CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (CF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
June 13, 2023
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Richard Garchitorena
analystGood afternoon, everybody. Thank you all for attending. My name is Richard Garchitorena. I cover the ag space here at Wells Fargo. Today, it's my pleasure to welcome CF Industries to the stage. Joining me today is Chris Bohn, Senior Vice President and CFO; and Bert Frost, Senior Vice President, sales, market development and supply chain. So thanks again for coming.
Unknown Executive
executiveThank you.
Richard Garchitorena
analystAnd maybe I'll kick it off just asking how you see the market right now?
Bert Frost
executiveI'll take it. And when you're looking at where we are in the cycle with North America planting season over. And so when you look at the kind of the bell curve demand for nitrogen, it starts in March, extends through April, May and then declines in June, and we enter the next season, which is the growth cycle for the crops and then a refill cycle for the retail wholesale trading sector that are our customers. And so we've had a very positive spring, 90 million acres of corn, good applications of nitrogen. I think as we felt through or went through the application season saw falling pricing, so some increased demand. And that then has pulled down retail inventory. So we see a good back half coming towards us, and now we'll move to the Southern Hemisphere for demand for Brazil, Argentina, Australia, India. But I think structurally, where we were compared to 2022 and 2023, we've seen prices fall dramatically from $1,000 a ton of ammonia to $400 urea, from $800 a ton to $300 in NOLA for -- in the forward market. But parallel to that, we've also seen a drop in natural gas cost from $6 to $2. So on a profitability position, we were very positive where we are going into the back half and that margin opportunity for the company for a North American producer going forward.
Christopher Bohn
executiveWell, I guess just on that, as Bert's talking about the differential between the U.S. and other countries on a gas perspective. It's really when you look at CF, that differential is really embedded in what our implied margin is based on the fact that North America is an import-dependent for nitrogen. So when you look at CF Industries, for those of you who may not be as familiar, we do about 10 million tons of gross ammonia production each year, of which we upgrade into about 20 million product tons. And a lot of times, people ask questions, well, how much are you going to produce this year versus the prior year given maybe different fundamentals in the market. And the answer is the same every year. And it's because we're a low-cost producer globally. And as a result of that, we run our plants at the highest utilization as we can. And we're really -- as long as we have that spread between where Henry Hub gases that Bert mentioned, which is around $2 today and really TTF, which is around $10 today, we're able to have an implied margin based on that plus the transport cost that you see in order to import product into North America here at CF.
Richard Garchitorena
analystGreat. And maybe just touching on the cost advantage that you enjoy, what do you think in terms of global utilization rates? Obviously, in Europe, they were pressured last year, but prices have come down, natural gas prices have come down and you have your own U.K. operations, which are still curtailed. Maybe talk about where we stand in terms of European supply.
Bert Frost
executiveSo as we went through 2022, that was the decentral question. As gas prices went through the roof, $50, $60, $70 an MMBtu and North America was $5, $6, $7 an MMBtu, incredibly difficult for Europe to operate. You saw absolute shutdowns and slowdowns or operating at minimum rates. So what happened to backfill? A lot of imports needed to come into Europe to supply the farm-based demand through the farm cycle. And as we went through 2022, gas prices started to moderate as LNG went to Europe from the United States or Qatar or other places or LNG that was destined for Asia was diverted to Europe. And so the surprise was with a warm winter and adequate supply, they met their energy needs and probably have enough, which has been reflected in price where pricing has fallen to the $10 that Chris mentioned. And so a lot of capacity came offline last year. And then this year has started to come back online. And I think for the European position, they are the marginal producer and they will be impacted by these oscillations, whether that be weather or gas or energy prices and even fertilizer demand for the farming sector there. And so we've been a net exporter to Europe working with our European partners. And we also, as you mentioned, have our U.K. operations, which we did idle the ammonia plant when we had high-cost gas. And since that time, we've been able to import ammonia at a better value than producing it. And I think that's going to be represented to other countries. You may see the back end -- the upgrade operations operate, but the ammonia plants not operate, and that will help balance the world market.
Christopher Bohn
executiveYes. And I think as you look forward really into November, December, while European gas today is at that $10 because of really what Bert spoke about with a lighter winter and some industrial demand destruction that occurred given the pricing. When you look out towards the back half of this year, it's a pretty steep contango. And if there is a cold weather or even just a normal winter, you're probably going to see prices elevate that helps our margin spreads. Additionally, during that particular time frame, you may see additional curtailments of plants. Even as the plants that are producing right now are really building inventory for the fall or for early next year. So you have this huge working capital amount that you're carrying, you have to decide, does that make sense to put your expenditures there rather than to import ammonia and do the upgrades, much like we're doing in Billingham, U.K. right now at our facility.
