Good morning, everyone. To answer that question, you need to start with the capabilities of our plants. All the things you just mentioned don't happen if you're not running at full capacity or above. We've spent a couple decades now assuring that all of our plants are continuing to get the maintenance capital that they need, having the right people. That being said, you know, this is a demand driven market today. We have exports have increased a record year in 2024, record year in 2025, on pace for a record year in 2026, and we can talk about exports a little bit later. You have the finalization of the RVO, which has driven RIN values higher because we're not gonna be able to use as many D4s to cover the D6. That's very positive.
We have the backdrop of E15 potentially, but maybe even more important than the E15 is the fact that ethanol is trading at such a discount to gasoline, and I don't really it's been doing that for a couple years. Yes, has the Iran war magnified that for a short period of time? Absolutely. Ethanol's really been a very durable product the last several years. Yeah, we have a lot of confidence in our model of being able to trade around the corn, the DDGs, the DCO, along with marketing the ethanol, that it will be durable for The Andersons.
Great. You chose to hedge first quarter ethanol margins for understandable reasons. Margins reached seasonally strong levels and you locked them in. You noted that you are open for 2Q, you said this on your earnings call, and that ethanol margins by my calculation have been very strong. How good have ethanol margins been in 2Q to date? Can you frame that up with as much detail as possible?
Sure. Utilizing or looking at board crush as your best reference point, we've come off a little bit in the last five to seven trading days. Overall Q2, and if you look at all of April, May, June as a strip, we're certainly in the top ab 60th percentile if you look over time. I wanna come back to your hedging comment. The short answer to your Q2, ethanol margins have been good. They're not robust, but they've been good. If you talk about the hedging opportunities that we took, we have stated publicly that we have no hedges on forward beyond what we had for Q1. If you look at 2023, 2024, 2025, in Q1, we averaged zero board crush.
The weighted average over those three months. You know, you have the opportunity to hedge a percentage of your production at double digits. You know, we took that opportunity as we felt like it was prudent risk management.
Right. When we think about the RVO, you know, Darling was just up here talking about the benefits of the 2026, 2027 RVO. That was more on the lens of renewable diesel, biodiesel. What does it do for ethanol?
Yep.
How is that gonna benefit The Andersons, over the next two years?
It's a good question, and one I've actually been asked quite a bit since the RVOs come out. There's really a twofold answer. First is the RVOs, as finalized, are driving the requirements for bio-based diesel. Whether it's biodiesel or renewable diesel, that production has to increase to achieve the RVOs. That, in return, will drive the demand for RINs higher. The D4s aren't going to be able to roll over and cover the D6 RIN values. They've moved higher, which is driving the opportunity for non Tier 2 blenders to have more value in blending ethanol. With or without E15, we are driving demand to blend as much ethanol as we can. That's number one.
Number two is, as you think through the RVO feedstocks, DCO has one of the lowest CI scores. That's driving the value of our corn oil out of our plants. If you just wanna use a measure for The Andersons, every $0.10 that DCO goes up, it drops $14 million to the bottom line.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the acquisition of the other 50% of the ethanol JV. You know, that contribution now flowing 100% to The Andersons versus Marathon and The Andersons. When you look back on that deal and you think about the price that you paid, I mean, how good does that deal look in hindsight now, given the environment we find ourselves in?
Well, it's only been 10 months. I don't think you can take it as a win. You know, for The Andersons, we've stated publicly that we've been trying to grow in ethanol production, whether that's purchasing other plants, whether it's adding more capacity at our current plants. The opportunity presented itself to buy out our partner in the plants. We have a very strong relationship with Marathon. They're obviously the largest buyer of ethanol. Nothing really other than the fact that we wanted to grow in production capacity. As you just heard from Bob and Randy, organic growth is the most economic way that we can grow.
We had the opportunity to make a large transaction with our employees, plants that we had built or managed for over a decade. It was an easy decision for us.
Yeah. Let's talk about exports, ethanol exports. We've been setting records the past year or two here. You know, what are the most attractive markets currently, and where has the most progress been made from an incremental volume standpoint, over the last three years in some of these markets?
Well, Canada's obviously our largest buyer of U.S. ethanol. I believe they imported just under or right at 800 million gallons of the 2.1 billion gallons that we exported last year. They're a very good customer for the U.S. ethanol industry. They continue to grow year-over-year demand into Canada. Followed behind that would be the Europe and U.K., which if you combine those two geographies, they're approximately 60% of our total exports. As we continue to look, Vietnam has announced expanded blend rates. You know, quite honestly, most countries in the world that have substantial gasoline consumption are expanding their blend rates, ethanol's the cheapest oxygenate in the world.
