Hello everyone, and thank you for joining the Fertiglobe Q4 2025 and Full-Y ear 2025 Results Earnings call. My name is Gabrielle, and I will be coordinating your call today. During the presentation, you can register a question by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two on your telephone keypad. If you have joined us via the webcast, you may type your questions in the Q&A box. I will now hand over to your host, Rita Guindy, Investor Relations and Communications Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Gabrielle. Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining Fertiglobe Q4 and Full-Y ear 2025 Results Conference Call and Webcast. With me today are Ahmed El-Hoshy, Fertiglobe's Chief Executive Officer, Haroon Rahmathulla, Chief Commercial and Growth Officer, and Andrew Tait, Chief Financial Officer. On this call, we will review Fertiglobe's key operational events and financial highlights for the quarter, as well as a discussion of our outlook of the nitrogen market, followed by a question-and-answer session at the end of the call. The presentation we will discuss today can be found on our Investor Relations website, and webcast participants can download it by clicking on the link at the top of the screen. As always, please be reminded that any forward-looking statements made on this call may involve risks, and the actual results could differ materially from those statements.
With this, I will now hand it over to Ahmed El-Hoshy, CEO of Fertiglobe.
Thank you, Rita. Welcome everyone to today's call. To start, let me highlight our safety performance, which has been very encouraging, supporting our ambition of achieving a zero-injury workplace. Our 12-month rolling reportable incident rate of 0.05 incidents per 200,000 work hours as of December 31st, 2025 is a strong result and compares very favorably with industry benchmarks. I reiterate that we are not stopping there and that we will continue to pursue our goal to maintain the highest HSE standards and to ensure safe, sustainable, and reliable operations across our entire platform for all employees and contractors. 2025 marked our first full year under ADNOC's majority ownership through XRG, and it gives me immense pleasure to update you on the impressive growth and significant milestones reached over 2025.
Today, Fertiglobe reported Q4 2025 revenues of $808 million, up 73% on a year-over-year basis and 7% versus Q3 2025 levels. We also had adjusted EBITDA of $297 million for the quarter, up 88% year-over-year and 4% on a sequential basis, as well as adjusted attributable net profit of $107 million a year, up 2.5x in Q4 2025 and down 20% from Q3 2025, largely due to a one-time tax adjustment we had in Q3 2025 associated with the recognition of goodwill in Egypt. On a full-year basis, revenues increased 41% year-over-year to $2.8 billion, while adjusted EBITDA reached $1.02 billion, growing by 57%, and adjusted net profit attributable shareholders rose 87% year-over-year to $325 million. This robust performance is a result of continued progress on the strategic initiatives that we outlined and announced at our Capital Markets Day in May 2025.
In addition, it's also driven by tighter market conditions for ammonia and urea, leading to higher prices. We've seen clear results from our Manufacturing Improvement Plan in 2025 with record production volumes in Algeria and at the EFC2 line in Egypt, a strong reflection of our efforts to maximize asset reliability and efficiency. In December 2025, we executed a pit stop at one of our Abu Dhabi assets, which enabled us to complete sufficient critical work to safely defer a turnaround by two additional years. In addition, results are quite positive, where we're realizing rates of 103%-105% of the previous maximum proven capacity. Additionally, our Commercial Excellence Program has allowed us to capture higher pricing periods in our urea and ammonia salesbook, which allows for achieving higher premiums over benchmarks.
In addition, most recently, EBIC, or Egypt Basic Industries Corporation, our Egyptian dedicated ammonia facility, optimized its sales strategy to reduce reliance on traders in global markets. This has unlocked higher ammonia margins, and these developments are exceptionally impactful as they allow us to effectively capitalize on the very tight market conditions we are seeing today, which, in addition to the elevated industry costs, are supporting Northwest Europe ammonia prices at $670 a ton and urea prices at above $500 a ton at FOB Egypt. I'd like to now briefly discuss the progress we made on our key strategic initiatives. We announced our strategy in May 2025, and in less than a year, we've been able to action 43% of the Grow 2030 strategy.
These developments include, as I mentioned, our Manufacturing Improvement Plan, which is now 46% underway, representing $55 million of our $110 million-$120 million EBITDA target at the pricing in 2024. It's also 99% completion of the $55 million cost reduction target supported by ADNOC and other cost optimization measures on a run-rate basis that we achieved also last year, a year ahead of schedule. Acquisition of the Fertiglobe Australia or Wengfu assets, which is now completely self-financed, and the sales strategy optimization at EBIC I just mentioned in Egypt to reduce the reliance on traders, unlocking higher ammonia margins through the cycle. We also scaled our diesel exhaust fluid and automotive-grade urea capacity in UAE and Egypt, respectively.
