Welcome back, everyone. Delighted to have both the CEO and CFO, Chuck Magro and David Johnson from Corteva, with us this morning. I'm gonna let Chuck and David make some comments, but in general, you know, it's a pleasure to have you here. Always plenty of going on, plenty of things going on with Corteva, but clearly interest and diligence has been heightened with the planned breakup of the seed and the chemical business. I will, I'll hand it over to you if you want to make some opening comments, and then we can kinda get it going.
Sure. Well, first of all, Matt, it's the first time we've done this, right?
Yes. No, I know.
It's great to be here. Thanks for having us. Maybe I'll just make three high-level comments if I could. 2025 was a pretty strong year for Corteva. Both of our business saw top and bottom line growth. We generated a little bit better cash than we thought. We think that 2026 will be another year of growth on top of what we delivered in 2025. I think from our perspective, the strategies that we've employed, if you look at where the growth is coming from, it's coming from organic growth in our what we call our growth platforms.
Think about in seed, our out-licensing strategy, which is gonna be a multi-decade strategy, where we think we can capture a lot of value for our shareholders with our differentiated technology. Biologicals, we'd like that business to be $1 billion in the future. It's about half that now, and it's growing significantly above the market. In our CP new products, hopefully in the next year or two, that portfolio of products could cross $2 billion of revenue. We've got a lot of forward momentum, I think, in some of the high technology parts of the Corteva portfolio, and we think that 2026 will be a significant growth year on top of what we delivered in 2025.
Beyond that, yes, we've got this little thing called the separation that we announced last October. We're gonna separate into two, I think, market-leading, world-class companies. One will be focused in crop protection, and one will be focused in advanced genetics or seed technology. The tagline for today is we're on schedule to separate in the second half of 2026.
We expect that to be sometime in the fourth quarter. We communicated that we think we could do that for total dis-synergies of approximately $100 million per year at a run rate basis. $50 million is actually built into our 2026 guide, and we're on budget for that as well. Nothing of significance to report yet.
In the first half of this year, we will announce headquarters, senior leadership teams, the CEO of New Corteva, and then, of course, we'll start to think through the capital structure and balance sheets and all of that, and David is here, and he can unpack all that for you. That's what I wanted to cover today, Matt, at a high level. 2025 was strong. I think 2026 will continue that journey. We're within the 2027 framework that we outlined a year ago, and the separation is on track.
Yeah. Well, David, I don't know if you want to make any comments.
Yeah, I just-.
No, I don't know. It's, you know...
Just adding to Chuck, I'll maybe go through the numbers real quick.
Sure.
Just to recap 2025, since we did have such a, we think, a really good 2025, we like to talk about it a lot, Matt. We ended up at, you know, $3.85 billion of EBITDA last year, which was up 14% over the prior year. Again, we feel really strong performance there. We'd like to say we control the controllable, so I think that was a big element of our performance last year of productivity and making sure all that hits at the bottom line. When you look at our EBITDA margins, we've expanded those about 215 basis points last year, so we're now up to, like, 22.1%. If you really go back in history, when Corteva started, it was more, Chuck, 14%.
We're on that journey, and we feel like we're starting to hit that area that we feel really good about. Both businesses, as Chuck said, grew EBITDA last year. I know, you know CP grew 6% last year, which we feel is really strong and shows the power of not only that business, but the productivity, the new products, the Biologicals. Our seed business grew 19% last year. I think last year in total, really strong, and Chuck had mentioned the strong cash flow, $2.9 billion, and we converted over 75%-ish or so of EBITDA to free cash flow, and we deployed $1.5 billion of that in buybacks and dividends. Again, really strong 2025 and 2026.
As Chuck mentioned, we're expecting about 7% increase in EBITDA, with both businesses growing again this year. Probably one of the more exciting things for us is we expect our net royalty position to be neutral in 2026. If anyone's been with us for a little while, that's about two years before we thought it would be. If you go back five years or so, that number was like negative $700 million. That journey continues, and we feel good about that. As Chuck mentioned, we did build in $50 million in net dis-synergies into the number, and I know tariffs are probably something that on top of mind right now. We did build in an incremental $80 million of tariff impact in the 2026.
We feel about 70% of that is already either in our inventory or it's outside the US. Of course, we're evaluating the residual amount of that.
All right. you know, having both of you up here, I'm gonna cater most of the conversation to longer term dynamics and strategy, I guess. You know, we are two-thirds into the quarter. Can you update a little bit us of what you're seeing in ag markets so far, especially North America, as it relates to CP and seed uptake? Start there, I guess.
You want me to start? Yeah.
Go ahead.
one of the things we like to talk about, obviously, too, is we like to look at our business in halves. I know everyone's very focused on the quarters. The reason why we like to talk about halves is, for our business, there's an element between March and April during the season in the U.S., where you have seed deliveries that are very highly dependent on the weather, and so on and so forth. We can have a significant movement between March and April, which really, in the bigger picture, doesn't really mean anything. It's a timing issue. Where we look at right now, our bookings continue to be strong. I think that farmers are still prioritizing their seed purchase, which is their most important purchase they make in a year.
When you look at the amount of technology in the seed and the amount of prepays in Q4 is like a precursor to people wanting to get in line to make sure they can secure those seeds that they want, the highest technology. We do invest, like, almost $1 billion just in seed to make sure we're delivering new technology every year. The one other thing I'll mention about that seed purchase is seed is the only crop input that actually gets better every year. I know there's been a lot of discussions around seed inputs and the cost and what have you, but when you look at the seed, we expect it to perform better every year, and really, it's just a value capture on our side.
In CP, the pest issue still becomes an issue, weeds and so on and so forth. I think farmers do want to protect their crop. It's really important, even in these times. At the end of the day, I would say we're well on the way and very much in line with our expectations.
Maybe we start with CP then, given that's where you just left off. What's the path here for the industry? Cause, I mean, you made some, I don't know, critical but honest, you know, comments as it relates to the future competitive landscape, commoditization of certain aspects. How does this change the way... I mean, obviously, I know how it changes the way you're competing, you're splitting the company. When you think about the path forward for Corteva, pro forma, the CP company, like, how does the landscape change fundamentally for you?
Sure. Look, we didn't split the company because we're worried about CP.
Exactly.
Um, I'll just be very clear on that. In fact, we're quite optimistic about, uh, the future of the CP industry. If you look what's happening, Matt, um, demand for crop protection is still growing.
Yep.
We expect it to continue to grow. When we think about it, we are at a, what I would call a cyclical trough right now. It's not demand driven. Demand has been steady and increasing. It is supply driven. Farmers are using more of the product every year because they need to, because of the environmental pressures that they have growing the crop and protecting it. This is a situation where, I think we've seen time and time again in a cyclical industry. I think that the industry is poised for growth, to be candid with you. What we wanted to do with the separation is allow a pure play company, which this will be, to be able to participate in that growth, in whatever capacity it chooses to do so.
