Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So that gives you a good picture in terms of the reliability front, and thanks for that. In terms of Trinidad gas contract. Yes, we’re in the final stages of finalizing the contract with the National Gas Company, and we expect to be announcing something here and in the short-term.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Joel Jackson from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Joel Jackson: Good morning. Usually when the potash corporate nutrient, when we see global shipments rise so much since you hold the excess tons usually you would gain disproportionately share this year, obviously, I guess the Belarusian picked up as I’ve gone up to 80%, 85% of capacity utilization. Sorry. So now you’re modeling a very bullish outlook next year for 3 million ton of further potash demand next year, how much of that 3 million tons, do you – in your model? Are you assuming Nutrien should be able to benefit? How much more I think those has to go? So yes, how much of the three next year should we assume in your base projection that Nutrien should get?

Ken Seitz: Good morning, Joel. Yes, thank you for the question. So yes, obviously, when we say 65 to 67 million tons, so that’s up from last year, and as nutrient, as I mentioned earlier, we continue to maintain our market share. So we have been deploying our tons into the market. There have been a few challenges this year, as I’m sure, with the logistics side of our business, and we talked about Canpotex’s and the strikes that we saw on the West Coast, which certainly challenged our volumes, and we did have a volume impact there. Those shipments have returned to normal. But what we’re still dealing with Canpotex’s is still dealing with an outage in it’s Portland facility, which that work is has been underway to get it back online, which we expect to happen by the end of the year.

But there have been volume impacts associated with both of those outages. Yes, as we peer into 2024 and talk about 67 million to 71 million tons, and what we believe will be some ongoing challenges with FSU exports. And you know, it’s not to say that we don’t plan for those exports to come back over time, but we expect that next year, there still be some of those challenges. That yes, Canadian potash and Nutrien potash will play a role, certainly, in filling some of that void.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Vincent Andrews from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Vincent Andrews: Thank you. I just kind of wanted to follow-up on that in terms of your expectations for that normalization of Russian and Belarusian supply. And it seems like maybe they – as we move through the course of this year, they were able to export a little bit more than you thought. And it seems I’m wondering if that’s again, going to be the case next year versus what you thought 3, 6, 9 months ago? If that’s true. What is it that’s allowing them to get more product out faster than you previously anticipated?

Ken Seitz: Yes, thanks, Vincent for the question. Yes, I – what I’ll say is, yes, certainly the those volumes are at the top end of what we saw coming out of the region this year. I mean, there’s, of course, a lot of uncertainty. So to see it, where this and yes, we see volumes going into China via rail from Belarus, albeit at $280 a ton, we think, to deliver to that part of the world. And we saw that – we see of depending on the Chinese domestic price, we see those volumes coming up when it’s affordable and coming back down again, when it’s not. So and then there’s the shipments off the coast of Russia. So a lot of moving parts as I said at the high end of the range. The reality, though, is there continued to be sanctions against the Belarus, Russians and, the terrible conflict, and that carries on in Eastern Europe aside, those sanctions were in place prior to this conflict.