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spk28: Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to CF Industries' Full Year and Fourth Quarter of 2023 Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. We will facilitate a question and answer session towards the end of the presentation. To pose a question at any time, please press star then one on your touchtone phone. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the presentation over to the host for today, Mr. Martin Jarosik with CF Investor Relations. Sir, please proceed.
spk11: Good morning, and thanks for joining the CF Industries' Earnings Conference Call. With me today are Tony Will, CEO, Chris Bone, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Bert Frost, Executive Vice President of Sales, Market Development and Supply Chain. CF Industries reported its results for the full year and fourth quarter of 2023 yesterday
spk26: afternoon.
spk11: On this call, we'll review the results, 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 our performance may be found in our filings with the FTC, which are available on our website. Also, you'll 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.
spk29: Thanks, Martin, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday afternoon, we posted financial results for the full year 2023, in which we generated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $2.8 billion. Net cash from operations was also $2.8 billion, and free cash flow was $1.8 billion. These results reflect a healthy nitrogen supply demand balance and global energy spreads that favor our low-cost production base in North America. They also represent outstanding execution by the CF Industries team. We work safely ran our plants well, and navigated dynamic industry conditions. Our investments in people, safety, and reliability have built the industry's highest performing manufacturing network, as you can see on slide six. Looking ahead, over the next four years, confirmed construction of new nitrogen production capacity is not sufficient to keep pace with the historical nitrogen demand growth rate of roughly .5% per year in traditional applications. Adding to this tight supply demand situation is the risk that existing ammonia production capacity in several important regions remains on the verge of permanent closure due to constrained availability and cost of natural gas. Meanwhile, emerging demand for low-carbon ammonia into clean energy applications should further tighten the already strained global supply demand balance. As a result, we are confident that our cash generation will remain strong, as underscored by the recent increase in our quarterly dividend and continued share repurchases. We look to continue to invest in high-return organic and inorganic projects to grow our cash generation. As such, we continue evaluating a new low-carbon ammonia production plant at our Blue Point complex in Louisiana with our partner, Mitsui. Our companies share a belief that North America is the best location for production of low-carbon ammonia given natural gas cost advantages and access to CCS sites and expertise. As you can see on slide eight, the economic value of North American nitrogen assets continues to increase over time, supporting returns greater than the cost of capital in new projects. We and Mitsui are targeting a final investment decision in the second half of 2024 when we have additional information on low-carbon ammonia production technologies and better clarity on customer requirements for carbon intensity levels along with regulatory developments. While taking a disciplined approach to growth, we will continue to return capital through our dividends and share repurchases. We have approximately $2.6 billion remaining in our current share repurchase authorization and fully expect to complete it before its expiration at the global nitrogen market conditions in more detail. Bert?
spk09: Thanks, Tony. The fourth quarter of 2023 was an active period for our team, highlighted by the largest fall ammonia application season in North America in years. A strong fall application season indicates a commitment to nitrogen-consuming crops on these acres and robust demand for additional URIA and UAN applications through the first half of 2024. This, along with strong ag fundamentals, supports our outlook for a positive spring application season. We expect 91 million acres of corn to be planted in the United States. As we continue to work with customers in advance of spring applications, we believe supply is more constrained in the North American nitrogen channel than industry expectations. Inventories were below average entering the year, and net imports of nitrogen to the region are not making up the difference. The cold weather of January has exacerbated this situation. We believe that there has been significant volume of domestic nitrogen production lost due to weather-related shutdowns across the region's supply base. We estimate that CF industries lost approximately 150,000 tons of ammonia production in January from our own network due to the weather. Unexpected supply tightness often leads to follow-on logistics challenges, and early spring would further strain the supply chain. We believe that our in-region production and extensive logistics and distribution capabilities will serve us well in this environment. Global grain stocks to use ratios have returned to normal levels after two robust growing seasons. However, we do not project a significant impact on global nitrogen demand given the imperative to seed growing populations. We expect continued supply constraints in keeping the supply chain in place in producing regions. Most notably, ammonia production economics in Europe remain challenging. Global ammonia spot prices continue to align with the full cost of European ammonia production, confirming Europe as the industry's marginal producer. This continues to support elevated imports of nitrogen products into Europe compared to a decade ago. Beyond Europe, natural gas availability continues to affect ammonia and UAM production in Trinidad, and based on its actions in the fourth quarter of 2023, we believe the Chinese government will limit exports through the first half to ensure supply availability and urea price stability for the Chinese domestic market. Looking ahead, forward energy curves suggest continued favorable energy spreads between low cost of North American production and high cost production in Europe and Asia. We believe this will support sustained margin opportunities for our low cost manufacturing asset base. With that, let me turn the call over to Chris.
spk08: Thanks, Bert. For the full year 2023, the company reported net earnings attributable to common stockholders of approximately $1.5 billion, or $7.80 per diluted share. EVTA was $2.7 billion, and adjusted EVTA was approximately $2.8 billion. In the fourth quarter, we completed the acquisition of Instatech Pivot's Wagamond ammonia production facility. After adjustments and accounting for the value assigned to a long-term supply agreement with IPL's Dyno Nobel subsidiary, our cash purchase price was approximately $1.2 billion. The Wagamond facility has operated as expected since closing and has generated margin commensurate with our existing ammonia segment. Looking ahead to 2024, we expect capital expenditures for the year to be in the range of $550 million and for gross ammonia production to be near 10 million tons. As Bert said, we experience unplanned weather-related outages in our network during January. During these outages, we pulled forward some planned maintenance activities. This should reduce scheduled downtime later this year, mitigating some of the production loss in January. As a result, we expect gross ammonia production for the year to be near our projection. Commissioning of our green ammonia project at Donaldsonville is underway. We are currently evaluating the purchase of renewable energy credits to pair with the startup of the electrolyzer to enable green ammonia production and maximize the value of the 45-B production tax credit. We expect that the CO2 dehydration and compression unit at Donaldsonville will be ready for startup in 2025. This will enable low-carbon ammonia production and generate substantial 45-Q tax credits. We are also making progress on other CCS opportunities with the new carbon-carbon ammonia plant at our Blue Point Complex in Louisiana. We completed our feed study on a conventional steam methane reformer ammonia plant with CCS technology. The feed study estimates the cost of an ammonia plant at approximately $2.5 billion. We estimate another $500 million for scalable infrastructure such as our new hydroelectric power plant. Our feed studies focused on autothermal reforming or ATR ammonia production technology and flue gas capture are progressing well. Alongside disciplined clean energy investments, we are committed to returning capital to long-term shareholders. In 2023, we returned almost $900 million to long-term shareholders through share repurchases and dividend payments despite being locked out of the repurchases for part of the year. We expect share repurchase activity to increase over the two remaining years on our current authorization. As you can see on slides seven and eight, on both a free cash flow yield and a precedent transaction basis, our enterprise value is significantly undervalued supporting continued share repurchases. With that, Tony will provide some closing remarks before we open the call to Q&A.
spk29: Thanks, Chris. Before we move on to your questions, I want to thank everyone at CF Industries for their contributions to an outstanding year. I especially want to highlight the progress our team made in the second half of the year regarding our safety performance. After a challenging start to 2023, we ended the year with a 12-month recordable incident rate of 0.36 incidents per 200,000 work hours, in line with our performance in recent years and significantly better than industry averages. Our operational excellence and significant structural advantages underpin our cash generation. This enables us to invest in the business to further increase cash generation and drive increased shareholder participation in our free cash flow. In the last three years, we acquired the Wagamond Ammonia Production Facility, advanced high return clean energy initiatives, increased our dividend by 67%, and deployed $2.5 billion to repurchase more than 31 million shares, which represented approximately 15% of the outstanding share count at that time. Additionally, we have strengthened our balance sheet to provide us tremendous flexibility as we are able to grow our business at the same time as we return significant cash to shareholders. This approach has had a dramatic impact. As you can see on slide 10, shareholder participation in our business has increased 80% in the last 10 years. We're excited about the opportunity ahead of us to build on this track record. In the near term, we expect industry fundamentals to remain favorable to our low-cost production network. Longer term, disciplined investments in low carbon ammonia production can provide a robust growth platform for the company. Taken together, we expect to continue creating substantial value for long term shareholders. With that, operator, we will now open the call to your questions.
spk28: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. As a courtesy to others on the call, we ask that you limit yourself to one question. The first question is from Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
spk16: Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Adam. So, I guess, Tony, I guess the first question is, we think about the decision to pursue additional speed studies on the Blue Point complex, evaluating the different technologies. Just help us frame the increment on carbon reduction that could come from either ATR or the flue gas capture, and maybe any additional color on the policy drivers of your potential off-takers. They evaluate what threshold is needed to commit to taking the Blue Ammonia volumes longer term.
