Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the Fertiglobe Q1 2026 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's Q1 2026 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 the outlook for our key markets, followed by 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, and welcome everyone to today's call. Now more than ever, I'd like to stress on the topic of safety, which remains our highest priority and is especially critical in the complex environment our businesses have been operating in due to the conflict in the Middle East. We've implemented many additional precautionary measures to safeguard our people and our assets in the U.A.E., and I'm happy to say everyone is safe and our assets have not been harmed. I'd like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to our teams for their professionalism and composure during this period, and for maintaining safe and reliable operations across the portfolio in these conditions. I'm proud of our 12-month rolling recordable incident rate of 0.05 incidents per 200,000 work hours, which reflects a strong result and compares very favorably with industry benchmarks.
We nevertheless remain committed to further strengthening both operational and process safety with the goal of achieving zero injuries and maintaining the highest HSE standards while ensuring safe, sustainable, and reliable operations across our entire platform for all our employees and contractors. Moving on to our financial results. Fertiglobe today reported a strong set of numbers for Q1 2026, with revenues of $915 million, up 32% year-over-year and 13% higher than Q4 2025 levels. Adjusted EBITDA of $342 million, up 31% year-over-year and up 15% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders of $145 million, almost doubling year-over-year and reflecting an increase of 36% versus Q4 2025.
This performance reflects the strength and resilience of Fertiglobe's platform, with disciplined execution translating into strong earnings growth supported by a strategically diversified geographic footprint and our ability to capture value in tight market conditions. Thanks to our team's effort, we have maintained production throughout this conflict. We are proud to report that urea operating rates across the platform reached 96% in Q1 2026, reflecting a significant improvement compared to 87% a year ago. This showcases the tangible results of our Manufacturing Improvement Plan. Our Egyptian operations continued to achieve record-breaking performance in Q1 2026, with zero downtime across units and operating rates above 105% at EFC.
On the sales side, our own produced sales volumes were down 12% compared to Q1 2025 levels as a result of trade route disruptions out of the U.A.E., as well as the base effect of 239,000 tons of deferred shipments from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025. Adjusting for these 2024 deferrals into 2025, our own produced sales volumes would actually have been higher 5% year-over-year, despite what was going on in the U.A.E. starting February 28th. The urea inventory we built in the U.A.E. during the Strait of Hormuz blockage is ready to be sold to ensure continued customer supply over the coming months. Through established contingency planning and business continuity measures, we continue to evaluate and pursue alternative trade routes should the ongoing disruptions in our usual trade routes remain in place for a longer period.
During the quarter, we've seen significantly higher pricing resulting from the global tightness in urea and ammonia supply and peak spring buying in the northern hemisphere, which has more than offset the impact of lower sales volumes in Q1 2026, leading to strong results we reported today. A very important development is the decision of the U.A.E. Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs we announced today, whereby effective January 1st of this year, 2026, the tax rate of Fertil, which is our U.A.E. asset, was cut to 15% for profits below $100 million and was cut to 20% for profits above $100 million, down from the previous flat rate of 25%.
The decision aligns Fertiglobe's applicable tax rate more closely with regional peers and other companies in the U.A.E. and is a positive development as it further strengthens Fertiglobe's through the cycle free cash flow generation, supporting sustainable shareholder returns. To add some perspective on 2025 earnings, this tax adjustment alone would have implied savings of $25 million of cash taxes or potential EPS accretion of 8%.
In Q1 2026, it is $8.4 million or a 7% EPS accretion. Finally, we continue to advance our Grow 2030 strategy through disciplined capital allocation and a focus on high return, resilient growth opportunities with implemented initiatives representing circa 43% of the announced growth target set in May 2025, just one year ago, including the completion of our cost optimization plan one year ahead of schedule, which is expected to contribute $55 million in EBITDA by 2027. With this, I'd like to hand it over to Haroon to discuss our commercial performance and outlook for nitrogen and ammonia markets in more detail.
Thanks, Ahmed. Let me start by discussing the highlights of our commercial performance in the first quarter of 2026. Throughout the quarter, Fertiglobe's total own produced sales volumes of 1.35 million tons in Q1 2026 was down 12% versus Q1 2025. As Ahmed highlighted, this was driven by trade route disruptions in the U.A.E., leading to delays in the shipments of urea during March, and also a higher base effect as Q1 2025 included 294,000 tons of sales volumes that had been deferred from Q4 2024 to capitalize on higher pricing at the beginning of 2025. Normalizing for these deferrals, our Q1 2026 sales volumes would have actually been up 5% compared to last year.
