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LSB Industries Inc. (LXU) reported a strong financial performance for the third quarter of 2025, with earnings per share (EPS) of $0.10, surpassing the forecasted $0.07 by 42.86%. The company also exceeded revenue expectations, reporting $155.4 million against the forecasted $141.58 million, a surprise of 9.76%. Despite these positive results, the stock experienced a 3.81% decline during regular trading hours, closing at $9.19, but saw a slight recovery in premarket trading, rising to $9.3.
Key Takeaways
- LSB Industries reported a 42.86% positive EPS surprise for Q3 2025.
- Revenue exceeded forecasts by 9.76%, reaching $155.4 million.
- Stock price declined by 3.81% during regular trading hours but rose 1.2% premarket.
- The company is exploring significant expansions in ammonia production capacity.
Company Performance
LSB Industries demonstrated robust performance in Q3 2025, with adjusted EBITDA climbing to $40 million from $17 million in Q3 2024. The company generated approximately $20 million in free cash flow year-to-date and maintained a cash balance of about $150 million. The net leverage ratio stands at approximately 2x, indicating strong financial health. The company expects Q4 2025 financial performance to surpass that of the prior year.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $155.4 million, up significantly from the forecasted $141.58 million.
- Earnings per share: $0.10, exceeding the forecast of $0.07.
- Adjusted EBITDA: $40 million, up from $17 million in Q3 2024.
Earnings vs. Forecast
LSB Industries reported an EPS of $0.10, beating the forecast of $0.07 by 42.86%. The revenue also surpassed expectations, with a 9.76% surprise. This strong performance indicates effective management and favorable market conditions, marking a significant improvement over previous quarters.
Market Reaction
Despite the earnings beat, LSB Industries’ stock fell by 3.81% during regular trading hours, closing at $9.19. However, in premarket trading, the stock showed signs of recovery, rising by 1.2% to $9.3. This mixed market reaction may reflect investor caution amid broader market conditions.
Outlook & Guidance
LSB Industries anticipates completing the permit review for its low-carbon project by Q1 2026, which is expected to generate approximately $15 million in annual EBITDA, mostly in 2027. The company remains optimistic about the UAN market for Q1 and Q2 2026 and is evaluating further growth opportunities, including potential expansions in ammonia production.
Executive Commentary
CEO Mark Behrman stated, "We are back to generating free cash flow," highlighting the company’s improved financial position. He also noted, "The market outlook remains robust," reflecting confidence in future performance. Executive Tim added, "We’re like kids in a candy store here," indicating enthusiasm for upcoming projects and opportunities.
Risks and Challenges
- The recent contractor fatality could impact operational sentiment.
- Potential macroeconomic pressures may affect future demand.
- Supply chain issues could pose challenges to planned expansions.
- Market saturation in certain segments might limit growth potential.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the tightness in the ammonia market and pricing dynamics. The company discussed potential capacity expansions and detailed strategies for its low-carbon project. Concerns about UAN volume variations were also addressed, providing insights into LSB Industries’ strategic planning.
Full transcript - Lsb Industries Inc (LXU) Q3 2025:
Unidentified Operator, Conference Call Moderator: Greetings and welcome to the LSB Industries third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press Star 0 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Kristy Carver, Senior Vice President and Treasurer. Thank you. You may begin. Good morning everyone. Joining me today are Mark Behrman, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Cheryl Maguire, our Chief Financial Officer, and Damian Renwick, our Chief Commercial Officer. Please note that today’s call includes forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the company’s current intent, expectations, and projections. They are not guarantees of future performance and a variety of factors could cause the actual results to differ materially.
For more information about the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied by forward-looking statements, please see the risk factors set forth in the company’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K. On the call, we will reference non-GAAP results. Please see the press release posted yesterday in the Investors section of our website lsbindustries.com for further information regarding forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP results to GAAP results. At this time, I’d like to turn the call over to Mark.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Thank you, Kristy, and good morning, everyone. As a company, we pride ourselves on safety first, and while our teams continue to focus on safe operations as evidenced by our first nine months of injury-free performance, it is with great sadness that I have to report that in early October a contractor working on our prior facility was fatally injured. Our hearts go out to his family and colleagues. This is a tragic reminder about why we put safety first and the importance of the need to remain focused on safety in everything we do. I am confident that our team will learn from this tragedy as we work together to ensure that everyone on our sites remains safe every day. With respect to third quarter financial results, market conditions remain constructive in both our industrial and fertilizer businesses.
