Juan Diego Siller: Hello, everyone. We appreciate your participation in today's webcast and your continued interest in Alpek as we present our Q3 results. I am Juan Diego Siller, the recently appointed Investor Relations Officer. Here with me today are Jorge Young, our CEO, and Rodrigo Prieto, our CFO. Before we begin, please note today's discussion will include forward-looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially.
Juan Diego Siller: Alpek undertakes no obligation to update these statements. We express our financial results in USD unless otherwise specified. For your convenience, this webcast is being recorded and will be available in the Investors section of our website. Regarding today's agenda, Jorge will begin with a quarter overview. Second, Rodrigo will discuss our financial performance in greater detail. Afterwards, Jorge will delve into our revised guidance figures and expectations for the remainder of the year.
Juan Diego Siller: Finally, we will move on to Q&A. Jorge, I will turn the call over to you.
Jorge Young: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. During Q3, our teams once again delivered strong execution, responding quickly to evolving customer needs and maintaining high operating rates. Our focus on operational efficiency, commercial agility, and supply chain flexibility enabled us to adapt to market conditions, resulting in another exceptional quarter. As a result, we outperformed our comparable EBITDA expectations for the quarter. Building on our year-to-date performance and updated outlook for the last quarter of 2026, we are again raising our full-year guidance, which I will discuss in more detail later in the call. Our leverage ratio improved to 1.8x, primarily reflecting higher last 12 months EBITDA. Our local for local production strategy and constant pursuit to strengthen our competitive position continue to be fundamental pillars for Alpek's success.
Jorge Young: Our global footprint and regional approach to key markets, including the United States, Mexico, Brazil, among others, has enabled us to provide reliable long-term supply and service to our customers as a domestic supplier of choice. This has been particularly important amid continued global trade disruptions and raw material shortages, mainly in Asia. As the conflict in the Middle East extends, PET refining in Asia is facing reduced availability of key feedstocks and lower operating rates, supporting reference margins above our original expectations. In parallel, elevated ocean freight rates have made imports less competitive, further benefiting regional suppliers like Alpek. These dynamics reinforce the importance of the actions we have taken over the last several years to make our company more competitive and resilient. Our performance reflects the progress we have made in executing Alpek's long-term strategy.
Jorge Young: Over the past few years, we have taken deliberate actions to reinforce our competitiveness, improve the quality of our portfolio, and reinforce our financial position. Let me highlight some of the initiatives underway across our two strategies by financial flexibility. First, strengthening our core business. We have continued to optimize our global footprint, directing production towards our most competitive and integrated facilities while providing cost efficiency.
Jorge Young: Since 2023, we have reduced installed capacity by 15%, including fibers capacity, and headcount by 29%, while maintaining similar volume levels. This demonstrates the effectiveness of our leaner operating model. At the same time, we continue identifying opportunities to further improve performance within the organization. Earlier this month, we hosted our annual innovation awards, where teams from across Alpek presented projects to our executive team. This one focused on cost reductions, product improvements, business integrations, et cetera.
Jorge Young: We currently have more than 40 projects requiring minimal or no CapEx, representing over MXN 20 million of potential incremental EBITDA. These projects reflect a culture of continuous improvement throughout the organization. Second pillar, growing and evolving our product portfolio. We are selectively investing in differentiated applications and differentiated products that offer higher margins. Initiatives include expanding our thermoforming capacity in Saudi Arabia, increasing our copolymer production in our polypropylene business, and venturing into expandable polystyrene extrusion in North America.
Jorge Young: These investments, among several others in our pipeline, support a more resilient portfolio over the long term. We are also pursuing capital-efficient growth opportunities by leveraging our assets, capabilities, and customer relationships to unlock incremental value. As an example, in our energy commercialization business, we continue expanding into the electricity sector in Mexico and have begun supplying natural gas in Brazil. Third, financial flexibility is a key enabler of our strategy.
