AdvanSix Inc. ($ASIX)

Good day, and welcome to the AdvanSix First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Adam Kressel, Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Danielle. Good morning, and welcome to AdvanSix's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. With me here today are President and CEO, Erin Kane; Senior Vice President and CFO, Patrick Day; and Vice President of Corporate Finance and Strategic FP&A, Chris Gramm. This call and webcast, including any non-GAAP reconciliations, are available on our website at investors.advansix.com. Note that elements of this presentation contain forward-looking statements that are based on our best view of the world and of our business as we see it today. Those elements can change, and the actual results could differ materially from those projected, and we ask that you consider them in that light. We refer you to the forward-looking statements included in our press release and earnings presentation. In addition, we identify the principal risks and uncertainties that affect our performance in our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K as further updated in subsequent filings with the SEC. This morning, we will review our financial results for the first quarter of 2026 and share our outlook for our key product lines and end markets. Finally, we'll leave time for your questions at the end. So with that, I'll turn the call over to AdvanSix's President and CEO, Erin Kane.

Thanks, Adam, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us here today for our quarterly call. As you saw in our press release, the AdvanSix team navigated a number of headwinds to deliver a solid first quarter performance, including the earlier winter storm-related impacts and new geopolitical challenges amid continued subdued industrial end market demand. In the quarter, we generated 7% sales growth year-over-year, supported by improvements in chemical intermediates volume and plant nutrients market pricing, partially offsetting the margin impacts driven by increased sulfur and natural gas costs. We are executing with a focus to recover inflationary raw material input costs by leveraging both our pass-through formula and freely negotiated pricing mechanisms. I'd like to thank all of our teammates who contributed to successfully maintaining safe operations during the winter storm earlier this year. While the earnings impact related to this event came in just above the high end of our anticipated range, we were able to save $3 million of planned turnaround expense for the year. Looking ahead, we anticipate significant sequential earnings and cash flow improvement into the second quarter. We are in a solid position as the domestic planting season progresses and continue to operate amid a tightening acetone global supply and demand environment and a modestly recovering nylon industry. We're maintaining a disciplined focus on cost productivity, capital spending, turnaround execution and full year free cash flow generation. We continue to expect full year CapEx in the range of $75 million to $95 million with targeted allocation of nearly 20% of that towards high-return growth investments. We also continue to expect debt leverage ratios near the low end of our target range of 1 to 2.5x by the end of this year. Key to our strategy is a keen focus on controllable levers to support through-cycle profitability and cash conversion while progressing targeted growth strategies and initiatives. We announced yesterday an exciting new opportunity to expand our integrated ammonia platform at our Hopewell, Virginia site to supply the growing regional diesel exhaust fluid or DEF market. I'll share more about this later in the call. Lastly, effective April 27, we welcome Patrick Day as our new Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Pat has tremendous experience establishing corporate and financial strategies that accelerate growth and shareholder value, and we look forward to his expertise as we advance in our next chapter. I'd like to also give thanks to Chris Gramm for his commitment and support during his time as Interim CFO over the last year. With that, I'll turn it to Chris to discuss the financials.

