Fertiglobe plc (FERTIGLB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. My name is Prilla, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Fertiglobe Q3 2024 Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the conference over to Rita Guindy, Investor Relations Director at Fertiglobe. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining Fertiglobe's Q3 and 9 Months 2024 Results Conference Call. With me today are Ahmed El-Hoshy, Fertiglobe's Chief Executive Officer; Haroon Rahmathulla, Chief Operating Officer; and Andrew Tait, 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 and a question-and-answer session at the end of the call. The presentation we will discuss today can be found on our Investor Relations website. Finally, please be reminded that any forward-looking statements made on this call may involve risks, and the actual results could differ materially from these statements. With this, I will now hand it over to Ahmed El-Hoshy, CEO of Fertiglobe.

Thank you, Rita, and welcome, everyone, to today's call. I'd like to start by reemphasizing our steadfast focus and commitment to safety, our top priority. As of the end of September 2024, our 12-month rolling recordable incident rate was 0.02 incidents per 200,000 man hours. We're pleased to see this metric continuing to improve over time, taking us in the right direction as we continue to strive towards a culture of 0 injuries. Operational and process safety remain key focus areas as we target the highest HSE standards to ensure safe, reliable and sustainable operations across our platform. Today, we're excited to announce that as part of ADNOC's integration of its low-carbon ammonia initiatives under Fertiglobe. ADNOC will transfer its 35% equity interest in the Baytown, Texas 1 million ton per year low-carbon ammonia project in the U.S. in partnership with Exxon Mobile to Fertiglobe, along with its equity stakes in the two low-carbon ammonia projects in the UAE as previously announced. ADNOC stakes in these three projects will be transferred to Fertiglobe at cost when ready for start-up, leading to an immediate contribution to earnings upon transfer concurrent with any funding requirements, which materially improves project returns and preserves the company's balance sheet during the development and construction phases. The addition of the U.S. project to Fertiglobe's portfolio, subject to its expected FID next year represents a major milestone as it transforms us into a low-carbon ammonia growth platform with global reach and the ability to advantageously serve emerging demand centers across all global locations. Combined, these projects would add around 2.4 million tons of low-carbon ammonia to Fertiglobe's capacity on a consolidated basis, more than doubling our current net ammonia capacity of 1.6 million tons and increasing our total products footprint or capacity by 36% to 9 million tons of net ammonia and urea combined, creating a global low-carbon ammonia powerhouse and positioning us as the world's largest low-carbon ammonia producer by 2029. Moving on to our financial results. Fertiglobe today reported Q3 2024 revenues of $496 million, down 6% year-over-year and relatively unchanged from the second quarter of 2024. Adjusted EBITDA of $176 million, down 12% year-over-year, but reflecting a 21% sequential quarter-over-quarter improvement and adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders of $31 million, down 25% year-over-year. On a year-to-date basis, 9-month revenues were $1.5 billion, 13% lower compared to last year, while adjusted EBITDA was $496 million, down 31% year-over-year and adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders came in at $135 million, reflecting a 48% last year. Q3 2024 and 9-month 2024 net profit attributable to shareholders were impacted by a $37 million and $48 million accounting provision related to potential changes in Sorfert's, Algeria's gas price setup, respectively. As a reminder, our 10-year price stabilization mechanism expired last November 2023. And when the new pricing setup is agreed and signed, this will be affective retrospectively from November 2023 until the date of the new agreement. Driven by our full consolidation of Sorfert, was higher at $87 million and $112 million for our third quarter and 9-month periods, respectively, and does not adjust for our economic stake. Important to note, this is not -- to note that notwithstanding potential adjustments, all-in costs in Algeria are expected to remain competitive compared to not only the rest of the group but globally. We also would like to remind listeners that the negotiations with Sonatrach and Algeria remain ongoing, thereby limiting what we can share on the subject matter at the moment. We will obviously update the market when an agreement has been finalized. In addition, our results for the period were impacted by uncontrollable external events, including gas supply issues in Egypt over the summer and power supply issues in Algeria as well, in addition to planned turnarounds during this period in Q3. This led to own produced volumes being 7% and 2% lower year-over-year in Q3 and the 9-month 2021 -- 2024 period, respectively. Excluding the impact of external factors impacting our operations, our Q3 and 9-month owned produced sales volumes would have been up 2.1% and 5.0% year-over-year, while adjusted EBITDA would have been $211 million or 6% up year-over-year and $564 million, 21% down year-over-year in the Q3 '24 and 9-month '24 periods, respectively. This reflects the progress we made on the manufacturing improvement plan, which, although muted by these external factors, remains on track to deliver $100 million incremental annual EBITDA by the end of next year compared to 2023, driven by improvements in safety, production and energy efficiency. As an example, following the recent turnaround at EFC 2 in Egypt this quarter -- sorry, last quarter in Q3, we have seen a 10% plus increase in energy efficiency as well as the realization of 40 tons per day higher ammonia production at this line, which implies approximately a $10 million EBITDA run rate benefit on 2023 pricing. I'm very proud of what the team has been able to achieve with limited CapEx, and we expect similar results from the upcoming turnaround at EFC 1 in the near to medium term. This was on EFC 2, to the realization of results. Also, as part of our value enhancement initiatives, we are pleased to have implemented 92% of our $50 million run rate cost optimization targets by the end of September 2024, and we are well on track to realize the full target by the end of the year. Collectively, the MIT or manufacturing improvement plan and cost optimization program