Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference call over to the Vice President of Investor Relations at Methanex, Mr. Robert Winslow. Please go ahead, Mr . Winslow.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Methanex's First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. Our 2026 first quarter news release, management's discussion and analysis, and financial statements can be accessed through our website at methanex.com. I would like to remind listeners that our comments today may contain forward-looking information, which by its nature is subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause the stated outcome to differ materially from actual results. We may also refer to non-GAAP financial measures and ratios that do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP and are therefore unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies.
Any references made on today's call reflect our 63.1% economic interest in the Atlas facility, our 50% economic interest in the Egypt facility, our 50% interest in the Natgasoline facility, and our 60% interest in Waterfront Shipping. To review the cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements and to find definitions and reconciliations of the non-GAAP measures, please refer to our most recent news release, MD&A, annual report, and investor presentation, all of which are posted on our website under the Investor Relations tab. I will now turn the call over to Methanex's President and CEO, Mr. Rich Sumner, for his comments, followed by a question-and-answer period.
Thank you, Robert, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today to discuss our first quarter 2026 results. Our first quarter average realized price of $351 per ton and produced methanol sales of approximately 2.2 million tons generated adjusted EBITDA of $220 million and adjusted net income of $23 million. Adjusted EBITDA increased versus the fourth quarter of 2025, primarily due to a higher average realized price, partially offset by slightly lower sales of Methanex produced methanol. During the first quarter, cash flows from operations allowed us to repay $60 million of the Term Loan A facility, ending the period in a strong cash position with nearly $380 million on the balance sheet.
Turning to our operation on the first quarter, our total equity methanol production of 2.4 million tons was slightly higher compared to the fourth quarter. Starting with our United States operation, we produced 934,000 tons at our Geismar plants and 195,000 tons at the Beaumont plant in the first quarter. Our equity share of production at the Natgasoline joint venture was 203,000 tons. Our U.S. assets operated at high rates outside of a short period early in the quarter when production was reduced in response to a significant short-term spike in natural gas prices in late January. In Chile, we produced 398,000 tons in the first quarter, utilizing gas supply from Chile and Argentina.
A third-party pipeline failure that occurred late in the fourth quarter was rectified early in the first quarter, and our plants operated at full rates for the remainder of the period. We're expecting to idle one Chile plant during the middle part of the second quarter, in line with gas availability during the Southern Hemisphere winter season. In Egypt, our first quarter production was similar to that of the fourth quarter, with the plant operating at full rates. The plant continues to operate well today, we're closely monitoring the regional situation for any potential impact on its gas supply. In New Zealand, we produced 158,000 tons in the first quarter, down moderately from the prior quarter. Despite the stable gas and production levels over the past few months, the structural gas outlook in New Zealand continues to be challenging.
Our equity production for 2026 remains 9 million tons of methanol. Actual production may vary by quarter, based on timing of turnarounds, gas availability, unplanned outages, and unanticipated events. Turning to methanol industry fundamentals. The conflict in the Middle East, which began in late February, escalated into the second quarter. These events have significantly disrupted global markets for energy and petrochemical supply, including methanol, and we continue to monitor both short-term and longer-term impacts on global markets and our business. The Middle East supplies approximately 20 million tons of methanol per annum to global markets, and this has been significantly reduced since the beginning of March. Thus far, overall methanol demand has remained relatively resilient, with no significant signs of customer shutdowns or demand destruction.
In Asia and China, which rely significantly more on Middle East imports that need to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, we've seen no trade flows from Middle East non-Iranian supply and very modest supply from Iran into coastal markets in China since late February and believe that downstream operations have been primarily sustained through the drawdown of inventories. We believe this situation will be unsustainable in the short -term, and we're working closely with customers to understand their demand outlook. We're also trying to better understand the extent of damage to methanol plants and related supporting infrastructure in the conflict region, if any, and the length of time it might take to restore back to full operations, which is still unclear today. Given these unprecedented events, we've seen a rapid and significant escalation in methanol prices across all major regions through March and April.
