Vice President and Treasurer of Westlake Corporation. I believe, John, welcome. I believe you're going to start with some prepared remarks and the presentation.
Yes, we will. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Maybe I'll move over here by the podium here. So, I'm John Zoeller, Vice President and Treasurer of Westlake Corporation. Westlake was founded in 1986 by T.T. Chao and James and Albert Chao. James and Albert are currently our Chairman, Senior Chairman, and Executive Chairman. And the Chao family is, you know, founded and still has a significant ownership stake in Westlake, well over 70% of Westlake. Westlake is. We operate really in two segments, two businesses: Housing and Infrastructure Products, which is really a broad product portfolio, primarily focused on the North American market, housing and construction, water infrastructure, healthcare, automotive.
We've got many leading brands in that Housing and I nfrastructure Products, a lot of leading products you can see here listed, servicing really from when it comes from the home perspective, the exterior of the home, siding, trim, molds, shutters, windows, roofs, roof tile, roof products, stone, pipe and fittings, goes to the water infrastructure, water main infrastructure in the U.S., new home construction, water mains in the front of the homes. So, a lot of leading brands and products in Housing and Infrastructure Products. That business accounts for about $4.3 billion of revenue in 2024 at a 24% EBITDA margin. That business has really grown organically and inorganically through acquisitions, both bolt-ons as well as kind of more transformational acquisitions. We made a couple in 2021 that were really transformational. That margin profile of that HIP business, going back, if you go back six years, that EBITDA margin was about 13%.
We finished 2024 at 24%. We've almost doubled the EBITDA margin in that the businesses that are in HIP. I'll get into a little bit more how that kind of margin evolution has really taken place with our geographic footprint and go-to-market strategy. Performance and Essential Materials is really kind of the legacy business that was founded by the Chao family in 1986. That's really the chemicals business in a lot of leading positions in terms of production. You can see there on the slide the second largest global combined chlorovinyls producer in the world. Performance and Essential Materials encompasses ethylene, polyethylene, the vinyls chain, caustic soda, epoxy. That operating asset base is about 85% in North America.
So, this next slide really kind of, I think, in the middle there, that table really kind of highlights the vertical integration strategy that Westlake has been on over the many years since its founding. So, with 85% of the operating assets in the chemical businesses located in North America, obviously strategically well-positioned from a feedstock and energy cost. So, our ethylene units, which are in the top left corner there, all crack ethane, low-cost ethane. So, this positions us really well on the—from a global cost curve perspective. And then it's vertical integration. So, ethylene, we use ethylene and combine that with the chlorine from our chloralkali facilities and use that to make PVC through our vinyls chain. The ethylene is also used for our polyethylene businesses as well.
That vertical integration in North America really benefits us when margins move up and down that integrated chain across those products. We think that's a very important and strategic part of our Performance and Essential Materials business. In addition, there's also further integration down into the housing and infrastructure product businesses. About 1.5 billion lbs of PVC resin that we produce in North America is sold at market prices to our HIP businesses. The primary raw material, although there are several others, the primary raw material of those HIP businesses is PVC resin that we produce at our facilities in North America. I think we've talked about kind of the vertical integration benefits, capturing the margin up and down the chain. The HIP businesses are much less cyclical. You know, the chemical businesses obviously go through cycles. You know, we're obviously in one now.
The HIP businesses are much more stable, less cyclical, tied to housing and construction, primarily in North America, predominantly in the United States, water infrastructure, healthcare, automotive. There's a more stability of earnings that the HIP business brings the entire combined portfolio under Westlake. You can see that through our results. Certainly, this past year and the last couple of years, the HIP businesses continue to grow their EBITDA, EBITDA margins through organic growth. That, you know, the free cash flow generation, it's a low-capital business on the HIP side, obviously relative to the PEM business, much more capital intensive. It's been a really good free cash flow generator and much more stability in earnings. Now, there's seasonality in those HIP businesses.
