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The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

F500 2023 035 Archer Daniels Midland_ADM_LATAM_PortSantos_2

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) produces industrial ingredients as varied as high-fructose corn syrup and the cotton cellulose pulp used to make paper. It also runs a commodities trading operation for goods like grain and corn. 
<ul> 
 	<li>ADM’s ag services division, which sells seeds for industrial agriculture, had a strong year. Its revenue surged 18.7%, and operating income soared 58% as constrained supplies kept prices of commodities like corn, wheat, and soybeans high.</li> 
 	<li>Meanwhile, ADM’s nutrition business, which produces goods from livestock feed to food coloring, proved a drag on company performance: Sales grew just 6.5%, a sluggish pace the company attributed to global currency fluctuations and lower consumption amid rising inflation.</li> 
 	<li>In August 2022 ADM entered a joint venture with South Korean chemical company LG Chem to produce sustainable bioplastics in the U.S.</li> 
</ul>

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F500 2022-Archer Daniels Midland

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G500 147 Archer Daniels Midland

<span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The Chicago-based agricultural processor’s business spans 200 countries and touches everything from animal feed and human food to cosmetics, alcohol, and paint. Its annual performance has much to do with market conditions and commodity prices: In 2020, sales dipped 0.5% due to lower sales volumes of rice, ethanol, oils, and corn by-products. (ADM idled some facilities because of decreased demand last year.) Still, profits increased 28.5% over the previous year owing to more robust global trade—particularly between the U.S. and China—and strong demand for specialty ingredients like probiotics and plant-based proteins.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:12673,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}">The Chicago-based agricultural processor’s business spans 200 countries and touches everything from animal feed and human food to cosmetics, alcohol, and paint. Its annual performance has much to do with market conditions and commodity prices: In 2020, sales dipped 0.5% due to lower sales volumes of rice, ethanol, oils, and corn by-products. (ADM idled some facilities because of decreased demand last year.) Still, profits increased 28.5% over the previous year owing to more robust global trade—particularly between the U.S. and China—and strong demand for specialty ingredients like probiotics and plant-based proteins.

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CTW-2021-27-ADM

ADM has been on a quest to turn plants into meat substitutes since the 1950s, and claims the title of inventor of the soy veggie patty. Today, as a $64 billion ingredient company supplying global food brands, it may be the biggest plant-based protein producer you’ve never heard of. Its 10 joint ventures and investments in the category range from growing meat from animal cells to creating protein through fermentation to building the world’s largest insect protein production facility (it’s designed to convert flies into animal feed). These deals are key to ADM’s effort to remake itself into more than an agri-giant processor of commodity crops. ADM expects the $10 billion plant-protein sector to triple in size over the next decade as consumers become more concerned about the impact of their diets on the environment.

Change the World

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F500-2021-51-Archer Daniels Midland

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G500-2020-168-Archer-Daniels-Midland

The agricultural commodities and food processing giant, which fell 13 places on this year’s list, faced a bevy of challenges in 2019, including spring flooding in the American Midwest, an African swine fever outbreak in China, and continuing trade tensions between the U.S. and China. Revenues rose only 0.5% from the previous year, due to the weak performance of ADM’s ag services and oilseeds division, as well as its carbohydrate solutions unit. Both were challenged by lower sales volumes and commodity price declines. A bright spot was the company’s nutrition business, where sales were up 50%, largely due to acquisitions including that of Neovia, a French animal nutrition company.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-054-Archer-Daniels-Midland

The agricultural commodities and food processing giant, which falls five places on this year’s list, faced a bevy of challenges in 2019, including spring flooding in the American Midwest, an African swine fever outbreak in China, and continuing trade tensions between the U.S. and China. Revenues rose only 0.5% from the previous year due to the weak performance of ADM’s ag services and oilseeds division, as well as its carbohydrate solutions unit. Both were challenged by lower sales volumes and commodity price declines. A bright spot was the company’s nutrition business, where sales were up 50% largely due to acquisitions like Neovia, a French animal nutrition company.

