Good afternoon, good morning, and good evening to ArcelorMittal 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 Wurth, who is a main board member. Valérie Mella 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.
Hi.
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 ArcelorMittal, but we've had a Brexit vote in Europe, which I think surprised everybody, especially the pollsters. We've had the election of Donald J. Trump as the next President of the U.S. What do these two events, particularly the second one, the Trump election, what do they mean for ArcelorMittal?
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 us, small shareholders are very important because they are the everyday lives, and we know that from their profession, from everywhere they are living all the time close to steel, close to ArcelorMittal. It's a pleasure to have this dialogue with them. I know that.
Indeed
Many of them are living in the U.S. or in the U.K. 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. I think when we travel to the U.S., infrastructure is bad. There is a big need for new bridges.
Yeah
For better trains, this is obviously very good for steel. I think that we have seen that also on the financial markets, because since then, many steel stocks have gone up, and fortunately, ArcelorMittal stock as well.
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.
I think there are two things. First one is more infrastructure means more steel demand.
Yeah.
Hence we have more work, and that is good. Capacity utilization is high. Demand supply will be a little bit tenser, and there will be a normal market functioning. The other question is a question of fair trade.
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, of international trade, provided that it is fair.
When we act in order to say that market conditions need to be fair, this is what is important. It is clear that also the U.S. and new 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.
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?
I think the problem with Chinese exports is that there are obviously huge overcapacities in China. People need to understand that in our industry, fixed cost is something which is extremely important. If you have overcapacity, that means that you have too much fixed cost for the production you are doing. 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. That is what the Chinese have done, and that is typically what you have to call dumping.
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 agreement. If an administration is fighting such abuses, that is absolutely right, and that is also exactly what our position is in the U.S., but also in Europe, and that is what I call fair international trade.
Do you think Europe was rather slow in taking measures against Chinese exports, steel exports?
Europe uses traditionally to be slower than the U.S. The consequence is that, generally, European steel producers were suffering more on their domestic markets than in the U.S. Fortunately, I have the impression that with the 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. 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. If that would happen, that would be good news.
Let me take you across Atlantic then back to Europe. 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. You're fairly optimistic about ArcelorMittal in the U.S. market. What about in Europe? After all, Europe is what? 33% of your EBITDA, and it's a big proportion, I think 40%, almost half of your steel production.
Mm-hmm. Europe is definitely our biggest geography in terms of economic exposure. What can we say about Europe? I think that, first of all, ArcelorMittal 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. Now, we are ready there when the European market has gained some strength. If we look at the continental Europe, today, there is positive growth.
We are now in the third year in a row that steel consumption is going well. European automotive industry-
Is that because inventories would have been drawn down or-
No, that is because real demand has-
There's real demand?
recovered, and we are slowly recovering from the big 2008-2009 crisis. For example, in automotive, which is a very strong market for ArcelorMittal, we can see that European production almost reaches pre-crisis levels if we go at the average production of cars in Europe between 2004 and 2007. Things are improving.
Yeah.
ArcelorMittal has become stronger. We are the leaders in flat steel, definitely. We are the leaders in the niche products in long.
We are really taking advantage, and that's the reason, for example, why our third quarter results had positively impressed the markets.
All the analysts seem to be very impressed by your recent results. Were you surprised by how impressed they were?
Well, I think.
After all, steel has been in the doldrums for some time.
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. This was for good reasons, because we had to adapt to the markets. European steel consumption was going down. Now we have optimized our footprint. Demand is going a little bit up. We are really the beneficiaries of that, and that was what has happened. 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.
The share price as well. It's tripled.
Absolutely
since January. That's pretty amazing. If I were a small shareholder, having suffered for some time, wouldn't I say, "Well, what about a dividend?
Yes, a dividend. I think that the company has said that 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. 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. Then 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 a good position.
You've done a lot of deleveraging already.
We have done now, and we are now close to our goal, and we are very happy about it. The question is now, did we reach this level on a sustainable basis? I think that will be a debate which we will have in the board next year.
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-
Sure
period. The objective was, despite the very difficult environment in 2016, to be at least cash flow neutral or slightly cash flow positive, despite the fact that we have invested EUR 1 billion in working capital.
At the moment, you're not investment grade. What would the target date be to be investment grade?
I think it's not the question of target date. The wish would be as soon as possible, but we are in a cyclical industry. The cyclical industry has known a lot of ups and downs. We need to establish the conditions of being a stable company. What does that 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. Over the last years, we have done lots of progress also in Europe. We are now engaging our new footprint optimization in the U.S. From my point of view, is that we are on the right step. When it will happen, I cannot say.
