Yara International ASA

OSE:YAR

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q4

[Thor Giæver, Head of Investor Relations]

Good morning and welcome to Yara's Fourth Quarter 2020 Results Presentation. We have presentations today from our CEO, Svein Tore Holsether; our EVP, Farming Solutions, Terje Knutsen; and our CFO, Lars Røsæg. We will have a Q&A after the presentation, but it will be a separate phone conference at 1:00 p.m. Oslo time. And if you don't already have them, you can find the details for this on our website, Investor Relations financial calendar and then click on the 9th of February, and you will get all the details. So with that brief introduction, it's now my pleasure to introduce Yara's CEO, Svein Tore Holsether.

[Svein Tore Holsether, President & CEO]

Thank you, Thor, and good morning, good afternoon and/or good evening, depending on where you're dialing in from, and thanks for joining our fourth quarter earnings presentation. And as always, we're starting with safety. And our TRI rate continues to be stable at the low and industry-leading standard. Our improvement compared to a year ago is only slight from 1.4 to 1.3. But still, I consider this to be a strong performance considering what we had to work with during the pandemic. In some plants, we had to change our standard operating procedures overnight. And at other places, we had to run shift manning at minimum in order to have spare capacity in order to reduce contamination risk and to be able to ensure operational continuation. And there's no doubt that this has caused additional strain on everyone. But thanks to the embedded safety culture that we have in Yara and the efforts every day by all our 16,000 employees, we've been able to work through this and managed to operate. Our long-term target or ambition for safety is still 0 injuries. Now let's take a look at the results. We have improved both deliveries and the production compared with a year ago. Our returns have improved for the tenth consecutive quarter in a row and at 8% now compared with 6.6% a year earlier. Improved returns also allow us to distribute more cash to our shareholders. We're proposing a NOK 20 per share annual dividend, which will bring total cash and proposed returns to shareholders to NOK 52 per share. And finally, we're taking further steps to enable the hydrogen economy by establishing Yara Clean Ammonia to capture growth opportunities within green hydrogen and ammonia. Our cash flow continues to be strong. For the full year 2020, our free cash flow was up USD 1.4 billion partly driven by the Qafco divestment in third quarter. The rolling total is down approximately $200 million since last quarter as some of the cash flow from stronger deliveries this quarter will be realized in first quarter 2021. Our strong cash flow reflects improvements both above and below the line, better cash flow from operations and lower investments. Our strong cash flow and improved returns allow our Board to propose a 2020 dividend of NOK 20 per share to the Annual General Meeting. Together with our fourth quarter additional dividend and 2020 share buybacks, this brings our total 2020 cash and proposed returns to shareholders to NOK 52 per share. In addition, we have ongoing share buybacks in 2021 that were committed last autumn and they'll amount to approximately NOK 11 per share in 2021. At our ESG seminar in December, we launched enabling the hydrogen economy. This is 1 of our 3 strategic priorities, and we're taking steps today to do just that. We believe ammonia is the best suited hydrogen carrier to move energy over long distances between production and consumption. And existing plants can be retrofitted to produce carbon-free ammonia. We're establishing a new global unit, Yara Clean Ammonia, to capture growth opportunities within carbon-free food solutions, shipping fuel and other green ammonia applications, leveraging our unique existing positions within ammonia production, trade and shipping. So I'll hand over to Terje Knutsen, who will tell you more about this. Over to you, Terje.

[Terje Knutsen, Executive Vice President of Farming Solutions]

