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Welcome to the first quarter Tenaris S.A. earnings conference call. I would now like to hand the conference over to the Investor Relations Officer, Giovanni Sardagna. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Carmen, and welcome to Tenaris 2026 1st quarter conference call. Before we start, I would like to remind you that we will be discussing forward-looking information during the call and that our actual results may vary from those expressed or implied in this call. With me on the call today are Gabriel Podskubka, our newly appointed Chief Executive Officer, Carlos Gómez Álzaga, our Chief Financial Officer, and Guillermo Moreno, President of our U.S. operations. Before passing over the call to Gabriel for his opening remarks, I would like to briefly comment our quarterly results. Our 1st quarter sales reached $3.1 billion, up 6% year-over-year and 4% sequentially, despite the disruption in the Middle East caused by the conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Our sales benefited from seasonally higher activity in Canada, a limited recovery of activity in Mexico, higher offshore sales in Brazil, some stock building in North Africa, and an advance of shipment in Saudi Arabia. Average selling prices in our tubes operating segment increased 5% compared to the corresponding quarter of 2025, and 1% sequential. Our quarterly EBITDA rose 3% sequentially to $735 million, while our net income increased 22% to $564 million due to better results below the operating line. Our EBITDA margin remained at 24% as higher costs for maintenance shutdowns were offset by lower tariff costs. With operating cash flow of $618 million and capital expenditure of $114 million, our free cash flow for the quarter was $503 million.

Following share buybacks of $90 million during the quarter, our net cash position at the end of the quarter increased to $3.8 billion. Now, I will ask Gabriel to say a few words before we open the call to questions.

Thank you, Giovanni, and I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you. Before we go to our results, I would like to express that I'm deeply honored by the trust that Paolo Rocca and the Tenaris board of directors have placed in me, and with it, the enormous responsibility of leading this company in the next phase of growth. At the same time, I'm very pleased that we will be able to count on the continuing support and leadership of Paolo as chairman of the board. When I joined the company as a graduate engineer in 1995, I never imagined how Tenaris would grow so quickly and come to play the leading role in serving the world's energy industry that it does today.

During all these years, Paolo has been the architect of the growth and the transformation of Tenaris, and a constant presence and inspiration to all of us. The journey has been truly extraordinary, and it has been a privilege to experience it from the inside and to have had so many opportunities for professional growth. I look forward to building on his remarkable achievements. Let's move on to our first quarter results and the panorama that we have ahead, this quarter reminding us that the geopolitical risk and uncertainty is ever present in the oil and gas industry. As is well known, the conflict in the Middle East has led to the closure of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil and LNG normally passes. During this time, our first priority has been the safety of our 1,000 employees in the region.

I would like to give a special thanks to them for their unwavering commitment to serving our customers through this turbulent period. In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, our customers have continued their operations, and we continue to support them. However, customers in Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq have had to shut in most of their operations. We expect our sales in the region to be affected in the second quarter in around $140 million. We are also seeing higher logistic costs as we seek alternative routes to the region and also from the global increase in fuel prices. Amidst the regional turmoil, we continue to differentiate our service in the region. ADNOC Offshore recognized our reliable service and HSE performance with a Supplier of the Year Award.

In Kuwait, we have been awarded a 5-year contract for the supply of casing products and accessories to be used in the development of a complex new field. As an immediate consequence of the supply disruption in the Middle East, oil and gas companies and consuming countries are looking at diversifying supply. Investment in short cycle shale plays in the Americas are likely to benefit, and some Rig Direct customers in the U.S. and Argentina are already confirming that they are adding rigs. The fleet of high spec rigs operating in Vaca Muerta is expected to increase by 15% by the year end as new rigs and hydraulic fracturing sets are brought into the country. Tenaris will start to operate its third set of hydraulic fracturing equipment towards the end of the year.

We are preparing for an increase of activity in the United States in the second half of the year, while in Canada, industry and government are working to increase LNG and pipeline takeaway capacity, which will allow activity growth in the years ahead. We are also strengthening our Rig Direct service through the integration of all torques, hardware and software for torque turn monitoring operations. We recently acquired this specialized technology and know-how that now forms part of our well integrity service and will add further value to our customers. The outlook for deep water drilling, offshore pipeline construction and further exploration activity during the next 3 years is promising. There is a significant number of deep water projects in Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean, which are nearing Final Investment Decisions. In the United States, Brazil and the Guyana-Suriname basin, developments are also moving forward.