Jorge Young: Even though our leverage level is now below 2.0x, our focus remains on generating cash flow and further reducing debt. This includes working capital management, disciplined CapEx, and progressing asset monetization. These actions support our objective of maintaining a strong balance sheet while preserving financial flexibility to pursue attractive growth opportunities as they arise. With that, I will turn the call over to Rodrigo to discuss our financial results in greater detail.
Rodrigo Prieto: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Let me go into our Q3 results. Market conditions remain supportive, although PET reference margins moderated from Q2 peaks. Average Chinese integrated PET reference margins were $213 per ton, down 31% sequentially, yet still 59% above 2025 levels. Ocean freight rates to South America also remains elevated, averaging $321 per ton, up 43% quarter on quarter and 74% year over year. Taking a look at our earnings, comparable EBITDA totaled $276 million, down 18% quarter on quarter, yet doubling when compared to the same period last year. Reported EBITDA also saw a significant year-over-year improvement of 161%, totaling $303 million. This included a $27 million inventory adjustment, primarily associated with higher raw material prices.
Rodrigo Prieto: Volume from the quarter remains solid at 1.17 million tons, flat sequentially and up 4% on an annual basis, reflecting solid demand levels and continued commercial and operating execution strength. Looking at our business segments, Polyester achieved a comparable EBITDA of $205 million, increasing 134% year over year. Plastics and Chemicals delivered comparable EBITDA of $62 million, 32% above the prior year. The remaining $9 million comes from the others or emerging business segment, primarily consisting of our energy commercialization. Turning to free cash flow, Alpek generated $5 million in operating free cash flow. As higher reported EBITDA was offset by a larger than anticipated investment of $226 million in net working capital, driven mainly by higher pricing environment, particularly paraxylene, reaching multi-year highs. CapEx totaled $46 million, including $30 million in strategic CapEx.
Rodrigo Prieto: During the quarter, net debt increased 3% to $1.72 billion, primarily reflecting the investment in net working capital and, to a lesser extent, payments to minority shareholders. At the same time, our leverage ratio improved to 1.8x from 2.2x, primarily driven by higher last 12 months EBITDA, and now below our target range of 2x to 2.5x. Year to date, we have generated $222 million in operating free cash flow and reduced our net debt to $123 million. Our improved leverage position reflects the progress we have made in strengthening our balance sheet and reinforces our commitment to financial discipline. Looking ahead, we expect to further reduce net debt in Q4 through continued cash generation, disciplined capital allocation, and debt repayments. I also like to highlight the important milestone for Alpek.
Rodrigo Prieto: During the quarter, we rejoined the IPC Index, which consists of the top 35 public companies based on market cap and trading liquidity listed in the Mexican Stock Exchange. We believe this will further enhance our visibility among investors and contribute to long-term shareholder value creation. I will turn the call back to Jorge to discuss our guidance and outlook.
Jorge Young: As we look to the remainder of the year, we are expecting PET reference margins and ocean freights to moderate while remaining well above 2025 levels.
Jorge Young: Based on our year-to-date performance and updated market assumptions, we are again raising our full-year 2026 guidance. Our key assumptions for the remaining months are: Chinese PET reference margins at $225 per ton. Our polypropylene reference margins at $0.17 per pound. And ocean freights to South America at $200 per ton. On this basis, we are raising our comparable EBITDA to $990 million.
Jorge Young: For 2026, we continue to expect operating free cash flow in the range of $300 to 350 million, and net debt reduction between $200 and 250 million by year end. This is considering some moderation in the raw material pricing environment. This continued focus on cash generation and deleveraging will further enhance our financial flexibility, supporting disciplined capital allocation, and selective investment in future growth opportunities.
Jorge Young: The remaining guidance figures are unchanged. As a reminder, our guidance does not include potential upside from non-strategic asset sales. As we approach 2027, the actions we have taken to optimize our footprint, improve efficiency, and to strengthen our financial position, have made Alpek more competitive and better positioned to navigate changing market conditions. Our long-term strategy remains focused on leveraging our global capabilities and footprint to deliver consistent operational performance, while reinforcing our position as a reliable domestic supplier.
