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#It's a good question.
If you look at fourth quarter of last year, they were down.
They seem to have rebounded a bit, as you said, in the first quarter.
As we look at that, it looks like that's happening in Asia, Europe, and it's always been in Latin America for the most part.
I think it's just filling some voids of volume.
We're haven't been able to do a pure market share look yet, but I think it's primary filling in as volume.
We have seen volume or demand increase in Europe.
We have seen a demand increase in Asia, a little bit stronger than we thought, so I think it's more aligned with demand poll than it is about market share gains.
That's at least our assessment at this point.
I think it's a pretty normal trend in terms of when you look at the cycle throughout the year.
I would say that's within the realm of normality of this business.
Obviously, <UNK>, we don't give specifics on price from that standpoint, but what I will say is we've been invoicing our customers in the first quarter around the world at the new prices as our contracts allowed us to do that.
As April has come through and North America 90-day roll-off occurred, we're invoicing at the new prices with all our customers as we ship them today, so the new prices are basically in effect basically all around the world right now from the first increase that we put in.
Obviously, we announced the second increase and that will play out over the next several months, but the first increase is now fully implemented across the world.
We got a good yield from price.
Again, we don't go specific in terms of our pricing to customers but we feel very confident on the yield that we were able to get.
We don't break that out, <UNK>.
And let me just make it clear to everybody, PTFE is an integral part of our fluoro business.
It's a precursor for so much that we have.
So I'm really not sure how reports happen.
Rumors are rumors and we don't comment on rumors, but the PTFE business is an important business to us.
It's connected into the chain.
The beauty of our fluoro business is we go from fluoro chemicals all the way through to fluoropolymers and that's what gives us a competitive advantage across the board.
So it isn't something that we would naturally look at hiding off.
<UNK>, obviously, as prices increase, that headwind decreases.
As we have said, and I said in my opening comments, we are very determined to improve the profitability of this business, both on the pricing side as well as on our cost side.
The only way to do this properly is you have to work hand in hand with your customers and that's what we're doing as we're implementing the two sets of price increases, we're working hand in hand with our customers to make sure they're getting the volumes that they need.
We're getting them so that they can handle the pricing through their channel in the right way.
So I would say that headwind will decrease as we're more and more successful with the price increases.
Bear in mind that we're starting the year with price increase ---+ the price delta year-over-year, more than $400 a ton.
So $200 is an average for the full year.
Yes.
Latin America continued to be a weak area.
If we go around the world, we see very strong volumes in North America, with a good solid coating season.
We're very encouraged in Europe, strong volumes.
Asia, surprisingly a little bit stronger than we had even planned for, but Latin America continues to be difficult across the board.
Yes.
We got you.
How are you.
Yes, <UNK>, actually, we're going to do both.
We're going to operate Altamira full-out.
It takes a while to ramp up, so that full-out will be different volumes in the beginning versus 18 to 24 months later, but we are going to basically utilize that full facility because it is our lowest-cost facility.
But as we said, we're going to ramp down the other parts of the circuit so that we're not adding more capacity into the marketplace beyond what our customers need.
I know that sometimes confuses folks when we talk about that, but we just have this unique opportunity to do that with our ore blends, to be able to really scale down some of our facilities.
And if you look at our inventory levels in the first quarter, we're actively managing our working capital.
We brought inventories down, but it's also getting our inventories in the right place on these other facilities that will be ramped down as Altamira comes up.
So this is all the planned out very well.
We think Altamira is still on track for this quarter's start-up, but we'll operate that full and it will ramp up as we get more confidence in the facility.
We are looking at the whole sulfur business, evaluating what we want to do with that sulfur business and all aspects of the look are there in terms of selling, keeping and partnering with others.
So all that is in play right now, <UNK>.
Hi, there.
Yes.
Altamira specifically, you've got to remember that Altamira, as we mentioned, always has been ---+ we've always said that it's our lowest cost production facility, but on top of that, it gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of how we ship.
Because we have duty-free status so many places in the world.
It just gives us a lot of flexibility in how to utilize that facility in terms of whether we shipped it into NASA, whether we ship it into Europe, whether we shipped it into China or Latin America.
So a lot of flexibility from that standpoint, so we'll maximize that opportunity as we see fit and the asset just allows us that total flexibility.
As we look at the globe right now, I would say as sort of I mentioned in the previous comments to <UNK>, we're seeing very strong demand in Europe and in North America, and good demand over in Asia.
So I think we'll continue to work with our customers to ensure they have the product that they need wherever it is in the world and our assets really give us the flexibility to be able to deliver that when and where they need it.
On the finished product side we like to operate somewhere around 60 days, where we're probably slightly under that right now.
But on the ore side, that in the past has been dependent on the opportunity we have for ore buys.