spk29: Yeah, Adam. So, one of the reasons that we're evaluating all the different kind of possible paths forward is to really have a comprehensive set of solutions depending upon the carbon intensity levels that are ultimately demanded by customers. And conventional CCS, the way that we've implemented it in Donaldsonville today, allows for the process CO2 to be stripped out and sequestered. And that means you can reduce the carbon intensity by about almost 70% versus kind of conventional ammonia, particularly given that the plant that we're talking about, having implemented that on is among one of the most efficient newest plants in the world. So, it already is a fairly low footprint relative to older plants. If you look at doing flue gas capture in conjunction with process gas CCS, you know, we think we can get rid of in excess of 95% of the CO2 emissions coming out of that particular plant. If you look at autothermal reforming, you know, the estimates are you can get to the 90 to 95% reduction level, but the problem with that is because the way that the technology works, you have to have a very, very large air separation unit to introduce the nitrogen back into the process that you don't get when you're, because you're not doing steam methane reforming. And the electricity draw on a large air sept unit like that is a tremendous adder to, you know, to cost of the project as well as op cost. And based on the grids where we're, you know, we're thinking about the scope to emissions become substantial. So that means you've got to do a bunch of things in order to potentially limit the emissions of scope to that you'd otherwise pick up in order to get to the 90 or 95% reduction levels. And that brings with it all of its own set of costs and OPEX, CAPEX things. So that's really why we're looking at kind of all of these different possible paths to give us kind of the full suite of optionality and really understand OPEX, CAPEX costs in order to hit certain thresholds that the customers may ultimately demand in terms of the product. But the other point is, you know, we have a very large network longer term that we are focused on getting to carbon neutrality on, you know, in the next 25 years. And so flue gas capture is going to play an important role in that process as we continue to move forward. And so us kind of getting more heavily involved in that and really understanding the different potential paths is an important thing for us longer term strategically anyway. And this is a good time for us to really kind of dive in as we're contemplating making an investment decision and new production.
spk16: All right. That's all. That's very helpful. And I can just squeeze a quick market question just on natural gas. As you think about the decline recently in TTF and LNG prices broadly, it doesn't seem like you expect a quick restart of idled or high cost European production. Just how are you thinking about that over the course of the year?
spk09: Yeah, Adam. Good morning. This is Bert. When you look at the spreads, what's going on in the world with Henry Hubb trading today at $1.60, $1.65 and NDP and TTF in Europe trading in the let's say seven to eight dollar range. And so you have a pretty big spread. And as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, where we are in the ammonia supply chain, you're bidding close to that full cost range for European and some high cost Asian producers, especially when you consider carbon costs. And so the competitiveness, we're still in our position of that European, the European producer is the marginal producer and that will set the cost floor or the price floor. And we don't see in the short term an improvement in gas supply taking place to lower that value. Yeah,
spk08: and I would just add to that that the decision goes beyond just the cash cost immediately goes into, you know, the idea of cycling these plants is not necessarily good additional maintenance that may be needed prior to starting those back up or turnarounds that are coming forward or even holding inventory at certain periods of time that, you know, have a working capital cost to them. So I think gas is obviously the primary driver, but there's a lot of other ancillary drivers that go into factoring whether you restart.
spk29: Overall, I think, though, you know, the message you're in from us is we're very, we're very optimistic about what the S&P balance looks like and what the demand for our products are on a global basis. It gives BERT a lot of optionality to think about, you know, exports and satisfying in market demand here. And we just have a lot of roads to help get us there.
spk16: And I appreciate all that color. I'll pass it on. Thanks.
spk28: The next question is from Joel Jackson with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Good morning. A couple of
spk04: questions. I noticed in your slide that your new updated sensitivity table, right, that shows EBITDA for every level of gas price and urea price. It's down in every single cell by a few hundred million dollars at the same gas price and the same U.S. gas price and the same urea price versus what you had in the fall. Can you explain what's going on? And it's that higher volume now. You're at a million times higher volume. Can you explain the drop in EBITDA in every single cell?
spk29: Yeah, let's start off with the volume issue first, because I think that's an important one to kind of get on the table and then we'll go through kind of the table in a little more detail. But although we did add the Wagamond facility into the network, there is a maintenance turnaround event on that facility. And there's also a couple of significant maintenance activities. One of them is on D-Ville number six, which is our the largest operating amount you plant in the world. And so when you've got a 40 day outage on a plant like that, that takes our production down. Now that said, as Chris and Bert talked about, we still expect to generate about, you know, circa 10 million tons of ammonia this year, which is in line with what we've historically done. The big issue in terms of last year versus this year was we had we entered the into last year with a fairly high inventory level. So we had pretty substantial additional sales volumes last year based on inventory drawdown that we're not able to tap into. So our volumes kind of year on year are going to be order of magnitude fairly similar last year to this year.
spk08: Yeah. And additionally, Jill, I think the big one of the bigger aspects of it is the relationship between the products on a pricing basis was updated to what twenty twenty three was. So we always use the prior year as sort of the structure benchmark from that compared to twenty twenty two. So you saw more parity between the products and maybe what was a premium for UAN prior to that. And obviously we do quite a bit of UAN volume. So this is just based on not only the cost structure of twenty twenty three, which we saw higher non-gas costs primarily through logistics, but then also that new relationship that we experienced over the last twelve months on pricing.
spk04: OK, so my thought will be kind of two part because first I want to follow up on that. So I guess you're saying at the same gas price and the same price that you're giving me UAN and ammonia prices are lower at the same URIA and gas price. And then my true follow up question would be, you know, when looking at the the blue, the Greenfield Blue Project, Blue ammonia project, you know, obviously we saw a very good valuation cop with Coke and the Weaver plant a couple of months ago, you know, that you obviously didn't buy. Would it not make sense for you to just buy back stock as much as you can, just a packet authorization? Don't do any Greenfield plants because the market's not giving you the valuation that Coke is obviously giving to Weaver. I know it's not exactly one to one, but isn't just make sense to buy back stock as much as you can?
spk29: Yeah, let me let me take the first one first and then we'll come back to your second point. The first one not not really being a full on question, more of a statement. So every year we try to update the table based on what the relationship was in terms of margin per nutrient ton of the previous year. And so the table will naturally evolve up and down and sideways and whatnot based on previous year. It doesn't mean that that this is precise because if you know, if you weigh in search on a, you know, on a nutrient basis search trading at a premium to your via, then you know, the numbers are going to go up in every cell because of the volume of you weigh in that we sell. So this is illustrative as opposed to a, you know, to a point estimate. But, you know, your general comment of the relative premium of UAN versus Urea drop last year compared to where it was the year before is the right kind of takeaway. And that that's the basis and underline that sensitivity table on the second question. You know, we think that the price paid for Weaver is a is a fair but a full price for that asset. And, you know, our view is that at any point in time where we have made decisions to expand our network, someone could have made exactly the same argument that you just made, which is it's cheaper to buy back shares than it is to add capacity. Therefore, you should never add back or add capacity. That would have been true. You know, back in 2010 when we bought Terra, that would have been true when we acquired the medicine hat slice. So we didn't know that would have been true when we did the expansion projects at Donaldsonville in Port Neal or even probably the Wagman asset that was just acquired at every stage. You know that we have been able to invest capital and earn a rate of return well above our cost of capital. So that's a value adding transaction, whereas buying shares back at market price by definition is sort of NPV zero. You know, our view is if you look at the aggregate amount of cash that we generate and shareholder participation, sort of the ratio of the number of shares outstanding, our shareholders have been much better off based on the combined approach that we've taken to both disciplined, you know, add capacity and also take shares out of the marketplace. And that has created a lot of value relative to an exclusive pathway of one versus the other. And so we're going to continue to evaluate the, you know, the attractiveness of adding capacity on a basis of can we generate returns on a risk adjusted basis above our cost of capital? Because generating more cash flow simply allows larger share repurchases in the future. And it's not necessarily a point in time comparison about where we're trading in that moment because, you know, as you well know, these assets go 40, 50, 60 years in length. And so we really need to take a view of do we fully expect it to be a positive IRR NPV positive transaction to invest in a new plant? Because we can always default to buying shares back. And by the way, because of how well the business is operating, it's not an either or question for us. We can actually do both at the same time.
spk28: The next question is from Steve Byer with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
spk05: Yes, thank you, Bert. I got a couple of questions about your near-term outlook. Could the strong ammonia fall application season erode the spring demand for your RIA perhaps more than UAN? Is that why maybe your UAN production was so robust in the fourth quarter? And when you look out at, you know, imports coming into the U.S., you commented about low inventory levels, some lower production in the U.S. We're hearing that there might be a much less level of imports this spring than in prior years. Is that consistent with your view? And how much have you sold forward into the second quarter?
spk09: OK, Steve, well, good morning and some very good questions. And top of our mind today, because as we look outside in sunny Chicago, it's 43 degrees and we've got good soil moisture. And I would anticipate an early spring based on historicals and what we see throughout the Midwest. What that means is you're pulling forward demand. That encompassing earlier opening to river barges means product can move. So a lot of synergistic things happening at the same time. Our outlook is positive. At 91 million acres of corn and good moisture and wheat country and as well as good values for pasture, you're going to see nitrogen applications in all the segments probably at or above normal. When you look at the fall ammonia level, as we said, that was our probably our second best fall ammonia in 10 years. But when you put that into context of how many tons could go out, there is a substantial amount of demand to be satisfied with ammonia, UAN and urea in the spring. So are probably a couple hundred thousand tons more than normal. We believe we were one of the last companies standing due to our logistics capabilities and distribution networks, which we leveraged very well with product in place. And then we're able to run all the way through November in Q4. And so I look for a very positive spring demand for UAN and urea as well as ammonia. The imports have been lower and that's been fairly consistent. But when you go back and look at it in totality, the low level of inventory we believe we carried in coupled with the low level of imports to date. And we're tracking vessel nominations and what we think are coming in and said March and April. It's going to be a challenge. And then, again, weaving into that an early spring impacts that even more. And so our forward call is we're probably going to see and we are seeing some price appreciation. You're going to see demand coming forward earlier and we're prepared or being prepared for that eventuality, even with some of the loss of production we experienced in January. We believe others in our industry experienced as well. But these are the challenges we face and we will meet them.
