Indorama Ventures Public Co. Ltd.

Indorama Ventures Public Co. Ltd.

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Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptAugust 11, 2026

Moderator

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Indorama Ventures' second quarter 2026 results briefing. I'm Voriboon Songyamput, moderating this call.

Leading the presentation today will be Mrs. Aradhana Lohia Sharma, followed by our segment leaders Muthu, Sunil, Alastair, Diego, who will lead us through the performance of their respective businesses.

Following the prepared presentation, we'll open the floor for Q&A. Before we begin, please note that this meeting is being recorded, and a replay will be available on our website following the session.

Today's presentation includes certain assumptions and forward-looking estimates based on our current industry and business outlook, as well as information available to us at this time. Over to you, please, Khun Aradhana.

Aradhana Lohia Sharma

Thank you, Voriboon. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.

Let me start with the key messages for today's earnings call. IVL posted an exceptional Q2 and first-half performance, driven by three primary factors.

Firstly, the advantages coming from our structural platform. The company's integrated global platform and local-for-local manufacturing model have enabled the rapid reallocation of production, maintained reliable customer supply, and allowed for the selective capture of pricing opportunities across multiple geographies during this period of geopolitical volatility.

Secondly, management continues to progress on improvement initiatives through operational discipline, including inventory management, and a strategic focus on sales and operations execution rigor to enhance real-time visibility and accountability. Thirdly, favorable market conditions.

Geopolitical events led to near-term supply disruptions, which drove higher benchmark spreads across the portfolio. Stronger pricing resulted from cost increases in crude oil-related feedstocks.

Deleveraging remains on track with stronger cash generation and disciplined operations driving continued balance sheet improvement. Looking ahead, while we expect some earnings moderation in the second half as the temporary market tailwinds begin to normalize, we remain confident in our 2026 outlook and committed to our 2028 ambitions.

The second quarter of 2026 marked a meaningful improvement in Indorama Ventures' earnings, building on the momentum established in the first quarter. In the first half of the year, consolidated revenue reached 245 billion baht, up 4% year-on-year, while EBITDA increased significantly by 61% to 29.7 billion baht.

The earnings improvement was broad-based across all four segments and major regions, supported by favorable industry conditions together with management's self-help initiatives. The implementation of S&OE rigor directly improved inventory performance.

Inventory turnover increased from 4.7x in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 5 times in second quarter '26, representing a structural improvement in converting earnings to cash that is expected to continue. Operating rates were deliberately moderated this year from 76% in the first quarter to 74% in quarter two.

This reflects the conscious management choice to align production with inventory targets, thereby protecting margin quality and cash conversion in a period of volatile pricing. The balance sheet strengthened materially in the first half of 2026.

Operating cash flow after maintenance capex reached 25.9 billion baht. Net debt was reduced from 236 billion baht to 226 billion baht, and the net debt-to-equity ratio improved to 1.56 times, achieving the full-year Capital Markets Day target ahead of schedule.

Now turning to segment performance. Combined PET led the improvement with an EBITDA of 19.9 billion baht in the first half of the year, rising by 111% year-on-year.

Quarter two was exceptional with an increase of 163% year-on-year, driven by a surge in China-integrated PET benchmark spreads. CPET's integrated shale-to-PET platform in North America, its global footprint, and local-for-local business model remain important structural advantages as market conditions evolve.

Indovida reached 2 billion baht in the first half, up 37%, driven by organic growth initiatives, a full-quarter contribution from the new facility in Tanzania, as well as disciplined pricing action amid the current Middle East conflict. Indovinya delivered a first-half 2026 EBITDA of 6.4 billion baht, increasing by 70% year-on-year, and a strong second-quarter EBITDA up 94% year-on-year.

Performance was driven by commercial excellence initiatives and favorable market conditions, with improvements coming from both the HVA and Essentials portfolios. The segment benefited from geographically advantaged production in North America and shale gas advantage.

Fibers posted 2.8 billion baht in the first half, declining by 9% year-on-year, but sequential improvement with quarter two EBITDA rising by 39% year-on-year. Stable hygiene demand, portfolio optimization efforts, and transformation actions helped offset market weakness in lifestyle and mobility end markets.

On a regional basis, you can see that the earnings improved across all major regions, demonstrating the strength of IVL's diversified global footprint. The Americas remain the largest earnings contributor, while Europe and Asia also delivered stronger profitability.

The North America portfolio also benefits from shale gas advantage, and the overall performance demonstrates how our local-for-local model enables us to respond quickly and capture opportunities during periods of market and supply disruption. Looking specifically at the second quarter, IVL reported EBITDA of 21.7 billion baht, increasing by 129% year-on-year and 169% quarter-on-quarter.

The uplift was broad-based across segments and regions, supported by favorable industry tailwinds. Importantly, these market conditions were complemented by management actions and ongoing self-help initiatives, including disciplined commercial and operational execution.

Again, the Americas portfolio, and specifically North America, benefited with the structural advantages, including the shale gas linkage for both the CPET and Indovinya segments. As we highlighted last quarter, IVL is supported by four distinct competitive moats, and our performance in the first half of this year reinforces that these strengths are delivering tangible value.

Our global local-for-local model provides supply chain resilience, enables us to capture opportunities during market disruptions. Our four distinct business engines benefit from a common global platform leveraging scale, customer access, technical expertise, and feedstock integration.

In North America, our shale-to-PET integration continues to provide a structural cost advantage. Finally, our strengthened operating rhythm through S&OE improves our ability to align production and inventory with demand, supporting cash generation and deleveraging.

We want to reiterate that these four moats remain fundamental to our resilience, competitiveness, and ability to create long-term value through the cycle. If you recall from the first quarter, we used this slide to explain how the different building blocks of our PET pricing come together and, importantly, the actions we were taking around inventory and S&OE.

This quarter, we want to come back to that discussion because we have now had another period of significant market volatility, and it provides a good test of whether these actions are working. The comparison with 2022 is particularly relevant.

In 2022, crude prices increased very rapidly following the start of the Russian-Ukraine war and then fell sharply in the second half of the year. At that time, we were carrying relatively high inventories with low inventory turnover.

As feedstock prices declined, that inventory exposure translated into a significant compression of our realized premium. This time, we have faced another major disruption with crude and feedstock prices again moving sharply.

There has still been an impact on our premium, but importantly, we have been much more disciplined on inventory, deliberately aligning production with demand and inventory targets rather than allowing high-cost inventory to build. At the same time, our focus on S&OE processes is creating much tighter coordination across procurement, manufacturing, and commercial decisions.