Q1 and Q4, kind of the shoulders of the building construction season, are seasonally low periods, but moving into the more warmer weather months of the year, kind of as we're getting into it right now, that starts to accelerate. And Q2 and Q3 are really the two quarters from a seasonal perspective where building construction is at its peak in North America. So, maybe just a bit of a deeper dive on our Housing and Infrastructure Product segment. Really, that's organized into three businesses: Westlake Royal Building Products, which is all the products we produce that go on, in, or around a home. So, the siding, trim, molding, shutters, et cetera. That represents about half of HIP's revenue. The second business is our Pipe & Fittings business. That's really focused on water main infrastructure. About 65% of the end-use market for Pipe & Fittings goes into municipal water systems.
So, that's water source, water treatment through the cities, out to the street in the front of the house, and the wastewater back. And the third business is our Global Compounds business. And that is really kind of a formula, PVC resin formulas that are compounded for specific applications. Healthcare, so think about an IV drip bag or a blood bag in healthcare. Automotive, think about the vinyl dashboards in a vehicle, as well as wiring cabling that go into electrification. So, really tied to some trends. You know, we think housing in North America, United States, there's some long-term secular tailwinds for that. The need for water main infrastructure, over 33% of the water main infrastructure is almost 50 years old in the U.S. and North America. And then the trends in, you know, with healthcare and others.
This business has got about 70 manufacturing facilities, most of them in North America. So, it's got a coast-to-coast presence. It's centered around population centers, growing areas of the country. And that's very important for that geographic reach, be able to be close to the customer. Many of these products can't be delivered coast-to-coast, not cost-effective, could get damaged. The important thing is being close to the customer where they need it. So, Westlake Royal Building Products a little bit deeper. Again, this is about half of HIP's revenue on an annual basis. It's roughly split 50/50 between new home construction and repair and remodeling. So, repair and remodeling has grown at, if you look back 25, 30 years at the LIRA kind of index that tracks repair and remodel spend in the United States, this grows at about a 5% compound annual growth rate.
So, we think that's a really good long-term tailwind supporting repair and remodeling spending. In addition to the average age of the U.S. home is 45+ years old. So, there's some really good long-term tailwinds that we think support repair and remodeling spend and the products that we have that go into it. Like we've got a fairly deep bench of roofing products that go into repair and remodel for roofs. And then the 50% on the new home construction, we really focus our go-to-market strategy on the nationwide home builders. They're the largest. They continue to gain market share in the new home construction in the U.S. And they're coast-to-coast, which fits our geographic footprint. We can deliver through the first-step distributors, which 72%, you can see on the slide is our sales go through first-step distributors, which in turn then service the home builders.
So, we think we're really well-positioned to continue to grow this Westlake Royal Building Products. We've talked about the annual organic growth rate with this business is 5%-7%. And we think we're really continuing to position to grow. And that broad product portfolio with deep brands allows us opportunities to cross-sell, bring more products along to make our value, you know, to increase our value with the ultimate end customer, which are the home builders in particular, the nationwide home builders. Pipe & Fittings, similar geographic profile across the United States. You can see the map there on the bottom right, located around population centers, growing areas to service water main infrastructure. As I mentioned, the water main infrastructure in the U.S. is aging. Some estimates, you know, you can see the EPA estimates $420 billion investment needed in water infrastructure in the United States.
It's repairing and replacing existing infrastructure, which increasingly Pipe and Fitting systems are outpacing and growing their market share and outpacing concrete, ductile iron, cast iron. PVC pipe applications and systems in the water main infrastructure represented about 22% of the infrastructure just five or six years ago, and it's grown to about 29% in the last year or so. It continues to gain market share. Reasons why: it's longer lasting, more durable, it doesn't leak, doesn't corrode like the other systems, and it's also easier to install. It's much lighter, and it becomes easier to install, thereby helping the general contractors, the municipalities, to overall reduce the total cost of installation because they need much less labor to do so.
