Earnings Labs

Intrepid Potash, Inc. (IPI)

Q4 2025 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 5, 2026

$37.39

-1.42%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Intrepid Potash, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, I would now like to turn the conference over to Evan Mapes, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Evan Mapes

Management

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss Intrepid Potash, Inc.'s fourth quarter 2025 results. With me today is Intrepid's CEO, Kevin Crutchfield, and CFO, Matt Preston. During the Q&A session, VP of Sales and Marketing, Zachry Adams, and VP of Operations, Rick Kim, will also be available. Please be advised that comments we will make today include forward-looking statements as defined by U.S. securities laws. These are based upon information available to us today and are subject to risks and uncertainties as described in the reports we file with the SEC. These could cause our actual results to be different from those currently anticipated, and we assume no obligation to update them. During today's call, we will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial and operational measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures included in yesterday's press release, along with our SEC filings, are available at intrepidpotash.com. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Kevin Crutchfield.

Kevin Crutchfield

Management

Thanks, Evan, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your interest and attendance for today's earnings call. Intrepid again delivered strong results in the fourth quarter, with adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA of $6.5 million and $18.1 million, respectively, both of which were significant improvements compared to last year. For 2025 as a whole, our adjusted EBITDA of $63 million is one of the best prints since 2016, and represents an almost 80% improvement compared to 2024. We are very proud of these results, which we also accomplished with best-in-class safety performance with just one recordable incident in 2025 across over 1.1 million hours worked. I would like to thank and congratulate our site and all of our team members for their hard work and dedication, and want to encourage them to continue to stay focused and continue to deliver good results in 2026. Our solid 2025 performance was driven by several factors. First, steady demand for our core fertilizer products drove strong sales volumes. In 2025, our combined potash and Trio sales volumes of just over 590,000 tons were 20% higher compared to 2024, with 303,000 tons of Trio sales being a company record. Second, we again delivered solid unit economics from higher overall production, with our 2025 potash COGS per ton improving by approximately 5% versus last year, and our Trio COGS per ton improving by over 10%. And third, we benefited from increasing pricing. This was most pronounced in Trio, where fourth quarter average realized price of $379 per ton was 20% higher than 2025. The solid sales volumes and pricing have continued into 2026 ahead of the spring application season, and agricultural markets have also shown signs of optimism. For corn, year-to-date domestic exports are up almost 50% versus last year. And for soybeans, recent trade…

Matt Preston

Management

Thank you, Kevin. To echo Kevin's remarks, 2025 was a great year for Intrepid, where our total fertilizer sales volumes of 592,000 tons were almost 100,000 tons higher than 2024 and reached a level not seen since 2018. Our number one focus is driving higher production to increase our revenues and improve our unit economics, and it is very encouraging to see our hard work pay off with strong results. For segment highlights, in potash, our fourth quarter gross margin of $4.6 million was in line with the prior year as a higher average net realized sales price of $387 per ton was offset by a slight decrease in sales volumes due to a compressed fall application season and limited engagement on spring potash needs in the latter part of the quarter. Full-year 2025 segment gross margin of $18.2 million was modestly higher compared to last year as the higher production that started in 2024 allowed us to sell 289,000 tons, a 20% increase from 2024, which offset a pricing decline of about $25 per ton. As we noted on our third quarter earnings call, our fourth quarter potash production was impacted by a delayed start-up at HB, which resulted in our full-year 2025 production coming in at 280,000 tons. For 2026, we expect our annual potash production to be in the range of 270,000 to 285,000 tons, and we do expect a slight degradation in our unit economics this year. That said, looking beyond 2026, we expect a recovery in our HB production and more tons out of our Wendover facility, and project our 2027 potash production will be in the range of 300,000 to 310,000 tons, which puts us back on track for our key potash production goal. Moving on to Trio. The very strong performance continued as…

Operator

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any key. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 1. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question comes from Lucas Beaumont with UBS.

Nicole Greenberg

Analyst

Hi. This is Nicole Greenberg on for Lucas. Firstly, I was just wondering if you can walk us through current potash demand dynamics, how your order book is looking for 1Q. Have you seen any evidence of demand disruption due to affordability issues?