Just to give you my view on the market. Differentiation of technology is absolutely critical, and it was gonna get more critical in the future. If you look at what we did over the last few years with our portfolio, is we de-emphasized the commodity part. In fact, we exited about 20% of our actives over the last five years, we sort of doubled down on the new technology. We've got a $9 billion pipeline in this business right now, with a dozen actives and even more Biological products that will come into the market in the next period of time. The setup for our business is really strong. I think from an industry perspective, it will return to growth. What we said for 2026 is most likely the market will grow. That's our expectation.
That's our call for 2026. It will be driven by volume. We're seeing strong demand, essentially around the world, but there's gonna be some continued headwinds, I think, in price.
Yep.
But volume should more than offset it. Everybody's sort of thinking about, okay, what's happening from China's perspective, right? Is China just gonna commoditize this business just like it has in several other commodity chemical businesses? My view is that there has been a time and place for generics coming from China and India, and there always will be, but I don't see a structural change happening. I think that what we're seeing is that demand is growing, and of course, the supply on the generic side is there, but really where things get exciting is on the differentiation. And there's still a premium for differentiated technology because of resistance issues in the crop.
I think if you start to think through this, then, we mentioned on the earnings call, when we did the fourth quarter, even China is starting to put early signs of export controls. They put the export tax back on. There's a little bit of consolidation happening in CP in China. All these things, I think, are good signs for the health of the industry. We're optimistic that we're at a point here where we expect 2026 to grow. We see this as a cyclical trough, not a structural change.
I mean, you touched a little bit on this, right? The competition from China. Obviously, the focus is on active innovation and product differentiation. Does it make it harder as a lone CP business if your core portfolio is increasingly under pressure to find the money to drive the innovation? Does it change the way the returns are built, you know, for this product? Because, you know, you've got a situation where synthetics take years to bring to market. Biologicals are maybe fast-tracking that, and I want to talk a little bit about that clearly, and we have a whole panel today on that topic specifically. How does it, how does it change the return on this 10-year investment cycle in general, and how you think about investing in new actives?
Yeah, it's a great question. I think if you were starting up a global crop protection business today, it'd be a tough investment thesis.
Yeah.
We have increased the amount of investment we've put into both sides of our businesses. Since we launched as a separate company, we've taken up our percentage of revenue that's going to R&D up. For the crop protection business, you know, we're between 6% and 6.5% of revenue. Like, as I mentioned, it's a $9 billion pipeline today. It has actives throughout the pipeline in different stages of market readiness, we're really excited about the future, right? We've got a blockbuster product that hopefully will get approval this year for Brazil, Asian soybean rust. It's a product, an active called Haviza.
Yeah.
That's gonna be huge. It's gonna be beneficial for Brazilian farmers, of course, great for global food security, but really good for the crop protection business. Behind that, there's many other products that we're preparing for market. To your question, I think for us, we've never pulled back in R&D. We've always been a really deep believer that what we can do better than anyone else is bring differentiated CP technology, and we've decided not to play in the middle. You know, we exited our glyphosate business, as an example, three years ago, right? It's been commoditized, and there's lots of players, and we don't have a lot of differentiation there.
We're clearly gonna play in a subset of the global CP market that is big, growing, and exciting, and we can get premiums for, and we've got the R&D engine and capability and skill set globally to do that.
Okay.
There are very few companies on the planet that can do what we can do.
Yeah, I mean.
Matt, I would just reference too, you know, our results last year with our new products growing, you know, high single digits, which helped generate that EBITDA growth as we're investing in R&D, to me, that's the formula. Along with Chuck, making sure that pipeline doesn't have any, we'll say, like, pockets or, you know, kind of issues going in any particular time, and I think the team's done a really good job with that.
One last comment, Matt. You mentioned it's expensive and timely.
Yeah
to bring a new active to the market. My view is that where the industry is starting to take shape, and you can see with some of the announcements and changes across the industry, more collaboration and working together to de-risk this for agriculture and for farming is mission critical for the industry. Separating the two companies, this was top of mind for me to help make this decision. I think more consolidation could happen. I'm not gonna count on it. What will definitely happen is more collaboration when it comes to innovation, because it is expensive and timely to bring these products to market, and if you can share that risk, you can bring a better product at a lower cost to farmers. That's critical.
I think you spoke a bit to my point, I guess, and as well. I was thinking about it as well. If you spend 6% of your sales to R&D, and all of a sudden your sales are down considerably because of pressures of the business, then your R&D becomes a bigger function overall. You, you touched on Haviza, and the company has some very nice fungicide products coming, right? Haviza, Adavelt-
Yes
... another one that we've been looking for. If the CP market is flat, you know, over the next two years, maybe not a safe assumption, but let's just call it flat. What should Corteva's growth rate be as you layer in these new products and as sales pipeline starts to accrue a little bit more?
Sounds like a CFO question.
I knew that was coming, actually. I felt it coming this way. Yeah, no, to me, like, the market did not grow last year, right?
Yeah.
We did. I think, again, I keep going back to the same thing around new product growth and what have you. In our guide for this year, we have 7% growth. you know, when you put that down in between the two businesses growing, we said probably of the total growth in dollars, probably a third of that goes to CP. you're gonna have about the same type of growth that we saw in 2026 versus that we saw in 2025. If you start going into 2027, I'd say that has a slight uplift, but as you know, these products do take time-
Sure
... over time, and then there's always, there could be something falling off at the same time. It is a little bit of a portfolio effect. I would say that mid-single-digit growth in EBITDA, maybe a little bit higher than that as we get a little bit later in the decade.
Okay. All right, I appreciate that. To move to the seed side, I talked to Ken from Nutrien a little bit this morning on it. What do you make of the longer term profile of, like, the U.S. soybean farmer? I mean that in so much as Brazil is obviously stepping into the market in a bigger way, supplanting a lot of, like, the traditional trade route for the U.S. soybean.
We've seen consternation domestically as it relates to planting decisions. You know, our own strategist thinks that farmers probably plant more corn this year than they would normally because of fear that they're not going to have a market to sell their soybeans into. Maybe that's over-exaggerated, maybe that's not. There'll be new markets, we'll find different paths. What do you, what do you see here? Clearly the soybean is being used as a trade tool, and you know, have the leading soy technology in the market.
Let's start with, I think the basics. U.S. agriculture is still one of the market leaders in the world.
Sure, yes.
My assumption for the foreseeable future is US agriculture will continue...
