Good morning, and welcome to Olin Corporation's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero.
Following today's brief opening comments, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Keenan, Olin's Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Steve.
Thank you, MJ. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, let me remind you that this discussion, along with the associated slides and the question and answer session that follows, will include statements regarding estimates or expectations of future performance. Please note that these are forward-looking statements and that actual results could differ materially from those projected.
Some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ from our projections are described without limitations in the Risk Factors section of our most recent Form 10-K and in yesterday's third quarter earnings press release.
A copy of today's transcript and slides will be available on our website in the Investors section under Past Events. Our earnings press release and other financial data and information are available under Press Releases. With me this morning are Scott Sutton, Olin's CEO, and Todd Slater, Olin's CFO.
Scott will make some brief remarks, after which we will be happy to take your questions. I'll now turn the call over to Scott Sutton.
Thanks, Steve, and good morning to everyone. The Olin team is all about delivering on opportunities. We have two major opportunities before us. I'll start with opportunity number one. We are experiencing recessionary conditions, and the opportunity is to show Olin will perform remarkably different than history may indicate.
Over the next four quarters, we forecast delivering more than $1.1 billion of levered free cash flow. This is remarkably different. Don't worry that we had to pull back from the EDC market while prices cratered, creating a major PVC value morass. Don't worry that we had to optimize our epoxy participation to support our advanced partners while Asia liquidity temporarily lured others.
These necessary activities are respectful of our core theme to focus on value, set our market participation based on the weak side of the ECU, and buy liquidity where necessary to lift the value of the ECU, which we did in the third quarter. Similarly, Winchester did not participate in large replenishments to the channel load, but instead lifted the outlook of this storied brand by preserving value.
The whole Olin team is poised to march our way through all these challenges and come out recession-tested on the other side. We are the leader, and we demonstrate it every day. Opportunity number two is to multiply the value of our recession levered free cash flow. We have reduced our share count by 14% over the last 12 months and by 10% over the last six months.
We continue to deploy our levered free cash flow towards share repurchases and have a runway of $1.9 billion left on our share repurchase authorization. A possible outcome is that our share count is reduced to 100 million in a couple years.
Our post-recession normalized levered free cash flow is expected to be more than $1.5 billion by then, the possible outcome being $15+ per share of levered free cash flow. We have an excellent high-value capital allocation plan before us, and we'll drive it every day.
Supporting these two opportunities is an investment-grade balance sheet, which we are committing to maintain, and more importantly, the best team in the business. 8,000 Olin employees united in a leadership value quest. I really can't thank them enough. With that, we'll take your questions now.
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question today comes from Kevin McCarthy with Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Scott, you put forth updated guidance for the fourth quarter, but also affirmed your EBITDA guidance range for a recession case scenario. As you see these markets develop and unfold here, what do you think are the biggest sources of variability, either on the upside, or the downside as we move through the cycle?
Well, you know, you're right. Kevin, we have, you know, reaffirmed our recession case guidance, which we see happening over the next year, already entering it now. There's gonna be lots of ups and downs across the product portfolio.
As you know, we run a contrarian model where we let our market participation be based on a weak market or the weak side of the ECU. You've seen EDC, for example, go from really high pricing to really low pricing, and those kind of things are gonna happen. Because we focus on the ECU, we're likely to be more balanced in totality.
What there could be some alarm about, Kevin, is that we may have to take a couple quarters down in order to support the shoulder quarters to be able to deliver more than $1 billion of levered free cash flow across the whole year. I mean, no market segment really has good fundamentals right now, so there's gonna be some volatility.
Mm-hmm. You know, I know you're throttling back on volumes in an effort to support the market. That effort appears to be succeeding. Nevertheless, can you talk about what your operating rates were in the quarter in chlor-alkali and Epoxy and how you see that utilization, you know, progressing here in October?
Yeah. Well, you know, maybe instead of all of those operating rates, I'll at least share with you what we're doing in Epoxy. If you were to think about the, you know, the equivalent operating rates of all of our resin production facilities, we're running below 50% there in order to preserve value.
Remember our recession case said that we could move the whole company down to that level. I would just say we have plenty of room left across the rest of the company to make our recession prediction come true.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Yep.