We're also pleased to announce that we recently signed an MOU, or memorandum of understanding, with Covestro and TA’ZIZ to explore potential collaboration opportunities in the short and long-term ammonia supply-related infrastructure and potential co-investment in UAE greenfield projects, as well as on sustainable fertilizer technologies across the ammonia and nitric acid value chains. Moving to shareholder returns, in line with our disciplined capital allocation policy backed by our strong free cash flow conversion, robust balance sheet, and commitment to creating shareholder value, Fertiglobe previously guided for H2 2025 dividends of at least $100 million to be paid out in Q2 2026. We're happy to announce today the board's proposal of a $135 million dividend for H2 2025, which is 35% above our previous guidance.
Including up to $75 million worth of share buybacks bought to date, this brings total capital return to shareholders for 2025 to $334 million, implying a competitive yield of over 5% to today's share price. The H2 2025 dividend is subject to approval at the upcoming AGM scheduled on March 9th, 2026, and will be paid within a month thereafter. As a reminder, with this dividend, Fertiglobe will have returned $2.9 billion to shareholders since our IPO just over four years ago, which is around 50% of our market capitalization at listing. With this, I'd like to hand it over to Haroon to discuss our commercial performance and the outlook for nitrogen and ammonia markets in more detail. Haroon?
Thanks, Ahmed. Let me start by discussing the highlights of our commercial performance in the fourth quarter of 2025. Fertiglobe's total owned produced sales volumes of 1.38 million tons in the fourth quarter of 2025 was up 18% versus Q4 2024. Our urea owned produced sales volumes increased by 5%, reaching 1.01 million tons. Our ammonia owned produced sales volumes were up 79% year-over-year, reaching 362,000 tons. Our third-party traded volumes for Q4 2025 increased to 300,000 tons compared to 52,000 tons in Q4 2024. On a full- year 2025 basis, our owned produced sales volumes were up 3% year-over-year to around 5.5 million tons in 2025, driven by relatively unchanged urea owned produced sales volumes of 4.2 million tons and a 13% increase in ammonia owned produced sales volumes of 1.3 million tons.
Total owned produced and third-party trade volumes of 980,000 tons compared to 286,000 tons in 2024, showcasing our commercial agility despite external challenges. Now moving on to nitrogen market developments and the outlook for our products. Starting with urea, we have seen three successive quarters of strong pricing from early Q3 2025 to today. Urea prices averaged at $474 per ton FOB Egypt in Q3 and $452 per ton in Q4, with prices currently above $500 per ton in North Africa. This demonstrates significant pricing strength, and the recent pricing rally reflects tight market fundamentals. In the second half of 2025, a combination of production disruptions, six successive monthly Indian tenders, and robust buying in Ethiopia contributed to a strong pricing environment.
In Europe, buying activity before the definitive phase of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism saw a rush of buying activity to clear cargo into European warehouses before the end of the year. As a result, prices peaked at $507 per ton FOB Egypt in November. This pricing strength has continued into Q1, with urea prices currently at $506 per ton FOB Egypt and $480 per ton AG in February 2026, driven by tight urea markets. In the northern hemisphere, plus Australia, buying season is in full swing, with ongoing Iranian gas shortages, no Chinese exports, and a recently announced Indian tender contributing to the tightness. Focusing on the regional markets, India has been a key focus in 2025 with nine tenders across the years, last seen in 2021. Domestic sales totaled 39.9 million tons in 2025 versus 37.6 million in 2024.
Indian domestic sales also hit two records in July and December, reaching over 5.4 million and 5.7 million tons, respectively. This strong demand, coupled with 1 million tons of lower domestic production versus 2024, drove the need to rebuild opening stocks, which had fallen to 3 million tons in September, resulting in continued monthly tenders across the fourth quarter of 2025. China also returned to the export market in 2025 with a controlled export quota following 18 months of no exports. 2025 exports totaled 4.89 million tons, largely limited to the June-November export window, remaining well below the 10-year average of 6 million tons. In Europe, the market has seen strong and positive momentum across Q4 2025 and Q1 2026. In Q4, pre-CBAM buying activity saw the EU import of 1.9 million tons of urea, 35% higher than the Q4 average of 2023 and 2024.