Jorge Young: While industry conditions will continue to evolve, our priorities remain clear. We will continue focusing on reliable operations, serving our customers, managing costs, and allocating capital with discipline. I am very confident in our team's ability to execute our strategy and continue creating sustainable value for our shareholders. Finally, I would like to thank our employees across Alpek for their continued dedication and commitment. Their agility and ability to find solutions in a rapidly changing environment have been instrumental to our performance this year.
Juan Diego Siller: We will now begin the Q&A portion of today's webcast. To ask a question live, please use the raise hand feature. We will call on participants in the order they appear. You may also submit your questions through the Q&A function at any time. We will do our best to address as many questions as possible. Our first question comes from Ben Isaacson with Scotiabank. Ben, please go ahead.
Ben Isaacson: Thank you very much. Can you hear me okay?
Rodrigo Prieto: Yes.
Ben Isaacson: Great. I have two questions. The first question is on leverage. You hit 1.8x Trailing EBITDA leverage in Q3. On a mid-cycle basis, it must be higher than that. Can you talk about where you think your leverage is on a mid-cycle basis? If it is above your target range of 2 to 2.5x, how does that impact your capital allocation for Q4 and in 2027? I will ask the second question after. Thank you.
Jorge Young: Hi, Ben. Yes, thanks for your questions. We will need to go into a deep discussion on what is that mid-cycle EBITDA. As we approach 2027, our goal is also to reduce our absolute level of debt so that the company has additional flexibility. In a mid-cycle EBITDA, if you put a number in between 2025 and 2027 and 2026, in that ballpark, we should be in a range or below a range. That is what we see as the first part of your question.
Ben Isaacson: Okay.
Jorge Young: As we
Ben Isaacson: Yes.
Jorge Young: as we approach 2027, again, we want to see clear progress, not only on the leverage, but also on the absolute reduction of level. That will give us the tools and the flexibility to expedite an interesting pipeline of projects that we have, and that will bring further shareholder value.
Ben Isaacson: Thank you for that. For my second and follow-up question, I believe, in both segments, you tend to lock in a proportion of your volume at a fixed or fairly stable margins. Given what is happening in both sides of the business right now because of the Middle East conflict, can you give us some understanding as to how do you expect those contracted margins to look in 2027 versus 2026 or 2025, just so we can have some magnitude?
Jorge Young: Yes, Ben, it is a work that we still have in progress because, as you clearly know, we are just beginning our period where we normally have those discussions and agreements with the customers. We would expect the margin certainly to be higher than 2025, compared to 2026. It depends, right? In many cases, we ended up agreeing to a price as the year began and as the conflict in the Middle East was arising.
Jorge Young: So those were very favorable to us in 2026. Some of those might moderate a little bit in 2027. Another important chunk of our volume had margins for 2026 agreed before the conflict, but for which the customers were very supportive of Alpek, and some renegotiations and adjustments to more current market conditions for us to be able to do what we needed to do to find all the raw materials and deliver the product reliably.
Jorge Young: Those contracts also capture some adjustments, some increases in 2026. But those will likely keep further increasing in 2027. At the end, it is going to be a mix that we still need to go through. Again, some will moderate, some will have other, some level of increase. What we expect to see in 2027 is a very strong volume in 2027 similar to 2026. I think the momentum and the appreciation from the customer base for the local supplier remains high. The conflict is still uncertain. Our planning is to plan assuming the conflict will resolve and the condition will get challenging, but the uncertainty remains. Again, we are making very good progress on aligning on the volumes. The margin is also an important variable to complete all those agreements.
Jorge Young: But the progress so far indicates to us that it is going to be a very good year in volume, and the margin will be further refined. I would say at good conditions for us, much better than 2025, for sure. Compared to 2026, we are still working on that. Again, it should be a very good position for us with our key customers and new customers that we brought to the table in 2026.
Ben Isaacson: Thank you very much. That is great.
Jorge Young: More to come when we obviously present our guidance early next year.
Ben Isaacson: Thank you.
Juan Diego Siller: Our next question comes from Thiago Casqueiro with Morgan Stanley. Thiago, please go ahead.