We've also made trade deals, correct?
Yep.
I believe EU and U.K. were part of the some Trump trade deals there that are very beneficial. What about Brazil?
You know, Brazil, it seems whenever they step into the market to buy U.S. ethanol, it's always like it's always a really good market for whatever period of time they're buying. You know, are they buying now? Do you think they'll continue buying at a more consistent pace? Because they took a couple, you know, couple years off there, right? Just how impactful will that be for the ethanol complex if they, if they stay in the market?
Yep. We don't think they will stay in the market. They're gonna generally buy in their intercrop around sugar. Call it February, March, maybe late January, through first half March. You know, Brazil has done a really good job of increasing their corn-based ethanol. They have been very aggressive in their blend rates. They're at 30% blend rate today. A lot of talk about going to 32%. Later when we talk about the grains, I'm gonna talk a little more around the Brazilian corn production. You know, from our perspective, I believe they're gonna produce somewhere around 9.5 billion gallons a year of ethanol. They only export less than 500 million gallons.
As a country, they're really imbalanced and they've done a good job with that, increasing their blend rates as needed.
That sets the tone on ethanol, I think, for now. I wanna transition to the agribusiness side. Then some of it, you know, will be relevant to the ethanol discussion as well. Just to start, what is your view on the global ag supply-demand balance through 2026? You know, we just got the USDA numbers for May. Do you foresee a return to a tighter market environment? How does that impact your view of The Andersons' earnings opportunities and potential in the agribusiness segment specifically?
That answer is gonna be different for the three different commodities, or three major commodities, right? Let's start with maybe the easiest one and likely what's gonna be the most fun through 2026 and 2027, the wheat market. You know, we are going to produce today, according to the USDA, and we agree with them, the smallest hard wheat crop since 1972. You saw that in the futures market yesterday, limit higher, a little bit of follow-through overnight. We globally, the wheat S&Ds are not tight. They're going to constrict a little bit. You have the northern hemisphere, in the EU, I'm sorry, in Russia, the Black Sea region, weather's been nearly perfect. You know, wheat's just gonna be fun to see the volatility in North America, how it's gonna compete.
You know, those are kinda the markets we live for, right? You know, we'll see some pulls on wheat that are gonna be very different, kinda go back three or four years. Overall, it's gonna be an interesting dynamic to unfold, and that's what we're built for. Let's talk about corn a little bit. I think that corn is a little misrepresented. I don't see a substantial tightening of corn in 2026. There is a scenario for 2027 in the U.S. and globally for the corn balance sheet to tighten. If you think about it, last year's crop, our yield was nearly seven bushels higher than we've ever produced corn in this country. We had the largest corn crop we've ever produced, and we nominally grew carryout. There, we are. Why is that?
It's because Brazil has been somewhat stagnant in their corn exports. They are consuming the corn that they're producing, year-on-year growth through ethanol and feeding. You know, you're setting up a real interesting dynamic for the corn market if and when we have some type of either weather issue or global corn demand continues to grow. Look at our corn exports this year. I think that there's gonna be some real opportunities. I can't say it's gonna happen in 2026. 2027, I think there's a high likelihood.
President Trump is going to China. He may already be there.
He's on his way.
He's on his way. You know, the hope is that there's a trade deal out there that includes more agribusiness purchases, or agricultural purchases from the U.S. What are you looking for in a China deal? Is it just really simple, or is it kinda more nuanced, or just Would love your thoughts on that.
Yeah. We talked about the 25 million metric tons of soybeans that we'd like to see China purchase, whether they agreed to it or didn't agree to it the last time. I don't think anyone will ever know. If they were to commit to the 25 million metric tons or somewhere close to that, you can start to come up with a pretty tight soybean carryout. That would be positive for the U.S. producer. We would really like to see the government does not have nearly the involvement in the milo program that goes to Mexico. They can be supportive. There is no TRQ for milo, that would be a benefit to The Andersons specifically.
One that hasn't got, hasn't had much discussion, I think it's 2016, China filed a WTO complaint against the U.S. on dumping of DDGs. If we could get China back into buying DDGs, I think it changes the dynamic for the soybean meal market, it changes the dynamic for the ethanol market. There could be a lot of potential from that perspective. It's not a driver that 25 million metric tons of soybeans are, it would be real for The Andersons.
Yeah. Let's talk about the financial health of the U.S. farmer, because that's been in the headlines a lot, whether it be The Wall Street Journal or, you know, whatever media source, you know, covers it. It's not been good times for the U.S. farmer. You know, how does that impact farmer selling? Because I think that's a little you know, underestimated you know, factor in the flow of U.S. agriculture. How do current financial situation for U.S. farmer, how does that impact the flow of sales, the pace of sales? You know, fertilizer demand, let's talk about that. What's the impact there currently? Do you expect that to change maybe heading into the fall, from kind of what we're experiencing today?
