Greetings and welcome to Nutrient's 2025 fourth quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Jeff Holtzman, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and FP&A.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning and welcome to Nutrient's fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. As we conduct this call, various statements that we make about future expectations, plans, and prospects contain forward-looking information. Certain assumptions were applied in making these conclusions and forecasts. Therefore, actual results could differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking information.

Additional information about these factors and assumptions is contained in our quarterly report to shareholders, as well as our most recent annual report mdna and annual information form i'll now turn the call over to ken sites nutrients president and ceo and mark thompson our cfo for opening comments good morning and thank you for joining us today to review nutrients 2025 results and the outlook for the year ahead at our investor day in 2024 we outlined an ambitious three-year plan with clear performance targets that included increasing upstream fertilizer sales volumes growing downstream retail earnings reducing operating costs and optimizing capital expenditures our results reflect the strong execution of this plan contributing to higher earnings and free cash flow lower net debt and increased cash return to shareholders in 2025 we generated adjusted EBITDA of 6.05 billion dollars up 13 percent from the prior year we delivered record set fertilizer sales volumes in 20 of 27.5 million tons utilizing the strengths of our end-to-end supply chain to efficiently serve our customers we raised our potash sales volume guidance twice during the year and strong offshore demand offset a shortened fall application window in north america we achieved 49 potash mine automation a significant accomplishment that provides safety benefits and further strengthens our low cost advantage our potash controllable cash cost averaged 58 per ton for the year below our 60 per ton goal we increased nitrogen sales volumes to 10.9 million tons and achieved a four percentage point improvement in ammonia operating rates supported by reliability initiatives and the completion of low-cost debottlenecks. Excellent performance from our North American nitrogen plants helped offset the impact of a controlled shutdown of our Trinidad operations in the fourth quarter. In phosphate, our operating rate averaged 87% in the second half of 2025. Reliability improvements and a strong commercial footprint enabled us to deliver within our guidance range, despite lower North American demand in the fourth quarter. Our downstream retail adjusted EBITDA increased to $1.74 billion through decisive cost reductions, strong proprietary margins, and solid execution of our Brazil Margin Improvement Plan. Our unwavering focus on controllables allowed us to manage through weaker agricultural commodity markets and persistent geopolitical volatility, ultimately delivering results consistent with our guidance set at the beginning of the year. We surpassed our $200 million annual cost savings target and reduced capital expenditures to $2 billion, well below our investor day target of $2.2 to $2.3 billion. As a result of these efforts, we have structurally grown free cash flow, strengthening the company today and providing significant headroom for capital deployment going forward at our investor day we also communicated a plan to simplify our portfolio with the goal of concentrating our capital on assets with the highest quality earnings and cash flow streams we initiated this journey in 2024 by cancelling our guys mark clean ammonia a project and divesting smaller non-core assets in 2025 we put further rigor to the analysis of our portfolio by comprehensively evaluating each asset on the merits of free cash flow contribution return on invested capital and relative competitive position this review highlighted assets that could be optimized or monetized while sharpening our focus on improving capital efficiency where an asset did not meet our threshold or was not a strategic fit we took action and generated approximately 900 million dollars in gross proceeds from divestitures we utilized the increased free cash flow and proceeds from non-core asset divestitures to progress two key capital allocation priorities we reduced short-term debt by over 600 million dollars compared to the prior year and continued to position the balance sheet as a strategic asset that provides flexibility to act counter-cyclically we also delivered a 30 increase in cash return to shareholders in 2025. this was achieved through the execution of a rateable share repurchases throughout the year an approach that is aligned with our focus on driving growth and free cash flow per share the reduction in share count also supports our long-standing track record of providing shareholders with a reliable and growing dividend per share while keeping total dividend expense broadly stable to summarize our performance in 2025 demonstrated resilience and consistency in an evolving environment we expect to build on this momentum in 2026 with a focus on delivering growth from our core businesses and maintaining capital allocation discipline in addition we will continue to advance portfolio initiatives in three key areas first as previously announced we launched a review of strategic alternatives for our phosphate business in the fourth quarter of 2025 and are on track to solidify the optimal path in 2026. Second, we continue to assess options for our Trinidad nitrogen operations and focus on enhancing our core North American assets, improving the margin profile of our nitrogen business. Lastly, we made significant progress on our retail margin improvement plan in Brazil over the past year however macroeconomic headwinds have kept returns below what we would view as appropriate to support the capital deployed there we will continue to take actions to drive improved performance in 2026 while actively reviewing alternatives for each component of our brazilian business and the optimal way to participate in the long-term growth in this market I will now turn it over to Mark to speak in more detail on our 2026 outlook and capital allocation plans.