Yeah
to lead the world or be among the leaders. There will be 180 million acres planted of corn and soybeans. The mix will shift based on market opportunity and margins, but I don't see less planted area in the United States. It's still one of the most productive producing countries in the world, and I expect that to continue. I also expect soybeans will end up in China. Is there a political narrative around it? Of course there is, but China needs the product. Can they get it all from Brazil? We can debate that. Even if they could, U.S. soybeans would end up in Mexico or Europe or Egypt or where they go today. The trade patterns would adjust. I wouldn't count out the U.S. soybean producer whatsoever.
Let's just look at it. I also believe that what is needed is that, look what happened over the last 20 years in corn in the United States. That's the case study, right? It used to rely so much on exports. Now, corn is essentially a domestic consumed crop.
Yep.
What's it gonna take to get soybeans to be less reliant on export markets in the U.S.? It's gonna require policy and innovation. Those are the two pillars. Corteva is all in on the innovation, right? We need biofuel, a biofuel mandate, and we need to be able to have U.S. farmers have another revenue source by investing in biofuel technology.
Think about sustainable aviation, biodiesel. These are things that I think can consume a lot of oil in the United States, and we would then be less reliant on export markets. There's really positive momentum going from a policy perspective, and I expect that this will happen over time. It won't just be for soybeans, but it'll be for other crops as well, like canola and mustard.
There's gonna be a really great opportunity, I think, here for US farmers to have diversified revenue sources, be less reliant on external markets, potentially get a premium uplift, and it's a win-win for everyone. I don't think that that comes just because we're worried that the rest of the world won't buy US soybeans. I think we're gonna do both, and I think that the prospects are gonna be quite positive for US farming.
Okay, I appreciate it. To build on it, right, what's next after the Enlist E3? You know, it seems like you're partnering now with BASF, if we think about kind of the traits, tolerance, where does this product ultimately go?
Yeah. Enlist E3 has been, by every definition, a massive success.
Yeah.
You know, the technology today is on 65% of soybean acres in the United States. Now we're taking that same investment thesis, and we're moving it to the world's largest soybean market, which is Brazil. We have a very small market share there, so the significant growth and the playbook that we have used in the United States is gonna be used in Brazil, and we're seeing great momentum there.
The next technology iteration or the next-gen technology for our soybean technology will have, most likely, the relationship that we've built with BASF, their PPO technology built into it. It'll be our HT4 next-gen technology. It's well under development right now. We expect that to be in the market, call it early next decade. So we've got a great long-term investment thesis around building our continuing to build our, and develop our market leadership in terms of soybeans. I think that the other thing that we need to think through, it's not just the trait technology, right?
Exactly.
The reason that Enlist is a winner in the United States is, yes, we have the trait technology, but we also have the best germplasm in the world, and we've been doing this for 100 years, right? Pioneer turns 100 in 2026. We have that kind of history, and we're the only company that has that kind of history. If you look at our new, what we call Z-Series soybeans, we have the world record at almost 220 bushels an acre.
We know that the genetics in our soybeans are superior. It's the combination of the germplasm plus the trait, 'cause growers, what they need, especially right now when market conditions are tough, they need every bushel they can get to pencil out their busiess plans. I think what we've demonstrated with the Z-Series Enlist technology is that this has been really, really valuable. I was on a farm last summer, and one of our larger soybean farmers who farm 15,000 acres, all he planted was our Z-Series technology. I couldn't believe it. Usually, they diversify-
Yeah
... right? He says: "We're going all in because we've never seen performance like that.
Yeah, I'd also venture to say Pioneer sounds like a good pro forma seed company name. I don't know, I'm just... But
You sound like about 10,000 employees.
I, I know how you, I mean, you talked a little bit about this, like, so you almost kind of pre-answered my next question. Your number, you know, one competitor is releasing biconic, right? It's probably the first credible threat you've had as it relates to Enlist in what has just been, to your point, like a blockbuster product. How do you defend as Corteva?
First of all, Enlist is the technology. We do license it. It's readily available. We have about 100 licensees that purchase that technology. Growers and our retail channel partners can get it from multiple places, and there's lots of competition in the industry. Yes, one of our peers are bringing in their next-gen soybeans. And that's gonna give them among other things, the 2,4-D trait resistance, which is what Enlist has today.
Sure.
If you the way I think about it, and it's a simple way to think about it, if they now have what we have in terms of technology trait protection, it's gonna come down to the underlying genetics and 'cause that's what drives yield, and who's gonna win on the genetic gain. When we look at that, like I mentioned, the Z-Series technology, we rolled that out two years ago, and it, before that, the market leader was our A-Series. Farmers are seeing two to three bushels an acre on top of the best already.
I'm sure they're gonna have a great technology and a platform, and I'm not talking anything negative, but, you know, I like our chances as long as we keep investing in that pipeline and able to drive genetic gain through our breeding program. You know, we've been doing this for 100 years, so I like our chances.
Yeah. Kind of the last, maybe, well, maybe not the last topic, hunt seeds, but hybrid wheat, right? Clearly, Team Corteva is very excited about it. The TAM itself is massive. How do we size the opportunity for Corteva revenues in a world where, you know, you have a product with a pretty significant advantage, and the TAM is this large? How does this scale over time? Because I know it will take time. What are, like, the stage gates? What should we look at for broader adoption when we say, this market has agreed to it or et cetera? You know, how do we gauge progress?
Yeah. We, we are very excited about hybrid wheat. We're gonna try to do to wheat what we did to corn 100 years ago and hybridize it. We've got a proprietary production system that we've put a lot of IP around. Because look, hybrid wheat has been sort of the holy grail. People have tried to do it for 25 years, and there are hybrid wheat systems out there, but they're not as stable and they cost a lot of money. When you try to price the seed, farmers can't afford it, even though they get a yield improvement. For us, the trick is we've got a very stable system, and we're gonna be able to provide them a really phenomenal product.
We are seeing 20% yields under stress environments, and that's the worst product we will have because it's the first one coming out of our pipeline, our breeding pipeline. You can imagine where this goes in the future. It's gonna be a huge step forward for farming, farmer profitability and global food security, because wheat is the largest row crop in the planet. There's over half a billion acres around the world. It is a still from a consumption of calories, it's 20% of humanity's calories still. This crop is large, and it's global. We finally, I think, We've cracked the code when it comes to a hybridized production system that we can give value to farmers and price for them.
The opportunity, you know, the way we've sized it up, and we're gonna give more definition at our investor day event in September. The way we think about this is, this is a billion-dollar revenue opportunity, most likely in the next decade or so, 'cause it will need the ramp. We are launching this in the US in 2027, so American farmers will have the first technology available to them in 2027, and then we're gonna rapidly move it around the world. We may sell seed around the world, but we may just license the IP because there's a lot of germplasm pools for wheat that are public, and that other companies own. We may not want to sort of enter the seed business, but actually just get paid a technology royalty premium.
We're making that decision based on each market around the world. We're gonna go to the market with a multi-strategy of seeds, of selling either our branded seed, white label, or generic seeds or a royalty. It'll be market dependent, Matt.
