Vincent Anderson: Perfect, very helpful. Thanks. And if my math is correct, this maybe a big if on a Friday, but it looks like your aiming’s revenues were actually up sequentially in the fourth quarter. Do I have that right? And if so, can you talk about what was going on there?
Michael Preston: Yeah. When you look at the third to fourth quarter sequential bridge here, you’ll note that roughly a percentage point on total revenue was driven by M&A. And that’s all U.S. Amines. And some of that is they’re serving. When you look at the Ag sector, and the seasonality associated with that can impact the timing of revenues from a quarter to quarter. So more of this was a bit of a seasonal improvement and we would expect also the first half of the year to be strong as the season, is that a high level typically in the first half.
Vincent Anderson: Okay. Excellent. And actually, a quick one in the similar vein. Your cash advances picked up quite a bit versus prior years, obviously, excluding last year. Can you speak to how much of that represented a higher percentage of your 2Q fertilizer volumes versus just price being higher in that dollar amount?
Erin Kane: Sure. We can certainly provide some clarity there. So again, we did proceed with a pre-buy this year, as it was in the interest of our customers and a desire to proceed with one. What we would say is that the volume for the pre-buy would be on average consistent with the pre-buys that we conducted in the years prior to last year. So, let’s call it ’19 ’20, ’20 ’21. The difference really being — the market price being higher than that timeframe.
Vincent Anderson: Okay. Perfect, tanks.
Operator: The next question, the next question comes from David Silver with CL King. Please go ahead.
David Silver: Hi. Good morning. I’m going to warn you in advance, I’ve had an unusual morning, so I joined the call late. But so, I’m going to make you repeat yourself on one or two things, but could we just start — could you just summarize what the operational challenges were this quarter? Again, I wasn’t able to listen to your opening remarks, but both in the — if you could just characterize the source of it, and then if you quantified it at all, I’d appreciate you just summarize, including that comment as well. Thank you.
Michael Preston: Yes. Sure, David. Happy to provide a little bit more color. Where we saw some more of the lower utilization rates relative to what we had planned was later in the quarter, particularly in December. You may recall, we hit a string of weather across the country that had some very frigid temperatures that impacted not only us, but also others in the industry. And that resulted in us running at lower rates than what we would’ve liked. And so that, was the main driver in the quarter and we’re comfortable that we took all the necessary actions to get back up to plan here, and will and do expect better performance here as we get into the first quarter.
David Silver : Okay. Thank you for that. I wanted to ask a question about U.S. Amines. So, it’s been — you’ve owned it now for three full quarters. And I was just wondering if you could just talk about the integration, talk about the synergies you’ve been able to realize cost, but also revenue if there are some crossover benefits. And then, with your CapEx spend for next year, the higher CapEx spend, how much, if anything of that is really dedicated to executing on some comments you made in the past about there being some pretty straightforward expansion opportunities there. Thank you.
Erin Kane : Sure, David. So, we’re actually coming up on a year, which is terrific, and I would share that the integration has gone well. The functional integration is largely complete, which is great. It went to plan as has sort of the last couple of quarters relative to our expectations, in bringing the portfolio into our fold. So again, we’re pleased with where we sit, we’re on target to where we were expecting to be. And so that’s important. One of the considerations when we announced the acquisition was really around that this was an asset or set of assets in a business that landed itself for future growth. So our primary focus was to begin executing against those projects where we saw opportunity to take the multi-faceted assets that they possessed, which are more pots and pans oriented to expand capability sets and begin to use them in a new and expanded ways.
So again, the CapEx targets — again, CapEx here the assets are not as CapEx intensive as our other assets. So again, we have begun deploying against those projects to enable us to expand capability sets. So there are a number of Amines that we can make, including, psycho hexamine, improving the production of isopropyl alcohol and things that are inside the views, other diamine. And, we continue to have customers and potential customers reach out. And so again, that is where we are headed to relative to the value creation of the acquisition rather than more traditional sales synergies as you asked about. So again, on track, I think as we continue to progress we’ll be able to, speak more about those items, but, we are where we expected to be and continue to work that plan.
