Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you to our analysts conference, and we appreciate your great interest and the opportunity to meet a few of you here in Frankfurt and the rest virtually. Before I come to our very favorable business development, allow me to start with the following. After the supervisory board and Mr. Boeckers had agreed to terminate his contract at the end of February, Dr. Christian Meyer was appointed as the company's new CFO. He will join us in spring 2023. I know Dr. Meyer very well as an auditor at Deloitte, also for K+S. He is a proven financial expert with many years of experience, and I look forward to working with him. For the time being, I will also assume the role as CFO. I would like to thank Thorsten Boeckers for the good cooperation over the past years.
Now let's look into the business development during 2021 on slid e two. In one sentence, it was a very successful year for K+S. We successfully completed important measures during this period. With the sale of the operating unit Americas, we have significantly reduced our debt as planned. The associated restructuring of our organization makes us leaner, more efficient, and unburdens our cost base. Shortly before the end of 2021, we also successfully completed the merger of our waste management activities in the new joint venture, REKS. This was also a key element of the strategic realignment of K+S. Last but not least, the proceedings with the FREP and BaFin were concluded. The final findings did not trigger any value adjustments in our financial statements. Now let's turn to slide three.
In terms of operations, we once again achieved an excellent production performance at all our sites. We succeeded in meeting higher demand for our customers and increasing sales volumes. We also continued to master the challenge of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic by taking measures at our sites. Please turn to slide four for a closer look at the very positive agriculture market development. Our own performance benefited from this over the course of the year. High demand, accompanied by fully utilized supply, resulted in a significant increase in potash prices. In Brazil, prices have even tripled. Due to weather conditions, our de-icing salt business also developed very positively in both the first and the fourth quarter. Now let's take a closer look at slide number five. We translated our strong operating performance and favorable market conditions into higher earnings and cash flows.
In the course of 2021, we raised our outlook three times and generated significantly higher EBITDA of around EUR 970 million for the full year 2021, compared with around EUR 270 million in 2020. This included the one-off gain of around EUR 220 million from the REKS transaction. Our share price development from around EUR 8 at the beginning of the year to more than EUR 20 is just another proof that confidence in our company is returning. Looking at Q4 2021 on slide six, we achieved the strongest quarter in our history with an EBITDA of EUR 611 million. The biggest contributor was the higher potash price. About EUR 220 million were coming from the REKS transaction.
Combined with strict cost discipline, we were able to more than compensate higher prices for freight, energy, and raw materials. Adjusted free cash flow could be increased to EUR 245 million from minus EUR 100 million in Q4 2020. Slide seven shows that we achieved a major act of deleveraging in reducing the company's debt. With the sale of our North and South American salt business completed in April 2021, we have massively reduced our net financial debt liabilities. The rating agency Standard & Poor's has already responded to this with the first improvement in our rating to B+ with a stable outlook. Now we are aiming for an investment-grade rating. Please turn to slide eight. Our new corporate strategy sets the guiding principles for the successful development of K+S.
We are focusing on the core business with potash and magnesium products and are working intensively on further optimizing our existing business. The goals of our new corporate strategy are clearly defined. From 2023 onwards, the K+S group in total, as well as each of our plants, should generate a positive free cash flow even in the event of temporary low potash prices. Over a five-year cycle, we aim to earn our cost of capital and target an EBITDA margin of more than 20%. With slide number nine , I want to highlight that we are first of all focusing on optimizing our existing business in implementing our new strategy. The teams at our sites are already working very hard on many initiatives and projects. In Bethune, we want to increase production capacity to up to 4 million tons in the long term.
At the same time, as at our commodity site in Zielitz, we are planning to implement specific measures to continuously improve our costs. At our specialty plants in Werra and Neuhof, the focus is on further optimizing the product portfolio. Slide number 10 shows that we are also making further improvements in the areas of sales and marketing, as well as in the supply chain. Projects have been launched here that will soon make a positive contribution to our operating earnings. Ladies and gentlemen, please turn to slide 11. Our focus on the environment, nature, and climate protection remains unchanged. Every business decision we make must be in line with our climate strategy and sustainability goals. Between 1990 and 2020, we already reduced our CO2 emissions by 80%. Looking ahead, we have set ourselves the goal of reducing CO2 emissions by another 10% by 2030.
