Arcelormittal SA

Good afternoon, everyone. This is Daniel Fegler from the Arslan Mittal Investor Relations Team. Thank you very much for joining us on this call today to discuss the third quarter and nine months 2023. Before I hand directly to Mr. Mittal, I would like to refer you to the presentation we published this morning on our website, and in particular, draw your attention to the disclaimers on slide number two of that presentation. I now hand over the call to our Executive Chairman, Mr. Mittal.

Thank you, Daniel. Good day. And thank you for joining us today for this Q3 earnings call. I'm joined today by our chief executive, Adit Mittal, our chief financial officer, Janino Cristino, and our executive vice president, Brad Davey, whose responsibilities include corporate health and safety. Adit and I would not normally be present at the third quarter, But we wanted to speak with you all, given the tragic accident that took place on October 28 at our Kostenko coal mine in Kazakhstan that claimed the lives of 46 of our colleagues. The accident was devastating, especially for the families of the victims and also for colleagues of the deceased who have lost friends and for the communities to which they will never return. It is naturally with these groups, the families, colleagues, and communities where our greatest focus has been since the accident. It goes without saying that it is also a very difficult time for the company. We are a global group, but we are also a community. The pain and the anguish within the company at this terrible accident remains very raw. The outpouring of compassionate support shown by colleagues around the world for our colleagues in Kazakhstan has been a gratifying reminder of the depth of human kindness. You will want to know, how did this accident happen? We are asking ourselves the same questions and we will make sure we get answers. Answers that can help us implement the actions that will enable us to emerge stronger in the future. A full review of our health and safety program, including the progress that has been made in the last two years, as well as the areas that need to be strengthened and improved, is already underway. We will ensure that whatever lessons that can be learned are learned. We will ensure that whatever aspects of our safety processes can be strengthened, will be strengthened. Kazakhstan has played an important role in the group since we acquired in 1995. But over the course of this year, we have been in discussions with the government of Kazakhstan about the future ownership of this asset. Before the recent accident, we had signed a preliminary agreement for the government to take over the operations. We are committed to completing this transaction as soon as possible. It is important for thousands of employees that work in Timirtao and Karganda, as well as their families and communities, that they have certainty and stability about the future. Our Kazakhstan operations have played an important role in this company's history. I sincerely hope they will have a long and successful future. With this, I will hand over now to Aditya. to add some additional details on the steps we are taking from here.

Thank you. As Mr. Mittal already said, 20th of October was the saddest day in the history of our Swarmitto. The families of our 46 colleagues have had their lives devastated. Their grief and loss are shared by all our colleagues and our communities. We know there is no adequate compensation for this loss, but we're doing everything in our power to provide appropriate support. Part of this is ensuring we fulfill our basic civic responsibility to properly look after those who have lost loved ones. Even during the process of transferring ownership to the government of Kazakhstan, we will continue to provide support for our communities as they navigate this tragedy. I'm sure, like me, you want to understand how this happened. We don't have all the answers today. A special commission has been initiated by the government to conduct the first phase investigation. We are cooperating fully to assist in this investigation. The commission is still taking evidence and we expect preliminary findings to be published soon. It is only in Kazakhstan that we own and operate coal mines. Nevertheless, it is only appropriate at a time like this to review safety across the group and make whatever improvements are required to ensure that every single one of our submittal's operations have zero serious accidents. We had already launched a major step change in our safety activities at the start of 2022 when a new strategy focused on the twin pillars of risk management and cultural change was developed for group-wide implementation. You will find more detail on that strategy in the presentation and the earnings release. We can see that in the steel side of the business, the step change is delivering results. Because of the efforts and commitment of our colleagues globally, this year we have had no direct employee fatalities outside of CIS, and while we cannot yet say the same when you include contractors, we are nevertheless 40% better than the World Steel Association record. But this was not enough to stop these accidents happening. Given where we stand today, I cannot conclude that we have every single aspect covered or that our organization is set up optimally to achieve the transformation as swiftly as we must. We need to do much more. The only appropriate course of action is to take a hard look inside our group, identify the gaps that exist, and strengthen our actions, processes, and culture to ensure that an accident of this magnitude never happens again. Therefore, we're also commissioning an independent third-party comprehensive global safety audit whose key recommendations will be published in due course. We know that going forward, we will be judged more on what we do than what we say. We are committed to taking all the steps necessary to learn from this tragedy and show it has never repeated and emerge a better, safer company. Genuino will now make some further remarks.