Thank you, Svein Tore, and a very good morning and good afternoon and good evening from me as well. Let me start by explaining some of the fundamentals that make ammonia so interesting. Ammonia is being produced by reacting hydrogen and nitrogen over a catalyst bed. Ammonia has a significantly higher volumetric energy density and higher temperatures required for the liquid form. And bear in mind that when we talk temperature, we talk temperatures that are significantly below 0, so higher temperature is a good thing. And as a result, it is significantly more efficient way of transporting hydrogen, carrying almost the double energy compared to pure hydrogen. And this makes ammonia an ideal carrier of hydrogen. Sorry about the slide. This makes ammonia an ideal carrier of hydrogen and, therefore, a vital element in enabling the hydrogen economy. There are existing outlets for hydrogen in ammonia form today, enabling them for potential green future. Carbon-free fertilizer is one of them and obviously being very close to Yara's core. In addition, there are multiple future outlets for green ammonia. Zero-carbon fuel for the maritime sector is one with big potential, but also as coal substitute in energy-constrained countries. As an example, if we take the entire long-distance shipping and convert that to ammonia fuel, ammonia fuel being the most suitable zero-carbon and fossil-free fuel, that would be equal to 900 million tonnes of ammonia production or 5x the entire global production or 50x the present world trade of ammonia. With steam methane reformers, which is what we call the front end of our production plants, Yara is currently producing significant amounts of hydrogen that is converted into ammonia in the Haber-Bosch synthetic loop, which is what we call the back end of the ammonia production. We also operate the only world-scale ammonia plant based on imported hydrogen in Freeport, Texas. The plant was finished in 2019 and is already producing at 130% of plant capacity. By replacing this front end, the steam methane reformers, with electrolyzers fueled by renewable energy, we can generate the hydrogen in our ammonia plants carbon-free. This is a well-proven technology actually utilized by Yara from the late 1920s to the early 1990s when natural gas became the common power source. Yara's ammonia plants operate in integrating nitrogen complexes with huge scale on everything from infrastructure to utilities. And this offers a strong case for retrofitting the green ammonia production at a much lower CapEx than what is required for a greenfield green ammonia facility, particularly considering the most of the production and related infrastructure assets are already in place and can be utilized. In addition, distributing ammonia requires professional handling and safety and security as well as significant infrastructure, such as specially purposed LPG carriers and specialized infrastructure such as tanks and pipelines. Operating in ammonia requires large scale in order to create value given the significant capital requirement to build and maintain this infrastructure. So through our production plants and global trade and distribution setup, Yara has readily available infrastructure to handle ammonia and offer green ammonia to customers worldwide. The European Union has identified hydrogen as the major component to replace hydrocarbons in its journey towards zero-emission economy. Bold targets have been set aiming at 6-gigawatt installed capacity in 2024 and 40-gigawatt capacity in 2030. This is obviously a major undertaking that will require significant infrastructure investment in hydrogen production in addition to distribution and offtake markets for green hydrogen. The only realistic way to reach this ambitious targets is to utilize existing hydrogen outlets and carriers like ammonia. In doing so, it will create scale quicker both in terms of markets and needed infrastructure. And by the way, the picture that you see on this slide is from our ammonia plant in Porsgrunn and is indicating the massive scale of ammonia production. With its global ammonia footprint, Yara is uniquely positioned to play a leading role in green ammonia. We have the world's second largest installed Haber-Bosch syn loop capacity as well as experience in constructing and operating the only world-scale ammonia plant, importing hydrogen without a steam methane reformer. In addition, our global infrastructure of export plants, import tanks, ships and customer outlets enables us to deliver ammonia efficiently worldwide. Yara is the world's largest ammonia trader with approximately 20% market share, close to 600,000 tonnes capacity for storage and a fleet of chartered and owned vessels. In order to focus our efforts, Yara will establish a separate reporting segment, Yara Clean Ammonia. This unit will include our ammonia trade and shipping activities, which is managed out of our Geneva office, as well as our teams that are developing and working on our green and blue ammonia projects and associated markets. This unit will have a unique capability and position across the entire value chain of gray, blue and green ammonia and is working to be able to supply product from our pilot plants already in 2024. Yara's existing ammonia plants will offer opportunities for clean hydrogen production and in addition, the units own sales resources. There will be a close interaction with Yara's regional units in developing markets for carbon-free fertilizer, and we think that will be a strong competitive edge for the new unit. The unit will remain a major integrator between Yara's upstream and downstream activities and continue leveraging the benefits of our integrated business model. It will also be a vehicle for attracting external capital to the Clean Ammonia projects. So with this, I will hand back to Svein Tore, who will say a few more words about the organization and also some further remarks to this very exciting opportunity.