We can achieve this with our own efforts. It is also technically feasible to become completely climate neutral by 2050, or even a bit earlier. This, however, requires the right framework conditions. Energy must be affordable and available where needed. We accomplished another major step towards improving water protection at the end of 2021. The injection of production water was finally terminated. Looking ahead, we assume that the permit for the underground storage of these waters will be issued during the year. At the same time, we are well prepared for compliance with the lower target values set by the authorities for discharges into the Werra River by the end of 2027. In the disposal of solid residues, we will have completed the ongoing tailings pile expansions at several sites early 2023. Further major capital expenditures and required permits will then not be needed before the end of the decade.
Moreover, the projects to cover the large tailings piles at the Werra and in Neuhof have recently started. Ladies and gentlemen, this brings us to the outlook on slide 13. At this point, that's very important to me. I say clearly that it is unbelievable for me to witness another war in Europe. I'm hoping for a quick end and maybe even over the next couple of days. The situation is confusing and dynamic. Our revenues in the affected regions are very low, and we do not have any assets there. Of course, we are observing further developments closely, especially regarding energy supply and sanctions. Now please turn to slide 14. Overall, the general conditions on the agricultural markets remain positive. It is true that the prices of input materials, including fertilizers, have risen for farmers.
Prices for their agricultural products, however, have also significantly improved or remain at a high level. Global inventories for key agricultural products are at historically low levels. As a result, the yield prospects in agriculture continue to be attractive. They provide an incentive to increase yield per hectare with balanced fertilization. Against this background, we expect overall demand for potash to be very strong. The recent conclusion of potash supply contracts in China and India at significantly higher prices is evidence of the attractive market environment. An increase in global potash supply is hardly possible because of the limited global capacities. Ladies and gentlemen, please turn to slide 15. We expect EBITDA to range between EUR 1.6 billion and EUR 1.9 billion. This would more than double our operating earnings compared with the previous year, and even more.
It would be the best result in our company's history. Even in view of the war in Ukraine and the associated dynamics in sales prices as well as energy risks, K+S is sticking to this forecast. Therefore, we also expect our adjusted free cash flow to increase significantly between EUR 600 million and EUR 800 million based on a CapEx figure of EUR 400 million. The range of the forecast results in particular from different scenarios for selling prices, costs, logistic availability, and weather conditions over the course of the second half of the year. In view of this possible development, there is a question of how we will use the expected additional liquidity. We would like to answer this on slide 16.
The key measures we are looking at are the repayment of our bond due in June, the purchase of further CO2 certificates for the years 2026 - 2030, the accelerated increase in production capacity at our Bethune plant in Canada, the further reduction in factoring, payments of dividends, and finally, further CapEx for optimizing our existing business. These measures have not yet been included in the free cash flow forecast. Please turn to Slide 17. It goes without saying that our shareholders should also benefit from the positive business development in 2021. The Board of Executive Directors and the Supervisory Board therefore intend to propose a dividend of EUR 0.20 per share at the AGM on May 12. In accordance with our new dividend policy, the amount will be made up by a basic dividend of EUR 0.15 and a premium of EUR 0.05.
The total dividend payout would therefore amount to around EUR 38 million. Ladies and gentlemen, an exciting and at the same time good year 2021 lies behind us. We have made the company more efficient and profitable. Furthermore, we have strategically realigned K+S. The business prospects are all positive. Thank you for your attention, and we are looking forward to your questions, and now I hand over to Julia for some technical details. Julia, please.
Thank you. Data privacy. Please note that the Teams session will be recorded, webcasted, and be available as replay on our homepage afterwards. People asking a question from the room or in the Teams session have to be aware that by turning on their camera and microphone, they give consent to saving and replaying video and audio sequences. Ladies and gentlemen, you now have the opportunity to ask questions to us. We start with the questions in the room and then come to the questions via Teams. If you would like to ask a question via Teams, please use the hand signal and write your name and the name of your research house in the chat function of MS Teams. We will then call you individually, and you can ask the question live. Please switch on your camera. One more request as usual.
We would like to answer your questions one by one, so if you have multiple questions, please ask one at a time, and we will answer it first. After that, you will have the opportunity to ask further questions. This brings us to our first question. Christian.