Thank you, Aditya. I must also begin by expressing my sincere condolences to the families and friends of our colleagues who died following the accident on the 28th of October. The accidents that we have experienced in the coal mines have been deeply troubling to the company and to the Kazakh government. It's fair to say that over the course of the year, we have faced not only an increasingly difficult trading environment, but also an increasingly tense operating environment. You know that on the 22nd of October, we signed a non-binding agreement with the government of Kazakhstan to transfer the assets to the Kazakh state. Discussions had been ongoing for many months already, and it became increasingly clear that the government was again interested in owning and operating this asset. To help you understand the performance and financial contribution of Kazakhstan to our group, we have provided some relevant information in today's earnings release and accompanying slide deck. And I hope that you will appreciate that due to the ongoing negotiations, we will not be able to comment further on today's call. As soon as there is a final agreement, it will be communicated via the appropriate channels. As we have today announced our 3Q results, I will also make some comments on the financial performance, although I will keep my remarks brief. Our financial performance continues to reflect the structural improvements we have talked about in recent quarters. Despite the impacts of weaker average selling prices, and seasonally lower volumes, EBITDA per ton in quarter three was $136. For the first nine months, it was $149. This compares well with the long-term history of our group, showing the benefits of our higher-graded asset portfolio. But looking at EBITDA alone only shows part of our financial improvement. If you look at our long-term history, The average annual net income pre-exceptional items was about $2 billion. Our run rate this quarter was almost double this long-term average level. This captures the improvement in EBITDA, the much bigger contribution of our joint ventures, in particular India, and the benefits of a lower-cost balance sheet. Net debt this quarter declined to $4.3 billion, and we finished the quarter with excellent liquidity of $11.8 billion. Our guidance on working capital and capex is unchanged. After investing $0.9 billion in working capital year-to-date, we expect this to more than reverse in the final quarter. We expect our capex to be in the middle of our $4.5 to $5 billion guidance range. Looking forward, quarter four will be impacted by the low spread levels we have experienced in recent months, but the levels reached in recent weeks are unsustainable and supply will respond. And while the real demand environment is weak in aggregate, inventories in the system remain low. And we have seen in recent years that when inventories are low, a shift in sentiment can quickly translate to prices. The long-term fundamental picture remains positive. Our strong balance sheet and expectation of consistently positive free cash flow underpins the continued execution of our strategy. We will continue to invest in our operations to improve our safety and environmental performance and supply the growing needs of our customers for low-carbon steel solutions. We will continue to advance our strategic growth projects to support high and normalized profitability. And we will continue to implement our defined capital allocation policy, which allows us to advance our strategic and growth agendas, while consistently returning capital to shareholders through our share buybacks. With our opening remarks now concluded, we will now take your questions. Daniel, please go ahead.

Thank you, Gianmino. So if I can just reiterate the instructions from the operator, if you'd like to join the queue to ask a question, then please do press star 1 on your telephone keypads. We do have a number of analysts already in the queue, and we will take the first question, please, from Elaine at Morgan Stanley.

Yes, good afternoon, everyone. Two questions as well from my side. I'll take them one at a time. Firstly, a question on capital allocation to Aditya. You seem to have paused your buyback program since August, and many opportunities may emerge in the current environment. If these opportunities come your way, how do you think about balance sheet capacity and the leverage that you're willing to take on in the context of your capital allocation framework? That's my first question.