Thanks, Ken. As Ken highlighted, our 2025 results reflect excellent operating performance paired with prudent cost management and capital optimization across the company. As we look ahead to 2026, we see constructive fundamentals for our business. Potash demand is projected to grow for the fourth consecutive year in 2026, supported by strong relative affordability, large nutrient removal, and low channel inventories. We've seen good engagement across all major markets, with most benchmark prices approximately 20% higher compared to 12 months ago. we anticipate relatively tight fundamentals through 2026 as trend line demand growth is testing existing global operating and supply chain capabilities our potash sales volume guidance of 14.1 to 14.8 million tons is consistent with our global demand projection capitex was committed through the first quarter much earlier compared to the past several years and our domestic winter fill program was very well subscribed as a result we expect first quarter sales volumes similar to the same period of 2025 and selling prices that reflect the year-over-year increase in benchmark values on a full year basis we expect controllable cash cost per ton at or below our goal of 60 per ton global nitrogen markets are currently being influenced by supply issues while demand is expected to grow in line with historical rates driven by increasing use in agricultural markets such as Asia and Latin America. Global ammonia markets remain tight due to project delays and plant outages, while strong seasonal urea demand and geopolitical uncertainty have pushed urea values higher. Our nitrogen sales volumes guidance of 9.2 to 9.7 million tons is supported by reliability initiatives and low-cost to bottleneck projects and assumes no production from Trinidad and New Madrid in 2026. These facilities accounted for approximately 1.6 million tons in 2025, or approximately 15% of our nitrogen segment sales volumes. However, they contributed minimal free cash flow. Our cost structure in nitrogen now reflects production tied entirely to ACO and Henry Hub gas, raising the margin profile of our business and providing greater stability to our cash flow. In phosphate, we expect continued reliability benefits to support higher sales volumes with guidance of 2.4 to 2.6 million tons. The majority of the year-over-year volume growth is projected in the first half. However, we also anticipate elevated input costs to pressure margins in the near term. Retail adjusted EBITDA of $1.75 to $1.95 billion represents continued growth in our downstream business consistent with historical rates. The midpoint of our range is underpinned by four key items. first we expect high single digit growth in our proprietary products gross margin in 2026 supported by the launch of new products organic growth in our core retail geographies and the continued expansion of our international business second we expect a mid single digit increase in our north american crop nutrient sales volumes with margin rates similar to 2025. The recovery in volumes is driven by the need to replenish soil nutrients following a record crop and a shortened fall application window. Third, we assume improved weather conditions in Australia that are expected to drive higher crop input demand compared to the first half of 2025. And finally, we continue to drive cost management efforts across all of our geographies, which is expected to support incremental EBITDA margin improvement. We see the majority of these drivers being structural and supportive of growth in retail earnings beyond 2026. Now turning to capital allocation. For 2026, our priorities remain unchanged. we expect cash from operations to be supported by constructive fertilizer market fundamentals and organic growth drivers that i highlighted in each of our operating segments further we ended 2025 with a working capital build due to the delayed timing of customer purchases we expect the majority of this to unwind in 2026 supporting a meaningful improvement in cash conversion Our capital expenditures guidance of $2 to $2.1 billion is consistent with 2025 and approximately $200 million below our investor date target. We've committed capital to sustain safe and reliable operations and to progress a set of targeted growth investments that have a strong fit with our strategy, provide returns in excess of our hurdle rates, and have a relatively low degree of execution risk. our most recent dividend declared yesterday marks the eighth consecutive year we've raised the dividend per share and nutrients board of directors has also authorized the repurchase of up to five percent of our outstanding common shares over the next 12 months we've repurchased shares at a pace of approximately 50 million dollars per month year to date and shareholders

should continue to expect that rateable repurchases will be a consistent staple in our capital allocation framework going forward i'll now turn it back to ken for closing remarks thanks mark over the past 18 months we have taken purposeful steps to position our organization as one that is committed to excellence and determined to deliver industry-leading results we have streamlined to leadership structures established clear accountabilities and centralized functions and decision making as a result nutrient today is an organization that is leaner more disciplined and better positioned than ever to deliver on its potential we have aligned the company around a proven set of strategic priorities simplifying our business driving operational improvements and maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation i believe our unrelenting focus on these strategic priorities is delivering clear results and positioning nutrient for long-term success i'm proud of what we have achieved and excited about the extraordinary potential to build on this momentum in closing 2025 has been a defining year and our focus in 2026 remains unchanged changed. I want to express my sincere appreciation to our 25,000 employees for their focus, hard work and dedication. Thank you all for your time and we would be happy to take your questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the number one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the number two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. The first question comes from Joel Jackson from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I wonder if you could bridge us. I know you for a couple of years, you know, held the guidance range for this year for retail to 1.9 to 2.1. So let's call that 2 billion. You're planning to deliver 1.85 this year. So that's 150 million.

