Intrepid Potash, Inc

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Intrepid Potash, Inc. fourth quarter 2025 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Evan Mates, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss and review Intrepid's fourth quarter 2025 results. With me today is Intrepid's CEO Kevin Crutchfield and CFO Matt Preston. During the Q&A session, our VP of Sales and Marketing, Zachary Adams, and VP of Operations, Rick Kim, will also be available. Please be advised that comments we will make today include forward-looking statements as defined by U.S. security laws. These are based upon information available to us today and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are described in the reports we apply with the SEC. These could cause our actual results to be different from those currently anticipated, and we assume the obligation to update them. During today's call, We'll also refer to certain non-GAAP financial and operational measures. Reconciliations and most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in yesterday's press release and along with our SEC filings are available at IntrepidPottage.com. I'll now turn the call over to our CEO, Kevin Crutchfield.

Thanks, Evan, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your interest and attendance for today's earnings call. Intrepid again delivered strong results in the fourth quarter. with adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA of $6.5 million and $18.1 million, respectively, both of which were significant improvements compared to last year. For 2025 as a whole, our adjusted EBITDA of $63 million is one of the best prints since 2016 and represents an almost 80% improvement compared to 2024. We're very proud of these results. which we also accomplished with best-in-class safety performance with just one recordable incident in 2025 across over 1.1 million hours worked. I'd like to thank and congratulate our site leaders and all of our team members for their hard work and dedication and want to encourage them to continue to stay focused and continue to deliver good results in 2026. Our solid 2025 performance was driven by several factors. First, steady demand for our core fertilizer products drove strong sales volumes. In 2025, our combined potash and trio sales volumes of just over 590,000 tons was 20% higher compared to 2024, with 303,000 tons of trio sales being a company record. Second, we again delivered solid unit economics from higher overall production, with our 2025 potash cogs per ton improving by approximately 5% versus last year, and our TRIO COGS per ton improving by over 10%. And thirdly, we benefited from increasing pricing. This was most pronounced in TRIO, where fourth quarter average realized price of $379 per ton was 20% higher than the first quarter of 2025. The solid sales volumes and pricing have continued into 2026 ahead of the spring application season, and agricultural markets have also shown signs of optimism. For corn, year-to-date domestic exports are up almost 50% versus last year. And for soybeans, recent trade deals have improved the outlook, with futures for both crops up by about 15% since the August lows. Moreover, the $12 billion in government bridge payments to farmers are expected in the coming weeks, which should help further support solid fertilizer demand this spring. For the broader potash market, global supply and demand remains mostly balanced, where demand in key international markets has been resilient. In 2025, global potash shipments were estimated at roughly 75 million tons, and 2026 is expected to see additional growth of about 1.5 million tons. Moreover, by the end of the decade, Third parties are forecasting global potash demand to be about 6 million tons higher than it was in 2025, which should help absorb additional supply coming from some of the larger-scale potash projects like Janssen. Before passing the call to Matt, I'll end my remarks with a couple key project and operational updates. In potash, we've deferred a decision on our Amex cavern into at least 2027 as we continue to evaluate the project. Since we've never mined this cavern, which still requires additional investment, we want to be very sure we completely understand the mineralogy and the geology and feel it's most prudent to continue to demonstrate strong capital discipline until this evaluation is complete. In addition, we feel confident we can sustain our HB production over the next several years, even without AMEX. For TRIO, our operational performance continues to be very strong, and we recently placed another new continuous miner into service, which should further improve our mining rates and continue our trend of year-over-year production increases. For 2026, we expect our TRIO production to be in the range of 285,000 to 300,000 tons, which represents a year-over-year increase of about 7% at the midpoint. This will help offset what should be flat to slightly down potash production in 2026. which is primarily due to the below average evaporation of HB over the summer. Moving on to our lithium project in Wendover, we've published quite a bit of detail in recent press releases, but I'll provide a quick summary. For those new to the story, one of our key byproducts after producing potash at Wendover is magnesium chloride brine. This brine also contains lithium, but requires a highly technical direct lithium extraction process. We've looked at various DLE options over the past several years, and just recently, new technologies have made significant strides, which should now make the project viable at scale. As for project updates, in January, we announced that we have a joint development agreement in place with Aquatech and Adionics, whereby our partners have already produced a sample of battery-grade lithium carbonate from our brine. As we noted in yesterday's press release, we'll be providing an updated technical report summary for Wendover along with our 2025 10K, which will include maiden resource estimates for lithium and will show a measured and indicated resource of approximately 119,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent. At the current estimated production capacity of 5,000 tons per year, this would support a project life of roughly 25 years. There's still plenty of work to be done, but we have high confidence in our partners, and we're optimistic we can move quickly, with a goal for a definitive feasibility study later this year. Lastly, we're now under exclusivity with a potential buyer for the South Ranch. Negotiations are ongoing and subject to confidentiality provisions, but we're holding an $8 million deposit from the potential buyer, which demonstrates their very serious intent. Although we're still negotiating definitive agreements, we believe the potential deal will likely close sometime in the first half of 2026 and we'll update the market as appropriate. Overall, it's an exciting time for Intrepid. We're delivering strong results and remain constructive on the outlook. With very strong support for critical minerals in the United States, there's probably been no better time to be a domestic producer of potash and trio. while lithium provides significant potential upside. In addition, we want to highlight that our core products have long-term staying power, which is further enhanced by our multi-decade reserve lives, and we look forward to capitalizing on our unique positioning in 2026 and beyond. So with that, I'll now turn the call over to Matt. Please go ahead.