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Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. (RYAM)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 29, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome and thank you for joining Rayonier Advanced Materials Third Quarter 2015 Teleconference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I will turn the meeting over to Mr. Mickey Walsh, Treasurer and Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin. Mickey Walsh - Vice President-Investor Relations & Treasurer: Thank you and good morning. This is Mickey Walsh, Treasurer and Vice President of Investor Relations. Welcome to Rayonier Advanced Materials 2015 third quarter earnings call and webcast. Joining me on today's call are Paul Boynton, our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Frank Ruperto, our Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings release and presentation materials were issued last night and are available on our website at rayonieram.com. I would like to remind you that, in today's presentation, we will include forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of federal securities laws. Our earnings release as well as our filings with the SEC list some of the factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements we may make. They are also referenced on slide two of our presentation materials. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Paul for his opening remarks. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. Thanks Mickey, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with a few brief comments about the quarter, before turning it over to Frank to review our financials. Yesterday, we reported third quarter results ahead of expectations. At the beginning of the year, we laid out three strategic initiatives: number one, reduce costs; number two, optimize our assets; and three, drive value through new and enhanced products. We continue…

Operator

Operator

Yes, thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from Mr. George Staphos with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open.

George Leon Staphos - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for all the details. Congratulation on the quarter too and the progress on the cost side. I guess first question, Paul and Frank, why do you think perhaps – well, let me phrase it differently. You've done so well on the cost reduction program and the productivity improvement program. Why might there not be more in the future years? Why would you only look to offset inflation in subsequent years? Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: Yeah. George, this is Frank. We will absolutely look to lower costs across the board wherever we can. And so, as we go through our 2016 budgeting program and other areas, we're going to look for all the cost savings initiatives that we can put in place for this upcoming year. But layered on top of that is our continuous improvement programs, which Paul has talked about before, that have the goal of keeping cost at best flat, or at worse, flat and taking out the inflation piece.

George Leon Staphos - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay, Frank. So to be clear, you could have another program that's comparable to the $30 million to $40 million that you're generating this year in subsequent years once you're done with your budgeting program this year? Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: I wouldn't put any parameters on it at this time. But I think we'll tell everyone when we get through our 2016 budgeting on the January call. The $30 million to $40 million – the $40 million cost savings initiative was a pretty big initiative on our part. But again, we will look to find more cost savings over and above just the continuous improvement programs.

George Leon Staphos - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. One question on Eastman and recognizing that you might not be able to say much of anything, is there any update or view on when perhaps you might have a resolution? As you said – I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. You said you've been working constructively with them to try to mutually acceptable resolution. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. George, it's Paul. No, we really can't say more than that, other than just what you repeated. We're working constructively with them and we do hope to have a resolution as soon as we can.

George Leon Staphos - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. Switching gears a bit, and I'll turn it over after these last two, and perhaps we're misreading. But you mentioned a number of issues in terms of the markets that have been discussed in the past in terms of oversupply and demand being somewhat soft. Is your sense that these issues have intensified in the last quarter or are they more or less running at the same level as beginning of third quarter and earlier in the year? And then the other question that I had, if I look at your guidance, admittedly you raised your EBITDA guidance for the year. Your comparison of EBITDA 4Q versus 4Q, I think you're looking for roughly around $50 million of EBITDA in the fourth quarter versus $70 million to $80 million in last year's fourth quarter, which is a bigger drop relative to the year-to-date figure. So, does that suggest that there's more intense pressure going forward and that's being reflected in the guidance? Thank you. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. George, let me take the first part of that, and I'll let Frank take the second part on the EBITDA. Just on are we saying anything different than we did in the past – and to be clear, in acetate, we are saying that the destocking continues. At one time, we had indicated we thought that this could be largely consumed, finished by mid-year, third quarter of 2015. From what we can see – and of course, you can ask our customers additional questions and they would have a much better answer than this, we see this continuing now. So we're just saying that is ongoing in the acetate area. I'd say in ethers, we talk about the state of the European economy. But if anything, I'd say that it's – if we see anything is a little more light there and a little more improvement. But still, it's not to where it was before the European downturn. But I would say, if anything, it's probably picking up a bit. The other comment I made out there is on the broader viscose market, which is a commodity market that we don't largely play in. But we did talk about we're seeing prices continue to improve in that area. I think pricing from May is up maybe 10%. And that's on healthy demand for viscose staple fiber as well as limited supply or more limited supply. And to us, again, it's not a market that we largely serve, but it's a good backdrop to the markets that we do serve. And we think that that improvement will ultimately certainly help the markets that we serve. So hopefully, that gives you a little more color there.

