Daniel, you can start.
Thank you. Hi, good afternoon, and good morning, everybody. This is Daniel Fairclough from the ArcelorMittal Investor Relations team. This morning, we published our results for the fourth quarter and full year 2018, alongside a Q&A document and presentation with detailed speaker notes. The intention of today's call is not to go through that presentation, but rather answer any of the questions that you might have. The whole call today is scheduled to last about 45 minutes. If you do want to register a question, please do press star one, and we'll take questions in the order that they are received. With that brief opening, I'll hand over to our chairman and CEO, Mr. Mittal.
Thank you. Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's call to discuss our results and the strategic progress achieved in 2018. I am joined on today's call by Adit Mittal, CFO, CEO of ArcelorMittal Europe and President of ArcelorMittal. Simon Wandke, CEO of our mining business, as well as Jai Mino, our head of finance. Before we move to Q&A, I would like to start today's call with a few remarks. My first point is that 2018 was a year of good progress for ArcelorMittal. Our financial results were the strongest for many years. We regained our investment-grade rating. We undertook a number of strategic initiatives to strengthen and expand our operating footprint. Most importantly, we achieved our best-ever health and safety performance. Turning to our financials, our EBITDA increased by 22%, and our net income of $5.1 billion is 13% higher year-on-year.
This performance was largely driven by our steel business, which operated in a positive market environment in 2018. Turning to our balance sheet, net debt of $10.2 billion was stable year-on-year, primarily due to a larger than anticipated investment in working capital of $4.4 billion. Nevertheless, our balance sheet is stronger than it has been at any time since the creation of ArcelorMittal. This is best highlighted by our net debt to EBITDA ratio, which stood at one time at year-end. This strong financial footing did enable us to progress several initiatives to invest in projects which we believe will create long-term sustainable value. We completed the acquisition of Votorantim and ILVA, both of which enhance our leading position in key markets.
We now await ratification of our offer for Essar Steel in India, which will provide us with a new exciting growth pillar in the world's fastest-growing steel market. Organically, we are investing in high-return opportunities unique to ArcelorMittal. Our investments in Mexico and Brazil are good example of projects that will enhance our ability to better serve our customers. These projects will increase the proportion of higher added-value products in our portfolio and will improve our profitability. Turning to the outlook for 2019, we expect steel demand growth in each of our markets, with ex-China demand growth similar to the pace we saw in 2018. While the issue of global overcapacity persists, the structural change we have seen in the industry over the past two years has delivered positive changes, resulting in healthier global utilization rates.
We must take full advantage of this in 2019, focus on improving our operational reliability, ensure the strategic growth initiatives we are undertaking are well executed in order that they deliver on their value creation potential. Thank you. We are happy to take your questions.
Thanks, Mr. Mittal. We'll move to the first question, please, from Seth at Jefferies.
Sorry, can you hear me, please?
Yes, we can. Please go ahead.
Great. To start out, obviously, we've seen significant weakness in global steel prices over the past few months, including some of your core markets like Europe and NAFTA. I realize that your realized prices in the fourth quarter only fell quite modestly. Can you please give us a bit of a sense of how you expect realized prices to progress in the course of Q1 and Q2? Beyond that, with the current raw materials cost inflation from iron ore, what would that imply for your metal spreads over that time period? Obviously, with partial vertical integration, you're in a unique position versus your peers. On a group level, how should we consider that going forward? Start there, please.
Sure. Thanks for your question. In terms of pricing, you're right. The impact of price weakness primarily in the December month will be reflected in Q1 results. This is a spot price impact. However, I do recognize that we also have contract exposure. Contract prices reset. That's a positive headwind as we enter 2019. The other factors, in terms of 2019, is our shipment performance. As we highlighted in our release, we had operational disruptions, which impacted performance in Q4. We also had demand weakness, which also impacted shipment performance in Q4. We expect both not to repeat themselves in 2019. We expect to do better from an operational perspective. Expect to have higher shipment performance into 2019. In terms of metal spreads, I think it's early days. As you're aware, there have also been price increase announcements in some of our core markets.
Clearly our expectation is that more than offsets our raw material price cost increases.
Thank you. When we consider the lead time to your orders in those different markets, I noticed you just commented that the price increases would more than increase raw materials pressure. Would that, in your opinion, be a benefit for Q2 or something that likely would need to wait until the back half of the year? Secondly, on the shipment performance, you've had 1.9 million tons of lost shipments in 2018 due to some planned and unplanned issues. Is the implication that we should expect that full 1.9 million tons back in 2019, or is that a more medium-term goal?
