The stock was $60.45 at the last close; the company's revenue has declined and management cites cost pressures and one-off items.
Revenue dropped to $30.2B in 2025 and operating margin swung to -1.4%, after years of wild swings: $50.5B in 2022, $33.3B in 2023, and steady declines into 2025.
Management points to two sources that lifted recent EBITDA: stronger demand for catalysts and higher-value licensing deals.
"Second quarter of 2026 versus first quarter of 2026—Higher demand for catalysts accounted for approximately half of the increase in EBITDA, while the remaining increase was driven by higher licensing results as a greater number of higher-value contracts reached significant milestones." [10-Q 2026-07-31]
That sentence describes part of the story: a chunk of the sequential earnings bump came from catalysts (product demand) and licensing (fees and milestone income), items that can jump around quarter to quarter rather than represent steady volume-based margin recovery.
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Other parts of the filings describe headwinds. Raw-material and energy costs have been repeatedly cited as profit eaters, accounts payable rose $291 million largely because of higher raw-material prices, and the company took an impairment tied to a slowdown in its circularity rollout.
"The impairment was primarily attributable to the slower than anticipated pace of our circularity investments in the U.S., including our decision to postpone the final investment decision on MoReTec-2 ." [10-Q 2026-07-31]
LyondellBasell has paused or delayed at least one major clean-chemistry investment and recorded an impairment related to that slowdown. That appears as a discrete hit in the financials and reflects a postponement of the MoReTec-2 investment decision.
The filings add more detail on the mechanics. Feedstock and energy pushed cost of sales higher in 2024; foreign-exchange swings changed the effective tax rate in the first half of 2026; accounts payable rose as raw-material costs climbed. Across multiple filings the same headwinds, input costs, FX moves, and restructuring or impairment items, get mentioned again and again.
The filings show sequential upside from catalysts and licensing alongside a longer slide in core metrics. Revenue peaked at $50.5B in 2022 and is now $30.2B; operating margin has moved from double digits in earlier years to negative in 2025. The filing narrative presents these as contributors to recent EBITDA changes, with some items that can vary quarter to quarter.
Markets have priced and repriced the stock through those swings: six‑month performance is up nearly 20%, while the two‑year view is down 37%. The filings give you the ingredients for that spread, volatile top-line swings, cost pressure, tax and FX effects, and earnings line items that can move for reasons other than steady demand.
If you read the 10‑Q and 10‑K language, the company is explicit about both halves of the equation: what lifted short-term EBITDA and what dragged on longer-term operating recovery. The reports show the same push-and-pull in numbers and prose.
Figures and quotes from LyondellBasell filings (10‑Q and 10‑K) disclosed in 2026.