Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated Feb. 12, 2026
Corporate Participants:
J. Kent Masters — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Neal R. Sheorey — Chief Financial Officer
Eric Norris — Chief Commercial Officer
Meredith Bandy — Vice President of Investor Relations & Sustainability
Analysts:
David Begleiter — Analyst
Jeffrey Zekauskas — Analyst
Josh Spector — Analyst
John Roberts — Analyst
Laurence Alexander — Analyst
Vincent Andrews — Analyst
Joel Jackson — Analyst
Kevin McCarthy — Analyst
Colin Rusch — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Hello and welcome to Albemarle Corporation’s Q4 2025 earnings call. I will now hand it over to Meredith Bandy, Vice President of Investor Relations and Sustainability.
Meredith Bandy — Vice President of Investor Relations & Sustainability
Thank you and welcome everyone to Albemarle’s fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Our earnings were released after market close yesterday and you’ll find the press release and earnings presentation posted to our website under the investors section@albemarle.com joining me on the call today are Kent Masters, Chief Executive Officer and Neil Shere, Chief Financial Officer. Mark Mummert, Chief Operations Officer and Eric Norris, Chief Commercial Officer are also available for Q and A. As a reminder, some of the statements made during this call, including our outlook guidance, expected company performance and strategic initiatives, may constitute forward looking statements.
Please note the cautionary language around forward looking statements contained in our press release and earnings presentation. That same language also applies to this call. Please also note that some of our comments today refer to non GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations can be found in our earnings materials. And now I’ll turn the call over to Kent.
J. Kent Masters — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you meredith for the fourth quarter we reported net sales of $1.4 billion, up 16% year over year with double digit volume growth. We also delivered adjusted EBITDA of $269 million, up 7% year over year, reflecting strong growth in energy storage and significant cost and productivity improvements. Turning to the full year, we achieved net sales of $5.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $1.1 billion. As expected, these results were at or above our previous outlook considerations. Significant cost and productivity improvements, volume growth and sales channel mix contributed meaningfully to our full year performance. We are providing an update to our lithium demand outlook to incorporate stronger lithium demand growth for stationary storage.
As a result, our estimated range for global 2030 lithium demand is up 10% versus our previous forecast. That brings me to our new full year 2026 outlook. We are using the same methodology as we have the past two years, providing outlook ranges for various lithium market price scenarios this year. Those ranges reflect both our operational improvements and higher lithium pricing. We are also targeting additional cost and productivity improvements of $100 to $150 million and stable capital spending in 2026. As a result, we see the potential for meaningful positive free cash flow at current lithium pricing.
Since 2024, we have successfully executed actions to reduce cost and capital intensity, generate cash and enhance financial flexibility. In 2025, we achieved approximately $450 million in run rate cost and productivity improvements and reduced capex spend by 65% year over year. In January 2026 we closed the sale of our stake in the Eurocat joint venture. We now expect to close the sale of a majority stake of Kitchen to KPS Capital Partners in the first quarter, slightly ahead of our initial schedule. Together these transactions are expected to generate approximately $660 million in pre tax proceeds, improving financial flexibility, streamlining our operations and enhancing focus on our core businesses.
As. We turn to slide 5 yesterday we announced the difficult but necessary decision to idle operations at our Kementon Lithium Hydroxide plant to improve financial flexibility and preserve optionality. Unfortunately, recent lithium price improvements alone are not enough to offset the challenges facing Western Hard Rock lithium conversion operations. This action is expected to be accretive to adjusted EBITDA beginning in the second quarter with no impact to sales volumes. Our investments in top tier mining resources at Greenbushes and Wadjanah and our exploration interest in Western Australia remain important components of Albemarle’s strategy and are not impacted by the decision to idle operations at Kemerton.
Now I’ll turn it over to Neil to discuss recent results and outlook. I will then cover recent market trends and growth before we open the call for Q and A.
Neal R. Sheorey — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you Kent and good morning everyone. I will begin with our financial results for the fourth quarter. As presented on Slide 6, net sales for the quarter of $1.4 billion increased from the prior year primarily driven by higher volumes across all segments, particularly energy storage and catchin which grew 17% and 13% respectively. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $269 million up 7% versus the prior year. This improvement was driven by higher lithium market pricing and increased CATCH in sales volumes. Our adjusted EBITDA margin decreased by approximately 150 basis points compared to last year driven by less favorable FX and lower specialties margins partially offset by higher margins in Energy storage and Katchin.
We reported a Net loss of $3.87 per diluted share excluding charges, the largest of which included tax related items and a non cash impairment related to the expected CATCH in transaction. Our adjusted diluted loss per share was $0.53. Moving on to slide 7 and the factors influencing our year over year adjusted EBITDA performance. We reported sales volume growth across all segments and higher pricing for energy storage. Equity income net of foreign exchange impacts decreased year over year due to the Greenbush’s inventory lag. Turning to other segments, Kitchen delivered solid year over year adjusted EBITDA growth of 39% due primarily to higher sales volumes.
