Hi, good morning, everyone. So my name's Patrick Cunningham. I'm the North America Chemicals Analyst here at Citi. Excited to have CF Industries here with me today, and from CF, on the far side, we have Chris Bohn, COO and CFO, and then Bert Frost, EVP of Sales, Market Development, and Supply Chain. So Chris was recently appointed CF's EVP and COO, a role he assumed in February 2024. For those who don't know, CF is the world's largest producer of ammonia, operating 16 ammonia plants in the U.S. and Canada. The company has several clean ammonia projects in its pipeline and significant global partnerships. So here to give us an update on the nitrogen fertilizer markets and clean ammonia opportunity, please welcome Chris and Bert.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Why don't we start, you know, with, you know, the current state of the global nitrogen market, and maybe just on energy prices. You know, we've seen tremendous volatility in Europe and Asia natural gas over the past couple of years, and more recently, those prices have come down. Remind us, who is the marginal cost producer today? And with these high energy differentials, you know, obviously there's gonna be some volatility, but, you know, what's the new normal from here?
Well, the new normal is if you, if you have a normal, that'd be pretty amazing... because we've been anything but over the last several years, and part of that is the opportunities that have presented themselves to CF. When you look at energy and the whole advent of the fracking and shale gas revolution in the United States, has positioned CF so well. And today, I just looked a little bit ago, we're at $1.70 plus at MMBtu, and has been as low as $1.50. That's extraordinary. And so the margin opportunity for a North American producer, and that's why you're seeing, coupled with, the investment opportunity and the, and the governmental and regulation structure and the opportunity for, carbon sequestration and then clean up, clean products or low-carbon products, has positioned North America very, very well for the future.
And then you feather in the energy spreads that are taking place around the world, where today, Europe is $7-$8, but it has been as high as $13-$15, and at some points even higher than that, during the spiky periods. And the LNG movement around the world, that's supplying many ammonia plants, that is a cost based off of Henry Hub, maybe contracted, but you have investments and shipping costs that probably put that energy spread in that $5-$7 long-term range, and then sometimes, if we get a cold winter in Europe or other places, probably spike even more. So the new normal is kind of that.
As I think what we saw in 2022 with the invasion of Ukraine, a spike and some extraordinary movements, but as we're moderating down into an environment that today positions the market and then the nitrogen market off those gas costs, where we are today is a good place, at $350 a ton for urea and how that plays out.
This is probably a bit of a crazy longer-dated question, but, you know, what would it take to flatten that cost curve? I mean, not dramatically, but for those differentials to compress significantly over a sustained period of time.
You'd have to go back to evolution and get more gas in Europe. The gas, you know, you look at the North Field, Norway is well-positioned, but gas production in Europe is not there, or something needs to be, or deeper wells. And with the pipeline gone from Russia and the difficulty of moving gas through Ukraine or any other place, you're talking years to replace that flow. So that's why floating storage and LNG is the new pipeline, and that has, as we said, a cost. And then what's interesting about LNG, though, it, if you're a producer of LNG and nitrogen, which many of the Middle Eastern and North African producers are, then you have a competition for the molecule. And that's why Europe is the marginal producer, because they have to bid in that supply of energy to therefore produce the nitrogen.
I would just add to what Bert said, you know, when we look at our investment decisions, we look at the longer term. As you mentioned, Patrick, there's gonna be volatility in the market, where we see contraction quite a bit between Henry Hub and what Europe is based on a warm summer, a warm winter, or whatever. I think longer term, though, it goes to the fundamentals that Bert just, you know, addressed here. And that's when we look at our investment decision, it's not about what's happening next quarter or even the remaining part of the year. It's what is the long-term fundamentals. As you said, you know, the resource base here in the U.S., we feel very confident about.
Some of the structural disadvantages in Europe and really globally that Bert talked about is what we feel, too, and that's, that's why we feel comfortable that that differential will remain for some time.
Got it. And then maybe just, you know, moving to the supply side, you know, you guys made the comment last week on the call that, you know, supply may be more constrained than is forecasted this year. And maybe we can just take a walk around the globe and some of the key producing regions, maybe starting with Europe. You know, how much capacity has been, you know, shut in or shut down and, you know, with these gas prices coming down, the probability that some or, you know, some fraction of these producers come back online this year?
