Westlake Chemical Partners LP ($WLKP)

Good afternoon. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Westlake Chemical Partners First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, May 5, 2026. I would now like to turn the call over to today's host, Jeff Holy, Westlake Chemical Partners Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Kelly. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Chemical Partners First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. I'm joined today by Albert Chao, 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 this call, we refer to ourselves as Westlake Partners or the partnership. References to Westlake refer to our parent company, Westlake Corporation, and references to OpCo refer to Westlake Chemical OpCo LP, a subsidiary of Westlake and the Partnership, which owns certain olefins assets. Additionally, when we refer to distributable cash flow, we are referring to Westlake Chemical Partners' MLP distributable cash flow. Definitions of these terms are available on the Partnership's website. Today, management is going to discuss certain topics that will contain forward-looking information that is based on management's beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to management. These forward-looking statements suggest predictions or expectations and thus are subject to risks or uncertainties. We encourage you to learn more about the factors that could lead our actual results to differ by reviewing the cautionary statements in our regulatory filings, which are also available on our Investor Relations website. This morning, Westlake Partners issued a press release with details of our first quarter 2026 financial and operating results. This document is available in the Press Release section of our web page at wlkpartners.com. A replay of today's call will be available beginning 2 hours after the conclusion of this call. The replay can be accessed via the partnership's website. Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, May 5, 2026, and therefore, you are advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay. I would finally advise you that this conference call is being broadcast live through an Internet webcast system that can be accessed on our web page at wlkpartners.com. Now I would like to turn the call over to Jean-Marc Gilson. Jean-Marc?

Thank you, Jeff, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our first quarter 2026 results. In this morning's press release, we reported Westlake Partners' First Quarter 2026 net income of $14 million or $0.40 per unit. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, our first quarter sales and earnings benefited from a higher third-party average sales price that was offset by slightly lower production and sales volume. . The stability of Westlake Partners business model is consistently demonstrated to our fixed margin ethylene sales agreement, which minimizes market volatility and other production risk. The high degree of stability in cash -- in cash flow when paired with the predictability of our business has enabled us to deliver the long history of reliable distribution and coverage. This quarter distribution is the 47th consecutive quarterly distribution since our IPO in July 2014, without any reductions. Before I turn the call over to Steve, I want to provide some thoughts on our CFO transition. As you may have read, on April 20, we announced that on June 15, Jon Baksht will join Westlake Corporation and Westlake Partners LP as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Jon brings experience from the oil and gas, packaging and building products industries as well as investment banking to Westlake, and we look forward to him joining the partnership. On June 15, Steve Bender will transition to the role of special adviser and will continue to report to me as he supports the transition. We anticipate that Steve will participate in the second quarter earnings call in August. And with that, I would like to turn our call over to Steve to provide more detail on the financial and operating results for the quarter. Steve?

Thank you, Jean-Marc, and good afternoon, everyone. In this morning's press release, we reported Westlake Partners' first quarter 2026 net income of $14 million or $0.40 per unit. Consolidated net income, including OpCo's earnings, was $82 million on consolidated net sales of $306 million. The Partnership had distributable cash flow for the quarter of $18 million or $0.51 per unit. First quarter 2026 net income for Westlake Partners of $14 million was $9 million above the first quarter of 2025 partnership net income due primarily to higher production and sales volumes as a result of last year's planned turnaround at Petro 1. Distributable cash flow of $18 million for the first quarter of 2026 increased by $13 million when compared to the first quarter of 2025 due to higher production sales and sales volumes and more maintenance capital expenditures as a result of last year's Petro 1 planned turnaround. As compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, net income for Westlake Partners in the first quarter of 2026 declined by less than $1 million due to lower production and sales volumes that was mostly offset by higher third-party average sales price. Sequentially, our trailing 12-month coverage ratio improved to 1x from 0.8x reflecting the aging out of the impact of the Petro 1 turnaround that occurred in the first quarter of 2025. Additionally, our operating surplus improved by $1 million as we achieved a coverage ratio above 1 in the first quarter. Turning our attention to the balance sheet and cash flows. At the end of the first quarter, we had consolidated cash and cash investments with Westlake through our investment management agreement totaling $81 million. Long-term debt at the end of the quarter was $400 million, of which $377 million was at the partnership. The remaining $23 million was at OpCo. In the first quarter of 2026, OpCo spent $6 million on capital expenditures. We maintained our strong leverage metrics with a consolidated leverage ratio of approximately 1x. On May 4, 2026, we announced a quarterly distribution of $0.4714 per unit with respect to the first quarter of 2026. Since our IPO in 2014, the Partnership has made 47 consecutive quarterly distributions to unitholders. We have grown distributions 71% since the Partnership's original minimum quarterly distribution of $0.275 per unit. The partnership's first quarter distribution will be paid on June 1, 2026, to unitholders of record on May 14, 2026. The Partnership's predictable fee-based cash flow continues to prove beneficial in today's environment and is differentiated by consistency of our earnings and cash flows. Looking back since our IPO in July of 2024, we have maintained a cumulative distribution coverage ratio of approximately 1x and the partnership stability and cash flows, we were able to sustain our current distribution without the need to access capital markets. For modeling purposes, we have no planned turnarounds in 2026. I'd like to turn the call back over to Jean-Marc to make some closing comments. Jean-Marc?