Another surge of buying activity emerged in Q1 as CBAM free cargo was depleted in European warehouses and the need to restock during peak buying season began. In December 2025, further clarity around CBAM default values was obtained from the European Commission. North African urea producers benefit from the lowest country default values versus other incumbent importers into Europe. In addition to CBAM charges, Russian producers have also been paying an additional EUR 40 per ton duty on imports of nitrogen products, including urea. This duty will increase yearly, rising to EUR 60 per ton in July this year and reaching EUR 315 per ton by July 2028. This is applied on top of the existing urea import tariffs of 6.5% for all major urea importers, except for Egypt and Algeria, who remain duty-free into Europe.
In the long term, urea fundamentals remain positive, with 12.7 million tons of demand growth ex-China, which will materially outstrip capacity growth of 9.6 million tons by 2029. This implies a deficit of around 3 million tons against prior periods of surplus. Meanwhile, ammonia markets have been extremely tight since the second half of 2025, following production issues and gas shortages at major export hubs west of the Suez. The markets remain well supported, with prices currently at $670 per ton versus an average of $665 per ton in Q4 2025, reflecting continued tightness in market fundamentals. In the near term, the return of curtailed supply and the ramp-up of new merchant capacity in the U.S. Gulf Coast may soften the existing price environment, although will remain well supported by elevated TTF prices, currently at $11/MMBtu in Europe.
Going forward, low-carbon ammonia is also a key decarbonization enabler in the fertilizer chemicals and power generation sectors, with long-term growth potential across multiple geographies. Finally, I would like to emphasize our unique positioning as an integrated nitrogen champion to capitalize on the tight market outlook and current price level, continuing on the strength of our strong 2025 commercial performance. With that, I would like to hand it over to Andrew to discuss the financial results in more detail.
Thanks, Haroon. So let me start with some highlights of our performance in quarter four. The Q4 2025 revenues were $808 million, so that's up 73% on a year-on-year basis. This is mainly driven by the higher urea prices, with support from higher volumes as well. Our adjusted EBITDA is up 88% year-on-year to $297 million in Q4 2025, leading to adjusted EBITDA margins of 37%. But our adjusted EBITDA margins for our own produced volumes, 49%, we feel is a clear sign of our strong operational efficiency and cost discipline. Q4 2025, we had an adjusted net profit of triple shareholders of $107 million, so that's up 155% compared to Q4 2024, which was $42 million. Now, for the full- year 2025, our revenues were $2.8 billion. That's 41% higher than the same period last year, driven by those higher prices and volumes that Ahmed and Haroon were indicating.
Meanwhile, the 2025 EBITDA increased 57% year-on-year to $1.02 billion, leading to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 36.2%. But based on our own produced volumes, that's 46%. Our adjusted net income total for shareholders was $325 million. That's up 87% compared to $174 million in the same period last year. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow performance, as of 31st of December 2025, Fertiglobe reported a net debt position of $1.06 billion, implying net debt over the last 12 months adjusted EBITDA of one times, down from $1.048 billion as of the end of December 2024. That's reflecting our continued disciplined approach to capital allocation, balancing the growth while offering attractive returns to the shareholders. As of 10th of February 2026, Fertiglobe had repurchased 110.9 million shares. That represents 1.34% of our total outstanding shares and totals around $74 million worth of shares bought back to date.
Our free cash flow before growth CapEx amounted to $271 million in Q4 2025, compared to $84 million in Q4 2024. And for the whole year 2025, our free cash flow before growth CapEx amounted to $540 million, compared to $249 million in 2024. Now, it's important to note this is a consolidated figure, so it needs to be adjusted for non-controlling interest and also the provisions against the higher gas price in Algeria, which are not reflected on the consolidated free cash flows and would amount to approximately $200 million. And as a reminder, the 2025 free cash flow reflects a $119 million cash tax settlement in Q3 2025 to account for the goodwill adjustment in Egypt, which helps us recognize a $720 million goodwill asset that generates tax benefits in Egypt going forward.
Our total cash capital expenditures, including growth CapEx, were $18 million in Q4 2025, compared to $74 million in Q4 2024, of which $61 million was related to maintenance capital expenditures, compared to $65 million in the same period last year. Our total cash capital expenditures, including growth CapEx, were $191 million in 2025, compared to $168 million in 2024, of which $144 million was related to maintenance capital expenditures, compared to $137 million in the same period last year. That's slightly below the guidance range we provided in the Capital Markets Day in May 2025 of $145 million-$170 million. As Ahmed mentioned, this was driven by a conversion of a turnaround into a pit stop in December at one of our FERTIL lines, which allowed us to push a turnaround further out. I'll now hand back to Ahmed for our outlook and concluding remarks.
