All right, next up is a fireside chat with CF Industries, who's, of course, a leading North American nitrogen producer. We have Chris Bohn, the CFO, and we have Bert Frost, who's the Executive Vice President of Sales, Market Development, and Supply Chain. Thanks, gentlemen, for another BMO Farm to Market Conference. So remember, as always, you can submit questions on the app, and maybe halfway through the fireside, I'll poll for any questions in the room. Okay, so maybe we can just start off very short-term here. So, you know, how did the spring market really shape up versus recent springs? What's the outlook for summer and fall?
One thing, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, is when you talk about your commentary on the near-term view in your Q1 release the other week, it was relatively cautious. Usually, you guys seem more constructive around this time of year.
Yeah, I think, I think we're appropriately realistic in our outlook, and in terms of what's happening during the. We look at it from a six-month period, spring through June, and then go into the reset and the new fertilizer year. So when you look at this spring, it's been a tale of two springs. So in February, March, early March, the weather changed. A lot of demand was brought forward. It looked like planting could start early or applications definitely were starting early, and then we had a whole spell of wet and cool weather, which today we are probably 5%-7% behind the historical averages of planting. And that has then allowed further product to be positioned in the market and bring a little bit of negativity, and that's reflected in pricing.
And as we have gone further into spring with some of the things that happened globally, more tons were brought into North America, especially urea, and again, that weighed negatively on pricing. So where we are for spring, acres are solid, planting is accelerating, we think demand will be on average, and then it's the reset. So post that period, I think we do have some length in the market globally. You're seeing that also in different pockets of the world, and I think that's gonna drive some of the high-cost producers to take extended maintenance, which is kind of a normal process. And also, these lower prices should accelerate some demand, so then I think we'll floor out in Q3 and probably rise up in Q4.
Okay, so obviously, the USDA came out in late March and said 90 million US planted corn acres. Everybody I've talked to thinks that's wrong, whether it's commercial bankers, fertilizer companies, I think you guys are at 91 million acres, nonetheless. So did the USDA get the forecast right?
Yeah, that's a, We always debate the, that number and their, what they come out with. When I look at it from an economic position, and today, with corn approaching $5 for December, that's a very attractive position relative to where it was just a few months ago. And so the opportunity to especially opportunity for yield, which is associated with corn, and then therefore earnings to the farmer, I would be on the side of the upside from 90 million.
One thing I've heard this year is, maybe talk about what would the source of error be. Like, I've heard discussions about, well, the source of error this year was, yes, the USDA is usually good at this, but this year was different, because the source of error was different. Can you maybe elaborate on what you're hearing about that?
Well, the differences in weather, and when we talk about it on a global basis with Argentina, Brazil, some of the other major corn producers, and as well as demand in China, you know, I can't go to specific errors, but I'm, I'm just on the positive side of what's happening in Argentina with negative yields, what's happening in Brazil with floods, and I know, I think, again, to the positive side of what's the opportunity, that's where I would go.
Okay. And remember, you can submit questions on the app, please. Okay, nitrogen market's been very interesting the last little while. We've had some surprises, right? High Indian urea inventories, which led to the last Indian tender a few weeks ago, taking way less tons than people thought. Everyone thought China would relax, well, many people thought China might relax urea exports, restrictions starting now in May. Hasn't really happened. Maybe talk about those two wild cards in the market.
Well, we are a global market, and so we tend to, in these conversations and others, especially with our customers, focus on just the North American market, but the drivers of the pricing are structural and global. And India was the catalyst that kinda kicked over the market. They tendered for, expected 1 million tons. They, I think they did LOIs, letters of intent for 750,000 tons, and then in the middle of that, cut that to 350,000 tons. That was a surprise. In my career, that hasn't happened, where they didn't take the tons that they had issued the letters of intent.
Those tons were positioned for, India had to go out into the open market and had to move from the FOB locations and at lower prices. And then, the fear of China coming out with exports as their spring is over also was an overhang to the market. The China situation right now, China's the highest priced market in the world. The global market price is $270-$280 a metric ton FOB, Arab Gulf, North Africa, and China interior, internal market is $310-$320.