This has resulted in operating rates deliberately being moderated from 76% in quarter one to 74% in quarter two. As a result, while there is still some impact from market volatility, we are managing that exposure better and responding more quickly than we could historically.

That's really the takeaway from this slide. S&OE and inventory turns are not simply working capital initiatives; they are strategic management tools that help us protect our local-for-local premium and improve the resilience of our earnings through the cycle.

In the previous quarter, we explained how MTBE complements our shale-to-MEG integration and broadens the margin pool across our U.S. shale-to-PET platform.

This quarter, the key point is how that advantage is behaving in a more volatile market environment. Geopolitical disruption has driven sharper movements in crude and feedstock markets, and our integrated North America position has helped cushion part of that cost pressure while preserving differentiated economics across the chain.

Looking into the second half, we expect PX/MX pricing to remain supportive, which should continue to underpin MTBE spreads. At the same time, some of the feedstock advantage is likely to moderate as methanol normalizes and butane costs rise seasonally into winter.

The message for second half of '26 is balanced: MTBE pricing should remain supportive while the relative feedstock benefit may narrow somewhat. Importantly, the structural value of the platform remains unchanged.

Our integrated feedstock position continues to reduce dependence on the conventional naphtha route, support a broader margin pool, and strengthen the competitiveness of our North American shale advantage through the cycle. Now I will hand it over to Muthu to take us through the CPET segment.

Muthu Paramasivam

Thank you so much, Aradhana. Combined PET delivered an exceptional second quarter '26, with EBITDA increasing to Thai baht 14.4 billion, representing increases of 163% year-over-year and 164% quarter-over-quarter, driven by favorable market conditions and supported by management actions.

Integrated PET benefited from a significant surge in China-integrated PET benchmark spreads, which increased from an average of $132 per ton in second quarter of '25 and $176 per ton in the first quarter of '26 to $279 per ton in the second quarter of '26, following tighter industry operating rates, limited new capacity additions, and temporary supply disruptions associated with geopolitical events. PET prices rose through the year from crude oil-related feedstock increases, and cost inflation in the segment was muted, benefiting from full value chain integration in North America due to our shale gas linkage.

The year-over-year improvement was further supported by lower fixed cost from our rationalization initiatives. Management has been prudent on managing inventory levels in the first half of '26, and therefore deliberately lowering production to align with inventory targets while still ensuring business continuity to our customers through supply chain rigor and leveraging IVL's global network of manufacturing locations and raw material sources.

Now talking about individual verticals, in the recycling vertical, the ongoing strong focus on management actions in terms of both operational and commercial excellence have shown results, with H1 '26 showing a positive EBITDA swing of about $17 million. Talking about specialty chemicals, it delivered stronger results during the second quarter, supported by higher margins and stronger volumes across the portfolio.

Margins benefited from the NDC campaign run during this quarter. Now intermediate chemicals also improved, supported by stronger U.S.

MTBE industry spreads, which increased from an average of $263 per ton in the second quarter of '25 and $359 per ton in the first quarter of '26 to $587 per ton in second quarter of '26, partly offset by lower volumes following the EO/EG turnaround during this quarter. While favorable market conditions were the primary driver of earnings improvement in Combined PET, strong commercial execution and the ongoing cost reduction initiatives also supported performance during this quarter.

Management continue to strengthen the business fundamentals through enhanced sales and operations execution, better inventory discipline, and stronger working capital management, all of which contributed to higher returns and stronger cash conversion. Would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers for their continued support, as well as all the CPET colleagues for the commitment, hard work, and the diligence they have shown throughout the past several months in mitigating any type of operational interruptions and ensuring business continuity.

With that, I will hand it over to my colleague Sunil.

Sunil Marwah

Thank you, Muthu. Indovida, the packaging segment of Indorama, delivered EBITDA of Thai baht 1.3 billion in quarter two '26, increasing both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter, while still maintaining EBITDA margin at high-teens level.

The performance was supported by our market-leading position in packaging, the customer intimacy model that we've built over the years, and continued operational improvements. The 62% year-on-year EBITDA increase was primarily driven by strong demand across various markets, particularly in Thailand, Myanmar, Egypt, and Ghana.

The continued ramp-up in Tanzania, following the March 2025 startup of the greenfield facility there, enabled a full-quarter contribution leading to incremental volumes and an enhanced EBITDA earnings. EBITDA increased 76% quarter-on-quarter, reflecting strong volume growth across all regions driven by domestic demand, which was supported by seasonal uplifts due to hot weather and inventory restocking by brand owners amid the Middle East conflict.

Higher volume was also driven by organic growth initiatives through new product introductions, line expansions, continued customer wins, and additional volumes. Margin improved due to disciplined pricing actions across Asia and African markets on back of the Middle East war and raw material availability concerns, we were very well supported by the CPET segment of Indorama.

Thank you. I pass it on to Alastair.

Alastair Port

Thanks, Sunil. Good afternoon, everyone.

Indovinya delivered a strong quarter two EBITDA of Thai baht 4.688 billion, increasing 94% year-on-year and 173% quarter-on-quarter. Overall, our EBITDA margins reached 19.4% across the portfolio, while the HVA margin was 21.1%.

The strong year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter improvement was driven by both HVA and Essentials experienced strong performance with our agile pricing and our S&OE approach and our ongoing commercial excellence initiatives, assisted by the tailwinds of the current supply chain disruptions. With our concentration in the U.S., Brazil, and India, and 90% of our products sold in consumer-led end markets, we're benefiting from our local-for-local and geographically advantaged production, linked to strong customer and supplier relationships.

HVA remained the key earnings contributor, accounting for 80% of Indovinya's EBITDA. The HVA EBITDA increased 59% year-on-year and 114% quarter-on-quarter, primarily driven by stronger results in surfactants, ethanolamines, and propylene glycol.

While Essentials also improved with higher contributions from LAB and solvents. Overall, the quarter reflected a combination of favorable market conditions, strong commercial execution with disciplined pricing, and ongoing transformation initiatives, supporting the margin expansion and earnings quality.

Moving to our market review, the home and personal care margins improved across the regions. In North America, we continue to develop opportunities to grow our business across both tier-one and tier-two customers.

In both South America and APAC, we saw margin upside sustained by price increases. On the crop solutions, I think the quarter was as expected before the South American crop season starts, but farmers' profitability and credit concerns still loom across the globe.

On energy and resources, quarter two margins improved as energy prices and demand also improved. Then in coatings and performance solutions, the coatings side was as expected, but on the performance solutions side, we saw new opportunities for our JEFFCOOL range, which were landed in data center growth along with new product launches.

