So we’ll be monetizing the full value of all the DMT as fast as we can make it and driving that utilization rate up as fast as we possibly can. And then, as higher value markets like Triton come back, we’ll shift the mix in how we assign the recycled content to the higher value markets. So we’ve got great flexibility that’s created a huge amount of value and makes upgrade over the last decade as we grew Triton on the same assets that once made PET over a decade ago. And we can take advantage of that now. In regards to the French plant, we’re not changing anything there either. So the design of that plant is to have two polymer lines, both of which are flexible between making PET or textiles or what we said is specialties, but that’s actually co-polyesters, not Triton.
To your point, Triton is much more economically made here in the US with the integrated systems and monomers that we have to make that very unique polymer. So this will be just more PETG products that go into packaging, cosmetics, bottles and things like that and a variety of other applications that we make with our traditional PET cheese. So nothing’s changed in our assets strategy whatsoever from a product mix point of view. Kingsport’s all specialties, France is half PET, half specialty, and the second US plant here is all PET or textiles.
Jeff Zekauskas: Okay, great. Thank you.
Operator: Our next question comes from Salvator Tiano of Bank of America. Salvatore, Please go ahead.
Salvator Tiano: Yes, thank you very much. Firstly, I want to ask a little bit about your plasticizer’s footprint. How much would you say of your total sales or earnings was coming from the Texas City facility that you’re selling? And can you discuss a little bit what are the economics of the agreement where [emails] (ph) will actually operate the asset but technically you’re still the owner of it?
Mark Costa: Yes, so we retained the ownership of the Texas City plasticizers. That was the original strategic intent of buying the Texas City’s facility along with, I’ll call it, the infrastructure that the site had. So first, we’re retaining the ownership and the sales. Second, I would say the economics around that are substantially the same as it operated today within chemical intermediates. So the only thing that you’re going to see is reduced sales of acetyls out of the Texas City site within chemical intermediates. The remaining plasticizer business is and remains intact.
Salvator Tiano: Okay, perfect. And I also want to ask about pulp prices. I think there has been some traction with increases in the past one or two months max. What are you seeing there and could this be a headwind in the end for 2024?
Mark Costa: No, we’re not expecting any headwinds from pulp. Part of what we did in our tow contracts is, improve our pricing, obviously, to get our margins back to being able to reliably supply our customers, because this is an extremely valuable product for them and reliability is a priority for them. But we also change the contracts. It used to be fixed price contracts, and we had to ride the benefit or the headwind associated with pulp prices or energy. We’ve now adjusted those contracts to be more like our [indiscernible] business where they’re more cost pass through and adjust for changes in energy or pulp. So that’s not a concern as we go forward. It’s not perfect, but it’s a significant improvement from where we were in the past.
Salvator Tiano: Perfect. Thank you very much.
Operator: Our next question comes from Michael Leithead of Barclays. Mike, please go ahead.
Michael Leithead: Great, thank you. Good morning, guys. First, Mark, I wanted to follow-up on fibers. In January, when we started the year, when you had the annual prices sort of locked in, you expected to make about $275 million this year in EBIT. Now we’re looking north of $410 million. So can you maybe just talk about what’s changed versus starting the year with largely costs? And just help us with your confidence in the sustainability of this higher level here?
William McLain: So, what I would highlight is the fact that, one, we’re confident in the base of where we’ve gotten to at this point in time. So we’re at greater than $410 million for this year. The business team has done a tremendous job of getting the contract structure in place. That’s what Mark just highlighted. From our confidence of both the margins within this business, also as we think about Fibers more broadly with the textiles and the textiles growth as we go from 2023 to 2024. I guess I would just highlight that right now, we’re substantially complete with the contracts for 2024 and have a high commitment level as we highlighted in the preparedness remarks for 2025. Going back to the first part of your question, ultimately part of that was growing in confidence.
We do have lower energy cost than we had expected at the beginning of the year. And as we gained momentum and seeing how the contracts and the contract structures were working, we just reconfirmed that as we grew the earnings and grew the confidence by year end. [Multiple Speakers] so we’re happy with where it’s headed and will be a strong contributor to cash as we go forward.
Mark Costa: The cost structure and utilization benefits and we were being conservative about how well some of the investments we were making and running the plant efficiently. We’re going to play out until we had that proven out. And so all that came together. So it’s not just price, we’ve made investments and are operating our facilities a lot better. And that we didn’t want to sort of count on until we’ve proven it to ourselves.
Michael Leithead: Great, that’s super helpful. And then second, I just wanted to follow-up on the trajectory of CapEx. Obviously, you’ve given us some numbers about CapEx going somewhat lower next year. But when I just think about your large growth projects, you’ve got about two more methanologist projects on the horizon. You mentioned earlier to Jeff about the new timing on Triton. So just high level, should we expect CapEx to roughly stay around this $800 million range the next few years? Should it trend higher or lower overall?