Does that mean slimming the workforce in the U.S. or closing any assets or not?
What we have said, we won't close steelmaking facilities in the U.S. because the market is doing well, but we are optimizing our finishing lines. To that respect, we have announced indeed a new footprint for our finishing lines in the Great Lakes region. 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, making some new investments in order to bring down our cost base and to become much more competitive.
We are now 2016, very soon 2017. You have a program Action 2020.
Absolutely.
How is Action 2020 going? What are its purposes? What are its goals?
Action Plan 2020 had been announced at the moment of the capital increase, to say that policy of ArcelorMittal is not only to bring the balance sheet in order, but it's also to become and to be very competitive in all of the markets. That 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 against each of the regional competitors we had. I think we have been extremely successful, and now we are in the phase of implementation. If we are speaking to our local managements, all their bonuses are linked to execution of Strategy 2020.
I must say there is a lot of motivation there, and a lot is going on so that we can say we are definitely on track. By the way, for the people who are listening to us, I would like to tell them that we will probably make a more detailed reporting on where we are when we are disclosing the 2016 results. That will be beginning of February. Up to now, I can say that I have a very good feeling about that.
Valérie, do we have any questions from shareholders?
Yeah, sure. We're kicking off on the theme of China. We have a very first question from Pierre Robert, who is the Chairman of the Employee Shareholders Association in France. His question is, "The Chinese plan for capacity closures, is it credible compared to what's been seen in the past?
First of all, I think in terms of size, it is the right size because the declared plan from the Chinese authorities covers 150 million tons over the next three to five years. It was seen that the objective was to cut down this year up to 45 million tons. What we know and what we could verify up to now and what has been monitored is that 36 million tons have already been closed. We can say, first of all, that there is a beginning of execution absolutely 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 have made huge losses, that they are very much over capacities, that since three years, the Chinese market does not grow or even has declined slightly, whereas new capacities had come up. 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." If you see then on top of 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 their steel industry, and that is compatible with this plan. 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. 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. For the first time this year, this time, the Chinese have a kind of social fund.
Interesting.
which can be used to monitor and to make the restructuring a little bit less dramatic than it would otherwise have been happened.
Let me ask you possibly a rather naive question. If you've got structural overcapacity still in the world steel industry, when coking coal prices go up, why do margins also go up? Why isn't competition actually stopping you from passing the price increase in the coking coal onto the consumer?
I think it's easy to understand if you come to realize that when coking coal or iron ore price is increasing, your variable cost is increasing. Whatever your fixed costs are, if these prices go up, you have to spend them before you can produce.
Yeah.
Hence, you have
I can see the logic from each producer's point of view, but isn't there going to be a tendency towards
No, but also in terms of cash out.
You have to pay more.
Yeah
if you want to produce. I would say that also our customers, they become much more sophisticated. They read SBB or all these technical work, and they see how steel prices evolve every day, and they realize when costs go up.
Yeah.
That's the reason why when variable cost really goes up, like in this case, it will take some time.
Yeah
in order to happen. There is sometimes a lag effect. Also because steel companies have some inventory.
Yeah
of old cost, but then it has to happen. Where you see it most rapidly is in the non-integrated steelmaking facilities in the electric arc furnaces.
Yeah.
Because there basically you buy the scrap today.
Yeah
you melt it tomorrow, you produce the product the day after tomorrow, and you ship it to the customer. The cost immediately rises, and then you see very much, very rapidly an adaptation.
Now, we've talked about the U.S. and Europe. What about Brazil?
Brazil was tremendously suffering, because the country was in big crisis. Not only political crisis, but also economic crisis. Brazil has a strong negative growth since three years. Steel consumption in Brazil went down since 2012 or 2013 by 30%. You have to imagine that-
Despite the Olympics. The Olympics must have given a boost at one point.
Yes, the Olympics, let's say, the steel consumed for the infrastructure in the Olympics have been consumed in-
Already
2013.
Yeah.
A little bit 2014, it was finishing. The country suffered a lot, and that was extremely painful, I must say. Now, ArcelorMittal, what people have to say, is very strong in Brazil.
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. For example, in flat to export to third countries. For example, in Tubarão, which is our flat steel plant, we are now running full, but 1 million tons of capacity, or some capacity, is going to feed our Calvert plant in Alabama, where we are rerolling hot band and then cold band for the local automotive industry. In long, I would also say we are extremely competitive. 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.
While we're in the Western Hemisphere, going a bit further north. If President Elect Donald J. Trump really does, not quite tear up, but renegotiates NAFTA, what will that mean for you?
That's a very difficult question because our shareholders know that ArcelorMittal is present in Canada.
Yeah.