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Global business is back. After limping through a worldwide financial crisis and economic slowdown, the 500 largest companies ranked by revenues shattered all sorts of performance records in 2013: They racked up combined revenues of $31.1 trillion, up 2.5% from 2012, and profits soared 27% to nearly $2 trillion. China’s 95 companies (up from 89 last year) posted $5.8 trillion in revenues. The U.S. has four fewer companies on the list than last year but remains (for now) the country leader, with 128 corporations on the list—including No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores—reporting $8.6 trillion in revenues. 

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Change The World

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Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), founded in 1902, is one of the largest global players in food processing and commodities trading. Headquartered in Chicago, ADM operates more than 800 facilities worldwide, processing oilseeds, corn, wheat, and other agricultural products. The company is a leading supplier of food ingredients, animal feed, and biofuels. ADM plays a crucial role in the global food supply chain, connecting crops to markets and providing essential ingredients to various industries.

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Archer Daniels Midland (ADM): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Archer Daniels Midland

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Good morning, and welcome to the ADM Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on a listen-only mode to prevent background noise. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's call, Kate Walsh, Director, Investor Relations for ADM. Ms. Walsh, you may begin.

Welcome to the Second Quarter of 2026 Earnings Conference Call for ADM. Our prepared remarks today will be led by Juan Luciano, Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, and Monish Patolawala, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We have prepared presentation slides to supplement our remarks on the call today, which are posted to the investor relations section of the ADM website and through the link to our webcast.

Some of our comments and materials may constitute forward-looking statements that reflect management's current views and estimates of future economic circumstances, industry conditions, company performance, and financial results. These statements and materials are based on many assumptions and factors that are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties.

ADM has provided additional information in its reports on file with the SEC concerning assumptions and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those presented in these materials. Unless otherwise required by law, ADM assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements due to new information or future events.

During today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP or adjusted financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are available in our earnings press release and presentation slides, which can be found in the investor relations section of the ADM website. I will now turn the call over to Juan.

Thank you, Kate. Hello, and welcome to all who have joined the call. Please turn to slide four, where we have outlined this quarter's performance highlights. Today, ADM reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.84 and total segment operating profit of $1.5 billion for the second quarter of 2026. Our trailing four quarter adjusted ROIC was 7.8%, and cash flow from operations before working capital changes was $1.8 billion for the first half of 2026.

Total segment operating profit increased significantly compared to the prior year quarter, driven by several positive factors, including robust commercial and operational execution by our team, a constructive biofuels margin environment, elevated global energy prices, and momentum in Nutrition led by flavors and progress in specialty ingredients.

Based on our first half performance and a constructive outlook for the second half, we are again raising our full year 2026 adjusted EPS guidance, now to a range of $5.15-$5.60, up from the previous guidance range of $4.15-$4.70. That same discipline extends to how we allocate capital and return value to our shareholders. During the second quarter, we paid our 378th consecutive quarterly dividend. We remain steadfast in our commitment to creating and returning value to our stakeholders.

Please turn to slide five. The second quarter of this year was an important one for us. The team once again delivered while progressing our 2026 priorities. I'll run through a few highlights. During the quarter, energy markets were supportive of North American biofuel margins following the finalization in March of the renewable volume obligations for 2026 and 2027. Additionally, global energy volatility was also supportive of biofuel, including crush margins. Our business executed well across our asset footprint amid this constructive backdrop, increasing global oilseed process volumes by close to 5% compared to the prior year period, driven by higher asset utilization.

Our services also delivered strong results in the second quarter, driven by the team strategically leveraging ADM's global asset network in a complex operating environment to deliver value across the agricultural supply chain. South American operations also benefited from the grain export terminal in Barcarena, Brazil, returning to full operations along with increased soybean export, which were supported by higher farmer selling.

North American ethanol margins were robust in the second quarter as favorable economics incentivized higher domestic blend rates. Additionally, elevated global energy prices coupled with lower U.S. corn prices enabled U.S. ethanol to be price competitive globally, which provided a favorable U.S. industry-wide export backdrop. Our Nutrition business contributed to robust operating profit results this quarter, led by flavors and supported by progress at Decatur East, and benefits from our portfolio actions in animal nutrition.

