Nutrien Ltd.

Greetings and welcome to Nutrien's 2024 third 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 call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Jeff Holtzman, VP of Investor Relations.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to Nutrien's third quarter 2024 earnings call. As we conduct this call, various statements that we make about future expectations, plans, and prospects contain forward-looking information. Certain 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 quarterly report to shareholders, as well as our most recent annual report, MD&A, and annual information form. I will now turn the call over to Ken Seitz, Nutrients President and CEO, and Mark Thompson, our CFO, for opening comments.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today to review our third quarter results, the progress on our strategic priorities, and the outlook for our business. At our investor day in June, we outlined a set of 2026 performance targets that provide a pathway for driving structural improvements to our earnings and cash flow through the cycle. As highlighted in our third quarter release, we have made significant progress on a number of these priorities in 2024. This includes accelerating the timeline for achieving $200 million in annual operational efficiency and cost savings. We now expect to achieve this target by 2025, one year earlier than our initial goal, with cost reductions evenly split between retail and corporate. Nutrien is in a unique position to expand production and sales of potash and nitrogen with limited capital expenditures. We set a 2026 target to increase upstream sales volumes by 2 to 3 million tons compared to 2023 levels. And through the first nine months of 2024, we have increased sales volumes by 1.3 million tons. In our downstream retail business, we have faced some headwinds associated with a more prolonged recovery in Brazil, and softening in North American ad commodity prices. However, we remain confident in the growth platforms that support our 2026 retail financial targets, which include an expansion of our proprietary products business, network optimization, tuck-in acquisitions, and the execution of our improvement plan in Brazil. Through a focused and disciplined approach to executing our capital projects, we expect to further optimize capital expenditures in 2025 to a range of 2 to 2.1 billion. This total includes the capital required to maintain our world class asset base and meet our growth objectives. We will continue to pursue each of these performance targets with a focus on how we can enhance our offering of products and services to the grower, all while structurally growing our earnings and free cash flow. Now turning specifically to our 2024 results. Nutrient generated adjusted EBITDA of $4.3 billion through the first nine months of 2024, supported by increased downstream retail earnings, higher upstream fertilizer volumes, and lower operating costs. Retail adjusted EBITDA totaled $1.4 billion in the first nine months, up 10% from the prior year. North American crop nutrient margins increased by $17 per ton compared to 2023, supported by a stabilization of fertilizer markets and continued growth of our proprietary crop nutrient and biostimulant product lines. The improvement in per ton margins was partially offset by lower North American crop nutrient sales volumes, which were impacted by wet weather in May, lower corn acres, and reduced field activity in the third quarter. Crop protection margins in North America have improved in 2024, While seed margins were lower, primarily due to the impact of dry weather and delayed planting on our proprietary seed business in Brazil. We ended the third quarter with crop protection inventory down 13% compared to the prior year, as we focus on tightly managing working capital levels. Turning to potash, we generated adjusted EBITDA of 1.6 billion in the first nine months, down from the prior year due to lower benchmark prices. We increased potash production across our six mine network and lowered our controllable cash cost of production to $52 per ton over this period. The reduction in per time costs was primarily driven by higher production volumes and the benefits of mine automation investments. We sold record potash volumes in response to increased demand from our customers. We achieved this performance despite a short-term disruption in Canadian rail service during the third quarter highlighting the advantages of our industry-leading supply chain and effective planning by our commercial teams. In nitrogen, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $1.4 billion in the first nine months, down from the prior year, as the benefit of lower natural gas costs was more than offset by lower nitrogen prices in the first half of 2024. Our North American nitrogen assets remained very well positioned on the global cost curve, and we continue to progress reliability initiatives that have contributed to higher production volumes in 2024. Nitrogen selling prices in the third quarter increased compared to the prior year, reflecting tight global supply, in particular for ammonia. Phosphate fertilizer benchmark prices have remained strong, contributing to higher net selling prices in the third quarter compared to the prior year. weather-related events impacted our phosphate operating rates, resulting in lower sales volumes and incremental costs. Now turning to the market outlook for the remainder of 2024. We have seen a good start to the fall application season in North America, with crop nutrient sales in October above the historically strong levels achieved in the same month of 2023. The increase in demand has been driven by a relatively early harvest and the significant need to replenish soil nutrients following this year's record harvest. Global grain stocks remain below historical average levels, supporting export demand for North American crops and firm prices for key agricultural commodities such as rice, sugar and palm oil. Global potash consumption is projected at a record level in 2024, supported by strong agronomic need and relative affordability. We have raised our full year global shipment forecast to a range of 70 to 72 million tons and expect continued growth in 2025. We anticipate limited new global capacity additions next year, creating the potential for incremental supply tightness compared to 2024. Global nitrogen markets have remained firm in the fourth quarter due to continued Chinese urea export restrictions, ammonia supply outages, and project delays. U.S. nitrogen inventories are estimated to be well below historical average levels, which we expect will support strong demand for the fall season and into 2025. I will now turn it over to Mark to provide more details on our full year 2024 guidance assumptions and our capital allocation plans.