Mark J. Costa
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Eastman Chemical
Sure, Jeff. And yes, it's quite the recovery in Chemical Intermediates like many other companies who have similar kinds of products versus last year. And it's a combination of better volume, but significantly better spread that's driving that success in the portfolio. But, before I get to the spread part, I want to just get to the composition of CI, first, as you asked.
So, about 25% of the revenue in CI is actually amines -- functional amines. They're mostly on cost pass-through contracts. And so, they've had very steady spreads since we frankly bought Taminco, in the way their business is structured. And they've had a nice, solid, steady volume growth over time, delivering very predictable and attractive earnings. And they've got a few accelerants on top of that, beyond just the normal ag growth. So, we've got a plant that we just built and are ramping up for Corteva for their Enlist product that's giving us a lot more additional growth on top of that core business. So, that's just been a nice, great, steady business.
Then, you do have plasticizers, which has been a very attractive business. We've been a leader in non-phthalate plasticizers for a long time. So, we get not just underlying market growth but above market growth in that business, as we've been replacing other plasticizers. And the spreads there, of course, connected to the olefin chain have done quite well this year. But, it's not just spreads, it's also a nice growth story with the position we have in that marketplace.
And then, you've got olefins and acetyls. Olefins, that set of intermediates that we make there is by far a bigger part of the business than acetyls. And spreads have obviously -- significantly improved with the dynamics in propylene relative to propane. So, that's been a driver of the performance. Acetyls is a much smaller business for us. It's important to remember we're not really in acetic acid very much, it's just a co-product. We make acetic anhydride; we're the largest player in acetic anhydride in the world to make cellulosics, right.
So, when we look at the value of that stream with all the specialties that are made off of that in Advanced Materials, AFP, and of course, Fibers, the margins are that integrated acetyl stream is quite significant and above company average. So, it's really about the olefins part, where we're having some benefits, obviously, right now, as well as -- at some point, we'll expect moderation. But, even there, we've made investments to improve CI's stability. So, we have a lot of that business on cost pass-through contracts versus spot because we want predictable earnings that really showed a lot of benefit in how well CI held up on an annual basis in '19 and '20, relative to '18. So, we did quite a bit better than others on that front. And, of course, we're getting a benefit this year, with not quite the same spot prices as some others might have and we're happy to make that trade-off. But, we've done other things like the RGP investment, which has been a phenomenal investment that give us the ability to reduce the amount of ethylene we produce, when it's not attractive, and still make it when it is. So, that's been a great way to stabilize that business.
And we've optimized sites, like taking Singapore down, which has been one of the highest parts of olefin volatility in our portfolio, and shutting that down will improve not just earnings but reduce volatility. So, a lot of things going on across the board to optimize value here and it's important to keep in mind, Chemical Intermediates exist to support the specialties, which are growing really well. And part of the reason you'll see volume going down in this business is because the specialties are consuming it so fast in their growth. So, overall, it's playing its role, creating the value reliability for customers, creating value to optimize our cost structure. And we're really proud of the team and how they've optimized value here in the first half of the year.