Thanks, Andrew. To conclude, we're proud of the progress made on our Grow 2030 strategy in a very short time frame, enabling us to clearly showcase the unique capabilities of our team and our platform. We're well placed to continue to capitalize on the strong prices we are seeing over the course of 2026, reflecting not only the current short-term tightness but also robust long-term market fundamentals. I'd like to sincerely thank our team for this impressive set of results and look forward to reporting even more progress over the coming quarters as we remain firmly committed to our Grow 2030 Strategy and to continue delivering meaningful value to our shareholders. We can now open the line for questions.
Thank you. To ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. If you have joined us via the webcast, you may type your questions in the Q&A box. We will pause here for just a moment as questions are registered. Our first question is from Sylvia Richards from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the call. I have one question, which is, do you see scope for any further savings from the Manufacturing Improvement Program and the Cost Savings Program, given how well they are currently progressing?
Thanks, Sylvia, for the question. So starting with the Manufacturing Improvement Program, I think we reported today that we've achieved $55 million on a run-rate basis out of the $110 million-$120 million target. So I think just on the Manufacturing Improvement Plan as it stands, $55 million is a run-rate number. So to actually get the benefit, we need the full-year effect, right? So that alone, we'll get the full-year effect of the $55 million number here in 2026 and going forward. Then there's the additional, call it, $55 million-$65 million that we still have yet to realize by the end of 2027. So in the original scope of the Manufacturing Improvement Plan, we still see that runway ahead of us.
Over and above on the Manufacturing Improvement Plan, we're looking at other kind of investment opportunities utilizing AI, where we have been having some promising results with our first pilot last year on one of our Abu Dhabi plants to have more preventative maintenance and have less start-stops. So that's helpful in terms of more volumes. So we could see even better performance, but we haven't committed to that yet as we evaluated. And also, from a cost savings perspective, a reduction in the MMBtu per ton is our big push. It also reduces CO2 footprint per ton, which we can get paid back with the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. So I think in short, on the Manufacturing Improvement side, there's still a runway ahead of what we've committed. We do see an opportunity to continue to optimize further. We just haven't announced that or committed to it yet.
On the cost-cutting side, as I mentioned, we are almost complete, 99% by the end of 2025, on our reduction target, which we wanted to achieve by the end of 2026. So we're ahead of schedule. We are looking at other opportunities on the cost savings side. It's under study right now. I think it's no surprise that many companies are looking at how they can use digital tools, AI, machine learning to try to reduce costs on that front. But also, we work with ADNOC, our partner, to evaluate other opportunities for cost reduction. So nothing to say at this point in terms of another number, but we are looking, given we've completed this program early, what we can do to tighten our belts further and try to reduce costs. I don't know, Andrew, if you want to comment further on that second one.
Yeah, thanks, Ahmed. I think nothing more to add other than supporting you and your views. But naturally, we continue to look. I think now we've sort of really implemented some decent digital structures and organizational restructures. We continue to see more advantages that we can yield having got the work of the last two years in place. So we continue to look, and it will be helpful.
One initiative, actually, that I should mention that could reap more benefits, and it's under Andrew's vertical, is the shared service center that we've opened in Egypt. So we have four of our functions kind of now working with that shared service center and our centers of excellence. That's Finance, Digital, HR, and Procurement. So we're going to look to see what we can do to go through that advantage location for shared service centers in Egypt and look at potentially other functional groups where we could look for optimization opportunities there, which isn't part of that $55 million target that we fully realized, almost fully realized.
Great. Thank you very much. That was very clear.
Thank you, Silvia. Our next question is from Ram Kamath from Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hello. Thanks for the presentation. I have a couple of questions, please. So within your strategic collaboration with Covestro and TA’ZIZ, I'm just wondering, are you supplying low-carbon ammonia to Covestro initially? And will the memorandum of understanding help you de-risking the FIDs that you are planning on this low-carbon ammonia project? And just on AGU, in the last quarter, I think you had alluded to us that you have shipped some test volume to customers and expected to ramp up the volume in 2026. Could you give us some color what volume you are targeting this year, and would that attract some premium over your natural urea prices?
Sure. Happy to answer that question. I'll take the first one on Covestro, and then Haroon can discuss kind of AGUs and plan for 2026, where we think we're very well positioned in light of some of the Russian tariffs and CBAM and other matters as well, in addition to growing demand in EU. So with the first question, obviously, it was an MOU with Covestro. They've just come under the hood in XRG as an affiliate of ours in the last couple of months. We couldn't have meaningful discussions in terms of what we could do commercially with them or in terms of investments, whether it's in infrastructure, ammonia supply chain, or in the UAE even. But now we can start those discussions more meaningfully because we've gotten out of that antitrust period.