The next question comes from Hassan Ahmed with Alembic Global Advisors. Please go ahead.
Morning, Scott and Todd.
Hey, Hassan. How are you?
You know, just wanted to revisit the Q4 guidance, you know, particularly in light of recessionary conditions and the like. I mean, look, I understand, you know, Q4, you know, tends to be seasonally weak. You guys, you know, have consistently talked about certain sort of markets, you know, be it EDC, be it Epoxy, conditions over there being even below trough conditions.
You know, if I were to annualize the lower end of your Q4 guidance, I still come up with, you know, call it $1.75 billion in EBITDA, which obviously is kind of, you know, the midpoint of the $1.5 billion-$2 billion of, you know, the guidance range for a trough that you guys have given.
You know, with the conditions evolving the way they are, I mean, you know, just wanted to sort of get your take on how comfortable you guys continue to be with that trough EBITDA guidance range?
Yeah. Hey, Hassan. I mean, look, this, it's still our guidance range. In fact, it's been our guidance range now for the last three quarters as we've really been preparing for this window to show that, you know, Olin delivers a different level of free cash flow than we did before.
I will say, you know, of course I understand, you know, annualizing the fourth quarter, and you're right, you get exactly to that conclusion, even though the fourth quarter has traditionally weak factors on top of all the extraordinary factors that are going on in the world right now.
I will just again sort of caution that, you know, we may experience one or two quarters that are lower than that in order to set the value equation right for the rest of the year, though. I mean, we're not gonna hesitate to take the proper actions in advance, you know, to make sure that value doesn't decline. We're not having to do that yet, but it could certainly happen, you know, as the recession plays out.
Scott, you know, sort of following up on that, you know, one of the pushbacks that I get is around sort of chlor-alkali pricing, right? You know, obviously pricing, you know, has been sort of firm to up both for caustic and chlorine. You know, one of the fears or investor concerns tends to be that, look, you know, U.S. housing weakening, PVC market, you know, very weak.
You know, if we go into a recession, obviously industrial production will affect caustic as well. In that sort of an environment, I mean, how comfortable are you that pricing for chlorine and caustic at the very least will not go down?
Yeah, and this, you know, that setup is exactly what's happening now, right? I mean, PVC has become very weak and, you know, unfortunately, you see the PVC players chase the strong side of the ECU. In other words, they're chasing caustic volume, and they're willing to destroy their central value theme, and it's their central long-term value theme of being in the PVC business to sell just a little bit of incremental EDC or even VCM into the marketplace.
It's exactly opposite to our model. Of course, we take exactly the opposite tactic, right? We don't participate as much in the chlorine and derivative side under that case. We don't participate as much in the vinyls side, and that tends to improve both ECU. You see that materialize with both rising caustic prices and lifting chlorine prices.
I think the summary point underlying all of that is that, you know, it's not the biggest concern that demand drops on both sides of the ECU because we exploit the difference between the relative conditions on each side of the ECU. Total demand can drop, yet the difference between the quality of those markets can actually widen, which is where we do well.
Very helpful. Thank you so much, Scott.
Yeah.
The next question comes from Aleksey Yefremov with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Scott, I'm sure you saw there were some sizable caustic increase nominations in Europe, $950 per ton or higher. But we've also recently seen lower prices for power and natural gas in Europe. What's your outlook for this European caustic price in Q4? And how might that help Olin, you think?
Well, I mean, the caustic pricing in Europe is likely to stay elevated. I think the factors on the other side of the equation are that, you know, there's a lot more material moving out of Asia and out of China trying to take advantage of that arbitrage gap. So, you know, we do see volumes moving that way. At the same time, you know, costs have probably temporarily come back down.
But the reality is that, you know, as Asia demand may recover over the course of the next year, I'm not saying that's beginning now, but when it does recover, you know, those trade flows tend to have pressure to go the other way. At the same time, you know, I think we all know that we have a long winter to go through in Europe.
You know, the conditions that drove the elevated energy pricing probably still persist. Net-net through all that, you're likely to see Europe stay fairly elevated.
