LSB Industries - Earnings Call - Q4 2021

Transcript

Speaker 0

Welcome to the LSG Industries Fourth Quarter twenty twenty one Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Fred Bonacore. Thank you. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Stacy, and good morning, everyone. Joining me today on the call are Mark Bierman, our Chief Executive Officer and Cheryl Maguire, our Chief Financial Officer. Please note that today's call will include forward looking statements. And because the statements are based on the company's current intent, expectations and projections, they are not guarantees of future performance and a variety of factors could cause the actual results to differ materially. As this call will include references to non GAAP results, please see the press release in the Investors section of our website, lsbindustries.com, for further information regarding forward looking statements and reconciliations of non GAAP results to GAAP results.

At this time, I'd like to go ahead and turn the call over to Mark. Mark?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Fred. We're very happy to have the opportunity to speak with you today about our twenty twenty one fourth quarter results. We posted record results for our fourth quarter and full year as we continue to run our plants reliably, which enabled us to capitalize on the strong market environment for our products on both sides of our business. First, I'd like to thank all of our employees for making this another excellent quarter and for their strong commitment to improving and growing our business. A lot of hard work has gone into bringing it to this point, and I'm excited about what we can accomplish with our balance sheet and the market backdrop.

As you all know, our number one focus is safety. We want all of our employees and contractors to go home safe every day, and we are committed to providing a safe and healthy workplace for all our employees and stakeholders by implementing high safety standards to avoid any potential risk to people, communities, assets, or the environment. Our twelve month rolling recordable incident rate at the 2021 was 1.15 incidents per 200,000 man hours. However, our goal is zero, and so we have work to do to get there. The entire team is committed to improvement, and we expect an improved safety performance in 2022.

On page five of our presentation, we summarize the key drivers for our agricultural end markets. Commodity prices continue to trade well above year ago levels. Most relevant to our business, the price of corn continues to trade at near eight year highs. The strong pricing is a result of multiple factors, including ethanol consumption and production, which is currently near pre pandemic levels as The US miles driven continue to recover from pandemic shutdowns, as well as the impact of historically dry conditions in the Western US and South America, which have constricted global corn supplies. The USDA continues to estimate that nearly 93,000,000 acres were planted in 2021.

This represents a 2,000,000 acre increase from the previous year end, and with the exception of 2016, was the highest level of planting since 2013. For 2022, we're expecting a similar, albeit mostly lower level of plantings of approximately 92,000,000 acres, which should continue to support strong demand for fertilizers as farmers seek to maximize yields. Along with the strong corn market fundamentals, nitrogen prices have been driven to multi year high levels by constraints on global ammonia production resulting from a variety of factors. Most recently, in the third and fourth quarters, a sharp increase in the price of natural gas, the primary feedstock in the production of ammonia, and derivative nitrogen products prompted cuts to production at a number of facilities across Europe. While gas prices in The US increased significantly over the past year, our prices have only seen a minor increase relative to the inflation that Europe has experienced, creating an advantage for North American nitrogen producers.

On page six, we highlight some end market trends contributing to the robust year over year improvement in our industrial and mining end markets. As many of you are aware, our industrial business tends to be contract based, which gives us good visibility into our sales for upcoming quarters and insulates us from input cost inflation, particularly for natural gas, enabling us to maintain our favorable margins. During the fourth quarter, we continued to ramp up our nitric acid sales volumes related to the long term supply agreement that we commenced at the 2021. As you can see on the slide, the demand dynamics for our key industrial and mining end markets remain solid despite recent disruptions on the industrial side from the widespread supply chain issues in The US. Overall, the demand and pricing trends we're currently seeing on both sides of our business make us very optimistic for the continued strong profitability and cash flow for 2022.

Now I'll turn over the call to Cheryl, who will discuss our Q4 and full year results and our first quarter outlook. Cheryl?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Mark, good morning. Turning to Page seven, you'll see a summary of our results for the fourth quarter and full year 2021. Our strong top and bottom line performance relative to 2020 reflects the increased pricing for our products across all our businesses. Our fourth quarter and full year adjusted EBITDA of approximately 90,000,000 and $191,000,000 are both company records. Additionally, in the fourth quarter and for the full year, we generated EPS of $0.72 and $0.85 respectively, and we expect strong profitability to continue in the coming quarters.