We think there's some really good long-term tailwinds supporting continuing growth in this business, which we think should grow annually at about a 4%-6% clip. And so, really think we're well-positioned geographically with the broad product portfolio we have. Some of the systems that we've developed include something we call Certa-Lok, which further decreases the installation cost because you're able to put this wastewater system and thread it through an existing system. Thereby, you don't have to dig up trenches the entire length of the system and pull out the old and put in the new. You can thread it through the existing system, which we think is a really good technology. We've talked about PVCO. We're expanding our capacity in PVCO, which PVCO is a pipe application that uses 40% less resin. And it sells at the same price points. So, obviously, better margins.
It also is more easier to install than even the current, the traditional PVC pipe because it uses 40% less resin, has the same characteristics and capabilities, but it's much, again, much lighter and easier to install, thereby reducing the cost. And the third business is Westlake Global Compounds. This business, as opposed to the other two, which are North American-centric and predominantly in the United States, Global Compounds has got a little bit more international reach. We've got manufacturing facilities in Europe and Asia really servicing the healthcare and automotive markets. Again, this is a formula-based business creating formulations. We've got a global R&D and product innovation teams working to continue to produce formulas that get specced in and used by the end-use customers, mainly in wiring, cabling, kind of commercial and industrial applications, healthcare, and automotive.
So, overall on HIP, again, we think, you know, really good long-term secular tailwinds that promote long-term growth, you know, pegging that organic growth for these businesses on an annual basis to outgrow the market, you know, by 5-7, you know, growing organically 5%-7%, thereby outgrowing the market. And we think that geographic reach that we have is very important to do so. The partnerships that we have with the nationwide home builders to get our products specced in on their homes, that broad bench of products, the deep brands that we have that can go in at different price points, not just servicing certain price points, but kind of up and down the price point chain, having the brands to do that and the geographic reach to be able to deliver when they need it, where they need it.
We have that geographic reach of plants allows us to ramp up production to meet demand in those local markets. This is really a local market, you know, as opposed to the chemical business, which is, you know, global commodity chemicals. These products, it's much more product, market, and brand focused than the chemical business. And we think that provides a nice balance between the two businesses, stable, growing earnings. These HIP businesses are really kind of growth drivers and a growth story, certainly relative to a PEM business where it takes de-bottlenecking a plant or things like that. So, this highlights some of the brands that we have and, you know, maintaining brands, developing new brands, investing in them is really an important part of the HIP business that really differentiates us.
We think in the market, we're one of the biggest companies in kind of the building, home building space in North America, certainly with a broad brand bench. You can see like DaVinci Roofscapes, kind of a high-end premium roofing product. That was an example of a bolt-on acquisition that we did about five years ago. And then the Boral acquisition with several companies and products that we made in 2021 was more transformational. It gave us that broader geographic footprint scale, the ability to leverage up and to match production kind of where demand is across the United States. I've mentioned Certa-Lok is a Pipe & Fittings application that's a strong brand for us that, again, helps installation costs because it's a trenchless system.
We think that's very important to continue to innovate and bring products that continue to meet the customer's needs, ultimately, you know, the general contractors in municipalities across North America. This is really just in a picture, all the products that we bring kind of to a house across all three of those businesses: Westlake Royal Building Products, Pipe & Fittings, and Global Compounds, really trying to continue to be more and more relevant to the home builders to continue to bring more products that they need to fulfill their building plans throughout the year. This is really kind of a good snapshot of the products that we bring to bear in the home building space.
Again, because of our scale, breadth of products, focusing on the nationwide home builders, selling through the first-step distributors, which ultimately sell to the nationwide home builders, really ensures that we're getting specced in on the homes, understand the trends, the curb appeal, the need for providing low-cost, durable, low-maintenance products across several different types of home profiles. And that geographic footprint, again, allows us to be able to do so. And just a couple of points on the Performance and Essential Materials business. Again, here's kind of the slate of products that we have on the performance side, PVC, which again goes into building and construction. We're one of the largest producers of PVC in North America. And then combined with caustic soda, the second largest globally in chlorovinyls, polyethylene.
