The company plans to close the Houston refinery no later than the end of the first quarter of 2025. Management believes exiting the refining business is the best strategic and financial path forward for the company, as it progresses its greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and allows for more options for future strategic objectives.

The company invested upstream to secure plastic waste material and expanded its mechanical and advanced recycling capacity globally through investments and commercial agreements in Europe, Asia, and North America.

In May 2023, the company issued its inaugural $500 million green bond to finance or refinance eligible green projects in areas such as circular economy, renewable energy, pollution prevention, and energy efficiency.

The Value Enhancement Program (VEP) achieved a year-end annual run rate of approximately $400 million of recurring annual EBITDA at the end of 2023, exceeding original expectations. The company anticipates the VEP will achieve a year-end annual run rate of approximately $600 million of recurring annual EBITDA by the end of 2024.

The company recognized a goodwill impairment charge of $252 million in the APS segment, indicating potential underperformance or challenges in that business area. This was due to the effect of moving our Catalloy and polybutene-1 businesses from our APS segment.

The company generated $4.9 billion in cash from operating activities and reinvested approximately $1.5 billion in the business through capital expenditures. Additionally, $1.8 billion was returned to shareholders through quarterly dividends and share repurchases.

The company acknowledges that its business operations are subject to the cyclical and volatile nature of the supply-demand balance in the chemical and refining industries. These factors can result in significant fluctuations in profits and cash flow from period to period and over business cycles.

The costs of raw materials and energy represent a substantial portion of our operating expenses. Due to the significant competition we face and the commodity nature of many of our products we are not always able to pass on raw material and energy cost increases to our customers.

New or revised governmental regulations and independent studies relating to the effect of our products on health, safety and the environment may affect demand for our products and the cost of producing our products.

The company acknowledges increased competition from companies that may have greater financial resources and different cost structures or strategic goals than us. This includes large integrated oil companies, government-owned businesses, and companies that receive subsidies or other government incentives.

The company sells its products in highly competitive global markets. Due to the commodity nature of many of our products, competition in these markets is based primarily on price and, to a lesser extent, on product performance, product quality, product deliverability, reliability of supply and customer service.

The company relies on continuing technological innovation, and an inability to protect our technology, or others' technological developments, could negatively impact our competitive position.

The Value Enhancement Program (VEP) is expected to achieve a 2025 year-end annual run rate of up to $750 million in Net income improvement, which, after adding back income taxes and depreciation and amortization of $185 million and $65 million, respectively, results in up to $1 billion of recurring annual EBITDA.

The company has a strong operational focus and continuously strives to differentiate itself through safe, reliable, and low-cost operations in all of its businesses. They purchase large quantities of natural gas, electricity and steam which we use as energy to fuel our facilities and purchase large quantities of natural gas liquids and crude oil derivatives which we use as feedstocks.

The company's Americas facilities can process significant quantities of either heavy liquids or NGLs. We estimate that in the U.S. we can produce up to approximately 90% of our total ethylene output using NGLs. We believe our raw material flexibility in the U.S. is a key advantage in our production of ethylene and its co-products.

The company's research and development activities are designed to improve our existing products and processes, and discover and commercialize new materials, catalysts and processes. These activities focus on product and application development, process development, catalyst development and fundamental polyolefin-focused research.

The company maintains an extensive patent portfolio and continues to file new patent applications in the U.S. and other countries. As of December 31, 2023, the company owned approximately 6,200 patents and patent applications worldwide.

Our polyolefin process licenses are structured to provide a standard core technology, with individual customer needs met by adding customized modules that provide the required capabilities to produce the defined production grade slate and plant capacity.

The company aims for long-term shareholder returns of 70% of free cash flow, defined as net cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures. The company intends to continue to declare and pay quarterly dividends, with the goal of increasing the dividend over time.

The company estimates capital spending to support our sustainability goals will represent approximately 20% of our total capital expenditures over the next two years.

In May 2023, the company issued its inaugural $500 million green bond. Proceeds from the bond are being used to finance or refinance, in whole or in part, new or existing eligible green projects in the areas of circular economy, renewable energy, pollution prevention and control, and energy efficiency.

Our 2030 goal is to reduce scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions reduction by 42% by 2030 and reduce our scope 3 emissions by 30% relative to a 2020 baseline. Our previously announced goal to achieve net zero scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions from global operations by 2050 remains unchanged.

As of December 2023, we have executed power purchase agreements achieving almost 90% of our 2030 target. These agreements will generate an estimated 3.7 million megawatt hours of renewable electricity annually and reduce our scope 2 emissions by more than 1.3 million metric tons of carbon emissions.

DEI remained a key focus area in 2023. Our efforts reflect a holistic, multi-year strategy to improve representation, ensure fairness, and increase visibility and accountability to leadership.

Throughout 2023, petrochemical markets faced headwinds from soft global demand, capacity additions and economic uncertainty. Markets were broadly pressured by weak demand for durable goods which impacted margins in the O&P-Americas, O&P-EAI, Intermediates & Derivatives (“I&D") and APS segments.

The relatively low cost of natural gas-derived raw materials in the U.S. versus the global cost of crude oil-derived raw materials has had a significant positive influence on the profitability of our North American operations.

We operate internationally and are subject to the risks of doing business on a global level. These risks include fluctuations in currency exchange rates, economic instability and disruptions, restrictions on the transfer of funds and the imposition of trade restrictions or duties and tariffs, and complex regulations concerning privacy and data security.