Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Alpek's fourth quarter 2025 earnings webcast.

I am Bárbara Amaya, Alpek's IRO, and I am pleased to be here today with Jorge Young, our CEO; and José Carlos Pons, our CFO, who will be presenting today's material. Today, we'll be covering the following topics: first, Jorge will walk us through the key highlights for 2025; second, José Carlos will cover the financial results for the quarter; third, Jorge will discuss our outlook for 2026, followed by José Carlos who will delve into our guidance figures; then, Jorge will outline our strategic priorities for 2026; and finally, we will conclude with a Q&A session.

Please note that the information discussed today may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's future financial performance and prospects, which are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially, and the company cautions the market not to rely unduly on these forward-looking statements.

Alpek undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether it is as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. We express our financial results in US dollars unless otherwise specified.

For your convenience, this webcast is being recorded and will be available on our website. Jorge, I'll turn the call over to you.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today.

Throughout 2025, amid the continuation of a challenging environment for the chemical industry, our teams worked diligently on actions within our control to strengthen our financial position and solidify our global operations. Alpek's financial and operating results were largely impacted by global overcapacity, resulting in a difficult year, particularly for our polyester business.

We also executed several planned, but longer than expected, maintenance outages. By contrast, our Plastics & Chemicals businesses delivered a more stable performance.

As a result, our full-year comparable EBITDA totaled $489 million, down 30% from last year. I would like to emphasize that our focus on strengthening our financial position has led to a sequential improvement in our operating free cash flow, which was $163 million, a considerable improvement of 57% from previous year, demonstrating the company's resilience and financial discipline.

We continue to execute our previously outlined four strategic pillars, which play a key role in reinforcing the company's competitiveness. First, strengthen our core business.

We advanced on our targeted footprint optimization by ceasing PET operations at the Cedar Creek facility and relocating that capacity to more competitive larger assets. As a result of this initiative, we expect to realize a benefit of approximately $20 million in 2026, which will partially offset broader macroeconomic headwinds.

Second, financial flexibility. We maintained disciplined capital allocation, optimized our net working capital, and executed debt refinancing.

These actions strengthened our liquidity and extended our maturity profile. Additionally, we also suspended the dividend and made progress in the monetization of non-strategic assets, which are expected to materialize in 2026.

Third, boosting growth. We advanced the development of high-margin solutions in our PET thermoform and EPS businesses and continued expanding our specialty products in our polypropylene businesses.

This supports portfolio differentiation while providing incremental EBITDA over time. Fourth, capitalizing on opportunities.

Beyond the developments already discussed, we have been selectively expanding outside the petrochemical industry, mainly through our energy commercialization business, particularly by expanding recently to the power sector, which we expect will support growth over the coming years. Finally, a major milestone in 2025 was the successful spin-off and merger with Controladora Alpek, fully establishing Alpek as an independent entity with a streamlined corporate structure.

Now, I will turn the call over to José Carlos to provide our financial performance in greater detail.

Good morning, everyone. Let me walk you through our quarter quarterly results.

Starting with our Polyester segment, volume was 836,000 tons, down 10% both sequentially and year-over-year, reflecting softer demand and longer than expected planned maintenance outages at several of our sites. These operational factors weighed in on production in the short term.

However, we have since resumed most of our operations. On an annual basis, seasonal effects were stronger, alongside the strategic decision to exit low-margin PTA and PET exports.

Polyester comparable EBITDA totaled $41 million, a 53% decrease versus the third quarter, pressured by lower volumes, weaker margins, and historically low ocean freights. On a year-over-year basis, oversupply, trade-related dynamics, and global freight costs impacted performance.

By contrast, the Plastics & Chemicals segment continued to deliver stable results. Volume was 184,000 tons, decreasing 6% quarter-over-quarter and 7% year-over-year, reflecting softer demand in both periods.

Plastics & Chemicals comparable EBITDA totaled $55 million, up 17% sequentially and 50% lower year-over-year, as steady margins helped offset softer volumes and typical seasonal effects. Together, our segments resulted in a volume of 1.02 million tons, decreasing 9% versus the previous quarter and year-over-year.

