Nutrien Ltd.

Greetings and welcome to Nutrient's fourth quarter earnings call, 2021 fourth quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jeff Holzman, VP of Investor Relations.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to Nutrient's fourth quarter 2021 conference call. As we conduct this call, various statements that we make about future expectations, plans and prospects contain forward-looking information. Certain material assumptions were applied in making these conclusions and forecasts. Therefore, actual results could differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking information. Additional information about these factors and assumptions are contained in our current quarterly report to shareholders, as well as our most recent annual report MD&A and annual information form filed with Canadian and U.S. Securities Commissions. I will now turn the call over to Ken Seitz, Interim President and CEO, and Pedro Farr, our CFO, for open comments before we take your questions.

Thanks, Jeff. Good morning and welcome to Nutrien's fourth quarter earnings call. I look forward to recapping our 2021 results, our outlook for the business in 2022, and how we are positioning the company to deliver superior long-term value for our shareholders. 2021 was truly an extraordinary year as the world continued to navigate through challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions, heightened concerns over global food security, and the impacts of climate change. Our strong performance this past year demonstrated that Nutrient can positively address these challenges and deliver sustainable solutions that benefit all of our stakeholders. I'm proud to report that we achieved an all-time best safety performance in 2021 with no fatalities or life-altering injuries. To our employees listening today, a heartfelt thank you. Your commitment to safety and our culture of care has a meaningful impact on the well-being of all our colleagues at Nutrien and the communities where we live and operate. Now turning to our financial results and outlook. Adjusted EBITDA nearly doubled to $7.1 billion in 2021, and we generated cash flow from operating activities of $3.9 billion. This performance was underpinned by the strong execution of our teams, competitive advantages of our integrated business model, and the benefit of robust market fundamentals. Nutrien Ag Solutions delivered record adjusted EBITDA of more than $1.9 billion, with strong earnings growth in each of our core geographies. We continued to strengthen our direct relationship with the grower through the reliability of our supply chain, delivery of innovative products, expanded digital capabilities, and sustainability solutions. Our ability to deliver on each of these strategic initiatives was a major contributor to our robust organic growth in 2021. Gross margin from our proprietary products increased by more than 20% in 2021, and now exceeds 1 billion. Our retail business sold record fertilizer volumes due to favorable market conditions and the strength of our global network. North American digital platform sales reached 2.1 billion, and we are building out our digital agronomy tools to support the delivery of long-term, sustainable agriculture solutions for our customers. We also expanded our network through the completion of 14 retail acquisitions. We continue to diversify our earnings outside of North America with a focus on growing our business in Brazil. More than one-third of our retail earnings now reside outside of the U.S., and we expect that share will continue to grow over the next five years. Our potash business delivered $2.7 billion in adjusted EBITDA, supported by higher realized prices and record sales volumes. We safely and efficiently increased production by nearly one million tons which represents a small portion of our low-cost available production capacity. We utilized the strength of our North American distribution system to increase volumes in the domestic market, and Capotex's ability to access four marine terminals on the west and east coast was critical to ensuring a reliable supply of potash to our offshore customers. In nitrogen, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $2.3 billion, supported by higher prices and to the advantaged position of our assets. The nitrogen team completed two large plant turnarounds and phase one of our low-cost brownfield expansions, delivering these projects on time and on budget. We progressed several initiatives during the year that will enhance the long-term growth and sustainability of our nitrogen business. This includes the launch of phase two of brownfield expansion projects, as well as GHG emissions reduction projects at several of our nitrogen sites. Finally, in phosphate, our team capitalized on improved market fundamentals to deliver record adjusted EBITDA of $540 million. Our focus in phosphate is to maximize the free cash flow of the business by improving the reliability of our operations and leverage the flexibility of our plans to increase volumes of higher margin industrial and premium fertilizer products. Turning to the outlook, global grain and oilseed supplies are well below historical levels, which continues to support crop prices. In the U.S., corn and soybean prices increased by 10 to 15 percent over the past month due to global supply uncertainties. U.S. corn grower cash margins are projected to be 70 percent above the 10-year average based on current new crop futures. Prospective returns for key crops in Brazil and Australia are also very strong and we expect this will support crop input demand in these markets. In 2021, our retail business generated above average per tonne fertilizer margins due to the timing of procurement in a rising price environment. Our retail adjusted EBITDA guidance assumes a return to more historical average commodity fertilizer margins in 2022. We had a very strong fall fertilizer application season and anticipate this led to some pull forward of volume and earnings. We expect our specialty crop nutritional and crop protection product margins will remain strong and anticipate growth in our seed business, particularly in Brazil. Our strategy in potash is to utilize our world-class network of six mines to respond to changes in market conditions and we see significant opportunity for growth again in 2022. We expect to ship record potash volumes between 13.7 to 14.3 million tons, assuming sanctions on Belarus have a temporary impact on supply. If we were to see more significant long-term impact, Nutrien has the capability to further increase production by hiring additional employees and incurring some small incremental capital expenditures. Campotex is fully committed through the first quarter due to the strength and demand from customers in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Earlier this week, Campotex also signed new contracts with customers in India and China at $590 per ton, with shipments expected to occur April through December. Our domestic order book is now closed for the first quarter, and we recently announced a $25 per short-ton increase for deliveries in the second quarter. The increase reflects the current strength in global potash market fundamentals, in particular for granular grade product. In nitrogen, we expect high global energy prices, Chinese export restrictions, and heightened geopolitical risks will support prices in 2022. We entered the year with relatively low nitrogen inventory levels and have incurred a few plant outages in the first quarter. However, we expect our sales volumes will increase due to the completion of our border expansion project in 2021 and higher full-year operating rates. I will now turn it over to Pedro to review our capital allocation priorities. Pedro.