are expected to add up to $150 million EBITDA on an annual basis by the end of 2025 compared to 2023, reflecting a 15% increase compared to the 2023 EBITDA at unchanged prices. We anticipate further value enhancement initiatives and programs with further details to be announced next year. These initiatives also provide additional support to our free cash flow conversion and a robust balance sheet, which stands at 1.2x net leverage on an adjusted EBITDA basis and enable us to continue balancing selective growth spending on value-accretive projects with dividend payments, reinforcing our commitment to shareholder value creation. Since its IPO, Fertiglobe has paid $2.42 billion in dividends, a demonstration of this commitment to creating and returning value to shareholders. Next, I'd like to briefly discuss the outlook for nitrogen and ammonia markets. Both ammonia and urea markets tightened in Q3 2024, translating into 16% and 11% higher prices compared to Q2, respectively. On a year-over-year basis, ammonia was up 15%, while urea was down 15% this past quarter. Corn, wheat and soybean prices regained strength in September, supporting farmer affordability in the latter part of the quarter after a slow period in the beginning of the quarter in July and August. Overall, we think that the short-term outlook for nitrogen fertilizers remains favorable, driven by tight markets and record low urea -- Chinese urea exports, while the longer-term outlook continues to be supported by improving demand from new and existing applications, coupled with limited supply additions from greenfield projects. If we focus on ammonia first, gas shortages in countries like Egypt and Trinidad, power outages in Algeria and other unplanned production outages in the Middle East have impacted ammonia export availability from key production hubs during the third quarter. This caused ammonia prices to increase by 16% on a sequential basis, reaching $600 a ton for CFR Northwest European ammonia pricing. In the short term, we expect increased production from the Middle East and North Africa to be met with demand in multiple regions, including the United States, India and Morocco. Additionally, delays to the start-up of new merchant ammonia supply in the United States Gulf Coast and the Taman export terminal in the Black Sea, alongside elevated TTF gas prices during the winter months are expected to support a period of price stability. We expect a continued recovery in global ammonia trade in 2025 and thereafter, driven by improvements to the industrial sector and robust nitrogen fertilizer demand following a contraction in 2023. As part of trade recovery, Russia's exports are set to gradually rebound following the commissioning of the Black Sea terminal in Taman, as I mentioned earlier, which may see total Russian exports of circa 1.5 million tons next year, up from around 0.5 million tons we saw this year. Production at the Taman terminal remains on hold at the current state. U.S. exports are also expected to grow following the commercial start-up of the 1.3 million ton Gulf Coast ammonia or GCA project in Texas, which is slated to start in the first half of next year. Supportive regulations also continue to progress in favor of low-carbon ammonia as Phase 2 of Europe's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism or CBAM are implemented in 2026, continuing to catalyze growing interest in decarbonization opportunities within the fertilizer and broader industrial value chain. The increase in European carbon costs will support a rise in global ammonia and fertilizer prices given Europe's position as a marginal ammonia consumer. Looking further ahead, in the medium to long term, accelerating demand will come from applications for low-carbon ammonia in power generation as a maritime bunker fuel, a clean hydrogen carrier as well as to decarbonize existing uses. Incremental demand from the new applications will be supported by emissions reduction targets, tighter regulations and technological advancements with demand expected to reach 24 million tons by 2032, more than doubling the size of the traded ammonia market today and about 24 million tons more than the current 0 demand in that space today as well. Now going on to urea markets. The early part of Q3 saw limited buying activity due to the seasonal slower summer period, difficult weather conditions across Europe, U.S. and Brazil, all alongside a weaker crop prices. In September, improved sentiment was driven by a combination of higher crop prices, limited Chinese exports, a positive response to India tender activity and the start of the buying season for a number of major markets, tightening availability and supporting pricing. This led to fob Egypt urea prices rising from $321 on average in Q2 to $357 on average in Q3 2024, with price momentum continuing into the fourth quarter, reaching $400 a ton in October before softening in the last week. China's absence from the international traded urea market also had a significant impact on the trade market this year with the government prioritizing the build of stocks, of local stocks for the commercial reserve. Chinese urea exports have hit record lows in 2024 with year-to-date exports sitting at just 265,000 tons in the year-to-date 9 months 2024 period, which is less than 10% of the 2.8 million tons exported in the same period last year. China's lack of export participation, including India tender activity has significantly tightened urea availability in Q3 and recent adjustments to China's fertilizer reserve mean that China is likely to remain out of the export market into H1 2025. In India, domestic sales in 9-month 2024 period increased compared to last year, supported by heavy monsoon rains, lower urea stocks and limited phosphate fertilizer availability as we approach the Rabi season. Despite increased domestic production, India issued multiple tenders in July and August 2024, which secured a total of 1.5 million tons of urea in Q3, tightening urea availability in the trade market into October 2024. This has since been followed by additional -- two additional successive tenders in October and November to support domestic sales during a period of critically low Indian urea stocks and DAP shortages. Over the coming weeks, China's absence from export markets, further Indian tender activity, including the one today, which saw a bit less in terms of offered tons as was expected, gas shortages impacting urea production in Iran as well as further buying from key import markets in Europe, Americas, Africa and Asia are all expected to provide some support to pricing. With that, let me hand it over to Haroon to discuss our commercial and operational performance.

