Background and Basis of Presentation

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2013

Background and Basis of Presentation

Background and Basis of Presentation

1.     Background and Basis of Presentation

        We are one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer products in the world. Our operations are organized into two business segments—the nitrogen segment and the phosphate segment. Our principal customers are cooperatives and independent fertilizer distributors. Our principal fertilizer products in the nitrogen segment are ammonia, granular urea, urea ammonium nitrate solution, or UAN, and ammonium nitrate, or AN. Our other nitrogen products include urea liquor, diesel exhaust fluid, or DEF, and aqua ammonia, which are sold primarily to our industrial customers. Our principal fertilizer products in the phosphate segment are diammonium phosphate, or DAP, and monoammonium phosphate, or MAP.

        Our core market and distribution facilities are concentrated in the midwestern United States and other major agricultural areas of the U.S. and Canada. We also export nitrogen fertilizer products from our Donaldsonville, Louisiana manufacturing facilities and phosphate fertilizer products from our Florida phosphate operations.

        On October 28, 2013, we announced that we had entered into a set of strategic agreements with The Mosaic Company (Mosaic) to sell our phosphate mining and manufacturing business and additional long-term supply agreements to provide ammonia to Mosaic. Further information regarding these agreements is contained in Note 21—Subsequent Events.

        The accompanying unaudited interim consolidated financial statements have been prepared on the same basis as our audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2012, in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States for interim financial reporting. In the opinion of management, these statements reflect all adjustments, consisting only of normal and recurring adjustments that are necessary for the fair representation of the information for the periods presented. The unaudited interim consolidated financial statements included herein have been prepared pursuant to the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Certain information and disclosures normally included in financial statements prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles have been condensed or omitted pursuant to such rules and regulations. Operating results for any period presented apply to that period only and are not necessarily indicative of results for any future period.

        These statements should be read in conjunction with our audited consolidated financial statements and related disclosures included in our 2012 Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 27, 2013.

        The preparation of the unaudited interim financial statements requires management to make use of estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amount of assets and liabilities, revenue and expenses and certain financial statement disclosures. Actual results could differ from these estimates. Significant estimates in these consolidated financial statements include net realizable value of inventories, the timing and ultimate settlement costs of asset retirement obligations, environmental remediation liabilities, environmental and litigation contingencies, the cost of sales incentives, useful lives of property and identifiable intangible assets, the evaluation of impairments of property, investments, identifiable intangible assets and goodwill, income tax and valuation reserves, allowances for doubtful accounts receivable, the measurement of the fair values of investments for which markets are not active, assumptions used in the determination of the funded status and annual expense of pension and postretirement employee benefit plans and the volatility and expected lives for stock compensation instruments granted to employees.

        All references to "CF Holdings," "the Company," "we," "us" and "our" refer to CF Industries Holdings, Inc. and its subsidiaries, except where the context makes clear that the reference is only to CF Industries Holdings, Inc. itself and not its subsidiaries.