10/24/2024

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

Good morning. It's a pleasure welcoming you to Elkem's third quarter results presentation. My name is Odger Lingstad, and I'm responsible for investor relations in Elkem. With me today, I have Helge Aasen, CEO, and Morten Viga, CFO, to take us through the business update, financial results for the third quarter, and also the outlook for the fourth quarter. After Helge and Morten's presentations, we will open for Q&A. We will start with the business update, so please, Helge.

speaker
Helge Aasen
CEO

Thank you, Olga, and welcome everyone. The EBITDA for Elkim in the third quarter is the highest since the first quarter of 2023, and profitability has gradually been improved, and that is despite weak market conditions, which are continuing. The operating income for the group was 8 billion NOK, in the quarter, and the EBITDA ended up at 1.2 billion. So this gives an EBITDA margin of 15%, which is within our target corridor, 15 to 20%. So we are satisfied with this achievement, given the weak market conditions, and I'd like to give credit to the Alchem organization, used this opportunity for the intensive improvement work that's ongoing. The improvement in EBITDA was mainly driven by the silicones division and explained by higher sales volume and also operational improvements. The result in this quarter also includes positive effects from the new production line in China. We've had a very successful startup and the EBTA contribution in the quarter from that line is 75 million, NOC. And Silicon products are also continuing to deliver good results with an EBTA margin of 23%. That is despite a rather weak market demand. Carbon Solutions continue to deliver very good margins, but also here the result is impacted by lower sales volumes. In September we successfully raised new bond loans in Norway, 1.5 billion with the three, five and seven years maturity. The proceeds from these loans will be mainly used to refinance other loans maturing this year and next year. We recently had a strategy meeting with our board and I'd like to update you on a few of the main elements of this strategic direction. We continue to talk about dual play growth and green leadership. It is our ambition to grow top line across all three divisions and in all geographies. Recent developments show the importance of having resilient and geographically independent supply chains, both in the western and the eastern part of the world. The growth target is still 5% on average, top line growth. or higher, of course, through the cycle, and to do this in a sustainable way, both from a financial and environmental perspective. We will continue to target an EBITDA margin of at least 15% per year. Green leadership remains an important part of our strategic direction and Elkem is well positioned with already low CO2 emissions compared with main competitors. This is mainly explained by our upstream metals production being based on primarily on hydro power. And of course, we also use already a significant amount of bio-based reduction materials in the mix or in the raw material mix. We maintain our ambition of zero emission by 2050. There are a number of projects ongoing to support that very ambitious goal. Carbon capture is something we've already been working on quite extensively. And we have a new technology project called Cicalo, which I'll come back to with a few more details, which aims at developing a CO2-free emission production process. We also have an update as usual on the ESG performance. We continue to deliver good results and get good feedback from the rating agencies. In the third quarter we were awarded platinum rating from Ecovadis. which puts us among the top 1% companies in the industry. We were also rated in the 98th percentile by S&P Global, which means that we're also here among the best companies in the industry. It is an important target for us to reduce CO2 emissions, primarily generated in the production of silicon and ferrosilicon. And the target is to reduce absolute emissions by 28% by 2031, which corresponds to a product carbon footprint reduction of almost 40% when you factor in expected growth in the same period. So, We appreciate that this could be a challenging target due to existing framework conditions and I would say limited willingness among our customers to pay a premium for lower CO2 content. CCS will definitely require significant investments and is reliant on, we think, both OPEX and CAPEX support from governments in order to be realized. But we will, in any case, continue our R&D efforts to reach a net zero situation by 2050. So this is the project I just mentioned. It stands for Silicon Production with Carbon Looping, CICALU. The concept involves capturing and recycling carbon in the process of gas and then reuse the carbon as a reductant in the production process. So you keep carbon in a continuous loop, which then has the potential to eliminate CO2 emissions. This is one of our main initiatives, if you take a longer-term perspective, towards 2050. It's a collaboration project with SINTEF and also a consortium of other industry players and research institutions like NORS here in Norway, also Future Materials, and support from the