Richard Garchitorena
analystGreat. So in terms of where you see European supply, would you say all the capacity that you would expect to come back online at $10 EDF is online? So we also have heard rushes, I guess, been able to get more ammonia out. So where -- how do you see that playing out through the rest of this year in terms of supply increases?
Bert Frost
executiveWell, Europe is a unique segment of the supply for the world, but it is a world commodity. So tons move as where they're demanded and price drives some of that as well as vessel freight. Some Russian tons had made it in, whether that's ammonia, which saw some of the EuroChem tons that are now coming out, but also they've been importing a few countries, France, we know, has brought in UAN from Russia as well. And so Europe will get their supply. What we know coming from the IFA conference in May was that several producers were looking to restart production, the Romanians, the Poles, the Lithuanians. But again, like Chris said, that's in a higher cost environment and adding in the carbon cost of the carbon tax, it does make it as a breakeven or even prohibitive operating rate based on today's values in the market. And so the world will balance itself based on price.
Richard Garchitorena
analystAnd then maybe if we shift, I guess, to the other side of the world in terms of Asia supply, obviously, China has been restricting exports of urea. Can you give us an update on where you see that? And is there a potential that eases, I guess, going into next year, and that's going to maybe -- that might come to the market as well?
Bert Frost
executiveSo China, we've talked about this, that we see a different China each year. If you go back several years, and I'm talking 6, 7, 8 years when China was the dominant player, dominant exporter of urea in the world market, taking almost 35% of the seaborne-traded tons, that had a tremendous impact negatively on pricing. So pricing fell to a low of $160 a short ton in NOLA but that was reflected globally. Over time, those imports declined as domestic consumption in China increased, but also they took capacity offline. When we look at China today, we have a lower level of overall capacity and an operating rate that tends to operate between the 60% and 75% operating rate. And today, they're operating at a higher level than I think the world has anticipated. And for the India tender that was just opened today, we expect to see some of those Chinese tons make it to India at a very low price. But we don't think there's the volume of Chinese tons available. So yes they have announced liberalization of export controls. And so we would expect to see probably a higher number or volume of urea exports as compared to the previous year, but still a manageable amount. And I would say if the global seaborne-traded ton today is 55 million tons, you would expect to see 3 million to 5 million tons coming out of China. As in last year, it was 2 million to 3 million tons. So an absorbable amount and generally prilled, there are 2 types of urea, prilled and granular, more of the prilled tons that are not as desired go to India or Brazil or places like that.
Christopher Bohn
executiveAnd in a lot of cases, that product is needed, too, and it's being pulled into the market by pricing. As pricing goes up, it will pull in those additional tons. But some of those tons may also be just reexported, Iranian tons but I think in Asia, probably something that Bert has talked about before is a little bit more with India, what's happening with India, where they've had some of their newer plants come online, decreasing their imports slightly, and that's also affected some of the global trade.
Richard Garchitorena
analystGreat. And maybe you can just switch back to the demand side in the U.S. Maybe in terms of -- can you give us a sense of where inventories are, how the planting season went and sort of through the rest of the summer, what to expect in terms of pricing fluctuations as we sort of move past planting season?
Bert Frost
executiveSo we'll start with what are the incentives for a farmer. And they're -- the incentive for a farmer is the final price for is good corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, canola. And so the price signal to the farmer has been very positive in getting better as we have potential drought issues in North America. But the stocks-to-use ratios in the world are low. And so we see a 2- to 3-year production cycle of corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton and canola as being positive. And that's now reflected is your question in the retail sector. So CF, we sell to retailers, wholesalers and traders, and we have a pretty good window into that inventory position based on customer demand. And because crop acreage levels have been higher, corn is about 90 million or 92 million acres of planted, $3 million or $4 million higher than last year. And the value or the price, again, the value of the crop against the price of fertilizer has been very attractive. We're seeing good application rates. And so what we would expect and what we're seeing is inventories will be, I would say, a very low level. And historically, over the last 15 years since I've been back in this market, low because of, one, a lot of tons were exported out of the United States and fewer tons imported and then higher acres has pulled that urea inventory down, which is probably higher trending last year into this year and will be very low this year trending into next year. And that, I think, will be reflected in urea, UAN and ammonia. So a good jump-off point into next year.
