The Eastman team delivered a strong second quarter despite continued dynamic macroeconomic conditions,” said Mark Costa, Board Chair and CEO. “Sales revenue increased 15 percent sequentially driven by strong volume growth across the company and disciplined price-cost management in our specialty businesses. We also delivered strong spread expansion and volume/mix improvement in Chemical Intermediates. These actions resulted in a 350-basis-point sequential increase in our EBIT margin. We also continued to successfully manage the impact of the conflict in the Middle East and secured supply of key raw materials to help customers navigate the uncertainty. Additionally, we built momentum with the commercial ramp up of the Kingsport methanolysis facility and are making progress on a capital-efficient set of options to serve the packaging market.”
Corporate Results 2Q 2026 versus 2Q 2025
Sales revenue increased 10 percent primarily due to 5 percent higher sales volume/mix and 4 percent higher selling prices.
Higher sales volume/mix in Advanced Materials and Chemical Intermediates was partially offset by Fibers. Higher selling prices in Chemical Intermediates were primarily driven by tightening market conditions due to the ongoing Middle East conflict. Higher selling prices in specialty businesses offset higher raw material and distribution costs.
EBIT increased due to favorable price-cost, the benefit from cost-reduction initiatives, favorable foreign currency exchange rates and higher sales volume/mix. These factors were partially offset by higher variable compensation expense, higher planned maintenance expense and unfavorable asset utilization.
Segment Results 2Q 2026 versus 2Q 2025
Advanced Materials – Sales revenue increased 5 percent due to 4 percent higher sales volume/mix and 1 percent favorable foreign currency exchange rates.
Higher sales volume/mix was driven by growth across the segment. Price-cost was stable as increases in specialty plastics to mitigate higher raw material and distribution costs were offset by modestly lower price-cost in advanced interlayers.
EBIT decreased as higher sales volume/mix, favorable foreign currency exchange rates and cost reduction initiatives were more than offset by lower asset utilization and higher variable compensation expense.
Additives & Functional Products – Sales revenue increased 5 percent primarily due to 4 percent higher selling prices. Higher selling prices were primarily driven by cost-pass-through contracts.
EBIT was relatively unchanged as improved price-cost, favorable foreign currency exchange rates and cost reduction initiatives were offset by higher planned maintenance expense.
Fibers – Sales revenue decreased 11 percent primarily due to 10 percent lower sales volume/mix and 2 percent lower selling prices.
Lower sales volume/mix was driven by customer buying patterns to continue with inventory destocking in acetate tow and continued weakness in the textiles end market relative to tariff-driven volume strength last year.
EBIT decreased due to lower sales volume/mix, modestly lower acetate tow contract pricing, higher operating costs including lower asset utilization, and elevated costs associated with logistics to serve customers in connection with the Middle East conflict. These were partially offset by the benefit of cost reduction initiatives.
Chemical Intermediates – Sales revenue increased by 39 percent primarily due to 24 percent higher sales volume/mix and 14 percent higher selling prices.
Higher sales volume/mix and selling prices, particularly for olefin and derivative products, were driven by increased volume availability compared to the prior year period and supply disruptions.
EBIT increased due to higher spreads, improved volume/mix and cost-reduction initiatives.
Cash Flow
In second quarter 2026, cash provided by operating activities was $224 million versus $233 million in second quarter 2025. The company returned $96 million to stockholders through dividends. See Table 5. Priorities for uses of available cash for 2026 include payment of the quarterly dividend, capital expenditures, and share repurchases while maintaining our solid investment-grade balance sheet.
2026 Outlook
Commenting on the outlook for full-year 2026, Costa said: “Our team has demonstrated agility in the first half and is focused on building on the momentum and solid results delivered in the first half of 2026, despite the constantly changing impact of the Middle East conflict and continued weak demand in key discretionary end markets. We remain focused on driving growth through innovation, which is expected to be the primary driver of our specialty growth for the year. A key contributor to our innovation-driven growth is our Kingsport methanolysis facility, which continues to build strategic momentum. We also delivered solid growth through our innovation across weak discretionary end markets. We continue to see modest growth across stable end markets. Our commercial teams demonstrated excellence in successfully implementing price increases in our specialties to offset higher raw material and distribution costs and expect a modest tailwind from these actions in the back half. In our Chemical Intermediates segment, we have benefited from significant spread expansion due to the impact on supply chains of the Middle East conflict and substantially more volume to sell this year. We also remain on track to reduce costs between $125 million and $150 million, net of inflation, and are maintaining disciplined capital expenditures by spending approximately $400 million this year. When putting all of these factors together, we remain confident we can significantly improve earnings in 2026 versus 2025. On cash, the inflationary environment is putting pressure on accounts receivable. As a result, we now expect operating cash flow to approach $900 million, which is modestly below our previous expectation of approaching 2025 levels.
“Looking specifically at the sequential third-quarter 2026 outlook, we start with Advanced Materials, where we expect EBIT to be higher driven by improved price-cost and improved asset utilization. We also expect higher earnings in Fibers as acetate tow volume increases, with customers increasing purchases to meet their annual contracts. Additives & Functional Products earnings are expected to decline modestly due to seasonally lower volume, particularly in the agriculture market. Chemical Intermediates earnings are expected to modestly decline as the impact of supply chain disruptions lessens. When putting these factors together, we project third-quarter adjusted EPS to approach second-quarter 2026 EPS of $1.97.”
The third-quarter 2026 projected adjusted diluted EPS excludes any non-core, unusual, or nonrecurring items. Our financial results forecasts do not include non-core items (such as mark-to-market pension and other post-retirement benefit gain or loss, and asset impairments and restructuring charges) or any unusual or non-recurring items because we are unable to predict with reasonable certainty the financial impact of such items. These items are uncertain and depend on various factors, and we are unable to reconcile projected adjusted diluted EPS excluding non-core and any unusual or non-recurring items to reported GAAP diluted EPS without unreasonable efforts.
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