Norwegian Research Council. So we are definitely not going at this alone. We are looking at part of it. Other parties are looking at other part of this production process chain. It will require extensive resources, no doubt about that, and we are very pleased that Enova has granted 31 million NOC to a medium-scale pilot testing, which will take place in Kristiansand in Norway. Commissioning of two pilot reactors has been successfully conducted this year and will be used in test campaigns starting now until the end of 2027. We also received 20 million NOC funding from EU as part of a Horizon Europe project. Then coming to the financial performance, the macroeconomic sentiment is still challenging. Let's say with limited tailwind from markets. And a substantial part of Elkem's improvements in 2024 are due to internal improvements. This is particularly the case in the silicones area. Just to mention some of the main initiatives or measures. Sales mix optimization, both trying to boost sales and also optimizing customer and product mix. Raw material sourcing for obvious reasons and yield improvements. That's very often goes hand in hand. This includes new sourcing alternatives. Of course, all of this with the aim of reducing cost, organizational streamlining, and demanding reductions, and simplifying the organization structure. So in other words, when we run, we want to run lines and plants flat out. One consequence of this is that we are closing a smaller silicones facility in Lübeck in Germany. And in the third quarter we also booked restructuring expenses of 54 million NOC in connection with this program. The target is to improve EBITDA by 1.5 billion NOC this year compared to last year. We are ahead of plan, happy to say that, and by the end of the third quarter, we have realized improvements of approximately 1 billion. These improvements have an estimated full-year effect for 2024 of 1.4 billion. So in other words, we expect to reach our target with additional initiatives in the fourth quarter. But of course, with limited time remaining this year, it's limited also how much that will directly impact the bottom line. We're also looking at CapEx reductions, a very important part of the program. The plan was to reduce CapEx with 2 billion, compared with last year, which would bring us to a level of 3.2. So as you can see here on the graph, the total investments amounted to 1.9 billion by the end of this quarter, which means that also here we are ahead of our target. Investments are expected to be somewhat higher in the fourth quarter, but we will still be well within the target for the full year. So after completion of the expansion project in China, the main ongoing projects now are related to silicones in France and also carbon solutions in Brazil with completion later this year and in the beginning of next year. so we've had as you who follow us know a quite extensive upstream investment program recent years and we we have a very high technical standard now on on the lcam business or the outcome production facilities which means that we also have flexibility going forward to focus more on regular maintenance and channel investments more into downstream development and specialization, which is by nature less capital intensive. The China project has been a significant investment. We have given regular updates on this project and it was completed on time and cost with first commercial deliveries in May I'm happy to say that we during this quarter reached an operating rate of close to 80% and there are no indications that we will not reach the sign capacity and that that will happen during the fourth quarter. We've been a bit cautious to talk about the financial impact of this project this year given the nature of startups and expected uncertainties. But as I mentioned initially, it has delivered an EBITDA contribution of 75 million in the quarter, which we are very happy with. And it also, I think, demonstrates that the target of reducing costs and improving productivity and energy efficiency are being reached. We think we can claim now that this production line is on level with the lowest cost capacity in the silicones industry in the upstream part. Then moving on to markets, the market development in China is still quite challenging. We are quite heavily exposed towards construction and automotive, which are very important sectors for Elkem, and the two graphs to the left, no, must be to the right. I think, show development in new housing projects and car production. China's property market has been in a severe downturn since 2021 and which has weighed heavily on the economy and economic activity in general and reduced consumer confidence. So if you look at the statistics year to date August 2024 indicates that new housing projects have declined 23% year to date and if you compare with The same period in 2022, new housing projects are down 42%. Vehicle production in China is showing better development. Production year-to-date in August was 18.7 million units, which is up 2% compared to the same period last year. The share of EVs continued to grow and represented 38% by August, which is up from 30% last year and 23% the year before, 2022. In September, China's central bank announced its