In terms of price increases, I think, clearly the price increases that you announced in January of this year impact second quarter performance, right? That's the lag. The lag is not greater than that. In terms of shipment performance, yes, our expectation is that we reverse the shipment loss of that amount. Plus, there's also growth in our markets, right? It's a combination of the two, reversing of the shipment loss, as well as growing as our core markets grow. It's not a medium-term objective, it's a 2019 objective.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Seth. We'll take the next question, please, from Alain at Morgan Stanley.
Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. Two questions from my side. Firstly, on slide number nine, you highlight one-off profit loss due to shipment of $0.3 billion. While thinking about the EBITDA bridges into 2019, is that the total amount that we should add back as a one-off, or is there more to it? How much of that amount was incurred in Q4 alone? The second question is on the remedial asset sales. Can you give us an update on the process? You seem to have written down the value of those assets again by $400 million. What has driven this impairment? Can you confirm that the total balance sheet amount is now at $900 million of those assets? Thank you.
Thank you. In terms of the shipment loss, yes, we have quantified that at about $300 million, which impacted our progress in terms of Action 2020. That should reverse itself in 2019 as we perform better in terms of operational performance. On top of it, as I mentioned earlier, the markets are also growing. We will also have growth in shipments and demand in the core markets in which we operate. I think that's the volume uplift that we are forecasting at this point in time for 2019 relative to 2018. In terms of the remedy assets, as you know, this is not a bilateral negotiation, it's a trilateral negotiation. We are the seller. We have announced our buyer, which is Liberty. The third party is the commission, which is the regulator. Clearly, they have had their review of our sale process.
As a result of their sale process, we have had to modify terms of the transaction, which has resulted in a higher remedy loss, which has resulted in impairment loss, which we have recorded in the fourth quarter due to these remedies. We have not quantified the exact number as to what it means in terms of the net asset liability, but you're in the ballpark.
Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Alain. We'll take the next question, please, from Cedar at Bank of America.
Thanks very much. Hi, guys. Just a question on Essar. I'm sure that you're aware that a lot of investors have been disappointed by the decision to grow in India. Obviously, you internally have a different view on the long-term growth story in the Indian market, which I think we can appreciate. Can you just talk more broadly again about the case for growth in steel? Obviously, you're paying a price tag for Essar that's at a significant premium to your own valuation. I think a lot of people are of the view that steel, in general, is an ex-growth market. Maybe not in India, but globally. Can you just talk strategically again about where we are with Essar, and how that fits again into your capital allocation? Thank you.
Okay, great. Cedar, thank you for the question. There are a lot of points, but maybe from the first, the most basic point, if you just look at the value of our transaction, there actually is a competing bid which has not been allowed by the courts, which is higher than the offer that we have made. If you look at the other transactions that have taken place in India, they mirror the values that we have paid. In terms of the asset that we are acquiring, to date, has 14 million tons of pelletizing capacity with small CapEx. It actually has 20 million tons of pelletizing capacity on the eastern coast of India. On the western coast of India, which is where all the growth occurs, you have an 8.5 million ton flat steel producer.
In terms of India growth, I think today India is already the second-largest steel market in the world. The only market which eclipses India is actually China. India is the fastest-growing steel market in the world. If you look at the per capita consumption of steel in India, it is actually very low compared to any global standards or even developing country standards. The potential is there, and we can see the growth actually occurring. Fourthly, there are natural barriers in India, trade barriers. They have minimum import pricing, they have tariffs. I think India is very focused on developing its own industrial backbone and not reliant on imports. I think the growth that exists in India is not really a growth that is available to imports, but primarily to domestic players.
Lastly, in terms of capital allocation, as you know, this is a joint venture with Nippon Steel. The impact on our balance sheet, the debt to equity would be about 2:1 . The impact on the equity is about 60%, which is about $1.6 billion. We've already spent $1 billion of that $1.6 in the investments we made for Uttam Galva and KSS. The incremental M&A outflow in 2019 is $600 million for completion of the Essar transaction.
