LSB Industries, Inc. Price & Performance (LXU)

Good morning, everyone. Joining me today are Mark Duhrman, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Cheryl McGuire, our Chief Financial Officer and Damian Renwick, our Chief Commercial Officer. Please note that today's call includes forward looking statements. These 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 actual results to differ materially. On the call, we will reference non GAAP results. Please see the press release in the Investors section of our website lspindustries.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.

Turning to Page four of our presentation, our adjusted EBITDA was up significantly year over year despite performing a planned turnaround during this year's fourth quarter versus no turnarounds last year. A key driver of the increase was the improved performance of our ammonium nitrate and nitric acid operations. Both of which had strong production and sales volume increases as compared to the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. During the fourth quarter, we continued to invest in the reliability and safety of our facilities. We completed a turnaround of the ammonia plants at our Cherokee facility that we expect to lead to increased production volumes during 2025. We are seeing the benefits of that work with daily production rates for urea, and UAN at their highest levels on record. We completed that turnaround injury free and in fact our Cherokee site finished 2024 with zero recordable injuries for the year. Additionally, our Baytown nitric acid facility had an injury free year and is now on its ninth year of no recordable injuries. Big congratulations to the teams at both of these facilities for exemplifying our Protect What Matters corporate value. [indiscernible] Lastly, we continue our efforts to advance our two energy transition projects, which I'll discuss later in the call.

I'll turn the call over to Damian who will review current market dynamics and pricing trends. Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Page five summarizes some key dynamics in our industrial end markets.

Our industrial business continues to be a core focus of our commercial strategy. The vast majority of our industrial sales are covered under contractual arrangements with ratable offtake Additionally, our industrial contracts typically utilize cost plus pricing arrangements to and enhance our visibility into our future results. These attributes underpin our motivation to grow the industrial side of our business.

Which we believe will ultimately accrue to the value of our company. We continue to benefit from healthy demand from our primary [indiscernible] More specifically, we have been ramping up our sales of ammonium nitrate solution to meet new contractual commitments. In terms of the broader mining market, we continue to be encouraged by strong copper production and pricing as copper continues to be supported by the build out of electrical infrastructure for technology applications. Gold prices are also at record highs, driven by continued global economic uncertainty which is supporting healthy U. S. Gold production. Our other primary industrial product category nitric acid, has also been performing well. Pricing and demand have been stable. And we see opportunities for growth with existing and new customers with our primary constraint being our production capacity. Auto production and homebuilding while not particularly robust, have remained stable for several years. Which translated into steady demand for our nitric acid business to remain in a sold out position. Notably, in December 2024, and despite persistent high interest rates, new housing starts picked up to the highest level since early twenty twenty four. Driven by strong demand for homes, and continued solid economic conditions.

On Page six of our presentation, you'll find a summary of current nitrogen market dynamics. UIN process has increased steadily since the summer field. A key factor in the strength has been the rise in urea prices, driven in part by robust demand from India. Additionally, UAN pricing benefited from a favorable trade balance where U. S. Imports remain low compared to recent history. As we enter the spring twenty twenty five planting season, encouraged by what we're seeing on the UAN landscape. With rising corn prices acting as a potential stimulant strong fertilizer demand. That coupled with tightening supply will likely translate into healthy demand and pricing The Tampa ammonia benchmark price remains above year ago levels. This is a result of numerous factors including ongoing delays in the commissioning of new domestic production capacity and a fairly tight The Tampa ammonia price strength continues to be in which is driving higher European marginal production costs The middle chart shows the gas price trend for the European TTF relative to the price for U. S. Henry Hub. European natural gas prices are significantly higher than year ago levels. The increase is driven by a combination of factors. Including geopolitical instability in The Middle East, and more recently cold winter weather in Europe resulting in depletion of storage.