biggest stimulus package since the pandemic. So with the funding and interest rate cuts aimed at boosting especially the real estate sector and to increase consumer spending. It has received mixed receptions in the market, but I think in general there is a positive reaction to this. We have talked about how I mentioned dual play growth as an important part of Elkem's strategy. The objective is to develop supply chain resilience by being geographically independent. Having independent supply chains in the western part of the world and in the eastern markets. And we essentially sell products produced in Europe and the Americas in those regions and similarly production based in China is primarily sold in China and in some Asian countries. So we did this. We started doing or following this direction already in 2017-18 in order to mitigate the risk of impact from trade restrictions. So we think this has been a right strategy and it's underlined by recent international trade developments. The US announced increased tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, electrical vehicles, from 25% up to 100% in May this year. And the EU states have voted in favor of introducing a tariff on Chinese-made electrical vehicles, which is proposed to be up to 45%. And in addition, the US is investigating anti-dumping and anti-subsidy practices on ferrosilicon from countries like Brazil, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties have already been imposed on Russian material with rates of 283 and 449 percent respectively. Very high actually levels. And substantial anti-subsidy and anti-dumping rates could also be imposed on imports from these other countries, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Brazil. If we look a bit closer on the silicones market, demand is generally weak, mainly due to lower economic activity and also impacted by Chinese overcapacity. Elkem and other global players have announced a global price increase on specialties. This is now being implemented. There are a number of different contractual obligations here, so it's a bit difficult to be precise on the direct impact of it. But it has also had an impact on commodity prices, actually. And profit margins in China have been under significant pressure and many producers took the opportunity to also raise prices on DMC and other intermediates when the price increases on specialties were announced. So as a result, we've seen a modest price increase for DMC, hardly noticeable on this graph, but there is a rather small increase, and combined with lower prices on silicon metal, we see somewhat improved margins for silicon players during this quarter. The price development going forward is still very uncertain. We expect that the stimulus package in China will have some positive effect, but will also be countered by ramp up of new capacity. So, and the average operating rate for new upstream silicones producers in China is around 80%. Not new, but for the upstream silicones production in general is about 80% in the third quarter. relatively decent level but if you look at the overall supply-demand situation we think there's nothing that supports any significant price increase. We'll continue to see some some ups and downs but it's expected that this will probably keep the markets at the current levels. In the EU, when we look at silicon and ferro-silicon, it has also remained quite stable during the whole year. Underlying demand is relatively weak but has been countered by capacity adjustments. And the prices for silicon and ferro-silicon in the US have declined slightly, but remain at a significantly higher level than what's the case in the EU. The potential anti-dumping duties I just mentioned on ferro-silicon from Russia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, and Malaysia represent an opportunity for us. So we are channeling more sales into the US market. Silicon prices in China remain on a very low level historically due to weaker demand and several producers are suspending production now that we're moving into the dry season. So increased Chinese exports to the EU could impose some additional pressure on prices. in Europe, but index prices so far remain stable. So I think if you look at silicon, it's quite similar to silicones. It will remain, I think, under pressure due to overcapacity and a relatively weak demand, but no significant stock movements as we can see. So production is pretty much balanced with demand. When we come to the carbon products area, this is much smaller than silicon and silicones, and we don't really operate with reference prices in this market. Demand for carbon products varies across regions, but its underlying driver is steel, which again drives demand for ferroalloys, and also aluminium is an important driver to look at. Global steel production in the third quarter was down 4% compared to last year and that was mainly a result of lower production in China. The production in Europe and North America is stable, but low, and markets are generally weak. But we have a strong position and a good portfolio of specialty products, which is contributing to maintaining stable performance across all regions. So that sums up the market update. Morten, the floor is yours.