The Chinese government does not want to be the highest priced urea market, so if they let exports out, that just further supports higher prices. So I expect you'll see a lower level of Chinese exports throughout the year. But back to the India question, it's amazing. Over the years, we've talked about that India's it's the 'Made in India' move that Prime Minister Modi has been pushing. It's been successful, and their inventory levels are at a level unexpected, and so you're gonna see less imports from India, less of a participation, and that moves now to Brazil, being the world's largest importer of urea. So the dynamics that are gonna drive this market are the demand points of South America, Brazil, Argentina, North America, U.S. and Canada, Europe, which is a challenged producer, and then probably India after that.
So what structural shifts have to change in the market? So we're changing, the Indian tenders become, I don't know, less frequent or less important. You, on the one hand, you think, well, that's going to be bad for prices, but then energy, like marginal cost of energy, like energy spreads are higher, energy premiums are higher, so there's got to be higher floors than there were 5 years ago. So it's a lot of weird dynamics, right?
Welcome to my world.
Yeah.
That's exactly right, and I think a lot of it is driven off energy. When you look at where the world is and the need for LNG and the growth in LNG production from North America, Qatar, Australia, but then the demand for that molecule, whether that be China, India, Europe, and especially with Russia constrained on their gas and the pipeline not available to ship-
Mm-hmm.
You're going to drive the marginal producer who is importing gas at $9-$10 today. That makes for an expensive produced ton, and that's what drives the marginal economics for Europe.
I think, adding to that is just really the volatility in the market. So any LNG plant that goes down, whether it be here in the U.S. or Malaysia, it's having an effect on those energy. So if you're a producer, and you have two main points where you're selling throughout the year, and you're carrying working capital or building inventory, you have to be very certain that you're going to be able to, you know, produce your, produce your product at a price that you can sell it for later. These particular assets that Bert's talking about isn't something that you're in a campaigning method to do.
So I think, you know, one of the things we saw in Q1 is a lot of our peers in Europe, who have more European production, you know, had some pretty tough performance and very low cash flow and margins related to that volatility that we're talking about from energy prices.
You would say Europe is the high-cost producer, correct?
Correct, yeah.
So if we're playing out what you're talking about with India and the market changing a bit, and if Europe is the marginal producer, and if these gas prices in Europe stay where they are, I don't know, $8-$10, whatever they are, then do we get a less volatile market? What I mean is, we end up with prices that stick to... I'll pick a number. I'll pick a number. $300 a ton because that's kind of what European gas costs are, and then you have less volatility off that floor because there's less demand because of India, or how do you think about it?
I think in a broader context of volatility, and if you look at over the last 5, 10, 20 years, the things that have driven the volatile nature of our business, and we've had episodic peaks, whether that be 2007, 2008, 2012, 2013, and then valleys, 2015, 2016, 2020, and then peaks again, 2021, 2022. Some of those were geopolitical issues, some of those were energy issues, some of those were weather issues. We're going to experience probably each of those other issues at different times. So the challenge in our business is to be in front of those changes, to be mindful of them, to be a global participant, and to follow these moves and position the company and our products to be able to profit from them. The benefit is we're a low-cost producer.
We're the, I would say, the lowest cost producer, especially in our demand points. In the middle of Iowa, we have a plant, and we have plants all surrounding different demand points in North America. That allows us to put product much cheaper than anybody else in the world.
Getting back to the North America market, any shifts you saw this year and are seeing this year in product mix or different grower needs?
Definitely on ammonia. Everything starts with ammonia, and then you produce the upgraded products of UAN, urea, and ammonium nitrate. We had a very big fall ammonia season, but a very small spring ammonia season, and so I think with less ammonia, it's going to move to upgraded products, which will benefit UAN, still to happen because it's a post-emergent application product. So I think that's going to be the dynamic of product this year.
Also, that's something that's been happening is obviously, we all know that the... Most people should know that the large ammonia pipeline that went from Russia to Odessa, so in Ukraine, the Black Sea, has been closed since that war. You've got, what, EuroChem Togliatti, whatever, looking to build. They're in the middle of putting together a whole new Black Sea terminal on the Russian side that should start up, I don't know, later this year, maybe. How might that change the market if you've got more Russian ammonia on the market now?
So Russia was a very big participant in the ammonia, the merchant ammonia market, 3-4 million tons per year. That has dropped to less than 1 million tons today. So the port is in Taman, and it's, but it's rail-driven, not pipe-driven, and so one, you have to acquire the rail cars, moving the rail cars, positioning the rail cars, and it's in the Black Sea. So is that a threat to a drone or something? So still to be understood of how that's going to work. Our expectation's that by the end of the year, on an annualized basis, 1 million tons could come out from that location.
