Canada-based Nutrien on Thursday announced plans to increase its fertiliser capability in response to structural changes in global energy, agriculture and fertiliser markets.

The TSX- and NYSE-listed company is accelerating the ramp-up of its potash production capability to 18-million tonnes a year by 2025, in response to the uncertainty of supply from Eastern Europe. This represents an increase of more than five-million tonnes, or 40%, compared with production in 2020.

The incremental production capability is expected to be added at a similar yearly pace to the additions over the past two years.

“The challenge of feeding a growing world has never been clearer as global supply constraints have contributed to higher commodity prices and escalated concerns for global food security. There is no simple or fast solution to overcome this challenge and we see potential for multi-year strength in agriculture and crop input market fundamentals,” said Nutrien interim president and CEO Ken Seitz.

To boost production, the company will hire and train about 350 people and invest in underground mining equipment, mine development, storage and loadout capacity. Nutrien continues to evaluate additional low-cost brownfield expansion opportunities beyond 18-million tonnes at its Saskatchewan mines that would supply longer-term market demand growth.

Nutrien is also advancing the previously announced brownfield expansion projects that are expected to add about 500 000 t of capacity by the end of 2025.

The firm is further evaluating the potential for additional low-cost brownfield expansion and emissions reduction projects with a final investment decision expected over the next 12 months.

Last month, Nutrien announced it is evaluating its existing site at Geismar, Louisiana to build the world’s biggest clean ammonia facility. The project would leverage low-cost natural gas, tidewater access to world markets, and high-quality carbon capture and sequestration infrastructure to serve growing demand in agricultural, industrial and emerging energy markets. The plant would have a production capacity of 1.2-million tonnes a year of clean ammonia and capture at least 90% of carbon dioxide emissions.

Nutrien said its nitrogen sales volumes could increase to 13.5-million tonnes a year by 2027 through the completion of inflight brownfield projects and additional growth projects under evaluation.

SHAREHOLDER CAPITAL RETURNS
Meanwhile, Nutrien announced that it would repurchase an additional $2-billion of shares, for a total of $4-billion of repurchases in 2022, under its existing normal course issuer bid. This is expected to increase the company’s total return of capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases to about $5-billion in 2022.

“The strength of our expected cash flow provides an opportunity to accelerate our strategic growth initiatives and return significant cash to shareholders. The additional planned share repurchases announced today reflect our confidence in Nutrien’s near-term earnings and the potential for a more robust long-term outlook,” said executive VP and CFO Pedro Farah.