ArcelorMittal S.A. (AMS:MT)
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Status Update

Nov 28, 2016

Speaker 1

Good afternoon, good morning, and good evening to Astell Mittel Retail Shareholders wherever you may be in the world depending on your time zone. It's my pleasure to welcome you to this annual event where you can ask questions to Michel Wirth, who is a main board member and also Marie Miller is here from Investor Relations for any questions you want to ask online. You can see the form online and send in your questions. Michel, welcome. And a quick question.

We're living in what the Chinese call interesting times, and interesting tends to mean perilous and dangerous. This may not be the case for Osterholm, but we've had a Brexit vote in Europe, which I think surprised everybody, especially the pollsters. And then we've had the election of Donald J. Trump as the next President of the United States. What do these two events, particularly the second one, the Trump election, what do they mean for ArcelorMittal?

Speaker 2

Okay. So first of all, good day to everyone. It's always a pleasure to be there and to have a dialogue with small shareholders. Maybe before I respond to your question, I would like to say that for small shareholders are very important this dialogue with them. And I know that many of this dialogue with them.

And I know that many of them are living in the U. S. Or in the U. K. So the question you were asking was going into that direction.

First of all, American elections, I think most people didn't predict what really was happening as well as most people don't exactly know what the final policy will be over the next years. What I can only say is that President-elect has spoken very much for making more public investments, infrastructure and I think when we travel to the United States infrastructure is bad. So there is a big need for new bridges for better trains and this is obviously very good for steel. And the reason and I think that we have seen that also on the financial markets because since then many steel stocks have gone up and fortunately Arsenal Metal stock as well.

Speaker 1

Well, this implies that if you have a more protectionist policy in the United States, it will not actually affect ArcelorMittal. In fact, it may benefit ArcelorMittal.

Speaker 2

I think there are first of there are 2 things. First one is more infrastructure means more steel demand and hence we have more work and that is good. Capacity utilization is high. Demand supply will be a little bit tensor and there will be a normal market functioning. The other question is a question of fair trade and as a leading steel producer in the world being active in almost all of the regions in all continents.

Obviously, we are basically in favor of fair trade provided of international trade provided that it is fair. And when we act in order to say that market conditions need to be fair, this is what is important and it is clear that also the U. S. Administration likely is going into that direction which would mean that the steel market should work in the right way that the markets can be served that there is a fair competition between domestic and foreign suppliers and that equilibrium price goes into the right direction so that this industry can be sustainable and can also sustainably invest in the future.

Speaker 1

The United States has already taken anti dumping measures against Chinese steel exports. As a general policy, what do you think of the impact of Donald Trump's promise to put tariffs on Chinese exports?

Speaker 2

[SPEAKER UNIDENTIFIED COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE:] I think the problem with Chinese exports is that there are obviously huge over capacities in China. And people need to understand that in our industry fixed cost is something which is extremely important. And so if you have overcapacity that means that you have too much fixed cost for the production you are doing. And hence there is a natural tendency for companies who are in such a situation to say we should try to find new markets even if we can have to sell at a very low price, but we will have an additional contribution to our fixed costs. And that is what the Chinese have done and that is typically what you have to call dumping.

And when you do that, you cannot go try to work and to sell at the right price in your domestic market and then go and dump in other countries because that's not an equilibrium. And if an administration is fighting such abuses that is absolutely right and that is also exactly what our position is in the United States, but also in Europe and that is what they call fair international trade.

Speaker 1

Do you think Europe was rather slow in taking measures against Chinese exports, steel exports?

Speaker 2

Europe uses traditionally to be slower than the United States And the consequence is that generally European Steel Producers were suffering more than domestic markets than in the U. S. Now fortunately I have the impression that with present commission under President Juncker this has changed a little bit in the sense that European politicians also have understood that if they would not establish the rules for fair trade that would finally definitely hurt European industry and that's the reason why we see now a much more active policy and in particular the will also to change European anti dumping and countervailing policy and principles and hopefully for the good. This is not yet done, but we can see that the commission has very clearly expressed that they wanted to go much more in the U. S.