We're well-positioned in today's market with our advantage asset base that continues to operate safely and reliably. As a result, we're expecting to see significantly stronger earnings and cash flows in the second quarter compared with the first quarter. Based on April and May contract price postings, we estimate our average realized price for April and May is between approximately $500 and $525 per ton. Assuming this pricing holds through June and factoring in produced sales volume similar to those of the first quarter, we would expect a significant increase in adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter, consistent with the first quarter and adjusted for these higher methanol prices.
It should also be noted that due to the timing of inventory flows, there will be delayed recognition into the third quarter of cost increases we're seeing now from higher natural gas prices linked to higher methanol, as well as higher ocean freight costs from higher bunker fuels. We believe the current market dynamics could be prolonged for some time, and we're monitoring the medium and longer- term impact and risks to the global economy. Our priorities for 2026 are unchanged: to safely and reliably operate our assets and supply chain, deliver on the OCI integration plan, and continue to progress our deleveraging goals. Based on our short-term financial outlook, we expect to repay the term loan of approximately $290 million in the second quarter.
After the term loan is repaid, we will remain focused on directing the majority of our free cash flow towards the repayment of the bond due in 2027, while evaluating share buybacks with a smaller portion of cash if they represent an attractive investment for shareholders. We'd now be happy to answer your questions.
At this time, I'd like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad, we request to limit yourself to one question and one follow up, for additional questions you can go back on the queue. Your first question comes from the line of Ben Isaacson with Scotiabank. Your line is open.
Thank you very much, good morning. Rich, a supply-demand question for you. I know on the supply side, it's very, very fluid in terms of intel. Based on your best understanding right now, what do you think has structurally changed when it comes to methanol in the Middle East? Assuming Hormuz opens, how likely is it that Iran will be able to kind of go back to that run rate of about 9 million tons a year, give or take? Then on the demand side, we know macro is challenging. We're seeing weak housing and construction on methanol affordability. I believe there's a few small cracks in some of the smaller applications. Can you just discuss what you're seeing, the cadence of demand or how you're feeling about demand destruction? Thank you.
Thanks, Ben. You know, on the supply side right now, it's difficult to get a read on exactly what could be sort of the longer- term impact on the supply side. There's a number of things that we're gonna be trying to get a better read on. It really starts with, you know, the infrastructure around methanol, and that would be the upstream. You know, if, you know, if any, is there extensive damage to upstream natural gas feedstock and related infrastructure? If there is, what will happen to gas allocations? Where will methanol fit in the pecking order? Has there been any structural damage to methanol plants or related logistics infrastructure?
All of those things we need to get a better read on, as things start to stabilize, and we're not anywhere close to that today. Very, very, very, you know, important things for us to get a read longer- term. When it comes into the demand side, for us, we haven't seen any significant signs of demand destruction. Obviously, affordability is going to be really important. We do think that as particularly in coastal markets in China, as the longer this the blockade is in place, the less Iranian product will be flowing into coastal markets there, and we do think that will put pressure on MTO operating rates.
We've seen methanol prices now around the world, outside of China in the $550-$650 range. It's really a supply issue. Demand side, of course, we're very concerned what this means around higher costs. Right now it's really demand still pulling the supply in. What this means longer- term in terms of inflationary implications and which end streams actually hurt the most, it remains to be seen. We're working really closely with our customers to understand their demand outlook, their affordability levels, what impact this has both in the short- term and long -term. It's a difficult one to be able to give you a lot of guidance on right now, but all things we're monitoring.
That's great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Hassan Ahmed with Alembic Global. Your line is open.
Morning, Rich. You know, just wanted to approach the earlier question, a slightly different way. You know, in talking to sort of a variety of chemical executives.
You know, it just seems that the normalization in supply chains, let's say if peace was declared tomorrow and the Straits of Hormuz were to open up again, it just seems the way, you know, from sort of, you know, reopening the oil and gas fields, just the way the pecking order of various sort of, you know, chemicals, energy sort of sources, feedstocks and the like will work. It may take as long as nine months from the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, from, you know, the declaration of peace for these sort of supply chains to normalize. Then obviously, as you rightly said, we still don't know the full extent of damage, you know, particularly in Iran and certain other Middle Eastern countries.