We are the largest Canadian steel producer. We are the largest NAFTA producer, and we have a strong operation in Mexico as well, in flat and in long. We have obviously tried to specialize some of our plants.
Yeah.
If free trade between NAFTA countries would immediately come to an end, that would definitively need some accommodation, and it would.
Yeah
impact ourselves. My experience is also that the Americans are not so stupid. For example, in the U.S., you have more finishing facilities than steelmaking facilities. There is no reason why to avoid that we could export from Mexico slabs to go to Alabama and even to produce theirs.
Yes
sheet-
Yeah
in order to supply the Mexican automotive car industry, which is important. That would not be in the interest of the U.S. to shut down or to ring-fence their borders. From that point of view, I think that it is not very likely that there would be an absolute closure of the market.
Yeah. Valérie?
Yes. A question from Pierre Luike. Are you rather focusing on M&A plans, or are you rather focusing on your franchise business to consolidate your position in your core markets?
Okay. That's a good question. I would say, first of all, M&A has not been our priority in the sense that the balance sheet was the priority. M&A, normally, you think that you want to spend in order to buy, and what we have said definitively is balance sheet is priority. Second priority is definitely 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, so that we are ahead of competition. This being said, ArcelorMittal is all the time looking on what's going on in the market, either through divestiture. When we believe that sometimes there is an asset who would have a better shareholder than ArcelorMittal or an asset which is not really part of the core business, we would sell it.
On the other hand, also, we are looking, like the Thyssen plant in Alabama we had bought together with Nippon Steel, which is a very big success.
You mentioned Thyssen. You now have a potential deal between Tata and Thyssenkrupp. What does that mean for your business, especially in Europe?
It would mean in Europe another step of consolidation. What you have to see is that in the United States, in the U.S., the steel industry is much more consolidated than in Europe, with basically three players, which is in the U.S., U.S. Steel, ArcelorMittal, and Nucor. Whereas in Europe, you have one big leader, and then you have three, let's say, players who are more in the medium range level. About ILVA, Corus, Tata Corus, and Thyssen. Then you have a bunch of smaller ones, like voestalpine, like Salzgitter, like Dillinger, Saarstahl, et cetera. 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.
Do you think a Thyssen-Tata deal would be the start of a consolidation process? After all, ArcelorMittal, I suppose, was originally a consolidation as well.
I don't know because I'm not part of this negotiation, and I do not know the outcome. Definitely it would make sense in the logics of the European market. As far also as I see, the different assets are quite complementary because you have the U.K. asset, you have Dutch asset, and the German asset, which also can serve better larger markets. It 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, that we want to be innovative, and that we want to persuade our customers to buy more steel.
Valérie.
Another question from a French-based investor. Can you give us an update regarding the acquisition plan of ILVA? When is the Italian government likely to make its decision? What's the rationale behind this potential acquisition for the group?
Okay, that is a big question, so I could give you an answer over one hour, but I prefer not doing that at all. 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 Italian government decided to nationalize, basically, ILVA. The government was also saying that it was only the first step in a move to restructure ILVA, and another step would be a tender offer in order to privatize ILVA again. 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.
Second, to see what would be the industrial plan and what would be the industrial ambitions. Now, ArcelorMittal is interested because we know that we have the expertise, that we can bring a lot to ILVA in terms of reestablishing the state of the art steelmaking. 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 wire rod rolling, whereas Italy is a very strong industrial market for steel using, steel processing industries. 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. As far as we know, is that there are today two consortia which are in competition, and a more Italian one, and then the ArcelorMittal one, where you know that we have had as an ally, Marcegaglia, which is the biggest steel consumer in Italy, so an excellent partner. Definitely we have now to wait how things are going.
ArcelorMittal is what, in 60-odd countries around the world?
One of your segments is ACIS in Africa and the former Soviet Russian Federation.
Yes. Mm-hmm.
How is Africa?
South Africa is in a difficult position in the sense that the economy is not doing very well.
Steel consumption has been reduced, international competition has been extremely tough. 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 empowered new shareholders.
We have made a deal also with, or an agreement with the government, that the government will impose some import tariffs in order there, once again, to fill in fair competition. Now we have to see how things are going. Basically, we are suffering from a weak South African economy at this moment.
You are there for long term.
We have been there for a long term, and we hope to build there also on a stable long-term view. Yes.
What about CIS?
CIS is doing now, second quarter had been, third quarter had been quite good.
CIS in your terms is essentially Ukraine and Kazakhstan?