Thank you, Steve. We are pleased with the partnership financial and operational performance during the first quarter. Solid operating rate at OpCo's ethylene facilities during the quarter resulted in a quarterly coverage ratio of 1.0x. Turning to our outlook. The conflict in the Middle East has significantly disrupted the global supply of oil chemical feedstocks and polymers, resulting supply concern of prompting global chemical customers to source more material from North America in response to the conflict, which is supporting higher demand and prices for North American ethylene. While most of OpCo ethylene volume is contracted to Westlake at a fixed margin of $0.10 per pound, margin for the approximately 5% of production that OpCo typically sells to third parties is benefiting from higher selling prices as a result of the factors I just discussed. Turning to our capital structure. We maintained a strong balance sheet with conservative financial and leverage metrics. As we continue to navigate market conditions, we will evaluate opportunities via our 4 levers of growth in the future, including increases of our ownership interest of OpCo, acquisitions of other qualified income streams, organic growth opportunities, such as expansions of our current ethylene facilities and negotiation of a higher fixed margin in our ethylene sales agreement with Westlake. We remain focused on our ability to continue to provide long-term value and distribution to our unitholders. As always, we will continue to focus on safe operations, along with being good stewards of the environment where we work and live as part of our broader sustainability efforts. Thank you very much for listening to our first quarter earnings call. Now I will turn the call back over to Jeff.

Thank you, Jean-Marc. Before we begin taking questions, I'd like to remind you that a replay of this teleconference will be available 2 hours after the call has ended. We'll provide instructions to access the replay at the end of the call. Kelly, we will now take questions.

[Operator Instructions] our first question comes from the line of James Altschul of Aviation Advisory Services, Inc.

In your prepared remarks, you mentioned that you anticipate -- or at that you're seeing, I believe, increased margins on the 5% of your sales to third parties as a result of the war and thus the increased interest in sourcing your products from a North America-based supplier. Did we really see the impact of that in the first quarter because the war started at the end of February and the -- I'm not remembering exactly when the price of oil started the jump and the shipping was intercepted or are we going to see a more significant impact in the second quarter?

Yes. So it's a very good question. And I will say that as a result of the run-up in ethylene pricing, we did take the opportunity in the first quarter in March to actually sell more third-party ethylene volumes than would be normally the case. We typically try to take opportunities to maximize the margin in this business when we see opportunities like this. And we did sell more volume in the first quarter than might be typically done as an example, last year's first quarter. And it did improve the margins associated with the business as a result of doing so. As we look into the second -- as we look into the second quarter, if we see opportunities of this nature and continue to see elevated ethylene, we'll continue to do so.

Okay. But I'm looking at the income statement, and it says on the revenue, the figure for third-party sales is a few million less than the comparable quarter last year. But of course, that sale is not margin.

Yes. And so again, just the impact of only 1 month of activity. I do expect that if the ethylene remains as elevated as it has been recently, you'll see more of a positive impact in the second quarter.

I'm showing no questions at this time, I will now turn the call back over to Jeff Holy.

Thank you, Kelly. Thanks, everyone, for participating in today's call, we hope you'll join us for our next conference call to discuss our second quarter 2026 results.

Thank you for participating in today's Westlake Chemical Partners first quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this call will be available for replay beginning 2 hours after the call has ended and may be accessed until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, May 19, 2026. The replay can be accessed via the partnership website. Goodbye.