I mean, you know, as I sort of compare that to what I at least see, you know, in terms of consensus earnings estimates for you guys, I mean, you know, they have you guys peaking in EBITDA in Q2 of this year. Then a steep falloff thereon after suggesting to me, you know, the consensus seems to be baking in a sort of V-shaped recovery in sort of, you know, volumes coming out of the Middle East. Would love to hear your thoughts about this?
Yeah. I mean, in the opening comments, thanks, Hassan, I did mention that we think this could be prolonged for some time. What that means is we don't think it gets fixed in short order like that. You know, that gas infrastructure is really important. We do think that methanol probably fits lower in the pecking order. When you think about energy products and for power or for transportation fuels and fertilizers for food, we likely fit somewhere down the line in the pecking order there. It will come down to how quickly does all the infrastructure, can it actually get up and running, including the, you know, the downstream as well as the upstream. You also have to think that inventories throughout the supply chain are significantly lowered.
We're not talking about just Asia-Pacific here, even though that it'll be most acutely felt in Asia-Pacific. It's a globally traded market, that's gonna be drawing down inventories globally. That's why we've seen pricing in the market run up globally. We've got supply chains that have to be restored. We've got infrastructure that has to be back in place. You know, on top of that, it's a 25 to 30-day transit time, you know, out of the Gulf. We've got a lot of things that have to happen for these supply chains to come back. It won't be, you know, our view would be that that would very unlikely to be a light switch to happen.
The big thing for us is how quickly does the demand side shut down, do we see that happening in a big, meaningful way? When product does come back online, does supply get ahead of the demand restarting and those types of things? We have to be careful about what kind of whipsaws could happen on the other side of this, which we do think will be prolonged. Hopefully that's a little bit more context on that one.
Definitely very helpful, Rich. As a follow-up, you know, could you just talk a bit about, sort of, you know, in this sort of new pricing regime that we're seeing, China's role, particularly as it pertains to, you know, the coal-based methanol? Obviously, you know, on the cost curve now it's positioned quite differently. And the reason I ask you this is particularly over the last couple of weeks, certain sort of further downstream chemicals like acetic acid, you know, which rely on methanol, seem to have been coming under, you know, fairly severe downward pricing pressure, on the spot market in China in particular.
Just would love to hear your views about pricing, particularly in China, and how, you know, certain elevated pricing regimes in other parts of the world may actually hold out even if China puts some downward pressure on pricing.
Yeah. Thanks, Hassan. You know, for us, when we look at the pricing in China, we definitely think that it's a demand-driven price more than a cost side price for us. It's really driven off the fact that there's 11 million tons of coastal MTO that is a ready and willing market. Where we've seen pricing in China going for methanol is in the $400-$450 per ton range, which is very consistent with what you've seen around the affordability back to C2, C3 pricing, which a lot of that's driven off of naphtha price. We do think that we've been saying for quite some time, methanol is increasingly a demand-driven, driven pricing.
What we've seen is that the China price outside of China, we've seen pricing going into the $550- $650 range. When we look at some of the downstream, you mentioned petrochemicals, and petrochemicals around methanol have, you know, been overbuilt. Even in the current environment, I'm assuming that a lot of the acetic acid that's come on stream over time has been a weaker segment because of, you know, the impact economically of what's happening. Of course, those are consumers of methanol, so it's something we need to watch out for is, does that release more supply into the market if a-acid producers are lowering their operating rates?
We haven't seen a significant impact of that coming back into the, into the supply base for us today. Something we'll watch. Highly driven towards a demand-driven cost curve for us, and that's on the basis that methanol is very different than other petrochemicals. We're forecasting to see a supply gap in the next five years of 9 million tons-10 million tons. That supply still relied on Iranian production, existing production, as well as potentially new projects. You know, I think for us, we're in a structurally tight market ultimately, and we do think that leads more to a demand-driven cost curve.