[Svein Tore Holsether, President & CEO]

Thank you, Terje. Yara Clean Ammonia will report to me in the same way as we set up Yara Industrial Solutions. We have a very strong team in place, and it will be headed up by Magnus Krogh Ankarstrand, who has been leading Yara's activities in North America and Trinidad since 2016. Magnus was also part of the Yara team that established Freeport ammonia plant in Texas, which produces ammonia based on hydrogen rather than natural gas. As we announced in December, a world-scale green ammonia project is possible in Porsgrunn, Norway, if the right partnerships and public funding are in place. We believe that Porsgrunn is an attractive site to start on, and the location requires relatively limited infrastructure investment compared to other sites. It's located on a deep-sea coastal location, which enables exports of green products. Furthermore, it's possible to ensure 100% utilization of the hydrogen electrolyzers through renewable power supply from the Norwegian grid, resulting in emission savings of roughly 800,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. Yara was established in 1905 based on Kristian Birkeland's electric arc invention. This was really disruptive innovation, making the first industrial nitrogen production and laying the basis for dramatically increasing global food production and progress in the world since then. Yara has carried this innovative spirit since then as a leading food solutions company, constantly developing new products, services and market applications. And as many of you are already aware of nitrogen production from water, electrolysis is part of our legacy since 1927. However, electrolyzer technology has improved a lot since then and still improving. In addition to the value of carbon-free fertilizer and food process is also increasing now. So we, therefore, strongly believe that this legacy is also our future. Now I'm going to hand over to CFO, Lars Røsæg, who will take a closer look at our financial performance. Over to you, Lars.

[Lars Røsæg, Executive VP & CFO]

Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity to share a few more details on our financial results for the fourth quarter. We continue to see positive margin and volume effects in the quarter, which were offset by somewhat higher energy costs. Consequently, the EPS was also in line with a year earlier. The return on invested capital is, of course, a key focus for us, and we are pleased to see an increase for the tenth consecutive quarter. The net operating capital naturally increased in the quarter on higher market prices and also higher receivables than a year earlier. We have previously highlighted our focus on increasing working capital efficiency. And although absolute working capital, as I mentioned, increased, we saw increased capital efficiency as the net operating capital days reduced in the quarter. Investments were in line with the year earlier. And in total, this brought our quarterly cash flow to a bit less than $0.5 billion, an improvement of $1.4 billion on a 12-month rolling basis. The total revenues were stable in the quarter driven by our improved deliveries compared to last year, which was countered by somewhat lower commodity prices. Yara is very well positioned to drive the transformation of the food system amid the strong focus on sustainable farming and sustainable living. This is evidenced by our consistent premium product growth driven by the fact that applying premium products can drive significant reductions in CO2 emissions relative to the alternative. It's also a very attractive prospect of our premium product portfolio that it can actually be made CO2-free, utilizing green ammonia. On the breakdown of our EBITDA development, the commercial growth in volume and mix and price margin contributed significantly. However, as I mentioned, energy costs were higher in the quarter; and there were also negative portfolio effects and higher fixed costs in the quarter, the latter which we see in combination with phasing effects and the CapEx on the low side of the range we indicated at Q3. As you will know, Yara did during 2020 shift to a regional model, which has provided increased focus and a more proactive governance. In the quarter, all regions saw premium product growth and, in particular, Asia and Africa had a strong improvement from volume mix effects and improved reliability. Europe delivered a result in line with last year where higher deliveries offset temporary pressure on premiums, also seeing a positive impact from lower feedstock costs. Americas had somewhat lower margins in the quarter driven by lower upgrading margins in the region and lower commercial margins in Brazil. Industrial Solutions has generated strong results in a challenging market environment throughout 2020. And I would like to extend a special thank you to the entire Industrial Solutions team. The segment benefited from a strong autonomous setup and has delivered solid performance in all business units, except maritime. The quarter did include a positive one-off effect of $11 million related to a revision of cost estimates on projects in maritime. Global plants, mainly comprising our plants in Sluiskil and Porsgrunn, had negative portfolio effects versus last year and had a profit development in line with the commodity price developments. In Q4, we delivered improvements on both ammonia and finished product production, and we are on track to reach our 2023 targets. A strong and consistent focus on reliability will continue to be top of our operational agenda. Operating capital, as I mentioned, in terms of efficiency and operating capital days, also saw a significant improvement of 4 days. Fixed costs are in line with the long-term target, although we saw a periodic increase in the quarter in isolation due to the effects I've briefly mentioned before. As we discussed in the third quarter, we confirm today the estimated total commitments for 2020 and 2021 combined, unchanged at $2.2 billion with phasing into 2021 as expected. This comprises a $100 million reduction in planned CapEx, offset by a temporary fixed cost increase in 2021 from growth initiatives. The fixed cost base will, however, revert to the long-term target in 2022. As communicated at our ESG investor seminar, we see a total CapEx of maximum $1.2 billion per year, including then both maintenance and growth from 2022 and onwards. Net debt increased as expected in the quarter from $2.3 billion to about $2.9 billion. This was driven by increased shareholder returns, in line with our capital allocation policy. Furthermore, cash earnings more than offset investments and receivables built somewhat in the quarter, as previously mentioned. Looking at the full year P&L, as we always like to do with Q4, we see an increase in operating results driven by increased premium product sales growth, lower energy costs and the stronger U.S. dollar. Looking beyond that, we observe a somewhat higher foreign currency translation loss reflecting a loss on U.S.-denominated debt and other internal positions. The tax rate in 2020 was positively impacted by, amongst others, realized liquidation losses and currency gain on deferred tax positions. Yara has a strong balance sheet with an equity share of 0.49 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. The change in cash position was driven by divestment proceeds, payment of dividends and share buybacks. The noncurrent liabilities increased mainly due to the new bond established in the second quarter of 2020. At the ESG investor seminar, we discussed the importance of focusing on holistic performance management to maximize long-term shareholder value creation. That very point has been substantiated by Yara's recognition as 1 of the top 12 global companies amongst the top 350 most influential food and agricultural companies. Furthermore, we positively note that we recently continued to improve our Sustainalytics score, and that we rank as #1 out of 55 in the ag sector and amongst the top 10% in chemicals. And with that, I'm pleased to leave the floor back to our CEO, Svein Tore Holsether.