Flavor sales grew across every key region, with particular strength in EMEA. We delivered a record quarter for flavors in Asia Pacific. To summarize, in AS&O, our team executed well in a complex and volatile environment, strategically leveraging ADM's global asset footprint to drive margin and volume uplift in Ag Services, capture strong crush margins in a constructive biofuels environment, and deliver nearly 5% crush volume growth year-over-year.

In [Carbohydrate] Solutions, ethanol production rose in a strong margin environment. We sequestered 337,000 metric tons of carbon this quarter. In Nutrition, the team built on the momentum in the first quarter with continued improvement in both human nutrition and animal nutrition. The robust cash flow that our business generates funds our capital allocation and growth priorities. Our growth plan focuses on accretive, targeted organic investments across our platform where we see the most compelling opportunities, such as expanding domestic crushing and ethanol capacity at existing facilities.

Given the strength of biofuel demand, we have identified four U.S. crush facilities for this first phase of expansion, which together are expected to deliver a meaningful increase in our North American capacity. Additionally, we're building out precision fermentation capabilities and expanding our natural colors footprint to capitalize on the shift toward cleaner labels and higher plant protein reformulations already underway.

Our growth plan is built upon the foundation of operating safely and responsibly. That commitment runs through everything we do. I'm proud that two of our North American facilities were recently recognized by Workplace Safety Awards and were recently inducted into Illinois Manufacturers' Association's Hall of Fame. That same commitment to our people shapes how we think about the world around us.

While the commercial environment has supported our results, I will be remiss not to acknowledge the conflict in the Middle East and the escalation of conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Our thoughts are with all those affected. We have operations in Ukraine. The safety and security of our employees in the region remain our primary concern.

While we expect any disruption to our Ukrainian operation to have limited financial impact to ADM, the region is an important contributor to global food security. Further disruption to grain export could weigh on global grain stocks and increase food prices. As for what this means for our business, navigating global disruptions is not new to ADM.

We will remain focused on executing on our 2026 priorities and delivering on our long-term plan. Please turn to slide six to discuss our long-term growth plans. We are making purposeful investments now in the platform set to drive the next phase of our growth. We have outlined before the next wave of value creations run through five distinct pathways that include a mix of near-term drivers already showing up in our results and longer-term opportunities that we will keep scaling.

Importantly, each sits in a market we know well, tied to customers' needs we understand. With the infrastructure largely in place to deliver, I'll take a few moments now to highlight our advanced Nutrition platform in more detail, where we are developing innovative solutions as customers shift from artificial to natural ingredients, particularly in North America, where we believe we're well-positioned to capitalize on this structural change in the food we eat.

One of the more exciting near-term opportunities is the transition from artificial to natural colors. We believe this represents a total addressable U.S. market of roughly $1 billion in revenue. Our target is to capture $80 million-$100 million of operating profit for ADM over time as we partner with our customers to launch new solutions. We have a well-established global colors business that helped bring similar solutions to our European customers over a decade ago.

Our experienced team is well-suited to provide a full suite of solutions to our customers as they navigate the complexities with color, flavor, and functionality changes across products of various scales, from craft to industrial-scale production. Our natural colors pipeline has grown significantly year to date, with several notable customer wins. I highlight two contracts that we recently signed, both to convert artificial red, yellow, and orange shades to natural alternatives.

One across a well-known packaged food line, the other in flavored beverages. These wins reflect the shift toward cleaner labels we believe ADM is well-positioned to capture. That will add durable, recurring sales as the product reach store shelves. Natural colors represent just one of several growth engines built into our business. Together with the organic projects we're executing today, they build an enduring growth pipeline that is expected to compound over the years ahead.

I want to close by recognizing the people who make all of this possible and to thank the ADM team for all their hard work and everything they do each day to strengthen our company. It is their commitment to executing on our immediate priorities while advancing our long-term strategy that is the foundation of our success in a shifting global landscape. With that, I will hand it to Monish to walk you through our second quarter financials and full-year outlook.

Thank you, Juan. I wish you all a very good morning. Please turn to slide seven. AS&O segment operating profit for the second quarter of 2026 was $867 million, up 129% compared to the prior quarter. Included in the second quarter results was around $100 million of net positive mark-to-market and timing impacts, led by a net positive impact in crushing, a modest net positive benefit attributable to Ag Services, partially offset by a net negative impact attributable to refined products and other of around $50 million.