Specialties EBITDA decreased slightly due to margin compression, notably in our lithium specialties business where prices began to adjust lower from previous peak pricing. The corporate adjusted EBITDA change primarily reflects unfavorable foreign exchange hedging impacts, largely driven by the strengthening of the Australian dollar and Chinese Yuan. Turning to slide 8 we are introducing our outlook considerations for 2026. As usual, we provide ranges of outcomes for our energy storage business as well as the enterprise based on recently observed lithium market pricing. This year we’ve updated our ranges to be inclusive of recent pricing trends. We’ve defined our scenarios using the following three observed market price full year 2025 average market pricing of about $10 per kg lithium carbonate equivalent or LCE January 2026 average pricing of about $20 per kg LCE and the 2021-2025 five year average price of about $30 per kg LCE.
Within each scenario we have provided ranges based on expected volume and product mix. All three scenarios assume flat market pricing across the year and in conjunction with Energy Storage’s current book of business, of which we expect about 40% of lithium salts volume to be sold through our long term agreements. Production volumes are expected to increase year over year due to growth from CGP3 and solar yield improvement offset by inventory drawdowns which increased sales in 2025. As a result, we anticipate that energy storage sales volumes will be roughly flat year over year. In addition to the metrics we have shown historically, this year we have included our expected average realized price for consolidated salts and spodumene sales for each scenario.
This realized price is simply our net sales range divided by our sales volume expectation. Particularly in the $20 and $30 scenarios, you will notice a difference between market price and our average realized price. This is primarily due to product mix. For example spodumene sales, which are growing, dilute our average realized price on an LCE basis. These scenarios also clearly demonstrate the impact of the cost and productivity improvements we made over the course of 2025 and remain focused on going forward. As illustrated in the $10 scenario, if lithium market pricing were flat from 2025 to 2026, we expect our energy storage adjusted EBITDA margin to improve year over year into the low 30% range from the 25% margin achieved in 2025.
Turning to Slide 9, we provide Albemarle’s comprehensive company roll up for each energy storage market price scenario. This outlook assumes the catch in Transaction closes in Q1 2026, which, all else being equal, reduces full year net sales and EBITDA versus the prior year here. Once again you will see that for the $10 scenario we expect to deliver a slight improvement to our overall adjusted EBITDA margin due to improved energy storage margins and our focus on cost and productivity. As Kent mentioned, we achieved $450 million of cost and productivity savings in 2025, a significant portion of which was delivered in the year.
As you see in our metrics going forward, a small portion of this savings run rate will carry over into 2026. This benefit is reflected in our scenarios and of course we also have significant upside potential as market pricing improves with total company margins lifting to the low 40% and mid 50% range for the $20 and $30 scenarios respectively. Turning to Slide 10 for commentary by segment Starting with Ketchin In January we closed the sale of our stake in the Eurocat joint venture. We expect to close the sale of a controlling stake in Ketchin in the first quarter.
Together these actions are projected to bring in about $660 million in pre tax proceeds and we expect minimal tax leakage on the transactions. As we’ve said before, we intend to utilize the proceeds for deleveraging and other corporate purposes. Operationally, Ketchin closed the year with a strong fourth quarter. Net sales were up 14% year over year and adjusted EBITDA grew 39% driven by CFT shipment timing and higher FCC volumes. Full year results also reflected year over year improvements including adjusted EBITDA up 15%. I am pleased to highlight that 2025 represented the third consecutive year of adjusted EBITDA improvements at Kitchen as part of our multi year turnaround plan for the business.
Looking Ahead Once the transaction closes, earnings, earnings for our remaining share of the Refining Catalyst business will be classified as equity income. Our share of the Refining Catalyst business and the retained PCs business will both be reported in corporate. We expect the contribution from these businesses to be relatively immaterial to equity income and adjusted EBITDA going forward. Moving to slide 11 for an overview of the specialties business Results. In the fourth quarter, net sales increased 5% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA declined 6% primarily due to margin compression in our lithium specialties business where we began to see pricing move lower following previous peak conditions.
For the first quarter, we expect lower sequential sales and EBITDA due to a temporary production interruption at our JBC joint venture in Jordan following a major flooding event which resulted in an estimated 10 to 15 million dollars in lost revenue. The site is now back to full operating rates. Looking ahead to 2026. We are introducing full year outlook considerations for the specialties business. Net sales of 1.2 to $1.4 billion adjusted EBITDA of 170 to $230 million EBITDA margins in the mid teens. Bromine specialties volumes are expected to be flat to slightly down reflecting the early year disruption at jbc.
Adjusted EBITDA is expected to fall year over year due to product mix impacts driven by soft demand from the oil and gas and elastomers markets and lower pricing in lithium specialties. Moving to energy storage on slide 12, full year volumes reached 235,000 tonnes LCE up 14% year over year, exceeding the high end of our outlook of 10% growth. This was driven by record integrated production, strong spodumene sales and inventory reductions. Q4 net sales increased 23% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was up 25% supported by higher lithium pricing and ongoing cost and productivity improvements. While we expect first quarter volumes to be lower sequentially due to typical seasonality during the lunar New Year, we expect both net sales and EBITDA to increase year over year assuming current pricing persists for the remainder of the quarter.