spk05: And maybe just one quick one for you, Chris. In that flue gas carbon capture analysis that you're doing, there's a variety of technologies out there. Are you looking at several different technologies and are you also looking at potentially using oxygen in the boiler instead of air?
spk08: Well, I'll say the engineering team has reviewed several different engineering types for the flue gas capture, but we are focusing on one specific as we're moving through the feed study rather than doing multiple feed studies with additional technology providers through that.
spk28: Thank you. The next question is from Josh Spector with UBS. Please go ahead.
spk22: Yeah, hi guys. Good morning. So I wanted to follow up on the additional feed studies for carbon capture and just specifically ask about if there's been any changes in what you're hearing in terms of policy in Japan. I thought Japan was kind of leading the way that clean ammonia, 60, 70 percent lower carbon, was something they were comfortable with accepting with their first move to reduce coal intensity. Maybe other countries wanted to push it further. So has anything changed on the Japan side as that relates to your first potential investment here?
spk08: Yeah, from Japan's side, I don't think they've come out necessarily with the strict what are their requirements for carbon intensity. We've had plenty of discussions not only with our partners but with the government related to that. There's a few different scenarios that they're playing through. But as to exactly what they want, that hasn't come. They have, as you mentioned, preliminarily said that they would be willing to accept a lower carbon intensity or I should say a lower carbon intensity amount there. Whereas some of the other nations, specifically Korea, are looking for carbon intensity that basically has 90 percent reduction. And that's why we're looking at some of these other options as well to do that. So more to come on the clarity, as Tony mentioned in his prepared remarks and his questions about what's happening out of Japan. Now, one of the things that is occurring in Japan right now is the cabinet has moved forward with a package for this towards the diet. So we should see some sort of approval from essentially the diet in the next several months. And then from there, METI would be able to allocate those funds and we begin to put in applications for the projects with our partners. So nothing has changed from where we stood three months ago or six months ago, but we are looking at many different alternatives as Tony mentioned.
spk22: Okay, thanks. So just on Wagamond, I don't believe you mentioned anything update on what you're doing in terms of potential CCS at that site. So just curious if you have any thoughts there on what that could look like timeline-wise and if there's anything to know about why CapEx or even OpEx, I guess, as you think about sending it on pipelines to get sequestered, if that's meaningfully different versus what you're doing in Donaldsonville or similar.
spk08: Well, I think Wagamond is just another site within our whole entire network now. So, you know, we're viewing Wagamond similarly how we're reviewing all our sites when it comes to CCS, that being specifically Yazoo City and Medicine Hat in Alberta, some of the projects that are a little bit further along. But our team is evaluating CCS at Wagamond, but again, similar to how we're evaluating at all other sites. What I would say from a pipeline and a sequestration, I think with Louisiana getting primacy on Class 6, we should be seeing a little bit more expedited approvals of those Class 6, specifically in Louisiana. And that's going to help move things along much more quickly. And I think based on some of where those Class 6 wells particularly are, are also going to direct us where we're going to put more of our time on each of our network sites for CCS. So more to come on that, but we continue to evaluate and be very optimistic about Wagamond just as we are at Donaldsonville today.
spk21: Okay, thank you.
spk28: The next question is from Jeff Zoukoskas with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
spk17: Thanks very much. Who are the natural buyers for your green ammonia and how do you think about the price at which you might sell it?
spk09: So what we're working on now is just that. The volume of product that we will be producing could be digestible in a vessel, which could go to Europe. We're working with some of the ethanol producers for a low carbon corn value chain, which we believe will lead then to sustainable aviation fuel and low carbon fuel products. We're talking to some of the food companies and some of their labeling ventures. And how do we do that and incorporate that? So both blue and green, or let's just call low carbon and no carbon products, we're moving forward. And we think we have quite a few opportunities to market those products at a value over conventional products.
spk07: Yeah, and
spk09: I think if
spk08: you look at it, Jeff, you know, both similar with blue and green, we're going to be the first to market with these. And as you look at the green, there's just not a lot of supply there. So as Bert mentioned, you're probably going to see a premium based on that product that is significantly above our cost. I would say just because it's a smaller amount. As we bring on blue, we'll be the first in the world with any measurable amount of volume with that. And I think there's a lot of activity, as Bert said, on the demand pull side that we're beginning to see that we feel fairly confident that we'll be able to receive some sort of premium on it. What that is, you know, that is yet to be determined 100 percent at this time.
spk17: OK, and then natural gas prices have fallen pretty sharply. But you also hedge. Do you expect much hedging penalty in the first quarter?
spk09: So how we talk about gas is that is just that we do hedge and we saw that the reason why in January with the spikes up to fifty dollars in in our Iowa facilities and actual availability or lack thereof and some other facilities. So hedging and securing supply during the cold months of these Jan and said are important. But you're correct on the reverse side of that is those hedges were taken to higher values than we are in the cash market today. So your first quarter value for gas will be over what the cash value is and more to come on that. I
spk29: would say, though, the offset that Jeff is we're not we're clearly not 100 percent edged. You know, we do to first point like to do basis hedging more than Henry Hubb necessarily hedging. And so we are benefiting from the drop in the daily cash rate on a piece of it as well. And so, you know, in some cases it's not fixed price. There could be some swaps or some callers that are in there. And so we do get to to participate in a portion of that reduction in gas costs. But really what we're trying to do is protect the margin against unusual weather events that can blow out against us. And if you end up giving up a nickel or a dime along the way in order to protect against the, you know, the potential blowout that a reasonable insurance policy from our perspective. But Q2 forward is open.
spk24: OK, great. Thank you.
spk28: The next question is from Richard Garchet Arena with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
spk15: Thanks. Good morning. My first question is just on the update to the Mitsui JV and the Clean Energy Project. So it looks like the initial CapEx estimate from the feed study is roughly three billion. Just curious, where does that compare to the original estimate when you signed the MOU back in early 2022? How much capacity does that entail? And then also what protocols are you putting in place to maintain that cost estimate as you progress through development? Yeah,
spk29: so, you know, we have not made a final investment decision on that yet. You know, we have an estimate that we think is within kind of plus minus 10 percent-ish of the final cost. But we have not made a decision to proceed with that. And therefore, there's nothing that we've done to kind of, quote unquote, lock in that price because no decision has been made to progress. Relative to when we initially began talking with Mitsui and created kind of the MOU around the joint venture to pursue this project, we had, I would say, some very high-level estimates of where we thought the cost might come in. But we certainly had not gone through the process of doing the feed study to get an accurate cost estimate. And so it was just directional at best. You know, I would say that the cost to complete, including the site level and a scalable infrastructure that Chris mentioned in his comments, is a bit higher than what we had maybe initially thought. But I think that's reflective of the relatively tight labor market and inflation in general, particularly around some of the exotic metals that are required. But what that also suggests is that the value of existing assets is that much higher, as we saw with the sale of the Weaver asset here just recently and suggests that the value of the rest of our network is, again, even not much higher as well. So we're still in process of evaluating whether there's a project that we want to fund here or not. And as part of that, we are evaluating different production technologies and different amounts of carbon reduction levels. And we'll make that ultimate decision kind of sometime in the back half of this year, along with our partner Mitsui.
spk13: Okay,
spk15: great. Thanks for that. And then just talking about the nitrogen market, looks like you cited about 40 percent of ammonia capacity in Europe being shut down in early January. And that's up versus around 25 percent, I believe, as of early November. And this is during a period when European natural gas prices have actually come down over 40 percent. So what is driving that? Is part of that curtailment, maintenance shutdowns? Or are these part of these permanent shutdowns they expect to continue through 2024?
spk29: I think it can be both of that. There's also an issue of if you can acquire deep water trade to ammonia at a cost that's lower than what you can produce using domestic gas, there's no reason not to do it if you are in a facility primarily doing nitrates as opposed to urea. So you don't need the CO2.
spk09: I think a reflection of the gas, current gas price today is in the cash market. That was not available just a short time ago. And so the reflection of 40 percent is a look back on Q4 and entering into Q1. And you're probably going to see some of those plants restart, especially with the Russian announcement of limiting ammonium nitrate exports that just came out today. That's going to have a substantial impact on Eastern Europe and Central Europe and probably the ability to export for the Western European producers who can export. For example, Brazil had a million ton consumer of ammonium nitrate and Central America will need someone to supply that. So let's say today it's $8 gas that's doable in relation to the absence of the product coming out of Russia. So things are changing and I think the gas as well as the supply market
spk20: is as well. The next question is from Edlaine Rodriguez
spk28: with Mizuho. Please go ahead.
spk23: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I mean, this is for Tony or maybe for Bert. I mean, if you compare where we are today with three, four, five months ago, are you more positive or less positive on the prospect of the industry in CF for 2020-24? And that's looking at some of the big drivers like corn prices, corn acreage, the energy complex, supply demand, like anything else you want to address. Like, yeah, do you see things being more, are you more or less positive? Thank you.
spk29: Yeah, I mean, I think gas has been very constructive for us. I think that some of the other, you know, our costs, it looks like as they're shaping up for the balance of the year, should be down substantially relative to where we were back in kind of November when we put together, you know, our thoughts of where we expected the year to come out. I also think that some of the other changes kind of structurally, whether it's, you know, potential imports running slower than expected in early spring, what we believe is lower channel inventories than kind of many expect out there. All of those things, I think, are net positives for our business, particularly for the first half. So overall, you know, my sense is we're feeling pretty good about the way that the year has shaped them out.
