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Earnings documents stored for SID.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-15Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (SID) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Highlights: Record Iron Ore ...
GuruFocus.com
Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (SID) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Highlights: Record Iron Ore ...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. EBITDA Growth: Increased by 5.5% compared to the same period last year. Leverage Ratio: Reduced to 3.36 times, a drop of 3 percentage points. Bridge Loan: Signed a $1.2 billion bridge loan, extendable to $1.4 billion. Iron Ore Shipments: Reached a record of 8.7 million tons. Sales Increase: Sales increased by 12% compared to the previous quarter. Cement EBITDA Margin: Achieved 31.2% in the first quarter. Logistics EBITDA Growth: Increased by 26% year-over-year, maintaining profitability above 40%. CapEx Reduction: Decreased by 49% compared to the previous quarter. Free Cash Flow: Negative at 1.6 million for the quarter. Net Debt Reduction: Leverage improved from 0.47 times to 3.36 times. Steel Sales Growth: Increased by 12% for the quarter. Cement Revenue Growth: Increased by 14% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA for Cement: Almost 400 million with a margin over 30%. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 7 Warning Signs with SID. Is SID fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: May 14, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (NYSE:SID) reported a 5.5% growth in EBITDA compared to the same period last year, demonstrating resilience despite challenging conditions. The company achieved a record production in mining despite adverse weather conditions, showcasing operational excellence. A significant reduction in leverage was achieved, with the indicator dropping to 3.36 times, reflecting successful debt management strategies. The cement segment reached its highest EBITDA in history, indicating strong performance and potential for an extraordinary year. The logistics segment maintained profitability above 40% despite negative seasonality, highlighting the resilience of the platform. Heavy rainfall and intense competition from imported materials posed challenges in the first quarter. The free cash flow was negative, primarily due to seasonality, elevated working capital consumption, and significant debt amortization. The steel segment faced pressure from imported materials and weaker seasonality, impacting performance. There was a decline in revenue for the mining segment due to lower shipment volumes and negative exchange rate impacts. The company is facing cost pressures due to geopolitical tensions...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-15National Steel Q1 Earnings Miss Estimates on Softer Steel Demand
Zacks
National Steel Q1 Earnings Miss Estimates on Softer Steel Demand
National Steel SID posted a first-quarter 2026 loss of 8 cents per share. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter’s bottom line was pegged at earnings of 23 cents. The company also posted a loss of 8 cents in the year-ago quarter. National Steel reported a modest top-line pullback in the first quarter of 2026, reflecting softer revenues across both key markets. Domestic-market net revenues dipped 1.7% year over year to R$5.42 billion ($1.09 billion), while foreign-market revenues declined 3.8% to R$5.19 billion ($1.04 billion). Overall, total net revenues were R$10.60 billion ($2.01 billion), down 2.8% from the year-ago quarter. SID posted a net loss of R$555 million ($111 million) for the quarter, narrower than the R$731.6-million loss reported in the prior-year period. Results reflected a seasonally weaker quarter with heavy rainfall, while steel demand was pressured early in the period by higher imports. National Steel Company price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | National Steel Company Quote In the first quarter of 2026, SID reported cost of goods sold of R$8.08 billion ($1.62 billion), down 3.5% from the year-ago quarter. Gross profit totaled R$2.52 billion ($0.51 billion). While gross profit was down 0.4% year over year, the gross margin improved to 23.8% from 23.2%, aided by tighter cost control and the impacts of exchange-rate movements on certain U.S. dollar-denominated inputs. Adjusted EBITDA came in at R$2.65 billion ($0.53 billion), reflecting a 5.5% year-over-year increase, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 23.9%. Steel: The segment’s revenues totaled R$5.60 billion ($1.12 billion), down 8.3% year over year. Steel sales were 1,116 thousand tons, down 2.5% from the first quarter of 2025, reflecting pressure from imports and weaker activity in January and February, partly offset by a stronger March. Mining: The segment generated revenues of R$3.19 billion ($0.64 billion), down 8.0% year over year. Iron ore sales were 9,636 thousand tons, broadly in line with the prior-year quarter, while production reached 10,063 thousand tons, down 1.4% year over year. Logistics: The segment’s revenues totaled R$1.07 billion ($0.23 billion). The segment reported revenues of R$771 million ($154 million) in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the segment was R$448 million ($90 million), with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 41.8%. Energy: The segment’s revenu...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-15National Steel Q1 Earnings Call Highlights
MarketBeat
National Steel Q1 Earnings Call Highlights
Interested in National Steel Company? Here are five stocks we like better. CSN reported higher Q1 adjusted EBITDA despite heavy rainfall, a stronger Brazilian real, and steel import pressure. Diversified businesses like cement and logistics helped offset weaker steel and mining conditions, while leverage improved to 3.36x. Cement was the standout segment, posting record EBITDA of nearly BRL 400 million with a 31.2% margin. The company also advanced its cement divestiture, receiving more than seven qualified non-binding offers and expecting a sale agreement in the second half of the year. Steel showed improving momentum after a weak start to the year, with March sales and pricing rebounding and management targeting better second-quarter results. CSN raised prices in April and plans another increase in May, while expecting imports to fall as trade measures take effect. National Steel (NYSE:SID), the Brazilian steelmaker known as CSN, reported higher first-quarter 2026 adjusted EBITDA despite heavy rainfall, a stronger Brazilian real and continued pressure from steel imports in the early part of the year, executives said on the company’s earnings call. Marco Rabello, CSN’s investor relations executive officer, said consolidated EBITDA rose 5.5% to 5.6% from the same period a year earlier, with margin expansion of 1.8 percentage points. He said the performance reflected the benefits of CSN’s diversified portfolio, with cement and logistics helping offset weaker conditions in steel and mining. → Micron Investors Face a High-Stakes Moment After the Latest Rally “This shows the importance of having a diversified operation and a good portfolio,” Rabello said. He added that CSN reduced leverage to 3.36 times in the first quarter, down from 3.47 times in the prior period, supported by operational improvements, debt payments and new prepayment contracts. Management repeatedly cited unusually heavy rainfall as a key challenge across mining, steel, cement and logistics. Rabello said mining recorded a first-quarter record for own production despite “some situations of public calamity” in areas near the company’s mine. He said the result demonstrated operational resilience and the ability to mitigate weather-related disruptions. → How Bad Could Tesla’s Cybertruck Recall Be for Shares? Rabello also said Tecar reached a new shipment record for the period, totaling 8,700 tons...
TranscriptFY2026 Q12026-05-14FY2026 Q1 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 104 paragraphs
FY2026 Q1 earnings call transcript
Gentlemen, at this time, we would like to welcome everyone to CSN's conference call to present the results for the 1st quarter, 2026. Today, we have with us the company's executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded, and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation. Ensuing the company's remarks, we will go on to the Q&A section when further instructions will be provided. The event today can be accessed at ri.csn.com.br, where the presentation is also available. The replay of the event will be available soon after closing. Before proceeding, please bear in mind that some of the forward-looking expectations or trends are based on current assumptions and opinions of the company management. Future results, performance, and events may differ materially from those expressed herein, which do not constitute projections.
In fact, actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements as a result of several factors. General and economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest rates and exchange rate levels, future rescheduling or prepayment of debt in foreign currencies, protectionist measures in the U.S., Brazil, and other countries, changes in laws and regulations and general competitive factors at a global, regional, or national basis. I would now like to turn the floor over to Marco Rabello, Investor Relations Executive Officer, who will present the highlights of CSN for the period. You may proceed, sir.
Well, a good day to all of you. I would like to thank you for your attendance at another call of CSN. We have joined here to present the results of the Q1, 2026. We had a growth in EBITDA despite the heavy rainfall we had during the period and intense competition of imported material in the first two months of the year. Despite this, the EBITDA grew 5.5% vis-a-vis the same period last year. This shows the importance of having a diversified operation and a good portfolio.
The main contributions came from cement and logistics, which ended up offsetting the effects of the exchange rate drop and the more challenging environment in logistics. Another consolidated result was a drop in leverage, with the indicator reaching 3.36× in the Q1 2026. A drop of three percentage points vis-a-vis the previous period. This goes beyond the focus of the company regarding projects that continue to advance, and the company is still working with several initiatives to organically improve its leverage.
The performance for the quarter is a consequence of that, with operational improvements, new prepayment contracts and the payment of debt all contributing to the reduction of indebtedness. Finally, in April, we signed a bridge loan representing $1.2 billion that could be extended to $1.4 billion. This loan has the goal of anticipating part of the money for the sale of assets and be put to work immediately for short and medium-term operations. This loan will also show the market that the company is still quite sound without any immediate pressure for liquidity. Let's go on to the highlights for mining. In the Q1 of 2026, we had a record own production despite the rainfall in the state, with some situations of public calamity in adjacent areas to our mine.
This is a demonstration of the operational excellence and the ability to mitigate weather-related challenges. Tecar reached a new shipment record for the period, totaling 8,700 tons, reinforcing the robustness of this asset. The price dynamic of iron ore neutralized the impact on cost, especially because of the freight. This helped us to dissipate greater pressure on results. Iron ore prices present a favorable trend so far and should help us in the performance of the segment for the rest of the year. In steel, we had a challenging beginning of year, with importers anticipating measures to avoid the protective measures that were put in place in March. Despite that challenge and with the negative seasonality of the period, sales increased 12% when compared to the previous quarter.
Part of that growth is the result of the performance achieved in March, responsible for 50% of the sales. This shows that the commercial trend is quite favorable for local producers with a positive dynamic in volume and price. Another factor that contributed positively to sales was the performance abroad and the resumption of exports that gave thrust to the results. Regarding the prices, we observed stability in the domestic market with the readjustments implemented at the beginning of the year offsetting the pressure of imported products. There was the appreciation of the Real, and of course, this exerted pressure on the conversion of results. The company has carried out a new adjustment in April, and the trend in the international market is favorable for these increases. This should contribute to the results in the Q2 and full year.
In the cement market, we see exceptional performance of the company. They transfer prices even in a period of rainfall and a weaker market. We prioritize results, and this shows the result of the cement market that has proven to be quite resilient. There is incredible labor market, a new salary mass and the real estate constructions from Minha Casa, Minha Vida that continue to increase demand for cement. The company reached the highest EBITDA in all of its history, even in a quarter that seasonally is weaker. This shows that 2026 can be an extraordinary year for cement. If we analyze the results of the Q1, we would have a potential EBITDA above BRL 1.6 billion for the year. If we use the seasonality of this segment during the year, the results could go beyond BRL 2 billion results.
This is not a formal guidance of the company, but shows the potential of the cement sector. Alongside profitability, CSN has an EBITDA margin above 30%, reaching 31.2% in the Q1, 2026. This shows the competitive edge of the operation that is now fully verticalized with full price control, but also with new brands, strong brands and operational and logistic operations that truly mark the difference. We have received more than seven proposals for the divestiture process, all of which are qualified. This shows the qualification of the asset, and we should embark on our expected schedule for this. If we look at the right of the slide, we have the logistics and energy segments. Logistics in the Q1 also had a negative seasonality because of the rainfall on the railroads. This impacted the volume of cargoes.
Despite this, the segment had a growth of 26% in EBITDA vis-a-vis the same period last year and maintained profitability above 40%, showing the resilience of this platform. In energy, this is another quarter of strong growth with an EBITDA rising more than 92% vis-a-vis the previous quarter, impacted by energy availability and an improvement in prices. Let's go on to the next slide, where we present the EBITDA results and the EBITDA margin for the Q1 2026. We see the effects of seasonality vis-a-vis the previous quarter, especially if we consider the intensity of the rainfall that was higher. Despite this, the company had a growth of 5.6% in EBITDA on an annual comparison with a margin expansion of 1.8 percentage points. This performance shows the importance of having a diversified operation.
We had cement and logistics giving thrust to the growth. In the graph to the right, we can see the contribution of each segment compared to the previous quarter. We see the effects of seasonality and extraordinary effects. The difference reflects a non-recurring effect presented in the previous quarter, referring to idleness. If we exclude the BRL 314 million of that effect presented in the previous quarter, and still we would have a growth of EBITDA in the Q1. In mining, besides the new volumes, the performance for the period were impacted by the strong appreciation of the Real during the period. On the following slide, we show you our investment activities. We see a drop of 49% of CapEx vis-a-vis the previous quarter, showing what the company tends to do to invest at the end of the year.
There is a stability in terms of investments with more disbursements in mining because of the advance of the civil works for P15. Let's go on to slide five, where we analyze our working capital. We can see an increase of 54.4% vis-a-vis the previous quarter because of higher accounts receivable due to increased commercial activity in the steel segment concentrated in March. A lower volume of investors and suppliers driven by reduced third-party iron ore purchases. Regarding inventories, beginning in April, we initiated the liquidity programs to take advantage of finished products and other materials in the group, especially in the steel segment. This will be a vector to release working capital for the year and help us in cash generation for the group.
On the following slide, we will be speaking about our free cash flow with a new opening to show all of the cash impacts we had during the period. As you can observe, the free cash flow was negative in BRL 1.6 million in the quarter. The main factors that led to this were seasonality with lower operating performance, working capital consumption, still elevated financial expenses and significant debt amortization verified during the period. We're going to use the cash to reduce our net debt as part of its deleveraging goal. The outlook for the next quarter improves as we expect to improve financial indicators. We will have a favorable seasonality. Besides this, we will have an improvement in working capital and a drop in financial expenses during the year. Payment of debt and all of this will accelerate our deleveraging.
You can see the steps of free cash flow and we are going to address the main points to generate a positive and sustainable cash flow in the midterm. On slide number seven, we show you the situation of our net debt and leverage as well as the payment of debt during the quarter. In the graph to the left, the main message here was a reduction in the leverage going from 3.47×-3.36×. This improvement shows the efforts carried out since the beginning of the year to improve the capital structure of the group. The company maintains its policy of maintaining a high cash generation, BRL 2.6 billion, a volume that is more than sufficient for the short term.
In the graph to the right, we see that the main points that contributed to the net debt were a new contract for the prepayment of iron ore that will cover some of the amortizations this year and the positive effect of exchange fluctuation. Most of the points that had caused problems in the previous quarter were reversed now. Regarding future outlook, the sale of assets as a plan announced in January continues at full speed with better results than expected. This shows how attractive the assets are and how the management is focusing on the financial structure of the group. We're going on to slide number eight. Presenting our indebtedness profile, we can observe that we're keeping a high level of cash despite debt amortization during the period. The short term maturities refer to banking debt, where CSN has been able to address the problem without greater difficulties.
There were negative news that came out on the sustainability of CSN. The situation is not this one. CSN is still very active in terms of amortizations and we're working with a bank syndicate where we have been able to increase the visibility of the group and anticipate part of the funds so that we can continue working. We are going to address our short and medium term debts. The environment expected going forward will lengthen the maturity going forward, ensuring that the company can execute its plan for divestiture. With this, we conclude the analysis of our consolidated results. We can go on to slide 10, where we see the highlights for the steel segment. Here we see our commercial activity with a growth of 12% in the sales for the quarter, despite the weaker seasonality at the beginning of the year and pressure of imported material.
Importers are trying to avoid protective measures. Part of the growth presented is because of the performance achieved in March, where 50% of the sales were carried out. There's a resumption of exports and consumption of steel in Europe. March already shows the results of the better price environment, and this will help us to increase the performance of the steel plant going forward. When we look at the following slide on steel production, we see that the results of the Q1, 2026 reflects the BF2 shutdown and a reduction of inventory levels for this year. That slight increase verified in the period is due to an increase in raw material and energy exclusively, and this reduced the performance per ton momentarily with the goal of a reversal the coming quarter, thanks to the price readjustment that was already practiced.
We go on to the financial performance of steel on slide 12. On the graph to the left, we see an increase in net revenue, thanks to a greater commercial activity in the period relating to operations abroad. On the year-over-year basis, revenue was impacted by the price decline observed in the period and an additional negative foreign exchange rate. There was a slight drop in price in the quarter that offset the readjustment practiced at the beginning of the year. Going to the graph to the right, there is stability in the EBITDA with non-recurring effects from the previous quarter. EBITDA margin was pressured by non-recurring effects because of market pressure and one-off effects. There are signs of improvement in the domestic market, and the month of March shows us clearly the benefit of the protective measures that are being put in place.
What we see in the first quarter are effects that we observed in the last quarter of 25. We will have stronger volumes beginning in March of the year 2026. To go on to mining on slide 14, we see the result of productions and sales. Here we see the typical seasonality effects for the period and the effects of rainfall. Despite this pressure, we were able to present a growth of 6.4% year-on-year in our own production, which demonstrates operational excellence and full capacity. Another highlight for the period was a new shipment record set by Tecar in the Q1, showing the robustness and efficiency of the company's logistics structure with consistent evolution quarter-on-quarter. We also consider the sales volume that is stable vis-a-vis the previous quarter.
Regarding the financial performance on slide 15, we observe that the revenue decline reflects lower volume shipped because of seasonality and the negative impact of exchange variation. This is a factor that impacts revenues in the annual comparison because volume and price have remained at a stable level. Iron ore has proven to be quite resilient despite the conflicts in the Middle East, helping to offset the increase in freight and in oil. The increase of activity in the quarter is a direct consequence of a better performance and how the company is able to preserve value despite these conflicts. We have an improvement in the mix exported with a higher share of our own production. In the following slide, we see the adjusted EBITDA for the Q1 2060 vis-a-vis the previous quarter.
There's a direct impact of seasonality, the increase of freight, and the negative impact of freight costs. Let's go on to analyze the cement segment. On slide 18, we see the sales volume observed in the quarter. Here we observe similarity vis-a-vis the previous quarter and a small drop in the annual comparison. This reflects a period with higher rainfall and the company's strategy of prioritizing volume to capture the favorable market dynamic without entering into a price war. There's a favorable trend. The segment has been resilient and will be very sustainable for operation in 2026. Here we see the segment's financial performance, a growth of revenue of 14% in the annual comparison and stability vis-a-vis the Q4 25. This reflects the price readjustments applied in recent months and the resilient demand in the Brazilian market.
In turn, adjusted EBITDA was the highest in the company's history, with an EBITDA of almost BRL 400 million and a margin that went beyond 30%. All of this profitability reflects a favorable moment for the operation and underscores the competitive edge of the company as we have a fully vertically integrated management. Now, to deliver almost BRL 400 million EBITDA in a seasonable impacted quarter shows that we will have a further increase of EBITDA going forward. Finally, we will analyze the logistics segment when it comes to revenue. The drop in revenue is due to the seasonal rainfall effects on cargo transportation. Now, the segment has presented a very good evolution on the EBITDA graph to the right. Even with the negative seasonality, we were able to maintain profitability above 40% in the quarter, evidencing the operational resiliency and the strength of the integrated model.
With this, I would like to conclude the presentation on the segments, and I turn the floor to Helena Guerra to present the ESG highlights.
Good morning, everybody. I would like to resume what I mentioned in the last call. This is the base of how we look upon this agenda in the company. This is not simply part of our agenda or something linked to operational efficiency or value generation and regulatory and financial risk. We have a very strong connection with the business, and we also evolve in terms of our reporting. We have a full report bringing updates on indicators, goals, and results. It connects this indicator with the main ESG risks of the company and our strategy to mitigate these potential risks and the resiliency of our ESG performance. We have that double materiality integrated in CSN and Cement.
We have the publication of that integrated report. These reports, once again, follow the main frameworks of the market. What we have now is a more integrated version speaking about risk and value. This will be applied during the next year. Our performance and this transparency of our report has improved successively in terms of ESG. We're positioned among the 10% of the companies with the lowest ESG risk. Once again, we have the MSCI rating upgraded from BB to triple B. We have stability in terms of our tailing dams. All of this was renewed in March. We have had great efficiency in our plan to contain the rainfall. This was mentioned by all of the speakers. We had a period of intense rainfall that did not impact our dams and did not have significant impact on our operations.
In terms of health and safety, we had a very challenging quarter. Despite structural advances and reduction in third-party accidents, we had a certain gravity or seriousness in terms of the accidents we had. Of course, we have full focus on this issue. We celebrate important achievements this quarter, the certification in ISO 45001 certification. In the environmental front, we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions in steel production and cement production vis-à-vis our baseline years. This, of course, is very important. It allows our company to become more competitive when it comes to carbon regulations and a potential increase of costs related to climate transition. In terms of women, we continue to advance. In terms of diversity, 12% increase in female representation in the workforce and seven percent increase in female representation in leadership positions.
Of course, we're making heavy investments in retention to reduce operational risks, the scarcity of labor, and increase our sustainability through time. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you, Helena. I will now give the floor to our Chairman, Benjamin, for his comments.
Good day to all of you, and thank you for your attendance at the CSN earnings call. I would like to very quickly review what was presented now, per sector, underscoring our commitment with deleveraging and basically working in two different ways. First, an operational enhancement of all of the sectors and with a reduction of debt, which of course is our priority from the viewpoint of our operational segments. Mining had extraordinary results, in my opinion, despite the heavy rainfall.
When we speak about rainfall, it truly was impressive to see how this hampers production and shipment in all of our operational activities. The characteristic of thisQ1 26 was not only the intensity of the rainfall, but the very strong rainfall that we observed. In one day, we would have more rain that we should have in 10 days. This, of course, has caused several problems, and we have been able to overcome the problem and continue producing. It was truly exceptional when it comes to mining, steel and cement segments, all of which suffered from the effects of this unbalanced rainfall in the first quarter. Despite this, Tecar also reached a record in terms of cost. We had a cost reduction, a significant cost reduction.
I would say, therefore, that mining, according to our assessment and our outlook, worked in an exceptional fashion, presenting exceptional results. In steel, once again, despite the impact of rainfall causing not only flooding problems, but also energy problems, we eventually had significant energy cuts because of the rainfalls. Of course, this hampers not only production, but flow. We were able to overcome this. In January and February, we had weak results. In March, we observed significant improvements responsible for 50% of the results of production in the quarter. With all of these efforts that are being deployed, especially in steel from the operational viewpoint and from the rationalizing methods and systems and working systems and reduction of everything that we can do. We were able to have a much better March and April also has a positive outlook.
We observe growing results. We should have significant improvements in the second quarter in steel. Well, in cement we had an exceptional quarter, a consistent and stable path during the entire quarter presenting exceptional results. In the Q1 we had an EBITDA of BRL 400 million analyzed. It would represent BRL 1.6 billion. Our challenge is much greater than that. We're committed to that delivery. In logistics, we see one of the businesses with greatest potential in the CSN group. We're dealing with this very rationally, with a great deal of devotion to obtain ever more better results. Energy also had excellent performance. From the operational viewpoint of activities, we had a significant improvement in all of our segments. A cost reduction with a very strong cost control, working on the reduction of OpEx.
We're working daily to systematically reduce whatever can be reduced in OpEx. This is a challenge for the entire team that is devoted to this. Each unit is focusing on this. We begin to see results. Beginning in March, we were able to obtain practical results when it comes to the reduction of OpEx and inventories. In December, we had BRL 12 billion in inventory between raw material and products under production and finished products. Parts. We're working strongly to obtain cash enhancements, improvements in liquidity, offering us immediate results. It has been an enormous challenge in 2026 to truly reduce OpEx and reduce our inventories. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the work of all of our employees.
Thanks the teams from mining, Augusto, Aeneas, Energy, Edvaldo in Cement, Martinez in the operational part and others, as they're focusing on our operations. In 2026, we will obtain the necessary results to enhance the company's structural part. Capital allocation. We are being pressured to offer good results, which is the most important part. Regarding the sale of assets, we're rigorously following the schedule. We're not advancing faster or slower as there's a great deal to do. From the viewpoint of cement, we have received several non-binding proposals. Two proposals that are higher than we expected, and presently, we're in the subsequent process to get to a binding offer. We have a short-term set forth enabling us to focus on and accommodate these proposals to come to a favorable conclusion in terms of what we will do with cement.