Type fair protection policy. And if that would happen, that would be good news.

Speaker 1

I mean, let me take you across Atlanta then back to Europe. I mean, if you look at IMF forecasts, they're pretty gloomy about Europe. And I imagine a part of that is because of the Brexit decision. I mean, you're fairly optimistic about acetaminophen in the U. S.

Market. What about in Europe? Because after all, Europe is what, 33% of your EBITDA and it's big proportion I think 40, almost half of your steel production?

Speaker 2

Europe is definitely our biggest geography in terms of economic exposure. And what can we see about Europe? I think that first of all, Ursula Mittal in Europe today is stronger than it had been before because all the difficult measures we had to take in terms of restructuring, in terms of improving optimizing our footprint have had positive effects. And now we are ready there when the European market has gained some strength because if we look at the Continental Europe today there is positive growth. We are now in the 3rd year in a row that steel consumption is going well.

European Automotive Industry

Speaker 1

Is that because inventories would have been drawn out?

Speaker 2

No, that is because real demand has recovered and we are slowly recovering from the big 2,008, 2009 crisis. For example, in automotive, which is a very strong market for Aslam Metal, we can see that European production almost reaches pre crisis levels if we go at the average production of cars in Europe between 2,004,000. So things are improving. Our silver metal has become stronger. We have we are the leaders in flat steel definitely.

We are the leaders in the niche products in long and we are really taking advantage and that's the reason for example why our Q3 results had positively impressed the markets.

Speaker 1

I mean, all the analysts seem to be very impressed by your recent results. Were you surprised by how impressed they were? I think that's Because after a steel has been in the doldrums for some time.

Speaker 2

It's also a question of anticipation. Sometimes we had been quite heavily criticized when we took the very difficult decisions to shut down some plants, to restructure some plants, to have to reduce our headcount, but this was for good reasons because we had to adapt to our to the markets. European steel consumption was going down. Now we have optimized our footprint. Demand is going a little bit up.

And so we are really the beneficiaries of that and that was what has happened. And I hope for most of our individual shareholders that they have participated in the rights issue early this year because then they would have had the chance really to take advantage of the nice rally of our share price.

Speaker 1

The share price as well, it's tripled since January, and it's pretty amazing. I mean, if I were a small shareholder, having suffered for some time, wouldn't I say, what about a dividend?

Speaker 2

Yes. Dividend, I think that the company has said and it's the reason why we have done this rights issue was precisely because we wanted to put emphasis and to give priority to our balance sheets. Rating agencies, markets have sometimes told that this balance sheet might be a little bit vulnerable due to the cyclical nature of our business. And what was clear for the leadership of ArcelorMittal and in particular also for our main shareholder is that we need first to establish strongly our balance sheet in order to make one of the strongest ones in the industry and then we have we are put in a position that we are respected by the market and that we have all the order of new latitudes how to allocate our capital to the best uses. So in terms of priority it is first to deleverage while keeping the equipment in the And

Speaker 1

you've done a lot of deleveraging.

Speaker 2

We have done now and we are now close to our goal and we are very happy about it. The question is now are we already having did we reach this level on a sustainable basis? And I think that will be a debate which we'll be having in the board next year. And next year, we will see whether there might be a dividend for 2017 to be paid in 2018. I think that will be a question which will be put on the agenda has not yet been put because today we are still in the deleveraging period and the objective was despite a very difficult environment in 2016 to be cash flow at least cash flow neutral or slightly cash flow positive despite the fact that we have invested €1,000,000,000 in working capital.

Speaker 1

So on a slightly related question, I mean, at the moment, you're not investment grade. What would the target date be to be investment grade?

Speaker 2

I think it's not the question of time of target date. The wish would be as soon as possible, but we are in a cyclical industry. This cyclical industry has known a lot of ups and downs. And so we need to establish the conditions of being a stable company. What does it mean?