Operators are looking to shorten time from discovery to first production, and Tenaris is supporting them by fast-tracking the integrated supply of OCTG, line pipe, coating and accessories. As we look into the eventual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, Tenaris, with its extensive presence, flexible supply options around the world, its differentiated service and technology for shale and deep water operations, and the strength of its financial position, is well-placed to serve our customers as they respond to the need to replenish oil and gas inventories and increase drilling activity. I would now open the floor for questions.

Giving us a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To remove yourself, press star one one again. One moment for our first question. It comes from Sebastian Erskine with Rothschild & Co. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, gentlemen, and Gabriel, best wishes to you on the new chapter here as CEO. My first question actually on the 2Q kind of guide. You indicated $440 million impact from kind of lower revenue and then the higher kind of cost impact. Could you maybe venture and give a sense of what that looks like in terms of absolute EBITDA impact from the higher costs? I presume, if I assume decremental sort of 50%, and then obviously the logistics cost in absolute terms. Any color on what that might look like to EBITDA, and then should we expect you to operate at sort of lower end of that 20%-25% sort of medium-term target?

Very good. Thank you, Sebastian, for the question and for the kind remarks. Regarding the second quarter, as I was anticipating, due to the situation in the Middle East, we expect in the second quarter lower revenues, probably mid to high single digits is the range that we would like to guide today. There's still uncertainty. This is mainly driven by the Middle East conflict. This $140 million that we had earmarked for invoicing in the second quarter. $40 million of that was anticipated in the first quarter. The balance, due to the difficulties to get into the region, are probably gonna go into the third quarter delay. This is on the revenue side. You're talking about EBITDA margin. There we expect the EBITDA margin to contract a couple of points.

This is gonna be one-third related to the logistic cost that I will comment in a minute, and two-thirds related to the lower absorption of fixed cost, semi-fixed cost related to the lower volumes that we expect this quarter. Logistic is an important component. We expect about $32 million of higher logistic cost in this second quarter due to the conflict. Here we need to separate two effects. One, the difficulty in arriving to our customers through the Strait of Hormuz. We have additional cost on vessels that are waiting for berth in ports that are either in Fujairah or Khor Fakkan, in the outer part of Hormuz on the Emirates or Oman as well, some ports in Oman that we're using, or even Jeddah in the Red Sea to access to Saudi.

Waiting times, unloading and a second leg, an inland transportation that is additional to the cost that we would normally have, if the strait would be open. This accounts to around $8 million of estimate additional cost in the quarter. In addition to that, and related to the price of oil, fuel prices are going up all over the world. This creates an additional cost of logistics, mainly in trucking, to some extent also in maritime and freights, and also railroads. This is around, in our estimate, $24 million of higher freight costs related to the increase in fuel in the different parts of the world. Clearly a higher impact in North America, given the amount of intensity and service that we have, especially in U.S. and Canada.

These effects are temporary in this quarter, contracting the EBITDA margin.

That's very helpful. Thank you, Gabriel. My second question is on the North American business, obviously performing very well, now at a higher commodity price environment, likely to see a ramp-up in spending at some point from E&Ps. If I look at the business, do you expect the growth predominantly to be led by pricing? We're seeing obviously Pipe Logix is now beginning to step up or by volume. Is there really that much more kind of share gain to take given your position already? I'm just thinking about that. Is it pricing-led or volume-led in North America going forward? Thank you.

Yeah. Sebastian, on this point, I think the short answer is both volume and pricing. I will let Guillermo give you a bit of on color about what we expect on North America on the second half of the year, where we're seeing activity increase and possible price increases, this is part of the improved outlook towards the second half of the year for Tenaris.

Thank you, Gabriel. Good afternoon, Sebastian. As you said, we are expecting upside in both in terms of activity and sales and in prices moving forward. By talking with our clients, we are starting them to say that they will be adding rigs, particularly led by the small private operators, but also some medium and large size independents are planning to add rigs. Putting all together, our expectation is that activity by the end of the year in terms of rig count will increase around 50 rigs. In other words, around 10% of activity. We expect that we will grow with our clients in line with this.

In terms of prices, Pipe Logix has increased 4% in the last 2 months, and we expect this trend to continue in the following months. Mainly pushed by the increase of raw material and logistics costs, but also because of the expectation of increase of demand.

Very helpful. Thanks very much. I will turn it back now. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question, one moment please, comes from Marc Bianchi with TD Cowen. Please proceed.

Thank you very much. Giovanni, I didn't hear you introduce Paolo, but I'm sure he's listening. I wanna congratulate him on everything that the company has accomplished under his leadership. Gabriel, welcome into the role.