Page eight bridges our fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA of $90,100,000 to adjusted EBITDA for the 2020 of 10,400,000.0 The light green bar illustrates the very substantial impact selling price strength had on our results after almost four years of trough market pricing. Partially offsetting the benefit of higher product selling prices was the continued increase in raw material costs, which are shown in the $16,800,000 variable cost impact you see on Page seven. Our natural gas costs rose substantially over the course of 2021 and remain elevated during the 2022 as compared to last year's first quarter. Relative to the operational improvements that enabled us to capitalize on the significant increase in selling prices in 2021, Page nine shows how these enhancements translated into increases in actual ammonia production volume, which has increased meaningfully over the past several years, allowing us to capitalize on the pricing trends that emerged in 2021. Page 10 illustrates the strong bottom line improvement we delivered in 2021.

This is the result of the favorable pricing trends, the operational improvements we've made at our facilities, new customer contracts and investments we have made to optimize our product distribution and mix. We expect to further benefit from these factors in 2022. With respect to our balance sheet, recall that in the twenty twenty one third and fourth quarters, we were successful in achieving our goals of recapitalizing and simplifying our balance sheet, reducing our cost of capital and creating greater financial flexibility. We were successful in this regard and ended the year with a leverage ratio below 2.5x on a trailing twelve month EBITDA and we expect that to decline further throughout 2022. In addition to decreasing leverage ratios, our liquidity continues to increase.

As of today, our liquidity stands at over $180,000,000 positioning us well to pursue our internal and external growth initiatives during 2022, a year that we expect to bring further positive transformation for LSB and increased value to our shareholders. On Page eleven and twelve, we provide an outlook to how we're thinking about 2022. On Page 11, you can see our expected ammonia production and sales volumes for the full year of 2022. As a result of continued improvement in operating rates, we expect year over year improvement in ammonia production despite the loss of approximately 50,000 tons of ammonia resulting from a twenty four day turnaround at our El Dorado facility and a thirty day turnaround at our Pryor facility, which are planned for the third quarter. It is important to note that these turnarounds will also lower downstream production and sales of agricultural products, namely UAN and HDAN, as well as nitric acid and other industrial products during this period.

Turnaround expenses are expected to be in the fifteen million to $20,000,000 range for 2022. Additionally, we have total planned CapEx across the three sites of approximately $65,000,000 which includes approximately $50,000,000 for environmental health and safety, along with reliability and maintenance capital, and $15,000,000 earmarked for growth initiatives. The table on the bottom half of the slide shows expected sales volumes by product category. Generally, we expect increased sales volumes from improved operational performance to overcome production loss during two planned turnarounds in the 2022. Also noteworthy, the anticipated decline in HDAN volume reflects our strategic shift in production mix at El Dorado towards greater volumes of nitric acid.

Additionally, we expect lower ammonia sales as we remain focused on consuming ammonia for downstream production and sales in order to maximize margins. Please keep in mind the sales volume outlook is representative of our current view, which will continue to evolve as we seek to optimize our product balance across agricultural, industrial, and mining end markets. Page 12 covers a range of variable and fixed plant expenses as well as SG and A for 2022. With respect to variable expenses at approximately $4.3 per MMBtu, natural gas costs are currently about 1.5 per MMBtu higher than they were at this time last year. Our expectations for fixed costs reflect investments we've made in key talent to support our growth, as well as inflation in wages and other costs.

Note that our expectation for interest expense of 35,000,000 to $40,000,000 for 2022 is down from nearly $50,000,000 of interest expense in 2021, reflecting the benefits of the debt refinancing we completed in the fourth quarter of last year. Regarding our first quarter twenty twenty two outlook, similarly to the 2021, we are benefiting from significantly stronger pricing for agricultural products as compared to a year ago. NOLA UAN benchmark pricing is currently around $5.5 a ton, more than 2.5 times its level at this time last year. Additionally, the Tampa Ammonia benchmark pricing settled at $11.35 dollars per metric ton in February versus $330 a metric ton last year. So putting it all together, we currently expect continued improvement in adjusted EBITDA and expect the 2022 to exceed our 2021 top and bottom line results and to be more than five times above the 2021.