Thanks, Ahmed. Moving on to the highlights of our operational performance in the third quarter of 2024. Fertiglobe's total own produced sales volumes were 1.36 million tons in Q3 2024, down 7% versus Q3 2023, driven by a 6% decline in lower ammonia own produced sales volumes to 305 Kt in Q3 2024 and an 8% year-over-year decline in urea own produced sales volumes to 1,066,000 tons in Q3 2024. This, as Ahmed mentioned, is due to planned turnarounds in Egypt as well as external factors that we briefly touched on at the beginning of the call. Year-to-date, Fertiglobe's total own produced sales volumes were slightly down by 2% to 4,179,000 tons in the 9-month 2024 period versus the 9-month 2023 period, driven by 8% higher ammonia own produced sales volumes, offset by a 4% decline in urea own produced sales volumes. As we have mentioned in the past, our trading margins and volumes are not material to our overall profitability and a reduction in traded volumes, especially on the ammonia side this quarter reflect our focus on margins and value generation over volumes. In Q3 2024, our operations were impacted by a range of uncontrollable external factors, including the tail end of the gas supply issues in Egypt at the beginning of the quarter as well as power shortages in Algeria. In addition, we have planned turnarounds -- we had planned turnarounds during the period, which all contributed to our lower production and sales volumes compared to last year. In line with our communicated focus on manufacturing improvement, we are pleased to highlight that our energy efficiency levels have materially improved across our facilities in Egypt, leading to a diluted impact of potential gas supply reductions given our ability to produce more tons with lower gas volumes and as Ahmed mentioned, a successful step-up in production rates post turnaround. Separately, we are commissioning a new boiler in Algeria to improve our on-site power production, significantly reducing our reliance on the external power grid. These initiatives should support improved visibility and reduce the magnitude of recent fluctuations in production rates, which have been muting the otherwise meaningful progress we made in our manufacturing improvement journey. To put this in perspective, if we excluded the impact of external factors impacting our operations, Fertiglobe's Q3 2024 and 9 months 2024 own produced sales volumes would have been up 2% and 5% year-over-year on a controllable basis, driven by improved production and energy efficiency. Separately, we are also pleased to say that since September 2024, the impact of gas supply issues has been limited, and we are looking at more steady operating rates in Egypt in the coming months. With that, I would like to hand it over to Andrew to discuss the financial results in more detail.