Your next question comes from the line of Joel Jackson with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. I'm going to ask a couple questions on some of your marginal assets. I'll do one by one. First, can we talk about Trinidad? You know, you obviously have a gas deal up for renegotiation later this year at one of the plants that you're running. I've seen two of your nitrogen peers in Trinidad very recently sign very short-term gas deals. A third nitrogen peer has not been able to do so. Is that something you would consider doing? Like, you described the Trinidad environment. Would you consider signing a short-term gas deal to keep the plant running considering this very strong environment?
Thanks, Joel. I mean, right now we're in discussions. Our gas contract's up middle of September. We're in discussions with the NGC. We're considering all possible range of outcomes through those discussions, including, you know, a short-term deal, as well as the potential to have to idle the plants. It'll come down to those NGC discussions. You know, in the short- term, Trinidad is an extremely tight gas market, with LNG, ammonia and methanol all operating below the nameplate capacity. A lot of that's gonna come down to those commercial discussions. Our team is looking at all possible outcomes and also thinking, we are looking longer term there and what optionality may come in.
We do think any new gas from Venezuela is quite a ways out and also carries risk on whether it can ever flow to methanol economically. There's a lot for us to consider there, but we would look at short- term. We also are, if we can't get the short and the medium- term to work together, we're also having to look at other outcomes out of those discussions.
Okay. In terms of New Zealand, obviously just running the one plant there at quite low rates. Gas has been a problem there, and it looks like the Maui Gas Field might be closing end of this year, maybe making that situation worse. You know, what is the end game here in New Zealand?
I mean, I will kinda remind both New Zealand and Trinidad, while they represent over 10% of our production, it's less than 5% of our run rate earnings. You know, both these assets have performed extremely well for us over our history and operate extremely well. New Zealand, you know, the issues around gas are not new to us. We've been seeing a deterioration in the gas supply for quite some time. You know, OMV, our big gas supplier, came out with an announcement that they would cease production on their Maui Gas Field by the end of the year. If that were to happen, we, you know, we no longer are capable of running our plant.
It's something we're working on with our gas suppliers and we're looking at all options on how we, how we monetize our gas position, including producing methanol or selling gas. Whatever we're doing, we're doing safely and reliably as we move towards whatever the resolution's going to be. The outlook is tough, and it's structurally challenging there.
Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Zekauskas with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.
Thanks very much. In the event that your earnings fly up this year, what will happen to your cash taxes? What would be the cash tax rate, or responsibility, you know, in a much more profitable environment? If you could comment on what would happen to your working capital. Would your receivables and inventories and payables go up at the same rate as sales, or do you expect it to be faster or slower? Could you help us out on those issues?
Yeah, I think I'll turn that question over to Dean Richardson, our CFO.
Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. When it comes to taxes, you know, our tax rate guidance of 25% does hold even in a different price, a higher price environment. From a cash tax perspective, we have been guiding to the majority of our taxes being cash. However, in a higher price environment, the majority of our earnings would go to the U.S., the percentage of our cash taxes would actually go down because of the significant assets and loss carryforwards we have in the U.S., given the acquisition and the build-out. The percentage of our 25% that's cash tax would go down more towards the mid-range of that. It'd be about a 50/50 cash versus deferred.
From a working capital perspective, certainly, methanol price is a significant impact on receivables. You know, we would expect, and we did see some of that even in Q1. We would expect that in Q2 as well when it comes to our flow through to cash flows, that the receivable balance would increase with the higher price. From an inventory perspective, given we have limited purchases, most of our inventories are based on our cost structure of our plant. We would not expect inventories to move There would be some offset in payables when it comes to that. Net-net, yes, we would expect a higher working capital balance due to the increase in methanol price.
For my follow-up, given what you've already seen in April and whatever normal seasonal considerations there are, as a base case, would you expect to sell more produced methanol in the second quarter than you would in the first, all things being equal?
