Fertiglobe plc (FERTIGLB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to today's Fertiglobe Q4 2023 Results Conference Call. My name is Bailey, and I will be your moderator for today. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, Rita Guindy, Fertiglobe Investor Relations Director. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Bailey. Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining Fertiglobe's Q4 and Full Year 2023 Results Conference Call. With me today are Ahmed El-Hoshy, our Chief Executive Officer; Haroon Rahmathulla, our Chief Operating Officer; and Andrew Tait, our Chief Financial Officer. On this call, we will review Fertiglobe's key operational events and financial highlights for the quarter, followed by a discussion of our outlook. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session at the end of the call. The quarterly results report is available on our Investor Relations website, and I would like to remind you that any forward-looking statements made on this call involve risks and the actual results could differ materially from those statements. With this, I will now hand over to Ahmed El-Hoshy, CEO of Fertiglobe.

Thank you, Rita, and thank you all for joining Fertiglobe's Q4 2023 results call. Starting off, I want to highlight our ongoing focus on safety, which is our top priority. As of the end of December 2023, our 12-month rolling recordable incident rate was 0.12 incidents per 200,000 manhours. We're pleased that this is remarkably below last year's levels and overall industry averages, but we're not stopping here, and we'll keep working relentlessly towards a culture of 0 injuries with a strong emphasis on operational and process safety. Now moving on to Q4 2023 financial results. Fertiglobe's revenues and adjusted EBITDA increased 23% and 45%, respectively, compared to Q3 2023 as previously guided, driven by a strong order book, higher own produced sales volumes and an uptick in ammonia prices. On a year-over-year basis, Q4 '23 revenues and adjusted EBITDA were both 39% lower due to the impact of lower prices compared to their elevated levels in Q4 of 2022. Similarly, in 2023, our revenues and adjusted EBITDA were down 52% and 59% year-over-year, respectively, to $2.4 billion and $1 billion. Let me take this opportunity to commend our operating and commercial team for a strong performance during Q4 and overall in 2023 with own produced sales volumes being 15% year-over-year, higher in Q4 and 5% on an annualized basis -- on an annual basis compared to full year 2022, driven mainly by higher urea volumes. This is a testament to the continued and ongoing efforts of our team, who have further cemented our focus on operational excellence and capitalizing on our robust commercial capabilities. Looking ahead, by prioritizing the ongoing Manufacturing Improvement Plan or as we call it, the MIP, we see potential to generate at least $100 million in incremental annual EBITDA by 2025 compared to 2023, all else equal, driven by improving production and energy efficiency. So we see a lot of low-hanging fruit in that regard. In addition to the MIP, Fertiglobe is proactively optimizing cost to bolster free cash flow generation across market cycles, having achieved 51% of our $50 million run rate target only around 6 months after introducing the program. This is on a run rate basis, of course. So the benefits will be seen in the future on an actuals basis with the 51% achieved. We are, therefore, well on track to realize the full target by the end of 2024 on a run rate basis with a key focus on operating model transformation, logistical capability advancement as well as CapEx and OpEx optimization. Separately, we announced that Fertiglobe's Board of Directors has endorsed the H2 2023 dividend of $200 million, equivalent to 9 fills per share, subject to shareholder approval at the AGM in April 2024, implying full year dividends of $475 million and one of the highest dividend yields in our industry and market. Beyond 2023, Fertiglobe's strategy is to continue balancing dividend payments with selective growth spending on value-accretive projects and opportunities supported by our healthy free cash flow conversion and robust balance sheet, which today sits at 0.9x net debt to LTM adjusted EBITDA. Talking about Fertiglobe's future, we are excited about the next chapter in light of the recently announced sale of OCI's 50% shareholding in Fertiglobe to ADNOC for $3.6 billion. The transaction, which will see ADNOC become a majority shareholder in Fertiglobe with a total ownership of 86.2%, is expected to close during this financial year, subject to the completion of all necessary legal and regulatory conditions, including antitrust approvals. The deal supports Fertiglobe's future growth plans and makes the company a key component of ADNOC's ambitious roadmap. It will enable Fertiglobe to further leverage ADNOC's resources, expertise and network to pursue new growth opportunities, especially in the emerging market or the emerging industry of clean ammonia and blue hydrogen. Fertiglobe's priorities will be on -- will continue to be unlocking its potential in its core products of urea and ammonia and accelerating the pursuit of new market and production -- and product opportunities and expanding its focus on sustainable ammonia with a continued emphasis on delivering growth and maximizing shareholder value. As ever, Fertiglobe remains committed to reducing its carbon footprint of its operations and those in its value chain while meeting the growing demand for low carbon hydrogen and ammonia. And we believe that under ADNOC's leadership and the consolidation of its equity ownership now in Fertiglobe, Fertiglobe is well positioned and well placed to take meaningful steps in this direction. Finally, I'd like to express my gratitude to our best-in-class team, driving force -- the driving force behind Fertiglobe's success. I'm deeply grateful for their commitment to safety and excellence as Fertiglobe has evolved into a world-class business after just 4 years from its inception in late 2019. I'm confident that Fertiglobe is a very well positioned -- is very well positioned to deliver exciting achievements and milestones in the year to come. But now let me hand it over to Haroon to discuss the current market outlook as well as our commercial and operational performance.