During Q1 2026, our urea own produced sales volumes, unadjusted for the higher Q1 2025 base effect, decreased by 4%, reaching 1.1 million tons, compared to 1.14 million tons in the same period last year. Meanwhile, ammonia own produced sales volumes were down 36% year-over-year in the quarter to 247,000 tons from 388,000 tons in Q1 2025, mainly driven by higher opening inventory in the Q1 opening 2025 period, in addition to some lower sellable production. Separately, our third-party traded volumes for Q1 2026 increased 17% year-over-year to 207,000 tons compared to 176,000 tons in Q1 2025.
As a result, our total sales volumes in Q1 2026 were down by 9% to 1.56 million tons compared to 1.71 million tons in Q1 2025. Now, moving on to nitrogen market developments and the outlook for our products. Ammonia and urea prices have shown continued strength since the start of the year, currently at $910 per ton CFR Northwest Europe and FOB Egypt at $885 per ton, supported by tight market fundamentals in early Q1, further escalating after the start of the conflict in the Middle East.
In early Q1, urea prices averaged $463 per ton and $498 per ton FOB Egypt in January and February respectively, driven by seasonal gas shortages in Iran, no Chinese exports, spring purchasing across the northern hemisphere, and buying activity in India. The recent conflict in the Middle East has impacted production, trade, and logistics in the region, with around 30% of urea and 21% of ammonia trade typically passing via the Strait of Hormuz, significantly tightening exports. LNG imports into India during Q1 have also been impacted by the war, with the government reducing gas supply to local fertilizer plants to 70% during March.
A combination of gas supply curtailments and plant maintenance has seen Indian urea production fall by around a million tons in March 2026 versus March 2025, further boosting import requirements during a time when India typically stockpiles for the upcoming season. The recent IPL tender in April attracted 2.5 million tons of urea at an L1 average price, east and west coast, of $947 per ton, levels last seen in 2021, despite affordability concerns in other markets. Tender activity has seen India attempt to purchase 3.8 million tons of urea year to date, demonstrating India's need for urea imports even in high-priced environments. China has also been absent from the international market and focused on the domestic market during the spring application season.
Announcement of the 2026 export quota is yet to take place, with guidance expected later in Q2. In Europe, the market saw strong and positive momentum in Q1 2026, with a surge of buying activity as CBAM free cargo purchased in Q4 2025 was depleted in European warehouses with the need to restock during peak buying season. With the introduction of CBAM in January 2026, North African urea producers benefit from the lowest country defaults versus other major incumbent importers into Europe. In addition to CBAM changes, Russian producers have also been paying an additional EUR 40 per ton duty on imports of nitrogen products, including urea, into the EU.
This duty will increase yearly, rising to EUR 60 per ton in July 2026 and reaching EUR 315 per ton by July 2028 with a declining import threshold. This duty is applied on top of the existing EU urea import tariffs of 6.5% for all major urea importers, except for Egypt and Algeria, who maintain a duty-free position into Europe. Long term, urea demand growth ex-China of 11.6 million tons is expected to materially outstrip additional capacity growth of 9.5 million tons by 2030, supporting a structurally tight market. Meanwhile, in the ammonia market, the theme of tightness has also amplified across Q1 with the U.S. application season, European buying and supply shortages from key export hubs in the West, and the loss of ammonia exports from the Middle East.
Ammonia prices have continued to rise, currently reaching $910 per ton CFR Northwest Europe versus $667 per ton in Jan 2026, and $435 per ton in May 2025, reflecting persistent tightness despite the ramp-up of new capacity in the U.S. Gulf Coast. In Europe, a combination of broader LNG shortages, Europe's need to refill gas stocks and reduce reliance on Russian gas are expected to provide feedstock support as ammonia prices recover from the war. The recent announcement of EU Russian sanctions package has imposed a 688,000 ton quota on Russian ammonia imports to Europe. U.S. imports to Europe also face high country default values under CBAM regulations. Longer term, low-carbon ammonia is a key decarbonization enabler in the fertilizer, chemicals, marine, power generation sectors, with growth potential across multiple geographies.
I would like to re-emphasize our unique global positioning to navigate challenging times and to capture value in the current market environment, supported by a strong order book and robust commercial capabilities. With that, I would like to hand it over to Andrew to discuss the financial results in more detail.
Thanks, Haroon. Let me start with some highlights of our performance in Q1 2026, which showcased Fertiglobe's resilience against the challenging geopolitical environment. Our Q1 2026 revenues are up $915 million. That's up 32% on a year-on-year basis against $695 million in Q1 2025, and that's mainly driven by those higher urea prices. Our adjusted EBITDA though is up 31% year-on-year to $342 million Q1 2026, leading to adjusted EBITDA margins of 37.4%. Our adjusted EBITDA margins for our own produced volumes is actually 49.8% compared to 44.9% in a similar quarter last year. Q1 2026, our adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders was $145 million.