Okay. The last 10 minutes, I'll kind of move to the breakup. On the dis-synergy side, right, there's some skepticism around the size. You hear people kind of say, "Well, maybe it's gonna be larger," right? Particularly given the R&D component to it and how as one company, you sit here, and you say, "I have a farmer who has a problem, I can say is it best addressed at seed or chemical level, and I can make that call early." Is there a world where now two independent companies competing for a solution set to a problem creates more inefficiencies? How do you build confidence that the costs aren't higher as it relates to R&D and innovation?
We've done a lot of work, as you can imagine, with a lot of teams as we've been going through.
One of the reasons there might be that perception is not everyone understands how separate the businesses are already today.
Sure.
I know in a lot of cases during spins, some of the larger cost elements might be like splitting operations and this sort of thing. We have absolute zero overlap between our operations, and that's because the CP business fundamentally is a global kind of functional business. When you think about production and all that, whether it's our production or we're insourcing from other people, and it's a global supply chain. Seed is very regional.
You know, we actually produce seed around the world for local markets and so on and so forth. There's very little cost, no cost actually, on the production side of overlap. We will have the traditional kind of dis-synergies around. Yes, we'll have to have two boards, we'll have two leadership teams, so on and so forth. You will have some of that.
When you get down to really the R&D, R&D is fundamentally pretty separate today. You have the seed R&D is more focused in Iowa. You have the CP R&D, which is all chemical-based, more or less, is more in Indiana. They're pretty separate today. There is some overlap of some knowledge bases around microbials and all these sort of things that we need to make sure that both businesses will have access to over time, which we're working through that. Something that you would probably do anyhow if you were a third party.
Mm-hmm
and be able to share technology. Really, from that standpoint, there's very little. I feel really strongly confident in that $100 million net dis-synergy number, 'cause we did say net dis-synergy, 'cause there are opportunities for us to be a little bit more efficient as we build up two purpose-built structures just for each business. I think at the end of the day, that'll net to that $100 million or perhaps even lower than that.
Okay. I will open it up in case anybody from the audience has a specific question. I don't want this to be, you know. I know everybody gets a little shy, so here we go. We got one. Wait, the mic's coming. Yeah, Rob.
Thank you. I'd be curious to know kind of what your thoughts are around artificial intelligence and how it can improve your discovery and really shrink that time from discovery. You still have to go through the expensive development and regulatory process.
Exactly.
Does the ability of basically custom-designing molecules now, maybe with some forethought into safety and regulatory, how is that gonna change kind of your strategy and your thought process?
Yeah, it's a great question, and it's live and active right now, and we're just scratching the surface. What we're finding is that we're deploying AI tools in the discovery process, both in the chemical, biological, and even in picking selections for new traits in the seed side. What we're finding is that the precision is transformational, to be very candid with you. We can we can pick an active ingredient, for example, out of our huge library of material, almost 1,000 times faster now.
What used to be, you know, the way I look at it as an analogy is, it used to be trying to find a needle in a haystack, literally, with the amount of compounds we have to comb through, and it was very, manually based. Now, with AI, it's like having a massive magnet that can actually just suck the needle out of the haystack, and that's what's happening. We have several of our new products that are in different stages of the pipeline that were selected with our AI tools. It's literally game-changing, and the models are getting better every day. We're really excited about this.
We've been deploying AI tools in R&D, in the discovery part of the process for many years. I think what we're finding right now is they're just getting better and better.
Mm.
The other area that we're deploying AI, the regulatory submission paperwork, it's astronomical. Sometimes it's, like, literally thousands of pages, and the AI tools are helping us collect the data, draft the documents, and we're saving a lot of sort of man-hours, people hours to prepare the regulatory submissions, which can take an awful long time, and we're deploying AI tools in the regulatory submission work now, and that has been a huge time saver. I do think that the regulatory process, from discovery through regulatory approval, it is...
The biology is always gonna be the limiting fact, but I think AI is gonna really compress the timelines for us, especially if you start thinking about, well, I mentioned with our germplasm and the size of the molecular libraries that we have, deploying the AI tools now, I think it's gonna make us much more effective.
I think one other thing I'll add is maybe not in R&D, but on the production of seed. If you can think about how many farms around the world and what have you, it takes to actually produce the seed that we sell every year. A lot of times, you have to think about that three years in advance as to, you know, what you're gonna produce, what type of hybrids, and all this sort of thing.
When you're gonna produce, what type of farmer, you know, what's the weather like, so on and so forth. We're applying AI models on that to make it more efficient for us as we produce seed. When you see some of that cost savings you see in each business, one element of that is us deploying AI in those areas.
I'm happy you asked the question, yeah, 'cause we'll have Ashish up talking on biologics, and that's gonna be a topic. We have a seed panel, obviously. We'll, we'll talk because, I mean, AI has certainly been an adopter. Seed tech has been an early adopter of AI, but it seems like iterative advancements now are just so progressive that, the rate of innovation is gonna be pretty astonishing. I'm happy the question was asked, and we were able to talk about it.
Dope.
I guess, you know, with only two minutes left, I mean, as you look at your role in pro forma SeedCo, like, what are you most looking forward to? You know, freeing the business up.
Look, we've got a phenomenal franchise, and we've talked about Pioneer and 100 years. It's hard to pinpoint just one thing I'm excited about with the seed side of the business. I am gonna miss the chemical side, though.
Yeah, of course.
As a chemical engineer, I have a first love in that. They're gonna have a great future as well. For me, I'd say if there's one thing I'd have to pick, Matt, it would be. Look, this out-licensing strategy is new and exciting. We started five years ago when we were sort of on a net basis in the hole by $700 million-$800 million, right? David communicated just today that this year, you know, we will be neutral. In five years, we've sort of got to neutrality. The future now is to be net positive. In our fourth quarter call, we said we think that could be a billion-dollar opportunity for us in the next decade.
Now that we've got freedom to operate in soybeans, and we've talked about Enlist and moving the Enlist technology to Brazil, which will be a huge part of the licensing strategy, we have corn entering all the various large markets of corn out-licensing. We have our own canola technology, so for markets like Canada, a little bit in the U.S., Europe, and Australia, we'll be licensing our canola technology, then wheat. You start thinking about this. I see wheat as sort of the third leg to our stool, and then you have the licensing business being this really, really high-margin business, complete technology, where we don't actually have to sell the product, and we get a incremental return on that investment that's already been made in our branded technology.
That is the multiplying effect, I think, for the seed business going forward.
Okay. Yeah. You know, we get questions around, does the breakup call into any, you know, question just the strategic merit of the merger in its own? I think Enlist and the out-licensing program has been, in and of itself, almost a defining feature that was unlocked from that.
Yeah, in fact, we would not be able to separate, because we wouldn't have two global leading platforms.
