Followed by one. Press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. Please note that the operator will control and unmute your line for your questions. It's my pleasure. I would now like to turn the conference over to Daniel Fairclough, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Francine. Hi and good afternoon, everybody. This, as Francine said, is Daniel Fairclough from the ArcelorMittal Investor Relations team. I'd like to welcome everybody to the fourth quarter and full year 2022 analyst and investor call. I'm joined on this call today by our Executive Chairman, Mr. Mittal, our CEO, Aditya Mittal, and our CFO, Genuino Christino. Before I hand over to Mr. Mittal and Aditya, I would like to remind everybody of a few housekeeping items. Firstly, I want to refer everybody to the disclaimers that you can find on slide two of the results presentation we published on our website this morning. I'd also like to remind everybody that this call today is being recorded, and it's scheduled to last up to 45 minutes.
Finally, to repeat Francine's instructions, if you would like to ask a question, then please do press star one on your telephone keypad, and we will answer the questions in the order we receive them. With that, I would like to hand over the call to Mr. Mittal to begin with some opening remarks.
Thank you, Daniel. Good day, everyone. Thank you for joining today's call. I hope you are all keeping safe and well. I'll be very quick in my remarks. I would characterize 2022 as another year of progress for ArcelorMittal. The results we have published today demonstrate the greater resilience of ArcelorMittal when facing more challenging market environments. I believe the worst conditions of this cycle have passed. As a company, we have achieved significant progress on many strategic fronts over the past 12 months, advancing our decarbonization plans, progressing with our investments to grow EBITDA, and at the same time, buying back over 10% of our equity. The progress is gratifying, and it's down to the hard work, commitment, and dedication of all our people. I expect 2023 to be another good year for company and all our stakeholders. Aditya?
Thank you, welcome everyone. In 2022, we have made clear progress on our three strategic priorities: the decarbonization of our footprint, the growth and development of our business, and capital returns to shareholders. On decarbonization, we have completed the acquisition of the HBI plant in Texas, allowing us to utilize low carbon metallics and creating significant optionality for the future. We have acquired four scrap processors in Europe with a total capacity of 1.2 million tons. We have commissioned our EUR 200 million CCU bioethanol project in Ghent, Belgium. We are progressing on our DRI-EAF plans in five countries, and our 1 GW renewable project in India is advancing.
On growth, we have now received CADE approval for the CSP acquisition, which we will complete this quarter, adding highest quality capacity at the bottom of the cost curve with the added benefit of access to growing sources of competitive renewables and hydrogen. We are also progressing our strong pipeline of high return strategic capex projects, including the newly announced electrical steel project in France. In total, these projects add $1.3 billion to a normalized earnings power. That has used long-term steel spreads and long-term iron ore prices well below today's levels. At today's levels, the impact on profitability would be even greater. We're making progress to realize the potential of our JVs, including the announcement of a major investment to double our capacity in India, which is also supported by the recently acquired port and power assets.
Our capital allocation and return policy is working very well. We're growing the earnings power of the business. We've bought back 30% of our equity since September 2020 and ended the year with record low net debt. In terms of outlooks, we have seen some positive signs recently that suggest we are past the bottom of the current destock cycle. The customer destock that we spoke of the last quarter has eased, and we've seen improvement in steel spreads from the unsustainable lows of the fourth quarter last year. We are forecasting apparent demand growth in all our core markets. We're well-placed to generate positive cash flow, and we'll continue to progress our decarbonization and growth agendas and capital returns program. Genuino, can I now ask you to provide some more detail on our financial performance?
Thank you, Aditya. In terms of our financial performance, 2020 was very much a year of two halves. For the first half, we operated in strong market conditions and delivered very strong levels of profitability. The second half of the year brought several challenges and saw a marked downturn in the market environment that naturally affected our profitability levels. Full-year EBITDA was $14.1 billion, of which $10.2 billion was generated in the first half and $3.9 billion in the second. Our results demonstrate clear resilience.
At $100 per ton, the EBITDA in the fourth quarter was double the levels of the previous crisis environment. Considering the challenges posed by restocking and relatively high energy costs, this really validates the actions we have taken and the improvements we have made to our portfolio in recent periods. Free cash flow has also been very consistent. Over the past two years, we have generated $13 billion in free cash flow. It is this consistency that is allowing us to progress our strategy agenda. As Aditya Mittal mentioned, we expect to continue to generate good levels of free cash flow in the year ahead. With that, I think we can move to your questions.