Could you bridge us you know when you think about the last couple years the difference is there and maybe when you do that would you please highlight proprietary products brazil north america retail tuckens that you know got you to 1.85 for this year thanks yeah you bet you all thank you so you know the the uh 2026 target is about 150 million above uh where we are midpoint for 2026 sits today in our guidance and then there's a few reasons owing to that one the main driver is is we have had assumed the macro fund fundamentals would be modestly better than they are today and i think that would be uh most of it in it so that the result is a bit slower proprietary product growth and we've been a bit more selective on tokens um and and you know But because of a modestly sort of modestly lower ag fundamentals or poor ag fundamentals, we have taken action in service of 2026 EBITDA. And so what have we done? We've paired growth of the market with what we've seen in the market, and that is accelerating our cost reductions. We've talked about that. That's Latin American restructuring and the Brazil margin improvement plan. we've we've closed underperforming assets that's 50 plus locations both in north america and in australia we've reduced headcount by over 400 positions we've restructured non-core and unprofitable businesses so we've really taken action on the cost reduction size side we've optimized our capital expenditures we've increased the contributions from nutrient financial and certainly better working capital management and we see additional opportunity on the working capital front as well so that you know since 2023 we have increased earnings in our retail business by 400 million dollars and i think an important point there is that we believe that that's structural so that's you know six percent growth rate uh um beyond up until 2026 and beyond so So we look at the business and we say, yes, ag fundamentals modestly, you know, sort of not where we had thought that they would be. We react with cost reductions and business improvement. And through all that, we've increased EBITDA in our retail business by $400 million structurally since 2023.

Your next question comes from Chris Parkinson from Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

Hi. Can we just go over real quick the demand dynamics that you're seeing in potash markets? I think most people are pretty decent on the supply, but just, you know, what surprised you? What's been in line with your expectations? Where do you think inventories are? It just seems like there are a couple of moving parts which we'd like to keep track on. So any color there would be very helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Tris. So, you know, we're projecting 74 to 77 million tons this year so you know up about a million tons from what actually happened last year and you know at that level we're starting to reach sort of thresholds where it tests operations and supply chain capabilities we do believe that underlying consumption is meeting shipments so that there hasn't been a large inventory build if you look at that sort of record early settlement in China. It's very strong evidence of depleted inventories. And the same thing in Brazil where domestic inventories are at multi-year lows. So again, we see that shipments is equal to consumption when we say 74 to 77 million tons because we don't see inventory building. As a result, we've seen good prices. Brazil at $375 and again, low inventory. Our U.S. Winterfell program we were fully subscribed at you know the price there now 355 dollars per short ton southeast asia's firm at 355 albeit they uh there's some inventory there on a strong program purchasing program last year india 349 and we do expect any to come forward uh with an earlier settlement given that you know there's a lot of volume now going to china and the indians are have to step in as well you know so that camp attacks with the volume moving offshore is also now committed through q1 so chris you know i think uh for the fourth year in a row now we've seen demand growth and it's you know getting from certain the demand destruction of 2022 to 2023 right back on to trend level demand here into 2026 fourth year in a row 74 to 77 million tons where inventories aren't building, in other words, consumptions equaling shipments and probably reaching a point where, again, you're starting to test supply chain and operating capabilities, hence some of the firming that we've seen in price.

Your next question comes from Hamir Patel from CIBC. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Ken, given the high end of your potash production guidance range would be close to your current capacity. How do you think about, you know, how quickly you could bring on additional potash brownfield capacity in your system? And when might you look to action further capital projects there?