Our reported EBITDA totaled $70 million, a 40% decrease quarter-on-quarter, as a reduction in commodity prices and feedstocks resulted in a $29 million inventory adjustment, primarily in the Polyester segment, as paraxylene saw a 7% sequential decrease. Relevant reference margins for our Polyester segment saw more stability compared to last quarter, yet remained pressured.

For our Plastics & Chemicals segments, reference margins were steady. Finally, comparable EBITDA was $100 million, a 27% decline versus the previous quarter.

Looking at our full-year free cash flow and capital allocation, we saw a net working capital recovery of $50 million, supported by optimizations and lower volatility in raw material prices. These efforts are aligned with our cash generation goals.

CapEx for the quarter totaled $51 million, consisting of $41 million in maintenance and $10 million in strategic CapEx, aligned with our priority and planned maintenance across multiple sites. This resulted in an annual CapEx of $170 million.

Full-year operational free cash flow totaled $163 million, a significant improvement of 57% on an annual basis, demonstrating solid cash generation and Alpek's resilience amidst a challenging environment. Moving to our balance sheet and financial position, leverage ended at 4.4 times net debt to EBITDA, reflecting lower last-12-months reported EBITDA amid sustained low margin levels.

The company is implementing additional measures to strengthen its balance sheet as a prolonged cycle recovery is expected, and deleveraging continues to be a top priority. Notably, pro forma leverage would have resulted in 3.9 times, adjusting for footprint optimization and restructuring costs.

Net debt was $1.8 billion, flat versus the previous quarter, yet we were able to decrease it by $44 million versus 2024, a solid accomplishment in the current market context. We remain financially flexible entering 2026, given the successful debt refinancing, solid cash generation, available committed credit lines, and disciplined CapEx management.

I'll turn the call back to Jorge to discuss our 2026 outlook.

We approach 2026 with a cautious outlook, as we expect macroeconomic conditions from last year to persist. Global oversupply continues to weigh on the industry.

Although recent years have seen the initial progress towards capacity rationalization, further actions will be needed to improve the market balance. In parallel, we expect demand to remain soft.

We also anticipate ocean freight costs to remain at relatively low levels, consistent with the significant reductions observed towards the end of 2025. Notably, we expect greater operational and financial stability in our polyester business in 2026, forecasting a modest improvement and relative stability in reference margins.

Turning to our Plastics & Chemicals businesses, we expect profitability in this segment to be somewhat constrained in 2026. This is primarily due to capacity additions in North America, particularly tied to polypropylene, coupled with continued softness in EPS demand, as construction markets have yet to show meaningful signs of recovery.

Lastly, we expect our emerging business to remain on a growth trajectory, with continued expansion and additional contribution to EBITDA in 2026. We remain confident this segment's potential and we're targeting a doubling of its size over the next 3 years.

With that in context, José Carlos will walk you through the detailed assumptions and guidance ranges for 2026.

Our base case projects comparable EBITDA in the range of $450 to $500 million based on the following assumptions: PET reference margins average $145 per ton, a 2% increase over last year's average; ocean freight costs for South America at $75 per ton, a 40% reduction from 2025; polypropylene reference margins at 13 cents per pound, a 7% margin compression; and an exchange rate of 18 pesos per dollar, a 6% appreciation; and minimal benefits from US PET reciprocal tariffs. It is also worth noting that our base case assumes minimal contribution from non-strategic asset monetization.

The acceleration or successful closing of any of these transactions would represent upside to our expectations. Moving to the rest of the metrics, CapEx is set at $130 million, following our disciplined approach and commitment to operational efficiency.

For the first time ever, we are now introducing a guidance figure for operating free cash flow, which is expected to be between $100 and $150 million. This figure is further supported by our continuous efforts in cost control, capital allocation, and net working capital optimizations.

Volume is expected to reach around 4.5 million tons. Given the prolonged industry low cycle, we expect our leverage ratio to stabilize around 3.5 times over the next 12 to 18 months, subject to market conditions.

Our long-term target remains at 2.5 times, and we will continue executing our deleveraging strategy to reach it. Now, in addition to the base case, there are potential drivers that could improve performance if they materialize.