Okay. Maybe one follow-up question. I appreciate the commentary around your own balance sheet implication, but I think a lot of people are a bit concerned about the actual debt that the asset will carry. We don't have earnings for Essar for a while, obviously, because it's not listed. If you do some assumptions, you get to maybe six, seven times net debt to EBITDA at the asset level. How do we get comfortable that that kind of leverage is actually sustainable at Essar, and that Mittal and Nippon are not necessarily on the hook for further capital injections in the future?
Cedar, that's a good question. I think it's fair to highlight, as we have in the presentation, that Essar is a profitable company. We have looked at its profit potential, its free cash flow generation, the amount of leverage we are taking, putting on the balance sheet. We're very comfortable with the debt-equity ratio and the debt that we're putting on Essar. As soon as the transaction closes, we can actually talk to you about the EBITDA of the company. Today it's all governed by confidentiality. What we are seeing in terms of EBITDA potential and the amount of leverage we're putting on the Essar Steel balance sheet.
Okay, perfect. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Cedar. We'll move to the next question, please, from Ioannis at Macquarie.
Thanks very much. Couple of questions on my side. The first on the automotive steel contracts you signed in Europe and the U.S. earlier this year. Are there any raw material pricing clauses that allow you to pass on higher raw material costs? The second question on the working capital. Given the volume guidance for this year and assuming raw material prices stay at the currently elevated prices, is it unrealistic to expect another year of investment in working capital that will more than offset the EUR 1 billion reversal that you've highlighted? Thank you.
Let's talk about auto. In terms of auto, when we look at our automotive business on a global basis, as I mentioned earlier, we are seeing improvement year-over-year. 2018 versus 2019, the automotive business in ArcelorMittal will do better. This is for various reasons, but clearly it's based on the new contracts that we have entered and our product capability that continues to surpass competitors. In terms of raw material adjustments, primarily these contracts are fixed price contracts, so there is no raw material adjustment. In terms of working capital, as you know, we had operational disruptions and we had a seasonal slowdown in Q4 and some inefficiency or opportunities that we see in terms of receivable management. Therefore, all things being equal, we expect a billion-euro reversal in working capital in 2019.
This is also the exact delta between our guidance for 2018 versus what we actually invested in working capital in 2019. In terms of working capital impacts going forward, I think you can model your own material assumptions, you can model our volume increases, and you can also model steel spreads, and come up with a number of what working capital would be for 2019.
Thank you. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Ioannis. We'll move to next question, please, from Kevin at Goldman Sachs.
Good afternoon. Given your assumptions of somewhat lower growth of steel shipments this year in most regions, do you expect to be able to How much of the 1.9 million tons of extra production do you expect to translate into shipments? Do you think there's any risk to that, unless there's a pickup in the macroeconomic environment?
Kevin, that's a good question. If you were to turn to page 19 of our slide, you would see that global growth, excluding China, is not so different than 2018, right? 2018, excluding China, growth was 2.1%. Including China, we're forecasting in 2019, 2%-3%. That's just on the macro. Clearly, China grew very strongly in 2018, and we have a more moderate or conservative forecast for 2019, and that's really impacting the global numbers. In terms of our expectation of shipments, clearly we will grow as the market grows. But as we had these operational disruptions in 2018, we retreated from our natural export markets. When I say natural export markets, these are markets which are near to our operating facilities. For example, in Europe, it's Northern Africa, it's Turkey. Could be also some higher value-added products in neighboring markets. We will be re-entering those markets with our tonnages.
Thank you. Maybe one more question on the automotive. As you said, fixed pricing. Given the ongoing raw material pressure, would those margins be up year-over-year, flat year-over-year? Can you give any color on that?
Overall, we're still expecting automotive to do better in 2019 versus 2018. Recognize that the raw material cost inflation doesn't impact us so directly in our North American business. It's an impact more in Europe as well as in our Brazilian business.
Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Kevin. We'll take the next question, please, from Charles at Bradford Research.
Good afternoon. In the U.S., obviously, there are no tariffs impacting Dofasco. Could you give us a figure on how much that cost you last year, and whether your new contracts for this year allow you to pass through the tariffs, which I understand weren't allowed last year?
When we look at our business, roughly, we are paying $100 million a quarter of additional tariffs of steel that we sell into the United States. That's primarily at Dofasco. In terms of passing on the tariffs, I think fundamentally we get the U.S. price and then we pay the tariff. That's our net back that we get for our Canadian business. There's no change to that. It's costing us about $100 million per quarter.
Okay. Is there any impact on your CST operations from the Vale production cuts on iron ore?