That means what I say in terms of balance sheet. And secondly, it means to have really an optimal cost structure in most of our main markets. Now over the last years, we have done lots of

Speaker 1

slimming the workforce in the United States or closing any assets or not?

Speaker 2

What we have said, we won't close steelmaking facilities in the United States because the market is doing well, but we are optimizing our finishing lines And to that respect, we have announced indeed a new footprint for our finishing lines in the Great Lake region. So in our traditional plants with the idling of hot strip mill and of different galvanizing lines and then streamlining the steel production, building new casters, building making some new investments in order to bring down our cost base and to become much more competitive.

Speaker 1

I mean, we are now 2016, very soon 2017, and you have a program, Action 2020. So how is Action 2020 going? What are its purposes? What are its goals?

Speaker 2

But Action Plan 2020 had been announced at the moment of capital increase and to say that policy of ArcelorMittal is not only to bring the down balance sheet in order, but it's also to become and to be very competitive in all of the markets. And that's the reason why we have established this 2020 strategy which was really an exercise coming bottom up from each of the CEOs of the different regions and the aim was to fix strategy and to strengthen our own positions with each of the against each of the regional competitors we had. And I think we have been extremely successful and now we are in the phase of implementation. And if we are speaking to our management, local management, all their bonuses are linked to execution of the Strategy 2020. And I must say, there is a lot of motivations there and a lot is going on so that we can say we are where we are when we are disclosing the 2016 results.

So that will be beginning of February and but up to now I can say that I have a very good feeling about that.

Speaker 1

Valerie, do we have any questions from shareholders?

Speaker 3

Yes sure. So we're kicking off on the theme of China. We have a very first question from Pierre Robert, who is the Chairman of the Employees Shareholders Association in France. And his question is, the Chinese plan for capacity closures, is it credible compared to what's been seen in the past?

Speaker 1

[SPEAKER JEAN FRANCOIS VAN

Speaker 2

BOXMEER:] So first of all, I think in terms of size it is the right size because the declared plan from the Chinese authorities covers 150,000,000 tons over the next 3 to 5 years. And it was seen that the objective was to cut down this year up to 45,000,000 tons. And what we know and what we could verify up to now and what has been monitored is that 36,000,000 tonnes have already been closed. So we can say first of all that there is a beginning of execution absolutely of according to plan. Now second what we can see also is that it seems to me that this time determination is much stronger because first of all the Chinese steel industry realizes that they are making that they have made huge losses that they are very much over capacities that since 3 years the Chinese market does not grow or even has declined slightly whereas new capacities had come up.

And on the other hand, they see also the full anti dumping reactions throughout the world and not only in Europe or in the U. S. But also in India, in Australia, in Brazil, in all continents trying to tell the Chinese you have to stop. And if you see then on top of that that for example that China has been a signing party to the COP21 agreement against pollution, We have definitely today the opinion that everything goes in the right direction that they need to reassess the size of the steel industry and that is compatible with this plan. And then moreover because the drama also for the Chinese is what happened in Britain in the 70s or 80s of last century in the U.

S. Maybe even a little bit earlier when you restructure it is extremely painful for employees and also for local communities and hence it's difficult to restructure heavily without a good social plan and also financial envelope to help smoothening, I would say, the social consequences. And for the first time this year, this time the Chinese have a kind of social fund which can be used to monitor and to make the restructuring a little bit less dramatic than it would have been happened.

Speaker 1

Let me ask you possibly a rather naive question. If you've got structural overcapacity still in the world, steel industry, when coking price, coking coal prices go up, why do margins also go up? Why aren't why isn't competition actually stopping you from passing the pricing piece in the coking coal onto the consumer?

Speaker 2

So but I think it's easy to understand if you come to realize that when cooking coal or iron ore price is increasing then your variable cost is increasing. So whatever your fixed costs are, if these prices go up, you have to spend them before you can produce. And hence you have And

Speaker 1

I can see the logic from each producer's point of view, but isn't there going to be a 10%?

