Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk.
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Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk.
See Note 13 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for further discussion of our management of commodity price risk, foreign exchange risk and interest rate risk.
Commodity Price Risk—Prices for our products and raw materials are subject to changes in supply and demand. Natural gas, crude oil, utilities, and refined products, along with feedstocks for ethylene and propylene production, constitute the main commodity exposures. Pricing terms in our raw material contracts are generally indexed to market prices. Changes in market prices for raw materials generally correlate with market prices for our products. In certain sales contracts, we may negotiate pricing terms to better align with changes in raw material costs. We also selectively enter commodity swap, option and futures contracts to manage commodity price risk. The impact of a 10% change in commodity prices at December 31, 2022 and 2021 would not materially impact the fair values of our commodity derivative contracts.
Foreign Exchange Risk—We manufacture and market our products in many countries throughout the world and, as a result, are exposed to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Our reporting currency is the U.S. dollar. Many of our operating entities use the euro as their functional currency. Translation adjustments are deferred in Accumulated other comprehensive income.
We enter foreign currency derivatives that are designated as net investment hedges to reduce the volatility in Shareholders’ equity resulting from translation adjustments associated with our net investments in foreign operations. We also enter foreign currency contracts that are designated as cash flow hedges to manage the variability in cash flows associated with intercompany debt balances. The table below illustrates the impact on Other comprehensive loss of a 10% fluctuation in the foreign currency rate associated with the hedges at December 31:
| Notional Amount | 10% Variance on Foreign Currency Rate | Impact on Other Comprehensive Loss | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Millions of euro/dollars | 2022 | 2021 | 2022 | 2021 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Net investment hedges: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cross currency basis swaps | € | 617 | € | 617 | euro/U.S. dollar rate | $ | 67 | $ | 71 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cross currency swaps | € | 750 | € | 750 | euro/U.S. dollar rate | $ | 75 | $ | 92 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Forward exchange contracts | € | 1,350 | € | 1,250 | euro/U.S. dollar rate | $ | 138 | $ | 142 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cash flow hedges: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cross currency swaps | € | 1,052 | € | 1,051 | euro/U.S. dollar rate | $ | 113 | $ | 134 |
Some of our consolidated entities enter transactions that are not denominated in their functional currency. This results in exposure to foreign currency risk for financial instruments, including, but not limited to, third-party and intercompany receivables and payables and intercompany loans.
Our policy is to maintain a balanced position in foreign currencies to minimize exchange gains and losses arising from changes in exchange rates. We maintain risk management control practices to monitor the foreign currency risk attributable to our inter-company and third party outstanding foreign currency balances. These practices involve the centralization of our exposure to underlying currencies that are not subject to central bank and/or country specific restrictions. By centralizing most of our foreign currency exposure into one subsidiary, we are able to take advantage of natural offsets thereby reducing the overall impact of changes in foreign currency rates on our earnings.
To minimize the effects of our net currency exchange exposures, we enter into forward exchange contracts and cross-currency swaps. We also engage in short-term forward exchange contracts to manage our net exposure to foreign currencies as economic hedges. Changes in the fair value of these foreign currency contracts are reported in the Consolidated Statements of Income and offset the currency exchange results recognized on foreign currency balances.
Other (expense) income, net, in the Consolidated Statements of Income reflects net foreign currency losses of $14 million and $2 million in 2022 and 2021, respectively. As of December 31, 2022, our foreign currency contracts that are accounted for as economic hedges mature between January 2023 and September 2023, inclusively, and had an aggregate notional amount of $396 million. A 10% fluctuation compared to the U.S. dollar would have resulted in an additional impact to earnings of approximately $17 million and $4 million in 2022 and 2021, respectively.
Interest Rate Risk—We are exposed to interest rate risk with respect to our fixed-rate and variable-rate debt. Fluctuations in interest rates impact the fair value of fixed-rate debt and expose us to the risk that we may need to refinance debt at higher rates. Fluctuations in interest rates impact interest expense from our variable-rate debt. To minimize earnings at risk as part of our interest rate risk management strategy, we target to maintain floating-rate debt, through the use of interest rate swaps and issuance of variable-rate debt, equal to our cash and cash equivalents, as those assets earn interest based on floating-rates.
Pre-issuance interest rate—To mitigate the risk that benchmark interest rates may increase in connection with future financing activities, we adopted a pre-issuance interest rate strategy, under which we entered forward-starting interest rate swaps that are designated as cash flow hedges. We estimate that a 10% change in market interest rates as of December 31, 2022 and 2021, would change the fair value of these forward-starting interest rate swaps by approximately $23 million and $48 million, respectively.
Fixed-rate debt—We enter into interest rate swaps that effectively convert our fixed-rate debt to variable-rate debt. These interest rate swaps are designated as fair value hedges. At December 31, 2022 and 2021, the total notional amount of these interest rate swaps was $2,164 million and $1,163 million, respectively.
At December 31, 2022, after giving consideration to the fixed-rate debt that we have effectively converted to variable-rate debt, approximately 81% of our debt portfolio, on a gross basis, incurred interest at a fixed-rate and the remaining 19% of the portfolio incurred interest at a variable-rate. We estimate that a 10% change in market interest rates as of December 31, 2022, would change the fair value of these interest rate swaps by approximately $35 million; while an equivalent change in market interest rates as of December 31, 2021, would not materially impact the fair value of these interest rate swaps.
Variable-rate debt—At December 31, 2022, our variable-rate debt consisted of $200 million outstanding under our Commercial Paper Program. We also have available borrowing capacity under our $3,250 million Senior Revolving Credit Facility and our $900 million U.S. Receivables Facility. At December 31, 2022, there were no outstanding borrowings under these facilities. Based on our average variable-rate debt outstanding per year, we estimate that a 10% change in market interest rates as of December 31, 2022 and 2021 would not materially impact the fair value of these facilities.
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