Thanks. Going back to domestic caustic market, how has demand been in the last few months? How has third quarter and October perhaps trending on a year-over-year basis or relative to normalized demand?
Yeah. Well, you know, all of our volumes are down year-over-year. Caustic demand relative to supply has been fine. I mean, there are some weakening factors, you know, arising in those marketplaces, so it's not likely to get stronger.
You know, again, Aleksey, I just go back to, you know, that doesn't necessarily matter in isolation. All that really matters is the relative quality of the markets on each side of the ECU. It's the difference there. Again, that difference is, you know, where we make our value from.
Thanks, Scott.
Yeah.
The next question comes from Michael Sison with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Just curious in terms of your, you know, the volume declines in CAV and Epoxy, you know, down what? 17%-29%. What do you think the fundamentals of the volume declines are? I guess one way to think about it too is if your volumes are flat and your ECU price it did improve, would your EBITDA, could that should that have been up year-over-year?
Yeah. So if you're—Michael Sison, if you're asking about, you know, sort of what's the fundamental decline in the marketplace, it's likely to be less than the decline in Olin volumes. 'Cause, you know, remember, you know, Olin tends to eat those shortfalls in demand from a production standpoint. We may not completely eat it from a sales standpoint because we go out and buy liquidity out of the marketplace at that moment to fill in that gap a little bit.
You're gonna see, you know, our production down more than the decline in the marketplace. You'll still see our sales volume down more than the decline in the marketplace. Our sales volume declines aren't as big as our production volume declines.
Okay. Then, you know, when I looked at the Great Recession, it looked like caustic did go up, you know, from 2008 to parts of 2009. It seems like it's gonna happen again potentially here. Can you maybe give us a little history lesson why it went up last time and, you know, what you're seeing as maybe the potential to go up again over the next six to nine months?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, when the you know, demand declines dramatically on the chlorine and chlorine derivatives side, you know, relative to that sort of global industrial demand for caustic, you know, there's just not enough caustic to satisfy that demand, even though that demand has declined a good bit.
You know, the PVC producers sort of run out of runway trying to find a home for either, you know, the vinyls intermediates or the PVC that supports that caustic production, and it declines substantially. Yeah, it's not impossible that we end up back in that same situation.
The next question comes from Frank Mitsch with Fermium Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning, folks. You know, obviously the buyback levels were very impressive in the third quarter after a very impressive second quarter. You indicated, Scott, that you could see the company at a 30% lower share count in a few years. I'm just curious as to, you know, given the fact that you've been very clear that we're entering into a recessionary environment, what investors might anticipate Olin's pace of buybacks in the near and midterm to be.
Yeah. Yeah, sure. You know, Frank, I mean, we're gonna target most of our levered free cash flow toward share repurchases. I mean, that's what we've done for most of this year. You know, that's what we're looking at here in the fourth quarter, and that's what we're looking at next year as well. I mean, our balance sheet is in great shape. We have, you know, a new expanded liquidity arrangement.
Even though we're making a commitment to stay investment grade, you know, we can hold those metrics through the recession, so it doesn't preclude any option. It certainly doesn't preclude us from, you know, buying as many shares as we can. If you believe that $1.1 billion of levered free cash flow, you know, most of that is gonna go toward share repurchases.
Fantastic. You know, also, you know, looking at that recessionary scenario, EBITDA, you indicated that, you know, in terms of cash flow, could be $50 million of restructuring costs or restructuring actions. I'm curious, you know, is that something that's that's you're looking at, you know, in the near term? If so, you know, what might that include?
Frank, this is Todd. You know, that would include restructuring. That $50 million includes restructuring costs as well as other costs such as some of the, you know, small investments that will be made in, you know, the joint ventures that, you know, we expect to start early next year. That's all encompassed in that kind of number.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Great, thanks for taking my question. When you think about the level for 4Q EBITDA, you know, it looks around $450 million at the midpoint. How much of that decline, say 15%-20% sequentially, would you attribute to seasonality? I guess as you look into Q1 or 2023, would you consider kinda Q4 as a bottom level of profitability and maybe some improvement from Q1 or into Q1, or how should we think about the next couple of quarters? Thanks.