Thanks, Haroon. Let me start with some highlights of our performance in Q3 '24. As mentioned earlier, was impacted by uncontrollable external factors and planned turnarounds. So our Q3 '24 revenues were $496 million, which is unchanged quarter-on-quarter as the lower volumes were offset by an overall price improvement, but down 6% on a year-on-year basis, mainly driven by lower volumes. Our adjusted EBITDA decreased 12% year-on-year to $176 million in Q3 '24, leading to adjusted EBITDA margins of 35.4%. Excluding uncontrollable factors impacting our operations, adjusted EBITDA would have been $211 million. That's 6% higher year-on-year. Q3 2024 adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders was $31 million compared to an adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders of $41 million in Q3 '23. The Q3 '24 net profit attributable to shareholders, that was impacted by $37 million provision I mentioned, which is related to the potential changes in Sorfert Algeria gas pricing setup from November '23 through to end of Q3 '24 of September. So in the first 9 months of 2024, our revenues were $1.543 billion, that's 13% lower than the same period last year on a mix of lower prices and volumes. Meanwhile, our 9-month 2024 adjusted EBITDA decreased 31% year-on-year to $496 million, leading to adjusted EBITDA margins of 32.1%. So when you exclude the impact of external events, 9 months '24 adjusted EBITDA would have been $564 million, reflecting a smaller drop of 21% year-on-year in 9 months 2024. Similarly, our adjusted net income attributable to shareholders was $135 million compared to $261 million for the same period last year. And in the first 9 months of 2024, net profits attributable to shareholders were impacted by $48 million provision related to those potential changes in Sorfert's Algeria gas pricing setup from November '23 to September '24. Now turning to the balance sheet and cash flow performance. So from 30 September 2024, Fertiglobe reported a net debt position of $957 million, and that implies a net debt to the last 12 months adjusted EBITDA of 1.2x, allowing us to balance our selective growth opportunities and dividend payout and supported by robust free cash flow generation and a healthy balance sheet. We're pleased also to have received an upgrade in our credit rating by Fitch following the completion of the ownership change transaction, reflecting Fertiglobe's strategic importance to ADNOC, the role of Fertiglobe in ADNOC's decarbonization ambitions and Fertiglobe's conservative financial policy. We also have an advantageous CapEx structure for growth projects relative to peers due to already existing infrastructure and have communicated double-digit IRRs as the minimum return requirement for our projects. Free cash flow before growth CapEx amounted to $61 million in Q3 '24, and that compares to $126 million in Q3 '23, reflecting performance for the quarter, dividends paid to noncontrolling interests and withholding tax and working capital inflows, including the impact of the retroactive sulfur gas pricing accrual and net interest payments. In the 9 months 2024, free cash flow before growth CapEx amounted to $165 million compared to $458 million in 9 months 2023. Our total cash capital expenditures, including growth CapEx were $50 million in Q3 '24 compared to $33 million in Q3 '23, of which $37 million was related to maintenance capital expenditure compared to $29 million in the same period last year. For the 9 months 2024, our total cash CapEx, including growth CapEx was $94 million compared to $80 million in the 9 months of the previous year, of which $72 million was related to capital expenditure compared to $71 million in the same period of the previous year. We maintain our guidance for maintenance CapEx of $110 million to $130 million in '24 and growth CapEx of less than $50 million. I'm now going to hand back to Ahmed for our outlook and concluding remarks.

