Yara beats profit expectations, unveils plan to cut costs
EBITDA excluding one-off items $513 mln vs $457 mln expected
Co plans to cut costs and capex by $300 million by 2025
Adds CEO comment in paragraph 2, analyst comment in paragraph 3 and share move in paragraph 4
By Jesus Calero
July 19 (Reuters) -Norwegian fertiliser maker Yara International YAR.OL reported quarterly core earnings above analysts' expectations on Friday and said it plans to cut costs and capex by $300 million by 2025 to improve financial performance and shareholder returns.
A quarterly return of 6.1% on invested capital is not satisfactory, CEO Svein Tore Holsether told Reuters in an interview, adding that the costs were a result of various programmes that did not evolve as fast as expected.
Jefferies questioned the net retention of these savings amid rising operational costs and said these savings might only offset recent inflation.
Shares in Yara were last up 3.7%, outperforming a 0.5% fall in the pan-European STOXX 600 index .STOXX.
Yara made $513 million in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA), excluding one-off items, in the second quarter that ended in June.
That was higher than the year-earlier period's $252 million and $457 million expected by analysts in a company-provided poll.
The company said key fertiliser ingredient natural gas was expected to be $15 million and $70 million cheaper in the third and fourth quarters, respectively, than at the same time a year ago.
Yara's sales in Europe still remain significantly below the levels seen before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as higher prices of key raw materials such as natural gas eat into profit margins.
Rising urea production in China, India, Iran, Russia and Europe has increased supply, although industry projections suggest a significant slowdown in supply growth from 2024 onwards, Yara said.
GREEN AMMO AGAINST RUSSIA GRIP
Yara is trying to mitigate the impact of higher production costs stemming from Western sanctions on Russia and Belgium, by replacing natural gas with renewable hydrogen and green ammonia.
The fertiliser maker opened last month a green ammonia production plant in Norway to reduce dependence on Russian imports, as well as cut emissions.
CEO Holsether underscored the need for more government and public subsidies to scale up the hydrogen sector, saying the green transition has to make financial sense.
Reporting by Jesus Calero; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu
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