Speaker 2

No, but also in terms of cash out, you have to pay more if you want to produce. And I would say that also our customers, they become much more sophisticated, they read SBB or all this technical work and they see that steel prices how steel prices evolve every day and they realize when costs go up. And that's the reason why when variable cost really goes up like in this case, it will take some time in order to happen. There is sometimes a lag effect also because steel companies have some inventory of old cost, but then it has to happen. And where you see it most rapidly is in the non integrated steel making facilities in the electric arc furnaces because they're basically you buy the scrap today, you melt it tomorrow, you produce the product the day after tomorrow and you ship it to the customer.

And so the cost immediately raises and then you see very much very rapidly an adaptation.

Speaker 1

Now we've talked about the U. S. And Europe. What about Brazil?

Speaker 2

Brazil was tremendous suffering because the country was in big crisis, not only political crisis, but also economic crisis. And Brazil has strong negative growth since 3 years and steel consumption in Brazil went down since 2012 or 'thirteen by 30%. And you have to imagine that

Speaker 1

Despite the Olympics, I mean, the Olympics must have given a boost at one point.

Speaker 2

Yes, but that's the Olympics, let's say, the steel consumed for the infrastructure in the Olympics have been consumed

Speaker 1

in 2013,

Speaker 2

a little bit 20 2014 and then it was finishing. So the country suffered a lot and that was extremely painful I must say. Now ArcelorMittal, what people have to say is strong, very strong in Brazil. And hence our results have deteriorated, but we have continued to make sound EBITDA margins in Brazil due to the quality of our products, due to the excellence of our cost situation. I would say that we are really cost benchmarking in Brazil, which can help us also to run full and then for example in flat to export to certain countries.

For example in Tubarau which is our flat steel plant we are now running full but 1,000,000 tonnes of capacity or some capacity is going to feed our cover plant in Alabama where we are rerolling hot band and then cold band for the local automotive industry. And in long, I would also say we are extremely competitive and the surplus we cannot produce in Brazil is being exported because we are also finishing a lot, we have a strong wire rod, wire drawing facilities throughout the continent and this is doing quite well, but we have suffered also.

Speaker 1

I think while we're in the Western Hemisphere, getting a bit further north, I mean, if President-elect Donald J. Trump really does not quite tear up but renegotiates NAFTA. What will that mean for you?

Speaker 2

That's a very Aslam Mittal is present in Canada. We have the largest Canadian steel producer, we have the largest NAFTA producer and we have a strong operation in Mexico as well in flat and in long and what we used and we have obviously tried to specialize some of our plants. So if free trade between NAFTA countries would immediately come to an end, that would definitely need some accommodation and it would negatively impact our subs. But my experience is also that the Americans are not so stupid. And for example, in the U.

S. You have more finishing facilities than steelmaking facilities and there is no reason why to avoid that we could export from Mexico slaps to go to Alabama and even to produce there sheet in order to supply the Mexican automotive car industry which is important. So that would not be in the interest of the U. S. To shut down or to ring fence their borders and to and so from that point of view I think that it is not very likely that there would be an absolute

Speaker 1

closure of the market. Valerie?

Speaker 3

Yes. And a question from Pierre Louis Kaye. Are you rather focusing on M and A plans or are you rather focusing on your franchise business to consolidate your position in your core markets?

Speaker 2

[SPEAKER JEAN FRANCOIS XAVIER BOUVIGNIES:] Okay. So that's a good question. I would say first of all M and A has not been our priority in the sense that our the balance sheet was the priority. And M and A normally you think that you want to spend in order to buy and what we have said definitely is balance sheet is priority and second priority is to make sure that our plants are running well and that our franchise businesses are really getting sufficient CapEx in order to be up to date and so that we are ahead of competition. This being said, Oslo Metals is all the time looking on what's going on in the market either through divestiture and when we believe that sometimes there is an asset who would have a better shareholders than ArcelorMittal or an asset which is not really part of the core business we would sell it.