While U. S. Natural gas prices are also higher than year ago levels, U. S. Ammonia producers continue to have a material competitive advantage compared to European producers. On Page seven, we show pricing trends and forecast for corn and other grain prices which drive our agricultural business. U. S. Corn prices rose over the past several months in reaction to revisions of USDA's outlook for grains, which called for small supplies and reduced ending stocks relative to their earlier estimates. Heading into the spring planting season, corn prices are close to $5 per bushel which we believe is a level that should incentivize farmers to apply a healthy level of nitrogen fertilizers. Finally, we continue to monitor developments in tariffs related to our end markets Should broad based tariffs on Canada and Mexico be implemented, foresee potential impacts to U. S. Nitrogen imports from Canada impacting pricing in both our ag and industrial markets. Anti retaliatory tariffs are also likely to have impacts on U. S. Exports with cost increases likely to be passed on to customers. We're also closely following the recent announced [indiscernible] on several fertilizer products sourced from Russia and Belarus.

This proposal will be considered by the European Parliament before it is adopted. If implemented, we believe this will encourage Russian nitrogen producers to divert volumes to other major import markets, including The U. S. Now, I'll turn the call over to Cheryl to discuss our fourth quarter financial results and our outlook. [indiscernible] Thanks, Damian, and good morning. On Page eight, you'll see a summary of our fourth quarter twenty twenty four financial results. Generated adjusted EBITDA of $38,000,000 This is a material improvement over the prior year fourth quarter despite an estimated $7,000,000 impact from the planned turnaround we completed at our Cherokee facilities ammonia plant in December, Page nine provides some color to the quarter over quarter results by bridging our fourth quarter twenty twenty three adjusted EBITDA of dollars Stronger sales volumes from improvements in plant reliability, higher ammonia prices and lower natural gas costs benefited us during the period. Notably, excluding the sales volume impact of our Cherokee turnaround, we estimate that our fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA would have been approximately dollars dollars These financial results reflect the positive impacts of the work we completed during 2024 to improve our manufacturing operations. We expect to make further progress on this front in 2025 as I will [indiscernible] Page 10 provides a summary of our key balance sheet and cash flow metrics.

Our cash flow balance remains strong and our 2024 year end leverage ratio was below our target level for a mid cycle pricing environment. At the same time, we've made significant investments in the reliability of our facilities as well as in capacity expansion, storage and logistics capabilities. Much of this investment is reflected in our $92,000,000 of CapEx for the full year 2024, of which approximately $25,000,000 was targeted towards growth with the balance to sustain reliable operations. In addition to investing in our manufacturing assets, over the two years ended 12/31/2024, we We've derisked our balance sheet by repurchasing approximately $222,000,000 in principal amount of our senior secured notes.

We also returned capital to stockholders through the repurchase of approximately 4,600,000.0 shares of our stock in the same period. Slide 11 summarizes the key considerations with respect to our The table in the upper left shows our estimated ammonia production and sales volumes for the year. We expect that our ammonia production will increase as compared to 2024, with the improvements made in the turnarounds we completed at prior and Cherokee facilities last year, This production should more than offset the impact of the thirty day turnaround planned at our El Dorado site during the second half of this year. Also, we expect the work completed in 2024 to yield meaningful increases in production and sales volumes of our downstream products, AN nitric acid and UAN. At the same time, you can see that we expect our ammonia sales volumes to decline in 2025 reflecting the upgrade of a greater portion of our ammonia production into higher margin downstream products. The slide also covers our estimates of variable and fixed plant expenses as well as SG and A and other expenses for 2025. Our expectations for fixed costs reflect investments we are making to achieve our production volume goals.

We We expect to see fixed costs trend down beginning in 2020 We expect our effective tax rate for the year to be approximately '25 However, we do not expect to be a material cash taxpayer in 2025 as we continue to utilize our NOLs. In the table at the bottom right side of the slide, you'll see that we expect to invest approximately $80,000,000 to $90,000,000 of CapEx in our facilities during '20 That includes $60,000,000 to $65,000,000 for annual and S and reliability CapEx and $20,000,000 to $25,000,000 earmarked for growth investments including enhanced logistics and storage capabilities for our growing AN business. As Damian pointed out, urea prices are right rising in The U. S, resulting in a corresponding rise in UAN pricing. A trend we believe will continue through the forthcoming application season. 2024. This is largely the result of lower inventory levels heading into 2025, following our turnarounds in the final months of the year. With that said, as indicated on this slide, we do expect the volume uplift for the full year 2025. Through the first two months of the year, our cost of gas has averaged approximately $3.85 per MMBtu. This is consistent with our expectations for 2025 natural gas prices to be higher relative to 2024.