In the sector of logistics, we also have a schedule. We have been working strongly, and we're going to continue on with this to hold negotiations with a strategic partner in the coming months. Regarding our working capital, our greatest priority is to reduce inventories, as I mentioned, and we're working in a more intelligent way to manage our capital. You can observe this through the reduction of indebtedness. These are the priorities we have set forth: operational enhancement, our commitment with delivery, and a reduction of inventory. This is work that is being carried out consistently with great seriousness, bringing about immediate results as of March, and I'm convinced that they will greatly contribute so that this year we can see positive results. We have opportunities in the non-operational field.
We're trying to proceed with speed. This will enable us to have a special year when it comes to our capital structure. We're also very optimistic regarding these changes and regarding the results. Prices are being ascertained. The mining price, $111 spot, is much higher than we had foreseen. Of course, there's also the cost of transportation and the increase in the price of oil. We're dealing with that. The margins have been maintained and have been improved. From the viewpoint of price in mining in steel that we began to see in March because of the anti-dumping measures put in place, this will favor the Q2 going forward. We can reduce the amounts, improve price, perhaps minimally. This will enable us to better perform and have better margins.
All of the other sectors, logistics and energy, working with a very good outlook. We're quite enthusiastic. I'm not trying to push non-existent optimism on anybody. Quite the contrary, we're living through a highly realistic period in the company so that we can move away from that situation that we have because of an excess of assets, an excess of inventory. We want to go into a more balanced situation in terms of capital structure to continue on with our business. I would like to thank everybody. I especially thank our own employees for the herculean efforts that they're deploying. We're working together, working strongly with a very clear goal in mind. Thank you very much for your participation.
Thank you, Benjamin. Very well. Let's go on to the question and answer session. We will now begin the question and answer session for investors and analysts. Should you have a question, please click on the Raise Hand icon or send your question through the Q&A icon. Our first question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itaú BBA. You may proceed.
Good afternoon to everybody. Thank you for taking my question. My first question goes to Martinez for the operations in steel. Martinez, if you could help us by commenting on the use of capacity. Presently, you were importing BQ, if there has been an increase in capacity, something that could help you in the dilution of fixed costs, and if there's room to increase your volumes. Which has been the impact of the anti-dumping measures? If you could comment on the internal surveys of volumes that are being rerouted to other regions such as South Korea. A more direct question referring to prices. Martinez, you're trying to increase the price five percent again. How is this working? How is the demand reacting to this? This would help us to understand the gradual recovery of margins in steel. Thank you very much.
Hello, Daniel. Once again, thank you for the question. Very broad question indeed. As always, I will give you an overview of what we see in the market. I will speak little about the Q1 and try to speak about what we see for the rest of the year. In the first quarter, we had an important mission to reduce our inventory. We did this in a relevant way. Production delivered less products of added value than we needed. With this, we got to the edge in the strategy. We had a value over volume.
We had to keep the prices in line, which is when we stopped. Volume and price were highly aligned, which was very possible. We also fostered a greater reduction in inventory, which also happened in the international market. We took advantage of what was happening in Europe to export 20,000-25,000 tons of tinplate to Europe. This could be good news because of the geopolitical scenario in the coming months for the continuance of operations. We've spoken about March. January and February were very difficult months because of the beginning of the year. That in truth began in March. We focused on the sales of March. We were able to increase volumes considerably as well as prices. Without a doubt, in the Q2, we will have better results. I'll give you the reasons for this.
Regarding the international market, which is an important variable. In China, the prices that were at BRL 450, BRL 430 of BQT, we now see prices of BRL 500, the highest price for the last one and a half years in China. This is a very positive piece of information. In Europe, in Lusosider operation, we were able to increase the price by EUR 100. They're benefiting from the reduction of quotas in Europe, reducing supply and offering opportunities for products that were not feasible in the past and now are. In the U.S., there's a great deal of discussion, a great deal of complaint, but the fact is that the price has increased. There is a problem of inflation, a problem of affordability, BRL 200, BRL 300 of increase.
We don't need to be different from the rest of the world. We're going to quickly catch up on what is happening in other regions of the world. To speak about American steel plants, their margins are good. US Steel, for example, besides the flat steels, they're producing 16% in flat steel, 12% in tube, 12%, 13%, which is what we want for the Q2. I'm going to speak about how we can go back to a two-digit EBITDA margin. When it comes to cost with operational excellency, Benjamin mentioned this, our teams are trying to reduce that cost. Despite our Blast Furnace number two that is on shutdown, we continue to observe interesting opportunities for the purchase of BQT and slabs. We used less tinplate, 2,000 slabs as well.
Our goal for the Q2 is to work so that cost that is at BRL 3,200 throughout the second and third quarters can reach BRL 3,000 per ton. This would be a very expressive result. Of course, we could have the issue of the U.S. dollar that will benefit us. On the supply and demand pillar, in general, the sectors have shown stable demand. Some incursions of the Brazilian government to offer funding in the tool sector, implement sector, with a funding of eight percent interest rates a year for the businesses that have come to a standstill because of agribusiness. We also have the inventories at the Instituto Aço Brasil. These are inventories for domestic steel and the automotive and white line products that are continuing on with a positive trend.
When it comes to imports, the Q2, the drop in imports is given. It's a given. You wrote a report at Itaú BBA that clearly shows what the exports of Korea to Brazil would represent. We see that the lineups of 600,000 tons, the lineups now are of two ships. I imagine that in the second and third quarter, we will have interesting demand because of this incredible drop in imports. China no longer gets to Brazil with the measures correctly applied by the government for commercial defense. Well, it's impossible to get to China. What we're avoiding today, and with the new Minister of Trade and Industry taking on his position, we have spoken further on trade defense, on circumvention and change to be able to classify some items and not bring them in with this tariff.
Besides the Manaus Free Zone, which is also a place that has increased imports through Manaus. This is the scenario. It is a given. It will take place, and CSN will be highly privileged because up to present, we had more imports of coated material. We suffered more than any other company in Brazil. In my order book, I see a positive trend that tends to continue for the second and third quarters. The premium of Chinese material today, there's very little of this, but the premium is 10% or perhaps lower in terms of the coated product. It's no longer worthwhile importing anything from China. We're using our value-added strategy in the main downstream lines, increasing the production of tinplate, the jewel of the crown in Brazil.
With the oil crisis, we have seen increases of 30%, 40%, making it possible to use tinplate packaging in several industries. My expectation for steel for the second quarter is a return of two-digit margins. At the last call, I said we would increase prices three-four percent. We have caught up on prices, yeah, but they were influenced by mix and inventory. We're going to work with prices of 350, 380 for the Q2, and the price in April was implemented an increase of five percent. We have another price increase in May with higher resistance from the market, but we should end the Q2 with an increase of five-eight percent for coated material, mainly. In the Q2, we're going to continue to work with inventory. I have tinplate inventories.
Obviously, we're going to try to reduce the inventory without compromising margins, and this will help us in deleveraging and debt reduction. I think that is all, Daniel. I don't know if I forgot anything. I think I have fully covered your question. The scenario for steel is quite positive. It's based on facts and data in the reports that you have prepared, and I have read them all, especially the one that you prepared. They show us clearly that this is the trend for the second and third quarters. If demand aids and abets us, we will recover our margins, and this is associated to the reduction of discounts. This should increase, and perhaps we can even have a price increase. That is all, Daniel. If you have another question, please pose it.
Our next question comes from Mr. Rafael Barcellos from Bradesco BBI.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking our question. A follow-up, Martinez, on your answer and overview. Simply to check if we understood properly, five percent increase in April, two percent carryover from the movement in March, seven percent for the Q2. Simply to confirm this fact. Based on what you said of the global movements and domestic movements of trade defense, and to better understand your vision, there's a global side that we have seen since the beginning of the conflict in the Middle East. The cost of steel increased as it did in Brazil. In your vision, with this tariff quota, with anti-dumping, will this help to change the sector in a more structural way? Which is the information or expectation you have for the renewal of the tariff quota in May or June?
My second question, an update on the divestiture process of the company announced at the beginning of the year. If there's a more relevant update, an additional detail that you can share for the cement operation, it's been broadly spoken about, and if you have assessed any additional structure in the meantime.
Thank you for the possibility of reinforcing some points about the steel segment, Rafael. At the close of April, our price already increased in April. This comes from a stronger March. The increase was 5%-6.5%, depending on the product line. In May, we have a scheduled increase for the second fortnight of May. I'm being quite surgical, very cautious, because I don't want to ruin a positive equation that we have at present, which is the recovery of the volume of coated material.
As an example, 7,000, 8,000 done at Galvasul for the U.S., which we're no longer doing. We're bringing these volumes in Brazil and tinplate 10,000, 15,000, 20,000. We're already at 17,000, reducing inventories in Europe as well. We're working strongly so that this scenario can materialize between five and seven percent for the Q2. I'm not concerned about volumes. For some time already, we haven't had such an interesting order book. I have two months and 13 days of portfolio. This allows me a certain comfort for planning. We don't put all of the eggs in the same basket. We're very divided among sectors. We're definitely increasing the number of clients. We have doubled our fragmentation in the market, and we will attain the results expected, both in price and in volume.
Regarding the global movements for trade defense, an important piece of information. It took us 2 years to adopt measures. Those anti-dumping activities for tinplate, for cold laminated products and others certainly have put China outside of Brazil when it comes to competitiveness. There's no doubt about that. What we're expecting now until July is that the anti-dumping be put in for hot rolled products and to put dumping on tinplate against Germany, Netherlands and India that is appearing as a possible importer from Brazil. Without speaking of those countries like Egypt that have a bilateral agreement with Brazil. We're working strongly on this.
Another important point, and I would like to stress the word strong, with the internal revenue, we're holding conversations so they can supervise imports from Vietnam and other countries to ensure that there is the Form B that has to be filled up so that the origin can be preserved. We're trying to combat illegal activity and imports as circumvention or derailing of trade. In the higher added value material, we're working with Inmetro to see if they can create a technical barrier also to help us in this, if this will be sufficient or not, this is what we have at present. The renewal of the tariff quota could happen. At present, what would be more effective would be for the government to put a tariff for all products. Rafael, there's another movement that is more serious than we imagined.
It's interesting because several associations were criticizing steel, blaming steel, and the imports of steel. Associations that said there was no import of steel whatsoever. What is happening, besides the well-known case of automobiles, is that there are other products like machines or white line that are coming ready-made to Brazil. The finished products are coming to Brazil. Something that normally happens in these processes of invasion of China in other markets. In terms of industry and in terms of clients at present, because of the pain and more than the love, we can try to join together to work against this and to work on the industrial chain more fully, more wholly. We're going to do what we have to do in the Q2, but continue to work with other countries. The geopolitical scenario is highly relevant. It is changing, and we will follow up on those changes.
Rafael, you spoke about the cement operation, M&A operations or the industrial production of cement. Speaking of the divestiture process, if you have additional information besides what you said at the beginning of the call. As I mentioned, and as Benjamin reinforced, the process is on track based on our original schedule. We continue to believe that we will sign an SPA at the beginning of the year. We have received a high number of proposals, non-binding offers for the acquisition of this asset. It surprised us. We know the quality of CSN Cimentos. It's the best platform of growth in Brazil. We know the quality of the assets, high generation of energy, the best margin of EBIT in the sector. The Q1 simply is proof of that.
The coming week, we begin the phase of the binding offers. Among a group of players that have made proposals in the last few days, we are going to call upon a small number of players that will go on to the phase II. We will go on to doing the due diligence, technical visits and presentations. Two or three months from now, we will get to the end of this phase and with a binding offer presented to the company and the SPA fully discussed. In the second half of the year, the sale of this asset should be signed. We are speaking of a migration to a phase II because we have highly qualified proposals, not only from the viewpoint of players, but also the valuation. Rafael, I am not going to refer to the full strategy of cement.
You always know that we have been able to sell more for less, having operational excellence. In the Q1 of this year, vis-à-vis the Q1 of 2025, we had a price recovery of 18%. I'm stating that in the Q2, besides the volume that will continue the best possible, we will have a price increase. As part of our results in the Q2 and the margins that we expect for the cement sector in the second quarter are better than the ones we presented in the Q1. The scenario for cement is highly positive. All of the programs, Minha Casa, Minha Vida, projects for new buildings, all of these are proceeding strongly. This is a sector that is very resilient to interest rates, and we have several launches in Brazil.
In states, for example, that previously had not become important, even with a price increase and were suffering with this in petcoke. We will observe a price increase with a price realignment in the market. This is a very interesting moment in this business, a business that we worked so strongly in the last few years.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Our third question comes from Mr. Guilherme Nippes from XP. You may proceed.
Thank you. Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. My first question referring to deleveraging. You have remarked broadly on the working capital management, flexibility and holding back CapEx and some investments and much more.
If you could speak about the sale of the cement segment, but which are the other alternatives that you have and in the part of infrastructure in divestment, if there are any updates that you could share with us. My second question, once again, in the line of cement, you have just spoken about the performance of results, and initially you spoke about a normalized EBITDA way above, multiplying the EBITDA of the Q1 by four. Now, how do you expect the performance in volume for the Q2, price evolution and the cost evolution for the increase of petcoke that you have just mentioned? These are my questions.
Guilherme, I'll begin with the 1st part of the question regarding cements. I think we've already remarked on this for this year.
Cash will also depend on the antitrust agency, CADE, this is the first relevant movement for the deleveraging of the company. Of course, there's everything we announced on January 15th, much better qualitatively than we had expected in the call. As part of working capital, the company created a company that we discussed in March and began in April to improve the debt of the company and in terms of working capital of the company, to eliminate material volumes that could represent some billions of BRL, and whose main focus is the reduction of inventory, MRO, intermediate products, finished products from all segments that have a higher contribution. This is a mass of BRL 12 billion. All of this would contribute to the company cash.
This asset is very relevant and undergoes the weekly follow-up of the company and will contribute to our cash flow for the year. Of course, we're working on the company CapEx. We're holding back the CapEx level similar to 2025. Of course, there is a growth because of P15 that will have to be concluded until the end of 2027. When we compare this quarter with the same quarter last year, investments were similar with a reduction in steel and an increase in mining because of the speed up in P15. These are a few billion BRL. If the flow cash of the year is not what we want, we can continue managing this. In other calls, the commitment of the company is a material deleveraging. Benjamin mentioned this as we did ourselves in our call.
We have the cement process, the infrastructure process that is doing very well. In the last few months, we have devoted a great deal of time to long-term contracts, ports and customers, tariffs and other conditions so that the potential buyer can receive a full package of information that is highly detailed. In the Q2, we will speed up the infrastructure process. In the next call, we should be offering you very good news. Besides these two topics in deleveraging, the company has non-core assets that can also be used to complement or increase the deleveraging pace of the company. We have real estate. They're not operational. We have several billion BRL of assets that could be monetized in the short and medium term, besides other activities, of course, that are not core for the company. The focus, therefore, is on speeding up as much as possible.
What we see this year, besides cement and infrastructure, we're working on working capital that will provide positive results and other sales initiatives of assets of the company that we will announce further ahead. In the next call, we should have good news on that front.
Guilherme, this is Edvaldo. To try to answer your question on supply, I believe it's important to highlight that we have a resilient market. Last year, Brazil was at 3.7%. In this quarter, we are above two percent, a positive outlook in that sense. As was mentioned here, we have significant cost pressure at present on the entire sector, not only in our company, because of the international geopolitical scenario. All of this brings about a price increase in raw material. In Brazil, we have diesel minimum rate increases. Of course, this leads to a cost increase.
As Martinez mentioned, in the trade strategy and profitability strategy, we're working towards offsetting that cost increase. In the market, we're using our plants at above 70%. Of course, this will facilitate the recovery of prices. The use of companies in Brazil is quite low. This will be one of the main drivers for cement during the year. In the first quarter, we had a historical record for the company. It was a record that normally was low. Without making projections, we have the expectation that in coming quarters these figures will be even stronger. All of this based on our internal competencies, differentials, our competitive edge. The fragmentation of sales, as Martinez mentioned, a very assertive quest for productivity, a focus on better quality. We are the greatest user of railroad for the distribution of cement in Brazil. This, of course, is very important.
Streamlined plants on the average compared to the rest of the sector, with a low energy consumption and optimized structure of people with great competency, a strong cost management in the company. We have all of those in-house elements that allow us to have a positive and resilient market to deliver the levels mentioned by Marco and Benjamin in the coming quarters. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Ricardo Monegaglia from Safra. You may continue.
Good afternoon to everybody. Thank you for taking our two questions, perhaps more geared to Marco Rabello. First, the bridge loan. You said that there is a potential expansion of the BRL 1.2 billion initial to BRL 1.4 billion. Which are the conditions for this expansion? You also mentioned that the cash of the loan will be earmarked for short-term amortizations.
Which are the priorities in this sense to reduce your loan? If you could give us more color in the gains we can see here in NCG for the reduction of debt. If there is a positive impact in terms of your financial expenses that are being paid. The second question, a follow-up on the cement M&A. Which is the company mindset. Does it make more sense for the company to sell to a strategic partner or financial partner? How much of the company will be sold out, 60, 50 or 100%? The brownfield, because part of the equipment has already been purchased, how much is included in the valuation that you're working with these different stakeholders at present?
Ricardo, thank you for the questions. Let's begin with the bridge loan here. The bridge loan is a bridge loan.
It's in the format of a committed loan. We're withdrawing what we need. We don't want to pay unnecessary interest rates. We withdraw the money as we use it in refunding. The expansion to $1.4 billion will be based on the company decisions. This operation was important for some reasons. One, to show the bankability of CSN and how it is supported by the financial market. We have several banks that have joined here, and there are four more banks that want to be part of this syndicate for the $1.4 billion. I'm not going to use all of the resources to pay more commitment fees and use the company resources. Once again, the decision depends on us. If the decision to sell cement proceeds rapidly and efficiently, I won't have to use that funding line. The cement will do its job.
We don't want financial inefficiency, we will take the decision in terms of what to do. If we could do away with the debt of 2027, 2028 and going forward, we could refinance that resource. Our decision will take into account the less efficient debts, those that have a structure we don't want to remain in or where the cost is undue for the company, and of course, the best negotiations at banks where to roll the debt, we can pay the lowest installment of the debt and roll it under better conditions of other bank. The banks that will offer the best conditions will be a priority in the use of that cash. We want the longest debt at the lowest cost. Those that offer the more efficient conditions will be in a privileged position. We have the bond for 2028.
$1.3 billion with maturity in 2028. We want to decrease that as soon as possible and use part of the cash and the refunding of this bond. Whatever we do will be relevant. It's important as part of the company plan to do this as soon as possible. We don't want to get to 2027 to deal with this. We want to do this in the next months of the year 2026. The NPV of that line, we haven't carried out a financial exchange. We don't know the condition of the debt. We haven't worked on a calculation of NPV. For cement, we should receive a very large volume of binding offers in some days. All of the players on the table are strategic in any M&A program. They always have the best acquisition proposal for the assets.
The sales percentage, we're selling the control. We're selling the control of the company. The sales percentage will be defined by the buyer. They will define if they want to acquire 70%, 80% or 100%. We're selling the control. The goal is to raise sufficient funds to deleverage the group as a whole. Regarding the greenfield projects, I will allow Edivaldo to comment on this. I think the question was if the greenfields are included in the transaction. Yes, they are. Of course, these are very interesting mature projects. We have worked strongly on them in the last few years. We have mines, land, environmental licenses that have already been approved or under approval. This increases the value. We have to see what we're truly expecting as part of this process. Excellent. Thank you very much.
Besides the greenfields that Edivaldo remarked on, the property does belong to CSN. We have two power plants that are generating energy and other important assets. A huge volume of mining rights and others. That transforms CSN on the best growth platform in the entire country. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Mr. Pedro Melo from Citi. You may proceed. Good afternoon. Pedro, you can unmute your microphone.
Very well. Can you hear me? Thank you for taking our questions. First of all, congratulations for the results in cement. My question, once again, will be about some points on the vertical that have not been explored. Variables that will better help us understand the transaction. Does it help to think about the evolution of BRL 1.6 billion-BRL 2 billion valuation? You're reviewing your expectations for the year for this vertical.
Well, is the valuation closer to 1.6 or 2.6? This is my question. If you can confirm the net debt of this vertical expected by the end of the year, this could help us to analyze the sales multiples. Third of all, how long-lasting can this cement movement be, in your opinion, given the expectation of drop of interest rates at some point of time? Thank you. Pedro, well, let's answer the questions between Martinez, Edibaldo, and myself. Yes, the sector as a whole is recognizing that the year 2026 is a good year, and the valuation of the EBITDA varies from quarter to quarter. Perhaps Martinez can reinforce this. It's connected to finally having a price recovery in the cement sector. In Brazil, it was almost BRL 100. In Brazil and the U.S., our price was one-third.
There's enormous room for recovery in the price of cement. Before handing over the floor, the question on net debt. At the end of the year in cement, BRL 2.8 billion of net debt. I'll correct myself, he says, we're not leveraging the company anymore. We're holding back on this BRL 2.8 billion. If we use the assumption of the EBITDA last year, you can look at the difference and take this away from our net debt. The rest will be transformed into cash generation, BRL 680 million in working capital, and this could go up to BRL 2 billion. This is not company guidance. You would have to do this exercise. Pedro, regarding the question about the market, a parenthesis here. Edibaldo can complement this.
He clearly mentioned that the level of utilization of the industry is 75%-80%, which is very relevant. You can say it's far from 100, but it is not. Above that capacity, the cost does not make it feasible to compete. All of this underscored by the issue of freight. Now, cement, the result is a net FOB. You want to sell as close as possible to have the best margins. All of this has an influence and leverages us a great deal, as we are positioned in locations we selected to service the market as a whole. A clear example, 2013, 2014, World Cup and Olympic Games. Consumption was 71-72 million tons a year. After that, there was a drop in 2015. It dropped to a low level of 53 million.
We're now back at BRL 65 million or BRL 66 million. Still not at the level of BRL 71 million, BRL 72 million. From the market viewpoint, this year we don't see any reversal in this if we look at projections of Sinduscon and other entities, people from IBRACON, from concrete, industrialized construction. The projections are all positive. The GDP for civil construction is 2%-2.5% for coming years. Funding, which is somewhat expensive, is still strong and resilient, especially in Minha Casa, Minha Vida. Sale of new buildings from some ranges continues to be normal, regionalized with different demands among states. From the viewpoint of the market, I do believe we have a robust equation, at least for this year. To speak about price recovery in the second quarter.
At the end of April, he corrects himself, we're going to have an EBITDA of BRL 380 million every quarter, much more expressive than what we had in the 1st quarter. I'll give the floor to Edibaldo to add to this. Quickly, the drivers of the sector are, first of all, volume. We said the market is growing. We're going to follow up on the market growth with a focus on profitability, of course. Another point that is under pressure is cost. Through a strong management of cost in-house of whatever it is that we can control and operational efficiency, we hope to mitigate those impacts. Of course, the price issue that is necessary. The price of cement in Brazil is one of the lowest in the world, and there is no more streamlined industry operating at 75%-80% of its capacity.
There's significant space for price recovery, which is happening now, and I hope it will continue to take place and offset the cost increases. These three drivers will lead us to the figures that we mentioned here, with better results than the first quarter. Thank you very much. Have a good afternoon.
Our next question comes from Mr. Caio Ribeiro from Morgan Stanley. You may proceed, sir.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. A question to Martinez. Referring to the quota tariff is about to expire this month. If you could give us some color in terms of the discussions with the government, if the idea is to renew it based on the same parameters expanded to other products. What is it that you see regarding that system, if it will be canceled, if it will be renewed? How are the discussions proceeding?