Thanks, Andrew. To conclude, we're excited about our future with ADNOC, perfectly complementing our platform with a fully integrated energy ecosystem as the parent, significant carbon capture sequestration expertise, global energy customer reach and the ambition to become a leader in low carbon fuels and continued support to Fertiglobe's disciplined growth ambitions. Combined Fertiglobe and ADNOC create a leading producer and exporter of both fertilizers and clean fuels and a global powerhouse in low-carbon ammonia with a collective customer base spanning fertilizers, the industrial complex as well as clean fuels end markets. We're excited about the addition of the U.S. asset to Fertiglobe's project portfolio in partnership with ExxonMobil, reinforcing our unparalleled global reach. In the coming period, focus from both ADNOC and Fertiglobe will be on maximizing operational and cost synergies with a continued commitment to deliver on our strategy, including progress on existing projects and active cash flow optimization. We look forward to sharing detailed value creation and growth strategy update with investors at Fertiglobe's Capital Market Day in the first quarter of 2025. With that, we can open the line for questions.

And your first question comes from the line of Alex Comer with JPMorgan.

To ask a couple of questions. Firstly, I'm slightly surprised that you've made this adjustment on the Sorfert's pricing without it being fully agreed. So I just wondered kind of why you've done that and what the thinking behind that is or what the accounting rules are. And am I right in thinking that this implied impact is the equivalent of about $2 an MMBtu on pricing? And also perhaps you could give some indication on what the impact would be on free cash flow. So that's my first question.

Sure, Alex. And this is, as we mentioned, it's an accounting provision where every quarter, as we get and learn new developments, including along the negotiations with our counterparts, we need to put kind of a provision for where things are shaking out. So as I mentioned earlier, we're not able to kind of go into detail on where the negotiations sit, but we did take this provision is more of kind of like an estimate to put that out in our quarterly results. I won't be able to comment on the dollar per MMBtu impact because we're in this live negotiation, I don't want to prejudice that. So I hope you can understand there. But as you saw, we shared what the impact was in Q3 to kind of get a sense on an attributable net profit basis. It was, I think, $11 million attributable on a net profit basis in Q3, right? -- sorry, $12 million. And then we had kind of catch-up for earlier periods, which were affecting reported EBITDA, but we took that out in the adjustment. So the adjusted EBITDA was $12 million -- the adjusted net income, sorry, was a $12 million net impact, right? And then I'll hand it over to Andrew on the free cash flow.

Yes. Just sort of add to that. I mean I think the sort of best way to look at this is that as you said, it's a live negotiation. So we're very careful about what we do provide. I think if you look at that net profit basis, when you sort of strip out there was a little bit from -- in terms of -- if you look at sort of EBITDA or net profit, you essentially got a bit of November to December in there, you're probably looking at around about EBITDA for the full 9 months around about $101 million was the impact. So that's sort of an indicative point on the EBITDA point and around about $45 million, $46 million for net profit. Now for FCF, we're not giving too much information on that at this point in time. But what I would say is what we said before is that when you look at the FCF impact of Sorfert through to our total FCF, it tends to come in around about 15%. And that is obviously speaking to the equity holding of Sonatrach [indiscernible] ...

Yes. I mean I'm quite surprised you're not prepared to give a number on the MMBtu impact because obviously, that's implied in this. So you must have given one to the accountants, and I'm presuming Sorfert can work that out pretty quickly. So we're going to -- we're all on the call going to do estimates for next year. So I think it might be helpful if you give at least some more qualitative detail on that.

I mean I would kind of feel free obviously to calculate and make estimates based on what you can see relative to provision. We're just not going to be commenting on it further given it's in a live negotiation. I hope you can understand.

Your next question comes from the line of Ricardo Rezende with Morgan Stanley.

First question that I have is on this Texas project that you're getting from ADNOC. Since there hasn't been an FID yet, is there something that you could change in the scope? Or are you going to continue with the initial assumptions from ADNOC in this one? And then on the second question, we've seen ADNOC. Ricardo...

I'm sorry to interrupt you, Ricardo. Honestly, I couldn't hear you very well on the first question. I just heard kind of the FID there. Would you mind repeating the first question?