Your question, Covestro is a major buyer of ammonia globally, in Europe, in the United States, as well as in China. We see them as a great customer that we can collaborate with, sitting within the XRG and ADNOC family. And they do, particularly in Europe, have some value to get a lower carbon product given the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. So to your point, we're looking at all of the above in terms of both gray volumes and low-carbon volumes to discuss with Covestro. It's just, as I said, though, initial stages here because we've been restricted on having these types of discussions during that signing to closing period. And we hope to provide further updates as we look to collaborate and kind of explore synergies with the Covestro team.
On the second one, I'll hand it over to Haroon to discuss AGUs and some of what we've been doing following the trial shipments last year.
Yeah. Thanks, Ahmed. So yes, just on the AGU side of things, we have continued. We sent across trial shipments to customers last year. That's then been followed up with signed contracts with two potential end customers to de-risk some of this AGU production that we have coming up. We like the dynamics in the AGU market a lot, although I won't quote exact premiums. There is a significant premium over selling urea. That premium basically helps support the investment case around this particular project. So without giving exact volumes planned for this year, I just want to say that, yes, the trial shipments were successful. We've signed contracts since then, and we are ramping up production during the course of this year. We do see premiums continuing to hold.
And then from sort of a CBAM perspective, there's a point that I think you may have seen in some of the prepared notes as well as our presentations. For exports out of North Africa, the country default values from a CBAM standpoint are lower than competitive supply coming from other markets. So that actually positions us to benefit well in terms of market share as well as profitability when you look at that AGU market.
Okay. If I can squeeze one more question, if that is okay. You have said that there is a surge in demand for urea before CBAM implementation, and possibly we are seeing that in January as well. But do you see this buying trend normalizing, or that could impact your sales growth in the later half of this quarter, early next quarter because of buying?
So I think it's yeah. So I mean, I think it's a very fair question. So we saw ammonia, I'm sorry, urea, get kind of pre-stocked, go to $507 a ton in Egypt in November time frame, where people were saying, "Okay, I'm going to ship it from Egypt in November, get it into December, and clear customs before the January 1 implementation of CBAM." Understandably, right after that, after January 1, we actually saw a drop in the Egyptian urea values. And what I'm happy to say is by late January, early February now, we're back at those same levels again. So we're seeing demand even for products that will have to pay a CBAM duty that gets charged to the importer going in back to those levels. And that's a testament to how strong we're seeing the urea market right now.
What we're seeing is not only strong demand with India having a record application in December for urea needing to kind of restock. We're also seeing limited exports out of Iran with only one plant running below nameplate and no exports from China probably until May. So the outlook, I don't think, is just till later this quarter. It goes into next quarter where we're seeing these tight market conditions. I'm happy to say that we actually had some working capital draw by building up inventory in Q4 in Europe. So we cleared customs, and then we had that product sitting in Europe to be able to sell into Q1 kind of at the higher CBAM levels. So at the higher European price plus the CBAM that's been charged to importers for products coming in after January 1.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Ram. Our next question is from Oliver Connor from Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Well, thank you for taking my question. Just looking at CapEx or the sort of CapEx profile this year and then maybe next year, can you maybe give it a little bit of color around how you see that sort of shaping out, particularly on the growth side? Thank you.
Maybe I'll start with maintenance and then go to growth. We were at the lower end of guidance. We had guided $140 million-$170 million for 2025 and 2026. We were at the lower end of just under the lower end of guidance in 2025. We expect to be within maybe closer to the higher end of guidance for 2026 for maintenance. As you recall from our Capital Markets Day in May, Oliver, we had said that it dropped to kind of that $100 million-$120 million range 2027 going forward. We're still in a little bit of the elevated maintenance CapEx period this year as we work on the Manufacturing Improvement Plan, but still within that guidance. For next year, obviously, we're excited about coming down to help kind of free cash flow conversion with lower maintenance CapEx going forward.
When it comes to growth CapEx, actually, you'll see that we've spent a decent amount of growth CapEx over the last couple of years in Project Harvest, despite only owning 30% of a sub-$500 million project. So what we're excited about this year is that on the growth CapEx side, because that's happened, because we've already spent the money in Egypt for automotive-grade urea and already spent the money in the UAE for diesel exhaust fluid production and already spent some of the connection money in our last turnaround for the Egypt Green project, should it move forward because we're not investing in electrolyzer, the growth CapEx looks potentially in 2025 something that's highly attractive because we're going to potentially put debt on the Project Harvest, which can cover a lot of the project that's been more equity-funded going forward.