We previously discussed our focus on upgrading and in increasing amount of ammonia to capture additional margins. Page 12 illustrates the favorable sales volume trends we're driving in our major major product groups adjusted for the impact of turnarounds The first chart shows the increase in AN and nitric acid sales volumes recognized in 2024 as a result of our reliability and [indiscernible] to our downstream operations The middle chart shows UAN sales volumes, which despite the impact of turnarounds at both our Pryor and Cherokee facilities were flat in 20 strong performance results in part from the AREEX LSB Excluding the impact of turnarounds shown in the white and blue stripes section of the middle bar, estimate that UAN sales volumes would have been up significantly. Our projection for a further increase in UAN volume in 2025 reflects the full year benefit of the new capacity as well as improved plant reliability. The chart on the far right shows a downward trend in ammonia sales volume. In this case, a down into the right trend is a good thing. Turning to Page 13, you'll find a summary of the multiple initiatives we have underweighted drive earnings growth. First, over the course of 2024, we talked about our Q margin enhanced projects that we expect to allow us to produce an incremental 75,000 tons of UAN annually and the construction of an additional 5,000 tons of nitric acid store at our El Dorado Both projects were completed in the second half of twenty twenty four.

We expect to see the full year incremental EBITDA benefit in 2025. Second, our stated goal of increasing our ammonia production volumes represents an important earnings lever and while we recognize the work performed during the 2024 turnarounds, We expect the turnaround of our Eldorado ammonia plants in the second half of this year to move us further towards our ammonia production goals. Third, during 2024, we put a great deal of focus on improving the reliability of our downstream production. Are pleased with our progress in 2024 and have ongoing initiatives to capture additional production that we Lastly, we believe we can generate meaningful incremental earnings by driving efficiencies and focusing on profit optimization. Capturing them will be a focus for 2025.

Additionally, our spending levels have been elevated over the past several years as we've made investments aimed at increasing production, the MAX expect these costs to reach an inflection point in 2025 and begin trending downward in 2026.

One additional point to keep in mind is that on top of these value creation activities, we also have the expectation of $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 of incremental annual EBITDA once we have our CCS project at our El Dorado facility complete. And now I'll turn it back over to Mark.

Thank you, Cheryl. Page 14 pertains to our low carbon ammonia projects. The EPA's approval of our Class six permit application remains the key gating item for our Eldorado CCS project. We continue to have meaningful dialogue with the EPA regarding their technical review to provide the most site specific data possible to the EPA, we plan to drill deep injection well as the stratigraphic well. We expect that this approach will decrease the overall timeline and we estimate our first CO2 injections would begin in the latter half of twenty twenty six. In May of twenty twenty four, we announced our first offtake customer for low carbon ammonium nitrate solution that will produce at our El Dorado facility.

We've begun shipping conventional AN to that customer and will transition the low carbon product upon startup of the operations. With respect to our Houston Ship Channel project, following the completion of Pre Feed in late twenty twenty four, our focus has been on having price discovery discussions with potential offtake costs Those discussions have centered around both demand and price levels for low carbon ammonia we believe that higher volume multiyear demand for low carbon ammonia exists providing that the price per ton is less than $600 We are working with our partners on gaining knowledge to assess all including the evaluation of alternative configurations to ensure our project obtains the required customer demand and generates our targeted return on investment, If this assessment continues to support our assumptions, about the economics of the project, our next step will be a full feed study. We continue to believe that the global momentum to reduce CO2 emissions will drive new demand for low carbon ammonia. What we don't know is the timing of that new demand. Therefore, we are trying to be disciplined in our approach to the market and how we invest capital. We expect to provide a more definitive update on this project on our first quarter conference call.

