At our core, CF Industries is a producer of ammonia. For decades, we have used the Haber-Bosch process to fix atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen from natural gas to produce anhydrous ammonia, whose chemical composition is NH3.
Ammonia and its derivative fertilizer products are global commodities. As such, our focus is achieving the lowest delivered cost per ton. At CF Industries, we do this by leveraging our unique capabilities: outstanding operational capability and an efficient, high performing corporate team. In practice, this means high asset utilization and productivity, an extensive multimode distribution network to lower logistics costs, maximizing margins by optimizing customer locations and product type, and a focus on cost management.
With this focus, we have built what we believe are the most productive ammonia and nitrogen assets in the world. We invest in these productive assets to increase their safety and reliability and enhance their cash generation capability.
Safety and Reliability
At CF Industries, safety is ingrained in our corporate culture and values. Our team has a deep commitment to safety excellence, helping drive a recordable incident rate at the end of 2021 of 0.32 incidents per 200,000 work hours, which is significantly better than industry averages.
We hold all 3,000 of our employees – from the corporate office to our manufacturing and distribution facilities – accountable for collectively conducting our business in a safe manner. We empower all employees to promote a culture of environment, health and safety excellence where everyone is engaged, empowered and innovative in cultivating a workplace that promotes the safety and health of our employees, contractors, customers and partners, the communities where we operate and the environment.
CF’s 14% greater capacity utilization yields an additional ~1.3 million tons of ammonia annually(4)
(1) Data taken from the December 17, 2021 CRU Ammonia Database (2) Represents CF Industries historical North American production and CRU’s capacity estimates for CF Industries (3) Calculated by removing CF Industries’ annual reported production and capacity from the CRU data for all North American ammonia production peer group (4) ~1.3 million tons represents the difference between CF Industries’ actual trailing 5-year average ammonia production of 9.2 million tons at 96% of capacity utilization and the 7.9 million tons CF Industries would have produced if operated at the 82% CRU North American benchmark excluding CF Industries
Outstanding safety performance drives industry leading production capacity utilization
Data collected by CRU, a global industry consulting firm, shows that our asset utilization over the last five years is approximately 14% higher than the average utilization rate of our North American competitors.
Based on the size of our network, this translates into roughly 1.3 million tons of incremental gross ammonia per year that we are able to produce within our network as a result of our superior asset utilization. This incremental ammonia production volume is roughly equivalent to the ammonia we produce at our Medicine Hat or Port Neal complexes, which are the largest in North America after our Donaldsonville Complex.
Put another way, our operational capabilities lead to capital and operational efficiency, saving our shareholders billions of dollars of capital and the accompanying annual overhead costs while allowing us to produce meaningfully greater volumes of ammonia with the same assets.
World’s Largest and Most Integrated Ammonia and Nitrogen Production and Distribution Network
We leverage our manufacturing and distribution network's extensive storage, multimode transportation and extensive logistics capabilities to serve customers in North America and around the world.
- 3.2 million tons of storage capacity
- North American manufacturing complexes all have access to Class I railroads
- Dedicated Supply Chain team working with customers to ship via deepwater vessel, barge, rail, truck or pipeline
- CF Industries operates 23 distribution facilities through the U.S. and Western Canada
- Export capability from Donaldsonville, Medicine Hat, Verdigris, Yazoo City, and Billingham
Manufacturing Flexibility
CF Industries has among the world's most flexibile manufacturing networks for products it sells for their nitrogen content. On an annual basis, the Company produces approximately 10 million tons of ammonia. We then optimize our product mix in the form and location that maximizes margins.
For example, on an annual basis, our Donaldsonville Complex is capable of producing between 2.4 and 3.3 million tons of granular urea and between 1.2 million and 4.3 million tons of UAN. We can switch between which product we are favoring production of in a matter of minutes.
CF Industries has a global manufacturing and distribution network.