So higher, higher logistics cost to get it because it's not pipe, and then, right, you're still in the Black Sea. I think I had a conversation with Martin, IR at CF, but it's about doing a lot of work the last month and questions from investors about how, hey, you know, there's, like, Yara, one of your competitors, are talking about, oh, there's more Russian nitrogen in Europe and what's going on here despite sanctions. But if you kind of do the math, it's like, well, actually, there's about the same amount of nitrogen molecules going to Europe. It's just shifted more to downstream than ammonia. But in this case, it seems like maybe some more ammonia might come back on.
It could, and it'll be-
Not come back. More ammonia may get out because you're being able to bring back on the plants.
In Europe, you're speaking?
Yeah, like you've seen, there's been some big discussion that there's more Russian nitrogen in Europe, but actually there's been less ammonia come out of Russia. It's been more upgraded, and urea is getting out, but now we're adding more ammonia back.
It's urea, UAN, and ammonium nitrate that's getting into Europe.
Right.
I think that was Yara's commentary of the negative that that represents in, in the form of gas, in the form of fertilizer. So we're—they're sanctioning gas from Russia, but they're not sanctioning the, the produced product. I think that was the complaint and the focus of the Yara message.
Okay, so I have a question from the app. Thank you for that. "How concerned about corn planting progress are you, especially given the continued rains? And then what the..." Sorry, the corn soy- I guess it's a comment now. "The corn soy ratio currently is not pushing farmers to prioritize corn plantings.
The later you go, the more you get soybean opportunities. But those farmers that are, and we're this late in the cycle, you probably already have your seed at your farm gate, your planters ready to go, and the size of these machines, you can plant and move very quickly. And so if you look at the weather profile in the Midwest, we're still fine, we're still early, we're still within the insurance guidelines. So crop insurance is very important to a farmer. So I would say we're still good.
Okay. Maybe talk a bit about back to energy costs. So we've talked about Europe being the marginal ton. What's your outlook on kind of energy cost differentials and the cost floors for the various products you sell?
Yeah, I think from our perspective, it's a little less about the cost floor and what's the differential, the energy differential. And today, you're seeing that differential between North American natural gas at about $2 and European at $8-$9. So we have a $7 spread, and that's really where we focus on, is what is that spread and is that continuing? And I think our thought is that that's gonna continue, at least here over the next 2-3 years, that we'll continue to see that gap. Even with the onslaught of more LNG coming on, I think there's a demand side that everyone forgets. When we talk about LNG, we just talk about the supply and going in the US from 13-14 BCF a day, that's being exported up to 25.
But there's also a lot of demand pulls, whether it be in Asia or here in the U.S. alone, where I think you're gonna continue to see, you know, bidding between Asia and Europe. So we talk about, you know, regionality of gas, but we don't talk about the regionality of the demand side of that. And I think you're gonna continue to see Asia and Europe bid that LNG against each other, and therefore, you know, probably see prices that provide this $7 differential that we see today.
Obviously, like gas during the winter can do so many things, too low, too high. You've been very, you've done a winter gas hedging strategy for a number of years. Talk about the thoughts around that, and, and if you see that changing going forward.
It has changed. So we traditionally used to hedge November through March. In the last couple of years, we've hedged December, January, February. And sometimes that has been very beneficial during Winter Storm Uri, which resulted in a substantial windfall to the company because of the hedges, and at times that's been a higher cost. The net-net is that a lot can happen in winter, and a lot can happen with your gas supplier, with pipelines, with valves, and so there is some prudence to some semblance of a structure, depending on the cost of that structure. However, with the resource basin being so big and the production levels above 100 BCF a day, we are very confident that being in the cash market, the majority of the year is the prudent thing to do, and that's where we are today.
And I think we also look at our gas policy as being risk mitigation. Like, Bert said, you know, it's really December through February that we're trying to cover. And then in the basins in which we have maybe more residential pull than transport can handle, where our plants are located, we'll do some basis hedging in that particular area as well.
Okay, we're about halfway through the fire, so if anybody has any questions in the room, we can have a runner ask your question. Oh, just, just wait for the runner. Sorry, the microphone. Sorry, thanks.
It's kind of a basic question, but what's the one thing that keeps you up at night?