Our management teams continue to focus on creating value with our EC squared initiatives, driving earnings higher with our commercial excellence program, managing variable costs through our procurement excellence, reducing our fixed costs where possible, and maintaining our peer-leading working capital management ratios. Thank you.

I'll pass on to Diego.

Diego Boeri

Thank you, Alastair, and good afternoon. Fibers delivered sequential earnings improvement during second quarter '26 despite continued weakness across several end markets.

EBITDA increased to Thai baht 1.873 billion, up 39% year-on-year and 113% quarter-on-quarter, supported by pricing action, improved product mix, and realization of lower-cost inventory. While volumes remained below prior-year levels, stable hygiene demand, portfolio optimization efforts, and transformation action helped mitigate persistent market weakness in lifestyle and mobility.

Performance remained mixed across the verticals. The hygiene vertical, which is our diaper business, continued to provide resilient earnings, supported by stable demand in healthcare and personal care application.

The U.S. business delivered improved performance, while operational improvement lifted profitability in the nonwoven portfolio during the quarter.

In the lifestyle vertical, which is our textile business, margins benefited from lower-cost inventory carried over from first quarter '26, resulting inventory gains despite broadly flat industry margins. However, earnings remained affected by cautious consumer spending and ongoing customer destocking.

Management made deliberate production cuts in the quarter in order to avoid inventory buildup, protecting margin quality and cash conversion, particularly in India. The mobility vertical, which is our tire business and airbag business, remained under structural pressure from weaker automotive demand and excess global tire cord capacity, particularly in China.

Management continued leveraging its global customer relationships to regain volumes and strengthen pricing. With limited support from market conditions, management remained focused on initiative within its control.

The business continued executing its portfolio optimization and operational discipline. These initiatives are intended to strengthen the business by improving resilience, enhancing cash generation, and reducing dependence on a broad market recovery.

Thank you. Back to you, Aradhana.

Aradhana Lohia Sharma

S&OE is now translating our inventory ambition into measurable execution. At CMD, we identified inventory as a structural opportunity with IVL's turnover materially below global peers, and laid out the actions required to improve inventory management through real-time discipline, integrated planning, digital tools, and tighter management of slow-moving and safety stocks.

We are now starting to see tangible progress. Inventory volume has reduced from 1.5 million tons at the end of 2025 to 1.4 million tons in the second quarter, while inventory turnover has improved from 4.7 times to 5 times in the same period.

This improvement reflects the increasing discipline being embedded through S&OE, giving us better visibility across demand, production, and inventory, enabling faster decisions on stock levels and better coordination across our global network. Importantly, this is not simply about reducing inventory; it is about carrying the right inventory at the right places in the right time, while maintaining customer service and operational reliability.

While we still have further opportunities, the direction is encouraging. We remain focused on structurally improving inventory turnover and releasing working capital, supporting stronger cash conversion and our broader deleveraging objectives.

Turning to our balance sheet, deleveraging remains firmly on track. During the first half of the year, we generated approximately 29.7 billion of EBITDA and 25.9 billion of operating cash flow after maintenance capex, representing an EBITDA conversion of 87%.

This was supported by disciplined working capital management and continued inventory optimization. The strong cash generation allowed us to fully fund our interest costs, dividends, and growth investments while still reducing our net debt by 9.6 billion baht.

This progress is also clearly reflected in our leverage ratios. Net debt to EBITDA declined from 7.6 times to 5.3 times, while net debt to equity improved from 1.83 to 1.56 times, achieving the full-year Capital Markets Day target ahead of schedule.

Let me close by reiterating the four key messages of today. First, this quarter reinforced the value of our structural platform advantages.

Our diversified global footprint, integrated value chain, and local-for-local operating model enabled us to respond quickly to market and supply disruptions and capture opportunities across our businesses and regions. Secondly, our management self-help actions are gaining traction, with disciplined production and sharper S&OE execution improving inventory control, visibility, and accountability.

Third, we delivered a broad-based earnings improvement across all segments, supported by favorable market conditions. Deleveraging remains firmly on track.

Stronger earnings, disciplined working capital management, and continued focus on cash conversion are translating into stronger cash generation and lower net debt. We remain focused on converting earnings into free cash flow and further strengthening the balance sheet.

Finally, we reaffirm our 2026 outlook and remain committed to our 2028 ambitions. While some of the exceptional industry tailwinds are expected to normalize, the improvements we are making within our control are structural and ongoing.

Overall, the first half of 2026 demonstrates the progress we are making under IVL 2.0 and gives us confidence in our direction as we move through the remainder of the year. Thank you.

Moderator

Hello. I think we can open the floor for questions.

Khun Komsan, I think you have the first question. Would you like to ask your question?

Yes, khrap. Thank you khrap, Khun Voriboon, khrap.

Can you hear me?

Moderator

Yes, we can hear you, Khun Komsan.

Yes. Could you please add color on the intermediate EBITDA that came in at 96?

How much is that coming from MEG? Is that 27 million is the right number?

On MTBE, $50 million is the right number? The rest would be cracker.

I recall that in the fourth quarter you mentioned that '25 was pretty tough year for MEG in terms of volume and MTBE now is making a lot of progress. Are you seeing MEG margins continue going into July or softened a bit?

Or could it be rebound again now that the Strait of Hormuz is blocked again? On the surfactant, have you seen linear alkylbenzene pricings and margin performing going into third quarter?

Are we seeing a bump only in the third quarter or it's structural in the second half this year? Thank you.

Aloke Lohia

Hi, Khun Komsan. Aloke here.

Your first question was on MEG. Unfortunately for us, MTBE was outperformer in intermediate chemical and MEG was not.

We have project rebound for our MEG business, which I think last year we said that it is on strategic review. What we have done this year is that we have taken a very long halt in the IVOG Clear Lake facility practically for 3 months to review deeply on what are the equipment-related reliability issues that we need to fix.

The business did very well because within that business is both the cracker and the MTBE as well, which both of them performed well during the quarter. The MEG business itself was not an outperformer during quarter two.

Can you repeat, Khun Komsan, what were your other points?

In terms of breakdown, I reckon that you made 96 million of EBITDA from intermediate. Is that most of it coming from MTBE?

Because I roughly calculated it's supposed to be over $50 million. Another question would be on

Aloke Lohia

I don't have that number in front of me. Maybe we'll come back to you with that.