Richard Garchitorena
analystOkay. To your point about inventories being at the lowest levels in 15 years, one pushback I get is that we saw a peak of the ag cycle last year. So how would you address that in terms of -- and you mentioned crop price is still very attractive. But how do you think about fertilizer prices holding at these levels? How much more downside is there in terms of fertilizer pricing?
Bert Frost
executiveYes, I'll give you a multifaceted answer to your question on the peak ag so I don't agree that it's a peak ag cycle because the cycle is divided into different segments. Is that equipment? Is that seed, is that chemical? Is that fertilizer? Or is that production or is that protein? And each one are operating at different time levels. And again, we're at low stocks-to-use ratios globally for the feed grains and oilseeds needed for the world every season. Yes, we're seeing good production out of Brazil and record exports, but we're also seeing record demand in China and other places. And now with fertilizer being at a reasonable level, I think it's an attractive value proposition globally, which is last year was difficult. Last year, we did see demand retraction because urea was $800. Today, it's $300. But for a North American producer, as Chris mentioned, we're a low-cost producer, and we move our tons every year at this price and at this price. But when you look at our value proposition of gas at $2, well, last year was at $6. So that $4 an MMBtu and the pricing structure on a historical basis puts urea at a pretty attractive place today. And I'm positive, again, because what that represents to the total value chain, very positive for the farmer, very positive for the feed cost, for the protein producer and for the ethanol producer, and that's good for the value chain.
Christopher Bohn
executiveAnd the other part I would add is if you look at CF Industries specific, really how we've structured the balance sheet and even our operations is really reducing our fixed charges, having more ratable CapEx. So even in environments which people may say are not as high as they were last year, the amount of cash flow conversion we do is significantly higher than definitely our peer group, but I would say even through all industrials, it's one of the highest. It's a result of just being disciplined with our investments, having lowered our debt level, lowered our share count from -- lower dividend. And also, as I mentioned, with our ratable CapEx that we put in to our sites to get the utilization we do. So this particular market is still generating significant free cash flow on a quarter-by-quarter basis for us. It's allowing us to do a lot of the capital allocation that we've done.
Richard Garchitorena
analystGreat. So maybe we'll transition over to the cash flow side. And maybe before that, obviously, you're in the middle of a major acquisition of an ammonia plant. So maybe if you want to spend a few minutes just talking about that.
Christopher Bohn
executiveCertainly. So we're in the process right now of working through, hopefully, our belief is that we'll get clearance for it before the end of the year to close on the Waggaman, Louisiana site, the ammonia site that was held by Dyno Nobel of Incitec Pivot. It has a nameplate of about 880,000 short tons per year. Those of you who have followed it, it's had a bit of a sporadic operational performance anywhere from, call it, below 500,000 tons a year to over 900,000 depending on the year. It's only about 60 miles from our Donaldsonville, Louisiana site, which that particular site houses the majority of our corporate engineering team, along with just some of the other expertise that we have in that particular area. So as we look at the acquisition for this, we not only believe that the purchase price was something that was really at a good capital cost per ton, but the synergy piece that we haven't spoken a lot about is just going from something that's a sporadic utilization level up to our 95%, 96% utilization. We talked about we have the lowest gas in the world, so we should be producing every ton we can. This particular site hasn't necessarily done that. So sites we brought in that are similar vintage back in 2016 are producing 10% over nameplate. Our expectations are that will, over time, get the same type of production out of this. Additionally, I think the opportunity for this is we have 17 ammonia plants, 13 of which are Kellogg plants. This is a Kellogg plant. So everything from procurement, sharing spare parts to keep the utilization rate high, we'll be able to do. And then lastly, I would say, I can't think of a better plan to move into our network to allow us to serve our customers. It's on the NuStar pipeline like our Donaldsonville and Port Neal site is along with a lot of our other ammonia distribution facilities on the Mississippi River, and it also has truck and rail load out. So it gives us a lot of flexibility or Bert's team, I should say, how they manage our entire system to meet customer needs and really reduce logistics costs and get the highest margin for CF.
Bert Frost
executiveAnd there's an opportunity for that plant to be converted to blue ammonia. And when we do that, that just adds to the volume of blue capability that the company is going to have and very quickly. So there's a number of leverage points, logistics, market, customers, products that we believe fit very well with our system.
Richard Garchitorena
analystGreat. And in terms of the optionality, maybe with the blue ammonia potential, can you talk about how that might fit and maybe fit into the partnerships that you've announced with various...