spk09: I agree in terms of where we were coming into a falling market, a falling urea price market in Q4 and now in Q1 a rising urea market. Why is that? Related to energy is, of course, and the inability of or the non-economic position of the European producer and higher imports. But you're seeing in terms of the global market, a very tight market. You've had downtime in Malaysia, export restrictions in Indonesia, export restrictions in China, as well as heavy imports and continued imports into India, but heavy imports into Brazil. And we're just entering our season, as we talked about previously, with a tight market and needing to bring in product. And so you have a tighter global market. And then that's reflected in price. For the price, the values for the feed grains, corn at $4.60, $4.70 is very attractive, especially when you look at trend yield over 180 and yields in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana above 200. It's very profitable. This will be the fourth best year in 10 years for the American farmer. And so when you couple that all together, as well as global supply and demand, I would say we're positive for 2024.
spk12: Okay, thank you. That's all I have.
spk28: The next question is from Ben Toyer with Barclays. Please go ahead.
spk27: Hi, good morning and thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to follow up a little bit on the international trade dynamics and in particular the export markets versus the import markets and where you're seeing, especially in South America and Brazil, inventory levels. We've talked about the North Americans being low, but we all know Brazil is being a little bit more of an issue. So within that 7 to 8 million ton of import need, what's your sense on the ground inventories in Brazil right now and how does that shape up for your opportunities to potentially export into the region? Thank you.
spk09: So CF is an active exporter of our major products, ammonia, UAN, urea, and some ammonium nitrate. The UAN has predominantly gone to Europe, Argentina, and Australia, and urea is more spot and situational. Listen, where we are in Brazil today with about 44 million tons of consumption of NPK and the targets for 2024 are closer to 46 million tons, you're going to need, our projections are, over 8 million tons of urea imports to Brazil for the calendar year. And that's a very positive move that will push Brazil to the largest importing country, surpassing India, who's between 6 and 7 million tons now. Brazil did have high levels of inventories and imports entering the year. Much of that was consumed during the safranha season of, which is January, February, and March of applications, and they are low level importers, 200,000, 300,000 tons a month. Their wheat application starts in April, and then we move to corn applications in July, August, September, and then cotton later in the year and again repeating the cycle. So Brazil is the positive, I'd say, consumption train in the world of fertilizer economies, and it's going to continue to play a major part. And so the S&D right now is balanced globally for urea.
spk28: Thank you. The next question is from Andrew Wong with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
spk19: Hey, good morning. So regarding your hurdle rate that's required for the investment
spk18: decision at Blue
spk19: Point, if you say, like, if you get take or pay off take with steady volumes and steady margins, does that lower the rate for the hurdle versus some of your other projects or buybacks or anything else you'd be considering?
spk08: Yeah, I think as you look at any return on a project, it's a set return with a risk premium based in there. If you have take or pay that's off take on a rattleable basis, you're probably willing to take a lower return profile on that. I mean, that allows a lot of additional synergies that run throughout the entire network. As we see with our Mosaic contract with them taking ammonia on a rattleable basis, lower inventory, lower receivables, different things like that, lower risk involved. And therefore, that allows you to have a lower risk premium and therefore taking a slightly lower return on that.
spk19: Okay, great. And then just regarding the Donaldsonville Blue Ammonia Project, could you just provide the latest update for the injection well permits? And you mentioned this Louisiana gaining primacy on the Classics wells. What does that mean and how quickly can you get approvals there and how quickly can drilling be completed? Yeah,
spk08: so the approval timeline on that is really based on our partner Axon and what they're doing both with the Classics. And some of that's probably been accelerated some by their acquisition of the Denberry pipeline because it allows them other access to different states with Classics that may have, I would say, a shorter queue time than what Louisiana or some of the other states. So we are confident that in 2025 we will economically be receiving a benefit related to the 45 queue and therefore we'll have low carbon ammonia ready.
spk28: Great. Thank you. The next question is from Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
spk13: Thank you, Tony. I'm the Blue Ammonia JV with Mitsui. I guess a couple of questions. One, you know, if we get to the second half of 2024, and I assume that's probably the third quarter call, or maybe you'll have an update, you know, and you're not moving forward at that point. You know, what's happened, do you think? And then just secondly, I believe there's several other potential MOUs or JV partners that you have out there. Is there any update on those or is that all pending sort of the outcome with Mitsui? You
spk29: know, we're very happy with the agreements that we have in place and the partners that we have lined up to pursue these kind of opportunities with us. You know, a lot of them that we have come out publicly with tend to be Asian focused, so a couple of Japanese firms as well as South Koreans. I would say that the Korean government and the customers as a result are a little bit behind from a timeline perspective compared to the Japanese. And so we'll likely be making a decision around a plan, principally targeting the Japanese market first, and then we'll eventually look at both Korean market and potentially European partners that we've discussed with as well further out. And that could be served by, you know, one of the same plan or it, you know, might have different requirements associated with it. But, you know, if we decide not to proceed, I think it's a combination of very likely just, you know, aggregate costs associated with moving forward and lack of line of sight on, you know, making sure that we can earn an appropriate risk adjusted rate of return against the against that cost not relative to the global S and D. I think I kind of went through that a bit in my prepared remarks, which is we're constructive on where we sit right now. You know, our results last year were strong. We're looking at another good year this year. Longer term, traditional applications for nitrogen continue to grow in the kind of one and a half plus or minus percent range per year. And there's not enough new projects that are currently under construction globally to meet that requirement. Adding into the, you know, the either supply deficit or demand increase is you've got some plants around the world, including Trinidad and some in Europe that are facing challenges with gas availability and gas costs. And then you've got new or potentially new applications for ammonia that are also developing. So all of those things lead to a tighter global lesson D marketplace bidding in higher and higher cost of production around the world. And that provides, I think, a reasonable backdrop, you know, for us to be considering building new production capacity. But we have to at the end of the day, be comfortable that we can earn an appropriate rate of return that's well above our cost of capital for us to want to proceed with a project like that.
spk14: Great. Thanks very much.
spk28: The next question is from Aaron Cirelli with Barenburg. Please go ahead.
spk01: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. My first one is about the comment you made on farmer incomes in your press release. You talked about improving farmer incomes in North America in 2024. I was wondering what's the thought process here, considering that we saw John Deere today being a little bit more downbeat and I think USDA report last month was a little bit downbeat too. My second question is around blue ammonia and the news around the potential partnership with Bosco. Is there any color you can provide about the implied blue premium you are assuming or you have in mind? And my final one is on exports from China. I think Yara last week in Europe mentioned that Chinese export could potentially come back a little bit. Your messaging today in the presentation seems that there could be some temporary windows about where Chinese could export. So just wondering if you see the situation changing pretty much, you would expect again a very tight export market from China at this stage. Thank you.
spk09: Good morning. Regarding the farmer income comment, what my comment was, it's the fourth best in about 10 years. So when you look at, as compared to last year or the year before, if you're referencing John Deere or some of the chemical or seed suppliers, it's lower, but it's still at .64.70 corn for December corn pricing today. And what was hedgeable, not just a few months ago at $5.10, $5.20, very attractive, again, based on just trend yield of 180 bushels an acre, which is what we're targeting for 2024. But most high state farmers are in the 200 to 250 bushels. So very profitable, even with the drop in fertilizer prices, the drop in diesel prices. And so you have to look at the total cost structure for a farmer, whether that's owned land or rented land, variable cost against fixed costs. And putting that whole structure together, it's still a good time to be a farmer. That was the point. Regarding the exports from China, we've seen a different China about every other year. And our prepared remarks and communication about what we expect out of China is that the government restrictions are in place for urea and some phosphate products. They will continue through or into Q2. And our expectations for China, in order that they will export, they will return to the export market. And being that in the past five years, it's been between two and five million tons, we would say three to four million tons of exports are a logical volume for 2024.
spk29: And then relative to Blue Ammonia premium, you know, Blue Ammonia for us makes great economic sense, even if there were no premium in the marketplace because of the 45Q tax credit. I think we've kind of gone through that math a little bit in the past, but we expect, you know, a net benefit from the Donaldsonville Blue Ammonia project in the order of magnitude. Of roughly about a hundred million dollars net benefit to us per year. So just on the face of it, that's a great investment for us. Now that said, we have had, I would say, ever increasing interest levels in Blue Ammonia from a variety of different constituents, including a number of our, you know, existing customers, but also some some other folks that have reached out. And so based on a relatively small volume of decarbonized or Blue Ammonia that's going to be available principally just from us beginning in 2025 and the appetite in the marketplace, we absolutely believe that it's going to be a commodity and scarce supply relative to the appetite for it. And so it will carry with it a premium in the marketplace, just on an S&D, there's more demand than there is supply on it. We have not formalized exactly how we're thinking about selling that in because we want to begin actually producing it. And that's going to be dependent to some extent on timing of our partner ExxonMobil in this deal. But we feel very good about the likelihood of a reasonable premium that adds on to what's a very attractive regulatory framework for Blue. So
spk09: plus I'll add one more positive comment for the team, for the company, and for what we are about as a company with the do it right culture. We have the highest on stream factor. We have the best safety statistics in the world. And we're going to lead the world in this move to low carbon ammonia because it's the right thing to do and the government is incentivizing us and our shareholders want us to do this. And so there's a lot of positive energy going forward with that and what we will bring to the market.