We focus more on the specialty end of polyethylene, low density, linear low density in North America, which allows us, which goes into food preservation, things like the shrink wrap around the meat that you see in the supermarkets as an example. We think that helps differentiate us. Those more specialty in polyethylene has a higher price premium. It exposes us less to the export market. While we do export, it exposes us less to the export market, which we think is an important differentiator to us as well. Likewise, on the PVC side, we're less exposed to the export market, largely because of that offtake that we have with our HIP businesses, where we sell about 1.5 billion pounds of PVC resin downstream to our HIP businesses. So that keeps us less exposed than the other producers in North America to the export markets.
Chloroalkali, caustic soda being sold into industrial manufacturing, a broad range of applications there, aluminum refining as an example of that. Chlorine, which most of the chlorine that we make, we consume through our vinyl chain and PVC, again, making us a little less exposed to the, much less exposed to the merchant chlorine market. We think that's a good differentiator for us. Chlorine, we also sell chlorinated products for water treatment. That's probably the most seasonal of all the chemical chains that we have as water treatment season picks up during the summer months and the warmer months of the year. Our Epoxy business, really focusing on specialty epoxy resins that go into lightweighting applications, trending for lightweighting to reduce costs, whether it be in automotive or aerospace as well. A couple more points here.
Just so, Westlake has grown through, you know, organic growth as well as a series of acquisitions. We have financial policies firmly committed to maintaining a strong investment-grade balance sheet. You can see currently our net debt to EBITDA well below one turn. And you can see on the bottom there that kind of the history of acquisitions where Westlake, through a series of acquisitions, has levered up a little bit and the ability to quickly delever. You can see in 2021, 2021 and early 2022, we made acquisitions well over $3 billion and our ability to quickly delever, even with kind of trough-like conditions in the chemical space, really demonstrates kind of the focus of our acquisition strategy is really return on capital employed, economic value added, really being able to generate cash flows to quickly delever in situations where we've levered up for acquisitions.
Our current debt maturity profile is a little less than 16 years, and 99% of it's at a fixed rate of 3.4%. So we think we've got a really strong balance sheet that is really well-positioned for growth as well. We've got almost $3 billion of cash. So we're certainly looking from a capital allocation strategy to continue to deploy that capital in a way that grows the business with, you know, after-tax returns, kind of mid to high teens. And you can see kind of a return on the, maybe on the previous slide, we had, you know, return on capital employed really over the last 10 years has been kind of mid-teens, which is at or above certainly a chemical and building products peers. Okay, with that, I guess, Sal, we can start the Q&A, I guess. So thank you very much, and we'll continue it now.
Perfect. Thank you very much. So while you're here with us for Fort Lauderdale, I believe the rest of the executive team is in Las Vegas for the building product show. So can you tell us a little bit about what they and what Westlake are doing there, some of the products you're showcasing, innovations, what you're looking to get out of the show?
Yeah, so certainly the rest of the leadership team, executive leadership team, the building products, the HIP leadership team is in Las Vegas. And I don't know if you've kind of seen our booth or been out there before, but I think we've got one of the largest display booths out there. And so it's really highlighting all the things that we bring to bear in the market, all the products that we have. Kind of think about that slide that we had, I just showed with the house, kind of highlighting and showcasing those products, new products that we're bringing. It's really an opportunity to kind of show we can fill your orders at several different price points where you need it, when you need it.
Really further enhancing kind of that cross-selling strategy that we've talked about really since the Boral acquisition in 2021, the ability to continue to do that. Not only just the things that you have to have on the home, but, you know, things for curb appeal as well. Maybe perhaps the front of the house at certain price points, you want a little bit more curb appeal than traditional PVC siding, and you want a stone facade that goes from the ground up five feet or perhaps even farther. We've certainly got a lot of stone products that would fit those needs.
The ability to continue to highlight and showcase not only our existing kind of bench of products and brands, but how we're innovating and how we're listening to the customer and thinking about what the trends are in certainly in different parts of the country. You know, home building trends can, you know, differ based on the different parts of the country and really highlighting that we're a, you know, a company that can really deliver to kind of all those needs.