Thiago Casqueiro: Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. My first one is on working capital. We have seen quite a significant investment in working capital over the past 2 quarters as prices moved higher. But as pricing conditions start to normalize, how much of that working capital should we expect to be released over the next few quarters? If I may, I would like to make the second one now, then you guys can answer both. The second one is more on the asset sales. I recall that this was initially a pretty important part of the deleveraging story, Jorge mentioned today in the call that asset monetization remains one of the key pillars. But with market conditions improving, you have managed to bring leverage down much faster than initially expected.
Thiago Casqueiro: Given how things have changed, are you reconsidering the sale of some of those assets? Could it make more sense now to actually keep some of them? If I may, just an additional point in this question, are you still targeting the $30 to $50 million in asset sales for this year? Thank you.
Jorge Young: Yes, on your first question on working capital, I think it all depends on when you look at our working capital, we look at it in 2 ways. The absolute level, of course, because that goes into the cash flow. But also our days of working capital. Are we having issues with our receivables, with our payables, or with our inventory days? When you look at our numbers, inventory days, working capital days, are pretty much what we expect them to be. We are disciplined in our inventories, we have, again, receivables and payables exactly as we have planned them over the years. The only issue is unit prices. Unit prices have increased significantly because of the oil increases, in some of our feedstocks, further increases are exciting. It is a matter of when those prices moderate.
Jorge Young: Yes, we will recover the working capital. If they recover to a level close to where they were before the conflict, we will recover a significant, if not all, of that working capital investment. So it is very much related to the unit prices. We do expect, again, some moderation eventually, a recovery of that working capital.
Jorge Young: But just want to be very clear. The issue at hand for us is unit prices, not days of working capital, nor excessive issues in our collections or payment whatsoever. So that is on the working capital. So it is a matter of when the absolute prices fall and to what level, it will pretty go more in proportion to that. Asset sales. That continues to be a high priority for us. We are still expecting to close this year between $30 and $50 million. We have progress on some of those asset sales.
Jorge Young: Year to date is about 14. The fact that we have now lower leverage does not slow down or reinforce in disposing of those assets because we have labeled those assets non-core assets. There is no need to keep them at all. I think if we are decided to sell, you are talking about pieces of land, and so forth. We will probably have, in addition to the goal this year, perhaps, another important objective next year to dispose of further non-strategic assets to continue the momentum. Again, as we have mentioned this in previous calls, we are going to take more time to prepare our piece of land in Monterrey to dispose that asset perhaps in a couple of years, but at a much higher expected value than what we could realize today at a faster pace. That continues unchanged and with high priority.
Thiago Casqueiro: Very helpful. Thank you.
Jorge Young: You are welcome.
Juan Diego Siller: Our next question comes from Leonardo Marcondes with Bank of America. Leonardo, please go ahead.
Leonardo Marcondes: Hi, Jorge, Rodrigo, Juan, and Ale. Thank you for picking my questions. I have also two from my end here. The first one is regarding the spreads. PET spreads have come down from their mid-April peak, right? But they remain above pre-war levels, right? My question is, do you see room for further narrowing in 2027, or do you expect spreads to stay above pre-war levels? What are the main drivers behind your view on that? My second question is regarding volumes. Jorge has already discussed a bit about the strong volume this year, right? But how much of this reflects a stronger demand, and how much reflects market share gains as imported products have become less competitive? Thank you very much.
Jorge Young: Yes, thank you for your questions, Leo. I think the question of spreads, it is a very good question that we ask ourselves all the time. The way we see things right now is that we expect the spreads to moderate. That means they likely come down on some glide path. But it is our view that they might remain above 2025 levels. I think the production utilization rates these years have been disrupted globally, especially in China and Asia. So the inventory positions are not in the same place. It might take some extra time for the supplies of inputs from the Middle East and the global supply chains to normalize.
Jorge Young: One other observation we have is that in Asia, Asian producers, many of them had access to discounted sanction oil. To what extent that was enabling them to go to very low margins, not only in PET, just in general in chemicals, it is a question that we have, but there is a belief that it was a contributing factor. Access to sanction discounted oil is impaired for now, and it might not come back to the levels to what it was. Again, we just do not have a specific number. Obviously, we will share a number and an assumption in February when we share with you the guidance of 2027. But sitting here today, we would expect, again, some of the margins coming down from the current levels, but still remaining with some healthy distance to the 2025 levels.
