Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 10 of 12

So, we don’t see – so, we see those coke and NGLs as the primary movers right now for us in that area.

Jason Gabelman: Got it. Thanks. And my follow-up is on the $3 billion divestment target and not really where that’s going to come from, but use of proceeds. You mentioned in the earnings press release that those proceeds will be deployed to strategic priorities, including returns to shareholders. But I was wondering if there is a desire to use some of that cash to continue to grow and just, kind of in broad strokes, what type of growth you would prioritize? Thanks.

Mark Lashier: Yes. Thanks Jason. The cash that we might receive from those asset dispositions will be allocated consistent with our premise capital allocation process. It always includes a growth element. And if there are things that we can accelerate in our growth agenda, we can look at that. But certainly, also would be a factor is opportunities around our balance sheet and then opportunities to hit the high end of our cash return to shareholders target. So, it’s all in play, just like any dollar of cash that we would turn over to treasury.

Jason Gabelman: Got it. Thanks for the color.

Mark Lashier: You bet.

Operator: Thank you, Jason. Matthew Blair from Tudor, Pickering, Holt. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Matthew Blair: Hey. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First one is on the chem side. Could you talk about some of the dynamics in PE? Inventories have cleaned up a little bit here, but what’s your margin outlook for both the U.S. and international heading into Q4? Could you give a comment on [Technical Difficulty]

Operator: Hi Matthew, unfortunately, your line is breaking up, so we will have to move to the next question. If you would like to rejoin the queue and potentially try dialing back in.

Mark Lashier: Yes. We heard the first part, so Tim is going to take a shot at the first part around PE margins and inventories.

Tim Roberts: Yes, let me do that. Sorry, Matt, with the breakout there. I got the front end of it. And so I could take a wild guess on the back end, but that probably wouldn’t go well. So, from a chem standpoint, look, it feels like a little bit of a broken record. We still have a supply-demand imbalance. Clearly, China, Asia is not where we would like it to be. Over time, we expect that to come back around. But you are going to have to see a correction in the new capacity that’s coming onboard, coupled with demand picking up. So, we do think that’s going to be hard to see at least through 2024. But to your point, I mean when you have things like we have seen a little bit of improvement on polyethylene, you see a couple of price increases, which have been good.

I don’t know if they are sustainable, but nonetheless, they have come through, which has helped. And we have seen inventories coming off slowly, but coming off. So, from that standpoint, there is a little bit of, I am going to say, constructive, but we know that balance has got to get fixed. Now, the one thing that I think is really important we stress here is, though, that CPChem’s kit and their assets, 96% of their assets are utilizing advantaged feedstocks. So, while there may be a lot of pain in the chemical space, those that are leveraging advantaged feedstocks are doing okay. We would love to be doing a lot better, but they are doing okay. Our assets at CPChem are running hard as well as probably their competition using light feed in the U.S. Gulf Coast and in the Middle East.

Page 10 of 12