Yes. Thank you, Genuino. Thank you, Aditya. Thank you, Mr. Mittal. We have a queue of questions, and we will take the first in the queue, which is Alain, from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you, gentlemen. I have two questions from my side. The first one is on capital returns. I understand that your framework stipulates that only $100 million of buybacks are needed to meet your 50% of free cash flow, target for capital returns, but your net debt has come in far below market expectations for Q4, and you still have an authorization to buy back almost 19 million shares. Any reason why you have decided against maintaining the buyback at full steam given where your share price is today? That's my first question.
Thank you for the question. I'm glad you asked the question because we should clarify there is no change in our buyback policy or the speed at which we're implementing. We still have 19 million shares to acquire, and which we will do. I think all we were highlighting in the results is that the $100 million belongs to 2022, because that's 50% of our free cash flow that we've actually bought in January, and the remainder will apply to the 2023 capital return policy.
Okay. Thank you. That's very clear. My second question is around your EBITDA progression going forward, into Q1 and Q2 in terms of the key moving parts. Can you give us some pointers around that? You stated that we are past the bottom of the current destock cycle. Is it fair to assume that we are also past the bottom when it comes to quarterly EBITDA in Q4 last year? Thanks.
Well, let me take this one. Yeah, I think as we discussed at the time of our Q3 results, Alain, we were expecting a very severe level of destock in Q4. That's exactly what we saw. Really strong destock happening. It's hard really to say that the destock is over, but clearly it's not going to be as significant as it was in Q4. We start to see certain levels of, I would say, normalization. And our expectation that as we move forward, that the appearance to consumption will be closer to the real real demand. In 2022, I think it's important to put that into context. In Europe, if you look at Europe, the real demand was actually okay.
The real demand in the end of the year was we were close to breakeven, slightly positive. Really the destock that we start to see in Q3 and again, intensified in Q4, put a lot of pressure on the appearance steel consumption in the second half of 2002. That should normalize, and we should see appearance steel consumption get much closer now than to the real demand that we expect will continue to be, you know, moving sideways. That's one. I think another very important element that we can point out is the energy costs in Europe continue to come down, continue to normalize. As a result, our order books are improving. We see that.
Again, that's going to be the non-occurrence of the very strong destock of Q4. Trying to put all this together, I would maybe start with shipments. Our expectation is to see shipments improving in Q1 in all of our regions. Prices, as you know, because prices continued to decline during quarter four and because of lags, our prices, we expect, will continue to be affected in quarter one. As we know, prices have since started to move up quite significantly, so that it looks good for our second quarter. Prices, we discussed. Volumes up. Costs, we expect costs to continue to come down.
Even though we are seeing more recently, of course, iron ore prices, coal prices moving up, we will not see so much of an impact in quarter one because of the very lag costing. Those are the moving parts. I think as we start the year, I think we are cautiously optimistic. We have guided for appearance to consumption for the year to be up 2%-3%, and we are guiding for 5% improvements in our shipments for the year. I will stop here, Alain, see if you can add any thoughts.
Thank you.
Thank you, Genuino. Maybe just a few quick points to add. I think, Genuino went into a lot of details, I appreciate that. Overall, Alain, you asked, do you see the worst behind us? I think we do. When we look forward, we think coal is at the lowest point in the current cycle. We expect Q1 and going forward, the business to perform better. The appearance to consumption numbers now match almost the real demand numbers that we're forecasting in our core markets. There's also, good development on the real demand side. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Alan. We'll move now to our next question from, Tristan at BNP Paribas Exane. Go ahead, Tristan.
Yes, hi. Thank you for taking my question. Maybe if you could shed some light on the full year volume guidance. You mentioned that the guidance implies no change in Ukraine. Could you give us a sense of the current output levels at the moment? Is it fair to assume that this is the base case scenario upon which your free cash flow guidance is based on?
Thank you for the question. We have not really provided free cash flow guidance. We have provided shipment guidance, and we expect our shipments to build at 5% year-on-year, and this obviously includes Ukraine. In terms of Ukraine, I think first of all, I must say that our people have been absolutely heroic. They have been maintaining the operation, they have been defending themselves and our facility, and we're all extremely proud of them and we really applaud everything that they're doing on a daily basis. The focus of our people has been to maintain our assets, maintain its integrity. We are I think critical, the critical implication of that is that we are maintaining our opportunity to produce steel in the future.