Perfect. And I know Steve was there two years ago and he was talking about how you had so much larger booths than any other company we covered there. I guess beyond customers, is this also an opportunity for you to find partners or even potentially acquisition targets?
Certainly, that's something we certainly continue to look at, kind of ways to continue to grow in those businesses that would be in Housing and Infrastructure Products, building and construction, home, you know, home construction, repair and remodeling. It's a very fragmented market in the U.S., you know, a range of size of companies that could present bolt-on opportunities or something more transformational. We think we have the size and scale to be able to understand the trends and kind of where we think we'd want to, you know, go next. Certainly, we, you know, I think Jean- Marc even mentioned it on Monday during our call that we continue to be excited about the opportunities to grow in that space.
You know, I think underpinned by those long-term kind of secular tailwinds, we've talked about the underbuilt housing stock in the U.S., you know, anywhere from five-to-six million homes underbuilt. The demographic trends, more of the population are continuing to get into kind of that new household formation age years, 35-45. The average age of the existing home stock being, you know, 40-45 years. So we think those trends continue to be good long-term drivers for these businesses. And that's certainly something we're looking to grow. And obviously, we've got a balance sheet that's certainly able to do so, and we'll look to continue to do that.
Perfect. So can you also talk a little bit about, I guess, what is Westlake's winning formula in building products? Because in the past couple of years, you've delivered certainly better than expected results in this business in what has been a flattish or even negative market in some cases. And this year, you already, just on Monday, when you had your results, you guided to another year of 5%-7% growth, at least for Royal building products, where I think everybody again expects and markets to be flattish.
Yeah, so just 2024 sales volumes on the HIP business is a great 8% from 2023, kind of, you know, underpinning our belief that we can continue to outgrow the market. And it's really that go-to-market strategy with, again, a broad product portfolio that is increasingly more relevant to more home builders in more parts of the country. And we have the geographic footprint to be able to deliver. You know, we deliver to the first-step distributors. They want to be able to build out that pack on the back, on the flatbed truck and deliver it to the customer when they need it. And, you know, and we have that footprint to be able to do so. We have the relationships with the nationwide home builders on the pipe and fitting side with all the relevant, you know, end customers there.
You know, our customer service, the, you know, quality products that fit a lot of different kind of categories, right? Low cost, low maintenance, you know, PVC siding, you don't have to repaint. It's durable and it lasts a long time. Then we've got products that enhance some curb appeal. Several different categories of what you would look for in a home or in a, you know, water, certainly in a water system, the ability to reduce installation costs through our systems, I think really, really underpins our ability to continue to outgrow the market with those long-term tailwinds, more infrastructure spending coming with an aging water main infrastructure. Really all those factors kind of from Westlake Royal Building Products and Pipe & Fittings to really continue to grow kind of above the market.
Perfect. I want to ask about two opportunities or actually potential risks here for the building products business. So firstly, you have a pretty big presence in roofing and siding. Bank of America credit card data shows that, you know, within the broader building products group, this is one of the few categories that are doing well beyond, very well and selling well beyond pre-COVID levels as opposed to things such as flooring, appliances, mattresses. How big has this mix shift, I guess, been as a driver for you? And is there any risk it could reverse with consumer spending changing patterns?
Yeah, so siding, trim, molding, shutters are really the things you need on a home. You know, obviously a roof, you don't need the roof, you may not need the roof tile that we have, but the things you really need on the home really is kind of the engine for that Westlake Royal Building Products business. Something we kind of call out certainly, you know, through the years in our earnings, you know, that siding and trim business. We think that really still has a long way to go because it fits a lot of different, you know, characteristics of what the home builder and ultimately the home buyer want in a home is, you know, especially in that new household formation years, you know, durability, low life cycle costs, low maintenance, you know, certainly helping address affordability concerns that we've been in for the last several years.
Then, you know, we've got, you know, particular products in particular locations to serve kind of the trends and the look and feel of homes in particular regions. The roof tile product is a great example. So here in Florida or in the Desert Southwest where that's certainly much more prevalent, we've got strong presence there. So this is, you know, ultimately kind of local, local, local where what are the trends in those areas. And so we think we can continue to grow those businesses in those areas where those trends are very strong and the certain look and feel of the house is very strong. And that siding and trim business really can help bring along other products, you know, that part of that cross-selling.
