Petroleum refining and fertilizer production company CVR Energy (CVI +3.14%) had a Monday to forget on the stock exchange. Its shares lost nearly 10% of their value after the company announced preliminary quarterly and full-year results that investors clearly found unimpressive.
Fourth-quarter flop?
Well before market open, in what seems like a rip-the-bandage-off-quickly move, CVR released those figures. According to the energy company's calculations, its net loss attributable to shareholders for the fourth quarter of 2025 will fall between $105 million and $125 million. That's on the back of total refining throughput of 210,000 to 220,000 barrels per day (bpd).
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The bottom-line forecast compares quite unfavorably to CVR's performance in the same period of 2024. In that quarter, the specialty energy company posted a headline net profit attributable to shareholders of $28 million. Meanwhile, its refining throughput was 214,000 bpd.
Worse, CVR is estimating that its ammonia utilization rate (a key indicator for the fertilization production business of its publicly traded subsidiary, CVR Partners) had fallen precipitously to 60% to 65% in the recently completed quarter. However, the year-ago period's utilization rate was far higher, at 96%.
NYSE: CVI
Key Data Points
A costly delay
Last year, CVR had to contend with operational challenges and delays at Coffeyville, one of its two fertilizer plants. These led to a maintenance shutdown lasting several months and negatively affected production.
While the company has worked through Coffeyville's issues, its overall business doesn't seem to be in tip-top shape. Considering that, I would probably avoid its stock for now.