spk20: Thank you very much.
spk28: Ladies and gentlemen, that is all the time we have for questions today. I would like to turn the call back over to Martin Jurosik for any closing remarks.
spk10: Thanks everyone for joining us today. We look forward to seeing you at upcoming conferences.
spk28: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
spk00: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
spk28: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I would now like to turn the presentation over to the host for today, Mr. Martin Jurosik with CF Investor Relations. Sir, please proceed.
spk11: Good morning and thanks for joining the CF Industries earnings conference call. With me today are Tony Will, CEO, Chris Bone, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Burt Frost, Executive Vice President of Sales, Market Development and Supply Chain. CF Industries reported its results for the full year and fourth quarter of 2023 yesterday
spk26: afternoon.
spk11: On this call, we'll review the results, 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 our performance may be found in our filings with the FTC, which are available on our website. Also, you'll find reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP measures in press release and presentation posted on our website. Now let me introduce Tony Will, our President and CEO.
spk29: Thanks, Martin, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday afternoon, we posted financial results for the full year 2023 in which we generated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $2.8 billion. Net cash from operations was also $2.8 billion, and free cash flow was $1.8 billion. These results reflect a healthy nitrogen supply-demand balance and global energy spreads that favor our low-cost production base in North America. They also represent outstanding execution by the CF Industries team. We worked safely, ran our plants well, and navigated dynamic industry conditions. Our investments in people, safety, and reliability have built the industry's highest performing manufacturing network, as you can see on slide six. Looking ahead, over the next four years, confirmed construction of new nitrogen production capacity is not sufficient to keep pace with the historical nitrogen demand growth rate of roughly 1.5 percent per year in traditional applications. Adding to this tight supply-demand situation, it is important to understand that the current situation is not a matter of the individual. It is the risk that existing ammonia production capacity in several important regions remains on the verge of permanent closure due to constrained availability and cost of natural gas. Meanwhile, emerging demand for low-carbon ammonia into clean energy applications should further tighten the already strained global supply-demand balance. As a result, we are confident that our cash generation will remain strong, as underscored by the recent increase in our quarterly dividend and continued share repurchases. We look to continue to invest in high-return organic and inorganic projects to grow our cash generation. As such, we continue evaluating a new low-carbon ammonia production plant at our Blue Point Complex in Louisiana with our partner, Mitsui. Our companies share a belief that North America is the best location for production of low-carbon ammonia, given natural gas cost advantages and access to CCS sites and expertise. As you can see on slide eight, the economic value of North American nitrogen assets continues to increase over time, supporting returns greater than the cost of capital in new projects. We and Mitsui are targeting a final investment decision in the second half of 2024, when we have additional information on low-carbon ammonia production technologies and better clarity on customer requirements for carbon intensity levels, along with regulatory developments. While taking a disciplined approach to growth, we will continue to return capital through our dividends and share repurchases. We have approximately $2.6 billion remaining in our current share repurchase authorization and fully expect to complete it before its expiration at the end of 2025. With that, let me turn it over to Bert. We'll discuss the global nitrogen market conditions in more detail. Bert?
spk09: Thanks, Tony. The fourth quarter of 2023 was an active period for our team, highlighted by the largest fall ammonia application season in North America in years. A strong fall application season indicates a commitment to nitrogen-consuming crops on these acres and robust demand for additional URIA and UAN applications through the first half of 2024. This, along with strong ag fundamentals, supports our outlook for a positive spring application season. We expect 91 million acres of corn to be planted in the United States. As we continue to work with customers in advance of spring applications, we believe supply is more constrained in the North American nitrogen channel than industry expectations. Inventories were below average entering the year, and net imports of nitrogen into the region are not making up the difference. The cold snap we experienced in North America during January has exacerbated this situation. We believe that there has been significant volume of domestic nitrogen production lost due to weather-related shutdowns across the region's supply base. We estimate that CF Industries lost approximately 150,000 tons of ammonia production in January from our own network due to the weather. Unexpected supply tightness often leads to follow-on logistics challenges, and early spring would further strain the supply chain. We believe that our in-region production and extensive logistics and distribution capabilities will serve us well in this environment. Global -to-use ratios have returned to normal levels after two robust growing seasons. However, we do not project a significant impact on global nitrogen demand given the imperative to feed growing populations. We expect continued supply constraints in key producing regions. Most notably, ammonia production economics in Europe remain challenging. Global ammonia spot prices continue to align with the full cost of European ammonia production, confirming Europe as the industry's marginal producer. This continues to support elevated imports of nitrogen products into Europe compared to a decade ago. Beyond Europe, natural gas availability continues to affect ammonia and UAM production in Trinidad. And, based on its actions in the fourth quarter of 2023, we believe the Chinese government will limit exports through the first half to ensure supply availability and urea price stability for the Chinese domestic market. Looking ahead, forward energy curves suggest continued favorable energy spreads between low cost of North American production and high cost production in Europe and Asia. We believe this will support sustained margin opportunities for our low-cost manufacturing asset base. With that, let me turn the call over to Chris.
spk08: Thanks, Burt. For the full year 2023, the company reported net earnings attributable to common stockholders of approximately $1.5 billion, or $7.80 per diluted share. EVTA was $2.7 billion, and adjusted EVTA was approximately $2.8 billion. In the fourth quarter, we completed the acquisition of Instatech Pivot's Wagamind Ammonia Production Facility. After adjustments and accounting for the value assigned to a long-term supply agreement with IPL's Dino Nobel subsidiary, our cash purchase price was approximately $1.2 billion. The Wagamind facility has operated as expected since closing and has generated margin commensurate with our existing ammonia segment. Looking ahead to 2024, we expect capital expenditures for the year to be in the range of $550 million and for gross ammonia production to be near 10 million tons. As Burt said, we experienced unplanned weather-related outages in our network during January. During these outages, we pulled forward some planned maintenance activities. This should reduce scheduled downtime later this year, mitigating some of the production loss in January. As a result, we expect gross ammonia production for the year to be near our projection. Commissioning of our green ammonia project at Donaldsonville is underway. We are currently evaluating the purchase of renewable energy credits to pair with the startup of the electrolyzer to enable green ammonia production and maximize the value of the 45-V production tax credit. We expect that the CO2 dehydration and compression unit at Donaldsonville will be ready for startup in 2025. This will enable low-carbon ammonia production and generate substantial 45Q tax credits. We are also making progress on other CCS opportunities with returns above our cost to capital. Turning to the potential new low-carbon ammonia plant at our Blue Point Complex in Louisiana, we completed our feed study on a conventional steam methane reformer ammonia plant with CCS technologies. The feed study estimates the cost of an ammonia plant at approximately $2.5 billion. We estimate another $500 million for scalable infrastructure such as storage tanks and loading docks. Our feed studies focused on autothermal reforming or ATR ammonia production technology and flue gas capture are progressing well. Alongside disciplined clean energy investments, we are committed to returning capital to long-term shareholders. In 2023, we returned almost $900 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividend payments despite being locked out of the repurchases for part of the year. We expect share repurchase activity to increase over the two remaining years on our current authorization. As you can see on slides seven and eight, on both a free cash flow yield and a precedent transaction basis, our enterprise value is significantly undervalued supporting continued share repurchases. With that, Tony will provide some closing remarks before we open the call to Q&A.
spk29: Thanks, Chris. Before we move on to your questions, I want to thank everyone at CF Industries for their contributions to an outstanding year. I especially want to highlight the progress our team made in the second half of the year regarding our safety performance. After a challenging start to 2023, we ended the year with a 12-month recordable incident rate of 0.36 incidents per 200,000 work hours, in line with our performance in recent years and significantly better than industry averages. Our operational excellence and significant structural advantages underpin our cash generation. This enables us to invest in the business to further increase cash generation and drive increased shareholder participation in our free cash flow. In the last three years, we acquired the Wagamond Ammonia Production Facility, advanced high return clean energy initiatives, increased our dividend by 67% and deployed $2.5 billion to repurchase more than 31 million shares, which represented approximately 15% of the outstanding share count at that time. Additionally, we have strengthened our balance sheet to provide us tremendous flexibility as we are able to grow our business at the same time as return significant cash to shareholders. This approach has had a dramatic impact. As you can see on slide 10, shareholder participation in our business has increased 80% in the last 10 years. We're excited about the opportunity ahead of us to build on this track record. In the near term, we expect industry fundamentals to remain favorable to our low-cost production network. Longer term, disciplined investments in low-carbon ammonia production can provide a robust growth platform for the company. Taken together, we expect to continue creating substantial value for long-term shareholders. With that, operator, we will now open the call to your questions.
spk28: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. As a courtesy to others on the call, we ask that you limit yourself to one question. The first question is from Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
spk16: Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Adam. Good morning. So, Tony, I guess the first question is, we think about the decision to pursue additional speed studies on the Blue Point complex, evaluating the different technologies. Just help us frame the increment on carbon reduction that could come from either ATR or the flue gas capture, and maybe any additional color on the policy drivers of your potential off-takers as they evaluate what threshold is needed to commit to taking the Blue Ammonia volumes longer term.