Yeah, thanks, Amir. Yeah, you know, the beauty of having six mines is that we have just a solid understanding of where that next ton is going to come from and certainly at what cost. And so as we map out, you know, our trajectory of volumes, not just this year and next, but over the medium term, you know, we have a very strong sense of where they're going to come from, when we can bring them on, and at what cost. And so, yeah, Hamir, this year we have 50 million tons of capability. And as the market grows, we have line of sight today to just continue to grow with it. And when we say 19% to 20% market share in a growing market, again, we have line of sight to continue to expand our volumes as the market grows. You know, at six mines, these investments are rather granular. It's conveyance underground, it's mining machines, and so we can do those as long as we get the purchase orders in for those mining machines in time to turn around and installation of those things, we can move that relatively quickly. Incredibly low capital costs. Again, we talked about that $150 to $200 per ton. That would be, what, 10% of what a greenfield investment would be. The last thing I'll say is, you know, not to underestimate the benefits of mine automation as we expand our production volume. As we said in the comments, we cut half of our ore in either fully autonomous or tele-remote mode. And, you know, the safety benefits, absolutely, but the productivity benefits and the flexibility benefits associated with automating these mines, it's really proving out. So that when we talk about, as you say, we're expanding volume consistent with the way the market is growing and our maintenance of market share, our ability to do that, pay set at a low capital, and maintaining our, you know, $60 cash cost per ton, we see that all coming together really very nicely. as we sort of innovate on mine automation.

Your next question comes from Ben Isaacson from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much and good morning, everyone. Just a quick question on Brazil. You generated a loss, I believe, in 24, and you were close to a break-even in 25. Can you talk about the expectations for 26? What is the upside case or what are the swing factors there?

What should we expect out of Brazil? thank you yeah i thank you for the question man you know the uh the brazilian market continues to be challenged i would say yes we have uh been making great progress on our margin improvement plan we've talked about idling blenders and closing unproductive locations and rationalizing workforce and focus on collections and that's that's all yielded you know results that as you say ben took us from a loss making position in 2024 to making a bit of money in 2025 and if we look into 2026 again given the ongoing challenges in that country what i i would describe it as sort of modest improvement over what we did in 2025 and you know in light of some of those modest improvements and and in light of the ongoing challenges in brazilian agriculture You know, we continue to assess and reassess our presence there, whether it be with seeds, certainly with proprietary products where we see opportunity to grow. But on the retail front as well, what is the best way to approach the Brazilian market? We know we're going to be supplying potash there forever, and we're going to be a meaningful supplier there. So when we put that all together, you know, I suspect there will be changes to sort of how we operate in Brazil in 2026, and we're just working through that now.

Your next question comes from Vincent Andrews of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Good morning. This is Justin Pellegrino on for Vincent. I was just hoping you could kind of discuss the proprietary product mix in retail again.

You know, is there a level that you're looking to achieve at some point in the distant future? you know is there a target percentage mix and then can you kind of just frame for for 2026 and beyond what the drivers of uh below or above expectations would be for that percentage mix thank you yeah so thank you for the question justin and yeah we do have uh growth aspirations as it relates proprietary products i mean it's going to about a gross margin of about uh 1.2 billion uh to date and you know that's been we've been experiencing sort of high single digit growth rates over the last five years and we expect that to continue for all kinds of reasons so yeah we do have growth aspirations and that's true for uh the shelves that we currently you know put those products on the innovations associated with new products and we are introducing new products this year and then looking abroad as well international markets where we're seeing some green shoots in terms of our ability to supply in different agricultural regions but chris did you want to say any more about uh about proprietary yeah good morning justin thanks for the question you know part of that growth story also is that for example we're going to be introducing 26 new products here in 2026 as part of the uh you know proprietary products range and And, you know, as we look across at the health of the grower today, their focus is very much on yield.

And when you think about sort of the average to maybe a little below average crop commodity prices today, that's where their focus is. And their growing confidence in these proprietary products to help that yield outcome just continues to grow, as we said, not just domestically in North America, but also growing internationally as well. so a big component of our growth as we've mentioned this morning is around that proprietary products range and we feel very good about that uh long into the future your next question comes from andrew wong of rbc please go ahead hey good morning thanks for taking my questions um so in the retail guidance you're assuming amid single digit growth in crop nutrient volumes in north america i'm just curious how does that differ in your view across like nitrogen potash and phosphate

And how does that take to factors such as crop switching between corn and soybean versus the need for nutrient replenishment after the really strong yields last year? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Andrew. And yeah, we're saying for corn, 94 to 96 million acres and for soybeans, 84 to 86 million acres. So, you know, and we're now staring down at some catch up with crop nutrients going down on the ground from a wet fall or weather challenged fall. Indeed, we had about a $300 million working capital build in the fourth quarter, which we expect to be released onto the ground here in the first half of the year. In terms of fertilizer mix, I wouldn't say that it's going to be different than what we've seen in previous years. I think it would be a balanced fertilizer mix. I mean, it's true that North America took a record crop out of the ground last year, right across the board, corn and soybean. So there was a lot of crop nutrients removed out of the ground last year, and those need to be replaced. But I wouldn't say that we're looking at a mix that's anything different than we've seen in historical years. So that we expect that gross margin contribution from fertilizer in our retail business this year should be about a billion and a half dollars.