Nala, thank you for your question. We are very proud of our strong balance sheet. We remain very focused on retaining an investment-grade credit rating. We think they are very important strategically, and we think the capital allocation policy that we outlined over the last two years has worked increasingly well. In the last two years, we have bought back over 30% of the business. We have been able to invest in our strategic capex. And at the same time, we've been able to grow the business. We acquired a fantastic facility in Texas, in Corpus Christi, as you know, which supports our DCARB efforts. We acquired a very well-invested facility in Brazil. Both these facilities are performing well, achieving normalized EBITDA of $500 million. So we believe that our strong balance sheet, the focus on retaining that, along with the capital allocation policy that we have outlined, allows us to both grow the business, develop the business, as well as return capital to shareholders.

Thank you. My second question is on Kazakhstan. I guess you mentioned you're constrained, you can say, but my question is more of an accounting one. I'm not sure if, Genuino, you're able to answer that, but Are you able to give us a bit more granularity on the balance sheet impact of a potential deconsolidation of these assets? You talked about $1.8 billion of book value. I presume this could be at risk if you give away the assets. And then as an extension to this one, how much provisions and other liabilities are attached to the Kazakh assets? Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, as we highlighted, we're not going to be in a position as this negotiation is happening with the government. We're not going to be able to comment much. I mean, we try to provide you with some more numbers for the operations so that you can better understand what is the contribution of this asset to our consolidated numbers. So you have the book values there. And we will have to wait to see what is the final outcome of the negotiations before we can comment more.

Understood. Thank you. Great, thanks. So we'll move to the next question, please, from Tristan at BNP. Go ahead, Tristan.

Yes, hi. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first one is on the U.S. market. I noticed in the slide in your presentation that you paint a pretty optimistic assessment of the demand environment there. I think you referred to a 9% upside potential for flat steel demand. which I think is more than what you have for India. So could you elaborate a bit there? It's my understanding that higher spending in the U.S. will benefit more long steel products than flat steel except plates. So I would like to have your thought there. And second, you purchased an HPI facility in textile. You're spending more at Calvert. So how attractive is the U.S. market and how does that fit in your capital allocation strategy? I start there.

Sure, Tristan, thank you for the question. Maybe I'll take the second half of your, or the second question that you asked, and I'll get Genvino to revert on the first. So in terms of the U.S., I must emphasize that the U.S. is one of our largest single country markets. To exclude India, it is the largest single country market, and we have an excellent franchise business. We supply to the most demanding customers, not only from our operations in Calvert, Alabama, but from other facilities that we have in NAFTA. We continue to invest in the U.S. As you are aware, we are finishing our electric arc furnace project at Calvert that we finished in 2024 that will strengthen the facility further and bring significant benefits to our business. As you mentioned, we have acquired an HBI facility in Corpus Christi, Texas. It's doing really well. It's at nameplate capacity. We're struggling for many, many years. It really enables us to move forward in terms of decarbonizing our business because, as you're aware, HBI provides low-cost green metallics, relatively lower carbon metallics, and optionality to green it in different technologies. So the U.S. market remains important. We are focused on it and allows Genuino to talk to you a little bit about the growth forecasts.

Thank you, Aditya. Tristan, I think some of the numbers that you are quoting, what you see in our slide is really our projection for 2032. So then you see that we expect the demand in the U.S. to grow, supported by, you know, as you know, we have different programs announced by the government, large, very large programs, probably totally more than $2 trillion of investments over the next years. So that will support demand for steel. But if you see the level of growth in India, it's superior, right? So we are expecting that the demand in India will almost double from where we are today. So that's almost 100 million tons of growth. And that's why we are investing so much in India, trying to double the capacity now from the 7 to 15 million tons and with some more plans ahead of us. So when you have these volumes of investments in the U.S., I mean, all these investments expected to happen over the next couple of years, I think it's fair to assume that everybody will benefit, not only the long producers, but everybody will benefit. We will see more water houses, more roads, more everything, right? So I would expect that the whole industry will benefit from that.

