Yara International ASA

OSE:YAR

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Thor Giæver, Head of Investor Relations]

Good morning, and welcome to Yara's first quarter results presentation. Our presentation today will be by our CEO, Svein Tore Holsether; our CFO, Lars Rosaeg; and our EVP for Europe region, Tove Andersen. And a little after the presentation, at 1:00 p.m. Oslo time, there will be an audio conference call for those who want to ask questions.So it's now my pleasure to introduce Yara's CEO, Svein Tore Holsether.

[Svein Tore Holsether, President & CEO]

Thank you very much, Thor. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where you're dialing in from. As usual, we start with safety, where we continue to be at a stable, low and industry-leading level. We're also stable year-over-year at 1.3, and we consider this to be a strong performance in the challenging environment that we've been operating in. And this is thanks to a strong safety culture and attention and efforts every day from all our 16,000 employees. And it's this safe-by-choice way of working that has helped us to continue to operate during a very challenging time with the pandemic.Our long-term ambition remains 0 injury. Now -- then let's take a look at the results. Overall, this quarter ticks most of the boxes performance-wise. Our returns have improved for the 11th quarter in a row at 8.6% return on invested capital in this quarter compared to 6.9% a year earlier. The return on invested capital in this quarter in isolation was at 9%. We've seen improved pricing and margins and continued premium product growth. Finally, we continue to generate strong cash flow with $2.7 billion of free cash flow generated in the last 4 quarters.Let me comment first on the premium product growth. There's a growing demand for sustainable farming solutions, and Yara is well positioned to drive transformation in the food system. We see a consistent premium product growth over time. In addition to being essential input for production of high-quality fruit, vegetables and other cash crops, premium products can drive significant reductions in, in-field emissions as well compared to commodity alternatives.Also, our premium products can ultimately be produced CO2-free utilizing green ammonia as opposed to urea, which cannot be produced without the CO2 molecule.Our cash flow continues to be strong. The rolling total is up approximately $400 million since last quarter as we realized cash flow from stronger deliveries last quarter and also reduced inventories this quarter. Our strong cash flow trend reflects improvement both above and below the line, better cash flow from operations and lower investments.I'll now hand over to our CFO, Lars Rosaeg.

[Lars Rosaeg, Executive VP & CFO]

Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to go a little bit more into detail on the results for the first quarter. The EBITDA was up 16% in the quarter, and I'll get back to that shortly. The EPS increase was even stronger, and this is mainly reflecting higher operating income, mainly driven by higher net financial items.As Svein Tore mentioned, the return on invested capital continued to increase, both due to improved results and release of operating capital, and the release of operating capital was mainly due to lower inventories.Investments were stable and for the quarter, mainly related to ordinary maintenance at our assets to drive productivity and secure reliability in strong markets.Looking at the bridge, we have a significant positive effect from higher prices in strong markets, which is more than offsetting the increase in energy cost. The volume mix development was overall flat in the quarter. As we communicated at the fourth quarter, we reallocated approximately USD 100 million from 2021 CapEx to fixed cost in order to ramp up our strategic activities, and the Q1 development on fixed cost was in line with this.As to results on the different regions. When it comes to Europe, Tove will get back to that shortly. In Americas, we delivered improved prices and higher deliveries, including continued premium product growth in line with our strategy. Africa and Asia improved their production as well as their product mix and pricing.Industrial Solutions delivered improved volumes and higher prices, offset by higher gas costs and lower maritime activity.Global Plants, mainly then representing Sluiskil and Porsgrunn production sites delivered improved reliability and higher margins.We are also very proud to report our new Clean Ammonia segment for the first time, as we communicated at the fourth quarter. This segment comprises both our world-leading ammonia trade and shipping operation, which was previously reported as part of Global Plants, as well as our portfolio of Clean Ammonia projects, amongst these the world-scale project in Porsgrunn, as announced previously, this quarter. And restated historical figures have been published and can be found on our web page.Capital returns are also on a positive trend, increasing for all but one segment, reflecting improved pricing, capital discipline and operational improvement. And as you can see, we have particularly strong absolute returns for Industrial, Global Plants and Clean Ammonia and several of our segments above our mid-cycle 10% target. And we continue to be extremely committed to driving improved capital returns across our regions.Looking at the commercial side. The backdrop is very supportive with farmer economics stronger than for many years and a tight global supply demand balance. This has led to all prices moving higher, which is strongly positive for our results.Looking at the premiums for the quarter in isolation, the rapid commodity price increases did, however, naturally impact premiums short term. For nitrates, prices have moved upwards at a very similar pace to urea in the quarter. And the European industry nitrate inventory levels are low at the end of the quarter.Our NPK prices generally have a somewhat longer time lag compared with nitrates, but we expect margins to normalize going forward to the level that we have seen in the recent past.Our improvement program continues to deliver improvements. Production performance improved across both ammonia and finished products. The energy consumption was flat as some production downtime offset the positive improvement from Trinidad closure. The fixed cost development, as I mentioned, somewhat higher, reflecting the temporary increase in fixed cost in 2021, offset then by the lower CapEx, as communicated at the fourth quarter. And operating capital days significantly improved, driven by lower inventory days.We have a strong focus on strict capital discipline. And as you will see, we have not made any changes to our committed CapEx levels. The quarter, in summary, also saw strong cash earnings, more than funding investments and distributions to shareholders. The net debt-to-EBITDA ratio at 1.26 was down from 1.4 in the fourth quarter. And adjusting for the proposed dividend at the end of the first quarter, the net debt-to-EBITDA would have been 1.54. We are strongly committed to our capital allocation policy of a mid investment-grade rating and a net debt-to-EBITDA of 1.5 to 2. And in line with that policy, the Board has proposed a new buyback authorization of 5% to the upcoming AGM, and we will consider further cash returns in the coming quarters in line with this policy.We believe long-term value creation is maximized when we're driving the perspectives of people, planet and prosperity in an integrated way as hopefully also evident in our newly published integrated annual report for 2020. And in that context, we are also very pleased to see that we continue to improve on our people KPIs, but still with a lot of improvement potential, which is very much a key focus.And on that note, I am pleased to hand over to my colleague, EVP for Europe, Tove.

[Tove Andersen, Executive Vice President of Europe]

Thank you, Lars, and good morning, and good afternoon, everyone. Let me first give you a snapshot of our operations in Europe. Europe is the largest -- Yara's largest region in terms of deliveries. In 2020, we delivered just over 10 million tonnes of products, and we have almost 3,400 employees.The turnover last year was USD 2.1 billion (sic) [ USD 2.9 billion ], and we produced an EBITDA of almost USD 400 million (sic) [ USD 477 million ]. We have commercial operations in around 40 countries and 12 production sites, producing a full range of premium and commodity products, including then also production of YaraVita and fertigation products. Our capacity is 1 million tonnes of ammonia and 8.1 million tonnes of finished products.The agricultural sector in Europe is dominated by livestock, grains, vegetables and fruits, and the farmers are a very diverse group. There is a large number of smaller family farms, but there is also a significant segment of large professional farmers.Let's then look a bit on Q1. The Yara Europe results for first quarter were up 12 -- 21% as improved prices more than offset higher energy costs and slightly lower deliveries compared to a record volume in Q1 2020. Even though deliveries were down 5%, our revenues grew by 9%, thanks to higher prices. We also saw a positive development in our YaraVita range and increased the deliveries with 10% in the quarter.The fast increase in urea prices during the quarter put pressure on our premiums, but we were able to follow up and increase our prices in the market, generating higher absolute revenues and earnings.Let's then look a bit into the future. This week has been an exciting week in the European Union as they landed the agreement on the European climate law, which will then turn the climate neutrality target in 2050 into binding legislation as well as confirming the 55% reduction ambition for 2030. And through the farm-to-fork strategy, the EU has put the spotlight on agriculture as a key contributor to meet the climate targets now confirmed.On the left-hand side of the slide here, you can see the key targets set in the farm-to-fork -- EU's farm-to-fork strategy to make the food system more sustainable. This represents a significant challenge for both farmers and food companies. And Yara is perfectly positioned with our premium portfolio, our agronomic knowledge and digital capabilities to take a leading role in this transition.Our European strategy has 5 focus areas, as also outlined on this slide. We will work with farmers, food companies and other value chain players, like insurance companies, to develop climate-smart solutions that improve both sustainability and profitability of farming. In addition, we will position ourselves to capture a significant share of the future growth segments in Europe as micronutrients, organic solutions and biostimulants.An important enabler for all the growth initiatives is farmer connectivity. We have a number of initiatives within Digital Farming and related solutions, and we expect a significant share of European farming to be digitally enabled within the next years.Developing a sustainable value chain is a key part of our strategy. We are working on a number of fronts to improve our operations throughout the whole value chain to increase efficiency and reduce the environmental footprint, in line with the targets we, as a company, already have communicated.And last but not least, nitrate-based products remain at the core of promoting climate-positive crop nutrition solutions due to both their potential for carbon-free production and their higher efficiency and lower footprint in the field.So in summary, we, in Yara, are perfectly positioned to capture the growth opportunities arising from the Green Deal and to take a leading role in supporting the transformation of the field system in Europe.Thank you, and then I will hand back to Svein Tore.