Arun, this is Todd. As you think about the, I'll start with Winchester. The Winchester operations, you typically see, you know, holiday seasonal, you know, shutdowns at our facilities, and you normally see Winchester, the weakest quarter is the fourth quarter. That's when you talk about seasonality, that the effect in the fourth quarter on Winchester is really seasonality.
When you think about the Epoxy business, clearly it's a, you know, a value over volume strategy. In the fourth quarter, especially in the northern hemisphere, you know, construction is lower, and traditionally you see a significant decline in Epoxy demand. There is a significant seasonal factor in Epoxy as well.
In the chlor-alkali space, typically other than, you know, some demand, you know, for bleach and those seasonal items that are more summer, you don't really see the level of seasonality out of chlor-alkali. That has much more to do around turnarounds.
Okay. Thank you. If I could just ask a follow-up. It appears that, you know, caustic soda, as you noted, continues to be relatively tight, mainly because of the supply side. Could you just elaborate that? I mean, on that, I mean, are you still seeing kind of strength in Europe just given the weaker industrial activity?
When you consider that, you're already operating your Epoxy and other assets maybe at recessionary levels, are you doing the same in chlor-alkali at this point? Are you saying at that 50% operating rate or maybe just, you know, elaborate on the utilization in chlor-alkali. Thanks.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the first part of your question there, right? I mean, you know, demand is definitely down and declining in Europe. It's just that, supply has declined more. So that's the situation in Europe. No, I mean, we have a lot of room in our broad chlor-alkali assets to continue to withdraw from certain points of the market if we need to do that.
I mean, our expectation is that we do need to do that, right? With, you know, recessionary conditions, you know, only getting worse, really from this unprecedented combination of events, right? You have the China long-term demand lockdown. You've got Europe demand really crippled by the war. Now, you know, the U.S. has got to do what it's got to do to smash inflation.
You know, we're likely to have to turn down some assets at certain points over the next 12 months.
Thanks.
Yep.
The next question comes from Steve Byrne with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, this is Salvatore Tiano filling in for Steve. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, I wanted to ask on Winchester. You had mentioned previously that the channel did prove to be a little bit overstocked, and you didn't participate a lot in volumes in Q3.
I see in your slides you do have a price increase for Q4. How should we think about, I mean, what is the rationale for raising prices, and should we actually, as a channel is restocking, think about potential competitive pricing pressures? Can you refresh a little bit on the situation with Russian supplies and where things stand at the moment, and what's the impact on the supply-demand balance in North America?
Yeah. Yeah, sure. I would just go back to the first point you made, and maybe I would restate it differently, right? I mean, the channel hasn't become overstocked or overfilled. It's just that the channel was starved for a very long time, and the channel has returned to closer to normal inventory levels. It's still not there yet. That happened principally in the third quarter.
We just didn't really participate as much as others in, you know, trying to get the channel, you know, stocked back to a more normalized level. By the way, normalized demand in ammunition now is much higher than it was two years ago. We'll have some selective price increases there in Winchester on certain products.
It's not necessarily across the board, but you know, those have been communicated, and it's been undervalued items that you know have a high demand. You know, that logic still fits, and it's the same logic that's really applied to Winchester over the last couple years, where we've had six or seven broad price increases before.
The fundamentals are still excellent in that business. You know, consumer demand much higher than it was two years ago. Military and law enforcement demand you know higher than it was a year ago. Then there's been changes in the import situation where you know Russia used to be the largest importer. That's still clearing out through the channel, but no more imports are happening of Russian ammunition.
Okay. Perfect. Also want to touch base a little bit on green hydrogen. There was this JV with Plug Power from St. Gabriel. If you can confirm firstly that I think the hydrogen you are going to produce there and sell to Plug Power will not require incremental investment. Can you also talk a little bit how do you see this business in the longer term as part of Olin's portfolio?
Yeah, this is our second arrangement with Plug Power. This joint venture in St. Gabriel will use hydrogen, you know, that's already being produced today and, you know, may be used in a less efficient way. What that does is, you know, minimize the base investment to get the molecule. The joint venture, you know, still has to, you know, build and operate liquefaction facilities to be able to distribute the hydrogen to, you know, fuel cell uses.
