Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Third Quarter 2008 Huntsman Corporation Earnings Conference Call. My name is Madge, and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Mr. Kurt Ogden from Huntsman Corporation Investor Relations. Please proceed sir.

Thank you, operator, and good morning everyone. My name is Kurt Ogden from Huntsman Corporation's Investor Relations. Welcome to Huntsman's investor conference call for the third quarter of 2008. Joining us on the call today, are, John Huntsman, the Founder and Chairman of our company, Peter Huntsman, our President and CEO, and Kimo Esplin our Executive Vice President and CFO. A recorded playback of this call will be available until midnight, November 13, 2008. The recorded playback may be accessed from the US by dialing 1-888-286-8010 and from outside the US by dialing 1-617-801-6888. The access code for both dial-in numbers is 83791974. A recording of this call may also be accessed through our website. Before we begin our discussion of our earnings, I would like to say a few words about forward-looking statements. Statements made during this conference call, that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Such statements are to be considered predictions or expectations that are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially based on a number of factors, including but not limited to the consumption timing of our proposed merger with Hexion, the impact of the ongoing litigation related to the merger, future global economic conditions, changes in the prices of our raw materials and the energy we consume in our production processes, access to capital markets, industry production capacity and operating rates, the supply demand balance for our products and that of competing products, pricing pressures, technological developments, changes in governmental regulations, geopolitical events and other risk factors. Please refer to our most recent 10-K, 10-Q and our other public filings for a more complete discussion of the risk factors applicable to our company and our announced plan to merge with Hexion. Before I walk through a summary…

Thanks Kurt. I will begin my remarks with some comments on the financial impact caused by Hurricanes, Gustav and Ike. These hurricanes hit the US Gulf coast in September this year. In preparation for those hurricanes, certain facilities were shutdown in an orderly process to minimize the storm effects. Fortunately all of our associates were safe and the damage was minimized. Although the circumstances surrounding each facility were different and unique, the facilities remained inoperable for a number of days and in certain cases weeks. During the third quarter the impact of unabsorbed fixed costs, as well as repairs, was approximately $21 million. Additionally we incurred lost profit margin of an additional $28 million for a total third quarter hurricane adjusted EBITDA impact of $49 million. The effects of the hurricane in the fourth quarter are estimated to be $18 million. All of the impacted plants are now back up and running, while all our operations are insured against physical damage and business interruptions, in neither case did we exceed our deductibles. Our capital expenditures in the third quarter were $101 million. Consistent with our prior guidance we expect to spend between 440 and 450 million this year. Our annual required maintenance capital expenditures including environmental health and safety is approximately a 100 to a 150 million for the entire company. All discretionary spending is allocated through a very disciplined process, based on a risk adjusted return threshold. We expect capital spending in 2009 to be considerably below depreciation which runs approximately $400 million annually. From a liquidity perspective we had approximately $536 million of cash and unused borrowing capacity at the end of the third quarter. At September 30, our total debt… our total net debt, including our off balance sheet AR securitization program stood at approximately 4.3 billion,…

Kimo, thank you very much, and thank you all for taking the time to join us this morning. Excluding the approximate $49 million impact of Hurricane Gustav and Ike, our third quarter results were very solid. The third quarter adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations excluding the hurricane impact was approximately $243 million. In line with the prior year's results of $240 million is significantly greater than the second quarter of $210 million. These solid results were achieved despite the continued significant headwind in the form of higher raw material and energy cost measured on sequential and year-over-year basis. By way the example, the two key benchmarks, crude oil and natural gas were up 56% and 70%, respectively, compared to the third quarter of 2007, which had the effect of pushing of direct cost of $360 million. The good news is that the price for these benchmarks have come off their peaks. While we saw material costs fall during the later part of the third quarter, we experienced a $170 million increase in our direct cost as we work through our inventories. During the fourth quarter, we are seeing the cost of our inventory decrease. On a historical basis, generally about… generally for every $10 change in crude oil, our three largest raw materials, butane, benzene, and ethane will change annually by approximately $140 million. For every $1 movement in natural gas, our cost will change approximately $24 million annually. Our ability to capture this extra margin depends on how well we are able to maintain prices with our finished products. In response to the rising raw material costs, we initiated swift and sustained price increases with our customers earlier this year across every division. These obviously differed in amount by product and region but selling prices are higher around the…

Thank you, Peter. Operator, that concludes our call for today. Thank you everyone for joining us.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Good day.