That's almost double year-on-year, up 98% compared to the similar value of $73 million for the similar period last year, Q1 2025. On a reported basis, our net profit increased almost 2.7 times to $198 million, up from $73 million in Q1 2025. That includes a non-cash accounting gain of $52.7 million, and that is from a reassessment of deferred tax liabilities, which made a reduction following the reduction in the U.A.E. tax rate for Fertil, which Ahmed talked about a little earlier. That rate cut is effective from the 1st of January 2026 and lowers our expected ongoing cash tax for Fertil going forward. That $52.7 million is a one-off non-cash tax accounting item in Q1 and does not reflect a cash inflow in the quarter.
Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow performance. As of 31st March 2026, Fertiglobe reported a net debt position of $822 million, implying net debt to our 12 months adjusted EBITDA of 0.7 times, down from $1.006 billion as of end of December 2025. The balance sheet strength supports disciplined value-led growth while enabling sustainable shareholder returns. Our consolidated free cash flow before growth CapEx amounted to $235 million in Q1 2026, compared to $213 million in Q1 2025. This reflects strong underlying EBITDA, partly offset by the working capital outflows in this quarter, most notably linked to the trade route disruptions and inventory buildup in the U.A.E. As logistics normalize and inventories are monetized, we would expect that working capital to unwind accordingly.
Our total cash capital expenditures was $19 million in Q1 2026, compared to $24 million in Q1 2025. Of that, our maintenance CapEx was $11 million compared to $17 million in the same period. For 2026, we continue to expect maintenance CapEx to remain with our guidance given of $145 million-$170 million on average over 2024, 2025, and 2026. Finally, I'm pleased to announce that Fit II, our cost reduction initiative, which we announced in Capital Markets Day this time last year, where a reduction of $55 million has now closed one year earlier than announced, and we're very happy with the results of that, and you will begin to see that coming through into the financial results. I'll now hand it back to Ahmed for our outlook and concluding remarks.
Thanks, Andrew. To conclude, the conflict in the Middle East has impacted the supply of fertilizers globally, coinciding with consistently growing demand, further disrupting the already tight markets. In this context, our role as a provider of essential nitrogen fertilizer is more important than ever as we play a significant role in strengthening global stability by supporting agricultural productivity and global food security during unprecedented times. This conflict has shown the resilience of our assets, operations, and most importantly, our people. We're proud of the work that our team has done during these unprecedented times, and I want to thank our team for their exceptional dedication, the driving force behind Fertiglobe's continued success and disciplined delivery of our strategy, always anchored around safety. We can now open the line for questions.
Thank you. Our first question is from Ricardo Rezende from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. 1 point that I wanted to discuss, when you mentioned the alternative routes, if you could provide us to the extent that you can, some more visibility on what's the main threshold for you now? It's getting access to all of the trucks that you need to truck those volumes or something related to the port infrastructure, because of pretty much everybody else using those same routes. Then, another question. When you mentioned that you pretty much achieved the cost savings a year ahead of the original estimates, does that mean that you could maybe introduce, say, another phase of this program? Do you do forecasts for a further cost savings going forward, or do you think that for now that's pretty much where you can get to? Thank you.
For the question, Ricardo, I mean, to try to answer your question, it's a bit of all of the above. You know, when you're trying to ship out, you know, we're looking at, you know, different routes to get product out with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed. We actually did have a vessel that we sold in the month of March during the quarter. In general, you know, for the land routes, yes, we end up using land logistics, primarily truck. It is gonna be at a, you know, lower rate than, you know, loading a 45,000 ton vessel, for sure.
It does come with some extra costs, something in the double digits per ton, which is more than offset by the much higher pricing we're seeing, you know, north of $400 per ton higher urea since before the conflict. The teams have been working tirelessly around that. There is some congestion, as you can imagine, for both import and export from different ports. We've staged product at ports to move out ports that are outside of the Strait of Hormuz. You know, it's a combination of trying to get all of that done so that we can get some tons out into the market from the U.A.E.