Thank you very much, Marc, for your comment. Probably later today or tomorrow, I'll talk to Paolo and pass along the message. If he's not listening, which he probably is, but anyway.

Yeah. Yep. Great. Well, I guess maybe continuing the conversation of how the business is progressing here. Second quarter, you've outlined pretty clearly, but the comment in the press release was that, you know, second half recovers, assuming the strait opens shortly. Can you talk about, you know, how quickly that happens? Is the expectation that maybe third quarter can come back to be where first quarter was? Maybe unpack that a little bit for us, if you could.

Sure. Indeed, we are seeing volumes recovering in the third and fourth quarter. At this point, I would say probably towards a higher fourth quarter than the third. It's reasonable to assume that we will get very close to the first quarter levels during the second half. This is our best estimation today. We have, as we anticipated, the trajectory on price increases that will offset the cost increases that we're having. Besides the logistics that we talk about, there is an impact starting in the second quarter. We have had higher raw materials on the metallic side, scrap, ferroalloys, hot rolled coils. The full impact on these cost increases over the last few months, we will start to see, to a large extent, the full impact on that on the third quarter.

The pricing trajectory with a better North America, with a better offshore as well in the second half, will support together with the volume, an increase on the pricing, returning to EBITDA margin levels close to the first quarter.

And just specifically related to that, does the Pipe Logix price need to improve beyond what we've seen so far to get to that? Is it just, you know, what we've seen through April that gets you to where you just talked about by 4Q, or do we need additional Pipe Logix improvement?

I think we need some more steam on the Pipe Logix, but I will let Guillermo comment on which are our basic premises that are typically conservative on Pipe Logix increase.

Yes. We need some additional increases, but our expectation is that Pipe Logix will increase at least to allow us to offset those cost increases.

Yeah. Okay. Very good. Thank you. The other question I had was just on back on the Middle East and the opportunity for perhaps some more pipeline work to try to reduce the risk of all of the volume going through the strait. There's been talk of expanding the East-West Pipeline within Saudi Arabia. I'm curious what your opportunity is for that or any other similar type of investments in the region.

In that regard, indeed, the East-West Pipeline in Saudi Arabia and the pipeline going to Fujairah in the Emirates have been redundancy contingency until now, but now are strategically important. I think it's rational to assume that this is a study that might be continued and expanded. There is no clear indication, announcement that these projects are going ahead, but it's very rational to assume that they will add a lot of value. From that point of view, we see how and if this will occur. Probably for this type of pipelines, you're talking about a year, 2 year in under a fast track scenario. This is not something that can be produced and built over a few months. In any case, we have a large diameter facility in Jubail, TenarisGPC in Saudi Arabia.

We will be ideally positioned if this project goes ahead. We have a capacity of around 450,000 tons in our facility in Saudi. Depending on the diameter, wall thickness, and the trajectory of this pipeline, these pipelines could demand hundreds of thousands of tons to be built. I think we will see how this develops over time, but we are ideally positioned to capture that from the pipeline point of view. If there is a pipeline capacity, there's gonna be drilling behind. Both in Saudi Arabia and UAE, we also have a distinctive OCTG position, so we will also benefit from that down the line. Too early to tell, but important upside opportunity for Tenaris if this develops.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Smith with Bank of America. Please proceed.

Hi there. Good morning. Good afternoon. Congrats from myself as well, Gabriel Podskubka, and best wishes to Paolo Rocca too. Could the first question, could I focus on tariffs? The first part of that would be to ask what the current run rate you're seeing for Section 232 costs within your financials at the moment post the mitigation efforts that you've been carrying out, and whether and how you expect that cost line to evolve in the coming quarters. Then perhaps would you mind if I add on to that? Are you able to add any comments on Canadian anti-dumping headlines that we've seen in recent weeks? Thank you.

Thank you, Matt, for the congrats. Regarding the first point on tariffs, we have arrived to a level of tariffs impacting our first quarter results of $110 million, $120 million. We believe that we arrived to that steady state, and we will take this towards same level towards the end of the year. This is what to expect. We know that there is a USMCA that's starting to be discussed, but this will take probably all the second semester. No variations, I think that we have in our forecast in the short term for further mitigation. As you said, this number used to be much higher than that, in the range of $140, $150, I believe in at the peak.