We only have 20 minutes left, and you want me to answer all those questions?
I know. I'm sorry.
All right. Let's start with the overarching comment around the health of the U.S. producer. I would encourage anyone who truly wants to understand the health of the U.S. farmer to talk to them. Don't read about the health of the U.S. farmer in today's media. I'll just leave it at that. Year-over-year, farm income is increasing. We have had a nice rally in the futures market since the crop insurance prices were set. We're well above those prices today. The Andersons, and you made a very good point in that the forward contracting and the forward book. Here's what I can tell you about The Andersons, and this is news since the earnings call.
We have the largest deferred book for forward sales that we've had on since the spring of 2023, and we remember how robust the margins were in 2022, 2023. Okay, that's fact. I will also tell you now we've grown in size, but the farmer has done a really good job of taking advantage of the futures rallies. We have the largest new crop book on company-wide. Now granted, it's a much larger company since the acquisition of Lansing. From our perspective, it's not roses on the farm. Don't mislead or don't take what I'm saying incorrectly, but the U.S. farmer is doing better year-on-year. If you wanna talk about fertilizer-
I do.
The U.S. farmer, albeit not in a good place for the 2026 fall applications, is going to be better than other farmers around the world, specifically because of our nitrogen production that we have.
Okay. I think you had mentioned that on the earnings call that 85%, roughly 85% of farmers were pre-ordered for the spring application season.
What I mentioned was that in the Eastern Corn Belt.
Right
we felt like our farmer base had 85% of their fertilizer price locked in prior to the war commencing. In the Western Corn Belt, much broader geography, we feel like our producer base was in the 50%-60% range.
Okay. Thank you for that. Speaking of the Western Belt, in your Skyland Grain.
Investment, you know, the storage business has maybe not lived up to its full EBITDA potential yet, but are we heading into an environment where you can see some basis appreciation there? Just remind us how that works and the interplay with, you know, the merchandising side.
I'm gonna answer this slightly different.
Okay.
Grain elevator capacity ebbs and flows. The diversified nature of The Andersons is. We've demonstrated this, we've demonstrated it through 2024, 2025, when we were somewhat in the trough, in my opinion, where our merchandising, our asset-light business, and our grain assets have been able to work together. We can tie that to our renewables group also. If you want to talk about why the Skyland transaction made so much sense to The Andersons, and you have. If you want to talk about space, you're going to have to talk about us as a whole. Pre-2019, The Andersons were very heavily, almost 100% Eastern Corn Belt dominated at around 175 million bushels of grain elevator capacity. Fast-forward to today, we're at 300 million bushels of elevator capacity split equally Eastern Corn Belt versus Western Corn Belt.
You tie that in with our merchandising, you hear us talk about a diversified portfolio. We have taken risk off the investor's plate by truly diversifying The Andersons grain and grain products business through recent transactions, and more importantly, the Skyland investment.
Like, how should we think about basis in the Eastern versus Western?
Corn Belt, for this year and maybe heading into 2027?
The basis for us is our meat and potatoes. We feel like we have a right to win. We feel like basis trading is a competitive advantage. We now believe as an organization that we're able to quickly react as market conditions change in the Eastern Corn Belt versus the Western Corn Belt. Specifically to this year, we had an interesting phenomenon. Coming out of fall harvest, we had a lot of export demand. We had a lot of pulls on our Eastern corn, wheat, and soybeans. That allowed us to spin our capacity more than we traditionally would. We didn't just fill it up, hold it, and carry it. The market said, "We need it. You've bought it. We need it." That's, you know, quite honestly pretty unusual. We took advantage of that in Q4.
I mean, that is one of the largest reasons our Q4 earnings were so strong. In the West, we had a large corn crop. You know, the last year's record corn crop, for the most part, the Eastern Corn Belt was average. All the excess corn was produced in the Western Corn Belt.
Right.
Pretty good year to have the Skyland assets.
Absolutely. We got about 12 minutes left here. I wanna go into your balance sheet, which is very strong and a very strong position, and your capital allocation priorities. You've been doing a lot internally, you know, after you did this acquisition. I mean, the whole time you've been doing a lot internally, now it's more pronounced. If you could just touch on some of the key projects that are coming up for completion this year, and items that are in your pipeline, or maybe on your wish list to invest in moving forward. Like, where are the highest returning organic growth investments for The Andersons?