Thanks, Ahmed. Let me start by briefly highlighting the outlook for nitrogen fertilizer and ammonia markets. Nitrogen markets were relatively quiet during the fourth quarter of 2023, and urea prices were down during the quarter, impacted by demand deferrals into 2024. However, year-to-date, we have seen urea prices recover by around 20% as the deferred demand started to materialize ahead of the spring season application in the Northern Hemisphere. We are also seeing healthy demand in other regions, including Southeast Asia, Brazil and Australia. In addition, robust urea demand in some markets, including Vietnam, Ethiopia, Thailand and Turkey, has been offsetting the import substitution effect of new capacity commissioned in India in 2022 and 2023. Restrictions on Chinese exports, which are forecasted to be in the 3 million to 4 million tonnes range this year at a similar level as in 2023, low operating rates in Iran due to gas shortages and supply chain disruption in the Red Sea are giving further support to urea prices in the near term. Medium to longer term, we see no change in our previously stated outlook with favorable fundamentals supporting nitrogen fertilizer markets. Now moving on to ammonia. Prices increased in Q4 2023 compared to the previous quarter underpinned by widespread supply disruptions. In the early weeks of the year of this year, prices have been [ treated ] from the recent highs, although they remain at supportive levels and about the drops reached last year. A rebound in industrial demand, when it happens, would tighten the market substantially, given that global ammonia trade has not yet recovered to the 19-plus million tonnes it has historically traded at. However, importantly, potential incremental ammonia demand from new clean energy applications continues to gain traction, and our teams are in continuous discussions with many potential customers across the power shipping and downstream chemical industries. For Power, the Japanese and Korean markets alone, where co-firing regulations are coming into effect could generate incremental ammonia demand of 6 million to 9 million tonnes by 2030. Interest in decarbonization of existing value chains within fertilizers and chemicals is also gaining pace. Additionally, the outlook for ammonia as a marine fuel continues to strengthen with the potential for accelerated demand growth emerging from 2026 onwards and could generate incremental demand of around 5 million tonnes by 2030. Now moving on to the highlights of our performance in the fourth quarter and the full year 2023. We are pleased to end the quarter with 15% higher own-produced sales volumes compared to Q4 2023 -- Q4 2022, driven by an 18% increase in own-produced urea sales volumes. On a full year basis, there's -- we've shown a 5% increase, driven by 7% higher urea on produced sales volumes. This demonstrates the team's continuous focus on improving operational efficiencies and reliability, and we expect to realize more efficiencies and positive progress over the coming quarters. As Ahmed highlighted earlier, we see potential to generate at least $100 million in incremental annual EBITDA by 2025 compared to 2023, driven by improved production and energy efficiency as a result of the team's efforts on the Manufacturing Improvement Plan. On the operational and commercial front, I would also like to highlight some important achievements and milestones realized during the year, including positive progress with the Manufacturing Improvement Plan, with all-time high operating rates achieved at several production lines across the Egypt and the UAE. Record energy efficiency for ammonia production in Egypt leading to historically low carbon intensity, improvement of HSE performance indicators compared to 2022, driven by a visible change in the safety culture and employees awareness as well as successful rollouts of various programs and initiatives to reinforce safety fundamentals across all opcos. On the commercial front, despite lower prices, the commercial team was able to realize netbacks outperforming benchmark [indiscernible] supported by our strategic locations and duty-free access to key markets as well as active commercial strategies. Last but not the least, on the sustainability and project side. In 2023, we successfully produced renewable green ammonia