As Kent mentioned, idling Kemerton Train 1 will have no impact on volumes. We expect to meet customer demand for lithium hydroxide via our other conversion plants or tolling. The Kemerton action will benefit adjusted ebitda beginning in Q2 regarding sales channel mix, we expect approximately 40% of our 2026 salts volumes to be sold under our long term agreements. Turning to Slide 13 and some new disclosure we will provide going forward. This table documents quarterly metrics for the energy storage business including average lithium market price observed, our net sales, our sales volumes and our average realized price which is defined simply as our net sales divided by our consolidated salts and spodumene sales volumes on an LCE basis going forward.
This table will be included in the appendix of our earnings deck for easy reference. As you review this data I will again remind you of the impact of spodumene sales in our mix which dilutes our average realized price on an lce basis. Slide 14 highlights our success in turning earnings into cash. We ended 2025 with an EBITDA to operating cash conversion of 117% driven by our actions to manage working capital and receipt of a customer prepayment in January of last year. Even after adjusting for the one time benefits, we still estimate our underlying 2025 cash conversion to be at or above the top end of our long term range of 60 to 70%.
Additionally, we generated significant positive free cash flow of nearly $700 million due to our solid cash conversion and and our right sized capital expenditures which declined 65% year over year. Looking ahead to our cash generation and conversion in 2026, we are focused on our underlying cash improvements but want to note select headwinds to our cash metrics in the year, including recognizing $88 million in deferred revenue related to the customer prepayment we entered in 2025 which will benefit EBITDA but not contribute cash, and approximately $100 million in cash costs related to idling Kemerton Train 1 and placing it in care and maintenance.
Of course, pricing has a large impact on our ability to generate cash and we expect measurably positive full year free cash flow potential if current lithium pricing persists. I will now turn the call back over to Kent to detail our updated lithium demand forecast, capital allocation priorities and our growth outlook.
J. Kent Masters — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Neil Slide 15 shows our global lithium demand expectations we are seeing a diversification of lithium end markets with stationary storage becoming an increasingly significant demand driver for lithium in addition to strong electric vehicle demand growth, most notably in Asia and and Europe. 2025 global lithium demand was 1.6 million tons, up more than 30% year over year and in line with the midpoint of our previous forecast range. 2025 Lithium demand growth outpaced supply growth, leading to tighter inventories and increased pricing by year end. Now we are introducing 2026 global lithium demand expectations of 1.8 to 2.2 million tons, up 15 to 40% year over year, driven by stationary storage and electric vehicle demand growth.
We are also increasing our 2030 global lithium demand outlook to 2.8 to 3.6 million tons, up about 10% from our previous range. This increase is driven by higher expected demand from stationary storage. Turning to slide 16, let’s take a closer look at each of these end markets, starting with EVs. We continue to see EV demand growth globally in line with our expectations, with sales up 21% year over year, with the highest growth in Europe up 34%. European EV demand was driven by continued policy support for electrification, which we expect to continue to drive similar growth in 2026.
As expected, US EV demand slowed in the fourth quarter following the removal of the 30D consumer tax credits. However, the US is also the smallest of the regional markets with just 10% of global EV sales. China remains the largest EV market with 60% of global EV sales and growth continues on trend as EV Penetration reached approximately 50% during 2025. Slide 17 expands on the fast growing stationary storage demand trends up more than 80% in 2025 with strong growth across all geographies. China represented 40% of ESS shipments in 2025, growing 60% year over year with demand driven by policy support and strong economics for stationary storage projects.
North America saw a 90% increase in shipments in 2025 to support grid stability as energy demand rises, in part due to increased demand from Data Centers and AI. European shipments more than doubled in 2025 to support renewables as an alternative to energy imports, stationary storage demand continues to diversify globally. Demand outside of the three major regions represented more than 20% of stationary storage shipments and grew 120% year over year. This growth is due to strong demand across Southeast Asia, the Middle east and Australia driven by policy support, the need for energy resilience and growing international battery supply chains.
Turning to slide 18 thanks to our own disciplined cost and capital actions as well as improving underlying markets, we closed the year with $1.6 billion in cash. In addition, in the first quarter we expect to receive approximately $660 million in combined proceeds from the recently closed Eurcat transaction and the soon to close Ketchin transaction. We repaid our $440 million euro bond in November and are committed to maintain grade credit profile. We continue to evaluate additional opportunities to delever return capital to shareholders through our quarterly cash dividends and make disciplined organic growth investments. Now, turning to slide 19, we’ve reset the baseline for lower sustaining capital through capital efficiency, project selectivity and scoping.
Our 2026 sustaining capital is essentially flat year over year. After assuming the sale of Catchin in the first quarter, we’re confident we’ll be able to maintain these lower levels of spend while also prioritizing health, safety and environmental continuity and productivity projects. Cost reductions, portfolio simplification and capital discipline also allow for targeted growth spending on our world class resources including investments in early stage development. At the Salar to Atacama and Kings Mountain. We are committed to being disciplined in our approach to value, enhancing growth while preserving optionality and solidifying our competitive position as we look ahead.