For the full year of 2022, as Mark discussed, market fundamentals are expected to remain strong across our agricultural, industrial and mining end markets, leading us to believe that we have the opportunity to deliver another year of strong bottom line improvement. And now I'll turn it back over to Mark.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Cheryl. As we progress into 2022, we find ourselves better positioned and with more opportunity to grow than we've had in any time in our company's history. In addition to the strong financial foundation that we have established and the solid operational foundation we have created, we are also benefiting from the historically favorable pricing environment. Page 13 illustrates one of the key underpinnings of this pricing strength. As I discussed previously, the spread between US and European natural gas prices widened in an extreme manner over the course of 2021.

This prompted a number of producers curtail production during the third and fourth quarters of last year, exacerbating what was already a global shortage of ammonia in the face of rising demand. Natural gas prices in Europe, while down from December peak levels, currently are fluctuating between 21 and $24 an MMBtu equivalent, which represents a price that is more than five times what we're paying here in The US. And although some European production has come back online, the impact on supply and pricing throughout the global nitrogen market has been pronounced, and we believe will persist through 2022 and into 2023 even if gas costs decline further in the coming months. The bottom line is this dynamic represents a significant advantage to US based nitrogen producers. We intend to capitalize on the strong pricing environment and the cash flow that we expect to generate as a result in order to pursue opportunities to grow our business and create value for our shareholders.

On page 14, we summarize our priorities for 2022. The guiding principle in the way that we run our company is to protect what matters and what matters most to our people. The health and safety of our employees is and always will be paramount to everything we do. And in 2022, we're taking our efforts to the next level as we advance the safety programs that we currently have underway, implement new ones, and invest capital at all three of our facilities to promote safe and reliable operations. As it relates to plant reliability, we have had several initiatives underway that we expect to enable us to produce greater volumes of product, lower our cost of production, and increase our profitability.

These initiatives include enhancing our leadership at the facility level, continuing to mature our operating and maintenance procedures, and leveraging technology investments we've made so that we can better monitor our equipment and plant performance in order to push forward on our asset care excellence initiatives. Also,

Speaker 4

we believe we

Speaker 2

have an excellent opportunity to expand our profitability in 2022 through the continued strategic distribution and optimization of our product mix. Our 2021 results benefited from our ramp up on the sizable nitric acid contract we commenced during the first quarter of last year. This year, we will recognize a full year of sales under this agreement, which puts us in a sold out position for nitric acid out of our El Dorado facility, an advantageous situation from a margin perspective given the operating leverage inherent in our business model. We are also targeting approximately $15,000,000 of capital investment for margin enhancement projects to optimize our storage and distribution capabilities, as well as to upgrade additional ammonia into higher value downstream products. Lastly, during the year, we plan to evaluate potential debottlenecking projects at our facilities that would expand our production capacity and increase our sales volumes.

We believe through debottlenecking, we have the ability to increase production at our plants between 20% to 40% depending on the plan. Addition to the opportunities we've identified to expand our volumes and profits from our existing portfolio of facilities, our recently recapitalized balance sheet provides us with the flexibility to profitably increase our scale through accretive M and A activity, and we have been evaluating and pursuing a number of prospects recently. We believe that we have the leadership team and the systems in place to effectively manage a meaningfully larger business. Finally, turning to page 15. As I've discussed in our last few calls, we are of the strong belief that our industry is on the threshold of becoming a major contributor to the global effort to reduce carbon emissions both through the capture and storage of CO2 emissions from the ammonia manufacturing process, which is referred to as blue ammonia, and by emerging as one of the most feasible sources of hydrogen for use as a zero c o two emissions energy source, referred to as green ammonia.

There are many new applications for ammonia currently being evaluated by a variety of industries, including its use as a fuel source by the for the marine industry, potentially in the relatively near term. The marine industry is a major emitter of c o two as large cargo and other vessels consume tremendous quantities of diesel, marine gas oil, and bunker fuel. Ammonia can help the industry significantly reduce its c o two emissions, of which there are tens of thousands of ships crossing the oceans at any given time. Our existing knowledge in ammonia manufacturing, handling, storage, and logistics position us extremely well to become a significant player in this arena and to help create a more sustainable, environmentally friendly world in a way that we believe can create long term value both socially and financially. The economic opportunity for blue and green ammonia is significant.