Thank you very much. Christian Faitz, Kepler Cheuvreux. Two questions if I may, one by one, all circling around Bethune. First of all, can you remind us on the volumes which are now being shipped into the U.S., which have been shipped in 2021, and what your plan is pertaining to gearing that up into 2022?
Thank you, Mr. Faitz. Yeah, the U.S. is becoming a more and more important market for us, especially from Bethune or only from Bethune, and by the way, I think it's it was never clearer than today that it was a strategic perfect move to build Bethune. We are so happy now to be in North America with at least one mine, and a big mine, which will be growing over the years. We have achieved 250,000 tons sale in 2021 in the U.S., and we should be able to do 500. The double the amount in the next two years. That's our target.
Okay. Excellent. Then second, on the Bethune accelerated ramp you mentioned as part of making your funds work, what's the timeframe for gearing up the production from the currently around about 2 million towards that 4 million? Is that significantly accelerated now? Because I have in mind you were looking at around about 100,000-200,000 tons per year.
Yeah, the first number was the correct number. Our initial plan was to ramp up Bethune step by step. We are talking about increasing the secondary mining, and then from time to time, we have to enlarge our logistics. That takes time. At the same time, we want to do it in a way that the CapEx is optimized. 100,000 tons was the plan. This year we expect 2.1 million tons. As our balance sheet has improved dramatically, the best investment is in speeding up doing this. The opportunities are limited, so we might invest a little bit more, and we might do a little bit more than 100,000 tons. 200,000 a year is already very optimistic.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thomas Swoboda, Société Générale. Two questions from me as well. Firstly, could you comment on your energy hedging? So how much have you hedged? I would be especially interested what risk is there? Can this hedging be knocked out, or is it very safe? That's the first question.
Thank you, Mr. Swoboda. Yeah, I think we have a long history in hedging risks, and Mr. Bettenhausen is present here, so I'm happy that he's always doing this and looking very far in the future. We have hedged not only CO2 and other things and currencies, but also energy. We have 90%-92% for 2022 already, so 8% missing. That is a quite low number. Even for 2023 and 2024, we have 72% already. These hedges are safe as long as gas is flowing. If gas would be stopped, gas shipments would be stopped entirely, that of course would be a force majeure event.
That is not a scenario we are expecting, but what would happen if this would be the scenario? I think we and every industrial company and the German government has already worked on that. We should be safe until October. With many measures taken, there would be, depends, of course, on how heavy the winter would be. There is a potential risk of shutdowns of several weeks over the month of November and December. That is the worst case, and I'm not expecting this. If I might a long answer, but I think things that are of general interest when we are talking about the pipeline.
Nord Stream?
Nord Stream. Nord Stream 1. Sorry. This, it could be shut down. That's only a quarter of what is coming from Russia. There are three different pipelines, and they have not even discussed to do anything with the other two. If that would be stopped, that would not be a major risk to us. Sorry for that long answer, but.
No, no problem at all. This is of general interest.
Yeah.
My second question is on salt. I saw a headline from your press conference this morning. You were asked about whether your Industry+ unit is on sale. I mean, looks like you will be having plenty of cash at hand if everything goes as planned. How serious should we be thinking about K+S being a pure potash player without salt?
I'm surprised about this headline, because I did not say anything else than what I said in November when we disclosed on the Capital Markets Day our new strategy. We said that salt is no longer a core to us, which is normal after we have sold our U.S. business. The remainder is 20%, and the remainder is good for EUR 50 million, maybe EUR 60 million, maybe EUR 70 million EBITDA. It's not even a risk mitigation for the customer segment potash any longer. We also said we are not actively looking for a buyer. We would listen, and we would have to listen if somebody would knock on our door and ask for talking about a potential transaction. Thank you.
The first question from the team session comes from Andreas Heine from Stifel. Andreas, please turn on your camera and your microphone.
Can you see me now? Hopefully.
Well, we can hear you at least.
