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United Kingdom Energy Crisis and Impairment Charges | 12 Months Ended
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Dec. 31, 2023
Property, Plant and Equipment [Abstract] |
United Kingdom Energy Crisis and Impairment Charges | United Kingdom Operations Restructuring and Impairment Charges 2021 Impairment During the third quarter of 2021, the United Kingdom began experiencing an energy crisis that included a substantial increase in the price of natural gas. In the first half of 2021, natural gas prices had increased to levels that were considered high compared to historical prices, and prices then more than doubled within the third quarter of 2021. On September 15, 2021, we announced the halt of operations at both our Ince and Billingham manufacturing facilities in the United Kingdom due to negative profitability driven by the high cost of natural gas. Shortly thereafter, our Billingham facility resumed operations. The U.K. energy crisis necessitated an evaluation of the long-lived assets, including definite-lived intangible assets, and goodwill of our U.K. operations to determine if their fair value had declined to below their carrying value. We performed the impairment evaluations on the U.K. Ammonia, U.K. AN and U.K. Other asset groups’ long-lived assets, including definite-lived intangible assets, and the U.K. Ammonia, U.K. AN and U.K. Other reporting units’ goodwill as of September 30, 2021. Our assets groups are the same as our reporting units. Based on these analyses, we concluded that a decline in fair value below carrying value had occurred, and we recognized impairment charges of $495 million in the third quarter of 2021, consisting of long-lived and intangible asset impairment charges of $236 million and a goodwill impairment charge of $259 million. In the fourth quarter of 2021, natural gas prices in the United Kingdom continued to rise, which triggered an additional impairment test of long-lived assets and goodwill and resulted in an additional goodwill impairment charge of $26 million. The results of our long-lived asset impairment test indicated that no additional long-lived asset impairment existed, as the undiscounted cash flows were in excess of the carrying values for each of the U.K. asset groups. For the full year ended December 31, 2021, these evaluations resulted in total impairment charges of $521 million, consisting of goodwill impairment of $285 million and long-lived and intangible asset impairment of $236 million, of which $50 million related to definite-lived intangible assets. As of December 31, 2021, no goodwill related to our U.K. reporting units remained. 2022 Impairment and Restructuring During the first quarter of 2022, we concluded that the continued impacts of the U.K. energy crisis, including further increases and volatility in natural gas prices due in part to geopolitical events as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggered an additional long-lived asset impairment test. The results of this test indicated that no additional long-lived asset impairment existed, as the undiscounted estimated future cash flows were in excess of the carrying values for each of the U.K. asset groups. In the second quarter of 2022, we approved and announced our proposed plan to restructure our U.K. operations, including the planned permanent closure of the Ince facility, which had been idled since September 2021, and optimization of the remaining manufacturing operations at our Billingham facility. Pursuant to our proposed plan to restructure our U.K. operations and dispose of the Ince facility assets before we originally intended, we concluded that an evaluation of our long-lived assets and an additional impairment test was required. Our assessment then identified the U.K. asset groups as U.K. Ammonia, U.K. AN and U.K. Other, comprising our ongoing U.K. operations, and Ince, U.K. In response to this impairment indicator, we compared the undiscounted cash flows expected to result from the use and eventual disposition of the Ince, U.K. asset group to its carrying amount and concluded the carrying amount was not recoverable and should be adjusted to its fair value. As a result, in the second quarter of 2022, we recorded total charges of $162 million related to the Ince facility as follows: •asset impairment charges of $152 million consisting of the following: ◦an impairment charge of $135 million related to property, plant and equipment that is planned for abandonment at the Ince facility, including a liability of approximately $9 million for the costs of certain asset retirement activities related to the Ince site; ◦an intangible asset impairment charge of $8 million related to trade names; and ◦an impairment charge of $9 million related to the write-down of spare parts and certain raw materials at the Ince facility; and •a charge for post-employment benefits totaling $10 million, which is included in the U.K. operations restructuring line item in our consolidated statements of operations, related to contractual and statutory obligations due to employees whose employment would be terminated in the proposed plan.
