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CF Industries combines nitrogen from the air with hydrogen extracted from natural gas to make ammonia. It sells some ammonia directly and converts the rest into other nitrogen products, mainly for crop fertilization, with additional uses such as emissions control. Ammonia, granular urea and liquid urea ammonium nitrate fertilizer (UAN) account for most revenue. Buyers include agricultural cooperatives, fertilizer retailers and distributors, and industrial users; most sales are in North America. CHS is its largest customer and contributes a meaningful share of sales under supply agreements.
The business depends on fertilizer demand, global nitrogen-product prices and natural-gas costs: gas supplies both the raw material and fuel for ammonia production. Demand peaks around spring planting and strengthens again after the fall harvest, so CF produces year-round and stores products for these shorter selling seasons. Its storage and transport network helps get fertilizer to customers when they need it. Continued plant operation and expansion require environmental and other government permits.
CF also sells low-carbon ammonia at a premium. At Donaldsonville, it captures carbon dioxide from production, while ExxonMobil transports and permanently stores it. This business depends on third-party carbon transport and storage, and on customers’ willingness to pay for lower-emission products.
The risk section is the longest, dullest part of the filing. This keeps only what can really hurt you: where it hits, how hard, when it plays out.
Every company claims an edge. Each one is checked against hard numbers like margins and returns: which hold, and which line gives way first.
CF’s results hinge on nitrogen prices and natural gas costs; watch competitors Yara and privately held Koch Fertilizer, and its largest customer, CHS.
Nutrien competes with CF for North American fertilizer sales, exposing both to nitrogen demand and prices. Watch Nutrien’s nitrogen business rather than its total results, which also include agricultural retail, potash and phosphate.
CVR Partners and CF compete to sell ammonia and liquid nitrogen fertilizer, UAN, to U.S. agricultural distributors and retailers, so they share exposure to fertilizer prices and planting demand. UAN accounted for about 67% of CVR Partners’ 2025 net sales, including freight, making that revenue line particularly useful to watch alongside CF’s UAN business.
LSB INDUSTRIES INC and CF compete in ammonia and liquid nitrogen fertilizer, UAN, for U.S. agriculture, and in ammonia-derived chemicals for industrial buyers; both face nitrogen-price and natural-gas-cost swings. Watch LSB’s fertilizer sales to U.S. ranch-land and grain-production markets separately from its industrial chemical business.
Mosaic and CF depend on the same crop-fertilizer spending cycle: Mosaic sells phosphate and potash to agricultural buyers, while CF supplies nitrogen. Mosaic’s sales to fertilizer distributors, retailers and farmers offer a view of fertilizer spending beyond CF’s nitrogen market.
ADECOAGRO S.A. competes with CF through its acquired Profertil business, which produces granular urea in Argentina for the fertilizer market. Watch its fertilizer segment rather than its broader farming and processing results, but note that 2025 included only 13 days of Profertil results, from December 18 through December 31.
CVR Partners, LP earningsUAN
CVR Partners’ report will show UAN prices and sales in the U.S. agricultural market, where CF Industries also sells UAN.
Read CVR Partners’ UAN sales together with its sales volume and realized price, and compare the direction with CF’s UAN business rather than comparing company size. Firm volume and prices point to support in the market both companies serve; weakening volume or prices signals pressure that CF also faces, though the two companies’ results need not match.
The Mosaic Company earningsMOS
Mosaic sells phosphate and potash, so its report offers another read on whether farmers and distributors are spending on fertilizer beyond the nitrogen products CF Industries sells.
Look at Mosaic’s phosphate and potash sales volumes and sales, not just its company-wide results. Steady volumes with supported sales point to resilience in fertilizer spending, a favorable backdrop for CF Industries’ nitrogen demand; weakness in both points to softer broader spending, but phosphate and potash are not nitrogen, so that signals a weaker backdrop rather than proving CF’s sales will fall.
CF Industries Holding, Inc. earningsThis company
CF Industries turns natural gas into ammonia, urea and UAN, and this report will show whether selling prices and volumes cover production costs well enough to support margins.
Read selling prices and sales volumes alongside gross margin—the sales left after product costs—for ammonia, granular urea and UAN. If prices and volumes strengthen and margins widen, sales gains are outrunning natural-gas and other costs; if prices rise but margins stall or shrink, costs or weaker shipments are absorbing the gains, so CF is not turning better selling prices into stronger product economics.
Industrial Production MoM (Oct)
Industrial production tracks how much factories, mines and utilities make; stronger activity can lift natural-gas demand and prices, raising CF Industries’ main production input cost and squeezing nitrogen-product margins.
Read stronger factory, mine and utility output as a possible source of higher gas prices and costs for CF Industries’ nitrogen production; weaker output may ease that cost pressure.