[Svein Tore Holsether, President & CEO]

Thank you, Lars. Running up then, I would like to give credit to our entire organization for a solid effort in 2020, this highly demanding year. 2020 has shown the strength of having a purpose-driven business and culture. When we look at which companies really have prospered in these times, it is companies that have this very much embedded in both the mission and the way to operate every day. However, we still have to acknowledge that it's still a tough operating environment. And we have launched a number of initiatives to try to lessen some of that impact. And already back in April of last year, we announced a global paid sick leave for all employees and contractors and also guaranteed a 3 months pay in the event of temporary layoffs as a result of COVID-19. Also with regards to mental health, we have made access to counseling available for everyone, and we do constant training in managing fatigue and stress in the teams. But most importantly, it's about taking care of each other. And that's what I really seen a huge effort by everyone in the organization, reaching out to colleagues, making that extra phone call, verifying that they're doing okay and to talk openly about mental health. That risk does not go away by ignoring it, but we can do something about it by discussing it openly, and we're making efforts to increase that every day. And it's also about creating an inclusive workplace. We have implemented now a global minimum standard for parental leave. We have put in place flexible working hours, and we've updated our travel policy to lessen the amount of travel needed also when we get back to a normal situation. And we put in place a family caregiver leave. In addition, we've also given a $1,000 bonds to be paid to all our employees globally as a recognition of the extraordinary efforts done in 2020. We make our purpose very clear in our mission. To me, the mission or the purpose is really the reason why the organization exists. And for us, that is to responsibly feed the world and protect the planet. And there is a duality here. But we are in no doubt about the importance of our products and solutions. If we did not live up to our promise, crop yields could drop by 50% within a season. And all our employees know this, and it all makes us even more determined to deliver. Finally, we see our prospects as attractive. Firstly, industry opportunities where resource and environmental challenges create business opportunities for Yara and where the market fundamentals are improving. We have a focused and sustainable long-term strategy, and our returns are strong and increasing. Now I'll hand back to Thor, who will go through some of the practicalities for the Q&A session.

[Thor Giæver, Head of Investor Relations]

Thank you, Svein Tore. So rounding up here, just a quick reminder to everyone. We do have a Q&A session. It will be at 1:00 p.m. Oslo time. It is on a separate audio call. And if you don't have the details for this, go to our financial calendar under Investor Relations and go on the 9th of February. Click on the 9th of February, and you'll find all the details there. So with that, thank you very much for joining our presentation, and we hope you'll join us again shortly at 1:00 p.m. Oslo time. Thank you.