Yes, MTBE would be the leading number in that. The cracker margins, as you would have noticed, have also been pretty good in the U.S.

because with the crude oil price hike in quarter two, fortunately the ethane price in the U.S. did not spike, and therefore the ethylene crack margins were very good, which is demonstrated both in the IC as well as partly in the Indovinya business.

Because in Indovinya, we have two crackers for the North American business, although in South America, we buy our ethylene from the domestic market. We did not have any benefit in South America, but we did have ethylene crack margin benefits in North America, in Indovinya.

As we know in North America, the ethylene supply are all by pipeline to each other. Although our IVOG facility, we kept it down, but we could get the revenue benefit from ethylene from the cracker in Louisiana.

The exact split between the two, I would have to share with you later.

Understood, yeah. MTBE, normally the third quarter was the best quarter for MTBE with the demand was linked to a gasoline crack, which is now very strong.

Are you seeing that as well?

Aloke Lohia

What we are seeing in the third quarter, the July numbers were pretty strong, but what we've seen in August is that there has been a hike in export from China of MTBE to Mexico, and Latin America is one of our main markets for MTBE. There has been a price decrease for MTBE in August at the moment, but we believe that because MTBE, as is linked to a gasoline as a gasoline additive.

During the second quarter and into July, we also have the

Muthu Paramasivam

driving season.

Aloke Lohia

The driving season blending benefit that we saw in the second quarter and into July. Again, with this continued impact on crude oil because of the Iran conflict, I think quarter three will be all right on the MTBE side.

On quarter four, we would face raw material cost increases. Normally for us, the quarter four for MTBE would be a weaker period.

Quarter three would be okay. At the moment for the last 10 days, it's been weak for MTBE, but I think that may be temporary.

The last question, just linear alkylbenzene. A lot of the linear alkylbenzene producer have reported a margin double.

Are we seeing pricing softening going into third quarter or remain pretty strong because of the supply disruption? Thank you.

You see, what

Aloke Lohia

what is important is that the way we looked at our numbers is that we compared ourselves to 2022. In Feb 2022, we had the Ukraine war, and we saw the same spike of If we can put up that graph.

In in second quarter '22, we saw a spike because of the Ukraine war, which we saw again in We saw again in the second quarter of 2026. What we also witness is that in the past, we were working on a S&OP, and because of the S&OP, we were more concentrating on production and enjoying the high spreads of quarter one and quarter two in 2022, which left us with a high inventory level when the price decline started.

On that price decline, we had to incur a lot of inventory losses. On this slide, as you can see, the red triangle depicts that we we gave up the gains, or we gave up more than the gains in the ensuing period in the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023.

What this graph is meant to witness is that yes, there was a steep fall in 2022-2023 from $378 spread for PET to $250 spread. This is a IVL spread; this is not benchmark.

This is benchmark plus IVL. Which led to a drop of $128 per ton.

What this graph is showing is we are not giving the second half numbers as yet. We don't know it exactly.

We do believe that the second half drop would be much less steep, and we would still be in the $200-plus range in the second half. In some ways, I can give that guidance that the drop this time is going to be less than 20% compared to back in 2022 when we had a nearly 40% drop.

I think we are protecting our core. We are protecting our margins by careful inventory planning, careful production, giving up production.

Losing on unit unit cost is only $10-$15 compared to losing on inventory, which could lead to hundreds of dollars. Does that answer your question, Khun Komsan?

Thank you.

Moderator

We have hands raised from Mayank. Mayank, would you like to post your question?

Sure. Firstly, congratulations on the inventory point.

I think everybody on the podium has focused on it. I think the question really was more about how much more can you go from here in terms of managing working capital?

Obviously, you have seen a lot better management as you kind of highlighted this quarter. Can you kind of talk about how you're thinking for the rest of the year and next year around managing working capital?

Moderator

Go to slide 15, please.

Aloke Lohia

Hi Mayank.

We'll

Aloke Lohia

put up the inventory turn slide. I think that is the one that we are emphasizing that.

Our inventory turns, like we explained earlier and even at the CMD, was that when we looked at our total inventory, it was much higher than what it needed to be in the commodity chemicals. Therefore, we've been looking at that and working on that for some time now.

That has helped in the first half of 2026. It is still not where we want it to be.

We believe if we can achieve another 1 turn improvement in our inventory turn, that will be significant, and that will help both on the slide of the crude oil prices as it happens and as well as releasing working capital and decreasing debt. Our target over here would be 6 times.

Okay. Mr.

Lohia, if I was to kind of break it up in terms of how you are trying to manage this, because you obviously are also rationalizing capacity and trying to kind of focus on different parts of the business. Fibers obviously has been a challenging one.

PET, how are you seeing about this breakup of where you can think about your inventory levels sit between Fibers and PET, I suppose, is where has been the biggest improvement upside, I suppose, from here on? When you break it up in terms of rationalizing capacity, improving working capital between PET and Fibers, how would you break this 1 turn improvement going forward?

Aloke Lohia

Yeah. The rationalization of assets have taken place since 2024, and we have rationalized over 3 million tons of capacity.

Those are already out of the system. When we look at inventory turns, we use the textbook definition, which is revenue and cost of goods sold.

I don't think rationalization plays any part in this improvement of inventory turns. Inventory turns is purely an outcome of setting target inventories, which in the past, we lived in a golden era till 2020.

In the golden era, we had benchmark margins of $200. In the last couple of years, we are now trading at a benchmark margin of $100.

This $100 loss of benchmark margins in PET had to come from EBITDA. What we are working on is that do we really need to have that much of inventory since we have so many sites in the world and we are local-for-local and we have our own PTA as well in most of the regions?

Therefore, we looked holistically that what is the level of inventory that we need to carry. The purpose of carrying high inventory is to serve your customers well.

We believe that with a better focus, a better weekly or even daily connect between the purchasing, between the sales, and between the manufacturing can allow us and with better supply chain management can allow us to continue to delight the customers, but at the same time carrying a lower capital employed in the working capital. In this volatile situation for the last 3-4 years, especially since COVID, the inventory that sits on you is going to devalue in value because we do believe that peak oil more or less is achieved.

Electrification is driving businesses going forward. Therefore, ignoring the war, the value of crude oil probably is going to end up at 70 bucks.

At 70 bucks, we don't want to be holding inventory worth 90 bucks and then distributing it at $70. This entire focus on inventory management allows us to encash as well as to ensure that we don't give up in inventory value when the market corrects.

The market correction is going to be more on the crude oil front than on the margin front. Because when we look at the total margin across the value chain, especially when we look at North America, as you saw the bulk of our earnings comes from North America.