But on the other hand also we are looking like the Thyssen plant in Alabama, we actually brought together with Nippon Steel and which is a very big success.

Speaker 1

You mentioned Thyssen. I mean you now have a potential deal between Tata and Thyssenkrupp. What does that mean for your business, especially in Europe?

Speaker 2

I think it would mean in Europe another step of consolidation. What you have to see is that the United States in the U. S. The steel industry is much more consolidated than in Europe with basically 3 players which is in the U. S.

Steel, Acetyl and Nucor whereas in Europe you have one big leader and then you have 2 you have 3 let's say players who are more in the medium range level. I think about Ilva, Chorus, Tata Chorus and Thyssen and then you have a bunch of smaller ones like Zanzkita, like Dilling, Zashtell etcetera, etcetera. So if you could if there would be a merger between Tata and Thyssen that would create a stronger competitor and it would definitely help consolidation which is in my opinion what Europe needs.

Speaker 1

So do you think that Thyssen Tata deal will be the start of a consolidation process? I mean after all, Assa Metallica I suppose was originally a consolidation as well?

Speaker 2

So I don't know because I'm not part of this negotiation and so I do not know the outcome, but I think definitely it would make sense in the logics of the European market. So also as I see, I think that's a different assets are quite complementary because you have the U. K. Asset, you have Dutch asset and the German asset which is then also can serve better larger markets which would be a strong competitor but we are not fearing a good strong competitor provided that our competitor also has in mind that we want to strengthen steel markets and we want to be innovative and that we want to persuade our customers to buy more steel.

Speaker 3

Another question from a French based investor. Can you give us an update regarding the acquisition plan of VILVA? When is the Italian government likely to make its decision? But what's the rationale behind this potential acquisition for the group? [SPEAKER

Speaker 1

JEAN FRANCOIS

Speaker 2

VAN BOXMEER:] Okay. That is a big question. So I could give you an answer over 1 hour, but I prefer not doing that. So first of all, you have to realize that Ilva has been really on agony in terms of environmental problems, in terms of financial problems and that was the reason why the government's Italian government decided to nationalize basically Ilva. But the government was also saying that it was only the first step in the move to restructure Ilva and another step would be a tender offer in order to privatize Ilva again.

So this process is now going on. It's a complex process in the sense that the first question which needs to be done is to get answers from the different bidders in order to see what to make in order to make this compliant with European environmental regulations which is far away. And then second to see what would be the industrial plan and what would be the industrial ambitions. Now ArcelorMittal is interesting because we know that we have the expertise that we can bring a lot to Ilva in terms of reestablishing state of the art steelmaking And we believe that it could be quite complementary to our asset base because our asset base in Italy is quite weak. We do not have primary steel productions.

We have a small wheel rolling whereas Italy is a very strong industrial market for steel using steel processing industries. And hence, we say that this could be interesting. Now we have to see, but I think we need to realize that it is also quite a political process which is ongoing. What the government has said that within the next weeks there should be at least a preliminary decision how to continue to proceed and as far as we know is set there. Today 2 consortia which are in competition and more Italian one and then the Aslomitel one where you know that we have had as an ally, Machiglia, which is the biggest steel consumer in Italy.

So an excellent partner and definitely we have now to wait how things are going.

Speaker 1

And the former Soviet Union Russian Federation. How is Africa? South Africa

Speaker 2

is in a difficult position in the sense that the economy is not doing very well. And steel consumption has been reduced and international competition has been extremely tough. And hence the consequence of this was that results of the South African subsidiary which is by the way listed also on the stock market has suffered a lot. Now we have had extensive discussions with the South African government in order to see how to proceed. There had been a capital increase.

There is now an incoming of also black and powered new shareholders. We have made a deal also with Orin, an agreement with the government that the government will do some will impose some import tariffs in order there once again to fill in fair competition. And now we have to see how things are going. But basically we are suffering from a weak South African economy.