We are maximizing steel production and pipe manufacturing in the U.S. to mitigate these tariff numbers. Regarding your second point of anti-dumping against Mexico in Canada, this is something that, yes, was announced early last month. Let me tell you first that in Canada, like in many important bases in the world, we have a strategy of mainly domestic manufacturing and sourcing. Today, in Canada, 80% of our sales of OCTG come from domestic manufacturing, but still we import from our different mills around the world to complement this local manufacturing. The impact of this anti-dumping, I believe is quite limited going forward. We expect 7% of our supply in Canada to be sourced from Tamsa going forward, in line with the pricing indication of this result.

This is particular products, specialized products, but that, by the way, are not manufactured by the local petitioners of the case. We believe is, we have ability to continue to serving our customers in Canada with a mainly domestic base, which has been all along our strategies of something. This is something that we're factoring in our supply. It had an impact on the first quarter, which was $14 million. This is something that we expect not to have later on throughout the year.

Okay. Thank you for that. Perhaps could I switch tones for a second question towards the buyback? I think last quarter I asked Paolo whether the philosophy had changed at all, how you viewed the buyback. Could I ask you the same question in this volatile environment? Does your philosophy in terms of how you implement that, how you size that, does that change at all? Should we look to the AGM next week to hear news on it, please? Thank you.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. On that point, as you know, this is a decision that is to be taken by the shareholder meeting first and then by the board. Next week, we will see on May the 12th, the company shareholder meeting will consider, among other topics, the renewal of the authorization of a repurchase of shares. Afterwards, it will be up to the board to decide on that. I cannot offer more color on that at this point.

Okay. Well, thank you very much. Happy to pass it on.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Paul Redmond with BNP Paribas. Please proceed.

Hi, guys, and thank you very much for your time. Yeah, Gabriel, congratulations on the new role. I just wanted to ask, you've been COO for a number of years. I wanted to ask where you see the greatest opportunities for Tenaris as you step into the role. Secondly, just on the Middle East, can you provide a bit more detail by country in terms of where you're seeing the greatest issues around logistics costs, delivery to customer? Just a bit more detail than Middle East in general. Thank you.

Yep. Thank you very much for the congrats again. Maybe I start from the second part related to the logistic costs into the Middle East. Clearly, Saudi and UAE, due to this pipeline capacity that we talked before, they have continued their drilling operations. Okay? It has been remarkable that the majority of the rigs have been operating under the challenging conditions that we had in the months of March and April. It has been very important for us to serve them every day with our local manufacturing, our local service centers, and bringing material into these two countries to replenish our inventories and support them. We had zero rig stoppages, we have been able to serve them under this condition as in normal times.

This is an important part of the effort, but again, going through logistics outside through Hormuz with longer transit times and higher costs. When you go to the upper part of the Gulf, it's much more difficult to reach, much more costly to reach. In Qatar, which is mainly producing LNG for export, and in Kuwait and Iraq, the capabilities of export alternative routes is much limited. Drilling activity there has reduced much more. There was less of a need for the customers to receive new material, and there was more of a difficulty for us to reach those locations, upper part of the Gulf. This is a way. We will see how this unfolds in the next few weeks, in the next few months.

Our base scenario continues to be that this is a resolution that will come in the short term, and we hope for that. This is what we see today. The majority of the big delays have been in the northern part of the Gulf. While Saudi and UAE, we are finding alternative routes because the material is really needed. The rigs are working. Regarding the first question, maybe you remind me again on the first point.

It was just as you step into the CEO role, where do you see the greatest opportunities?

Opportunities for growth.

I value. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, I think there are a lot of opportunities for growth in Tenaris. This situation in the Middle East creates and strengthens the importance of energy security, diversification of supply. So I believe that, as we were saying in the opening remarks, we're gonna see actions by customers, increasing drilling in different parts of the world. Guillermo mentioned about the U.S., but I think this creates and strengthen conditions for growth in Canada. Certainly Venezuela was starting, but makes Venezuela even more interesting into the future. We have Vaca Muerta, which is our world-class play that is also strengthened by the outlook on this situation. The offshore, which has and will continue to have a steep , we are seeing FIDs being even anticipated due to this condition.

We believe that we are already entering an expansion cycle in the offshore in the deep water, and this is something that we will carry into the balance of 2026, 2027 and 2028. We are seeing projects that are already with FID and schedules, even with 2, 3-year visibility. I believe that in this different area and parts of the world, Tenaris has a lot of opportunity to increase its business.

Right. Thank you very much, and best of luck in your new role.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jamie Franklin with Jefferies. Please proceed.

Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. Congratulations, Gabriel, and best wishes to Paolo. Firstly, I just wanted to ask on the international business. Last quarter, you spoke to generally seeing some stability in pricing with balanced demand and supply. Can you just give us a sense of recent price moves in the different regions, given the current geopolitical situation and a kind of best estimate as to how you see that evolving as we move forwards through the year? Secondly, you already partially touched on this, but could you give us an update on how your offshore backlog is shaping up? You previously talked to an expectation of 1H '26 revenues offshore being higher than 2H '25, and that 2H '26 would likely be at least as positive as the first half.

Just wondering if you can give us a sense of how things have evolved since your last set of results. Thank you.

Yes. Jamie, thank you for the congrats. On the, on the second point in the offshore, I confirmed what I we said in the, in the, in the previous call. We are even seeing anticipation on some of the backlog of first half into the second half of 2026. Where I'm sitting today, we're seeing an increase in revenue for the offshore in the second half of 2026 versus what we are having in the first half of 2026, in the range of 10%. Okay. This backlog for offshore is very important and continues to build up and even anticipate a bit. I'm ready to be a bit even more optimistic than I was in the, in the previous call.

Regarding pricing in the international market, probably we need to divide Europe from the international markets. In Europe, as you know, CBAM has started since the beginning of this year, and the new safeguard in Europe will be implemented July first. This is a safeguard that is much more stringent than the previous one. The quotas are gonna be reduced by half of what they were, and volumes in excess of the quota that today are paying a tariff of 25% to get it into Europe, this will go to 50%. This will protect and strengthen steel making and steel pipe making in Europe, which I think is positive for Tenaris as we supply our European customer mainly with European production.

We see a trend in pricing that already started, and we're seeing in the second quarter of this year and probably continuing, moving upwards in Europe. When we go to the international pricing, as I was saying in the last quarter, there's certain stability between supply and demand. With the situation of the war in the Middle East, there is a pressure on costs. Okay? We believe that this pressure of cost will be translated into the international pricing. The majority of our work in international markets are contracts that have formulas in place from the different components. There's typically a legacy on 2 to 3 quarters for this to be seen in the invoicing of pricing.

I would believe that in our pricing international business will go accompanying offsetting the increasing cost over time.

Very helpful. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star one one to get in the queue. Our next question comes from Arun Jayaram with J.P. Morgan Securities LLC. Please proceed.

Yeah, good morning, Gabriel and Paolo. Congratulations on your new roles. Great to see, Gabriel. Tenaris mentioned an increased focus on security and the diversification of supply in your release. You know, one of the things that, in an era of more energy security, there's been thoughts that key players in the Middle East, the NOCs, may be focused on having more redundancy in terms of evacuation options via pipelines, so they're less reliant on the Strait of Hormuz. I was wondering if you could talk about how Tenaris could be levered to this dynamic. I know there's been news about a Gulf Super Express pipeline that would take flows to the Red Sea and Mediterranean, I just wanted to talk about and see if you could elaborate on this dynamic.

Thank you, Arun, for the best wishes. Let me tell you, I think that a similar question came up earlier in the call, but still, I will tell you that this possibility or potential of additional pipeline capacity in Saudi and UAE is something that would look very rational today and a big business opportunity. I was saying before that this will probably take a year or two under a fast track scenario to be built. It's something that we cannot take out of equation. On the contrary, no announcements, media reports. This is something that we don't have anything to comment yet. If that opportunity would materialize, Tenaris with its TenarisGPC larger diameter facility in Jubail, we would be able to take an important part of this pipeline capacity going forward.

This is a facility where we just last year expanded into the second line, and we have an ability even to debottleneck with limited investment to take this capacity even higher. These pipelines would entail 100,000 tons of demand of tubulars. One way or the other, I believe that Tenaris would be well positioned to capitalize on that, and all the drilling of OCTG that we can behind to make this pipeline capacity full. We'll see. A bit early to tell, but certainly a potential maybe eventually into a 2027 type of scenario.

Great. Thank you. Thank you for that. I did join the call because I had another call, apologize on the late question.

No worries. Thank you for joining anyway.

My follow-up here is you hear your comments on outlook. I know the stock is maybe reacting to the near term impacts in 2Q relative to some of the Middle East impacts. I just wanna see if you could clarify your comments on the second half. What we heard is your expectations that second half EBITDA could be close to 1Q, which is in that $735 range, which would be a little bit above the street. Just wondering if you could comment on that.

