Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Yes. (Operator Instructions). Please stand by for your first question. Your first question comes from the line of P.J. Juvekar with Citi. Please proceed.
P.J. Juvekar - Citigroup
Yeah. Good morning Peter and Kimo.
Peter Huntsman
Hello P.J.
P.J. Juvekar - Citigroup
In performance products, that business had held up well so far, and sort of the decline in 2Q. And I think Peter you mentioned that some of that stuff is contractually tied to raw materials. Can you tell us how much of those volumes are contractually tied to -- and just give us some idea about what happened to that business?
Peter Huntsman
It varies from the businesses that are within that business. But roughly about half of sales that we have within that division are tied in some form or the other to raw material pricing. And again in specialty, some of the specialty applications so forth you might have lower number than that in some of the more commodity areas that are more dependent on raw material, values and so forth. You are going to have a higher number than that.
Does not category the, across the board that way. So I think that again we, we saw volumes pretty flat out. Remind you that a big chunk of this business is going into the consumer end user applications, soap, detergents, and so forth. What we dint see is much of a follow off in the first quarter, as we did in some of our businesses and likewise we probably won't see as robust a bounce in the second quarter where we are seeing some of our other businesses come back stronger. So, to answer your question directly it's about 50%, but that business should continue to do well through the year, yeah.
P.J. Juvekar - Citigroup
And it is a good question on polyethyleneamines and MDI which probably was 90% of your total EBITDA. What are the trends in the three regions, U.S, Europe and Asia and what are the operating rates in each region? Thank you.
Peter Huntsman
Thank you. The operating rates in the second quarter we were about a 66%, the industry was operating at about 60, 65%. Fair to say that in Asia we were operating in the high 90%. We were essentially sold out in Asia. We are seeing strong demand coming from the automotive, from the infrastructure, demand in infrastructure and the insulation.
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