All right. That's interesting. That's clear. And if I could just follow up with also a high topic question. It's on China. I think the demand and export situation in China has been pretty negative this year with the real estate market normalizing. Do you believe those production and export trends are here to stay or is that just temporary? And how is the situation in our view different from 2015-16? And what can you do to limit the negative impact on your operation? And if things were to last, would you contemplate further restructuring in Europe or Brazil that have been hard hit by Chinese exports? Thank you.

Yeah, no, thank you, Tristan. You're right. I think we are seeing, of course, a significant increase in exports from China. We continue to believe that that's not structural. If you look at the level of profitability today in China, We believe that only a small number of companies can actually make money in this environment. Level of spread is extremely low, too low actually. We started to see some production cuts. The September numbers show some progress. And if you see the situation seems to some extent similar to what we saw in the last half of 2022 when production was really running high in the first half. And then we saw significant production cuts in the second half of 2022. And then overall for the year, the productions didn't change much. We'll see now what happens in the remainder of the year. Clearly, in this environment, it's tough, right, for many companies to make money. So we don't believe that China wants to go back to the 2015-16 situation. If you recall, that triggered a number of trade actions, We will see finally what happens. Our assets, I mean, you mentioned Brazil, our assets are of very high quality. They are cost competitive. And I'm sure we're going to be in a position to continue to service those markets.

All right. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Justin. So we'll now move to the next question from Patrick at Bank of America.

Good day. I just have two very quick follow-up questions from the previous question. So you did say in terms of balance sheet strength, you want to keep investment-grade balance sheet, a strong balance sheet. Just remind us, is there an absolute net debt number? Should we still think about $7 billion as the ceiling there? And then the second follow-up question is just, you know, if I look at what the government of Kazakhstan is saying around the timing of the transfer of that business, they're saying they want to get it done in November. Have you got any comments around the timing? And then I've got one other question after that, but I'll stop for the quick follow-ups.

Sure. Thank you, Patrick. Patrick, I think you heard my comments quite well, so there's not much more to add. We're very focused on our balance sheet, retaining investment-grade credit rating, and at the same time, we're very supportive of our capital allocation policy. It has worked really well. In terms of the net debt target, it depends on what the earning power of the business is fundamentally. To the extent that that changes, we will update our net debt target. but you should assume that we are focused on a strong balance sheet, investment-grade credit rating, as well as maintaining our capital allocation framework. In terms of Kazakhstan, I think Jairino talked a lot about it in his opening remarks. There's not much more to add. I think all parties are working diligently to expedite the close of this transaction.

Okay, thanks very much. And then my, I suppose, new question is, you're saying structurally the business is more profitable and $136 a ton EBITDA in a very weak market is much better than previous down cycles. I suppose just thinking forward to next year, especially in Europe, autos production this year has been really strong and it looks like the backlog of orders is coming to an end and possibly we might see some contraction in autos production next year. Do you think this could take another leg down in terms of where that trough EBITDA is? In other words, are we being... flattered by very strong autos production this year, and that could weaken into next year, or how are you thinking about the autos market for 2024? Thanks.

Yeah, Patrick, let me take this one. Well, it's really too early to talk about next year in terms of auto negotiations. In some cases, we have started discussions, but it's still early in the process. You know, our focus really when it comes to this contract is to make sure that we have a win-win negotiation with our customers. We are focused on making sure that we are rewarded by the quality of the products and services that we deliver. And that has always been the focus, and I think that's well understood. So I would not be overly concerned about that right now. You're right, so we'll see what happens. I would just point that inventory levels are still low, so there can be also opportunity for them to replenish some of their inventories. I cannot speak for them, but this year it has been good. It has been strong. We have been actually shipped more than what we had anticipated at the beginning of the year, and we'll see how it plays out next year.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thanks, Patrick. So we'll move now to a question from Bastian at Deutsche Bank. Go ahead, Bastian.