The Ag Services sub-segment in the current quarter generated operating profit of $293 million, representing an increase of 159% compared to the prior quarter. The increase was primarily as a result of strategically leveraging ADM's global asset network in a complex operating environment to deliver value across the agricultural supply chain.

In addition, we benefited from improved performance in South America, partially as a result of the Brazilian export terminal in Barcarena returning to full operation. For the crushing sub-segment, operating profit was $363 million for the quarter, an increase of approximately $330 million from the prior quarter as the business performed well in a constructive biofuels margin environment. The constructive margin environment was driven by higher domestic demand resulting from the RVO policy, combined with higher global energy prices.

Additionally, crush results for the quarter include positive mark-to-market and timing impacts. Further, as Juan mentioned, manufacturing performance further improved year-over-year, with global crush volumes increasing close to 5%. Additionally, soybean meal sales remained strong throughout the quarter, driven by elevated global demand for pork and poultry, which led to a record quarter for the U.S. and Brazilian soybean meal exports.

Lastly, included in this quarter's results are insurance proceeds related to Decatur East of approximately $20 million. For the refined products and other sub-segment, operating profit was $151 million, down by 3% compared to the prior quarter. The year-over-year decrease was largely attributable to net negative mark-to-market and timing impacts driven by improved refining margins as a result of RVO and global energy volatility in North America and Europe.

Margins were somewhat pressured in South America due to oversupply conditions. For our investment in Wilmar, equity earnings were $60 million for the quarter, down 22% compared to the prior quarter. Turning now to slide eight. For the second quarter, Carbohydrate Solutions segment operating profit was $411 million, representing an increase of 22% compared to the prior quarter. In starches and sweeteners, operating profit was $326 million, up 7% year-over-year. Ethanol margin strength, including policy incentives, drove the improvement.

Strength in ethanol more than offset the ongoing pressure in liquid sweetener volumes and margins, which were most pronounced in North America. Further, starch demand stabilized during the quarter, while global wheat milling volumes remained relatively stable in a more competitive environment. In the Vantage Corn Processors sub-segment, operating profit was $85 million, representing a $52 million increase from the prior quarter as our corn dry milling ethanol operations benefited from stronger ethanol margins, along with support from policy incentives and effective risk management.

Overall, base ethanol EBITDA margins for the quarter were higher both sequentially and compared to the prior quarter. Now turning to slide nine. For Nutrition, segment revenues in the second quarter were $1.9 billion, down 5% compared to the prior quarter and inclusive of foreign exchange gains.

Human Nutrition revenue decreased by 4% against the prior quarter that included a $55 million benefit from a contract cancellation in health and wellness. Animal Nutrition revenue decreased by 6% year-over-year, primarily reflecting our previously disclosed portfolio actions and the formation of the Akralos joint venture. Nutrition segment operating profit was $172 million for the second quarter, representing an increase of 51% compared to the prior quarter.

Human Nutrition operating profit was $139 million, up 51% compared to the prior quarter, driven primarily by the growth in flavors. Progress with the Decatur East plant also contributed to positive year-over-year results. Animal Nutrition operating profit was $33 million for the quarter, up 50% compared to the prior quarter, primarily attributable to ongoing improvements and benefits from portfolio actions taken during 2025.

Corporate expense declined year-over-year, driven by lower interest expense this year and the non-recurrence of prior impairment losses partially offset by higher performance-based compensation this year. Now turning to slide 10. For the first half of 2026, ADM generated cash flow from operations before working capital of approximately $1.8 billion. We continue to be very disciplined in the areas in which we invest.

During the first half of 2026, we invested $466 million in our footprint and maintain our expectations of full-year 2026 CapEx being in the range of $1.3 billion-$1.5 billion. During the quarter, we distributed $256 million in dividends, marking our 378th consecutive quarter of paying a dividend. Our dividends and organic growth projects continue to be core to our capital allocation priorities, and we will continue to be very disciplined with respect to bolt-on M&A opportunities that complement our core businesses.

Our net leverage ratio at June 30th was 1.6x. Our year-end net leverage ratio expectations remain at approximately 2x. Additionally, given the strength of our balance sheet, cash flow generation, and leverage position, we are evaluating a return to opportunistic share repurchases later this year. Now turning to slide 11, where we have provided updated details regarding our 2026 outlook.

