LSB Industries, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to your LSB Industries second quarter 2022 earnings call. All lines have been placed in a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions and comments following the presentation. If you should require assistance throughout the conference, please press star zero. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Fred Bonacore, President of Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours.

Good morning, everyone. Joining me today are Mark Bierman, 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.

Thank you, Fred. We're happy to have the opportunity to speak to you today about our 2022 second quarter results and our outlook for the balance of the year. But first, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge our founder and former chairman and CEO, Jack Olson, who passed away this past April. Jack's first priority was always his family, but after that, LSB was his creation and his fourth child. He was a highly successful entrepreneur, but more importantly, Jack touched many lives and was a very generous person. Recently, Jack told me he was very happy to see our team turn LSB around and prosper, and he believed that we had a bright future. Our goal every day is to make his belief a reality and we are grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of Jack's legacy. Turning to our 2022 second quarter, as summarized on page three of our presentation, we had an eventful quarter and once again delivered record top and bottom line performance. The strong results were driven by the favorable pricing environment for our products that we capitalized on with solid execution. I'd like to thank our employees for making this another excellent quarter and for their strong commitment to improving and growing our business and doing it safely. As a reflection of their hard work and contributions, our market capitalization is now much higher than it was at this time last year. And as a result, in late June, we were pleased to be added to the Russell 3000 and 2000 indexes. On page four of our presentation, we provide an overview of our end markets. In spite of poor weather conditions this spring, continued volatility of natural gas, and recent pressure on corn prices, we maintain a favorable outlook for continued strong selling prices for our products. The price of corn remains above multi-year averages driven by a variety of factors including strong demand for ethanol and China continuing to be a large export market for U.S. corn due largely to its demand for feed for livestock. Adding to strong domestic and international demand for corn, global supply has been and remains constrained and stock-to-use ratios are below historic average levels due in part to the wet spring reducing the number of acres of corn planted, the ongoing heat and drought conditions in the western U.S. and South America impacting yields, and all of this being exacerbated by the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While a recent deal has been struck for the unblocking of sea routes for Ukrainian Black Sea ports for the export of grain and fertilizers, which should increase supplies, it will not address the current low stocks. but unfortunately that deal is now in doubt with the bombing of the Port of Odessa. As a result of the increased demand and short supply of corn, we believe that corn prices will remain elevated and that farm profitability will remain attractive. We expect that acres of corn planted will remain robust and that farmers will seek to maximize their yields, creating strong demand for fertilizer. Additionally, the lack of fertilizer applied in the spring could translate to reduce yields for the current corn harvest, further tightening global corn supplies and reducing already low stock-to-use ratios. This would point towards farmers making a heavy fall ammonia application in order to replenish the nutrients in the soil to promote higher acres planted and higher yields for next year's crop. Longer term, we believe that it will take two to three years of good corn growing seasons to bring the stock-to-use ratios back in line with historical averages. Demand remains very stable for our industrial and mining products, despite weakening forecasts for economic growth. Pricing for our industrial products remains well above year-ago levels, reflecting continued strong nitrogen fertilizer demand, which is creating competition for nitrogen products, in addition to the continued strength in the ammonia export market, which is reflected in the Tampa ammonia price, to which a number of our industrial product contracts are indexed. With respect to U.S. natural gas feedstock price volatility, Many of our industrial product contracts are cost plus in nature, enabling us to pass through increases in natural gas costs. Overall, the demand and pricing trends we're seeing across the majority of our business adds to our confidence in the prospects for strong profitability and cash flow for the remainder of 2022 as well as for 2023. Now we'll turn over the call to Cheryl, who will discuss our Q2 results and our outlook. Cheryl?