spk29: Yeah, Adam, so one of the reasons that we're evaluating all the different kind of possible paths forward is to really have a comprehensive set of solutions depending upon the carbon intensity levels that are ultimately demanded by customers. And conventional CCS, the way that we've implemented it in Donaldsonville today, allows for the process, CO2, to be stripped out and sequestered. And that means you can reduce the carbon intensity by about almost 70% versus kind of conventional ammonia, particularly given that the plant that we're talking about, having implemented that on is among one of the most efficient newest plants in the world. So it already is a fairly low footprint relative to older plants. If you look at doing flue gas capture in conjunction with process gas CCS, we think we can get rid of in excess of 95% of the CO2 emissions coming out of that particular plant. If you look at autothermal reforming, you know, the estimates are you can get to the 90 to 95% reduction level. But the problem with that is because the way that the technology works, you have to have a very, very large air separation unit to introduce the nitrogen back into the process that you don't get when you're, because you're not doing steam methane reforming. And the electricity draw on a large air set unit like that is a tremendous adder to cost of the project as well as op cost. And based on the grids where we're thinking about, the scope two emissions become substantial. So that means you've got to do a bunch of things in order to potentially limit the emissions of scope two that you'd otherwise pick up in order to get to the 90 or 95% reduction levels. And that brings with it all of its own set of costs and OPEX, CAPEX things. So that's really why we're looking at kind of all of these different possible paths to give us kind of the full suite of optionality and really understand OPEX, CAPEX costs in order to hit certain thresholds that the customers may ultimately demand in terms of the product. But the other point is, you know, we have a very large network longer term that we are focused on getting to carbon neutrality on, you know, in the next 25 years. And so flue gas capture is going to play an important role in that process as we continue to move forward. And so us kind of getting more heavily involved in that and really understanding the different potential paths is an important thing for us longer term strategically anyway. And this is a good time for us to really kind of dive in as we're contemplating making an investment decision in new production.
spk16: All right. That's all. That's very helpful. And I can just squeeze a quick market question just on natural gas. As you think about the decline recently in TTF and LNG prices broadly, it doesn't seem like you expect a quick restart of idled or high cost European production. Just how are you thinking about that over the course of the year?
spk09: Yeah, Adam. Good morning. This is Bert. When you look at the spreads, what's going on in the world with Henry Hubb trading today at $1.60, $1.65 and NDP and TTF in Europe trading in the let's say seven to eight dollar range. And so you have a pretty big spread. And as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, where we are in the ammonia supply chain, you're bidding close to that full cost range for European and some high cost Asian producers, especially when you consider carbon costs. And so the competitiveness, we're still in our position of that European, the European producer is the marginal producer and that will set the cost floor or the price floor. And we don't see in the short term an improvement in gas supply taking place to lower that value. Yeah, and I would
spk08: just add to that that the decision goes beyond just the cash cost immediately goes into, you know, the idea of cycling these plants is not necessarily good additional maintenance that may be needed prior to starting those back up or turnarounds that are coming forward or even holding inventory at certain periods of time that, you know, have a working capital cost to them. So I think gas is obviously the primary driver, but there's a lot of other ancillary drivers that go into factoring whether you restart.
spk29: Overall, I think, though, you know, the message you're in from us is we're very, we're very optimistic about what the S&P balance looks like and what the demand for our products are on a global basis. It gives BERT a lot of optionality to think about, you know, exports and satisfying in market demand here. And we just have a lot of roads to help get us there.
spk16: And I appreciate all that color. I'll pass it on.
spk28: Thanks. The next question is from Joel Jackson with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Good morning. A couple of questions. I
spk04: noticed in your slide that your new updated sensitivity table, right, that shows EBITDA for every level of gas price and urea price. It's down in every single cell by a few hundred million dollars at the same gas price and the same U.S. gas price and the same urea price versus what you had in the fall. Can you explain what's going on? And it's that higher volume now. You're at a million times higher volume. Can you explain the drop in EBITDA in every single cell?
spk29: Yeah, let's start off with the volume issue first, because I think that's an important one to kind of get on the table and then we'll go through kind of the table in a little more detail. But although we did add the Wagamond facility into the network, there is a maintenance turnaround event on that facility. And there's also a couple of significant maintenance activities. One of them is on D-Build number six, which is our the largest operating amount you plant in the world. And so when you've got a 40 day outage on a plant like that, that takes our production down. Now that said, as Chris and Bert talked about, we still expect to generate about, you know, circa 10 million tons of ammonia this year, which is in line with what we've historically done. The big issue in terms of last year versus this year was we had we entered the into last year with a fairly high inventory level. So we had pretty substantial additional sales volumes last year based on inventory drawdown that we're not able to tap into. So our volumes kind of year on year are going to be order of magnitude fairly similar last year to this year.
spk08: Yeah. And additionally, Jill, I think the big one of the bigger aspects of it is the relationship between the products on a pricing basis was updated to what twenty twenty three was. So we always use the prior year as sort of the structure benchmark from that compared to twenty twenty two. So you saw more parity between the products and maybe what was a premium for UAN prior to that. And obviously we do quite a bit of UAN volume. So this is just based on not only the cost structure of twenty twenty three, which we saw higher non-gas costs primarily through logistics, but then also that new relationship that we experienced over the last twelve months on pricing.
spk04: OK, so my thought will be kind of two part because first I want to follow up on that. So I guess you're saying at the same gas price and the same year price that you're giving me UAN and ammonia prices are lower at the same URIA and gas price. And then my true follow up question would be, you know, when looking at the the blue, the Greenfield Blue Project, the Blue Ammonia Project, you know, obviously we saw a very good valuation cop with Coke and the Weaver plant a couple of months ago, you know, that you obviously didn't buy. Would it not make sense for you to just buy back stock as much as you can, just a packet authorization? And don't do any Greenfield plants because the market's not giving you the valuation that Coke is obviously giving to Weaver. I know it's not exactly one to one, but isn't just make sense to buy back stock as much as you can?
spk29: You know, let me let me take the first one first and then we'll come back to your second point. The first one not not really being a full on question, more of a statement. So every year, you know, we try to update the table based on what the relationship was in terms of margin per nutrient ton of the previous year. And so the table will naturally evolve up and down and sideways and whatnot based on previous year. It doesn't mean that that this is precise because if you know, if you and starts on a, you know, on a nutrient basis, starts trading at a premium to your RIA, then, you know, the numbers are going to go up in every cell because of the volume of you and that we sell. So this is illustrative as opposed to, you know, to a point estimate. But, you know, your general comment of the relative premium of UA and versus your RIA dropped last year compared to where it was the year before is the right kind of takeaway. And that that's the basis and underline that sensitivity table on the second question. You know, we think that the price paid for Weaver is a is a fair but a full price for that asset. And, you know, our view is that at any point in time where we have made decisions to expand our network, someone could have made exactly the same argument that you just made, which is it's cheaper to buy back shares than it is to add capacity. Therefore, you should never add back or add capacity. That would have been true. You know, back in 2010 when we bought Terra, that would have been true when we acquired the medicine hat slice. So we didn't know. And that would have been true when we did the expansion projects at Donaldson, Bill and Port Neal or even probably the the Wagman asset that was just acquired at every stage. You know that we have been able to invest capital and earn a rate of return well above our cost of capital. So that's a value adding transaction, whereas buying shares back at market price by definition is sort of NPV zero. You know, our view is if you look at the aggregate amount of cash that we generate and shareholder participation, sort of the ratio of the number of shares outstanding, our shareholders have been much better off based on the combined approach that we've taken to both disciplined, you know, add capacity and also take shares out of the marketplace. And that has created a lot of value relative to a an exclusive pathway of one versus the other. And so we're going to continue to evaluate the, you know, the attractiveness of adding capacity on a basis of can we generate returns on a risk adjusted basis above our cost of capital? Because generating more cash flow simply allows larger share repurchases in the future. And it's not necessarily a point in time comparison about where we're trading in that moment, because, you know, as you as you well know, these assets go 40, 50, 60 years in length. And so we really need to take a view of do we fully expect it to be a positive IRR NPV positive transaction to invest in a new plan? Because we can always default to buying shares back. And by the way, because of how well the business is operating, it's not an either or question for us. We can actually do both at the same time.
spk28: The next question is from Steve Byer with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
spk05: Yes, thank you, Bert. I got a couple questions about your near term outlook. Could it could the strong ammonia fall application season erode the spring demand for your RIA perhaps more than UAN? Is that why maybe your your UAN production was so robust in the fourth quarter? And when you look out at, you know, imports coming into the U.S., you commented about low inventory levels, some lower production in the U.S. We're hearing that there might be a much less level of imports this spring than in prior years. Is that consistent with your view? And how much have you sold forward into the second quarter?
spk09: OK, Steve, well, good morning and some very good questions and top of the of our mind today, because as we look outside in sunny Chicago, it's 43 degrees and we've got good soil moisture. And I would anticipate an early spring based on on the historicals and what we see throughout the Midwest. What that means is you're pulling forward demand that encompassing earlier opening to river barges means product can move. So a lot of synergistic things happening at the same time. Our outlook is positive at 91 million acres of corn and good moisture and wheat country and as well as good values for pasture. You're going to see nitrogen applications in all the segments, probably at or above normal. When you look at the fall ammonia level, as we said, that was our probably our second best fall ammonia in 10 years. But when you put that in the context of how many tons could go out, there is a substantial amount of demand to be satisfied with ammonia, UAN and urea in the spring. So are probably a couple hundred thousand tons more than normal. We believe we were one of the last companies standing due to our logistics capabilities and distribution networks, which we leveraged very well with product in place and then were able to run all the way through November in Q4. And so I look for a very positive spring demand for UAN and urea as well as ammonia. The imports have been lower and that's been fairly consistent. But when you go back and look at it in totality, the low level of inventory we believe we carried in, coupled with the low level of imports to date, and we're tracking vessel nominations and what we think are coming in and said March and April, it's going to be a challenge. And then again, weaving into that an early spring impacts that even more. And so our forward call is we're probably going to see and we are seeing some price appreciation. You're going to see demand coming forward earlier and we're prepared or being prepared for that eventuality, even with some of the loss of production we experienced in January, we believe others in our industry experienced as well. But these are the challenges we face and we will meet them.