On slide 20, we are on track to deliver a 5 year CAGR of 15% for energy storage sales volumes on with minimal additional investment. This includes a 25% CAGR over the past four years with growth expected to moderate as large projects complete ramp up over the next two years. Several projects provide growth with minimal incremental capital spending going forward. At the Greenbush’s Spodumene mine in Australia. The JV is currently ramping the CGP3 expansion which adds about 35,000 tons per year to our capacity on an LCE basis. We also see multiple opportunities to continue productivity initiatives at the Solar to Atacama based on results of the Solar Yield Improvement Project.
Finally, at Wajina the JV is currently operating about two to two and a half trains on average and could potentially operate three full trains as ore availability continues to improve. We will also continue to evaluate longer term growth opportunities to leverage our global footprint of world class resources. Turning to slide 21, Albemarle has a strong and differentiated competitive position led by our growing lithium and long lived bromine resources. The figures shown on the slide summarize the changes made to our mineral resources inclusive of mineral reserves. As part of our annual SK1300 report included in our 10K filing.
Our bromine resources decreased slightly year over year at jbc. This was due primarily to updated modeling and sampling. Our JBC operations continue to produce some of the lowest cost bromine in the world with significant long term expansion options. Magnolia resources are down slightly due to reduced pumping rates. Albemarle benefits from large low cost bromine resources with resource lives in the multi decade or even multi century range. Our lithium mineral resources were up 10% year over year led by improvements at greenbushes. At Greenbushes we increased our reserves and resources due to mine design improvements and the inclusion of underground resource.
At the Salar to Atacama resource growth was mainly attributed to expanded hydrogeological drilling activities. We anticipate further enhancements in reserves and resources at this site. The DLE pilot plant has been fully commissioned and is now operational yielding promising data for scale up purposes. Additionally, by next year the solar Yield improvement project is expected to have enough operating history to to support upgraded mineral resource and reserves estimates. At Wajina our updated NPV materially increased driven primarily by yield improvements. Kings Mountain just completed a successful drilling campaign with potential for updated resource next year. On slide 22 I will summarize the actions we have taken to enhance our position and and maintain our competitive edge to capitalize on the growth trends I have discussed in terms of optimizing our conversion network.
As I mentioned, we delivered strong full year 25 energy storage, volume growth and record production and we made the important decision to idle Kemerton. Looking ahead, we will continue to maximize the value of our resources and adjust product mix through conversion and tolling networks. We continue to improve cost and efficiency in 2025 with greater than 100% adjusted EBITDA to operating cash flow conversion. We are Targeting an additional 100 to $150 million in cost and productivity improvements in 2026 from a combination of projects across manufacturing, supply chain and corporate. We see further opportunities for cost and productivity improvements as we simplify our processes and continue to embed technology and AI across our organization.
As a reminder, we are targeting flat capex as compared to 2025 with a focus on disciplined investment that enhance our optionality and provide fast returns. And finally, we will continue to enhance our flexibility building on the catch in asset sales in 2025 and strong free cash flow of achieved during the year. Importantly, the actions we have taken and continue to take to optimize our portfolio, reduce cost, improve capital efficiency and enhance financial flexibility are all geared towards preserving long term growth optionality and supporting our strong competitive position. In Summary on Slide 23, Albemarle delivered strong fourth quarter and full year 2025 results thanks to the actions we have taken to optimize our asset portfolio, reduce cost and strengthen our financial flexibility.
Looking ahead for 2026, these efforts are expected to continue to drive year over year margin improvement independent of price changes. Our durable competitive strengths, including our assets, expertise and innovation combined with the long term secular growth opportunities around energy resilience position us well for sustainable growth and value creation over the long term. We have the team and discipline to execute well and realize that potential. With that, I’ll turn it over to the operator to take your questions.
Questions and Answers:
operator
We will now move to our Q and A portion. If you would like to ask a question, please press star5 to raise your hand as a reminder that is star5 to raise your hand. Also please bear in mind this Q and A is limited to one question and one follow up per person. Our first question is from David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.
David Begleiter
Thank you. Good morning. First, thank you for the additional disclosure. It’s very helpful. Kent, on your lithium volumes. They’ll be flat this year in 26. How should we think about volume growth beyond 27 in the 27, 28, 29 time frame? Thank you.
J. Kent Masters
Yeah, thanks. So I would say that we we probably grew a little faster than we anticipated. It’s kind of why we’re running into a flat spot this year. That and I think the headwinds pulling inventories down so we were able to sell those last year and not this year and then and we still have growth opportunities at Greenbushes, at wajana and then we have longer term growth From Kings Mountain and then the slaughter Atacama. So I think we can. We’ll continue on a growth profile. We pulled back on our capital spending, so we’re. It’s not as prolific as it once was, but I think we still continue that growth profile after 27 and we’ll have to start investing once we see how the market looks for that.
But we have, we have opportunities, we have the fundamentals for it. The resources that we have and the technology basis we have for that is just a matter of executing against that.
David Begleiter
Understood. And just on Camerton, Kent, how much higher cost is that asset than your Chinese conversion assets? And what lithium price would you need to see to restart Kemberton? Thank you.