It will be highly dependent on our sales, and we're monitoring our sales quite carefully right now because obviously looking towards do we start to see any demand deterioration. We're also being very careful in today's environment around how much we buy as well. If we have flexibility to not be selling in this environment, we may not be if it means we're covering that with produced tons, just given the risk that we could see things change. To the extent that we hold our sales levels the same, you would probably see more produced tons coming through. If we were to decrease our sales, you may see about the same. It's highly dependent what our overall sales are.
The majority of the inventory we are bringing through now is produced product. That's a big change since we brought, you know, 4 million tons of North America supply on with T3 and the OCI acquisition.
Your next question comes from the line of Josh Spector with UBS. Your line is open.
Yeah, hi, good morning. I apologize if I missed this in the prepared remarks, but I guess when you're talking about your realized pricing, you seem to be implying a discount rate that maybe is in the high 40s versus you realize in the low 40s this quarter. I wonder if you can kind of confirm that. Like, related with that, I thought when pricing was going up, the discount rate comes down as you're kind of catching up to that, and then vice versa when prices go down. Some things seem a little bit backwards versus what I'd anticipate. Can you help me understand that?
Yeah, Josh, we'll for sure. What you're gonna see is when we look into the second quarter here, we are expecting to sell a lower proportion of our sales in China. That's mainly where we have flexibility on our sales and where we can reduce down the level of purchases. That's sort of the plan today. What that results in is a higher discount because actually pricing outside of China has higher discounts, yet a higher realized price. We actually have higher and stronger average realized pricing when our discounts are higher. It's very a little backward in the way to think of it, which is why I tend to like to ignore discounts and focus on the average realized price as much as possible. That's really the reason that you're seeing that.
Okay. No, that makes sense. You made a comment earlier about some of the lags and some of the cost-sharing agreements and that lagging into 3Q. That's also a bit longer than what I would anticipate. You know, I don't think we've talked about those lags in the past really coming up. If I interpret that right, it seems like you would over earn a little bit in 3Q because maybe you're paying less on the equivalent gas basis, versus what you would, and then that would catch up. I guess, is that correct? Is there a way to think about, like, how long those lags are? Are they actually a three-month lag, or is it just that it's increasing month by month, and that's kind of the catch-up we're talking about?
Just so we can sensitize that from a cost perspective.
That's a fair question. It really is about inventory flows, and we have about 45 days of inventory. You will see some of those costs coming through, but not all of them. You know, it won't be reflective of today's market structurally in the second quarter. There's a lag, probably about $30 million, $40 million of that 45 days that'll be coming in in the third quarter. That would be more structural in today's higher pricing environment. That's both on the ship. Yeah, includes the shipping and the gas.
Okay, that makes sense. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Nelson Ng with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Great, thanks. First question, just to follow up on what was asked in Trinidad. You mentioned that you're considering a number of options. For the Trinidad facility or the Titan facility, is it due for another turnaround after September 26th? Does a new contract need to be long enough so that you can fund a major turnaround?
The new contract. No, there isn't a turnaround coming, but the economics of the existing contracts are, you know, the lion's share of the rents are going back to Trinidad. Any increase in any pricing means that it makes it very difficult for us to support running there. Obviously a lot of this is going to be coming through the negotiations with the NGC. I hope you understand that obviously we're progressing that. Indications look challenging.
Got it. Okay. You did mention that New Zealand and Trinidad makes up less than 5%. Is it 5% of your run rate EBITDA?
Yeah
earnings or?
5%.
Okay. Got it. My next question is about the OCI Global assets. I think initially you guys provided an estimate of about $30 million of synergies that you were expecting to achieve. Can you just give a quick update on how that's progressed and what you still need to implement over the next several quarters to achieve that?
Yeah. Those synergies come in form of insurance, come in the form of logistics costs around terminal optimizations, come in the form of IT costs. It comes in the form of looking at how we optimize some of the sites that we have. Things are progressing well. We're probably through some of the synergies. Others, we're actually carrying double cost this year, like IT. And we're progressing all that. We have a plan set out that by the end of the year, we should be through that. We have a higher fixed cost carry this year to then achieve the synergies beginning in January of 2027.
Got it. Sounds like we'll see most of the benefits next year. I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
Absolutely.