At this point in time, there is no impact on our operations. We call it ArcelorMittal Brazil Flat or Tubarão.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Great. Thanks. We'll move to the next question, please, from Rochus at Kepler.
Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking the question. The one is on ILVA. If I get the math right, your ILVA volume contribution in Q4 was just a couple of hundred million. If that's the right figure, it means that you operate very much below the capacity of your blast furnaces in operation. Can you give a bit of a color what's really driving the business, why it has been so weak over the last quarter, and is there any risk that you have to take down one of the blast furnaces? The second question is, can you give us a bit of a color on the excessive inventory you hold, to what extent this is on the raw material side, and to what extent it is on the steel product side? Third question is on your CapEx.
Are there any projects you have put on hold at that point in time in reflection to what was going on in the market?
Okay, great. Thank you. In terms of ILVA, look, we acquired the company 1st of November. The first order of business has been safety. If you look at ILVA's safety performance, it is much worse than what ArcelorMittal does. We have set the right tone at the top, and we intend to make improvement in ILVA safety performance. The second order of business has been to demonstrate that we're very focused on creating sustainable operations and are very conscious of our environmental footprint. We pursue an accelerated timeline to make sure that the emissions coming out of ILVA are contained. I think in the slide, there's a nice photograph of the raw material yard that we are building. The third order of business is clearly to make the operational turnaround. There are two aspects of the turnaround. One is the commercial.
I think that's much easier because we can plug and play into our raw material prices as well as into our sales and marketing infrastructure that we have in Europe. Clearly, the harder is the operational turnaround. ILVA was producing at a rate of 4.5 million tons. I think by the time we acquired, it was slightly lower than 4.5 million tons. Our focus has been to bring that production up to 6 million tons. That's our target for year one. So far, there is no reason or issue that we have seen why we can't achieve that. Our focus is to achieve 6 million tons of production capacity and shipments in ILVA in 2019.
From everything that we have seen, we are still very comfortable and confident that we will achieve EUR 310 million of synergy at ILVA, and there's another EUR 40 million of synergy for our other group companies. The total is EUR 350 million. In terms of excessive inventory, I would say that we talk about EUR 1 billion of reversal of 2019. That's the overspend in 2018. A majority of that is inventory, and there's a small bit which has to do with more efficient receivable collection. Out of that majority, half is stuck in raw materials and the other half is in finished goods.
On CapEx, what's the other question?
Sorry, I missed that. In terms of CapEx, look, when we look at these projects, we have a very strong gated approach. Often we want to find projects which are unique to ArcelorMittal, and we look at these projects through the cycle. These are not projects that we start because the steel cycle is strong. These are projects that we start because we believe that there is a market opportunity, and we, as a player in that market, have an opportunity to capitalize on that regardless of the steel cycle. The short answer is no, there has been no change to our CapEx strategy.
Okay. Very good. Maybe one final one on the Action 2020. I think you highlighted again that the volume component of the program hasn't been achieved that much. Is this now more a question, apart from the operational performance issues, is this a cyclical issue not getting there yet? Or is this more of a structural thing?
Sorry, what do you mean by cyclical or structural? What's the difference between cyclical or structural in your mind?
You have set it up as a multi-year program. Is the fact that you haven't got there, apart from the operational issues, is this because you could not launch enough products yet, or you couldn't gain market share as much as you wanted? Do you have other, more structural objections here?
Let's go through it so that we're all clear. We lost year-on-year about 1.9 million tons of production volume. That's the operational losses that we suffered. If you look at the data year-on-year, actually, we have done a bit better because other segments have performed better. 1.9 million is a good number. Those are operational issues that we have faced primarily in our CIS operations as well as in Mexico. Going forward, we don't expect that to repeat, therefore we expect to get back onto our Action 2020 volumes. This is not because we could not produce the volume or we had product development issues. There was some slowdown in Q4, but that was a smaller amount in the context of things.
What I meant is, when you're targeting this growth, is it primarily because you were anticipating a certain market growth? Is it more based on company-specific initiatives which are a bit independent of market growth, which could not be delivered yet?
That's a good question, it's a combination of both, fundamentally, Action 2020 is company-specific initiatives. A lot of our facilities are also competitive on the export market. To the extent that some of these markets do not grow as much, clearly we have that opportunity. Having said that, when we look at the data that we have forecast for 2019 and what we would expect for 2020, I believe the markets in which we're operating are growing, therefore they should capture the growth of volume that we are forecasting in our 2020 action plan.