In the immediate term, blue ammonia will likely start to transition towards low carbon energy sources and supply the new demand that is expected to emerge, as the US federal government is currently providing 45 q tax credits of 35 to $50 per ton of c o two captured and stored or sequestered. LSB has been engaged with several organizations in DC attempting to persuade lawmakers to increase the credit for geologically sequestered c o two from its current $50 per ton beginning in 2026 to a suggested $85 per ton. We believe that this increase is necessary to justify the CapEx required for smaller facilities to participate in carbon capture. In addition, we believe that changing the section 45 q tax credit from a tax credit to a direct cash payment would open this opportunity to many more companies as it will remove their tax liability burden and provide immediate cash incentives, making carbon capture projects more economically feasible. These changes should ultimately lead to greater CO two emissions reductions in The US in a shorter period of time than under the current tax credit structure.

Over the longer term, we believe that green ammonia will surpass blue ammonia as one of the leading solutions to carbon reduction globally, given that it is carbon free as opposed to low carbon. However, there will likely be demand for both products. The new opportunities to use ammonia to decarbonize represent a source of significant incremental demand for ammonia, not only for LSB, but for the industry as a whole. That incremental demand would then consume existing global ammonia supply until new ammonia production plants are built and global ammonia supply increases. This should serve to support higher pricing for ammonia over the next few years.

One issue in producing green ammonia today is the cost versus the current fossil fuel based ammonia production, the cost of, current fossil fuel based ammonia production. However, US legislation that would create a tax credit for the production of green hydrogen is being considered by congress. The clean hydrogen production and investment tax credit act of 2021 would provide a tax credit to companies that reduce carbon emissions by the production of hydrogen. The credit would be worth up to $3 per kilogram of qualified clean hydrogen produced. We support this legislation as it will be needed to make green hydrogen and, in turn, green ammonia cost competitive with traditional fossil fuel based ammonia production methods and, therefore, spur the significant investment necessary to meet US carbon reduction goals.

Our current focus is on performing feasibility studies at our facilities to determine the infrastructure and plant modifications needed to produce either blue or green ammonia in support of both our clean energy strategy and medium and long term sustainability objectives. We anticipate announcing the commencement of one or more feasibility studies by the March, after which we will present our plans to our board of directors with approval targeted by the end of the second quarter of this year. Before I hand the call back to the operator for the Q and A session, I'd like to mention that we'll be participating in a Granite Research Conference series on March and the NYSE Materials Investor Day Investor Access Day on March 31, both of which are virtual events. We hope to speak with many of you during these events. That concludes our prepared remarks, and we will now be happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue.

Your first question comes from Steve Sarazani with Sidoti.

Speaker 5

Just wanted questions on guidance. First one, and you may have mentioned that, is how you're thinking about tax rate and the usage of NOLs this year.

Speaker 6

Hey, Steve. Good morning. You know, we did use some some NOLs in in 2021 as you might expect and, certainly expect to use I mean, we have about 600,000,000 of NOLs available to us, which we would expect to use over the next, you know, several years. Of course, how much of that is gonna depend on pricing.

Speaker 5

Is there any is there is there any part of your profit that can't be you the NOLs can't be directed at? So what I'm basically asking is, can we think about a 0% tax rate this year?

Speaker 6

Yeah. For the most part. There's some very minor limitations. But, yes, for the most part, I would say the majority or most of it.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks. And then just a couple more on one, SG and A sounds seems like you're a little bit lower than I was expecting. How much you're trying to still look at costs given even given the strength of the the the market? Because that even looks a little bit lower than this year.

Although there

Speaker 2

might have been some one timers this year.

Speaker 6

Yeah. There was definitely some onetime costs in SG and A this year, Steve, with, some of the exchange transactions that we did back in the third quarter, added 3,000,004 million dollars of additional cost to SG and A. And so we would expect those to not occur, obviously, going forward. So that's the reason for the SG and A decline.