Zachry Adams

Analyst

Yes. Thank you for the question. This is Zachry. We are almost fully committed for first quarter right now on potash, and we have not seen any significant demand destruction at this time. Potash remains a very good value for the grower at the current price point, and we expect stable demand for the spring season amid strong acres of corn expected to be planted.

Nicole Greenberg

Analyst

Great. Thanks.

Nicole Greenberg

Analyst

And then just on the lithium project, can you walk through the unit economics there? What cash cost of production would you expect on a per-ton basis?

Kevin Crutchfield

Management

We are not prepared to address that at this stage. We will continue to provide updates to the marketplace as the engineering work progresses, and we will start laying those metrics out in the future.

Nicole Greenberg

Analyst

Got it. Yep. And then last one for me. So oil and fuel sales were down meaningfully in 2025. What is your outlook there going forward compared to this year? Are you expecting growth or further declines from here?

Kevin Crutchfield

Management

Given the nature of the asset and lots of inbounds and interest in the oilfield services business, we felt like testing the market for valuation of our asset was appropriate, which we did, which is why we entered a letter of intent with the prospective buyer. So I think any comment that I would have beyond that would be speculation and almost irrelevant, given that it is our intent to transact on this asset.

Nicole Greenberg

Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Once again, if you have a question, please press star, then 1. Your next question comes from Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley.

Justin Pellegrino

Analyst · Morgan Stanley.

Good morning, everybody. This is Justin Pellegrino on for Vincent. Congratulations on the results. My first question is kind of around sulfur prices. Given the conflicts in the Middle East, we have seen a significant increase in sulfur prices there. And I know it is fairly recent, but could you just discuss any sort of increased interest you have had in Trio over the last few days? Any type of real-time update that you have seen there would be very helpful. And then likewise, can you just discuss expectations for prices relative to the potash products, how that will trend throughout the year? Thank you.

Zachry Adams

Analyst · Morgan Stanley.

Justin, on the sulfur component and what that has led to on Trio interest, we are right in the heat of our main Trio application season, so we are seeing a really good response. I would say, from the demand perspective for the rest of first quarter out into second quarter at this point, we have not seen those prices roll through on sulfate values just yet, but that is something we are watching closely as we move into the spring. And then as far as potash pricing throughout the rest of the year, I am not prepared to project what the second half looks like, but I think globally we are in a very balanced potash market, and particularly here in the U.S. The U.S. potash prices are trading at a discount to almost all global benchmarks, so we think that supports stable pricing here in the U.S. and certainly some room for upside to get in line with where other global markets are currently trading.

Justin Pellegrino

Analyst · Morgan Stanley.

Great. And then just one more from me. If the South Ranch deal does go through, can you give us an update on any capital allocation priorities? Any idea what you would do with the proceeds? Any thoughts there would be helpful. Thank you.

Kevin Crutchfield

Management

Sure. Thank you. Assuming the sale goes through, I think my answer would be the same whether the sale goes through or not that I have referenced on pretty much every call since I took the mantle of the CEO here 15 months ago. Our first priority is an intense focus on our core operations. We are restoring those back to a predictable, resilient state, making sure that they are generating consistent free cash flow and that we can appropriately capitalize them to continue that predictability and reliability into the future and perhaps even grow production volumes modestly over the coming years. From there, we obviously need to maintain sufficient liquidity to allocate capital internally to our operations and address any sustaining and growth capital requirements, and internally also to withstand any sort of body blow or shock that we take to the system on the pricing front. Then once we have satisfied those criteria, I think it is a very appropriate discussion for the board to begin to think about the capital allocations beyond that that just entail the internal needs. So to the extent that the sale does go through, you can rest assured that discussion is top of mind and top of the agenda with the board. I do not want to front-run our board any further than those comments, but that is our point of view on that.

Justin Pellegrino

Analyst · Morgan Stanley.

Great. Thank you for all the commentary.

Operator

Operator

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Kevin Crutchfield for any closing remarks.

Kevin Crutchfield

Management

Thanks to everybody again for attending today’s call, and I would like to again thank all of our employees across all of our sites for a really great year and especially thank them for just an outstanding safety performance, and we look forward to continuing to keep you updated in the coming quarters. Thanks for attending today.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.