Of course, we continue to free flow out of Egypt and Algeria and putting it into our global distribution network, sending product all around the world, including, you know, being able to meet, you know, our volume targets in Australia, despite it typically sourcing product from the Arab Gulf. With regards to the second question, we're always continually looking for opportunities to reduce costs. There is a possibility always to do better. Leveraging digital tools and artificial intelligence is one way as well to look to reduce costs, to reduce, you know, man-hours worked in specific kind of easier things to be, you know, things that we can do from a digital perspective. I wouldn't be surprised if we come out with another target at some point in the future as well.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Ricardo. Our next question is from Scott Darling from Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Well done on the results. Egypt's operational performance was really excellent. I mean, well done to all the team. How are you thinking about how sustainable is this from an operational point of view for the rest of the year, especially over the summer months, in terms of gas availability issues or any sort of thoughts around that to help us? That's the first question. The second question. If this quarter we did see the straits gradually open, the conflict resolved, I mean, what's your sense in terms of urea ammonia pricing, how things will sort of come back for, say, the second half of this year going into 2027? Thank you.
Sure. So on the first question, yeah, I really am proud of what the team has been able to do on the production side in Egypt. These are levels that are, you know, very much top quartile production with a 100% on stream rate in Q1. We're looking to obviously sustain that during non-turnaround months and quarters. With regards to, you know, the upcoming summer months, as you know, last year, we had a curtailment of about 30% of our gas needs through most of the summer. You know, if that happens, obviously we could be forced to reduce some production.
In Egypt, given we have three ammonia lines and feeding two urea lines and having some net ammonia, it could come at the expense of producing, you know, less ammonia, where we would take most of the hit, where the margins are a little bit lower. That being said, the Egyptian government's done a great job of securing LNG cargo, securing LNG regasification infrastructure. Now I think it's quadrupled versus where it was last summer, putting Egypt in a better position. From that perspective, I think we're ready for if something were to happen in the summer. We're hopeful that we'll continue to keep getting gas. To the extent we don't get gas, or we get, sorry, some reduction in gas, well, we do and have seen in the past that this it becomes nationwide.
You end up having a big reduction in urea exports because most of the gas consumers or fertilizer only have urea, ammonia to urea plants. That will have a price effect that, as we saw last year, more than offset the volume effect of our reduced ammonia production. I don't think that'd be great for global food security or fertilizer prices, and it would add insult to injury to have, you know, that much tonnage of urea come off the market into the global markets, but it would definitely have a price effect. In terms of, you know, when the straits reopen, we do anticipate that it would have an effect on kind of sentiment and price.
We have seen at times a preview of it, when there was a, you know, announcement on a ceasefire, potential reopening of the strait a few weeks ago. We saw that some of the buyers kind of sat on the sidelines waiting to see can we wait to buy a bit later and achieve some lower pricing. We happen to be in the midst of, you know, high season in the northern hemisphere. Definitely we would see a price effect with the reopening of the strait, but I would say a couple of points. One, we think that there has potentially been some demand destruction for those that, you know, didn't buy and put the Urea in place in certain markets.
We will, unfortunately see probably some effects on crop yields in the future and crop pricing and probably defer the any, you know, urea or nitrogen that wasn't put in the ground because it has to be applied every year. The timing of that, when it happens vis-à-vis the season, is very important. The second thing is, you know, we estimate that a sizable portion of urea production in the strait is not producing today and will take some time to ramp up in some of our neighboring countries inside of the Strait of Hormuz. We don't think it'll be kind of an immediate effect to be able to get, you know, immediately back online. There could be some lingering effects as well.
Sorry I don't have a number for you on how we think it would move, but in general, we think it would, it would definitely, you know, change sentiment. I think we're gonna have some catching up to do to get nitrogen in the ground for following seasons.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, Scott. Our next question is from Ram Kumar from Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Congratulations on strong set of numbers. I see, I mean, the inventory's likely to go up in U.A.E., right? Because you would not able to export the volume that has been produced in the U.A.E. I just wonder what is the impact on working capital because of this, and do you see a huge buildup in Q2 as well if things do not normalize so quickly? In general, I just want to understand, given U.S. decision to leave OPEC, do you see, do you anticipate that this move will create a new opportunity for you? Because there would be definitely incremental growth coming in from hydrocarbon production. Just if you can comment on that, please. Thank you.
Thanks for the question, Ram. We entered March with very low urea inventories in the U.A.E. We've also managed to secure additional storage, both in floating vessels as well as optionality around more storage at different ports that we've been able to move the product to. We were looking to continue production of urea. Yes, it comes as working capital. You know, obviously our cash costs are quite attractive. You know, our gas price here in U.A.E. is just under $4 an MMBTU. You know, the cash cost of that product will result in more inventory. Now obviously, we're looking to slowly bring down that inventory via non-traditional routes.
