Westlake Corp Performance & Essential Materials Update Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Patrick Cunningham - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : I guess, first on the chlorine and caustic capacity, why take out capacity here when ECU margins are positive, caustic value's holding up relatively well?

Question: Patrick Cunningham - Citi Infrastructure Investments LLC - Analyst : Understood. And then maybe just on Aberdeen, where did that sit in terms of the cost curve? And how should we think about closure impacts on operating rates next year, domestic balances, and potentially providing a backstop to margins?

Question: Arun Viswanathan - RBC Capital Markets Inc - Analyst : So I guess just on the -- your last comment about the cost difference. Maybe you can just kind of frame how these plants compare to Geismar and Plaquemines and Lake Charles. Maybe what kind of improvement should we expect? I know that you've called out the $100 million EBITDA, but is that margin? And then if you do kind of do see some kind of volume improvement in the next year or two, do you plan on servicing that volume increase from your now-future footprint? Or would you have to kind of do some de-bottlenecking? Or how do you kind of address that as well? LSEG STREETEVENTS | www.lseg.com | Contact Us consent of LSEG. 'LSEG' and the LSEG logo are registered trademarks of LSEG and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 15, 2025 / 3:00PM, WLK.N - Westlake Corp Performance & Essential Materials Update

Question: Arun Viswanathan - RBC Capital Markets Inc - Analyst : And just as a follow-up, could you potentially frame -- I know it's 11% to 15% of your capacity. It looks like it's maybe a couple of percentage points of North America total. And so do you think that would be sufficient to potentially tighten up the market within PVC, caustic and chlorine to continue some price momentum in caustic and maybe drive some price momentum and margin improvement in the other two in PVC and chlorine? I mean what's your kind of outlook on the potential positive impact on pricing and profitability from these actions?

Question: Aleksey Yefremov - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc - Analyst : It looked to me like this chlor-alkali plant was probably serving markets, not just your PVC needs, but other chlor-alkali markets. Could you describe what were those end markets? Was it merchant chlorine or something else? And what was the degree of your participation there?

Question: Aleksey Yefremov - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc - Analyst : Understood. And just a follow-up on the cash flow side. It sounds like you may have had some -- just more extensive maintenance coming up for these assets. If we think about long-term CapEx for you, how would that change sort of on a three-year or five-year basis? How much lower would your ongoing CapEx be?

Question: Michael Sison - Wells Fargo Securities LLC - Analyst : First question, in terms of the global capacity you have left, a little over $7 billion in caustic and I guess, $5 billion PVC, how much of that is going to the export market now? And then why are the export market margins so weak? And what do you think needs to happen for that part of the business to improve over time?

Question: Michael Sison - Wells Fargo Securities LLC - Analyst : Got it. And then did you -- and I apologize if I missed it, but did you give an update for the fourth quarter for PEM? And if you have any color on the trends there, that would be helpful. And I apologize if I missed that.

Question: Salvator Tiano - Bofa Merrill Lynch Asset Holdings Inc - Analyst : So first thing I want to ask is also if you can refresh us how much was your short ethylene exposure previously? And how much will it be now given the lower needs from the VCM and PVC markets? And then if you can also elaborate a little bit on the notion of these being higher cost assets, obviously, was it, for example, the higher energy needs, lower conversion ratios, older equipment and automation? Or for example, in the regions that they were operating was energy costs or ethylene costs higher? What essentially made these assets higher cost? LSEG STREETEVENTS | www.lseg.com | Contact Us consent of LSEG. 'LSEG' and the LSEG logo are registered trademarks of LSEG and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 15, 2025 / 3:00PM, WLK.N - Westlake Corp Performance & Essential Materials Update

Question: Joshua Spector - UBS AG - Analyst : I was wondering with the PVC assets, did you explore a sale at all? I mean there's been some competitors talking about building an export position. Obviously, a high-cost asset within the US maybe isn't that attractive, but did you guys look at that?

Question: Joshua Spector - UBS AG - Analyst : Is that an option? Or is it too far gone?

Question: Joshua Spector - UBS AG - Analyst : Fair enough. And just quickly on the cost savings side, the $600 million you called out, is that a number we can add to second half '25? Or is some of that more of a run rate and accrues more in 2027?

Question: Joshua Spector - UBS AG - Analyst : Additive on top of '26 or realized in '26?

Question: David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank AG - Analyst : Steve, should these actions return PEM to be EBITDA profitable in Q1?

Question: David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank AG - Analyst : Got it. And just on the styrene asset, can you address that closure and why now? Because that asset has been challenged for a number of years?

Question: Jeffrey Zekauskas - JPMorgan Chase & Co - Analyst : You talked about a $100 million EBITDA improvement. Is that the elimination of $100 million in current EBITDA losses? Is that the way you calculate that? LSEG STREETEVENTS | www.lseg.com | Contact Us consent of LSEG. 'LSEG' and the LSEG logo are registered trademarks of LSEG and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 15, 2025 / 3:00PM, WLK.N - Westlake Corp Performance & Essential Materials Update

Question: Jeffrey Zekauskas - JPMorgan Chase & Co - Analyst : Okay. And in general, you talked -- over and over, you've talked about transportation costs and logistics costs. So when you think about the high-cost character of these assets, are they $100 a tonne more costly than your average assets?

Question: Jeffrey Zekauskas - JPMorgan Chase & Co - Analyst : When will they close?

Question: Kevin McCarthy - Vertical Research Partners LLC - Analyst : Steve, as a clarification, do you intend to dismantle these plants? Or is there a scenario under which you could restart the capacity if, for example, the export market dynamics were to improve over the next several years? In other words, are some or all of the plants going to be idled rather than dismantled?

Question: Kevin McCarthy - Vertical Research Partners LLC - Analyst : Okay. And so could you restart the capacity if market conditions were to turn up in cyclical fashion a couple of years from now? Or is that precluded perhaps for other reasons?

Question: Kevin McCarthy - Vertical Research Partners LLC - Analyst : Understood. And then lastly, if I may, you've pointed out a couple of times on the call that these particular assets serve export markets. Has your view of the prospects of US PVC exports changed perhaps in a negative way over the last quarter or two? Just thinking about markets like China, India and some of the trade flow dynamics in those countries and elsewhere. Maybe you could just provide a little bit more color on if there was a particular tipping point that catalyzed today's actions?

Question: Aleksey Yefremov - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc - Analyst : I apologize if I missed this, but to what degree are you planning to offset the loss of this capacity by running other assets harder? In other words, how would you expect your PVC exports to change next year? Is it down by sort of some healthy proportion of the capacity that you're shutting down or down by a much smaller percentage?