George Leon Staphos - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Yeah. Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: George, on the guidance piece of the question, two things. One is this year's results really don't impact pressures in the CS market. Those volumes are priced and they're set from a volume perspective. So, I think what you're really seeing is we had a very good fourth quarter last year. We've had a good – very strong third quarter this year. And so, we may see a little bit come off of the fourth quarter back into the third quarter of this year. But we don't see – it's not a pressure-driven issue at all.

George Leon Staphos - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

So Frank, that's just more timing on volumes, is that what you're referring to? Thanks. Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: Yes, yes.

George Leon Staphos - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. Very good. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks George.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Roger Spitz of Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Roger Neil Spitz - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning.

Roger Neil Spitz - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

I'm not going to ask you about 2016 CS pricing, but are you able to say what percent of your acetate dissolving wood pulp sales you've already negotiated 2016 pricing with? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: No, Roger, unfortunately, we can't give that at this time. We're midstream on all our negotiations with customers around pricing, and of course, volume comes to play to that to some degree. So, we'll have full disclosure on that as we typically do. Our intent is to do that in our January call.

Roger Neil Spitz - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Can you say – and maybe you can't talk about this either, but can you say in your general contracts with your larger customers, do you typically have most favored nation clauses on pricing, such that if someone else – if pricing changes for someone else, it might change for that particular contract customer? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Look, Roger, we have never given details on any of our contracts like that. Our customers have a host of different pricing mechanisms or pricing negotiation plans. And so, we don't give any specifics on any given ones, so sorry.

Roger Neil Spitz - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

That's fine. Lastly, in Q4 of 2015, can you speak about working capital inflows or perhaps outflows and the materiality of them? You did speak about net debt going down further. So, I guess you're hinting at something. Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: Yeah. I think what you saw last year, Roger, is last year we had an increase in working capital. Specifically, we had an increase in inventory. And that increase in inventory was really driven by, as we started running specifically the C-line on commodity product, run rates got better and better. And you've seen that continue through the year. The difference between last year and this year is they ramped up very quickly and we ended up with more inventory. We've now put in place sales plans to better match the estimated production coming off those lines on the commodity products. So we would be hopeful that the inventory levels would stay more in line, and therefore, we would be able to gain year-over-year working capital benefits.

Roger Neil Spitz - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Thank you very much. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks Roger.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Next, from Chip Dillon of Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Yes. Hi and good morning. First question is I want to make sure I understand a couple of things. If I think about it, you guys said that you've gotten $21 million of the cost saves this year, which is good. And so, we would guess that with the $30 million, you're going to get – or at least $30 million, you're going to get $9 million or more in the fourth quarter. So when I look at that and then I think, well, the full-year guidance for EBITDA would suggest a near halving of the EBITDA from the third to the fourth quarter. So, you'd go from $83 million to $47 million to hit the $230 million. Yet, you're going to show us more cost savings. Can you just help us understand why it comes down so hard in the fourth quarter? Or is that just a very conservative EBITDA guidance? In other words, are you slated to do even better? Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: The guidance is $230 million, Chip. I think we are, as we always do, a manufacturing business with big assets, and so we've got a couple of things going on. One is the timing of sales, which we talked about on George's question. And then the second piece of it is, obviously, we've got all of our just general manufacturing components. Some go up, some go down. So, I think the $230 million we feel very good about from a guidance perspective, but we'll have to see where it plays out by the end of the year.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay. And maybe I missed this, but where did you slate the – I know you said that the commodity volumes could come in at around 250,000 tons. Did you say what you thought the full-year specialties volumes would likely come in at? Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: They would come in – we're roughly consistent with 2014 level, so that is in the 479,000 tons last year.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay. Okay, that's helpful. Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: In that range, plus or minus.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay, got you. And then if we – and so is there any downtime – so, it's really the timing of sales that's really impacting this EBITDA variance third to fourth. It's not that you're going to take – you have special outages in the fourth quarter that you didn't see in the third in the mills. Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: No, Chip. And what you see, and we see this every year, is as we ship things later in the year – as you know, many of our customers are pretty far away as well. And so, there's always some risk on timing of receipt of those products and the recognition of revenues around those. And we talked about that in the past.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Got you, okay. And then could you update us on the – I think it's the lignin JV that you talked about with Borregaard. And could you just tell us where that stands and how that spending – how it might be financed or how that spending might flow out? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. So Chip, thanks for the question. We previously announced I guess, I think, June 1 that we're working on this joint lignin project with Borregaard at our Fernandina plant. We said we're going to take most of a year to do the engineering and cost estimates for this JV before we'd actually make a joint decision with Borregaard whether to move forward or not. So, we're right in the middle of that. The progress is going really well. So, we expect to make a decision of investment in the first half of 2016 and then with a significant portion of that cash investment on our side occurring shortly thereafter. So, that's kind of where we sit right now. We are long ways to a decision on it. But again, it's progressing very nicely and great cooperation with them.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay, that's helpful. Let's say if we don't count the CapEx that would be tied to that or any of the investment, what's sort of a good range of CapEx to use for 2016 as you look out at this point? And how – and let us know if that's something that you're still kind of working around or if that's a pretty solid number at this point. Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: Yeah. I'll tell you what I said on the last call was it was $90 million to $95 million range. But we are still working on that and we'll give an update on guidance on that. Obviously, as we look to pay down debt and be as efficient as we can with our capital, we look at that capital spending very closely as we get through our budgeting process.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