at our Egypt facilities with the initial shipment used in the production of laundry powder by Unilever in India, further reducing the carbon footprint of downstream industries in our value chain. During the year, together with ADNOC, we also announced the pilot deployment of the world's first modular CycloneCC carbon capture unit at our Fertil plant in the UAE with potential for further deployment across both ADNOC and Fertiglobe's operations. Having made significant progress in low carbon ammonia initiatives throughout 2023, we look forward to the progression of the TA'ZIZ 1 million tonne low carbon ammonia project in the UAE, subject to the right regulatory frameworks being in place. With that, I would like to hand it over to Andrew to discuss the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Haroon. So let me start with some highlights of our performance in Q4 2023, which are well above Q3 levels, was impacted by lower selling prices for our products compared to the elevated levels seen back in '22 on a year-on-year basis. So our revenues were $646 million in Q4 '23, and that's 23% above Q3 levels. But as Ahmed mentioned, it was 39% below the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, adjusted EBITDA decreased 39% year-on-year to $289 million in Q4 '23, although it was up 45% on the previous quarter leading to adjusted EBITDA margins of 45%. Our adjusted net income attributable to shareholders a $103 million in Q4 '23 compared to $196 million in the same quarter last year. But that's almost 1.4x up compared to the previous quarter. So turning to the balance sheet and cash flow performance, we ended Q4 '23 with a net debt position of $905 million as compared to $287 million of net cash as of 31st December '22, following the payment of $975 million in cash dividends to Fertiglobe shareholders over the year. And so after accounting for over $800 million of dividends to noncontrolling interests related primarily to Algeria during Q4 '23. So this still implies a leverage of 0.9x net debt to adjusted 23% EBITDA. And we're pleased to have been recently placed on a positive credit watch list by both Fitch and S&P, with a likely at least 1 notch upgrade following completion of the ADNOC-OCI transaction. This further emphasizes our disciplined capital allocation approach. That said, our robust balance sheet and above industry average free cash conversion capacity along with the management initiatives we just discussed, allow us to continue to balance those dividend distributions as well as pursue selective value-accretive growth opportunities. We are pleased to announce the Board of Directors' endorsement of the H2 '23 dividend of $200 million, subject to the shareholder approval at the AGM in April '24, and the payment thereafter June Q2 '24. Now free cash flows for growth CapEx amounts to a negative $658 million in Q4 '23 and a negative $205 million in '23 compared to $413 million in Q4 '22 and $1.9 billion in '22, full year. With the decline reflecting our EBITDA performance and the dividends paid, including the noncontrolling interests and withholding tax related to Algeria, which, of course, relates to the record 2022 performance there. So excluding the minority leakage related to [ sulphur ], our free cash flows would have been a positive $165 million in Q4 '23 and over $700 million in 2023 full year. Q4 2023 capital expenditures, including growth for $34 million compared to $68 million percent quarter last year, of which $23 million of that was related to maintenance. For 2023, we've recorded $115 million of capital expenditures, of which $94 million were related to maintenance. And that's just below our guidance of $100 million to $130 million due to some deferrals in late '24. Looking at a similar range of $110 million, $130 million for maintenance CapEx in '24, with a growth CapEx expected at below $50 million and will ultimately depend on the FIDs of our growth projects, which are in various stages. So as highlighted with Q3 '23 results, at the beginning of Q4 '23, Fertiglobe approved a new $500 million term facility with a group of its core relationship banks. These proceeds were used to refinance short-term borrowings and further improving Fertiglobe's maturity profile and liquidity position. I'll now hand back to Ahmed for our outlook and concluding remarks.