Bert Frost
executiveI'll talk about the market. He can talk about the partnerships. But as we look at our growth and the advent of low-carbon ammonia, we focused on Donaldsonville first, and we've had -- we've announced our agreements with Exxon and Mobility. We already capture it, to make it low carbon, dewater and compress it and send it off to a classic well at Exxon, that's already set up in flight. And so for us, it's what is the growth, what's the demand for this product globally. And we see a number of opportunities and how we will then participate in those markets, but it's -- the first is our agreements for co-combustion and that is how do you utilize ammonia for these coal operations that need to stay in operation and need a way to make low-carbon energy. The next is for agriculture, and we believe in that value chain as we look through the scopes of emissions, our own are the outputs from -- if you had a low-carbon fertilizer combined with low-carbon inputs for a farmer and carbon capture on the farm, a low-carbon corn to make low carbon or zero-carbon ethanol or other products. And then to the CPG, we see a positive platform going forward for low-carbon fertilizer. And then it's the hydrogen too or ammonia to hydrogen, the maritime fuels. So for us, this is a growth platform for the company for the longer term. Today, it doesn't exist, but we're investing for tomorrow.
Christopher Bohn
executiveYes. And I think as you look at the customers that we've lined up, a lot of them are demand centers, so primarily in Asia, Japan and Korea. So these are individual companies that are looking to secure supply. A lot of times, I put it akin to the early days of LNG where you saw a lot of the Asian companies begin to line up contracts to make certain that they were able to get that molecule. I think similarly here, we're seeing a little bit of that with ammonia starting in the co-combustion but also looking at it as ammonia as a hydrogen carrier, where it be disassociated on the other end and used as hydrogen. So we're, as Bert mentioned, very optimistic on this. This is something that's probably in the '27, '28 time frame of this decade. But going into next decade, it begins to filter out, whether it be through agricultural or other fuel consumption uses as you look for a low-carbon solution that's over fossil fuels from there. I think the important part that we talk about with blue is people want to know what's the blue premium, what's the blue market going to be? Just looking absent that and just looking at the 45Q from the Inflation Reduction Act, essentially, for every ton of CO2 you sequester, you get about $85 per metric ton of a credit. We've talked about the operational cost and sort of capital recovery on it is about 25% to 30%. So for easy math, let's just say that cost is $35 less than $85. That's $50 a ton that we receive for every ton we sequester. At Donaldsonville alone, we're going to sequester 2 million tons annually starting in 2025. That's $100 million of incremental cash flow that isn't occurring today that will occur. And that benefit really is something that's unique to ammonia producers like CF because in the ammonia process, you're already breaking apart from the methane, the carbon piece and shifting it from CO to CO2. So that we already do today, and there's no incremental investment we have to make versus other industrial producers who have to put in amine solutions to strip that CO2. So we look at this as something that's probably not really all that recognized by the investor community as to the upside as we start with Donaldsonville, as Bert mentioned, move on to the Waggaman site and then to some of our other sites throughout the next couple of years. So that's something else we're very excited about.
Richard Garchitorena
analystGreat. In terms of funding these projects, I guess, maybe we can shift to the -- to your balance sheet and cash flow, obviously, Waggaman, you decided to fund it with cash on hand. But maybe you can talk about how you think about allocation of capital and why you might not want to take on more leverage when you're doing projects and that...
Christopher Bohn
executiveYes. So I think if we look at our capital allocation philosophy, it's never really changed over the last few years. Our first mandate is to invest in growth in high-return projects and where we see that. And then where we don't have, it was to delever, which we've done, and we're done with our deleveraging program. We have $3 billion of gross debt. We feel that works very well through the whole cycle. And then lastly, it's to return to shareholders the cash, whether through dividends or through share repurchases. So we look at our cash on the balance sheet at the end of Q1 was about $2.8 billion. Even in this environment, because of the steps we've taken, I would say, over the last 3 to 5 years, we really convert a lot of our EBITDA to free cash flow. Those of you who have followed us, our conversion ratio, again, is probably the best in the industrial sector. So we continue to build a significant amount of cash. So we really see that we can fund acquisitions, the Waggaman and all these other ones because we have a lot of the infrastructure in place are pretty marginal bets along the way. So by doing that, it's allowing us to have significant amount of money to still do share repurchases. If you look that our Board authorized another $3 billion program late last year for share repurchases. And over the last 12 months, we've done about $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion worth of share repurchases, buying back almost 15 million shares. So it's something that we look at and we take a more holistic across our capital allocation with growth and return of shares. What I would say is in our share repurchase, if you look at our shares, as Bert has mentioned, a lot of the fundamentals in our sector of the ag market are still extremely strong and we're generating a lot of cash. But yet, if you look at our share price today, we're at 69 less than 10 or 12 days ago, we were trading in the 50s. So the volatility of that has been very great even when the fundamentals don't support these large swings. So I think differently than what we've done in the past from a capital allocation is that when we do share repurchases, we're going to be much more opportunistic. And when we see those dips, we're going to go in very heavy and strong. And for the shareholders that are with us over time, they're going to benefit significantly from that.