It won't be keeping up with our production rates, but that'll help kind of alleviate and generate cash to bring down some of those inventory and working capital levels, if this were to continue. With regards to the decision yesterday that was announced with regards to the U.A.E., basically, we can't comment too much in detail on it. It's obviously an increased ambition by the Emirates to increase energy production, oil, as well as potential associated gas, as well as ambitions around gas itself. That's in our opinion, quite helpful as we look at potential growth opportunities to have attractively priced feedstock as we think about new growth. And it's something that, you know, we look forward to kind of pursuing, evaluating over the coming years to come.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you, Ram. Our next question is from Faisal Al Azmeh from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, everyone, and congratulations on the strong set of numbers and the fact that none of the assets got damaged. This is great to hear. Maybe, you know, a few questions from my side. Maybe just, you know, when we think about, you know, the current rerouting that you've managed to establish or trying to establish, I guess, you know, what is the maximum that you feel you can actually export on a monthly basis in this environment? Maybe if you can give us a range from the U.A.E. That's my first question.
My second question, obviously we've seen initially or maybe last year, QatarEnergy kind of make some announcements regarding adding more urea by the end of 2030, and we also saw a project announcement in Saudi for more urea capacity. Is this something that you're also considering? Is there any availability of feedstock in the country that where you think you can add or expand Fertil at all? My last question is just on Algeria. You know, if you can give us an update generally on the contract up, you know, over there and what's the latest. Have you witnessed any curtailments at all recently and should we expect any curtailments for this quarter? Thank you.
Sure. Faisal, you know, given it's quite dynamic, it's hard to give you know, exact figures on, you know, the rate of export via non-traditional methods should the Strait of Hormuz continue to be closed. It's definitely, you know, lower than 50% when we think about that. You know, we're looking through many different methods, different ports to look to try to have something that's relatively sustainable on a go-forward basis. With regards to new urea capacity, I mean, we're always on the lookout for both organic and inorganic growth opportunities.
You know, we think that, you know, we're gonna look at the S&D and they look quite attractive for urea on a medium to long-term basis, as we can see that, you know, the world does need more urea. The markets were actually quite tight before February 28th of this year, as we saw. You know, to the prior question from Barclays, you know, we're gonna be looking at, you know, feedstock availability. We're gonna look and kind of manage that with our dividend policy. Inorganic opportunities should they arise, you know, some assets, including our own, still trade at a very big discount to replacement value. Kind of looking at all of the above.
You know, these projects, whether it's Saudi, Qatar or if we were to do something on our side, take quite a bit of time. We're talking, you know, from inception to actual operations, at least four years. I think that, you know, we'd be looking always globally as well, not just within the U.A.E. Nothing to announce at this point. With regards to Algeria, we did have some reduced gas availability during Q1. Actually, we had almost two weeks of reduced gas through the quarter. During that period, and this affected all, you know, all the industrial producers in the area, you know, we ended up sacrificing. You know, remember we have two ammonia lines and one urea line. We sacrificed one of the ammonia lines.
We undertook some maintenance during that timeframe as well. Despite that, you saw that we had still pretty good ammonia production and sales despite that on the Algerian side. With regards to the gas agreement, it's still the same position that we were at in prior months that we haven't executed it yet. Continue to provision in our P&L the higher gas rates that on a you know, on a nominal basis has been agreed with with the Algerians but has not been executed from that perspective.
Do you feel that the, let's say, the provisions provided before and the guidance around that is sufficient in this high, urea price environment?
Yes. There's some linkage to product pricing in the gas, you know, formula we've been talking to. Yeah, we're still on the same page with regards to our partners.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Faisal. Our next question is from Hari Seshasailam from JP Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Can everybody hear me? Hello?
Yep.
Awesome. Yes, good afternoon. It's Hari Seshasailam from JP Morgan on behalf of Alex Comer. You know, just a quick one, obviously, you said it's a very fluid and dynamic situation, but when we think about the sort of shape of Q2, I mean, how much have you been able to sell in April, if you're able to disclose that? If the situation continues, I think you said 50%, but should we assume that for Q2?
I said under 50%. We're not gonna talk about April volumes during this call. We're gonna discuss it during our Q2 results.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Hari. Our next question is from Oliver Connor from Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi, all. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations again on the results. More of a longer term question for me. Obviously this is the second sort of energy crisis that we've had in five years, particularly impacting the urea market. You know, do you think this crisis moving forward sort of changes how the market responds? I mean, I know you touched on growth projects taking a bit of time, but do we see, you know, more strategic inventories being built, you know, how the market adapts and sort of whether that changes your view on where long run marginal costs sit? Thank you.
I think it's a good question. You know, obviously people take learnings and, you know, governments, private sector take learnings from being in a situation like this. I think that there's a big push to trying to support the agricultural community and farmers in general. We've seen, you know, some programs over the last 2 months be discussed. Farmer economics are very strained here, in terms of having, you know, a large increase in input costs and without the commensurate increase in grain pricing that we saw in 2022, because, you know, Ukraine and Russia are much bigger exporters of grain. Really, you know, the Arab Gulf is more importer of grain. I think that there could be more focus on strategic stocks ahead.
