Westlake Corporation (WLK) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

May 4, 2023 11:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Westlake Corporation First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, May 4, 2023.

I would now like to turn the call over to your host today, Jeff Holy, Westlake's Vice President and Treasurer. Sir, you may begin.

Jeff Holy

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Corporation conference call to discuss our first quarter 2023 results. I'm joined today by Albert Chao, 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 or PEM or Materials; and Housing and Infrastructure Products, which we refer to as HIP or Products. Today's conference call will begin with Albert, who will open with a few comments regarding Westlake's performance. Steve will then discuss our financial and operating results, after which Albert will add a few concluding comments, and we will open the call up to questions.

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. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in Westlake's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, and other SEC filings. We encourage you to learn more about these factors that could lead our actual results to differ by reviewing these SEC filings which are also available on our Investor Relations website.

This morning, Westlake issued a press release with details of our first quarter results. This document is available in the Press Release section of our website at westlake.com. We have also included an earnings presentation, which can be found in the Investor Relations section on our website. A replay of today's call will be available beginning today, 2 hours following the conclusion of this call. This replay may be accessed via Westlake's website.

Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, May 4, 2023. And therefore, you're advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay. Finally, I would advise you that this conference call is being broadcast live through an Internet webcast system that can be accessed on our web page at westlake.com.