That's really the engine that helps cross-sell a lot of different products, whether it be roofing through our different kind of categories of roof. They're not all concrete and clay roof tile, as I mentioned, DaVinci Roofscapes is a kind of a slate shingle roof. Our stone products, our outdoor living products, including decking that we have is Veranda decking. So really think that we still are very well positioned to kind of continue to grow and, you know, through that cross-selling opportunities that we've certainly been doing and continue to.
Perfect. And the other one is pipes and fittings. We've seen some numbers showing kind of the simplistic spread between the price of pipes and fittings on a per pound basis versus the price of PVC resin. And I would say this spread has expanded by several multiples in the past few years. How big of a driver has this been for your margin expansion with your EBITDA margin being well above what you had guided in the past being a normalized level? What drove this margin expansion and also what's the risk that things could normalize in the next few years?
Yeah, so Pipe & Fittings is, you know, the second largest business that we have in HIP. Clearly, as it moves, it's moving, you know, our results. It's something we reference, you know, just about every quarter in terms of how it's contributing to sales volume growth, how it's, you know, its impact on average sales prices during the period and how they've moved, so it clearly is, you know, a large piece of the business and has been, you know, very good growth and, you know, very good earnings. I think, again, underpinned by, look, PVC pipe systems are continuing to outperform other systems, concrete, ductile iron, cast iron, as I've mentioned before, and we are very well positioned to continue to do that given our geographic footprint.
We are one of the two or three largest PVC pipe, you know, from a PVC pipe perspective, one of the two or three largest, and we're the largest by quite a margin that has pipe and fitting systems that go together. You don't have to buy; if you work with Westlake, we're able to bring the entire system to you. You don't have to just buy pipe from us and then go find the other solutions, the elbows, the joints, the fittings, et cetera, so that systems, the entire system that we provide, that network of plants, the position that we have, we think we really are continuing to poise for growth and to be able to continue to have good earnings.
I mean, you know, there is obviously competitive space, but when competition moves into it, it's important to know where is it moving because it's not a nationwide market. It's more local and geographic. Where is it moving? And unlike the chemicals businesses, when there is new competition, you're not adding 3, 4, 5, 6% of, you know, total production in a particular, in North America or globally, you know, all at once. It's coming in and a little much more slower and in smaller increments than that. And it's important to know where it's coming in. So, you know, we have seen some competition in the pipe and fitting space. I think we, you know, we mentioned that, you know, on Monday, but we think we're continued well positioned to grow that.
You know, pricing with Pipe & Fittings is more than just what the cost of PVC resin is. You know, it's a more labor-intensive business relative to the chemical side. There's more supply and demand dynamics regionally and locally that impact that certainly, those prices. Yeah, we think we're really well positioned to continue to grow and grow profitably.
Great. Shifting to the Performance and Essential Materials business, just wanted to get a little bit firstly your thoughts on PVC pricing. You have nominations for five cents in February and three or four cents, I believe, in March. Both CDI and CMA expect two cents in February and one cent in March. So what gives you confidence that, you know, the higher number will go through in the next year?
Yeah, I mean, from a producer-seller perspective, what you bring to the table in those conversations certainly are, you know, we've had a higher period of feedstock and energy costs that certainly has increased the cost profile here recently. And then we're also, you know, seeing good and stable North American demand, which seasonally should pick up. We're starting to move into the building construction season. We would expect it to pick up, which again, we'd bring, you'd kind of bring to the table as, you know, these are, you know, supporting certainly higher prices and would support the nominations out there. We'll see what ultimately happens. Obviously, it's a two-sided conversation, so we'll see what happens. But we think there's good momentum for it. And, you know, there is historical precedent for PVC resin prices to start to increase this time of year moving into building construction.
