Nitrogen producers LSB Industries Inc., Oklahoma City, and CVR Partners LP, Sugar Land, Texas, both reported first-quarter losses.
LSB reported a first-quarter net loss of $5.6 million, compared to the year-ago loss of $6 million. However, the net loss attributable to common shareholders was actually up at $13.6 million ($0.49 per basic and diluted share) from the year-ago $13.2 million ($0.48 per share). Operating income was off at $1.9 million from the year-ago $2.32 million. However, adjusted EBITDA was up at $21.7 million from $18.3 million.
“We were pleased with our first quarter results, which were in line with our expectations and showed improvement over the prior year period, which benefitted from $1.7 million of adjusted EBITDA from a business that we divested later in 2017,” said Daniel Greenwell, LSB president and CEO. “The favorable year-over-year comparison reflects stronger pricing across most of our products along with solid operations by our facilities, particularly El Dorado, along with lower natural gas input costs.”
CVR had a first-quarter net loss of $19 million ($0.17 per common unit), on net sales of $80 million, compared to a year-ago net loss of $10 million ($0.09 per unit) on net sales of $85 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $13 million compared to the year-ago $21 million.
“Our Coffeyville fertilizer plant performed extremely well during the 2018 first quarter, posting on-stream rates of 100 percent for gasification, 99.8 percent for ammonia and 99.2 percent for UAN,” said Mark Pytosh, CVR CEO. “Operations at our East Dubuque plant were interrupted by 12 days of unplanned downtime related to a boiler feed water coil leak.
“While late snowfall and lingering winter temperatures delayed the start of the spring planting season, we continue to anticipate a strong application period with solid demand driven by lower than normal customer inventory levels and an estimated 88 million planted corn acres.”