Mm-hmm
... to be able to do this with. I think the merger was at the right call at the right time. I think, you know, our performance speaks for itself as Corteva, but this is about the future, driving value creation and innovation in both businesses, and I'm pretty excited that both will be global market leaders in their own right.
Well, we'll end it there. Chuck and David, thank you for spending the last 40 minutes with me up on stage, and, you know, look forward to following you as the year progresses.
Thanks, Matt.
Thanks, Matt.
Of course. Welcome back, everybody. We'll get started. I'm sure people will continue to file in. With me today, we have Bert Frost, the EVP and Chief Commercial Officer of CF, and Martin Jurasik, VP Treasury and Investor Relations. Bert, you know, you're stalwart here at the conference. I don't know that I have to, like, fully introduce you here. I feel like most people are.
Thank you.
fairly aware of who you are. I didn't. You know, you don't have any presentations or anything like that. Martin, if you want to kind of lead off and maybe provide just a quick overview of 2025, the year as it was, and we can kind of pick it up from there, if that makes sense?
Sure. 2025 was another strong year for CF. We had $2.9 billion of EBITDA, $1.8 billion of free cash flow, ran the assets at 97% utilization, and had really strong safety numbers. All told, a really solid year of execution for the team.
Yeah. Maybe we start, obviously, just nitrogen markets, easy enough. It's pretty important for you. Ammonia, right? On the call, you'd pointed some potential weakness given capacity expected. Obviously, startups are startups. You know, spreadsheet math is very easy to conceptualize a plant starting up, but in reality, often and always does take longer.
As Bank of America, that's been one of our concerns, right? If we look at the globally traded ammonia market. How do you see this playing out in the short and the medium term as it relates to global ammonia? I wanna kind of hone in on the U.S. side, which you obviously have some very real structural advantages, and we can touch on that. First, it seems like most of these plants are gonna go international. How do you see that kind of playing out here?
It is an interesting market, an interesting dynamic. I think what has happened over the years on the analyst side, there's been, "It's coming, it's coming, it's coming," and, "Negative, negative." We've had a positive, positive market.
Yeah
where we've exceeded expectations each year since 2021 in terms of an EBITDA performance or a free cash flow performance. The ammonia market today is structurally strong, and you have globally traded ammonia. You have 200 million tons of ammonia demand per year. Only 15 million -17 million of that is globally traded seaborne traded.
A lot of that's going to Europe to backfill idled capacity or product that's not coming from Russia, as well as just for phosphate production in Morocco or imports into the United States. You have two dynamics taking place. You have idled capacity or on capacity in Europe that's not fully operating. You have gas supply issues in Trinidad that's taken the nutrient plants and I think other plants that are constrained today.
You have a supply-limited market and the expectation that this new capacity in the United States, Gulf Coast, and Woodside will be coming on. We're three years now waiting for some of that capacity to come on, and demand continues to grow. We continue to supply some of that with our new low carbon product, as well as just participating in the market. Today is $600-$700 a ton for ammonia on the globally traded market, and our cost today at $3 gas is about $120-$130. It's very attractive for us today. You talk about why CF is differentiated in the ammonia market.
It's our capability to store, well, let's say, produce at a low cost, move that ton at a low cost through the pipeline and our barge system into our terminaling system that's in the heartland of the United States, of the most, and Canada as well, has the most fertile ground in the world. With high yielding corn, you have a ready demand base for the ammonia, well, much of the ammonia that we produce, as well as our industrial customers. How we see, yes, this capacity will come on eventually, but we have a very strong and stable market today.
Woodside and Gulf Coast Ammonia, two projects starting up basically along the U.S. Gulf. You know, if I had the ability to move it to the Corn Belt, I would, but not everybody does. When we think about your advantage with NuStar and that market, like, if ammonia globally comes under pressure, does that spread to you, like Corn Belt expand because you can't get the product there? Does it stay consistent or does it compress? Because, you know, they'll just... Well, I know maybe ammonia is not easy to put on rail, but like, will the incentive be too strong to move it to the Corn Belt, that the product will find a way?
When you look at how does ammonia move today, you're right, it's the pipeline, but it's fully subscribed, ourselves, Koch and others, because you have to have a destination to receive it. It's 1 point to produce it, you have to have the ability to receive it, we have that. The pipeline's at capacity. Would that ton from Gulf Coast or Woodside make it to Iowa?
Probably not, in the context of just that structure that's in place and how we optimize it. It's also, would the differential between the Midwest and the world market, it's really a nitrogen calculation. You have a farmer producer has options of urea, UAN or ammonia, he or she is gonna choose those options based on economics.
You have to stay. It's a global economy, and it's a globally traded ton of nitrogen, so you have to stay within range, and we do that, on an economic basis. Again, we're a low-cost producer. We have low-cost gas and low-cost capabilities to move our tons.
As I think about this, right? Because fundamentally, you can't just, like, move ammonia into a urea loop, right? You have to have the on-site production of ammonia, so you have the CO to make the urea. Because on your earnings call, I should say, like, there was some comments around potential softening in ammonia, but urea remains fundamentally very strong.
Quite honestly, the supply-demand dynamics for urea are pretty favorable. There's really not much new supply. How do we balance the view of maybe urea itself being fairly tight with a softer ammonia dynamic should it develop? Is there that fungibility that creates softness, or is it just not enough product on a end unit basis to do that?
This is why generally you upgrade to your max potential, because the value creation process of urea, UAN, DEF or other products, ammonium nitrate, are generally consistently above the value for ammonia. However, you know, we produce 10 million tons of ammonia, and then we upgrade about 5 million tons of urea, about 7 million tons of UAN, and the remaining ammonia ton is a lot of that moves again into the Midwest.
We have the capabilities of Midwest export, and we have industrial contracts that are consistent, 360, 24/7 demand pulls. That's how we balance the system. We're always looking at how do we optimize, how do we profit, and how do we leverage those capabilities? Consistently, where you will find is we're upgrading them to the maximum capability and then moving the ammonia.
Sure. DEF, talking abou t kind of upgrading a bit. It's been a growth market for you as it relates to incremental investment. When we talk to our trucking analyst, the conversation amongst most of the truckers is DEF consumption is expected to grow. I got a question from this, from an investor yesterday, and I didn't have an answer for him, so I figured I would just ask you.
We've also seen some commentary from farmers that given new policy around some of the Obama administration guidelines that are lapping, might mean farmers don't have to use DEF. Is that? Like, I don't know, what's your expectation around just DEF sales and as it relates to a growth engine for CF?