Today, the operating levels are roughly 15, 20... 15%-20% for steel and 20%-25% for our ore mines. As you know that, the facility in Ukraine is vertically integrated. It has its iron ore mines connected to our steelmaking and makes long products. Clearly, can participate in the reconstruction, redevelopment of Ukraine, when there is peace.
Okay. That's, that's very helpful. Maybe just a quick follow-up on the volume guidance. In Europe, you have a couple of blast furnaces have been idle at the moment, and I think only one has been restarted so far. Does your volume guidance include some additional restarts in the region? Is there some possibility when you look at certain blast furnaces being idle that some are now cold idle or some close to the end of life? This is context of decarbonization. Maybe some of those blast furnaces will not restart. Is that a fair possibility? Thank you.
Yeah. Let me hop on actually. Yeah. I think the we are bringing production back as we see improvement to our order book, right? That's we have been also very consistent on that. We will always match our supply to the demand that we see. We are not bringing capacity back in anticipation of an improvement. It's really responding to the dynamics, the order books that we have in front of us. At this point in time, we have some of the furnace that we brought down during Q4. As you know, they were for maintenance. They are up and running. We have made all the announcements. Some order furnaces are up today.
We only have one furnace in Dunkirk that is smaller furnace that is down, that is close to end of life, that we may or may not bring back, but that remains available to the group. All of our capacity remains available to the group.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Tristan. We'll move now to the question from Patrick at Bank of America. Go ahead, Patrick.
Good day, and thank you for the opportunity. I wanted to ask just how you're thinking about the other 50% of free cash flow, which for the strategic acquisition. I mean, when we look at your current footprint, you know, the big acquisitions have been the Texas HBI, CSP, and the recycling businesses. Is that how we should think about going forward, that you'll look for bolt-on and I suppose low carbon feedstock? You know, basically how are you thinking about it going forward?
Yes. Thank you. You know, that's a great question. Yeah, I think you're right, fundamentally. I'll just add a little bit more color to your question. We continue to be focused on how we can effectively deploy our strategic capital. We are looking at opportunities which help us decarbonize our business further or create advantages for us as we decarbonize. We're looking for low cost, higher margin assets. Clearly the real fundamental decision making is how much value do we create, right? What are the returns of these projects, and then included, and how do we continue to grow and develop the business keeping all of these factors in mind. I think in 2022 we did a great job, right? We deployed our strategic capital appropriately.
Texas, Brazil, scrap processors, renewable investment in India, XCarb Innovation Fund deployment in different and new technologies. We managed to return a lot of cash to shareholders buying back 11% of the company. As you saw this morning, we also increased our base dividend. I think you should expect more of the same, i.e. a balanced approach in terms of growing and developing the business, but also returning cash and value to shareholders.
Thank you.
Thanks, Patrick, as we'll move now to a question from Dominic at JP Morgan.
Hi, thanks for taking the question. I have two questions. First on working capital, given the initiatives that you have for 2023, could you maybe just talk to us about how you are thinking about your normalized working capital levels for maybe 2023 and maybe even long-term? Second question, again, really interested in your comments on, you know, the destocking cycle. Could you maybe just drill into a little bit on the U.S., how you see the U.S. playing out in current markets? Thank you very much.
Yeah, maybe I'll start with the working capital question, Dominic. As you know, we have invested significantly in 2021, 2022. We had, of course, a good release already in quarter four. You can see now release that our expectation is to continue to release working capital in 2023. We are not quantifying that, what give us confidence that we should be able to see that is the fact that the cost of our inventory, the cost of our metal stock is still impacted by the high raw materials that we bought in the first half of 2022. That's one.
Second, the energy costs also that were very high, especially in Europe, up to Q3, also is due to some extent sits in our inventories. As costs normalize, then naturally we would see our requirements for working capital to come down. That's one aspect. Typically, where as we restocked ourselves in Q4, you see also an impact in payables. As we restart also procurement of raw materials, then you recover that support from suppliers as well. That really give us confidence. Of course, I mean, the dynamics, the working capital dynamics, as we know, will be really much pretty much impacted by what happens in the last three, four, five months of the year. That's our expectation.