Speaker 5

Alright. Thanks. And then I just wanna ask about volume improvement and CapEx. CapEx sounds I know you were obviously limiting CapEx the last couple of years until the market improved, but just the the expansion on CapEx this year and how much that can help on volume given the two turnarounds. I'm a little surprised you can get volume up this year,

Speaker 2

and maybe the Southwest Freeze was a factor last year. Good morning, Steve. How are you?

Speaker 7

Good morning.

Speaker 2

Yeah. So, you're right. When you think about capital expenditures, I think we had kinda two issues, over the last several years. The first is we're in extremely low price environment. So I think we're trying to be prudent about, our spend and how we spent.

And, of course, we had a pretty extensive balance sheet. And so that refinancing, obviously, has reduced our interest cost and allowed us some additional cash to invest in the business. So in this business, in any commodity business, I think, you hunker down in in tight markets. And when you're in, you know, much improved markets, you tend to spend. So, we're definitely gonna spend during two turnarounds that we have this year.

We've done a fair amount of planning, and outlining the scope of the work, and we think we're going to come out in significantly better positions. So, you know, I think that'll bode well for post turnaround in the production and going into next year. For volumes being basically up this year, since we have, you know, more lost days, turnaround year versus year, As Cheryl said, I think it's a lot of improvements that we're doing at the plants that are providing us with, additional, capacity utilization, to really produce more tons year over year.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks for that. I'll get back in queue if I have anything else. Thanks for the responses.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 0

Next question, Rob McGuire with Granite Research.

Speaker 4

Terrific, Cor. Congratulations.

Speaker 2

Good morning,

Speaker 4

Rob. I'm How are doing well. Thank you. So can you discuss the storage and distribution margin enhancement projects that you expect to spend the 10,000,000 to $15,000,000 on this year?

Speaker 2

Yes. I mean, think we've said this over the last couple of years. The team's done a really good job in putting together a running list of opportunities in each of our sites to either increase storage, and positions us to either run the plant at higher levels, to produce more product or to position product, in storage so that we can sell, in season rather than out of season. There's a number of other projects that would also allow us to load more efficiently several products or load, more of one product than we're currently capable of doing, and those should have higher margins as well. So and I think there's a lot of opportunities that we have that we'll spend money every year to continue to improve the efficiency of our manufacturing facilities and really our distribution capabilities.

Speaker 4

Thank you. And then can you talk about how the strong fall ammonia application season impacted your mix and what you expect for the spring?

Speaker 2

Well, usually the fall ammonia season, you know, it's a you know, it's almost like a fortune teller of of how the spring's gonna come out, right, how much ammonia goes down on the ground. And so, you know, it was a really heavy, fall application of ammonia, for everyone. So demand was really strong. So we participated in that. I think that really supports the '92 or 93,000,000 acres of corn that, you know, USDA is really talking about for next year, in the planting.

And the only question will be, how much how strong was the fall versus the spring, And will we see a little bit lighter ammonia application in the spring and then maybe more urea, UAN, you know, post plant? But we anticipate either way, we anticipate to have a really strong fertilizer season for next year.

Speaker 4

Good. And then can you just talk about how the idling of the facilities or outages of facilities this quarter, both domestically and internationally, have impacted your operations during the quarter?

Speaker 2

Well, you're talking about our manufacturing operations or you're talking about just idling facilities, that impact, supply and then in turn price?

Speaker 4

More so the industry. I think that there was a recent outage in the last week or two. One of them was in Wagman, Louisiana. And just wondering if that impacted Eldorado or Cherokee?

Speaker 2

No. It doesn't impact them directly. It impacts them in a way that we're taking more supply out of the domestic market, in a market that's already very tight with very low inventories. So at this point, I think global inventories of nitrogen fertilizers are really low. So any disruptions that you're going to have globally are going to have an impact on price.

Speaker 4

Great. That's it for me. I'll circle back around in the queue. Thanks.

Speaker 0

Next question, Differis Hinman with Walthausen and Company.

Speaker 7

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Can you just talk a little bit about the first quarter, how it's shaping up? Obviously, you're two months into the quarter already. Give us some ideas in terms of what you're seeing on the realization front. Are we just entirely spot?