These include PET reference margins stabilizing at $155 per ton. I'd like to highlight that in January, spreads averaged $171 per ton, recently reaching up to $190 per ton.

While we view the current price discipline in China as a supportive factor, it is still early to assess whether it will hold. We will continue to track market dynamics and provide updates as appropriate.

Ocean freight costs at or above $85 per ton for South America, an exchange rate closer to 19 pesos per dollar, the successful monetization of non-strategic asset sales, and greater capitalization from US PET reciprocal tariffs. Together, these represent a potential estimated upside of approximately $50 million to comparable EBITDA.

It is important to highlight that these factors are not meant to be additive, and they will not occur simultaneously. Instead, they represent key variables that we recommend you track, and they could contribute incremental value if conditions evolve in our favor.

We will continue monitoring these elements throughout the year and will update our expectations accordingly as visibility improves. Now, Jorge will continue with our priorities for 2026.

With our 2020- 2026 guidance now established, I'd like to wrap up by sharing how we will plan to execute. We're building on the same strategic foundations that served us well in 2025 and remain firmly aligned with our long-term strategy.

In our polyester business, we're taking a differentiated approach across the portfolio. In the commodity segment, which includes PTA and PET resins, our focus is on integrated, scalable assets, serving attractive domestic markets, primarily in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico.

As such, we will continue to work on footprint optimization. A clear example this year is our decision to suspend operations at the Reading recycling facility.

Following the shift in demand towards virgin materials, we are relocating capacity to our Richmond facility, which offers a more cost-competitive platform. In higher value-added polyester, which includes PET sheet and thermoforms, we are advancing targeted low-CapEx investments to debottleneck operations in the Middle East and strengthening our product development capabilities.

Effectively, we're scaling our position in a fast-growing segment and increasing our exposure to higher-margin applications. Turning to our Plastics & Chemicals segment, our strategy is to fully leverage our most competitive regional assets, while expanding into higher-performance and specialty solutions.

We will start ramping up investments made last year, particularly for EPS specialties, and we will also start a multiyear growth project focused on differentiated polypropylene. We believe these opportunities will become key EBITDA contributors moving forward.

Emerging business continues to improve, particularly in energy commercialization. We view this as a promising path to diversify our portfolio and reduce exposure to the petrochemical cycle.

Financial flexibility remains the core enabler of our strategy. We remain committed to disciplined capital allocation, rigorous working capital management, and the monetization of non-strategic assets.

Over the past year, we made meaningful progress on this front, and we expect to finalize the first phase of sales during the first half of 2026. We have identified additional properties in our region for potential sale.

We will share further updates as we advance. In summary, 2026 will be a year of focused execution, delivering on near-term priorities, while continuing to invest in long-term value creation.

I would like to conclude by mentioning that Alpek has experienced difficult cycles over the past 50 years, and we have been successful at adapting and evolving the business as required. A good example of this is how we were able to exit the fibers businesses while moving into PET sheet business, which reflects a more attractive margin profile and value-creation potential.

We are confident that we will emerge from this low cycle successfully, and that our focus on higher value-added products and specialty products will bring greater opportunities and growth over the following years. Bárbara, I'll turn the call back to you.

Before we start the Q&A, a brief reminder: materials and the webcast recording will be available on our website. We will now proceed with the Q&A.

To ask your question live, please raise your hand. We will call on participants in the order they appear.

You may also type your question through the Q&A function. We will attempt to cover as many questions as time allows.

Our first question comes from Leonardo Marcondes. Leo, please proceed with your question.

Hi, everyone. Hi, Jorge.

Hi, José Carlos, Bárbara, and Ale. Thank you for picking my questions here.

I have two from my side. The first one is regarding your guidance.

Correct if I'm wrong, but I believe there was an extraordinary OPEX spending in 2025 to improve operational efficiency that we should not see in 2026, right? If you could walk us through your expectations in terms of OPEX for this year, and if the lower expectation for freight rates have fully offset these lower OPEX that we here were expecting for this year.

Also, there's a discussion regarding the REIQ benefit in Brazil that's going on right now, right? If you could also help us to understand a bit better of how much it could impact your guidance for this year, this potential improvement in REIQ.