Richard Garchitorena
analystGreat. In terms of the projects, the majority of projects are very blue, I guess, ammonia. What's the thought around green? Is that still in the back end?
Christopher Bohn
executiveI mean, if I look at green ammonia, so we have a pilot plant we're doing with electrolyzers in our Donaldsonville plant. It's going to produce 20,000 tons of green ammonia. That cost is going to be about 3x what conventional or blue ammonia is. And if you think about -- when people talk about these large-scale green plants and all these announcements, I'll just give you a little sort of heuristic to use here. The Donaldsonville plant produces 4.5 million tons of ammonia. Our green ammonia pilot plant there is going to produce 20,000 tons. So 20,000 tons are green, 4.5 million of conventional. The 20,000 tons is going to consume 15% of the electricity of the whole site, this 20,000 tons compared to the 4.5 million. The amount of renewable energy, electricity pull off the grid is just going to be significant. This is going to be an iterative process with blue being the start and then over time, moving into green as technology of electrolyzers improves and also as more renewable low-cost synergy gets built. But when you hear politicians or certain regions of the globe talk about, we need to go green tomorrow, it's not going to happen. It just won't from an economic standpoint, especially when there's a low-carbon solution that's cost-effective like blue ammonia.
Richard Garchitorena
analystOkay. In terms of -- you had a lot of success in terms of signing up partners, how much of that do you think is attributed to the IRA basically foreign players looking to take advantage of that? And obviously, the U.S. Gulf Coast of Vantage that you also have. But how much of the IRA pay into that?
Christopher Bohn
executiveI'll start. I was just in Japan last week with the Hydrogen Council. So a group of about 100 companies who are together talking on the whole part of the supply chain from renewable all the way to the consumption side. And the one thing that came across globally is the IRA for as much as our government does wrong, they got it right in how the money filters immediately to the supply side. And what I mean by that, if you look in Europe, Europe has 3x the funds allocated than the IRA does. But the timing in order to get that allocation paid back takes -- I've talked to some people where they're 2 years into their program, and are you going to build a multibillion dollar plant when you're not certain the government is going to agree to that. The IRA says, you do it and it's a tax credit that goes back or attack grant. So it's become a very efficient mechanism where the supply side in the private sector can move forward with projects, knowing full well what the expectations for being paid on that. Globally, you haven't seen that. So -- and I think the other thing the IRA did well that other regions of the world saw is that it hit it from the supply side. So it's building out. In order to get demand activation, you need supply to be an enabler of that, right? And if people don't think supply is coming, they're not going to -- they're going to leapfrog or wait for the next biggest thing. And I think the IRA has established ammonia now as a fuel because of its cost competitiveness.
Bert Frost
executiveI also think that as you look at -- on the partner side, what is the partner evaluating? And they're looking at their needs for a low-carbon solution because these coal plants are going to operate. I mean a lot of them are new or newer and that's a key component of their energy mix. So when you're looking for partners, and CF is a great one, but you have to look at the totality of what we bring, our resource base and gas that's deep, long and with a variety of basins. So the cost of that good to the raw material good is going to be competitive. Then the rule of law and contractual law and the ability to have a Tier 1 partner like ourselves, that's public and understandable in the location that a vessel is easily loaded, can go east, could go west, so the good moves easily. And those projects can be brought up in a reasonable period of time. When you put that in conjunction with the IRA, it's a very attractive mix.
Richard Garchitorena
analystGot it. Part of the, I guess, benefit of being successful is it brings on more assessment. So you've had a number of partnerships. One thing I've heard is that you have a lot going on. How do you prioritize? And also, how do you plan to fund all these projects if they all start getting approved and moving forward at the same time? Do you use project financing or [indiscernible] with your partners?