Jorge Young: Again, we will refine that analysis as we approach our next call with you guys. Also on the oil, one thing I forgot to mention, at least for right now and in the short term, the shipping cost of oil delivery to Asian producers is high. Again, that supports our hypothesis that conditions might stay elevated for some time. Volume, for the most part, the volume gains that you saw in our numbers this year is for gaining share to imports. Yes, I think the industry, PET industry in North America, I think it had a good year with the World Cup. I think some segments in beverage also performed well. Sports drinks, water, and so forth. So it was a good year on demand. But I would say behind the volume gains, it would be more market share and mostly related to imports.
Leonardo Marcondes: Got it. Thank you very much.
Jorge Young: One thing that you do not get to appreciate in our numbers, for example, in our Polyester segment, you will see a cumulative nine-month to nine-month growth of 3% to 4%, maybe it is going to be 4% to 5% when we have the full year numbers. But if you could look into the mix, we have increased the mix of polymer sales and reduced the volume of terephthalic acid exports, which are typically the lowest contributors in margins. So our mix has improved relative to the numbers, to the volumes we do report.
Leonardo Marcondes: Got it. Thank you very much.
Juan Diego Siller: Our next question comes from Nicolas Barros with JP Morgan. Nicolas, please go ahead.
Nicolas Barros: Hi. Good morning, everyone. I have two questions here. Given that you are already below your target range of leverage, would you be considering to bring forward any kind of discussions related to dividends? My second one on freight prices. Could you comment more on the real impact of freight prices to your pricing power capability? What is the real relevance of freight to the import parity calculation? If you could give us any kind of sensibility to freight prices and EBITDA, that would be very helpful. Thank you, guys.
Jorge Young: Sure. Thank you, Nico, for your question. The good results and the improvement in leverage will not distract us from our focus on our three strategic pillars of creating financial flexibility. Coming back, debt reduction is very important for us, and before we talk about any dividends, we are very focused on reducing debt on the first hand. Then we will get to see how numbers are coming for next year. After that, we might start the discussion of dividends. I will say Q1 of next year, we will start evaluating and discussing. We do not want to discard anything, but we are going to take a longer-term view before we make any decision. On your question on freight rates, I guess you are talking about container freight rates that influence the import parity of the products we sell in the regions we sell.
Jorge Young: In some of our markets, like South America, it is very typical that its freight rate is a component in the pricing structure, so you see an impact or direct impact on the pricing. Given our typical volume into that region from what we produce in South America or what we ship from North America into South America, let us say a $10 change in freight might correlate with $5 million change in EBITDA just for that region. The other region, the equation is more complex because freight rate is less. It influenced the pricing, but it is not necessarily a component in the formulas. I do not know if we have provided these figures before, but our rule of thumb, once you factor all Alpek, is probably $1 in change of freight rates is $1 million, or $10 is about $10 million.
Jorge Young: We will refine those calculations and get back to you.
Nicolas Barros: All right. Thank you so much.
Juan Diego Siller: The following question comes from Tasso Vasconcellos with UBS. Tasso, please go ahead with your question.
Tasso Vasconcellos: Hi, Jorge. Hi, Rodrigo. Thanks for taking my questions. Two here as well. The first one, I would like to ask again about these freight rates, but from another point of view because, as you just mentioned, Jorge, it is positive for you guys that you can take a better pricing following that. When we look globally, we are not seeing any signals of the ending of the conflict, so there might be some persistent challenge from here in terms of these freight rates globally. I would like to hear your view on how you are seeing this looking forward, not just for the next quarter, but maybe for the next one, two, three years, and how could Alpek take advantage from here for the upcoming years.
Tasso Vasconcellos: My second question, President Trump, he has been saying that US and Mexico, they are moving closer to a potential new agreement, and there is the election in the US next month. Do you guys expect any kind of impacts on either to the positive side or to the downside to Alpek in terms of your operations? Can you guys take some kind of benefits from that looking forward? I would like to hear your thoughts on that as well. Those are my two questions. Thank you.