And would that – Frank, would that be kind of a normal number, so like if – again, just excluding any footprint changes or the JV with Borregaard, would that sort of be an ongoing number to consider like in 2017 and 2018? Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: No, that number is high. And that's high for a couple of reasons, one being is we've got to finish out the boiler MACT project and then we have a couple of other large projects, replacement projects on the maintenance side that we need to deal with. I think going forward, the number is more in the $50 million, $55 million range from a maintenance perspective.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Got you. And then could you just update us on the – I think you're switching a line back to specialties. If I remember, you announced something a few months ago. Could you just remind us where that stands? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. So Chip, Paul again. In fact, that's one of the capital expenditures we have in the plan making up that $90 million to $95 million for next year and that's the repurposing of our C-line. And we're making a lot of progress in that regard. A lot of action items have been implemented. But I'd say for the most part, we're still right in the middle of a lot of engineering on that. And of course, post engineering, we've got to get our permits in place. So, we're still on schedule to make that happen. Our target is to have that happen prior to the spring shutdown in 2016. But it is dependent on this engineering work and it's dependent on the permits that we got to receive.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Got you. And the last question, I'm sorry, is I believe the issue with Eastman is something that is for post-2016. So that, in a sense, is not to expect, if I recall, 2016 volumes. And therefore, when you give us the pricing – I guess the earliest, as you said, we should expect a pricing update would be on the first quarter – on the fourth quarter call. I guess if there were some kind of settlement that impacted 2016 ahead of time, you might tell us if your auditors might suggest that or if you feel that's a good thing to do? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes. So Chip, again all pricing, all perspectives on 2016, you are correct, we put that into our fourth quarter call, which will be in the January timeframe. We have nothing more to add about Eastman with regard to that in any way. When we have information to share, we'll certainly share that.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay. And again, their issue starts in 2017 and that's what the issue is, it isn't next year? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: No, we've never said that. It's an immediate discussion on the current contract that we have with them, and we're going through that now with them. And as soon as we have some guidance, we'll provide that.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay. Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: Chip, what we did say is it there is no impact on 2015.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

2015? I'm sorry. I must have missed it. Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay. Well, guys, thanks for all the details. I appreciate it. Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: Sure. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks Chip.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bill Hoffmann of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Bill Hoffmann - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning.

Bill Hoffmann - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Paul, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the mix in the commodity side, viscose versus fluff. And then also with your guidance to do 240,000 tons this year with the C-line conversion, what are your expectations volumetrically to be able to sell next year? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So first, just on the mix of our fluff versus viscose, I think we've consistently said, which is we are largely running our line – our C-line into the fluff market. So we will continue to plan to operate that way. We haven't given any guidance, of course, on what that would look like for next year I did indicate that viscose prices are moving up and that fluff prices are steady, if not slightly down. So, we continue to do that analysis, because we can switch back and forth and make sure we're getting the optimal mix off of that line. But I think you can assume that we're going to be in that 80% to 85% range of absorb materials or fluff pulp versus viscose. Frank indicated that this year, we are now looking at running over 100,000 tons more commodity than we did last year. So, the team's done a great job. That puts us at 250,000 tons or above off that into the commodity markets, and I think we can expect, provided any kind of changes in downtime, that that type of run rate will continue at that level, if not more, in the future.

