LSB Industries, Inc. (LXU) on Q1 2021 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Operator: Greetings and welcome to LSB Industries' First Quarter Fiscal Year 2020 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Kristy Carver, Senior Vice President and Treasurer. Thank you, Kristy, you may begin. Kristy Carver: Good morning everyone. Joining me today on the call are Mark Behrman, our Chief Executive Officer; and Cheryl Maguire, our Chief Financial Officer. Please note that today's call will include forward-looking statements and because these statements are based on the company's current intent, expectations, and projections, they are not guarantees of future performance and a variety of factors could cause the actual results to differ materially. Mark Behrman: Thank you, Kristy and good morning everyone. As always, we appreciate your interest in LSB Industries and are happy that you can join our call this morning. What a difference a year makes. At this time last year, we were staring into the unknown of the unfolding COVID-19 crisis. The onset of the pandemic required us to rapidly implement protocols and procedures to keep our employees and their families healthy while enabling us as an essential business that continue to run our facilities. It also caused a significant slowdown and in some areas -- in some cases a full shutdown of our industrial end markets and much of the U.S. economy in general. At the same time, pricing of our agricultural products declined further from the already low levels of 2019. The level of uncertainty we faced as individuals, as a company, and as a nation was historical in nature and daunting to say the least. In the face of these challenges, our team more than rose to the occasion, integrating our COVID mitigation procedures into our overall health and safety program to achieve outstanding results and they did this while remaining focused on our goal of continuous improvement in our manufacturing operations. In doing so, our people capitalized on the investments we made in plant reliability and product upgrading capabilities over the previous several years, and ultimately, delivered company record production volumes across our portfolios of facilities. Flash-forward to today, with the widespread rollout of vaccines, emerging treatments, and greater overall knowledge and experience as to how to run our business and live our lives on a day-to-day basis amidst a pandemic, has come a rebound in much of the U.S. economy, including our key industrial end markets. On the agricultural side of our business, a combination of factors has aligned to spark a surge in demand and pricing for the products we produce and sell. We believe that these favorable trends are likely to persist throughout 2021 and into 2022 and because of the variety of actions we've taken over the past several years, we think we are well-positioned to capitalize on them. Our first quarter was not without its challenges. As widely documented in the news, and as we discussed in our last earnings call, historically cold weather across the regions in which we operate and the related impact on natural gas pricing and availability during February caused temporary shutdowns at two of our facilities and impacted our results for the period. Cheryl Maguire: Thanks Mark and good morning. Page eight bridges are adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter 2021 of $17.3 million to adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2020 of $15.6. This improvement was due to greater sales volumes and improved pricing, stemming from a multitude of factors that Mark spoke about earlier. A - Mark Behrman: Thank you Cheryl. The beginning three months of 2021 was the first quarter that we would say we experienced little to no impact from the pandemic. It was also the first quarter in more than two years, where we saw meaningful price increases for our agricultural products. We have seen further price increases in the second quarter and we believe that these can be maintained on a year-over-year comparative basis for the remainder of the year and into 2022. As I mentioned earlier, current and future corn prices are at the highest they've been since 2013 and forecasts call for approximately 91 million acres of corn planted this spring. In recent weeks, we've seen this translate into significant demand for fertilizers, as growers strive to maximize yields at the anticipated favorable market prices for corn. Slide 11 illustrates an important market dynamic that we've been talking about on our past two conference calls. The top chart shows the historical relationship between urea and UAN. For the better part of the past 10 years, UAN and traded at or above the price of urea on a nitrogen equivalent basis. Beginning of mid-2019, however, UAN began selling at a discount to urea for the balance of that year and for most of 2020. This led us to believe as we indicated on past conference calls, that we would see a reversion to the historical relationship with the UAN to urea discount ultimately narrowing or disappearing. Operator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. Thank you. Our first question comes from Travis Edwards with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question. Unidentified Analyst: Hi, good morning. This is Bertie Ray on for Travis. Thanks for taking my question. We're still at elevated pricing. I know you've talked previously about a