Well, starting with Europe, you have to remember, most of these plants are decades, if not 50 years old. So a little on the inefficient side, probably are needing some investment, and every 4 or 5 years, you have a turnaround, which can cost $40 million-$60 million. So cycling the plants are, is not very attractive. And we have talked about 30%-40% of that capacity was offline at any given time in the last year, and there have been some announcements of, on both sides, permanent shutdowns as well as restarts. And so some of that capacity will come back online at this current gas environment.
But as we said, Europe, we believe, is the marginal producer, and tons will be bid in as, whether that be ammonia or as we are supplying UAN and urea and ammonium nitrate to that market from an export position out of our Donaldsonville, Louisiana plant. But as you move around the world and you look at China, it's more driven by export controls and governmental control, and that's probably a thematic issue in China with what's going on with different industries and sectors. But in urea, we still say they will export, but it'll be more June through October and a limited amount of tons.
If you go to India, which has been the largest importer over the last several years, the Modi program of, of build India is taking place, and there have been new plant startups and additional tonnage that has come online in India. But they are also a high-cost producer, relying 60% on LNG to supply those plants with natural gas. And so India will play a role in the import market, but less so than they have in the past. Then Brazil becomes now the largest importing country, and those plants are. The Brazilian production of urea, the Unigel plants that have been supplied by Petrobras, are now offline. And that's gonna further increase the level of urea imports as well as acreage and volume.
As Brazil becomes, continues to grow and be more of a global player in the feed grains, you're gonna see, I think, that going to 8-9 million tons. Then North America is the next largest importer from there, and we have always been an import market, probably in the last 25 years, since a number of U.S. plants have gone offline. So when you look, you know, and put, put these into position, Europe and North America and Brazil and India are big import players. North Africa and Middle East continue to be big on the supply base, a little bit feathered in from China, and we export some as well from North America. Less so, and what you're seeing is some gas constraints in some areas, like Trinidad, like Brazil and Pakistan and different countries that are...
Well, we talked about Europe, also on the will constrain supply.
I think if you layer into what Bert said, there is not only the S&D balance, but it's some of the geopolitical events that are occurring. You know, whether it's the Suez Canal that's adding freight costs to particular product moves, or just even, you know, what's happening in Ukraine. Where's the next one? And you really don't know where the next one's going to occur or how long the existing ones are going to go. That adds some uncertainty in the market as well.
Got it. And then maybe just shifting over to the demand side, you know, how is, how is demand shaping up, you know, in the key growing regions? I know, you know, stocks-to-use is, is maybe back to normal. You know, maybe have better weather, you know, higher forecasted, you know, acreage into this year. You know, how do you see that translating into, you know, nitrogen fertilizer demand? You know, maybe starting with, you know, U.S. as a key growing region.
Several factors are impacting the U.S. market today. We have discussed in previous meetings the lower level of carry-in from the fertilizer year last year into this year, and then lower level of imports, which we track on a monthly basis and communicate that, and then the freeze-offs that took place in January that impacted CF and other producers. All those together have lower supply available as compared to previous years, and that's why you're seeing the dynamic of a rising market. And then when you look at the... You're right, the stocks-to-use ratios have normalized, and so that has been reflected in the price of corn, soybeans, and wheat, with corn now around $4.50.
But you're still, the corn-to-bean ratio is attractive still to plant corn, and we think we were at 91 million acres, and I would say that's on the, I would bet even higher-
Yep
... as we roll into spring. But the interesting thing for this spring is the potential for an early spring. It's gonna be 70 degrees Fahrenheit next week in Des Moines, Iowa, which, for those who don't know, it's a big corn area. And 70 degrees Fahrenheit is pretty attractive if you can get out early and apply your fertilizer. As a farmer, what you want to have in place is the ability to plant the corn or the whatever crop you're planting when the soil temperature is appropriate with the ambient temperature. And if you can have all your field work done early, that just accelerates and elongates the growing opportunity for long-cycle corn, and that's what we're seeing this year.
We haven't seen this type of environment since 2012, so it's, it is attractive on a weather and then on a supply basis, we think attractive for CF.