Sorry that my camera doesn't work. I have two questions, and as you asked me, I will ask them in a row. The first is on net financial debt. Obviously, with this year's earnings being very strong, and next year probably not too bad, you basically have no debt anymore. Usually, one would say that is kind of over-financed. With the volatility in the potash business and your experience you had in several years, I would like to know what you would like to have mid-term as a financial position on your balance sheet, which you would keep as a limit before you think about shareholder return?
Yeah. Thank you for that question. Our target is an investment-grade rating, and we should be there by the end of the year. Of course, it's not our decision, it's Standard & Poor's, but these numbers, they should act that way. I also gave you an idea what we are going to do with cash which exceeds the limits that we need to have for an investment-grade rating. We have bonds to pay back. We are going to invest in a ramp up in Bethune. That is core because that is the most efficient growth story for K+S amongst all.
We have some other ideas to increase our profitability on other sides, to optimize the existing business, especially at Werra. We are thinking about, in the long run or midterm, to have a Werra site with less liquid and dry residues and less CO2 emission. That would be a huge step, and that requires some CapEx as well. Of course, we will have an eye on dividends and maybe if this world, if this war is at its end and we have an idea how the new world will look like, maybe there are even some opportunities for some M&A activities. That is, in a way, our agenda for using free cash.
May I continue on the last point you had, the question about the M&A. What would that be? In the potash business, there are probably no assets around. Would that been building up a new lake or what you would think about in that case?
Yeah. Following our current strategy, that would more or less be in some specialty segments. As I said, I think we have to reevaluate opportunities. We are going to do that in a couple of weeks, so that we might come up with completely different ideas. Times like this are very risky, but also deliver opportunities, and you have to be quick, and you have to have a good eye on things.
Thanks. The second question is, what we run through with Ukraine and Russia, quite a number of Western participants not being willing to buy in the future from Belarus and Russia, might change the business environment for K+S in the potash business by having two competitors in these regions. How do you think the trade flow will change with how people think in these days in buying or not buying from Belaruskali and Uralkali?
Yeah, that's another tricky question. First of all, I would rather have an end of this story and have competitors from Belarus and Russia being active in all markets as in the past, than having this crazy war. I'm not trying to shy away from your question. First of all, Belarus is already not able anymore to ship anything into the Western world. Since last week, the sixth MOP 60 is on the sanctions list as well, so they are hit in Europe. They are not able to enter the markets anyway because they cannot use their harbor. They have already declared force majeure. They obviously reduced production that will be missing as capacity volume in the market.
Uralkali is not on the list, but the owner, as I learned, this morning, the owner of Uralkali is on the sanction list. That will have an effect. We learned that some big shipping lines are not entering Russian markets anymore. Making a long story short, that will have a major impact on our markets. We should expect an undersupply in the short term. In the midterm, it could be that the Eastern European companies are focusing more on Asia and the Western European and U.S. or North American suppliers are focusing on the rest of the world. That is only guessing because I said the situation is so dynamic. That is what I would expect it from today's perspective.
May I add to this? Yara has said that they have stopped getting any volume from Belarus with end of February. That is quite a high volume customer. Have you seen more volume from this one? Is what you see in this application season in Europe already affecting the regional split of your own deliveries in 2021?
Yeah. I'm not expecting any shipments from Belarus to anybody, as I said earlier. Of course, we have to evaluate the situation and have to adjust our destinations, as we have done last year already. Yeah. I think I should leave it with this.
Thanks.
Thank you, Mr. Heine.
Thank you, Andreas. The next question is coming from Joel Jackson from BMO. Please turn on your camera and your microphone.
Hi. Do you see me? Hear me? Yes, we can hear you. All right. We can see you also. Great. It's both. Good afternoon.
I have a few questions. Of course, I'll ask them one by one. Burkhard, when you talk about gas being 92% hedged for 2022 and 72% hedged for next year, can you give us a sense of what average gas price that is for this year or next year?
In the hedge?
In the hedge.
Oh, yeah. EUR 40. We had a very, the early parts were very cheap. We had a more expensive part, but the blended, it should be EUR 40.
For both years?
No, for 2022. It's cheaper for 2023 because we have only 72%, and we did that earlier than the last tranche in 2022.
So are you-
It's slightly below 40% for 2023. By the way, we have 72% for 2024 as well. If you take 40% for all years, you are fine.