traditional set down in ammonia and other nitrogen prices in the back half of the year. But can you give us any commentary on what you're expecting for full year EBITDA. Based on your price matrix chart, it looks like you could be eclipsing about $100 million of EBITDA this year. Is that a reasonable assumption or how should we think about that? Mark Behrman: I think about the only thing we can say on full year EBITDA is we're pretty comfortable with the grid that we put out there. And so based on a level of UAN and ammonia prices, you could land somewhere on that grid. Unidentified Analyst: Got it. Thanks. That's helpful. And then as a follow-up, you mentioned the impacts from the winter storm, could you provide the operating rates for the quarter or some quantification regarding the outages in the quarter? Mark Behrman: No, we don't usually provide operating rates on individual clients, so we're going to stay away from that. It's not something that we typically answer or disclose. Unidentified Analyst: Okay, got it. Thanks very much for your time. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Steve Ferazani with Sidoti & Company. Please proceed with your question. Steve Ferazani: Hi. Morning everyone. I have to follow-up on a brief commentary on tackling capital structure. We know that certainly next month call option price declines. How are you thinking about it? But it seems like you open the door to other possibilities, is there any kind of color you can provide? And how you're thinking about given the way the market conditions are? How you're thinking about the capital structure? And what you might do in the next couple of months? Mark Behrman: Yes, so -- we absolutely believe that there's an opportunity for us to refinance. That opportunity has been present for some months now. As you mentioned, our call premium does step down on May 1st. So, that's this weekend. And suffice it to say that we've had some active conversations with investment banks about refinancing. So, I would suggest that between now and the end of the third quarter, there's a strong possibility that we would be refinancing or existing senior secured notes and looking at that as part of potentially lowering our overall cost of capital. Steve Ferazani: Okay. In terms of -- and I know, you don't want to provide full year guidance, but in terms of how you are internally preparing for the second half of the year, knowing that Q2, you should have the very, very strong ag sales, some potential -- some additional ammonia capacity coming back to the market the second half, how do you think about your ag versus industrial and mining pellets with the industrial side, as you noted, getting stronger now? Mark Behrman: Well, I mean, I think we actively manage our product balance. It's not something that you could manage on a day-to-day basis. But we certainly look at it at the beginning of the year. A lot of our industrial business is contracted, so we're committed to providing product to customers. So, it's not -- we can't not provide that. But there's always spot sale opportunities. What I would say about the ag markets is typically you'll have a reset in fertilizer prices over the summer and we would expect to have a reset from prices from current prices. But I don't think that you'll see a summer reset, particularly on UAN as low -- anywhere near as low as we've had the last couple of years. So, I think we expect to see some better fertilizer pricing in the second half of the year on a comparative basis than we've seen in 2019. Steve Ferazani: Okay, that’s helpful. And then just last one -- just a modeling question. I know I thought it was useful color in terms of the insurance costs, is that the primary reason for the sequential change in SG&A for the quarter besides obviously sales going up and then is that how we should think -- how should we think about SG&A going forward with the higher insurance premiums? Cheryl Maguire: Yes, that is the primary reason -- it is the insurance costs and I think you can assume that that would continue over the next three quarters. Steve Ferazani: That was very helpful. Thanks everyone. Mark Behrman: Sure. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Rob McGuire with Granite Research. Please proceed with your question. Rob McGuire: Mark and Cheryl. Cheryl Maguire: Good morning. Rob McGuire: Can you help us understand to what degree stronger pricing in the ag market is reflected in your first quarter? Mark Behrman: Rob, we can't hear you. Rob McGuire: I'll try this differently, one moment. Apologize for that. Can you hear me now? Mark Behrman: Yes. Rob McGuire: Very good. I can you help us understand to what degree stronger pricing in the ag market is reflected in your first quarter results, just considering that you have pre-sold some product in Q4 and then early Q1. And then as it relates to second quarter sales, how much product was pre-sold at late Q1 prices and will likely be reflected in the second quarter? Mark Behrman: Yes, great question. So, I'd say most of the first quarter was pre-sold back late in 2020, or early 2021. So, we really didn't see much benefit from higher pricing. I'd say when it comes to second quarter; we're going to see significant benefit from a bump up in fertilizer prices. Having the weather outage, though, affect several of our facilities will have us probably roll a little bit of lower pricing into the second quarter, but overall, I think