As we move into 2025, we are excited about the prospects for further transforming our company increasing value for our stockholders. We accomplished a great deal during 2024 towards improving the reliability and production capacity of our facilities and we expect to make more progress on this front this year. We continue to shift our sales mix towards higher margin downstream products and to drive efficiencies across the business to enhance our profitability. Collectively, we believe that these initiatives will translate into significant incremental EBITDA. At the same time, we continue to navigate our low carbon ammonia projects through the necessary phases of development. While certain aspects of them are largely out of our control, particularly the EPA Class six permit process, as I mentioned earlier, we are firm believers in low carbon ammonia's place in the global energy transition landscape. And are confident in our ability to be a meaningful player in this evolving market in the coming years. Before we open it up to questions, I'd like to mention that we will be participating in the following virtual events in the coming months.

The New York Stock Exchange Basic Materials Day on March 11 and a Granite Research Management Conference Series on April 3 and April 4.

We look forward to speaking with some of you at those events. That concludes our prepared remarks. And we will now be happy to take your questions.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. The first question is from David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning. Mark, you mentioned a $600 price for low carbon as maybe the key price for customers.

Why is that the right price for them? What's the implications underpinning that price?

Well, I don't know if it's the right price for them. I mean, they've got to deal with their own customers and what they think that they can pay. But just from our information out in the marketplace from all the conversations we've had There's been a lot of talk about price banded in the marketplace and we're pretty confident now saying that got to be under $600 a ton FOB to really transact Understood. And it looks like we'll get some tariffs on Canada shortly. Could you frame that opportunity for yourself and other U. S. Producers if that comes to pass? I'm sorry, I didn't understand the first part of the question.

In terms of the Canadian Canadian tariffs, could you frame the potential opportunity for U. S. Based producers if those tariffs come into place? Damian, do you want to take that one?

Yes, I'll take that. So good morning, David. I think There is probably some opportunity there. On the the different molecules Canada exports is a net exporter of ammonia to The U. S. I think it's going to be difficult for for them to find a home for that product outside of The U. S. So that would should likely increase prices here as they either seek to pass it on, but then I think over time it will probably Net out somewhat as as they get pressure from other import sources, And then UAN as well, they're a net exporter into The U. S. [indiscernible] think there's a lot more optionality on UAN And so while we might see some short term price benefits that will probably level out over time as different trade routes are found.

Thank you. The next question is from Lucas Beaumont from UBS. Please go ahead.

Great.

Thank you. Yes. So I just wanted to ask about the Houston Ship Channel projects.

So I mean, when we look at the prewall cost curve, that was kind of 40% or more below where the current outlook is. Given the uncertainty in Europe about this potentially shifting at least somewhat lower, I mean, I don't think anyone sort of assumed it's going to go back to those levels. But probably come down somewhat. I mean, just how are you kind of thinking about that in the context of the economics of the project and sort of how you would factor that in when you assess whether to go forward or not?

Hey, Lucas. How are you? So I think we've been pretty public on we're not going to build a plant and hope they come. Been going on over the last number of months have really been conversations with potential off takers. And really trying to understand at what price point could we transact [indiscernible] stated volumes, long term contracts, right? So offtake for seven, ten, twelve years so that we can underpin a project. Because without that, I think we're not certainly we won't take the risk to build a plant and as I said hope they come. So I think when we think about the capital cost today, as I said in my prepared comments, we are looking at some different configurations. And ways that we might be able to bring that capital cost down in hopes that we can get below the $600 a ton that we could offer on a long term contract to customers. If we can't, then I think we'll sit on the sidelines for now and we'll wait till the market unfolds. In the meantime though, we'll continue to have conversations with partners and off takers and at such time that we think it makes sense to to really move forward on the project.

We've done some work and we're certainly gained a lot of knowledge on what it would take to get a project done.

All right. Thanks. And just I guess on your outlook for Corrosio Mine production, so are you projecting that you're going to get back to 87% or so in operating rates this year, which is a good year on year progress. So it's just how do you kind of see the pathway from here forward to kind of drive more volumes out of the system there over the next couple of years?