Okay. If you think of all the different buckets of cost, gas, currency, logistics, obviously prices are, you know, insanely high right now, very strong. What is the cost drag per ton on MOP and SOP and the other products in 2022?
The cost per ton for energy?
What is the negative impact on costs in 2022 from all the different buckets of costs including energy?
Okay. Not per ton, in total?
Well, per ton.
Yeah.
I'll take per ton.
I take the total number because I have that by heart. You have to do the math by yourself.
All right. I'll do division. I'll do one division.
In total it's roughly EUR 200 million. It's the bigger part stems from energy, but another very huge part from freight as well. EUR 200 million.
Okay. If we think about prolonged issues with Belarusian and Russian supply, and maybe the market for granular being tighter, what is the current granular capacity for K+S in Germany and Bethune? Would you look at using some of your windfall-free cash here to upgrade your granular capacity?
Yes. The capacity for granular is roughly 40% of our MOP volume, and we have only limited opportunities to increase that. I'm not seeing the granular market, so it's not more tight than the standard market. I think I see the tightness of all products.
Well, what if we get into a world where China and India end up buying, you know, and some countries, standard markets, buy more potash from Russia and Belarus 'cause of politics and do you see and we got a shift of trade and granular becomes a bigger part of the non-Belarusian, Russian sales. Do you see what I'm saying?
Okay, okay. That is nothing we should see this year.
Right.
If we talk about next year or maybe 2024, of course, there are opportunities to increase granulation capacity. We will all not be able to increase capacities in this time significantly, but we can adjust from standard to granular in one or two years.
You're not looking at that yet? You're not looking at it yet?
We are looking
The capacity
... we are looking at everything, but still the situation is too dynamic to take any decisions on that.
Then my last question following on that is, I forget the name, but I believe a number of years ago, I believe you have some reserves in Germany that you could restart or you haven't mentioned that for years, for obvious reasons, 'cause the potash price wasn't strong enough to do that and you were focused on Bethune and other things. But how long would you have to see prolonged Russian, Belarusian issues before the K+S might look at, you know, going back and bringing back some other capacity in Germany?
Yeah. You're talking about Siegfried-Giesen. Sorry for that difficult German name. We have also some opportunities in our existing mines, but we are talking about projects of at least five, maybe 10 years. That would not help in the current situation.
Like five, 10 years, not two years. Okay.
Yeah.
Thanks a lot, Burkhard.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Joel.
The next question comes from Michael Schaefer from ODDO. Please turn on your camera, which is already done, I think, and your microphone.
Yeah. Good afternoon, gentlemen, and also Julia. Thanks for taking my two questions. The first one is on your outlook statement, Mr. Lohr. I recall a couple of weeks ago, obviously when you first time presented the outlook, you stated that probably you know that there are some easing on the pricing side assumed for the second half to make basically the average or even the low end there of the outlook that you presented. With all what we are just discussing or what we've heard about the past couple of days, so the question is you today confirmed the outlook range.
What's needed from your perspective, and looking into today's situation, to make it to the upper end, essentially? This would be the first question.
You're right. That was our expectation because we were already on a high pricing level without the current situation. We thought for planning purposes being more cautious and saying that in the second half, the prices would rather decrease than staying on that level. That is not our reading any longer, but at the same time, the cost risks are increasing so that we believe it's still what we should see from today's perspective, and I said it's very dynamic. We still see the EBITDA being in this range, especially because in the second half we have no real visibility on what the impact on availability and on cost availability will be.
It will level out the fact that we are not expecting the prices to decrease, on the other hand, that is a good opportunity for a good 2023 as well, and on the other hand, take into account inflation risk and availability risks.
A quick follow-up on the visibility topic. Can you just shed some more light on your order book basically in the first half?
Yeah. You know that order book is not a big issue for us as we are talking about spot pricing in most regions of the world. We have not really negotiate with China and India on the new contract. We are more or less booked until April?
Mm-hmm.
May already.
Mm.
That-
And-
That is becoming less important because with this situation, everybody will settle the whole production which is available this year for sure.
Okay. Cool. Thanks. The second question goes to your use of cash or the freedom you've gained here. I would like to come back on the Bethune acceleration and also you mentioned on the slide that you may further moderate the factoring which you are using. Taking both together, what's the kind of additional, let's say, capital allocation we should think about, the two topics here?