Okay. Very good.
Great. Thanks, Rochus. We'll move to the next question, please, from Phil at KeyBanc.
Thanks very much. Just wanted an update on Mexico on that project. I know it's part of the budget this year. Just wanted to try to frame what the incremental volume potential is for that $1 billion investment and what we should expect in terms of when those volumes or incremental capabilities will hit.
Okay, great. The project is completed in 2020, you start seeing the EBITDA pick up in 2021. Full ramp-up is normally 12-18 months after, you'll see the full impact 2022 and 2023. In terms of the project, very quickly, as you know, Mexico is a net importer of steel. They import about 8 million tons of steel. We have an opportunity of converting our slabs into hot band. We export slabs out of Mexico, and we can sell that into domestic market. If you just look at the margins between a slab export and a domestic hot band, it's very healthy. Obviously, the cost of rolling is not that significant. That provides the EBITDA uplift.
You think the spending will be done by the end of next year, we're not going to see really the incremental volume until 2021? It'll fully ramp in 2022, 2023? Is that how we should think about it?
Yeah, I would say that when you do CapEx, you also have payables and things like that. There would be some CapEx spending, obviously in 2019, a significant amount in 2020, and a small amount in 2021, residual CapEx payments.
This is 2.5 million tons?
That's right.
Just the second question, if I may. I think you had China down a bit this year from an apparent steel consumption standpoint. Just curious, what's driving that at a high level and what are you seeing there right now, given, I think visibility for us all is pretty low given the holiday?
For us as well, given the holiday. I think the anecdote on China is very simple, that I think almost every year, based on the data that we have at that point in time, we forecast a moderate apparent steel consumption or apparent steel consumption of zero, and China surprises on the upside. The same happened in 2018. I think there is some discussion on stimulus measures and construction coming back quite strongly, so there is a potential that it actually surprises on the upside.
Thank you.
Thanks, Phil. We'll take the next question, please, from Carsten at UBS.
Thank you very much. Only a few questions left from my side. The first one is again on ILVA. Could you give us a little bit more clarity, what is the current profitability in that business? Do you stick to your target that this operation would be EBITDA accretive in year one? That's the first one. The second one, maybe again, on the volume increases you aim for. I mean, if you heard about the 1.9 million, which you lost in ACIS and Mexico. We heard about the 1.5 million from ILVA, and we heard there's some kind of additional growth in the other operations. If I assume they're around 2% in the other operations, we talk about 4 million-5 million tons for 2019 as a growth target. This is not small, given what we see in the demand outlook for steel this year.
Given the markets you are targeting, which is clearly Europe, Mexico, a little bit ACIS, that is not that strong either. Could that not disturb some pricing in some areas in your view? Thank you.
Let's break that down. In terms of production losses and shipment losses, the most significant was clearly our ACIS operations. Our ACIS business is primarily export oriented. The question moves on to how are the export markets performing in 2019? We see growth on a global basis. We continue to see Southeast Asia develop, and therefore we find a home for our products. Even the ACIS market is growing in 2019 to 2018. That's a big chunk of the operational and production losses. In terms of ILVA, we said we will hit the run rate of 6 million tons. We're not necessarily suggesting that the full year will be 6 million ton of crude steel production.
It may still be 6 million ton of shipment because we could send some hot band that we have in our existing operations in FOS, for example, to the downstream facilities of Novi and Genova, et cetera. Therefore, the idea is to hit 6 million ton production run rate, and a level of shipments closer to 6 million tons. In terms of EBITDA, we are on target. In terms of EBITDA, we expect ILVA to be EBITDA positive in year one, and clearly it's highly dependent on increasing and achieving the 6 million ton production target. If you break it down, ILVA's run rate of 6 million, CIS is recovery from operational issues, and then the 2% on the rest of the tonnage reflects the market growth.
Okay, thank you. Maybe a follow-up on Brazil, which surprised me a little bit on the downside. Was a very weak performance, it's not only because of the $17 million one-offs. What was actually the additional cost here, which you had to book in the fourth quarter, and do you believe that this pressure is easing into the first quarter or is it a recurring item?