Speaker 1

But you are there for a long term?

Speaker 2

We have been there for a long term and we hope to build there also on a stable long term view, yes.

Speaker 1

What about CIS?

Speaker 2

CIS is doing now Q2 had been Q3 had been quite

Speaker 1

Amicus in your terms is essentially Ukraine and Kazakhstan?

Speaker 2

Absolutely. So we have 2 big installations in these countries. What is interesting in Kazakhstan is that we are there we are totally integrated in the sense that we have nearby coal mines and we have iron ore. And so with the strengthening of raw material markets and the good functioning of the plants. We are now doing quite well in Kazakhstan also for export markets in particular to Iran, but also Iran and surrounding neighbors as well as to going back to also importing to Russia.

Ukraine is also is even more export oriented in the sense that in Ukraine only 13% of our production is domestically consumed and the rest is exported. So very tough situations, you need to be very competitive, but also the plants are doing now quite well and the Q3 had been surprisingly And

Speaker 1

whereabouts in Ukraine are they? Are they in the west or in the east?

Speaker 2

They're in the middle.

Speaker 1

They're not affected by

Speaker 2

They are not directly affected, but what we have to see and we have suffered from this is some of our people of our workers had been embodied in the National Army and there have even been some fatalities that we need to see that for our colleagues in Ukraine, there has been a very, very tough moment and we have to give them tribute for what they have achieved.

Speaker 1

In terms of exporting to Iran and also to Russia, are you affected at all by international sanctions against Iran, against Russia?

Speaker 2

I would say yes, in particular for Iran has been extremely difficult and we have been very careful in order to be I would say, 120% compliant. Now fortunately, the Department

Speaker 1

of Justice. No, definitely

Speaker 2

not I think that's definitely not the style of the company. But what I can say is that after this nuclear deal had been signed, The market could have been opened. We are still suffering a lot also on the currency movements because it is still forbidden to do transactions in U. S. Dollars.

So it is tough, but there should be a normal natural trade flow between countries like Kazakhstan and Iran?

Speaker 1

I'm reluctant to go back to President Trump, President-elect Trump again, but I mean he has said that he would tear up the joint comprehensive plan of action with Iran, in which case things would be even more difficult.

Speaker 2

You might be right, but in also in international relations, there are some rules. And when you have signed agreement, it's difficult unilaterally to change it. And let's hope that also under President Trump, there will be a lot of modernization and building a new infrastructure and not too much conflicts

Speaker 1

on China. Tragmatism rather than campaign

Speaker 3

There's a question on auto. What are you doing to remain at the forefront of the auto business and namely not to lose market share versus aluminum?

Speaker 2

I think first of all automotive is a franchise and I would say that ArcelorMittal is the undisputed leader for supplying steel to the automotive industry. And I would say that answering your question about aluminum, the stronger the competition, the more innovative you have to be in order to come over this competition. And what I can say is also since 2 or 3 years there had been tremendous innovations in automotive sheet and we brought on the market new ultra high strength steels which are now there and what we say is that the type of sheets we can offer the automotive industry today definitely helps them to meet all the regulations also the low energy regulations which has a and then the last word on this also is that when you compare aluminum and steel, producing aluminum is much more energy intensive than producing steel. And so if you do the lifecycle analysis, steel solution is better for the climate and steel solutions are much safer also when you are sitting in the car. So my advice to everyone is don't buy cars which are made out of aluminum, rely on steel because then you have the good cars.

Speaker 1

My next car would definitely be steel. I mean, actually mentioning pollution and climate change and so on. I mean, the United Nations used to have Millennium Development Goals. And now and most of them actually were filled fulfilled. But now you have sustainable development goals.

What is ArcelorMittal's relationship to these goals? Have you adopted them? Are you I mean, what is your position on sustainability?

