CVR Partners LP Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call - Turnaround and ASU Startup Issues Trim Q4 Output, Spring Demand and Prices Support Outlook

Bella, Conference Operator: Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Bella, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to fourth quarter 2025 CVR Partners LP Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Richard Roberts, Vice President, FP&A, and Investor Relations. You may begin.

Richard Roberts, Vice President, FP&A and Investor Relations, CVR Partners LP: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate your participation in today’s call. With me today are Mark Pytosh, our Chief Executive Officer, Dane Neumann, our Chief Financial Officer, and other members of management. Prior to discussing our 2025 fourth quarter and full year results, let me remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements as that term is defined under federal securities laws. For this purpose, any statements made during this call that are not statements of historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. We were cautioned that these statements may be affected by important factors set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our latest earnings release. As a result, actual operations or results may differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements.

We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except to the extent required by law. This call also includes various non-GAAP financial measures. The disclosures related to such non-GAAP measures, including reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, are included in our 2025 fourth quarter earnings release that we filed with the SEC in Form 10-K for the period and will be discussed during the call. Let me remind you that we are a variable distribution MLP. We will review our previously established reserves, current cash usage, evaluate future anticipated cash needs, and may reserve amounts for other future cash needs as determined by our general partner’s board.

As a result, our distributions, if any, will vary from quarter to quarter due to several factors, including but not limited to operating performance, fluctuations in the prices received for finished products, capital expenditures, and cash reserves deemed necessary or appropriate by the board of directors of our general partner. With that said, I’ll turn the call over to Mark Pytosh, our Chief Executive Officer. Mark?

Mark Pytosh, Chief Executive Officer, CVR Partners LP: Thank you, Richard. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today’s call. Before we get into the results, I would like to introduce our new Chief Operating Officer, Mike Wright. Mike also serves as COO of CVR Energy, a position he’s held since January of 2022. Mike has nearly 35 years of experience in the refining and petrochemicals industries in a variety of operations and commercial roles, and we are excited to have him leading our fertilizer operations teams. Turning to the results for the fourth quarter of 2025, we reported net sales of $131 million, a net loss of $10 million, EBITDA of $20 million. The board of directors declared a fourth quarter distribution of $0.37 per common unit, which will be paid on March ninth, the unitholders of record at the close of the market on March second.

For the full year of 2025, we reported EBITDA of $211 million and distributions of $10.54 per common unit. We had another year of solid operations from our facilities, with an ammonia utilization rate of 88% for the year. For the fourth quarter of 2025, our ammonia plant utilization was 64%, which was impacted by the plant turnaround and subsequent delayed startup at the Coffeyville facility. While the turnaround was completed in early November as scheduled, we experienced additional downtime following approximately three weeks of startup issues at the third-party air separation plant. Although production and sales volumes were lower than we expected, pricing for nitrogen fertilizers remained strong throughout the quarter, and we continue to be optimistic about the spring planting season, which I will discuss further in my closing remarks.

I will now turn the call over to Dane to discuss our financial results.

Richard Roberts, Vice President, FP&A and Investor Relations, CVR Partners LP: Thank you, Mark. Turning to our results for the full year of 2025, we reported net sales of $606 million and operating income of $129 million. Net income for the year was $99 million, or $9.33 per common unit, and EBITDA was $211 million. For the fourth quarter of 2025, we reported net sales of $131 million and an operating loss of $3 million. Net loss for the fourth quarter was $10 million or $0.97 per common unit, and EBITDA was $20 million. Relative to the fourth quarter of 2024, EBITDA decreased primarily due to lower production and sales volumes and higher direct operating costs associated with the planned turnaround at Coffeyville.

Total ammonia production for the fourth quarter was 140,000 gross tons, of which 62,000 net tons were available for sale, and UAN production was 169,000 tons. During the quarter, we sold approximately 182,000 tons of UAN at an average price of $355 per ton and approximately 81,000 tons of ammonia at an average price of $626 per ton. Relative to the fourth quarter of 2024, UAN and ammonia sales volumes were lower as a result of the planned turnaround and subsequent startup issues at Coffeyville that Mark discussed previously. Fourth quarter prices for UAN increased approximately 55%, and ammonia prices increased approximately 32% relative to the prior year period.