My second question is regarding the supply and demand balance in China. I think it was in November when the Chinese government organized a meeting with PET and PTA companies to understand the issues of the market, right?

My question is, what have you heard from the Chinese market and companies regarding this meeting, and if there was any change of the government's approach towards the segment, the Chinese government, right? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Leonardo. Thank you for your two questions.

Yes, regarding guidance in 2026, yes, we are factoring some improvement in our operations, as we explained in 2025. We had some extended maintenance and some operational issues earlier in the year in 2025.

As you mentioned, some of that recovery is partially offset by our assumption of much lower freight costs that are very important to set the import parity prices. That, in general, would answer your first question.

Part B of your first questions regarding the REIQ benefits in Brazil, I think that's an important development. First and foremost, recently, those incentives for the chemical industry, especially for those companies consuming basic petrochemicals and which in our case, our polyester business applies, those benefits were confirmed for the period 2027 and through 2031, so that's a significant accomplishment.

Our support and participation in the ABIQUIM, the chemical industry association, was very meaningful, and we are very happy that those were confirmed, and those are important and meaningful. 2026 was not initially included in the package of benefits, but right now there is an effort that might result in 2026 also receiving benefits for the chemical industry.

We don't have those incorporated in the guidance. As these programs of REIQ and PRESIQ have a combination on support on the acquisition of raw materials through reduced taxation, and also support on selected capital investments.

The second question on China and, yes, the efforts from the Chinese government and, in general, to adapt from what we call cutthroat competition that are driving margins to unsustainable levels. I think the positive thing that we get at this moment is that there is more acknowledgment of the issue.

As José Carlos explained, some actions are already happening to begin 2026. We're not counting on those yet to be sustained, but that's where we are.

At least on the positive, there is acknowledgment that some actions on the overcapacity needs to be taken. Again, this is not only in our industry, right?

In the industries that we participate, like polyester and Plastics & Chemicals of Alpek, this is, in general, a petrochemical and polymer situation that applies to many products.

Yes. Just one follow-up regarding the REIQ.

Do you have any estimate on how much your EBITDA could improve for this year in case they approve the benefit of 5.8 to the PIS/COFINS payments?

We are still, working on those calculations because it could be, perhaps, I don't know, rounding maybe another $10 million to that guidance for 2026, hopefully, a little bit more than that. The we're just still working on the calculations to make sure the final percentage percentages are defined.

Then if you know the details, there is also an an an overriding cap on on how much of the benefit applies for the whole industry. Once all of the details settled, we will have more more details.

I would say order of magnitude for us, maybe 10, around 10.

That's clear. Thank you very much.

That's for 2026, right? Again, we would expect potentially similar or even slightly higher benefits for the period 2027 through 2031.

I think this was a major accomplishment for a portion of the petrochemical industry in Brazil, especially the one that consumes very basic petrochemical feedstocks, like it is the case for us on paraxylene.

Got it. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Thiago Casqueiro from Morgan Stanley. Thiago, please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning. Thank you, Jorge, José, Bárbara, and Ale.

I have two questions here from my side. The first one, I know it has been a very challenging environment for the petrochemical industry, and that the key goal of the company is to reduce leverage towards the 2.5 times in the long term.

I would like to understand when would the company start discussing the possibility of paying dividends this year, if this opportunity appears in the future, obviously. Would it be only when leverage target is reached, or it could be discussed before that?

Because despite all the pressured environment we see right now, we also see that the free cash flow profile for the year looks quite healthy. The second question is related to protectionist measures, kind of a follow-up on Leo's question.

We have seen in Brazil some government actions aimed at protecting domestic industry and preserving competitiveness recently, also with REIQ. Beyond the potential upside from the US PET tariffs that you mentioned in the release and today in the webcast, are there any other items on the government agenda either in the US or in Mexico that could represent additional upside to the guidance you provided?

Thank you.

Thiago, thank you for your question. Regarding your first question in terms of leverage, I'll say that we would like to devote the free cash flow that we will have this year to deleveraging the company.