There's still some investment. It's a pretty minor investment. Next steps are very interesting. All those two existing arrangements we have are maybe, you know, 4% or 5% of the hydrogen that we already produce today. There's an opportunity to replicate this or even modify it at many different sites.
Great. Thank you very much.
Sure.
The next question is from Josh Spector with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, it's Chris Perrella on for Josh. I was curious as to what you've done to hedge out natural gas costs into the fourth quarter and out to next year, and at what level?
You know, we are, as you know, an active hedger for natural gas, as that's directly about 70% of our fuel source for power. In a quarter out, we are very heavily hedged and generally have a rolling four-quarter program. You can imagine that, you know, we have a portion of 2023 already covered with active hedges.
All right. To your earlier comments about flexing down the chlor-alkali rate to protect value and cash flow on the shoulder seasons, is the expectation for that to, you know, sort of hold the chlor-alkali rate, the operating rate steady into the first quarter, assuming EDC and Epoxy stays where they are now?
Well, look, you know, without getting, you know, too specific, Chris, I would just say that, you know, there's gonna be shifts and changes in our production rate relative to the liquidity that we buy out of the marketplace. You know, we've already said that we've limited our participation in the Vinyls chain, and it's certainly not impossible that we choose to limit that participation even further as we enter 2023.
All right. Thank you.
You bet.
The next question is from Matthew Blair with TPH&Co. Please go ahead.
Hey. Good morning. I had a question on the Epoxy feedstocks. It looks like propylene and benzene are coming down quite a bit in Q4. Would that be a feedstock benefit to Epoxy in Q4, or do you have hedges and to really think about this as, you know, potentially flowing through into 2023?
Yeah. Matthew, this is Todd. As we think about, you know, especially in North America, you know, the costs have come down, you know, from the third quarter, and therefore that does lower our costs. Once you start around the globe on an international basis, those lower costs really you'll see that benefit in Epoxy in the first quarter.
Thanks. I'll leave it there.
The next question is from Angel Castillo with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. This is Alyssa on for Angel. I guess you've mentioned that you're throttling back production to maintain value, but are you seeing your peers remain as disciplined here?
Yeah. Hi, Alyssa, Scott here. I really wouldn't, you know, have that much to say about the peers. What I will say is that, you know, Olin is only participating where there's reasonable value in a marketplace. You know, we have to make pretty significant changes sometimes in our operating rate to do that. I'll speak on Olin's behalf there.
Got it. Thanks. We've talked about share repurchases, but I'm wondering what the overall appetite is for M&A and kind of the pipeline there.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not out of the question that, you know, some M&A is possible. What I will say is that certainly in the near term, that most of that is low capital type activities. As we consider, you know, M&A candidates and targets and potentially even have discussions, a lot of that turns into, you know, near-term joint venture or alliance opportunities.
You know, we've announced a couple joint ventures. We've announced at least one alliance. We've completed other multiple unannounced alliances. I expect those kind of arrangements to continue to materialize over the next year.
You know, it's unlikely that we move to complete any kind of, you know, large acquisition, as right now, you know, we've got a pretty shareholder-friendly policy of taking almost all of our levered free cash flow and directing it toward, you know, direct returns in the form of share repurchases and then maintaining our dividend.
The next question comes from John Roberts with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Morning. It's Matt Garanziano for John. On slide six, you indicate your ability to repurchase shares through an economic downturn. Now, given some speculation of a nearing recession and your potential cash flow generation during that time, and considering supply demand projections and the time it takes to add capacity or debottleneck, is there a point where you would look to allocate capital towards growth instead of repurchases?
Yeah, Matt Garanziano, yeah, you're not gonna see Olin expansion capability. In fact, you know, over the last two years, we've taken out more than 1 million tons of ECU, you know, production capability. We don't have any need to direct capital toward that kind of base growth projects.
However, you know, as our levered free cash flow does grow from sort of that trough level of $1.1 billion in a year, there's gonna be opportunities to acquire, you know, existing assets, do joint ventures with existing assets, do additional alliances as well. That could be some pull on that capital. All of that has to compete, you know, with the value of repurchasing shares. Really none of it is competitive with the value of repurchasing shares in today's world.
