Timothy Roberts
Analyst · Piper Sandler
Yes. Ryan, this is Tim Roberts, and I'll chat about that. I'll cover 3 things because I think there'll be other questions around it. First one I wanted to talk about is actually more on the leadership side. I just wanted to recognize Bruce Chinn, who was the recently retired CEO at CPChem. He did a really good job there, great leadership, great drive for excellence, and he'll be missed.
We have an internal candidate, Steve Prusak, who's assumed the role of CEO. Steve has been very successful in all phases of the Chemical business, and we are highly confident in his ability to lead and take CPChem to the next level of industry-leading performance. So that, I want to thank both of those guys.
Now on the macro side, let me talk about that, and then I'll get specific to CPChem. Macro, clearly, the heavy-light spread with regard to being light feed versus heavy feed, it's really been a boon to those that can crack the light feedstock, especially CPChem, who's well positioned not only in the U.S. Gulf Coast but in the Middle East. And so it's -- the advantage is pretty wide right now. And so they've been able to take advantage of it. In fact, the industry in the U.S., if you're cracking light, you like it.
However, I will tell you, we are not at mid-cycle margins. It has come off the bottom, which is good. A lot of that is really related to more about feedstock. So natural gas has come off. It's come down. And subsequently, ethane's come down with it, as has some propane and butane as well. And so subsequently, that gap has gotten bigger, and then, anyway, that's showing up, and then, also, the lower feedstock and natural gas relative to utility cost.
So the combination of those 2, as well as just a little bit of support on polyethylene pricing, not a lot, but enough to help widen up that chain margin a little bit. So I think that's been good. We still think, though, that although we're off the bottom, we still think it's hard to see us getting to mid-cycle anytime during 2025. But certainly, supply-demand fundamentals, as destocking goes, we do see that it's -- sometime after 2025, you can see it rebalance and then get back into a mid-cycle environment.
Specifically to CPChem, though, I do want to highlight as well with them that they've had a couple of their mid-cap projects that did come onstream late last year, C3 splitter, the 1-hexene unit, and then they also added another furnace to one of the large crackers there. And 1-hexene and C3, they're adding earnings in the first quarter. So they're up, they're running. They have run it higher than nameplate capacity, which has been really good, and again, generating earnings that are showing up at CPChem's results.
And we're in really a start-up mode with the furnace. That work is complete. They're starting it up, going through the normal shakedown you will have with those units. And we're hoping, in 2Q, you'll see something more material on the earnings side there, too.