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spk09: Greetings and welcome to the LSB Industries third quarter 2021 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Fred Bonacore, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Fred. You may begin.
spk06: Good morning, everyone. Joining me today on the call are Mark Berman, our Chief Executive Officer, and Cheryl McGuire, our Chief Financial Officer. Please note that today's call will include forward-looking statements, and because the statements are based on the company's current intent, expectations, and projections, they are not guarantees of future performance, and a variety of factors could cause the actual results to differ materially. As this call will include references to non-GAAP results, please see the press release in the investor section of our website, lsbindustries.com, for further information regarding forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP results to GAAP results. At this time, I'd like to go ahead and turn the call over to Mark.
spk03: Thank you, Fred, and welcome to the LSB team. We're happy to have the opportunity to speak with you today about our 2021 third quarter which, combined with the first half of October, have included some of the most significant positive developments in our company's history. We posted record quarterly results for the second consecutive quarter as we continued to run our plans reliably, which enabled us to capitalize on the strong market environment for our products on both sides of our business. We also closed on the preferred stock exchange transaction that we discussed with you on our last call. As anticipated, The elimination of the preferred stock from our balance sheet led to credit upgrades on our debt by our major rating agencies. This enabled us to refinance our senior secured notes at a significant reduction in interest rate, which Cheryl will discuss later in the call. Collectively, these factors make us very optimistic about our prospects for the final quarter of 2021 and for the coming year. As it relates to our end markets, pricing strength on the agricultural side of our business and healthy demand on the industrial side combined to produce strong third quarter results as compared to those of our third quarter last year. On slide three, we summarized the key drivers for our agricultural end markets. Commodity prices continue to sit well above year-ago levels. Most relevant to our business, the price of corn, while down from the highs of this past May, are up nearly 70 percent from 2020 lows and up more than 30 percent from this point last year and continue to trade at near eight-year high levels. As we've discussed on previous calls, the strong pricing is the result of multiple factors, including a surge in exports led by increased demand from China. Additionally, ethanol consumption and production currently sit at near pre-pandemic levels as U.S. miles driven continue to recover from the pandemic shutdowns as a result of the benefits of COVID vaccines. Drought conditions in Brazil, which are resulting in significant yield losses, have also served to constrict global corn supply in the face of rising demand, translating into further support for healthy price levels farmers are currently enjoying. Prices of other agricultural commodities have also seen steep increases, including beans, wheat, and cotton, all creating a competitive environment for a finite number of acres we have available for planting in the U.S. The USDA continues to estimate that nearly 93 million acres were planted in 2021. This represents a 2 million acre increase from the previous year, and with the exception of 2016, was the highest level of planting since 2013, resulting in strong demand for fertilizers. Along with strong corn market fundamentals that have driven robust demand for fertilizers as farmers seek to maximize their yields, nitrogen prices have been driven to multi-year highs. These elevated prices reflect global constraints on ammonia production, resulting from a variety of factors. From the U.S. perspective, the production issue started early in the year with winter storm Uri, and the February deep freeze throughout a large swath of the middle of the country, where much of the nation's ammonia production capacity is located. On top of that, nitrogen production was reduced over the course of the year due to a combination of both planned and unplanned downtime at a number of producers' facilities through the spring and summer. Then in late August, Hurricane Ida caused shutdowns at a number of facilities along the Gulf Coast. More recently, the rising price of natural gas, the primary feedstock in the production of ammonia and derivative nitrogen products, has played a role in further reducing production levels. While gas prices in the U.S. have increased significantly over the course of 2021, our domestic price inflation pales in comparison to the significant increase that Europe has experienced. Over the last several months, natural gas prices in Europe rose to over $30 per MMBTU equivalent. While those prices have receded recently to approximately $24 an MMBTU equivalent, that still represents a price that is more than four times what we're paying in the U.S. As a result, some producers have been forced to take their Europe-based facilities offline as the economics of continuing to operate with such high feedstock costs are far from break even. While we expect the situation to somewhat normalize at some point in the next six months, the impact on global nitrogen supply isn't something that can be quickly made up given the strong demand that I discussed. We believe this translates into very solid support for fertilizer prices at their current levels through the remainder of 2021 and throughout 2022. On slide four, we highlight some end market trends contributing to the robust year-over-year improvement in our industrial and mining end markets. As many of you are aware, our industrial business tends to be contract-based, which gives us good visibility into our sales for upcoming quarters and insulates us from input cost inflation, particularly for natural gas, enabling us to maintain our favorable margins, which Cheryl will discuss shortly. During the third quarter, We continue to ramp up our nitric acid volumes related to the long-term supply agreement that we commenced at the beginning of this year. As you can see on the slide, the demand dynamics for our key industrial and mining end markets remain solid despite recent disruptions on the industrial side from the widespread supply chain issues in the US. Overall, the demand and pricing trends we're currently seeing on both sides of our business make us optimistic for continued year-over-year improvement in financial performance for the 2021 fourth quarter and for 2022. Now we'll turn over the call to Cheryl, who will discuss our third quarter results and our fourth quarter outlook. Cheryl?