I sleep very well. I think on a... What I think about day in, day out, and one of our other colleagues is with us, we were talking about this this morning, that we're a quantitatively based company. We look at, we analyze, we're trying to bring in as much data as we can. And I love that quantitative analysis of whether that's corn, soybeans, cotton, wheat, so the products, or the offtake, whether that's urea, UAN, and ammonium nitrate, where it comes from, or the gas structure that Chris and I both sit on the gas committee, and the things we work through on our cost structure. On logistics, where are we gonna move it? How are we gonna move it? We're working on an AI program today, where how can we optimize? We think we're good optimizers.
How can we optimize our terminal network against our production network, against our gas supply, against the production optionality? When should it be there? How should it be there? And have we done a good job of predicting? 'Cause Chris and I go back and forth, is it intuition? Well, that's kind of a gut thing. Maybe you get it right one day, and I get it wrong the next day. So working hand in hand, and we hire smart people to think through these things and to, how do we position our company, but with those details, to be in the- to do the right things, to make the amount of money, and then invest it.
Yeah, I would say how we sleep so well at night is sort of the steps we've taken over the last, I would say, 5-10 years, where we got our capital structure in place. So if there are some of those shocks that Joel was talking about, we can survive those and make it through. That we can do prudent capital investing during that timeframe, return of capital to shareholders, as we do, and we've been doing quite a bit lately. So I think it's really those, you know, I always call it the unknown unknowns. It's really having a flexible capital structure in order to do that, and that's what we really built over the last 5 years.
Mm-hmm. Any other questions in the room? Just wait for the microphone. Let's wait for the microphone, so we can all hear you, sir. There you go.
Can you talk about the differential in pricing cost of the, your products, either urea or ammonia, between North America with your $2.5 gas, and Asia and Europe with the $8 or $9 gas? And also, China uses coal for some of the products, so what would their cost be? You mentioned that-
So-
China wants to be-
I'll take the first part, you take the second part?
Well, you're going to talk corn?
I'll. Well, so I'll take the first part. In terms of how do we, how do we our cost structure. So yes, at $2.50 gas, it's a multiple of a conversion to ammonia, we're the most efficient multiple, I think, in the industry. Let's take $30. So $2 gas times $30-
30 MMBTU.
MMBTUs at $60, plus your variable cost gets you your cost of ammonia. But the important thing to remember is, we have the back to your question, on the ability to move our product to our own terminal. So we have the production base on top of the demand base. So let's take our plant in Iowa, that's in Sioux City, Iowa, cheap gas, and is trucked or railed a short distance to the end consumer. Compared to the Asian producer or the Middle Eastern producer, who also has, let's say, $3 gas. That's what OCI reported from their Fertiglobe group, I think it was them. $3 FOB Asia, putting it on a vessel, that vessel costs $40. Convert that on a gas basis, that's another $1-$2.
Putting it on a barge and shipping up the Mississippi to a terminal, to then truck, that's another $2-$3. So on a gas basis, when you extract that back to the FOB location, you're probably at $6-$7 gas, where we're, again, at $2 gas. That's the structural advantage to CF in that 80% of our product stays in North America, to be consumed in North America. And then you can take the China part.
Yeah. I'm sorry, what was the second?
With other inputs apart from natural gas or China use coal.
Yeah, their cost is pretty much similar to what European cost is. So they use anthracite and thermal coal. And anthracite coal is around today at about an equivalent of $8 per MMBTU. So the comparison goes very similar to what Bert said, where $8 per MMBTU versus $2. So I have a $6 differential, and times 30 MMBTUs for a ton of ammonia, gives me a $180 implied margin before any freight that Bert talked about going up. So China and the US are very similar, I mean, China and Europe, excuse me, very similar from their cost structure today. However, as Bert and Joel have mentioned, China, at this particular point, isn't really active in the export market, so it's more looking at Europe as the marginal producer.
But I think an interesting component to that is, in a decarbonized world, where we're gonna be bringing on the first decarbonized product available, and China being this incredible emitter, what is the future of that business, and how will the world respond to those tons?
Okay, let's you know get into cap allocations and strategy, and a good segue into some of the low carbon stuff that projects that you're looking at. So you're adding CCS or blue ammonia capacity to Donaldsonville by next year. You just started rolling out some green ammonia tons recently. First, I want to ask about is, well, actually, let's talk about that. So on the green ammonia side, you're trying to seed some tons, sort of see what it's like in the market. Very small tons, I think 20,000 tons in a sale, 19 million tons of product. So what's sort of been the feedback on the little amount of dribble, the dribbling of tons you've done thus far?