Earlier today, as Juan mentioned, we raised our outlook for 2026 adjusted EPS to a range of $5.15-$5.60, up from the previous range of $4.15-$4.70. In addition to our year-to-date performance, our raised guidance was based on three primary factors. First, we anticipate our team will continue delivering successfully against our plan through the balance of the year. Second, we expect the favorable margin backdrop across our crushing and ethanol businesses to hold throughout the second half of this year.

Third, we expect Nutrition to continue improving operating performance while capturing growth opportunities. As a reminder, the fourth quarter is the seasonal low for our flavors business. Additionally, our guidance range reflects a number of assumptions. For AS&O, we are assuming that China continues buying North American soybeans, which is expected to benefit our Ag Services sub-segment.

We have seen good progress thus far with China well underway with executing on its commitment to buy 25 million tons of U.S. soybeans in 2026. For crushing and RPO, we expect the constructive biofuels environment to support strong growth year-over-year throughout the second half of this year, further supported by the realization of the reversal of net negative mark-to-market and timing impacts that we are carrying from the first half of the year. As a reminder, we do not include new mark-to-market and timing impacts in our forward guidance.

Additional adjustments could arise in future quarters depending on where commodity prices move. For Carb Solutions, we expect strengthened ethanol margins, including policy incentives, to continue to more than offset the softness we are seeing primarily in liquid sweeteners. As a result, we are raising our net benefit from 45Z to approximately $250 million for 2026, up from our prior expectations of approximately $150 million.

Our year-over-year momentum for Nutrition remains intact, with operating profit increasing primarily as a result of higher flavor sales, measured progress with Decatur East, and improvements in animal nutrition. In corporate, we expect costs to be higher than in 2025, driven primarily by performance-based compensation, along with continued investments in research and development and automation and digitization. Just a quick reminder on modeling incentive compensation.

All incentive compensation adjustments are recorded in corporate during the year, with the impact to our operating segments occurring when the non-equity related payments are made in the first quarter of 2027. As always, we continue to closely monitor external factors across the macroeconomic, geopolitical policy, and overall trade environment, with particular attention to the impact volatility could have on our second half results.

We also continue to progress our enterprise-wide cost-saving programs and remain on track to achieve our targeted aggregated cost savings of $500 million-$750 million over the three to five-year period, which commenced in 2025. I'll take a moment to highlight progress across the corporate functions in driving reductions in transaction costs.

Just to give you a couple of examples, in finance, under an umbrella that we call frictionless finance, we have paired lean methodology with daily management to systematically reduce cost across our transactional processes. Accounts payable is a clear example. Daily management routines surfaced recurring friction in the invoice to pay cycle, and the global shared services team has reduced cost per transaction by roughly 25% since the beginning of the year.

Within global technology, we are consolidating to fewer core platforms, eliminating waste and resetting cost structures with our vendor partners. We are building deeper strategic relationships with fewer vendors. The global technology team also has line of sight to meaningful savings over the next few years, while increasing investments in digital advancements and cybersecurity.

In summary, the second quarter reflected strong commercial and operational execution by the team in a complex but constructive global trade and biofuels environment, with solid growth momentum in Nutrition, all of which contributing positively to results.

We expect the second half of this year will represent more than half of our operating profit for 2026, with the potential for the third quarter to be higher than the fourth quarter, largely dependent on how executed crush margins develop in the fourth quarter. In closing, I want to thank our ADM team members for the focus, discipline, and execution they brought to this quarter. It is their hard work in delivering strong commercial and operational performance across all three segments and generating the cash flow that funds our priorities.

This positions us well to raise our outlook and continue navigating a dynamic global landscape while delivering on our financial commitments and creating and returning value to our stakeholders. With this, I'll hand it back over to Juan.

Thanks, Monish. To recap, our second quarter results reflect a marked step-up in our earnings, driven by a constructive biofuels environment, strong commercial and operational execution, and momentum in Nutrition. That combination allow us to, again, raise our full year 2026 outlook. Beyond 2026, we have compelling growth engines already embedded in the business.