Thanks, Andrew. As discussed earlier on the call and in our results materials, our medium to long-term outlook for nitrogen prices remains positive, underpinned by healthy agriculture demand drivers emerging demand for low-carbon ammonia as well as tightening supply versus demand in the medium term. New capacity that started and ramped up during 2022 and early 2023 has been absorbed in our view with limited new supply additions in the next several years and far below demand expectations. To conclude, I'd like to once again thank our team for bringing Fertiglobe to this juncture today, and I'm very excited about the future carries for the company and its people in terms of opportunities and growth prospects supported by a best-in-class workforce to strategic asset base and industry-leading best practices. Fertiglobe is ideally positioned to be a key player in the low carbon and our renewable ammonia supply chain, and we know that under ADNOC's leadership, this will continue to take center stage in the years to come. With that, we'll open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from the line of Faisal Al Azmeh from Goldman Sachs.

Just 1 -- 2 questions on my end. Just the first is on the market dynamics. You've mentioned a supportive backdrop, but at the same time, we're seeing the USDA forecast a weaker farmer economics for the year. So maybe you can talk a bit about what you're seeing on the demand side so far this year and how that fits within the picture that you provided? And the second question is on the Algerian contract. If you can just shed some color on where you are within the discussions? And at what point do we get some update on this?

Thanks for the question. So with regards to the demand side, we continue to see strong demand, and I think you mentioned affordability. While it may not be as attractive as some of the months and periods over the last 2 years, it's still very attractive because while some crop prices have come down, nitrogen prices are down from where they were in 2022. So we see stock-to-use ratio still below historical averages, and we see affordability above historical averages when it comes to nitrogen fertilizer. And specific, actually in the last few weeks, if you're referring to the U.S., we're seeing drier weather conditions, warmer weather conditions, which have -- gotten the market a little bit more interested in potentially in early spring. We've seen [indiscernible] in the U.S. recover meaningfully over the last month for urea. There still needs to be over -- approximately 3.5 million tonnes to be reimported between January, if you include January until May. So a lot of buying still to come, probably will be pushed up by U.S. markets, but we'll see how it -- by, sorry, global markets because I think producers have sold a lot into this market. And so we think from a fertilizer perspective, from a planting perspective, while it's not exactly the same conditions as some of the best conditions in the last couple of years, it's still more favorable than average, and we still think a lot of nitrogen needs to go down. With regards to your second question on the Algeria side. Basically, the Sonatrach discussions have been progressing. There are no further updates to report to the market this time, and we'll share with the market once an agreement has been reached and provide details on that. The pricing did expire in actually late November of last year. And any adjustments would be retroactive if there's an adjustment there. But I just want to remind listeners that, yes, we do have a headline gas price in that $1.40 MMBtu range, but at the same time, the [ Sorfert ] Ecremage participation has allowed Sonatrach to participate in higher gas prices. So for example, in 2022, when gas prices went up and ammonia prices were up, that kind of profit sharing allowed for about $11.5 per MMBtu take home price for gas in Algeria. And also, you can see that in the large minority leakage that we were forecasting and shared here today in Q4 because of the excess profits it takes as a little bit of a payback for the lower gas prices, and that is linked and will fall if there's an adjustment in the gas price.

The next question today comes from the line of Alex Comer from JPMorgan.

Yes. Just a few questions on market dynamics, if you don't mind. You're always quite bullish on the market and you talked to a tightening of urea based on higher demand and less supply. Do you think we actually get to a point at which you have pricing power and you get some tightness, what utilization levels do you think you get to? And I'm asking that because, obviously, we have this dynamic between whether feedstock price is set prices or whether the market is tight enough to give you pricing power? And if I look at where the TTF is today, it's sub-8 so that -- ex freight means that the sort of breakeven euro price is probably [ $250 ] or below, and obviously, we're significantly above that. I suspect gas prices will probably come down as we come out of winter and certainly from Shell's LNG presentation today, there seems to be quite a lot of LNG coming on. So I'm just sort of wondering, does the market get tight enough going forward for you to have proper pricing power, bearing in mind that it could well be that we see much lower gas prices going forward. So just your thoughts on that. And then secondly, why is it taking so long to renegotiate this pricing contract with Sonatrach. I mean it was obviously flagged up as to be negotiated by November. And yet, it's just kind of dragging on. So I'm just wondering what the dynamics are and what's keeping that?