Your next question comes from the line of Hamir Patel with CIBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. Rich , are you able to quantify the non-gas feedstock cost increases that you're seeing? You know, how much on a per ton basis might that be once it's sort of fully apparent in Q3?
Non-gas feedstock costs?
Yeah.
Maybe it's like.
Well, just your non-gas cost increases.
Oh, I see. into the first quarter versus the fourth quarter?
Just by year-end as it's, as that filters through.
It's mainly what the cost that we're looking at. If we think about, I do know that there's some focus on how we get to our run rate numbers and what's in our cost structure that we're working on. The first one is our fixed cost structure, which the last caller asked about where we are progressing to bring our fixed cost structure down through the year through the integration. The second area is ocean freight. You know, we've had a longer supply chain through Q4. We have some lag into Q1 around our longer supply chain costs. We have seen a weaker backhaul market over the past year. That's something we're managing very closely. In today's environment, though, things have changed quite a bit around freight.
Our focus around freight is around avoiding any type of spot vessel requirements in our system. Spot rates, you know, there's 2,000 ships locked in the Gulf right now. Supply chains have increased because products gotta move longer outside of the Gulf to meet demand. Spot vessel rates have gone up quite significantly, and the backhaul market has disappeared. Our goal today is to keep our ships all to our produced product, avoid any spot vessel requirements. This is one of the competitive advantage we also have here is that we've got our own fleet, and we have no exposure to the shipping market.
Now, our cost per ton might be higher, but our cost per ton is a lot lower than our competitors that face market rates today. Our attention around shipping has shifted here in today's environment, like a lot of parts of our business.
Okay, great. Thanks, Rich. That's helpful. Just the last question I had, in terms of your 2026 methanol production, what percent of that, I'm guessing it's a very small percent, would be spot?
Yeah. In terms of our sales portfolio, we have very little in the way of spot sales. We do have some flexibility to put some product in the market. Today our commitment is to our term contract customers, and that's who we're here to service. You know, we have long-term customers. We have term contract supply, which is a min-max commitment per month for their businesses. That's where our primary focus is ensuring that reliability is supplied today. To the extent that if our customers aren't unable to produce, we will have more product available into the market. Today, our commitment is to our contract customers.
Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Blair with TPH. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks, and good morning. Rich, could you talk about where MTO operating rates stand in China today and how that compares, say, to like a Q1 average?
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'll take back to Q4. Q4, MTO operating rates were close to 85%-90%. We saw Iranian supplies actually stay on the market in Q4 until around the December timeframe. What we saw was a gradual lowering of MTO rates through Q1. Q1 average is around 70%-75% rates. You know, through March, we think some Iranian supply was able to move through March and April, some limited volumes, 200,000 tons a month. MTO has been holding in around that 70% operating rate, but now we're seeing a dramatic shift in coastal inventories in China, which assuming this blockade stays in place and there's no product available in behind what's come in in the last few months, we're going to see inventories draw.
It's gonna be very difficult for to see that, those rates continuing.
Great. That's, that's helpful color. Then just circling back to the guide for Q2, the $500-$525 realized price group, April and May. You know, I appreciate that the discount rate's moving up because you have less sales to China. If we just look at your realized price compared to a global spot average, your realized price tends to be above 100% capture on the spot average. But in Q2, it's shaking out closer to 92%. So I guess just to ask the question another way, is the guidance conservative? Like, or are you factoring in, you know, potential price decrease in June? Just trying to get a better sense of why that guidance isn't a little bit higher?
Yeah. I think in an upward market you're going to. I don't know how you're trending the spot price, in an upward market, there is some catch-ups through the delay of one month or one quarter. As an example, we set our European price, which is a quarterly price, back in March. European spot prices have gone from, at the time, I guess we were down in the $500 level or slightly over, to now above $600. There's going to be those lags even on a monthly basis depending on when you're trending the spot price. You know, it takes the month to be able to adjust, you know, adjust to the then prevailing market.
You know, I think there could be some, the read there could be because we've had a steady and significant increasing market pricing then, that's led to that difference.
