CF Industries Adjusted EBITDA Reaches $833 Million

The Tip Desk · November 4, 2026 · 3 min read

Third-quarter 2026 net sales were $1.86 billion, with net earnings attributable to common stockholders of $436 million, or $2.87 a share. Volume, pricing and lower realized gas costs drove the increase in adjusted EBITDA to $833 million.

CF Industries Holdings (CF), a global manufacturer of hydrogen and nitrogen products, reported third-quarter 2026 net sales of $1.86 billion, up from $1.66 billion a year earlier, and net earnings attributable to common stockholders of $436 million, or $2.87 a share, versus $353 million, or $2.19 a share, in the year-ago quarter.

Adjusted EBITDA was $833 million, compared with $667 million in the third quarter of 2025. The company said the $166 million year-over-year increase reflected strong volume, pricing and lower realized gas cost. Its bridge attributed $78 million to price, $114 million to volume, $20 million to lower realized gas cost, $62 million to business interruption insurance and a $108 million drag from other items.

Gross margin was $720 million, or 38.7% of net sales, versus $632 million, or 38.1%, a year earlier. EBITDA was $822 million. Natural gas costs in cost of sales were $2.87 per MMBtu. Diluted weighted-average common shares outstanding were 151.6 million. Capital expenditures were $282 million.

For the nine months ended September 30, 2026, net sales were $6.07 billion, net earnings attributable to common stockholders were $1.78 billion, or $11.60 a share, and adjusted EBITDA was $3.01 billion. The company said the nine-month adjusted EBITDA increase versus the year-earlier nine months was driven by strong pricing, and included a $170 million gain from a litigation settlement.

Available ammonia capacity utilization for the nine months was 97%. The company said it expects Yazoo City to resume operations in the first half of 2027 and that available capacity excludes that complex. It said CF’s 10% greater capacity utilization versus North America peers yields an additional about 1 million tons of ammonia annually. The 12-month rolling average recordable incident rate was 0.10 per 200,000 work hours as of September 30, 2026.

Construction at Blue Point has commenced. The company said total project cost remains about $3.7 billion, ammonia production is expected to commence in 2029, and common facilities are expected to be about $550 million. Expected CF-funded capital expenditures are about $950 million, of which about $400 million is related to Blue Point and excludes Yazoo City rebuild capital. Expected gross ammonia production is about 9.5 million tons. Mid-cycle EBITDA is $2.9 billion. The company said it expects strategic initiatives to drive 2030 mid-cycle EBITDA to about $3.3 billion.

For the nine months, cash from operations was $2.54 billion. Consolidated CF capital expenditures were $776 million. Cash at quarter-end was $1.98 billion, versus $2.82 billion at the end of 2025. The period included $391 million of Blue Point One joint-venture capital contributions from JERA and Mitsui, $447 million of joint-venture capex funded by those partners, $139 million funded by CF, $637 million returned to shareholders, and $306 million of deposits paid for an ongoing United States–Canada transfer-pricing matter.

On a last-twelve-months basis through September 30, 2026, free cash flow was $2.0 billion and adjusted EBITDA was $3.8 billion. Free cash flow to adjusted EBITDA conversion was 61% excluding the $306 million in Canada deposits, which the company said will be applied against tax and interest ultimately due upon resolution through bilateral government procedures. Cash from operations was $3.1 billion and capital returned to shareholders was $1.3 billion. Remaining share-repurchase authorization was $1.1 billion as of September 30, 2026, running through 2029.

The company said a $50 a ton movement in realized urea prices implies about an $800 million change in adjusted EBITDA on an annual basis, based on 2025 sales volumes of about 19.1 million product tons, 2025 gas consumption of 352 million MMBtus and 2023–2025 average nitrogen-product sales-price relationships, and assuming the urea-price change is applied proportionally across all nitrogen products.