Bill Hoffmann - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

And then with the conversion, what's the potential there? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I'm sorry, Bill. Restate the whole question then, maybe I missed your...

Bill Hoffmann - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Sorry about that. Just with the C-line conversion that you're working on right now, will that provide you incremental capacity on top of the (31:07)? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, we're capturing a lot of that right now.

Bill Hoffmann - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Okay. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: What we said in the repurposing of the C-line that a lot of those moves – and we talked about this in our last call, when we thought we would get about 11% additional incremental volume out of making these changes. And quite honestly, the team – even though we're still doing a lot of the engineering, the team is able to push up a bit now on the volumes, but we'll continue to work on that. But we don't have any further guidance other than what we already provided in the July call.

Bill Hoffmann - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Okay, thank you. And then just regards to the acetate markets, we heard from some of the downstream customers that they were still seeing some inventory destocking, obviously, mostly over in China, Asia, but thought that the acetate markets elsewhere were reasonably balanced. Can you talk at all about what the impact that this inventory destocking might have had on your overall volumes in the acetate – in the specialties market this year? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. So – and first of all, just to confirm your comments, and that's consistent with some of the comments I made earlier, we continue to hear and see destocking happening out there in the market, particularly in China. Of course, we listen to our customers as well and what they're seeing out there. So, I'm kind of just repeating some of the things that they have shared with us. So, that is continuing and hasn't been completed yet from our perspective. And maybe it's getting closer. So, we're hopeful to that. With regard to our volumes and the impact on that this year, really not a lot. Again, most of our volumes are put into contracts where we can kind of keep them fairly consistently. And so, we haven't seen a change from our guidance that we provided at the beginning of the year to now relative to this destocking. So, I'd say overall our volumes for the year have been consistent to what we had shared with everybody in our January call. And so, we don't anticipate to have that be an impact on our business for 2015.

Bill Hoffmann - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Great, thank you. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Paul Quinn of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. Thanks very much. Just a couple clarifications, one on the 2016 CapEx guidance of $90 million to $95 million. That includes the $25 million for the, I guess C-line and A-line conversion, but doesn't include any spending on the joint venture with Borregaard? Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: That is correct.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then just some comments on the outlook, the precision and balance in supply-demand. Just getting back to this, it was only last quarter that you repurposed C-line 190,000 tons, and I would have expected that to largely put that CS market in balance with the exception of a competitor with additional capacity – potential capacity that hasn't been proven out. Has the market gotten weaker in your mind in terms of supply-demand balance from last quarter? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: No, I wouldn't say that, Paul. I would say that to your point that we did reposition our assets and what we did is the only thing that we can do is control our own assets and how they're matching to the market. So we think we're much better positioned and matching roughly what we can produce on CS to what we think the demand is for our product out there right now into the CS markets. I don't think much else has changed out there. But we don't have a lot more to report other than what we've shared with you in the July conference call. So again, we made our change and we think we, as a company, are much better fit for the market that we're serving today.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then just a question on the destocking comment; destocking sort of suggests a one-time inventory change. Is it really destocking or is this actually demand decline? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So first of all, it's largely, in our belief, is destocking out there. But we did reference and acknowledged that there are some demand decline, particularly around public policy in China. Our belief still stands that we think, in the acetate market when it comes to acetate tow, that this is relatively a flat world out there, that we may still continue to see some slight positive growth out of some regions and some probably negative growth out of others. And overall, it's a relatively flat market. But we got to get through this destocking before we kind of get back to what we think is slightly up type of market.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then just on the guidance for 2015 pricing with CS prices down 7% to 8% (35:46), is that across the board or is that your average price through all the contracts; i.e., are all the contracts coming down at 7% to 8% (35:53) from 2014 or is it your average price? Some are going significantly higher than that, some are going probably flat? Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: That's our average pricing. There's some variance around that average, but it's not wild variance. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: (36:10).

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And last question, because I know you want to talk about it, just this Eastman issue on the timing of it. I guess both cases are sealed, so you have – have you received any indication from your lawyers as to timing referencing other cases? Is it a six-month, a year-long timeframe? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Unfortunately, Paul, I can't comment. The only thing I can say is that again we are constructively working together to get to a resolution. And so, we believe sooner than later is better. So, we are working in that regard. But I really can't offer anything more than that, sorry.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Well, can you confirm that you're constructively working together with Eastman outside the court process? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I really can't say that. I can say we're constructively working together.