Thank you for the question, Caio. This system of commercial defense is still under discussion. The government has several levers. They have a broader outlook that they had in the past. They're looking at the links of the production chain as a whole to avoid the de-industrialization of the company because import impacts all other industrial chains, and this will help us make decisions. They're analyzing expanding this system even further. There's a possibility that we're working with of putting a tariff for other products that are still on the outside to neutralize imports that have an enormous dumping margins from other countries other than China. The cold-rolled process against Korea clearly shows that there are margins that are equal or higher than in China and that it needs to be combated.
The more important part is that the government is more receptive and more interested in continuing to have a growing industry and the entire sector in the country.
Our next question comes from Mr. Nicholas from Jefferies. You may proceed, sir.
Good morning. Thank you for the call. Two quick questions. First, about the cement bridge loan, if you could confirm how much of the loan has already been withdrawn, how much that you expect to disburse on that line. Second, conversations on the refunding of the bond 2028, proposal for an exchange offer, if you could update us on that process for the refunding of the 2028 bond loan. Thank you very much. Nicholas, thank you for the question. Regarding the bridge loan, we have already withdrawn for use about one-third, so there's quite a bit of space for further discussion.
There is still important space to work on good refunding for the company, It depends on whether we will expand it or not. If we expand it to BRL 1.6 billion. For the 2028 bond, we still have not made a refunding proposal. We are discussing this in-house, interacting with people who are always looking for us with analysts, We have not made a formal proposal, and we don't know which will be the format of the proposal, whether it is an exchange or not. We would like to do that in the short term, nevertheless.
Our next question comes from Mr. Julian Lautersztain from Oaktree.
Hello. Which is your amortization schedule per quarter? We know that you paid a great deal for 2026. What will happen for the in that rest of the year?
Julian, how are you? Thank you for the question. For the maturity of the year, as we have in the presentation and in the release, we have BRL 6 billion that will have to be renegotiated to be paid for and renegotiated. The amortization is stable during the quarters. There is no concentration on a specific quarter. The highest installment was the bond 2026 paid last month in April. Now we have bank debt paid throughout the year. No enormous concentration on any quarter. To answer part of Nicholas's question. That will be of help here. Our idea is to use the BRL 1.2 billion bridge loan fully in the coming four months. Now, the anatomy of the amortization in 2026, 2027 could change in the coming four months. We're going to be very active in refunding our debt.
Our next question comes from Mr. Charles Walters from Sandglass.
Could you please explain the status of the bank rolling for 2026, 2027?
Charles, thank you for the question. Aligned with what we've remarked here recently, the debt schedule is what we presented with our debt maturity chart. We're negotiating simultaneously with several creditors. We'll see how this graph will change. We're actively speaking with several different players. Some bank debts have already been rescheduled without counterparts or partial payments. They're being fully rescheduled. We're speaking with banks that work very closely with us. We're doing this in a very natural way, lengthening the debts. New debts are being contracted with other players without partial payment. We will have a better vision in three or four months, as I answered in the previous question made by Julian.
We would like to remind you that should you wish to pose a question, please click on the Raise Hand icon or send your question through the Q&A icon. Thank you. As we have no further questions, we will return the floor to Mr. Marco Rabello, Executive Director, for the closing remarks.
To make the most of the end of the presentation, and by reinforcing the gratitude that Benjamin expressed for all of the employees, we would like to thank all of you who attended this conference. Thus, we conclude our earnings call for the Q1 26. Thank you very much. Thank you. The CSN earnings call ends here. Have a very good day.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-01CSN announces its Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025
PR Newswire
CSN announces its Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025
SᅢO PAULO, April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Companhia Siderrgica Nacional (NYSE: SID and B3: CSNA3) ("CSN") has filed its Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on April 30, 2026. Shareholders and holders of American depositary shares representing CSN's shares have the ability to, upon request to CSN's Investor Relations Department, receive a hard copy of CSN's complete audited financial statements, free of charge, within a reasonable period of time following the request. CSN's Annual Report on Form 20-F can also be accessed on CSN's Investor Relations website: www.ri.csn.com.br. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/csn-announces-its-annual-report-on-form-20-f-for-the-fiscal-year-ended-december-31-2025-302759570.html
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-03-13National Steel Q4 Earnings Call Highlights
MarketBeat
National Steel Q4 Earnings Call Highlights
15% increase in EBITDA as CSN closed 2025 with stronger consolidated profitability driven by record mining and logistics volumes, lower steel costs and recovering cement pricing, although quarter-end leverage rose due to higher investments and one-time items. Mining posted a record annual sales above 45 million tons (5% above guidance) and mining EBITDA rose 9%, while the steel business cut costs to the lowest levels since 2021 and is prioritizing profitability over volume with expected Q1 pricing improvement of roughly 4.5–6% and support from recent anti-dumping measures. Management is pursuing a deleveraging plan targeting up to BRL 18 billion from asset transactions (cement and infrastructure platforms) with processes led by Morgan Stanley and other banks aiming for key signings in Q3, while consolidated cash was BRL 16 billion and near-term maturities— including a $1 billion bond due end‑April—remain a focus. Interested in National Steel Company? Here are five stocks we like better. National Steel (NYSE:SID) executives highlighted what they described as a strong finish to 2025, pointing to higher consolidated profitability, record volumes in mining and logistics, and improving conditions in cement, while also acknowledging a quarter-end increase in leverage tied to investments and other one-time factors. Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer Marco Rabello said fourth-quarter results were achieved despite typical rain-season headwinds, describing the period as CSN’s “stronger results for the year.” Management reported a 15% increase in EBITDA, attributing the improvement to record volumes in mining and logistics, lower steel costs, and a price environment that “began to recover” in cement. → FuelCell Energy Is Burning Cash Faster Than It’s Building Momentum Rabello said leverage rose in the quarter—its first increase after three consecutive quarterly declines—driven by higher investments and other expenses. He framed the increase as a “one-time effect” and reiterated that on January 15 the company announced a strategic plan aimed at improving capital structure, including actions involving assets that could enable CSN to raise up to BRL 18 billion to reduce leverage and support growth initiatives through year-end. On cash flow, Rabello said adjusted cash flow was negative BRL 261 million, an improvement versus the prior quarter that he att...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-03-13Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (SID) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Record EBITDA Growth ...
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Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (SID) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Record EBITDA Growth ...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. EBITDA Growth: 15% increase in EBITDA due to record volumes in mining and logistics, and lower costs in steel. EBITDA Margin: Reached 28% for 2025, with a total EBITDA of 3.3 million reais. Mining Sales Volume: Exceeded 45 million tons, surpassing guidance by 5%. CapEx Growth: 42.4% increase compared to the previous quarter, totaling BRL5.9 billion for the year. Adjusted Cash Flow: Negative 261 million reais, showing improvement from the previous quarter. Leverage Indicator: Increased to 3.47 times due to concentrated investments. Steel Production Cost: Reached the lowest level since 2021. Net Revenue Growth in Mining: 18% increase for the year. EBITDA Margin in Energy: 54% with a 79% growth in EBITDA for 2025. Logistics EBITDA: Reached almost BRL2 billion with a margin of 44%. Cement EBITDA Margin: Close to 30% in the second half of the year. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Signs with SID. Is SID fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: March 12, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (NYSE:SID) achieved a 15% increase in EBITDA due to record volumes in mining and logistics, lower steel costs, and price recovery in the cement market. The company reported the second-largest volume of production and sales in its history, surpassing guidance by 5% and demonstrating strong operational efficiency. Significant cost reductions in steel production were achieved, reaching the lowest level since 2021, contributing to maintaining margins. The logistics and energy segments reported record EBITDA for 2025, with energy showing a 79% growth in EBITDA, highlighting the company's vertical integration strategy. The company has a strategic plan to improve its capital structure by raising up to BRL18 billion through asset sales to reduce leverage and support growth. Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (NYSE:SID) experienced an increase in leverage due to concentrated investments and other expenses, marking the first rise in leverage for the year. The cement segment faced price pressure from raw material costs in the first half of the year, impacting profitability. The steel segment was pressured by high levels of imports, affecting local market dynamics and necessitating anti-dumping measures. The co...
TranscriptFY2025 Q42026-03-12FY2025 Q4 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 124 paragraphs
FY2025 Q4 earnings call transcript
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to CSN's Earnings Conference Call for the Fourth Quarter 2025 and Full year. Today, we have with us the company's executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded, and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company presentation. Ensuing this, we will go on to the question-and-answer session when further instructions will be provided. The event can be accessed at ri.csn.com.br, where the presentation is also available. There will be a replay service for this call on the website. Before proceeding, we would like to state that some of the forward-looking statements or trends are based on current assumptions and opinions of the company's management. They may differ materially from those expressed herein, which do not constitute projection.
In fact, actual results, performances, or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements as a result of several factors, such as general and economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest rates and exchange rate levels, future rescheduling or prepayment of debt denominated in foreign currencies, protectionist measures in the U.S., Brazil, and other countries, changes in laws and regulations, and general competitive factors at a global, regional, and national basis. We would now like to turn the floor over to Marco Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, who will present the company's operating and financial highlights for the period. You may proceed, Mr. Rabello.
Good morning, everybody, and thank you for participating in another earnings call for CSN. We're here to speak about the result for the fourth quarter 2025 and full year, a very special period for the company, where we achieved important goals. The third quarter had been very good, and the fourth quarter was not different. We begin with the highlights on slide two. We have a quarter marked by negative seasonality of the rain period and weaker rains, and CSN was able to present its stronger results for the year. We have enormous operational resiliency and with cement and logistics presenting consistent results. The mining was impacted by non-recurring events. We had 15% increase in our EBITDA. All of this because of record volumes in mining and logistics, lower costs in steel, and the price environment that began to recover in the cement market.
Now, despite our operational resiliency, we saw our leverage increasing for the first time of the year, only in this exercise because of an increase in investments and other expenses. On January 15th, CSN announced a strategic movement that was necessary to improve the capital structure of the group. We are working with assets that will enable us to raise until BRL 18 billion to reduce leverage and to open the path for the growth of the group, and this should continue on until the end of the year. The leverage is a one-time effect that is being addressed definitely in the group. We now go on to the highlights of mining. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we had the second largest volume of production and sales in the company's history, despite a weaker seasonality and a weaker rainfall period.
This reflects the efficiency of the company in terms of its production capacity and its logistics model. In 2025, the sales volume for the first time went beyond 45 million tons, going beyond the guidance in 5%. Since the IPO in 2021, the volume has had a growth of 8.4% every year without investments in capacity during the period, showing the capacity of our logistics structure and the efficiency of the production. The combination of record results and maintaining the prices at a high level allowed us to grow 9% in EBITDA for the year. In steel, we had a new drop in the production cost, reaching the lowest levels since 2021. We had significant strides in operational production, of course, an optimization in the use of raw material.
This continuous reduction of cost reinforces the structural complexity of the operation and contributes toward maintaining margins in a period of a difficult commercial structure. We are trying to support the anti-dumping measures being put in place in the last few months, and this is important for local producers. This is reflected in the results of 2026, allowing steel to be an important growth factor for this year. In the cement market, we continue to observe strong performance, and the company is able to pass through prices even in a period of weaker commercial operations. This shows the resiliency in the market, and we have a more positive commercial environment due to the capacity of local producers. We also have a new strategy, and the priority is results in detriment of volume.
With a strict control of costs, the company had another year with an EBITDA margin reaching 30% for the fourth quarter 2025. Finally, looking at the right of the slide, we have the highlights of logistics and energy. We had record EBITDA for the year 2025 in energy and logistics. This is one of the main pillars for the verticalization of CSN and one of the factors for organic growth in the group. Now we have a new logistics sub-segment in the railroad area, adding freight of trucks to trimodal ports, and MRS presented record cargo volumes during the year with impeccable operations. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we were positively impacted by the excellent operational performance for the year, enabling the company to maintain an EBITDA margin stable vis-à-vis last year, 42% in energy.
This is another year of strengthening with growth of 79% in EBITDA, impacted by an improvement in prices. Now, let's go on to the next slide. We show you our EBITDA margin and Adjusted EBITDA for 2025. This was the best result of the year, with an EBITDA of BRL 3.3 million and a margin of almost 28%. This performance shows a strong resiliency in mining, logistics and cement and non-recurrent events that we observed in steel. To the right, you can see the positive evolution that almost all segments enabled us to have with EBITDA, with the only exception in cements, where there was price pressure with raw material in the first half of the year. In the other segments, the growth of EBITDA and profitability are the result of the extraordinary efforts put forth by the company, especially in mining and logistics.
Besides the assertive strategy that we applied in steel, we stopped one of our furnaces to enhance the efficiency of the operation. The EBITDA of BRL 11.8 billion during the year represents a sound growth of 15% vis-à-vis the previous year, pointing to the potential of the company to further advance capturing results. For 2026, cement and steel, of course, will increase, while mining and logistics will benefit from the operational efficiency, maintaining the iron ore cost at very high levels. In the following slide, we share with you our investments during the period. You can observe a growth of 42.4% of CAPEX vis-à-vis the previous quarter. This is a seasonal concentration of disbursements during the year.
Besides strategic projects such as P-15 in mining, the recovery of the UHE in Jacuí, and the renovation of our freight fleet in the logistics multimodal, we had a higher disbursement of investments at the end of the year. When compared with the same period, 2024, the figure, in truth, was not altered. The total investment for the year added up to BRL 5.9 billion, in line with the advance in the infrastructure of P-15 and as part of the guidance set forth for the year. We go on to slide number five.
Here we have our working capital, where we can observe an important release during this quarter, once again because of seasonality with lower commercial activity in steel and cement, impacting receivable accounts. We had a growth of 8.5% in the quarter, reflecting a higher volume of purchase of iron ore from third parties. In the next slide, we share with you our adjusted cash flow that was negative BRL 261 million. A significant improvement vis-à-vis the result of the previous quarter because of a slowdown in investments for the period. This shows the resiliency of the operation and the release of working capital. The company has been able to reduce the impact of cash burn throughout 2025. Now, the outlook for the future of cash is more favorable as we expect a very good evolution in 2026.
Besides the reduction in inventory levels and the gradual decrease in the interest rate levels. In the next slide, we share with you the situation of our indebtedness and leverage and the behavior of our debt during the quarter. To the left, the main message here is that we have increased indebtedness because of the concentrated investments at the end of the year and the cash flow during the period. Now, the leverage indicator for the last 12 months reached 3.47x with the first increase after three consecutive quarters of drop. Despite this, one-time increase in leverage, the company is committed to reducing its debt and shows its commitment towards social capital.
On January 15th, 2026, we presented to the market a strategic plan to speak about liquidity and leverage of the group using the cement asset and assessing routes and other strategic movement for the development of our steel plant. All of this will contribute to strengthening the company and significantly reduce the leverage. To the right, you see the main vendor during the period, the extraordinary impact of the steel mill, amortization of prepayment contract for steel, the renewal of new operations of prepayment during the period, and the effects of the exchange rate. Let's go on to slide number eight. We present to you our indebtedness profile. We have a very high level and in the short term, we have banking debt, and we will be able to honor these without difficulties. We have been working actively towards lengthening a significant part of the curve.
Presently, we're speaking with banking institutions to anticipate the payment and to reduce our gross debt that will be achieved through the sale of our assets. With this, we end the presentation of consolidated results, and we can go on to slide 10 to speak about the highlights of the steel plant. In the third slide, we see the result of our commercial activity with a reduction of 6% in the quarter sales because of the typical seasonality of the period. This retraction is also due to the high level of inventory among local distributors, increasing the volume of imported material in the domestic market. Now, it's important to note that most of the reduction of commercial activity mainly came from the foreign market.
There's a reduction of 7.5% in the pace of sales vis-à-vis the previous year due to the foreign pressure mentioned and the strategies adopted by the company during the year, where we are prioritizing profitability instead of volume. In the following slide for production, we see that the result of the fourth quarter is the highest quarterly volume for 2025. We have been able to obtain greater efficiency at our production center. The strong drop in annual comparison is due to a stop for maintenance of our furnace without further consequences for the products produced and the price per ton.
To the right of the slide, you can see that the cost of production dropped once again in this quarter, reaching the lowest level in the last four years, reflecting an increase of efficiency in our production process with a better use of raw material. Now, the performance per ton also had a significant improvement because of the positive dynamic of cost and the positive effects recorded in the period. A lower level of use of our installed capacity also helped. We go on to the financial performance of the steel mill on slide 12. That strategy of prioritizing profitability instead of volume during part of the year 2025 was assertive. We had consolidated growth of 2.6% in the annual average price, despite the difficulties with imported materials.
On the other hand, we're still being pressured by the struggle of the company against imports and the stop of the furnace number two. To the right, the story is different. We had an increase in profitability in the quarter and for the year. You see the operational efficiency and the commercial discipline that is very consistent with prices, despite the highly competitive environment. We also had the positive impact of the extraordinary effect that I mentioned previously. Now, also because the profitability is a result of a very assertive productive efficiency that we have adopted for the local market. Now, to address that pressure of imported material with the competitive measures being adopted, the steel mill will be an important vector of growth for the results of 2026. Let's now go on to the mining segment.
On slide number 14, we have the result of production and sales. 2025 was a special year for CSN, with records in purchases and production. For the first time, we went beyond 45 million tons produced in the period. This performance shows the high efficiency in production and our logistics efficiency. Now, we reached the guidance and went beyond it for the year. This was the second best quarter in the history of the company, only behind the previous quarter because of the beginning of rainfall. For the year, we had a volume of 45.9 million tons sold, which represents the best results in the company's results, showing the strengthening of our logistics platform and our capacity for shipment. With the 2025 result, the company was able to record an average growth of 8.4% since the IPO, with extraordinary operational efficiency.
Now, regarding the financial performance on slide 15, the reduction of net revenue during the quarter reflects a combination of a lower volume of shipment with a slight reduction in price. Nevertheless, the results of the year show sound growth of 18% with operational records and maintaining the iron ore prices at high levels. In EBITDA, we also had a strong performance with an increase of 9% for the period with an adjusted margin of 41%. The annual result is due to the sales volume and a better performance during the efficiency and the cost efficiency. This shows the structural robustness of the sector of mining. Here we have Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter. In this case, we can see the impact of seasonality of the period with lower volumes because of the beginning of rainfall.
Now, additionally, the performance was also impacted by a worsening in the cost of freight, more purchases from third parties, and because of the effect of cargoes exposed to future quote periods. Let's go on to analyzing cement. On slide 18, we see the sales volume for the quarter and for the year. Cement seasonality is even more marked at the end of the year. Because of the rainfall, we have a lower number of working days. We also have the holidays at the end of the year. This justifies the impact on sales for the year. Now, in the yearly performance, we see stability despite the price increase in the second half of the year. This shows a good level of consumption of cement in the Brazilian market, despite the high interest rates in the country.
This also proved the resiliency of the demand and the commitment of the company of preserving volumes in a highly competitive environment. In the next slide, we see the financial performance of that segment with a drop of 6% in net revenue because of the seasonality offsetting the price increase for the period. On the other hand, the result for the year shows the highest level of revenue recorded for the company. Now we have scale, logistics efficiency and operational discipline, enabling us to capture opportunities associated to additional demand. As regards EBITDA, we had a slight drop because of the increase of raw material observed in the first half of the year that were normalized throughout 2025.
This allowed us to have profitability close to 30% in the second half of the year, the highest margin in the entire sector, reinforcing the competitive edge of our operation because we're working with newer plants and a fully verticalized system. We go on to analyzing the logistics segment on slide 21. Here we see new records obtained during the year 2025. Net revenue and EBITDA were increased through efficiency that ended up in the highest EBITDA ever recorded. This also was helped by the Grupo Tora working with railroad. Because we now have control over the entire logistics chain, we have railroad logistics is the main driver of the result, sustained by a strong movement of cargo, especially sustained by MRS.
EBITDA reached almost BRL 2 billion with a margin of 44%, a level slightly below 2024 because of the lower contribution of the port modal and lower margins from the Grupo Tora. Finally, we go on to slide 23 to speak about energy, another segment presenting historical records. Here, the financial performance was driven by the operational robustness and the price of the sale of energy during the year. We had a growth of 79% in 2025, with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 54%. With this, I would like to end the presentation of the segment, and I invite Helena Guerra to present our ESG highlights.
Well, good morning, everybody. When we speak about the strides in our ESG agenda, I think the main point is very simple. We're not dealing with a simple agenda.
All of the achievements are in the operational area, in the financial area and others. Now, we have increased the security of our dam. We began 2025 with our dams being fully certified. Besides the advances in our schedule of decharacterization of the dams. This, of course, is fundamental in mining to reduce our environmental liabilities. Despite that heavy volume of rains that we have recorded, our operations maintain their conditions stable and secure with all of the company operating under safety. This shows the robustness of our platform in terms of operational security. The rate of accidents stands at 1.9% stable during the years. We had a reduction of more than 10% in events with the potential of being lethal, serious consequences with a reduction of 67%.
This means more secure operations and less operational losses. In environmental management, we continue to advance in our investments. What is important is to streamline everything we have. We have BRL 750 million invested with relevant impacts in the quality of Volta Redonda and in areas surrounding our operation. This also reduces our regulatory risk of our main assets. Now, we have advanced in the reduction of CO2 in our cement operation. We are the best company when it comes to the price of carbon among global companies. We had a relevant evolution in the main ESG indicators in 2025. Of course, we have improved our position in all of the global entities. We are among the best assessed worldwide. We have joined the CDP for Climate in terms of risk management. Another important point, I'm almost concluding here.
We have reached our goal in diversity, goal set forth in 2020. Now we have reached 28%. This is an important achievement, but it also helps us to retain our employees, especially in a sector that is so labor-intensive. It also generates operational gains. In 2025, our program for continuous improvements invested more than BRL 120 million per year. All of this reinforces what we have always wanted. Our ESG agenda does not happen in isolation from our operations. We have worked to have less regulatory risk, less environmental risk, and this means better stability and competitiveness for the company as a whole. Thank you very much. I will return the floor to Marco.
Thank you. We will now give the floor to our CEO, Benjamin Steinbruch, for his remarks.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the CSN earnings result.
I will begin with the segment, beginning with mining. We had a very good year in 2025, with all of the records achieved in terms of production, purchases, shipment, working arduously on cost. We were able to maintain a lower guidance in cost that was set forth for the year 2025, and month after month, attaining the necessary production with an important follow-up of the shipments at the port. Now, the forecast with investments, especially regarding P-15, are materializing, according to the schedule. We're following on the evolution closely of this project. It's one of the main projects for mining. The prices are higher than the market expected. This contributed to our results. As well as contributing for performance in 2026. We had that outlook of a price increase because of the war, because of China. We had significant increases in prices very recently.
Of course, we have our commitment with cost. This is part of the lower range of the guidance, a commitment that we have made. We are following up on the increase of production at the port month after month with good results. Therefore, I think the results are better than we had expected, not only in terms of production, but also in terms of shipments, purchases, and reducing costs. I would say that we're doing the same this year. We're challenging ourselves ever more in production, in mining, and the shipments at the port with a constant cost reduction. In terms of steel, we began important work in the second half of last year to reduce costs, to have more predictable production. Quarter-on-quarter, we work to obtain these results.
We have already reached the lower cost, lowest cost in the steel mill in the last few years, and we're working on this to make it something constant so that we can evermore have a cost reduction. With the measures adopted by the government in terms of anti-dumping that had an enormous impact on our value-added products, on our coated products that were coming in in volumes higher than 60%-70% in the market. With the present-day measures, we believe the Brazilian market can go back to normalcy, working without these aggressive measures and the turbulence due to the excessive imports we were facing. We believe that prices will slow down, and this will lead to an improvement. We're also strongly working towards reducing our inventories. With this, we're going to harness an enormous amount of cash. We have BRL 12 billion in inventory.