Got it. And then maybe just are there any other key growing regions to highlight, you know, where you're maybe forecasting better or worse than expected demand? Any sort of one-offs where, you know, maybe dealer or retail inventories are depleted or elevated, you know, where we might see, you know, a decreased or increased import trend to some of those regions?
I think the positive, what we're seeing out of Argentina with the governmental change, with the election and the inauguration that took place in December, is capital controls that were in place and limits on how to import and the dollars available to transact, that was not very easy in 2022, 2023. And with hopefully some liberalized and better economic decisions, you could see Argentina return and increase, I'd say significantly, their imports of urea and UAN. Brazil is a great story. With what is going on with consumption of N, P, and K fertilizers moving from just 15 years ago, 20-25 million tons, to today, 45 million tons, they are the growth engine of consumption for fertilizer, as well as supplying the world with feed grains and oilseeds.
... Got it. And then, you know, ag, ag and industrial demand, you know, in aggregate typically grows, you know, 1%-2% per year. When do we start to see, you know, outsized growth from the clean energy opportunity?
Yeah, maybe I'll take that one. I think, you know, we're, we're in quite a few discussions with primarily Asian partners, that being, JERA and Mitsui, about using ammonia as a co-firing, in their coal plants to reduce the greenhouse gas effect there. So JERA has a commercial test that's gonna be occurring in about a month from now that'll run 90 days. All, all suggestions are that that's going to be successful. I've actually visited the plant where they're going to be doing it, bringing in the ammonia. I think that's gonna be the catalyst after that test, to really look at how does this get used throughout, throughout coal plants in Asia, primarily starting to reduce greenhouse gas.
There's a few steps that need to occur prior to we get to that point where we'll start to see that demand uplift, and that's some of the contract for differences that the Asian countries, specifically Japan and Korea, are looking through. And then also, what is the carbon intensity level? You know, with our sequestration that we're looking at right now, we're able to sequester 65%-70% of the CO2 that comes off of there. It looks as most of the programs are gonna start with that as a starting point, and then trying to move up to 90% sequestration over time, in which case, we may put in flue gas capture or do something like that. So I think the demand, albeit is probably, delayed a little bit from what we thought by six months or a year.
I think this fall we're gonna have much more clarity, and that's really why we deferred our FID decision, is to really understand what the government regulations that are going in place are. Bert mentioned what is the overall global S&D for ammonia itself? But it's something that we see occurring over the next couple of years, but it's not going to be something that's gonna be a hockey stick. I think it'll be more gradual growth as we get closer to 2030.
Yeah, I wanna, I wanna jump on that in terms of, you know, potential technologies that you're gonna use with... whether it be, you know, SMRs or SMRs with flue gas capture or, or ATRs. You know, could you walk us through, you know, what that looks like from a, you know, carbon capture efficiency standpoint, and then what the differences might be in terms of capital intensity?
Yeah. So, the SMR is a steam methane reforming, and that's of our 16 ammonia plants, that's how they all operate, is with steam methane reforming. So the plant that we've looked at and have the FEED study on, that we just completed, down in Louisiana, is a steam methane reformer that's identical to what we call Ammonia Six, which is the world's largest producing ammonia plant in our Donaldsonville, Louisiana plant. So we see a lot of benefits in replicating that particular plant. A lot of the engineering specs that we had to work through with Ammonia Six, we can copy those, take those. It's right near our core of our engineering excellence center in Donaldsonville. And then spare parts, as time goes on, we'd be able to share those spare parts.
So the FEED study we did was on that, but as I mentioned, that captures about 65%-70% of the carbon that we're able to sequester. The two other FEED studies that we've just recently had, one is a flue gas capture. So in the steam methane reforming process, two-thirds of the gas is used for the actual process to produce the ammonia. A third of it is used to fire and basically be the combustion gas, and that today, we do not capture. By having flue gas capture in there, we'd be able to get that. So we're running down that study. And then the other study is an integrated autothermal reformer, which uses a slightly different process than the SMR, but you're able to achieve maybe 90% carbon capture.
The important thing is here, there isn't an integrated ammonia plant that's built with the ATR, so that's why we just, as the world's largest nitrogen producer, ammonia producer, it's something that we want to get more understanding of. I think, you know, probably, right now, the SMR is where we're leaning closer to, if we were to move forward with an FID on that.
