So we were actually flat in volume and mix leading up to the fourth quarter and the entirety of the volume/mix decline was driven there. And because of some of the very unique operational challenges we had last year, those limited our ability to deliver growth, especially in Advanced Materials. So those two factors sort of constrained what was on track at the beginning of January before the Ukrainian were rapid inflation, everything else was going to be a really impressive year of earnings growth. So I wouldn’t sort of overwork on trying to interpret too much into the 2022. Our challenge and our proof point will be if we deliver this performance that we’ve just sort of suggested in our outlook discussion today, in this kind of challenging economic environment.
That’s a really strong endorsement about the quality and strength of the portfolio to manage through these challenges. There’s no question, we create a lot of value in markets that have economic sensitivity, whether it’s B&C or durables or auto. Auto, all last year was at recession levels. 80% below 2019 is not a good year for auto demand. And we managed to actually still do reasonably well in that business on the volume mix side. So I think we feel really good about the quality of the portfolio from a volume/mix point of view and its ability to deliver innovation and growth through all kinds of platforms, not just big circular platform we’ve been talking about, but cellulosics has probably $200 million upside when we go forward. over the next three, four years.
And then the interlayers business, as I discussed earlier, has a tremendous amount of growth. PPF is great. Coating, adhesives has a lot of sustainable introductions to the marketplace, semiconductor leverage we have in high-purity solvency. So growth innovation is very much there as the specialty business should have to deliver good results. Margin stability actually is on the spread side quite good. When you look at the portfolio, how it combines together to deliver steady spreads at the favorable margin level. And we’ve demonstrated very good commercial discipline. So what you really got last year is a manufacturing recession in one quarter and a huge currency headwind for the year. And then some limitations on how much growth we’re going to have with some one-off operational issues.
So I don’t think there’s any lack of differentiation in this portfolio or quality of that. And I think as we get through this year and start delivering pretty significant growth next year, assuming we put this recession behind us, is going to be very attractive for owners.
Operator: The next question comes from John Roberts with Crédit Suisse.
John Roberts : You had an ethylene/propylene flex project for Longview. Has that been delayed? And if you had that in place, would you have still shut down the cracker?
Mark Costa : So we’re not yet constructing that project. We are completing the licensing and the early engineering work around being able to pull the trigger on that project as soon as we feel it’s appropriate. We have a lot of requests for capital across our portfolio back to valuation discussion that I just commented on. It’s not just circular that has a lot of capital opportunities for very attractive returns on investment. Our whole specialty portfolio has those opportunities as well. And while certainly, the current economic challenges are there, we don’t see a lack of growth opportunities across our portfolio on the specialty side. So those get priority call on capital relative to the ethylene and propylene investment.
It’s one that we will for sure do when it’s at the right time, but we’re going to have to be thoughtful about how we manage our overall CapEx budget. And to answer your question, if E to P was in place, we would not be — we would not have left as cracker down. Remember, we had it down for maintenance. We just didn’t bring it back up after we completed the planned maintenance. And we would certainly pin down for the maintenance in Q4, but would have been switching to E to P right now.
