Description of the Company and Basis of Presentation

Description of the Company

Celanese Corporation and its subsidiaries (collectively, the "Company") is a global technology and specialty materials company. The Company's business involves processing chemical raw materials, such as methanol, carbon monoxide and ethylene, and natural products, including wood pulp, into value-added chemicals, thermoplastic polymers and other chemical-based products.

Definitions

In this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q ("Quarterly Report"), the term "Celanese" refers to Celanese Corporation, a Delaware corporation, and not its subsidiaries. The term "Celanese US" refers to the Company's subsidiary, Celanese US Holdings LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, and not its subsidiaries.

Basis of Presentation

The unaudited interim consolidated financial statements for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015 contained in this Quarterly Report were prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("US GAAP") for all periods presented and include the accounts of the Company, its majority owned subsidiaries over which the Company exercises control and, when applicable, variable interest entities in which the Company is the primary beneficiary. The unaudited interim consolidated financial statements and other financial information included in this Quarterly Report, unless otherwise specified, have been presented to separately show the effects of discontinued operations.

In the opinion of management, the accompanying unaudited consolidated balance sheets and related unaudited interim consolidated statements of operations, comprehensive income (loss), cash flows and equity include all adjustments, consisting only of normal recurring items necessary for their fair presentation in conformity with US GAAP. Certain information and footnote disclosures normally included in financial statements prepared in accordance with US GAAP may have been condensed or omitted in accordance with rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). These unaudited interim consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the Company's consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 2015, filed on February 5, 2016 with the SEC as part of the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Operating results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016 are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for the entire year.

In the ordinary course of business, the Company enters into contracts and agreements relative to a number of topics, including acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, supply agreements, product sales and other arrangements. The Company endeavors to describe those contracts or agreements that are material to its business, results of operations or financial position. The Company may also describe some arrangements that are not material but in which the Company believes investors may have an interest or which may have been included in a Form 8-K filing. Investors should not assume the Company has described all contracts and agreements relative to the Company's business in this Quarterly Report.

For those consolidated ventures in which the Company owns or is exposed to less than 100% of the economics, the outside stockholders' interests are shown as noncontrolling interests.

The Company has reclassified certain prior period amounts to conform to the current period's presentation.

Estimates and Assumptions

The preparation of unaudited interim consolidated financial statements in conformity with US GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the unaudited interim consolidated financial statements and the reported amounts of net sales, expenses and allocated charges during the reporting period. Significant estimates pertain to impairments of goodwill, intangible assets and other long-lived assets, purchase price allocations, restructuring costs and other (charges) gains, net, income taxes, pension and other postretirement benefits, asset retirement obligations, environmental liabilities and loss contingencies, among others. Actual results could differ from those estimates.

Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets

The Company assesses the recoverability of the carrying amount of its reporting unit goodwill either qualitatively or quantitatively annually during the third quarter of its fiscal year using June 30 balances or whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of the asset may not be fully recoverable. In connection with the Company's annual goodwill impairment assessment, the Company did not record an impairment loss to goodwill during the nine months ended September 30, 2016 as the estimated fair value for each of the Company's reporting units exceeded the carrying amount of the underlying assets by a substantial margin.

The Company assesses the recoverability of the carrying amount of its indefinite-lived intangible assets either qualitatively or by utilizing the relief from royalty method under the income approach annually during the third quarter of its fiscal year using June 30 balances or whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of the assets may not be fully recoverable. In connection with the Company's annual indefinite-lived intangible assets impairment assessment, the Company did not record an impairment loss to indefinite-lived intangible assets during the nine months ended September 30, 2016 as the estimated fair value of each of the Company's indefinite-lived intangible assets exceeded the carrying value of the underlying assets by a substantial margin.

The Company's trademarks and trade names have an indefinite life. For the nine months ended September 30, 2016, the Company did not renew or extend any intangible assets.

Change in estimate regarding pension and other postretirement benefits

Beginning in 2016, the Company elected to change the method used to estimate the service and interest cost components of net periodic benefit cost for its significant defined benefit pension plans and other postretirement benefit plans. Previously, the Company estimated the service and interest cost components utilizing a single weighted average discount rate derived from the yield curve used to measure the benefit obligation at the beginning of the period. The Company has elected to use a full yield curve approach in the estimation of these components of net periodic benefit cost by applying the specific spot rates along the yield curve used in the determination of the benefit obligation to the relevant projected cash flows. This change improves the correlation between projected benefit cash flows and the corresponding yield curve spot rates and provides a more precise measurement of service and interest costs. This change does not affect the measurement of the Company's total benefit obligations as the change in service and interest cost will be completely offset in the annual actuarial (gain) loss reported. The Company has accounted for this change as a change in estimate and, accordingly, has accounted for it prospectively beginning in 2016. The Company's adoption of the full yield curve approach will reduce 2016 service and interest cost by approximately $29 million as compared to the previous method.

The discount rates used to measure service and interest cost during 2016 and the discount rates that would have been used for service and interest cost under the Company's previous estimation methodology are as follows:



	Pension Benefits		Postretirement Benefits
	US	International	US	International
	(In percentages)
Single weighted average discount rate approach
Service and interest cost	4.2	2.6	4.0	3.6

Full yield curve approach⁽¹⁾
Service cost	4.5	3.1	4.2	3.8
Interest cost	3.4	2.2	3.1	3.1

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⁽¹⁾	Represents the weighted average effective interest rate.