Your next question comes from Steve Hansen of Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Oh, yes. Good morning, guys. Thanks for the time.

Recognize it's still early here, but any incremental thoughts on the optimal path for the phosphate strategic review? and maybe just give us an update where you're at and timelines that you might be starting to put together again recognizing it's still early thanks yeah thanks steve uh no no uh no conclusions on optimal path we are and you you phrased it well we are still in the midst of a strategic review and and when we announced it last quarter we said that that could be anything from sort of revised operations all the way through to a sale we are preparing our team is preparing for you know the the typical market testing process to gauge interest in those assets i can tell you at this stage we have had significant inbound significant interest um in in entering a discussion around those assets but uh we're not in a position to do that until we have all of our ducks in a row as it relates to data information and characterizing uh clearly characterizing the assets so people can understand um you know what the business is and the state of the assets and all those things that you go through so you know we are we're in a position we expect to be in a position in the next quarter where we'll be out in the market doing exactly that market testing and engaging what may be done there in the meantime parallel bodies of work to understand when we say revised operations what do we mean by that we have different assets here there's aurora with an extended life of mine white springs with a life of mine that's uh just early into the next decade but with additional resources in the area that we're having a look at and then there's our feed plants so so when we say revised operations what weight might we do with those assets and everything in between that uh then steve in terms of sale assets and revised operations so certainly we want to have conclusions we want to be able to tell you here in 2026 what's the plan but but we're just working through that at the moment your next question

comes from lucas beaumont of ubc ubs pardon please go ahead thanks good morning so i just to follow up on the potash costs um so i mean the controllable cost kind of came in at 58 bucks a ton this year i mean it was a bit up year on year but similar to sort of what you've done a couple years before that so i mean just going forward with your increasing production profile sort of what you're doing on the automation front um how do you sort of see those costs trending into 2026 and beyond yeah lucas it is our goal to keep that uh number at sixty dollars per ton cash cost per

ton and we we'd find that as controllable cash cost but yes per ton for you know the foreseeable future um and why do we say that it's uh we're in an inflationary environment we've been successful fighting back inflation with the things that you just described with mine automation which is our mining machines get further and further away from uh our conveyance shafts you know we were able to put our machines either in tele remote mode where you don't have operators traveling you know many kilometers underground to get to the equipment they're just sitting on surface operating the machines or uh in the case of rokenville fully autonomous autonomous machines just tunneling around underground on their own flip the switch you know those that yields obvious productivity benefits which goes right to um that you know 60 or less cash cost per ton and yes we're absolutely we talked earlier about you know our market share in a growing market where we'll expand volumes and we're expanding more volumes over a fixed cost base which of course contributes to helping us fight back inflation for that $60 target. So great question, Lucas. We've been proud of our ability to be at that $60 or less, and the plan is to keep it there.

Your next question comes from Matthew Dio of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Morning, everyone. I have two for you. Yeah. So I wanted to gauge your thoughts on the Trinidad asset, and particularly given the changeover we've seen in Venezuela. I know the Dragon Pipeline could have a potential implication on Trinidadian gas supply, but I also don't know how much stock you want to put into something like that. And then on the retail business, if I look on a two-year stack, seed sales are down like 7.5%. And maybe this is overly simplistic, but if I were to assume prices in there too, maybe volumes down 10, maybe that's not right. But why do we see this kind of headwind on the seed side specifically for revenues and retail?