After increased CapEx spending in 2024 and through the first half of 2025, where we elected to execute on several growth projects, we are back to generating free cash flow. We expect to finish the year having generated solid free cash flow, and we’re well positioned to keep investing in our strategic priorities. We recognize that there’s more work to do, and we see opportunities to continue to enhance our performance across the business. Now I’ll turn over the call to Damian to review current market dynamics and pricing trends.
Damian Renwick, Chief Commercial Officer, LSB Industries: Damien, thanks Mark, and good morning everyone. Turning to page five, during the third quarter we completed our transition out of high-density ammonium nitrate for fertilizers and into ammonium nitrate solution for explosives. This moves us towards our stated goal of optimizing our sales mix. As a result, we are now supplying 100% of our ammonium nitrate solution contractual obligations to our customers. We continue to see strength in our industrial markets. Demand for ammonium nitrate for explosives is robust, particularly in the mining sector where strong gold and copper prices are boosting activity. Worldwide demand is also benefiting from quarrying aggregate production for infrastructure upgrade and expansion activity. We are seeing continued increases in domestic production of methylenediphenyl diisocyanate, or MDI, as a result of tariffs and anti-dumping duties on imported MDI. As a result, our nitric acid sales remained strong.
Turning to page six, pricing for UAN averaged $336 per tonne on a knollar basis in Q3, up 65% over Q3 2024. Prices continue to be supported by steady exports, lower imports, and strong demand, leading to below average inventory levels throughout the U.S. We expect these favorable dynamics to continue in the near term and position us well as we head into 2026. Urea prices moderated somewhat during the quarter, driven by the resumption of Chinese exports. However, with the results of the latest India urea tender now known, Chinese participation was minimal, and it appears that future exports will once again be restricted, supporting tight supply and higher prices. The ammonia market is healthy and pricing remains at attractive levels. Tampa ammonia increased by $60 to $650 per metric tonne for the November settlement.
Tampa ammonia has now increased by almost $260 per tonne, or 65%, since hitting its 2025 low of $392 per tonne in June. The market continues to be dictated by ongoing unplanned supply disruptions from the Middle East, the higher cost of production in Europe, and continued delays in the startup of new production capacity in the U.S. Increased natural gas curtailments and other issues in Trinidad are also maintaining the pressure on global supply. In the U.S., we expect to see a typical fall ammonia application season, subject to seasonal weather outcomes. Now I’ll turn the call over to Cheryl to discuss our third quarter financial results and our outlook.
Cheryl Maguire, Chief Financial Officer, LSB Industries: Thanks Damian and good morning. On page seven you’ll see a summary of our third quarter 2025 financial results. Solid third quarter volumes and net sales reflect the progress we are making on our reliability journey along with the absence of planned turnaround activity during the quarter. Page eight bridges our third quarter 2024 adjusted EBITDA of $17 million to our third quarter 2025 adjusted EBITDA of $40 million. Higher pricing and increased sales volumes were somewhat offset by higher natural gas and other costs. Costs were higher in the third quarter, primarily related to the transition out of the HDAN business along with higher maintenance and operating costs. On page nine you can see that our balance sheet remains solid with approximately $150 million in cash and net leverage at approximately two times.
After several quarters of heavy investment, we are back to generating free cash flow with approximately $20 million of free cash flow generated year to date and approximately $36 million in the third quarter, and we expect to continue to build on that in the fourth quarter. Turning to the fourth quarter outlook, Tampa ammonia settled at $650 per metric ton for November, up from $590 per ton for October, and NOTLA UAN has averaged above $300 per ton so far this quarter. Additionally, Henry Hub natural gas cost is averaging approximately $3.45 per MMBtu, but is expected to trend higher as we approach seasonally cooler temperatures. With the transition of our HDAN business into industrial grade, approximately 35% of our natural gas costs are passed through in our selling price to customers. This provides improved visibility into our earnings profile.
