Eastman Chemical (NYSE: EMN) reported Q1 EPS of $1.09, $0.01 worse than the analyst estimate of $1.10. Revenue for the quarter came in at $2.18 billion versus the consensus estimate of $2.17 billion.

GUIDANCE:

Eastman Chemical sees Q2 2026 EPS of $1.70-$1.90, versus the consensus of $1.68.

Commenting on the outlook for full-year 2026, Costa said: “The Middle East conflict is a significant disruption for our industry, which is likely to create net upside to our earnings. Compared to January, the most visible change is in Chemical Intermediates, where tightening market conditions are quickly and substantially improving margins. In our specialty businesses, we are raising prices to offset higher raw material and distribution costs and offset those costs as we go through the year. We also see potential volume/mix upsides where our U.S. asset footprint enables security of supply for our customers. Of course, we don’t know how long this conflict will last and what impact it might have on consumer demand. For now, we are planning for stable demand compared to 2025 in our consumer discretionary end markets, except for automotive, which we expect will decline by low-single-digits. In this context, we continue to focus on what we can control and actions that we can take to consistently serve the market with our advantaged North American assets. We expect meaningful growth from our innovation-driven growth model, led by new wins in our Renew product lines produced at our Kingsport methanolysis facility. We remain on track to reduce costs by between $125 million and $150 million, net of inflation, and are maintaining disciplined capital expenditures by spending approximately $400 million this year. We also continue to expect tailwinds from lower shutdown expense, improved asset utilization, and favorable foreign currency exchange rates. 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 working capital. We see a pathway for operating cash flow to approach 2025 levels while recognizing that this pathway is narrowing in the current environment.

For earnings history and earnings-related data on Eastman Chemical (EMN) click here.