Thanks, Erin. I'm now on Slide 4 to discuss our results for the quarter. Sales of $404 million in the quarter increased approximately 7% versus the prior year, comprised of 6% volume growth and 1% favorable price. Sales volume growth was primarily driven by favorable chemical intermediates sales. Market-based pricing improved by 3%, primarily driven by an increase in plant nutrients, reflecting higher nitrogen pricing amid increased sulfur input costs. Raw material pass-through pricing was down 2% following a net cost decrease in benzene and propylene, which is a major input to cumene, our largest raw material and key feedstock to our products. Adjusted EBITDA was $5 million, down $47 million from last year. This was primarily driven by the absence of insurance proceeds from the prior year of $26 million, the unfavorable impact of higher sulfur and natural gas raw material prices, higher utility expenses and $11 million of winter storm-related impacts. On a sequential basis compared to the fourth quarter, higher sales volume growth supported by improved operational performance was more than offset by escalating raw material input prices. From a free cash flow perspective, the first quarter represents a seasonal use of cash as expected, primarily due to the timing of cash payments for CapEx following the prior quarter outages. The absence of insurance proceeds was also a meaningful driver of the year-over-year change. We continue to anticipate sequential improvement into the second quarter and expect the second half of the year to be a source of cash to achieve our full year expectations. Now let's turn to Slide 5. On this slide, we are detailing our quarterly sales contributions by product line as well as price and volume indicators, both year-over-year and sequentially. In light of the significant raw material inflation and the mix of our formula or index-based pricing mechanisms, we did not fully cover those costs in the first quarter. However, we anticipate recouping a large portion of that shortfall in the second quarter, particularly into the heart of the domestic planting season for plant nutrients. Starting with Nylon Solutions, resin volumes improved sequentially on improved operational performance, while caprolactam volumes moderated in a soft demand environment, particularly for carpet applications. We saw a higher export mix in the first quarter of 2026, which is expected to continue in the near term. With our advantaged position, we are evaluating export opportunities to ensure the best economic output for the integrated enterprise. Domestic pricing steadily increased overall, supported in part by higher input costs. Plant nutrient volumes were flat to down, both year-over-year and sequentially in the first quarter, while pricing strength continued. In the early parts of the year, we witnessed more cautious buying behavior down the value chain and a more risk-averse sentiment from customers amid the higher input costs and rapidly rising nitrogen prices. And lastly, chemical intermediate sales improved on the back of volume improvements year-over-year. In acetone, as we mentioned on the first quarter 2025 earnings call, downstream MMA saw extended plant outages last year. In the first quarter of 2026, we observed more normalized operating rates down the value chain supporting demand. In addition, given pricing dynamics and trade flows across our key products in this portfolio, we delivered on opportunistic spot sales domestically and in the export markets.

Thanks, Chris. I'm now on Slide 6 to discuss what we're seeing across our major product lines. Our diversified end market exposure continues to be a strategic advantage, providing resilience across cycles. Agricultural and fertilizer remains our largest end market. As we sit here today, our domestic granular sales for this fertilizer year are now expected to be near record levels, but closer to flat as compared to the last fertilizer year. While the fertilizer year started off with optimism and a strong fall fill, as we've discussed in previous calls, buying has become more cautious given continued challenged fundamentals, including farmer profitability and input affordability, cold weather to start the spring and drought conditions. What that means is we are now selling in-season tons with the ability to work coverage of sulfur input costs, which is important because, amid a higher global nitrogen pricing environment on the heels of the conflict in the Middle East, our ammonium sulfate pricing actions are largely offsetting sulfur input costs rather than driving margin expansion in this current context. We know that growers value the cost of nutrition. In fact, ammonia for direct application is currently a relatively attractive value for growers. While we are not a large merchant ammonia supplier, we have seen good demand and netbacks and have been maximizing our ammonia availability this spring while slightly moderating ammonium sulfate production. So while we capture the benefit from the advantage between U.S. natural gas and global nitrogen prices, we also contend with the impact of sulfur input costs versus the sulfur value proposition we deliver to farmers. On tightened global supply, sulfur quarterly prices settled at a record $655 per long ton in the second quarter of 2026, with current spot prices trading even higher than those levels. That represents over 30% sequential increase and a roughly 140% surge year-over-year, so a meaningful increase that the industry is experiencing. Moving to our key nylon end markets across building and construction as well as engineering plastics, North American demand has not materially changed. Global pricing has moved up with capacity rationalization and raw material shortages in Europe, lower operating rates in China, logistics constraints and higher input costs. Our industry pricing mechanisms work to pass through changes in core raw materials, notably benzene, but also natural gas and sulfur. Given global trade flow dynamics, reduced imports have created opportunities to gain share. In this environment, it's critical for our business to remain agile through pricing and mix. We continue to execute our plan, including taking advantage of export opportunities as they arise, increasing prices to offset cost increases and reducing inventory levels for the nylon resin to align with our current market conditions. In Chemical Intermediates, phenol demand remains soft overall, driving lower global operating rates, coupled with reduced acetone imports into the U.S., all of which are supporting tightening acetone supply and demand dynamics. Acetone price increases have been implemented in the industry to keep pace with rising propylene costs. Spreads have held near cycle averages, and we continue to anticipate that for the full year of 2026. Let's move to Slide 7. We were excited to announce yesterday that we have entered into a process design and licensing agreement to assess expansion of our integrated ammonia platform to enable the domestic manufacturing of DEF, a critical emissions control product used across on- and off-highway diesel applications. As background, DEF is an EPA-mandated additive for reducing NOx emissions from diesel engines, with strong and growing demand driven primarily by Class 8 vehicle usage in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Demand for DEF continues to grow to meet environmental standards and as regulatory requirements expand across transportation, construction, agriculture and industrial equipment fleets. The AdvanSix Hopewell facility provides a strong foundation for expanding domestic manufacturing at the site and already produces all required DEF inputs. This potential expansion would complement existing manufacturing capabilities at this site with full continued commitment to the production of ammonium sulfate fertilizer to serve the U.S. farming industry. Our geographic position uniquely enables reliable supply to meet growing demand in a market currently served by imports and production from other domestic regions. Our investments over time with our ammonia unit operation have paid off in terms of our reliability and output. This project has the potential to unlock further value from our existing assets through increased optionality to serve a broadened customer base. We will advance through detailed engineering and development phases with final investment decision targeted for the first half of 2027. Additional updates will be provided as engineering, commercial and financial milestones are achieved and regulatory approvals are secured. We anticipate a multiyear capital investment supporting attractive financial returns following expected operational start-up in 2029, which align with our long-term value creation objectives and commitment to disciplined capital allocation. Let's turn to Slide 8 before moving to Q&A. AdvanSix offers a compelling investment thesis with value drivers supporting through-cycle profitability and sustainable performance. Our strategic initiatives, unique combination of assets and business model are core to our durable competitive advantage and long-term positioning. Our global low-cost position and vertically integrated caprolactam production serves us well. In addition, ammonia and sulfuric acid platform integration, coupled with a leading technology position, underpins how we win in plant nutrients. We are progressing our sustained ammonium sulfate growth program and have now announced another high-return investment opportunity to serve the growing DEF market. These capabilities, combined with increasing asset operational agility and diversified product and end market mix position us to navigate cycles and capitalize on emerging opportunities. We remain focused on delivering on controllable levers, including our non-manpower fixed cost savings program, risk-based prioritization of our capital investments, continued working capital discipline and 45Q carbon capture tax credits to support improved cash flow generation. With that, Adam, let's move to Q&A.

