Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call August 8, 2024 10:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Jeff Holzman - Vice President Investor Relations
Ken Seitz - President & Chief Executive Officer
Pedro Farah - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Jeff Tarsi - Executive Vice President and President, Global Retail
Mark Thompson - Executive Vice President & Chief Commercial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Chris Parkinson - Wolfe Research
Andrew Wong - RBC Capital Markets
Jacob Bout - CIBC
Joel Jackson - BMO Capital Markets
Ben Theurer - Barclays
Vincent Andrews - Morgan Stanley
Ben Isaacson - Scotiabank
Jeff Zekauskas - JPMorgan
Lucas Beaumont - UBS
Stephen Byrne - Bank of America
Aron Ceccarelli - Berenberg
Adam Samuelson - Goldman Sachs
Richard Garchitorena - Wells Fargo
Edlain Rodriguez - Mizuho
Operator
Greetings, and welcome to Nutrien's 2024 Second Quarter Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference call over to Jeff Holzman, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Jeff Holzman
Thank you, operator. Good morning. Welcome to Nutrien's Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. As we conduct this call, various statements that we make about future expectations, plans and prospects contain forward-looking information. Certain assumptions were applied in making these conclusions and forecasts, therefore, actual results could differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking information. Additional information about these factors and assumptions are contained in our quarterly report to shareholders as well as our most recent annual report, MD&A and annual information form.
I'll now turn the call over to Ken Seitz, Nutrient's President and CEO; and Pedro Farah, our CFO, for opening comments.
Ken Seitz
Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. Nutrien just delivered adjusted EBITDA of $3.3 billion in the first half of 2024, supported by increased crop input margins, strong global potash demand and lower operating rate costs. Our uptrend fertilizer production assets and downstream retail business in North America and Australia have performed well in 2024, demonstrating our advantages across the ag value chain. The operating environment in Brazil has remained more challenged, and we will discuss today the actions we are taking to stabilize our business in this market.
In potash, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $1 billion in the first half of 2024, which was down from the prior year due to lower benchmark prices. We increased potash production across our six mine network, and lowered our controllable cash cost of production to $53 per tonne in the first half. The reduction in per tonne costs was driven by higher production volumes and supported by the benefits of mine automation investments.