The easier part is the factoring. At the end of the year, we had still a volume of EUR 120 million. If we draw that back, it's a EUR 100 million impact on the free cash flow. Yeah, Bethune will be maybe in EUR 50 million this year. Could be more in the coming years, but with the effect that we quicker ramp up Bethune. You know that we do not only have the utilization advantage, we also are talking about a very efficient expansion because the secondary mining is a very cheap primary cost production. That is, again, under all options that we have to use CapEx, this is the most efficient one.
Mm-hmm. This would be then on top of the EUR 100 million I have off the top of my head for Bethune annually?
Exactly.
Okay. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Alexander Jones from Bank of America.
Great. Thanks very much for taking my questions. Two, if I may. I'll start with the first one. Just circling back to your comments on use of cash in M&A, is there a reason that the specialty fertilizer space looks less attractive to you now, or is that just a comment on how much uncertainty there is in the world and you're not sure? And are you able to give any hints about which areas might look more attractive if sort of the current situation holds to your comments on other opportunities being available?
It is still a focus area for us, but we are not seeing that we are going to invest this year, maybe not even next year. You have to look for opportunities and, as I said earlier, we have to make up our minds how the potash world is looking like in a couple of months from now. There might be other interesting opportunities than doing bigger investments into specialties for the time being.
Understood. Just to follow up on the market outlook, I guess the price is telling us that we need some level of demand destruction. Could you give us any color on what level or how much, if any, demand destruction you're seeing across the markets that you're selling into at current price levels?
Yeah. That's not the same in all areas. We are expecting a decrease in demand in Europe. That is less due to high potash prices. It's more a question of availability of nitrogen. If you're not able to use nitrogen, it doesn't make sense to use potash. That is only a European issue, and that will not impact us because we at the same time have to compensate the missing supply from Eastern Europe, and we have opportunities out of Europe as well. I'm not seeing this development in Asia or South America or other regions.
Thanks.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Adrien Tamagno from Berenberg.
Hello. Can you see me, hear me?
Yes.
Yes. Hello.
Hello.
Hi. Two questions, please. First is, I mean, given the current situation, did you receive some inquiries from large customers about securing large amount of volumes for a set amount of time, and would you be happy to do that?
Customers are very active nowadays and talk to us to compensate here and there. It's another part that I mentioned with dynamics. Of course, I wouldn't like to raise names, but currently the many opportunities are arising for us.
Okay, understood. Is it too early to say or you would start to expect to risk a bit more the long-term production outlook out of Belarus and Russia given the sanctions? Like, if their production growth is restricted because their supply chain is becoming more difficult to source? Yeah, do you see that coming or still too early to say?
I'm not sure if I fully understand your question. Can you please repeat it?
Yeah. Basically, I'm saying that do you expect the long-term production outlook, production growth out of Russia and Belarus being risked because of the current situation?
Okay, now I got it. Of course, it depends on how long you are looking into things. I'm sure even if the war situation is over, and I hope this will be the case soon, it'll take two-three years before we see normal behavior anymore. There should be a tightness in the markets for quite a while, and the same is true for agriculture products. We shouldn't forget that Russia, Belarus, and especially Ukraine, is good for a third of the worldwide production of some very important agriculture products. Before that comes back to normal and the pipeline is filled again, we are talking about another two-three years.
The pricing in the agriculture segment will be high for quite a while, and this will be a challenge for the world to ensure to feed everybody on this planet. That is what concerns me the most, and I am wondering sometimes why we discuss energy issues more than the food security.
Thank you.
Next question is coming from Mubasher Chaudhry from Citi.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Two, please. Can you provide some thoughts around where you see the first quarter heading, please? I know you've given the full-year outlook, but just if you could provide some thoughts around the first quarter as well, please?
I hope for your understanding that we have closed 2021 now. We have a guidance for 2022, but we're not guiding single quarters. I would only qualitatively say we expect a very good Q1.
Sure. Then coming back to your comment around the order book and being sold out almost through May. Is it fair to say that you're booking in volumes today for June- July at today's prices, and therefore you've got a bit of clarity in where second and third quarter should be heading? And just wanted to see if that kind of four to five months lag is the right way of thinking about today's spot pricing being baked into the P&L.
