Westlake Corporation (WLK) Q2 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Westlake Corporation Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded today, August 5, 2025. I would now like to turn the call over to your first speaker today, John Zollier, Westlake's Vice President and Treasurer. Sir, you may begin. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Corporation conference call to discuss our second quarter 2025 results. I am joined today by Albert Chow, our Executive Chairman, Jean-Marc Gilson, our President and CEO, Steve Bender, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and other members of our management team. During the call, we will refer to our two reporting segments, Performance and Essential Materials, which we refer to as PEM or Materials, and housing and infrastructure products, which we refer to as HIP or products. Today's conference call will begin with Jean-Marc, who will open with a few comments regarding Westlake's performance. Steve will then discuss our financial and operating results, after which Jean-Marc will add a few concluding comments, and we will open the call up to questions. During the second quarter of 2025, we accrued expenses of $123 million and $7 million, respectively, to shut down the company's epoxy facility in Pernis, the Netherlands, and temporarily cease operations at a PVC resin production unit in China at the company's 95% owned Wosu joint venture. We refer to these expense items, which in aggregate were $130 million, as the identified items in our earnings release and on this conference call. Reference...