Ecovyst Inc. (NYSE:ECVT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Kurt Bitting: Yes. I think Mike and I have been with this — have been with the legacy businesses here, I think, since 2006. So we’ve had the opportunity we’ve been through a couple of the economic down cycles. And you look at all the — you look at the segment trends, driving most of our businesses really refinery, the regeneration business is being driven by, again, utilization that demand for alkylate, which we see will continue to be strong. Virgin acid, another large product line of ours that’s being really driven by things like green technologies and low-carbon technologies and you talk about mining. So we look at those types of things with the underlying commodities continue to be strong in those areas. And those are really transitional.

We talk about mining and the green technology is really transitional. So even if there would be a downturn, we believe those will continue to be strong because there’s heavy investment, both private and government going into those areas. And for Catalyst Technologies, a lot of the same thing. Our high-density polyethylene catalyst sales are continuing to support light weighting of vehicles and packaging and film as well as the other things like renewable fuels, and hydro cracking, which we’re benefiting from strong distillate demand and strong demand for those renewable fuels. So we feel confident this business would be resilient in an economic downturn, and it’s shown that to be the case during the 2008 and 2020 downturns as well.

Daniel Rizzo: All right. Thank you very much.

Operator: . We’ll take our next question from David Silver with CLK.

David Silver: Hi. Thanks very much. I had a couple of questions. I just wanted to start clarification, I think, on the tax rates. So just as a perspective, but I think in 2022, we started out thinking the tax accrual rate was going to be closer to 30% and it never really reached that level on an adjusted basis by my records that whole year, and then it was much, much lower in the fourth quarter. Could you maybe comment on that? And then in particular, what kind of range is reasonable for using for our 2023 forecast? Thank you.

Michael Feehan: Yes, David, it’s Mike. Thank you for the question. I think in the past, we talked about the tax rate being in the mid to high 20s. So probably not quite approaching the 30. I mean we are a domestic business, where a significant amount of our production does come out of the U.S., which has a statutory rate of 25% plus state taxes and such. However, we do have opportunities to lower our taxes through some of our structures that we have and how we’re selling our products, which puts us probably in the mid-20s on a run rate basis. I think our adjusted tax rate was around 23% or 24% this past quarter. So we probably expect it to be somewhere in the mid-20s on a go-forward basis.

David Silver: Okay. Thank you for that. My next question would be about the catalyst for renewable fuels. And I’m looking at the very the bottom slice of Slide 7. But you talked about the opportunities in sustainable aviation fuel, and I think you used the word nascent, but the part of your renewable fuels business that goes into, I don’t know, the spend cooking oil or the mixed feedstocks. As I recall, I mean, that’s a very nice profit-making opportunity for you just due to the demands on the catalyst and maybe the more frequent replacement cycle or a shorter replacement cycle. I’m just curious, this is not a new business, but why is production capacity? I guess you’re talking about the demand for your product rising like 50% in the next year. And what does Ecovyst have to do to be fully prepared to kind of exploit that unusual growth opportunity? Thank you.