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Braskem S.A. (BAK)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 6, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we'd like to welcome everyone to Braskem's Third Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. Today with us we have Carlos Fadigas, CEO; Mario Augusto Da Silva, CFO; and Roberta Varella, Head of Investor Relations. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] We have a simultaneous webcast that may be accessed through Braskem's IR website, www.braskem.com.br/ir. The slide presentation may be downloaded from the website. Please feel free to flip through the slides during the conference call. There will be a replay facility [ph] for this call on the website. We remind you that questions, which will be answered during the Q&A session may be posted in advance on the website. Before proceeding, let me mentioned that forward-looking statements are being made under the Safe Harbor of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1996. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Braskem management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstance that may or may not occur in the future. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Braskem and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now I will turn the conference over to Roberta Varella, Head of IR. Ms. Varella, you may begin your conference.

Roberta Varella

Analyst

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for participating in another Braskem earnings conference call. Today, we will be commenting on our results for the third quarter and first 9 months of 2014. We'd like to remind you that pursuant to Federal Law 11638 as of 2007 the results present in today's presentation reflect the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards or IFRS. Note also that due to the decision of maintaining its investments in quantiQ, the chemical product distribution company, Braskem restated its consolidated quarterly results for 2013 to include the results of this operation. The financial information in today's presentation was reviewed by the independent external auditor. Let's go to the next slide, please, where we'll begin our comments. On Slide 3, we present the operating and financial highlights of the third quarter of 2014. The average capacity utilization rate of Braskem's crackers was 90%, 6 percentage points higher than in the second quarter, reflecting the resumption of operations at the Triunfo cracker following the scheduled maintenance shutdown and the normalization of fixed cost supply at the Rio de Janeiro site, which partially offset the scheduled shutdown of the São Paulo cracker that started in September and was concluded in October. Brazilian demand for thermoplastic resins was 1.4 million pounds, increasing 5% from second quarter, which is explained by the better performance of factors related to consumer bid and by seasonality. Braskem's sales followed this trend and grew by 7%. Sales of propylene in the U.S. and Europe business units held 2% on the previous quarter, mainly due to the slow down European market. Compared to the third quarter of 2013, Braskem's sales grew by 9%, reflecting the better microeconomic environment. Consolidated EBITDA in the third quarter was BRL 1.5 billion, which is sustained by the higher spreads…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Mr. Frank McGann from Bank of America would like to make a question.

Frank J. McGann - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst

Yes, I was wondering how you're seeing the competitive environment now thinking relative to imports. With the foreign oil prices, have you seen some of the naphtha-based suppliers -- rather natural gas-based suppliers becoming less competitive, as a result it's becoming less of an issue? Or is it actually, perhaps, a reverse just because of lower prices in general? Carlos José Fadigas de Souza Filho: Frank, this is Carlos Fadigas. Well, the recent drop in oil price and, therefore, the reduction in naphtha prices as part of this year has not changed dramatically, and the gas-based producers remain much more competitive than the naphtha producers. And so the overall picture has not changed. What has been actually positive for some naphtha producers is the fact that spreads have increased simply because although base petrochemicals have felt also along with the naphtha, but the resins have been coming down in a slower pace. So therefore margins were better in the third quarter and now in the beginning of fourth quarter. But apart from that, when you compare gas-based with naphtha-based producers, no relevant change. We haven't seen any relevant change.

Frank J. McGann - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst

And how do you see prices going forward? Do you think they will become -- go under more pressure or? Carlos José Fadigas de Souza Filho: I think that the resin prices for the ethylene and polypropylene will come down over time to adjust for the falling naphtha price. You also asked in your first question about imports. We haven't seen any special pattern in imports in Brazil. We increased our share from the second to the third quarter from 67% of the Brazilian market to 68%. We're going to try to increase a little bit more the market share in Brazil. Import levels have been fairly normal. So to address the point you have raised in your first question, so imports in Brazil are following the same pattern we had before. Prices going forward, as I was mentioning, base petrochemical price react more fast to the falling naphtha prices. Resins are coming down in a much slower pace. So therefore we're going to have -- we're not going to do good margins. We have had it in the third quarter and in the beginning of the fourth quarter, but that's something that will -- this dynamic is pretty much related to this quarter. I don't think that the spreads, if you like, now are sustainable long term. It's a result of -- the result of the adjustments to the falling naphtha prices. But when you compare -- if you were to compare what we expect for the whole year of '15 with what we have had so far, I think that it spreads overall will remain pretty much the same next year. If I were to be a little bit more optimistic in that maybe we have a small increase in the spreads due to the fact that demand keeps growing, not in Brazil but outside of Brazil, and not a lot of value -- volume coming to the market. But that's more on the optimistic side of the forecast rather than the conservative one.