spk05: And maybe just one quick one for you, Chris. In that flue gas carbon capture analysis that you're doing, there's a variety of technologies out there. Are you looking at several different technologies? And are you also looking at potentially using oxygen in the boiler instead of air?
spk08: Well, I'll say the engineering team has reviewed several different engineering types for the flue gas capture, but we are focusing on one specific as we're moving through the feed study rather than doing multiple feed studies with additional technology providers through that.
spk28: Thank you. The next question is from Josh Spector with UBS. Please go ahead.
spk22: Yeah, hi guys. Good morning. I wanted to follow up on the additional feed studies for carbon capture and just specifically ask about if there's been any changes in what you're hearing in terms of policy in Japan. I thought Japan was kind of leading the way that clean ammonia, 60, 70 percent lower carbon, was something they were comfortable with accepting with their first move to reduce coal intensity. Maybe other countries wanted to push it further. So has anything changed on the Japan side as that relates to your first potential investment here?
spk08: Yeah, from Japan's side, I don't think they've come out necessarily with the strict what are their requirements for carbon intensity. We've had plenty of discussions not only with our partners but with the government related to that. There's a few different scenarios that they're playing through, but as to exactly what they want, that hasn't come. They have, as you mentioned, preliminarily said that they would be willing to accept a lower carbon intensity or I should say a lower carbon intensity amount there, whereas some of the other nations, specifically Korea, are looking for carbon intensity that basically has 90 percent reduction and that's why we're looking at some of these other options as well to do that. So more to come on the clarity, as Tony mentioned in his prepared remarks and his questions about what's happening out of Japan. Now, one of the things that is occurring in Japan right now is the cabinet has moved forward with a package for this towards the diet. So we should see some sort of approval from essentially the diet in the next several months and then from there METI would be able to allocate those funds and we'd begin to put in applications for the projects with our partners. So nothing has changed from where we stood three months ago or six months ago, but we are looking at many different alternatives as Tony mentioned.
spk22: Okay, thanks. So just on Wagamond, I don't believe you mentioned anything update on what you're doing in terms of potential CCS at that site. So just curious if you have any thoughts there on what that could look like timeline wise and if there's anything to know about why CAPEX or even OPEX, I guess, as you think about sending it on pipelines to get sequestered, if that's meaningfully different versus what you're doing in Donaldsonville or similar.
spk08: Well, I think Wagamond is just another site within our whole entire network now. So we're viewing Wagamond similarly how we're reviewing all our sites when it comes to CCS, that being specifically Yazoo City and Medicine Hat in Alberta, some of the projects that are a little bit further along. But our team is evaluating CCS at Wagamond, but again, similar to how we're evaluating at all other sites. What I would say from a pipeline and a sequestration, I think with
spk25: Louisiana
spk08: getting primacy on Class 6, we should be seeing a little bit more expedited approvals of those Class 6, specifically in Louisiana. And that's going to help move things along much more quickly. And I think based on some of where those Class 6 wells particularly are, are also going to direct us where we're going to put more of our time on each of our network sites for CCS. So more to come on that, but we continue to evaluate and be very optimistic about Wagamond just as we are at Donaldsonville today.
spk21: Okay. Thank you.
spk28: The next question is from Jeff Zacascos with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
spk17: Thanks very much. Who are the natural buyers for your green ammonia? And how do you think about the price at which you might sell it?
spk09: So what we're working on now is just that. The volume of product that we will be producing could be digestible in a vessel, which could go to Europe. We're working with some of the ethanol producers for a low carbon corn value chain, which we believe will lead then to sustainable aviation fuel and low carbon fuel products. We're talking to some of the food companies and some of their labeling ventures. And how do we do that and incorporate that? So both blue and green or let's just call low carbon and no carbon products, we're moving forward. We think we have quite a few opportunities to market those products at a value, a value over conventional products.
spk07: Yeah. And
spk09: I think if you look at
spk08: it, Jeff, you know, both similar with blue and green, we're going to be the first to market with these. And as you look at the green, there's just not a lot of supply there. So as Bert mentioned, you're probably going to see a premium based on that product that is significantly above our cost. I would say just because it's a smaller amount. As we bring on blue, we'll be the first in the world with any measurable amount of volume with that. And I think there's a lot of activity, as Bert said, on the demand pull side that we're beginning to see that we feel fairly confident that we'll be able to receive some sort of premium on it. What that is, you know, that is yet to be determined 100 percent at this time.
spk17: OK. And then natural gas prices have fallen pretty sharply. But you also hedge. Do you expect much hedging penalty in the first quarter?
spk09: So how we talk about gas is that is just that we do hedge. And we saw that the reason why in January with the spikes up to fifty dollars in in our Iowa facilities and actual availability or lack thereof in some other facilities. So hedging and securing supply during the cold months of these Jan and said are important. But you're correct on the reverse side of that is those hedges were taken to higher values than we are in the cash market today. So your first quarter value for gas will be over what the cash value is. And more to come on that.
spk29: I would say, though, the offset to that, Jeff, is we're not we're clearly not 100 percent edged. You know, we do to Bert's point like to do basis hedging more than Henry Hub necessarily hedging. And so we are benefiting from that, you know, the drop in the daily cash rate on a piece of it as well. And so, you know, in some cases it's not fixed price. There could be some swaps or some collars that are in there. And so we do get to to participate in a portion of that reduction in gas costs. But really what we're trying to do is protect the margin against unusual weather events that can blow out against us. And if you end up giving up a nickel or a dime along the way in order to protect against the, you know, the potential blowout that a reasonable insurance policy from our perspective. But Q2 forward is open.
spk24: OK, great. Thank you.
spk28: The next question is from Richard Garchet Arena with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
spk15: Thanks. Good morning. My first question is just on the update to the Mitsui JV and the Clean Energy Project. It looks like the initial CapEx estimate from the feed study is roughly three billion. Just curious, where does that compare to the original estimate when you signed the MOU back in early 2022? How much capacity does that entail? And then also, what protocols are you putting in place to maintain that cost estimate as you progress through development? Yeah,
spk29: so, you know, we have not made a final investment decision on that yet. You know, we have an estimate that we think is within kind of plus minus 10 percent-ish of the final cost. But we have not made a decision to proceed with that. And therefore, there's nothing that we've done to kind of, quote unquote, lock in that price because no decision has been made to progress. Relative to when we initially began talking with Mitsui and created kind of the MOU around the joint venture to pursue this project, we had, I would say, some very high-level estimates of where we thought the cost might come in. But we certainly had not gone through the process of doing the feed study to get an accurate cost estimate. And so it was just directional at best. You know, I would say that the cost to complete, including the site level and a scalable infrastructure that Chris mentioned in his comments, is a bit higher than what we had maybe initially thought. But I think that's reflective of the relatively tight labor market and inflation in general, particularly around some of the exotic metals that are required. But what that also suggests is that the value of existing assets is that much higher, as we saw with the sale of the Weaver asset here just recently, and suggests that the value of the rest of our network is, again, even that much higher as well. So we're still in process of evaluating whether there's a project that we want to fund here or not. And as part of that, we are evaluating different production technologies and different amounts of carbon reduction levels. And we'll make that ultimate decision kind of sometime in the back half of this year, along with our partner Mitsui.
spk15: Okay, great. Thanks for that. And then just talking about the nitrogen market, looks like you cited about 40% of ammonia capacity in Europe being shut down in early January, and that's up versus around 25%, I believe, as of early November. And this is during a period when European natural gas prices have actually come down over 40%. So I guess what is driving that? Is part of that curtailment made in the shutdowns, or are these part of these permanent shutdowns they expect to continue through 2024?
spk29: I think it can be both of that. There's also an issue of if you can acquire deep water trade to ammonia at a cost that's lower than what you can produce using domestic gas, there's no reason not to do it if you are in a facility primarily doing nitrates as opposed to urea so that you don't need the CO2.
spk09: I think a reflection of the gas, current gas price today is in the cash market that was not available just a short time ago. And so the reflection of 40% is a look back on Q4 and entering into Q1. And you're probably going to see some of those plants restart, especially with the Russian announcement of limiting ammonium nitrate exports that just came out today. That's going to have a substantial impact on Eastern Europe and Central Europe and probably the ability to export for the Western European producers who can export. For example, Brazil had a million-ton consumer of ammonium nitrate, and Central America will need someone to supply that. So let's say today it's $8 gas that's doable in relation to the absence of the product coming out of Russia. So things are changing, and I think the gas as well as the supply market
spk20: is as well. The next question is from Edlain Rodriguez
spk28: with Mizuho. Please go ahead.