We hope to be able to reduce these soon through the sale of finished products, of all types of products, and also in terms of raw material and products that are under production. All of this, of course, will enhance our values in terms of parts and equipment. Well, there will be an increase because of the P-15 project. As you know, all of the parts are coming in. They have had an increase, but we're also working with what we have from other sectors that, well, do not refer to the P-15. We believe that the steel mill will continue to deliver very good results. We're working with furnace three, producing the same amounts we produce with furnace two, while producing practically the same amounts. Of course, this has a significant cost reduction, and this is something that we want to put in place.
This is what all of our workers at Volta Redonda would like to achieve. We hope that the steel plant will continue on with this evolution of reducing costs, but maintaining production with a price improvement in the domestic market. With the anti-dumping measures, we believe that the market will become, I'm sorry, more efficient. Now we are working quarter-on-quarter in terms of good production with prices under evolution. We had a timing problem with raw material for energy. The price had increased considerably. Well, this had an impact on our cost line item, but we do believe that the margin evolution that we are practicing can perhaps become annualized, and you will have a view of which would be our results for this year for cement, and the results will be much higher than those we had in 2025.
We had a very strong price evolution in the Northeast, more specifically, and a positive price increase in the Southeastern market, especially for bulk products. This will reiterate the good performance in 2025. In logistics, this is the segment that has the greatest potential valuation for CSN. We have created a company of logistics which will enable us to have all of our assets properly priced for mining and steel. Now, the price is practically 50% less than you normally see in logistics companies. We believe that the contribution of this will be enormous for the company once our investments in logistics become fully operational, which we believe will happen in the third quarter of this year. Now, regarding energy, there's another important pillar for us, for growth, of course. We had the positive growth of last year with very good margins.
We have an asset that will strongly contribute to the results of CSN for the year 2026. We had an EBITDA that was higher than that of last year, 15% higher, reaching almost BRL 2 billion. This is an expressive figure. BRL 2 billion in EBITDA is a significant amount. We had a temporary problem of an increase in debt. Marco can perhaps clarify this subsequently, but it was a one-time effect due to the non-renewal of the prepayments for mining, the exchange issue that favored mining considerably. Of course, Marco can give you further explanation on this. Now, this is simply a one-time effect, and we will recover this with the exchange rate, without a doubt, in the first quarter and the renewal of the prepayment for the export of iron ore that we carry out in large volumes.
This is not something we do every month or every two months, 'cause we need to have the necessary volumes to obtain the prepayment. Marco subsequently can fully explain to you what happened regarding our debt in the fourth quarter. Speaking very generously, I can say that CSN is doing very well in all of its production sector, logistics, mining, steel and others. The steel segment is also converging towards this with the efforts that we are doing. What we want is not to have significant cash burn. We see this in 2025 vis-à-vis 2024. We're going to put a halt to this in 2026. Along with the deleveraging measures we have announced, we believe that in the second quarter, we will begin to show very good results.
This is what I wanted to share with you, and I return the floor to Marco Rabello. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you, Benjamin. Let us now go on to the Q&A session.
Thank you. We will now begin the Q&A session for market analysts and investors. Should you have a question, please click on Raise Hand icon or type in your question. The first question is from Rafael Barcellos from Bradesco BBI.
Well, good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. The first question regarding your disinvestment plan presented about a month ago. If you could share with us the details of the negotiation and which is the timing foreseen to begin the operations. My second question regarding the steel plant. We have observed some price initiatives. I believe there is a 5% increase set forth for April. Which is your view of the dynamic of demand, inventory price, and the efficacy of the recent measures adopted for the market protection measures announced recently?
Thank you for the question. This is Marco Rabello. I will address your first point. As you heard on January 15th, we're highly focused, as Benjamin mentioned in his comments. We want to have the signing of all of these processes in the third quarter of this year. Now, in the case of the sale of the control of Cimentos, this is a very healthy process. We have received several proposals after the presentation in January. We have potential buyers from different geographies, several from Asia, from Europe, as well as Brazilian ones. We believe we will have a highly healthy and competitive process for the sale of cement.
We have Morgan Stanley with a mandate to head this operation. We have been working with them for some time. The entire process for the preparation of material VDR information package is well advanced. We believe we will have a speedy process in the coming months. To give you more color, the signing will be in the third quarter. In two months, we will have several proposals, and everything is quite feasible. Regarding the infrastructure, the process is advancing positively. As support, we have Bradesco and Citibank. We have advanced in a different way. We spoke with the potential buyers before the transaction in 2025. We were testing the potential of this vehicle, and the results were positive. The appetite of the market for this infrastructure platform that we have created with these seven assets is important.
The dynamic has been very strong from the viewpoint of discussion with the buyers, but it does have a structural complexity that is different from cement. We're creating something new, using different assets of a group for something novel. Of course, we have regulatory institutions involved in the process, such as the CADE and others. For the third quarter, the commitment continues to be valid, and we will get there.
Hello, Rafael. This is Martinez. To speak specifically about prices, let's give you a more complete scenario that we have imagined for steel for the first half of the year and the second as well. If we analyze what happened in those pillars that I mentioned, cost, operational excellence, imports, premiums, competitiveness, value, price. In the last two years, CSN was hit very strongly. We had higher costs. We were bombarded by imports.
There still are some imports, and we had to follow the market to be able to compete. Now, the opportunity is to change this curve completely. In the first quarter, we should have stable volumes in steel, and in the second quarter, we're already foreseeing an expressive increase in our portfolio in added value materials that represent 50% of our output. Still, in the first quarter of 2026, our forecast is that the price presented will be between 4.5% and 6% for the first quarter, keeping in mind the other initiative that we have for the higher added value products. We have reduced the discounts. We still have not begun that stage of price increases. I think the reduction of discounts is more important.
To reinforce what Benjamin said about anti-dumping measures regarding China and coated products, the initiative of CSN against anti-dumping is important because it will extend for five years. The entire anti-dumping process will extend for five years. Against China, I think those problems have been resolved. We now have the attention of the entire industry, not only of steel, but upstream, industries as well. We have the issue of circumvention and the impact on trade. If you look at the exports of China to Vietnam, they ended the year with 7 million. That could be also derailed to Brazil, Korea with 4 million, so we have to be attentive to this. Another initiative is supervision of the RFB and INMETRO to guarantee that the products reaching Brazil have the proper specifications for Brazil, ensuring this will not compromise work or the performance of equipment.
In this first half of the year, this is our forecast for price between 4.5% and 6%. Other factors can also help us to increase prices because of the events in China, the finance, the spike in iron ore, coal that went from $200-$250. Now, if we put this together with operational excellence, the cost of slab dropping from $330-$310. With those initiatives, our margin will end up with a positive two-digit figure. These are the opportunities we foresee in the market for the first and second quarter.
Well, thank you, Martinez. A follow-up. At the end of last year, when we were speaking with market participants, I understood that there was a slowdown in demand, along with a higher inventory level in the market, along with the port. Now, which is the evolution of that dynamic, especially when we're at the end of the first quarter looking at the second quarter?
An excellent question, Rafael. Allow me to mention a third point. Last year, the apparent consumption of flat steel in Brazil that ended at 16,500 was a record, an absolute record. The only problem was that the internal sale of that was 12,200 compared with 14 million in 2013. We still have not gone back to that level. I have made some calculations to see what the year will be like. Imports closed last year around 25%. It's worthwhile remembering that CSN was hit by a storm, 50% Galvalume, 60% metallic coated, sheets 43%.
If we are able to reduce this and go back to a level of 13 million in the domestic market, now there will be coming into the market 1.5 million-2 million. I think this is what will happen in the domestic market. Steel will also have a strong growth. The steel consumption in Brazil, that is at a very interesting level. At the end of last year, the beginning of this year, what happened was an anticipation of the import purchases, so much so that in February, according to government data, double the amount was imported. I'm saying that the opportunities are there to recover margin through the reduction of discounts and a slight price increase. This will allow us in the first and second quarters to have the inventories in Brazil to be consumed, a part of them at least.
What is more important is that the figure for demand continues to be strong, very healthy, and the main goal is to recover the purchase of imports for the domestic market and to have CSN recover everything in terms of the coated products.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itaú.
Hello. Good afternoon to everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. My first question for Marco. I know you gave us more color in terms of your strategies, that we will have novelties in the coming three months with a signing or operation in the third quarter. Some things are perhaps outside of the control of the company market conditions, for example.
Which are the strategic alternatives you have in mind as your B or C plan? If you will have a bridge loan, a temporary financial structure to calm down the market and buy you some time to analyze that competitive process that seems to be very healthy for the cement assets especially. It would be interesting to understand your mindset regarding those alternatives. A follow-up for Martinez about the previous question. Martinez referred to the volumes coming from China. They are now more protected, the five-year extension of the anti-dumping law. Are you concerned with volumes coming in from other places, for example, volumes coming in from Korea? And are you going to request that investigation be begun for products coming in from other countries? This is something we can see happening in the short term.
In May, you have the maturity of that second year of that hybrid system of quotas and tariffs. Will this system be replaced, a 25% import tariff for everybody, or would this not happen? Simply so that we can better understand your mindset. Thank you.
Daniel, this is Marco. Thank you for the question. Well, first of all, you know how all companies work, especially companies of the size of CSN. Financial management has a myriad of options, alternatives, and strategies, not only to address the liquidity of the company, but also the debt of the company. We have an entire arsenal at our disposal that we are building to be able to use. Because of our company profile, we will only bring to the market something when the operation has been signed, closed, and has become fully formal.
We will disclose this to the market with great isonomy. We avoid bringing in intermediate operations about financial operations that the company is considering now to answer your question. Because of media, there is a great deal of information on media about the operations the company is working on. Yes, as you mentioned, and I said during the presentation, we do believe on the sale of assets of the company. This has been very healthy. Cement stands out. Cement has a higher check involved in the operation. It's more emblematic, and it draws more attention of the market. They mentioned in the market that we were carrying out an operation with that asset. Now, our priority is a structure where the sale of cement is a collateral to the operation. We were very close to concluding that operation a few weeks ago.
We had negative events, including other companies that were not CSN's, and this generated a great deal of noise in the credit market, private credit funds, banks as well. Now, if we speak about the war, we're all following up on this. We ended up not signing at that moment. We have waited a few more days waiting for the dust to settle. We are now back with this operation in the market. The same group of banks that was with us is presently working with us again, and the operation at this point is very mature. In a matter of days, very few days, this operation should be signed and fully closed. Once it is closed, the company will formally disclose this to the market to inform all the stakeholders directly. Of course, we have other options.
I focus more on this one because of its media presence. I prefer to give you more color on that operation that is very close to the closing. It will be a highly healthy operation, bringing about qualitative and financial benefits for CSN, for the sale process, and for our creditors as well.
Hello, Daniel. That's an important question. There's a piece of data that I would like to reinforce here. The participation of the government has been decisive at this point in time. We need to thank the participation of Minister Alckmin and Mr. Rosa. After a long time, we were able to convince them that we cannot compete with China.
Secondly, there's an issue of deindustrialization that could happen faster than we imagined, and that measures have to be put in place with a greater speed. In the last four or five months, we were able to achieve this. Regarding the anti-dumping, when we began the process, we worked on anti-dumping because this is a system that will extend for five years in metal sheet. First of all, we work with China, and I'm referring to margins. Simply to give you an idea, margins of $300-$500 in dumping margins in Brazil. A month ago, the government also approved the anti-dumping project for free pre-painted and galvanized with very high margins of $300-$700.
In the case of galvanized products in metal sheets, and the end of the investigation will be in four or five months against Germany, Holland and Japan. It's not only China working with dumping in Brazil. In tin plate, we found margins of $500-$800 per ton of tin plate. Now, regarding the circumvention routes of escape for trade, it's important to highlight that in cold rolls, the main problem here is Korea. We're working with the government to observe in those countries and with other products what could be done. Another country that entered Brazil in tin plate without a background is India. There are some countries we have our eyes on so that we can lead to a more encompassing discussion regarding anti-dumping. We have India, Korea and more.
Another important matter, we have to be careful with this, and it comes from Paraguay. There are some companies that could bring the products to Paraguay and bring them to Brazil without tariffs. We're closing up this operation to be fully competitive in this sense. Regarding China, nowadays, the premiums with imported material nationalized coming from China are already negative. As I mentioned, we began to carry out some reductions in discount. They're very timely for coated products. Throughout this quarter, beginning of next quarter, we will begin to recover a more equal level of imports and premiums. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Martinez. Regarding the possibility that the government will abandon the system of tariffs and quotas in May. What was simpler was to put a 25% import levy for everything.
It's not long lasting like the anti-dumping, so the great victory was to put, for the main products of CSN, the anti-dumping mechanism. The government has 14 systems under the quota and tariff system, and there is pressure from the steel company that this should become 25% for all. Now finally, there are 7 million of steel coming to Brazil through direct import. Of the 6 million that comes into Brazil, there's an additional 7 million coming in indirectly. In the upstream chains, the government sees an increase in imports: home appliances, machines, equipment. Last year, there were 500,000 cars imported into Brazil. The industry as a whole has understood that this is not a problem for steel. It refers to competitive autonomy for the industry as a whole. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Martinez.
The next question comes from Tatiana Caldini from JPMorgan.
Good morning. First of all, a follow-up. You're speaking a great deal about investments. I would also like to hear a follow-up on partners in steel. We saw that the results of this quarter, independent of the adjustments, show that this is a very challenging industry. What is happening to these partnerships in the steel sector, and if you have news of a potential sale? Is this part of the pipeline, and which is the partnership? The second question for steel again refers to imports. What do you foresee as being different vis-à-vis what has been approved in anti-dumping compared to tin plates? Is there a different protection for tin plates? Do you have to speak to the government? Is this the only path open to you? Thank you.
Tatiana, this is Marco. I will answer the first part of the question. First, referring to the steel plant, we had a significant cost reduction during the year. In the fourth quarter, we had the lowest cost of production per slab in the last four years.
Everything's referring to the competitive capacity of the company while we're delivering this. Now, with the anti-dumping measures approved and with the prices, we do have this new equation of price recovery, and this will enable the steel plant to continue growing its EBITDA to appropriate levels. Regarding strategic alternatives and plans, we have a plan from January 15th. We're carrying out an in-depth assessment process in-house that will take some more months to discuss the type of partnership we want, the projects we will work with those partners to reach an EBITDA margin that is even higher, already aided and abetted by the prices.
This is the assessment we're carrying out at present. Regarding your question about the company's sale, there is no definition in the company until we are able to assess investment routes, possible partnerships to support a better profitability in the steel plant. As soon as we have something, of course, we will broadly disclose this to the market. Tatiana, regarding import, what I am forecasting for the year is a drop of 1.5 million-2 million in imports. What happened in January and February was simply an anticipation of purchases. For the first quarter, we're going to be directly impacted because this volume of imports coming to the domestic market will further benefit CSN. We have more added value products. We're focused on construction, compared to other companies that have spot prices. This is important.
Let's think of a pre-painted product that we obviously produce in Brazil. There's a new line that is ready to be assembled that is in Porto Real. We're going to work with that line as well. There will be a demand for this. If we look at a pre-painted product, our margin presently is BRL 900 per ton, with a slight cost reduction, nothing expressive, of BRL 200 per ton and a correction in our discount, we could increase that margin to $300 per ton. The issue of profitability will bring us interesting surprises when it comes to the drop of imports that will impact us directly. When it comes to tin plate, for example, what is coming here will no longer come from China.
In the countries where we have anti-dumping, Germany, Holland and Japan, there will be an increase in imports. Now, the growth in the domestic market will be stronger in tin plate in the first market. We should increase sale by 20% in Brazil in a product where we have a very high margin. The scenario is very positive, very different from what we have faced in the last two years. I think this situation is here to stay. There are other situations we have no control over, but we can recover margins because of the prices.
That was very clear. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Marcelo Arazi from BTG Pactual.
Good morning, everybody. We have two questions. The first I would like to discuss that increase in net debt in the company.
You published a negative cash flow of almost BRL 300 million, but net debt increased close to BRL 400 million. If we could better understand this gap. There are BRL 900 million in prepayment, monetary variation. We also have business combinations, something that is not very clear to me. If you could give us more clarity here regarding these two points. If you allow me a second question. There's a relevant impact in the EBITDA of the steel mill this quarter. If you could give us more clarity in terms of those impacts and if they should continue going forward. Thank you.
Marcelo, thank you for the question. This is Marco once again. Regarding the slide of net debt, I'm looking at it here.
The two main impacts, we have a discussion of exchange variation, 900 reais, the payment of iron ore, BRL 900 million, and of course, the exchange variation. We had a devaluation of exchange at the end of the year. Now we had the valuation of the real as a strong currency at the beginning of the year and the prepayment of iron ore. Benjamin explained this very clearly. As always, these are operations of $300 million-$500 million at a single time, and we do this in mid-year. We did this in the third quarter of 2025. We didn't do it in the fourth quarter. We're going to do it between the first, second or third quarter. We're looking for the best market moment to carry out this assessment, but our cash position will vary during the year.
As we didn't do it then, this amortize the operation, the amortization goes throughout the year, and we have that drop in our cash. These two events are events that come back very clearly for the beginning of 2026. You speak about BRL 1.2 billion. We do have some event with a very clear impact. If we add them up, among them, we have variation in the MRS accounts. If we consolidate those figures, we have an increase in the debt of MRS, a reduction in cash of MRS.
The impact of BRL 200 million-BRL 300 million that you mentioned, there was an event for operational performance and that will explain the BRL 1.2 billion and a carrying out of a large number of surveys in the company for a monetization plan for our inventory, something we have already remarked on at the end of last year, amounting to BRL 1.2 billion as a whole. We reassess, restated this amount for inventories. This had to be adjusted. It's a second-line inventory, and this brought about a significant impact on our indicators at the end of last year. Now, for the inventories we have begun to amortize. In 2026, we will have positive results. Now, another impact on steel also comes from the BRL 1.2 billion.
It's an adjustment of factors that are from outside of the company, an adjustment of one-time effects, based on the costing and external factors for the company. This is a factor referring to other operations. It's part of the net revenue of the company. Now, some of this was generated by the shutdown of furnace two as well, quite extensive. Now, this is put in the line item, other operations, something done in the fourth quarter. It wasn't done during the other quarters. We do this at the end of the year, and we ended up having the total impact of the year only on the fourth quarter. To answer your question, this is not a factor that will be repeated in 2026, because this type of classification of events only happens with temporary factors.
For factors that will remain in place for longer periods, they are not part of that accounting law CPC 16. I hope this has been explained clearly. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Guilherme from XP.
Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. I also have two questions. The first question in terms of cash generation and all of the topics we discussed here, is there the opportunity of reducing or making CapEx more flexible for the project P-15 in mining? Could we see lower figures in your business plan going forward? My second question refers to steel and the anti-dumping themes. Is there any update in terms of the anti-dumping of the queue? Any timing referring to the products that have already come in, the pre-painted and galvanized products?
When will we see this scenario of volume being reduced from China and a better context of supply and demand in the domestic market, so that you can pass through better prices in these product lines impacted by the anti-dumping?
Guilherme, thank you for the question. I will address the first part. We have a company with five segments of the size of CSN. It's obvious that we're quite flexible in holding that CapEx to manage the company or in moments of difficult liquidity. We do have that possibility when we define strategic route for the steel mill and bringing in partner. We want to improve that discussion of reducing CapEx for the steel mill. Now, the space we have in midyear should be for investments of 45%-50% of investment or steel that was contemplated in the plan of 15th of January.
Now, all of this should bring a benefit in the use of cash of the company and CapEx as a whole, and the sale of the cement segment that will also bring about a reduction in CapEx. To answer in shorter terms, yes, we do have that flexibility. The discussion in the company does have that focus on CapEx. At the end of the year, we should have a better situation in CapEx. Guilherme, in tin plate, galvanized and cold rolled lamination, the discussion is over. In hot rolled product, the government came to a preliminary determination but has not applied provisional rights. They have opted to do this because of the red tape referring to control. There are margins that vary from $230-$300 in BQ. Now, the legal term of 18 months will be in December.
Based on the conversations we have with the government, the final determination should be implemented until June or July at the most, and this is positive. Regarding China, another important case that could be used as jurisprudence for the other anti-dumping problems we're looking at. For tin plate, for Germany, Japan and Holland, the legal term is December of 2026. The government has already set forth a preliminary of $315, but this has not been enforced yet. It should be enforced in the next two or three months. This is the portfolio that we have for trade defense and competitive isonomy. We're always looking at the damage, the cause, and the anti-dumping proven in these cases. Now, the quota tariff program has helped us. It could be more effective if we increase the number of items.
Now, what we're going to do during the year, in the first quarter, there were no reductions of imports, quite the contrary. There was a strong increase in February, so a more expressive reduction should come about in the second half of the year. My expectation is that we will have a reduction during the year of 1.5 million-2 million tons of the products that impact CSN. There's a question that Marcelo Arazi posed that was not answered. The CSN margin and what will happen going forward, we had a very difficult scenario despite this, and comparisons are hateful but necessary. If we take away the non-recurrent effect of the idle capacity explained by Marco, we would have an EBITDA margin of 7.6%-8% higher than the average of the sector. It was a huge challenge for us.
Imagine competing with products that have 50% imports. We had to be very creative to capture and bring in those results. Although these are not the final results we imagined. In the second quarter and until the end of the year, we should recover margins, bring them close to two digits or somewhat above two digits. Depending on the incoming imports, they should drop impressively in my understanding. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Henrique Marques from Goldman Sachs.
Thank you for taking my question. Simply a quick follow-up regarding steel. For the first quarter, you will have an increase of 4%-6%. That wasn't very clear for me. Or is it simply a reduction of discounts for the first quarter? Now, given that outlook of a potential improvement in volume and a drop in imports, is there any planning?
Are you thinking of potentially reconnecting your furnace too? Is this part of your short-term planning, or are you going to wait for the Volta Redonda furnace? Now, regarding the prepayment. This fourth quarter, was this one-time effect? Are you having a difficulty in rolling the prepayment contracts? Is there any type of concern that you have or not? You mentioned that it should come back in the first or second quarter. Once again, as these are large contracts with a relevant impact in cash generation, I would better like to understand the timing of the rollover of these contracts.
In truth, Henrique, in the first quarter, between the improvement in mix and reduction of discounts, we should stand between 4.5% and 6%. This is not the impact of a price increase, but this will positively impact our results in the first quarter.
Regarding the top Furnace 2, I would like to underscore this. We have a strategy to complement our production with the purchase of slab. If we look at the track record in 2023, we brought in 400,000 and in 2024, 670 -- almost 700,000 tons. In 2025, we were more creative. As we stopped the top Furnace 2, we brought in more BQD that had a cost performance ratio that was more interesting. We ended the year with 500,000, 200,000 in slab, the rest in PDQ. This strategy proved to be successful. We are following up to see what will happen with the situation of slabs.
There has been an increase in price vis-à-vis Europe, but I believe we will still, during 2026, live with the purchase of imported raw material, and perhaps from the domestic market, if the conditions are correct to be able to compete. Enrique, about the prepayment question, as I mentioned during the call, there is no link with the difficulty in funding and the issuance of new prepayments. Quite the contrary, we have a large number of trading companies interested in carrying out the prepayment. Last year, we had two additional companies looking out for the company to do this with better prices than that we have now. Companies wanting to work with a prepayment line with CSN. There is no concern. It's simply due to the amount of iron ore involved in those transactions that makes sense for them.
