Postretirement Benefit Obligations

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2018

The components of net periodic benefit cost of the Company’s pension plan are as follows:


	Three Months Ended September 30,						Nine Months Ended September 30,
	2018		2017		2018		2017
Service costs	$	2,001	$	1,908	$	6,004	$	5,724
Interest costs	469		333		1,407		999
Expected return on plan assets	(287)		(76)		(862)		(228)




Net periodic benefit cost	$	2,183	$	2,165	$	6,549	$	6,495

The Company made pension plan contributions of approximately $12 million during the nine months ended September 30, 2018 sufficient to satisfy pension funding requirements under the AdvanSix Retirement Earnings Plan and will make additional contributions in future years sufficient to satisfy pension funding requirements in those periods. The Company made contributions of $2.0 million in the first quarter of 2018, $6.6 million in the second quarter of 2018 and $3.3 million in the third quarter of 2018. The Company does not plan to make additional pension plan contributions during the fourth quarter of 2018.

The pension plan assets are invested through a master trust fund. The strategic asset allocation for the trust fund is selected by the Company's Investment Committee reflecting the results of comprehensive asset and liability modeling. The Investment Committee establishes strategic asset allocation percentage targets and appropriate benchmarks for significant asset classes with the aim of achieving a prudent balance between return and risk.