spk01: Thanks, Mark, and good morning. Turning to page five, you'll see a summary of our results for the quarter. Our strong top and bottom line performance relative to the third quarter of 2020 reflects the increased pricing for our products across all our businesses. Our adjusted EBITDA of approximately $38 million is a company record for a third quarter, our seasonally weakest period. Adjusted EBITDA for the first nine months of 2020 was more than 45% higher than our full year adjusted EBITDA for 2020. And with the month of October in the books, we are very optimistic about our fourth quarter. Page 6 bridges our adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter 2021 of $37.7 million to adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter 2020 of $10.2 million. The light green bar illustrates the substantial impact selling price strength had on our results. The modest decline in sales volumes largely reflects the successful turnaround we conducted at our Cherokee facility. As a reminder, Last year we did not have turnarounds at any of our facilities. Partially offsetting the benefit of higher product selling prices was the continued increase in raw material costs, which are shown net in the $36.9 million price impact you see on page 6, and represented a nearly $13 million headwind in the quarter. Energy costs, including natural gas, have risen substantially over the course of 2021, and we are actively managing our exposure through forward gas purchases. We currently have approximately 75% of our gas needs locked in through the end of the year. But to put the gas cost inflation in perspective, it takes approximately 32 MMBTUs of gas to make one ton of ammonia. As you can see in the tables in our earnings release, in the third quarter of 2021, our cost of gas increased year over year by $1.73, or around $50 per ton of ammonia produced. At the same time, our average selling price for agricultural ammonia increased by more than $360 per ton over the same period, far exceeding the impact of higher gas prices. As Mark mentioned earlier, our industrial and mining business is fairly insulated from gas price inflation, as a significant portion of our contracts enable us to pass through the cost of raw material inputs. So while we are acutely focused on the dramatic change in natural gas costs, between having the effect of causing some global ammonia production capacity to be temporarily taken offline, primarily in Europe, along with the strong overall pricing environment we've been experiencing, rising gas costs have not been significantly detrimental to our results thus far. Before I pass the call back to Mark, I'll review a few important considerations as to how to think about the fourth quarter of 2021. Pricing for our agricultural products remains strong, and we expect this favorable dynamic to persist. Over the last 90 days, NOLA UAN benchmark pricing increased from approximately $300 a ton to over $500 a ton. agricultural ammonia has increased from approximately $600 a ton to over $1,000 a ton over that same period. Partially offsetting some of the improved pricing is the impact from higher natural gas costs, which we expect will average around $5 per MMBTU for the quarter, up from approximately $2.45 per MMBTU versus the fourth quarter last year. As I just mentioned, we expect the higher selling prices of our agricultural products to far exceed our increased feedstock costs. Putting it all together, we expect significant year-over-year improvement in our fourth quarter results. We currently expect adjusted EBITDA for the period to be north of $70 million, or roughly seven times that of the fourth quarter of 2020, and almost 10% higher when compared to the entire full year of 2020. Looking farther out into 2022, as Mark discussed, the market fundamentals we're currently seeing across our agricultural, industrial, and mining end markets lead us to believe that we have the opportunity to deliver another year of strong bottom line results. This is the case even with the turnarounds we have scheduled at our El Dorado and prior facilities. Turning to slide seven, with respect to our balance sheet, as many of you are aware, We were ultimately successful in achieving our goals of recapitalizing and simplifying our balance sheet, reducing our cost of capital, and creating greater financial flexibility for LSB. At the end of September, we closed on the transaction to exchange the $310 million of preferred stock held by Eldridge that carried a 14.5% dividend for shares of our common stock. With this substantial liability removed from our balance sheet, We received credit ratings upgrades from both S&P and Moody's. Then, subsequent to the end of the third quarter, we proceeded in issuing $500 million of new senior notes with an interest rate of 6.25%, which we used to redeem our outstanding $435 million of 9.65% senior notes and added cash to our balance sheet for future use. As you can see from the chart on the right, removing the preferred stock from our balance sheet substantially reduced our leverage ratio to very close to our target of four times, and we expect further reduction in the fourth quarter given our strong outlook for EBITDA. With respect to liquidity, while we ended the third quarter with approximately $81 million between our cash balance and the availability on our revolver, today our liquidity stands at over $100 million. positioning us well to pursue our growth initiatives as we close out 2021 and enter 2022, a year that we expect to bring further positive transformation for LSB and increased value to our shareholders. And now I'll turn it back over to Mark.
spk03: Thank you, Cheryl. There is no question that the recent actions we've taken with respect to our balance sheet have dramatically changed the future potential of what LSB can become as a company and the potential value we can deliver to our shareholders. That, combined with the journey we began several years ago to improve the reliability and efficiency of our assets and to focus on optimizing the sales of our products, made the kind of results we delivered in the 2021 third quarter possible. Looking ahead, on slide eight, we've summarized our priorities for the next 12 months. The continued improvement of our facility's operating rates has been and remains at the top of our list of opportunities to organically make a significant incremental contribution to EBITDA. Since introducing the performance improvement initiatives we began implementing in 2016, along with the investments in maintenance and upgrades we've made over the past several years, our plants have collectively made tremendous progress with respect to the volumes they produce, thus increasing our sales and enhancing our margins aided by the strong pricing environment. With that said, We still have a meaningful room to improve. And similar to football, where the red zone yards can be the most difficult yards to achieve, we have a good amount of work to do to capture the remaining operational performance opportunity that we've identified at our facilities. But we know it's possible. It will take a lot of hard work and the continued additions to our team of talented, experienced professionals. But we will roll up our sleeves and get it done. Given current market pricing, We believe that this opportunity potentially represents $25 to $30 million of incremental EBITDA that we believe we could recognize over the next 24 months. Another important priority is our focus on maintaining a conservative balance sheet. We are in an inherently cyclical industry, and we believe that we can best enhance returns and minimize risk to our stakeholders by maintaining a net debt adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio of below four times. As Cheryl pointed out, We expect that to occur at the end of this year thanks to our recent balance sheet recapitalization and our strong financial results this year. With this major goal accomplished, we plan to manage our capital structure prudently so that we are in the best position to take advantage of opportunities to maximize returns regardless of where we are in the cycle. As we've discussed on past calls, we've identified a number of what we call margin enhancement projects that involve maximizing our production footprint storage capabilities, and logistics infrastructure that we expect to help us capture the most attractive pricing opportunities available to us. Additionally, over the last year and a half, our commercial team has worked hard to put us in a sold-out position, and we are now in a position to seek ways to maximize our margins by optimizing our product balance and customer mix. We will aggressively pursue all of these organic opportunities in the coming quarters with an eye towards increasing our financial performance. Beyond our very meaningful organic opportunities, our recently recapitalized balance sheet provides us with the flexibility to profitably increase our scale through accretive M&A activity, and we have been evaluating a number of prospects recently. We strongly believe that we have the leadership team in place to effectively manage a meaningfully larger business. Finally, as I have discussed on our last few calls, we are of the strong belief that our industry is on the threshold of becoming a major contributor to the global effort to reduce carbon emissions, both through the capture and storage of CO2 emissions from the ammonia manufacturing process, which is referred