Operator

Operator

Mr. Fernando Perez from GBM would like to make a question. Fernando Perez Lizardi - GBM Grupo Bursátil Mexicano, S.A. de C.V. Casa de Bolsa, Research Division: I have 2 questions. The first one is how do you expect the decline in oil prices to affect the negotiations with Petrobras regarding the naphtha supply contracts? And the second one is, if you have a guidance regarding the domestic market for the next year, how do you expect it to behave in terms of volume? Carlos José Fadigas de Souza Filho: Okay, Fernan, thank you for the question. Regarding the fall in both oil and therefore naphtha prices, the impact of the negotiation with Petrobras. First of all, a very important thing to mention is that the recent production in naphtha price does not solve the issue of competitiveness of the naphtha-based petrochemical producers simply because as naphtha prices fall, the price of the end products, the petrochemical products who need the resins for the base petrochemical products, they also fall. And therefore, the profitability of the petrochemical producers is much more related with the balance between demand and production of petrochemicals itself, not very much associated with the absolute value of naphtha. Naturally, if it falls to close to the gas price, that we don't see happening, that could have an effect. But the important message here is that in regards to the naphtha price, from $950 per ton in June, July to $650 per ton, does not change the fact that petrochemical producers are still less competitive than gas producers. What I think that this fall in prices of oil derivatives and gasoline is a critical one for Petrobras could help Petrobras reduce the loss they've been saying -- they been stating they've had over time between cost of…

Operator

Operator

Mr. Andre Sobreira from Crédit Suisse would like to make a question.

Andre Sobreira

Analyst

I have one follow-up from the Portuguese call. When you were making comments about the Mexico Project, I had the feeling that you were somewhat cautious about your ability to sell in the Mexican market. Did I understand that correctly? Are you a little bit more concerned about your ability to displace the imports in the Mexican market going forward? Do you see more competition? That would be my first question. The second question, also follow-up regarding the Ascent project in the States. The decision on the structure of the project is it more because you don't necessarily want to own the project and you want to operate or just to be the off taker? Is that you're decision because you'd prefer that solution? Or it's a balance sheet decision from Braskem that you can also do it, therefore, you're trying to go in another route? That would be the 2 questions. Carlos José Fadigas de Souza Filho: Thank you, Andre. Regarding the Mexican project, we're going to be producing close to 1 million tons naturally as we start up the plant. There is a ramp-up period, but at the end of the day, it's a 1,050,000 tons of capacity. We are very confident of our capacity of placing most of that in the Mexican market. But what we said -- or what they tried to say at least is that especially in the beginning, you don't go from 0 presence in the market -- or very little presence, only through your pre-marketing, all the way up to 1 million tons sold in [indiscernible] in the very first year. So right from the start, when we were planning this project and budgeting and so on, we knew there would have to be an adjusted period. Right now it's -- the…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Mr. Andres Portilla from GBM would like to make a question. Andres Portilla Leroux - GBM Grupo Bursátil Mexicano, S.A. de C.V. Casa de Bolsa, Research Division: I wanted to ask you, when do you expect to close the acquisition of Solvay Indupa in Argentina? Carlos José Fadigas de Souza Filho: Andres, it's Carlos Fadigas. We announced the decision in December last year. As you remember, the Brazilian antitrust authorities are analyzing that. They have a deadline to make a decision on that between now and the end of the year, meaning over the next weeks, and we expect to hear from them in that time frame. If we have an approval and we are hoping -- we are working very hard to have an approval, then we'll close the transaction immediately. After closing the transaction, then we will go on and deal with the other things associated with the decision, meaning a public offer to buy the shares of the minority shareholders of Solvay Indupa at the Brazilian [indiscernible] stock exchange, and naturally all the other asset integration activities behind thing combining the effort the things and stock planning, production and sales on a more integrated phases. We remain confident in getting this transaction approved just like we had other polyethylene, polypropylene decisions approved in the past. In the PVC market, we see the same reality. There is no local markets. It's really a global market and even with the acquisition Braskem will remain a small player globally and, therefore, unable to define prices to the market. Meaning we're going to remain a price taker just as it is with all the players in the petrochemical sector. Because of that, we believe and we're hoping to get this transaction approved. We are in constant contact with the Brazilian antitrust authorities to provide the data to get this transaction approved, and we hope we get this done between now and the end of the year. Having said that, the Brazilian antitrust is the final decision-maker on this topic, and it's up to them to make a final decision. We are doing everything we can in [indiscernible], but we have to respect their position on that.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] I will turn now over to the company for closing remarks. Carlos José Fadigas de Souza Filho: I'd like to thank you all for participating in the call. I'd like to thank for the questions and having the chance to address some of these relevant points. Only 2 or 3 comments from my side. First of all, we are -- as we were in the past, we remain very focused on the gas-based projects in Mexico, hopefully at a certain point up in comparing that these are transformative projects for Braskem, and they are very critical for us to diversify our raw material matrix. At the same time, we're working very hard to extract all the possible value from the assets we have. That's why we work hard to get the crackers running at maximum capacity and adjust our domestic strategy in Brazil to generate most of the [indiscernible] possible. As we do that, we also work and try to influence the debate about competitive of the Brazilian industry because of several factors, cost of electricity, raw material, the labor, exchange rate, taxes and so on. The Brazilian industry as a whole has lost competitiveness over time, and it's relevant that we find ways to get a more competitive industry segment in Brazil due to the petrochemical or any other segments. Braskem as a large Brazilian industrial company is engaged in this debate. We are glad to see some of the efforts that were made by the government recently, the Entegra [ph] mechanisms to reimburse some of the taxes embedded in the cost of products, export, was an important initiative from the side of the government. And we plan to try to [indiscernible] involve trying to contribute to the discussion so we can improve the competitiveness of the Brazilian industry. So thank you all again and I hope to meet you on our next call. Bye-bye.