Sometimes it's not justified to carry out operations below BRL 800,000. For the fourth quarter, maybe have operations of BRL 2.5 billion-BRL 3 billion. That is why we do this operation twice a year. Not more than twice. We could do this 3x, but not more than twice a year. This is what we did last year and in previous years. Of course, no difficulty in this case. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Pedro Melo from Citi.
Good morning. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking our question. Several questions have already been answered. I would like to go back to deleveraging plans. Among the alternatives that you mentioned, the sale of assets, cement, steel. Perhaps there's another relevant cash source. This is important for the market when we think about amortization of BRL 1.4 billion in 2026. Would you have another plan besides the one we have already discussed? Thank you.
Pedro, thank you for the question. Now to attempt to answer your question in a very clear way, proposals for strategic deleveraging in the company goes through the sale of assets, generating capital within the company, and based on that, of course, we're going to incentivize the entire market to reduce net debt and, continue on with the refunding in the company. Now deleveraging of $14 million, $15 million, $16 million as we have been mentioning. We have title securities that are easily discounted in the market. The strategy when it comes to using the capital that will be raised with this financial activity is to do things in the most friendly way possible. This is the company mindset.
Thank you.
Now, simply to add to this, it's a strategy, the sale of assets and monetization of assets the company has. Besides these assets, as everybody knows, this is in our balance. There are several other assets the company has that could be also sold further ahead, that could be used for deleveraging. These two assets show that because of the size of the check, they will be sufficient to comply with the intended deleveraging.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Nicholas S. from [Balanz].
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question and for all of the comments. I simply have a follow-up on the liquidity of the holdings, specifically, if you could give us more color on your present day cash for the entire holdings and how you look upon liquidity for the maturity of the bond in 2026, rolling out the other debt in 2026, and the drawdown risk that we saw during the quarter, simply to comfort the market that is a bit under stress because of liquidity.
Thank you for the question, Nicholas. The cash, to speak very clearly, we spoke of BRL 16 billion consolidated. If we take away the cash of mining, cement, and other smaller companies, if we focus on the holding cash, BRL 5.5 billion, a comfortable cash for the company indeed.
Now, to answer to the bond for 2026, $1 billion maturing in a little more than one month at the end of April. The 2028 bond, of course, is our main goal. We're focusing on this. We want to reduce this with cash and with liability management, with refunding as is normal for an amount of this size. As some have asked, it will be very important because of this strategy that we have now, even the bond for 2028. We will have sufficient material, a good base. We will work in a friendly and intelligent way with the market to reduce the 2028 bond. There's an important increase of suppliers at the end of the year, but this is linked to the purchase of iron ore from third parties for mining. This is not drawdown risk.
I don't know if this has answered your question.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We would like to remind you that should you wish to ask more questions, please click on the Raise Hand icon or send in your question through the Q&A icon. Once again, if you wish to pose a question, please click on the Raise Hand icon or send in your question through the Q&A icon. As we have no further questions, we will return the floor to Mr. Marco Rabello, CFO and Executive IRO, for the closing remarks.
Thank you all for your questions. Of course, we are at your entire disposal to clarify any doubts that you may have in the coming days and weeks. Of course, we will always meet at these earnings calls. I will now return the floor to our CEO, Mr. Benjamin Steinbruch, for the closing remarks.
I would like to thank all of you for your attendance at the CSN earnings call. We do hope that the government will continue to support Brazilian industry as a whole, especially the steel plant, which was the most impacted. I would like to add that we are going to do our homework. We have been delivering what we have promised. We're working arduously in the steel plant. We have obtained good results, and we will continue to work in this way. As regards supplies, this part has been fully mobilized. We're purchasing in a better way at a lower cost. In terms of our commercial part, this has been very well set up. We're reducing our inventories beginning in March.
We think there will be a significant improvement in the market. January and February, perhaps was not very good, but March has already shown very strong results, in terms of sales commercially. Now our greatest commitment, deleveraging, we reaffirm our commitment here as we have been doing. We have committed the company to doing this in the shortest term possible. There was a question from Guilherme from XP regarding CapEx. We're working not only on CapEx but also focusing on OpEx. We do have sufficient flexibility in terms of investments. We're scanning all of our contracts, and we will have good results regarding all of this.
We should not be working with a high inventory of 2 million, but regarding investments and maintenance, we have to be very determined to have an efficient and rapid reduction so that this can also help us in the part of deleveraging, not only through the sale of assets, but enhancing the capital structure. Of course, we have short, medium and long-term alternatives for deleveraging and negotiation of different ways of deleveraging, not only the structure that was mentioned by Marco, the one that is best known in the market. We do have other alternatives that can be put into action as soon as we conclude with this one. We have a second one, a third alternative that has already been contracted. It is our obligation to have alternatives, and we do have them.
The increase of debt, that timely increase of debt, this is a one-time effect. There will be a reversion in the first half. Now, the issue of the prepayment, perhaps this will extend to the second quarter. Now, we have been favored by the exchange rate. We already see an improvement in that direction, as well as everything else that was explained to you by Marco. I would like to thank all of our employees for their work, and I invite them to do even more. I invite them to be ever more determined so that we comply with what we have committed to do, the deleveraging and in other areas. We have very good assets. We're going to do our utmost to get the most out of them.
I thank all of you for your attendance, and we're at your entire disposal for any question that you may have. I will return the floor to Marco for the closing.
Thank you all for attending this conference call. We will now conclude our earnings call for the fourth quarter, full year 2025. Have a very good week. The CSN earnings call ends here. Have a very good afternoon.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-11-11Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (SID) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong EBITDA Growth and ...
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Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (SID) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong EBITDA Growth and ...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. EBITDA: BRL3.3 billion, a 26% increase, with an EBITDA margin of 27%. Leverage Ratio: Reduced to 3.1x from 3.5x at the end of last year. Mining Sales Volume: Over 12 million tons, a 5% increase from the previous quarter. Iron Ore EBITDA: BRL1.9 billion, a 57% increase, with a gross margin of 44%. Cement Sales Volume: Over 3.6 million tons, the second largest in CSN's history. Cement EBITDA: BRL388 million, with an EBITDA margin of 29%. Logistics EBITDA: BRL550 million, with an EBITDA margin above 35%. Energy EBITDA: BRL54 million, with a margin of 35%. Adjusted Cash Flow: Negative BRL815 million, improved from negative BRL1.4 billion in the previous period. Net Debt: Impacted by negative cash flow and dividend payout. Steel Production Costs: Lowest in four years. Steel Sales Increase: 4.4% in the quarter. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Signs with SID. Is SID fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: November 05, 2025 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (NYSE:SID) achieved a 26% growth in EBITDA, reaching BRL3.3 billion with an EBITDA margin of 27%, marking a quarter-on-quarter growth of 330 basis points. The company reported a third consecutive quarter of reduced leverage, reaching a ratio of 3.1x, down from 3.5x at the end of the previous year, demonstrating strong financial discipline. In the mining segment, SID achieved a historical record by shipping over 12 million tons, with sales volume 5% higher than the previous quarter, showcasing improved efficiency in logistics and production capacity. The cement market saw historical results with the second-largest sales volume in SID's history, over 3.6 million tons sold, and an EBITDA margin of 29%, significantly above the sector average. The logistics segment recorded its highest-ever EBITDA of BRL550 million, with a margin above 35%, highlighting the efficiency and potential of SID's operations in cargo handling and shipment. The company experienced a negative adjusted cash flow of BRL815 million in the third quarter, although this was an improvement from the BRL1.4 billion negative in the previous period. There was a drop in steel production due to the maintenance shutdown of blast furnace 2, impacting the company's performance...
TranscriptFY2025 Q32025-11-05FY2025 Q3 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 44 paragraphs
FY2025 Q3 earnings call transcript
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" Citigroup Inc., Research Division
" Banco Bradesco BBI S.A., Research Division
" Ita Corretora de Valores S.A., Research Division
" XP Investimentos Corretora de C¬mbio, T■tulos e Valores Mobili£rios S.A., Research Division
[Interpreted] Good morning, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to CSN's conference call to present the results for the third quarter of 2025. Today with us are the company's executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Today's event is also available on CSN's Investor Relations website at ri.csn.com.br, where the presentation can be found. A replay of this call will be available shortly after its conclusion. Before moving on, we would like to clarify that any forward-looking statements made during this conference call are based on the beliefs and assumptions of CSN's management and on information currently available to the company. Such statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions as they relate to future events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Actual events may differ due to factors such as general economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest and exchange rate levels, future renegotiations or prepayment of obligations of foreign currency-denominated credits, tariffs in the U.S., Brazil and other countries, changes in laws and regulations and general competitive factors on a global, regional or national level. Now we'll turn the floor to Mr. Marco Rabello, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer, who will present CSN's operational and financial highlights for the period. Mr. Rabello, you may go on.
[Interpreted] Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us at another conference call of CSN. Today, we are here to talk about the performance of the third quarter '25, a very special quarter, where we can see a better performance of the company in the whole of the year with historical operational records being hit, showing the CSN's continued strong in terms of efficiency, operational efficiency, but as committed to operational financial strictness and reaching results. In a movement that had credit as the main topic, the company continued with a diversified operation able to extract results from different sectors of the economy, ensuring resilience and showing the strength of the group. As we see in the highlights of Slide #2, CSN was able to expand sales volume in all its segments of operation, and it had an accurate strategy commercially in the period and strong cost controls that drove results in this quarter. Therefore, CSN reached growth of 26% in EBITDA with BRL 3.3 billion and EBITDA margin of 27%, a quarter-on-quarter growth of 330 bps points. That was also the third consecutive quarter where the company showed a drop in its leverage ratio, reaching 3.1x in the period compared to the 3.5x in the end of last year. That shows the financial discipline and the group's strong capital structure. Going to mining, another period of historical record, showing that the company is extracting more efficiency in logistics and its production capacity. That was the first time in history that CSN was able to ship more than 12 million tons with sales volume 5% above that of the previous quarter. In a quarter, we had growth showing the improvements in efficiency. In terms of costs and expenses, performance was equally positive with dilution of fixed costs and a better freight strategy, optimizing the operations results. we control things, everything is running as smooth as possible. But it's also true in the site that we don't control, price dynamics. The third quarter had an increase in iron ore prices, which led us to a growth of 57% in EBITDA in the quarter with more than BRL 1.9 billion generated and gross margin of 44%. And still, we had a change in commercial strategy that led to an expansion in 4.4% of sales in the period. We've been very accurate in our commercial strategy and the market is very much pressured by the coming of imported material and the disputes in the local market. Last quarter, CSN stood out as the only company that was able to show growth of freight and EBITDA in a very adverse scenario. This strategy has a temporary effect, and therefore, we redirected routes to increase our sales channels. Therefore, the expansion of volume in still pressured market with record penetration of imported materials show the group's commercial strength and that steel consumption is still resilient in the country. The best highlight in the period with regards to steel comes from costs. We had the lowest cost of steel production in the last 4 years, showing that the company is extracting better results in its industrial strategy, operating at full capacity, and optimizing its inputs. It's still early to say that the worst has passed, but it's the first time in a long while that we are seeing a better prospect for the steel industry as a whole. We are seeing a recovery of prices exported from China, then a lower import in the Brazilian spot market, and the first antidumping measure approved most recently. That favors the price dynamics for the future, enabling the necessary margin recovery for local producers. In the cement market, the quarter was also of historical results. The market has been very resilient, especially considering the high interest rates of the country. You can see that cement consumption grew this year, and the company was able to capture the favorable dynamics with a very right commercial strategy. And this quarter is a growth in sales and price increase. With that, we had the second largest sales volume in CSN's history with more than 3.6 million tons sold and an operation increasingly efficient in terms of cost. These are the competitive advantages of the business, combining verticalization, fantastic mineral reserves, logistic network, low energy consumption and a good portfolio of products. All this performance led to the highest EBITDA in cement in CSN's history. BRL 388 million this quarter, with EBITDA margin of 29%, way above the average of the sector. Finally, but not less important, we have the bottom part of the slide, another record reached in the quarter in the Logistics segment that showed an important driver for the group. This quarter, we had the highest volume of freight and cargo on our highway network -- railway network with record EBITDA of BRL 550 million and an EBITDA margin above the 35%. That shows that this will unlock the value of assets with a new vehicle that concentrates the strategy for infrastructure, monetizing part of this amount. On the right, we have the segment of energy that continues to benefit from the favorable market. This year, we had a low energy availability to be traded, but still the segment generated BRL 54 million EBITDA with a margin of 35%. In short, we can see on the slide all the operational excellence experience with record production sales in mining, lower production costs in steel, and the best EBITDA in history in both cement and logistics. So stronger operation positioning CSN at a different level in terms of management and efficiency. Going on to the next slide. Here, we show our EBITDA and EBITDA margin for the third quarter '25. Here, we can see the best result for the year with BRL 3.3 billion in EBITDA with a margin of almost 27%. On the right, it shows the contribution of mining this quarter with stronger volumes and better prices. In addition, we can see the contributions that were important in cement and logistics. So it's important to have a diverse operation that can show more resilience and also offset some one-time pressures in some markets. On the next slide, we show our activities in terms of investments. Here, we can see growth of 7.8% compared to the previous quarter, reflecting our efforts to maintain a high level of execution in our operations and operational records observed in the period, particularly the projects for the modernization of the company and better efficiency in our projects such as the P15 project. Going to the next slide, Slide #5. Here, we show our net working capital. So here, we can see an increase of 13% this quarter compared to the previous quarter, reflecting more accuracy commercially speaking, in the period with an impact in accounts receivable. In addition to a reduction in the supplier line, due to the settlement of the forfeiting operations. On the next slide, we show our adjusted cash flow that was negative at BRL 815 million in third quarter '25, which was better than the BRL 1.4 billion negative of the previous period, but still a result that reflects the negative effect of financial expenses due to high interest rates and investment activities, and consumption of working capital. On the next slide, we show our net debt and leverage, and also the behavior of our net debt along the quarter. As we can see on the left, the main message here is a reduction of leverage in the period with 10 basis points negative, going from 3.4% in the previous quarter to the 3.1x that we have this quarter, showing that the company has been able to align cash efficiency to record results, maximizing sales volumes, controlling costs, and increasing efficiency. In addition, it's important to show the efforts that management has been engaging to reduce indebtedness with leverage descending quarter-on-quarter towards the guidance that we provided at the end of last year for this year, even with all the adverse scenario in terms of interest rate, financial expenses, and exchange rate fluctuation. Also important to highlight is that deleveraging is organic without considering capital recycling projects that we are going to have for the future and that have the potential to reduce our leverage even faster. On the right, we see that net debt was impacted this quarter by negative cash flow, as I mentioned before, and the impact of the dividend payout. Going to the next slide, Slide #8, we show our indebtedness profile. So we can see that we continue at a very comfortable position vis-a-vis our short- and midterm obligations with BRL 18.8 billion, an amount practically stable compared to the previous quarter and efficiency to cover our debt in the next 3 years. In addition, we continue to have active management to elongate amortization flows, working with the local capital market. In the quarter, the company had new funding and renegotiated bilateral contracts, extending amortization flows until 2030. With that, we conclude our consolidated results, and we are going to move on now to Slide #10. Here, we show the highlights for the steel segment. On the first slide, we have the results of our commercial activity. So you see an increase of 4.4% in sales in the quarter, showing the change in the commercial strategy for the period, with the company implementing a more competitive attitude to return to competitive levels. The strategy that we had before a prioritized results and not volumes generated expected results, but it has a limited effect. So now it's important to resume volumes that shows that the market continues resilient and with a good level of steel consumption and especially in the domestic market. However, the market continues with high competition and a record of penetration of imported material. So how difficult it is to compete without the protection? As for the foreign market, we see a recovery of sales in the period, but still below historical results, given the difficulties to export in the context of tariff disputes and application of antidumping measures. On the next slide, when we talk about steel production, we show that the drop quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year is a consequence of the shutdown for the maintenance of blast furnace 2. It has not really hurt the performance of the company, quite the opposite. If you go to the right of the slide, you see that the production costs decreased this quarter, reaching the lowest level of the 4 years, which reflects an increased efficiency in the production process, better optimization of raw materials, and better combustion process. Performance per ton had a drop this quarter, basically because of the lower prices in the period, which offset the production dynamic of costs and volumes. When you look at the annual comparison, we see solid growth of 22% in performance per ton. Now we are going to go to financial performance of Steel works on Slide 12, and we can see the impact of the price reduction had on revenues for the period. Even with the drop in prices below average price, it is hard to compete in a very hostile environment with record penetration of imported materials with prices that are subsidized and get to the Brazilian market. That shows the importance of having protective measures to have a better economy for local producers. But in addition to a pressure in prices, all the indicators controlled by the company are getting better. CSN are having better efficiency in the production process, an operation that is increasing efficiency and that shows operational improvements when we compare to the results of 2024. In this context, important to mention all the adverse scenario, CSN is delivering EBITDA better than '24 and still is an important driver for growth this year. Now going to mining. On Slide 14, we show production and sales this quarter. So here, we can see 2 extraordinary results. The first is record production, the highest volume ever in the history of the company, which shows operational efficiency that the company is reaching in recent months, both in mines but also in the logistics chain as a whole. Then we have record sales with the highest volume in history and the first time that the company exceeded 12 million tons in a single quarter, which highlights the significant efficiency in production with the company with a tear of 4 million tons shipped in a single month for the first time. As for financial performance on Slide 15, we can see that the growth in net revenue is a result of the combination of record volumes in shipments, better realized prices in line with the favorable demand trends seen in the quarter, in addition to the positive effect of the future quotation periods. In EBITDA, we have an even stronger performance with 57% increase in the period, profitability gains of 7.8 percentage points. This increase in profitability shows resumption of iron ore prices above $100 per ton and operating performance in the company, and effective cost management. On the next slide, we have the bridge reconciling the EBITDA this quarter compared to the previous quarter. The main factors that contributed to the strong evolution of results were better iron ore prices and future quotation periods that more than offset the increase in freight costs and third-party purchases. Now we are going to talk about cement on Slide 18. Here, we have an analysis of sales volume. Once again, the sector continues very dynamic, even with all the effects of interest rates with the Minha Casa Minha Vida program, the high level of employment in the real estate segment, driving cement consumption. So we have been able to use the whole logistics network to capture new markets with growth of 5% on sales, showing this trend. The 3.6 million tons sold this quarter was the second result ever in the company, but now with a price dynamics that is more favorable, reinforcing the sustainability of our performance. On the next slide, we have the financial performance. We see an important increase quarter-on-quarter in terms of revenue and EBITDA. And the result was driven by competitive advantages in operations, an accurate commercial strategy, and a favorable demand in the cement sector. With that, we had the highest EBITDA in history, EBITDA margin going back to the level of 30%, which is significantly above the average in the sector. That shows that no matter how hard the scenario is in terms of competition or interest rates, CSN continues to show favorable results and robust profitability. Finally, the Logistics segment and another record in terms of performance in revenue and EBITDA. with a growing dynamic of cargo handling and efficiency, with the highest EBITDA ever recorded by CSM with a total of BRL 500 million and margin above 45%. The performance shows that the segment is reaching a higher level of efficiency in cargo handling and shipment showing the potential of the operation. With that, I close the presentation of the segments, and I'm going to ask Helena to talk about our ESG highlights. ESG highlights, I'm sorry.
[Interpreted] Hello, everyone. Before going to details this quarter, I would like to highlight the performance of our ESG agenda connected to sustainable value to our company. In this quarter, we advanced consistently in 3 pillars that are part of our strategy and that are connected to financial performance and risk reduction, governance, social and [indiscernible]. In safety, we continue our stability in terms of number of accidents, very close to '24, 30% below '21, 33% decrease in the number of high-potential severe incidents that has been our focus for '25, reaching the best results in our historical spirit. Safety advances were our strategy, focusing on our greatest value and reduction to risks, operational, legal, it avoids costs related to interruptions and et cetera. So the result shows an important advancement in the company and how we are best in terms of leadership. In environmental, we had the report that talks about our agenda targets and et cetera. At CSN, we had the plan of climate adaptation to improve the resilience of our assets, decrease physical risks related to climate and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in the main segments of operation, driven by projects related to operational efficiency, energy efficiency, clean energy and better processes. And that has direct impact on mitigating climate transition risks, reduces our future exposure to regulatory costs, and also strengthens our competitiveness and extends access to capital connected to ESG, and shows that decarbonization is a strategy for the company and for the future. And in diversity and inclusion, we continue to have a more inclusive environment with more representativity with an 80% increase of female representation at the group. Diversity is a clear mechanism to reduce risks. We know that diverse teams have better results and strengthen the company in terms of productivity and long-term results. As a result of all these KPIs and others, we once again, we were recognized as a benchmark by important ESG agencies in the world with better credibility, transparency, and consistency in our trajectory. We were considered one of the best companies in terms of the score in ESG and a silver medal in EcoVadis. That shows to the market that we are building a robust company with real impact and reducing risks. And that is not separate from the business. It is part of our strategy, part of risk management. So what we are bringing shows that we are having less operational risks, less financial risk, and it generates value to our -- all our stakeholders, including our shareholders. Thank you very much. Now we are going to hear our CEO, Benjamin Steinbruch.
[Interpreted] Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining our conference call. As it was mentioned by Marcos before and by Elena, we had a quarter that we can call exceptional in terms of operational activity. We were able in all our sectors to record improvements and best production levels ever, also cost reductions. I think that we are working the right way. We are working hard to try and maximize our production with good results. That is seeking the optimal production level for each one of our sectors so that we can, regardless of better productivity and costs, also have the right price for each one of our activities. Starting with mining, we had excellent news in terms of production, shipment with record in 3 corridors price stabilities in iron ore, which gave us the EBITDA margin of 1.9%, which we consider excellent comparing to past forecast. In sales, we were able to lower costs, working at an optimal level in terms of results. And we continue to work very hard to reduce costs, which is something that is in our control using what is best and also using our working capital as well as possible, always having an eye on prices. In terms of production, had a higher percentage and, as a consequence, a drop in prices due to the mix, but still margins were kept at very good levels. And as you all know, we have this very aggressive uncontrolled competition of product -- imported products, which makes it very difficult for us to mirror what is going on in the world in terms of protective measures against imported goods and incentives to domestic production. In Brazil, we are a bit behind all this despite the efforts of the government, the Ministry of Commerce, and others, but we have to have a more active position with regards to the disorganized coming of imported products that really affect Brazilian products. We are almost prevented from exporting to other countries. And in addition to not exporting, we have imported products coming in strongly in the country. So we believe the Brazilian government has to act on that because we have to do what others are doing in the world and really copy some of the protectionist measures that we have abroad. We have to protect our industry. In cement, we had very good results, BRL 368 million, BRL 378 million. The activity is strong, civil construction for the lower income population, also higher income, with strong demand and the sector amongst all the sectors is really heated in terms of demand. So more and more, we expect improvements in the cement sector. And logistics in terms of volumes transported, verticalization that we have also showed a very good performance. So operationally speaking, I would say that certainly, we are on the right path. We are doing what we have to do. Everyone engaged to reduce costs, working capital, improving prices, diversifying the market, doing whatever possible to work with better margins that will help us in the near future to deleverage the company together with other actions that we are paying attention to and discussing. So I would say that the quarter was better than expected. We are improving quarter-on-quarter. And I hope that this will go on. And we are doing whatever we can, whatever is possible, and almost whatever is impossible from the market's perspective to be able to reflect better performance into numbers that meet our priorities. that is to decrease the company's leverage levels. This is what I had to tell you. Once again, I would like to thank you all, and I'm going to turn the call back to Marco.
[Interpreted] Thanks, Benjamin. We are going to start the Q&A session. We have all the company officers, our CEO, and we are here to take your questions.
[Interpreted] [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Gabriel Barra from Citi.