Got it. And the near term, you know, focus on in the U.S., you know, seems to be more on, you know, blue hydrogen and blue ammonia. And can you talk about the economics versus blue and versus green, where they stand today, given that you do have, you know, some green, smaller green projects in there, and, you know, what would it take to accelerate green relative to blue?
Well, to accelerate green relative to blue, it'd take a lot, so I'll get to that here in a bit. You know, if you think about blue ammonia, which is, you know, just capturing the CO2 that we already captured today and sequestering it, that is pretty close to conventional cost of ammonia, so there's not a big cost difference. And in fact, with the 45Q, it actually provides potentially a higher return to the organization to do that. From a green perspective, green, we have a 20,000-ton-a-year ammonia green plant that we're in commissioning phase right now at our Donaldsonville facility. The cost of green ammonia is about 5 times that of conventional ammonia or blue ammonia, and the reason for that is not because of the electrolyzer or different pieces.
It's because of the amount of electricity that is required in order to produce green ammonia. So if you think of it, we're producing 20,000 tons of green ammonia at our Donaldsonville facility, which produces over 4 million tons in total on an annual basis. We're consuming almost 20% of the power load to produce 20,000 tons, compared to the overall site, which produces 4 million. So it's a huge amount of energy, and today, without having the renewable resources in place for renewable energy, you're pulling off the grid. The latest, 45V, that would allow us to get some sort of credit from that has to have renewable power, so we won't be able to get that. Now, the way that we will be able to obtain the 45Q is through renewable energy credits.
We'll purchase those, but after 2028, we may not be able to do that. So I think long way to say, we have very high energy costs, which is increasing the cost of production for that. We have incentives put in place that really need a lot of renewable energy to be built in a very short timeframe that I'm not certain could occur in that timeframe. So you may stifle a little bit of the innovation by being so restrictive on those incentives from a government standpoint. So our focus is more on low carbon blue ammonia.
Got it. Just given the, you know, incentive from 45Q, you know, you've started to see some, you know, players who maybe did or maybe didn't have experience in this space, whether it's clean hydrogen or clean ammonia, whether it's oil and gas majors, industrial gases, you know. What's your level of confidence that those, you know, that you can be competitive with, you know, some of these larger announcements that we've seen here in the US?
Well, I think, you know, globally, we had tracked, Bert's group was tracking it, and there was over 100 announcements of new ammonia plants, green and low carbon, that were going to be built. I believe two have broken ground, and one was already in flight when we did the analysis. So I think it's easy to say you're gonna build an ammonia plant, and what we're seeing is a lot of the participants, who were maybe on the, on the periphery of, of chemical producing to ammonia, are starting to rethink their investment decisions related to that. Because, you know, the, the benefit that CF has is our infrastructure is already in place.
So when we produce conventional ammonia, or low-carbon ammonia, it's stored the same, it's transported the same, sold to a lot of the same customers, that Bert's team works with. So we already have that capital that's installed versus some of these others. So I think it's gonna be very difficult to see significant growth, and I think that's why you've seen less and less talk by some of these players about entering in. There will be new plants built because the world needs new plants to be built in order to meet the demand that's coming.
When he talks about infrastructure, that's an important point because of our 20-plus terminals, pipeline, availability to load large and small-sized vessels. We have our own barge fleet, and so we have a river system of terminals. We have a lot of flexibility, and then the upgrade capacity to take that ammonia ton. If you're just a pure ammonia player, you are beholden if you're building one of these new plants, most of them are export-oriented or connected to a tank. You better have either ratable demand that equals your production or the options that we have. It'd be a very difficult endeavor just to build a plant in isolation.
Yeah, makes perfect sense. And then you obviously have several MOUs and a JDA for clean ammonia supply, so maybe just, you know, give some perspective on what end uses and geographies have the most promise for low-carbon ammonia, you know, as we stand now, and, you know, when do we expect to see ag markets, you know, drive increased demand for clean ammonia?