There was no additional asset impairment indicated for the three asset groups that comprise the continuing U.K. operations as the undiscounted estimated future cash flows were in excess of the carrying values for each of these asset groups. In the third quarter of 2022, the United Kingdom continued to experience extremely high and volatile natural gas prices. Russian natural gas flows to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline ceased, causing the United Kingdom to experience unprecedented natural gas prices. In addition, the European Union announced a desire to cap the price that Europe would pay Russia for natural gas deliveries, further contributing to the uncertainty in European energy markets. Given these factors and the lack of a corresponding increase in global nitrogen product market prices, in September 2022, we temporarily idled ammonia production at our Billingham complex. As a result, we concluded that an additional impairment test was triggered for the asset groups that comprise the continuing U.K. operations. The results of our impairment test indicated that the carrying values for our U.K. Ammonia and U.K. AN asset groups exceeded the undiscounted estimated future cash flows. As a result, we recognized asset impairment charges of $87 million, primarily related to property, plant and equipment and definite-lived intangible assets. In August 2022, the final restructuring plan for our U.K. operations was approved, and decommissioning activities were initiated. As a result, in the third quarter of 2022, we incurred additional charges related to our U.K. restructuring of $8 million, primarily related to one-time termination benefits. In the fourth quarter of 2022, we incurred additional charges related to our U.K. restructuring of $1 million, primarily related to one-time termination benefits. For the full year ended December 31, 2022, as a result of the above, we recognized total impairment and restructuring charges of $258 million, consisting of long-lived and intangible asset impairment charges of $239 million and restructuring charges of $19 million. As of December 31, 2022, amounts accrued related to the final restructuring plan for our U.K. operations consisted of $2 million for employee contractual and one-time termination benefits and $6 million for asset retirement obligations. See Note 8—Property, Plant and Equipment—Net, Note 9—Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets and Note 24—Asset Retirement Obligations for additional information. Assumptions in the impairment evaluations The valuation of our asset groups and reporting units requires significant judgment in evaluating recent indicators of market activity and estimating future cash flows, discount rates, and other factors. The expected cash flows used in the long-lived asset and goodwill impairment tests reflected assumptions about product selling prices and natural gas costs, as well as estimates of future production and sales volumes, operating rates, operating expenses, inflation, discount rates, tax rates and capital spending. The valuations also incorporate assumptions regarding the time it could take for the U.K. energy crisis to be resolved. In addition, assumptions were used to estimate the fair value of the long-lived assets in our asset groups, which included replacement cost and, for the Ince, U.K. asset group that is planned for abandonment, salvage value. For purposes of our goodwill impairment analyses in 2021, we estimated the fair value of the reporting units using the income approach, which incorporated the estimated future cash flows and a terminal value discounted to their present value using an appropriate risk-adjusted discount rate from the perspective of a market participant. The estimated future cash flows were based on our internal forecasts, updated for recent events at that time. These estimated future cash flows went beyond the specific operating plans, using a terminal value calculation, which incorporated historical and forecasted trends and an estimate of long-term future growth rates. The future growth rates were based on our view of the long-term outlook for each reporting unit. The discount rates utilized in the income approach, for our goodwill impairment tests, and to discount the cash flows in calculating long-lived asset impairment, were derived using a capital asset pricing model and analyzing published rates for industries relevant to our reporting units to estimate the cost of equity financing. The discount rates were commensurate with the risks and uncertainties inherent in the business and in the United Kingdom and our cash flow forecasts, updated for recent events at that time. Additional assumptions utilized in the long-lived asset impairment analyses were royalty rates and attrition rates in estimating the fair value of our definite-lived intangible assets, consisting of trade names and customer relationships, for which we used the relief from royalty method of the income approach and the multi-period excess earnings method, respectively. For the asset groups that comprise the continuing U.K. operations, the fair value of our property, plant and equipment utilized in the long-lived asset impairment analyses was estimated using the indirect method of the cost approach by determining the reproduction cost new, or replacement cost, of the assets and applying appropriate adjustments for depreciation including an inutility adjustment based on the cash flows expected to be generated by those asset groups. For property, plant and equipment within the Ince, U.K. asset group, an asset group planned for abandonment, we first considered use of a market or income-based valuation method. However, given that a secondary market did not exist and the assets had been idled with a planned abandonment and therefore would not generate future cash flows from operations, we estimated the fair value of the asset group by determining the replacement cost of the underlying assets and then adjusting each of the asset categories to an estimated salvage value utilizing industry recognized price publications. Due to the inherent uncertainties involved in making estimates and assumptions, actual results may differ from those assumed in our forecasts. 2023 Restructuring In July 2023, we approved and announced our proposed plan to permanently close the ammonia plant at our Billingham complex, and, in September 2023, the final plan was approved. As a result, in 2023, we recognized total charges of $10 million consisting primarily of the recognition of an asset retirement obligation and post-employment benefits related to contractual and statutory obligations due to employees whose employment would be terminated.

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- Definition The entire disclosure for the details of the charge against earnings resulting from the aggregate write down of all assets from their carrying value to their fair value. Disclosure may also include a description of the impaired asset and facts and circumstances leading to the impairment, amount of the impairment loss and where the loss is located in the income statement, method(s) for determining fair value, and the segment in which the impaired asset is reported. + References No definition available. + Details
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