we'll be able to take advantage of the higher pricing in Q2. Rob McGuire: That's helpful. On that on the impact of prior in El Dorado during the quarter, can you kind of quantify the financial impact of those shutdowns? Mark Behrman: Well, I think part of managing our manufacturing facilities is also managing our gas purchasing and in our gas book, and so what I would say is the net impact, because we were able to sell back some gas, was about $1.5 million for the quarter. So, I mean, I don't think that we're comfortable talking about what was the actual manufacturing impact versus how much did we benefit by the sell back of gas and things like that. I think it's kind of -- in our view, it's kind of altogether. Rob McGuire: Okay, great. And then green ammonia, just anecdotally, it's gained a lot of traction recently, how quickly can you enter that market? And how significant can that become? Mark Behrman: Well, that's a really great question. I think for me, I think about -- really creating what we believe is a good strategy for us, by the end of the year that would be the goal and then executing on that strategy. Ultimately, I think, you don't enter a market like this, which is a nascent market, with both feet and jump in the water, I think, we'll dip our toe in by modifying one of our facilities, I believe, to produce anywhere from 15,0000 to 20,000 tons of green ammonia, that's the thought process today. And enter that market and be a real participant and then have the ability to scale if the market really takes off. The one thing I'd say is it is a non-existent market today and so there's a lot of chatter. And there's a lot of announcements and a lot of MOUs being announced. And I think a lot of great activity and great intentions. The reality is, is that it's pretty costly to manufacture green ammonia today. And so they'll have to be their government assistance, either in the capital needed to get into the market, or certainly in maybe credits back for reducing CO2 emissions. And, of course, you have to have customers that are willing to pay higher prices for something that's carbon-free. So, it will -- I think we're really excited about it. We think that it's a huge market opportunity. Today, there's about 180 million tons of ammonia produced globally. And based on some of the applications including in the Marine industry, in power industry and some of the other opportunities. If everyone went green, I mean, it could be double that, so over 300 million of ammonia production annually that would be required. So, there really is a big market opportunity, but I caution in that I think it's going to be a slow developing market. Rob McGuire: Thank you. I've no further questions. Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mark Behrman for closing comments. Mark Behrman: I want to thank everyone for their interest in LSB Industries and if there are any follow-up questions, please feel free to give either Cheryl or I a call. Thanks so much. Operator: This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful day.LXU Ratings Summary
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Deutsche Bank Lowers Price Target on LSB Industries, Shares Fall 5%
LSB Industries (NYSE:LXU) shares fell more than 5% intra-day today after Deutsche Bank analysts lowered their price target for the company to $9 from $11 while maintaining a Buy rating. The analysts noted that LSB expects Q3 EBITDA to rise significantly year-over-year, excluding $15 million in turnaround expenses, driven by higher prices and reduced costs for natural gas and other inputs. However, the quarter-over-quarter EBITDA is anticipated to decline by 62%.
LSB is also making progress on its two low-carbon ammonia projects. The company recently signed a five-year agreement to supply up to 150,000 metric tons of low-carbon ammonium nitrate solution (ANS) to Freeport Minerals, with deliveries starting in January 2025 from its El Dorado, AR facility. The contract includes a premium pricing for the low-carbon ANS compared to the conventional version. The El Dorado Low-Carbon Ammonia Project, in partnership with Lapis Energy, is expected to be operational by Q1 2026, reducing LSB’s Scope 1 CO2 emissions by approximately 25% and generating an additional $15-$20 million in EBITDA.
Deutsche Bank Lowers Price Target on LSB Industries, Shares Fall 5%
LSB Industries (NYSE:LXU) shares fell more than 5% intra-day today after Deutsche Bank analysts lowered their price target for the company to $9 from $11 while maintaining a Buy rating. The analysts noted that LSB expects Q3 EBITDA to rise significantly year-over-year, excluding $15 million in turnaround expenses, driven by higher prices and reduced costs for natural gas and other inputs. However, the quarter-over-quarter EBITDA is anticipated to decline by 62%.
LSB is also making progress on its two low-carbon ammonia projects. The company recently signed a five-year agreement to supply up to 150,000 metric tons of low-carbon ammonium nitrate solution (ANS) to Freeport Minerals, with deliveries starting in January 2025 from its El Dorado, AR facility. The contract includes a premium pricing for the low-carbon ANS compared to the conventional version. The El Dorado Low-Carbon Ammonia Project, in partnership with Lapis Energy, is expected to be operational by Q1 2026, reducing LSB’s Scope 1 CO2 emissions by approximately 25% and generating an additional $15-$20 million in EBITDA.
