Stephen R. Wilson
Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Thanks, Dan, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday afternoon, CF Industries reported record first quarter net earnings of $407 million or $6.47 per diluted share compared to earnings of $368 million or $5.54 per share in last year's first quarter. Our net earnings and earnings per share set first quarter records, as our employees did an exceptional job operating the business. Last year, we had an unusually early start to the fertilizer application season. In stark contrast, this year, we're experiencing an unusually late start to the season. However, it is our same set of core business strengths of manufacturing flexibility, nimble transportation and logistics infrastructure and significant end-market storage assets, all operated by the best team in the business that have enabled us to post outstanding results under vastly different market conditions. The first quarter of 2012 was characterized by an abnormally early start to field preparation work throughout North America, most notably in the upper Midwest United States, which is an area of significant demand for preplant ammonia application. The year-ago quarter also was characterized by relatively-low urea imports, which set the stage for very strong urea prices throughout the spring season. This year, we saw a more normal weather result and a late -- later start to ammonia application. During the first quarter of 2013, we also had a higher volume of urea imports, which along with the late start to the application season, has weighed on urea prices in North America. Despite these diverging market trends, the effective management of our business enabled us to generate 10% growth in net earnings and due to our share repurchases, 17% growth in earnings per share. As you know, nitrogen is a nutrient that must be applied on corn every year to generate the yields that allow farmers to maximize their profitability. In the first quarter, we saw clear evidence of strong demand for nitrogen in the volume of UAN that we ship to our customers, and we have a very strong UAN order book, which indicates our customers' desire to have product available as the season gets up to speed. During the quarter, we sold 3.5 million tons of our products, a decrease of 6% compared to the exceptional first quarter of 2012, but also 6% higher than the same period in 2011 when we experienced comparable weather conditions. In the nitrogen segment, we had a year-over-year increase in the average price for each of our major products, except urea, and strong product volumes considering the later start to application compared to last year. Ammonia is the product that experienced the greatest year-over-year change in volume. In 2012, we sold 672,000 tons of ammonia, an unprecedented amount that reflected the exceptional weather conditions that allowed farmers to get into their fields to start application in early March. This year, we sold 334,000 tons of ammonia, a more typical amount. The cool wet weather prevented farmers from starting ammonia application in the Corn Belt during the quarter, but we did experience good movement in the Southwestern states. Pricing for ammonia was quite strong throughout the quarter. The average price per ton was about even with the first quarter of 2012 reported average price and increased about 6% compared to the adjusted average price. This year-over-year increase in the strength of ammonia prices in the Corn Belt demonstrate the market's strong demand expectations for the spring application season. Urea sales volume and average prices both declined from the first quarter of 2012. Our sales volume was very strong in 2012 given the early start to the application season compared to this year. And as I noted earlier, prices declined due to the delayed demand and the higher volume of imports that has come to the U.S. this year. This season's price movements compared to the very strong price -- spot market prices last year remind us that this is a dynamic market, with sharp price movements in both positive and negative directions. To be a reliable supplier in this market, companies need to have the infrastructure to store their product during periods of market slowness, a distribution system to be able to move product to market quickly and the financial strength to weather periods of slow demand and relatively-modest prices. I emphasize the word relatively because as we know, even at the most recent published Gulf urea spot price of $330 per ton, CF Industries still earns very attractive margins. UAN has been an area of robust demand and attractive prices for us this year. This led us to increase our production of UAN relative to urea in order to capture the enhanced earnings opportunity. Since UAN can be stored in downstream customer locations, we saw strong movement to dealers and distributors as they sought to build their inventories in preparation for a very robust spring application. To put this in perspective, our UAN volumes set a first quarter record and was the second highest we've delivered in any single quarter. We managed our UAN pricing and order book very well during this period of robust demand. As a result, we realized an average price of $329 per ton. With the importance of UAN to our company, this was a key component of the strong results we generated this quarter. Our cost of natural gas increased slightly from the year prior levels. Although weather early in the quarter was relatively mild, this March proved to be among the coldest on record and natural gas prices experienced an associated rally. Our long-term view is that natural gas prices are sustainable in a range of roughly $3 to $5 per MMBtu and the production increases should limit any sustained price rally. Our Phosphate business generated $28 million of gross margin on sales of $239 million. While export volume and prices decreased due to a slow international market, we experienced healthy volume and prices in the domestic market, giving prospects for a strong, albeit delayed, spring season. As we noted in our earnings release and the press release we published April 22, we bought back 2.5 million shares during the quarter. And with purchases subsequent to the end of the quarter, we have bought back a total of 3.8 million shares for the year-to-date, representing approximately 6% of shares outstanding as of the end of 2012. These repurchases totaled $750 million for an average price of approximately $197 per share. We believe the repurchases represent exceptional value. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Dennis for a few more comments on our financial performance.