Paul Quinn - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, fair enough. Best of luck, guys. Thanks. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks Paul.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Steve Chercover of D. A. Davidson. Your line is now open. Steven Pierre Chercover - D. A. Davidson & Co.: Thanks and good morning. Could you actually discuss what the policy changes in China are vis-à-vis smoking? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes. There are several issues we talked about before. Some of those policy changes include, Steve, some incremental tax. I think the WHO came in and basically had an opinion of all industrialized nations out there that China has probably lower tax on cigarettes than most countries. And so, they've implemented some higher taxes. So, that's kind of one policy change. Another certainly we talked about quite a bit is kind of the cut down on graft, which really hits a lot of gift exchanges and alcohol and cigarettes included in that. And that's a small part. And then probably the most notable of recent times is just an overall curbing of public smoking and specifically in Beijing. And so, that's changed I think the dynamic of smoking a bit on the demand side. But I would say from what we hear, those are relatively small impact kind of things, but they are having a slight impact. That's why the feedback we get says that we think there's still positive growth in China when it comes to cigarette consumption once we get through the destocking. But I think it's a little bit more subdued growth than what we saw in previous times. Steven Pierre Chercover - D. A. Davidson & Co.: As I recall, I thought the length of the filter plug was actually going to increase. I'm thinking, from 7 millimeters to 11 millimeters and the benefits of that were twofold, A), it mitigated the…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chip Dillon of Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Hi, just a quick one. Can you just give us a little feel for the commodities? My guess is that you are – I think I heard you say that the low alpha grades pricing was up a bit, if I heard you right. But I guess could you give us – verify that, clarify that? But also are you still more tilted toward fluff than the low alpha grades of dissolving? Is a two-thirds, one-third split in the right zip code? Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So Chip, just again the comments around just specifically on the market for viscose pulps out there, that has moved up through the course of the year, mainly from May. So, I was commenting on that. And again, that's a small part of our commodity mix. And then commented that – the other comment I made was that fluff pulp price is relatively stable but has come down a little bit as well. And some of that, by the way, is mix. As we produce more for the commodity market, we've got to go place that in the market. And some of those are kind of on the fringe of pricing, because it was a little bit at the lower end of the mix. So I was talking more broadly about the market, viscose price is going up, fluff price is relatively flat, if not down a little bit. Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: Yeah. What you see if you look at page five of the materials that we put online, Chip, you can see that there's been some material change this quarter over the same quarter last year and then this quarter versus the nine-month period in the overall commodity pricing. So, you've seen some change in the commodity pricing. And our mix is, for the most part, AM, absorbent materials. We do have some viscose in there, but it's not material. So, we're seeing more price decrease because we're more on the commodity side, but we have made some viscose.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Got you. And it looks like your total production for the year will come out at around 730,000 tons, if you – let's say 480,000 tons for high alpha and 250,000 tons for the others. And is that – I guess is that sort of maxing out the mill? Maybe not totally, but you're running, I would imagine, pretty close to full for the year, not that you can't get creep or more benefits of productivity in the future. But I guess you're not really slowing the mill back much this year, the mills. Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: Two points, Chip. One is I've referenced earlier on a conversation with I think Roger on working capital, we had a significant amount of inventory build in the commodity side last year, which we're not anticipating this year. So, some of those sales volumes are going to be commodity sales from production last year. So, that's one piece of it. The other piece though is you are right, the mills are running very well. Right now, they're running very well. They have run better. As we've been ramping up the sales volumes, they've obviously been running better quarter-over-quarter from a run rate perspective. So right now, they are running very well.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

And because of the inventory issue, it's probably reasonable to see the sales volumes next year overall probably not up, maybe down slightly, because you don't have that inventory situation repeating? Frank A. Ruperto - Chief Financial Officer & SVP-Finance and Strategy: Yeah. I don't know if it will be that material. We haven't looked at that yet. But I think that's a fair point.

Chip A. Dillon - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay, thank you. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks Chip.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, everyone. Now, I would like to hand it back to Paul Boynton for his closing remarks. Paul G. Boynton - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Great, thanks Norrie. So if there's no more questions at this time, I'd like to thank you for joining us today. We look forward to updating you on our progress in a timely manner as we move forward. Thanks and have a good morning.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And that concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.