Good. Well, I will share a few thoughts on Trinidad, and then I'll hand it over to Mark and Chris to provide some thoughts on seed. So, Trinidad, gas availability. I mean, Matthew, it's a great question. Obviously, a lot of activity in the Caribbean there. But I would also say a lot of uncertainty, and I think that maybe that's an obvious statement. Yeah, you know, the ability for Trinidad to operate those industrial plants on the coast and certainly supply domestically for energy and then, you know, LNG as well requires, you know, full gas, full complement of gas, and that has to come from Venezuela. And as you know, those discussions have been taking place over years now where you sort of unlock what was once sanctioned Venezuelan gas, build a pipeline over to the industrial complex in Trinidad and liberate Venezuelan gas either for LNG or for the industrial complex along the coast there. And one of those is our plant. You know, I don't have significant confidence for the near to medium term, given that there will be ample gas supply over to the island of Trinidad from Venezuela, and it's just owing to that sort of level of uncertainty as it relates to the region. So as we have looked at this, a number of factors at play here. Obviously, our plant has been throttled at 80 percent because of lack of gas for some period of time. In addition to that, now we're facing increased costs for the gas. The National Gas Company has been very clear that gas prices are going up in an environment where we really don't make any money off our Trinidad plant. It's 3% of earnings and 1% of cash flow. And so for us, that was and is untenable, and so our plant is shut down. we are working with we continue to talk to the trinidad government about whether there's a path forward here on affordable gas access to port at uh at affordable fees and one that uh one that uh would allow us to operate at some albeit slim margin uh in the meantime we have uh moved to sort of revised operations where we're taking care of our idle plant with a core workforce over the coming months we will look at the continue to look at these alternatives and

try to seek an arrangement where we can run this plant but we'll see some more to come on that front yeah good morning matthew it's uh it's mark speaking so on your second question on retail seed sales i think there's two primary drivers of that one of them would be intentional and strategic and within our control and the second probably more out of our control and weather related so on the first factor as we've implemented the margin improvement plan that ken spoke to in brazil some of that has involved moving away from lower margin seed business managing our expense profile which while seed sales have declined it's made the overall business healthier as you've seen and generated significant improvement in brazil and that was a very intentional choice to improve the nature of our business operations there The second would be the historic weather events that we saw in the U.S. South in the first half of 2025, which really resulted in a complete washout of some of the areas of the Delta and other places where we tend to have very high seed share and strong proprietary cotton and rice businesses. And as we spoke about that in the first half of last year, that clearly had an impact on seed sales, and we would expect some of that to reverse this year on that second factor. If we step back from seed, and we go back to some of the comments that Ken made this morning, over the past two years, notwithstanding those challenges, we look at the broader retail business, earnings have grown 300 million of EBITDA despite those challenges. And when we look at the broader proprietary business, we grew by about 5% in 2025. And as we've said, we think that business will grow again by high single digits in 2026. So, again, we think some of the seed sales related to weather will reverse themselves. And from a broader retail standpoint, for those items within our control, we continue to drive strong business performance and growth.

Your next question comes from Edlin Rodriguez of Missoujo. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you. So, Ken and Mark, I mean, we've seen what happened with frost trade when prices are too high. You know, there was a pullback in demand in 4Q. Any concerns that something like that could happen in potash? Or is it that potash supply demand is balanced enough that we are unlikely to see a fly up in prices?

Yeah, thanks, Adlin. And, yes, I mean, I think you're absolutely right. we saw that uh in the fourth quarter as it related to phosphate indeed you know for our phosphate business we felt that as well we were able to manage through that with some with our commercial team and and you know we're still within our guidance range but it is true that their farmers pulled back uh on phosphate on potash you know it continues to be the most affordable crop nutrient and if we look at the supply and demand balance for 2026 we do see some demand growth and you can see that as we look to the um uh you know our estimate of shipments 74 to 77 million uh you know up from the midpoint uh or sorry the numbers from last year at 74 to 75. so we demand growth but we also see some new tons coming into the market uh from various places i mean some would be our own but uh you know we see some additional tons coming in from fsu countries maybe a little bit of from from laos some of that's offset by declines in china and chile but we expect that that combination of sort of smaller times from these places including our own when we talk about increasing production by 200 000 tons from last year that we find ourselves in a somewhat balanced market let's see if we get into the higher end of that of that demand range what you know the supply chains are able to handle we do believe we're getting up to some of those um more challenged numbers when you're at the top of the range for supply chains and maybe maybe even for operating rates but in the meantime you know we're we're experiencing what we'd call balanced market and you see that reflected in the price 375 in brazil 348 in china 375 southeast asia and and relatively stable market so i think it is a different story than the phosphate story.

Your next question comes from Kristen Owen of Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for the question. I wanted to come back to the topic of your Brazil retail channel and just sort of ask you what the long-term strategic value is there, just given some of the previously discussed market challenges. And I think Ken, you've alluded that that business doesn't meet your internal hurdle rates. So is there some action that you could take to further narrow the gap versus your initial 2024 investor day guidance or maybe even recast those targets ex-Brazil so we can understand what that standalone business looks like?

