CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Joshua Spector: Thanks. I appreciate that. And just longer term, Tony, I wanted to ask just more about the timing here for the JV with Mitsui. So you have the FEED study completing shortly from our prior conversations, talked about the milestone in Japan with Medi talking about some subsidy support or how that evolves, is that timing still early to mid-next year? And does that mean you make a decision to invest later next year, mid- to late next year? Or is there any reason that timeline will be off from how you’re thinking about it?

Tony Will: Yes. I think the situation with Medi and Gara’s decision-making might be a little fluid, it feels a little bit like many governments one step forward, two steps back. So it’s hard to know with precision exactly when they’re going to come to conclusion on their evaluation and putting in place the subsidy schemes that are ultimately going to drive that marketplace. But we remain strong believers in the fact that it’s ultimately going to happen. It’s going to be an important tool for ongoing decarbonization, both in Japan and in Korea. And if anything, our conversations with the potential end users are becoming more firm and kind of more compelling as opposed to softening based on what’s going on with the government.

So we’re very optimistic about how that demand profile develops. It’s more a question of when the governments kind of finalize things and people are able to step forward. We are continuing to have — as Chris mentioned, the FEED study is one important input into the process in making investment decision. We’re continuing to have ongoing very constructive dialogs with our potential partner/partners in that project. And we’re hopeful to be able to be a little more definitive about things. I’m going to stop short of saying making a final decision, but being more definitive about things on our fourth quarter full-year call in February. So I would just say, Josh, stay tuned. That’s probably a good time horizon for us to really update where we’re at.

Joshua Spector: Okay, thank you.

Operator: And our next question will come from Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Adam Samuelson: Hi, thank you. Good morning everyone.

Tony Will: Good morning, Adam.

Adam Samuelson: Good morning. So Tony, I mean you talked a little bit about the kind of some of the supply disruptions in ammonia in the near term, which is certainly helping kind of the overall nitrogen balance. There’s also a lot of blue ammonia and new kind of project activity happening in this market, maybe with a little bit less diligence in terms of kind of the pre-engineering or customer offtake agreements than you seem to be pursuing. But how do you look at that merchant ammonia market over the next — over the next couple of years? Are you — do you see any concerns that there might be some blue ammonia that comes to market before some of the end-demand use really is in place yet? Or do you still feel comfortable that there’s a sufficient kind of tightness in the nutrient on the fertilizer side to absorb that if needed.

Tony Will: Yes, Adam, so one of the things I mentioned in my prepared remarks and certainly able to kind of provide more details of this offline as it makes sense, is that if you look globally at the number of projects that are under construction right now, and it basically takes four years before when you announce and actually break ground to have something that is in production. So you have a very good visibility in terms of how much capacity is coming online in the next four years. The amount of new net capacity coming online does not keep up with a 1% to 1.5% demand growth in traditional fertilizer applications. And so we think that just based on the fundamentals in the marketplace, we are going to experience an S&D tightening and that’s before you layer in some of the supply disruptions Bert talked about with Trinidad being down one million tons of production, Europe being down four million to five million tons of production, other disruptions elsewhere in the world.