[Svein Tore Holsether, President & CEO]

Thank you, Tove. There's a massive transition happening in the food system right now, and companies across the whole value chain are setting new and ambitious targets for emissions and for a good reason. 25% of greenhouse gas emissions come from the food system, and it's not possible to reach the Paris Agreement without getting agriculture right. It's a huge challenge, but it's also a huge business opportunity.And as Tove already touched upon, we're working across the whole board to reduce the climate footprint, both of our own operations and those of our customers. We have ambitious targets to reduce both absolute emissions, 30% reduction during the decade; and our emission intensity, 10% reduction in the same period.In the field, we're ramping up our Digital Farming coverage, aiming to double our hectares under active management this year and to reach 150 million hectares by 2025. Digital Farming Solutions can drive a major efficiency and sustainability gain for farmers, especially when used together with premium product and the tailored agronomic advice.Here's an update of some of our many Digital and other Farming Solutions under development. Firstly, the Agoro carbon credit program is launching now in the U.S. this year, and we started to sign up farmers here. You'll be able to learn more about that in connection with the commercial launch later on in the second quarter.In India and Africa, we're seeing a clear validation of the potential in developing a digital marketplace, where we can connect farmers, retailers and distributors and other value chain partners that are -- like banks that are willing to pay Yara for access to such marketplaces. And we have already realized our first revenues in this way in India.In Europe, we have launched the next generation of AtFarm, combining existing remote sensing technologies with our proven in-field sensing portfolio, giving the farmer a 360-degree view in one platform. This allows for more consolidated data collection and will, in the future, enable a new generation of predictive insights.Kaset Go in Thailand is an online user forum and community solution where we use Telenor's user base in Thailand to reach out to farmers with Yara content in a highly effective outreach and marketing solution.Rounding up then, I hope you agree that our prospects are attractive. The market fundamentals are improving, as you've seen in our results earlier in the presentation. And as you've seen, both in Europe and globally, Yara is creating business opportunities from resource and environmental challenges. We have a focused and sustainable long-term strategy. And our operations and returns are strong and increasing.Thank you for joining today's presentation, and I'll hand back to Thor. Thank you.

[Thor Giæver, Head of Investor Relations]

Thank you, Svein Tore. Just a quick roundup from me then to remind people that we do have a conference call in about 40 minutes, at 1:00 p.m. Oslo time. If you don't have the details, go to our web page, yara.com, and Investor Relations.So with that, thank you very much for attending our first quarter presentation.