Have we entered into any forward sales agreements in the first quarter?

Speaker 2

Well, you're right. I mean, we're sitting here February, so first quarter is basically over. So we are sold out for the rest of the quarter, as you might imagine. We have realized prices that are reflective of the market, so we're really happy about that. Having said that, recognize that the industry does sell forward, So there's always a time lag.

So, you know, we definitely are not, 100% spot in just giving the current market. So I think we'll have a really good, quarter, and I think pricing, as I said, will be relatively reflective of the market. So we're happy about that. Going into the second quarter, I think we've taken a bit of a different approach. We haven't sold that much, into the second quarter.

You know, I think, we're very comfortable, you know, having taken just some orders for q two. But like I said, it's held off on selling forward significant volumes as we believed that the prices would move up, and I think that's coming through.

Speaker 7

Okay. So then just directionally, second quarter based on the way things are playing out higher on EBITDA performance versus first quarter numbers?

Speaker 2

I'm not going to we generally don't give out guidance on quarters other than Cheryl giving an indication of the current quarter that we're in.

Speaker 7

That's helpful. But it sounds positive.

Speaker 2

Yes. Having said that, the second quarter is always our best quarter.

Speaker 7

Okay. And then just in terms of how you're positioning the company as it relates to the gas outlook, it's been quite volatile. I think we've been just buying gas on a spot basis. Is there is that still the case going forward, or will we look to hedge any of our exposure?

Speaker 2

We actually generally, enter any given month with most of our gas bought. The last thing we'd wanna do, and we certainly, it was exacerbated last February during the freeze. We never wanna go into any one month, without being able to run our facilities or plants at minimum turndown rates. Right? You never wanna have to shut a plant down.

So, we've been pretty consistent over the last three or four years about buying forward, particularly where we have forward orders to try and lock in margin, and having some small balance going into a month where it's, you know, spot gas or gas daily. So that that that's where we sit today, and and we're pretty disciplined about that.

Speaker 7

So is it one month or two is it one month or two months? Is that the the number we should be thinking about?

Speaker 2

One month right now. Yeah. And especially when you think about just gas in general for us, I mean, the most volatile period for us, is really winter. So we're very focused on, heading into winter, having most of our gas locked for the winter. As we come out of the winter and we have less volatile weather, or at least historically we did, We're more apt to go a little bit spot.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you. And then just kind of a 10,000 foot view question. Lots of changes to the capital structure over the last year or so. And now looking forward, obviously, very good macro overlay.

And then we're seeing excellent results probably for the next six months or so. What does the balance sheet look like at the 2022? And I'm asking that from a perspective you're seeing a lot of companies in the ag space really generating tremendous earnings and cash flow right now. Do you have any idea of where your debt to EBITDA could be or any internal target that the Board has thought about in terms of the appropriate leverage profile of the company given the current environment and the outlook for 2022? And I have a follow-up.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I mean, I think I think my discussions and conversations with the board have been that in a high price environment like this, we should be below two times leverage. You know, and that's, you know, irrespective two times leverage with our current business. If we're to go out and maybe acquire some assets or another company, I'd still like to stay below that two times, but it's possible we could see some increased leverage for a short period of time as we continue to generate significant free cash flow and then get that below that two times. So I think we've got an opportunity to use our free cash flow and our low levels of leverage, you know, to really go and and grow the company.

Speaker 7

Okay. That's helpful. And and then just bigger picture question on the blue green ammonia decision. You laid out some different things that are happening. I have followed along with those.

There does remain some uncertainty as it relates to some of the tax credits. And you did mention some work that you guys are doing on the legislative front to help people understand that. But kind of a simple question, but a complex question. Why does it make sense now to do these projects with some of that uncertainty? And then in the past, we have partnered with different entities with offtake agreements and purchase types of contracts.

Is this an investment where as shareholders, we're thinking about LSB doing this alone? Or would we be doing this with a partner that could help support with an offtake agreement or some type of investment capital?