to as blue ammonia, and by emerging as one of the most feasible sources of hydrogen for use as a zero CO2 emissions energy source, referred to as green ammonia, particularly as a fuel source for the marine industry, which is a major emitter of carbon relating to a large cargo and other ships using diesel or bunker fuel. Our existing knowledge in ammonia manufacturing, handling, storage, and logistics position us extremely well to become a significant player in this arena and to help create a more sustainable, environmentally friendly world in a way that we believe can create long-term value both socially and financially. The economic opportunity for blue and green ammonia relates primarily to blue ammonia in the immediate term, as the U.S. federal government is currently providing 45Q tax credits $35 to $50 per ton of CO2 captured and stored or sequestered. LSB has been engaged with several groups or organizations in D.C. attempting to persuade lawmakers to increase the geologically sequestered CO2 credit from its current $50 per ton beginning in 2026 to a suggested $80 per ton. We believe that this is necessary to justify the capex required for smaller facilities. Changing the Section 45Q credit from a tax credit to a direct cash payment would open this opportunity to many more companies as it will remove their tax liability burden and provide immediate cash incentives, making carbon capture projects more economically feasible. These changes will ultimately lead to greater CO2 emissions reductions in the U.S. in a shorter period of time. Over the longer term, We believe that green ammonia will be one of the leading solutions to carbon reduction globally, given it's carbon-free and it represents a source of significant incremental demand for ammonia, not only for LSB, but for the industry as a whole, which would further consume global production capacity and serve to create a higher pricing range for ammonia. Currently, legislation that would create a tax credit for the production of green and blue hydrogen is being considered. The Clean Hydrogen Production and Investment Tax Credit Act of 2021 would provide a tax credit to companies that reduce carbon emissions by the production of hydrogen. The credit would be worth up to $3 per kilogram of qualified clean hydrogen produced. We support this legislation as it will be needed to make clean hydrogen and green ammonia cost competitive to current products produced and therefore spur significant investment. Our current focus is on choosing a technology partner that will perform a feasibility study for each of our sites to determine the infrastructure needed to produce green or blue ammonia and its derivatives that will support LSB's medium to long-term commercial sustainability objectives. We would anticipate one or more of the feasibility studies to be completed early in 2022 and to be presenting a plan to our board of directors to approve during the second quarter. In addition to opportunities to reduce our carbon emissions through the production of blue and green ammonia, as I pointed out on the last call, while less frequently discussed as a greenhouse gas relative to carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide is actually 300 times more impactful in terms of warming of the atmosphere than CO2. While we have been able to reduce our nitrous oxide emissions in recent years, we continue to seek further ways to reduce nitrous oxide emissions at our facilities. Before I hand the call back to the operator for the Q&A session, I'd like to mention that we'll be participating in the Morgan Stanley Global Chemicals, Agriculture, and Packaging Virtual Conference on Wednesday, November 10th, the Bank of America Securities Virtual Leverage Finance Conference on Tuesday, November 30th, the Sedoti Winter Virtual Microcap Conference on Thursday, December 9th, as well as the UBS Chicago Ag and Industrials Chemical Conference, also on December 9th. We hope to speak with many of you during these events. That concludes our prepared remarks, and we will now be happy to take any questions. Thank you.
spk09: Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. The confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key.
spk07: One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is from Rob McGuire with Granite Research.
spk09: Please proceed with your question.
spk04: Good morning, Mark, Cheryl, and Fred. Congratulations on your quarter.
spk03: Thanks. Hey, Rob. How are you?
spk04: Good. Good. Thank you. Hey, can you help us understand your parameters around potential M&A?
spk03: Parameters, you mean financial parameters or kind of things that we might be looking for?
spk04: Actually, both would be great if you'd be willing to comment.