Overall, we’d expect the fourth quarter of 2025 to be higher than the prior year fourth quarter due to higher selling prices and higher production, somewhat offset by higher variable and other costs. Now I’ll turn it back over to Mark.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Thank you, Cheryl. Page 10 is an overview of our low-carbon project at our El Dorado facility. We continue to expect the technical review of our permit to be completed in the first quarter of next year, with operations to then begin by the end of 2026. We’re excited about this opportunity as we expect to generate approximately $15 million in annual EBITDA from the project, with the majority of it beginning in 2027. Our El Dorado CO2 injection project is a good example of how our industry can decarbonize and provide customers with low-carbon ammonia and derivative products in a cost-effective manner. We have made strong progress in the first nine months of 2025, driven by increased production volumes of ammonia, UAN, and ammonium nitrate solution, and expect to end the year in line with our total sales volume targets set out at the beginning of the year.
We’ve also continued to successfully shift our sales mix towards more contractual industrial sales, which allows us to pass through natural gas costs to our customers and provides us with greater earnings stability and visibility. At the same time, we’ve reduced our outstanding debt and continue to maintain a healthy cash balance while we evaluate several growth opportunities and continue to invest in the reliability and efficiency of our plants. I remain extremely optimistic about the future of our company, both for the remainder of the year and looking ahead to 2026. The market outlook remains robust, and we are well positioned to continue to improve our operational and financial performance while delivering sustainable growth and profitability. Before we open it up for questions, I’d like to mention that we will be participating in the NYSE Industrials virtual conference on November 18th and 19th.
We look forward to speaking with some of you at this event. That concludes our prepared remarks, and we will now be happy to take your questions. Thanks.
Unidentified Operator, Conference Call Moderator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions.
Cheryl Maguire, Chief Financial Officer, LSB Industries: Thank you.
Unidentified Operator, Conference Call Moderator: Our first question comes from the line of Lucas Beaumont with UBS Investment Bank. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you. Good morning. I just wanted to sort of start on the ammonia market. It’s been tight with the limited supply, and the ammonia contracts continue to kind of move higher. Sort of depending on what we assume there for December, it looks like pricing could be up $130 sequentially, if not more, into the fourth quarter. I guess just kind of what’s your view on the market there generally to begin with? Then, assuming we see sort of a large kind of increase somewhere in that range, how should we think about that flowing through to your fourth quarter pricing?
Tim, Unspecified Executive, LSB Industries: Morning, Lucas. At a high level, it is a tight supply and demand market globally. On top of that, clearly we’ve got some issues going on in Trinidad that are affecting the market today and could have long term effects on the market. I think also while it’s a little early, we feel like we’re going to have a really healthy fall ammonia application season. I think everything’s really setting up to have good demand, certainly in the United States and globally, a bit tighter supply. That’s why you’re seeing pricing move up. I’ll let Damian give a little bit more color on the market itself. Yeah, good morning, Lucas.
You know, again, like Mark said, this is a story about lack of supply more than anything else. You’ve got issues in the Middle East with the Martin plant in Saudi Arabia having a very extended outage for a significant volume of tonnes. Other issues as well. You’ve got the news coming out of Trinidad with production coming out of the market for who knows how long, and the market is just reacting to that. How long does that continue for? It’ll continue for as long as that supply is out of the market. The wildcard is when does the new capacity come online in the U.S. Gulf? You know, there’s indications that some of that could be up later this year or early next year. You know, who knows? The proof will be in the pudding when that happens.
I think just to add on to that, while that has been well known that that production’s coming online and we could have some more supply in the marketplace, the wild card now is Trinidad and what happens there. Could that offset all or just partial some of that new demand, new supply coming on?
Cheryl Maguire, Chief Financial Officer, LSB Industries: Yeah. Lucas, in terms of how that pulls through in the financial results, as you know, we are tied to Tampa ammonia, and you will see that pull through in our pricing for the fourth quarter.
Great, thanks. I guess just thinking about UAN as we kind of headed into the spring here. We’ve sort of been seeing some sort of softness in pricing there a bit as euros sort of come off and we’re out at a kind of high period of seasonal demand so far. It seems like that’s probably going to continue to soften here a bit through the fourth quarter. Last year we had pretty strong price increases and tight local supply demand conditions as we sort of got into the spring. I was just wondering if you guys could talk us through how you see the setup for 2026 now.
Look, Lucas, I think we’re a little more optimistic on UAN. We’re well sold forward. I think, are prices softening at the moment? I mean, yeah, sure, urea has softened a little bit, but I think that’s set up for a recovery shortly as that market tightens as Chinese exports exit their short entry in the last few months. The UAN market, I think producers are pretty comfortable here in the U.S. We all came out of last season with very little inventory, and, you know, there’s been turnarounds, et cetera, in the last few months. I think that tight supply is set up to continue, and we’re confident that prices will be pretty healthy heading into Q1 and then into Q2 into the application season.