In North America with our shale gas to PET advantage, both paraxylene, PTA, PET, and with MTBE as a proxy to MX, we find that we can retain the North American business value. We have to be very, very careful, especially in Europe, because we have long lead times from Asia to Europe.

In Europe is where we have our weakest since we shut down two of our last sites for PTA in Europe. We are dependent on Asian PTA, and now with the Red Sea also becoming a challenge, we just have to ensure that we don't get stuck with too much of inventory on the seas or at our sites.

We would rather be very careful on operating rates and only produce to fair value raw material because raw material in the last 4 months since the Hormuz closure has also spiked in terms of not only the benchmark spreads, but there has been a premium to spot availability. Therefore the managements, the segments are carefully managing that they're only buying spot material where they can pass it on to the customer with the customers' confirmation.

I think the whole rigor is around S&OE, sales and operations execution. That's serving us very well.

It is still a new thing at IVL. I think we made good progress in the first half, and I think second half will see the benefit of that, especially in the sliding market.

Okay. I think the last question, Mr.

Lohia, for you was more in terms of the pricing and considering last quarter was one of the best quarters we have had in the industry, how are you thinking about passing on this cost increases? Have that been completely passed through across all the parts of the portfolio, Indovida, Fibers, PET, or is there some which is still a bit of a lag effect which you still have to work on?

Aloke Lohia

I think we have passed on on every front, as you can see from the results. As Diego was mentioning, the one where we could not pass on the increases is where we took a large operating rate cut was on lifestyle fibers, especially in India.

They have a long supply chain, I think, in garments from from from fibers to garments. I believe that that supply chain should be very tight because there was a there was a there was a cautious buying by customers.

We we took the we took the we took the view that we would not produce and keep. We cut our operating rates quite dramatically.

The other one would be mobility fiber, I think, especially mobility fiber in China, where we have a good presence. That business is has been weaker recently.

That is that is just got to do with the industry, I think. Replacement tires have not grown.

They've actually replacement tires, which is the main segment that we cater to in mobility, that business has been very muted. That that's linked to industry.

I think we are more governed by industry in that than than our self-help. I but I think the ones that are going that are that are going to do very well for us from from a self-help standpoint is PET for sure, the entire shale to PET advantage, better better S&OE performance for European sites, and in Asia, our availability of raw material, our ability to have local-for-local advantage.

I think all of that will maintain. I'm not yet it's too early for us to say whether the industry spreads for PET, which went down as low as $70 last year, whether the market fit markets next year would go back to $70 in calmer times.

I think not. I think the industry cannot work at at that level of margin.

I I I do think it'll go up to $100-plus, but it's too early for us to We don't even have data points to support that at the moment. The way I'm looking at, we have our Capital Markets Day commitment to double EBITDA from 19 from 2025 to 2028 to $2 billion.

We are on track of that based on our top-down measures that we are looking at. We did a deep bottom-up budgeting last year to get to that number with self-help.

We're on track with the self-help part, and without relying on margin improvement, our top-down analysis shows that we would get to that $2 billion. We As as as as the volatility of this raw material eases away, we have to ramp up our production.

Our operating rates in second quarter, I believe, was just below 80% for entire IVL. That easily if we can increase by 2 percentage points each year and get to 84%-85% by 2028, each each percentage point of operating rate increase on our current platform yields for us after coma on a coma level, something like $50 million.

A 4% increase means $200 million increase. Basically, we're looking at all fine metrics on where to go.

In a commodity business, as a leader, what I'm asking my management is that, guys, why should we not be running at 90%? Let's get our S&OE really fully functional, and let's let's, in a in normal times, operate at full rates.

That's how I believe that So we've done double-check. What I'm saying is we've done a half-yearly review.

I think I think most petrochemical company must have done that because times have changed quite rapidly since the last 6 months. In our in our deep dive in our '26 second half and '27-'28 delivery, we believe we are on track to deliver on all the metrics that we have for our '28 business plan, which means including getting our net debt to EBITDA to below below 3 times.

Very clear. Thank you.

Aloke Lohia

Thank you.

Moderator

We have a question related to inventory posted by Khun Poomchan. The first question was that, in the CMD, management mentioned of inventory of 68 billion Thai baht by the end of 2026.

In the second quarter of 2026, inventory was 86 billion. Can we expect the inventory to decrease by 10 to 20 billion Thai baht in the next two quarters?

Aloke Lohia

It's all, like we've been talking today, the price of the inventory, the absolute price of the inventory is dependent on the price of crude oil. If the crude oil, which before the conflict was at $70, today it is at $90, if it goes back to that $70 level, then yes, we will be on target to reach our capital employed on inventory.

If the crude oil prices are higher, as you know from the slide that you saw earlier, the higher the crude oil price, the better IVL enjoys from the market earnings standpoint. From our self-help point of view, our absolute value of the inventory that we carry, that is determined by the value of the crude oil.

Yes, we can get to that level, and I believe since our fourth quarter estimates are based on $70 oil, I think we would be close to our inventory target levels. The answer is yes.

Moderator

There's another question following that. Khun Poomchan is saying she understands the current inventory is around 1.4 million tons, is asking whether 1.4 million tons is sustainable, or whether IVL could operate smoothly at a lower inventory level, say 1.2 million tons.

Aloke Lohia

Yes, so that's exactly the 5 turns to 6 turns. That 1 turn will get us to that 1.2 million ton level.

We believe it's sustainable. The businesses have to, they've worked at 1.5, 1.6 million ton in the past.

For them to get that execution quality with better S&OE, that's the objective, that's the ambition. Which doesn't mean that we'll be the best operator in the world.

I think then we'll become a fair operator. Because what I'm thinking and looking at and learning is that how do the large trading firms operate?

Large trading firms, through price falls and price increases, they still make money. What is that magic, what is the secret sauce to make money when inventories go up and down?

I think we are behind the process of exploring that, and I think we're making good progress. I think we'll maintain that, and that is how we'll be able to also deleverage.

The disadvantage of maintaining low inventory is that you won't see the peak earnings that you saw in quarter two, because then you're giving up the upside to protect the downside. I'm happy to do that.

Moderator

Khun Poomchan has a follow-up question. It seems that there's a loss on asset revaluation of 849 million Thai baht.

Could you share some color on this?

Aloke Lohia

Ashok.

Ashok Jain

Yeah. This is specific to impairments taken in the Fibers business for around 430 million Thai baht and in the Combined PET business for around 370 million Thai baht.

Some of these assets were impaired in the past, and there was a timing which was decided to shut them in 2026. Those actions have been taken.

