Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jeff Tarsi: Yes. I would say that overall in the year we just finished in €˜22, we had about a 30 basis point increase in market share across our total seed portfolio. If I look at the seed price for €˜23, we have seen somewhere between €“ let’s say, depending on the crop somewhere between a 6% to 10% increase in seed prices year-over-year and being reflective that in the €˜22 season, most seed companies chose not to have any price increase at all. So we were expecting an increase for €˜23 and again, somewhere between that 6% to 10% standpoint. Look, Dyna-Gro continues to be an integral part of our seed strategy and we continue to work to strengthen our portfolio either through proprietary breeding or through our strategic relationships we have with our suppliers.

We have had some major successes this past year, particularly with rice, which is our Dyna-Gro 263 line, that’s a proprietary germplasm brand within our business. And we have had a lot of success there. We continue to have success with our proven canola brand. And you mentioned Dyna-Gro, we would think our share increases would be in line with what we saw across our broad portfolio with it.

Operator: Your next question comes from Richard Garchitorena with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Richard Garchitorena: Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just quickly on the potash strategy, I just wanted to touch on the decision to delay the ramp-up to 18 million tons, potentially by 2026. Is your ramp-up €“ is it based on the assumption that we get unconstrained demand of 70 million tons at some point? And then as a follow-up so if we see things continuing to remain constrained in the 63 million to 67 million tons, can you continue to defer the ramp up, I guess? Is there any issues related to that in terms of equipment orders or site preparation that type of thing? Thanks.

Ken Seitz: Yes. Thank you for the question, Richard. And I will start and then I’ll hand it over to Chris Reynolds just to talk about optionality that we have as it relates to the ramp up. It’s just to say that and just echoing Jason Newton’s comments earlier. We believe that we are going to be in supply-constrained environment here for a few years. And what’s the reason for that? Well, we do see demand growing. I mean for all the reasons we have talked about, the fundamentals are strong, but we back cast over the last 20 years, price demand has been growing at over 2.5% CAGRs. And so in an environment where demand continues to grow, unconstrained demand continues to grow, but yet we have these supply side challenges, we will be in a supply-constrained market.

And hence our view of meeting the needs of our customers ramping up potash production, but I’ll hand it over to Chris Reynolds just to talk about, again, some of the optionality that we have as it relates to the nimbleness of our ramp up capital program.

Chris Reynolds: Yes good morning Richard. Thanks for the question. So as you mentioned and as we mentioned last year when we first announced this ramp that we had already built in numerous off-ramps that we could trigger if market conditions changed a little bit from our assumptions. And so this plan to ramp up 18 million tons involves dozens of projects, mainly across 4 of our potash sites and equipment that’s mainly related to our underground operations, so mining machines and conveyor belts. And so yes, we €“ these are not €“ as Ken mentioned in his opening remarks, these are not long lead time items. And again if things were to change materially in terms of timing, we could delay the purchasing of some of this equipment.

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