That's what we can see today. In terms of the destocking, I think the dynamics that we see, they are relatively similar. In the U.S., we also saw in the second half a significant destock, especially in flats, much more than in some of the other segments, longs and tubular. Our expectation is that we should start to see that normalizing as well. The dynamics are the same, although the levels, the intensity of the destocking in Europe, they were greater.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks, Dominic. Now we'll move to our next question from Rochus at Kepler. Go ahead, Rochus.
Thanks for taking the question. Yeah, let me go back to your volume guidance. I think the 5% you're expecting to grow this year is, I guess, quite a constructive number, particularly as you are still, you know, dealing with kind of a recessionary environment. What I'd like to understand is what your, you know, kind of real demand assumption is behind. Are we talking about kind of a flex demand you're seeing for the whole of 23? In times of the dynamics of whether we end up in a softer or in a hard landing scenario for the Western world, in your guidance, have you baked in kind of a similar real demand level in the second half compared to H1? Or is there any major variation to that for the second half?
Maybe I will just start with the macro, and if we need to provide you further details, I'm sure Genuino can supplement. I think we started with the call by saying that we have a constructive outlook. It's predicated on a few elements. The first is that we feel that the destock has peaked, and there's a lot of evidence of that just based on how our customers are ordering, and what we see in terms of real demand and apparent demand. The second I would add is that energy costs, even though they're still very elevated, have eased relative to the second half, particularly relative to the fourth quarter. Clearly that's positive momentum as we enter 2023, and is also positive in terms of real demand, right?
The energy complex is not just impacting ArcelorMittal, but it impacts all European industry and impacts European consumer, as we're all well aware. In terms of the things that remain outstanding, I mean, first and foremost is Ukraine, where we don't have a resolution of peace, but the immediate direct economic impact of energy has eased. We also have a tightening monetary condition environment, right? That's offsetting the inflationary pressures that we have seen in 2022. Those headwinds remain. China, we still have to see how China comes out of their holiday season and what type of demand environment. We're also constructive in China. That is why considering all of these factors that the overall the destock has peaked.
We see that the energy complex the pricing has eased, and that's a positive headwind. Yes, there are tightening monetary conditions, but perhaps not to the same degree that you would have forecasted a few months ago.
Relatively good news flow out of China, allows us to have a constructive apparent steel consumption outcome. Interestingly enough, in almost all markets, you know, whatever numbers we have posted in our presentation matches the real demand environment, real steel consumption environment. It's not that we are forecasting an inventory build into 2023. What we're forecasting is real demand improvement relative to 2022.
Okay. Understood. maybe on CSP, can you give us an update when in the Q1 you expect to close the transaction? Do you have any update numbers in terms of what CSP is actually shipping? Maybe also any hint on what their EBITDA performance is at the moment?
Rochus, the transaction should close now end of the month, right? I think we will update you in Q1 in terms of performance. Of course, at this point in time, the level of information that we have is limited. We believe we have evidence that the company continues to do quite well. We are encouraged by that. I think the whole team in Brazil is very excited to waiting for the transaction to close. I'm sure we will have the opportunity to update you on performance expectations for that plant as we meet in quarter one. The transaction closes end of end of this month.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Rochus. We'll move now to question from Max at Oddo. Go ahead, Max.
Hey, good afternoon. I have a first question on ACIS, because in your press release, you seem quite cautious on the evolution of the region this year. Given the extent of company specific issues you faced last year, could we expect a better performance for your own operations? Perhaps, can you give a sense of how things will develop too in South Africa, because you had a number of issues too last year? Should we expect a rebound too there? That's first question.
Max, I missed the last part of your question. A rebound where, sorry?
In South Africa, given that you had also a number of issues, there last year.
Yeah, sure. Well, as you know, we have guided for apparent steel consumption to be up by about 2%-3%, and we are guiding for 5%. That implies that we expect to be doing a little bit better than the apparent steel consumption overall. Some of the reasons, you mentioned one of them, South Africa. South Africa had a number of operational issues in 2022. Not all of them under control of our unit. As we know, the country is facing significant challenge in terms of energy availability and rail availability. We hope that the country and us with the providers, we're gonna be making some progress. Our expectation is to see an improvement over there.