Direct operating expenses for the fourth quarter of 2025 were $81 million, which included turnaround expenses of approximately $14 million. Excluding inventory and turnaround impacts, direct operating expenses increased by approximately $9 million from the fourth quarter of 2024, primarily related to higher repair and maintenance and personnel expenses. Capital spending for the fourth quarter was $27 million, of which $17 million was for maintenance capital. Capital spending for the full year 2025 was $57 million, of which $35 million was maintenance capital. We estimate 2026 maintenance capital spending to be $35 million-$45 million, and growth capital spending to be $25 million-$30 million. As a reminder, we expect a significant portion of the 2026 growth capital spending will be funded from the cash the board elected to reserve over the past several years.

We ended the quarter with total liquidity of $117 million, which consisted of $69 million in cash and availability under the ABL facility of $48 million. Within our cash balance of $69 million, we had approximately $3 million related to customer prepayments for the future delivery of product. In assessing our cash available for distribution, we generated EBITDA of $20 million and had net cash needs of approximately $16 million for interest costs, maintenance, CapEx, and other reserves. As a result, there was $4 million of cash available for distribution, and the board of directors of our general partner declared a distribution of $0.37 per common unit. Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2026, we estimate our ammonia utilization rate to be between 95% and 100%.

We expect direct operating expenses to be $57 million-$62 million, excluding inventory impacts, and total capital spending to be between $25 million and $30 million. With that, I will turn the call back over to Mark.

Mark Pytosh, Chief Executive Officer, CVR Partners LP: Thanks, Dane. In summary, although we were disappointed about the extended downtime associated with the third-party air separation unit during the quarter, nitrogen fertilizer market conditions continue to be constructive and pricing has remained robust. With the 2025 harvest complete, the USDA is now estimating a record crop year, with corn yields of nearly 187 bushels per acre on nearly 99 million acres of corn planted. Soybean yields are estimated to be 53 bushels per acre on over 81 million planted acres. U.S. inventory carryout levels are expected to be above the 10-year average for corn and below for soybeans. Despite the record harvest, May corn prices remain around $4.45 per bushel, and current expectations are for approximately 95 million acres of corn to be planted in 2026.

At this level of planting, we expect to see continued strong demand for nitrogen fertilizers through the spring. On the supply side of the equation, inventory levels around the world continue to appear tight. Geopolitical tensions remain a key risk to nitrogen fertilizer supplies, given the significant production capacity residing in countries across the Middle East, North Africa, and Russia. We continue to monitor developments in the Middle East that could impact energy and fertilizer markets, and we expect 2026 will likely be a continued period of higher than historical volatility in the business. Natural gas prices in the U.S. saw a sharp increase earlier this year due to extreme cold weather across several regions of the country. However, prices have since declined and have been trending between $3 and $4 per MMBtu.

Meanwhile, natural gas prices in Europe averaged over $10 per MMBtu for the fourth quarter and have been over $13 since the beginning of the year. The cost to produce ammonia in Europe has remained durably at the high end of the global cost curve, and production remains below historical levels, which creates opportunities for U.S. Gulf Coast producers to export ammonia to Europe for upgrade. We continue to believe Europe faces structural natural gas supply issues that will likely remain in effect through 2026. We continue to execute certain debottlenecking projects at both plants that are expected to improve reliability and production rates. The goal of these projects is to support our target of operating our plants at utilization rates above 95% of nameplate capacity, excluding the impact of turnarounds.

For 2026, we are focused on water and electricity reliability and quality at both plants and expanding our DEF production and load out capacity, among other projects. We also continue working on construction and design plans for the feedstock diversification and ammonia expansion project at the Coffeyville facility. As a reminder, this project should provide us the ability to choose the optimal mix of natural gas and third-party petcoke, depending on prevailing prices. The board elected to continue reserving capital for these projects in the fourth quarter that we expect to spend over the next 2 years. Our focus is on improving reliability and redundancy at the 2 plants in efforts to provide better production rates and lower downtime in the future. The funds needed for the 2026 projects are coming from the reserves taken over the last several years.

The fourth quarter demonstrated the benefits of focusing on reliability and performance. In the quarter, we continued to focus on all of the critical elements of our business plan, which include safely and reliably operating our plants with a keen focus on the health and safety of our employees, contractors, and communities, brutally managing costs, being judicious with capital, maximizing our marketing and logistics capabilities, and targeting opportunities to reduce our carbon footprint. In closing, I would like to thank our employees for all their hard work during the Coffeyville turnaround and continuing to deliver on our marketing and logistics plans, resulting in a distribution of $0.37 per common unit for the fourth quarter. With that, we’re ready to take any questions.