Thanks, Erin. Danielle, can you please open the line for questions?

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Peter -- from Pete Osterland from Truist Securities.

Just wanted to start on the DEF ammonia project. I guess do you have a rough estimate you can share for the capital intensity you expect for this project between now and 2029? And maybe how does the return hurdle you're targeting at this point compare to other programs you've had like SUSTAIN and the IRRs you referenced there?

Thanks, Pete. I appreciate the question. At this time, I would share that we would expect the CapEx for this program certainly to be larger than our SUSTAIN program. Hopefully, you can appreciate that while we're investigating and doing our FEED process, we are having a number of negotiations with folks. And at this time, we would keep the actual CapEx range a bit confidential and more to come there. But you can think about it, it certainly is a larger program than SUSTAIN. That said, our internal targets, as we've shared for high-return growth and cost savings projects are 20-plus percent IRR hurdle rates. And this project fits well into that range. And certainly, we're here today and certainly announcing it yesterday, given the fact that this continues to demonstrate real great potential for the company.

Very helpful. And then kind of switching gears, I guess, just when you think about the level of sulfur pricing that you're guiding to for the second quarter, I mean, is it your expectation at this point that prices should be at or above that level for the remainder of the year? I mean, even if the Iran conflict ended very soon, I guess, how long would you expect at this point until you start seeing some easing for the dynamics that are driving higher prices in that market?

Yes. I mean, certainly, you're probably aware that the spot prices continue to trade higher than the Q2 settlement. Certainly, as we think about the Q3 settlement, that will come in a couple of months, right? It's settled by 2 large phosphate producers here in the U.S. and our 3 largest suppliers. But I think consistent with what you're probably hearing with others in this space, even if things were to -- we have a resolution in the Middle East, there is quite a bit of time certainly for things to settle back out. I would share that security supply is not a consideration for us being that we're buying here in North America. Certainly, there is a lot of sulfur, 50% or so world's supply comes from the Middle East, but we're in a great spot being a North American producer and purchaser here. But certainly, we would anticipate now that it's hard to predict, but pricing probably does stay a bit higher for longer. And then we'll have to see what really it does for demand into its largest applications, right? Just over 50% of the world's sulfur goes into phosphate fertilizer. So watching that will be key compared to what we see. But we feel good about certainly our sequential opportunity to recover, and that's been our focus really as we are progressing now in Q2 as we move forward.

The next question comes from David Silver from Freedom Capital Markets.