Yeah, thanks, and good afternoon all. Also, thanks for giving us that call on Temetower. Could you maybe help us with the EBITDA number which Temetower has been contributing in the course of the third quarter, please? That's my first question.

Bastian, if you look at our slides, what we said is we gave you what has been the average contribution of Temital to the group in terms of EBITDA, about $300 million. CAPEX, about $250 million per year. And we are saying that this year, because of the challenging market environment and operational environment that we have faced, the profitability of the business, the bit of the business is negative. But we're not going to break down the results. You can see, I mean, what is, look at nine months, you will see that we have Ukraine and Kazakhstan negative, offset in part by South Africa. But that gives you an indication of the magnitude. But it has been negative this year for us.

Could you at least tell us, and I suppose it's also been negative last quarter, but could you at least give us some direction guidance whether it's been negative last quarter?

It was negative last quarter as well.

Okay, thank you. Then my second question is on the Pollution Fee Act in the US, and I appreciate that's a very preliminary framework and it's probably very early days, but it would still be great if you could give us your thoughts on it and how it would be impacting your business. My question is on the Pollution Fee Act in the US, which I thought was basically, I think the initiative was published about a week ago, and it seems to be a bit of a response to the conversations which have held on the European and US, I think, Green Steel and Aluminium Trade Agreement, which apparently has failed, and I think that deadline has been shifted out, but from understanding there has been now a new proposal made, i.e. the Pollution Fee Act, which I think is also aiming to basically put a charge on imports or basically try to find a mechanism to basically protect the U.S. market against material which is not coping with the emission standards which the U.S. market has. So just in case you've got any early thoughts on this and how it would be impacting your business, given that you're also shipping quite a bit of amount of material from both Brazil, Mexico, and also Canada. Just in case you've got any early thoughts, that would be great.

Yeah, thank you. Nothing specific, to be honest with you. I think it's very early days. But clearly, the direction of travel is that leading economies are moving towards a more fair-based trading system. And what does that really mean? It means to the extent that industries and companies are decarbonizing, how can they ensure that they can compete effectively with other imports? And so there needs to be a level playing field. And I think you see some of that in the CBAM that has been launched in Europe. It's under trial period, and after two years there will be costs. I believe in the US also they're examining how best to ensure that there is a level playing field and that we have a fair trading system.

Okay, thank you. Maybe just on the European CBAM because I saw on your slides you say that there is already a penalty related to the non-compliance with the reporting rules for the CBAM also in the transition period. My understanding was that there is not a financial penalty at this point, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you could just briefly provide a bit of color on that as well.

Yeah. Bastian, our understanding is that you're right. So they will not be paying now, of course, for these first two years, the CO2 costs. But to the extent that they fail to report, then there can be some financial penalties to be established. We don't know exactly how this is going to work. It's still relatively new. And the first, at least three quarters, the rules are yet being worked out, and the Commission and the various states still align on how this is going to happen. But our understanding is that if someone imports and doesn't report, it then can be subject to penalties. But that's not the same as paying for the cardinal.

Okay, great. Thanks, Chinoino. Great, thanks, Bastian. We'll move now to a question from Max at Otto. Go ahead, Max.

Yeah, good afternoon. So my first question is on Ukraine. Can you share the current utilization rate in iron ore, big iron, semi-finished products, and what are the steps actually towards the step-up in production? I understand there's a blast furnace now in maintenance, but When it's completed at the end of the year, there could be a significant increase in production. Could you give us a bit more color on that?

Yeah, Max, I can. To be honest, the situation has not really changed much. We continue to operate one blast furnace, only one furnace. And we continue to run the mines at about 40%, 45% of capacity. The challenges continue to be logistics, to get the raw materials in, to get the finished products out. The products that we are producing today, in terms of finished products, they are being sold domestically and to some neighboring countries where we still have access to logistics. So that remains really the main challenge, and we have to see how it evolves. The situation is still, as we all know, quite fragile. But the good thing is the assets continue to be well kept, and we continue to support our employees. And the teams are doing a great job in managing this very, very challenging situation.

