All Posts from August 7, 2017

Salt, South American Unit Push Compass into Loss Column

Despite increased operating income from its Plant Nutrition North America business, Compass Minerals reported that weaker results from its Salt and Plant Nutrition South America businesses moved the company into the loss column for second-quarter 2017.

“Despite a strong performance this quarter in our Plant Nutrition North America business, our results were pressured by increased costs in the Salt segment and sluggish plant nutrition sales in South America,” said Fran Malecha, Compass Minerals’ president and CEO. “While this has been a challenging period, I am pleased with the progress we have made in positioning our plant nutrition business for growth and in aggressively identifying areas across the company for cost reductions. Because of the expected benefits of these efforts, our full-year earnings-per-share guidance remains unchanged.”

Compass reported a second-quarter net loss of $6.4 million on sales of $228 million, down from the year-ago income of $6.3 million and $169.5 million, respectively.

Second-quarter Plant Nutrition North America operating earnings were up at $7.6 million on sales of $50.5 million from the year-ago $4.7 million and $47.8 million, respectively. Fertilizer volumes were up at 78,000 st from 74,000 st, though average sales prices per ton were off at $642/st from $651/st.

Second-quarter Salt operating earnings dropped to $10.7 million from the year-ago $23.3 million, while those for Plant Nutrition South America were $800,000 down from $2.6 million. Total volumes for the South American unit were also down at 151,000 st from 283,000 st, with average prices down at $439/st from $451/st.

Compass reported six-month net income of $15.1 million on revenues of $615.8 million, down from the year-ago $56 million and $515.2 million, respectively.

EuroChem Buys Argentine Distributor

EuroChem Group AG, Zug, Switzerland, said Aug. 7, that it has acquired Emerger Fertilizantes SA, a privately-owned distributor of premium and standard fertilizers in Argentina. The price and other terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

EuroChem said it continues to expand its distribution network to get better access to several important markets with its recent acquisitions in Brazil, Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain. It said the acquisition will further strengthen EuroChem’s footprint in Latin America which is an important region currently accounting for 11 percent of the Group’s fertilizer sales.

EuroChem says Emerger has annual fertilizer sales of 50,000 mt. It owns a warehouse with storage capacity of 12,000 mt about 8 kilometers from the port of San Nicolas de los Arroyos, northern Argentina, and rents three separate retail centers. About 60 percent of sales are of premium fertilizers with a good presence in the local tobacco industry, and the remainder is accounted for by sales to customers in the North East, Central and Central East regions of Argentina. Emerger has 25 employees.

According to the Argentinian fertilizer industry organization, Fertilizar Asociación Civil, the market for fertilizers in Argentina is expected to increase in size from 3.4 million mt in 2016 to 5.5 million mt in 2020.

“The acquisition of Emerger, a well-positioned distributor in the Argentinian fertilizer market, is another step to bolster our capabilities in Latin America which is one of the fastest growing fertilizer markets in the world,” said Dmitry Strezhnev, EuroChem CEO. “This reflects our intention to expand sales of premium products in Latin America and we are looking forward to developing the business in Argentina and in neighboring countries.”

“Under EuroChem ownership we will be able to offer a wider range of value-added fertilizers to our customers in Argentina as well as Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay,” said Enrique Arambarri, former co-owner and CEO.

Tiger-Sul Says Alabama Plant not a Total Loss

Tiger-Sul Inc. tells Green Markets that the condition of its Atmore, Ala., was not a total loss, as was reported by the local fire chief (GM Aug. 4, p. 1). “We believe that assessment is overstated, and that’s due in large part to the exceptional efforts of Chief Peebles’ crew and the other fire departments and first responders who worked hard to ensure the personal safety of those in the community while also trying to limit the damage done to the site,” Tiger-Sul Marketing Manager Usman Khalid told Green Markets.

“Because of their efforts only a section of the facility was impacted,” he added. “The facility has been released to us and we have already begun the cleanup and assessment. Our team is committed to bringing it back up as soon as possible. We’re pleased to report the facility is now open and the warehousing operations have started. In addition, our molten sulfur operations will be operational in a couple of weeks. Plus with some basic refurbishing we will be in a position to start production in a reasonably short amount of time.”

OCI Partners Shaves 2Q Loss

OCI Partners LP reported a net loss of $1 million on revenues of $74 million for the second quarter ending June 30, 2017, an improvement over the year-ago loss of $15 million on revenues of $56 million. Despite the uptick, the company says results were negatively impacted by unplanned outages in April and May that reduced ammonia utilization to 87 percent and methanol to 72 percent.

For the first six months, the company was in the black at $12 million on revenues of $167 million, up from a year-ago loss of $22 million on $126 million, respectively.