J. Kent Masters
Yeah. So in the Kimberton, I think in your point, I think you made it. We’ve idled the asset. Not. It’s not a shutdown, it’s idle. So we keep it in a position where we can restart it if we get into those conditions. But the cost structure between China and say Western Supply, but particularly Western Australia, I mean, it’s across the industry, it’s across areas like reactants, tailings, disposal is a big difference. There’s a big industry in China that kind of works through tailings and we don’t have that in the West. We’ve made progress in Australia with government support around taking those costs down, but it’s still significantly different.
Labor’s higher power. So there’s a, there is a gap there between China and the west and Australia. It’s, it’s probably four or five dollars, something like that. And that’s going to have to be addressed if you’re going to build out a Western supply chain. We either need differentiated prices to cover those costs from the west and we’ve not been able to get that support so far.
operator
Your next question will come from Jeffrey Zakowskas with JPMorgan.
Jeffrey Zekauskas
Thanks very much. Can you comment on how much Chinese lithium capacity you think was closed down from about the middle of 2025 today because of various actions? And do you think that the Chinese government or steps that the Chinese government took were key to that capacity coming offline?
J. Kent Masters
So I’m let Eric get into some of the specifics around maybe the mines or the capacity that comes around it. But I think there is, I mean, the Chinese government has been, has been paying attention to this. I think it has had something to do with that. It’s not all driven there. So you’ve had some capacity. Come on. We’ve also been surprised to the upside on demand Particularly the fixed store, the fixed storage applications have been much stronger. So it’s a, it’s where demand didn’t grow. I mean supply did not grow as much as we had anticipated.
It did, still growing, but it’s not as much as we’ve anticipated and demand grew more than we thought. So that’s where it’s gotten, it’s getting tighter. And I think the, the Chinese government looking at environmental regulations and some of the permitting, they’re getting a little bit tighter on it and it’s had I would say some influence. Eric?
Eric Norris
Yeah. So Jeff, we would say that just, just a bit of update. There are about seven petalite mines that continue to operate even while they await permits. So it’s not that lepetalite capacity in China has completely disappeared. There’s still a good amount that that is online. The one large facility you may have heard about is owned and operated by CATL. That is still offline. In total we think about 30 to 50,000 tons of capacity came off in 2025. We’d expect that that’s possible to come back on at some point in the coming year and effectively we’ve modeled that.
So we now your question about the regulatory environment. There is an increased oversight on waste tailings generation and general operate environmental operating conditions in China. It’s probably too early to say how that will play out. Safe to say if implemented it would affect all operators and the cost position of all operators because it hits all elements of how to manage, handle and dispose of mine tailings and environmental waste.
Jeffrey Zekauskas
Great, thank you for that. And then I Guess on slide 27 you have your forecast of specialties adjusted EBITDA for 2026 which you put in a range of 170 to 230 versus 276. What’s behind that decrease?
Eric Norris
So just to clarify, Jeff, this is Eric again your question is what’s behind the decrease in specialties year on year earnings?
Jeffrey Zekauskas
Yes. For 2026.
Eric Norris
Indeed. Okay, so a couple of things that are there. Well number one, as Kent described in the call, we’re not getting much of a lift from demand growth year on year. So that’s not a helpful tailwind. Just to clarify that the issues there are that in certain markets such as processed chemical industries, oil and gas elastomers, that’s a part of your coverage universe. You know that that’s an industry that is not particularly healthy and that’s impacting our demand growth in those areas. Now there’s some offsets, pharma, semiconductors, Those are performing well. I think the big driver is lithium prices, lithium specialties prices in particular.
This is a business that does not contract or move like the energy storage. It’s not very commoditized, it’s special especially. But it does echo the price curve of LCE over time. And we were successful in the past years of getting long term contracts based upon very high LCE prices at that time. And those have now come off and we saw a step down of that a little bit in the fourth quarter. Neil mentioned that in his comments and we’re going to see more of that to come this year. Obviously now that’s turned but it’s too early for the, the turn in LCE prices to, to affect a subsequent series of contracts.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
operator
Your next question will come from Josh Spector with ubs.
Josh Spector
Yeah, hi, good morning. I wanted to ask on just your approach on how you’re thinking about investing in this cycle. You guys did a lot of work over the last couple years to get free cash flow to where it was last year. So how long do prices need to stay at the 20 kilogram plus level before you think about started spending or are you going to harvest cash for longer than what you might have in a prior cycle? Just given what we’ve learned here.
J. Kent Masters
Yep. So we probably, probably will be a bit more conservative than we, than you’ve seen us be in the past around that. But we have, we do have projects. I mean we’ve been mindful as we’ve cut capital, we’ve taken out some of the big pieces, we’ve tried to get our sustaining capital in a place where we think we can hold it and we’re treat, we’re investing in the our assets but not over investing but also looking for incremental projects, smaller capital, quick returns. You’ve heard us talk about that in the past and over the down cycle particularly focused on that.
And then the growth programs are more, a little more incremental like we said before, you can see us ramping up CGP3 at Greenbushes for example at Wajana we’ve got a third train there that when we get to better or we can operate that without significant capital and then we can build solar to Atacama. Salar yield project is still ramping but it’s going very well. It’s generating good data. So we think that’s going to really help our efficiencies and recoveries as we go forward. So we have the opportunity to make smaller investments and still get some growth.