Yeah. I would say that this would be a good estimate. Give and take, it's a bit early. There is a lot of uncertainty. The Strait is not open yet. To be precise in the third and fourth quarter, to be honest, it's kind of challenging. From where we see, and based on this assumption of a relatively short-term resolution of the conflict and the positive dynamics on volume in the offshore in North America and pricing trajectory, I think this is where we are seeing our results heading into the second half.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you do have a question, simply press star 11 to get in the queue. One moment for our next question. It comes from Guillaume Delaby with Bernstein. Please proceed.

Yes. Good afternoon, and congrats for the new role. One question. Globally, when I look at the structure of the industry in terms of competition, the past 4 or 5 years have seen that probably reduced competition for companies like yours. My question is, given the strengthening outlook for the next 3 to 5 years, is it reasonable to expect that at some stage, of course it is much too early to worry about, but at some stage you may face increasing competition by the end of the decade, for example, in North America with the recent combination of U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel. Maybe I would like to have your view on the competitive landscape, very, very strong today, likely to remain, but how do you see it evolving over the next 3 to 5 years? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Guillaume, for the congrats on the new role. I think your question is very important. I would say that it's difficult for me at this position to illustrate if in the next 5 years, the competitive landscape will improve or deteriorate. I would say that we are competing every day. Tenaris is built on being the best and bringing the best value proposition to our customers in different parts of the world. We are catering those segment customers countries where we can find differentiation, where we can be different, we can be the partner of choice, differentiating on technology, service, local capacity. These are the some of the values that we bring, and we have building on these capabilities over time.

I believe that there is a common thread for our industry. There has been steel pipe manufacturing from China. This has been what we consider, in general, in the majority of the international markets, are fairly traded imports. This is a thread that we had that we confronted with the technology, with services, and in certain areas of the world, also with the anti-dumping and protective measures according what the different parts of the world where we operate consider that these were fairly traded imports. Difficult to see how this will progress into the future. We have been and will continue to be in a competitive world.

We don't take our customer trust, we don't take our differentiated EBITDA margins for granted, and we work every day to remain competitive and to become the best option. Difficult to project this into the future. This is what we are all focusing every day. We'll see.

Thank you very much for this answer. What I like is the humility. I think it has been probably the main characteristic of Tenaris over the past few years. Very happy that it continues. Thank you.

Thank you, Guillaume. There is clearly a message of continuity in Tenaris with my new appointment and the support of Paolo. He has been planning this transition for the last 3 years. As I have the role of COO, we traveled together, we worked together. When I say on a daily basis, it's not a metaphor. It was on a daily basis. I think the part of the message of the new role today is the continuity and the support from Paolo and the 25,000 employees that make Tenaris. That approach is one of the, all the secrets of the strength of this company.

Thank you very much. I turn it over.

Welcome.

Thank you. We have a question from Paul Redmond with BNP Paribas. Please proceed.

Yeah. Thank you very much for a first question. I wanted to touch on Venezuela. There has been a production increase over the past few months. I wanted to ask how involved you are in terms of sales in that market. When you think about Venezuela, where do you think production could go to and the opportunity that makes for Tenaris? Thank you.

Thank you, Paul. On Venezuela, we continue to have a favorable outlook after the legal framework that we had in the previous quarter, there have been licenses granted to some of the companies. Some of the companies, even of the majors that are starting to operate, have made some announcement of additional areas. We see things progressing in the right direction, obviously from a small size. Tenaris has never left Venezuela. We have always remained closed and waiting for this opportunity to return. We are mobilizing more resources, and we have plenty of Venezuelan colleagues in different parts of the world, so we are stepping up our presence in the country from the commercial, the technical, and the service sides.

We will start Rig Direct services in Venezuela, in the Orinoco area starting in July. We are certainly a first mover, and we are the front runner as Venezuela recovers. Today, the business is important. Gave a figure of around $50 million for this 2026. In the last call, I think we are gonna be in that range still, and we see rigs going up from the different operators that are early positioning in Venezuela. This will be a country that, for us, it will increase substantially from this level into 2027. We're quite positive about the opportunity in Venezuela.

The range of production increase varies and is still a bit uncertain, but with the outlook that we described before of the need of diversifying supply of oil, I think Venezuela becomes even more attractive and important to the global matrix than it was before the conflict. We see that this is going to increase, and Tenaris will be an important part of that.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes our Q&A session, and I will turn the call back to Giovanni Sardagna for closing comments.

Thank you, Carmen, and well, thank you all of you for joining us during the call. Thanks.

This concludes our conference. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.