Yeah, thank you, Kristen. And I would say that given that Brazil's really not contributing anything in terms of earnings or cash, that you know the retail number is is 1x brazil but at the same time um yeah i take your point about our future there and and um whether everything we're doing in brazil makes sense for us and so that's yeah again the work of of 2026 we've been pleased with our brazil improvement plan we've talked about that and that met expectations for last year it certainly did It's a lot of heavy lifting, but we got there. And, you know, we're on a similar path in 2026, but we are reviewing our seeds business and whether, you know, that's appropriate, that that's within nutrient or maybe better off in someone else's hands. We do have conclusions on our proprietary product business in Agrisend down there where we do see opportunities to grow. And it is certainly synergistic with everything we're doing, everything else we're doing with Loveland products. And, you know, we can sell those products on shelves all over Brazil, not just necessarily our own. We know that we will be a large supplier of potash into Brazil and a growing supplier and that that will continue. That leaves really the retail business. And, yeah, we're struggling with, you know, how to think about our retail presence in Brazil. whether that business can meet our financial thresholds that we expect when we deploy capital, whether there's better places to deploy capital, and if we come to that conclusion, you know, what we might do with those retail assets. That's the work underway at the moment, and we'll have more to talk about that through 2026, and certainly some conclusions on those answers in 2026.

Your next question comes from Duffy Fisher of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning, guys. Just a question around your U.S. retail business. Investors have quite a lot of concern about the increase in Chinese generics and ag chem. We've seen a lot of pressure in Asia and Latin America so far. Do you see them trying to come direct in the U.S., trying to get labels, one? And then two, if they're not doing that, do you see them just kind of putting more pressure with lower price generics running through the retail chain here, but kind of dragging down AgCAM? Is there a structural change happening there in your view?

Yeah, thank you, Duffy. And yes, we do see some generic pressure, not the likes of what we see in some other parts of the world like Brazil, but we do see some. But I'll hand it over to Chris.

Yeah, good morning, Ben. Thanks for the question. And as Ken said, we are seeing a little bit of that into the market today, some of that direct-to-grower model. But, you know, what we really like there as we think about the future is, again, our proprietary products range. And like the, as I said, the introduction of 26 new products this year, we've got a pipeline there. We're going to continue to develop going forward with our current supply partners. And so we like our position. We like the breadth of our network. We like the relationship we have with our growers as we continue to move those products. And so we don't see that sort of direct model today as a significant threat, and we really like the position we have with our proprietary product range.

Your next question is from Ben Teurer of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to follow up on broader capital allocation and specifically on the share buyback. So over the last two years, you bought back 5% of shares outstanding, and you're basically saying now you could do up to 5% this year, which seems to be a decent increase. What are like, what were internally like the alternatives looking crazy, maybe the dividend more or going more towards the share buyback? What were like the thought processes behind, particularly where the stock price is right Thank you, Ben.

And, yeah, so we did renew the NCIB. The board approved that yesterday at a level of 5%. You know, last year we were buying back our stock at a rate of about $50 million a month. And here in 2026, you know, depending on how the year unfolds, but I think it's probably a good number to use for 2026 as we watch the year unfold. You know, how we think about the buying back, you know, return of cash to shareholders via the buyback versus the dividend. You know, we continue to use the word stable and growing on the dividend. But, of course, buying back our stock actually has allowed us to, in total dollar terms, as long as to buy down the dividend. But, Mark, maybe you want to say, provide some additional color there.

Sure. Good morning, Ben. So, yeah, I'll just add a few points to what Ken mentioned. I think first and foremost, and most importantly, our approach to capital allocation in 2026 will be entirely consistent with what shareholders have seen from us in 2025. So if we go through the high-level components of our capital allocation stack, we'll have total CapEx once again of $2 to $2.1 billion. That'll be comprised of roughly $1.65 billion of sustaining CapEx and roughly $400 million of investments and growth CapEx. capital leases we expect to be consistent at about a half a billion as ken said keeping dividend expense roughly stable at about a billion dollars and and that leaves share repurchases and so a real focus for us since the latter part of 2024 has been introducing rateability in that share repurchase program and as ken said the five percent authorization is really just our authorization to be in the market last year we bought back about two percent of the stock and when we look at our run rates so far in 2026 we've been doing about 50 million dollars a month in repurchases and we think that level of rateability makes sense for us so those would be the major capital allocation priorities i think it's worth noting that this is all anchored by a very strong balance sheet and through strong performance and asset sales in 2025 we were able to tune up the balance sheet and put ourselves in an even stronger position by paying down over 600 million dollars in debt So if we feel good about where that sits right now, and that will support our ability to make good on these capital allocation priorities all through the cycle and all types of market environments. So I'd say the punchline here is just continue to expect from us what you've seen from us so far over the last year.