spk03: Well, from a focus standpoint, I think we have a number of different opportunities, directions that we can go in. Clearly, acquiring facilities that are similar to the ones that we operate today would be right down the fairway for us and something that we would really, you know, be able to easily understand and operate. So that would be good if we could find those kinds of facilities, maybe give us some geographic differentiation, maybe broaden the product portfolio so that we've got more variants of products when talking to our customers. We also own a small sulfuric acid plant down at El Dorado, and we've operated that for over 30 years. So we know the sulfuric acid market, and if we could really make that a more meaningful business through the acquisition of other assets, we would look to do that as well. And then lastly, we do have a big focus, as I said, in blue and green ammonia. So I think looking at some assets that would really move us forward in those areas could be something that we'd really take a look at and be attractive. From a, you know, financing standpoint, you know, as I mentioned in my comments and Cheryl reiterated, we've been levered for a number of years, and we've worked really hard to delever the company. So we're not looking to go back and leverage up for an M&A activity. We would consider going above the four times leverage if we can see a clear line of sight that we can utilize free cash flow within 18 to 24 months after closing on a transaction to get below four times. And of course, the balance would be financed with equity. But it would have to be accretive. It would have to make a lot of sense for us. We're not looking to get bigger just for bigger sake. There's no value to that. I hope that gave you some color.
spk04: Thank you. UAN, can you put some color around your UAN production in the quarter and how we should think about UAN volumes going forward?
spk01: Sure, Rob. So, I mean, yeah, UAN volumes were down this quarter versus the same quarter last year from a sales perspective. That was, you know, of course, the turnaround at Cherokee probably accounted for 30 to 35,000 tons of lower UAN production. And then sales were also impacted this quarter compared to last quarter simply from timing. We sold more in the second quarter this year. Whereas last year we kind of carried an additional 20, 25,000 tons into the third quarter. And we were able to, to move that volume last year. We're just running lower on inventory. Overall, a lot of that is, you know, still from that winter freeze, we had it in, we're carrying less inventory in the chain. So some of that caught up with us in the third quarter, looking forward to the fourth quarter, really thinking UAN, sales volumes are probably going to be in line with last year.
spk04: Thank you. That's all my questions.
spk07: Thanks, Rob.
spk09: Thank you. Our next question is from Steve Farazani with Sidoti and Kumpel. Please proceed with your question.
spk05: Morning, Mark. Morning, Cheryl. I wanted to ask a little bit about the guidance in terms of You have a pretty good, I'm sure you have a pretty good handle on natural gas prices given your hedging. But in terms of pre-selling ammonia and fertilizer volume, how much you're doing that and how tricky it is right now given the fact that prices are going up so dramatically different from in past years. You wouldn't expect prices moving this much this time of year.
spk03: Yeah, it's a great question. Um, and, and sort of the great, uh, the great struggle every day for us, right. Um, how far to sell ahead versus hold back with prices moving so quickly. Um, so, and I would tell you that, um, we're not selling as far ahead, um, as we might've in the past, but particularly at this time of the year, um, where a lot of, uh, you know, sell forward happens. Um, But we still have to run facilities, right, and we still produce product and want to make sure that we can sell it. So I think it's a happy balance. Having said that, you know, I think we're trying to be prudent about, you know, moving prices up as the industry is moving prices up. So, you know, we'll hold back on some quantities of sale that we might have historically sold at this point in the year and take advantage of maybe higher spot prices.
spk05: The flip side would be how far ahead are customers trying to buy?
spk03: Well, I think there was a, you know, if you go back two or three months, I think there was a little bit of a standoff where prices were moving up and customers, you know, were holding off on buying, expecting that prices would come back down to more normalized levels. With prices continuing to move up, we are seeing a lot of customers now buying forward for the spring to try and lock in prices because I think they're a little nervous that we could see continued price appreciation throughout the rest of this year and the early part of next year. The other thing I would say is when you look at nitrogen prices or nitrogen equivalent pricing as a comparison to whether UAN, urea, and ammonia, Ammonia is trading at a, you know, 24 and 36 percent discount to UAN and urea. And so, I think what we're seeing and starting to see is some pretty significant demand for fall ammonia application. Because if I'm a farmer, I probably, from a cost perspective, will put down more ammonia in the fall and get more nitrogen in the ground given its lower competitive pricing. in the hopes that maybe I can put a little less nitrogen in the spring. So, you know, with the harvest, you know, on average, you know, more than 50% done, or the corn harvest more than 50% done at this point, you know, we're starting to see some real demand for fall ammonia application.