I think it's well known that with the current pricing, taking for example Brazil, we always like to talk about Brazil because it's a kind of reference that we are talking about more or less $900 in Brazil currently. What we are signing now will be, we are in March already, will be shipped in June- July, so running into our P&L in the second quarter and partially even in the third quarter. What is happening in the next couple of weeks, again, I have to repeat myself, things are so dynamic that we cannot rule out anything. The only thing that I would rule out is that the prices are decreasing.
Understood. Okay. Just to confirm that you remain positive on the pricing developments into the third quarter. 'Cause it comes back to the original point around investments. The earnings power is kind of far outpacing your thoughts around CapEx investments. I know you've talked about a few things there, but it still leaves you with a reasonable amount of balance sheet power to do things. I'm just trying to understand your limitations around capacity expansions for yourself, and are you seeing any other sort of supply-side response from the rest of the world?
Yeah, you're correct. Our target is to be investment-grade rated, is not to have spare cash on our accounts. If you take that, there is a real firepower, and that's why we are evaluating in scenario analyses, which we are doing soon, what opportunities are arising for us. Then we might take some reactions on that. It's still very early, and therefore, a clearer picture than we have, we all have today, has to be developed about what could the world look like. It will not be the same anymore, but how could the world look like in the future, and what does it mean for our markets, and what does it mean for K+S? That's a task we have to do now.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Next question is coming from Markus Mayer from Baader.
Yeah, good afternoon. I have three questions, if I may. I also will ask them one by one. The first one is on the purchase of the CO2 certificates for 2026 -2 030. Can you give us magnitude of what this would mean in terms of spending, given the, or taking the current CO2 price into account?
Thank you, Mr. Mayer. First of all, we have already started buying because we saw a window of opportunity that the prices came down, what we have not expected, but most probably it's due to the discussion that energy plants might run longer. If we would invest at the current price, the full amount, we are talking about EUR 300 million. We most probably will invest close to EUR 100 million this year. Then we might pause because even this whole system might be in question if the situation is escalating.
We are very happy that we have already such a long duration or that we have secured already our production until now, 2027, with what we have done in Q1. I think that is much more than other companies have done, and the first part was very cheap from today's perspective.
Okay. Thank you so much. Second question would be on your U.S. dollar hedging. Update there would be helpful if you could help us. What would be the magnitude if the dollar would go down or up by $0.01?
Now it's Julia's time.
Yeah, we always said that $0.05 are bringing us EUR 40 million.
That's still the case.
Mm-hmm
Normally you hedge in a bandwidth, yeah? Is this still the case for this year as for the next years?
Yes.
What are the bands? What are the limits?
I'm looking to Mr. Bettenhausen. We have to give it to you later, Markus.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay, good. Then the last question is on CapEx again. You said, potentially you will invest EUR 50 million more for Bethune this year. Can you give us an overall CapEx guidance for this year, and in particular, also for the midterm CapEx guidance of EUR 350 million? Is this still in case of what you said, or should you also add some more on this EUR 350 million as well?
The number you have mentioned is still valid. I would like to call it a base number. If we now, as we have more opportunities to use cash, if we see that it makes sense to invest EUR 50 million or even EUR 100 million in Bethune for a couple of years, and the returns are justifying that, we rather would do it. For the time being, the EUR 350 million is the right base number.
Okay. Thank you so much.
I now also have the answer for the other two. The worst case and the best case are for 2022, worst case is 119 and best case 116.
Okay, cool. Thank you.
The next question is coming from a telephone number, so I don't know the name, so please state your name and ask your question. Okay, we have one more question from Oliver Schwarz from Warburg.
Hopefully this works.
It does. It does, yes. Hello, Mr. Schwarz.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Couple of questions from my side, as usual, one by one. Can you please elaborate a tad on your dividend policy? I heard that you are wanting to invest in CO2 certificates. We have talked a lot about M&A. Can you shed some light on what you think might be a prudent dividend if your outlook for 2022 is basically correct?
I know that you will not be happy with that answer now, but I have no chance to do more than that. It will be higher than this year. It-
That is good to hear.