Tim, just wanted to ask one on the volume side. There’s been a bit of noise this year. With the shift in the turnaround timing and kind of just the impact on sort of volume in the product mix between 3Q and 4Q, it seemed that was probably like flowing through to sort of costs in a few different ways as well. I was just wondering if you could kind of help us understand sort of the impacts that you saw there in the third quarter and how you see the setup for the fourth quarter on the sort of the volume and the cost side due to that.
Yeah. If we’re thinking about the third quarter, we did have some mix changes flowing through with the transition of HDAN into ammonium nitrate solution for the industrial markets. We did see some higher costs related to that. I believe that’s what you’re alluding to. Part of that is, look, we’re switching rail cars, and with that comes higher maintenance costs as we change out the fleet. We’ve got to restore the other cars to original state, which does lead to some higher maintenance costs. You do see that pull through in the third quarter. As we’re thinking about the fourth quarter, I think we would expect to see our ammonium nitrate solution, nitric acid volumes kind of in line with the third quarter. Ammonia as well, and UAN, I would suspect, would be a bit higher in the fourth quarter as compared to the third quarter.
Great, thank you.
Unidentified Operator, Conference Call Moderator: As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Wong with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. With the stronger industrial demand, which appears to be continuing, how does that impact your negotiating position for contracts and margins you’re able to secure?
That’s a tough question, that one. Andrew, hi. Look, I think it’s really going to depend on when those particular contracts expire and what’s happening at the time. I mean, at any one time, we do have contracts rolling off, but they are typically smaller than some of our more substantial ones, which are under longer term durations. It would just come down to the specific situation. I think at the moment prices are healthy, and the broader happenings with Tampa ammonia and natural gas make the environment well set up to maintain or even increase prices if and when contracts expire.
Tim, Unspecified Executive, LSB Industries: I would just say that healthy overall nitrogen prices certainly help negotiating new contracts or renewal of new contracts when they come up for sale.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Okay, great, that’s helpful. Just in terms of growth for LSB, given that stronger industrial backdrop, is that a path that we can expect to see LSB take in terms of spending on more upgrade capacity? If you were to take that path, do you maybe need to have some sort of backstop on longer term contracts to guarantee a certain return on those projects?
Tim, Unspecified Executive, LSB Industries: Yeah, Andrew, we’re constantly looking at ways that we can increase our production capacity. We did a urea expansion up at our prior facility. There is a second urea expansion that is in the early stages of evaluation, and that might not necessarily just go to UAN. You know, we could enter the DEF market, which would be an industrial product. I think we’re evaluating whether we want to do that or not. At El Dorado, we’ve talked in the past about an ammonia expansion there, and that ammonia expansion would probably add in the neighborhood of 100,000 tons. We are down a pathway to evaluate and really do our engineering studies to see if that really makes sense for us. Would we backstop that? I think at 100,000 tons, we’re probably pretty comfortable.
If we did a big expansion, I think we would want to backstop it, as is a lot of our risk aversion for trying to lock in some returns for the investment of capital. I think we’re not prepared yet to talk about the expansion. We’ll wait until we get through our engineering studies, and if it makes sense and the board supports it, then we’ll certainly announce it.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Okay, great. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Tim, Unspecified Executive, LSB Industries: Yeah.
Unidentified Operator, Conference Call Moderator: Our next question comes from the line of Lawrence Alexander with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Good morning.
Two, if I may.
First, on the industrial market side of your business, can you just give a baseline for your seasonality going into next year with the current mix of contracts? How do you think about extending the amount of pre selling if there is any sort of fly up in ammonium nitrate prices? Secondly, with El Dorado, what’s your current thoughts around changing your offtake structure or signing more offtake agreements as the project gets closer to completion?
Tim, Unspecified Executive, LSB Industries: Damien, I’ll let you handle the first one.
Okay. Seasonality, Lawrence, most of the offtake through the year is fairly ratable. We do see some seasonality in our industrial business for explosives, and that’s simply related to weather. We’ve got sales up into the northern parts of the U.S. and into Canada, and when it gets cold, it becomes more difficult for those miners to blast and so mitigate some of that demand. We’re well set up to manage that with our current infrastructure and arrangements with our customers.