Jorge Young: Yeah. Thank you, Tasso. I think predicting the global ocean container freight market is challenging. I think the fact that there is geopolitical tension, I think we are continuing to go into a world with more uncertainty. I think that will continue to introduce volatility to freight rates. Sometimes it is not only the rate, also is the availability. Again, those are factors that have been supportive of our business, but that uncertainty.
Jorge Young: I think they are going to remain uncertain, but it is very difficult to pinpoint what specific level they will have in the next one or two years. I think there is ample capacity of ships in the world, but again, the continued volatility and unpredictability of events, and many times including weather events, has kept the ocean global fleet in a position where it has been very difficult to predict where it is going.
Jorge Young: I am just saying for Alpek, again, the volatility will be supportive because it will continue to bring uncertainty or disruptions to the freight environment. Again, in February, we will take a shot at a number and share with you that assumption explicitly in our February call. The second question on the discussions, negotiations, within the United States and Mexico, we do not expect an impact. Right now, we do have, again, some flow of our products, PTA, terephthalic acid, or PET polymer, either ourselves or customers, and other polystyrene EPS. But we have been always in what we call complying with the USMCA requirements for content. So we are safely into that, and obviously, we do not have all the access to all the details in the negotiations, but the way we hear things are progressing, we do not expect issues for our operations.
Tasso Vasconcellos: That is clear. Thank you.
Juan Diego Siller: The following question comes from Andres Cardona with Citi. Andres, please go ahead with your question.
Andres Cardona: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Jorge, Rodrigo, when you do evaluate these local-to-local supply strategy, you mentioned you are seeing some benefits on volumes. I am wondering if you are also seeing the margin of a premium because of the reliability in terms of timing to deliver the products. Remember when we had the COVID supply shock, there was this premium. We wanted to understand that point. The second one, you have partially answered it. The question is, net leverage is declining. You mentioned you have an objective to reduce gross leverage. You may delay dividends early next year, but you also mentioned some organic growth opportunities. I just wanted to see if you can rank what are your capital allocation priorities, and if you may include there inorganic growth opportunities as well. Thank you.
Jorge Young: Andres, I am going to answer your first question. Yes, for local supplier positioning strategy for us, it is very centric for us, very relevant. This is how the business has been designed, and for us it is of extreme value to prove to our customers that we can provide that extra value being very close to them. That typically shows as a price premium compared to the import parity. Obviously those are discussions and negotiations that happen constantly, of course, with the customer base. We also have interest on being very competitive for them. Normally there is a premium. The premium, again, is negotiated. It depends where the customer location is and so forth, but it is part of the equation, and it has been for a while. In terms of uncertainty, there is probably more value to that.
Jorge Young: In periods where there is no uncertainty and imports are present steadily over a long time, those premiums tend to shrink a little bit. Right now we are in the uncertainty phase.
Rodrigo Prieto: On your second question, Andres, in terms of ranking, I would say our most important is, as you mentioned, the debt reduction. Gaining this financial flexibility would be definitely number one. Then there is a couple of marginal high return CapEx projects that have been in the pipeline for some time. These are organic projects that looks very good, and we will be going for them in the near term. Then on the third, in terms of the ranking, I would say opportunistic M&A and dividends.
Andres Cardona: Thank you, Jorge and Rodrigo.
Jorge Young: You are welcome.
Juan Diego Siller: Our next question comes from Alejandra Andrade with JP Morgan. Alejandra, please go ahead with your question.
Alejandra Andrade: Hi, thanks so much for taking my question. I just wanted to dig a little bit deeper in terms of the debt reduction that you are pursuing or seeking. Is there a specific target in terms of gross debt that you want to reach? Also in terms of debt reduction, would you be targeting more of the loans, the bonds? How are you thinking about the different parts of the cap structure? Thanks.