In the other regions, we do expect to be following the apparent steel consumption guidance that we are providing. We do expect to do better in some of the regions. In Brazil, a little bit better. We also expect to do a little bit better in NAFTA. That's why we are taking a target to do for 5% instead of the 2%-3%.
Okay. Thank you. The second question is on your decarb initiatives, notably on DRI-EAF. You got a green light in Canada recently, but your projects in Europe are still somewhat stalling. Could you give us a sense of the timeline of timing there, when you can get final go ahead in Europe and potentially launch those projects?
Sure. Thank you. You're right. In Canada, we have received the government support for our decarb initiatives at the Dofasco facility. In Europe, we're still waiting. We have four applications or four major projects that are sitting with the European Union. It's been a while for them to grant us the approval. From what we understand, the approval should be granted shortly. I mean shortly, in the next few months.
Okay. That's a good news. Will they take a decision for the four initiatives combined, or will it be an individual decision for each of them?
It's a very good question. From what we understand, it's an individual decision-making process. Maybe two out of the four will be done first, and then the other two later on.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thanks, Max. We will now move to the next question from Phil at KeyBanc. Go ahead, Phil.
Hey, thanks very much. Question on the NAFTA segment. How is the ramp of the Mexican hot strip mill going? Maybe you could give us a capacity utilization or some progression there and an update on your plans to support Calvert with a local EAF.
Phil, I'll take this one. We have, we are quite pleased with the evolution of the hot strip mill in Mexico. We have, you know, end of the year with run rate of about 50% of the capacity. We had a record in December, the team's quite excited about the progress over there. It's about 50%, and that's our run rate today. We will continue to ramp up the hot strip mill. The focus has also moved a little bit now, to more towards also product development, homologation with customers so that we can enlarge the customer base. I think it's progressing well. We have actually in our release, provided the contribution of the hot strip mill.
We are already at a run rate of about $100 million of additional EBITDA, which is in line with what we had anticipated before. After the full ramp up should be generating about $250 million contribution. I think we are moving in the right direction there. In Calvert, we are progressing well also with the EAF. Our expect completion date is end of the year, we will take it from there. I think it works well. I mean as we start the in Calvert, we should also be making progress with the ramp up of the hot strip mill in Mexico. I think it's a good balance.
These labs that are today being transferred to Mexico can then stay and be rolled and sold domestically in Mexico.
Thank you. Just a follow-up if I could. Any update on what your automotive customers are telling you in NAFTA and Europe in terms of how they expect the year to play out, or, you know, anything there in terms of what you're seeing as well on the order book? Appreciate it.
Yes. Well, I think we saw it, the second half of last year ended relatively well, right? Especially in Europe. We had a very bad first half and things slowly improved in the second half. I think we ended the year with a little bit of an improvement in terms of production. We had also similar production increases in NAFTA. We believe that the demand for automotive, the backlogs, the low levels of inventory should continue to support production. Our expectation is that we will continue to see progress, increase in production, automotive production in 2023.
That should be, and I think at this point in time, I think we are looking at something in the range of 5% increase for 2023.
Thank you.
Thanks, Phil. We will move now to Andy Jones at UBS. Go ahead, Andy.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Just a follow-up on the decarb plans. Can you just remind us of what you were expecting from those potential subsidies? I mean, you talked about potentially 50% of the CapEx potentially coming from government sources. What exactly are you asking for? Can you remind us what the expected sort of CapEx you'd like it to be on those four DRI plans, and how much do you think potentially could come from government space?
Sure. Thank you. We have not specifically broken down the CapEx per project. But I would refer to our climate action report. In the climate action report, we talked about reducing our overall carbon footprint by 25% by 2030, and 35% in our European footprint. We outlined a CapEx of $10 billion to achieve that. We suggested there that government grants would be approximately 50%. The net CapEx to us is about $5 billion. That remains the plan. As these projects get approved and finalized in terms of engineering, design, and scope, and we are mature, we will be updating you on all of your on all the questions that you have asked.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Andy. We will move now to our final question from Bastian at Deutsche Bank. Go ahead, Bastian.
Yeah, thanks, Phil. Good afternoon all. My question is on the regulatory side and CBAM specifically, and I think we just had the vote from the European Parliament today. Could you please give us your view on the outcome of the trilogue meeting in December? Is this really good enough? What else needs to be addressed to shape the regulatory environment in a way that it makes it suitable for you to get the decarbonization done? Thank you.