Yes, that 87% I think is low just because we've got a large turnaround at our El Dorado facility this year. We've been running sort of between 9092% ex planned activities, planned turnaround. And so I think the real focus this year and we brought in some outside resources to help us is to really move those rates forward. And so by the end of next year, so the end of twenty twenty six, would hope to be much closer to that 95% on a consistent basis Right. Thanks. And then just one from your expense outlook for the year. So I just I noticed you guys have increased your assumption on the gas consumption per ton of ammonia to 34 this year from 32 previously Is it is that being driven by the increased sort of upgrade product usage? Or is something else kind of driving the change there?

Yes. Good morning. I think the the main change there is just updating it to include both the process gas the fuel gas Lucas, that's kind of the main things there.

Great. Thanks very much.

The next question is from Laurence Alexander from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi, it's Dan Rizzo on for Laurence. After the El Dorado turnaround in the second half of this year, should we think about turnarounds and say after that in 2026, 2027? Are you done for a while?

Or will there be more, as you kind of try to expand capacity further? Outside of the low carbon project, of course?

Sure. Good morning.

So think the way we think about turnarounds we have generally speaking, we want to be on a three to four year full turnaround schedule, right? And you may have some outages small outages through those years to work on some other projects.

But so I think we'll finish El Dorado, we'll go through the El Dorado turnaround this year. We would expect El Dorado to not have a turnaround for another three years. Our Cherokee ammonia plant went through a turnaround in 2024 they've not scheduled for another ammonia turnaround until 2027. And then prior actually went through a full turnaround including ammonia this year But they will go on another two years. So until 2026, and then they'll move to a three year turnaround.

Okay, thanks. And then you mentioned some with supply with some delays in possibly a new ammonia. I was just wondering if you're seeing I don't know, move a little bit downstream and you're seeing additional UAN or UA capacity coming online in North America or elsewhere?

No, not really. Most of the talk and most of the focus has really been on low carbon ammonia So in The U. S, we really haven't seen much certainly no new build of urea UAN and expansions they may be on the margin some expansions.

We did an expansion this past year at prior and there's another opportunity to take a look at a further prior, but we're not finished with our analysis yet on whether the economics make sense for us. Thank you very much.

Sure. The next question is from Andrew Wong from RBC Capital Markets.

Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning.

Can I just understand a little bit more on the $600 per ton number, is that where your current cost estimates looks like [indiscernible] get a good return for the Houston Ship Channel project and it's also where it's acceptable for customers as well as that?

Is that that pivot point?

Well, good morning, Andrew.

So what I would say is I think that's a level that we think we could get the appropriate offtake to make us comfortable to move forward on a project. Would be a price of 600 of less than $600 a ton.

However, I think our capital costs, I mean, where there's been other projects that have been announced including some of our competitors where capital costs continue to go up up pretty significantly. So you have to think about how do you get a return on that. And as we sit here [indiscernible] after going through our pre feed, and then having these conversations with off takers, at the current capital cost that we have for our project, we don't think that there's anything transactable. So we are now working with our partners to figure out is there a way that we can reconfigure that project to bring down our capital cost and our cost of operations so that we can get below that $600 a ton. So we do think that there's a possibility, otherwise we wouldn't spend the time to really go through this. We're not there yet. And as I mentioned, I think we'll be in a position to really have a more meaningful conversation and to talk about it publicly on our first quarter conference call at the April.

Okay. That makes a lot of sense.

On the EPA With the changeover in administration and previously you had already said like it seemed like their resources were constrained. Has there been any change in their to process permits and how does that impact the timeline on Eldorado?

No, we haven't seen that We're still having ongoing conversations with them [indiscernible] actually favorably disposed to some of the changes So either the new Head of the EPA, Lee Zeldin, I think, we feel like you'll be a good steward for the EPA, and focus on the right things and sort of streamlining regulation, which I think in general is probably a good thing and certainly in this process for us is a good thing. The new Head of Region six office down in Dallas, the EPA Dallas office, is actually someone that is known to our team. He's the former Deputy Secretary of Energy of Oklahoma. So we think that that's a positive for us. So hoping that after some initial a slowdown or sideways movement here that once things settle down, we'll see we'll start to see some real progress So I think I think we're feeling pretty good about some of the the changes in the EPA and where it's going. Okay, great. And if I can just ask some more on ammonium nitrate, it looks like The U. S. Midwest and Southern Plains benchmark prices haven't quite kept up with what we're even seeing in NOLA or or with urea in general, why is that?