The organic investment we're making across our platform and the five growth pathways we have outlined, including the natural colors opportunity I discussed today. We're excited about the strength of this organic growth plan, while we continue to be very disciplined with respect to bolt-on M&A. As we execute the journey ahead, we will remain steadfast in our commitment to creating and returning value to our stakeholders.

Finally, before we open the call up for questions, I would like to welcome Jeff Rowe to ADM, who will assume the newly created role of Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, effective August 17th. Jeff brings more than 30 years of experience driving growth, operational excellence, and commercial success.

He joins us from Syngenta, where he serves as CEO of one of the world's largest agricultural technology companies, with more than 50,000 employees across over 90 countries. A fifth-generation Illinois farmer, Jeff is a proven industry leader whose appointment complements an already strong management team and builds on ADM's momentum around driving innovation and delivering on our long-term growth plan. With that, we'll take your questions now. Operator, please open the line.

We will now begin the question and answer session.Your first question comes from the line of Manav Gupta from UBS. Manav, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Juan. Good morning, Monish. First, congrats on a very strong quarter and another guidance raise. You continue to surprise the street on the upside. My question here is, as I understand, sir, and you can let me know if the understanding is wrong, the reason you are moving ahead with some of these debottlenecking facilities at existing plants is because the actual cost in $ per ton will be significantly less than if these were actually greenfield expansions.

So by moving ahead with these brownfield expansions, your return on investment will be materially higher versus if these actually were going to be greenfield expansions. Could you actually talk about that a little? Thank you.

Sure, Manav, good morning to you. I will pass the congrats to the team. Listen, of course, we're always looking for opportunities to deploy capital wisely. As you know, our capital allocation, that's the priority. Cost and growth part of the organic plan is the first one, also with dividends. As part of that, in crush, we've been expanding. We expanded last year in Brazil, where actually capital is cheaper in Brazil to be implemented.

We expanded 2, and we completed Uberlândia this year. In the U.S., we have identified 10 plants with potential for capacity unlocks. When we look at the overall portfolio, the capital intensity is about one-fourth of what will cost to build greenfield. Certainly, very attractive opportunities. We have decided to have a phased approach to allow for off-ramps or to see how the industry develops over time.

In this, what we call phase I, we have announced four of those 10 plants we are moving forward, which of course, are the most attractive returns. That is still keeping within our range of CapEx from 1.3 - 1.5. At times when we find these opportunities that are very compelling, we might go a little bit higher than that. At times, like last year when we didn't find anything, we were a little bit lower than that.

Nothing that it swings completely the range. This phase I, although it's early on, it could be in the range of $100 million overall for the four plants. It's not huge. We feel very good about that, and as we are building these, both in North America and Brazil, because these are markets where there are strong domestic biofuels markets, and they're very favorable in terms of margins.

We are also looking at potentially at the bottlenecks in ethanol that are driven mostly by our operational excellence efforts. As we continue to drive yields and cost improvements in the ethanol plants, naturally, some of that yields the bottlenecking on that. We're very good about the strength of our organic plan.

Manav, I'll just add to Juan's comment that the other benefit of this debottlenecking is manufacturing cost, Manav. As you know, there's a lot of fixed cost in these plants. The more the throughput, the average cost per unit comes down. All that adds to a very good return in addition to the volume that we get.

Perfect. Well understood, Monish. My second and a quick follow-up is, can we talk a little bit about the Broadwing Energy project? We see it as something which is a milestone for industrial decarbonization. Can you talk a little bit about that project and the benefits of that project? Thank you.

You know we have a broader strategy of decarbonization, and that's a very important project to bring low carbon intensity energy and steam into Decatur. It's a large project. We continue to move forward with that. As I said, it is one of the several elements that we have in our decarbonization path. A reminder, we've been leaders in carbon capture and sequestration that we started 11 years ago in our wells.

I think we sequestered 337,000 tons of carbons in this quarter, up from 300,000 the last quarter. Again, it's just a multi-year program and continue to decarbonize and drive based on our sustainability trend that we have put together as part of the strategy about 10 years ago. We continue to execute on the strategy and the plans as per schedule.

Your next question comes from the line of Heather Jones with Heather Jones Research. 

Good morning. Congratulations on the quarter.

