CF Industries Holdings, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first half and second quarter 2021 CF Industries Holdings Earnings Conference Call. My name is Christelle. I will be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will facilitate a question and answer session towards the end of the presentation. To pose a question at any time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any time during the call you require assistance, please press star zero, and a coordinator will be happy to assist you. I will now turn the presentation over to the host for today, Mr. Martin Juracic with CF Investor Relations. Sir, you may proceed.

Good morning, and thanks for joining the CF Industries first half 2021 earnings conference call. I'm Martin Juracic, Vice President of Investor Relations. With me today are Tony Will, CEO, Chris Bone, CFO, and Bert Frost, Senior Vice President of Sales, Market Development, and Supply Chain. CF Industries reported its first half 2021 results yesterday afternoon. On this call, we'll review the CF Industries results in detail, discuss our outlook, and then host a question and answer session. Statements made on this call and in the presentation on our website that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or implied in any statements. More detailed information about factors that may affect your performance may be found in our filings with the SEC, which are available on our website. Also, you will find reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP measures in the press release and presentation posted on our website. Now let me introduce Tony Will, our president and CEO.

Thanks, Martin, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday afternoon, we posted our financial results for the first half of 2021, in which we generated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1 billion. Strong nitrogen demand and lower overall production have tightened the global supply-demand balance, supporting much higher prices than in recent years. At the same time, energy spreads between North America and high-cost regions have expanded considerably, increasing margin opportunities for our cost-advantaged network. These factors help drive an increase in adjusted EBITDA of nearly 25 percent compared to last year, and we produced our strongest first-half financial results in six years. Additionally, the business continues to generate strong free cash flow, giving us tremendous flexibility as we focus on achieving investment-grade metrics and executing our clean energy initiatives. The first half was not without its challenges, including the natural gas-driven production interruptions we described on the first quarter call. The first half also saw a continued demonstration of the harm the UAN industry in the United States faces from subsidized and dumped imports from Russia and Trinidad. Until the last few years, UAN earned a substantial premium to other upgraded nitrogen products due to the higher capital investment required to produce it, and the meaningful agronomic and operational benefit it offers to farmers. As you can see from our recent results, UAN now trades at a significant discount to all upgraded nitrogen products due to unfair trade practices. We have taken the necessary steps to address this situation by petitioning the Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission to initiate anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations. We look forward to the result of the ITC's preliminary vote later this week. Looking forward, we are very bullish about the next two years. As Bert will describe in a moment, the need to replenish global coarse grain stocks driving agricultural demand, along with the impact of increased economic activity driving industrial demand, should support all-time record global nitrogen demand over the next two years. Forward energy curves are also very favorable over this timeframe. We expect these factors to help keep the global nitrogen supply and demand balance much tighter than we've seen in recent years, supporting an extended period of higher nitrogen pricing and higher margins for our cost advantage network. Longer term, we believe increased demand for ammonia and its clean energy attributes will become a significant factor in the tighter supply and demand balance. driving further value for our network. We continue to see broad interest in clean hydrogen and ammonia to help meet the world's clean energy needs. As we continue to have discussions with market participants, our focus remains on being at the forefront of this significant opportunity. From positioning our network to be the world's leader for blue and green ammonia production, to collaborating with other global leaders where our unique capabilities can provide value. We are pleased with the progress we've made and look forward to additional developments in the coming months. With that, let me turn it over to Bert, who will discuss the global nitrogen outlook in more detail. Then Chris will follow to talk about our financial position before I return for some closing comments. Bert?