That will be our top priority. We want to get closer for the 2.5 times that it's our target.

Therefore, we are not expecting to have a dividend this year. This industry.

The situation and the circumstances could change all of a sudden. If we get closer to our leverage target and an improved performance in the company, well, certainly, that could be on the table.

We will devote the majority of our efforts to deleveraging now. Jorge, if you would like to

continue with the second. Yes, Thiago.

I will comment on your second questions that pertains to, as you mentioned, or you define, protectionist measures, and well, I think that's a very important area of focus for us, and we have efforts pretty much in all the countries where we participate. Again, it's not only something that we do as Alpek only, right?

This is something we do in conjunction with relevant industry on each country. You see significant activity happening across other petrochemicals, as well.

Just to comment on the one on US PET tariffs, because there's still some uncertainty, I think, and as José Carlos mentioned, we are yet to see more benefits. There is something that we were able to capture going into 2026.

Somewhat is masked by our assumptions on margins remaining at relatively low levels or ocean freights still coming down. Even with that uncertainty, I think we see interest on the current administration in the United States to protect local manufacturing, and I think even if the Supreme Court comes with a ruling that doesn't confirm the tariffs, I think there will be parallel mechanisms.

Again, we, as industry and as Alpek, continue to work in evaluating other paths in parallel in pretty much all the countries where we are participating. Some of these details we will share as information becomes public.

As I mentioned, this is a very important area of focus across all our key relevant markets.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Our next question comes from Ben Isaacson from Scotiabank. Ben, please proceed with your question.

Do you hear me okay?

Yes.

Very well. Great.

I just have one question only. The question is, is there a strategic or financial rationale for having both the polyester and the P&C segments together?

Do you think that your stock suffers from a discount that could be improved if those businesses were separate? What are the reasons to keep them together?

Thank you.

Thank you, Ben. Thank you for your question.

This is José Carlos. Very good question.

Certainly, we believe that as of today, we see benefits in having a larger company, merging or having both the divisions together. We have efficiencies in SG&A and other operational metrics.

Clear, at this moment, the rationale and the benefits are better than having two split companies. Certainly, we're doing work in 2026 to review our portfolio and see if there are opportunities for us to divest certain portions of our portfolio, certainly with the key objective of deleveraging the company.

Great. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Andrés Cardona from Citi. Andrés, please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning, Jorge, José Carlos, Bárbara. I have a quick question on the guidance.

If you could help me to understand on the Polyester segment how much of the volume has been contracted or licensed for 2026. If I remember correctly, in an average year, it's around 60%.

Just trying to understand how anchored the guidance is. Thank you.

Yes, Andrés. Normally, I would say 70% to 80%, especially in North America.

Perhaps also in South America is a little bit less, and the Middle East a little bit less in those percentages. Maybe, all in all, is about 6 60%.

Coming back to North America, in that range of 70% to 80%, probably we're still more towards the lower end of the range, again, because of some level of uncertainty and the visibility that what will happen with tariffs. Yes, potentially in a more favorable environment on tariffs, there could be still some upside.

We did capture that together with other variables in the additional range that José Carlos described, as we provided the guidance in a base case and we see this year more upsides than downsides on the guidance, and we encompassed all of them together in that second bucket.

Thank you, Jorge. Thank you for the scenarios that you present.

It's something that I find very helpful. You're welcome.

Our next question comes from Tasso Vasconcellos from UBS. Tasso, please proceed with your question.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions.

I have two here. One, Jorge, moving back to the asset sales, can you remind us exactly what assets would you be willing to divest the most, and if you have an expected amount that you would be targeting to raise, considering all of these divestments?

The second questions on that sensitivity that you released for the guidance for the year, the incremental EBITDA. In your view, what would need to happen in the industry, those assumptions become a reality for the year?

I have these two questions here. Thank you.

Sure, Tasso. Here, on the first question about the asset sales, right now we have four pieces of property in the United States that are, all of them, in different degrees of negotiations or documents preparation to complete the sale.

These are, again, four assets where we had operations in the past. We had been working on those throughout last year, and I would say pretty much the four of them are converging right now into the let's call it the stretch time to finish the process.