Look back at last year, good example. So, yeah, we feel constructive that we're getting, you know, price traction not only in PVC, but also polyethylene and caustic soda as well.
Great. So you just reported your results on Monday. And I think the most surprising thing for us and a bunch of investors was that the PEM segment had actually an EBIT loss. I think it was $41 million + some adjustments in there. And, you know, for a company that has a very U.S.-oriented footprint, almost exclusively on ethane and natural gas, so I would say more advantage than most of your petrochemical peers that have international operations as well. This, you know, this was a little bit tough to explain for, to understand for us. So can you talk a little bit about what drove this an EBIT loss?
Yeah, so certainly we had some headwinds when it comes to ethane and natural gas in the fourth quarter. You know, that, that obviously without having price increases to really, you know, regain that spread. So you're losing some spread and margin from that. You know, we've talked about, you know, we had a period in the third quarter, the entire third quarter, we had to, you know, we're short ethylene by a little over a billion pounds period in the third quarter where we had to buy ethylene on the spot market. Some of that because we had to buy it all the way through the third quarter. Some of that was actually downstream in our PVC and polyethylene inventory, which kind of raised the cost, inventory cost of those, which contributed to the FIFO impact.
Despite a period of rising ethane and natural gas from the beginning of the quarter to the end of the quarter, we had elevated inventory costs because of that ethylene that we had to buy on the spot market due to the LACC joint venture cracker being down. So those are all contributing factors. Operating rates, you know, typically decline a little bit in the fourth quarter. And we saw some of that in some pockets, including epoxy. So those are all kind of, you know, combined for the what happened in the fourth quarter.
Okay, perfect. You mentioned epoxy towards the end. How tough is the situation there? And can you talk a little bit about your current footprint and what can be done post the closure of your epichlorohydrin facility in the Netherlands?
Yeah, so our footprint is, we have kind of the base epoxy resin kind of plants both in Deer Park, Texas, and in Pernis, Netherlands. You know, we've talked about, we've already announced that we're mothballing the ECH units, the AC and ECH units at the plants in Pernis, the Netherlands. It's just, it's a high, high operating cost. I mean, it's in Europe. And so that's something we continue to look at. We've got specialty epoxy resins that we sell some of that base epoxy resin into, you know, the servicing, more lightweighting applications, automotive, aerospace. And those specialty businesses are in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. So that's kind of the footprint. Again, we continue to kind of look at how we can address the cost profile of, in particular, you know, making those products in Europe at our base epoxy resin plant there.
So we, you know, continue to look at that. The mothballing was certainly part of that exercise. And, you know, obviously epoxy resin prices, base epoxy resin prices have been challenged for quite some time, largely due to the flood of imports from Asian producers, which obviously the U.S. and EU have announced preliminary anti-dumping duties as a result of that. You know, we're kind of in the period between the preliminary duties and the final duties. And we'll see what the final duties are and kind of how that kind of helps that market and market pricing for those products. And, but we'll, you know, continue to look at ways we can lower the costs to produce, you know, particularly in Europe.
Perfect. And as we're about to wrap up, I have one final question, which is on buybacks. You know, with over 70% insider ownership, that has always been a little bit tough for Westlake to do, even though your leverage is very low. We saw that you did $60 million, I believe, in Q4. So how should we think about buybacks both near term for 2025 and also as a long-term capital allocation opportunity?
Yeah, so, you know, we want our capital allocation strategy continues to be focused on how can we grow the business through organic debottlenecking on the chemical side, which we have done with our Geismar Chlorovinyls facility to debottleneck VCM there. You know, VCM is the kind of the intermediate to making PVC. So we want a little bit more elbow room, as we call it, in VCM. So we continue to look for ways to deploy capital there to kind of, you know, grow production and where it makes sense for us, certainly looking on the acquisition side. So that's the first place because we look to and we've got the, obviously the balance sheet to do it. We did buy back $60 million of shares. We have the willingness and ability to do that. We've got another $440 million authorized under that share buyback program.
And that's something we'll continue to look to do, you know, when we think the times are right.
Great, John. Thank you very much.