That's helpful. Thank you.
Yeah.
My follow-up is just on the Epoxy market. Have you seen any change in behavior since the end of September, either in terms of buying dynamics or selling dynamics?
I would say the same principal trend stays in place. You know, with the China demand shortfall, but yet still running and expanding assets there, we've seen traditional trade flows temporarily reverse. A lot of that material is ending up, you know, either in the U.S. or Europe, or a lot of material that used to be produced in other countries in Asia and used to for import into China is coming to the U.S. and Europe, and that really hasn't changed.
I would say that, you know, the good news is there's been some moderation of the rate of change there, and so, you know, there's some stability there, and we've settled with, you know, a group of advanced customers that value the Olin solution and also value the fact that our epoxy resin carries a CO2 footprint that's probably, you know, 70% below the CO2 footprint of all that material that's making its way out of China. There's some moderation there.
Thank you.
Yeah, sure.
The next question comes from Kevin McCarthy with Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I just had a few follow-ups. Scott, we're hearing or reading more about low water levels on the Mississippi River. Are restrictions on barge movement having any meaningful impact on either Olin or the industry that we should be thinking about, or is that really just immaterial?
Yeah. You know, Kevin, I mean, it's not immaterial, so there is, you know, some impact. It's causing logistics chains, you know, to have to be rearranged, a bit. For Olin, perhaps it's a little less impactful. I think the thing to worry about actually is this rail strike.
I mean, if that rail strike really occurred, I would just say that it's equivalent to the mother of all hurricanes that, you know, we've ever experienced. That disruption on top of, you know, this nagging, you know, barge issue going up the river system would be a real concern to Olin and perhaps beyond.
Interesting. Secondly, Scott, I think a few quarters ago you had, you know, publicly discussed potential or at least exploration of a PVC resin partnership. Are those efforts active or dormant or extinct? How would you describe, you know, your discussions at this stage?
Yeah. Well, I would just say that there are multiple active discussions around that. I would also say that, you know, for the moment, with the contemporary, you know, decline in PVC attractiveness that, you know, something may not materialize, you know, for a little while there.
Interesting enough, through all that, there's more interested parties. It's just that we haven't found the right setup that delivers what we expect out of that, and we expect more than VCM or PVC. You know, we expect an expansion of our ECU business through that.
Okay. Last one, if I may, for Todd. I think your press release indicated a tax benefit of $36 million and change related to the release of deferred tax liabilities. Can you just elaborate on what transpired there?
Yeah, sure, Kevin. Thanks for the question. It did in the third quarter, we did realize just under a book benefit of just under $37 million related to a legal entity liquidation. It's a non-cash tax benefit resulting from us liquidating an acquisition entity created over 10 years ago, and it was really no longer necessary. From a book perspective, we're able to remove that liability and recognize the income.
I see. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Eric Petrie with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, Scott and Todd.
Morning, Eric.
In your bottom-up build that you provided $400 million from merchant chlorine pricing upgrade versus 2020, did that include or exclude the reset of chlorine in the TiO2 next year?
Yeah. Eric, I mean, it is inclusive of all of those items. I think the good news here is that it's probably the total number is probably a little low compared to the actual result after we turn the calendar over here in 2023 from 2022.
Okay. Scott, I was wondering if you could comment on your participation currently in caustic soda exports, and how does that compare to the industry? Or are you seeing better opportunity parlaying volume?
Yeah. Well, you know, without giving any specific numbers, of course, you know, we always participate in the export market. You know, we've also been a purchaser of liquidity in, you know, the export world. You know, if you think about our Blue Water Alliance joint venture that we've announced with Mitsui, you know, the idea there is to become the largest manager of liquidity in the world.
That means that we're you know, we'll target being, one day, the largest trader of, you know, chlor-alkali molecules in the world. I would just say it's a heavy point of focus for us and, you know, we use it effectively to run our model.
Thank you.
Yep.
As there are no further questions, this concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Scott Sutton for closing comments.
All right. Well, I would just say, look, thanks to everyone for joining the call, and we'll wrap it up with that.
Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.