So I would say we haven't been that stringent on what ore inventories we would have because we've always looked at where is the opportunity to buy because of the flexibility we have in different types.
We have just put a bit more discipline in the system over the past couple months of trying to get those a little bit tighter and that's why you have seen our ore inventories come down over the last quarter.
Yes.
So the $230 million overall is split between those three years.
The heavy part of that is going to be 2017 and 2018, versus 2016, 2017 probably being the heaviest.
So think of the majority of that spend being in the last two years.
But, again, as we've been talking, we've been working on how to ramp down our total CapEx throughout the next couple years.
And that fits all within our plan.
So as we look at the Opteon spend, it's in the total context of what we're trying to do with CapEx and taking it down from the very high levels it was last year as we slowly ramp that down to the levels that we think are sustainable in the future.
Yes, <UNK>.
I would say that's really where we're trying to get the Company.
It really has to do with where we're going with run and maintain CapEx, it has to do with where we are on our portfolio.
Chemsal assets were, in many cases, very CapEx heavy.
I would say our focus continues to be first on being free cash flow positive, which is part of our outlook for the year and to have CapEx ramp down over time.
So all of these growth initiatives on cyanide and in Opteon were contemplated in getting our CapEx down to 350 over time.
Sure.
<UNK>, I would say, just speaking specifically about fluoropolymers, we have a ---+ what we're seeing is a little bit of a mix shift.
We're selling more in the industrial side than we have been in the consumer electronic space.
The consumer electronic space, because of the slowdown there is really the reason that demand is a little bit down.
Higher margin opportunities then on the industrial space.
So that's the mix change we're seeing there.
The best way I could tell you to look at our fluoroproducts business as a whole is the upside in that business is really Opteon and our cost reductions from the transformation plan.
Think of the rest as sort of balancing each other out.
And that's how we manage the business.
We obviously try to improve that as going forward.
But that's the best way to think of it.
Think of the upside is Opteon growth and the transformation plan cost reductions.
What we said is $100 million of EBITDA over 2016/2017 period.
It's hard for us to call that any tighter for you right now just because it's so dependent on the ramp-up that occurs between now and the end of the year.
It's real clean for us to see that in January of next year, but hopefully as the quarters progress here, we'll be able to give you a little bit better picture of that as the ramp-up occurs.
<UNK>, it's <UNK>.
We had indicated on our last call that we thought there was probably a couple hundred million dollar working capital opportunity and obviously, we expect seasonality to still have an impact, which it did in the quarter.
But being free cash flow positive this year really ties to the improvements we plan to make in working capital that we'll see throughout the year on a secular basis.
Hopefully what you are seeing, <UNK>, and others are seeing is this is being managed.
So this working capital work that <UNK> and the team are leading is really driving working capital down on a consistent, sustainable basis and that's really what we're trying to do within the Company.
So if you look at the three businesses: C&D, Aniline, and sulfur, the bulk of the CapEx spend of those three is probably in our sulfur business, and just because it's a high-maintenance type of a capital business, so all in all, I'm not sure we have sized them out.
Let me ask <UNK>, <UNK>.
<UNK>, if you look at our entire chemsal business, including everything last year, it was about a little over $100 million, maybe about $117 million, if I remember the numbers correctly.
So that is really the starting point and, as <UNK> said, we take CapEx out as we move forward.
Obviously, sulfur is one of the larger businesses in the portfolio, and also a fairly CapEx-heavy business.
Yes, we're looking at both.
We're talking about strategics as well as sponsors around this.
It's an attractive business.
It's a very profitable business, and as I mentioned in the opening comments, it's something that we're happy to continue to run.
We're just looking for the maximum value for all of our shareholders and stakeholders here.
So from that standpoint, if we don't get the maximum value through a divestiture, we'll get the maximum value by operating these extremely well.
So I think there's interest in these because they are very high-quality assets.
And we'll see in the next few months exactly where we go here.
I would say that we are working with every one of our customers to implement the price increase and, as I mentioned, all invoicing going forward, or all of our pricing going forward is with the new prices.
So we're working with everyone through this, independent of the size.
The only thing I would add to that, <UNK>, is we're seeing net price improvement everywhere and that's how we're measuring this is our net pricing improvement.
So listening.
Thank you all very much for all your questions and always the interest you have in the Company.
In closing, I just want to say we continue to work really hard on transforming Chemours into what we're calling a higher-value chemistry company.
Our focus remains squarely on continuing our flawless execution of our transformation plan, which we have all shared with all of you and delivering $500 million of improved EBITDA in 2017 over 2015, while we significantly improve our free cash flow and reduce our net leverage.
So again, thank you all for the questions.
Thanks all, for your interest in Chemours.