And what do you expect for H. Dan pricing this year?

Yes. Hi, Andrew. I think what what you're seeing is some changes in the supply and demand balance here in The U. S. So over the last couple of years, some major major off takers of AN on the ag side have switched away due to Reasons security concerns or high insurance costs coverage costs, things like that. And so they've chosen to move to alternative products. And And the supply balance here in The U. S. Hasn't really changed. So you're just seeing natural play there as we're sort of competing also against cheaper imports that are coming in. And that's really what's driving that pricing dynamic.

Okay. Appreciate The next question is from Rob Maguire from Granite Research.

Good morning, guys. Nice quarter.

Thanks, Rob. So could you just Mark, if you're seeing any updates on European legislation coming down the pipe, just shifting the focus from zero to low carbon ammonia?

Well, there is a lot of talk It's interesting because as we talk to potential offtakers, a lot of them are European, right? So we're getting some on the ground pretty good information. So would say there is a lot of talk about that shifting policy And a lot of it has to do in it's kind of flowing through in some of the election results that you're seeing over in Europe.

I think they're dealing Europe in general is dealing with some of the same things I think that we're dealing here, right? So pushback on inflation pushback on just overall cost, pushback on tax basis and the ability to fund some of these projects.

So I do think that Europe is maybe, revisiting their policies and rather than just going green, low carbon or blue is becoming something that's much more high on the list One thing that we're watching, there is a lot of talk CBAM is actually supposed to January '6, so there is a lot of conversation now about pushing that back a year.

Or even some people trying to lobby to push it back two years. So I think that is something one thing that we'll all have to keep an eye on because if that's the case, then there's not as much pressure on European potential uses of ammonia to really switch to ammonia that may be delayed a year or two.

That's helpful. Thank you. And with the Trump administration announcing its his intent to withdraw from The U. S. Paris excuse me, just withdraw The U. S. Overall from the Paris agreement Are you seeing customers becoming less interested in participating in 02/1930 carbon reduction goals? Are they just as interested? I think I don't I'm not sure that that's a catalyst for the interest or noninterest. I think the catalyst is when you really cut down to it all, what's the financial impact to people? And what does that do to their business? I'd like to think that people are doing it for the environmental benefit of it and I don't want to say that people aren't. But the reality is this is all financially based. If you can't If you can't use it to keep costs flat and keep profitability or make more money, then ultimately most people aren't going to do that. Don't think it'd be hard for most people to go to their shareholders and say, we're going to make less money because we want to be good environmental stewards. I mean, there's some reality to that but it's and I said this in the prepared comments, we are a big believer in the energy transition we do think that demand will materialize over time.

But as I said, what that timing is, is really the wildcard here. That's helpful. And just one last question. Just on the stronger fourth quarter AN sales volumes, Was that a function of say reliability increasing capacity Or are you actually shifting downstream production in that direction just due to the strong demand?

Yes, it's probably a bit of both, Rob. We're seeing some good uptake on the industrial side with ANS solution. And we've been able to capitalize that with growing reliability of our plants. So as you know, we try and upgrade every molecule we can. And the improved liability is allowing us to to do so and then also leveraging some really good relationships we've got with our customer base and they can take the additional volumes.

Yes. Just to add to that, I mean, I want to give kudos to our manufacturing team and our commercial team. I mean, we we've talked about this before. We have a real big focus not just on improving the reliability, right? We spent lots of time talking about that, but really optimizing our production And at the end of the day, it's about taking that product that we produce and trying to to make the most money, right? So I think ultimately the commercial team is really doing a good job on focusing on You'll see that more. I think the slide in our presentation really points that out. We've talked about it and I think it was important for us to just kind of pictorially show that we are making progress there and it's coming through in the results.

Appreciate that. Thanks guys. Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mark Berman for closing comments.

Well, as always, thank you so much for participating in the conference call. We appreciate everyone's interest. If there's further questions, feel free to give either Fred Bonacour, Cheryl McGuire or myself a call We look forward to seeing you at some of the events that we have going forward. Thanks and have a great day. [indiscernible]