Let me just get my questions in order here. I did want to go back to maybe the sulfur question and a couple of your comments regarding ammonium sulfate. So I think you mentioned that ammonium sulfate prices are increasing, but more or less in line with the rise in sulfur costs. And I'm just wondering, you talked about kind of balanced markets, whereas, I mean, for most nitrogen fertilizer products, it's somewhat different supply-demand aspect. It's very tight. And you do have a very strong vertically integrated production structure. Just wondering what kind of in-season flexibility you think you have to maybe exploit some pretty big, I don't know, price differentials amongst the different nitrogen fertilizer products. So you've looked at these markets for quite a while. Why not tilt or lean on direct ammonia sales and a little bit less of the ammonium sulfate here?

Thanks for the question, Dave. And certainly, hopefully, that was teased out a bit in our remarks. We are a big producer and a leader in ammonium sulfate, and that is certainly a place here. And as you say, with ammonium sulfate, we are and do get that differential certainly between where nitrogen is priced in our U.S. natural gas position. We also can have that directly in our ammonia sales as well. I would say right now, it's a moderate lever, right? Certainly, we are and can pull back a bit, right, on our ammonium sulfate production. We continue, as we shared last year, to produce ammonia at historically high levels. And then certainly, relative to what we are targeting to sell would be consistent with that. So again, farmers need NPK, they need that, right? There is a value proposition for sulfur, and we continue to focus on ensuring that they have their needs met there as well. And -- but certainly a little bit different than perhaps historical when nitrogen has moved and you have the spread. This situation right now compared to perhaps Ukraine and Russia definitely continues to just have to contend with the sulfur. But certainly, farmers do seem to be sticking more with N, and we're looking to take advantage of that too and really wrestle -- not wrestle, but provide the opportunity that we have off our assets to do so.

Okay. Just -- I'm going to follow up with a couple of targeted questions. Firstly, you did talk about the sulfur market. You did talk about your positioning, able to get all the sulfur that you require. But there is -- I don't know, I would -- I'm guessing it's unprecedented, but there is this gap that you touched on between the spot price of sulfur and the contract price of sulfur. And I just wanted to clarify that AdvanSix is able to purchase at the contract price, the lower contract price under your current supply agreements and rather than some mix of contract and spot pricing. Just if you could just kind of touch on your supply arrangements for sulfur and in particular, how tight is the relationship between the U.S. contract price versus having to go out into the spot market?

I can confirm that we purchased entirely on the contract market..

Okay. Great. I did want to follow up maybe on the DEF project, very interesting project and leveraging some of that -- some of your capabilities. I read the release the other day and then I read your comments in the prepared remarks. But certainly, you're going to be adding some urea melt capacity there. Will you also be debottlenecking ammonia? In other words, are you going to have a higher ammonia capacity once the project is all finished than you currently have? Or how should I just kind of think about that in terms of allocating ammonia amongst the nylon, the fertilizer and now the DEF.

Yes. So certainly, this next phase does not -- this project doesn't require an ammonia expansion. Certainly, given our geographical location, our integrated platform, we always look at marginal ammonia debottlenecks. But for the DEF, we do not need to expand ammonia for the purposes of the project.

Okay. Very good. And then last one for me, but I would like to just get an update on the Section 45Q credit. So you did talk about it, but I'm guessing that the 2025 filings for roughly $20 million that, that has not been received yet? Just kind of an update on that? And then what -- do you anticipate filing for an additional tranche of the credits to which you're entitled in the current fiscal year? And should we think about that maybe in the $20 million range as well?

Yes, David, thanks for that question. As you can imagine, there's been a lot of continuing activity around 45Q. We are -- have the audit process underway with the IRS for the 2018 through the 2020 years of credits. We anticipate field work being ramped up in the second quarter and we're making good progress on the audit itself. In terms of the timing of the cash and while $20 million was the sort of full value, we've already received $2 million of that in prior years. So we're anticipating another $18 million. We would expect the proceeds for that in the second half, subject to the IRS approval process, but we're expecting that in the second half. In terms of the life cycle assessment for the '21 year and following, we've submitted those to the DOE, and we're working now with the DOE and the IRS to get those certified. So just as a reminder, we've been at this for over 5 years. And so this process just takes some time as we work through with the government to get their approval and the due diligence that they do. So hopefully, those will be coming shortly, but that's the process and where we are. So...

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Erin Kane for closing remarks.

Thank you all again for your time and interest this morning. As we move through the remainder of 2026 and navigate a dynamic environment, we are well positioned to support our strategic priorities as a U.S.-based integrated manufacturer aligned to domestic supply chains and energy markets as well as a diverse set of end market applications. With that, we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Stay safe and be well.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.