We've seen the Indian government in the last few years look to have, you know, inventory levels to ensure that there's enough and adequate fertilizer available for the season. I think we could see more of that behavior to have some stocks there like you see on fuel, reserves and things like that. That for sure could happen. Now, with regards to the new capacity and the question that was earlier asked, you know, the crisis with Russia, Ukraine started, I think you saw gas prices in Europe go up from Q4 2021 and lasting, you know, comfortably into Q1 2023 at extremely high pricing.
You know, despite that, for the next few years, you know, even or three years later since the kind of the tempering of that energy prices, we still are in a deficit market for urea. You know, these are not small projects. These are projects that take multiple years to come to fruition. They often need financing, and we've seen interest rates only be much higher than they were back at that time period in 2021, 2022. The industry still sits at a big discount to replacement value that I don't think the market has grasped yet. I think the big one is the capital costs. Capital expenditure costs, i.e., building of new plants is much, much more expensive than it was five and 10 years ago.
You know, looking into higher equipment costs, higher construction costs, lower labor availability with the type of craft needed to build these types of complex high pressure, high temperature plants, you know, I think the barriers to entry continue to be high and have gone higher. Yes, people will think about, you know, decisions around inventory, but I think new production is always still gonna be one that is a bit challenged because of what I mentioned earlier.
Thank you. Very helpful.
Thank you, Oliver. We will now move on to text questions. I will hand over to Rita. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Gabrielle. We received some questions on the webcast chat, so I will start with the first one. What was production utilization rates in the U.A.E. for Q1, 2026? What was it in March and April?
Yeah. As you can see, and as we showed in our Q1 results, we had a urea operating rate of 96% across the group, which included obviously the U.A.E. In March. We don't provide operational details by subsidiary, but our production in the U.A.E. was relatively robust. We had a lot of urea storage capacity, as we discussed. I also would like to point out that we did have a short shutdown in April, five days in one line and 10 days in another line, in the U.A.E., where we used that opportunity to conduct some minor maintenance.
Production is back online, and we have decent inventories to ship, albeit at a lower rate, and at a higher rate once the Strait of Hormuz opens and all logistical channels become available again. Do want to clarify to the question earlier when Faisal asked about the range, and I said under 50%. I think it's safe to say it's materially lower than 50% in terms of what we can get out of the Strait of Hormuz. We're obviously day by day bolstering capabilities around that front. You know, there are different bottlenecks that we have to deal with, including the movement of all types of goods in and out of the country, and in and out of the Arabian Gulf. Something we're working through, something that's dynamic and fluid.
The good thing is that we do also have obviously the production sitting in North Africa, and we'll look forward to providing more updates on what we've been able to do out of the U.A.E. with the tremendous work of our teams in our Q2 results.
Thanks, Ahmed. On a related note, can you quantify the volume impact on the U.A.E.? Are you able to move products there from land?
Yeah. I think we talked about this earlier. We did have in Q1, 2026 in March, vessel loaded and sold for a little over 30,000 tons. In terms of the ability to move other product, we've staged product at different ports and, like I said, that comes at an added cost that will be at a lower rate, and we're looking to try to increase that rate.
Thank you. Then on Egypt, we touched on this briefly earlier. EFC operated above 100% capacity in Q1. How sustainable are these levels through the remainder of 2026?
I think we answered that question earlier. Obviously our eye is on kind of the Egyptian gas availability. I think Egypt, as we said, is in a better position to deal with the higher gas and power demands, in successes here of the Manufacturing Improvement Plan.
On Algeria, what was the operating rate in Algeria?
The operating rate in Algeria, as I said, we don't give subsidiary level operating rates on a consistent basis. We'll make an exception here and tell you that on the urea basis they were, you know, in the mid-90s%. Ammonia was affected by that gas curtailment that I discussed in my response to Faisal's question of about two weeks where we had to shut down the ammonia lines. Again, we're witnessing very solid performance by the team in Algeria. They've done an absolutely remarkable job to focus on operational issues, process safety, you know, preventative maintenance, and we're really happy. They're a really good set of plants, and they've become in a much better condition than they were a few years ago with an even stronger leadership team running the plants.
The next one on shutdowns. Are there any planned shutdowns for 2026?
You know, consistent with past calls, we don't comment on turnarounds or planned shutdowns for commercial reasons. Obviously, we give more detail on them on an after-the-fact basis and, you know, the same stands true here in 2026.