Okay, and the second and last question is on your decarbonization strategy. It's on hydrogen. I've seen that in Brazil you signed an MOU with a local electricity company to evaluate the feasibility of an H2 plant. So I wonder how far would you be actually willing to insource hydrogen production? Is it something that you think will be essentially outsourced to external providers, or that's something that you could do also on your own and for a significant part of your needs in terms of DRIs?

Yeah, thank you for the question. Just very quickly on DCARB's big picture, as all of you are aware, our swimming pool is technology leader. We have phenomenal capability in terms of R&D. We have a globally diversified workforce, which I believe is the best in the industry. And along with the fact that we have different pockets of energy and we have a global asset base, I think we're extremely well positioned to to lead the way in terms of how you decarbonize both steel processes as well as a steel product. In terms of what we are doing to vertically integrate into the energy space, the focus so far has been on renewable energy. There's a nice slide where we have three projects that we have started in India, in Brazil, and in Argentina. These are excellent projects. When you look through the see-through return, the benefit to the steel facility as well as the renewable standalone return, they more than exceed our investment hurdles. In terms of hydrogen and other sources, I think, look, it's preliminary. We're evaluating to the extent that we can meet our investment hurdles and that they create value for us in the long run and further support as we decarbonize our business. We will clearly look at them and inform you accordingly.

Okay, clear. Thank you.

Great, thanks, Max. So we'll now move to a question from Timna at Wolf Research.

Oh, thanks so much. Hope everyone's doing well. I was hoping for an update on Calvert timing, but also in the context of Calvert and also another large electric arc furnace adding capacity, how you're thinking about the scrap market. Certainly the HBI facility have helped, but seems like a lot of additional scrap demand around the corner. Would love your thoughts.

Sure, thank you too much. But the Calvert year project is is proceeding well. We expect to have a startup by the first half of 2024. It's an excellent project because it's got a lot of secondary metallurgy and it can produce the highest grades and supported by our facility in Corpus Christi in Texas. As you mentioned, we will be able to do low carbon. high-quality automotive products. So really, this will lead the way in terms of the U.S. steel business and the U.S. steel industry in really having a low-carbon base for high-quality exposed automotive applications. In terms of scrap, I do agree with you that it's harder and harder to find good-quality scrap, prime scrap, in the United States. And that is why I think our strategy of investing in Texas, making sure that we have that strategic asset, where we have good quality, high quality, I should add, low-carbon metallics repaid dividends.

Okay. Thanks for that. And if I could, one more. What conditions are you thinking about to consider restarting some of the idled assets in Europe? Is it a question of seasonality, you think, or can you give us a little more color on what you're looking for there?

Yeah, Tina, let me take this one. I mean, what we have right now, we have basically maintenance. Two of our furnaces, one furnace in Germany, it's going to be down for 30 days for maintenance. And then we have a reline in Ghent in Belgium for about 70 days. And then after that, this furnace should be up and running. The only furnace that is currently down due to market conditions is for us, and we will wait a bit more to take a decision to restart the furnace. But other than that, and for the maintenance work that will be constraining our production in Q4, as we have highlighted in our earnings release, the other facilities are all running.

Okay. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Great, thanks, Tim. So we'll move now to a question from Andrew at UBS. Go ahead, Andrew.