Absolutely. We have two big installations in these countries. What is interesting in Kazakhstan is that there we are totally integrated in the sense that we have nearby coal mines, and we have iron ore. 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 exporting to Russia. Ukraine is even more export oriented in the sense that in Ukraine only 13% of our production is domestically consumed and the rest is exported. Very tough situations. You need to be very competitive. But there also the plants are doing now quite well. The third quarter had been surprisingly positive.
Whereabouts in Ukraine are they? Are they in the west or in the east?
They're in the middle. They are not-
They're in the middle. They're not affected by-
They are not directly affected. 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.
There had even been some fatalities. We need to see that for our colleagues in Ukraine, there had been a very, very tough moment, and we have to give them tribute for what they have achieved.
In terms of exporting to Iran and also to Russia, are you affected at all by international sanctions against Iran, against Russia?
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.
You don't want the Department of Justice.
Oh, no, definitely not. I think that's definitely not the style of the company. 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 currency movements because it is still forbidden to do transactions in US dollars.
Yeah.
It is tough. There should be a normal, natural trade flow between countries like Kazakhstan and Iran.
I'm reluctant to go back to President Trump, President-elect Trump again, 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.
You might be right, also in international relations, there are some rules. When you have a signed agreement, it's difficult unilaterally to change it. 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 outside.
Pragmatism rather than campaign rhetoric.
That's what I definitely hope.
Valérie?
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?
I think first of all, automotive is a franchise. I would say that ArcelorMittal is the undisputed leader for supplying steel to the automotive industry. 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. What I can say is also since two or three years, there have been tremendous innovations in automotive sheet, that we brought on the market new ultra-high strength steels, which are now there. What we say is that the type of steel sheets we can offer the automotive industry today definitely helps them to meet all the regulations, also the low energy regulations which are there. 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.
If you do the life cycle analysis, steel solution is better for the climate.
Yeah.
Steel solutions are much safer also when you are sitting in the car. 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.
Yeah. My next car will definitely be steel. Actually mentioning pollution and climate change and so on. The United Nations used to have Millennium Development Goals. Now most of them actually were fulfilled. Now you have sustainable development goals.
What is ArcelorMittal's relationship to these goals? Have you adopted them? What is your position on sustainability?
On sustainability, it's overall part, and I would say a substantial part of our overall policy. We have also a strategy in order to improve ourselves more and more in terms of sustainability. That's the reason also why we are issuing every year a sustainability report with targets, with KPIs, which can be followed. I would definitely invite our listeners tonight to look at this report because it is extremely important. 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 that by reducing, for example, the number of accidents in our plants in the merger by a factor three to four, 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 2007. These reduction goals are clearly fulfilled. We are absolutely online. Last but not least, we want also to be a good partner to all our stakeholders, being it's the different communities where we are, the different people we are, in order to be really a sustainable company. What you have to know, steel is a sustainable product, and customers and communities today.
You mean in the sense that you can keep recycling it?
You can recycle it forever. That's good. For example, today also we are transforming or recycling 30 million tons of scrap every year, which is huge.
Yeah. Val?
Yes. A question from Pierre Vobair again. We have well understood that you cannot influence the share price. In spite of an honorable year, the share price does not come back to 2008, 2009 levels. Why? Can you explain this? Is it because the stock exchange don't understand your strategy, or do they have a bias against your strategy?
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 ArcelorMittal is 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%. If the share price goes from 220 or 230 to more than EUR 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. I think that shareholders this year at least can be very happy.
Those who didn't take up the rights issue, they made a bit of a mistake.
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. What comes next is that we can stabilize and that we can continue to make progress. For that, you need a good business case. You need a strong strategy, 2020. You need a strong balance sheet. Then you need, in the medium term, indeed, also make sure that at some time, 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.
I think we only have a couple of minutes left. Val, do you have any?
The very last question on mining. Is mining still a strategic business for ArcelorMittal, and what are you planning in Liberia?
In fact, mining is part of our steel value chain. If I look at the present situation, 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 it was in the lower 40s, the price yesterday, on Friday, was more than EUR 80 per ton. This shows how important it is to have the longest value chain possible. 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. This is a value chain proposal with very competitive assets also we have, in particular in iron ore, I would stress the competitiveness of our Canadian operation, which has done very well.
Where the investment also expanding capacity has been very successful. 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. 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.
I think we are really at the end of our time. Michel Wurth, 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 email Valérie Mella at ArcelorMittal, She'll be very happy to either answer herself or to get Michel or someone else to answer.
No, thank you very much. My advice would also be look at our website, look at our investor relations apps. There are lots of news, they are updated every time. There are new presentations coming, I know that our shareholders are interested in, take advantage of all this information. Maybe say next time I will have another chance to chat with them.
Absolutely. Michel, thank you very much indeed.
Thank you very much.