The purpose of doing this is essentially to improve our quality of earnings, and also, as we reduce our costs, also to improve the free cash flow.

Moderator

We have a hand raised from Kaushal. Kaushal, would you like to post your question?

Thanks, Lohia, and the management team. Congrats on a strong quarter and a successful deleveraging initiatives.

Three questions. I'll ask them one by one.

I think this may be a bit of a follow-up to the previous discussions. Strong uplift in the EBITDA in the second quarter.

I'm trying to understand how much of this was structural self-help, which will continue going forward, and how much of this was more because of inventory timing or benchmark spreads, which are probably a little more cyclical in nature?

Aloke Lohia

What did we do in the second quarter? We started the second quarter when the price of oil was over 100 bucks, and we ended the second quarter at a bit below that.

During the quarter, for a short time, it went up. Actually, didn't go up.

It remained at the 100 or below 100 during the whole quarter. In my mind, we'll have to give you a more tidy answer from calculations, but I would say that two-third of the improvement in earnings has come from self-help, and a third of the earnings improvement would have come from inventory gains.

That one-third of the inventory gains is the one that I do expect that it will go away in the second half, but the two-third of the self-help initiatives, that will stay with us. Reflect on Indovinya.

In Indovinya, we don't get inventory gains or losses. Indovinya is more specialty business.

The Indovinya gains, which is quite remarkable in second quarter, it gained, yes, from the crack margin, leaving aside the crack margins, rest of the business just grew because of better availability, better local-for-local availability. I think the self-help and the work that the management has done in Indovinya, that has protected the earnings.

The CPET business, we got the improved earnings from MTBE. Again, it's not inventory gain/loss.

We got the earnings from cracker margins and from MTBE. The MTBE, yes, is linked to the crude oil spike to some extent, but it's a blending component, what we benefit in the second quarter for MTBE would be the driving season to some extent.

It'll be cyclical. It won't be a structural improvement; it'll be a cyclical improvement.

Fibers wasn't a great quarter, overall there's nothing in there. The Indovida business did extremely well.

We also started up a new plant in Tanzania, the Indovida packaging business was, I think, a structural improvement. It leaves us then the CPET business or the PET business, in which that inventory would have played some role.

Remember, we also have firm long-term commitments for our PET, so as much as we gain on the rising crude oil prices, some of it, not all of it, is lost to lag effects from fixed-price sales. Therefore, when the oil gets back to $70, we would again start gaining on the fixed-price deals that we have, and our fixed-price deals are longer.

Not all of it is inventory gain; it's net inventory gain. The area where we have identified looking at our historicals, we have moved from adjusted numbers to reported numbers, and I think that has been a big eye-opener for us in the sense that now we are looking at the earnings, the real earnings, the earnings that go into our cash flow, and we are trying to explain those numbers rather than without meaning to intentionally putting things under the carpet, but then the adjusted numbers were always looking good enough, there was less forensics in it.

Now on a reported basis, we are putting up a lot more forensics. I do understand that I'm not able to explain to you all the details that you're seeking, but I think we will get a better for the next investor call from this questions that you're raising.

We'll be able to get you more breakups, more granular data, what makes sense for you to have. I don't want to leave the impression that all of this is inventory gain because it is not.

I would say that one-third one-third is coming from inventory gains. There is some lag losses from fixed-price sales, and a lot of gain is coming from the way we're operating today.

Sure. Maybe my second question is that I think utilizations are quite low in the second quarter, and I think part of this is your deliberate strategy to sort of have a very lean sort of inventory levels.

Any sort of guidance in the second half of the year in terms of how utilizations would look like, especially on Indovinya?

Aloke Lohia

I think Indovinya is running flat out, but I'll let Alastair quote on that.

Alastair Port

Sure. If you think about Q3, it's a very seasonal quarter and typically our highest tonnage quarter.

I think you will see utilizations pretty high. I think across the Q4, obviously we come to the end of the year, people start destocking, it becomes the seasonal shutdown areas, you'll see utilizations go down as we control inventory.

I think you'll see the two-quarter story: very strong in Q3 and then slightly weaker in Q4. As Mr.

Lohia said, most of our plants today are running pretty full. Albeit they're batch plants, don't measure them like you measure a continuous unit at 95%.

You've got to do grade changes and create the specialty products.

Right, okay. Maybe just my final question, I think the PET spreads in China are starting to come off.

Can you share some color in terms of what are the current dynamics and where do we see the spreads landing? Do we see them sort of going back to pre-crisis levels or are they structurally higher than those levels?

How should we think about it?

Muthu Paramasivam

Sure. Thank you for the question.

If you split the current dynamics into, let's say, four areas: what is happening on the operating rate by the industry in China, what is happening on their export demand, and what is happening also on the new capacity additions, and the inventory levels, right? These are the four key factors that determines the spreads.

Now what we saw was the spreads peaked during the second quarter because of the war disruptions, and that led to some of the assets restarting. About a million tons of shut-down assets, they restarted during July, mostly during July.

At the same time, another million tons of new capacity came up. That's why we saw the spreads drop quickly to where we are right now, about 100 to 110, which was basically the pre-war level.

In terms of export demand, there is some softening in the demand. It was about 600,000 tons per month; now it is about 500.

Then in terms of the inventory levels, the total inventory level has slightly reduced, although the site inventory level is slightly higher, but not a big change. The main factor that will determine what Mr.

Lohia also referring to is we are seeing, to an extent, improved industry discipline. What I mean by that is, in spite of this new capacities coming up, capacities restarting, we are now seeing the industry deliberately adjusting rates.

That's what we will love to see for rest of the year, but we do believe that that will keep the spreads around the current levels for rest of the year. Just to give you some numbers, the operating rate peaked close to about 80% when this new capacities came, as compared to earlier around low 70s, but from that 80, now the industry has already started adjusting; right now it is about 77%.

We expect this to go down further, and that will keep some support to the spreads. Even though we are moving out of the season, we expect that that will give support to the spreads.

Kaushal, does that answer your question?

No, that was clear.

Muthu Paramasivam

Okay.

Thank you, Muthu.

Muthu Paramasivam

Thank you.

Moderator

We have another hand raised from Khun Naphat. Khun Naphat, would you like to post your question?

Hi, Mr. Lohia, and management team.

Maybe before I start my question, I just want to go back to the earlier answer on the utilization, so that Khun Alastair mentioned about the third quarter and fourth quarter utilization. Third quarter will be up and fourth quarter will be down.

Is that for the group utilization or the particular segment of the company?