We expect to do that here in 2026, which should also be supportive of cash flows. That's for existing projects that are FIDs.
Thank you.
Thank you, Oliver. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you have joined us via the webcast, you may type your questions in the Q&A box. I will now hand over to Rita Guindy for text questions.
Thank you. So the first question we got was, could you provide details on any planned turnarounds for 2026 across your asset portfolio? And if possible, could you share the frequency of scheduled turnarounds in your operations?
Sure. So as we stated on prior calls, we don't normally provide turnaround schedules ahead of time just because it's quite commercially sensitive, and we don't want people to trade around that. But generally, we have turnarounds on a four- to five-year turnaround schedule per ammonia line. And when I say ammonia line, it's either the ammonia dedicated line or when it's an ammonia and urea line together. We have 7 ammonia lines across our facilities. So we have two in Algeria, we have three in Egypt, and we have two in the UAE, some of them backward integrated urea. So when you think about those seven lines and typically, you take an ammonia and urea turnaround together when it's a dedicated line, and you have seven lines and turnaround every four to five years, you're talking about one to two turnarounds a year, and we try to space them out.
Thanks, Ahmed. The next question was, what was the production utilization rate for Q4 and 2025, and can we expect a similar rate in 2026?
So what we share to the market are sales volumes, which you can see are up year-over-year in terms of the sales of ammonia and urea rather than actual utilization rates. But our Manufacturing Improvement Plan is obviously focused on the pillar one, which is a part of our Growth 2030 strategy, which is to increase those effective utilization rates and improve energy efficiency and improve costs. And as a result, when we were in kind of the mid-80% utilization rate in 2024, we're looking at higher rates this last year in 2025, and we're targeting to get to the mid-90%s by 2028. And we're well on track with that trajectory.
Thanks, Ahmed. Concerning the Project Harvest, can you confirm the expected timeline for bringing it online? Is it going to be the first half or second half considering trial runs? And what is the off-take arrangements, and can you provide some color on the expected utilization price for the project after bringing it online?
Sure. So over the course of this year, we're going to provide more of a more specific date within 2027 when we expect to have production. We're working out the timelines with respect to some of the over-the-fence utilities and feedstocks that we have. The plant is over 70% complete for the actual ammonia facility itself. In terms of the ramp-up, typically, you have a few quarters to get to stable production. But with this specific asset, this is KBR Technology with Tecnimont as the EPC contractor. I'm happy to say that a lot of the team that was involved in the OCI Beaumont plant that was sold to Woodside are also involved in this plant. That plant started up in Q4 last year. So we have a lot of learnings from that plant.
We have a pretty well-stacked commissioning team to work on the production from that plant going forward. It is a back-end-only plant, so it doesn't have a front-end reformer. It is buying over-the-fence hydrogen and nitrogen. In terms of offtake, as you know, Mitsui and GS Energy own each 10% of the equity and get 10% of the offtake, leaving 80% that we, as the exclusive ammonia arm of ADNOC and XRG, will be marketing. In my earlier remarks, part of the move towards disintermediating traders that are EBIC facility in Egypt was not only to create more ammonia margin but to be a larger player in our ammonia system to be able to accommodate those volumes.
In terms of offtake discussions for those 80%, we're having discussions as we speak but also completing a lifecycle assessment for our CO2 footprint that could have some implications around the customers, what they'd be looking at in terms of pricing, some of the CO2 benefit from the lower CO2 footprint of the product. So still a work in progress, but nothing to kind of give specificities on right now.
Thank you. The next question is on markets. What is your midterm outlook on ammonia and urea pricing, and do you see the recent trends continuing in 2026?
Haroon, do you want to start on that?
Yeah, absolutely. So as we said, look, I think going into Q1 2026, we really like the market dynamics across both urea and ammonia. On the urea side of things, as Ahmed also mentioned, key demand markets, including the U.S., on the East, Australia, India, Ethiopia, are really strong as we look at consumption and production. From a supply standpoint, on the urea side as well, we've benefited from, I would say, a sort of a tighter urea supply market that's driven in this quarter by Iranian gas shortages, which, by the way, tend to happen every year at around this time, and also the absence of Chinese exports for this part of the year. More long-term and medium-term, when you look at the supply-demand dynamic on urea, we do see a 3 million-ton shortfall, so demand exceeding supply. So that S&D balance looks pretty good.