DEF is diesel exhaust fluid, and it's really a market that didn't exist 15 years ago. In 2010, when we acquired the Terra assets, DEF was one of the components that we purchased from the Courtright plant where they were producing it was in its infancy. You have a couple of things in parallel happening. One of them is just the generation and of power units, of trucks. As new equipment comes online, initially, the dosing rate was a certain percentage. As we've matured in this market from the equipment suppliers, that dosing rate has increased. The projections for dosing rates in the as the new units coming online and now and in the future for emissions control will be double or triple what they were 15 years ago.
You just have a natural growth rate with that. Then it's as new equipment has come into new applications, like, let's just use Deere or Caterpillar for different applications, that has also driven growth. What the Trump administration came out with recently on DEF for farming equipment is the frustration of a farmer if you're out in your field and your DEF runs out in your equipment, that that can slow down the or the efficiency of the operating rate of that equipment while it's on the farm. They want to give a more of a flex period to resupply that those that farming equipment in the future.
It's not that you don't use it, because it's a very good DEF in the operation of the diesel engine allows for higher burning and more efficient burning, and so it's actually a very good product. And if you drive down the highway and don't see emissions coming out of a truck, you can thank DEF.
Okay. All right.
We're excited. It's a growth market. We have invested, and we will continue to invest.
As I think about maybe before I pivot, like nitrogen demand in 2026. 2025 was a strong year for sales. Obviously, record corn crop in the U.S., but we saw, you know, strong planted acreage in Brazil. We saw better planted acreage in Ukraine. Do you think the market can grow in 2026 versus 2025? I guess perhaps an early winter will be helpful as it relates to stalled applications of ammonia moving into this year. What do you expect for growth for this year?
The beautiful thing about our business is people like to eat.
Yeah.
That drives consumption. As diets improve and as diets have improved globally, what you've seen in China over the last 20 years, what we've seen in India over the last 10 years, and then what you've seen in acreage growth in Brazil, but what you've seen with governmental changes in Argentina, growth. The 98 million acres of corn that was planted in North America was a substantial change.
We didn't expect that. We were projecting 93 million-95 million acres. 98 was, I think, the highest since 2012. We do see positive growth, one, because the stocks-to-use ratios are adequate but not high. You're having good demand for ethanol production and the export of the incremental ton of ethanol.
You have the cattle herd at its lowest level in 75 years, so cattle on feed are gonna grow, or cattle on feed for longer periods of time, and the efficiency of cattle feeding does that, so you require more, more carbohydrates in that feed ration. We do see positive dynamics, globally for, especially where we produce, which is North America, but globally as well.
To maybe look at global trade flows a little bit, CBAM coming into effect, then theoretically, maybe paused, maybe not. What do you make of the flirtations out of Europe around CBAM? I mean, can they really pause CBAM but not also put a pause to their own domestic carbon tax? Like, that would implicitly kind of ruin their domestic industry wholesale.
How do you navigate that? I mean, it's maybe not as important 'cause you're U.S.-based, but like, clearly, as a commercial person who's looking at trying to capture the best value you can for product, how do you navigate a market that's seemingly wishy-washy on, like, a pretty, what has been a pretty vocal policy?
Back to it is a global market. As a global participant in that market, you have to pay attention to these various oscillations that happen, whether it's political or economic or structural. This is an issue, CBAM, implementing without knowing exactly what is gonna be implemented, and the cost has been very confusing for our European friends.
We do supply product, whether both ammonia and UAN to Europe, and we have some very good customer positions that we have not been shipping UAN since the start of 2026 because it's an unsure situation. What is the actual cost? How would that be paid, and who will absorb that? We're quite comfortable to move our tons domestically or other places. I think as this unfolds, will it change? Will it be canceled?
Will it be? According to our European customers and friends, it's yes, it will be implemented. Yes, it's going to be confusing, and we have to get through 2026 to figure out that cost. The good thing about CF is we have low carbon product available today, and we will be producing in a few years, even lower carbon, 95% decarbonized, which we will supply to the world and we think will be advantaged into Europe with that product.
Just pivoting on, onto that point with, you know, outside of Europe, you have seen regulatory clarity in other parts of the world. Japan did move forward with the contract for difference for our partners...
Yeah
... so that, you know, they have, you know, their regulatory certainty for that project. You know, it's gonna evolve over time, but as Bert mentioned, we're in a great position. We're a low-cost producer, we have the product, and we've got all the options to send it anywhere in the world that basically provides the best netback.
I wanna touch a little bit on that next, but I guess I'd heard, you know, similarly, like product moving to Europe now is frozen because of this general uncertainty. What does that ultimately mean as it relates to how European supply and demand plays out for this year? Is this just, "We'll figure it out, and they'll get the product that they need?
I think the risk for this spring is that there could be a short for that incremental ton.
Yeah
was not brought in, for a, for a period of time. As we go to the back half of the year and the question marks around what is brought in, the timing around that, because generally we export in June, July, August, September, October, November tons to Europe. I think we'll see. As inventory built by the European producers in anticipation of an unknown. I think that it would be a difficult position today to be a European operator.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, clearly, you know, Yara is dealing with some existential stuff in that regard. To touch back on Japan, to your point, happy to see that JERA and Mitsui were able to get the contract for difference, because, and I think in that regard, candidly, you're partnered very strong positionally for that.
We've also seen some comments, just given the CapEx inflation, a lot of, you know, given through this, these blue and green ammonia project budgets, Japan might be spread across, or I should say, the, the amount of money they wanted to commit might be spread across fewer tons over time. Do you see this as a risk? Does that impact Blue Point two or three, or...
Because I know this is supposed to be an iterative project over time, and do you expect that the commitment from your partners might change?
I think when we look at the growth of ammonia demand, of any color, of any type, we do see that steady growth in ammonia. It always gonna be a place for low carbon ammonia. It will be the first product that people buy because of the low carbon attributes. I think you are gonna see inflation in the cost to construct new capacity. For someone with a large installed base of world-class and low-cost assets, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's something that, you know, we'll continue to navigate as we look at, you know, potential further development on the Blue Point site.
It'll be based on the demand and the economics, and as those two develop.
I think for us, we're really excited with the partners that we've-.
Yeah
... part, that we're with. Both JERA and Mitsui are solid and have the offtake. This is all going to new demand, and that doesn't exist today. It's when you take the structure of 1.4 million tons, the 60% is going to Japan, that is not entering the globally traded market. We also have a backstop for our 40% in the U.K. We are. The inbound calls and meetings regarding Blue Point future is positive. I agree with Martin, the 95% decarbonized product, you're not gonna see many of these green plants move forward.
Yeah.
Green being zero carbon, it's just too high cost, and it's a great idea until somebody has to pay for it. For us, at 95% decarbonized, we have a lot of opportunity and options in front of us.
The comments around the electrolyzer on the quarter, I think, speak to ultimately some of that. I agree. You know, Blue Point, JERA, and Mitsui are highly advantaged as it relates to the access for the Japanese market and kind of ultimately what is expected to be a pretty good sync for ammonia as we look at cogen and firing there. 2030, kind of more of the framework for when Blue Point commissions, which we, I agree, should be a better market. As we look at this 15 million-17 million tons globally traded ammonia market, what do you think 2030 looks like?