The bigger ones are to come. Kings Mountain, some other projects, dle for example, in the solar that would give us additional volumes. Our bigger investments, those are, they’re not right in front of us. So we’ll have the opportunity to see how the market responds before we make commitments on things like that.
Josh Spector
Okay, thanks. So just quickly on Kemerton, I mean you talked about the 100 million shutdown costs. Can you just go through other pieces? I guess how quickly is the payback on that cost? And then are there any ongoing, basically costs to keep the capacity idle?
J. Kent Masters
So there are ongoing costs to keep it in the state, in a ready state, so to speak, idled. And they’re not dramatic but they are significant cost and it’s something we can do for a period of time. We, we don’t want to, we can’t keep it here forever, but we can keep it here long enough to see if we, we can bring it back. The market changes and really the change we’re looking for is probably a bifurcation where western prices are different than prices in China. That’s really what we’re looking for. And to see that that’s sustainable over time to cover those, to cover those costs.
And so the, and the payback on that, I mean, I don’t want to, I’m not going to say exactly what. The. Savings is around that, but it’s a reasonable payback.
operator
Your next question will come from John Roberts with Mizuho.
John Roberts
Thank you. Could you talk about the differences between China and ex China lithium market pricing? I know you don’t want to discuss your own contracts, but what’s the market doing ex China?
J. Kent Masters
Well, I’ll take, I’ll make a broad comment, Eric. You can jump on that if you want, but I don’t, there’s not, I mean there’s not a big difference. Right. For the most part, everyone wants the China price. There are some circumstances where you can get that a little bit of a differentiation, but for the most part, and the way it’s been for the last several years, it’s more or less the same price. There is. There are some incentives in the US where some of that will flow through to lithium from resources outside of China or material outside of China, but it doesn’t characterize the whole market, I would say.
Eric Norris
Tanya. Eric, just adding so structurally you would know that in the past years when China has been a big, and has been a big producer of lithium, the general difference has been the 13% VAT. So price of the about 13% higher outside versus in. That’s just a structural difference. I think though however, what Kent’s alluding to is important. The market is dynamic and it’s changing. The growth and maturity of the GFX futures exchange is increasingly becoming the benchmark given that it’s traded every day. There’s great transparency to that number or one can see it very clearly.
And outside of China people have tended to even our contracts, contract relationships have tend to rely on PRAs price reporting agencies. And with the dynamic change of what’s going on with the GFECTs, the challenge is are the PRA’s keeping up with that rate of change. So I think it’s getting. There are some, there’s a structural difference is my first point. Second point is there are some difficult, maybe some inefficiencies because of that dynamic with the GFX going on.
John Roberts
Okay, and then I think you said you modeled Catl’s capacity coming back this year. Could you share when you’ve modeled that back online?
Eric Norris
I mean I think we’ve probably, we’ve taken an assumption that the metered in slowly. Again John, we’re talking about 30 to 50,000 tons. You look at the scheme of what’s the demand growth, supply, demand balance and where inventory levels are. I don’t think it’s going to make that much of a difference.
operator
Your next question will come from Lawrence Alexander with Jefferies.
Laurence Alexander
So good morning. First of all, can you discuss the, you know, whether there’s any material difference in contract structures developing between stationary storage and automotive in terms of reliability, their degree of emphasis on reliability of supply or consistency of content, you know, quality control or product formulation?
J. Kent Masters
Yes. So, so for us the, the material goes through the same supply chain. Right. So we’re selling it into the same supply chain that we do for automotive and we do for fixed storage. Probably the biggest difference is by definition all the fixed storage is carbonate and that and we tend hydroxide tends to be go to the west. So those tend to be where our, our long term contracts are. Carbonate tends to be more on the spot market and the China price. So that that’s the biggest difference. But it’s really driven by the product mix that goes into fixed storage versus there’s a combination for the EV market and it’s pretty much all carbonate and LFP for fixed storage.
Yeah.
Eric Norris
And just a couple of characteristics to add to that that make it important maybe to get at the root of your question, Lawrence. For one, fixed storage is largely carbonate, that’s largely LFP and that’s almost entirely China and carbonate has a pretty harmonized spec. It’s closer to being like a, like a classic commodity than hydroxide. Hydroxide has a lot more requirements that the, that the automotive producers put on it for the life of battery and the safety they’re looking to get. And there’s as a result, given the challenges of making consistent grade hydroxide, there’s a much more of a variation across producers.
So there’s a more detailed qualification process or some of it is the user, some of it is the chemistry, I guess is the point.
Laurence Alexander
And then just on the, in terms of how you think about the lessons learned about balance sheet management against strategic imperatives or longer term, how are you thinking about the development of solid state as a solution in the battery market and the potential competitive threats from sodium ion batteries?
J. Kent Masters
Yeah, so, okay, two ends of the spectrum there. So the, on solid state, I mean it’s still, it’s lithium and we still the driver will be EVs. So the intent, the lithium intensity for solid state goes up a little bit. So it gives us a kicker. But it’s really driven by the EV penetration and that growth in that. So that seems from our standpoint it’s just, it’s a positive, it’s going to grow that a little bit. But we’re going to, again, we’ve got time because we don’t see it becoming mass market immediately. So we have time to understand, allow the market to mature.