Your next question comes from the line of Laurence Alexander with Jefferies. Your line is open.
Good morning. Two quick questions. Just first, a bit of housekeeping. Just on the ammonia side, can you clarify, you know, how you're doing in terms of either ASPs or margins and kind of any of your baseline outlook for Q2, how much you've contracted versus spot? Secondly, kind of higher level, given how stark the disruptions could be if the war continues and the rhetoric around the war potentially continuing several more months and all the bottlenecks that that would imply, what are you hearing from customers about what they think it would take for the industry to undertake capacity additions elsewhere to fix the supply-demand balance?
Thanks, Laurence. To your first question on the ammonia pricing, we produce around 80,000 tons a quarter. Our estimates when we did the acquisition was around $50 million of EBITDA per year. That was on a price of using a Tampa price of around $450 per ton. It's now at $775 per ton. That has climbed up over April and May. You know, we're obviously achieving a significantly higher earnings there, probably an uplift of $20 million+ per quarter at these prices. That's where we are, and we are contracted there.
We do sell mostly contracted book tons. On your question around capacity additions, it's not something yet that I think the market is in discussions today. I think what we'll have to do is take a look at when things get resolved, and I do believe it'll take, you know, people will want to get a read on where things rest long- term. Does the pricing support what you need longer- term to reinvest in the business, which will be a function of many things: demand, supply, long-term energy prices. Is there a race to capital because a lot of people want to do it at the same time? Many different factors would have to be worked out before I think you'd see big commitments to capital.
You know, we're in a wait and see here on where this actually lands and, certainly things that we're gonna be monitoring very closely.
Thank you.
Your last question comes from the line of Steve Hansen with Raymond James. Your line is open.
Yeah. Thanks, guys. It could go to Rich or whoever. I mean, the question really is around this Iranian situation and the restart of plants in recent weeks. I mean, we've been reading about the restarts, but it doesn't really seem to have a clear path to getting product to market. The question is ultimately, is there any indication that they're trying to recreate supply chains around the Gulf or around the strait, either via trucking or some other avenue to tide water that would allow any volume of magnitude to actually get out? I mean, have you heard anything around that context, or is the restart just really around testing the facilities as best you can tell? I'm trying to get a sense for why restart if they can't get the product out.
Yeah, no, we're not hearing any of that. Trying to get a different supply chain to avoid the strait. We do think the U.S. blockade is a very significant de-railer in terms of trying to move product out. We haven't heard of any of that product. Again, everything has to move to China as well. No, none of that's come to our attention.
That's great. Just one follow-up, apologies for the background noise. Just wanted to ask about your operational cadence this year. I mean, are you making any plans that would differ versus your thoughts three, four months ago around how to operate the assets this year, just given the tightness? I think Joel had asked a question earlier about short-term gas contracts, but even around the broader maintenance profile or anything else in your, in your internal capability or levers to pull to run harder in this environment, is that being contemplated or is it still sort of the status quo plan? Thanks.
I think everywhere around the world in our asset portfolio. North America, we wanna run 100%. You know, Egypt, Chile, those are our assets that represent, you know, are well-placed on the cost curve. Our operating strategy is always to run safely, reliably for the long- term and then always enhancing how we can have reliability at the highest rates possible. Around Trinidad and New Zealand, New Zealand is a bit of a different story. The gas actual contracts there are attractive. We're running a plant very suboptimally because we're well below capacity and the gas is a mature basin and it's in decline.
You know, if we were able to run there, as a flexible asset, maybe we would, but it's really about the gas basin, and it's structurally challenged. Trinidad becomes more of a cost issue. Really, how does the NGC going to negotiate? If there was something that made sense in the shorter -term, maybe we would look at that. That was to Joel's point. It has to make sense in the short and medium term, and we would look at those options. At the same time, we have to look at all possible ranges of outcomes out of those discussions, and that's what we're doing.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Richard Sumner.
Thank you for your questions and interest in our company. We hope you will join us in July when we update you on our second quarter results.
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.