I would say little, but important. And we made the step to do that investment, to, to learn, and Chris can talk more about that. But the excitement is, we have it. And the excitement is, the world is changing, and we're a part of that change. And you'd be surprised on working with the different end consumers, and this is a part of a value chain question. So when you look at the value chain of corn, the value chain of wheat, and where it goes, and how, and the part we play in fertilizer, and the decarbonized product or zero-carbon product, can play in the role of a low carbon and a, we think, a higher value product, that's more to come.
And that's, I think, when you're conversing with the CPGs of the world, that and their scope emissions as well as our scope emissions, you're gonna see this product received into the market.
I mean, have you had discussions, it's so early, but what a green ammonia premium might look like versus, you know, current ammonia price, I don't know, in the $400s, let's say? What a green ammonia premium might be like?
We have had those discussions, and they're going well.
I think it's gonna be based also on, to your point, we have 20,000 tons on 10 million gross ammonia tons we produce a year. So if we had 10 million tons of green ammonia, you know, that premium would probably look different than when you're trying to sell 20,000 tons right now. But, you know, it's something as a leader in nitrogen producing, that we thought we want to be on the front edge of this in understanding, you know, not only the manufacturing, but the cost related with green. And I'd say, right now, today, I mean, green ammonia is not gonna be economical on a large scale. It's gonna be, you know, decarbonized ammonia through CCS is where that's gonna be the path for the next probably decade or so.
Okay, here's a weird question: Why does nobody want to say what green ammonia pricing discussion would look like? And I'm being funny, but I see Air Products, and Linde, and Yara, and all these announcements around the world, and John McNulty, who covers like Air Products and other chemical stocks at Bloomberg, is always like, when I send him stuff, like: "Well, what are they saying for price?" I'm like: "They don't say." Why is it such a big secret? People don't want to even get into this, like, you're looking at me like, "I'm not going to tell you what the price is.
No.
Why is it such a big secret?
I don't think it's a secret.
I'm just curious.
I will tell you, the reason is, we don't have that product physically in our possession.
Yeah
... to go to customer A, B, or C and say, "Here's the product.
Yeah.
So part of a company's responsibility is, as we produce things, and our team is to build the market for that, that's what we're doing, and I would say, seeding demand. The exact price, do you have-
Well, no, I was just going to say two parts to that question. One, Bert was just touching on. It's to foster the development, whether it be through sustainable aviation fuel, where there's a carbon intensity model that runs through GREET, that maybe green, this green ammonia would help to foster that. So that's one way we're looking at it. But when you look at the economics of green, you know, we've put this in our investor presentations before, you're probably looking at, with capital recovery, close to $1,000 per ton, right? Now, with the 45V, you get about $500 of that back. So your, your operational cost to operate it is about $500 per ton. So from a, from a pricing standpoint, will you get the $500 a ton? Yeah, you probably will.
How much over that, or whether we choose to use that 20,000 tons to seed and foster some other demand development is, you know, really the internal discussion.
But that return is only for a U.S. producer.
Yeah. Only for the U.S.
That's not for the world.
Yeah.
And you're going to start to have, a bunch of blue product maybe a year from now or 5 quarters from now. That math speaks for itself in that, hey, 45Q credit, $85 a ton per ton of CO2, of credit for 10% of CO2. I think your cost is like $40 times something like that. So that speaks for itself. So do we even care what the blue premium is at this point?
I think we do, because, we don't invest just to be, you know, throwing it in the wind.
It's a good investment. No, but you're getting the money from the 45Q.
Yeah, but we're getting the money from the 45Q.
We're not giving it away.
We feel like we're doing the right thing as a company.
Yeah.
This is a part of our mission.
Yeah.
All being said, we're in the business to make money.
Right.
I think we're bringing a valued product to the market, and that product is being, again, amongst many customers, I would say we would be oversubscribed today with what we're bringing on, and there will be a premium to it. What that premium is, we'll make, we're coming out with it in 2025.
I think there's a couple layers to that as well, because you not only have the 45Q premium or incentive that we're receiving for it, but as you look at Europe putting in the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, to have low carbon ammonia and be the first to do that before everyone else is doing it, is going to provide us a margin advantage that's, quite frankly, going to be very similar to what the 45Q incentive is. So that'll be something Bert will have to, you know, trade off. Are we exporting to Europe, or are we taking up into the Midwest and see where the pricing premium would be there?