Thank you. On the markets, what are management's views on market dynamics going forward?
Thanks, Rita. A lot, lots dependent on when the strait opens. The view is the markets will continue to remain tight till the strait opens, and even once it opens, as Ahmed highlighted earlier, by the time some of the plants ramp up production and actually ship it out, there would be sort of a more gradual normalization of pricing. As I also indicated in my prepared remarks, I mean, 30% of urea volume is exported out of the Middle East. There has been significant tightening of supply.
There are a number of other factors also from a pricing standpoint, including in the European market, where Russian duties, and the ramp up from EUR 60 per ton to EUR 315 per ton by 2028, you know, is likely to create a favorable supply dynamic for exporters like us out of North Africa. Similarly, on the ammonia side, the 20% of exports out from the Middle East, you know, supply has been tight. As we track some of the additions out of the U.S., we do see the U.S. Gulf Coast plants basically beginning to export.
However, exports are limited to date, and CBAM remains challenging with some of those higher defaults. Yeah. Yeah.
Thanks, Haroon. A question on dividends. What are Fertiglobe's dividend plans under the current disruptions, and any comment on future dividend expectations?
Thanks, Rita. Let's reiterate what our policy is. It's substantially all excess free cash flow after providing for growth and maintaining our investment grade. It's really too early in the year to determine full year because of the full year profits. There's a lot between us and the end of the year still. I think, you know, essentially, we'll be coming out with more information quarters as we see things developing. I think the other thing to talk about is when we evaluate dividends, you know, we're really looking at to focus on the proportion of free cash flow over our consolidated free cash flow.
For those of you joining more recently, consolidated free cash flow, obviously there's a big percentage in Algeria, for example, which is 49% with NCI. You know, essentially what we're looking at in terms of focus, particularly on things like the tax adjustment, we made, we announced today that really is sort of going further to sort of strengthen our bottom line free cash flow generation.
Thanks, Andrew. Another question on CapEx. What is your CapEx guidance for the rest of 2026?
We said last year during our CMD, we're looking at two years of elevated maintenance CapEx, giving us the sort of juice of mid-related expenditures aimed at improving our production efficiency, which I think you're seeing through in the announcements we've been making recently. We guided at that capital markets day of $145 million-$170 million on average in those two years. We continue to maintain that guidance, definitely on plan for that. To also highlight what I said last year is after that, our maintenance CapEx is expected to come down and normalize at around about $105 million-$125 million in 2027 onwards once the Manufacturing Improvement Plan is completed.
Thanks, Andrew. The next question is on offtake. Has Fertiglobe locked in any firm offtake contracts for blue ammonia for projects cargo?
Yeah. You know, as we announced, a few quarters ago, we've paused our blue ammonia project, this project we've done. Harvest as it's currently constructed right now is lower carbon ammonia. The ownership there is 50% TA'ZIZ, 30% Fertiglobe, and 10% each for Mitsui and GS. Some portion of those volumes will be taken by Mitsui and GS, we are looking to secure a premium for some of these lower carbon ammonia attributes of Harvest. It's number one, it's not blue in the way that people imagine in terms of ATR and carbon capture.
This process of trying to secure a premium is not guaranteed. The way to look at it is a lower carbon ammonia project for now.
Thanks, Haroon. Back on the markets, what does the outlook for demand look like given farmers' cash squeeze, elevated urea prices? Can you please give us some color on the Indian market supply and demand dynamics in light of the recent LNG gas disruption?
Yeah, maybe starting with India. You know, I think it's been widely reported that 30% of global urea comes out of the Strait of Hormuz. There's also the indirect effect of Indian domestic production getting hit because of inability to secure LNG supplies for production. Our estimate is that urea production was down 1 million tons in March alone in 2026 versus 2025. India has since had tendered for LNG to raise plant operating rates. That's been able to allow the plants, I think, to get back to higher levels. Obviously the future gas supply to some extent remains at risk. You know, we've seen that recover a bit on the Indian side.
You know, there was a recent tender a few weeks ago where India did secure 2.5 million tons of urea in light of the above on the supply side and the importance of, as we mentioned earlier, having stocks ahead of their season. We still expect, you know, high single digits from a 9 million-10 million tons of urea imports this year, subject of course to the war duration, gas supply, availability, demand and weather. In terms of, you know, the farmer economics, you know, discussed a little bit earlier, these higher input costs have really challenged affordability in key areas on some of the marginal acres, you know, some farmers that don't own their land.