Yeah, I think I'll, I'll start on the sort of new demand side with clean energy and let Bert go to some of the legacy applications that potentially will happen. But for us, as I mentioned, I think this, this test that JERA is doing here on co-combustion with coal is gonna be very important to see where globally that can develop utilizing ammonia. I think we also see longer dated is some of the uses that'll be used for marine. Ammonia would be able to be low carbon to almost zero carbon related to marine fuel. And then additionally, you've seen the Biden administration put in some different incentives that are related to sustainable aviation fuel, that we're getting a little bit more interest on that from ethanol players and other players globally.
I think there's a few different tranches that are beginning to build. Some are longer dated than others. I would see the co-combustion being first, sustainable aviation fuel being second, and then moving into more marine fuel.
When you look at the market and what we're talking about, decarbonization is good for all seasons. We're actively engaged and putting the equipment in place. So we will have, and we will be the first to have decarbonized ammonia, which then leads to decarbonized upgrade products like ammonium nitrate, or UAN, and a lot of conversations are taking place, and that's globally. Our European customers would love to have low-carbon products. Our South American customers are targeting that. And what is going on with Brazil, with Raízen, the sugar and ethanol company, targeting SAF for Europe and low-carbon ethanol, as well as our customers here and the whole value chain for corn.
If you can add a low-carbon fertilizer or no-carbon fertilizer and then take that through with carbon sequestration at the ethanol plant level, you have a very good score, if not negative score, which impacts not only the CARB in California, but again, for SAF and what the goals are for some of the scope goals for our customers' customers. And so that, explosives, I mean, I could target industry, fibers, they're all focused on their own scope emissions and how do they improve their one, two, and three, and we're in the process of helping our customers achieve some of that.
I think that's an important point because we will be the first that will have large-scale decarbonized product. And as Bert mentioned, while this is great with new demand centers beginning to evolve here, we don't need to wait to that. And because we'll have the first, and there is a bit of a pull that's beginning to happen there, where we do think that economics will play out, and we'll benefit from that.
Got it, and just a quick follow-up on green versus blue, just in terms of who might be the natural offtakers. Is there any relative difference on, you know, now, who might have the demand for green versus what you could do with blue? In terms of willingness to pay a premium or, you know, needing to meet regulations.
Well, I would start with the amount of green ammonia we're going to produce is such a small quantity, that I think Bert is going to be able to, his team's going to be able to get a fairly large premium on it, just given that it's only 20,000 tons. If it were a million tons, you'd probably see some of that come down. I think where most of the interest from true green is coming is more European. I think their, their, their, I wouldn't even call it standards, but I would say their, their goal is to be not low carbon, but to be zero carbon. So I think that's where some of the directive for green will be.
As I said earlier, I think there is the cost impediment that you're going to hit, where it's going to be low carbon for many years. And in order for this to be successful and for the world really to decarbonize, you do need those interim steps. If we say we're going to go green tomorrow, you won't see anybody move that way.
Got it. I'll pause here just to see if there's any questions from the audience. All right, so, you know, what changes or developments, you know, would allow you to announce more projects, brownfield, at your sites in North America? And, you know, what might be the next sites for carbon capture and sequestration?
Yeah, I think the next sites for carbon capture and sequestration are gonna be those that are closest to areas where are gonna have Class VI permits in place here relatively soon. So when we look at that, we look at our Yazoo City, Mississippi plant, our recently acquired Waggaman, Louisiana plant, and even our Medicine Hat, Alberta plant. And while that's not privy to the 45Q, it does have a very high carbon tax, which we'd be able to reduce what our carbon penalty would be up there, along with sell incremental carbon credits onto the market, where we believe that that would be a profitable venture to go through. So those are the three areas that we're looking at right now.
As far as brownfields go, I think Bert's team is continually looking at what type of upgrades. You know, whether it be through industrial or how can we utilize the ammonia molecule, the nitrogen molecule, in order to get the highest margin? So we're continually looking at that, and I think for the big step change, though, it's really what we're looking at with our Blue Point site. Do we build another low-carbon ammonia plant that we would have primarily for export-oriented customers?
Got it. And you mentioned the Waggaman, the recent Waggaman acquisition, so, you know, adding, you know, 800,000 tons of production. You know, can you talk about how that plant fits into your network and why that deal made sense?
