Nutrien Ltd. said Feb. 5 that it expects to book earnings per share of between US$2.10 and US$2.60 for full-year 2018 from continuing operations, excluding incremental depreciation and amortization related to purchase price allocation of between US$150 million and US$300 million.
Consolidated EBITDA for the year, on the other hand, is expected to reach between US$3.2 billion and US$3.7 billion.
Nutrien resulted from the merger between Agrium Inc. and Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, which was completed in January.
Agrium's fourth-quarter 2017 net earnings from continuing operations was US$27 million, down from the US$69 million in the same period a year ago, with full-year earnings also down from US$584 million to US$502 million.
The result in both the three-month and 12-month periods ended Dec. 31, 2017, was attributed to record retail business unit performance and higher potash sales and margin, which was more than offset by lower nitrogen sales volumes and margins due to plant outages in the second half of 2017.
PotashCorp, meanwhile, booked a net loss of US$76 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, from a profit of US$46 million in the same year-ago period, which included a non-cash impairment charge in phosphate of US$276 million and net tax recovery of US$118 million. Full-year 2017 income is US$327 million, slightly up from US$323 million in 2016.