I think we have our counterparts that are concluding their due diligence. All those four property combined could potentially represent $50 million 50, 5-0 million.

Again, we feel very confident those will materialize in the first half, maybe some of those in Q1, but I would say more likely most of them by the end of the first half of the year. It's a meaningful $50 million contribution to our cash flow.

That's more or less what we have. On top of that, and this is taking longer, perhaps more on a 12 to 18 months, is our largest site in Monterrey where we used to produce fiber, because that potentially has more value.

That is requiring us more time. That was an industrial site that needs to be prepped for other potential uses.

We continue to make progress on that one, but we don't see that yet within the 2026 timeline. We will push for that, but that will likely spill over into the future.

Right now we are focused on these four assets in the United States. On top of that, we have another couple that are coming in Mexico and Brazil and so there will be perhaps not as large, but another bucket for the second half.

Just to complement, Jorge, we're planning to use all the proceeds of this sales to deleverage the company. That's our top priority, and everything that we get on those sales, we will use it to come back to our 2.5 times target.

Yes. I think on the other part of the question, we laid out the key variables, right?

What needs to happen, for example, in global margins. Again, the industries, in general, are under significant pressure.

Again, as we mentioned in the previous question, it's a positive signal that in China, even in China, there is acknowledgment that the margins went to unsustainably low levels. We see a small rebound to begin the year.

If that stays, and that, obviously, that's support for the guidance. The other important one, if the uncertainty on tariffs is removed and there is more certainty on tariffs, that will eventually drive more volume and margin opportunities that we will capitalize.

That process, again, is taking longer, right, given the lower visibility on tariffs. That's potentially the other one.

We just mentioned the REIQ benefit in Brazil. We didn't capture that in our range, but that's going through the chambers now, so that's the other one.

More importantly for us is to focus on operating our assets very well. For us, operating our facilities very safely and with pristine reliability is how we can best help ourselves.

That's a very high priority. Again, that's to give you a flavor, right?

Many variables combining into one range. That's more or less what we see today.

That's clear. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Alejandra Andrade from J.P. Morgan.

Ale, please proceed with your question.

Hi. How are you?

Thank you so much for taking my question. I just wanted to understand from you guys, what do you think the timeline could be to realistically get back to your target leverage?

Also, I'm just curious if you've had discussions with the rating agencies, given your current outlook on how patient they'll be in terms of your delivery to get leverage down to your target? Thank you.

Alejandra, thank you for your question. To be completely clear, we don't expect to get to the level of 2.5 times this year.

It's something that can happen in 2027, we're working towards that. Of course, if we get some of the upsides that Jorge already pointed out, if we are successful in selling those non-strategic assets that are already mentioned, and there might be a second wave of other divestitures, well, that could speed up the process, and maybe by year-end this year.

At this moment, our base case is that this could happen in 20 2027. In terms of our rating agencies, we've had a close conversation with all of them.

We have updated them on the performance of the company on a perspective for 2026. The conversation is fluid, and we're working with them to see not only this year's performance, but all the things that we're doing to improve our leverage and the commitment that we're doing.

No decision from them, and we will continue to work together with them to keep us updated.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Milene Carvalho from J.P. Morgan.

Milene, please proceed with your question.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions.

I have two matters that I want to approach here. First one is the diversification to power that you mentioned in the presentation.

What do you see as the benefit in this segment? How can you operate this, and is there any strategic CapEx forecast for 2026 in this segment?

The second question is regarding severe weather conditions that we saw early this year. Is this somehow impacting your production?

What should we expect in the first Q specifically into this situation? Thank you.

Milene, on on diversification to power, I think the for us, it's an it's a very significant opportunity as we have amassed over the last decades significant know-how in energy markets, especially in Mexico, but expanding into others like Brazil. Our focus has been mostly on being a a a very reliable supplier.

More than a producer, we we we commercialize energy, both in our more historically, as natural gas, and more recently, we're incurring in in electricity. For the most part, this does not require CapEx.

Again, I think, over the years, it's a a matter of developing know-how and having the right permits and and and certified experience, because not there are barriers of entry. Again, I think it's a it's capitalizing on on on a strength that that we have and and is becoming, very interesting area of focus for for us.