In terms of Brazil, you're right. The provision is only $17 million, it doesn't explain the full delta. What happened in our Brazil business is we found that the export markets were very weak in the fourth quarter. As you know, we export a lot of slabs from Brazil. We have some long steel exports as well, but not such a significant amount. Really the slab exports, as well as other exports of Brazil impacted the results from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. Also, our business in Argentina did not perform as well, primarily because inflation is still running very high. The converted EBITDA is not that significant. We also had some high repairs. They are one-off in Q4. We tend to repair our hot strip mill and other aspects of our Brazilian business.
That also impacted fourth quarter results and some other impacts. I don't expect the higher costs to repeat themselves into Q1. I expect as global spreads continue to move up, the impact on exports to be less muted.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Thanks. We'll move to the next question, please, from Luc at Exane. Hi, Luc.
Yes. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can. Go ahead.
Sorry, I've lost my voice, so I'm not able to speak very loud. Two questions on my side. First of all, on the U.S. market outlook, we've seen a number of your competitors announcing capacity increase, which will hit the market post 2021. Do you have any comments with regards to how you see the outlook there? Is there any medium-term risk, let's say, to what has remained a market pretty tight so far, especially with trade actions? That's my first question. Secondly, can you explain the reason why you're still not committing on a timetable for the EUR 6 billion debt reduction target? Thank you.
Okay, great. Let's talk about capacity announcements in the U.S. Clearly, Section 232 was designed to maximize capacity utilization of the U.S. steel industry, and we can see that being effective in 2018. I think these capacity announcements are a reflection of Section 232, where there is a strong U.S. market as imports are less competitive. In terms of our net debt target, we have always provided you with a framework to build your own assumptions, and we're doing the same in 2019. In terms of the key assumptions that you should take away, is that our cash requirements is about EUR 6.4 billion for 2019. This includes the growth CapEx, interest, taxes, and other cash charges. We expect a billion-euro reversal in working capital, in 2019.
Clearly, we have announced an increase in our dividend. We have a share buyback, and we also pay out to minority dividends. We also pay out dividends to certain minorities. This is, for example, our shareholder in Mines Canada, or our shareholder in our wire operation in Brazil. You should deduct that. In terms of M&A, I expect that the investment in 2019 would be lower than what we have incurred in 2018.
If I may say there are two for one. First of all, on U.S. capacity increase, I do appreciate that it's not a near-term concern. The fact is that post 2021, potentially, the Section 232 will not be there anymore, and you will be left with the increased capacity. Is there not a risk? Secondly, my questions on the net debt, let's say, timetable commitment is more given the number of pushback, I think all of us as analysts we are facing when we talk ArcelorMittal capital allocation policy, et cetera, that I think a number of investors are after a, let's say, specific timeframe and a dated commitment from your side as to the deleveraging priority you're stating in your release.
Okay. Just on the capital allocation, that's very interesting feedback. From our point of view, I think our job is to lay out the building blocks and then to always ensure that capital allocation is our number one priority. I think we've also laid out how we think of capital allocation. Clearly, the first focus is to continue to delever our business, and we're continuing to make progress on that. Secondly, we also want to make sure that we do not miss out on unique opportunities, whether that's growth in terms of M&A or whether that's unique CapEx opportunities like Mexico and Brazil. Clearly, the third is, as we achieve our deleveraging objective or net debt target, we'll be returning excess cash to shareholders. I think we're very conscious as a company on the responsibility to delever, achieve the net debt target.
We're also cognizant that we need to make sure that we, for example, in 2018, the biggest consumer of capital was not really M&A or CapEx. It was working capital. These are requirements of the business, and we have to be responsive so that we can make sure that our mills have the raw materials that they need, and we can deliver on time to our customer base. Going back to your points on 232. Look, it's clear that 232, if you just look at from a capacity addition, has been a success because the idea was to maximize capacity utilization and to encourage investments in the steel business in the U.S.
There's a little bit of a chicken or egg, where you have the capacity now, which is because of 232, and therefore, hopefully it demonstrates to U.S. stakeholders that it is important to keep 232 for a longer period of time.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Luc. We'll move to the next question, please, from Bastian at Deutsche Bank.
Yes. Good afternoon, gentlemen. My first question is just from the inventory cycle and apparent demand. Could you please talk about the various markets in the first quarter and whether you do believe that the destocking, which I guess we've seen at the end of the last year, has come to an end already in your key markets? My second one then is on the mining business and maybe one for Simon. You guide for flat volumes, and my understanding is that you still have close to 20 million tons in pellet production. Firstly, do you have any ability to push this a little bit further? Or do you have any plans to expand capacity here given the continuous rise in premia, or which we have seen over the standard grades? Of course, I can see that nothing so far is at least in your budget.