Jorge Young: Thank you, Alejandra. In terms of our target in net debt, I would say, around 1.2, 1.3. That would be a reasonable number to work around. That will be very linked to how we recover this net working capital in the next quarters as price comes lower. On your second question, we are working on some refinancing alternatives, right? We have some bank loans and some bonds that we are evaluating some repurchases there or prepayments and move our debt profile for a long return.
Alejandra Andrade: Thank you.
Juan Diego Siller: Our next question comes from Vanessa Quiroga with Eternal Capital. Vanessa, please go ahead with your question.
Vanessa Quiroga: Thank you. Hi, Alpek team. I wanted to get deeper into the views of what could happen with spreads going forward by segment. Between Polyester and the other chemicals, which one would you see normalizing, meaning, going down from current levels faster or to a bigger extent, considering what you are seeing today in terms of freight and Asian spreads, et cetera? That is one of the questions that I have.
Jorge Young: So far, Vanessa, on Plastics and Chemicals, the spreads have come down somewhat faster than the Polyester segment. A little bit faster, I would say. They are still above the pre-war or the pre-conflict levels, but getting closer to those levels. I think we see those, again, as we mentioned, polypropylene, we still see those at 17 cpp for the balance of the quarter, which compares to 14 pre-conflict. Next year, again, we are still defining our view. There is less influence of ocean freights in Plastics and Chemicals than in Polyester. In Polyester, the margins have also come down from the peak, but remain clearly above the pre-conflict levels. On top of that, the ocean freights, which are more important as influencing our bottom line in Polyester than in other segments, they still remain elevated.
Jorge Young: I think into that question, a quick answer is, Plastics and Chemicals are on a quicker trend to normalize. The question is, where do they land, right? They might land not necessarily at the very low level of last year, right? It could happen, but we just don't know yet. We'll bring our assumptions and best view in the next conference.
Vanessa Quiroga: Excellent. The other question that I have is regarding cost pressures. Given that the war has continued for longer than anybody expected, are there any cost pressures that are starting to emerge that, in the early days, weren't expected, maybe, just to get a better sense of any other factors to consider going forward?
Jorge Young: Well, there have been a number of cost pressures coming from the conflict. For the most part, we have been able to pass through those cost pressures to our pricing structures across the segments of Alpek. I think the cost pressures overall remain elevated. As you know, in our industry, the direct raw material increases or decreases are very automatically passed on the pricing. The secondary items like energy and so forth, those are not necessarily part of the formulas. But again, there has been renegotiations of the formulas to capture some of those inflations. But the most significant impact is typically the raw materials, and those are normally passed through completely.
Vanessa Quiroga: Okay. Excellent. Thank you very much.
Jorge Young: You are welcome.
Juan Diego Siller: Our next question comes from Regina Carrillo with GBM. Regina, please go ahead with your question.
Regina Carrillo: Hi. Good morning, and congratulations on the results. My question is on CapEx. CapEx has been very low for the last couple of years. What should be a normalized level of maintenance and growth CapEx for the coming years?
Rodrigo Prieto: Thank you, Regina. Yeah, definitely that is a good point that you bring, that we have been very diligent in managing CapEx through these low cycle years in the past. But I would say we will continue to be very strategic in how we allocate the CapEx, and what I would say, it should be lower than USD 200 million. Right.
Regina Carrillo: Perfect. Thank you. If I may ask one more question, can you give us more color in why the operating free cash flow guidance remained unchanged despite the increase in comparable EBITDA guidance to zero working capital assumptions?
Rodrigo Prieto: Sure, Regina. That is mainly because of the net working capital, right? We are expecting some recovery, but not all of it. So that is the main reason.
Jorge Young: Yeah, it is all about higher prices, higher unit prices. When we did our Q3 forecast, we were expecting oil and our main raw materials. By year-end, they were more clearly coming down, and it is not happening yet, to the contrary. The oil is not back to the peaks we saw in April, but some of the raw materials have already passed that peak by a big chunk.
Regina Carrillo: Very clear. Thank you, Jorge. Thank you, David.
Juan Diego Siller: That was our last question. On behalf of Alpek, thank you for your participation and continued interest. Please contact us if you have any additional questions.