Richard Roberts, Vice President, FP&A and Investor Relations, CVR Partners LP: At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Rob McGuire with Granite Research. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Rob McGuire, Analyst, Granite Research: Morning, Mark, Dane, and Richard.

Mark Pytosh, Chief Executive Officer, CVR Partners LP: Hey, good morning. Hey, Rob. Good morning.

Rob McGuire, Analyst, Granite Research: Just a few questions. One is, what are you seeing in terms of UAN imports out there? Are you seeing a dearth of imports from Trinidad? And in particular, what are you seeing from Russia and any other color you can give to us?

Mark Pytosh, Chief Executive Officer, CVR Partners LP: ... I wouldn’t say that we are seeing anything outside the norm. It’s, you know, there—we’re still importing some tonnage. The one big item in Trinidad is obviously the Nutrien plant is down, and upgrader is down, so there’s less tonnage coming in from Trinidad. So, you know, I think that’s, you know, keeping the market tight for UAN, in particular in the States. And I’ve seen some of the commentary from Nutrien, and it doesn’t feel like that plant’s likely to return to service soon. So, you know, there’s a combination of ammonia and UAN tightness. That was a product that was, you know, being imported here.

The Russian product has been, you know, that’s been pretty consistently falling, you know, and I wouldn’t say there’s any new, you know, up or down. The market is watching closely. There have been some drone strikes on either Russian fertilizer plants or export terminals, and so, that the market’s watching that to see. But I would say generally, you know, feels like the supply-demand balance in UAN is pretty, I would say, on the tight end of the curve.

Rob McGuire, Analyst, Granite Research: Thank you. Switching topics, current deferred revenue is $23 million at year-end, and that was down 50 from $51 million year-over-year. Does that mean there was less product pre-sold this year rather than relative to last year?

Mark Pytosh, Chief Executive Officer, CVR Partners LP: Yeah, and I would just say it was a timing issue ’cause it was not, you know, we typically would see more activity in December for tax planning purposes by the customer base, but we didn’t see as much this year. But that’s all been picked up in January and first part of February here, so we’re, I’d say, normal. If anything, maybe a little bigger book for the spring than we typically see. So it was just, it didn’t fall in December like normal, but the customers were in buying product, and we’ve got a big book on for the spring.

Rob McGuire, Analyst, Granite Research: Thank you. And then is it safe to assume that ammonia and UAN pricing will increase sequentially heading into the first quarter of 2026?

Mark Pytosh, Chief Executive Officer, CVR Partners LP: Yeah. If you look at our book of business today, it’s at higher prices than the fourth quarter. And so, yeah, there’ll be an uptick. It won’t be dramatic, but there’ll be an uptick from the fourth quarter to the first quarter.

Rob McGuire, Analyst, Granite Research: Great. And then, do you feel confident about the air separator issue at Coffeyville being resolved at this point? Might you receive compensation from the operator for downtime and related shortfall on that?

Mark Pytosh, Chief Executive Officer, CVR Partners LP: So let me start. Yeah, I’m confident that the issues that caused the delayed startup have been dealt with. We are not happy with the performance, and we are in discussions with, you know, that service provider about, you know, the go-forward strategy for the operations and maintenance of that facility. So we’re working on it, you know, I’d call it not an amended contract, but an amended business plan, which would, you know, involve us being, you know, more active with the ongoing activities there. And so, you know, we’re not gonna just, you know, sit by and, you know, just accept those events. We’re gonna engage and work on a different approach than what happened in November.

The contract does have penalties and there were some penalties paid for that, but it’s a fraction of our lost production level at the facility. So, it is a thorn in the side, and it’s meant to, you know, to incentivize the provider to provide us really good service and onstream, but it can’t make up for the shortfall of lost production. So, but again, we’re revisiting, you know, our, you know, how we do business together and, you know, in coming quarters, we’ll talk more about what the go-forward strategy is there, but it won’t be status quo.

Rob McGuire, Analyst, Granite Research: I appreciate that. And then, last question, Mark. I always appreciate your commentary on the market. Acreage is supposed to be down for corn this year, as you mentioned in your opening remarks, and I’m just kind of curious. I would think that would hurt demand just a little, but then again, there are more supply constraints. So can you kind of just give us how you feel the spring is gonna work out and why are you feeling so optimistic about it?