Is there a ramp there that's kind of consistent, or is this gonna be something that is maybe more of a back-end-weighted demand profile as some of these other markets and ammonia ships or whatever, come to market as demand?
I think, Matt, we can all agree it's gonna be awesome. All kidding aside, I do think what we have been surprised with when we laid out some of the initial plans for how we viewed the market and shared them with the analyst side and the investor side, was in 2020, 2021, we initially began our journey on the low carbon future, was projecting what was gonna happen in the market and the tightness at the end of the decade based on build-out, based on demand, based on changes in the dynamics around low carbon. The surprising thing today is how tight the market is today.
Yeah.
I think from the analyst side, from your side, it's been something negative is gonna happen. It's gonna happen, it's gonna happen, and it just doesn't happen. It's just gonna be China this year, and it's gonna be bad. China's not exporting to the capability that they were, and I don't think they're going to be.
But it's this tightness of geopolitical upsets, whether last year was the Iranian-Israeli conflict and, or lack of gas for Egypt, the continued conflict in Russia and Ukraine, lack of gas in certain places like Trinidad, that is driving more structural places that used to have gas or used to operate aren't as much, and we're in this a very high cost of new investment that is limiting.
Of the 120 projects that were announced, a handful are going to get built. They needed to be built just for future growth and demand, and again, of limits of where supply is today. We are in a positive market, we see that tightening coming earlier than we had expected. At the end of the decade, probably tighter than even we had projected several years ago.
As you kind of hit on this a few separate times, just CapEx inflation, right? Your I don't know, neighbor, but across the river, right, at Donaldsonville, we're hearing about that. It's tangible. The CapEx budget gets revised up. Their plant is highly specific, but it's kind of the reality of doing business on the Gulf Coast and building plants in the U.S. How do you manage CapEx inflation and the risks around that? When you look at what should be ultimately, was devised to be a pretty large complex, how do you go about limiting the risks around that?
For us, it started with doing extensive feed studies to get more detailed engineering and more detailed estimates about what the cost would be. Then, second, we went with a modular construction design for the ammonia plant, which is basically a turnkey. The ammonia unit, which is probably half of the, half of the cost, is being constructed by Technip Offshore and shipped over in modules.
Mm-hmm.
That's a fixed price contract. That element of it has been capped, That does a couple of things. It reduces the amount of exposure to cost plus labor in the United States. It also separates the development of the site from the construction of the ammonia plant. Instead of them being in sequence, they're in parallel. We don't have to pay as much overtime and spend the money to accelerate the development of the infrastructure of the site, to then stick build the plant piece by piece on site, because the plant won't actually show up until 2028. It gives us a lot more time to prepare the site to receive the plant.
We'll continue to look at those other components and do fixed price, contracts for tanks and other components that are on the, on the development of the Blue Point site itself.
I think one of the differences is this is what we do.
Yeah.
This will be the third plant we have built in the last 10 years. We built, and we're operating those plants, the ones, the other two, at 110% of capacity. We're good at the design-.
Yep.
We're good at working with our partners. We're good at estimating, like Martin said, planning. This is the core of what CF is about. We are very confident in our ability to bring it in at budget.
Switching to Trinidad. I got a little bit of a flavor for this because I was talking to Ken about this this morning. New government in Venezuela. Maybe that matters, maybe it doesn't. If you were to think about the potential for gas moving from Venezuela to Trinidad, and Ken's comment was like, "It's always in just in three years, you know, we've been waiting for it for a while." As you assess that region, does that change your longer-term views around the profitability of that, of that production base, or is that too early to say? How do you gauge?
We've been active in Trinidad for 15 years.
Yeah.
I was on the board, probably 10 years ago, of PLNL, and it was, "In two years -three years, we're gonna have gas.
Yeah.
We're now 10 years later, we don't have gas. I think all of us on the island that are operating, us, Koch, Yara, Proman, are facing difficulties and questions about what is the future, what can we count on, what level of investment should we have or maintain for those assets?
Our asset at PLNL has been a good asset over the years. We value it, but we obviously need gas and need commitments from the government and from the NGP, or not NGP, NGC. We'll see how that unfolds. I think Ken is, you know, was at the forefront of some of these decisions, and we're gonna have to have those discussions as well.
Yeah, I mean, his comment was that in particular, they are pushing for higher gas prices and, you know, sympathetic to the fact that Trinidad has its own, you know, needs as a country. Given the cost basis and the operation consistency of that region, it's hard to warrant gas price increases, right? That's the stand that he's making. Do you face kind of similar pressures in that market?
We are under discussion with that group of what the future supply and contract obligations are, but we're in the middle of it.
Okay. I appreciate that. Gas cost, right? Martin, I'll put you on this one. It's like $3.20 in MMBTU in the fourth quarter. Very good. You know, lower than Nutrien, even because then they have AECO, right? How were you able to do this? Look at, as we look at 1Q, you know, I think we were surprised a bit to hear about the $5.50 kind of range for the first quarter. There's always volatility in gas markets, that's just the nature of your business. You know, how is hedging playing here? Because it's not something that we typically think of for CF outside of basis, regional basis, but how is the ebb and flow?
How did you get so good in the fourth quarter, and then what happened in 1Q, and is there any bleed out into 2Q in that regard?
I think, you know, when you think about how we hedge gas, we do, like to take care of the basis so that we switch it from smaller hubs down to, down to Henry Hub, which.
easier to manage the risk. Then we do tend to lock in prices for gas that we're gonna consume across the winter, and we do that in various ways over the years. You know, sometimes it's well in advance of winter, and sometimes it's much closer to the actual month of consumption. You know, that process yielded a really nice result in the fourth quarter. We were able to take advantage of the opportunities to hedge effectively, and then see the settlements settle higher than that. What you've seen so far in January and February, you're seeing higher NYMEX settlements.
We had a winter storm that basically hit on top of a NYMEX settlement. Those settlements are gonna be higher, and we will, you know, do well. I'm sure we'll do well against those benchmarks. You know, over time, our objective with hedging is to minimize the negative shocks of these events. You know, we tend to be somewhere around or in between the what you've gotten with cash daily pricing and, or what you've gotten if you'd locked it in with the NYMEX settlement.
Martin and I sit on the gas committee, I have to give a shout-out to the team, with Marty Melke, he's the guy who runs our gas group. We're students of the... We view those, the product markets and the gas and the operations, they're all separate decision-making that come together as a whole. We look at gas independently. We don't necessarily, if we're forward sold, have to lock in the gas, and we do play a lot of the cash market during the year when that has been advantageous for us. You, in terms of your reference to Q1 2026, this volatility is the word.
