Production came in below expectations at the Phosphate HIll mine in Qld in FY23. Photo: Incitec Pivot Limited

INCITEC Pivot Limited has reported a net profit after tax of $582 million for the financial year ending September 30, its second-highest result since 2008.

The company’s earnings before interest and tax, excluding individually material items, of $880M was down from a record FY22 of $1485M.

IPL also announced that, subject to the successful completion of the sale of the Waggaman ammonia facility.

Its Fertilisers Asia Pacific segment recorded EBIT of $153M in FY23, down 75 percent from the FY22 result of $614M.

Strong second-half fertiliser sales helping to offset difficult trading conditions resulting from declining commodity prices.

Unplanned outages at IPL’s Phosphate Hill manufacturing plant, and higher gas costs, negatively impacted the result.

IPL interim CEO Paul Victor said the company was looking at ways to improve the reliability of the fertiliser’s business into FY24.

“Incitec Pivot Fertilisers’ strong brands and unrivalled distribution network helped increase domestic fertiliser sales by 9 percent,” Mr Victor said in a statement to the ASX.

“However, overall earnings were impacted by a challenging market and disappointing manufacturing performance at Phosphate Hill.”

Production oat Phosphate Hill in FY23 of 864,000 tonnes was below expectations, and FY24 production is seen at 810,000-840,000t to reflect the impact of scheduled maintenance in the current half.

“In response, we have deployed a Reliability Taskforce at Phosphate Hill to address and implement key actions.”

IPL confirmed there have been no further developments in the potential acquisition of its fertilisers business, and discussions are continuing.

“Due diligence has been completed and we will provide further updates in due course.”

Mr Victor said IPL was carrying strong strategic and operating momentum into FY24 on the back of a strong second-half performance in FY23.

“Our net zero journey continues, with all of our major decarbonisation projects progressing during
the year.

“We are on track to meet our ambition of greater than 42pc reductions in emissions by 2030.”

Source: IPL