Maybe I'll start with the value side and let Bert talk about how it fits into our network. But from a value standpoint, we think we got a tremendous deal there. As you see with the recent transactions that were announced and the multiples and on a cost per nitrogen ton are significant. So we feel like getting a first quartile cost curve asset for the price we got is going to be extremely extremely well-received from economics going forward. But additionally, with that, as I mentioned, we have the carbon capture and sequestration opportunity there. Being in Louisiana, a lot of Class VI wells are looking to be permitted. You have more CO2 pipeline infrastructure that's there. So we think we'll be able to benefit from that as well.
So from a value creation, you know, outside of how well it fits into our organization, that Bert will talk about here in a moment, it was just, something that we felt, having a North American asset that we could acquire was something that was very important.
100% agree with all that, and how we look at it, our reputation in the market is as the best operator, the safest operator, and we take that seriously. We have a do-it-right culture, and it permeates pretty everything we do. And what I'm excited about is our team getting in there. I'm sure those folks at Waggaman are good folks, but as Chris has brought up the point, they had five engineers. We have 150 engineers. We have a spare part program. It's a Kellogg plant. We have Kellogg plants. And so the integration on technology, on added knowledge sharing, and integration into our system and the safety culture that we bring with that, that's a great first step.
What we—how we run our plants is we target 110% of capacity of nameplate. So if you're at 800, 880 thousand tons, we would like to get that to even higher, and we believe that we've already demonstrated that we can do that. Then we know the customers. We know each of these customers well. We deal with them, so we're tucking that into our customer base and our consumption base. Then it's that additional incremental ton that's produced. Because Waggaman is connected to the pipeline, and it's connected to Donaldsonville, we can load vessels, we can load barges, we can put it up into our terminals. So much flexibility, and it's just another tool in our toolbox. So it's a fantastic acquisition.
... Got it. And you guys, you know, you mentioned that the precedent, you know, the recent transaction precedent, and, you know, last earnings call, you were talking about, you know, your equity value being substantially undervalued relative to, you know, dollars per nitrogen ton. So can you talk about how that, you know, informs your growth strategy and, you know, free cash flow allocation going forward?
Well, I think, I think there's two points: One, as Tony Will, our CEO, mentioned on the call, you know, every asset that we've built over time that looks like it's been expensive, has had a very high return profile for us, because first quartile assets continue to appreciate in value, and the economic value goes along with that. So if you look back at 2010, when we purchased Terra at roughly $2,000 per ton of nitrogen, compared to Koch's acquisition of the OCI assets just recently at 5,000 tons per asset. So anything that's in the first quartile, that's exchanging hands from a willing buyer to a willing seller is really demonstrating that we're undervalued. And so, you know, that's, that's our thesis that we believe we're undervalued. So what are we doing about it?
Well, we have an open authorization of $3 billion for share repurchases that expires at the end of next year, where we have about $2.6 billion left on that. Our expectation is that we'll close that out. We think where our equity is valued now grossly underestimates what our embedded assets are able to achieve from an economic value going forward, both by the transactions, but also what new builds cost as well, has been represented by our FEED study.
But at the same time, you know, had we just always bought back shares over the years, whether it had been the Terra acquisition or expansions at Donaldsonville and Port Neal, or the acquisition of our remaining assets at Medicine Hat or Terra Nitrogen, we would have never seen the growth that we have today of over 30% bigger footprint that's allowing us to generate cash. So it's a measured level. The benefit we have is, you know, our starting point is $2 billion of cash on our balance sheet. Last year, we did $1.8 billion in free cash flow. We see, you know, a tight to balanced market going forward, where we believe we're gonna be able to achieve that. And the one thing this organization does extremely well is our free cash flow conversion.
Everybody reports their EBITDA number, everybody puts a multiple against it and says that's what the value should be. If you go down a layer of that, you can see our free cash flow conversion is significantly higher than not only our peers, but a lot of companies in the chemical space. That allows us to not only buy back shares, but also to do expansion projects along the way.