speaker
Morten Viga
CFO

Thank you very much, Helge, and good morning, everybody. I'm very pleased to go through the main financial numbers in our Q3 presentation. As always, we start with the main numbers. Our operating income amounted to 8 billion NOK, which is up 3% compared to the same quarter last year. The silicones division had increased operating income, which is mainly explained by higher sales volumes, particularly from our expansion project. For the other two divisions, the sales volumes were relatively low in the third quarter, which also gave lower operating income compared to the corresponding quarter last year. EBITDA for the quarter amounted to 1.2 billion OK, which was the highest since the first quarter 2023. Both silicones and silicon products reported significant improvements compared to last year. But here we should of course remember that silicon products had one-offs in third quarter last year of 220 million NOC related to inventory write-down and also to changes in the Norwegian CO2 compensation scheme. And the EBITDA of 1.2 million NOK for the quarter, it represents a margin of 15%. And it's still a quite low margin, but it is within the long-term target corridor of 15 to 20%. And it is a good improvement from previous quarters. And we have, as we said, been able to generate this in a weak market sentiment. There were no particular one-off items affecting the EBITDA this quarter. As always, we have, for your benefit, provided an overview of some of the main financial numbers and ratios. I will not go into detail on all of them, but as I said, there were no major one-off items this quarter. EBITDA amounted to 1 billion NOK and 235 million NOK. This included realized losses on the currency hedging program of 38 million NOK. Other item was six minus 68 million NOC consisting of losses on power and currency derivatives totaling minus 35 million NOC and as mentioned restructuring expenses of 54 million NOC in the silicones divisions. This was partly countered by currency gains of 12 million NOC and net other items of nine million NOC. Net finance expense amounted to minus 197 million nok, consisting of net interest expenses of 179 million nok, currency losses of 23 million nok, and net other financial items of plus 3 million nok. Tax expenses for the quarter were high, minus 155 million nok, which gives a tax rate of 57%. It's basically the same picture as previous quarters. Taxable profit in silicones was still low, which explains why the tax rate is relatively high. Then I would like to give an update on our Vino position. As you may recall, we divested our stake in ViaNode in March this year to focus on our core business. We have received a portion of the sales revenue, but we hold a claim for deferred payments with a book value of 765 million NOK. And this payment is conditional upon specific milestones for the further development of BioNode. Based on recent developments, we see that the risk related to this payment has increased, and we will monitor the situation going forward. Let's then take a look at the results for the division and start with silicones. The results for the silicones division have improved steadily this year. The division counted for 48% of Elkim's revenue and 16% of the EBTA in the third quarter. As mentioned, we have not had much tailwind from the markets. Hence, the EBITDA improvements are predominantly coming from good results from our systematic improvement work, particularly on cost and productivity improvements. The total operating income in the third quarter was 3.8 billion NOK, which was up 20% from the third quarter last year. The increase in operating income was mainly due to higher sales volume. And the EBITDA was 202 million NOC from a loss of 268 million NOC in the corresponding quarter last year. This improvement was mainly explained by higher sales volume, operational improvements, and positive effects from the new production line in China. As mentioned by Helge, the project in China has had a successful startup and has generated an EBITDA of approximately 75 million NOK in the quarter. Sales volumes were up in all regions compared to the third quarter last year and reached 105,000 tons, which was the highest since Q3 2022. Let's then take a look at the silicon products division. The division counted for 42% of operating income and 63% of the group's EBITDA in the quarter and continued to deliver good results despite weak markets and lower sales volumes. The division had total operating income of 3.6 billion NOK in the third quarter, down 8% from the third quarter last year. Lower operating income was explained by lower sales prices and lower sales volume. EBITDA was 821 million NOC, up 56% from the third quarter last year. And the EBITDA margin represents or is 23%, which of course is a good level in today's weak market sentiment. As mentioned already, when comparing to the third quarter last year, we should, however, remember that last year was impacted by negative one-offs of 220 million NOC. We still run at the reduced capacity in our Salton