Olin Corporation (NYSE:OLN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Scott Sutton: Yeah. Todd, do you want to answer that?

Todd Slater: Yes. Thanks, Scott. Clearly, we will continue to target share repurchases. But as you saw this year, we’re willing to deploy some of that cash towards the White Flyer acquisition. But only any type of acquisition will have to demonstrate the ability to be much better than buying shares. And today, it’s an easy decision. We’re targeting buying 10% of our outstanding shares this year.

Arun Viswanathan: Thanks.

Operator: The next question comes from Mike Sison from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Mike Sison: Hi, guys good morning. So you’re running your operating rates below 50% or so for Chlor Alkali. Where do you think the industry or the other major players will run in the fourth quarter? And just curious, if you ran at that level, would your impact be more than the $100 million that you’re going to take for lowering your operating rates?

Scott Sutton: Hey, Mike, I don’t know what anybody else is doing. But I can say that, yeah, I mean, our whole system is running around that 50% number. And you may recall that we had predicted a certain trough level, and we said that trough level, assume that we could get our whole system down to 50% rates if we needed to. The reality is we can run lower than that if we had to, to have a bigger activation. But would come at a bigger penalty than that $100 million if we were doing that. We think this is the right place to go down to. It leaves us with one low number in the fourth quarter of roughly $200 million EBITDA, which, by the way, at that level, we still have positive levered free cash flow. So yes, look, we have some room. I don’t think we need to use it, but we have some room.

Mike Sison: Okay. And then, I guess it sounds like in Q1, you may have to run at this level in order for you to have EBITDA above 2023 for 2024, where would your operator need to improve to over time? 2Q, 3Q, 4Q? And can you remind us in your prior $1.5 billion to $2 billion EBITDA recession case, what your Chlor Alkali operating rates would need to be to get back there?

Scott Sutton: Yeah, yeah. Well, I would just say we may or may not need to do this in Q1, just to be clear, right? But if we did need to do this in Q1, in the later parts of the year, we need to bring rates up. We can’t run the whole year at 50% rates, right? And that’s not our plan to do that. In our previous recession case or trough case guidance, right, which if you go back four quarters ago, it was $1.5 billion of EBITDA as the low point. That number assumed roughly 50% rates at that same pricing level. So, I hope I answered your question on that.

Mike Sison: Thank you.

Scott Sutton: Sure.

Operator: The next question comes from Matthew Blair from TPH. Please go ahead.

Matthew Blair: Hey good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Is it fair to think that the shutdowns at Freeport and St. Gabriel are going to take about 1 million tons of capacity out of the US market that’s around 14 million tons? And if those numbers are correct, is that enough to materially tighten up the market, or would you count on other producers also shutting in some capacity too?

Scott Sutton: Well, I mean, this is an Olin activation, right? I can’t comment on anybody else and it doesn’t count on anybody else taking any kind of action that is similar to that. And I also won’t comment on exactly what the capacity reduction is. I will just say it’s significant, and it’s significant enough to take our whole system, which we operate the largest system in the US and the world by a long shot, all the way down to a utilization of 50% or below. So, it’s a big number.