On ammonia, as we also mentioned, we benefited from a tighter supply market with shutdowns in Trinidad plant maintenance out in the U.S., and from North Africa, I would say, lower production due to maintenance, not in our plant in Algeria but another plant. So that did contribute to what I would say is a tight market. I think going forward, we do see supply coming in from three main projects: QAFCO, Gulf Coast Ammonia, and Woodside. So we do expect some near-term softness there until sort of the market digests some of that demand.
Yeah. I'd also add that kind of when you look at the underlying TTF, which is a big driver, TTF, which is the European gas price, the forward estimate's around $11 MMBtu with very low storage levels sitting at 36% for European stocks. I think that bodes well for the marginal cost floor for ammonia. So despite some of the additional supply to be absorbed in the market, we understand that there's already production from the Beaumont facility, and there's already been production from the Gulf Coast Ammonia facility that's been starting and stopping, that we have this higher marginal cost floor. And obviously, where dollars are, where the dollar weakening against the euro puts us in a better position in terms of the cash cost versus a European producer that has their costs in euros and their gas costs, obviously, and CO2 pricing in euros.
Are you to the next question?
Thank you. The next question is on tax rates and CapEx. What is the expected effective tax rate going forward, and what level of CapEx is planned over the medium term? Andrew?
Yeah, I can say that. Thanks. So I realize there's been a bit of volatility to get a reading last few months because of, essentially, the recognition of goodwill in Egypt recently, which has led to a lower taxable income base for us going forward. So what we're looking at, if you look at Q4, you're seeing about, essentially, an effective cash tax rate of about 16% and P&L ETR about 17%. Those will be similar rates going forwards as an indication. Now, obviously, that depends on the revenue-profit mix and which plant. But I would say looking at sort of 16% cash, 17% P&L would be a good indication going forwards. Now, I think we've answered on the CapEx guidance already, but just to underline, we guided in the Capital Markets Day back in last May of $105 million-$125 million from 2027 going forwards for the medium term.
We don't see any sort of need to change that guidance.
Thanks, Andrew. The next question is on ammonia. What drove the sharp increase in ammonia sales in 4Q? Was it volume or price-led, and should we expect this momentum to sustain in the coming quarters?
So obviously, this is a reflection of our global ammonia system participating in the markets. But definitely, some of the global curtailments, particularly in Trinidad, which is an ongoing issue for gas supply, led to us participating on the buying and selling side for ammonia on a third-party basis. And we have the flexibility, obviously, to move our products to where the demand is and where the most attractive markets are. And we saw that they were higher both on a price and volume basis in Q4 versus Q3. And here, we're looking at Q1, also quite a bit of ammonia volumes moving, and particularly with the higher default values for ammonia out of Trinidad and the United States. We're also participating more in those third-party traded markets.
Thanks, Ahmed. Next question. The company delivered solid growth in third-party volumes during 2025. How sustainable is this growth trajectory, and what are the key drivers supporting it?
I'll start, and maybe Haroon can add to it as well, but it's just similar to the last question that we want to take a larger presence as part of our pillar two, which is getting close to the customer. As we get closer to that customer, we can source product from ourselves, or we can source it from third parties, whether it's in the Arab Gulf, whether it's in the Mediterranean, or even in the Americas. So people are more and more trusting with us and treat us not like a trader that may have interests of creating market volatility, trying to push markets down to low levels to build length, and then push them to unsustainably high levels to exit. So over time, I think the commercial team under Haroon and Hussein's guidance is doing a great job to push that forward.
And that goes for both ammonia as well as urea. I think it's also important to recognize that we always show our margins with and without traded volume. Naturally, when you trade more tons, you have lower margins because they're not produced tons. So we show it without the traded volume as well so people can see kind of that undisturbed margin, which we're still benefiting of on our lowest cost base for produced tons. Haroon, anything to add?
The only point I'd say is, Ahmed, is the case study around the Wengfu transaction. I mean, with the presence now there in Australia and a short in that market, we do see potential to optimize our trading platform in that part of the world, which has not been a big focus. So it's an example of where, through that acquisition, we combined moving downstream, getting closer to the customer, as Ahmed mentioned, but also using it as a platform to sensibly go after third-party trading where we see that margin and volume.
Thank you, Haroon. What explains the stronger increase in ammonia prices relative to urea?