You know, what's helped a bit is that there has been some pre-buying, you know, ahead of the March run-up in pricing. If some farmers have had lower pricing in the past, they can average in some higher priced fertilizer and still be able to make the economics work to plant. It just did come at a pretty tough point with the application season in the northern hemisphere happening firmly in Q2. You know, we've seen some markets like India specifically, where there's subsidies on nitrogen. We have subsidies on nitrogen in Egypt and other countries as well that help to allow for the flow of product and for farmers to make ends meet.
We do think that affordability is at a very, very challenged level. What that means, as we said, is it could result in some demand destruction on some marginal acres if they don't get those tons in time. We have seen also continued pause because of the start, stops on the conflict. Continued periods of pause where we do think there's a lot of demand that's just waiting till the last possible minute to buy, including in areas like Brazil and Australia, which have a later season than the northern hemisphere. You know, for all those reasons, you know, it's something that we have to watch very, very closely.
Thank you. I think also we touched on this before. Can you please provide guidance on your operating rates for the rest of the year?
No. No, we don't do that. Thanks.
On sales volumes, what factors could explain the difference and the rate of decline between urea and ammonia in Q1? What underlying drivers may be influencing this divergence?
I think the thing is, when you look at year-over-year, there is some distortion because of working capital. Q4. If you all recall Q4 2024, we made a very conscious decision not to sell product because we had some opportunistic traders shorting the market, looking to buy tons, where companies were trying to make their end-of-year numbers. We decided to hold onto that product, and we sold a large amount in Q1 2025. That was true for urea, but also very much true for ammonia. That was an effect of having, you know, very high stocks in Q1 of 2025, which allowed for more sales. Also I will say that we ended ammonia stocks in Egypt in Q1 2026 at a high level.
There was some reduction in ammonia, distribution, and higher inventories in Egypt, that was also a factor in having lower sales. I'd mentioned also some downtime in Algeria.
Thank you. Given the current high prices for urea and ammonia, should we expect a resumption of idle fertilizer capacity in Europe that was previously shut due to unfavorable energy and cost economics? If so, how sustainable would any restart be?
You know, for ones that were kind of announced as permanent shutdowns, we think that those are permanent, some of the ones that have been taken off the capacity. You know, for those that have been kind of in a troubled situation here, from our perspective, all available European production that can run has been running for the last two months to supply the local markets. You know, despite the higher LNG pricing and the higher gas pricing, we're at $15 per MMBtu-$16 per MMBtu. Even if you factor in the higher CO2 costs that they have as well, they're still making margins at these levels and are still incentivized to run. We don't see supply kind of increasing from these levels because they're already running at the highest levels they possibly can.
Thank you. Then, a question on costs. Non-U.A.E. raw material costs have increased substantially year-on-year. How does this increase split between Algeria and Egypt?
We generally don't break it down by plant, but I think we've mentioned in the past, you can look at 2022, some of the disclosure we had around 2022 when pricing, you know, was higher than it is today, for urea and ammonia. You know, we did pay in Egypt, you know, high single-digit, low double-digit dollars per MMBtu. You know, this is that kind of right way risk where we end up sharing with the government in effectively Egypt and Algeria via écrémage and super écrémage, some of the returns, and we can still make a net margin above that. I'd kind of guide you towards some of the disclosure we had back in 2022.
Thank you. Third-party sales are on an upward trend. What is driving that trend, and will you continue to invest in this area?
Absolutely. We really like to think of ourselves not just as a production base in the Middle East, but actually a global distribution business. You know, we like to leverage, you know, our global trading and sales capability. We acquired Fertiglobe Australia in Q4 last year. That's given us, you know, the ability to really move product from different locations, whether it's our own or others. We think that that's a very big advantage in a market that's generally dominated by independent traders, many of which try to create volatility in the markets. We're looking to get, capture more of that value ourselves, and are focused on delivering product to customers in light of, you know, geopolitical disruptions like we've had.
Whether it's been tariffs over the last couple of years, being able to manage that, or the situation we've seen here, where we're not able to source as much from the Arabian Gulf into Australia, for example, and we go to countries like Nigeria and Algeria to source that product and are still able to make a strong margin while doing so.
Thanks, Ahmed. Then just a final question again on Project Harvest, whether it's still expected to be completed within the previously announced timeline?
Yeah. We're still targeting towards 2027 for that project.
Thank you. That concludes the questions we received on the webcast. Back to you, Ahmed.
Thanks all for joining this call. you know, again, we're really thankful for the work of our global Fertiglobe team to get these strong Q1 results. In particular, the resilience of our staff in the U.A.E., supported by the leadership at XRG and ADNOC, and the U.A.E. government, is highly commendable, and we look forward to our discussion in our second quarter results. Thank you.
Thank you. This concludes today's Fertiglobe Q1 2026 results earnings call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line.