Hi, James. Just wanted to touch on the M&A topic again. I think a couple of people tried to ask about potential maximum leverage ratios and things like that, and you talked about the earning power of the business. I mean, it's very multiple of EBITDA. And also, you know, if you're thinking about acquisitions, I mean, would you consider using a significant amount of stock given – The fact that obviously it trades at a pretty low multiple today and we're at a pretty depressed point of the cycle. How do you think about use of stock in M&A? And I guess we've all been tiptoeing around the topics, but what are you able to tell us about the links of yourselves to obviously M&A? a certain large producer in the U.S., and then also the damper assets in India that have been in the press as well. Can you just give us an idea about maybe potential rationale and how you think about those assets? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. I don't think you guys are tiptoeing. I think you guys are trying to ask it directly, indirectly many times. But as you're aware, we cannot comment on M&A. In terms of your question on capital discipline, I think that's a very good one. I think I said it, but you asked a nuance, so I will elaborate further. We're focused on retaining a strong balance sheet, focused on retaining our investment-grade credit rating, and focused on our capital allocation policy. As I mentioned, we have bought back more than 30% of the business So really it would not make sense for us to be issuing shares. I think you highlighted the multiple discrepancy. We've also talked about the book value per share. We talk about the growth. We talk about how in this environment the margin per ton remains good. If you look through our net income, it's very, very strong, and it's $4.50 in the last nine months on a per share basis, and that's because we have these excellent joint ventures as well. You alluded to India. India is doing really well. It's a very strong business. We are growing it. We are investing to double the assets. If you visit, you would see lots and lots of cranes. And the underlying business is very strong because it has a low-cost base. We have our own iron ore. We have our own pelletizers. Everything is coastal. We make high-quality products there. We are starting up our automotive-capable coal rolling and galve lines as well. So I think that's the complete picture on our struggle and therefore our capital allocation policy in which we take half of free cash flow and return it to shareholders is appropriate. I think it would not be appropriate for us to be issuing shares in this environment.

That's very clear. And do you have, I mean, you've talked about obviously the $7 billion in the past as the net debt target is for a to keep a strong balance sheet, to keep that investment credit rating? Is there a maximum point that you put on it? I mean, if you exceeded, say, two times EBIT dollars, would that be a no-go? Or can you give us any steer around that?

Yeah, look, I think the focus remains strong balance sheet investment. To the extent that we develop the business, grow the business, we can evaluate that. but really you should look at this company will be maintaining and retaining its investment with credit metrics. It's hard for me to be more explicit than that, but I think that provides you with a good framework for what we're trying to achieve.

Okay.

Thank you.

Great. Thanks, Sandy. So we'll move to the last question, actually, which is from Moses at J.P. Morgan.

Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to ask on the working capital, so the build here in this quarter, and just trying to understand the reasons for that build, if any of it was to do with building inventories for capacity curtailment. And if so, how much of those inventories are finished goods inventories versus semi-finished goods? Just to give us a steer on essentially what we can expect to unwind in Q4, given obviously a weak demand environment currently.

Yeah. Hi, Moses. Let me take this one. So there are a couple of reasons for the review of inventories in Q3. One is, of course, we had incidents with two finances in Europe. So as a result, we draw from inventories to supply customers in the first half. So we got to a point where we had to start replenishing our internal inventories. And as I have said in another question, We do have maintenance work in quarter four and two finances, so it was also important to prepare for that. Most of the replenishment that you see is on the metal stock side. As we have guided up to Q3, we have invested about $900 million in working capital, and our expectation is to more than reverse that in Q4. So that should give you an indication of the potential inflow coming from working capital in Q4. I hope that that helps.

That's good. Thank you very much.

Great. Thanks, Moses. Aditya, that's our last question, so I'll hand the call back to you.

Okay. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. I just wanted to reiterate that that I know it's a very difficult time for all of us. The tragedy and the pain of Kazakhstan is very raw. We're doing everything we can to support the communities and our colleagues who are deeply impacted. They're absolutely devastated. At the same time, we're working very, very hard. All the leaders in the company are focused on improving our safety practices across the board. We are also going to use the support of a third-party independent firm, which will do a comprehensive audit looking at governance practices, looking at policies, processes, what we do on the shop floor, are audits good enough, training exercises, and we will be publishing those recommendations. I can assure you we take this very seriously, extremely seriously, and we are all more than committed, more than 100% committed, on improving our global safety performance. With that, thank you very much for your time and look forward to talking to you soon.