David Silver: Okay. And just to follow up on that, in the past you’ve talked about, I believe $200 million or so of specialty intermediate another specialty product revenues or differentiated revenues. Where do you think that run rate is now and what are your — when you think about 2023, is that going to comprise a growing percentage of your overall revenues or overall earnings power in your estimation? What is the — what is budgeted kind for that clutch of differentiated products?
Erin Kane: No, it’s true again. Certainly we have been proud of the growth that we have seen, really over the last five years as we pointed out in prior sessions. Significant growth in our both high purity intermediates and high value intermediates that are going into areas of paints and coatings and electronics, expanding and continuing to grow for our wire and cable on co-polymer sales and nylon. What I would say, David, is that, while these are differentiated products, they’re not necessarily immune per se to the global considerations and end market dynamics. So certainly long-term trends for these applications are very positive and it’s why we’ve continue to invest and continue to think about our portfolios in these spaces.
But they can have considerations for demand just like other applications. And so, there’s continued focus. But for instance, you know, semiconductors as things kind of move down and people are thinking about purchase of goods in 2023, may perhaps be at a different rate of growth than we’ve seen in the past few years. Europe has also seen a slowdown in pains, coatings, and sealant. So again, this is a long-term focus for us. And I think that kind of the key takeaway is that it’s not entirely immune, but again, we expect these things to recover and continue to have those long-term opportunities for us.
David Silver: Okay, great. I’m going to keep going if you don’t mind. Everyone else had their first shot, so too bad for them. But, I wanted to ask you a question about nylon and in particular, I guess the construction or related uses and in North America, I guess residential construction side of things has slowed down a fair amount and what do I know? But if the Fed is continuing to raise interest rates, I’m thinking that could have incremental negative effects, let’s say, on mortgage rates and things like that. How do you think about marketing I guess, or allocating, your nylon capacity to different end markets and what makes sense in an uncertain economic environment, but definitely one where residential construction seems to be on the downturn right now? I’ll stop there, but thank you.
Erin Kane: No, as you say, certainly residential construction is being hit more strongly than commercial. That said, nylon plays well into the commercial space. We would see that certainly areas like lodging, hospitality these are areas where the consumer is still spending we think about the latest reports sales against leisure and hospitality and those types of services continue to be strong areas. It generates opportunities for continued remodeling and upgrades, so there is a mix, but certainly that can be a challenge and certainly will be most impacted by inflation, consumer confidence, interest rates, and we see that in remodeling activity coming down as you say, housing starts and certainly existing home sales. But again, nylon — focusing on that commercial space is going to be important for us as we navigate through, the collective set of dynamics for this.
Again, our assets to produce nylon have some flexibility. So, again, it’s one of those degrees of freedom that we have to manage mix along the way. Customers are still buying, we want to make sure that we are supporting those key folks. Opportunities around in this space of sustainability are becoming important as well. And so interest in our post-industrial recycled grades and post-consumer recycled grades are going to be important here as they are in other applications as well. So, again, at the end we’ve got the flexibility of our assets. We’ve got sort of a mix of ensuring that we are capturing the commercial opportunities even as a smaller base residential impact on carpet may come into play. And then, really ensuring that — and we’ve proven this in the past that we can pull those levers and navigate through.
David Silver: Probably nothing you haven’t seen before, but interest rates have been so low recently. I don’t know. I just, wanted to hear you talk through that, so thank you. One last question. And this has to do with Europe, and I guess, the impact of lower natural gas costs there on, I guess, global trade patterns. But I guess, natural gas has come well off of its, spiking highs of the past year, year and a half. And I’m just wondering since natural gas is used effectively for both fertilizers that could be produced in Europe as well as nylon and caprolactam. I mean, I’m just wondering if you’re seeing or anticipating any shift in trade patterns, in other words, import product that used to be exported to Europe, imported into Europe, may now get backed out. And just wondering if you’re seeing any of that on either nylon or in fertilizer to this point. And what might your expectations be going forward?