Would you mind framing again the the second question?

Sure. The second question was regarding the severe weather conditions that we saw earlier in 2026.

There was a lot of activities across US that was just shut down. I wanted to understand if somehow this has compromised your production or first quarter expectations?

No,

did not disrupt our operations. I think there were two waves of very cold weather where we took short, proactive shutdowns in the United States, but are not going to be very material for financial purposes.

We will see, though, some impact on higher natural gas prices because although natural gas prices have already come down again to where they were before the cold weather waves, in the meantime, the February contract prices of natural gas in North America ended up on the high side. I think we will see that impacting our energy cost in February.

I would say we weathered the storm fairly well.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Federico Galassi from Rohatyn Group. Fede, please proceed with your question.

Hi. Thank you for taking my question.

Two quick questions. The first one is in your guidance and potential drivers, you are using the FX at 19 pesos per US dollar.

The question is, how is the sensitivity to the Mexican peso, US dollar depreciation? This is the first one.

The second one, in the guidance, are you including all the positive impact for the increase in tariff in Mexico last year? That's both questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Fede. Thank you for your question.

Quick answer on the exchange: 1 peso, more or less, it's equivalent to $15 million of benefit or cost, depending on how you see it. The impacts, yes, we're including a portion of what we saw in Mexico on the protection against Chinese and other imports.

Yes, that's included already in our forecast.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Our next question comes from Chelsea Cullen from Cullen Asset Management. Chelsea, please proceed with your question.

Hi. Thanks for taking the questions.

I just have a few quick ones. Firstly, to clarify, you mentioned around 3.5 times net leverage by the end of this year.

Does that consider that $50 million-ish in asset sales? Also, is that calculated based on your comparable EBITDA guidance?

No. The short answer is yes.

The 3.5 times would require us to sell the non-strategic assets, and it's based on reported EBITDA, because that's the way our banks measure our covenant compliance.

Okay. Great.

Then with regard to the emerging businesses that you mentioned you're trying to double in size over the next 3 years, can you provide some context as to how relevant those businesses are right now from an EBITDA perspective, and so what does a doubling mean? How relevant is it?

Yes, Chelsea, on that question on emerging business. When you look at our numbers, we have our two key segments, and then we have the line Others.

It's commingled there with a few other smaller corporate adjustments that we have. It's our goal that maybe over the next 4 to 5 years, that line reaches closer to 50, so that will give you a good idea.

I think we expect to be, perhaps, in the 20s this year of 2026 and, again, doubling for that. That would be our goal towards 4 or 5 years from now.

Obviously, we will be more ambitious than that. This is to give you a flavor of what we are seeing and give you a flavor of the magnitude, but that doesn't prevent us for pursuing that goal faster or at a higher level.

Maybe a portion of those emerging businesses are within already the polyester and the polypropylene, because it was presented by Jorge that we're also entering into high-value-added products within our core businesses, and that's not included in the Others. It's really just the power and some other things that we're doing in the Others.

Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

Then lastly, I'm just curious with the closing of the Reading facility, you mentioned that there's more demand for virgin resin versus recycled. Can you just elaborate on the reason for that?

Is it just a cost issue for clients?

Recycling continues to be a very important priority for us and for our for our customers. It's it's very important for the sustainability of of the of PET packaging.

Yes, recently, there are some, issues that we that we observe. The the prices of virgin PET are are low, and again, some of the There is a growing path towards increasing recycling content, but sometimes that comes in some with some zigzags.

I think we we see we see at least in the medium term, the opportunity for us to, at least for our for key customers, to supply that recycling content through through through our other facilities, which include, as we mentioned, our Richmond facility in in Indiana. Also, we have recently increased our capability to add recycling content through a technolo- a technology we call single-pellet technology, where we add a recycling feedstock into a virgin PET plant, and the final product is a PET with, let's say, 25% recycled content.

We're using those two tools or or assets to to continue this growth growth path. To to to your question, there is also some shifts, small shift back to virgin, given the the economic pressures that the industry is facing, and so that reflects also the decision of some of our of our customers.