As far as the project at El Dorado, Lawrence, are you referring to the carbon capture and sequestration project, or are you referring to if we were to expand our ammonia production capacity?
Sticking to the CO2 injection project?
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Yeah.
Tim, Unspecified Executive, LSB Industries: The CCS project, we’ve already got a negotiated per ton of CO2 sequestered rate with our partner Lapis Energy. That’s already locked in. As you know, we’re generating the CO2 today. We’re just venting it in the air. The project here is to capture it, dehydrate it, compress it, and then sequester it in a well that is actually already drilled on our property. The real gating item here is just the permit, the Class 6 permit from the EPA to allow us to, or to allow Lapis to, really sequester the CO2. Obviously, once we get that, we need to build a compression facility. There are lots of those around the world, and that’s not complicated technology. Whether we sign additional ammonium nitrate solution contracts or nitric acid customer contracts for those products at a premium, the team is working on that and certainly engaged in conversations with customers.
The other thing that we could do, and we spent a fair amount of time looking at, is you could sell in the interim the environmental attribute. There’s a value to that as well. I think we’re looking at all avenues to monetize the low-carbon ammonia and the environmental attribute that is associated with that.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Thank you.
Unidentified Operator, Conference Call Moderator: A final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, press Star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Robert McGuire with Granite Research. Please proceed with your question.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Good morning. Could you please talk about UAN volumes? It looks like they’re down from 150,000 to about 135,000 year over year.
Cheryl Maguire, Chief Financial Officer, LSB Industries: Yeah, Rob, we did have a bit of a miss on our UAN production in the third quarter. I would say we didn’t quite meet our expectations. We would expect to be in line with our expectations in the fourth quarter.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Okay, great. Can you talk, what’s your revenue mix of Ag vs Industrial now that your HDAN is being sold as ammonium nitrate solution into the mining markets?
Cheryl Maguire, Chief Financial Officer, LSB Industries: Hard to look at it on a revenue basis, Rob, because revenue is really going to be driven by what the pricing looks like at any given time. I think it’s probably better to look at it from a volume or a tons perspective. I think from the industrial side, we’re probably 40 to 45, with the balance being on the ag market side.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Thank you. You talked about the proposed anti-dumping duties on imported MDI. Can you give us a little more color around the dynamics around that topic?
Yeah.
Hi, Rob. That evaluation is currently working its way through all the typical formal proceedings here in the U.S. I think there’s a preliminary determination that’s out there, and we’re awaiting the formal determination. That will then officially put in place the anti-dumping duties on Chinese MDI. The effect of that is we’re seeing domestic producers ramp up their MDI production as much as possible, and nitric acid is a raw material into that production chain, which is pretty complex. I won’t try and explain it to you, but we’re seeing some pull through there and certainly efforts to increase production where possible.
Wonderful. Just one last question. Can you give us an update on your value creation initiatives? Mike, you told us about what may be up and coming, but just what’s left where you’re at in terms of your progress?
Tim, Unspecified Executive, LSB Industries: Oh boy, we have a lot left. I would say on our reliability and maintenance efforts, we’ve still got a fair amount of opportunity out there. Maybe we’re somewhere between 25% and 50% complete with that. I really do believe we have a lot of opportunity to not only improve our reliability and therefore the production tons, but do it in a much more efficient manner, so lower cost. We’re focused on both of those. When it comes to profit optimization, I think we outlined that there was probably $20 million or so that we expect to come from that, and we’re somewhere again between 40% and 50% when it comes to that. As far as some of the other initiatives that we have, the greatest thing about all of this is we’re like kids in a candy store here.
Every day, we’re trying to solve for issues or improve the overall profitability of the company, and you sort of peel that onion back and then you find two other things that you can work on to really create value. I think it’s a never ending process, to be honest. I do think that we’ll give a lot more color, Rob, on our fourth quarter conference call, our year end conference call of exactly where we are and what we expect to achieve in 2026.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Thank you.
Unidentified Operator, Conference Call Moderator: We have no further questions at this time. I’d like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.
Tim, Unspecified Executive, LSB Industries: Thank you everyone on.
Mark Behrman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LSB Industries: Thank you for their interest and great questions.
Tim, Unspecified Executive, LSB Industries: As you can tell, we’re really excited about the business and where the markets are today. Please stay tuned. Thanks so much.
Unidentified Operator, Conference Call Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day.
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