Sorry, could you just repeat the last bit of your question? What do we need done? I wasn't clear.
Sorry. Basically, we obviously have the CBAM, maybe you have some color on the funding support. We were obviously discussing CapEx earlier. I guess outside maybe the CBAM and what is decided here so far, what else, if you need to be done to basically give you enough confidence that you can go ahead with the decarbonization and make these projects actually a positive return project and not just a negative one.
Yeah. Okay, great. That's very clear. Thank you. You highlighted a lot of it already, I will just add a little bit more detail.
The first thing is, the previous question was the same. We're expecting funding support from the European Union. Once the European Union approves it, the various countries are actually providing that funding support. If you have a project in Germany, it's actually the German government, et cetera, et cetera. That's the first. That's CapEx support. The second, the CBAM is important to create a level playing field because in Europe, as you know, there is a ETS system, the emissions trading system, which imposes cost on people who emit CO2, steel coming into the country should have equivalent cost. The same in terms of exports. We need some export relief. There is a CBAM legislation, there's going to be a trial.
I think that's a great development because it's good to see the trial. We will all learn and develop from it, and there'll be more clarity on the CBAM, and I think it's clear that the intent is to make it effective. Clearly, the trial and the details will go a long way in determining how effective it actually is. The third thing is really the IRA in the United States. You can see there's an active dialogue in the European Union to ensure that the EU remains globally cost competitive, whether it is the cost of energy or the cost of hydrogen or the cost of CCS.
I hear that's another very important element because the change since we've announced all of these projects has been the bill in the United States, which creates a very favorable climate in North America. Trying to bring some of those advantages into Europe is also very important. Having said that, I would just add that one of the strengths of ArcelorMittal is the fact that it is global. We have assets in the U.S., we have assets in Europe, we have assets in Brazil. These are all centers which have access to... and not necessarily Europe, but we have assets in locations which have access to either low cost energy or can benefit from bills like the IRA.
The Texas acquisition that we made in Corpus Christi is a great example because there are a lot of CCS projects, a lot of hydrogen projects. It is really the basin of energy. We have a very good strategic asset there which we can grow and develop to supply low carbon metallics on a global basis. Your question was on returns. Clearly that is the most important. As we decarbonize our business, we have to generate an adequate return. We have to make sure the business is stronger, not weaker, post this investment.
And as we implement these investments and, getting back to the previous question, providing details on the CapEx, where it's being executed first, what is the level of government support, we will provide you a clarity on what is the return profile. Just like what we've done with our strategic CapEx, where we talked about $4.2 billion of CapEx, $1.3 billion of EBITDA. In my opening remarks, you must have heard the highlight that this is based on long-term steel spreads, long-term iron ore prices, which are much lower than what we're seeing in the market today. We'll provide you with that framework as we embark on these large scale decarb projects in our facilities.
Excellent. Thanks for the clear follow that color. Maybe just a very quick follow-up on the IRA. On your I guess your strategic envelope is basically, at least from that side, unchanged. You added the project in France, but at least versus the IRA it is unchanged. While obviously potentially at least the IRA does give you some potential for other projects maybe to also tap those funds. Is there anything which you're working on and which you have in mind? Or do you actually see the IRA more as a case where it's actually gonna drive your demand and support it nicely, but you're not really gonna go out there and try to develop a larger scale project to take advantage of it?
That's a good question. We all see the demand impact. I think that's something that has been widely discussed. I mean, there's always the Buy American provision and the impacts that can have and has had in the US steel industry. I would say there is an investment opportunity. That is absolutely clear. I think the determinant on those investment opportunities are twofold. There will be some investment ideas, and that's where the strategic capital comes into play, which are great on a standalone North American perspective and others which are global. I think for that we have to have clarity on the IRA rules.
The IRA has been passed as a law, but the actual detail and the rules will be decided the summer of this year. I think soon after there will be a similar exercise in Europe. I think post that clarity, you can make the appropriate investment decisions. At this point in time, there's nothing imminent, but clearly something that we are looking at very actively.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Okay, great. Let's conclude. Thank you very much, everyone. I think we have covered a lot of ground on the call today. If you need anything more, any more clarifications, please do reach out to Daniel and his team. They're always available. With that, we will conclude this call. Stay safe and keep those around you safe as well. Thank you, and all the best.