spk05: Of the industrial contracts, Obviously, we've seen the slowdown on the automotive front, but certainly as we get through this running season, we're seeing a lot of industries getting hit by the supply chain issues. We might see some production coming down. How much do your contracts protect you on the volume front, and does that mean the mix shifts over the next couple of quarters, knowing that we're going to not have excess supply and meet the strong ag demand?
spk03: Well, the products, I mean, the industrial contracts generally are requirements contracts. They're not take or pay, although we do have some significant take or pay contracts. So, you know, volume could shift. Having said all of that, and despite auto pulling back a little bit, some of the other users of, let's say, nitric acid have some really strong demands. So I can tell you that we don't have enough product to meet all the demand that we have, so we're not going to see a drop-off in that market.
spk05: Great. And then the last one for me, just on blue and green, a pretty quick timeline in terms of moving forward. I'm guessing you've already done a ton of work. In terms of moving forward, how much of that is a mix of what you're hearing from potential partners versus customers versus the D.C. climate?
spk03: Well, look, in my opinion, and I think our position as a company is unlike a lot of previous green waves that have come and gone, this is really here to stay. There's a lot of momentum globally. There's a lot of government intervention and support. There's a lot of private capital that, you know, we're involved in. in decarbonization. And, of course, the consumer, most consumers understand the need to really reduce our carbon emissions around the globe. So we don't believe this is going away, and so we're very committed to it. You know, we have been working on this for a while. We tend to not announce, you know, put out announcements of who we're talking to. So I think, you know, we'll put out an announcement when we have some meaningful movement on our position. But, you know, we're looking, as I mentioned, at both carbon capture and the production of green ammonia because we think both are important in the efforts to decarbonize.
spk07: Great. Thanks a lot, Mark. Sure. Thank you. Our next question is from Richard Coos with Jefferies.
spk09: Please proceed with your question.
spk02: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. So I'm just curious, do you have a sense of what percent of the industry is offline right now as a result of some of the higher costs that they're experiencing?
spk03: Well, most of it, most of the production offline that we're talking about is throughout Europe. So there have been a number of announcements. I mean, I don't have a percent. I've heard as much as 4 million tons of ammonia production is offline.
spk02: Okay. And then there's obviously a lot of noise about some of the environmental policies that are taking place over in China. How do you think that ends up impacting nitrogen supply here over the medium term?
spk03: Well, I think China's really tried to control their exports of product and use the product domestically. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that they've shut down some very costly and pollutive nitrogen manufacturing facilities. So, you know, I think the impact will be less product exported from China and therefore less supply in the marketplace.
spk02: Right. Okay. And then, you know, just on some of this green-blue ammonia issue, do you guys have a sense of, you know, I know you're very, very early in this process here, but like, how do you think about the amount of capital that you would look to invest in that type of an opportunity over the medium term? Can you kind of maybe frame that up for us? Give us some goalposts to think about.