Sure, Alex. So with regards to the 2 questions, let me start with the second one. I mean there was a change in Sonatrach's leadership that took place in October of last year, which was basically the CEO of Sonatrach changed during that time. We have had discussions with them. And there's a mechanism where you could have that negotiation extend past the price stabilization date, which was November. So I guess that's the answer to your second question. Obviously, we look to progress that and bring that to closure. With regards to your first question, I think the way you describe it is kind of supply-driven pricing versus demand-driven pricing. And that's how it works from a scarcity perspective at times if demand exceeds supply, then buyers in the market are looking to see where they can secure product. We've seen that in ammonia. We've seen that in urea, maybe taking a bit by bit. On the LNG side, we do see more LNG coming to the market, more so in the latter half of 2025 and into 2026 onwards rather than in the next kind of 12 to 18 months. There have been delays on projects to do construction issues in the United States, as you may be aware, and there's some constraints on that front. In terms of gas going lower, I think that we don't forecast TTF gas. And yes, we are ending winter, but also part of the reason gas has dropped is because there have been kind of ample levels of storage in Europe and kind of is allowed to get out of this winter, but there's still next winter, which is, I think, a concern in that market. We do see at times that you could have the price of urea in the market be above the marginal cash cost, which has fluctuated or kind of exchanged between being Chinese anthracite coal related marginal costs. And at times, TTF driven marginal costs. A couple of things to point out. One, increasingly producers in Europe have regulatory issues, local additional costs. And one thing that they do have to pay for CO2. So I think the numbers you were giving there, [ $250 to $300 ] range, I'd put it with the price of CO2 and [ UA ] emissions that will become more important with the advent of CBAM is one element. And then secondly, there's just going to be a tightness in the market. And I think if you -- as you look at kind of the publications out there, you can see that there was an onslaught of supply that came online last year and the year before. And really, there's really no material new supply coming online for the next couple of years for urea other than some Russian capacity mainly that's coming online if you think about a major project. So we think and have reiterated that in our conference call that the silver lining to some of the price weakness we've had in the last year or so, is that -- and in prior trough periods is that the demand should exceed supply over the next few years, which can be supportive for these pricing and allow urea to be dictated not by the feedstock price, but by the price required to be able to deliver the product to the customer. And the same goes for ammonia. We do have one large facility starting up in the United States, that's just Gulf Coast starting up this year. But then after that, you really don't have much in terms of material ammonia supply world scale for the balance of this year and into early next year.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question today comes from the line of Sashank Lanka from Bank of America.

I have a question on the ADNOC OCI transaction. So could you talk us through on how we should be looking at the medium- to long-term outlook for the company. I mean, ADNOC has been quite active in the M&A front, bidding for various chemicals assets. So just wondering how you should think of Fertiglobe's growth plans with this ownership change. That's the first part of the question. The second part of the question is, again, related to the transaction. You did talk about the transaction closing in 2024. Any time lines on whether it should be the first half or the second half? And what is the main approvals or the regulatory approvals you need to get for the transaction to close?

So with regards to the kind of the strategy overall, I mean the strategy that Fertiglobe team has had for the last few years, which is to focus on our low-cost positioning to focus on manufacturing improvement and operational excellence as we reiterated here during the preprepared remarks to focus on commercial excellence to be able to trade more products over time, get higher netbacks and kind of displace traders and go closer to end users, those all continue. And then the ESG strategy of finding value-accretive low-carbon opportunities, for example, like Project Harvest, which has continued to progress quite well in Abu Dhabi, bringing on low-cost tonnes and taking advantage of lower CapEx costs and synergies on industrial brownfield sites to bring on new production or look for even potential M&A opportunities. Those all stand. ADNOC is very excited about this acquisition to consolidate its position and take it to an 86% shareholding and being majority Abu Dhabi or ADNOC owned, we think is a strong benefit to consolidate and utilize Fertiglobe potentially for ambitions around blue ammonia -- carbon-ammonia growth. So I think it's in line with this growth in the chemical platform that ADNOC has been undertaking globally. And I think it bodes well for the opportunities for Fertiglobe itself. As, also, I think, mentioned part of the motivation from the OCI side was the fact that Fertiglobe and how it was trading was -- look at how OCI was trading at a [ HoldCo ] basis, it was trading at a much lower level than the sum of the parts. So it's more to basically bridge the valuation gap that the [ Dutch ] shareholding was having relative to the market value Fertiglobe was one, and that was one of the motivators. And secondly, it's about considering ADNOC to potentially be the rightful home of the consolidated ammonia position and in Abu Dhabi listing, where investors in Abu Dhabi may have more appreciation for some of the markets in which Fertiglobe has production despite the fact that it has a global reach on a commercial standpoint and on the delivery of production standpoint. With regards to the timing of the transaction, we did say during the course of this year is we're expecting a close. I think, to just to give you a little bit additional detail and comfort. We don't expect any regulatory challenges on the close given that ADNOC doesn't have any urea or any material ammonia production outside of Fertiglobe. So it should be relatively straightforward. We'll announce more details in due course. But for now, this looks like it's a relatively straightforward process with that being the main focus area of that regulatory approval.

[Operator Instructions] There were no additional questions waiting at this time. So I'd like to pass it back to the management team for any closing remarks.

Rita, were there any webcast questions?

The only webcast question was on the Sorfert gas price discussion, which was already answered.

Okay. Thank you all for joining this call. Thank you for the questions and look forward to the next conference call.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.