So we’ve, you know, we’re early in the cycle, probably earlier than we anticipated from lithium. We’ve just, we think we’ve just been through the second cycle since the advent of EVs. So that’s still immature from a, from a commodity cycle perspective. So we’re still watching that and learning and making sure we understand that on pick storage and sodium ion we look, we think it’s going to be relevant. It’ll be a, a technical player in the market. But it still has to develop technically and it has to scale, so it’s not impacting us. We don’t think much this year in our forecast.
As we kind of build out the forecast, I think we built early on kind of 10% sodium ion as fixed storage and that growing to 15% maybe toward the end of the decade.
Eric Norris
Just again, to add some context, I think it’s important one, as Ken said, solid state, a good news story. A solid state battery has 2x the amount of lithium in it that a cell would. For lithium ion battery, there’s some different tech involved, there’s a different supply chain involved. So it’s going to take a while. Similarly, sodium is going to take a while as well. And that’s obviously a drawback. And it’s part of the reason we have such a variation in our ESS forecast in the deck that we presented is because there are some things that have to happen.
Sodium energy has to get more, more, more energy dense to be cost competitive with LFP at the range of prices we shared in this. In these scenarios, LFP is always more cost competitive today than is sodium ion battery. So there has to be innovation. We expect innovation to happen. The second is scale that Ken said. And then the third is it will be limited because in the end, it will never have the volumetric energy density that lithium would, whether that’s lithium iron phosphate or lithium metal. So it’s limited in storage spaces to where space is not an issue.
So think a cornfield versus New York City. New York City isn’t going to work so well. Cornfield will work out in Iowa. And then obviously an EV has the same limitation. Volumetric energy density is critical for EVs, so we see very limited penetration there. So it’s two different ends of the spectrum. As Ken said, those are all the drivers.
operator
Our next question will come from Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley.
Vincent Andrews
Thank you and good morning, everyone. Just thinking through, you know, sort of shipments versus consumption. You know, early in the cycle, there tends to be, you know, sort of a reload that helps prices, you know, move higher. And, you know, ESS obviously is a big driver. And some of the data would show that ESS shipments are moving, you know, kind of a 2x the level of ESS installations, which, you know, to a certain extent makes sense. Right. It’s a very growing part of the market. So as it grows, inventory needs to grow in between. But how do you assess sort of where customer inventory levels are and where customer behavior is sort of as prices have gone up and then maybe come off the bottom as you think about what actual demand or consumption is going to be in 2026.
J. Kent Masters
So look, there’s. There’s a couple different supply chains you have to think through. But I mean, kind of across the board, we think inventories are at a pretty low level, particularly from a lithium side, but sitting in batteries everywhere, the. The inventory levels are pretty low. Now. We’re in the lunar New Year period. And as we come out of that, well, that’s where we’ll get information to see exactly what demand’s going to look like this year. But everything seems to be pointing in the Right direction. And we, we see installations on fixed storage kind of continuing the trend and keeping up.
We, we follow that versus the what goes in. So we’re, the batteries are probably where we ships probably six months ahead of where it gets shipped to the an installation six months to a year before an installation happens. And we see that reasonably balanced. So it looks pretty real from our standpoint.
Vincent Andrews
That’s very helpful. Neil, could I ask you to fill us in on some of the other cash flow statement items on working capital? Just thinking through, you got higher prices, you know, your inventories at low levels. But what, what, what should the makings of, you know, AP AR inventories look like in 2026 just given what’s happening from a, from a price perspective, both for your revenue and your spot costs.
Neal R. Sheorey
Yeah. Hi there Vincent. Thanks for that question. So maybe I won’t go through every line of working capital, but I will say first of all on inventory, obviously we saw very strong demand at the end of the year of last year and we capitalized on that and we’re able to bring down our inventories a little bit. As you can expect in 2026, our production levels are up. Some of that will go towards restocking our inventories and making sure that we have the right amount of inventory to supply the demand. But in a rising price environment, you do bring up a good point that in a rising price environment, working capital could be a short term cash flow headwind.
The way we think about it is generally speaking for the company, our working capital balance sits at about 25% of sales. That’s usually a pretty good rule of thumb. So maybe that is helpful as you think about in a rising price environment, how to model the working capital piece.
operator
Your next question will come from Joel Jackson with BMO Capital Markets.
Joel Jackson
Hi, I just want to follow up on slide. I think it’s eight. So you know, you talk about your sensitivities and your margins and if you look at Q1, you know, you talk about $20,000 a ton is about the spot price. You said that’s what January price is. So should you be delivering mid-50s EBITDA margin in energy storage in Q1?
J. Kent Masters
So well, you, you have to consider the lag on the, on the way our contracts work. So we’ll, we’ll get the benefit of the current market price on the spot business? We do. But our contract volumes all kind of have about somewhere a couple of months lag, usually three months lag. That works through that. So we have to have the opportunity for that to work through our P and L. Otherwise once we get that, that should be the case.
