Albemarle
Q1 2022 Earnings Call
May 05, 2022, 9:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the Q1 2022 Albemarle Corporation earnings conference call. My name is Darius, and I'll be moderating your call today. Before handing over to host Meredith Bandy, [Operator instructions] I now have the pleasure of handing you over to Meredith Bandy, vice president of investor relations and sustainability. Please go ahead, Meredith.
Meredith Bandy -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Sustainability
All right. Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to Albemarle's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Our earnings were released after the close of market yesterday, and you'll find the press release and earnings presentation posted on our website under the Investors section at albemarle.com. Joining me on the call today are Kent Masters, our chief executive officer; Scott Tozier, chief financial officer; Raphael Crawford, president, catalyst; Netha Johnson, president, bromine; and Eric Norris, president, lithium.
As a reminder, some of the statements made during this call, including our outlook, guidance, expected company performance, and timing of the expansion projects may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Please note the cautionary language about forward-looking statements contained in our press release and earnings presentation. That same language applies to this call. Please also note that some of our comments today refer to non-GAAP financial measures.
A reconciliation to GAAP financial measures can be found in our earnings release and the appendix of our earnings presentation. And now I'll turn the call over to Kent.
Jerry Masters -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Meredith, and thank you all for joining us today. On today's call, I will highlight our results and achievements during the recent quarter. Scott will provide more details on our financial results, outlook, and balance sheet. I will then close our prepared remarks with an update on our growth projects and sustainability before opening the call for questions.
Albemarle's leadership positions in lithium and bromine and our team's ability to execute have enabled us to generate increasingly strong results. In the first quarter, we generated net sales of $1.1 billion, up 44% compared to prior year. And that's excluding Fine Chemistry Services in the comparison, which we sold in June of last year. This fundamental strength allowed us to more than double our EBITDA year over year.