Christopher Bohn
executiveI think the one thing CF does extremely well is we understand where we operate best and where our core competencies exist. So when we start out any project, we look what's the value chain of this particular project. And we say, where do we gain the most value for the lowest level of risk, and that's where we play. So if you look at the projects we've announced, we didn't go out and hire geologists to look for Class 6 permitting well or begin to lease all this land like other companies have done. We said, let's partner that side. And we can partner that at an effective investment ratio that gives us highest return to our shareholders. And also more importantly, it's the quickest way to market. We're not trying to build a core competency we don't have today that could take multiple years to do. So if you look at what we've done from the Exxon agreement to the demand side with JERA, to LOTTE, to even Mitsui from a funding standpoint. We've made very strategic to ensure that we know what we do well, let's partner with the expert -- industry-leading experts in other areas. And I would say the one thing is our profile has grown significantly globally as ammonia is being considered as a fuel going forward. So that's probably the most important way.
Bert Frost
executiveAnd I would take that and leverage it to the business for how we look at the market. So we're not in retail, but we have very good retail partnerships with that sector. We have a very good industrial book, and that's consistent and diverse. We have an export amount of tonnage that we ship to Europe, to Australia, to Argentina, to Brazil. And so when you look at the company on where our assets are diverse and different, again, cost basins for natural gas. We have our own distribution outlet to physically move and store our tons to be in market when needed. We have logistical assets to do that and then this variety of destination options, all that is about optionality. And what Chris just described is as we build on this new clean energy initiative, it's a further leveraging of that system to the benefit of the company.
Richard Garchitorena
analystGreat. I guess we can open up for questions from the audience, anybody? Maybe not. Well, I'll keep you on. I guess when you think about the other part of the partnerships, longer term, you've had, I guess, a lot of ammonia projects announced. How many of these -- I think it was over 100 or so that is sort of like it works. But how many do you actually think that is going to come to market realistically? And do you think that's enough to supply the demand? Maybe talk a little bit about the green, blue ammonia demand side of it once we get to late part of the decade?
Christopher Bohn
executiveSo there's been 80 plant announcements year-to-date new plants. This is very much similar to back to 2012, when pricing was high in North America alone, you had 30-plus plants were announced to be built. Four were built, 2 of which were ours. So a long way to say, it's easy to say you're going to build a new plant when ammonia is at $1,000 per ton. When ammonia is $300 or $350 per ton, it changes. It's easy to say, I'm going to build a plant when financing is at 0%, a little more difficult when you're seeing rates rise on that and other inflationary pressures, both from a labor and even just an equipment standpoint. So I think when you look at those 80, you can segment out the green, those are either going to be pilot plants or they're not going to be built. It's pretty simple from that perspective. From a blue, you have to look where globally are these. Do they have the point where they can actually sequester? So if you're looking in Europe, it's not going to be on, it's going to be offshore sequestration that's significantly more expensive. Do those projects really get built? So again, you pretty much moved the globe down to kind of the players that are generally there, and that's the Middle East and the Gulf Coast here with the IRA and sense the Gulf Coast. But I think similar to what you saw in 2012, it's going to be the players who have -- are in that industry. If you haven't built an ammonia plant before and you're going to do a greenfield site and you're either going to extend how long that's going to take you to build or do you have storage for that ammonia once you're completed. If you look at our storage assets, we have 23 ammonia terminals throughout the Midwest, along the river. We have all our plants have ammonia storage. You don't have any of that to start with. You got a long haul to go, and it's a lot more expensive than just an independent plant that you're looking at.
Richard Garchitorena
analystGreat. One other question just in terms of the potential future, increased demand. I know Corteva and others are looking at ways to start a winter planting program in the U.S. What are your thoughts on that in terms of potential there for acreage cover crops, winter canola, that type of thing and the benefit for you guys potentially?
Christopher Bohn
executiveThe advent of a lot of these initiatives, whether it's regenerative ag or precision ag or new opportunities for uses of acres are good. And we're getting -- as we progress, we're getting much better and a much better alignment in the value chain of seed, crop protection, nutrient and producer, farmer buy-in of the practices that get us to a better place, whether that's efficient use of those goods and higher output or more -- or better use of the land. So where the weather and the moisture are conducive to doing that, and that was the growth of Brazil with the safrina and the second crop corn has now exceeded the first crop corn. There are places in the world where that's possible, and I'm glad to see those folks get in, and we will come alongside our retail partners and support that growth.
Richard Garchitorena
analystGreat. Well, I think in the issue of time, I think that probably we can wrap it up here. Any other questions from the audience or... Great. Thank you, all. Appreciate it.
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