[Interpreted] Perhaps the first point specifically when talking about leverage. Gjamin did mention some of this with regards to costs and how we can make this leverage go down. I think this is an important point for the company. But I would like to perhaps take a new perspective. This is something that I mentioned in the last call, which is divestment. Perhaps you could talk a bit about that. You have a very rich portfolio today, and you can deleverage very fast with your assets. What would be the priorities of the company today? What would be the steps in this strategy of perhaps shuffling portfolio? I would like to understand your mindset on that, considering the different businesses of the company, mining, cement, logistics. So if you could share your view on that, it would really help us on that. Another thing is that we've seen the gains in volume, but margins were not as good this quarter. So I would like to hear from you the idea of value over volume, the commercial strategy of the company, particularly in steel, and also an outlook of your strategy for the fourth quarter that seems to be tougher in terms of margins. So what should we expect for the fourth quarter and next year? These are my points.
[Interpreted] Gabriel, thanks for your question, for attending the call. I'm going to answer the first part of your question, and then I'm going to turn to Martinez. Leverage. I think it's important to remind you that we are into a deleveraging process along the year. We went from 3.5x to 3.1x. Our guidance was 3 until the end of the year. So we are following this target of the company's guidance. Nothing extraordinary on the company's EBITDA or cash helped us come here, just organic operational results of the company. So that alone show how the company is focused on deleveraging the company. For -- from now on, and we did mention that before and even in the presentation today, -- in addition to the continuous improvement of our operational results that we really believe we're going to continue improving in all segments. Cement and still are going to continue operational results. Mining is going to continue at a very high level of performance. And we also have strategic projects, the most important of which being the CSN infrastructure project. The group today has 7 assets in infrastructure and logistics that will migrate to this new company. We are very much advanced in this operation. And this operation alone will bring in terms of additional liquidity to the group. The company is listed, we cannot give you the hard numbers, but we are going to have some important BRL billion to deleverage the company is still in '26. And talking about that, the project is well advanced. In the next few weeks, we are going to give new announcements of the process, formal announcements for you to have a better knowledge of where we are at, and also the timeline that we have for the CSN infrastructure for the year of 2026. Obviously, the company has a very important number of assets energy participation, we already talked about that before. It is a subject that is on the table, but we have to have a proposal to make it effective. Discussions in energy continue to advance. It may come to reality, but it depends on negotiations moving on. And these are the central priority projects that we have in terms of recycling capital. Of course, as you mentioned, and I think that this is one of the strengths of the group, the group has values in its assets in mining in steel in Brazil and abroad, the value of CSN cement, which is a delevered company, and it is the best platform for the growth of cement in Brazil, CSN infrastructure. So assets that are very valuable. And if the company decides to divest, it will certainly be a high priority in the market, even if it's a minority sale. Even then, the focus of the company and what has been approved so far is CSN infrastructure that will bring an important amount to reduce leverage and energy that we are still discussion and at some point in time can become more mature. I'm going to turn to Martinez to answer your second question.
[Interpreted] Thanks for your question. Going back to strategy in the second quarter, we are very much focused on value. We had a portfolio that was more adjusted. We still had the possibility of exporting to the U.S. in coated materials. And because of an operational issue, we could maximize results. Obviously, in the third quarter, and that is a curiosity. We generally read in analyst reports that import penetration is between 15% to 30%, which is out of the ordinary anywhere in the world. It's a very high number. But when you stop and observe CSN's portfolio, and this is very important. You see in metal sheets, 45% of the market today is imported. In zinc, 40%valum, 55% prepainted 63%. So you see the situation that we had in the third quarter, a huge volume of imports. CSN is known as the coated materials, and we had to compete. It could not just feed the market to imported materials. So what we did was to have a more of a fighting strategy to recover markets that we needed in coated materials, and that was the strategy adopted. In terms of results, I think that this is a winning strategy because in the first quarter, we had 8% margin. In the second quarter, we were the only company that increased price in the Brazilian market, getting to 11%. And in the third quarter, we grew sales, which was our objective. We could no longer export. We had to direct 25,000 tons of coated material to the domestic market, which was good. I think it was the right move with the possibility of correcting our portfolio for the coming months. Another important matter, Rafael, Gabriel, sorry, is the matter of demand in Brazil. This is very important. This year, Brazil should hit a historical record of apparent consumption. The market could be showing a drop, and this is not happening. We have robust demand. What happens is that domestic sales in '25 should get to BRL 12 million against BRL 13,400 in 2023. So the room that we have to occupy the import space is very important. In the third quarter, we implemented something very important. We had price readjustments in distribution, civil construction, and in some segments of the industry. In October, I could say that almost 5% of our prices were adjusted, considering the whole revenues for October, which is very important data. Another data we have been working on is antidumping measures. And here, we do thank the government in terms of direction is taken, but the intensity is still very low. The government should have been a lot more emphatic on antidumping. CSN had a definite right of imports for metal sheets. And what's working now is that we are working on metal sheets as if it were a jurisprudence for the other materials. So what we think that's going to happen now different than what many people are saying, all in verifications of plants have been performed for all products with the exception of hot laminate. The technical note is practically completed in all markets as well. And we are very much sure that in the meeting of the G7 on November 27, we should be able to succeed on the antidumping of galvanized and prepainted products, which will give us more comfort in terms of competitivity. For the next quarter, Jin did talk about costs. We lowered costs for amounts close to BRL 300. Our emphasis in costs continues very strong. And I think that we are going to levels in the amount of BRL 3,000 per ton, obviously, optimizing production. So in blast furnace 3 -- we are working with less pellets, less coke, and maximizing the purchase of plates in a market that we have very favorable prices. So in terms of costs, we are at a very good trend. Prices were captured in October. We no longer have exports. The production has to come to the domestic market in products. And our belief is that the dumping, although slow, the dumping antidumping measures will implement partially in November, another in December, and perhaps the last products, which is less pragmatic in February. With this scenario for the fourth quarter, I believe that we are going to go back to double digits in terms of margin. So this is more of an overall scenario. And if you want, we can talk a bit more about other markets and also cement.
[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Rafael Barcellos from Bradesco BBI.
My first question is the company has showing cash burn in recent quarters. Can you talk a bit about what would be the normalized number for the company? And what initiatives can be taken to reverse the scenario? You talked about interest rates, financial expenses a bit higher. What kind of initiative can you have to reverse this position in the short term? And second question, I would like to go back to what Martinez mentioned. Talking a bit more about cement and other markets. So a follow-up. You mentioned that on November 27, you're going to have the G7 meeting, and we can have a favorable decision for galvanized. So is that correct? And if you have any information of cold and hot laminates, when the date would be? And Martinez, if you could talk about the markets. We are seeing the market some attempt of improving prices in plain sheets. Could you talk about the market appetite in terms of prices?
[Interpreted] Rafael, thanks for your question. I think that first, when you talk about cash burn, -- the company was able to show in recent quarters a reduction in cash burn, as you mentioned, from BRL 4 billion to 800 million in this last quarter. There is a series of initiatives in line for us to have a positive cash, which is what is expected. The new is better operational results as we are showing quarter after quarter, improving our operational results is the most sustainable way of turning negative cash to positive cash. This quarter, we delivered a better cash position and the pillars to improve results for the coming quarters in all segments are given. We talked about the cost control in mining, cement, and now in steel, where we reached the lowest cost of steel production of the last 4 years, and that remains for the future in our main core segments. We talked about price recoveries in cement and also signs of better prices in steel as well. And in mining, we continue going well in terms of profitability, generation of EBITDA, and we are going to carry on like this. So the part of operational results that will contribute to cash burn is happening and will continue for future periods, obviously, considering the seasonality issues that we have in some parts of the year. financial expenses, I did mention that, and you mentioned that too. We already saw this quarter a reduction of financial expenses compared to previous quarters. Here, you have a focus of the company in managing debt that are a bit more burdensome in our indebtedness profile. We are making investments -- a part of the investments that we have in our cash burn, have efficient credit lines. And we are also settling some funds that are a bit more expensive for the company, which has an impact on financial expenses, and that will happen on a reduction of cash burn compared to previous quarters. And investments, which is also an important lever in '26, you're talking about the CapEx that is very close or the same -- sorry, the CapEx of '25 is very close to the CapEx we had in '24. Still with the same CapEx, we had a huge development of P15, and in the company's structuring process, notably that led to better steel prices. So we are focusing on investments in projects that have better profitability for the group. And we are having actual results in our numbers based on the strategy. So organically, we are improving our cash position for the coming quarters. In addition to that, I did talk about the CSN infra project together with other projects that the company can engage in the future will help the company deleverage faster than just based on operational results. And that will certainly have a direct impact in the volume of financial expenses and interest rates paid by the company. So we are very confident for the next quarters to be able to reverse this position. The better operational results that we are showing alone without strategic movements should already bring enough credit for the company for everyone to understand that this is going to happen in the short period of time. Martinez can you answer the second question?
[Interpreted] Another data they would talk about antidumping measures, very interesting. Only 45% of the volume exported in China has positive margin, 7% to 8%. So imagine the problem that we have with the closing of Europe. We became the yard of the road for Chinese material to come in. So just for you to have an idea, Asian markets that were relatively control, you get enough China is sending 4 million; Korea, 3 million, and Brazil, 2 million. So the a of products continue. So we do have to take some measures. Another important point that is very positive is that the industry as a whole woke up to understand that still import is just one problem. You get machinery, equipment, cars, consumer goods. What's happening is not steel that is coming at 30%. You have an import of machinery getting to 30% to 35%. So dumping starts to be a more structural problem as it has always been. But now with the reinforcement of value chains, we are probably going to have a better condition for the government to be a bit faster in the process. As for process, I'm absolutely convinced that we will certainly have repainted and Galvalum approved because we have all data, the technical is approved. Everything is working, all the verifications. And along the pipeline, hot laminates is going to be the last one because the process started in June '25 and the forecast is more to the middle of the year. In the other products, up to January '25, we can have this implemented. It's important to highlight that the government can optimize time, shorten time. In metal sheets, we had a very bad experience. We started in March '24, and we only had the process approved in August '25. I believe that the government has overcome now, and that's a lesson learned for us to use the metal sheet as a jurisdiction and approve to other materials. So I'm very much confident in terms of dumping. And we are not learning out of love. We are learning out of pain. And this is for the whole of the industry. There's no other way. As for markets, I'll say that again. Although we have lots of imports, we also have a very high demand for you to replace part of what was imported, or better yet. If we had used the criteria that the United States have imports of 2021 multiplied by 0.7 and not 1.3, we would have a penetration that would be quite decent, being able to compete, assuring the government that there was competition with no problems. But import is still something that is going to consume us for some time because new players are coming to the market. Just for you to have an idea, we have another antidumping measures in metal sheet against Germany, Japan, and Netherlands. And today, probably in terms of circumvention, we also have materials from India coming to Brazil. So this scenario is becoming more complex, more difficult to be faced if we are not faster in our moves. As for markets, what I can say is the following. The market as a whole has very interesting signs. The agribusiness, and here I'm talking about farming equipment, silos, road equipment has suffered a bit, but we have signs of recovery. Of course, it's connected to interest rates, financing could be stronger, but this is not a market in which we see very strong drop. OEMs, although there is an import of vehicles, the market continues strong. We are selling a lot to the sector. And part of the volume that I lost to the U.S., I'm selling domestically instead of exporting, which is reasonable in terms of margin. Other markets are stable, like electronic appliances, packaging with a slight increase. And as the mix, this is going to improve. Overall, we believe the penetration rate in the domestic market this year will go down to 24%, 25% after a peak of 28, and we are working precisely on the conversion of what was imported to CSN. Prices, Rafael, as you asked, we implemented in October in our price portfolio an adjustment of 5%. I believe that nothing prevents us from keeping these prices until the end of the year. Obviously, we still have some things to do in the industry and to prepare to negotiate with OEMs in the beginning of next year. Preparation starts at the end of this year. But the scenario is more positive in my opinion, considering that in the case of coated materials, we are going to have antidumping measures, which will give me better conditions to compete in the market. For cement, I would say that this is a dream because cement, we had a recovery in the third quarter to margins of 30%. And I think in the fourth quarter, margins can be even better because the market should close at BRL 66 million, BRL 67 million a year. The market capacity is with competitive cost of BRL 85 million, BRL 87 million, and we are getting close to years of Olympic Games and the World Cup at BRL 72 per ton. And we did that with a strategy of selling less to more clients, and that has been very successful. we are using our distribution network and logistics with the acquisition of [indiscernible] and our assets in railway. So cement to me is going to show this year and beginning of next year, something that has not been priced yet in civil construction. We have projects as the renovation project from the federal government that can be a catalyzer of growth, Minha Casa Minha Vida that's not new where we have a bit of a sector that is more still I would say, is middle-class properties. And here, this is based on financing. Now the government is increasing financing levels that can improve a lot. And in infrastructure that there is a lot to be done. We always say that, but we do believe that that can be a good lever. Civil construction in a virtuous cycle can carry along all other sectors. So our prospect for the fourth quarter is to continue reducing costs -- we are going to capture prices, imports, and implement antidumping measures. Doing all that and having all actions in place, and still, we are going to go to double digits in 4Q and implement margins above 30%.
[Interpreted] Just a follow-up, Marco. Thank you for the breakdown in terms of cash generation. Just a small follow-up. In terms of working capital, could you say something in the short term? And Martinez, in your case, you talked about some products and what you expect in terms of antidumping. How about galvanized and cold limited products?
[Interpreted] Well, working capital I don't think we are not going to have major fluctuations. We had an impact because of accounts receivable this quarter because of a higher volume of commercial activity. If you keep the volume of activity in the coming quarters in accounts receivable, you're not going to have another impact. So you're going to keep the same pace. And a good part of the good EBITDA that we had this quarter will turn into cash keeping this same level of operation, accounts receivable, you will not have fluctuation. So there is a line the company is focusing a lot, which is inventories. And here, you might have some benefit in terms of working capital for the future. But we have an important work team to focusing on that. We see some impact in the third quarter, and that's why we have a larger volume of steel sold in this period, but we are doing that with all inventories of the company. Now metal sheet, we have the definitive right to antidumping. And fortunately, in this case, the government took 18 months too much. Prepainted is going to be approved in CMC meeting on November 27, coated end of December or the first meeting of CME in January, cold laminate the same, metal sheets for Japan, Netherlands, and others, April 26, and hot laminate March 26. These are the times we are working with. The government always has a cushion to expand. I am in Brazil today in meetings with and to talk about Brazil antidumping and also sanctions of the United States on Brazil, the tariffs. So I'm very optimistic because I see a new position of the government that can accelerate decisions.
[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itaú BBA.
[Interpreted] My first question is to Marco. Marco, could you talk about the level of flexibility that you can see in your CapEx for next year, important projects in expansion in mining. What has been already contracted? And where do you have room to postpone if that's the case, if you are considering that? And along the same line, if you get maturities of bank debt between the end of this year, '26, '27, you have about BRL 14 billion, BRL 15 billion. And have you already started renegotiating or rolling out these debts with banks as usual? And my second question goes back to deleveraging alternatives. Could you be a bit more specific in terms of the CE generation. You have been talking about having a strategic partner to this business, particularly, and also the monetization of infrastructure logistics assets, the pool of operational assets already, but also projects at what stage we are today. That's it.
[Interpreted] Daniel, thanks for your questions. Well, first, CapEx. As we mentioned, the company is managing its CapEx very efficiently. We compare '25 to '25, same level of CapEx, but all levels of segments, bringing more volume, better operations, and reducing costs. So this clearly shows how CapEx is important for the company. As for '26, which is our short-term Obviously, we do have some flexibility on CapEx. This is always true. The priority is P15. We are going to deliver on time as agreed. So that is our top priority in terms of CapEx. And the room that we have in terms of cash generation and others is going to be managed as ideally as possible. We do have the flexibility. It should be anything extremely material because our main focus is to continue improving the company's operational higher cash generation, more EBITDA, I'm sorry, as we are doing, and we delivered the best EBITDA ever of the year this quarter. So we have to take care in CapEx management because sometimes you remove it from somewhere and you have a drop in EBITDA. So to answer your question, we do have the flexibility, but it's not super material and our priority is P15. In terms of maturities, basically, the maturities for '26 and '27 are bank credits with more of bilateral credits as we did this year. We are already renegotiating some maturities of the first half of '26. So far, negotiations have been very smooth. We are able to roll out maturities for the beginning of '26. We haven't started working with '27 yet. But in '26, we are very comfortable that we are going to be able to roll out the debt of '26. Some of for instance, we have a bond of '26. A small part of the bond for '26 is in the month of April. And we are still analyzing if we are going to use the company's cash to pay it out. We have 2 operations to happen, the one in infrastructure and others, and part of the cash can be used to pay debt along the year of '26. Well, I talked about '26, '27, and in terms of other deleveraging alternatives. C3E, we wanted to close it before -- but last year, we had the floods in May that postponed the discussion. We had to have a new engineering in all assets show to the market with an independent engineering that all assets were in perfect condition for the continuation of the operation to work with the assets that needed it. So we repowered some of the products with higher power, generating more cash and EBITDA for the company. So the process was a bit delayed. In the beginning, we had a new infrastructure debenture at C3E. And that also consumes some months because of the complexity of this kind of structured finance. After everything completed, we are discussing with partners. We are very much focused. We believe we can be successful, but it's hard to say when, if it's going to be the next 4 or 5 months, but the operation itself does not really change the leverage position of the group. But it's important. We are focusing on everything that adds value, and we are pursuing this operation. With CSN infrastructure, we are very careful as a listed company, but we do expect the next few months to have a bit more formal announcement showing the advances that we had in this area. And what we can say is that it's very much connected to the plan for '26. We see a potential closing of this operation by mid next year. This is an operation that has been attracting several investors to the company. We have weekly meetings with stakeholders interested in the transaction, and we are very confident we are going to have a very successful transaction.
[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Guilherme Nippes from XP.
[Interpreted] My question has to do with the antidumping measures in steel. We are getting lots of questions. The market seems to be a bit more optimistic because many problems in terms of antidumping are being settled. And we are getting lots of questions about potential effect on prices. So I'd like to ask you this question, if you can help us out a rationale for potential impact because we see antidumping discussions in prevented about 300 laminates about 500. But we understand that because antidumping is against China, we can have part of this product changing routes. We saw that limits to South Korea and a part is going to be absorbed by the local industry. So my question is specifically about this point, and this discussion is how much do you think we could consider in terms of better prices and profitability of the products in the domestic industry? And when should we expect the antidumping on better prices? And with regards to the increases of 5%, what has to do with a better domestic environment, a better domestic market, or if it is related to antidumping.
Martinez, I think the question is yours.
Yes. Guilherme. Okay. In terms of antidumping, first, I'm going to say what I always mentioned, which is the issue of premiums. So if you're thinking of BQ, $470, and you think of our product in the domestic market, which is $3,600, $3,700 the premium considering you have the quotas, right? So if it's outside the quota, the premium is already about 2%. And inside the quotas, it is about 10% to 12% that for B. when we go to antidumping measures for coated materials, and those that are affected in the market is, well, we have 50% of the coated market in Brazil. And our products are connected to civil construction with a small percentage to automotive. So whatever happens in antidumping measures, if it's going to take another 2, 3 days is very positive because certainly, it gives us a cushion to adjust prices. The best adjustment, obviously, is to sell even if I sold at the same price, more volume in terms of coated material. This is what we want because today, we have capacities that came from other competitors. So restricting imports is very positive in terms of competition, and it is still healthy for the Brazilian market. Just for you to have an idea, I don't have the number by heart. But I would say that in the first quarter, imports were close to 1 million tons. In the second, 1.3 million. And in the third quarter, it went down to 970. So this is a clear sign that those that are importing have realized that the market can change. And the government is giving signs of that, the last one to the metal sheet with a definite decision. In terms of models, which I think is what you want, I believe that we could recover 5% to 7.25% in quoted materials still keeping competitiveness in the domestic market. In terms of metal sheets, and we had a huge pressure of the market because we are the only producer, we almost did not adjust prices. This is the fact that I placed in the portfolio 7,000, 8,000 tons a month already leveraged our results. So the main lever is to make import levels a bit more civilized, 10% to 13%. Once again, this scenario is more positive to CSN because it is the pipeline of our products. B is the list of our problems, I would say. But I would say that if the government wants to be fast, it would do it in February and March. And we would have the completion of verifications in local that haven't done yet and the technical note as well, which is based on the regulations of the road trade organization. So this is what we are considering. In terms of volume, we can always think of the fourth quarter, December. We don't see that some industries, for instance, electronic appliances, have a positive sign for the end of the year. We might have a higher capacity of consumers to consume within their wallet share, but the best segment is civil construction. And that shows in our cement results because CSN is almost the one-stop shop of the market in civil construction. We have a scanning that is very complete of the Brazilian market. I don't know if I missed any point, but just let me know.
[Interpreted] Our next question is in writing by Nicolas from Bal, U.K. He says congratulations on the results. What is the marginal cost of debt for rollovers and on new money in 3Q '25?
[Interpreted] Nicolas, thanks for your question. The cost of the debt for rollovers this quarter was the same as the historical levels in the company. It has not changed our average leverage, which is at 10% of CDI and close or the same as the first and second quarters this year. What we saw and that may raise the curiosity of some investors is a fluctuation of some of our papers in debentures and others, but that is not related to rollovers that we have been executing this period. So the effect on the papers is related to effects related to Brazil, large Brazilian companies, as we have seen in the news, and that brings some loss of confidence on stock of several Brazilian companies, but the cost of rollover has not changed compared to previous quarters.
[Interpreted] Our next question also in writing comes from Santander. Could you talk about the drivers for 4Q '25, and that leads you to reach the consolidated net leverage target of 3x by the end of the year? Secondly, market concerns continue about the imbalance in the steel business. Leverage indicators are high, and the mining business where most cash is located, consider that a problem for the management of liabilities for the future? And if so, what are the plans to address it? I believe that crystallizing value in the logistics business is a possibility, I suppose. Can you update us on this and other capital structure strategies that are seriously being considered now?
[Interpreted] Thanks for your question. As for the fourth quarter of the year, the main drivers of the good results that we expect for the end of the year are the operational basis that we considered during this call. Mining, steel, and cement are operating at a very efficient level with a high production volume and a strictly controlled cost, which already brings a high expectation for the fourth quarter. And also, Martinez very clearly put it, the prices in the steel segment, we are finally seeing a positive trend in terms of steel prices. and also cement that is recovering now as of the third quarter this year. So all these operational assumptions make us believe that despite the seasonality we have in the fourth quarter this year, that the fourth quarter will continue to be a quarter of excellent performance for the company as we had in the fourth quarter '24. If you remember, 4Q '24 was very good in terms of results, and it didn't have the same foundations that we have today for the year of '25. As for leverage and mining, as you mentioned, continue very good. Leverage is not a problem to mining. It continues with more cash than debt. And in still, which is the holding that in a way, consolidates the company's debt and cash -- the way to rebalance or adjust the capital structure, that perhaps what you're asking is focusing on deleveraging, which is what we have been doing in the last 2 years and most notably in 2025. And in '26, in addition to operational results, some operational results will be geared to deleveraging, but we have some nonorganic operations with CS Infra that will help us to bring the capital structure in still to a better point of balance. And remember, in addition to all these initiatives in the year of '25, for the first time in many, many years, CSN did not pay dividends in May as usual, and it is not going to pay dividends in November. It's also usual. So this is a show of the commitment of the company and the company's shareholders to deleverage the company. And when you talk about logistics, it is what I mentioned in the previous question. So I think I already detailed what is to come and when the operation is going to happen, which will certainly be a good lever for '26.
[Interpreted] Our next question in writing comes from Alvaro Rodrigue, he says, you extended amortizations to 2030. What is the weighted average cost of this new debt compared to the previous one? How much incremental interest burden should investors expect and refinancing? What portion of '26, '27 maturities has been already refinanced or prefunded? How much remains exposed to market conditions?