We've talked about all of our projects really since inception, but just as a reminder for the people in the audience that may not know, we're very close to nearing completion on our Houston export terminal. It's gonna come in two phases. Late May, early June will be completed with an upgrade to our grain export capacity. Likely late September will be completed on a soybean meal export capacity, which hopefully we'll have a chance to talk about. I think that's gonna be an excellent add for The Andersons. Where we're adding soybean meal or soybean crush capacity, primarily in the Western Corn Belt, it's gonna funnel right to Houston. We should have a competitive advantage versus some of our other export partners. That is one that we've talked about a lot.
We've talked a lot, maybe less than Houston, but continued growth in our food processing and feeding the CPG companies, the pet food companies with clean corn. Our facility in Brantford, Ontario is running today on wheat cleaning. We haven't really used that as a headline because it's been something where we want to, you know, crawl before we walk before we run.
Right.
We feel like we're creating some core competencies there. Lastly, everywhere that we can add organic ethanol capacity at our current plants at economic values, we're gonna continue to run out, whether that's technology or capacity.
You're doing that in Indiana.
Currently , right? How many gallons are you at?
30 million gallons is what we have announced to date.
Okay. That would take you from 500 million gallons annually to 530 million gallons.
I think, we reported $515 million last year.
Okay. Okay. In terms of M&A, The ethanol environment is so good right now that it would seem to prohibit maybe attractive M&A opportunities. You know, prove me wrong on that. Are there What I mean, what has 45Z done to increase the value of these plants?
The short answer to that is we don't know.
Okay.
There aren't many plants that trade it. You know, there's been one plant trade, recent, well, since OBB B. Our transaction was right around that, very unrelated to plants really wanting to change hands. From our perspective, if we're going to stay behind our statement of disciplined capital allocation, we can't pay for the 45Z upfront-
Right
Not have it discounted. I think the bid-ask spread on plants that are able to have sequestration is so wide you can drive a truck through it today. Brownfield plants that aren't maybe have the capability to sequester their CO2, I think it's narrower, but it's still awfully wide. We're not in a rush to allocate our capital. We certainly are not gonna overpay in the ethanol space. There's a lot of other opportunities that we're seeing, maybe downstream a little bit in the agribusiness. We've spent the last two years developing our low CI feedstock business for bio-based diesel. The RVO is going to demonstrate that that was time well spent.
I would think those areas are likely recipients of our capital allocation just due to the pricing of ethanol plants.
Just on the low CI renewable feedstock business, it has been pretty small, right? It was pretty nascent, what is the impact of these price increases that we're seeing in, you know, rendering values and, vegetable oil values? Like, how fast is that accelerating that business for you?
Quite fast. You know, we didn't think that the RVOs were gonna be this delayed. They were. We had publicly set our target of 2 billion pounds of feedstocks. Will we get it in 2026? I don't know. The last 30-60 days indicate we're well on our way. We feel like we'll achieve that in 2027, which is quite a story in itself, starting from zero and getting to 2 billion pounds in the low CI feedstock market. Our tank farm in Ulysses, Kansas, is online, ready to go. We believe we stated that our merchandising, which includes ethanol, will be 10%-15% of our EBITDA in the renewable space.
We believe that the passage of the RVO is just going to drive that higher. It's too early to give you a prediction. We need to see how the RVOs unfold.
Got it. All right. Putting all of what we just talked about together, at your December investor day, you issued a $7 run rate EPS guidance target by 2028. How, without actually just doing a specific bridge to that, if you could just generally kind of put the pieces together as to, you know, how we're gonna hit that and why it's so achievable?
Sure
That would be interesting.
Just to clarify, we said $7 EPS exiting 2028.
Exiting 2028.
Okay.
Sorry. I apologize.
I have a lot of confidence in that statement.
Yeah.
We have been working on structuring The Andersons by driving efficiency, looking for opportunities, improving the aspects of the company that needed some improving, and leveraging the aspects of the business that have been doing really well. That being said, when we made that comment, and I'm gonna be close on these numbers, when we made that comment in December, we were coming out of a $2.56 trailing 12-month EPS. I understand how people said, "$7 exiting 2028? Come on.". Okay. Let's just think about what we've done in the two quarters since then. We went to $3.50-ish at the end of December. We went to $4.23 at the end of Q1. We have confidence that without substantial reinvestment in M&A activity, that our path to $7 exiting 2028 is something we're very confident in.
I would remind the investors that we have done a very good job historically of achieving the public targets that we put out there, and we are as confident in this one as any that we've put out there.
No better place to finish than that. Thank you so much, Bill, for being here.
Thank you.
Good seeing you as always.