you know, a MoReTec unit is, you know, in the hundreds of millions, it's not billions of dollars. And then, just so people don't get scared, you know, on the hydrogen opportunity, you know, we're, our site's valuable.
Yeah.
It's a really good location. You know, we want access to hydrogen for our operations, but I don't think, you know, producing hydrogen is gonna be a core business for LyondellBasell.
Fair enough. And maybe just to talk a little bit on the Value Enhancement Program. You know, you guys have exceeded expectations this year. You have this $750 million target. So maybe if you could highlight what some of the, you know, if any, you know, regions or businesses stand out that, you know, have either generated the most opportunity or maybe have the most opportunity going forward?
Yes, so I mean, it's interesting. So there's no single gigantic opportunity to point out.
Right.
Which actually should be comforting and encouraging. So it's hundreds upon hundreds of opportunities, most of them being $1 million or less. Which again is a good thing, right? So we're not kind of betting the ranch. And there's simple things around energy efficiency, you know, small debottlenecking. And a lot of it's kind of amazing that we hadn't seized upon them sooner. So high confidence in getting to the $750 million will exceed the $200 million that we guided to for this year. Things are coming along really good. Momentum is building. You know, we started out at our biggest sites first, and now we're moving on to smaller sites as well.
Great. We have a few minutes left here, so I wanted to just open it up to see if there are any questions from the audience. Got a shy group today, so.
Early still.
Yeah.
After you know, Thanksgiving weekend.
Yeah, you've got—y ou know, you have strong, you know, operating cash flow conversion at this point. You know, net leverage is probably, you know, much lower than it's been in previous cycles. And so, you know, how should we think about, you know, capital, you know, capital light as capital light investments associated with, you know, building out the low-carbon solutions? So how should we think about dividend growth, stock buybacks, you know, general capital allocation going forward?
Great. So great question. So, I mean, a couple things. So, I mean, hopefully, folks heard me say that I'm super pleased and proud of our cash flow generating capability during these challenging times. You know, the last 12 months and the last quarter, quite frankly, was fabulous, and my expectation that that continues going forward. Just to reinforce and remind everybody, you know, from a capital expenditure perspective, you know, we're keeping the reins pretty tight, consistent with what we told investors at our capital markets day, you know, on average of $2 billion over the next 3 years. That includes this year, which will come in, and we've guided to $1.007 billion. Our dividend is super important to us.
It's our expectation to continue to grow our dividend, much like we did this year for the thirteenth consecutive year. You know, buybacks will continue to be an important part of the mix. As you all have heard me on earnings calls, we have a point of view. We tend to be a little bit opportunistic. I'm not a fan of putting buybacks just on autos, you know, autopilot and never looking back. Now, you know, we're carrying a little bit more cash maybe than we normally do, so $2.8 billion, you know, versus kind of at a stated external goal of $1.5 billion. So it's actually not that much incremental cash flow.
Kind of given all the uncertainty, it quite makes sense to have a little bit of extra liquidity here right there, today. But again, you know, the 70% guidance around returning free cash flow to investors that we gave at our March capital markets day holds true, but it'll— it's not necessarily 70% every quarter.
Right. And so.
We will continue to return lots of free cash flow to our investors as we have done in the past.
Yes. Maybe the one thing we didn't talk about was, you know, long-term, you know, long-term outlook for APS business. So, you know, I know it's been a strong focus of the Value Enhancement Program, and maybe there's been a bit too much cost-cutting there in the past. So, you know, how long does it take to, you know, restore that business to more attractive margins?
So we're coming up on being kind of a year into the transformation.
Yeah.
You know, I think it's fair to say if you look back on this year versus from where we started, it's probably been a little bit more challenging than what we had anticipated. I'd say that, you know, Torkel and his team have made incredible progress in kind of getting service levels back to where they need to be. I think it's probably been a little bit more challenging in winning accounts back that we have lost. But the business is making progress there as well, and momentum is building. You know, I'd say we've probably got kind of a good 12-18 months more where we should declare that we are, you know, high, high confidence that we got it exactly where we need it to be going.
Got it.
Still a lot of work to do.
All right. Well, if unless there are any further questions, please join me in thanking our speaker, Michael McMurray.