Joel Jackson
Okay, just following up on that then. So you should have been if spot price is exactly where it is, you should be achieving mid-50s EBITDA margins in energy storage in Q2. Just about a question and also just clarifying, Kent, you talk about four to five dollars a kilo of conversion costs. Now when in Kemberton were you talking about that’s your absolute cost, you see that conversion costs were in Kementon or Western Australia. Are you saying at four to five dollars a kilo was how much higher the costs are in Kemerton versus China? It’s just a two part second question.
I thank you.
J. Kent Masters
Yeah, so it wasn’t a Kemerton answer. It was a general broader answer and it was like a $4 to $5 difference between China, I would say. To be clear.
operator
Your next question will come from Kevin McCarthy with Vertical Research Partners.
Kevin McCarthy
Thank you and good morning, Ken. I’d welcome your latest thoughts on potential to acquire lithium capacity versus build it. It seems to me you’ve delevered the balance sheet quite a bit. You’ve got more cash coming in from Ketchin. We’re talking about price recovery and positive revisions to ESS demand. So if we zoom out the lens and just think about where you are financially and where we are fundamentally in the cycle, might we see more inorganic growth from Albemarle in the years to come?
J. Kent Masters
Yeah, so I mean we’d be talking down the road if you’re thinking from that perspective because we still have but one we want to make sure we’re in or we’ve got really good footing, understand where the market’s going as we go, as we go forward because we price has moved up. We just want to make sure that that consolidates so to speak. And we also have pretty good opportunities within the portfolio for I’d say it’s incremental growth. It’s, it’s lower capital than building greenfield facilities and it’s mostly around resources but. And it’s then it’s incremental capacity at our conversion facilities, whether that’s at LE or in our, our conversion facilities in China.
And then we also have tolling opportunities as well. So we’re. I think we’ve got good organic growth opportunities. But look we’ll look at acquisitions as they come up. But that’s not our focus and we would have to see the, the right opportunities for that, the right fit at the right price. We would look at it but that’s not, that’s not really our focus at this point in the cycle.
Kevin McCarthy
Thank you very much.
operator
Your next question will come from Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer.
Colin Rusch
Yeah, I wanted to just follow up on the cash question. You’re really in a fundamentally different place from a balance sheet perspective. And I’m curious about rather than acquiring new assets, looking at optimizing your cost of capital on the balance sheet and some of the instruments that you have, if there’s real opportunities to streamline things.
Neal R. Sheorey
Yeah. Hi there Colin. Thanks for that question. This is Neil. So yeah, I think one of the key things that we’re focused on is making sure that we have the right kind of headroom to navigate through the cycle. And you saw in our capital allocation slide today that in addition to, you know, making sure that we, we meet our dividends, we are also focused on ensuring that we have a strong balance sheet which is deleveraging opportunities. So we’re going to continue to look at that. You know, if you’re looking at other parts of the capital structure, look, the best thing I would say is we evaluate where is the best economic place for us to delever and strengthen our financial profile.
And I think our comments today really highlight where we see the best opportunities. I really think the best opportunities are in, in the deleveraging space. But we do look at all of our options and certainly with our cash position where it is today, those are. That, that’s kind of our first and foremost priority right now.
Colin Rusch
Okay, that’s super helpful. And then you know, for Eric, I’m really curious about customer behavior here. I mean getting a deposit is a pretty big signal to the market about where folks see overall supp balance on a multi year basis. You know, as you look at EV versus stationary storage and increasingly robotics end customers. Can you talk a little bit about the different behavior and concerns around regional nuances, tariffs and security of supply and supply chains between those three buckets of customers?
Eric Norris
Sure, happy to call. And it is a very dynamic time to be sure. And I think so much has happened so fast it’s going to be hard to draw a whole hard conclusions right now at this moment. Would say that when it comes to the EV market, it depends on who you’re talking to. If you have a, if you have someone whose market is largely the United States, it’s a very different picture than someone whose picture is your or view as Europe or China. When it comes to grid storage, unanimously that’s a, that’s an area of interest.
Remember though that in some levels it’s the same customer for us, depending where in the supply chain. Obviously we do have some contracts with OEMs, the balance of our contracts with battery producers, we do some a lot of spot business with cathode producer. So we see the whole supply chain different eyes and further up you go, the more bullish you get because they’re less focused on any specific end market. We have seen a lot of customer dialogues come forward with the rise in prices, but it’s way too early to say where that’s going to go.
I mean, at this point, again, depending on who you’re talking to, they have a very different view of their needs and so we’re just going to have to see how that plays out over the long term in terms of our contracts. But right now it’s just too early to call.
operator
Thank you. That’s all the time we have for questions. I will now pass it back to Kent Masters for closing remarks.
J. Kent Masters
Thank you, operator. In closing, I want to thank you all for your continued support and trust in Albemarle. Our strong results this quarter, improved outlook for 2026 and ongoing focus on operational excellence position us well for the future. With our world class resources, strong track record of cost and productivity improvements, leading process, chemistry and commitment to customer success, we’re confident in our ability to create lasting value for our shareholders and seize opportunities ahead. We appreciate your partnership and look forward to connecting at our upcoming events. Stay safe and take care. Thank you.
operator
This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.