[Interpreted] Alvaro, thanks for your question. Cost of refinancing. I just answered that 1 or 2 questions ago. No changes, the same costs that we had in previous quarters. '27 maturities. In '26, we have an important portion of the first quarter already refinanced. I don't have the numbers, but it's a relevant portion, almost the whole first half of '26 already addressed. '27, not yet. When you talk about how much that remains exposed to market condition in the short term, no exposure because in '26, we have already addressed in different ways, even with the CSN Infra operations that can pay out debt. So the next operation that we still have a discussion in terms of market conditions is the bond for '28 that we are going to need to refinance. And I understand this is very important for you. This is something that we want to start addressing, although maturity is only in 2 years' time, but we want to start addressing as fast as possible to have a window of efficiency until the end of this year or the beginning of next year to start addressing this bond of '28.
[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Charles Waters from Sunglass Capital. What is the cost of debt rate of the new debt incurred in '25 to refinance maturing debt?
[Interpreted] Charles, thanks for your question. I already answered, I think, that question. But if you have any more questions, just let me know.
[Interpreted] Next question, Constanta from. This says you mentioned you've been actively refinancing debt and that in the next 2 years, the majority of the refinancing are bank loans. Could you give us some color on what this refinancing has been like so far, covenants, if they are unsecured, do they have the same seniority as the bonds?
[Interpreted] Constanta, thanks for your question. I think that refinancing is something that we already covered. I would just add that the market, in addition to the usual banks that we are still refinancing operations and continuing to lower the company -- lending to the company, we are having other banks that are interested in working with banks we haven't worked with before. So this is not a problem for '25, and it's not a problem for '26. As for the rollover, that is being rolled over with the same conditions before and with the same bond guarantees. So we don't have anything that was rolled for '26 that is senior to company bonds, all have the same level of guarantee.
[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions. I want to turn the call back to Antonio Marco, CFO and IR Officer, for his final remarks.
Well, thanks, everyone. Thanks of all the members of CSN that contributed to a very special quarter, record results. And also thank you for attending this conference call. We are closing our conference call for the results of the 3Q '25, and we wish you all a very good week.
[Interpreted] CSN's conference call is now closed. Have a very good day.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-08-02Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (SID) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong EBITDA Growth ...
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Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (SID) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong EBITDA Growth ...
EBITDA: BRL2.6 million with a margin of 23.5%, an expansion of 5% and 1.4 percentage points compared to the first quarter of 2025. Gross Debt Reduction: Reduced by BRL5.7 billion for the quarter. Steel Segment EBITDA: 79% increase year-on-year with a margin of 10.8% for the quarter. Cement Sales Volume Growth: 8% quarterly growth. Cement EBITDA Margin: 24% for the period. Logistics EBITDA: BRL519 million with a margin of 41.4%. Energy Segment EBITDA: Fivefold increase compared to the same period in 2024. CapEx Growth: 18.2% increase compared to the previous quarter. Net Working Capital Increase: 25% increase compared to the same quarter last year. Adjusted Cash Flow: Negative by BRL1.4 million. Net Debt to EBITDA Ratio: Reduced from 3.33 times to 3.24 times this quarter. Steel Production Cost: Decrease due to maintenance shutdown of blast furnace 2. Mining Sales Volume: 11.8 million tons, second highest in company history. Mining EBITDA Drop: 36% decrease due to lower iron ore prices. Cement Net Revenue Increase: 10% increase compared to the first quarter of 2025. Logistics Segment Revenue: BRL319 million with an EBITDA of BRL86 million and a margin of 27%. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Signs with SID. Release Date: August 01, 2025 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (NYSE:SID) achieved an EBITDA growth in all segments except mining, demonstrating strong cost management and diversification of investments. The company reduced its gross debt by BRL5.7 billion this quarter, moving closer to its deleveraging goals. The steel segment showed a 79% year-on-year increase in EBITDA, with a focus on value over volume, despite intense competition from imports. The cement segment experienced an 8% growth in sales volume and a 10% increase in net revenue, resulting in a 2.3 percentage point increase in profitability. The logistics segment set a new EBITDA record, driven by strong performance and the incorporation of Tora, achieving an EBITDA margin of 41.4%. The mining segment's EBITDA dropped due to a correction in iron ore prices, despite achieving the second-highest sales volume in history. The steel segment faced significant challenges from a flood of imported materials, impacting market share and necessitating a focus on higher-value products. The company's ad...
TranscriptFY2025 Q22025-08-01FY2025 Q2 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 41 paragraphs
FY2025 Q2 earnings call transcript
Good morning, and thank you for holding. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to CSN's earnings conference for the second quarter of 2025. Today, we have with us the company's executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] We have simultaneous webcast that may be accessed at ri.csn.com.br, where the presentation is also available. The replay of the event will be available after closing. Before proceeding, we would like to state that some of the forward-looking statements made herein are mere expectations or trends based on current assumptions and opinions of the company's management. Future results, performance and events may differ materially from those expressed herein, which do not constitute projections. In fact, actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements due to several factors such as general and economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest rates and exchange rate levels or prepayment of debt pegged in foreign currencies, protectionist measures in the U.S., Brazil and other countries, changes in laws and regulations and general competitive factors at a national and international level. We will now turn the conference over to Mr. Marco Rabello, who will begin the company presentation. You may proceed, Mr. Rabello.
Good morning, everybody. It is very satisfying to present the results of CSN for the second quarter 2024. We begin on Page 2, where we show you the highlights for the quarter, showing our strong resiliency. The company had an EBITDA growth in all segments, except for mining impacted exclusively by a drop in the iron ore prices. This performance shows the excellent management of cost and expenses and diversification of investments with synergy and a very assertive commercial strategy. We have had significant increases in competition with imported material. And of course, we have the reflection of the tariffs increased by the United States. CSN reached an EBITDA of BRL 2.6 million (sic) [ BRL 2.6 billion ] with a margin of 23.5%, an expansion of 5% and 1.4 percentage points vis-a-vis the first quarter '25. Additionally, we're moving ahead in our deleveraging with a very active management of cash and reducing the gross debt. Only this quarter, the company reduced gross debt by BRL 5.7 billion, even with the incorporation of new assets like Tora, taking leverage below 7 points vis-a-vis last year, making CSN ever closer to its goals for the year. We go for the highlights of mining company had volumes that were the second highest sales in history, which shows not only that even in the dry period, we had enormous operational excellence throughout the last few months in the mine and throughout the logistic chain. Now this increase in production and the diversification of fixed costs had an impact on cash, reaching less than $21 per ton this quarter, putting CSN in a very important position vis-a-vis world mining companies. Despite the improvement in volume, the EBITDA of mining dropped because of a correction of iron ore prices during the quarter. We go on to steel, and we're very proud to show you the performance for this quarter. Perhaps this was one of the most difficult periods in terms of competition in the last few years with a flood of imported material coming into Brazil. Despite this, we had a very conservative position prioritizing value over volume. We want to offer a higher return for the operation. This was a very assertive strategy contrary to the local producers that went into that war of prices and volumes, we were able to present a very strong performance, 4.5% higher prices vis-a-vis the second quarter '24 and a stronger cost control during the period allowed us to have a cost control result in a 79% increase year-on-year for EBITDA, and we reached 10.8% margin for the quarter. If we look at cement, we can observe that the favorable seasonality in the period points to the incredible resiliency with growing volumes in new launches with a quarterly growth of 8% in our sales volume. If we follow this dynamic, we also had a favorable reaction in prices with an expansion of 10% net revenue vis-a-vis the first quarter '25. Now this situation offset the cost pressure in raw material, allowing us a 2.3 percentage point increase in profitability with an EBITDA margin for cement of 24% for the period. Finally, and not less important, at the bottom of the slide, we have 2 great achievements for our business in logistics a new EBITDA record because of 2 factors: a very strong performance in the rail model. And of course, we have incorporated the Tora numbers, a recent acquisition. Now the EBITDA reached BRL 519 million in the first quarter with an EBITDA margin of 41.4% (sic) [ 44.1% ]. In terms of energy, the results were extraordinary because of the increase of prices in the period with an EBITDA fivefold higher than in the same period 2024. Now let's go on to the next slide, where we show you our EBITDA margins and EBITDA for the second quarter. There's a quarterly increase of 5% for the period and a drop of EBITDA in mining offset with a sound growth in all of the other segments of the group. Once again, it's important to have a diversified operation, granting us greater resiliency and withstanding the pressures in some markets. As a result, the adjusted margin reached 23.5% for the second quarter, an increase of 1.4 percentage points for the quarter. On the next slide, we show you our investment activities for the period. You can see a growth of 18.2% in CapEx vis-a-vis the previous quarter because of the seasonality of the period and the advance of the P15 infrastructure for the mining sector. Compared to the same period in 2024, CapEx remained stable with advances in mining offsetting the lower investment in the steel industry. This shows you a higher concentration since 2025 in expansion and productivity, offset with the reductions that we have in some areas. Let's go on to Slide #5, where we show you our net working capital. There has been an increase of 25% in the quarter vis-a-vis the first -- the same quarter last year, and we're trying to offset accounts receivable drop. On the following slide, we show you the adjusted cash flow that was negative by BRL 1.4 million, BRL 1.73 million previously. Despite the growth during the period, this shows an increase in the volume of investments to accelerate expansion projects and the negative impact of financial expenses, especially the impact of the blast furnaces. Additionally, the higher consumption of working capital also had a pressure on the cash flow for the period. In the next slide, we show you the net debt and leverage for the company and the debt during the quarter. In the graph to the left, the message is the new reduction of leverage that we have during the period, going from 3.33x in the first quarter to 3.24x this quarter. The company has been able to ally an efficient cash management with sound results, maximizing volumes with a cost control and of course, an increase in efficiency. This is a continuous effort of the management during this year, reducing its gross debt. Only in this quarter, we had the reduction of BRL 2.1 billion for the quarter. For the year, it is BRL 5.7 billion less. Now the company will comply with its guidance projected for the end of the year. And of course, this despite the moments of uncertainty and the lack of forecastability, but we continue on reducing our debt. We're working with recycling capital in the group as an alternative to liquidity and for our cash. The main project presently is that of CSN infrastructure, which is in its concluding stages. It will lead our negotiations until we have a more formal response at the end of the year. When we consider the debt of CEEE our debt will drop to 3.2x. And this will represent a reduction of 29 basis points for the period. We now go on to Slide #8 with our indebtedness profile. You can see that we're still in a rather comfortable position with our short- and medium-term obligations. We have sufficient money to comply with our commitments for the next 3 years. We also have a very active management in terms of lengthening the debt, extending the amortization term, focusing on long-term operations and the local capital market. We have begun bilateral contracts, primarily concentrating on amortization flows between 2027 and 2030. With this, we can go on to Slide #10, where we show you the highlights of the steel segment. In this first slide, you see the results of our commercial activity with a reduction of 11.5% in the sales or 10% when compared to the first quarter of '25. This is because of the strategy adopted during the period of prioritizing results and margins over volume. The market has intense competition and literally a flooding of imported material. We did not enter the price war. We have lost a bit of market share, but we see that the market is being highly pressured. And in a consistent way, there is no adequate protection to guarantee a good protection. In the foreign market, it was somewhat lower due to seasonality and the impact of tariff disputes on foreign trade and antidumping measures throughout the world. When we look at the following slide, steel production, we see that the drop in production is due to the maintenance shutdown of blast furnace 2. It begins to show the positive results for the cost of slab and performance per ton. To the right, we can see that the cost of production dropped during the quarter, while the reforms per ton create a performance, which is almost double than what we saw in the last quarter. This efficiency can only be shown after we improved the operations of our steel product. Now let's go on to the financial performance of the steel mill, and we see a different anatomy in our results because of the strategy. We have revenues dropping because of the lower volumes sold, but offset with an improvement of prices during the period. We have a sound recovery of EBITDA, 79% (sic) [ 7.9% ] higher than the same period in 2024 and with an EBITDA margin of 2 digits, reaching 10.8%. This increase in profitability is because of the strategy followed by the company, avoiding the prices and focusing on products with a higher profitability. All of this is even more impressive when we consider what is happening in the market, the flooding of imported material and the measures implemented by other countries, especially the United States. In this context, CSN has been able to deliver stronger EBITDA in 2025, and steel is an important vector of growth for this year. We now go on to the mining segment. On Slide 14, you see the results of production and sales for the last quarter. There are 2 extraordinary results here, a record of production, the highest volume produced in the history of the company, but we also have the operational efficiency that the company has been able to achieve in the last few months in the mine and in the chain of logistics. This is the second highest volume of sales in our history with 11.8 million tons sold, reflecting the operations that are excellent and the level of efficiency reaching very close to its capacity limits. Regarding the financial performance on Slide 15, even with the operational efficiency that we saw in the previous slide, we are charging $10 less than what we had in the previous quarter. Well, the price of iron ore has dropped during the quarter. In the case of EBITDA, the situation was not different with a strong volume of sales, the EBITDA in mining had a drop of 36% vis-a-vis the first quarter of '25. This related to a drop in the price of iron ore because of the demand in China and the strong impact of the tariff disputes in the United States. In the following slide, we have the EBITDA reconciliation with the previous quarter. We can see that the decline in EBITDA occurs despite the increase in volume, improvement in mix and cost reduction due to a drop in prices. Let's go on to analyze cement on Slide 18, we have the sales volume for the quarter. Once again, we see a very dynamic segment despite the interest rate with the program, My House, My Life (sic) [ My Home, My Life ] and because of the robust volume of launches, keeping up the consumption of cement. We have been able to make the most of our logistics network to capture new markets. We had a growth of 8% in the sales. That is proof of this trend. When we compare this with the same period of last year, there's a minor drop of 4% on a very strong comparison base. On the following slide, we have the financial performance of the segment. This year, we have a quarterly increase in net revenue and EBITDA. This result was [indiscernible] because of the positive seasonality in the period. We had drier weather, and we also had a sound launch activity. EBITDA an increase of 21% showing that although the circumstances surrounding us are very difficult, especially because of the interest rates, the sector continues to show strong new launch activity and a robust profitability. Finally, we will go on to our logistics segment. And the main highlight is the incorporation of Tora. We have done this to strengthen our logistics sector and to enhance the synergy with the other businesses of the group. Nowadays, Tora has 75 branch offices, 7 enterprises, 5 multimodal terminals and 3 owned and third-party vehicles and a dry port. The company invoiced BRL 319 million with an EBITDA of BRL 86 million and a very interesting margin of 27%. We go on to Slide 22 with the financial performance of all of our logistics assets. During the quarter, we had an extraordinary performance with a record in results, attaining higher levels of efficiency in the cargo handling and shipments. We had an evolution in net revenue, and we attained BRL 519 million for EBITDA and an EBITDA margin of 44.1%. Well, the drop in EBITDA is due exclusively to the acquisition of Tora. This model, rail model, of course, has one that is somewhat lower than railroad in general. Now with this, I would like to end the presentation for the segment, and I give the floor to Helena Guerra to speak about ESG highlights.
Good morning, everybody. Well, the results of the last quarter continue to show the strides in our ESG journey. In terms of occupational health and safety, we have consistency. They are 30% lower than the results we had a few years ago in 2020. We are now in another level. We continue to present a lower number of high potential severity events, which has been the focus of our actions in 2025. In the environmental agenda, we have very positive indicators. We have a reduction in water intensity in steel production and in our decarbonization journey. We had a slight increase in the emissions from the steel plant because of the increase in volumes, but we reached a reduction of 11% in GHG emissions compared to the baseline year 2020 and 3% of GHG emissions compared to the baseline year 2020. Now we want to cost difference and projects that will increase our operational efficiency. All of our tailing dams are stable and decharacterization in line with the project we have set forth. In the social and DEI agenda, we have made steps. We have more than 520 women that have been added when compared to 2024. This is an increase of almost 80% of female representation since we began this goal in 2020, we also have a 5% increase in the number of women in leadership. We have received the Hugo Werneck award for environmental and sustainability and we're working with Garoto Cidadão project that for 25 years has been changing the life of youngsters. And finally, we have a protocol reinforcing the quality and transparency of our information. The permanence of the company in FTSE4Good, we're also part of FTSE Russell because we have consistent practices and a constant evolution when it comes to social and governance indicators.
Thank you, Helena. I will now give the floor to our Chairman, Benjamin Steinbruch.
Good morning, everybody. Once again, the presentation of results of CSN, I would like to mention some points specifically that were conveyed and presented by Marco. First of all, I would like to underscore the operational results that we have been able to achieve in all of our activities, the improvement of industrial performance, a reduction of costs and an enhancement in productivity. This, of course, is our #1 priority at present. We had already presented good results in mining as well as in cement from the viewpoint of cost and productivity. And we have had significant evolution in steel, in the steel mill, as we have been mentioning through time. And we now see the results of this. We're working with less equipment. We're attempting to increase production and of course, to improve our costs. This is our main priority at present. And we are undergoing evolution in terms of the steel mill and the results have begun to appear from the viewpoint of all of our other activities. We have had very good performance. And of course, we have had challenges because of the imported products. In the case of the steel mill, everything is coming in, in a highly disorganized and exaggerated fashion. We are the only country that has allowed this literal flood of imported products. And this has a negative impact on the market, of course, as we're offering them our domestic demand, domestic demand for imported products. And this has completely disorganized the sector. The import levels are much higher than the CSN production per se and brings about a hostile environment, a disorganized and aggressive environment which hampers -- overly hampers everything that is produced in Brazil. Now that issue of imported products, something we have been fighting against. We have been negotiating to the government with. And although our conversations are heard by the Ministry of Industry and Development, we have not made any strides. We have been involved in this conversation for quite some time without any concrete measure being taken. Now we're waiting for the manifestation of the Brazilian government. All other countries have set forth protectionist measures. Now without mentioning the U.S. to export there, we would have a tariff increase of 50%, which makes any attempt or idea to export there unfeasible for the moment. I hope that at some point in time, these measures will come because the sector is suffering much -- too much because of imported products. Cement has had a good performance, good growth and good demand. We have significant internal competitiveness among the producers of Brazil. The market is there. Our price is half of the foreign price for local cement producers. But -- this has been going on for some time and will undergo adjustments. In the case of mining, we had exceptional performance. We had a drop in the Platts. Of course, we are competitive. We have a low cost, and we do believe that this market will end up at $100, $110 as part of a technical outlook for the price of Platts. But I do think better results will come. As for the rest, we have a very stringent strategy when it comes to our cash. We're adopting all possible measures to be able to work with a lower working capital, and we have obtained results in this field. Our deleveraging commitment is ongoing. We're going to work very strongly to comply with our commitments. And we do expect an improvement in the market as everything has been set up, is operational. The strategy is the right one. And we hope that with the price improvement in the market at some point in time, there will be a reaction. And -- we will see this in our numbers. The company as a whole is deploying enormous efforts to produce well at a lower cost and to make the most of the strategy and the market potential. We're working in all segments. We're working in niches and diversification of products. We're doing everything within our reach to get to the market with very good offers with good products with high quality. And within what is in our hands, we're doing everything. Now progressively, we have had an improvement quarter-on-quarter, and we continue to believe that the coming quarter will be even better than the second quarter of this year. I would like to thank all of you once again for your attendance in the earnings call, and our team is at your entire disposal for questions and answers. Thank you.
[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Mr. Yuri Pereira from Santander Bank.
If possible, I would like to have more details on your eventual partner in infrastructure. How much could you reduce your leverage because of this and your sale of stake in Usiminas, will you reduce your stake to 0? Or will you comply with the CADE antitrust company of 5%.
Yuri, thank you very much. Thank you for the question. Regarding the first question about infrastructure. I'm sorry, I was looking at the second question. We have 2 different compositions. We have 7 logistics assets in logistics and infrastructure, 2 of which are in the final stage of construction, the Transnordestina. And I take advantage to tell you that they are hiring the last 2 stretches of construction. They will be completely concluded in 2027. In 70 days, these pieces of construction will be concluded. The entire part is available to conclude construction. There are no problems with licensing, no bottlenecks. So until 2027, they will begin commercial production. And in 2025, they will begin working with commissioning. So we have 7 assets, 2 under construction and the discussion with the potential partner will depend on the profile they want for their assets, 2 under construction, 3 in the Southeast, 3 in the Northeast and 1 with an expansion in a somewhat larger region that we have just communicated. Depending on the logistic combination, those that have greater adherence or greater appetite with -- well, the investments, both primary and secondary and the company could vary. We are hoping for a we have a stake of 20% to 40% that could be sold in this operation. Now if we don't take into account the assets that are under construction or if we don't consider the Northeast cluster, we could reach BRL 8 billion in terms of liquidity injection and reduction of leverage in the group in this first phase with the assets of only the Southeast. Regarding the second question of Usiminas, so far, we have not defined the next step when it comes to selling off our stake of how much will be sold and in which fashion this stake will be sold. Marco, simply to complement this, regarding the infrastructure, as Marco mentioned, we have 2 packages, 2 under construction, 5 assets under operation that are quite equivalent. As Marco said, they represent BRL 8 billion. This is what we have calculated theoretically based on a value of BRL 25 billion. These 5 assets represent this amount. We also have similar amounts when it comes to the Transnordestina and [indiscernible] at the [indiscernible] port. We have 1,000 kilometers that have been concluded. They're open for traffic. And you can calculate per kilometer, 20 million very broadly, of course. And coincidentally, these packages are more or less equivalent. What we are discussing now is to see if we will offer simultaneous treatment to both of these or if we're going to prioritize the Southeast first and then the Northeast. Everything will depend on our conversations with interested parties. And for this, we are considering the choice of who will be our advisers. We're in the final stages of this, and we will begin our negotiations immediately. This is simply to complement the answer to your question of what we have in our infrastructure package for CSN.
Our next question comes from Ricardo Monegaglia from Safra.
We have 2 at our end. Well, in terms of competition, I would like to understand if that recent decision of dumping in pipes has allowed for new dumping coated products and hot-rolled products. Now I was expecting weaker results in terms of margin. So it would be interesting to hear about the trend for following quarters, perhaps a margin expansion.
Martinez, perhaps you could speak about volumes, prices and costs. Thank you very much.