Mark Pytosh, Chief Executive Officer, CVR Partners LP: Sure. Well, if you’d asked me three years ago and said it was gonna be 95 million acres of corn, you know, you know, we’d be thrilled. You know, 95 acres is, you know, really at the top end of, except for last year. And so that’s a, that’s a, you know, that’s a large, amount of acreage and, you know, and it’s gonna work. You know, because of the 99 million acres and how much we planted, we’ve been. You know, corn consumes nitrogen from the soil, so you have to replenish it. So the soil’s been depleted of nitrogen, and you got to come back in and, you know, fertilize it. And so to your point, you know, it’s gonna be a really good demand season. Last year was peak, and, we don’t, you know.

I would say even when you know, 99 million acres are planted, sometimes the application rates can be lower. So, you know, it’s not apples to apples, so you can’t just take 99 to 95 and compare them, because if on the acreage that you plant, if you plant more productive acreage and you want higher yields, you’re gonna put more fertilizer on. So it’s hard to, the nuance there is the apples to apples. But the supply side of the equation continues to be, you know, and we could talk about every region of the world. There are reasons why the supply is constrained. You know, there’s been natural gas availability issues in certain countries. There’s, you know, there’s still ongoing conflicts in certain areas. We’re watching, you know, what’s gonna happen with Iran.

Iran’s a big producer of nitrogen, big exporter. If, if they, you know, if there’s some, you know, activity in the Strait of Hormuz or, you know, some activity with that constrains Iran’s ability to produce, you know, that could have a you know, we’re right on top of the spring coming up here in six weeks, so that’s going to, you know, that we got to keep our eye on that. But the supply side’s really been even a bigger issue. Demand side’s been super solid, but the supply side’s not able to keep up with the demand side. I would just tell you to Jess, you know, we’re seeing early...

You know, I know it was cold a few weeks ago, but if you look in the Midwest, we’re already seeing, you know, ammonia movement across a pretty broad swath of, you know, up into, you know, even Iowa and Illinois to a degree, but all the way down into the southern plains. And so that’s a good omen for the spring when we have the ammonia running this early. You know, we’re only, you know, we’re third week of February. So, really feel we, you know, I think generally the optimism’s high for the spring, and we’ve got a good jump on it. You know, when you get a good start to it, it really could lead to a much better spring. So we feel really good about where we are. We have a good book of business for the company.

We got a good order book, and we just need to run like we normally have, except for the last quarter. So, you know, run at a high utilization and move the product for our customers.

Rob McGuire, Analyst, Granite Research: But, that was really helpful. And, just one other follow on is just, you know, with product moving at this point, is there a change in trend in terms of the farmer living, you know, food to mouth? Or are they starting to plan early at this point in time? Or it’s just that the application is starting earlier, given the weather opportunity?

Mark Pytosh, Chief Executive Officer, CVR Partners LP: I think it’s your last comment there. The conditions have come, you know, into place here in February rather than March. So I would say it’s probably pulled up by maybe a couple of weeks or 3 weeks. I mean, it doesn’t seem like a lot, but in farming, in farmland, that’s, you know, that’s a lot. And so if you can get a jump on that, if you’re a farmer and you can get a jump on your ammonia application, you know, that, that really helps you get prepared for the spring. And so, you know, that’s, that always makes everybody feel better when the ammonia run starts earlier, because then you can have a longer process of getting it applied and, you know, and planting behind it. So, you know, just, you know, a lot of optimism around, you know, conditions.

It’s, you know, we started the year super cold everywhere, you know, all the way to the Canadian border, but, you know, we’ve turned the corner here from a weather perspective, and so we are able to—been able to move product. We’ve been moving product from our plants out, you know, out to the field.

Rob McGuire, Analyst, Granite Research: Well, thank you, and thank you for all this, answering all my questions.

Mark Pytosh, Chief Executive Officer, CVR Partners LP: Thanks, Rob.

Bella, Conference Operator: There are no questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mark Pytosh for closing remarks.

Mark Pytosh, Chief Executive Officer, CVR Partners LP: Again, I’d like to thank all of you for your interest in CVR Partners and being on the call today, and our employees for their hard work and commitment toward safe, reliable, and environmentally responsible operations. We look forward to reviewing our first quarter results here in a couple of months. Thank you for being here today. Thanks.

Bella, Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference call for today. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.