Let's talk about Waggaman, which, so, you know, you've had the plant now for six months, from Incitec or from Dyno Nobel, whatever. You're hoping that you can put in some more rigorous processes there to be able to wring out more production from that, capacity is a lot higher there. Can you talk about how that's going?
Yeah, just maybe as a reminder for everybody, we closed on the deal in December of last year, so we've had it about five or six months right now. It was for $1.675 billion, and the nameplate production was 880,000 short tons a year. Today, the plant is operating over 900,000 tons a year. We've had some changes that we've done there with our best practice teams. During the cold weather stint, Waggaman was one of our sites that was down that lowered our utilization. We took that opportunity to pull forward some of the capital expenditures we were going to do later in the year. So we brought in a lot of our engineering teams and made those adjustments now, and the plant's been operating very, very well.
I think as we look at that transaction, and then transactions post and what it costs to build a new site, it's something that we're going to look back on, as we do already today, very favorably about the price we paid for that.
I think you also want to add maybe CCS to Waggaman. Has that been approved yet? I don't think so.
Yeah, we haven't approved it. We have a little bit of a hierarchy. One, on Waggaman, the focus is just getting the utilization rates to what we expect at CF, which is 95% or above, so we can get the ammonia production out of that. And then we'll look to CCS. From CCS, you mentioned the Donaldsonville project, which will be going live next year. And then after that, the two sites we're looking at, one is our Yazoo City, Mississippi site, where we have a little over 500,000 tons of CO2 we could sequester there.
And then a little different than the 45Q incentive is our Medicine Hat plant, where there's a carbon tax that becomes relatively punitive that will have a pretty high payback on that by putting CCS in up there, and we're in discussions in both those areas.
I know that the carbon tax in Canada has a huge political debate right now between the different parties. And also, I think what was very topical on your earnings call a couple weeks ago is understanding, if, you know, you've got on the table maybe the ability to build a new greenfield blue ammonia plant. You've got Mitsui, you've got JERA, as different parties and partners. You're doing some FEED studies, and you're also, I think, kind of waiting a bit to see what the different standards will be, some costs. Still get some clarification on cost to make sure you, if you do build it with partners, it'd be the right plant with the right product. Maybe talk about the thinking around that?
Yeah, like all our investment decisions, especially ones of this size that are $2.5 billion-$3 billion, we're gonna be very disciplined and thoughtful as we go through that. I think historically, we've looked at it both from economic and a strategic rationale and said: Does it fit? And so we've taken our time going through this, but largely, part of that time delay from when we thought we'd be announcing an FID on this earlier this year, is due to the understanding and getting the inputs that have yet to be defined. That being, one, the carbon intensity. So looking at it globally, what are the carbon intensity requirements? I think Asia's getting closer to recommending and putting out what that is, and that's really gonna inform the decision of what technology we use.
Do we use our standard steam methane reforming or an autothermal reformer that can capture more of the process CO2? And all those, we have FEED studies going on that'll be done later in fourth quarter of this year. So I wouldn't expect any FID until we get really that criteria on: What is the carbon intensity? What are the capital costs based off of this carbon intensity? And then lastly, what is the contract for difference, so we can see what the demand pull will be off those plants.
So I got a question on the app and one I was gonna ask as well. I did a seminar on marine fuel last year, where I started off talking about methanol, but in talking to some of the experts that are building out ships and thinking about building out ship engines over the next 20 years, it's interesting is ammonia is really seen as maybe a strong marine fuel alternative down the road. Maybe talk about the outlook for that. It seems like it's you know next decade, but and you've got to figure out some issues with ship tech engine technology. But think about ammonia as a marine fuel. What does that look like?
Yeah. So I'll start, and Bert can add, but I think we've always been of the view that you mentioned, that this is a 2030 and beyond. You'll see—you're seeing the engine technology now with dual fuel, that would have ammonia as a fuel being able to be used there, but there's also the bunkering that has to be considered. And then no one is—while there's some ammonia vessels being built today, ammonia-fueled vessels, you have 60,000 vessels out there today, and the attrition rate is 2%-3%. So by the time you get the turn where you're having sizable volume of ammonia that's being consumed, you're probably a decade plus from now. Now, as I said, there's green shoots with that, and the fact that engine technology exists.
We're doing a lot working from the safety perspective with different Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller as they're looking into utilizing ammonia as a fuel. So we continue to work with these groups to foster that demand build, but I would say it's next decade before you get anything that's, you know, concrete.