plant, which is our biggest silicon plant, after the fire in December last year. Two of the plant's three furnaces have been put back in production since respectively January and April, but the last furnace is still idle. We expect that this funnel will restart production towards the end of this year. The expected insurance compensation is included to reflect the estimated operating losses compared to normal operations. And as mentioned, the market demand from sectors such as silicones, aluminium and steel markets remains weak. The carbon solutions division continued to show strong performance despite challenging markets. The division counted for 10% of the group's operating income and 20% of the EBITDA in the third quarter. The division has managed to compensate the weak market situation by a strong business model and good geographical diversification. Total operating income was 886 million NOC, down 13% from the third quarter last year. And this is mainly explained by lower sales prices. The EBITDA amounted to 269 million NOC, which is down 14% from the third quarter last year. And the reduction in EBITDA was mainly explained by lower sales prices, but this has been partly offset by lower raw material costs and internal improvements. Sales volume was in line with the third quarter last year. And the division has been able to partly offset low demand in certain regions by a very strong business model and a strong geographical diversification and presence in the local markets. Let's then go to some of Elkem's key financial ratios. The earnings per share, EPS, was 0.15 NOC in the quarter. And the improvement from last year, when it was negative, is mainly coming from improvements in EBITDA. And year-to-date, EPS is 0.80 NOC per share. The balance sheet is still, or is very solid. Total equity amounted to 25.7 billion NOK by the end of September, which gives an equity ratio of 49%. Equity has increased gradually with a stable equity ratio since the turn of last year. LKM's financing position, it remains very robust and stable. It is our clear focus to keep a strong liquidity position and a smooth maturity profile. And in this context, we're very happy to announce that we raised new bond loans, so 1.5 billion NOC in the third quarter, to refinance loans maturing in 2024 and early 2025. And the new financing has further improved our liquidity position and extended the maturity profile with no major maturities before 26 and particularly 27. As you may recall, in the first quarter, we entered into a covenant waiver agreement, which reduced the interest cover covenant from four to three for all quarters in 2024. And by the end of Q3, our interest cover ratio was 4.6, which means that we are above the original covenant level. Net interest bearing debt was 9.9 billion NOK by end of Q3, which was up by 0.6 billion NOK from the previous quarter. I should mention that we have in this quarter changed the definition somewhat as we have reclassified bank bills in China and taken that out of the net interest bearing debt. We believe this is a much better classification and more correct according to IFRS. These bills are, let's say, short-term financing in China. They do not carry interest, and with this change, we treat the bills payables the same way as we treat the bills receivables. The change does not affect the interest cover ratio, the bank covenant, but it has reduced the reported debt leverage by approximately 0.3. And based on the last 12 months EBITDA, the debt leverage was 2.7 at the end of Q3, and this was also an improvement from the last quarter. The long-term target is to bring the leverage within Elkim's financial target between one to two times, and we're heading in that direction. Cash flow from operations during the quarter was rather low, amounted to 32 million NOK. This was a low level compared to previous quarters and was explained by negative working capital changes. In particular, the inventory levels have gone somewhat up in the third quarter. due to rather slow markets and we're also taking out some capacity in Salton now in order to connect the new equipment after the rebuilding from the fire last year. This is a controlled and managed process and we clearly have good plans to bring down inventory later. When it comes to investments, the target is to reduce capex by 2 billion NOC compared to 2023, and we are ahead of that. Reinvestments and strategic investments ended at 537 million NOC in Q3 and 1.9 billion NOC year to date. This is ahead of our capex reduction target, and even though we do expect some higher investments in the last quarter, we should stay well within the target of 2 billion NOC reduction versus last year. And as Helge mentioned, we are very well invested in the capital intensive upstream part of the business. and that means that we have the flexibility to keep investments rather low going forward if needed, but we also have a good list of very exciting projects that we can pursue if we find that correct. So with that, I hand the word back to Helge to take us through the outlook.