Speaker 2

Well, let's bifurcate the two opportunities. Right? So blue ammonia is capturing the carbon. So, you know, we we would, install carbon or Let's let's say carbon capture equipment and liquefaction equipment would be installed on a plant. And since our biggest plant is El Dorado, let's just use that as an example.

We would not, you know, once that's done, you'd need to take away the liquid c o two, and then, sequester it in the ground. We're not in that business. We don't build pipelines, c o two pipelines. We don't operate wells or drill wells. So we clearly would partner with someone, and the only question is, at this point, on whether we own the carbon capture equipment and and collect the 45 q credit, or does someone else, put up the capital and own that and buy c l two from us?

So we're evaluating those opportunities. And, you know, while we think the increase in tax credit or ultimately direct payment per ton of c o two needs to be increased to $85, and it makes it much more economical, and there'll there'll be a lot more investment. At the current $50, it still would make sense for us. On the green side, you know, that's really a different story. So that's really, investing capital to install electrolyzers, to modify the front end of the plant, to take in the hydrogen, produced from the electrolyzers.

And we would partner with a technology partner there, and we would obviously partner with a renewable energy partner. And then we would look for, a partner to at least, have a fairly substantial offtake agreement, to at least defray, a lot of the investment that we're making and get at least cover costs before we would move forward on a project. But, you know, we've had a lot of discussions on that, and I think that's, yeah, I think that's something that, we feel comfortable that we will be able to achieve.

Speaker 7

Okay. That's very helpful. I'll just sneak in one more on the capital projects that you're working on as it relates to incremental capacity debottlenecking. Can you help us understand what the return outlook is for those, type of projects?

Speaker 2

Sure. So on the $15,000,000 of, margin enhancement projects that, we discussed, earlier, I'd say that when, up and fully operational, it's probably an additional $7,000,000 of annual EBITDA. So pretty good return on that $15,000,000 investment. As far as debottlenecking, you know, I think, as I said, we have an opportunity to increase, at each of our facilities' plants by 20 to 40%. I think we need to evaluate what the cost of that is.

And then, obviously, that's a big conversation with not only our manufacturing folks, but with our commercial team to to make sure that we can sell the incremental production and at what margins and then can we get the appropriate return. And it's you know, you can't look at it at just today's prices. You really have to look at it at mid market pricing or pricing over, you know, a longer period of time to really understand that return. So I think we're a little early to do that. But we are excited that we have a lot of opportunity.

I mean, one of the things that as we sit here today, I mean, you know, lots of other plants around the world have been debottlenecked, and, you know, we we really haven't done any of that in our facilities. And so there's a lot of opportunity to really do that. So that's just incremental tons. It's not a lot of fixed cost data, really. So it's really profitable tons if we can do it directly and efficiently.

Speaker 7

Okay. Well, you for taking questions from shareholders and keep up the good work.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Thanks for the interest.

Speaker 0

Next question comes from Brian De Rubio with Baird.

Speaker 8

Good morning. Just a couple of questions. Cheryl, just want to clarify for 2022, so $65,000,000 of CapEx and then another 15,000,000 to $20,000,000 of turnaround expenses?

Speaker 6

Correct.

Speaker 8

Okay. Great. And then, Mark, M and A, how are you thinking about that? Is that are you thinking something on the vertical side or industry consolidation and trying to sort of put that together with the current administration's sort of, reticence to see industries consolidate more? I just want to get a sense of how you're thinking about your M and A opportunity set.

Speaker 2

Well, think there are opportunities that are right down the fairway for us, right? So, you know, that could be an acquisition of facilities that are similar to what we have today, but maybe are in different regions or offer different product sets. So we we broaden our product line. Might be better distribution. You know, we may have customers that are closer to that, you know, an acquired facility than they are, closer to our facilities today.

And, of course, logistics playing a large role in, the cost of fertilizer in particular, you know, would make us more cost competitive, and and increase profitability. You know, then there's, I think other opportunities that, are derivatives of what we do today. So could be someone that's making a product that's not they're not ammonia basic. In other words, they don't produce ammonia, so they're purchasing ammonia. So could be opportunities for us to provide that ammonia, usually not directly.