I wanted to start with Ag Services. That was much stronger than I was anticipating. Given that the tensions in the Ukraine area have escalated, if China continues their bean purchases as you're assuming, do you think Q2 is a high point for the year, or could we have Q3 and Q4 look better than Q2?

Yeah, Heather, a lot going on in the world, as you know. We continue to praise the team in Ag Services and the system we have. At times like this, it's my experience over the last 14 years in ADM, that the market rewards our footprint and our flexibility.

All the assets that we have, whether it's transportation and options for origination and destination marketing offices, are basically built to provide the resilience for all these environments, in which our role is to make sure that food shows up wherever it needs to show up. At times of crisis or at times of disruptions, is when our team does better because we can flex much more all this ability and all this optionality that we have built in the model. As you said, weather across the world is threatening some crops.

There are some issues right now with China, especially for corn and maybe wheat and rice, whether it has become too hot and too dry. Certainly, effectively, basically Ukraine has ceased export through the sea. We've been hit several times, whether it was our vessels and our terminals, and I think the whole industry is in the same pace. Very difficult to get crews to come to pick up vessels.

I would say China continues to buy from the U.S. I think that China wants to honor the commitment of 25 million tons of soybean this year, and certainly there may be purchases of sorghum or barley later on that are less political maybe than corn. I would say probably Ag Services will be slightly lower, only for our own reasons, in Q3 than it was in Q2.

Q4, it will depend on how those exports come into the U.S. and how much can we build on sorghum and corn program on top of the soybean program that seems to be building for the later part of the year. The team continues to execute well. Global trade results were higher in Q2, driven by very strong commercial execution, taking advantage of some favorable market conditions. We continue to have improved destination marketing margins in Asia and good grain trading results. All in all, I think even our transportation ran well, ocean freight, also domestic freight. I would say all the elements have been having good execution and good performance.

Okay. Thank you for that. On RPO, I understand biodiesel margins have been strong for obvious reasons. I was wondering if you could talk about the refining margin for veg oils backdrop. I believe those have been relatively weak, and just wondering how you expect that to evolve throughout this year as EU biofuel policy is implemented, the RVO is fully implemented. How, what are you thinking about that further? 

Heather, I would go back to the same comment we made about RPO. We are seeing constructive margins in total. For Q2, we were lower year-on-year, driven by a negative mark-to-market that we took in Q2 that impacted the results of RPO. I would say when you think about from a capacity perspective, we see the industry doing a pretty good job from restarting capacity and the plants are running well.

I think what ultimately, as we said, we are watching a lot of factors in the market, whether it is macroeconomics, whether it's geopolitical, et cetera, as well as what does inflation do. That may determine what the food margins are for food oil go, as well as we've always said that sitting right now, we see a constructive biofuels market. We expect that to continue.

Therefore, the assumption is that these mark-to-markets, one will reverse, from Q2 into Q3 and Q4, we continue to have a constructive market. Ultimately, it will depend on what happens with all the factors that we've just talked about.

Your next question comes from the line of Ben Theurer with Barclays. 

Good morning, Juan, Monish. Also from my side, congrats on a very strong second quarter. My first question, would really like to dig in and understand a little bit as you think about the back half and then maybe early into 2027. You said you've done obviously a little bit of a release on MTM. You still have something built into it.

As you look into the overall environment, particularly biofuel policies, et cetera, if you would have to stretch for the second half a little bit, the high end versus the low end of your new guidance, just wanted to understand what is the scenario to get it closer to that $5.50, $5.60, and what would be a scenario to be more on the lower end of the $5, and how you think about this moving into 2027, if you have some preliminary thoughts as to the cadence of growth in 2027? That would be my first question.

Yeah. Thank you. Listen, I think sometimes the good results that the team are getting underscore the difficulties of the environment and how many decisions we need to get right to do this. I think Monish said it, and I said it in my remarks, probably the first condition for this to happen is the team is expected to continue delivering successfully against the plan that we put together, because it doesn't happen just by policy or by chance.

We think that the favorable margin backdrop across biofuels will continue. We see that in policies around the world. There certainly has been a disruption in the energy markets that has benefited us this year. There has been a structural damage on that, so we don't think that there's going to be a correction that's going to make us robustly supplied overnight. That has some tail.