Lastly, could you please remind us how much of these pellets you sell externally and how your contracts are structured in terms of your ability to capture the highest spot prices in pellets? Thank you.
Bastian. Yes. Thanks. Just to step back on pellets itself. We have pellet production in several locations. The main marketable volumes to external markets come out of Canada from AMC. It's very small, extremely small volumes. We have some through to joint venture partners, otherwise it goes to the group. At the moment, if you were wanting to take advantage of spot markets, it's not something typically available to us.
Sure. In terms of this stock, in terms of our customer base, I think as they see prices are not going down, their prices are increasing, I think you would see a reversal of that trend.
Just on essentially the situation on the pellet production, is there any ability to push this a little bit further or is the production actually fully maxed out, which I would expect? I mean, is there anything on the horizon in terms of potentially expanding this, given that the phenomenon of high pellet premia is something which has been very, say, dominating in the last two years at least and seems like that may last a little bit longer?
Yeah, sure. If you step right back, the company has a focus, a strategy on low impurity, high grade, direct charge. Current pellets, we push all our plants. Our plant in Port- Cartier, AMC, as I mentioned, it was originally built about 6.5 million tons. It's operating at 10.2 million today. Obviously, with capital increases along the way, but with consistent debottlenecking. There's a bit more to squeeze from that plant. Yes, we are actively looking at global locations for potential pellet expansion because we do have significant amount of concentrates that can be converted into pellet feed and therefore into pellets. We see that as a value addition to the group in direct charge. Yeah, that work will carry on in 2019, Bastian.
Okay. What would be the timeframe for construction of those plants?
Well, they would be most likely brown. In the sites that we would look at would be typically either close to a steelworks or close to an iron ore mine. You're talking typically permitting being your biggest challenge these days, but there are ways around that, depending on where you want to do your grinding flotation, and also particularly around your methodology for producing pellets. Typically, 36 months if you're looking at something like a startup on a pellet plant. Given it would be potentially on a brownfield site where we do have existing facilities on port, exit, inbound raw materials, et cetera, it could be a little bit shorter, but I would err on the longer side because of permitting, frankly.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Bastian. We'll move to our final question, please, which is from Christian at Société Générale.
Yes, thank you very much. Just a couple of short ones. The first one, that revised quota formula in Europe, which was introduced a few days ago. When we speak to our firm, I think there was a degree of optimism that this would have a severe impact on domestic volumes for domestic producers. Do you see that also as a likely development in carbon steel? Would that be specifically perhaps more helpful to expand your market share out of ILVA? Is the first question.
The second question is, looking at those iron ore disruptions in Brazil, assuming that there may be a risk that more mines, specifically in Brazil, get shut down, are you considering that there may be a risk sometime in 2019 that there will be a shortage of iron ore in the market and that could be an issue not just on prices, but on availability of the ore for the industry? Thank you.
Okay. Let's talk about the safeguard first. As you know, the safeguard is an arrangement which reflects the average level of steel imports between 2015 and 2017. For certain products, this is more beneficial than other products. I think the biggest weakness of the safeguard is the fact that it allows that level to increase by 5% per annum. If you look at the steel consumption growth or apparent steel demand growth that we're forecasting in Europe, it is much lower than that amount. By definition, it implies that there will be a higher level of imports into the European steel industry, and that level of imports will grow faster than the level of steel demand. That's the negative, but at the end of the day, it's still there as a measure. There's a safeguard. It's quarterly administered. Certain products are better off than others.
Net-net, I do believe it is a positive for the European steel industry, but perhaps not as much as it should have been. In terms of the mining impact, I think, look, this is a fluid situation and it's dynamic and it's developing on a daily basis. At this point in time, we have not seen supply disruption to our steel facilities.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you everyone for dialing in today. If you have any follow-up questions, you can always contact Daniel and his team. Maybe perhaps all of you are aware that there is a site visit in Taranto that is ex-ILVA, now new ArcelorMittal Italia, between 19th and 20th of March. Analysts and investors could enroll themselves to visit the plant and can get in touch with our IR department. With this, I close this call today and looking forward to talk to you in the first quarter earnings call. Thank you.