speaker
Helge Aasen
CEO

Yeah, thank you, Morten. so as we have mentioned a few times now the market sentiment continues to be relatively weak but we will also continue to benefit from strong cost and market positions and well-defined improvement programs The silicon's market is still challenging, but the division expects to continue to benefit from EBITDA improvement programs and higher sales volumes. In silicon products, we expect a relatively stable market condition in the next quarter, but somewhat lower realized sales prices. And in carbon solutions, we expect stable performance. taking advantage also here of strong market positions and the geographical diverse base in carbon. So that concludes our presentation today. We are available for Q&A, so I'll hand that back to you, Olga.

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

Thank you. I just need to get the computer. But before we have received some questions on the webcast, before we go to those questions, I would like to see if there are any questions from the people in the audience here. If there are, just raise your hand. If there are not, we have quite a few questions on the webcast. I'll take some of the questions related to the results first. And the first question is, How much more effect of the improvement program can we expect in the fourth quarter?

speaker
Morten Viga
CFO

No, as Helge said, we are very happy that we are ahead of plan so far. We have realized the effects with an annual run rate of 1.4 billion. We keep on working. We constantly see new opportunities, better ways of doing, increasing productivity, etc. But of course, with the only two months more to go. There is obviously, you should not expect any major, major additional changes about the 1.5 billion OCT that we have communicated.

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

Okay, and the next question is also related to the result and how much more EBITDA can we expect from the new production line in China in the fourth quarter? Is the full effect already there or should we expect more?

speaker
Morten Viga
CFO

We are now gradually ramping up our new production line. Very happy to see that this is working very well. It's a lot of advanced technology put together. which will give us an excellent cost position. We're currently at around 80% utilization, 75 million NOC EBITDA in Q3. It will probably bore more in Q4, as we will have somewhat higher production. Going forward, of course, the EBITDA will be heavily dependent on market prices, both on raw materials and finished goods. But what we know is that this production line will give a significantly better cost and significantly better margin compared to the existing production line. But I cannot give any quantified numbers for next year.

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

Then there is a question related to investment levels. And the question is if the Q3 strategic investment level is representative for what we can expect also in 2025.

speaker
Helge Aasen
CEO

What can we say about that?

speaker
Morten Viga
CFO

No, on reinvestments, we have communicated a strategy that we will stay between 80% to 90% of depreciation. It should obviously not be too high, but reinvestment should not be too low either because we want to have a world-class technical condition on our assets, and that requires reinvestments. So you should count on 80 to 90% of depreciation, and then that will be somewhat north of 2 billion NOK per year, 500 million NOK per quarter going forward.

speaker
Helge Aasen
CEO

I think on the strategic investments, obviously we are working on budget and plans for next year, but I think we can safely say that it will be kept at a relatively low level.

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

Then there are coming in questions, so I go back to EBITDA. How much of the sequential quarter over quarter EBITDA increase in silicones was due to company specific factors, such as the new capacity, cost savings, and how much is due to underlying markets? And how much did the price increase in specialties contribute?

speaker
Helge Aasen
CEO

I can start a little bit. I think if you look at the improvement overall, I would say price, if you look at this over, say, last year and compare the same period this year, prices are down, but pretty much compensated by lower raw material costs. And the rest is a result of internal improvements. So there is no direct market, positive market impact or if you want to add something.

speaker
Morten Viga
CFO

No, I think that's a very good summary. We're pleased to see that the organization is working very hard on productivity and cost improvements. And that is, let's say, giving results. But of course, we also see that there still is a very long way until we have a good and robust profitability in that division. There is significantly more potential.

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

And the last question related to results. Could you please elaborate how to knock 765 million book value and why this is accounted for in your reported equity?

speaker
Morten Viga
CFO

That is accounted for as a receivable. We sold our shares at the fixed price. We received a portion of that sales price already in March. But the major part will be paid up on, let's say, certain milestones in the BioNode development. And as such, it's sitting in the receivables.