spk23: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. This is for Tony or maybe for Bert. If you compare where we are today with three, four, five months ago, are you more positive or less positive on the prospect of the industry in CF for 2020-24? And that's looking at some of the big drivers like corn prices, corn acreage, the energy complex, supply demand. Anything else you want to address? Are you more or less positive? Thank you.
spk29: I think gas has been very constructive for us. Our costs, it looks like as they're shaping up for the balance of the year, should be down substantially relative to where we were back in kind of November when we put together our thoughts of where we expected the year to come out. I also think that some of the other changes kind of structurally, whether it's potential imports running slower than expected in early spring, what we believe is lower channel inventories than kind of many expect out there, all of those things I think are net positives for our business, particularly for the first half. So overall, my sense is we're feeling pretty good about the way the year is shaping up.
spk09: I agree in terms of where we were coming into a falling market, a falling urea price market in Q4 and now in Q1 a rising urea market. Why is that? Related to energy is, of course, and the inability or the non-economic position of the European producer and higher imports. But you're seeing in terms of the global market, a very tight market. You've had downtime in Malaysia, export restrictions in Indonesia, export restrictions in China, as well as heavy imports and continued imports into India, but heavy imports into Brazil. And we're just entering our season, as we talked about previously, with a tight market and needing to bring in product. And so you have a tighter global market. And then that's reflected in price. For the values for the feed grains, corn at $4.60, $4.70 is very attractive, especially when you look at trend yield over 180 and yields in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana above 200. It's very profitable. This will be the fourth best year in 10 years for the American farmer. And so when you couple that all together, as well as global supply and demand, I would say we're positive for 2024.
spk12: Okay, thank you. That's all I have.
spk28: The next question is from Ben Toro with Barclays. Please go ahead.
spk27: Hi, good morning and thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to follow up a little bit on the international trade dynamics and in particular the export markets versus the import markets and where you're seeing, especially in South America and Brazil, inventory levels. We've talked about the North Americans being low, but we all know Brazil has been a little bit more of an issue. So within that 7 to 8 million ton of import need, what's your sense on the ground inventories in Brazil right now and how does that shape up for your opportunities to potentially export into the region? Thank you.
spk09: So CF is an active exporter of our major products, ammonia, UAN, urea, and some ammonium nitrate. The UAN has predominantly gone to Europe, Argentina, and Australia, and urea is more spot and situational. Where we are in Brazil today with about 44 million tons of consumption of NPK and the targets for 2024 are closer to 46 million tons, you're going to need, our projections are, over 8 million tons of urea imports to Brazil for the calendar year. And that's a very positive move that will push Brazil to the largest importing country, surpassing India, who's between 6 and 7 million tons now. Brazil did have high levels of inventories and imports entering the year. Much of that was consumed during the safrania season of, which is January, February, and March of applications, and they are low level importers, 200,000, 300,000 tons a month. Their wheat application starts in April, and then we move to corn applications in July, August, September, and then cotton later in the year and again repeating the cycle. So Brazil is the positive, I'd say, consumption train in the world of fertilizer economies, and it's going to continue to play a major part. And so the S&D right now is balanced globally for urea.
spk28: Thank you. The next question is from Andrew Wong with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
spk19: Hey, good morning. So regarding your hurdle rate that's required for the investment
spk18: decision at Blue Point,
spk19: if you say, like, if you get take or pay off take with steady volumes and steady margins, does that lower the rate for the hurdle versus some of your other projects or buybacks or anything else you'd be considering?
spk08: Yeah, I think as you look at any return on a project, it's a set return with a risk premium based in there. If you have take or pay that's off take on a rattleable basis, you're probably willing to take a lower return profile on that. I mean, that allows a lot of additional synergies that run throughout the entire network. As we see with our Mosaic contract with them taking ammonia on a rattleable basis, lower inventory, lower receivables, different things like that, lower risk involved. And therefore, that allows you to have a lower risk premium and therefore taking a slightly lower return on that.
spk19: Okay, great. And then just regarding the Donaldsonville Blue Ammonia Project, could you just provide the latest update for the injection well permits? And you mentioned this Louisiana gaining primacy on the Classics wells. What does that mean and how quickly can you get approvals there and how quickly can drilling be completed?
spk08: Yeah, so the approval timeline on that is really based on our partner Exxon and what they're doing both with the Classics. And some of that's probably been accelerated some by their acquisition of the Denberry pipeline because it allows them other access to different states with Classics that may have, I would say, a shorter queue time than what Louisiana or some of the other states. So we are confident that in 2025 we will economically be receiving a benefit related to the 45 queue and therefore we'll have low carbon ammonia ready.
spk28: Great, thank you. The next question is from Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
spk13: Thank you, Tony. I'm the Blue Ammonia JV with Mitsui. I guess a couple of questions. One, you know, if we get to the second half of 2024, and I assume that's probably the third quarter call, or maybe you'll have an update, you know, and you're not moving forward at that point. What's happened, do you think? And then just secondly, I believe there's several other potential MOUs or JV partners that you have out there. Is there any update on those or is that all pending sort of the outcome with Mitsui?
spk29: Yeah, we, you know, we're very happy with the agreements that we have in place and the partners that we have lined up to pursue these kind of opportunities with us. You know, a lot of them that we have come out publicly with tend to be Asian focused, so a couple of Japanese firms as well as South Koreans. I would say that the Korean government and the customers as a result are a little bit behind from a timeline perspective compared to the Japanese. And so we'll likely be making a decision around a plan, principally targeting the Japanese market first, and then we'll eventually look at both Korean market and potentially European partners that we've discussed with as well further out. And that could be served by, you know, one of the same planters that, you know, might have different requirements associated with it. But, you know, if we decide not to proceed, I think it's a combination of very likely just, you know, aggregate costs associated with moving forward and lack of line of sight on, you know, making sure that we can earn an appropriate risk adjusted rate of return against a given situation. And so I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. I think that's a good way to look at it. The next question
spk28: is from Aaron Cirelli with Berenberg. Please go ahead.
spk01: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. My first one is about the comment you made on farmer incomes in New Bratislia. You talked about improving farmer incomes in North America in 2024. I was wondering what's the thought process here, considering that we saw John Deere today being a little bit more downbeat, and I think USDA report last month was a little bit downbeat too. My second question is around blue ammonia and the news around the potential partnership with Bosco. Is there any color you can provide about the implied blue premium you are assuming or you have in mind? My final one is on exports from China. I think Yara last week in Europe mentioned that Chinese export could potentially come back a little bit. Your messaging today in the presentation seems that there could be some temporary windows about where Chinese could export. So just wondering if you see the situation changing pretty much, you would expect again a very tight export market from China at this stage. Thank you.
spk09: Good morning. Regarding the farmer income comment, what my comment was, it's the fourth best in about 10 years. So when you look at, as compared to last year or the year before, if you're referencing John Deere or some of the chemical or seed suppliers, it's lower, but it's still at .64.70 corn for December corn pricing today. And what was hedgeable not just a few months ago at $5.10, $5.20, very attractive, again based on just trend yield of 180 bushels an acre, which is what we're targeting for 2024. But most high state farmers are in the 200 to 250 bushels. So very profitable, even with the drop in fertilizer prices, the drop in diesel prices. And so you have to look at the total cost structure for a farmer, whether that's owned land or rented land, variable cost against fixed costs. And putting that whole structure together, it's still a good time to be a farmer. That was the point. Regarding the exports from China, we've seen a different China about every other year. And our prepared remarks and communication about what we expect out of China is that the government restrictions are in place for urea and some phosphate products. They will continue through or into Q2. And our expectations for China are that they will export, they will return to the export market. And being that in the past five years, it's been between two and five million tons. We would say three to four million tons of exports are a logical volume for 2024.
spk29: And then relative to Blue Ammonia premium, you know, Blue Ammonia for us makes great economic sense, even if there were no premium in the marketplace because of the 45Q tax credit. I think we've kind of gone through that math a little bit in the past, but we expect, you know, a net benefit from the Donaldsonville Blue Ammonia project in the order of magnitude of roughly about $100 million net benefit to us per year. So just on the face of it, that's a great investment for us. Now, that said, we have had, I would say, ever increasing interest levels in Blue Ammonia from a variety of different constituents, including a number of our, you know, existing customers, but also some other folks that have reached out. And so based on a relatively small volume of decarbonized or Blue Ammonia that's going to be available principally just from us beginning in 2025 and the appetite in the marketplace, we absolutely believe that it's going to be a commodity and scarce supply relative to the appetite for it. And so it will carry with it a premium in the marketplace. Just on an S&D, there's more demand than there is supply on it. We have not formalized exactly how we're thinking about selling that in because we want to begin actually producing it, and that's going to be dependent to some extent on timing of our partner ExxonMobil in this deal, but we feel very good about the likelihood of a reasonable premium that adds on to what's a very attractive regulatory framework for Blue. Plus
spk09: I'll add one more positive comment for the team, for the company, and for what we are about as a company with the -it-right culture. We have the highest on-stream factor. We have the best safety statistics in the world, and we're going to lead the world in this move to low-carbon ammonia because it's the right thing to do and the government is incentivizing us, and our shareholders want us to do this. And so there's a lot of positive energy going forward with that and what we will bring to the market.
spk20: Thank you very much.
spk28: Ladies and gentlemen, that is all the time we have for questions today. I would like to turn the call back over to Martin Jurosik for any closing remarks.
spk10: Thanks everyone for joining us today. We look forward to seeing you at upcoming conferences.
spk28: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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