And we've seen, like on the methanol side, we're seeing ships actually get built, and maybe methanol is easier as a fuel, but also has a carbon atom in it, whereas ammonia doesn't have a carbon atom, so it seemed like a longer-term solution, whereas methanol may be a transitional fuel, or how do you think about that?
I mean, I struggle with methanol as an interim, being that its carbon footprint isn't much different than bunker. I mean, it's lower than bunker, but not significantly lower. And I think when we've talked to a lot of people, they're saying: "Why would I build methanol and just leapfrog to ammonia a decade from now?" Or whatever. But you are seeing some methanol vessels. Again, you have 60,000 vessels, so if you're seeing 500 methanol vessels being built, you know, it's not, you know, not all that significant. I mean, methanol does have the advantage where you can use a lot of the same bunkering infrastructure assets versus what will happen with ammonia. So I could see that.
So stick with methanol, but not exactly, 'cause you obviously don't do that. So we've seen, the last couple weeks, a lot of headlines that in Iran, they seem to want to divert a lot of their methanol production now to petrol, which is interesting 'cause methanol uses a lot of gas in Iran. Would that have any impact on ammonia or nitrogen production in Iran, if we see something like that?
If you see them converting ammonia to methanol?
Converting methanol to for petrol, could there be any kind of, I don't know what the right expression is, back, like, something that somehow affects nitrogen production in Iran, too? Like...
I don't know. I mean-
Gas diversion. I don't know.
Well, if there were a free country, everybody would be running to Iran to invest because of their gas and oil resources.
Yeah.
But today, that's not happening, and it's kind of a black box.
Yeah.
And it's then the sanctions are working in some places, but not really.
Yeah.
The tons are making their way out.
Yeah. Okay, maybe just now thinking about capital allocation, putting this all together, you're generating a lot of free cash flow, earnings are great, you've got a bunch of different projects you want to do on the clean ammonia, and you may approve some, you may not approve some. How do you think about what your right - and you've got, I think, a $3 billion authorization, you just a new one you just started to eat into recently. Maybe talk about how you think about how you manage all of this, growth and buybacks.
Well, I think it's, it really starts with what we did a couple of years ago: cutting our debt in half, at the same time, increasing our production capacity by 35%. So we not only reduced our fixed charges, but increased the margin building power of the organization. So really, what it allows us to do is to do a little bit of all of the above. So we've, as Joel mentioned, we have a $3 billion authorization, until the end of next year on share repurchases, and we're about a third of the way through there, and our intent is to close out the remaining $2 billion before its expiration at the end of the year.
Additionally, o ver the last two years, we've increased our dividend by 67%, taking it from $0.30 per share per quarter up to $0.50 per share per quarter. So our return on capital continues to be extremely strong, along with that, allowing us to build cash. So we have just under $2 billion of cash at the end of Q1 on our balance sheet, and also to continue to evaluate these growth opportunities. So I think our capital allocation philosophy hasn't changed. We'll look at growth first, and then return to capital second, and we're fortunate enough right now, due to our free cash flow generation, that we can do both. I think what sets us apart, really, in not only in our peer space, but in the chemical industry, is our free cash flow conversion.
So it sits at almost 60% of our EBITDA, compared to others, where, you know, are sub 40% or sub 30%. And that free cash flow generation really allows us a lot of flexibility to do all of the above here.
In our last couple minutes we have here, maybe talk about, you know, what to investors considering investing in CF, what would you say is, "This is why you have to own us?
This is why you have to own us?
Yes, this is-
I think I'm building on what I just said. I think if you take the time and you look at what our free cash flow generation is. So as we talk about first quarter, we had a challenging quarter, but we still generated in free cash flow over $200 million of free cash flow during a challenging quarter. The one thing CF does extremely well is, we know where we play on the value chain. We're not trying to get into retail. We're not trying to stretch into other ancillary, chemical, production. We're great manufacturers, logistics and distribution network that's unmatched throughout the industry, and Bert's team looking at chasing margin the best around the world globally. I think it positions us to continue to generate that free cash flow.
And then, if there is this clean energy demand that begins to materialize, whether that's next year with the blue ammonia plant coming on, or longer term with marine and power generation consumption of ammonia, I think that's just all upside to what we've built today.
Thanks, gentlemen. Appreciate it.
Thank you.