CF Industries Holdings Inc. reported a 42 percent drop in third quarter earnings attributable to common shareholders to $234.1 million ($4.07 per diluted share) on sales of $1.1 billion compared to the year-ago $403.3 million ($6.35 per share) on sales of $1.36 billion. EDITDA was $477.4 million, down from $729.1 million.
“We faced a challenging global fertilizer market this quarter, but thanks to the strength of our business model we generated nearly $480 million of EBITDA,” said CF Chairman and CEO Stephen Wilson. “The fact that we generated these results in a seasonally slow quarter with floor level global nitrogen prices reflects our competitively strong position on the global nitrogen cost curve.”
Phosphate volumes were up slightly to 526,000 st versus the year-ago 517,000 st, with the company citing an uptick in exports during the quarter.
Nitrogen volumes were off 6 percent to 2.78 million st versus the year-ago.
Prices for both nitrogen and phosphates were weaker.
Nine-month net earnings were $1.14 billion ($19.01 per share) on sales of $4.15 billion, down from the year-ago $1.38 billion ($21.14 per share) on sales of $4.46 billion.
Nine-month nitrogen volumes were 9.38 million st, down from 9.69 million st, while phosphates were 1.44 million st, down from 1.53 million st.