LSB Industries, Inc. (‘LSB Industries’ or ‘LSB’), together with its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of chemical products.
LSB is committed to playing a leadership role in the energy transition through the production of low and no carbon products that build, feed, and power the world. The company seeks to accomplish this goal through the manufacture and marketing of essential products for the agricultural and industrial markets, and in the future, energy markets, all with an em...
LSB Industries, Inc. (‘LSB Industries’ or ‘LSB’), together with its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of chemical products.
LSB is committed to playing a leadership role in the energy transition through the production of low and no carbon products that build, feed, and power the world. The company seeks to accomplish this goal through the manufacture and marketing of essential products for the agricultural and industrial markets, and in the future, energy markets, all with an emphasis on a culture of excellence in customer experience. The chemical products that the company primarily manufactures, markets, and sells are ammonia, fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate (‘HDAN’), and urea ammonia nitrate (‘UAN’) for agricultural applications, high purity and commercial grade ammonia, high purity ammonium nitrate, sulfuric acids, concentrated, blended, and regular nitric acid, mixed nitrating acids, carbon dioxide, and industrial grade ammonium nitrate (‘LDAN’) and ammonium nitrate (‘AN’) solutions for industrial applications. The company manufactures and distributes products in four facilities; three of which it owns and are located in El Dorado, Arkansas (the ‘El Dorado Facility’), Cherokee, Alabama (the ‘Cherokee Facility’), and Pryor, Oklahoma (the ‘Pryor Facility’), and one of which it operates on behalf of Covestro LLC (‘Covestro’) in Baytown, Texas (the ‘Baytown Facility’).
The company’s products are sold through distributors and directly to end customers, such as farmers, ranchers, and fertilizer dealers, throughout the United States and parts of Canada, and to explosives manufacturers in the United States and other parts of North America.
Business
The company’s business manufactures products for two principal markets: (a) Agricultural and (b) Industrial.
The products that the company manufactures at its facilities are primarily derived from natural gas (a raw material). The company’s facilities and production processes have been designed to produce products that are marketable at nearly each stage of production. This design has allowed the company to develop and deploy a business model optimizing the mix of products to capture the value opportunities in the end markets it serves, with a focus on balancing its production.
Strategy
With respect to the company’s portfolio of products, it pursues a strategy of balancing the sale of products as fertilizer into the agriculture markets at spot prices or short duration pre-sales, and developing industrial customers that purchase substantial quantities of products.
The strategy of developing industrial customers helps to moderate the risk inherent in the agricultural markets, where spot sales prices of its agricultural products may not have a correlation to natural gas raw material costs, but rather reflect market conditions for like and competing nitrogen sources. The company’s strategy calls for further development of industrial customers who assume the volatility risk associated with mitigating the effects of seasonality in the agricultural sector.
The company’s strategy also includes evaluating further investments in low carbon opportunities, potential acquisitions of strategic assets or companies, joint ventures with other companies, and investments in additional production capacity.
Key Operating Initiatives for 2025
The company is able to successfully implement the following key initiatives:
Investing to Improve Environmental, Health & Safety and Reliability at the company’s Facilities while Supplying its Customers with Products of the Highest Quality;
Continue Optimization and Increase the Breadth of Distribution of the company’s Product Mix;
Development of Low Carbon Ammonia and Clean Energy Projects;
Evaluate and Pursue Organic Capacity Expansion; and
Evaluate Acquisitions of Strategic Assets or Companies.
Agricultural Products
The company produces and sells UAN, HDAN, and ammonia, all of which are nitrogen-based fertilizers. It sells these agricultural products to farmers, ranchers, fertilizer dealers, and distributors primarily in the ranch land and grain production markets in the United States. The company’s nitrogen-based fertilizers are used to grow food crops, biofuel feedstock crops, and pasture forage for grazing livestock and forage production. The company maintains long-term relationships with wholesale agricultural distributors and retailers, and also sells directly to agricultural end-users through its wholesale and retail distribution centers.
Industrial Products
The company manufactures and sells industrial acids and other chemical products primarily to the polyurethane intermediates, paper, fibers, emission control, and electronics industries. In addition, it produces and sells blended and regular nitric acid, and industrial and high purity ammonia for many specialty applications, including the reduction of air emissions from power plants.
Sales of the company’s industrial products are generally made to customers pursuant to sales contracts or pricing arrangements on terms that include the cost of the primary raw materials as a pass-through component in the sales price. These contractual sales stabilize the effect of commodity cost changes and fluctuations in demand for these products due to the cyclicality of the end markets.
The company operates the Baytown Facility on behalf of Covestro, and it is one of the largest and most technologically advanced nitric acid manufacturing units in the United States. The company operates and maintains this facility pursuant to a long-term operating contract in exchange for a management fee, which is not significant to its results of operations. The term of this agreement runs until October 2029, with options for renewal by mutual agreement between the company and Covestro.
The company’s industrial products sales volumes are dependent upon general economic conditions, primarily in the housing, automotive, and paper industries. The company’s sale prices generally vary with the market price of ammonia, sulfur, or natural gas, as applicable, in its pricing arrangements with customers.
The company also produces and sells LDAN, HDAN, and AN solution for use in other applications, which are primarily used as AN fuel oil and specialty emulsions for usage in the quarry and construction industries, and for metals mining. The company has signed long-term contracts with certain customers that provide for the annual sale of LDAN mostly under natural gas cost pass-through pricing arrangements. One of the company’s customers has a plant located at its El Dorado Facility.
Customers
The principal customers for the company’s products are distributors and end customers, such as farmers, ranchers, and fertilizer dealers, as well as industrial users. Sales are generated by the company’s internal marketing and sales force. For 2024, five customers accounted for approximately 30% of its consolidated net sales.
NOL Rights Agreement
The company is party to an Amended and Restated Section 382 Rights Agreement (as amended, the ‘NOL Rights Agreement’) with Computershare Trust Company, N.A., as rights agent.
History
LSB Industries, Inc., a Delaware corporation, was founded in 1968. The company was incorporated in 1977.