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

Then moving over to markets, there are a couple of questions related to silicones and xyloxane markets in China. How we expect, if we expect any capacity rationalization in xyloxane in China going forward. And if you are seeing any new supply additions and related to that is also kind of a question on how silicon supply and demand picture is looking in China and globally. And also, again, if you're seeing capacity rationalization.

speaker
Helge Aasen
CEO

i think we'll see over capacity also next year in in silicones there will be some new capacity coming coming in but we also see that that the industry is very quickly adjusting capacity utilization to to demand so i don't expect any significant inventory big inventory impact So this will be pretty stable, but obviously the overcapacity will keep or maintain a pressure on prices. So as I also mentioned in my presentation, there is no indication or anything that we can see that supports any significant improvement. Hopefully the stimulus package will increase economic activity, but I think it will take some time still before we see any real impact on the commodity price level. But there will be some... some ups and downs like we have seen this year.

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

Then we have a question related to silicon products and how we see the volume development for silicon products in the upcoming quarters.

speaker
Helge Aasen
CEO

also here very much linked to GDP development and especially looking at I would say both chemical industry and steel so again there are some positive indicators for higher economic activity in the recent macroeconomic analysis but I think since especially if you talk about silicon metal there is there is also here over capacity and I think Chinese exports as we have seen historically will play the role of swing production balance the market and that will also I think reduce any significant price fluctuation

speaker
Morten Viga
CFO

Maybe I can add a couple of points. In Q4, as I said, we will complete the rebuilding project in Solten. So towards the end of Q4, we will basically have full production. But in the final stage of that project, we also have to take out the two running furnaces. So there will be a reduced capacity utilization in Salton, which is our biggest silicon plant in Q4. Financially, this is covered by our business interruption insurance, so we should not have any financial consequence. Going forward, we are in a very good position because we are basically running at full capacity utilization in silicon products, more or less, while our competitors, which have not as good cost position, not as good competitive position as we are, they are more, let's say, swing producers. And that is clearly our target also going forward, to run at the very high capacity utilization. based on our cost and technology leadership.

speaker
Helge Aasen
CEO

So we're happy with Elkem's performance in a relatively weak market.

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

Then questions related to kind of the measures taken in the U.S. and the question is if Elkem is shifting more volumes to the U.S. to benefit from U.S. tariffs on Brazilian, Malaysian, Russian ferrosilicon and silicon metals. And also if we have channeled any volume out of the 96,000 tons in the third quarter already into that market.

speaker
Helge Aasen
CEO

We're definitely positioning ourselves for increasing sales in the US market.

speaker
Morten Viga
CFO

Also here we are in a very good position. Our biggest ferro-silicon plant is in Iceland. right in the middle between Europe and the US, so we have a very good flexibility in directing materials in the market where it's most profitable and attractive.

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

There's also a question regarding sales split, if you have any rough geographical split between Europe, US and Asia on silicon products?

speaker
Morten Viga
CFO

We have not communicated that per division, but we have given, let's say, good guidance on group level, where we basically say that in general, 40% of our revenues goes to Asia and predominantly China, 40% to Europe, and then 20% to North, South America, and also a small portion to Africa. And that's still a very good rule of thumb.

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

And then we have kind of more a question related to outlook and the results going forward. Considering your clear focus on investing in reducing emissions now that markets are subdued, should you read this as you are confident in improving cash flow in the upcoming quarters?

speaker
Helge Aasen
CEO

From investing environmentally? Yeah, that we are investing environmentally. That's not going to have an impact on financial performance. And we're also not investing.

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

No, more that the fact that we are investing is a sign that we are confident in improving cash flow. More the other way, that we are confident on results going forward.

speaker
Helge Aasen
CEO

making these investments possible trying to communicate is that we are very well positioned in that we don't see any major impact from market improvement so in other words i think outcome will continue to to deliver on the current levels and of course we are working hard on in our improvement program so we are definitely ambitious in order to to improve it but it's not going to come from the market in the short term

speaker
Odger Lingstad
Head of Investor Relations

Good, that kind of concludes the questions we have received on the webcast. Last chance for people in the audience to raise their hand if there are any questions. If not, that concludes our presentation today, and thank you very much for attending. Thank you.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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