Yes, sure. Is it better now? Okay. I'll try to. The first question is on the Texas project. Since it still haven't been FID yet, is there anything that you could potentially change it? Or are you going to proceed with initial assumptions and plans from ADNOC on this one? And the second question is on, we've seen ADNOC with other ADNOC-related companies. They've been having some projects in partnership with the parent company and leaving the parent company to develop some of those projects and using that as sort of the balance sheet while they have some other CapEx to be done. Was that something that you considered doing as well on having projects being built and completed by ADNOC and only after completion, you could bring that up on the balance sheet?

Okay. I think I understood those two questions. But maybe on the first one with regards to the ExxonMobil Baytown joint venture, you're absolutely right. It is in a pre-FID state now. It has not been approved. There are certain government regulations that need to be finalized in the United States under the Inflation Reduction Act that we'd like to get some more visibility on as partners with Exxon here. Obviously, you've seen that JERA as well as Mitsubishi Corp. as well as Air Liquide are all involved in some way in this project as well. So we'll be able to provide probably as we get closer to the FID date, more details on what that looks like. But the scope is, as Exxon has said, this 1 million tons of blue ammonia with blue hydrogen provided to that plant as well as to other local other local consumers on the blue hydrogen side. But we'll have more details on that probably in the next time that we speak around this project. And I think jumping into your second question, whether it's for this project in Texas or the two projects in TA’ZIZ, Ruwais. Fertiglobe. I think we're in a unique position with the majority ownership of ADNOC to be able to be involved in the development and commercialization of all three projects without having to spend the development CapEx or the construction CapEx to complete the project until COD or the commencement of operations, which is really quite beneficial so that we can basically backend our equity investment in these projects to the period where we're starting to generate cash flows and allows for better accretion allows us to kind of preserve our balance sheet, leveraging ADNOC's obviously, very significant balance sheet to warehouse these projects until then. So that's what -- that's the approach -- the exact approach we've been taking with those three ammonia projects to consolidate them with Fertiglobe.

And we currently have no further questions over the phone lines. I'll hand it back to Rita to read our online questions. Rita?

Thank you. We did get some questions on the webcast. First question, regarding the ExxonMobil project in the U.S. is ADNOC or Fertiglobe exposed to the entire project, including the hydrogen production and sequestration or just the blue ammonia part of the project?

Sure. Sure. With regards to that, obviously, we're getting the 35% stake that ADNOC has in the entire project. Exxon is taking care of the sequestration in that project. In terms of giving it out between the hydrogen production, the blue hydrogen production and the ammonia, our general interest has been on the ammonia side. So we'll have more details on what that looks like going forward, but it is for the entire 35% stake that ADNOC has, and we'll share more details and we're also giving some thought around scoping and what makes the most sense for Fertiglobe over the next, I guess, couple of years.

Thanks, Ahmed. Another question came whether there was already any dividend guidance for the second half of this year.

Okay. I'll take that. So -- we just paid $150 million in October for the first half of this year. So that represents $2.42 billion since the IPO. And as most of you know, one of the best dividend yields in the market sector. We haven't provided dividend guidance yet for the second half. So we will do in the months to come, but we further -- we're still committed to our policy of paying out excess free cash flow after providing growth opportunities and maintaining that investment-grade parameters. We'll be disclosing later.

Thanks, Andrew. Another question more generally on the webcast around the outlook for the coming months in Q4, Ahmed?

Yes. I mean I think we spent a decent amount of time talking about the outlook for ammonia and urea, underpinned by different factors, including outages that we've seen globally on the ammonia side, high TTF pricing, for ammonia and then on the urea side, we still see a lot of buying that needs to happen in the Northern Hemisphere in the Americas and in Europe, and we see farmer affordability to have improved over the last couple of months. So it looks generally good from a pricing perspective, notwithstanding kind of short-term volatility. And we're going to be looking around the corner for new supply that's going to be coming to the market needs to be absorbed, particularly on the ammonia side with Gulf Coast ammonia as well as some Russian exports from Oman. So generally feel good about where we stand in terms of the near and medium term. And obviously, we've continued to share our medium- and long-term outlook on the SMBs.

Thank you. And I think there's no further questions on the webcast at this time. Back to you, Ahmed.

Well, thanks, everyone, for joining this call and look forward to our next call in the fourth quarter results.

Thank you.

Thank you. And this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.