Celanese Corporation (NYSE:CE) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call August 2, 2024 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Bill Cunningham - VP of IR
Lori Ryerkerk - Chairman of the Board and CEO
Scott Richardson - COO
Chuck Kyrish - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Josh Spector - UBS
Mike Sison - Wells Fargo
Mike Leithead - Barclays
Jeff Zekauskas - JPMorgan
Ghansham Panjabi - Baird
Arun Viswanathan - RBC Capital Markets
Vincent Andrews - Morgan Stanley
Matthew Hettwer - Vertical Research Partners
Aleksey Yefremov - KeyBanc Capital Markets
David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank
Hassan Ahmed - Alembic Global
Salvator Tiano - Bank of America
Laurence Alexander - Jefferies
Patrick Cunningham - Citi
John Roberts - Mizuho Securities
John McNulty - BMO Capital Markets

Operator

Greetings and welcome to Celanese's Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions].

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Bill Cunningham, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Bill Cunningham

Thanks, Diego. Welcome to the Celanese Corporation's second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. My name is Bill Cunningham, Vice President of Investor Relations. With me on the call are Lori Ryerkerk, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer; Scott Richardson, Chief Operating Officer; and Chuck Kyrish, Chief Financial Officer. Celanese distributed its second quarter earnings released via Business Wire and posted prepared comments on our Investor Relations website yesterday afternoon.

As a reminder, we'll discuss non-GAAP financial measures today. You can find definitions of these measures as well as reconciliations to the comparable GAAP measures on our website. Today's presentation will also include forward-looking statements. Please review the cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements, which can be found at the end of both the press release and prepared comments. Form 8-K report containing all of these materials has also been submitted to the SEC.

With that, Diego, let's please go ahead and open it up for questions.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. We'll now conduct our question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Josh Spector with UBS. Please state your questions.

Josh Spector

Yes. Hi, good morning. So I wanted to ask on some of the moving pieces within Engineered Materials. I mean, obviously nice to see a good step up here in the second quarter, but I think there's been a constant debate around where the market is, and what's stable and in your control versus what needs to have a market improvement. So I guess when you look at your expectations about the improvement into 2Q, or sorry into 3Q, and maybe a stable second half, what are you assuming behind the market to get there versus cost savings in your control? And given all the cuts we've made in expectation, is this kind of the point where you feel like you're now conservative enough, or are there other things that you would have us watch out for? Thanks.