Aloke Lohia

Hi, Khun Naphat. I think Alastair was only mentioning about Indovinya.

Okay.

Aloke Lohia

The group utilization for PET would go up as soon as the raw material prices stabilize, then we will take the operating rates up. We don't want to take the operating rates up while the crude oil is still high, because we don't want to get stuck with any inventory buildup.

In PET business, our focus is on reduction of inventory further. In Fibers business, I think they have done a lot already, maybe Fibers would have opportunity to improve For sure, I think Fiber Lifestyle would improve the operating rate in the second half.

You want to say some words on that,

Diego Boeri

Diego? We were expecting an increase in demand in in Q3 for the lifestyle business.

For mobility, normally Q3 is is not the strongest quarter, but the biggest increase that we are expecting is in lifestyle, with our Asian assets that make PET fibers. The demand has been very has been soft.

People have consumed inventory. We have managed to the demand.

Now we are expecting the Q3 would should we should see the demand coming back, and so the our operating rate will will also increase in lifestyle, which is the PET fiber chain.

Aloke Lohia

Yeah. Indovida doesn't have a supply-demand issue or the inventory issue.

Indovida would be stable, and Fiber and PET should go up in operating rate.

My second question is, if I can go back to the second quarter, looking at the industry spread, Combined PET 279, looking at what happened to the industry in terms of the feedstock shortage, and I look at the utilization rate of the CPET, CPET actually down Q-on-Q even though spread now at almost the ceiling, and volume was so down. I wonder what happened to our CPET segment?

Aloke Lohia

Khun Naphat, that is what we are trying to understand and explain. You see, to your point, the margins are stable, the demand is stable, but if we produce more than what the demand is Our objective over here is to reduce our inventory, because we are still carrying, let's say, $100 oil inventories.

I would rather not have that inventory, I would rather produce less and reduce my inventory. By producing less, I only lose $10-$15 because my unit cost, my fixed cost per unit goes up, which is not that much, but the inventory correction values could be $50 to $100.

I'm trying to save on that front. That's why I'm saying as long as you guys can serve your clients with a lower inventory, let's test how low can your inventories go.

That's how we'll get to the 6 turns. That is a whole change in understanding of the business.

In the past, it was what you said: margins are good, operating rates you can make money, produce full, irrespective of what the inventory value is. Now we are concentrating on the inventory value and we are saying, if our carrying inventory is a high cost, which it is because of the high raw material cost today, let's get rid of that inventory, and then we'll increase the operating rates when the raw material values come down.

It is how we want to do it today. It is judgment-led way of operating.

This is the true what I call radical understanding. We started the year with what is a radical clarity, and the radical clarity gave us all this information that how do we operate a commodity business better.

Today what we are talking about is our radical understanding. It is management-led reduction of operating rate.

We don't want to build inventory; we want to reduce our inventory. That's how we will increase our inventory turn and reduce our debt.

Maybe I try to understand what you are saying. What about the industry level at about $180 per ton as of now?

What would be the production volume utilization that you are looking at now?

Aloke Lohia

I have to look at what is my inventory. If my inventory is at 5 turns, I would rather have it at 6 turns.

I would say buy less raw material even at this $90, sell as much as you can, and take your inventory turns to 6 times. Inventory turns basically is that reduce the quantity of inventory that you're holding in the company.

Maybe I think we can do an analysis for you. Khun Naphat, Voriboon will create an analysis to share with you.

Yes, I think that would be very helpful to understand the third quarter volume.

Aloke Lohia

We want sales volume increase. We want procurement decreased, so that the inventory, the finished goods inventory, actually the total inventory, whether it is raw material inventory, whether it is in-transit inventory, or in finished goods form, in any form, we want that inventory to go to 6 turns, which today is at 5 turns.

Maybe my another question is on the items in financial statement. Earlier, that Khun Ashok mentioned about the asset rationalization in the Fibers and also the PET.

Actually, there are two items in financial statement. This is a one item.

I like to know how far in terms of our plan in terms of the asset rationalization, because I think in the last two years, we did a lot of restructuring that led us to a big impairment. I thought that this was already done, but there are some more in second quarter.

How far have we done on this? Second item is on the tax expense of the 2.3 billion baht.

I just joined the call a few minutes ago, I'm not sure if this is already explained. Thank you.

Aloke Lohia

I'll ask Ashok to explain the tax question. As far as the impairments go, I would say that I mentioned earlier that Project Rebound, our IC business, not IC as a whole, but our MEG business, whether the MEG business can make money for us or not.

That is something that we have now explored with taking a long shutdown of our plant in Clear Lake. From there, we are getting good data on what the fix is.

I think by the time we talk again at the next CMD, we should be having a very clear focus on where our IC business sits or where the MEG business sits. That is one that is still not determined.

It is being carried at full value. The other one is specialty polymers.

Specialty polymers is also a weak business for us. Part of it is in Europe, part of it is in the U.S.

Those are the two businesses. I think the MEG business is with a larger impairment if we were to take one, but the specialty polymer one is not that big a deal.

In terms of Fibers, where are we, Diego, on Fibers?

Diego Boeri

I think we are basically executing spot-on all the plan that we presented at the last CMD. I think we're not completely finished yet, but I think we're on track with the plan that was communicated at that time.

Aloke Lohia

I don't think in Fibers there's much left. There's nothing in Indovida.

There's very little, if any, in Indovinya. It's basically the MEG business, which still remains on a concern for me.

Like I said, through this long stop, we have learned many things and we're looking at the cost to improve it.

Just want to clarify on the MEG asset. Have we been impaired this asset before?

Ashok Jain

No. Okay.

What are we looking at if we were going to impair MEG asset?

Aloke Lohia

Do we know what is the carrying value of MEG, IVOG Clear Lake? Let Ashok come back.

Ashok Jain

I'll come back to you, Naphat, on that. Yeah.

Okay. Maybe my last question is on the key message

Aloke Lohia

Do you want to answer the other point, Ashok?

Ashok Jain

On tax? I'll do that.

Yeah. For the second quarter, the PBT is 8.8 billion Thai baht, and we have certain non-cash impairments and also expenses which have been restructuring charges which we have provided.

If we add up, then our PBT would work out to around 10.8 billion Thai baht if we add up, because these impairments and these restructuring charges are to those specific entities. On the 10.8 billion baht, we have a tax expense of around 2.2 billion Thai baht, which comes to an ETR of around 20%, and our cash tax is around 1.5 billion baht.