Ricardo, I will begin with the first question. In truth, as Benjamin mentioned, presently, Brazil is facing an issue of imports, something that is quite chaotic and that is leading to a market that is completely different from the one we had in previous years. We have insistently discussed this with the market face-to-face meetings with the Ministry of Development and Industry. What we clearly perceive is that if the technical issue would prevail, we would have already had to have applied all of the processes for a commercial defense. What we opted to do was to work on the antidumping, as you mentioned yourself. Ricardo, in all of them, we saw dumping a causal nexus. And this has, of course, changed the nomenclature that is being used at the World Trade Association. Simply to give you an idea, metal sheet, we began the process in October of 2023. So far, there is no provisional right enforced. Quite the contrary, they have postponed the decision month after month. And this is also the truth for cold rolling for coated products and much more. We expect the government to become more serious to be faster and to base itself on a technical response. There are margins varying from 25% to 75%. From the commercial viewpoint, a technical viewpoint, it doesn't make sense for Brazil not to apply these antidumping rules. We continue to insist. The process is much slower than we had expected, but there is time to recover all this and obtain an enforcement or implementation of rules. Another important point referring to commercial defense, the issue of quotas, one more time, the company worked with the first thing, but with a wrong intensity. So we are still on that track with the wrong dose. Now there was 75% from U.S.A. We're working on 7.3%. If we had applied 73%, we would have an import penetration that is not difficult to deal with in the domestic market. We're now speaking of 28% of penetration of imported products as a whole. Now when we think about CSN, the situation is more dire. We're speaking of penetration of 40% to 50% of tinplate and prepainted galva, 70% import penetration. So this is a scenario we are facing at present. The issue of antidumping, we continue to imagine that the government will approve a process for this in the coming 2 months. Antidumping and template, coated galvanized and coated products. Now we're also working with the -- basically with a priority on these other products. Now regarding the margins, we have sound results in the steel mill. What we have prioritized, and this was mentioned here is value over volume. We have worked with product diversification with a focus on the higher added value products. We have prioritized all of the galvanized prepainted products in our product mix. And in terms of cost, of course, we had a positive evolution, allowing CSN to have margins of around 11% for EBITDA margin despite the highly challenging scenario regarding imports and competitiveness with other competitors in the domestic market. What is positive about Brazil, and I'm very optimistic with Brazil when it comes to demand is that this year, we will probably reach a steel production for flat steel, slab higher than in 2018, 2019. That was our record year for flat steel. Sorry, I'm referring to the year 2013. We should reach 16 million tons approximately. So there is demand in Brazil. The problem is that it is very difficult to capture margins. And the question of what we foresee for the third quarter, as Benjamin mentioned, we're going to continue to work on operational excellence costs. We're looking at each value chain. Separately, the imports will have to be combated in a timely fashion. We can't cut down prices and everything. And additionally to that, with a reduction in the cost of raw material, the cost of slab, should have less than the 13,300 that were presented. And in price, I see a situation of stability. If -- what is happening in China truly happens, the cost of PQ increased 5% with an improvement of production because of the premium that we have presently between 5% and 10%, perhaps we could also have a price recovery in the third quarter. We have to be careful not to hand over the Brazilian market to foreigners. This is the concern of Brazil. Brazil has demand. It has markets upstream, the white home products. So we have a very good market, but we need to recover our profitability, recover margins and not hand over our market to foreigners. And this is what we have been doing in terms of slabs.
Our next question comes from Marcelo Arazi from BTG Pactual.
Two questions at our end. First, a follow-up in terms of the steel. You spoke of a positive evolution in cost efficiency gains. Could you give us some details on the measures you are adopting to manage that enhancement and how this will evolve going forward? The second question, a provocation speaking about cash generation. Your cash flow is under pressure. Do you have any visibility or idea on the CapEx flexibility we could observe until the end of the year? And if you will have another sale of assets without it being part of the infrastructure, something more in the short term to gain relief in your cash flow.
Thank you for the questions, Marcelo. Well, regarding the steel mill, we have shut down the blast furnace on January 19 of this year. Now this made feasible one of the first actions to work with coke and others in the blast furnace 3. We have changed our load using a ritual iron ore for the blast furnace 3. We also had significant evolution based on investments that were made last year for the production of our own sintering. And all of these enhancements on blast furnace 3 are leading to excellent performance in efficiency and also from the viewpoint of cost. We saw a cost evolution in our own brand in the last quarters. And the second quarter of this year will be the first quarter where we have the blast furnace 3 fully using these new loads that we referred to. And with this, we will have a change in the iron ore. So the projection that we have of a reduction of cost in slab for the third and fourth quarters of this year are even more important than what we have seen so far without giving you the figures. So we have a very good expectation in the reduction of cost of our own slab going forward. Now this is about the performance of the steel mill as a whole. We have several other projects that will be implemented, leading the steel mill to profitability levels of other areas well above the 2 digits, much more than we reached in the second quarter of 2025. Now regarding CapEx flexibility, the CapEx for this year is between BRL 0 and BRL 6 billion. The focus of the company is in the low range of the CapEx closer to the BRL 5 billion. Now to change that CapEx significantly will not be beneficial for the company. Most of it is geared to expansion projects and an increase in productivity. These projects were done in the steel mill and for some quarters, they're showing us the benefits of these projects. We have to put them in place. And the P15, once it will be ready in 2027, this will generate another BRL 4.4 billion in EBITDA. So this is a project we have to speed up. We cannot hold it back. Now with this BRL 5 billion, it has undergone a very important exercise, a daily exercise in the company. In terms of monetizing our assets, besides infrastructure, we're holding a discussion with the market. We're speaking about energy, bringing in a partner for that segment. It's not of the magnitude of infrastructure, but it will also help us. And we have additional initiatives in a phase of approval. And I hope that in the next earnings call or before, we will be able to mention them. But we are working on other initiatives. We're waiting for internal approvals to inform the market regarding this.
Simply to add to this in the first question, you asked if there would be faster options, more expeditious options that we can propose in terms of deleveraging. All of the options mentioned by Marco, all alternatives for deleveraging. They're all for the short term, including that of infrastructure. We're hiring our advisers at present, and our idea is to move forward at a fast pace. Of course, everything will depend on the market opportunities, but the interest in infrastructure is quite different from all of the rest. There is a demand for investment in infrastructure projects in Brazil, especially in railroads and ports. And alongside this, we are also holding some conversations. This simply to point to the fact that all of this will be for the short term. We have structured ourselves to work very expeditiously in this option as well as in other options mentioned by Marcos to attain the fastest results towards deleveraging.
The next question is from Marcio Farid from Goldman Sachs.
A follow-up for steel. Martinez, you spoke at length about the market. If you could speak about long steel, there was a price recently, and I believe that the increase was aggressive without speaking of imports, the long steel and which have been your conversations with the government? Benjamin mentioned that at the beginning of the conversation that despite all of the efforts, all of the measures adopted have been insufficient. So thinking about the future with this discussion of tariffs and the coming closer of the government with China, which is your mindset to think of a more protective measure for the sector? My second point, and do forgive me for insisting on this. You spoke about the sale of a stake to Usiminas. Benjamin, I would like to understand if there will be a more aggressive movement towards the sale of assets. The surprise was not only because of the timing, but because of the price at which the shares were sold to what's the market. There wasn't much choice. Now simply to understand if there has been a change of mindset to do something more aggressive in the coming quarters and years to clean out your balance. That is it.
Marcio, this is Martinez. In long steel, long steel was better than slab lack of coordination of the Brazilian segment. Everything that was done so far hasn't brought about an inch more of a new market or growth in the Brazilian market. So everything was unnecessary. To give you an idea, our sale of long steel in the second quarter fell 12% because the prices reached a level with a base price for long steel cash payment without taxes at BRL 300 -- BRL 3,400. This is an extremely low cost, and we have preferred to remain outside of this market and work in other markets. In the long steel market, we're going to increase the price on the first -- an increase between 8% and 10% in rebar and others. And this is insufficient, of course, to recover our margins in long steel. But this is what's happening in the sector. We follow up on what the market is doing as long as it is reasonable, and it was not reasonable in the first quarter. And we expect a recovery in long steel in the second quarter and a recovery in profitability. And because of the need to increase the EBITDA margin of the steel mill as a whole. In the specific case of the conversations we are holding with the government, I participated in all of these conversations. What can I underscore? We have a Ministry of Development, Industry and Services that is highly technical. They carry out excellent work in the technical part. They come out with thesis of commercial defense. And as I mentioned previously, all of these without exception, without speaking about damages and causal nexus. What's lacking courage on the part of the government to clearly enforce without thinking about anything connected to politics, the economy of competition, what could be done immediately -- nothing that is very different from the regulations of the World Trade Organization is a provisional cost for all products, tinplate and other galvanized products, something that should be enforced immediately because through time, we see that China besides -- well, it's also facing a commercial defense in other countries of Asia. It exports to Vietnam, to Korea, the European Union and to Brazil, 1.2 million in flat steel. So what we're lacking is courage and that will to take the industry to another level in Brazil. What is more important, Marcio, is that we do have demand in Brazil. We have sectors that are making due regardless of what is happening in terms of politics with the U.S.A. and China. And what we truly need is a quick implementation of measures. We don't want to hand over our market to foreigners, which is what we're doing now, a non-hedge market being handed to players and the largest of these players, of course, is China. Now this is the scenario we will be facing in the coming months. Perhaps in the third quarter, we will have the enforcement of 1 or 2 provisional antidumping rules.
To complement what Marco has said, despite all of the conversations held with the government, warning them about the growing volume of imported products in the steel sector. And despite the positive conversations we have had with the Ministry of Development and Industry and with Vice President Alckmin, we have always been treated very courteously with high-level technical discussions. But as we have mentioned in one of those meetings, what we are lacking is the will of the President of the country. This goes beyond the government. We need to have a clear manifestation of the President, his concern about the industry, what we're doing in the industry, what we're doing for employment in the industry. We're literally being run over by the volume of imported products in a highly chaotic fashion. And we need the action of the President to decrease this imminent risk that we are running of losing employment and the industry itself in general, not only the steel industry, but the industry as a whole because of the strong attacks we are under. And some of the exporters have no cost. They try to make exports feasible. They're not concerned with cost or price. I believe that we need a presidential action signaling how the industry will be treated going forward, what they're going to do with the employment of industry and what they're going to do with investments because we find ourselves in a highly critical moment from the viewpoint of our assets, our sale of assets -- we're always going to proceed in an organized and structured fashion. The goal, of course, is the deleveraging. And it's not worthwhile having great figures. We have good EBITDA. We have a margin even though we have lost significant margin in the last few years. The margin continues to be reasonably good between 25% and 30%. But we do have that commitment towards ourselves to deleverage, and we have several assets to work with. It's not only infrastructure as a whole. That's, of course, our largest package in the Southeast and the Northeast, as I mentioned previously. And Marcos gave you the idea of BRL 8 billion for each package. I am convinced that we have that will, we have the determination and the need to carry out the sales of assets. Notwithstanding this, we have to wait for the right moment with the right partner. We're working strongly on this. This is our highest priority, along with a reduction of cost and enhancement of productivity. Now the issue of deleveraging is our great priority, and we will work with it in an intelligent and rational way and in the shortest period possible.
Our next question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itaú BBA.
My first question comes from that slowing down of CapEx in -- sorry, the increase of pace in investment because of P15 in mining. What is happening with the milestones that you presented on CSN days and your expectations in terms of expansion? If you could also speak, and I'm referring to Martinez about the cement business. Martinez vis-a-vis our numbers, I think it has become very clear that you have diversified your business. You have diversified the flexibility. Well, we are speaking of cement and logistics. The cement market in Brazil has it recovered from the lows a decade ago, but we're still falling short in terms of the use of capacity and the prices continue to be the lowest in Latin America. If you could discuss with us the main levers to add value to this business.
This is Marco to speak quickly about P15. Now what is still missing is the infrastructure that is proceeding at a very fast pace. We just closed a huge package of civil work that will begin subsequently, everything referring the packages of equipment, the core equipment and main equipment of P15 have already been contracted, some of which are already at the site or at other sites awaiting for their setup. What we're missing are small assembly works, accessory works that will have to be mobilized the second semester of the coming year and therefore, will be contracted in the future. Now the forecast for delivery is the fourth quarter of 2027.
Daniel. Thank you for your question regarding cement. You're one of the few that cover this sector, and we love to speak about this new sector. I have Edvaldo beside me. He's responsible for the operational part. I will respond for him because he's somewhat hoarse today. And in the market, I spoke about steel where we have the priority value over volume. In cement, it's value and volume. Based on our platform that is highly competitive because of our operational excellence, logistics, the commercial strategy, the distribution centers and much more. We have reached our maximum potential in the business. We grew 8% in the second quarter vis-a-vis the first quarter. It could have been a better growth, but we had some operational problems in the Northeast. They have been fully redressed in price, a recovery of 2.5% for the second quarter. What you said is important. Brazil has an enormous opportunity to increase prices to recover prices. It does not make sense in a market like Brazil to work with price levels that are lower than those of Latin American markets and China as well. Our efforts in cement will be ever more geared to look for each ton with a higher value using our market coverage, the increase in number of customers and based on the commercial strategy that so far has been quite successful. In terms of operational excellence, we see that raw material for steel have a tendency to go through a drop. In the second half of the year, we hope to be able to see a drop in costs as well, especially for raw material for pet coke. At the end of the third quarter and fourth quarters, we imagine, we will have materials and an inventory with a somewhat higher cost. Now additionally to this, we are maximizing the production of all of our assets of our 13 operations. We continue to increase the fragmentation by setting up new distribution points, distribution centers, reaching an ever more lower ticket. This is our strategy to look for this profitability of 25%. And the Brazilian market is doing well presently. For example, let's talk about the Minha Casa, Minha Vida, My Home, My Life sector. It's doing very well. We have constructions for the higher bracket, the middle class doing very well. And there is some work in infrastructure in the Southeast that are leveraging our volume. So once again, CSN has fantastic assets in cement. We imagine that we will reach a total potential with the synergy that we have Lafarge in the coming 6 months in terms of operations and logistics as well. And Tora transportation that we acquired recently will be an important lever to work on freight transfer and with the end markets for cement. As a whole, to speak about Brazil, what we foresee for the second half of the year is the continuity of this growth in the cement market. And for the coming year, we're working with a very positive scenario, imagining the carryover of works we have in the real estate market as well as in infrastructure. The main challenge, as you mentioned, is to recover margins. CSN has done its part, but faced with very strong competition in the market. We're going to continue fighting but working with the best margin in the sector, which is our goal.
Our next question comes from Caio Ribeiro from Bank of America.
My first question is on the evolution with China, which is the mindset of the company on the policy that will have an impact on Brazil and iron ore. Now the second question for mining, there are lower grades of iron ore. How has this impacted your commercial decisions? How are you selling the product in the market? Some players are reducing the sale of this lower-grade iron ore. So how have you adjusted to this present day market moment? That would be very helpful to us.
Caio, I'm not sure I understood your first question, if you could repeat it.
The question is about the policy that China is mentioning about resolving the oversupply problems and in some sectors. And of course, the steel sector is one of the goals. So which is your mindset on the impact on Brazilian steel industry and the iron ore market?
I'm going to speak very generally of what is happening in China at present. An important point, Caio, is that we already clearly perceive that the price has had a result. We see the PQ cost increased 5% the last week. Now another interesting piece of information, something that did not happen. The CISA, the Chinese association of steel has been working on the coordination of those industries of all the steel plants in China. Nowadays, in terms of occupation, we have a use of blast furnaces of 87, 89, but only 55% to 60% of these plants have a positive margin. Now obviously, in China, the greatest use is employability. And well, when the problem hits, they try to occupy production further. We're working with a scenario of reduction in production in China in the next 3 to 4 months. And this could have a positive impact for Brazil when it comes to the premium. In Brazil, the premium vis-a-vis Chinese PQ is between 5% and 10%. And if there are $20 or $30 more, which is the price of the Chinese domestic market, the price of PQ in China is $500. Now we can imagine neutrality in premium in Brazil or a price recovery in the country. All of these reductions in production are being better coordinated by the Chinese Association of Steel producers. This is an important piece of information. Now despite this, the exports from China continue at a pace of [ BRL 90 million ] per year. The government has also acted on the environmental issues. They're incentivating modern plants to use cleaner technologies at present, and they could increase the use of the assets that have higher productivity, closing down capacity that has a higher cost. Now the impact for Brazil, in my opinion, speaking honestly, Caio, will be very positive, and that is why I'm positive. This is what we were missing for the steel plants in Brazil. We have a market, we have demand. As Benjamin mentioned, perhaps the presidential decision will be to work with protection or [ economy ] that would be important for Brazil. And finally, in this world scenario, China could help us in terms of profitability in the Brazilian market exporting at different levels. For iron ore, I will give the question to Marco. But in iron ore, you have already observed that we're working at somewhat higher levels. This is an opportunity for the Brazilian market as we will be able to capture based on the price of PQ, a higher profitability for the third quarter.
Caio, regarding the question on iron ore. Now the price of China is strong. The volumes have also hit several records. We have focused ever more on the low-grade iron ore produced in China. They are working -- well, they're working with higher volumes of low-grade iron ore. Now because of quality issues. Last quarter, it was at $14. Presently, it is at $15 and should remain at that level until the coming into operation of P15. This will change the quality of iron ore, and we will have a completely different impact due to loss of quality, of course.
Our next question comes from [indiscernible] from JPMorgan.
I simply have some follow-ups on previous questions. I begin with the sale of stake at Usiminas, the sale of assets, the idea of carrying out partnerships in the segment. I think all of this has been made very clear. I'd like to understand more about your sale of stake. This is a moment in which the industry has suffered considerably. We see the industry. We see the shares dropping. I would like to understand if the rationale of that sale of stake was based on a decision of the antitrust agency, the CADE, which was the rationale? The second question, something that has already been discussed, refers to the steel segment. It was the positive highlight of the quarter. We have seen industries with lower margins, but you delivered a very sound margin. The question is that over volume. Now how do you look upon your strategy for the long term? Can you continue following this rationale for much longer? Can you maintain that strategy in the third quarter? What will you do in the long term, however?
Thank you for the questions, [ Tatiane ]. First, regarding the sale of stake to from Usiminas, it's not very frequently that we're able to find a buyer that wants a volume of shares from Usiminas as we transacted this week. The liquidity of shares, the common shares and preferred shares is very low. If we carry out a sale of all shares through the stock market, it will take us years to sell all of those shares to the market to find an investor at present is not something that you will find very easily. And clearly, we're following the agreement that we have with the CADE, the antitrust agency.
[ Tatiane ], once again, thank you for your question. It's what you said in the report, CSN among the Brazilian companies, industries is the one that suffers the greater pressure because of the imports. This is doubtless because nowadays, practically 50% of what we do is linked to higher quality products. And well, this is the one that has the highest import rate in Brazil. And in this scenario, CSN, as you mentioned, in the second quarter was the only industry that hiked up its prices. If I take away the long steel for our -- from our balance where the drop of prices was greater, we increased the price 2% to 3% in the second quarter to 2.5%, working with that over volume in the third and fourth quarters. What do I believe will happen? And what will help us maintain our profitability with a 2-digit margin. First of all, the operational excellence, the issue of costs. The endless work in cost optimization of our assets. We're working with 1 blast furnace less despite this, we have complemented production with a regular purchase of [ PQD ] and slab. This is helping us to maintain our cost. Now additionally to this, the cost level of slabs will go from BRL 300 to BRL 3,000 per ton, which offers us a comfortable position. Now still speaking about cost, we have worked broadly in terms of coke and centering to attain the maximum output to buy as little as possible of pellets and coke. And in the commercial pillar, and this means enormous movements. We have never done anything this strong in the last few years. We have worked the most on our strategy of selling more for less, not putting all of our eggs in the same basket. We're selling in all sectors. We have increased the number of customers 50% in this first half of the year, and we're looking at added value, quality and those who truly care about quality. This is something we do day after day. Now in terms of prices, specifically, I'm counting upon a recovery of prices in some markets. Because of that level of equivalence of premium compared to the imported nationalized product. Now to work with those prices in China, we could slowly recover slowly. It's not a strong movement, but we could recover in strategic sectors. And we're going to work ever more on our portfolio, work with prepainted zinc or material, galvanized material. And we're also working with the tinplate market in Brazil, where our margin is much better than in other products. Now the last point, a focus -- a complete focus on the domestic market. That drop that you see in the volume of total shipment is linked to the drop in exports that we had because of the galvanized material in the U.S.A. Finally, I would like to underscore the good performance of our units in Portugal, Germany and the United States, where we have stopped up in material to be able to compete in the second half of the year. The results have been positive and will contribute so that in the third and fourth quarter, we can maintain our 2 digits or perhaps have a slight increase vis-a-vis the second quarter. This is our strategy so far. Now let's speak about the vertical integration we have with the strategic clients and users with our partnerships working hand-in- hand with distribution. This maintains a healthy business vis-a-vis our competitors. Unfortunately, our competitors are working with a strong -- a wrong strategy, taking away value from the market.
Our next question comes from Gabriel Barra from Citi.
We have some follow-ups, and I will be quick. I'm sorry to be so insistent, but a very direct question to understand if the sale of stake is because of the antitrust agency, CADE, beyond what you have done, you have to continue doing something simply to have more clarity. Now in terms of antidumping, there is a discussion of the Brazilian industry. And of course, this is of the utmost importance. There has been a predatory situation. Now regarding antidumping, this week, there was a discussion of the government introducing a lower tariff that would have an impact on the automobile industry that represents an important part of the demand for Brazilian steel. I don't know if you can pressure the government if you're part of that discussion, if it's important for you, which is your vision in this antidumping situation, if there are other ways of going around this problem. And finally, you speak about deleveraging. You have spoken broadly about investments that trend of having a 3x net debt EBITDA until the end of the year. I would like to gain an understanding for the medium term. You have a disinvestment of focus on deleveraging. How could we imagine that deleveraging for the coming year, which will be the path that it will follow and where it should stand in mid-2026. These are my questions.
Gabriel, thank you for your comments and questions. I'm going to refer to Usiminas. Of course, there's an agreement with CADE, the antitrust agency. There's also a certain level of confidentiality at the level of justice. Now this sale that was done now is a very important, relevant and material part of our compliance with the agreement with CADE, but it doesn't refer exclusively to them. It's an incredibly important step in our commitment with the antitrust agency. Now regarding deleveraging, besides the infrastructure and logistics that we spoke about at length, we have improvements in our operational results that will deleverage the company in all segments. Logistics is growing considerably with record results at present, not only because of the acquisition of Tora, but because of the results of its other assets. Well, cement, the steel plant with all of the investments, 2 digits with EBITDA margin growing going forward and mining, which is also part of our project, the P15, generating BRL 4.4 billion in EBITDA and relevantly helping us to deleverage the group. Besides this, we have the sale of assets. So besides the infrastructure in the coming months, we will have other novelties for the market. Now in the long term, the company always wants to work with a leverage of 2x or below 2x net debt EBITDA. We would like to go back to being investment grade. But this doesn't depend exclusively on the company. It depends on the market and the sovereign rating of Brazil. We've already given you guidance of this year being below 3.0x. And going forward, we want that guidance of the year to remain stable. The market should perceive that all of the enhancements in results that we will -- well, the projects we will deliver in 2027 depend on the investments we are making. We're going to balance out good investments and a reduction in leveraging. This is a daily exercise for the company. So in 2026, the year you mentioned, the leverage should be around 3.0x. This is a challenge for the company.
Gabriel, this is Martinez. Once again, thank you for the question. I'm going to speak about another side of the commercial defense issue from the viewpoint of commercial defense, practically everything that could be done in Brazil in terms of instruments have been done. In the specific case of CSN, we focus a great deal on antidumping. We have been working on this for 1.5 years and the Ministry of Industry itself has received us very well. The Vice President Alckmin has lent years to everything we say. He loves the process, but we don't see any results. 1.5 years to discuss this is much too long. First of all, we need to have courage to make the decision to implement what the ministry should do in technical terms to set forth margins. They have to have courage. As Benjamin mentioned, this is something connected to the President of the Republic. And in terms of the third point, the government needs to focus more on the industry. This is a sector that has been left aside in Brazil in the last 2 years. So there's an important focus for industry. We're not speaking of direct imports. There's also direct imports coming to Brazil in terms of products. And this makes the production chain rather uncompetitive compared to other countries in the automobile industry, an interesting fact. They have no imports practically. The level of services, the quality we have delivered to assembly plants in Brazil so far has been sufficient to compete in the domestic market. The problem is that the competition with the Chinese is unloyal competition, completely disorganized and the government has to work towards a balance between imports and competitiveness of the automobile chains. This is the problem. Not having protection, having isonomy and something more reasonable so that the Brazilian industry can enhance its competitivity vis-a-vis other industries in the world.
As we have no further questions, I will return the floor to Mr. Marco Rabello for the closing remarks.
I would like to thank all of the members of the CSN Group who have contributed to our deliveries. I thank all of you for attending our earnings call. At this point, we would like to end the call, wishing all of you a very good weekend.
Thank you. The earnings call for CSN ends here. We would like to thank all of you for your attendance. Have a very good afternoon. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

