AdvanSix Inc. (NYSE:ASIX) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Preston: Yes. Yes, no good question. In the first half, just to put some numbers around it, we — our CapEx spend in the first half was roughly $44 million and we’re still guiding to a 110 to 120 amount for the full year, which means that you know, the second half spend has to ramp up quite a bit about two thirds of the annual spend and roughly is in the second half. And as you know as we execute the turnaround a lot of the capital equipment that we’ve been planning for will be installed and our CapEx will increase as a result and so we do expect a ramp up here in the third quarter and then another ramp up in the 4th. And we talked about some of the projects that were focused on this year which is resulting in the increased and elevated spend.

Some of those critical infrastructure projects that we’ve talked about, particularly some of the dock we have at our Frankfurt facility which we’re performing some upgrades to and some other projects as well. So that is driving the spend for the year and what we expect here and in the second half Dave.

David Silver: Okay. Thank you for that. One question to go back maybe to the nylon chain and the market dynamics right now and in particular China. You know, there’s a lot of consensus on the fact that China is exporting a lot of nylon that they can’t place domestically, nylon and its precursor. But I was just wondering, are they in your opinion, are there other nylon chain products that they are also you’re seeing the same type of opportunistic export behavior perhaps out of China? And then I’m thinking of ammonium sulfate firstly, but anything else that you think is kind of filtering into the markets that we need to keep an eye on? Thank you.

Erin Kane: Yes, sure. I can provide some context in the chain. You know, as you point out and mostly in our remarks, China export volumes globally, now sort of equate to three times the size of Chesterfield’s capacity right. So the equivalent of three of our nylon plants are now being exported globally from China and certainly I just say that is in a slower growth environment for them. And certainly pressuring opportunity sets into Europe, but then also into North America. And the share predominantly coming in in the engineered plastics space and then that is also carrying downstream to where the plastic engineered compounds made of nylon 6 are also coming in, pressuring and competing with our customers. We extend that to sort of the broader chain obviously global flake caprolactam is being exported as well and then the result in the ammonium sulfate which we have seen for a number of years now and Chinese AS production exports effectively as they have expanded their capacity inland for [indiscernible] and that has brought ammonium sulfate.

Ammonium sulfate has been flat in domestic consumption there. So it’s effectively with every addition that they have added that ammonium sulfate is being exported globally and that has reached nearly 13 million tons if you think about it. So it’s a significant consideration in the global marketplace. And that is predominantly and they are heading into Brazil, Southeast Asia. And so that’s just a little bit of context in that regard, right. So I can certainly expand if there’s anything more as a follow on, but that is what we’re seeing in the value chain.