Your next question comes from Jeff Zekoskas of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. It looks like your inventories were, I don't know, 500 million higher in the fourth quarter than you wanted them to be. What is it that happened at the end of the year that led to that inventory build? And are there implications for the first quarter?

Yeah. The big one with Jeff would be weather. And so farmers just weren't able to get out and you know put down a normal fall application season so it wasn't normal and as a result that those inventories working capital carried through into 2026 so that'd be one two is proprietary products we held some proprietary product inventory that is still on the books that you know again we expect in 2026 that we'll release those products and and that will be released working capital. Those would be the big ones.

Your next question comes from Mike Sisson of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Just curious, I appreciate the EBITDA sensibilities for potash and nitrogen. It feels like the base case is somewhere in the middle of those charts, but is that the case?

And then what sort of gets you, since you're given the wider range what do you think drives it to the higher end of those charts and to the lower end of the charts this year if at all thank you yeah i mean uh as we look at our guidance ranges um you know when we talk about volume uh on potash it really is good weather you know leads to strong demand in the regions that we serve and out goes more crop nutrients and the lower end of that range would be the opposite of that would be challenged weather and can't ability to get out of the land so that's on the volume side on the price side of potash it's the classic supply and demand discussion and we just talked about 74 to 77 million tons whether if you get into the higher end of that range that's what puts pressure on on supply chain and operating rates and whether whether the market can actually supply those volumes which of course would put pressure on price and and hence again be at the top of that range if you go over to nitrogen for us it's at our plants it's operating rates so higher operating rates higher volumes and lower operating rates lower volumes it's uh it's true that we have three turnarounds this year which we're going to be executing that's a heavy turnaround year for us and so when we talk about operating rates it It requires, you know, a strong execution across those turnarounds. We planned well for those so that we expect we will have operating rates that would be analogous to what we saw last year, which is very strong. So that's on the volume side of nitrogen. If pricing, you go over to urea, you've got strong Indian demand, strong demand across the table, actually. But you also have some supply uncertainty. particularly as it relates to what's happening in Iran and that geopolitical uncertainty. So, you know, urea prices are tight at the moment, given those supply and demand dynamics. And we see a world where that could persist for a bit longer here in 2026. On ammonia, seasonally, you know, lower volume in ammonia right now. We've had some production come back online. Gulf Coast, although, you know, going for a planned shutdown. and so ammonia yeah seasonal ammonia have prices have been have been strong but with uh some seasonal weakness uh we see ammonia prices weakening a little bit but over the course of 2026 yes you're looking at the right bar the right charts and as volume and price we think we're we would say we're constructive across the board your next question comes from dave simmons of bmp paribas please go ahead yeah just a bit of a conceptual one um i noticed that lng canada is is ramping up um are you expecting any impact on acre gas prices from that and is there anything you can do to mitigate the impact thanks uh you know we um with the shift of uh trinidad coming down we uh we're enjoying now uh 50 of our fleet being exposed to eco gas and 50 of our fleet being exposed to henry hub with trinidad running it was about 20 uh you know trinidad which is indexed tampa ammonia and the other 80 divided between between henry hub and an eco the effect of trinidad coming down and now just being exposed to north american natural gas has been to reduce sort of our effective gas price quite dramatically so we like you know given that north america continues to be structurally advantaged on gas costs uh compared to places like europe we really really like where our high quality assets are sitting and running at the moment you know as it relates to LNG and LNG Canada, we've talked about sort of the flattening world as it relates to natural gas pricing and LNG moving over the planet and what that means for that structural advantage in North America. We believe that the North American structural advantage persists mostly because there are almost infinite volumes sitting on the continent and a very, very cost-effective way to extract those. So we believe that there is that structural delta that persists lng canada or other lng yeah might work to flatten that but but we're very pleased with the with sort of the structural advantage we have there are no further questions at this time i will now turn the call back to jeff holtzman for closing remarks okay thank you for joining us the investor relations team is available if you have follow-up questions have a great day thank you ladies and gentlemen this concludes today's conference call thank you for your participation and you may now