Speaker 2

So on sustainability is overall part and I would say a substantial part of our overall policy. And we have also a strategy in order to improve ourselves more and more in terms of sustainability. And that's the reason also why we are issuing every year in the sustainability report with targets, with KPIs which can be followed and I would definitely invite our listeners tonight to look at this report because it is extremely important. But from a practical point of view, we have very definitive and very active actions in this race. First one is obviously in terms of health and safety.

We want to be the safest steel company in the world. We have made huge progress through them by reducing for example the number of accidents in our plants in the merger by a factor 3 to 4, so which is tremendous. In terms of CO2 emissions, we have set exactly very precise goals which are going up to 2020 and this had been set as early as 2,007 and these reduction goals are clearly fulfilled. So we are absolutely on line. And then last but not least, we want also to be a good partner to all our stakeholders being it's a different communities where we are, the different people we are in order to be really a sustainable company.

What you have to know still is a sustainable product and customers and communities

Speaker 1

You mean in the sense that you can keep recycling it?

Speaker 2

You can recycle it for ever and that's good. And if and for example today also we are producing we are transforming or recycling 30,000,000 tons of scrap every year which is huge.

Speaker 3

Yes. A question from Pierre again. So we have well understood that you cannot influence the share price. In spite of an unaudible year, the share price does not come back to 2,008, 2,009 levels. Why can you explain this?

And is it because the stock exchange don't understand your strategy? Or do they have a bias against your strategy?

Speaker 2

Maybe that I could jump on your last statement, I think that the stock market very well understood our strategy because that's the reason also why if we look at 2016 probably Oslo Metals is the most the best steel stock you could have bought because as you have said it already before our share price tripled despite the fact that after and due to the rights issue the number of shares increased by 70%. So if you go if the share price goes from 2.20 or 2.30 to 7 to more than €7 per share And if in the same time the number of shares which have been issued at this price have increased by 70%, you have done extremely well and I think that shareholders this year at least can be very

Speaker 1

So those happy didn't take up the rights issue, they made a little mistake.

Speaker 2

I think that most of this rights issue have been a very big success which means that almost everyone took advantage of it and have been the big winners. Now what comes next is that we can stabilize and that we can continue to make progress and for that you need a good business case, you need a strong strategy 2020, you need a strong balance sheet and then you need to in the medium term indeed also make sure that at some times the dividend comes back and that people can also get the full reward not only the capital gain but also the revenue streams they would expect from their shares.

Speaker 1

I think we only have couple of minutes left.

Speaker 3

Very last question on mining. Is mining still a strategic business for Assalomitel and what are you planning in Liberia?

Speaker 2

In fact, mining is part of our steel value chain. And if I look at the present situation and we did not speak about that where coking coal price has tripled in the course of this year, where iron ore price has almost doubled because from the lowest point towards in the lower 40s and the price yesterday was on Friday was more than $80 per ton. This shows how important it is to have the longest value chain possible. And so from that point of view, if I look at these prices today, I can only be very happy that we have such a strong exposure. Now this is a value chain proposal with very competitive assets also we have and in particular in iron ore I would stress as competitiveness of our Canadian operation which has done very, very well where the investment also expanding capacity has been very successful.

Now coming to Liberia, Liberia we are today in a transition phase because the mine where we were exploiting or we were digging the iron ore is the way to have no longer reserves and what we are doing today is preparing a mining plan in order to see how we can switch in order to continue to exploit and to take advantage of the big infrastructure investments we have done in this country.

Speaker 1

I think we are really at the end of our time. Michel Wirth, thank you so much for being so completely comprehensive with answering all these questions. I think I should add that if any shareholders have further questions, please just e mail Valerie Mela at asklemital and she'll be very happy to either answer herself or to get Michel or someone else to answer.

Speaker 2

No, thank you very much, Hans. And my advice would also be look at our website, look at our Investor Relations apps, there are lots of news and they are updated every time. There are new presentations coming and I know that our shareholders are interested in, so take advantage of all this information and then maybe said next time I will have another chance to chat with them.

Speaker 1

Absolutely. Michel, thank you very much indeed.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much.

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