Yeah.
We had $70 gas at the Port Neal site and $90 gas on the daily at Courtright in Canada. It has been incredibly volatile, and I think the team has done a very good job of understanding that, covering what Martin talked about, and being in the position that's good for CF.
Okay. I do wanna open it up to anybody in the audience. If you have any questions, feel free to raise your hand and jump in. I did wanna ask a little bit on the policy side, and maybe this is... I don't know, maybe it is, maybe it isn't outside your wheelhouse, Bert, but if we were to think about the Trump administration, right?
They've been keenly focused on farmer profitability, farmer sentiment, farmer affordability. Nitrogen is maybe in the middle of potash and phosphate from an affordability perspective, right? It's not the primary pain point, but prices are high. What do you, what do you get from the administration on that? Like, are they, are they actively in discussions with CF around capacity or tariffs or rebates? Is there any kind of discussion there? Is there any push?
I mean, I know you weren't necessarily listed between, you know, your two U.S. or North American peers as it relates to price collusion, right? It seems like the microscope is on nutrient companies and price. Does that resonate to CF at all?
A couple things that you referenced resonates with me personally as well as professionally in the company. We're a global market.
Yes.
We're the largest producer of nitrogen in the world, and we're less than 5% of capacity. It's produced in Russia, it's produced in the Middle East, it's produced in China, it's produced in India, it's produced in the United States or North America, and most of those have the capability to export.
Tons are moving all around, and they're priced at different for different products at different times. The price in India today is basically the price in NOLA, and if India goes up, NOLA goes up because we have to call that import ton. We're an import-dependent market, we have to incentivize those tons to move. It's.
In terms of fertilizer, you need N, P, and K, plus some S now in most growing cultures. The, you know, the, the fertilizer market is integrated in many different ways. I think the, the point of your question is, and the where the government is going, is the farmer.
We do think about the farmer and how, one, how can we help them to have the product in position to be a low-cost producer, which we are, a low-cost mover and supplier, partnering with our retail friends, the co-ops and the public retail suppliers to the farmer, because we don't sell to the farmer directly. That whole chain has to work together to be efficient, to be low cost, and to make sure the product is in place at the time it's needed, but it is a globally priced product.
Yeah. No, I know. I know. I know.
I know you do, but I-
Yeah.
Sometimes
Sometimes I wonder about the administration.
It gets separated as, you know, or an isolated issue, like in Iowa, it's this. Well, pretty much you can do the freight. The price in Iowa equates back to the Middle East.
Is there any push for logistical improvements then domestically? Like, do you see talk or within a policy perspective about pushing for new pipelines or relaxing some of the restrictions that impact our ability to source barges, you know?
The work that's being done, we're a multi-mode company: rail, truck, barge, pipe, vessel. We're moving product in any one of those five modes at any different time. What the Corps of Engineers does in terms of the lock work on the Mississippi, on the Arkansas, on the Illinois, very important. We need to keep that barge cost and what the ADMs of the world do with moving grains and oilseeds down, we're moving fertilizer right back up. The pipeline, the Sunoco pipeline is now 40 or 50 years old, if not more.
Yeah.
Proper maintenance of that, the only existing ammonia pipeline, is very important. It's very difficult to move ammonia by rail, so we almost don't do much of that. The rail systems are very important in this. This, whether the UP hooks up with the NS or work with the BN, that is a key component. The low cost delivery of the product is it's not just the production site, it's an integrated chain that we do focus on.
If I think about rail, you know, like chlorine, right? Nobody wants to move chlorine.
Any of the TIHs.
Partly because it's...
Any of the TIHs, ethylene oxide, chlorine, ammonia.
That was my point on ammonia. Is there some government restrictions around it, or is it really just it's hazardous and corrosive, and you just, you don't want to move it by rail, and so there's, like, an implicit pushback from the rail companies themselves?
Well, it's priced out more than just... They still move it's just priced out. We do have some very good relationships with our rail partners and need to continue to work on that, as well as regulatory support to make the efficient moving of ammonia possible.
Okay. Okay. I'm happy to... Well, Sal, I don't know, do you have a question? We have one question up front. Sal, you want to raise your hand? Otherwise, you know. Get that hand up, Sal. Come on.
Thank you. Since we're talking about logistics, and Matt brought up the whole US Gulf tons going to the Corn Belt, can you give us a little bit more clarity? Essentially, if there is a plant on the US Gulf Coast, what stops them from, you know, let's say, chartering a barge that has the ability to be in the shallow waters of the US Gulf and then going up the river? Is the cost prohibitive? Do they need to have access to tanks in the Midwest that they don't? What essentially stops them from doing that?
Yes and yes. One, it's when you're over in Houston, to barge all the way to the mouth of the river where we already are, is a cost. Two, is your destination point. Where are you going to offload that barge, where most of the producers have the tanks? You need to build a tank or partner with those who do, and those tanks are limited. I do believe some tons could, in the theoretical, move up into the river system. It just has to be coordinated with the receiving points and the barge companies as well.
I have one more. I'm sure Steve has asked you this question every time he sees you. You know, I gotta carry the torch a little bit now. I mean, as we think about microbes and nitrogen delivery to the corn plant, everybody's kind of well, not everybody, but there's a lot of companies working on it, right? We'll have a biologics panel right after you with Corteva, Mosaic, and Pivot. All three of them are working on nutrient bioavailability. How do you address this longer term, domestically, internationally, as an opportunity, as a company who has, you know, made a lot of money with synthetic nitrogen?
Anything that's good for the American farmer, the world farmer, is good for the system. Yes, we follow it. Yes, I've been following for decades.
Yeah.
It's always this is another one of those promises that is gonna come in the future, it's just the future is always in the future. When that comes, and we have met with many of those companies and have exchanges of ideas, but a plant is like a child, and you feed your child daily, and then when they reach puberty, consumption increases. A corn crop is just like that. It has different growth spurts.
Yeah
... and it needs a concentrated form of specific nitrogen in order to reach maturity and to have a full head, or ear of corn. That's where the value sits, is in that 1 ear. Every plant produces 1 ear of corn, maybe 2, but the second one is a dwarf. If you're a farmer, you want to use what works and what has consistently worked. For decades, nitrogen has worked very well in that growth cycle.
That's why we've gotten better at our precision ag, multiple applications of nitrogen. We've gone from yielding, when I was a young person, 130 bushels an acre to today, 180 bushels. That's the average, but you have some farms that are at 300 bushels of acre. That hasn't come with microbes.
Maybe that's has supported it a little bit, the fundamentals of our business is we produce a product that is demanded, consumed, and applied in appropriate ways, and we're getting better at that. Our future is bright for nitrogen.
Yeah. Okay. All right, well, I'll end it there. Bert, thank you so much, Martin as well. Appreciate you coming out and participating.