Okay. At this stage, the idea to potentially reopen the Reading facility at some point, or is that likely to be permanently closed?

Then also, can you tell us how much you expect in cost savings from that, and also on the flip side, any extraordinary costs related to the suspension, like severance and whatnot?

Yeah. Just to give you orders of magnitude, in the short term, it might represent maybe between 5 and 10, maybe closer to 5, mid-to-high single digits in terms of savings.

Yes, we remain with the possibility to restart the asset, but not very significant shutdown costs, some, but not very significant. This is not a petrochemical plant and so does not have the same complexities.

Our decision will come later. It will also depend on whether we can extract some value from those assets, right?

We will assess our options. What we chose right now is to suspend the operation, take on the savings, to keep supplying our customers from the rest of the assets that include the other recycling plant, other avenues we have to deliver recycling content to the customers, including what we call our single-pellet technology.

Again, we took the savings, and we'll wrap up for more strategic decision later in the year. A good question.

Great. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Andrés Ortiz from BTG. Andrés, please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Hi, Jorge.

Hi, Carlos. I would like to have a follow-up on Federico's question on the incremental EBITDA.

I understand your disclaimer, but I just want to understand. You mentioned that $1 is equivalent 1 peso appreciation or depreciation is equivalent to $50 $50 million impact, and you said that you see $50 million incremental EBITDA for several reasons, and one of them was a 1 peso.

I don't understand if you're seeing more incremental EBITDA from all this happening together, or if every single one of that is $50 million? Just to understand.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrés, and sorry if I did not make the right number. 1 peso is equivalent to 1-5, $15 million of impact or benefit, depending on where we sit.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Maybe just a clarification, we presented there several opportunities to improve our results. What you see here is an assessment, probability weighted, that they could materialize around $50 million.

In a perfect world, where every single line item would materialize, certainly, they will be more than 50, 5-0 million.

Thank you, Carlos. Understood.

Perfect. Thank you.

We received a couple of questions through the Q&A. I will proceed to read.

First question was from Rodrigo Salazar from AM Advisors. Could you tell us where the spot metrics used in the guidance stand today?

Yes. In our guidance, we set the reference margins, which represent China PET margins, at $145 per ton.

Year-to-date, they are approximately 170, and the last data point is in the mid-$180s.

The next question that came through the Q&A comes from Pallav Mittal from HSBC. Could you please provide an update on refinancing plans, particularly for the debt due in 2028 and 2029?

Thank you for your question. Yes, certainly, we're exploring opportunities to refinance what we have in '28.

We have a couple of proposals at this moment that we're exploring. There will be facilities that would take the maturities even further than 30 30 no, 2032 or '33, and that will again take out pressure on any maturity coming due in the short term.

One of the key pillars of our financial strength is to have strong liquidity, which we have, strong amount of committed credit lines, which we have, and also not having any maturity due in the short term. That's certainly one of the priorities.

We are targeting to have that refinanced in the first half of this year. We'll keep you updated.

The next question: Historically, increases in the oil price have led to improvement in margins and increasing international shipping costs. My question is, do you still see a correlation with the recent increase in oil price?

Do you expect to have a positive in the EBITDA?

It's a good observation. Yes, typically, oil prices will lead into higher raw materials, not necessarily shipping costs.

Shipping costs, yes, oil is a variable that influences shipping costs, but shipping costs, freight rates, are mostly supply-demand in that market. Oil prices will, generally, push raw materials a little higher.

I think this is the first quarter in a while where we didn't have a significant inventory adjustment. We had been last year going through an environment of falling oil prices and falling raw materials.

This year, they stabilized. If this rebound in oil continues, we should see, again, some support on higher raw material prices that will provide potentially some improvement to our reported EBITDA on inventory restatements.

However, our guidance excludes those effects, positive or negative. We are talking about comparable.

Yes, definitely, it would be an influence of oil prices on higher raw materials.

Thanks, everyone, for your interest. That is all the time we have available for today.

The IR team remains also available if there are any follow-up questions. Thank you for joining our webcast.

We look forward to seeing you soon at our shareholders meeting. Have a great day.