CF Industries Holdings Inc. reported third-quarter losses attributable to common shareholders of $87 million ($0.37 per diluted share) on net sales of $870 million compared to a year-ago loss of $30 million ($0.13 per share) and $680 million, respectively. While sales volumes grew to 4.88 million st from the year-ago 3.67 million st, prices were off for most nitrogen categories.
“The CF team delivered strong results in what is typically the quarter with the lowest demand in North America,” said Tony Will, CF president and CEO. “We ran our plants safely and at high utilization rates, leveraged our North American distribution platform and increased our global customer base. Together, these enabled our company to benefit from the strengthening global price environment that developed during the third quarter.”
CF noted that nitrogen prices are on the way up, saying that granular urea prices were $160/st FOB at New Orleans at the start of the quarter and $245/st at quarter’s end.
Nitrogen producer CVR Partners LP reported a third-quarter loss of $31.6 million ($0.28 per common unit) on sales of $69.4 million, compared to the year-ago loss of $13.4 million ($0.12 per unit) and $78.5 million, respectively.
“Production levels in the third quarter were negatively impacted by the planned 14-day turnaround at our East Dubuque facility, which was completed on time and on budget,” said CEO Mark Pytosh. “However, the plant experienced eight days of unplanned downtime due to an exchanger outage during the quarter. The Coffeyville facility also underwent three days of unscheduled downtime that partly was related to maintenance issues at Linde’s air separation plant.
“U.S. nitrogen fertilizer pricing continued to be negatively impacted by new production capacity starting during the third quarter,” he added. “With these capacity expansions largely behind us and with strong international demand for nitrogen fertilizer, we have seen a significant increase in pricing since July and are seeing these higher prices reflected in product purchases for the fourth quarter and the first half of 2018.”
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