Let me give some granularity to what he just said. We bought Terra in 2010 for a little under $5 billion. With that, we got Yazoo City, Verdigris, Woodward, Port Neal, Courtright, Trinidad, and the UK. Koch bought one asset for $3.5 billion, plus probably some debt, or $3.6 billion. And so when we look at our company, and then you've, again, layer in our operating capability and our safety culture and the value creation and the free cash flow that we create from that operation, we're substantially undervalued.
Very well said. You know, maybe just going back to low carbon ammonia and expansions, you know, how much capital is needed to fund, you know, conventional versus blue versus green ammonia projects? Are you comfortable taking on more leverage to, you know, accelerate the low carbon ammonia?
Yeah. So I think, I think just for starters, we've done the green plant, we've largely done the blue plant at Donaldsonville, and our CapEx really hasn't moved from the prior three years. And so the reason why I say that is these projects, because of the infrastructure I talked about, like, we don't have to build new tanks, we don't have to buy new barges. A lot of our logistics systems are all set up 'cause a conventional ton is the same as a low carbon ton. Now, that being said, you know, we generally allocate anywhere from $50 million-$100 million to growth projects that sits within that range of $100-$500 million or $550 million of CapEx we do each year.
If we were to move forward with a new plant, I think the one area people are getting a little caught up in is we came out with a FEED study that says an ammonia plant would be a replica of Ammonia Six, would be $2.5 billion, about another $500 million for scalable infrastructure. Well, our portion of that is roughly about half, so that puts us at a $1 billion and $5 million. When you build these plants, while they'll be operational in 4 years, you really have a tail on the spend. So you have sort of 5 years of which that $1 billion and $5 million would go over, and it's almost, you know, you're similar to a standard distribution, thinner, you know, tails on the front and the back and, you know, more spending in between.
So you really wouldn't see spending until heavy spending till probably 2026. And with the free cash flow we're generating, I think we feel very comfortable that we could, if we chose to, do that with cash on our balance sheet, along with continuing to return capital to shareholders, as we've done not only with share repurchase, but by increasing our dividend over 67% over the last, you know, roughly 24 months. So pretty significant move in that, and that's really, you know, underscores the confidence we have in the industry. Taking on debt, if we were to do an inorganic acquisition that's bringing in free cash flow right away, we'd probably consider levering it up if we needed to. So we're not necessarily against.
... you know, utilizing the balance sheet correctly. At this time, we just don't think we need to.
Got it. And maybe we're bumping up against time here, so, you know, what are the top two or three innovations and structural changes affecting your company over the next five years? And are there any emerging trends that are perhaps being overlooked in the current discourse?
Maybe I'll start, and you can go. I think it's the unknown, you know, whether it's geopolitical or different regulatory environments that may come, that may be protectionist globally, that could influence things. So those are sort of the unknowns that but that you continue to look at scenario planning around. And then from a innovation standpoint, I would just say it's the continued path on decarbonization. You know, does that get cheaper? Does it get more effective? Are there different government incentives that allow you to do more there?
If history is a predictor of the future, you better be a student of history. And in this industry, we've seen, from going back 25 years, a complete collapse in North American production. Why? Gas was high, the world was changing. And then you go in, and a lot of plants were taken out, and then the ethanol boom took place, and acreage expanded, and the price and the structure just continued to improve. And then we had the collapse of 2008, but we had the shale gas revolution parallel to that, which just accelerated and improved all the profiles of a North American chemical, whether it's fertilizer or ammonia or chloralkali or whatever. And then you go through that in terms of the improving dietary changes in the world and the demand for oil seeds and feed grains.
Taking a China that produced a lot of urea and a China that rationalized all that urea, so expansion, contraction, India growth, Brazil growth, if you chart that, it is one of the yield growth in the world, consumption growth in the world, demand growth in the world, all that is impacted by our product. And so when you're if you're an investor or if you're following this industry, you're gonna wanna be in a low-cost environment, which is North America, in a capacity-creative company, such as CF Industries, that has optionality of exports and movements and storage that's leverageable, which we do, and prepare for what you just mentioned, the geopolitical oscillations that occur. And when they occur, you have to be able to execute against them, which we do. So I'm excited.
I think there are so many things that are taking place in the world today, and the need for a company like ours to, one, decarbonize and improve the profiles of our products. It's exciting.
All right. Bert, Chris, thank you so much.
Thank you, Patrick.
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