I think when you're looking at it, then you will have to add up to the PBT the impairments and restructuring expenses that we have provided, because those are non-cash and those we cannot claim any deferred tax assets on those. You'll have to add it up, and the ETR will work out to less than 20%, and the cash tax to around 14%

to 15%. I have a last question on the slide 17 about the key message for the 2026 outlook.

When you mentioned that the second half earnings moderation, what do you mean by earnings moderation in the second half? Because first half earnings, if I get the core earnings in the second quarter, you got about 8-9 billion baht, with the first quarter you lost about 3 billion.

Net first half, you got about 6 billion, 5 to 6 billion. The earnings moderation in the second half, because you didn't make any earnings in first quarter.

Looking at the spread, are we looking at spread because later on you mentioned that you expect industry spread to stay at about this level. It seems to me that the second half of the year, if spreads to stay at this level, we should have I don't know, maybe better than first-half earnings, yeah.

I like to hear more clarification on this.

Aloke Lohia

I think we are saying that the spreads in the second half are going to moderate. The first-half spreads are not what we are indicating for the second half.

The moderation we are saying is going to be much more gradual than what we had in 2022. We are going to have net earnings in the second half, which we did not have in the first quarter, as you mentioned, but they won't be as high as what we had in the second quarter.

Our total 2026 Capital Markets Day expectations, we will be able to beat that. More importantly, we are not giving a '27 number right here, but what we are saying is that we believe that our 2028 ambitions will be achieved, both in terms of EBITDA delivery as well as on net debt delivery as well as EBITDA turns or net debt to EBITDA.

I think we are on track to deliver, and it's a very ambitious goal without relying on improved margins. The whole point being that we set a goal at the beginning of the year that by 2028, in 3 years' time, we will double our EBITDA, reduce our net debt to EBITDA to below 3 times.

What we are reaffirming today is that we're on track to do that.

If I may trying to understand the message that you are communicating, I remember we first talked about this second 2026 outlook during the CMD, and you seem to be very concerned about the industry outlook. Now we have come more than halfway in 2026, and you are more relaxed in terms of the second half.

Can I say that we are more optimistic in the industry outlook than early in the year? Would that be a fair statement?

Aloke Lohia

Absolutely. Not denying that.

The question is why? Why are we more optimistic or why are we more comfortable?

The reason being because quarter four was such a disaster, quarter four '25 was such a disaster, and January and February was a bit of a recovery on PET margins. I think those margins could sustain, but they went even better than that.

Now where we are in the third quarter, we know that the PET margins are back to where they were in January and February. Muthu mentioned that we believe that these industry margins will sustain.

Yes. When we made a Capital Markets Day presentation in March before the war, we were stressed because the industry had really spiraled down, which was way below where we thought it could ever go.

Now today, we are still at the bottom of the industry, which was in 2025. Whereas for me, when I'm thinking of the next 3 years, next couple of years, I think our peak margins prior to this quarter was in 2022.

Since 2023, '24, '25, those 3 years were where our business margins kept coming down. We took proactive measures.

We took down businesses in Europe especially, which we thought because of the change of the oil dynamics, because of the electrification, we thought that the businesses in Europe are not going to be able to sustain itself against cheap imports from Asia. Those decisions have paid us off well.

We don't have that baggage with us. Today, 95% of IVL businesses are sustainable at these margins.

That is where I feel comfortable that these margins are not going to last forever. Even at these margins, if we can make IVL segment create, let's say, earnings and deleverage, we would be in a much better place going forward.

What gives me confidence about IVL is basically our moats. We have spoken about our local-for-local moat.

You have seen that play out in the second quarter. We have our shale gas to PET advantage in North America.

You've seen that play out. For me, those things took years to get built.

The new discovery of S&OE and then the things that S&OE can do to how you run your balance sheet, how you run your business, how you create your margins, this is already playing out and helping us deleverage, helping us keep the margins in our pocket and not give it back when the prices come down. I think all our moats are serving us well, and this has become now a new moat for us, the S&OE, as our new operating rhythm.

On this slide, as you can see, it captures all of this. Yes, Khun Naphat, I'm in a much, much more comfortable place than I was 6 months back from a long-term perspective, not from a short-term perspective.

Thank you. Maybe last question before I go.

Any update on the asset sales, please? Thank you.

Aloke Lohia

We have ongoing negotiations with land. Most of the asset sales are basically to do with land sales, and that has got to do with both clearing up the land and getting the right price for it.

They are under negotiation, taking longer than what we communicated, I think, last year. Today there's a whole focus on those four pieces of land that we have, and there's a regular update going on on that.

There's regular progress, and I don't believe we have taken those land sales in our 2026 plan. They are there in the 2027 plan.

Moderator

We have a hand raised from Khun Amornrat. Khun Amornrat, would you like to post your question?

Thank you. Just one question from me.

I'd like to know the details on the impairment on the MEG plant. Which one of this, is it the old world or the one that you acquired from the Huntsman?

What is the basis or the rational behind this impairment? Thank you.

Aloke Lohia

Sorry, we are not saying it's impairment. We said last year that we have put up that IVOG.

This is the old world, the 2011 acquisition. This is a only MEG plant.

We don't have cracker there. Our cracker is in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

This plant, the way the MEG business in North America is that it is transacted at export parity basis, because North America has surplus MEG, and we have to bring it to Asia to market it. Or we get the value, the Asian value, less freight.

It being a liquid, the liquid freights have gone up in the last 3 years. That is hurting the economics of the MEG business.

Therefore, we are looking at that MEG business that how can we improve our conversion cost. That is a question that is being deliberated, because in the last 3-4 years our operating rates has suffered because of reliability.

Either we fix the reliability issue, in which case if we can run those plants at 90% plus, then it can be okay, it can give us our cost of capital. At the moment, that MEG plant is not giving us our cost of capital.

What IVL has been doing for the last 3 years has been that we have been saying that all sites that cannot meet our return requirement, we need to assess their strategic importance to IVL. In the case of IVL in 2011, it was a good strategic need.

Today, there's ample MEG in North America. If we cannot create our return on capital from that site, then we have to see what are our options.

That answer only came because Khun Naphat, I think, was asking that is there anything more in the portfolio that could come up? I'm saying these are things that we have announced in the past and we are still working on, but we have not yet determined where we are.

We are taking active measures to come to that conclusion. We should be able to talk about it by the end of the year.

Thank you.

Moderator

I don't see any more questions, and no more hands raised. Thank you everyone for joining us for our earnings call.

Look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you.

Aloke Lohia

Thank you.

Ashok Jain

Thank you.

Aradhana Lohia Sharma

Thank you.