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Ultrapar Participações S.A. (UGP)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 22, 2013

$5.87

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. At this time we would like to welcome everyone to Ultrapar's Fourth Quarter 2012 Results Conference Call. There is also a simultaneous webcast that maybe accessed through Ultrapar's website at www.ultracom.br/ri where the presentation is available for download. Please feel free to put through the slides during the conference call. Today with us we have Ms. André Covre, Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer, together with other executives of Ultrapar. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the Company's presentation. After Ultrapar's remarks are completed there will be a question-and-answer session. At that time further instructions will be given. (Operator Instructions) We remind you that questions which will be answered during the Q&A session maybe posted in advance in the webcast. A replay of this call will be available for one-week. Before proceeding let me mention that forward-looking statements are being made under the safe harbor of the Securities Litigation Reform Act, 1996. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Ultrapar 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 circumstances 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 Ultrapar and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now I'll turn the conference over to Mr. Covre, who will begin Ultrapar's results in the quarter and discuss about perspectives. Mr. Covre, you may now begin the conference. André Covre: Good morning everyone. It's a great pleasure to be here with you again. Today we will…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Frank McGann of Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Frank McGann - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: Hi, good day. Just two things one, in terms of operations, and also gas (inaudible) were quite weak in the quarter and of course, you went through the reasons for that, Andre, it's to -- how do you think of those say over a two or three year period, what -- how much upside potential could you have in those businesses, particularly Oxiteno? And then in terms of your expansions that you're planning in Oxiteno in the U.S. and Mexico, maybe you could just go through a little bit more of, if you can give us more detail on what you're doing right now and what the status of each of those projects is? André Covre: Frank, thank you very much for being with us and for the questions. We have a plan naturally for each one of the three businesses, that you mentioned. Talking of Oxiteno, but the more immediate terms the focus is to make the expansions we've made were to their fullest capacity. (Inaudible) has two steps, first our priority is always to get the plant operating full capacity. That was one of the reasons we had 15% growth in volume in the year while the Brazilian economy was very weak. Naturally, a significant portion of that additional volume went to the export market some of that went to the glycol market which is very elastic market as you know. We have not finished yet the process of making the plants work to their full capacity, so we expect to have another year of important volume growth this year. August 20, 2014, we're going to have the second wave of benefits…

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from the of Luiz Pinho of UBS. Please go ahead.

Luiz Pinho - UBS

Analyst

Hi, good afternoon guys. I just noticed from the financial statements that you have this agreement to supply an agreement which is asking for a certain amount of ethylene, and back in 2012 you had like a minimal amount of 211,000 tons. And now for this year 2013, the number is a range between 205,000 tons and 220,000 tons. So just wonder if this news that as your output will grow like a double-digit, that you're going to supply the Brazilian market through I don't know the oil [play] and appliance or there is another effect here? The second question is, you mentioned that in the fourth quarter the higher costs on that ethylene -- were of explanation for the lower EBITDA, right, but you also said that this is going to impact a little bit on first quarter too. So, I was expecting that you could pass through this final prices right in the first quarter. So just wondering how is your commercial strategy if you're on a maximize your capacity optimization, you should think this is not a good timing for increasing prices? Well, that would be it, thanks. André Covre: Luiz, thank you for your questions again. In relation to the data that you saw in our financial statements related to our contract with Braskem, I think the simpler way to think of it is, our ethylene upside capacity is working full capacity, but we're not working full capacity is the downstream part, in other words if the specialty chemicals and the glycols. So as we grow volumes, we're not going to need more ethylene that we have today, we just need to make products in the downstream segments that will result in volume growth. In relation to costs, you are right that in one of circumstances, that if we have increasing costs in one quarter, we'll probably deal with it, in the following quarter. What's happening here is that we have an increasing cost in the fourth quarter and we also have increasing in the first quarter. So it will take a little more than just a one quarter to get it through.

Luiz Pinho - UBS

Analyst

Thank you, André.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) This concludes the question and answer section. At this time I would like to turn the floor back to Mr. André Covre for any closing remarks. André Covre: Well, thank you very much for your attendance to our call. We appreciate the questions and we look forward to seeing you on the next conference call and throughout the year in our one-on-one meetings. Thanks a lot, have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's Ultrapar's fourth quarter 2012 results conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time.