spk03: Yeah. So I'll talk about blue first since I think it's more immediate term. So as I mentioned, there are, there is currently a tax program called 45 Q. You can, get a tax credit of either $35 a ton for taking that CO2 and using it for enhanced oil recovery, which is done every day, or you can earn as much as $50 a ton for permanently sequestering it in the ground. So, you know, when you look at economics of investing capital, so for us it would be carbon capture equipment, and of course there needs to be a pipeline to either a pipeline or direct to a well if we're sequestering it. So, you know, the investment of capital can go a number of different ways. We potentially could invest no capital and just bring in a partner that wants to own the carbon capture, the pipeline, and the well and would pay us for the CO2 and leave us with blue ammonia to sell as blue ammonia or an upgraded product, a derivative of that. or we can invest some dollars in the carbon capture and own it with a partner or own the whole carbon capture ourselves. It's really just an economic model and a return, and so we're not far enough along to determine which scenario we'd like to go down. I think we'll have a number of different options that we'll be able to evaluate and then make a decision. When it comes to green ammonia, there will be an investment of capital. We'll have to retrofit the front end of our ammonia plant, whichever one we decide to put green ammonia in. We'll have to buy electrolyzers, and then there's obviously engineering and design to do that. But I think in order for us to invest those dollars, not only obviously we want to sign a long-term power purchase agreement for renewable energy at cost-effective rates, But we'd also like to underwrite the project by having, you know, at least 60 or 70 percent of the production, you know, spoken for with an offtake agreement. So I think we'll look to do that. And there's been a lot of conversations with some really, you know, exciting partners that are really willing to partner with us so that we can all point to, you know, an opportunity in a live situation where green ammonia is being produced. So we're really excited about a lot of the conversations that we're having because there's really a lot of interest in partnering with us to really execute on either blue or green ammonia.
spk02: That's great. And then lastly for me, Big picture on Cherokee, how much expense negatively impacted EBITDA in the quarter? I saw the $8 million add back to the adjusted EBITDA number. I'm curious how much was not added back in terms of loss production.
spk01: Yeah, I would say probably close to $15 million.
spk02: Got it. All right. Thanks very much, guys.
spk09: Great.
spk03: Thanks, Rich.
spk09: Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Derubio with Baird. Please proceed with your question.
spk08: Good morning. Do you have any sense of how much lower imports were, especially for UAN this year versus last year?
spk03: You know, Brent, I could give you that in a follow-up call. I don't have that in front of me now.
spk08: Okay. But it's safe to say it's probably material for this year, correct?
spk03: Yes.
spk08: Okay. Great. And just turnarounds in for next year, are we looking at two or just one?
spk03: No, we're looking at two. We have one at prior. Well, actually, we have one at El Dorado that'll start mid to late summer, and then followed by prior that will be late summer, kind of early fall.
spk07: And just... Remind me, are we still on?
spk08: Is it prior that's still on a two-year schedule? Or are you trying to move that to three? I forget. There was one of the three plans that was on a two-year schedule.
spk03: So it had been on a two-year schedule. Having said that, we bypassed last year, turned around it prior during the pandemic or during the height of the pandemic, and pushed it off to this year. So this will be three years. and we'll have to make a determination as we're doing the planning for this upcoming turnaround and we go into the plant and look at the condition of the plant, because you always find some things, whether we think we can stay on a three-year or we'll go back to a two-year. The key at Pryor is I want to make sure that we're doing the right upgrades and the right maintenance and replacement of equipment or rebuild so that we can really run reliably.
spk08: Got it. And then just the, Cheryl, the almost $8 million add back on turnaround to your Jesse EBITDA, was that the actual cash costs and lost EBITDA? Just trying to get as much of that as cash.
spk01: No, I mean, the lost EBITDA is the production that I just alluded to, which was $15 million. The $8 million is basically the maintenance costs, contractors, that sort of thing. So, yeah, all in cash production. on just those two items, you're looking at over 20 million.
spk08: Okay, great. And then just finally, Leidos lawsuit, just any updates there in terms of timing?
spk03: I wish I really had good news on that front. I mean, we still feel strongly that we've got a great case. I think we've got some loose dates on the docket to get in front of the judge. So for late, you know, for a couple of dates or blocks of time in 2022 and then early 2023. But the judge has instructed all the parties to get really focused on finishing up all the depositions and our work. So that's a positive development there. So focused on finishing it up and then, you know, when we can, you know, having the trial.
spk07: Very good. Appreciate the thoughts. Thank you. Thank you.
spk09: There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mark Berman for any closing comments.
spk03: Thank you, everyone, for your interest in LSB Industries, and hopefully you see that we continue to make good progress. If there's any follow-up questions, feel free to call Cheryl or myself. Thanks, and have a great day.
spk07: This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
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