We also expect Nutrition to continue improving the operational performance. You see their margins have been up 50% again this quarter. There is a lot of operating leverage there. Of course, we are lapping Q2, which is our strongest quarter of the year, as we are leaning more towards flavors, beverages in the summer. Then we go into the Q4, which is a seasonal low for flavors.

We like our Q3, we like the book of business we have there. If you think about what will drive us to the higher side of the range, I think our assumptions are that Ag Services benefits from China continued buying from North America soybeans. They've been buying around maybe 1 million tons per week, so they've been leaning towards delivering on those 25 million tons of soybean purchases.

We think that we're going to have good exports also of corn and milo going forward. That's part of the assumption. I think crushing, when you think about the big needle mover, North America crushing is basically 90% lock at this point in time for Q3, still open for Q4 is about 30%. A lot will depend on where we execute those margins in Q4. We'll have to see.

We have, as I said, confidence in our team and the market fundamentals, but we still have Q4 to see. In terms of [Carb] Solutions, ethanol margin strength continue to offset the liquid sweetener's softness, if you will. We continue to raise our full-year guidance on 45Z as the teams continues to get more clarity based on implementing processes and operational enhancements. We continue to see ourselves producing more out of that.

We had the previous estimate of about $150 million. Now we are talking about $250 million. Again, the team continues to operate well. That does not just happen. You need to get all your ducks in a row for that. Again, Nutrition, we expect momentum to continue. We do a very good job of maximizing margins and drive for margins, whether it is product mix or geographic mix or some of the improvements in portfolio that we have done in animal Nutrition.

Overall, we feel good about the rest of the year and moving into with a good exit rate in 2026, moving into 2027. You have to consider, we are being attacked in Ukraine, although it is not financially material for us, that could bring uncertainty in global food prices, that could bring volatility. There is weather with a big potential El Niño coming.

There is still a conflict in the Middle East that every day swings oil prices depending on the statements of the leaders by $3 or $4. Remember that a lot of those increasing oil prices are hitting us as higher energy costs and higher packaging, and a lot of things that Nutrition is undertaking and we are managing through.

A lot of external variables. As Monish always remind everybody, we do not forecast future mark-to-market. We expect that the accumulated mark-to-market will probably revert back in the second half, mostly in Q3. Q4 will depend, again, on what level of crush margins we execute. Other than that, we feel very solid about it.

When we think forward, Ben, if I can go a little bit further, is we feel excited about the bottlenecks I mentioned that brings capacity between now and 2028, 2029, depending on the location. Then we have the five growth platforms that we have highlighted before, which are basically having the different horizons to cover the full next five years. We feel good of where we are, we feel good about where we are going.

Perfect. That was very complete. Actually on that, one quick follow-up. You have talked about it in today's presentation, a little more detailed about the transition to natural colors, which you have just mentioned as part of these value creation pathways. As you think about it, and I know it is still early on, but how fast do you think customers of yours will have to launch new products and basically apply these more natural colors instead of artificial chemical colors?

With that and the expertise you are bringing from Europe, having done it over there into the U.S., allows you to actually leverage that and potentially even gain market share with your customers. How should we think about this?

Yeah. I think, as you said, this is an opportunity that fits us like a glove. We did it before. We are prepared for this. It's a company based on natural products, so we have a lot of expertise. What we learned before, and this is where the technology and the knowledge we bring to our customers, is that these things are not sometimes a one-to-one replacement because pH is affecting colors differently, stability of the formulation. This gives you an opportunity to almost redefine the whole formulation when you're going to change a color. That's why it takes a little bit longer, and rightfully so.

Customers are being prudent, they have a sequence of implementations depending on the different product lines, which, for us, from a supply chain perspective, is very beneficial because it's not like you have one day in which everybody changes, they create a lot of issues for supply. We have projects, over time, we're going to be supplying.

We have said about the billion-dollar potential market over time is going to give us probably $80 million-$100 million OP for Nutrition, it's going to happen over the few years. We have a pipeline for that, we are executing through that pipeline, we feel good about it. I think that as this gains momentum, probably things will accelerate. I'm optimistic that that would happen in the past.

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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