Yeah. So ammonia prices, obviously, we saw them come up quite a bit. I think we said FOB Egypt urea was $507. Ammonia hit kind of $670 and maybe a little bit higher at times during the latter part of the quarter. Still, the urea value is significantly higher, right? A $507 a ton urea is getting close to $900 a ton worth of ammonia. But the big uptick in ammonia was driven mainly by continued demand and persistent supply issues, both east and west of Suez. On the west of Suez market, we saw Trinidadian gas have issues continue to have plants down in Trinidad. And on the east of Suez market in the GCC outside of our own production, some of the other producers did have some extended maintenance. We've since seen production in the GCC come back. And overall, though, we still see a tight ammonia market.
We do think with the added supply that Haroon indicated too earlier, we could see a gradual reduction in some of the tight markets where we've already seen the Arab Gulf go from the $500 level to the high-$ 400s. Still very strong returns. I just want to remind the market that we have 5 million tons of urea production and 1.5 million tons of net ammonia production. So obviously, we're more exposed to those urea markets. But we are monitoring how the gas markets in Europe continue to progress, the cost there, the dollar-euro as well as the S&Ds overall.
Thanks, Ahmed. Next question. What was the average selling price for urea and ammonia in 2025 and in Q4?
So we don't publish the exact average selling price from the various sites. And it wouldn't be that meaningful because sometimes we sell on a delivered basis, and sometimes we may sell where the customer comes to pick it up. And sometimes we sell very deep inland. So in Wengfu, we sell in Australian dollars in Fertiglobe Australia, very, very downstream close to the retailers. So that could be a high price that's not comparable to a price if we sold a product out of Abu Dhabi. Similarly, in Europe, if we sell to a farming conglomerate in France, the same thing could be a little bit confusing. Our benchmark prices that you can see in our reported results, the benchmark that's published is $665 a ton for Northwest Europe ammonia in Q4 and $562 for the full- year 2025.
Then for urea, it's $452 FOB Egypt for Q4 2025 and $440 for full- year 2025. The commercial team is incentivized heavily to beat those benchmarks when you compare where you're selling from to what you ultimately receive as a netback. And I'm happy to say that we've beaten those benchmarks on both ammonia and urea last year on a netback basis. But we don't publish those numbers, as I said, because they'd be a little bit difficult to follow.
Thanks, Ahmed. And then two further questions. First one is, based on the current assessment, should investors consider legacy contingent matters from periods prior to ADNOC majority ownership substantially resolved from a materiality perspective? And another related question, can you clarify if we can expect any future cash outflows due to the earnout with OCI and ADNOC as part of the Fertiglobe sale?
Okay. So a bit of a loaded question. But the sale of the Fertiglobe shares from OCI to ADNOC that was concluded in October 2024 was a transaction, a secondary sale between shareholders. And we don't comment on shareholder matters. Any legacy that is dealt with separately between the previous and current majority shareholders. And we're not directly involved in these arrangements and don't comment on these shareholder matters with regards to the sales process that was concluded almost a year and a half ago.
We currently have no further questions. So I will hand back to Fertiglobe management for oh, I'm sorry. Please go on, Rita.
Thank you. There's just one more on free cash flows versus dividends. So the free cash flow was $540 million in 2025, whereas the announced dividends were $260 million. Can you elaborate on the differential between these?
Sure. So I think a couple of things. So that free cash flow number, as you all know, is a consolidated free cash flow number. And so there are certain adjustments to that free cash flow number you have to take into account. So the consolidated number doesn't reflect the minority interest for our minorities in Egypt with the 25% for EBIC or in Algeria with the 49% to Sonatrach. So that needs to be deducted. And also, the provision that we've been having that's been affecting the P&L number for natural gas pricing in Algeria is added back in the free cash flow statement on a consolidated basis because that's being added as a payable, but it's just an accumulation of cash balance.
So when you deduct those numbers and also take into account the fact that we made the goodwill settlement here in Q3 2025 for $120 million in Egypt to recognize a $720 million goodwill tax asset that is going to be depreciated over the next several years to reduce our taxable income, as Andrew mentioned, those are some of the puts and takes that basically result in something in that $300 million range for the free cash flow adjusted for those numbers. We paid out to shareholders, sorry, we've announced or committed to pay out $260 million for H1 and H2 in terms of dividends. But we've also bought $74 million worth of shares in 2025 via the share buyback program, taking total return to shareholders of $334 million, more in line with kind of this adjusted free cash flow number I was just discussing.
Thanks, Ahmed. Over to you to conclude.
Thanks all for joining this call. We're very pleased by the work that the Fertiglobe team has done here for Q4 that we just reported today. We look forward to our Q1 conference call as well. Stay safe.
Thank you. This concludes today's Fertiglobe Q4 2025 and Full-Y ear 2025 Results Earnings Call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line.