It would not be very clever to raise numbers without having any discussions with the supervisory board before that.
Agreed. Okay. Can you give us some information about the duration of your gas contracts, please? You said you locked in prices for the next three years to the extent of 72% and then to the 2023 and 2024. I guess that's mainly due to long-running contracts with the respective supplier. Can you give us an indication how long those contracts run on average?
Yeah. By the way, these numbers I raised were only for Europe. We have other contracts in Canada, but I think we monitor the development of the gas price in Canada. It has not moved much. I think it was fair to have a lower hedge number. Let's stick to Europe. We have contracts which run even longer than 2024. If I remember correctly, we are talking about 30% still for 2025, but I think that's it. We are not having meaningful contracts running more than the next three-four years.
Okay. That's maybe a tongue-in-cheek question, but you said you're willing to invest EUR 100 million in CO2 certificates that will run 2026 -2 030. In the same sentence, you said the whole system might be in question due to the current situation and how it develops. Is it prudent to invest EUR 100 million if you're not sure that the system as such will be in place in 2026- 2030?
Thank you very much for that question. I should rather have said it might be paused. I don't think that it will be skipped entirely, but there might be a pause, and therefore, it was very prudent to invest EUR 100 million because we used a window of opportunity. What we should not do is to invest in the entire certificates that we need until 2020- 2030 for that reason. Yeah, again, I think it was a very clever move to do what we did.
Okay. We talked a lot about gas. Can you quickly update us on your electricity bill and how that is going to progress?
You mean the electricity bill in total?
Yes.
Yes. We had electricity costs in 2021, when you look into our annual report, of EUR 236 million. We said that in 2022, we will see an inflation here of EUR 100 million on top of that. This would-
I thought that was Julia. Was that electricity or was that the energy bill we are talking now?
That was the energy bill, but electricity is part of that. I mean, electricity is produced basically by the cogeneration plants with gas. Yeah?
Okay. You're not getting electricity from, let's say, outside utility companies on top of that?
No. It's if you look at the split, it's 98% gas and 2%.
Okay
other energy sources, but no.
Okay. Maybe lastly, I don't wanna stretch your patience for too long. Mr. Lohr, when asked about the upper end of the guidance, you related to that there might be cost risks in the second half of this year. Given that the energy bill is not very variable based on your hedging, where is that cost risks you might see or where is that coming from, basically?
I said cost and availability risk, and the second one might be the bigger one. Availability of energy, availability of supply chain, deliveries, so that in such a situation you cannot completely rule out that, for example, a truck is not available, train is not available, et cetera. You have to take that into account. The pure-
Okay
... pure cost risk is manageable, but the second one is difficult to calculate.
If I get you correctly, the availability you're citing is only in relation to logistics. Did I get that right? Or do you factor in also some risk that maybe Russian gas won't be available in, let's say, the second half of this year.
You cannot give this scenario a probability of zero, if you
Yeah, great.
Understand what I mean.
I just want to connect the dots here. When we're talking the lower end of the guidance, is that based on, let's say, restricted or no availability of Russian gas in the second half? Or is that also only with a probability risk of, let's say, I don't know, somewhere between 1 and 99% in the calculation?
Yeah, I think the following will answer that question. If we should be forced to shut down for a couple of weeks due to Russian gas not being available, we would still be in the range, rather at the lower end, but still be in the range.
Okay. Thank you for that. I'll get back into line. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Herr Faitz.
Sorry to come back on potash, but just can you give us a picture or idea of how Chinese demand for your potash volumes is at present? I just wanna get my head around Chinese buying behavior when they see, obviously, the Russian, Belarusian volumes being stranded. Are they still interested in Western volumes?
As we speak, our sales forces are negotiating with them. Price is fixed. Volumes is under negotiation now. We believe that they are very interested to have non-Euro- Eastern European sources as well.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
There's no question in the Teams, and no from here, so I hand back to Dr. Lohr for the closing remarks.
Yeah, thank you very much again to have time for K+S in these very strange times. It was good to have you here in Frankfurt or in the different lines. Thank you very much for being interested. I think it was obvious that K+S is looking ahead positively, although times are difficult, and I'm looking very forward to see you, hopefully all very healthy and in good condition soon again. Thanks. Bye-bye.