It'd be in some type of swap situation, or provide some other product. You know? And then on the industrial side, I think that there could be some products that, you know, are manufactured that, again, have some overlap to what we do today and, you know, maybe are sold to to customers that we have today. So we've already got a customer relationship. So I think there's as we look out there, there are a number of opportunities for us to really, grow the platform.

I think we have to do it smartly. We have to do it efficiently. We have to be disciplined. Growth for growth's sake doesn't really make a lot of sense. It's got to be accretive to shareholder value.

And it's got to have you know, I often get asked, you know, what about just having legs to the to the stool and being sort of a diversified chemical company? I don't think that's something that we really, look at doing. I think, ultimately, anything that we acquire there's got to be something that's overlapped with our existing business. I think when you have, you know, just diversified chemical businesses with separate businesses that really don't have any synergies, you don't get full value in the marketplace, and it's something that we're focused on. As far as the administration, we've got you know, our industry in North America is pretty consolidated.

Right? We've got three large players in CF, Nutrien, and Coke. And, you know, we're a small player in North America, so we don't believe that us acquiring any other facilities or another company, would come under any FTC scrutiny. But, you know, you have to go through that process. But in the scheme of things, when you look at fertilizer, we're still a very small player.

And even if we acquired someone and doubled the size of the company, we'd still be relatively small.

Speaker 8

Got it. That makes sense. And then just I know you talked about a lot of investments that you want to make. So as we think about capital allocation priorities over the next year or so, given the backdrop, given the free cash flow profile, is that really towards just on further investments, whether in blue ammonia or additional capacity investments?

Speaker 2

Well, I think, you know, when I think of capital allocation and, you know, quite frankly, it's the first time we've been able to think about it in the last four or five years, so it's kinda refreshing. But, you know, I think we've got a lot of return opportunities, you know, organically. And then I think, as I said, we just discussed, I think we have a number of opportunities externally. So we certainly have to consider those. But we also have to look at, you know, debt reduction, and we certainly look at I think we're early to be looking at a dividend or anything like that.

I think we've got other things that we need to invest in before we get to that point. But at some point, you know, you start thinking about, if we're if we're throwing off a significant amount of free cash flow, whether a dividend makes sense or not. But as I said, I think it's a little early for that. So, I think we need to start looking at everything. Right now, I think for the next year or two, I think we've got investment opportunities that, will provide significant shareholder return, and we'll focus on those.

And, you know, as the market, as time goes by and as the market, settles down, to to a more normalized level, we'll take a look at where we are and and what opportunities we have.

Speaker 8

Great. Appreciate all the color. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Sure.

Speaker 0

Next question, Rob McGuire with Granite Research.

Speaker 4

So just with regards to blue ammonia, as you think about the next few years, does anything have to happen logistically in The U. S. In order for LSB to distribute to new end markets? Or can you reach those new end markets using the logistics that are already in place?

Speaker 2

Rob, are you talking specifically about if we were to capture the carbon and now we've got blue ammonia, how would we distribute that? Yes. Yeah. No. I think that there's opportunities for us to distribute, blue ammonia or another derivative product, right, of that today.

I I don't see that as being an issue. So the infrastructure is in place to do that. You know, whether we sell it directly or our industry is, you know, is very educated, and and it happens all the time where people swap product, particularly ammonia. So I think that whatever is in place today would allow us to do that.

Speaker 4

Great. One other quick question. Can you discuss the expected tonnage impact of the turnarounds at El Dorado and Pryor? And should all those tons come out in the third quarter?

Speaker 6

Yes, for the most part. That's all third quarter, Rob, and it's about 50,000 tons.

Speaker 4

That's it for me.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Rob.

Speaker 0

Thank you. I would like to turn the floor over to Mark for closing comments.

Speaker 2

Well, I wanna thank everyone for their interest in LSB Industries. I hope you can see that, you know, team's working really hard to really generate improved results. They're starting to show, which is really exciting for us. And I think we've got a lot of opportunity going forward, to really use 2021 as an inflection point for us and really start to to generate, increasing returns. Before I go, though, I would like to say that we should keep the people of Ukraine in our thoughts and prayers as, you know, we've got some really unfortunate developments that happened last night and this morning.

So, again, thank you for your interest.

Speaker 0

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.